The Strangford Expedition Ep 4 - "Never to Be Seen Again"

The Strangford Expedition Ep 4 – “Never to Be Seen Again”

[The Strangford Expedition theme]

[An empty cave. The tinkle of ice]

Kim
After descending the icy steps into the crevasse, the crew of the Fang has found themselves at the maw of twisting ice caves. It’s very quiet down here, apart from the groan of the ice walls, and the tinkle of glass.

As you reach the bottom of this crevasse, Lars takes a look at the entrance to the cave, looks at the rest of you.

Lars Hegelund (Kim)
Well then, shall we set out?

Einar Gunnarson (Robert)
Lead the way.

Kim
He ruffles Wolfgang’s coat and starts heading into the ice caves. And you see the rest of this rescue party – Tookoolito, Dr. DeLanvier, first mate Redwell… Perhaps a little reluctantly, on his part. Start filtering in and following behind Lars, leaving the three of you at the entrance to the cave.

Madeline
I’ll pull up beside Ravi.

Maeve Lindgren (Maeve)
It’s amazing where we end up following the captain, huh?

Ravi Falkenberg (Vyn)
That is certainly one way to put it. Um… I never expected this far, though. Maeve, do you mind if I inquire, how far did you come from this? Like, where’s your starting place?

Maeve Lindgren (Madeline)
[Sighs] Um… I suppose you could say very far, in terms of how long I’ve been traveling. It’s not such a good story. I was wondering, actually, for you. Why… Forgive me for saying so. You do not seem that equipped to be here, and I worry about you. What is bringing you here?

Ravi Falkenberg (Vyn)
Oh, well… I was extremely riveted by the Captain. And I wanted to build a portfolio, and look where we are! [Chuckles] Very interesting backdrop. Adventures. Stories to tell. Life was a little boring, before this. I think I have too much adventure, now.

Maeve Lindgren (Madeline)
Yes. How do you feel with danger? Do you have people you need to go home to?

Ravi Falkenberg (Vyn)
Um… Don’t we all?

Madeline
Maeve looks down.

Ravi Falkenberg (Vyn)
Oh. Sorry. I didn’t mean to offend, or…

Maeve Lindgren (Madeline)
No, no, no. You did not offend. It is… it… it… It is my fault. It is my…

Ravi Falkenberg (Vyn)
Einar! Do you have any riveting stories of… epic tales of heroism that I should be feeling envious of?

Einar Gunnarson (Robert)
In my experience, heroes do not last very long. It is those who put in the work, who sweat the labor, who do not seek glory. They are the ones that make the world run. Heroes look pretty for a moment, but they are a flame that burns too quickly.

I was from the small port of Akureyri, and I met many men who wanted to be heroes, sailing out of there. Those that returned rarely left again. So my advice, boy, is to put one foot in front of the other. And keep walking forward. Sometimes, that is all you can do.

Ravi Falkenberg (Vyn)
I will keep that in mind.

Maeve Lindgren (Madeline)
Einar, do you come from many men like you, or are you sort of alone? You have such a, uh… Philosophical way of dealing with these things. It’s… It is odd to me, to be honest.

Einar Gunnarson (Robert)
If I have a philosophy, it is one born out of cold nights, under starry skies. It is not a thinking man’s philosophy, but a working man’s one. It is a philosophy that keeps you as safe as you can be, in the most dangerous situations. Hardly a philosophy. But yes, I come from a long line of people like this. All the way back to Viking times. We are the ones who left the mainland, sailed off for adventure, and instead found the ocean, and the ice, and the stars.

Maeve Lindgren (Madeline)
Did you ever have children?

Einar Gunnarson (Robert)
I have been at sea so long that if I have children, I have never met them. It is not a life that, uh… leads to a lot of romance.

Maeve Lindgren (Madeline)
Ah. You are perhaps lucky, to not know them.

Einar Gunnarson (Robert)
That sounds like you have a tale to tell.

Maeve Lindgren (Madeline)
I have been thinking a lot about… Why I’ve come out here, since I went out with the doctor, and I tried to save him. I guess I do want someone to know. In case something happens to me, and one of you can get out.

It is not quite right to say I have a family. I… I got pregnant quite young. Just with a boyfriend. And we got married, because that is what you do. I was selfish. I was… I liked to go out. I liked to enjoy in the more raucous things. I got involved in drinking, pills, whatever. Whatever was there, I did all of it. I was too immature and selfish enough to realize that after you have children, you cannot live only for yourself anymore.

A few years into my son’s life, he found a box that I had that was full of the things I used to go out with. And I was passed out in the house from whatever stupid night I had before, so I as not watching him.

