Shadows in the Smoke S2E6 - "Stay Here Forever"

Shadows in the Smoke S2E6 – “Stay Here Forever”

Kim
Shadows in the Smoke is intended for mature audiences and may contain material that some people find disturbing. Please see the episode description for content warnings, and listen with care.

[Shadows in the Smoke theme]

Kim
Welcome to the Dusk.

[Gentle piano music]

Kim
At the beginning of the Dusk, we do moves that are enacted in the Dusk. Um… Miss Douglas, I would ask would you be doing Moonlight Upon the Waves tonight…

Natalia
I don’t think that I can!

Kim
Dr. Branford, you do have The Resurrectionists that you can invoke today. And you can pick two options. The graverobbers will dig up corpses for that night; during the Dawn Phase, acquire a body part for the Child. The graverobbers will search for other valuables that night; during the Dawn Phase, ask another hunter what they found and add it to your Personal Quarters. A graverobber, either Harley or another, will accompany you during the upcoming Night Phase; take the following Condition: Ghoulish. Any rolls associated with actions the graverobber is helping you with are taken with advantage. Or, you will face no blowback or complications from any criminal activities the graverobbers get up to that night. Which two are we thinking?

Madeleine
I don’t wanna be full up on Conditions, but I don’t feel comfortable rolling into the Society alone this evening. So I will be bringing a Resurrectionist with me.

Kim
Oh, lovely. So that’s one of your choices, bringing Harley in tow. What is your second choice for Resurrectionists?

Madeleine
No blowback, please!

Kim
[Dejected] Alright…

[Everyone chuckles]

Kim
Dr. Branford, please take the Condition: Ghoulish.

Madeleine
Mmhmm…

Cassandra
Are you full? Do you have three Conditions right now?

Madeleine
Yep.

Kim
Yeah, she’s full.

Madeleine
She full up.

Natalia
Oh…

Cassandra
Oh, baby… I’m nervous.

Kim
T.

T.
Hi!

Kim
The Informals playbook also has a special thing that happens during the Dusk. But with your permission, I’d like to save it for the end of the Dusk Phase.

T.
Permission granted.

Kim
Now, I’d like you all to answer a Question, should you wish to. In this case, I suppose you must, considering this is the final Night Phase where you can answer the Whateley Camera. If you do not resolve the Whateley Camera tonight, it falls into the hands of the Mastermind.

T.
Mm… Let’s not.

Natalia
I would like to answer the Whateley Camera so bad, you have no idea.

[Everyone laughs]

Kim
For many reasons! Not just because you and Miss Thanero are currently trapped in the Void?

Natalia
… You have some idea. [Laughs]

Kim
Alright. Let’s go into the Clues that you have gathered for the Whateley Camera. They are as follows:

A grey door perfectly rendered in paint on the wall of the Society Obscura. It appears open when photographed. Evidence found in hieroglyphics that the Whateley Camera existed before there were even cameras. Penelope Levy, in the Fragrant Void, told you that a script for a play was particularly important. This play being something called The Ecstasies of the Pythia. Found in the pockets of Maesie Douglas: a cinnabar pendant necklace, the clasp broken. You’ve gathered via dreams that there is an aspect to this ritual that requires the moon at the highest point in the sky. A reoccurring dream of a door in the Society Obscura. A breeze can be faintly felt beyond it. And then two Clues regarding the model, or the subject being photographed. The first, a photographer’s model being lit in a way where they cast no shadow. And secondly, the model being viewed or seen via a reflection.

Your Question is: what circumstances will cause someone photographed by the camera to disappear? It is a Complexity 8.

Natalia
Okay. So. My pitch, in essence, is that you must make it the most convoluted set up possible in order to take a picture of someone. [Laughs]

Kim
Sure.

Natalia
That is the crux of it! But the way I fit the Clues into this… So, it has a lot to do with things that are and are not, at once. Standing in a doorway that is not a doorway, so like the photo we saw of Penelope was with that door painted behind her. The door in the Society Obscura is not actually a door to the room in the Society, but a prop door in one of the different modeling rooms. So a doorway that is not a door.

