SATAH: Welcome to Folio, an actual play podcast about solo and epistolary TTRPGs. I'm your host, Satah, and I am showcasing multiple possible experiences of self-paced games by inviting guests to play them alongside me so I can compile our stories together. You can support the show financially at patreon.com/foliopod, or you can join there as a free member to get access to the bonus podcast feed. Paid members get to vote on the game for and watch the livestream, then a couple of weeks later the bonus feed gets an edited audio only version of it and the VOD goes live… by which I mean public. It goes public. It's always been live. It's been live since it existed. It is a live… stream.
Last year's streams, all of which are on the bonus feed now, were about: losing your identity through weaponized time travel gone wrong, exploring an ancient derelict spaceship with multi-dimensional books that read themselves and a Sun parasite, and venturing into the frozen wilds to speak to a poet who became a mountain about whether the world is about to end. It's a good time and I deeply appreciate whatever support you are able to give me.
Today we are continuing our games of Alone Among the Stars, "a tabletop role-playing game about exploring space and experiencing wondrous sights" by Takuma Okada. With me again are Jess Levine and Dusty. Check out their links in the episode description and follow them on social media to hear more about their upcoming and ongoing projects, like Jess' launch of a very exciting TTRPG crowd funder that is secret to you but not to me, ha ha ha ha, and Dusty's Pathfinder podcast, Goblets and Gays. Yep. Nope. That's it. I stand by it. This is- I am committing to the things that I do. That's exa- that's the exact delivery that I wanted and it was normal. It's the delivery anyone would have done and they would have felt really good about it.
Last week we heard our explorers go over a couple of planets. This week we are gonna focus just on one. Let's get out there.
GAME: PLANET THREE
JESS: Do you know that there are botanists? And that they're like biologists, but they specialize in plants? That's a common word that I've used and heard a million times. But I did have to look it up between planets so that I know that my biologist is a botanist. I'm probably being influenced by the biologist from Annihilation here, you know– likes taking notes in her notebook… and I just keep going back to the word biologist because I love her.
Anyway, we're playing a game. That starts with me rolling a two for how many things I find. So lay out two cards from the deck.
SATAH: Let's see how much there is to discover on planet three. [Die clattering] Six. A little more fruitful.
DUSTY: Four. So another four cards.
SATAH: Okay so our first thing… I rolled a six, which means that I spotted it while I'm resting. It's a king of spades. Spades are "natural phenomena" and king is "floating in the air." Ooh… ah, the examples are so fantastic. "Huge crystal formations, mirages, vividly colored lightning, strange clouds, rocks eroded in strange shapes, veins of precious metals, etc."
So some sort of natural phenomena floating in the air. I mean, clouds would be easy, for sure.
I think… thinking of clouds made me sort of go to just general like gaseous forms and I'm thinking about steam and immediately started thinking about sort of, like, hot springs and that kind of thing and I love the idea that… I get to this planet and I… I haven't done a lot of space travel? And it's not super comfortable! And I don't like being in a small space for that long. Like, I- I live this life where I am doing something different every day, working outside with my hands, and having to be cramped up in a little spaceship while traveling is… has been- has gotten kind of miserable, and so I'm really glad to land, and I'm glad to find this natural hot spring.
And, you know, I test the water and whatever and see that it's safe to get into and I want to kind of scrub the metal tin can smell off myself, so I get in there. And while I'm in, the steam is there, but the thing that catches my eye is that the sun starts to set, and the atmosphere of this planet means that as the sun sets, it starts to glow this odd, like… blue. This- this- this strangely dark blue the whole way across the horizon, and as it hits the steam, it refracts into– it- it starts to look like a dancing light show of some kind. All of this, like, purple and blue and green– almost– it almost starts to look oily, right? Like, it looks like– it looks a little bit like an oil spill, and it's something that you can only really see when the sun is at a specific angle in this hot spring.
And so I'm sitting here watching the air around me transform into this oil slick while everything still smells so clean and inviting and warm. And it feels like this incredible coinciden– like, this- this the stroke of fate, right? This- oh, I'm here at exactly the right time. I wouldn't have seen this if I had been later, or if I had given up earlier, or if I hadn't stayed as long, and so it's exciting and it's beautiful.
JESS: Four. Come upon it suddenly. We're back to surprises. It's exactly what my character seems to like– my botanist.
