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It's a valid question for our group of little old lady detectives, who have learned more than they expected about the strange history of their little town on a casual visit to the Brindlewood Bay Whaling Museum... with a little side of murder.
It happens a lot in Brindlewood Bay. It's probably fine.
This is the last episode of our game of Brindlewood Bay, a cozy mystery with a few dark twists. I'm running this game, along with some excellent role-players on the team who have taken well to mystery solving. Here is our party of little old ladies:
- Joan as Louisa, resident gardener who loves getting her hands dirty and has seen absolutely every episode of MacGyver. Always carries her Swiss Army knife (the TSA hates her).
- Matt as Ludmilla, an ex-powerlifter who has retired to a peaceful life in Brindlewood Bay. She keeps an indeterminate number of cats (and is never seen anywhere without at least one of them).
- Mitch as Bordy, a collector of all things, who has never seen a bauble she didn't want to add to her collection. She's also been getting mysterious messages on her answering machine lately, but it's probably nothing.
Confused about what's going on? You should listen to the first episode and the second episode before starting this one!
If you enjoy our game, you can give it a try yourself! You can pick up the Brindlewood Bay rulebook from from The Gauntlet, including the Nephews in Peril supplement which includes the adventure we're playing here! The whole thing is a little bit Murder, She Wrote and a little bit X-Files, and a whole lot of roleplaying. We had a lot of fun with it, so check the game out!
Music from this episode is "Villainous Treachery" by Kevin MacLeod. Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License.
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Show More Show Less View Video Transcript
0:00
[Music]
0:27
Hello and welcome back to another episode of Tavern Watch plays. This week
0:33
we are playing Brindlewood Bay where our little our cozy little group of old
0:40
ladies uh and their murder mystery book club are living their retirement out in
0:47
a quaint little New England seaside town where I definitely no one ever gets
0:52
murdered. Nope. It's totally fine here. Totally nothing to see. very very very
0:59
calm, pristine, quaint little English village. So, I'm going to I'm going to have my little old ladies introduce
1:04
themselves. Let's start with you, Joan. Who are you playing? I'm playing Louisa Margro, a gardening
1:10
enthusiast who also likes the outdoors and apparently whaling museums.
1:16
Okay. And uh Mitch, I am playing Bordy. um an eclectic
1:23
collector uh of objects and uh just kind of all around uh you know interested in
1:30
in things and the stuff happening and a little distractable and Matt
1:37
uh I'm playing Ludm Miller a former Soviet bodybuilder and weightlifter who's now living in in New England as a
1:45
retired nurse and uh she likes cats a lot and found herself in this Whailing
1:51
Museum because we we all met in a mystery book club after we solved the
1:58
murder. So yeah. And uh Matt, would you kind of give us a recap of where we are in the story? What
2:04
happened last episode? Okay. Uh previously to last episode, we you know solved a mystery involving a a
2:10
murdered dentist, decided we would hang out and read mystery books together and ended up at this whailing museum. Uh
2:18
where it was pretty clear from the start something weird was going on. Uh uh Bordy kind of saw a weird scrimshaw mask
2:25
that she was getting phone calls about. And then one of the people at the museum, a a young intern named Edgar,
2:33
got himself murdered by Harpoon. And we of course, you know, I wouldn't say we
2:38
bust into action cuz, you know, we're we're all a bit older. Uh, but we sauntered into action and began trying
2:45
to solve this mystery. Um, Bour weird keychain thing on the ground and and put
2:51
her foot on it to keep it from getting, you know, taken by Mr. Absilon, who's
2:56
rich and weird. Um, Louisa guided the local, you know, sheriff's
3:02
deputy to where the harpoon was and the, you know, before it ended up in poor
3:07
Edgar. And I found Edgar's, I guess, you know, preol boyfriend and calmed him
3:14
down from his, you know, yelling at the police and got him to sit down and begin telling me about Edgar in hopes that he
3:20
will, you know, reveal something that might point us somewhere. Uh, and that that's basically it. and
3:25
and my cat has been kind of mewing the whole time, but isn't actually coming out of my pocket. So, there you go.
3:33
Okay. So, in the lobby of the museum, there are still there are people milling
3:39
about uh the body of Edgar is off in the
3:45
collection with the collection of Scrimshaw in the museum. The museum
3:51
owner is just um now talking with the deputy and he's ringing his hands and
3:56
patting sweat off of his brow. He had at the beginning of the night a very neat comb over that uh sort of made to look
4:05
like he probably wasn't balding. That's all the the neatness of this is all gone. He's very he feels frazzled. He
4:12
looks frazzled. Um there is um another
4:17
another man talking with the deputy who is actually the professor person that
4:23
you had talked to previously. Why should I have to stay here?
4:29
We had nothing to do with this. And the officer is just I'm I'm very sorry sir.
4:35
You all have to stay until we can take statements from everyone. And I just uh
4:42
that's kind of the bubbling action that's going on. Does anyone want to do
4:47
anything in particular or talk to anyone in particular? If the conversation has kind of died
4:54
down and I have a second to like casually reach down and grab the the
4:59
necklace uh necklace that was under It's a key chain. Yeah, it's a key chain.
5:05
Uh absolutely. the um Cornelius is still trying to make small talk like every
5:12
like uh uh with anyone who will give him the chance to and everyone is trying to
5:18
escape him because no one wants to make small talk. Uh not on a good day. This
5:24
is not a good day. Um so you lean over and pick up this keychain which has been
5:29
kind of wedged against uh wedged behind one of the uh chair legs. Um, so you
5:36
you've picked it up. It's a it's just a plain gold key on a keychain.
5:42
Uh, I guess I like it's like it's it's not like a fancy keychain. It doesn't have like a
5:48
brand on it or anything. It's just like a I guess it's a key ring. It's like
5:54
it's on a little ring. Okay. And it's just by itself. It's by itself. Um, I'm going
6:02
to I will add it is a smaller key. It isn't like the kind of key you would
6:07
expect for like a door key, which those are usually fairly long. It's a It's fairly short, which you would expect
6:13
something like that to be like a locker key or a file cabinet key or something
6:18
along those lines. Possibly a padlock or a diary. Or a diary.
6:24
It could be. It could be. Any of those things could be true. Um, okay. Well,
6:29
with that in mind, I would like to kind of first do like a, you know, just scan
6:34
in place around the room to see if I see anything that looks uh like the key might fit into it. And if I don't, then,
6:41
you know, I'm going to start investigating a little closer. Um, well, actually, no. I'm just going to look around the room and then depending on
6:48
what I find, uh, go back to the others. Do remember that there are several rooms here. We're kind of all in the lobby
6:54
area at this point, which is of course lavishly decorated for the museum's big
7:00
fundraising event, which is now been ruined by murder because
7:06
you you can't have a good thing like a nice whaling museum party without
7:11
disruption. Um, so there are also a couple of exhibits here, but uh you you
7:17
are in the lobby. So you want to do a meddling move to look around.
7:23
All my sixes and that's well six total
7:28
plus uh reason plus one. So seven uh so that is a seven. The seven is the
7:35
lowest lowest possible success. Um heck yeah. So you look around thinking
7:42
um h there is a ticket booth you know a little kind of counter not really a
7:48
booth it's a counter to sell you know to sell tickets you go and you carefully
7:55
creep around the counter trying not to draw attention to yourself I'm going to tell you in advance this is because you
8:01
had a lower role that you were not entirely successful being lowkey about
8:06
this um you get around behind Yeah.
8:12
Uh you get around back here and sort of sort through stuff behind the counter and there is a little filing cabinet
8:20
back here and you try it and the key does fit. Jackpot. So
8:27
you you open up the filing cabinet and you start definitely completely casual.
8:33
No one will think this is unusual. rifling through it. And are you looking
8:40
for anything in particular? Um, I mean, I guess I'm looking to see
8:45
if something is missing or misplaced or if it looks like it's recently been uh disturbed, like, you know, signs of
8:52
activity. Signs of activity. Okay. I I'm actually going to say you go through all the
8:57
files and, you know, it's normal sort of f little day-to-day financial records.
9:03
How many tickets we sold today? how many tickets we sold yesterday. Um, and shoved in the back, not looking like
9:11
it's been taken out of its um, folder at all, is a job application filled out. It
9:21
It's shoved way in the back. It doesn't look like anyone's even bothered to look at this. Um,
9:26
who applied? Uh, I'm going to say that that was the name on here was um what
9:34
are names? Uh, Chris Chandra. I'm going to hand over the envelope that
9:41
I found. A Chris Chris. That was I was just talking to him. He said he was uh Edgar's ex-boyfriend that he
9:48
wanted to reconnect. He was trying to get away. He was trying to berate the
9:53
cops into letting him go. I managed to make him calm down. But if he was doing
9:59
things like that to try and get here, maybe he was just trying to contact him or maybe he was doing I don't.
10:05
So Chris is our guy, huh? I believe that's Yeah, that's what I said. Chris,
10:10
that's what I said. Chris. Um Well, well, you know, I I'm not sure that Bordy has gotten a single name
10:17
right. Possibly because I can also never get Bord's name right. So I think this may just be some sort of revenge scheme.