A model casting no shadow is accomplished by having the moon positioned directly above them. And there needs to be a connection to the spiritual body, which is sort of more where the Fragrant Void is. So the cinnabar pendant… Cinnabar is an element that has connections with spirituality. And the Pythia is where there was an oracle in Ancient Greece, which is also a connection to beyond this mortal plane. So reading from the Ecstasies of the Pythia is sort of a connection to that spirituality. Similarly, positioning a mirror so that the model is reflected and you’re taking a picture of the reflection and not the model itself.

So the one I can’t fit in, or I don’t know how exactly to fit in, is the hieroglyphics. Evidence that the Whateley Camera existed before there were cameras.

Madeleine
I definitely got you here. So I was thinking along the same lines as things that need to be photographed need to be in a state of duality…

Natalia
Mmhmm.

Madeleine
Or in a state of being not entirely themselves, which allows for them to go into the Void. Which would explain why both you and Ena went in.

Natalia
Mmhmm.

Madeleine
Because Ena is always pretending to be other. And Maesie, you were in Curse of the Deep, where you were partway between…

Kim
Yeah!

T.
Ooh, I like that.

Madeleine
Yourself…

Kim
Miss Douglas is also a creature of two worlds.

Madeleine
Yes!

Cassandra
Big brain.

Madeleine
Cyrus was attempting to end his own life and take a photo. Perhaps trying to capture that perfect moment between two places…

Cassandra
Life and death, yeah.

Madeleine
Hieroglyphics. The camera is literally a case built around the thing. The camera, then, is the container or the vessel that houses it. And then part of what causes… the circumstances that causes people to disappear is that the housing unit is currently broken. The cinnabar clasp, the pendant that is broken…

Natalia
Mmm…

Madeleine
…Literally, the shutter is perpetually open. Which is why the entity is leaking into the Society Obscura.

Kim and T.
Ooh.

Natalia
I love that so much.

Cassandra
That’s really cool! I love that.

Madeleine
And it gives us a thing to fix! [Laughs]

Natalia
Good.

T.
Yeah!

Natalia
Good, good, good.

T.
I like that so much.

Natalia
Mmhmm.

T.
Also, the door being open and a breeze being felt through it, the hinge is broken… So it’s like, all these different manifestations of the thing we need to fix. I love that.

Cassandra
That’s really cool.

Natalia
That’s great.

Madeleine
Also! Cinnabar is mercury…

T.
Mercury sulfite, mmhmm.

Madeleine
Mercury ore. So this could factor into how Branford wants to try to resolve things.

Kim
That’s very interesting. So you’re positing that there is some of the Fragrant Void or some of the Entity within the camera itself, and the camera is simply a box that is containing this thing?

Madeleine
Mmhmm.

T.
I don’t know about “simply.” I like the idea that it is its own kind of Entity that manifests as this thing. So it’s giving us the Clues that the thing is broken. Speaking of, like, the two different states… It’s a war between the ever expanding, and the containment.

Kim
Mmm…

T.
So the contained object is trying to tell us, like, “Hey, something is broken.”

Madeleine
“Fix me!”

T.
“My shutter is broken. Fix it.”

Kim
I like it. So those are the circumstances that will cause someone photographed by the camera to disappear. I have to remind you that whoever is going to be trying to bring Penelope Levy back to the world is going to have to reverse the process…

Natalia
Mmhmm.

Kim
This is going to be a flat roll. You have 8 Clues for a Complexity 8 question…

Natalia
[Sighs]

Kim
I will also remind you, this is a threat that does not have a Threat-related mask.

Natalia
[More sighing]

Kim
I will further remind you. If you wish to bump up the result of this roll, because there is no threat-related mask, you may only do so if everyone here spends a Mask of the Past.

Natalia
I love being in a tight corner!

Kim
Who’s putting dice on the table?

T.
The girls in the Void have gotta…

Madeleine
Yeah, y’all gotta roll.

Cassandra
Oh, god… I didn’t want the responsibility! I didn’t contribute anything to the answer!

T.
Well then you shouldn’t have gone to the Void!

Madeleine
You contributed your body to the Void!

Cassandra
Wow.

Natalia
[Sighs]

Cassandra
Alright, well… Nat? Shall we?