So, I'm gona find out… that is a four of hearts. This is our first ruin! Look at that. The magic of randomness. Two planets: no ruins. Third planet: first ruins. This is the one where there's been stuff. No stuff on the other ones. Untouched. There's been stuff here.
And so we got stuff "in a steep canyon."
So, I think I can tell from space, like– there are large patterns that do not look natural. It's like, oh, something either is here, or was here, but I'm not getting like, you know, your classic energy readings. I'm not getting radio communications. And so I decide to put down, uh, near some of the stuff.
And I land at the top of a tall canyon. Or– what I think is a canyon. I put my ship down and I get out, thinking I've landed on, like, the like top plateau of this, like, cliff, and then very suddenly, I realise this is  construction. It's made to imitate a natural phenomena– made to imitate just, like, rock, but I'm on, effectively, a skyscraper. And part of why I couldn't tell at first is because, like, it's so dense. As in, like, it goes on for dozens, even hundreds of kilometers, looking just like the the top of this building that I'm- that I just landed on, with, like, what I now recognize as, like, little grooves that I mistook for ravines and canyons. That's just the ground below. This is- this is a incredibly densely packed vertically built city. Dead and empty, but a city– or it was. I'm very much taking from Trantor and Foundation and Coruscant here– just the, like, planet whose surface is the top of the city that is the planet. Though maybe just part of it.
And, yeah I think I'm just staring over the side, realizing that what I'm seeing down at the bottom are, like, roads? But… just enough for, like… if it was people sized beings moving through them, like, two directions of people walking. We're not doing– this is not America. We're not doing suburban car dependent hell. Whoever built this place wanted people to go somewhere and be able to, like, get there without a car. Good for them. You're extinct anyway, but at least it wasn't from cars, so, that's a win.
And yeah I'm just staring down and looking at the top of these buildings and I am curious: why did they- why they make the tops look so natural? It's a planet of environmentalists. No cars, natural- natural buildings. But, yeah– this isn't what I usually catalog, right? Because most planets aren't inhabited. That's just the way it is. And I'm a botanist. But this is so cool, right?
And so I take my time and I'm writing down, like, names of– well, not names, because the script is unrecognisable– symbols that I am guessing are signs and language. And I'm taking pictures, I'm sketching some of them, I'm, like, cataloging to see if I can try and recognise any repetition of the symbols, even though I'm not a linguist. I just don't get to do this type of work much, so I- I really give it my all when I can.
SATAH: I rolled another six so this is something else I spot while I'm resting. I– shout out to this character for taking the time to chill. What a– what an icon and an inspiration for all of us. Especially me.
It's the queen of diamonds. So diamonds are "living beings: people like or unlike you, fish, dinosaurs, wolves, birds, giant insects, etc." and queen is "in deep water."
So… I think I'm gonna extend this as like– this is the same sort of period of rest. Like I saw these beautiful lights, and they kind of start to fade as the sun goes down properly the rest of the way and I'm in these springs. And I think I kind of lazily start moving towards… to explore, like, the source of the spring? I want to see if I can find out where it's coming from. And that involves getting out of the water, following a trickle of water or whatever, all the way to a very deep pool
Is it- people? Or are they, at least, a sapient creature of some kind? I think… what it is is that there are nocturnal eels that have similar colouring… that blue and purple and green sort of opalescent oil spill-y colouring on them. And they weren't there when I walked by this earlier. And they– they rise up and they- they- they are glowing a little? Like, it- it– at first, I think it's just a reflection of the last lingering bits of sun in the sky, and then I realise that it's moving in a way that- that doesn't make sense, that- that isn't the way that reflections move, or that they're moving in– at a different, uh, pace than the small waves on- on top. On the surface.
[Urgent meow] Hi, Garold. Hi buddy. And they meow. The eels meow.
And… that's it. It's- it's- it's just this- this thing I've never seen. Maybe the place that I am from doesn't have a lot of… deep water? Like it's- it's a terraformed– it's mostly terraformed and has very artificially constructed bodies of water. And so seeing this huge natural body of water with these strange creatures that are unlike anything I've ever seen doing their weird… [Distant meow] little night dances and eel meows is amazing. And I stop and sit by this- this water for a while, and just… just watch them.
DUSTY: This is also coming upon it suddenly. I think what happened is that heading to somewhere else that is at least logged, I go through the coordinates to get near it, as I don't know the exact coordinates of the planet, and I enter basically, um, a hyperspace instant. Not an instant but a faster than light travel that this ship is capable of. And when I exit it, where I should be in this place that's just space, I am met with me being just above a planet that is neither marked nor logged nor has knowledge about.