10:24
It's not, but it's fun. It's It's funnier to think it is.
10:31
Um, okay. So, what what did you just hand me, LMA? The envelope.
10:36
I found it in the book that I mentioned that the uh professor from the community
10:43
college was telling me was a genuine one. It apparently is urgent and from
10:49
some grant agency, National Museum from the National Museum Commission.
10:55
It's the It's just an envelope. It is empty. And uh yes, it was stuck inside a
11:01
historic book. The envelope itself is not a historic envelope. It's just an envelope.
11:07
Yeah, but it was in the book possibly. How many pages was it tucked in? Yeah, that's what I was going to actually say.
11:12
Wow, that's a really good question that I don't have an answer to. Um, I'm, you
11:17
know, I'm going to say it was tucked in page 666. Uh, because
11:26
No, I'm just going to say it was uh when you pulled it out, it wasn't in anything
11:31
notable. It was just it was a couple of sketches of whales made from the decks of ships, which is there are a lot of
11:38
sketches of whales. So the page itself did not strike you as anything
11:45
that told you anything about this. Were there any other applications uh job applications in the the thing I went
11:53
through the filing cabinet? So you continue going through the filing cabinet and there is a folder that's
11:58
just specifically marked job applications. And this one was shoved like right in the back of the cabinet.
12:05
So, the other ones do show like they've been reviewed. They uh have some notes
12:11
on them or they have, you know, hired with a date or things like that or
12:18
they're stapled to a list of uh like employment information. This one doesn't
12:23
have anything on it. So, there is a folder just entirely of recent job applicants uh and internships, but this
12:31
was not in there with the rest of them. Is there a Sorry if you said this already. Was there a date on it that
12:36
indicated if it was a recent application? Um, it was um let's see. It was about a
12:44
month ago. So, kind of recent, but not like yesterday. Um, just just before the vet died.
12:51
A little bit. Yeah. But I I think the vet was two or three weeks ago. Okay. If we're making a murderous
12:57
timeline, does does Chris on this application have any qualifications to work in this
13:02
museum? Does he like know anything about the subject? Did he like say, you know,
13:07
anything like that? And does it did he he obviously doesn't seem to have been approved. Does it say anything about
13:13
that? It does. There's no marking on these because even some of the other applications that weren't approved have
13:18
a marked, you know, not approved because this or that. Um, this one does not have
13:24
any notes on it. So you look at it, he does not appear to have um
13:30
he has a BFA in literature. He does not have specific training on maritime
13:37
history or whaling or you know he doesn't or
13:42
oceanography or sailing or you know he doesn't have any of that kind of background but he was also applying for
13:49
a lot of the people here are volunteers you know you might sell tickets you might uh you know clean the exhibits you
13:55
know you're not uh you do not necessarily need a high level of qualification to do that and you look at
14:02
some of the applications and it's like I mean there's a lot of people doing like summer internships that may or may not
14:08
have a lot of qualifications. So I have a working theory. Okay. So before we go into your working
14:15
theory, I want to take a pause here to say a little bit about how mysteries in
14:21
the game work, which is that I don't know who killed him. The but we're going
14:27
to figure out who killed him together. When you have an idea about what's going
14:33
on, you come up with a solution. You incorporate as many of the clues as possible and one of you is going to make
14:40
a role to see is this the solution or is this not the solution. And um when you
14:49
do that, the mystery itself has a difficulty and you're doing a roll that's plus the number of clues you can
14:56
incorporate incorporate into your theory minus the difficulty of this uh of this
15:02
mystery, which is seven. So you can come up with a solution whenever or however
15:08
you want to, but you're basically going to make a a theory and you're going to roll for it plus the number of clues you
15:15
can fit in. I hope that makes sense. So no, I can I have a few more clues I want
15:20
to gather then. But is there something you're thinking right now? What what actually let's uh check in. What is everyone what's what's
15:27
everyone's kind of working theory that is that's going on here? So, I'm
15:33
thinking that maybe Edgar didn't want to see CREF and stuffed this application
15:39
where it wouldn't be seen. So, I want to um I want to talk to whoever would be in
15:45
charge of hiring and see if they saw this before. So, that could be the museum owner who
15:53
uh or it could be the curator. Um that would be George Pard is the owner.
15:59
Katherine Burko is the curator. So that could go either way. Does anyone else
16:04
Katherine has Yeah, Katherine has her playful. So I'm going to look for George.
16:09
Hold on a second. Okay. Yes. Villa wants to make a suggestion to both Louisa and uh 40. Why not show
16:18
those keys to people uh specifically without saying, "Hey, mysterious spooky
16:23
keys, but go are these your keys? Did I found them on the floor?" Just to see if anybody
16:29
where they were found. You don't have to we don't have to like make a big deal out of it. Just see whose keys they are
16:35
because whoever's keys they are had access to this the it's just the one key.
16:41
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But this feels like this should just be kind of like a you know there might be multiple
16:47
people who have there might be but right now we have no idea. Yeah. It's a it's a good question. I
16:53
mean, you don't even have to show them the keys if you don't want to, but I think we should try and find out who has access.
16:59
Oh, go for it. Go for it. Um, I I I think So, I'm going to give them everything I
17:05
know about Kish from the conversation we had, including that he was trying to get away. I'm going to make sure that everybody
17:10
knows that. Mhm. Uh, yeah. He he was not super thrilled about staying around here with
17:17
the dead body of his exboyfriend. Not really. Not really excited about
17:23
that. I don't know if anyone would be. I I still think something fish is going on with with Chris and Edwin. I I think
17:30
maybe they were, you know, there was something occulty going on and that's
17:36
why Edwin had to rush off and they got in a disagreement and so Chris to go
17:43
through with the ritual had to murder Edwin and now is trying to get away. And I think the I think Cornell is just uh a
17:51
misdirect and is just worried about money. He's just standard money guy. I think that we are also possibly
17:56
avoiding the fact that his cousin told flat out told us that she and her cousin can wear could hear whale songs when no
18:03
one else could. And they were I don't know that that's relevant to the murder. You don't know that it isn't. They
18:09
killed him with a harpoon. What do you kill with harpoons? Whales. Yes, whales. Oh yeah,
18:17
we can hear you're talking about a cult things. If you want to go a cult, then go all the way with it. He showed us
18:24
pictures of a whale with a human eye that is eating someone. He
18:29
I don't think we really need to bring your hobby into this. What's that mine? Wait, wait, wait. No, hold on. I did
18:35
remember there was a It was They did seem kind of culty on that beach. It was It was her hobby. That's right.
18:41
No, it was there was no there's a lot of there's little there's cultish stuff on the beach. Um, and there was some those
18:49
floorboards. What did is the whole museum made out of the ship of what? Thieves sea of thieves or is
18:56
the dark reaver? Yeah, that deep reaver. Reaver. Deep reaver.
19:02
The um the dark reaver. I think it was just one room. Uh, yes.
19:07
It was just it was just the one room with like history of sailing ships and
19:12
life on sailing ships. Had the floors from planks from the original Deep
19:20
Reaver. I got some which fishy vibes from that. No pun intended.
19:25
Well, I mean, it is kind of fishy. If I'm going to say if you were going to uh
19:31
look into that more, you do find in the room with the with this exhibit with the
19:37
planks, um you do find a plaque that says, "In the summer of 1877, the crew
19:44
of the Whaler Deep Reaver set out from Brindlewood Bay. They returned with the strangest whale anyone had ever seen. It
19:51
had tentacle-like legs and rows of oily black eyes." They said its parts they uh
19:59
they sold its parts all over the world and the proceeds were used to turn
20:04
Brindlewood Bay into what it is today. Did we move to a cursed retirement village? Maybe.
20:10
I'm going to look up at that. I'm going to like I guess we're still in the room that we were just in. I'm going to look
20:15
back out onto the display area if I can and look up at that whale and see if it's doing anything. Uh, the whale is
20:22
currently frozen with its skull staring down at you, which you
20:28
all the way over here. Like, did it turn around? Cuz I'm, you know, Oh, that's a good question. I'm I'm
20:34
going to say yes. The the whale was staring at you and you were sure it was not in this position earlier, and you
20:40
were sure it was in a different position before that. Not Not to make too fine a point of this, but is that whale skeleton
20:46
pointing this way now? What do we see? No, you're imaginating. the rest of you. It was always like
20:52
this. You're sure it was always like this? It was This was just the way it was oriented. Yeah. Okay. Okay. No, I mean, I see it
20:59
looking this way, but it's been like that since we got here, right? Like it
21:04
make it looks like it makes sense to me. Yeah, it's fine. Looks fine to me.
21:09
What you you think it moved? No, I don't think it moved. How How many drinks have you had
21:15
tonight? I have not had any. Okay. Four. Oh. Oh, her. No,
21:22
I'm gonna take my cat out of my coat. Okay. Because, you know, cats are immune to
21:29
the supernatural. Okay. Yep. We'll go with that. I'm going to just have the cat now in my
21:35
arms petting it as I look at that one. Okay. Yeah. Just in case. Just in case. Yep. Well, I mean, you've seen the
21:42
mummy. You know what happens when I immote attacks? You just show him a cat.