Natalia
I’m not gonna look. I’m so scared right now.

Kim
…Some very, very neutral faces, here.

Cassandra
I got a 3.

Natalia
I got a 1!

Kim
So that’s a 4.

Natalia
[Big sigh]

Kim
So, your conclusion is incorrect. Miss Douglas and Miss Thanero will have to find their way out of the Void by themselves, if at all. And at the end of this Night Phase, the Whateley Camera will fall into the hands of the Mastermind. That is the situation we are in.

T.
You said something about spending Masks though, yeah?

Kim
Yeah. Only if everyone elects to.

Natalia
I… I… I’ll spend… I would like to spend a mask.

Kim
Alright. It has to be unanimous from everybody.

Madeleine
I’m happy to.

Cassandra
I will also spend a mask.

Kim
T?

T.
I’ll spend a mask.

Kim
I’m very here for this. I’m now going to be doing a little bit of the Dusk out of order, for reasons that will become clear very shortly.

So before we get to any of your Mask narrations, once you’ve done those, it will move the success tier of the Whateley Camera to a mixed success. Your answer is correct, however, I introduce an unwelcome complication, or pursuing the resolution will become more difficult.

I will remind you that answering the Whateley Camera unlocks two different opportunities. The first opportunity is the one that resolves the Threat. You do that by reversing the process and bringing Penelope Levy back to this world.

The second opportunity: use the Camera to transport yourself to the Fragrant Void… Uh… Check, for the two of you?

Natalia
Done.

[Everyone laughs]

Kim
And make contact with the Entity there. Doing so gives you access to the special move Voidwalker. Even though only Miss Thanero and Miss Douglas are currently in the Fragrant Void, custom moves belong to Hargrave House as a collective. So this would be a custom move that is available to everyone, not just the individuals who went to the Void.

However, because it is a mixed success, things are more complicated. I feel as though things are already dire enough for my crew that is already currently in the Void.

Cassandra and Natalia
[Nervous laughter]

Kim
So the complication that I have for the folks who are on the other side of the Fragrant Void and trying to enact the ritual is, very simply, the fact that Cyrus Abernathy as well as other members of the Society Obscura are now being partially possessed by the Whateley Camera. And they will not react kindly to you trying to tamper with the Camera or take it out of the Society Obscura, or reverse what the Camera is doing. And they will defend it with their lives, if need be.

Cassandra
Oh, boy…

Madeleine
Mmhmm.

Cassandra
I need the dice to cooperate.

Natalia
We really do.

Kim
So, again, going somewhat out of order, I will now ask what are you all planning to do tonight? I am going to skip the part where I ask are you doing a London Night Phase or a Hargrave House Night Phase. I feel as though that is somewhat decided for us?

[A chorus of “Yes”]

Kim
Alright. So what are we planning to do tonight? Miss Douglas and Miss Thanero, you are somewhat spoken for.

Cassandra
I believe so.

Kim
Dr. Branford?

Madeleine
I think I’m gonna go see where everybody went.

[Everyone laughs]

Kim
Marvelous. And T., who are you gonna be tonight?

T.
Dr. Branford’s gonna need some backup, and Harley isn’t the only Resurrectionist who can join her. I’ll be playing Barrel Staves.

Cassandra
An absolute unit! [Laughs]

Natalia
We’re gonna need one.

Kim
Let us now concern ourselves with our Masks and our prompts. We will begin with The Informals. Not with your mask, but with your Dusk Phase. So T., please tell us what happens during the Dusk Phase, when you are the Informals?

T.
During each Dusk Phase, I narrate a flashback that is specific to each informal. It’s sort of like a Mask of the Past.

Kim
Each Informal can only be chosen once in this aspect, and each of them have unique prompts. So, whose Dusk Phase are we going to be hearing today?

T.
We’ve only met Elsie Willow, so… Figure we can leave her for the Dusk, and find out a little bit more about her.

Kim
Lovely. Please read the prompt.

T.
Narrate a flashback showing the incident that caused you to start selling your body for money.

[Gentle piano music]

T.
[As Elsie Willow ] Tweren’t an incident, really. “Incident” makes it sound like a carriage lost a wheel and trapped some poor idiot under its bulk. An incident makes it sound like it were a bad thing. What I do ain’t bad.