The last thing I remember was my husband coming in and screaming at me. Of course. Of course, because how could I? And he lifted our son, took him out to try and get him help. And I… I knew in that moment that I was the worst thing that could have happened to him. So I left. I fled. And I continued down whatever bullshit I was doing, until I met Captain Strangford and he helped me get out of that sort of hole that I was digging for myself.

I don’t know where they are. I don’t know if they are alive. I don’t… But I would ask, if I may, if when you get out, perhaps you could look for a Lindgren family. And if there are any rewards there to be reaped from all of this, to maybe just make sure they are okay. And I maybe cannot ask that, and I apologize.

Einar Gunnarson (Robert)
It is right, to make our final requests in this moment. For even under the best of circumstances, an expedition such as this one is dangerous. And these are hardly the best of circumstances. How about you, Ravi? If you do not make it, do you have a letter you wish to pass on to your parents? Brother? Sister?

Ravi Falkenberg (Vyn)
No. I do have a request, though. If you could, either of you, take my work to, um… It’s a place, it’s fairly recent, I don’t know if you would know it or if you could navigate… The Society Obscura? It’s all I’ve ever wanted, was to have my works displayed.

Einar Gunnarson (Robert)
My request is also a simple one. Do not let me be buried under the ice. If I die, I want to lay under the stars.

Maeve Lindgren (Madeline)
I think we can do that.

Einar Gunnarson (Robert)
But enough talk of death. We should keep moving forward. One step after the other.

Robert
He pats Ravi very firmly on the back.

Einar Gunnarson (Robert)
Right, boy? One foot in front.

Ravi Falkenberg (Vyn)
[Winded] …Yeah. Oh… I think my spine is gone.

Maeve Lindgren (Madeline)
You must toughen up. I do… You are a sweet boy. Please do some push ups, or something.

Einar Gunnarson (Robert)
Yeah, listen to Maeve.

Ravi Falkenberg (Vyn)
I think my jog was enough.

Kim
Lovely scene, everyone. That sounded to me like the Gather move. I’ll go ahead and read it. Once per game when you share your personal history or what motivated you to come on this journey with at least one other explorer, you may each clear an appropriate Condition. So I’ll go around the table. Einar, what Condition would you like to clear, here?

Robert
Well, I only have one, at the moment. Watched by the Isigaruk. And I think, you know, after that conversation, he is feeling a little more confident, a little more grounded. So, goodbye Watched by the Isigaruk.

Kim
Maeve, what about you?

Madeline
I think this is the first time Maeve has actually spoken about this, ever. So I think that feeling of Haunted is maybe a little more lifted off of her shoulders, and she’s going to clear Haunted.

Kim
And Ravi.

Vyn
I think staying put, staying with the company, Runaway can evaporate.

Kim
As your little trio plus Wolfgang make your way through these ice caves, you’ve never quite been able to see the rest of the rescue party in front of you. You’ve just heard their footsteps. They always seem to be just right out of sight. Like, just going around a turn as you come upon it. It’s hard to tell, especially underground, exactly how long you are walking.

[Soft, dreadful ambience creeps in]

But at a fork in the cave, Wolfgang pads past you, towards the fork, and starts sniffing and licking at a figure that looks to be hunched over. Kind of crouched, maybe. Like he’s inspecting something. And as you draw closer to this figure, you recognize him to be the frozen, very dead body of Lars Hegelund.

Maeve Lindgren (Madeline)
How long have we been away from them? That does not…

Madeline
I look around him. I want to see how he has died, what has happened to him.

Kim
Ooh, okay. This sounds like a Find Clues with Reason. Ooh, I think I’m actually going to put this at disadvantage because of Bad Luck.

Madeline
Hundred percent.

[Rolls dice] 6.

Kim
Maeve, as you circle this body to inspect it, you notice that Lars is hunched over on the ground. And he is clutching at his stomach. And you notice a knife stuck in his gut.

Paint the Scene: How do you know that this knife belonged to Captain Strangford?

Robert
So the first thing that’s obvious about this knife is that it is a sailor’s knife, with a blade that folds out of one end, and a marlin spike that folds out of the other.

Madeline
Maeve got it for him.

Vyn
And following the coattails of the most obvious answer, it was monogrammed as part of the gift.

Kim
This is not a Clue. It is just interesting context, I suppose.

Madeline
Maeve will remove the knife.

Kim
No fluid gushes out of Lars’s wound. His blood is far too frozen for that.

Maeve Lindgren (Madeline)
He is here. Or his body is. We’re going the right direction.

Ravi Falkenberg (Vyn)
And you’re not worried that we’re not next?