21:47
[Laughter] I I can't argue with that. Um, so were you going to try and find
21:54
the museum owner or the museum curator? Yeah, the the uh the owner, George Pard.
22:01
George Pard. I think I finally learned how to remember his name. So, just in time for that information to become
22:06
irrelevant to all of us. Um he is talking to the deputy Sam Cooper
22:14
and uh they're they're in the lobby just uh Sam is taking notes getting his
22:21
statement. He looks just extremely uh anxious kind of hand ringing as you
22:29
approach. He says, "Yes, Edgar has worked here for a couple of months. He just came in over the summer to do some
22:36
uh he wanted to help out while he was doing research. Uh I I don't know who
22:43
would have hurt the young man. And Sam is just nodding, taking notes. Uh when did you last see him? Exact kind of
22:48
going going down the list of questions. Um yeah, I'm not going to interrupt.
22:54
Okay. Um so she's going to wrap up and just say, uh Mr. um Mr. Pard, please uh
23:03
please remain here while we complete our investigation and uh once we've questioned everyone, you can all go home
23:10
and we'll uh hopefully sort this out. Well, I I hope so because the blood on
23:16
the floors, we have to get this cleaned and the exhibits and the the harpoon.
23:23
It's a historic harpoon that's now covered in the
23:29
Maybe I should work on an insurance claim. Yes, I uh paperwork. You care a lot about this museum, huh?
23:36
Well, yes, we have to we have to um you know, he's a little flustered, but he
23:43
kind of pulls that persona on like we have to preserve our history. the
23:49
history of Brindlewood Bay, the history of this entire region. It's very
23:55
important and it's very expensive. So, thus this fundraiser, which um hope
24:04
doesn't have so much fun in it. No, it doesn't. And I hope uh the checks
24:09
that we have been written tonight actually clear and that no one has changed their minds after this gristly
24:17
event. Speaking of paperwork, sorry to bring it up, but I believe somebody has uh misplaced this one.
24:23
And uh what are you what are you handing him? The showing the the application.
24:30
Oh. Oh. Did someone submit a job application? He like glances at Oh, no. This is somewhat old. Um no, I haven't
24:37
seen this. Uh usually, uh usually it would be uh Dr. Dr. Burko,
24:46
who would approve new applications, but usually she leaves notes on them to say
24:52
if she did or didn't. Maybe we didn't need any more volunteers this summer. I could go ask her.
24:58
I'm sure she knows where it belongs. Well, yes. I thank you for bringing this
25:03
to my attention. So, I guess I'll take it myself. Um, unless he really really wants to hang on
25:09
to it. Um, just talk to her about it. I don't see how you keep it. Yeah,
25:16
he's not going to start a fight fight with it. Fight over it with you. So, yes, it's fine. You can take it
25:21
yourself. Okay. Did we want to do the uh key thing, too?
25:26
I'm I'm cool if we just hold off on that for a little bit. All right. So, I guess I'll uh I'll talk
25:32
to Katherine Burgo again. Uh okay. You go looking for her and you
25:37
find her um in the uh break room which
25:43
is just it's kind of storage room, work room. Her desk is in there.
25:48
Mhm. Uh so sorry to uh add things to your plate, but we found this lying around and we
25:55
were um we were thinking you might not want uh stray stray paperwork getting
26:01
lost in all the hubbhub. Oh. Oh, a new job application. Is this in the I mean we there are a pile of job
26:10
applications at the front desk for people who might want to volunteer. Is this She's pulls a pulls a pair of
26:17
glasses out of a front pocket to give it a good read. This is This is dated weeks
26:23
ago. I I haven't seen this. I mean, this doesn't seem like someone who
26:29
necessarily has a background in history, but you know, we can always use people to man
26:36
the ticket desk and things like that. You know, we can the the museum runs on
26:42
a on a shoestring budget. We can always use volunteers. So, you probably would have hired them
26:48
if this hadn't gotten lost. Uh, probably. I mean, things do get
26:53
lost. Well, I'll I'll just leave this with you in in case it becomes important later.
26:58
Is if Chris is nearby, we can give him the good news then because I think an opening just
27:04
Well, except it would have been for this for this event tonight that he was volunteering. Oh, I thought it was like a summer
27:10
thing. I mean, maybe that, too. But that's um he probably doesn't It's not our decision to make. So,
27:17
yeah. I just like giving people good news. Well, I I'll hang on to this. Well, uh,
27:22
I I guess I can give Chris a call. We need someone. Oh, he's actually here.
27:28
Somebody ran into him. He was up insisting that be allowed to leave rather than be
27:33
a friend of Edgars, apparently. Maybe that's why he I think none of us would like to be
27:40
here. Well, Edgar, I can't believe I can't believe
27:46
Edgar is gone. He had so much enthusiasm for for the history here. I mean, we get
27:52
a lot of we get a lot of volunteers that are just here for something to do or but very few
28:00
are really genuinely enthusiastic about the museum, the history.
28:06
Very passionate about the exhibits. He was telling me all about the deep reaver.
28:12
Oh, the deep reaver is an interesting bit of local history. That is certain and famous famous in well in certain
28:21
uh certain subsets of the study of maritime history. Quite a famous ship because of the the strange catch it
28:28
brought back. And you know it has actually um give me give me a meddling
28:34
move using presence. That's a four. Oh that's that's not a very good
28:41
meddling move. Waiting. Hang on. You could you could crown it if
28:46
you want to. No, that's a two without the crown. Okay. Um, yeah, we'll do the we'll do
28:53
the crown. So, using the crown, you do have to narrate one of these memories and just
28:58
kind of as something that has inspired you to do this better or has. Or you can do the void.
29:04
Or you can do the void one. You could do a crown of the void. You have to do the first crown of the void or you can
29:09
select any of the crown of the queen ones. H. Oh, let's see. Here's some
29:15
interesting choices. Um, would any of these be relevant? Yeah, that's always I think that's the
29:21
hard part is finding, okay, how can I make this relevant to what I'm doing right now? But it could just be
29:26
something maybe a memory of an old conversation, how you convinced someone or how you
29:33
comforted someone or this is basically with a success here. She she might give
29:38
you some more information. Mhm. Um, so, okay. Flashbacks or present scenes.
29:45
Let's go with a scene in the present day showing a private side of you very few
29:51
get to. Okay. Um, so I'm going to start nerding out
29:56
about um woodworking. Okay. And how when I was when I was younger, I
30:03
made a cabinet from scratch. And I was um I was always fascinated with with um
30:11
how how wood joins together. And I never I never could quite get the hang of it,
30:18
but it always impresses me when people are able to do amazing things like make
30:25
wood watertight enough to sail on. Well, it's it's really a fascinating
30:30
history, particularly the Deep Rever. And even after the debrie was was left to to the fate of time,
30:38
which is of course how we got the planks, the history of the ship and of the the great beasts it hauled to shore
30:47
remain. Uh certainly in you know that was the summer of 1877 that it brought
30:53
in this strange catch which obviously some kind of strange undersea creature,
30:59
not a whale, but something. Um, but you know that was photographed or drawing.
31:06
Uh, there are drawings of it. Um, I'll have to look later. Well, you were
31:11
saying, but in the summer of 18, it it has something of a dark history even beyond
31:16
that. It gets rather actually darker. In the summer of 1893, Hail Willoughby, a deep reaver survivor
31:25
who um in this very town, he murdered 13 women and children, claiming he was
31:31
simply doing that which was promised to them from below. It's an example of how
31:37
sometimes the whaling, the seafaring culture can get into your head. It's a
31:42
very being out on the sea and catching whales is very rough, difficult and bloody business. and sometimes it would
31:48
get into their heads. Um, but despite overwhelming evidence against
31:56
him, a jury of the day found him innocent. He was released.
32:01
It's uh he was judged by a jury of his peers that found no
32:08
it is hard to say what is in people's minds and hearts but I only know of the paperwork which says he was found
32:13
innocent and that he lived the rest of his life outside of town on a farm.
32:18
Is that farm still here? I I have not looked but I mean that was uh I do not know his date of death off
32:25
hand but he probably would have passed away in the early 1900s. So if if it is
32:31
here, it's perhaps in bad condition. I don't know that anyone still lives there. Mhm.
32:36
It's a fas it's a fascinating thing the sea and the things that live there and the people who h what's that
32:42
does this museum like it's not just about whaling and it's about Brindlewood Bay as well.
32:48
Um it's about whaling and sailors and sailing. I mean it's the focus is on the
32:54
whaling because that is kind of where Brindlewood Bay came together as a community as that's where Brindlewood
33:01
Bay started. So it's all tangled together. So there's a little of all of this even though the main focus is on
33:07
whaling and whailing museum is what's on the sign. Do we know the names of the people that
33:13
were on this ship besides the one that she just talked about? Um yeah. Was there a register?