But the first time? It was during the Hunger. I’m not the only one, not by a far cry, whose life was upended by An Gorta Mor. The anguish took all the crops we grew, and left us naught but bland roots. When the blight came, folk had it a lot worse than me.

But a boy’s got to eat. So when that little redcoat caught me bathing in the river, and when I saw that what he saw made his face as red as my own locks, I took him for what he was: opportunity. As my daddo always said, “Opportunity is not a lengthy visitor.” He weren’t on my tongue more than thirty seconds, running his fingers through my hair, before he finished.

He buttoned his trousers and gave me a shiny red apple. Just gave it to me from out of his pocket, like it were nothing. Like he had a whole tree in his pants – which, trust me, he did not.

Poor, sweet thing. But now I had something on him, I. WE both had a taste of something. And I told him if he really wanted me, really wanted to have me, more than just a taste, you’d have to marry me.

Well, he started to argue, tell me they’d never let us. But I said if he mistook me for a natural born English girl in nothing but me nethers, a priest surely would in woman’s weeds.

So next thing I knew, I was an officer’s wife. And little Elijah Willow was Elsie to everyone she met, from then on.

Me husband was conscripted. He was going to be sent off to Mudflat, to be butchered in a foreign land, for a queen who cared nothing about him. Couldn’t have that. Much better to die gently, at home, with a soft pillow for his head.

Did leave me a willow, but I didn’t weep long. The army gave me dead money for him. I took it as payment for performing my wifely duties.

But the money didn’t last long. And a girl’s gotta eat.

Kim
Beautiful. Very well done, T.

Now let us begin the Masks of the Past. Who would like to go first?

Madeleine
Uh, I can go first.

Kim
Please read the prompt.

Madeleine
Narrate a flashback to the happiest day you shared with the person you lost.

[Birdsong. Wind through trees]

Madeleine
We hear them before we see them. Violent giggling. Whole, full body laughs. Gasps for air between. Mouths smacking full of summer fruit, and an occasional cough and sputter as one laughs, coughing up a morsel of what she just ate, only to start riotous laughing again.

As we crest the hill, we see two 8 year olds on a makeshift picnic blanket of their bedsheets and a few stained tablecloths. Their eyes gazing up at the water-colored sky, cheeks round, smiles unfaltering.

[As Dr. Branford] She points, and tells me one cloud is a rabbit. One is a bowl of potatoes. Another is Nanny, when she did her hair nice that one time. Another is our mother. We do not remember what she looked like, but every time she names the clouds, one is always her.

This one quite resembles a cat stuffed into a vase, so I giggle.

She asks me to pick a cloud. I go mopey for a moment and shrug, and say she’s better at pointing them out, so why should I bother?

And without hesitation, she rolls over, her whole body pressed against mine. “Well Pip, how about we pick with our toes?” And she kicks her legs into the sky and thrusts a leg out, desperately trying to get her toes to point as a finger might. “That one is a pirate ship.”

And we both fall into hysterics, rolling, belly laughing, kicking at the sky. Relishing our little world with cloud mothers and absent fathers.

That was the day. There was nothing in it. It was bliss.

Natalia
Narrate a flashback showing you, consumed by sorrow and rage because of your mistreatment.

[Dark harp music]

Natalia
[As Maesie Douglas] It was a late spring day, right on the verge of the summer. Dappled light falling through the leaves, and the warm air kissing my cheek through the open window.

I had finished making up the bed in the guestroom, and I was giving myself a breath of fresh air when I saw her. They had been talking about her return for a few weeks. It seemed remarkable at the time that five months had already passed since the wedding. Monotonous housework had this trick of making all the days run together.

She’d come back to tell her family the news. One hand on her husband’s arm, and the other on her belly. She looked happy. But I’d learned to smile like that, too.

I’d considered throwing myself out the window, then and there. Finally, I’d leave a mess for someone else to clean up. But I couldn’t bring myself to ruin this for her, as well.