And I think with that, it's a little sudden for me as I decide, yes I want to go. But I think I give myself a little bit of time. I think I rest or recuperate I really decide what I want to do before I go down. But maybe a day or two later, I descend!
And what do I find first? A ten of spades. Ah, interesting. Another cliff face and a phenomena.
I think how this one goes is that I'm descending towards this planet, and this planet seems to be rockier. The major way that you could see it– it's almost labyrinthine in appearance, as there's huge valleys, kind of broken by these giant mountainous cliffs as they're kind of going along and creating, like a.. a specific path that you should– that you will need to, if you're on land, trying to go through here.
And I think I land center of one of these paths. That there's cliff faces all around me, and I see that the cliff front of me is rocky, is… huge, but it's different than previous mountains I've seen before, in that it's incredibly smooth- as if there's no blemishes, as if there's no pockets from deterioration.
And I think before I decide to get out of my ship to really examine it, suddenly the earth shakes violently and the sound as if something's been cracked in two happens, and I see now, as I decide to ascend and get away from the ground in case it falls beneath me, that these mountain faces are moving. That this whole planet is kind of restructured. Maybe not the whole planet, but all that I could see, is kind of moving. And I get high enough and I see that this labyrinthine pattern is changing. The paths are moving, and whatever was there isn't. Is obviously somewhere else now. And that puts me at extreme unease. As if– okay is there someone here watching? Something's happening? Or is this just how this planet works?
But instead of that unease pushing me away, I think I need to know more. So…
SATAH: I rolled another six, so I also saw the next thing while I'm resting. I love vacation planet. This is my vacation planet and I love it.
It is the king of hearts. Hearts are "ruins"; the king is "floating in the air."
I think… not all of the ruins are going to be ships… maybe. Maybe they are. But I think… this one is. It's floating in the air… ohh. It's in transit. Like, it's not floating stationarily– [Laughs at how they stumbled through that word] Stati– it's not stationary and floating in the air.
I see… as I'm sitting by this lake, watching how the visual spectacle of these eels changes, as the last of the light truly disappears from the sky. And I see something in the water that at first I think is, like, one of the eels doing a little thing, and then hear a sound and realize it's reflecting a light in the sky, and I look up. And I see the ship. And I stand in, like, a panic, and excitement. And then the lights change– the lights on the ship– and it- it goes into some sort of hyperdrive. Like, it– it warps to a totally different place. There's no way that I could catch up to it. Even if I'd already been flying, without having similar coordinates, there's no way that a- a ship of a class like mine could track a ship that's just done a hyperspace jump.
But I've seen it. And… there isn't even– there isn't even a moment of disappointment, really. It is just– it's there, and it's gone, and I'm just– I've been surrounded by this new, inexplicable type of beauty all day as I've been chillin' out on a weird blue vacation planet, so all I can feel is, like… excitement. Looking at the space where the ship was, and being like, "I'm on the right track and I'm gonna catch up to you."
DUSTY: So that leads me to… the five of hearts. Ruins. Ruins in a treetop.
And I think how this leaves me is that I'm traveling over these ruins for a while, and nothing seems to be moving again. It's been maybe an hour, and the rock cliff and the mountains and the valleys below have not changed again.
And then I see this first spot of green. This huge… huge tree that seems to be coming out from these valleys, as though poking out from the earth, scraping the sky, um, a little bit away from all these mountain tops. As I see from the canopy- as I fly closer, though, as this thing is hundreds of feet in the air, there seems to be a structure that, maybe at one point was fully intact? It almost seems that there is… it was ripped apart.
As I get closer, my ship's able to land in it fairly comfortably. And looking- looking from down here, I– it feels like a workspace? There's tables. There's, again, seems, tools. Some of these are familiar tools, some kind of also what used to be computers that… screens are cracked, wires are exposed. Some of it's even rusting from how long it's been exposed.  And when they get to a certain point, I look up and it feels that the way that the roof in places ripped off almost feels like it was… quite literally ripped off. Torn asunder. Not perfectly in half, but not seemingly random. As if something hit it and tore it away. It's a strange, strange feeling.