33:19
Uh there is. We do have records of but then again we have records of at least
33:25
some people who were on the ship but also uh sometimes there weren't records kept or sometimes records have been
33:31
lost. So I don't think it's highly unlikely that we have a complete record or that we have a record of everyone in
33:37
particular who was on the ship when it came back with this beast. Liz, this one's for you from me.
33:44
What year is it as we're playing this? Is it modern day? It is present day. It is right now.
33:50
Would I have a cell phone? If you want one. Okay. Uh, I'm going to get on my cell
33:56
phone and begin googling the name of this name of the ship and manifest and
34:01
descendants and all that stuff. I want to see if I can connect anybody to this boat.
34:09
Uh, okay. You do realize that you are in like a center of research on this, but but yeah, you can do this. Um,
34:16
please give the best Gemini answer ever. the best. I mean, for that matter, I know I'm in a
34:23
center of research, but I don't know where to look or what to even do, whereas I can Let's just go ask chat GPT what it
34:30
thinks about this and see what happens. Uh um so yes, you do come up with a few a
34:38
few names. Uh, you know, Katherine keeps talking with Louisa about ships and ship
34:44
construction and the strange stories of the sea, which are certainly not true,
34:49
but uh, certainly historically very little of this has been proven. Um, you
34:54
look, but I mean this is kind of deep in the past at this point. It is hard to
35:00
connect this to today's to follow this you know marriage deaths
35:06
and marriages and divorces and once you get into a 100 years later it starts getting very hard to trace everything
35:13
back. So while you do have a list of at least some sailors who sailed on the deep river at some point during its
35:19
career you do not have a complete list and you can't trace that back to anyone
35:25
today. I can Willis We We know that they wouldn't have anything about Willisby's life here because they didn't care about
35:31
that. They cared about sailing and seas. So, I can look him up and see if there's a Wikipedia entry on
35:38
crazy New England murders or just this guy. If he killed 13 people and then was
35:43
not convicted, I'm sorry. I know about Lizzie Bordon from personal life experience. I grew up not like 20 miles
35:49
away from her. If somebody kills people and then doesn't get convicted, nobody in New England forgets that.
35:56
that. Yes, I mean that's um so yes, you can uh you you look up Hail Willoughby
36:02
on Wikipedia. He does indeed have his own Wikipedia page. Talks about um uh
36:07
him surviving the last voyage of the Deep Reaper when it came when it limped into port with very uh very few people
36:14
remaining on it. Very few of its sailors came home. uh and the strange creatures it had been known to bring back to back
36:21
to port and that you know what is this 15 years after the after its famous
36:28
expedition when it brought this creature of the deep he killed 13 people and
36:35
and he was not why he was not convicted and he retired to some farm out of town.
36:42
I he only you know when questioned he only said that he did that what was
36:50
promised to them below. Okay. Did he like have children? He did not have a family that is
36:56
mentioned in this page. Okay. Um do I remember how many hooded figures I saw on the beach?
37:02
H I'm going to say well you didn't you didn't see them very clearly.
37:07
You think five, six, seven. Not a dozen, but uh Okay. A few. A few. Oh, no. Oh.
37:16
Ah, I see where you're going. Talking talking like 13 is an unlucky
37:22
number. I mean, it's just a number. It's just a number. Less than a dozen. More
37:27
than a couple. Less than a dozen. Okay. So, what are we saving the key for at
37:32
this point? Uh uh just because I don't trust people
37:37
and I like to collect keys. If it has if it you know if we don't end up needing
37:43
it to solve the mystery, I just have a key to trade later on. Uhhuh. Uhhuh. Or we could find out who
37:50
figure out who locked the paper in there by figuring out whose key it was.
37:55
I I fig it's just a filing like a general filing cabinet. It's not like we
38:00
we'll f we can try. I my assumption is that more than one person would have
38:06
access but only one person's going to be missing their key most likely. True. So it might be um important.
38:13
Edgar might have had Edgar might have had key and Edgar might be missing key.
38:18
Mhm. And you want to check out the body again. No. No. That's that's not our job. But if
38:24
other people who are supposed to have the key to this cabinet have theirs still, then by process of elimination,
38:29
it probably was his. Especially if you know the sheriff or the deputy is still here. We could uh
38:35
we can try asking the deputy if you were Edwin. So Catherine, you know, you're she's
38:43
uh kind of piddling around back here just for something to do while maybe the
38:48
rest of the gallery is cleaned out, but that's going to take a while. And you're back here talking amongst yourselves. Um
38:55
she it's at one point looks up and says, "You're trying to you think you can solve this. You think you can find out
39:01
who killed Edgar, do you? Well, we might as well try. We're here,
39:06
aren't we? We're We've solved a mystery or before? Well, I did see something that was I
39:16
don't know. I don't know how it might have had I don't know if it had anything to do with this, but there is something
39:23
going on in that I think the museum is in maybe more financial trouble than uh
39:30
Mr. Pard necessarily wants everyone to know. Um, and she goes into uh a desk in
39:39
here and pulls open a drawer and shuffles around some papers and pulls
39:44
out um a financial some financial paperwork which uh just a finan some
39:52
financial reports that show that that she spreads across over the workt in here. And this is from earlier this
40:01
year. This is the cost you see here, the cost of maintaining the museum. Uh the
40:06
cost of maintaining the our ship, the Morgan, our historic whailing ship,
40:12
which has really quite out of control. We're going to have to bring it out of the water. It's just not it's not
40:18
tenable anymore. But I have been here for 2 years. The museum has not been a
40:24
money maker at all in this time. We operate on uh largely the generation the gener the generosity of uh donors and
40:32
people who wish to support the history of this place. We do not uh our ticket sales are not that astounding but we
40:40
have been running deeper in the red than really makes sense to me. I'm not
40:46
supposed to be involved in the financials, but this report was seems to have been left on my desk accidentally
40:52
by someone. And yes, it's uh if anyone wants to look at it, it does uh suggest
40:59
the museum is pretty deeply in debt and that it is donations are coming in, but
41:05
they're not they're not enough to cover this. Would this be something that the what is it called? The National Museum Board or
41:12
something? I forget what that is. Um, the one the envelope I have. Oh, yeah. What did that envelope say?
41:18
And I have got it. Pull it out. Oh. Oh, what's this? I I don't know. That
41:25
could be a lot of things. Um, the National Museum Commission does. They
41:30
They would approve grants. They might um they can approve research. They can
41:36
request uh they can request documents or things in our archives for what they are. She
41:43
sort of waves her hands around the room which is there are some archives but not
41:48
not a whole lot. Um is there a date stamped on the envelope?
41:54
Uh the envelope I'm going to say it's uh two weeks ago. So we could look through the records and
41:59
see if there's any any papers that were filed in that same date that same time period.
42:05
Uh, okay. Financial papers. Where would financial there? Um, Katherine tells you
42:11
they're really they don't usually they don't keep a lot of financial records here. That's really Mr. Powell's
42:19
business. And um he does not have an office here. I the the museum is not
42:26
huge, not expansive. It does not have a lot of a lot of staff space. kind of this big staff room is kind of it for
42:33
the Beck for the sort of backstage area. Oh, so what's Chris doing? Like is Chris
42:41
still hanging around? Still doing stuff right now cuz I feel like some time's passed and he was trying to leave. Is he
42:46
still trying to leave? Is he calm? I I calmed him down temporarily, but that doesn't mean he is still calm.
42:52
Well, yeah, you haven't been out there feeding him peppermint candies. I mean, come on. What do you expect? Uh if you
42:58
if you go out I expect he's probably making more of a scene now. That's what
43:04
I mean they put away the champagne so it's like now it's just um so if you go back out into the lobby
43:12
Chris is actually sitting in the chair where you left him kind of slumped over his head in his
43:18
hands. Um, I mean, I we can keep uh or we can split the party maybe here and I
43:25
can talk to him while y'all keep talking to the cousin or we can all go over to him. But I kind of want to see I I want
43:32
to talk to him a little more now. I haven't Okay. Does anyone else have something they would like to pursue?
43:38
No, I mean I think I I have my own theory, but that's all I've got.
43:43
And also, no one has Let's see. No one's wandered into the gift shop yet. if you
43:49
wanted to do any more snooping around. Um I guess if um Katherine Burko has a
43:55
book or anything on the Deep Reaver, I'd be interested in looking at it. Uh okay. Yes, she actually does have
44:02
sort of a shelf of uh research material of uh some published books and there is
44:08
a there probably several published books on the Deep Reaver because it's like this uh there's a lot of rumors and
44:15
superstition about the Deep Reaver. and she pulls one off the shelf and says, "This is the one that I think has the most historical value as a reference to
44:22
the whailing history of the ship, uh, the construction of the ship and the voyages of it." There's a lot of
44:31
Yes. So, she hands it off to you. Um, let's go over to
44:38
Bour and, uh, you're talking to Kish. He's kind of close to the front door,
44:44
just sort of sprawled in a chair, staring at the floor. All right, I'm I'm gonna walk up and
44:51
kind of pretend uh I don't know anything about him yet. Uh and we all Why so glum
44:58
there? Well, he doesn't look at you. He's still staring at the floor. You may have noticed that a man has been murdered
45:06
tonight, and I'm not exactly thrilled by it. Well, I mean, I think that's a good
45:13
reaction. Most people shouldn't be thrilled by murder. But did you know him? Yes. Yes. We dated for a while a few
45:21
years ago, and I was hoping to see him tonight, but I guess I have seen him,
45:27
but not. Yeah. So, I'm not really excited about not excited about
45:34
how the evening has gone. Uh, we didn't get a chance to talk. He was He's been working. He was he was working tonight.