[Crashing waves]

Natalia
I found myself back at the shore, panting. I screamed at the rocks and the crests crashing ceaselessly upon them. At the sun beating down on the sand. One foot after another led me into the waves’ numbing embrace. I screamed at the birds circling overhead, and I screamed until all the air left my lungs, and all there was left to breathe was water.

The refracting mosaic of light above me grew smaller and smaller. I finally let myself fall, until falling no longer had meaning. Pitch black on every side, no ripple or tide to give direction.

I never knew the sea could be so empty. I thought I might find it welcoming, as it always had been. This ocean was different to mine. It was harsh and brutal, and biting. I felt my limbs growing stiffer, and the crushing weight of all the water above me. And the tempo in my chest, finally slowing down. I closed my eyes.

And then, I heard the faintest whisper. A voice, cutting through the blackness and the pressure and the salt.

[The groan of the ocean]

Natalia
“This life is precious, my child. Would you squander it, so churlishly, while that thief, that deceiver, lives with your gift in his hands?”

A piercing shaft of pain spiked through my mind. My eyes flew open. My field of vision, illuminated with the bioluminescence of a leviathan compound eye, its source obscured in the darkness.

“The wealth therein does not belong to him. Do you wish to have it returned? Do you wish to punish him for this betrayal?”

I reached a hand toward the hypnotic pulse of my own reflection. Something was wrong, but I couldn’t place it. Slowly, I nodded my head.

“Good. Take this flesh, my love. You are new spawned, of the inky black. And when the pelt is won, return it to the deep.”

I blinked, and the light was gone.

[Crashing waves]

Natalia
And then I was vomiting silver and gasping for air, and shivering and staring at the stars on my back, in the sand.

Cassandra
Narrate a flashback to a scene when the artist destroyed themselves because of your rejection. How did the Masterwork change in order to reflect your cold indifference?

[Eerie, ethereal tones]

Cassandra
“I will not shield you from the consequences,” she says, without looking back. “Not from him, not from yourself, and certainly not from me.”

Then she is gone. The moment she left, the studio seemed to tilt toward the river. The air grew briny, oppressive, as if the Thames itself had crept closer in the dark.

He stood before the canvas, breath stuttering, finally understanding what he had done. Not merely painted a goddess, but placed her in a quarrel older than cities. A silent challenge, flung across water and stone. He had offered her image as a provocation, as tribute. As bait. Guilt surged down on him like a flood.

[The ambience grows darker, more disconcerting]

Cassandra
That night, he did not light the lamps. He took up a palette knife instead, its edge cold and honest, and drew it through the canvas with a single, decisive cut. Not an act of destruction, but of submission.

He worked the wound open, widening it, reshaping the scene within. The pedestal beneath her split and crumbled. The sea no longer clawed upward in frustration. It surged around her, wrapping her in folds that first read as cloth, then as current, then as violence, barely restrained. She stood not untouched, but unyielding, meeting the pressure head on.

Her gaze changed most of all. The softness vanished. What remained was calculation, judgment, the look of a force that had survived family and betrayal, and learned from both. The gold drained to iron and ash. Blues deepened toward black. This was no offering. It was a contest held in perfect stillness. A warning, rendered in oil and blade.

When dawn crept in, he slid down the wall and sat beside it, hollowed out. He never painted again. Not because he had failed, but because he had finally understood the cost of seeing clearly. And he carried that understanding until it quietly erased him, day by day, like light retreating behind fogged glass.

Kim
And now, T. Before you begin, let me specify that the Informals do not have Masks of the Past. They only have Masks of the Future. However, the text does say, “When ever you put on the Janus Mask, mark the next available box.” So they are serving the same role as the Mask of the Past, for the purposes of bumping up an Answer a Question. Can you please read the first Mask of the Future prompt?

T.
The Blood Soaked Portal. Narrate a scene showing an Informal being brutally murdered by the Herald. What does the Herald take from the Informal as a trophy?

[Unsettling ambience]

T.
In the Larder of Hargrave House, the corpuscular pig god Moc’h feels something he has not felt in two thousand years: a presence. A presence that heralds fear. Although this is his domain, he shies away from this presence. Better to not be known, here. Pigs are prey.