Maeve Lindgren (Madeline)
Oh, we might be next. But to be honest, this is something I’ve been running towards for a long time.

Ravi Falkenberg (Vyn)
Okay… Oh… okay…

Einar Gunnarson (Robert)
Do not be afraid, Ravi. People are easy to deal with.

Robert
And Einar pulls Redwell’s pistol out of his jacket, and hands it to Ravi.

Einar Gunnarson (Robert)
It is simple. Just point and shoot. Like a camera.

Ravi Falkenberg (Vyn)
I don’t think that the same principle applies, but I will try to…

Vyn
And just puts it in his seabag.

Maeve Lindgren (Madeline)
Stick close to us. We can help you.

Kim
Ravi, please add Redwell’s pistol to your seabag.

Madeline
Can I add Strangford’s knife to my seabag?

Kim
Yeah, sure, why not?

Madeline
Nice!

Kim
As you leave behind the body of Lars Hegelund, the man knew the ice the best. Possibly your best hope for survival… It’s so cold down here. How are we seeing that manifest?

Madeline
Maeve has started to limp. And if you could see under her boots, you would see all of her toes have blackened. But the left foot is about halfway gone, and black. As well as the tip of her nose.

Robert
Despite his best efforts to hide it, Einar’s breath has grown ragged and sharp. And while he may muffle the noise, you can see it in the mist that comes out of his mouth every time he breathes out. The clouds are just a little too small. A little too rapid.

Vyn
Despite his youth, Ravi is getting slower and slower from the physical exertion. And the emotional standpoint that he could possibly be walking towards his death. More energy is being wasted through crying.

Kim
What are you all doing as you make your way through these caves?

Maeve Lindgren (Madeline)
Captain?

Madeline
I’m not being too loud, but I’m testing a little. His knife was just here. I wanna see if I can hear anything.

Kim
Find Clues with Presence.

Madeline
Is it disadvantage because I’m Bad Luck?

Kim
Yeah, I think so.

Madeline
[Chuckles] Okay.

[Rolls dice] Okay. 7.

Kim
Einar, I feel like your whole crew is trying to stay a little close together, but I like the notion that we arrive at a fork in the road and you’ve gone to investigate a little bit of the fork up to a point, before going back to report to the rest of your group. So what are you doing down here?

Robert
Einar is taking a sneaky moment to pull his flask out of his pocket, and warm his bones a little bit while the other two are investigating whatever they’re investigating.

Kim
Alright. As Einar steels away to try to find some liquid courage and Maeve is calling out down an ice tunnel, Ravi, what are you doing?

Vyn
Between sniffles, Ravi is crouched low, kind of like slightly above Wolfgang, and is gonna fiddle out his telescope – the kid sized one – to look ahead. Not for the Captain, but for any danger in general.

Kim
I love that. Find Clues with Reason, please. And because you are invoking your toy telescope, you may take this roll with advantage. Which is good, because I’m probably going to put it at disadvantage, because you are Mother’s Baby Boy, and you are invoking a child’s toy in this moment, so that is a flat roll.

Vyn
[Laughs] Alright. Okay, well my reason is 0, but that is a 7.

Kim
Maeve, you call out down this tunnel, and you hear your own voice echo in return. Nothing answers you. But you do come across something very curious, buried in the snow, just the top of it sticking out. It is a sealed bottle of brandy, with a note attached. The note reads, “If you find this, tell him I was right.”

Madeline
Hmm…

Kim
But then you do hear something echoing down this tunnel. It sounds like a baby crying.

Madeline
Maeve takes a moment, a breath, and goes hobbling as fast as she can to go see what it is.

Kim
You come upon a small, wriggling little bundle of cloth, alone in an ice tunnel.

[Quiet, menacing ambience]

Madeline
She doesn’t rush to pick it up. She’s kind of afraid to touch it. But she will just get closer, and see if she can see anything inside.

Kim
Maeve, you pull aside this cloth, and you see, tenderly wrapped in a blanket – swaddled, one could say – is a bottle of laudanum.

Maeve Lindgren (Madeline)
What kind of sick joke is this?

Kim
How long has it been, Maeve, since you…

Madeline
It has been eight years.

Kim
Yeah. I think there’s a pull, here. To lose yourself.

Madeline
Mmhm… She’s thought about it many times.

Kim
Yeah.

Madeline
Everyday. But up to this point, that’s always felt that that would be too kind of a solution. And she does not deserve a kind solution.

Kim
I think for anyone else, this would be a Day Move. But for you specifically, it’s a Night Move.

Madeline
Yes.