45:42
So, he didn't know you were here, did he? Uh, he might have done I But we didn't
45:49
talk. I don't know if he was avoiding me or was he just busy or was it both? It could be both.
45:57
I don't mean to point fingers, but you can still interact with someone without talking. Um, but you know, I want to Did
46:03
you kill him? I'm just all over the place now. Did I? No. Why would I Oh, no. I didn't I didn't
46:12
kill him. I didn't want I didn't want him to die. I just I wanted to talk to
46:17
him. I wanted to I mean, even if we weren't even if we weren't going out, couldn't we be maybe we could be friends?
46:26
I don't I just I wanted to see him. And perhaps he didn't want to see me. I
46:31
don't know. I I now I won't know. Do you think someone wanted to see him more
46:36
than you did? Or perhaps see him more dead? I didn't want to see him dead. I just
46:43
hoped to talk to him tonight and he sort of uh plucks at his uh the collar of his
46:49
suit. I got dressed up for a night at the this gala to
46:57
fundraising event. I thought I might make a good impression coming. This is
47:02
one of his favorite charities, favorite causes. I uh I don't
47:08
know. I've made It sounds like you knew a lot about him. Well, I like to think I did.
47:15
Did Did things end badly between you? Did Would he not have wanted to see you here? Why would Why would you surprise
47:21
him here? Or were you going for the old romantic gesture? Well, I'd hoped it
47:26
would be a romantic gesture, but I mean, we we we dated before he went off to
47:33
before he went off to graduate school, and but his studies were more important
47:40
than that. And I I thought maybe I could He's back here doing research for the
47:46
summer. Maybe if I showed an interest in the things he was interested in, maybe I
47:52
could get involved. Maybe. Uh, but
47:57
clearly this has not gone as I planned. No. And now he's not interested in anything cuz he's dead.
48:04
That does uh Yes, that's Thank you for reminding me of that. That uh would seem to be the case. Uh-huh. Yep. Well,
48:13
Edgar is conversation. Uh, sorry about Edwin.
48:20
Edgar, you can at least get his name right. His name is Edgar was
48:25
I'm so sorry, Chris. I will get it right next time. Uh, Chris, see, now you have me doing
48:31
it. Got him. Um, so yes, that's that's what you got.
48:38
All right. I uh I suspect Chris less now. So, what what else are we doing? Are we
48:46
uh did uh you said did you go to the the gift shop? I did not I've been in there before and
48:52
I have no reason to go in tonight. Well, in that case, I will un if if the
48:58
gift shop is something that I pass on my way back to the others from Kish, uh I
49:04
will kind of meander into the gift shop. I sure sure we can say that. I mean,
49:09
Chris was sitting uh at a chair very close to the front door. Uh there's So,
49:15
he basically came back inside and slumped over and then hasn't uh moved from there. Um so, you make your way
49:21
into the gift shop and you are going to love it. It is full. It's shelves and shelves of little knickknacks and
49:28
chachkis, some patty wagons. Oh my gosh. Okay. All sorts of little
49:35
tiny whale figurines. Little different size sailboat models. Um plush whales
49:42
because obviously whales are cute and huggable. Um Mhm.
49:48
Uh so all sorts of little seafaring things. Uh anchorshaped can openers,
49:55
things like everything. Everything you can think of that has some tied to the
50:00
sea that could be sold, it is in here. Wow. Um, I am just loving this. And
50:07
honestly, it would probably distract me for a while. Um, would uh give me a meddling move to
50:13
search the place. Okay. Oh, no. Um, it's going to be a
50:18
four. Okay. Uh, yeah. Uh, am I doing it with what bonus?
50:25
Oh, um, well, there's no bonus. I think that's going to get you. I would say that's probably reason. I just wanted to
50:31
make sure it wasn't going to bump me down. Um Oh, so five five total.
50:37
Uh that's a failure. Do you want to do anything about that? I activate the chariot.
50:42
Oh my god. So, okay. Tell tell every explain to the
50:48
people at home to the fine people at home what exactly that means. Well, um I believe this was this the
50:54
second session that I did the shadow in the garden one. Um yes, I believe so. Okay. So last session I had shadow
51:02
well you know whatever no brush um crown of the void uh I you know have
51:09
already put it on once had the shadow in the garden so my cozy vignette darker
51:14
now my second usage of it I get the chariot uh my reason modifier is by one
51:21
and my sensitivity modifier is increased by one so now they're both zero that's
51:27
not too That's that's probably completely fine. Yeah.
51:32
Um totally totally fine. Not bad at all. So, you find you're you're sorting
51:39
you're looking through the shelves and you notice there's there's an empty shelf here, which is weird because every
51:46
surface of this place is full of little little stuff. Little stuff with little price tags on it. Um, and there is a
51:54
little kind of tag that was on something here, but nothing. The shelf itself is
51:59
empty. The tag says letter opener95.
52:05
Okay. Okay. Um, I'm I'm going to I'm going to pocket that, too, as as
52:10
evidence. That's just a letter tag. Or is it a harpoon? No, the tag. I'm pocketing the tag so I
52:17
don't forget to tell the group about the letter opener that's missing. I mean, the whole shelf is empty. It
52:23
seems weird that it would have this much space, but all you see is the tag that says the letter opener with a little
52:28
price on it. Yeah, I haven't quite pieced the rest together, but uh this is going on my my my bloody um evidence pocket.
52:36
Uh because why why not? I told you to collect things. You never
52:44
know when you may trade it. Okay, that's You're not wrong. Um, are you walking back to rejoin the others?
52:51
Is there is there anything else I noticed about the shelf or like any indication of what was on it other than
52:56
maybe a letter opener? I mean, there's some there's some dust on the shelf that's been cleared away in
53:02
places where things have been moved around or set here. Uh, but you cannot determine what was here.
53:09
Okay. Um, then yeah, I think I'm probably good in the shop. That seems
53:15
like a pretty solid lead. Um, yeah. And I want to say we probably need to
53:22
start thinking about who did this. You know, what's our what's our theory here?
53:28
And I also, as we're coming to the end, I want to remind you that there is one move that no one has used and several
53:35
moves that I have not made anyone use. Uh, but there's one move called the gold crown. mysteries move in which once per
53:43
mystery anyone can say this reminds me of something that happened to Amanda
53:48
Delicor in the Gold Crown mysteries and then you have to tell us which which
53:54
mystery novel this was in and how it relates to your current uh uh to your
54:00
current scene. And then you can either take a 12 plus on a relevant role or
54:08
state a fact about the current situation that I have to have to make the truth. I
54:13
think that makes sense. So uh if someone really wants to nail a
54:20
role down at the end of this adventure here, that is an option. You just have
54:25
to come up with a creative uh way another myster one of your murder mystery novels is related to this. And
54:31
that's called a crown. The crown the gold crown mysteries mystery moves
54:36
because that's all right. I'll do that. This reminds me of the the darkness within by Amanda
54:43
Delapore. Do you remember that part where she went into the house and there was a gigantic dinosaur? I told you guys
54:50
about this before. Gigantic dinosaur top and it fell down and killed a man and it
54:57
was like it was alive. It's that whale. That whale is that. No, that
55:02
that whale is watching us. Dead. It was watching us. I have just made that true. That is a
55:08
fact. That statue is watching us. It is evil and it is watching us. I have just said
55:13
it. It's now an established fact. Wait, wait, hold up. I think I misinterpreted make true. I thought Liz
55:20
fixes your sentence to make it true. Okay. Well, you know, it's open to
55:25
interpretation as is everything. This is this is all, you know, we're we're playing makebelieve together. But okay,
55:32
yes, you're either nailing a single role or you state a fact about the current
55:38
situation that the keeper, me, must incorporate. So, you're stating a fact and now that fact is true. And I'm going
55:44
to say, okay, you you do not know the emotional life of the whale. You don't know if the whale is evil, but that
55:51
whale is definitely watching you. That whale has been watching you all night. You are sure of it. And as you say, as
55:57
you say this, you know, the your two compatriots look at the whale and the
56:04
whale is looking at you like you're sure that whale was turned a
56:09
different direction earlier, but now that whale, it's dark, empty eye sockets, is looking at you.
56:15
Oh, okay. It's definitely looking at us. It's definitely looking at us now, guys.
56:21
I think I know what we can do to make it stop looking at us, though. We have to
56:26
cut out Edwin's eye and put it in one of the sockets. Just like Well, we would not be doing
56:32
that. No, I got it. I know what happened. Let's hear it. Yeah.