[The ambience grows more sinister]

T.
On the stone floor, a silver-dusted fig lays bruised in a bed of glass shards. A figure stoops, dips their fingers in the meat of the fig, and sucks the tender, sweet flesh. And smiles a gleaming, wolfish grin.

[A busy London street]

T.
Across London, Elsie lights the candle in the red glass lantern hanging outside her door, and closes the door gently. She takes four nails and tacks Night and Shadow to the wall above her bed, smoothing out the corners. She pours two mugs of dark beer, takes half the shillings she has left today and drops them into one. Takes a draft of the other, and cuts a heel off a loaf of brown bread. She slathers it in butter and sprinkles a few flakes of salt on it. This, along with the coin-filled mug, she places on the outer sill and closes her window – and the night of London, darkening outside.

She grabs a paring knife off the table, as well as an apple from a bowl. Delicately, gently, she peels the skin of the apple, eats it, and then eats the pale flesh within, seeds and all. Savoring every sweet bite, and chasing it with her beer. She lowers the mug and wipes her mouth with the back of her forearm. She smiles to herself.

[Sinister ambience]

T.
And her neck snaps back as something or someone grabs a fistful of her hair, grabs the paring knife from off the cutting board, and gently rakes it across her throat. For a moment, she has two smiles. And then a trickle of scarlet spills down her front, staining her moth-eaten dress. Her hair, still clenched in the fist of her murderer. Their other fist, still clutching the paring knife, brings it to the roots and begins to hack it off.

There is a brutal killer called The Herald stalking the streets of London. The killer has set their sights on the Hargrave House Informals – either as a way of sending a message to the hunters, or for some other, heretofore unknown, purpose.

Hargrave House is investigating these killings, collecting information from their contacts in Scotland Yard, examining the crime scenes when they’re able. This is happening entirely offscreen. We won’t see the Hunters or any other resident of the house actively investigating the killings, but trust that the Herald will be dealt with in due time. Until then, know that the Informals are doomed. You cannot save them. But you can avenge them, when the time comes.

[An eerie, rumbling woosh]

Kim
Tonight’s Unscene is called The Butler’s Final Rounds.

[Mournful orchestral music]

Kim
Mr. Morel, the Penberthy house butler, is making his rounds when he stumbles upon Fanny, a clearly sick maid. Fanny does not want to report her illness to the stringent housekeeper, Mrs. Howell. What’s more, she only has the drawing room left. Mr. Morel insists she go to bed, and that he can clean the room as part of his rounds. Mr. Morel always takes care of everything, so Fanny does not notice the signs that Mr. Morel’s heart is beginning to fail.

Mr. Morel will not wake in the morning.

Paint the Scene. As he cleans the drawing room, Mr. Morel handles the belongings of different Penberthy children. What fond bit of memory is triggered by each object?

Natalia
As Mr. Morel moves about the room, collecting books to place back onto one of the bookshelves, he runs his finger carefully across the frayed cover of The Owl and the Pussycat. It used to be one of Reggie’s favorites, before he got too old for bedtime stories.

Cassandra
As he moves away from the bookcase and begins to tend to the detritus littering the floor of this room, he finds a toy horse. The one a young cowboy rode across the sweeping lawns of Penberthy house, protecting his younger siblings from the bandits he’d read about in the Illustrated Police News. The horse’s mane is now rife with bows, from the fawnings of the youngest Penberthy daughter. But Mr. Morel’s eyes are drawn to a long scar in the wood of the horse’s handle. His eyes lose focus as he remembers the day the young cowboy tripped in the gravel, sliding and scraping both the toy and the young cowboy’s knees.

His heart flutters in the now, as it did in the then, as he races to lift the boy and straighten his clothes. As the boy’s eyes well with tears, Mr. Morel reminds this young cowboy that it’s not about the fall, but how we choose to rise.

T.
Mr. Morel picks up a toy tin soldier. One of a number of armed forces that fought in the battle of the parlor. But righting its arm in a salute, he remembers his own child: a son who served Her Majesty’s armed forces, and was tragically taken before his time.

