Message Seven - A Sheep in Shark's Clothing

October 23, 2022·23 min·2 clips

Lou broadcasts a warning about a knife and entities, seeking passage far from what's happened.

The episode begins with a dreamlike vision featuring a narrator navigating a crystal-filled cave and addressing Bakunawa, the moon-eating world-destroyer, with exhausted familiarity. The narrator references having beheaded a matriarch during an eclipse in front of an entranced crowd, which led to a curse being laid upon her. An ethereal figure at a ritual pillar speaks of the world Nibulan and whether the narrator will try to save it again. The scene transitions to the present, where Chess confronts the spirit possessing Lou's body and demands to know how long the possession has been occurring. The spirit, Pierrette Lamb, apologizes for a prior knife incident and introduces herself as the legendary Labyrinthian, known in religious texts as the victor over Goliath. Chess notes her aura is unusual — not fully malevolent but not trustworthy. Pierrette says she no longer intends to kill any of them, having learned that Lou's brother Arnel is not actually a vampire. Pierrette forces Chess to accompany her to a cafe while possessing Lou, ordering drinks and telling Chess the history of her centuries of disembodied existence. She has been unable to locate her own body for at least centuries and needs a necromancer to help. Chess pushes back on being used, and Pierrette acknowledges the group's broader situation, showing some awareness of the costs her presence has imposed. The conversation reveals she may have contributed to or facilitated certain past events involving the group. A dramatic shift occurs when Pierrette freezes the world around Chess as a demonstration — people, birds, boats, wind, and water all stop. She names this the threshold of perception and says Chess has entered a zone between time. Lou and Tala then find themselves in a similar temporal stasis, recognizing that only certain members of the group experience the phenomenon. The group debates whether to head farther along the coast or travel through liminal space to reach the Fold or the ferryman. Tala and Pierrette exchange a tense philosophical argument about the origins of the supernatural disturbances, with Pierrette accusing the Goliath family's experiments of causing the spreading shadow. Tala reveals she came from a world with no natural supernatural entities, only folklore. The episode ends with Pierrette expressing interest in learning more about the things Lou brought from the peninsula, specifically why Bakunawa seems to be responding to Lou.

As heard by us

A tense, conversational episode turns a supernatural dispute into a brisk listen.

A tense, conversational episode turns a supernatural dispute into a brisk listen. Lou, the Moon Eater, and the matriarch's head keep the argument in motion as the scene shifts from cave to cafe and then into questions about realities.

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Why you'd press play

You want a mythic argument that keeps turning into a realm-hopping reality check.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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