56:39
Okay. So, what is it that I have to do if I'm going to declare the uh the solution? So, if you're going to declare
56:45
the solution, you have to make a successful role that and every uh a
56:53
successful role minus the difficulty of the mystery, which is seven,
56:58
but plus the number of clues that you incorporate into your solution, the number of clues
57:05
that you work in here. Now I will say um
57:10
you know for for different levels of success different things happen but also
57:16
if uh if you want to all every one of you can put on a crown and make sure
57:23
it's a success but to do to do that on this theorize mystery solving move right
57:29
here you all have to do it. You all have to agree to do it. So, well, I'm I'm trying to keep track of of
57:37
the clues we have. Is it all clues we found or does it have to be? Um, you found what, four or five so far?
57:43
You found a number of clues. Hang on. I have a list. Uh, so you found the job
57:49
application from Krish that doesn't look like anyone saw it. Um, you saw the
57:56
broken display case that the scrimshaw was taken from, which I believe that um,
58:04
you still haven't told anyone about, but you did see that uh, the keychain that
58:10
was wedged under a chair. Uh, the bloodied scrimshaw that was wedged
58:15
inside Edgar's wound. Uh some financial reports that Katherine gave you uh that
58:23
she thought were suspicious but didn't know how it connected. Um an odd indent in the carpet a few feet away from the
58:29
body. An empty envelope marked urgent from the National Museum the commission
58:36
and that strange empty shelf in the gift shop. Now the this the case that was broken
58:42
was that in the same room with the um Edgar? Yes. And is the whale in the same
58:48
that same room too? It is not. The whale is in a different room. There's Yes, the whale is in kind
58:54
of the central room of the museum has the whale in it. And the Edgar is in the scrimshaw exhibit which is off to one
59:02
side. Oh, it's adjacent to uh Yes, adjacent.
59:08
Okay, that kind of changes my Was it the same room as the harpoon? Uh, no. The harpoon was in a different
59:14
room as well. Are you asking if the whale was in the room with the harpoon or if Ed
59:19
the the the uh scrimshaw thing that was in the case was in the same room as the
59:25
harpoon or was in a different room and you said it was in a different room. So a different room. Who is tall enough to fit a harpoon
59:31
under their jacket if you across the main entry? They're usually pretty tall compared to
59:38
a person. I mean, I will say that while people were wandering around the museum,
59:43
most of them were uh were in the lobby area, which is
59:50
uh which is off the whale room. I got a question about the harpoon. Was it by itself or was it with a harpoon
59:56
launcher? Uh okay, it was with a couple of other harpoons. There was not a harpoon
1:00:02
launcher. Okay. Did the whale do it? I don't think the
1:00:07
whale I mean I didn't think the whale could watch us. Here's here's a really fun thing about
1:00:14
this mystery is that technically if you really wanted the whale to have done you you could force the issue.
1:00:19
I want I want to blame I want to blame the whale. I want to blame the whale. No, I can figure out how to sort of
1:00:26
blame the whale. Um, so and I mean the other thing about this is that there's kind of these uh these murders, but
1:00:33
there's also this something else going on in the background. So these could be
1:00:38
related, unrelated, kind of related. You aren't sure. Okay. Okay. No, I think I have it worked
1:00:44
out now. Go for it. Okay. So the uh the old boyfriend um
1:00:51
Kree, he really wanted to see his his uh his ex again. So he tried he tried
1:00:59
applying at the museum but um Edgar was the one who ended up seeing the
1:01:05
application and he he wasn't ready for that. So he stuffed the application away
1:01:11
where it could be away hidden someplace. Tucked the key in his pocket. Well, he
1:01:16
usually has the key on him, I guess. So, then Kree finds out that this is happening and he knows that Ed Edgar is
1:01:24
going to be here. So, he shows up and um he tries he tries to talk Edgar into,
1:01:32
you know, going out with him, whatever. Um Edgar says, "No, no, I'm not ready for that." But, um Krie says, "Well, you
1:01:40
know, I could I could help out around here. You know, I don't have to I don't have to hang out. Oh, just just you
1:01:47
know, let let me let me get this job with you. Let me show you what I can do.
1:01:53
So, they get this idea, this crazy idea to mess with the um exhibits and make
1:01:59
them make them a little bit cooler, more impressive. So, the first thing that they do is they drag the case out um so
1:02:07
that they can climb on it and reach the whale to turn his head so he looks like
1:02:14
he's staring down at people. So, that goes fine. They get it all get it all
1:02:19
figured out. And then they're like, "Okay, well, let's take now let's take this harpoon and hang it in this other
1:02:24
room." So, they they um they drag that case in but accidentally break it while
1:02:30
they're climbing up. Actually, no. What breaks it is um is when Edgar drop loses
1:02:38
hold of the or no, probably Chris would have been up there climbing up there
1:02:44
holding holding the thing and trying to tie the uh harpoon up, but he slipped
1:02:51
and dropped it onto Edgar. Oh, no. the um the uh No, probably they would have
1:02:58
broken the case would have been broken before because then um Ed either Edgar
1:03:03
or Kish pulled out the the scrimshaw and was going to going to put it in his
1:03:09
pocket or something and it hit him, right? He he it was in his hand when he tried to stop the harpoon from falling
1:03:15
and it hit him. Okay. Okay. This is one way to look at things. So, does anyone want to add
1:03:22
something to this? So, I mean, what do you all This is a discussion that you can have. I Well, I would like to say that uh
1:03:29
Chris did seem pretty like, you know, he could be lying, but it did not seem like he had seen Edwin. So, I don't know. I
1:03:35
don't know if they're in on it together. There also has been some kind of funky magic stuff going on. Um, that whale is
1:03:42
really creepy and following us and for a while it didn't seem like it was and only LM Miller was convinced of it. Uh,
1:03:49
and that that kind of stands out to me. I also had that creepy experience on the beach. So, um I I think that there's
1:03:58
just some sort of a cult stuff going on. Um and I think maybe that there was like
1:04:04
a time limit in place and they didn't time limit and so because of that, the
1:04:10
angry whale spirit killed Edwin um and left the scrimshaw in his wound as a as
1:04:16
a reminder. That's a different but similar angle. Yes. Um,
1:04:21
we do we do Okay, go for it. I think first off, uh, we have the story
1:04:29
of the deep reaver and its trip throughout the, you know, world selling
1:04:35
pieces of its multiple limbmed whale that apparently founded the this town
1:04:42
and this community. I will say wealth. Yeah, there was it was a whaling community, but this
1:04:48
brought a lot of wealth into town. The strange creature the uh the deep reaver brought in.
1:04:54
Then we have uh I forget his name, Willisby, what whatever his name was.
1:04:59
The man who killed 13 people because them below demanded it.
1:05:04
Uh which apparently nobody convicted him for it despite all the evidence. and he
1:05:11
lived out his days after having killed a bunch of people for the prosperity of
1:05:17
the town essentially because it came they those below demanded it right whether or not this is a real thing he
1:05:26
believed it and of all the people in this town Mr.
1:05:31
George Pollard, the owner of this place, yes, is in financial difficulty, is he not?
1:05:38
He needs money. It certainly seems, it certainly seems like the museum is in financial difficulty. Yes.
1:05:43
And it's therefore draining him, and he seems to be very, very intense about
1:05:48
keeping the history of the place, which means he would certainly have known about the murder and the supposed method
1:05:56
for it. What if he decided he needed to plate them from below and give them what
1:06:04
they demanded, what was promised to them? Is he going to murder 12 more people? Maybe.
1:06:09
Okay. Well, we have to stop him now. I'm not done. I I'm not done because we do know that
1:06:16
the whale if it is I I I don't feel that it would keep watching us if Kish and Ed
1:06:25
were and Edgar were the ones behind it. Kish is over there. Edgar is dead. Is
1:06:31
the cousin doing it? And that's another thing. Both the cousin and Edgar heard
1:06:37
these sounds from the deep. Maybe that's why maybe there's people in this town
1:06:43
that are tied to this. We don't know who was on the boat. We don't have enough evidence of that. So really anybody in
1:06:51
this town could be descended from someone who was on that boat. Uh and a jury is 12 people and yet he killed 13.
1:06:59
Yes. Mhm. So, it is my opinion that whether
1:07:04
or not there is actually anything supernatural here and I can't say uh
1:07:09
they believe it and they've believed it enough to murder someone in an attempt
1:07:14
to fix their problem. It could be something as simple as trying to get some publicity. You know, a grizzly
1:07:19
murder in this museum. People are going to want to come see the grace of grizzly
1:07:25
murder happened. M. And that's money. They could even charge
1:07:30
for it if they wanted to. They could charge admission. Do they charge admission normally? Yes, they do.