Madeleine
As he continues to tidy around the room, he comes across a few scraps of brown parcel paper than had been left over from a present unwrapped earlier in the day. Lionel, the eldest of the children, had returned from being abroad. And his father had given him a necktie. Mr. Morel flashes back to when the boy was but twelve, and he had to stay up late the night before to learn how to tie left handed. Because Mr. Morel is right-handed, but wanted to be able to show the boy how to do it properly. So he stood in the mirror, practiced, and the next day instructed Lionel.

Kim
We shall begin in London proper. Dr. Branford, you have put a call out to Barrel Staves and Harley White of the resurrectionists. Where are you meeting them?

Madeleine
Right on the front steps of the Society Obscura. We have no time!

T.
Barrel Staves steps forward off of the stoop. Gives a nod to Dr. Branford. [Coughs] Coughs into his fist, and then rubs the back of his neck, looking around warily. Something has unsettled him.

Dr. Branford (Madeleine)
Gentlemen, I thank you for attending my call this evening. This will not be easy work. We are to retrieve some of our compatriots. Hopefully put an end to some nonsense happening inside this building, and… hopefully not draw too much attention to ourselves in the process. Did you bring any tools?

Kim
Harley White brandishes a crowbar.

T.
Barrel Staves puts forward a shovel.

Dr. Branford (Madeleine)
We might be digging through things other than the earth this evening, but I find they will be very useful.

Harley White (Kim)
Mum, do you mean to say that some people in this fancy parlor have kidnapped members of Hargrave House?

Dr. Branford (Madeleine)
In a way. We need to retrieve them. And if anyone gets in the way, I hope the two of you will get in their way first.

Barrel Staves (T.)
No digging?

Dr. Branford (Madeleine)
We’ll see.

Madeleine
She smiles, and puts a hand on the door.

Dr. Branford (Madeleine)
I’m afraid we don’t have much time to chat about this. We need to retrieve a few plates. We need to ensure nobody gets in the way. And when I tell you to hold your breath, hold it.

T.
Barrel Staves swallows hard, at that. Something about holding his breath makes him seem more nervous than the idea of rescuing kidnapped people.

[Coughs] Coughs again, a little bit.

Dr. Branford (Madeleine)
Well gentlemen, onward and inward.

T.
Barrel Staves wrenches open the door, realizing he had dragged it the wrong way, so he broke the hinges. Picks it up and puts it to the side, and then gestures in for you to enter first.

Barrel Staves (T.)
Mum.

Madeleine
Branford nods, and steps inside.

T.
After Harley enters, Barrel Staves picks up the door, looks into the night once more, still unsettled, and fixes it back on its hinges.

[Eerie, eldritch ambience]

Kim
Dr. Branford, you and your whole crew are, much like Miss Douglas and Miss Thanero earlier today, now completely cast in sepia tones. The Society Obscura is dark, and lit entirely by candles. You see a series of them on the stairs, leading up deeper into the Society Obscura. And you’re hearing chanting behind a closed door.

[Abandoned, airy ambience]

Kim
Meanwhile, in the Void.

Miss Douglas and Miss Thanero, it is impossible to determine how long you have been here. At least you are here together. For a long while, you see nothing around you. Just this thick haze, these shadows and mist. And then, without warning – and yet, also very gradually – you find yourselves in a strange library, with tall shelves made of petrified wood vanishing upward into the darkness. Books bound in skin and metal rest in thick coatings of dust, their pages imparting unbearable clarity and dread. You smell scents of parchment, rose petals, and bitter herbs.

Paint the Scene. In what ways are you not yourself while you are in the Fragrant Void?  

Cassandra
For Ena, being the tactician that she is… In here, she is lighter. Almost possessing a sense of whimsy that is not who she is, when she is on the normal plane. And I think we see her moving about this room almost… happy, in a way we have never seen her. Almost as if she’s drunk with it. And she’s just running her hands over all of these varied textures of these books and the wall.

Natalia
Maesie, in complete contrast, looks dead here. She is pale. She is dripping water, that seems to come from nowhere in particular. And her eyes are fully black.

Maesie opens her mouth to talk, and water pours forth.

Miss Douglas (Natalia)
[Coughs] Oh… Haven’t been here before.

Miss Thanero (Cassandra)
No, I should say I haven’t been here, either. Fascinating, isn’t it? Look at the sky.