Kim
To resist the pull of this laudanum. What are you afraid will happen if you fail?

Madeline
I am afraid that everything I’ve ever thought about myself is true. That voice in my head that screams at me all day is correct. And as much as I’ve attempted to get punishment for this, I’ve attempted to do the most I can to at least not have an easy time because of what I have inflicted, that at the end of the day I am just weak, just cowardly, just worthless.

Kim
Miss Lindgren, it’s worse than that. But I think the way I make this worse is quite simple. Those thoughts are just the last things that run through your brain, before you simply lay down in the snow and freeze to death. This is a Night Move with Composure.

Madeline
In this moment, she does take out the worn satin gloves that have been in her pocket this entire time. She keeps them wrapped around the wooden figure that she has carved. And she remembers wearing them, those were her favorite gloves to go out on a night out. That’s how she felt that she was in a bit of luxury, like she was gonna hit the town and everyone was gonna look at her. And she hates that person. And she’s going to desperately try to not see her stupid face again.

Kim
Go ahead and mark the gloves, and take your roll with advantage.

Madeline
[Rolls dice] 8?

Kim
Einar. As Maeve wrestles with her inner demons and Ravi peers down a darkened cave… As you lower the flask, what are you up to?

Robert
As he slips the flask back into his jacket, he hears a clink, and realizes that the spyglass that he found from earlier is still in there.

Einar Gunnarson (Robert)
Well, I suppose I’ve got no other ideas on how to move forward…

[Abstract, haunting ringing]

Robert
And he pulls it out, unfolds it, and peers through it, unsure what he will see.

Kim
Find Clues with Sensitivity, with advantage because you are invoking the spyglass.

Robert
[Rolls dice] That is a 12 on the dice, -1 for 11.

Kim
Ravi. Pulling out your little telescope, peering into the darkness, you see something fluttering in the air. A little piece of paper, floating to the ground, and lying in the snow. It looks familiar to you. Looks like a photograph.

Vyn
He doesn’t change pace. But once they get to it, he scoops it up.

Kim
It’s a photograph that I think you took, Ravi. Back on one of the first days on the voyage of the Fang. Notable because you’re not in the photograph. You never are. You’re the photographer. But you see the rest of your crew, Captain Strangford in the middle. But his face is scratched out. That is a Clue.

Vyn
Just slowly folds it. Pockets it. Has he noticed Maeve has gone, and it’s just him and Wolfgang? Or…

Kim
I think so. I think at this point, you realize it right now.

Ravi Falkenberg (Vyn)
Maeve?

[Deep rhythmic thudding]

[Dark, eldritch ambience]

Kim
You also start to smell that fresh blood on fallen snow smell. That thumping beneath your feet.

Vyn
Picks up the pace.

Kim
I kinda wanna make it a Day Move to try to find Maeve. You’re lost in this maze-like of tunnels. Something is following you… What are you afraid is gonna happen if you fail?

Vyn
It’s gonna catch and eat me….

Kim
Oh yeah, probably. [Laughs]

Ravi, I could go of two ways. I feel like this is either a Day Move with Composure, to try to stay calm and not just, like, blindly run through these ice tunnels. Or, I could make a case for a Day Move with Reason, to try to, like, exactly retrace your steps.

Vyn
Yeah, let’s hit that Composure. Cause it is 1 versus 0.

Kim
Absolutely. I am going to be invoking Mother’s Baby Boy.

Madeline
[Chuckles]

Vyn
Oh. Hmm. You know what? Yeah. I guess so.

Kim
Yeah. Because I think as you’re running away, you’re just hearing a little bit of the voice of your mother.

Vyn
That’s rancid, Kim. I want you to know that.

Kim
I love you too.

Vyn
[Laughs] Uh, that’s a 5.

Kim
Oh, Ravi… I think as you’re shouting, Maeve can’t hear you, so consumed as she is by her own crossroads, so to speak. Einar is lost in the shifting patterns of the ice. Wolfgang blitzes by you, down a fork in the road, and you are just too slow. You can’t catch up with him. Your foot buckles beneath you. Tears come to your eyes, already frozen, cutting down your cheek like little ice daggers, as you feel something large grab onto your leg.

Evangeline Falkenberg (Kim)
Such a naughty boy, to run from Mummy.

Kim
And then it yanks you into the darkness, never to be seen again.

[The Strangford Expedition theme]

Kim
The Strangford Expedition is a Kitten Marlowe production. This episode was edited and produced by Kim Dalton, and featured a theme song by Jason Myers. 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 doomed crew, the Kitten Marlowe patrons, in supporting artist-driven storytelling. Thanks for listening.