1:07:36
So, this could all be a setup to bring up some kind of sense of mystery and
1:07:43
foroding to to make money. Or it could be a man who actually believes that he
1:07:49
needs to plate something from underwater or both. um if we take the the missing
1:07:57
key that could you know we already established that could be posit um in
1:08:02
fact he could actually have a whole group of people working with him including perhaps
1:08:08
uh Mr. I want to say Augustus but I know that wasn't his last name Ambrose Mr. Ambrose the moneyman uh perhaps
1:08:15
yeah was it it was Abselam okay Abselon Cornelius Absalam Mr. Absalam could very well be involved
1:08:22
in this group. The whole town there could be multiple people in this town involved in it. Okay. But you're going to need to um
1:08:29
show how the clues support your theory. Well, I mean ultimately which of the which of these clues do you
1:08:34
think? I like I said I think the fact that Pard is involved in some way because you know
1:08:40
he is this place is bleeding money so he needs to do something. Yes. Um so yes that's the financial documents.
1:08:47
Um, we know that he got something, some urgent letter from the museum, hi mucky
1:08:54
mucks from Washington, which might mean that he's in danger of it being closed. Uh, we know that he's got these
1:09:00
documents, you know, that just out. Someone left them for Katherine to find.
1:09:05
Uh, which is a little odd. She found them. She she found them on her desk so she doesn't they were misdelivered or
1:09:12
Yeah. Someone just left them on her desk. And she, you know, that could have been as simple as a mistake or it could
1:09:18
have been someone deliberately attempting to tip her off. Um, so that
1:09:23
happened. Uh, Edgar and his cousin are, you know, apparently have a special
1:09:29
connection involving things underwater that they can hear, which ties back into
1:09:35
the idea that the original murders take that took place like I more than 100
1:09:41
years ago now. I don't remember the actual time. 1893. So like 120 something years ago. Uh
1:09:49
those murders were in behest of them that lived underwater them that below
1:09:54
that demanded it. If Pard is doing this as a hoax, that'd be an excellent one to
1:10:01
pick up on because it's famous. The man got away with it. Um, if it's real, then
1:10:08
killing Ed, you know, Edgar might be magically powerful because he's somehow
1:10:13
connected to all this. Um, in terms of I believe, uh, we've also got this weird
1:10:20
scrimshaw mask that you found inside the wound and did not tell us about until just now, which I think is a little
1:10:26
weird. You should have mentioned it before now. It's a kind of pulling stuff out of my pocket and I remembered it.
1:10:32
It's a scrimshaw. It's very small. It's about 2 in long that has a carving of a
1:10:37
mask. Besides the carving of the mask, what is it like? Does it have any shape to it? Um,
1:10:42
like it's shaped like a knife or just like a chunk of bone. It's kind of I mean it's kind of
1:10:48
arrowshaped, kind of triangular but long. But on the end of it, the edge is
1:10:53
jagged. So, it's uh smooth on one end, but jagged like it's been broken on the other.
1:10:58
I mean, for all we know, this is what was intended to kill him. Mhm. I I just still don't understand. I don't
1:11:05
know why the the whale is watching us. Uh and and why the harpoon was involved.
1:11:11
Uh you would think there'd be other ways to have killed him, but the harpoon is very definitely not something your
1:11:17
average person could kill him with. And is in terms of the two of them carrying it up and then one of them dropping it
1:11:25
on the other. I I mean that's almost too easy. Like you almost kind of feel like
1:11:30
you have to believe in magic more than you believe the Keystone Cops thing. But but you might be right and I might be
1:11:37
wrong. I don't know. But I know that I am freaked out by this place and that and is the whale now that we've moved
1:11:42
into the other room. Is the whale still following us as I look up? Its head is turned towards you. Yes. But
1:11:48
you don't you don't see it moving. It's just the head is turned towards you.
1:11:54
Somehow that head keeps turning to follow us. How is that possible? If if
1:11:59
it's Edgar and his boyfriend Kish, maybe they loosen they put a motor on it and it's just swaying.
1:12:05
Well, that would mean all three of us are seeing. Do we have group hysteria?
1:12:11
I could. You're going to go away from us and then look at it? I don't think. No, I mean I could have group hysteria.
1:12:16
If there's a cable missing, it could be slowly swinging back and forth. All right, I'm going to walk directly
1:12:22
away from the two of them. Okay. When I look up again, is it now looking at me? Give me an occult role. Actually,
1:12:31
Mitch would be the best at this, but uh he's not the one doing it. So, he's not the one doing it.
1:12:37
So, that's uh sensitivity, I assume. Sensitivity. Yes. I'm sorry. I This is my worst role.
1:12:44
This is everyone's worst roll except for Mitch. Okay. Uh four and a five is nine. Minus
1:12:50
one is eight. Okay, that's a success. As you walk in there, you do see its head turns towards
1:12:56
you and then it stays. You see it turn. Turn. I'm now going to say I'm I'll just
1:13:02
text over to do it. I actually don't know if either of you have phones. Um but I
1:13:09
I'll point up telling them to like you know it's up to them if they do look. What's the whale?
1:13:14
And I come back over. Was it looking at you? Was it? Was it? Um hm. So neither of you saw it
1:13:23
move, but you did see when uh when Ludm Miller said to look at it, it was
1:13:30
looking towards Ludm Miller and it had been looking towards the group.
1:13:35
Oh, who's holding this Grimshaw right now? Not me. Me. I'm pretty sure it's Mitch. Yeah,
1:13:42
maybe it doesn't like cat. I think we have to kill Lud Millow. Good luck to you.
1:13:49
Uh, testing your theory then. Louisa, here. I pulled Balthazar out. Go over there,
1:13:55
then look up. Hey, Balthazar. How are you today?
1:14:04
All right. Uh, so give me a sensitivity role. Uh, Bordy, if you are in fact
1:14:10
taking the cat and moving away. Oh, I'm giving the cat to Louisa. Oh, to Louisa. Okay. So, Louisa, same
1:14:17
thing. sensitivity role. I mean, he can make one too to see if he still sees Louis. I'm not Louis.
1:14:23
My character sheet has um vanished. Well, your default your default negative
1:14:29
one on sensitivity. Everyone is y except you know 40. So, we got five and a two minus one is
1:14:37
six. Uh six is a failure. The uh you don't see anything move.
1:14:42
So, either it's not following the cat or you just didn't see it or don't want to see it. probably don't want to see
1:14:48
no one wants to see a skeleton moving at this point. I really am convinced this is some sort of a culty magic
1:14:55
stuff. Well, we do have to figure out. So, someone's got to put the clues together
1:15:01
and make a theorize role. So, we just amongst the three of you have to decide
1:15:07
what's your theory going to be in the end. Yeah, I'm still sticking with my original theory
1:15:12
that they were trying to they had an idea about the exhibit and the harpoon
1:15:17
thing was a terrible accident. Yes, I'm I'm I'm more on uh Ludm Miller's
1:15:22
side between the two just mostly because Chris seemed really convinced that like
1:15:27
really sincere and not having seen Edwin Edgar.
1:15:33
Um, yeah, we do we do have to come to a consensus on this one and decide who's going to roll for it.
1:15:39
I mean, I would like Morty to roll for it since probably has the best chance. Okay. Um,
1:15:45
well, if we've got two two versus one, then um, is is it a sensitivity role for this
1:15:53
one or is it different? It's it's not a sensitivity roll. Um, it's just seven minus the clues we we
1:16:00
count we put in. Um, so it's roll minus the complexity of the mystery plus the
1:16:06
number of clues you have worked into your theory. And if we all use one of the two crowns,
1:16:12
if all of you use a crown, you can force a success. But everyone has to do it.
1:16:17
Okay. Well, um, cuz we should have wait nine nine.
1:16:22
Uh, let's see. Well, it's it depends on clues that you have worked into your
1:16:28
theory to figure out what fits together. Ah, okay. Okay. Okay. It's not just total clues found.
1:16:34
It's not just total clues. It's which clues go into your theory. Those add to your count. Um, so I think
1:16:41
Lud Mills theory. Um, wow. I'm kind of lost. I think one bloody scrimshaw
1:16:47
and the uh financial reports because money issues uh the envelope marked
1:16:54
urgent uh the murders in 1893.
1:17:01
Um so I think we have four clues towards that one. Yes.
1:17:06
No. Uh also the uh scrimshaw thing itself I worked that in. Yes. That's Yeah. So, scrimshaw,
1:17:14
financial reports, empty envelope, and the murders. Whale. Okay, we'll call the whale a clue. Yes.
1:17:21
Yes. Um, the fact that it's physically impossible to just throw a harpoon at a
1:17:26
person. No, you could you could use you could use you could also use the
1:17:32
harpoon like a spear and stab someone with it. I mean, it could just be a a stabby weapon.
1:17:38
All right. I mean, um, so I'll give you So, the whale moving can be a clue
1:17:43
though because someone's obviously been messing with it somehow. Um, so that including the whale and the
1:17:49
murders would be five by my account. I mean, I also mentioned the key and the
1:17:54
fact that Oh, no, I didn't. I did not mention that. My bad. Um, I do think that Yeah, I don't have a
1:18:01
way to work the uh that doesn't make any Yeah, I don't have anything for that. So, yeah, five if we use mine. Uh,
1:18:06
I mean we we can cuz I think that puts us at what minus two total cuz it's the difficulty seven. Yes. Okay.