Miss Douglas (Natalia)
There’s no sky.

Miss Thanero (Cassandra)
You don’t see it?

Cassandra
And Ena is standing in the middle of this room, looking up into this vanishing darkness. And just twirling.

Miss Douglas (Natalia)
Ena. I think we need to go.

Miss Thanero (Cassandra)
What’s the rush, little pearl? It’s so nice, here.

Natalia
Maesie comes up to Ena and just delicately grabs one hand. Maesie’s freezing.

Miss Douglas (Natalia)
Ena, we can’t stay here.

Cassandra
The smile on Ena’s face falters, a little bit.

Miss Thanero (Cassandra)
But why not? It’s so nice. We could just stay here forever.

Kim
Miss Thanero, as you say this, you notice that one of the books on the shelves has your own name inscribed upon it.

Cassandra
Ena is not in her right mind, and doesn’t think about the potential threat that this might be. She notices it, lets go of Maesie’s hand, and pulls it off the shelf.

Kim
Do you open it?

Casandra
Yes, I think so.

Kim
It is the story of your life, up to this point. It is unfinished. And as you read it, your hand starts drifting to a quill. And you start bringing it to the page. There is such an urge to pen the final chapter of your existence, before you succumb to oblivion.

Miss Douglas, there’s a volume bearing your name, as well.

Natalia
No. Maesie does not want to read that. She knows where her story ends, and she doesn’t want to see it.

Miss Douglas (Natalia)
Ena. Please. We have to go. And we have to go now.

Cassandra
Ena is fascinated by this book. And is just twirling the quill in her hand, thinking about what she might like to write as the ending to a very long life. And I believe she starts to move that quill much closer to the paper.

Natalia
Maesie grabs her wrist.

Miss Douglas (Natalia)
Ena, think of Hutch. We have things we need to do, that we cannot do if we stay here. Please.

Cassandra
Ena turns and looks at Maesie, taking in this very dead, soaking wet version of her. Looks at her hand around her wrist, snaps the book closed, and shoves it into Maesie’s chest and pushes her back, disconnecting her from her.

Miss Thanero (Cassandra)
I wouldn’t deign to touch me, little pearl. You won’t like what happens if you do that again.

Natalia
Maesie holds the book tightly. And despite the dampness of Maesie, the book remains perfectly fine.

Miss Douglas (Natalia)
Ena, please, I don’t… I can’t stay here. And I don’t plan to leave you, because I cannot leave you. But you have to come with me. And I don’t know what to do to make you understand that this place… It makes you think that you want to be here.

Miss Thanero (Cassandra)
But little pearl, what if it’s right? What if we could just be here, not have to worry about Hutch and all of the many things that plague us on the other side? What if here is peace? Wouldn’t you like some peace? You look like you want peace.

Miss Douglas (Natalia)
I have seen peace. I know what it is to cease. I know it’s what you want. I know your life has been long, and your life has been hard. But you’re not done. There are people who need you.

Miss Thanero (Cassandra)
Oh, I don’t think anyone needs me.

Miss Douglas (Natalia)
I need you.

Natalia
Maesie drops the book and comes to Ena, and takes her by the shoulders.

Miss Douglas (Natalia)
I need you.

Kim
Miss Douglas and Miss Thanero, you are both suddenly aware that you are not alone in this space. Moving through these tall stacks is a long figure draped in tattered silk veils. Its true form obscured.

[Ghostly whispering]

Kim
Whispers emanating from beneath the fabric. Whispers that are invading your thoughts. Whispers that are stirring this deep, irrational dread. Whispers from the Entity within the Fragrant Void.

[Shadows in the Smoke theme]

Kim
Shadows in the Smoke is a Kitten Marlowe production. This episode was edited and produced by Kim Dalton, and featured a theme song by Jake Pierle. You can find out more about us by visiting KittenMarlowe.com, signing up for our newsletter, or following us on socials. For Discord access, exclusive cast talkbacks, ttrpg materials, and more, visit Patreon.com/KittenMarlowe and join our East End Ghouls, our Kitten Marlowe patrons, in supporting artist-driven storytelling. Thanks for listening.