1:18:12
But I'm willing to I'm willing to do a crown of the void because I haven't done one yet. It's up to you guys if you don't want to
1:18:17
do all it. Yeah. We don't all do nothing. Everyone has to if you want to increase
1:18:23
it then everyone has to use their crown or he could do the gold mystery.
1:18:30
You can do that once per game. Yeah, we did that. You can only you can't do that every five minutes. I'm
1:18:36
sorry, guys. One and done. I thought everyone could do it once, but that's my bad. I didn't understand. But
1:18:41
yeah, we we can all do crowns or we can just roll and see what happens. Um uh do we have
1:18:46
roll roll and see what happens and then Yes. Roll first. Am I rolling?
1:18:52
I Yeah, why not? Yep. All righty. We're going with the tiny dice for the tiny screen.
1:18:59
That was a four total. Oh, I that was just that was just
1:19:04
one dice. Whoops. And a six. Like I said, I I'll do a crown of the
1:19:09
void. Well, so that's that's 10 minus 10us plus five
1:19:16
minus seven. Um, right. Yep. So, it should be an eight. Uh, an eight is just barely a success.
1:19:25
I'm going to make it more of a success by putting on the crown of the Everyone has to put on a crown. If you
1:19:30
decide to put on a crown, everyone has to put on a crown. I'm I already committed to it,
1:19:36
so he's just not convinced. Okay. Well, we can just go with the eight. Okay. So, we're saying that George is
1:19:43
our culprit. Correct. He's he's doing all of this in order to
1:19:49
either get people to the museum or to literally do a magical thing. To literally do a supernatural thing to
1:19:56
bring people to the museum or bring Yeah. Okay. Um, oh, actually I might have an additional
1:20:02
clue to add to this. Okay. Cuz you found the envelope in the book that um the patron was looking at.
1:20:10
The only book that was real. Maybe not the only not necessarily.
1:20:15
Maybe he's the one who put those financial papers where they could be found. He certainly wasn't a didn't seem like
1:20:21
he was a big fan of the museum. Possible. But I think the question right now is are you've you've come to the
1:20:28
solution? You do have a successful role for theorize. Do you want to go out and
1:20:34
confront uh George Pard, the owner of the museum? Sure, why not? Or or at least uh tell the police. Pick
1:20:42
a pick a pick an action, guys. Well, he's he was We can tell the police the u
1:20:47
Yeah. the clues and see if they we can tell the police um what we found and see
1:20:53
if they've got anything to add to it. Okay. So, you go into you head back to
1:20:59
the lobby having thought this out, talked it out, and maybe have come to a
1:21:05
confusing confusing idea involving supernatural whales. As you walk out
1:21:10
there, you see um h let's see how many people do we have here. We have a few
1:21:16
people still here. uh you there the cops are kind of have been going around uh talking to everyone
1:21:22
one at a time and at this moment uh George Pard the owner is he's ringing
1:21:27
his hands here looking back and forth a little anxiously he was uh what what do
1:21:34
you want to do the there are three cops here including Sam the deputy and just a
1:21:40
couple of beat cops who are helping take notes and making sure everyone stays orderly. Uh, what is everyone doing? Are
1:21:47
we going to go see uh George? Are we going to go see Sam and get the cops in
1:21:53
here? Or both? I vote Sam. Louise, whatever. Same. Sam.
1:22:00
Okay. So, the lot of you go over to uh to Sam, the deputy. And what how are
1:22:08
you going to explain this to her? That's my question. Oh, boy.
1:22:14
Well, I do have a suggestion. You could just say George George needed money and he thought some scandal would bring in
1:22:20
visitors if you think that possibly explaining uh a haunted whale and an
1:22:26
1893 murder might not make you seem too convincing.
1:22:33
The scandal combined with the combined with the potential for publicity with
1:22:39
the the older murders. Mhm. Of course. Then someone would have to admit to evidence tampering by pulling
1:22:45
the uh No, it's okay cuz I knew out of the No, I knew him. It's okay.
1:22:52
We just We just happened to find this. It was just right there on the floor inside the murder victim's body. It's no
1:22:58
big deal. We knew him. If it's between the murder victim and the murder weapon, it's not evident.
1:23:05
Okay. So, you you go up to Sam and kind of
1:23:10
pull her away from the rest of the crowd. Her deputies are still keeping an eye and um explain this. And at first, she's
1:23:18
looking very dubiously at you. But as you continue to put the pieces out, this this this she's like, "Well, this uh
1:23:26
event does seem to have been a little more desperate for money than previous fundraisers by everyone I have talked
1:23:32
to." And uh you know I did hear that
1:23:37
George recently did a reverse mortgage on his house which is a little desperate
1:23:43
potentially. Um you know I can see I can see this might be I I think your theory
1:23:50
has some legs on it here. Let's I'm going to go talk to him. Uh she goes
1:23:55
over, she collects the other two officers on her way there and approaches George and they wind up walking out in
1:24:02
cuffs. George at this point is just I mean he'd been he'd been looking he
1:24:07
started the evening looking kind of pathetic and desperate. You know, he's like doing his best. Uh and now he's he
1:24:13
looks very bedraggled. You know, his his suit is wrinkled, his face is sweaty,
1:24:20
his hands are pulled behind him awkwardly. Both of ours peeking out of my pocket to
1:24:25
look at him. Definitely not a happy I had to do it. I had to do it. I You
1:24:32
don't understand. You don't understand. I There's only going to be It was the
1:24:38
only way for those that had promised us from below. This was the only way. You
1:24:45
don't. And he goes out continuing to yell things of that nature while
1:24:50
incredulous. the incredulous uh uh remainders of this uh evening
1:24:55
celebration stare on in disbelief. Yeah, that's not creepy at all.
1:25:01
We had talked about he possibly believed what he had read. Well, but I don't think so. I think he was
1:25:08
totally in league with with evil forces. I'm Russian. We just believe in evil forces.
1:25:13
Uh he could have he could have been he might have just thought those were the best things to say. Maybe that will save
1:25:19
the museum in the end if he's arrested for crazy. Well, you know, it I it just
1:25:25
depends on where you want to take the story. Does uh does this save the museum that he was so clearly trying to protect
1:25:32
or uh either way make things worse. Either way, not really not not really
1:25:40
healthy. So, I'm going to say that's our murder done. What do our three murder mavens here do to wind down their day
1:25:47
after a a very confusing day of investigating murder? While you were
1:25:53
standing here in the lobby watching this uh Ludmilla, you turn your head back
1:25:58
towards the uh main display room with the whale. It's It's looking at you.
1:26:04
It's definitely looking at you. I don't ever want to come back to this place.
1:26:09
No, not even a little. Baltazar, don't take this the wrong way, baby, but I'm next time I have to go out, I'm leaving
1:26:16
you home and bringing a different girl. May maybe maybe Triscala or or Sunshine
1:26:22
or Baba Yaga. Maybe Baba Yaga. You think Babi Yaga? Yeah, maybe maybe Bobby Yaga. It's not your fault, boy. But this is
1:26:28
twice now. You you are now the cat for TW murders. We can't I don't want you to
1:26:34
be a three murder cat. I don't I don't want that to happen. Ah, so there you go. Is there anything else anyone wants to do on their on
1:26:40
their way out of here? Is there anything else anyone wants to do to wrap up the night? I'd probably just put on the pallet mask
1:26:46
and go for a walk on the beach. That is a terrible idea, but that does seem like a very you idea. Mitch, tell
1:26:53
the listeners at home what the pallet mask is. The pallet mask. Hereafter, during any
1:27:00
intimate convers, you must make a casual reference to death, dying, the afterlife, or the end of all things, no
1:27:07
matter the subject at hand. So, what was it that you were telling me about bottle caps?
1:27:12
I have been collecting bottle caps for so long. There are so many different types of bottle caps, and you know, they
1:27:18
actually change the material throughout the years. Um, and like they have
1:27:23
different shapes, different groups. Sometimes you pop them off, sometimes you spin them off. Um, one of them I got
1:27:29
and when I look into it, like you know how some some have like the little like little like nice messages that they're
1:27:36
sending to you. Um, I looked into one and I saw a message and I couldn't actually understand what it said and
1:27:42
then I just saw death before me and dying and there was nothing. And then I looked at it again and it said, "Have a
1:27:48
good day." So, I really like collecting bottle caps. That makes sense. Okay. And with that, I think we're gonna
1:27:56
call it a night. I thank you so much for everyone who tuned in to listen to our
1:28:02
uh Mad Cap murder mystery with whales. I think I I think this turned out great. I
1:28:10
did not think the whale was going to become a main character, but here we are. It just happened. When you throw a whale into the middle
1:28:17
of your mystery, a whale skeleton, obviously it's going to be the bad guy. But you don't know, maybe the whale was
1:28:22
just trying to help. go to bed. Maybe, maybe, maybe. And uh that's it. Thank you so much for listening.
1:28:39
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