I think as I'm going through these ruins of this workshop, I find something… that looks like, perhaps, like a- like a footlocker, that's still closed. And my curiosity gets the better of me and I kind of– making sure I put gloves on before I catch anything by accident, cutting myself– open it up and I see that there is this rock in there. And this rock is kind of blanketed up in some sort of cloth. And I go looking at it– it doesn't look strange, doesn't feel strange, but I do feel that I should take it. It's not doing anything here. There doesn't seem to be anyone that could get up here, at least easily. So I take this cloth covered kind of– imperfectly round? It's round, but it's got edges, similar to that, like, a polyhedral kind of vibe. And I take it back to the ship and decide I should kind of go around and find more.
SATAH: [Die clatter] For our next discovery, I rolled a three, which means I "came upon it suddenly." And it is an ace of clubs. Clubs are "plants and other immobile forms of life" and an ace is "in a field taller than you." 
So it would make sense that the field… it's a field of the things. Of these plants that I've discovered.
I "came upon it suddenly…"
I like the idea that this planet changes drastically between night and day. Like, it– like, how it had those- those- those sunset steam light shows and these nocturnal eels that pop up… I spend the night camping beside my ship. Not inside it. As much as possible, I want to spend time outside the ship, so I set up a little tent or something like that, and I'm camping beside the ship.
And in the morning, I get up. It's a long night here on this planet. The sun isn't up for very long.
And I start walking… maybe to find a hill or something? Like, I'm hoping that I can get a signal to send a communication or to co– calculate my next coordinates without having to actually get into the ship and fly up into the air. So I'm walking to a place that looks elevated enough that I can just do it from here.
And as I'm walking, at first, I think it's an earthquake. The ground is, like, moving underneath me, and then all of a sudden, I'm in this field. Of these tall plants. They're all stretching towards the sun and I realise, it's like– it's a- it's a plant that, during the night, just lays down. Just completely goes– is utterly at rest at night, and then as the sun starts to peek over the horizon, they shoot up and point towards it to pull in as much of that light and that energy as they can.
And so I'm walking through this field, and having the very distinct sense that the plants are moving with me? Like watching a time-lapse of a sunflower following the sun? But it's all around me and they're taller than me, and moving so surprisingly fast, especially with the lack of wind. It's surreal and a little uncomfortable. I think more uncomfortable than I've been on the planet so far? Just- just the feeling of suddenly being enclosed, I don't love, but I'm able to follow the direction that they're pointing to keep going up to get to this hill to try and figure out these coordinates.
And I think I'm gonna take inspiration from the next thing to see whether I successfully unscramble those coordinates while on this planet.
DUSTY: So here I find more ruins. Seven of hearts. But I find this near a volcano.
I think… as I ascend, I start flying further out, and I see now that I'm finally leaving this labyrinthian mountainous valleys and all that. And… I see that the land is getting closer to… a body of water, almost? And there seems to be another mountain, except that mountain is… not a mountain. I could see from heat signatures that, oh, it's definitely a volcano. Dormant or not, unsure, but it's definitely hotter than the earth and water around it.
And there again at the bottom, I see more structures. These are strange. They're alll actually built, it seems, out of stone. Maybe some other material. But they're all resembling different geometrical shapes. They're not simple as a square building, or, like, a rectangular tower, or anything like that. There are some that are small pyramids, some that are shaped into that of like a three-dimensional hexagon. Even that, where some look like they're giant tents, almost, where cloth was down- thrown down on a pinpoint and creating like this huge tent.
And as I decide to look, I sent out another probe. There seems to be a layer of ash over all of these. The ash, though, is what's giving its colour. You see that some wind blows and there's like a more bronze looking material under all this, like, light gray ash of these buildings. And you think that maybe at one point this volcano wasn't always here, as this used to be seen just people lived here. And it wasn't like a fishing village or a farming village or anything in that sort, it seemed that just people lived here. You could see a path leading out towards looks like a forest or a jungle or something of that sorts, and a path leading to the water with the remnants of, like, maybe a tiny dock for one or two boats to go through, but it doesn't really initially feel all that important. It just seems that there's people here at one point. You don't see any life here. No people, no skeletons, no- no animals or creatures. 
And then through the probe, I see another box. This one, a little bit more pristine, actually. Not covered in ash, not covered in rust, not covered in dust. And I send it over and I use the little probe droids little tiny arms that come out to see– just because, again, I'm curious as ever– and it sees another rock in there. Another strange, perfectly imperfect circle. The shape and the size, a little different in the one I grabbed from the other place. I think I'm too curious and I have it grab it and the cloth that's surrounding it. A similar material, from the looks? I'll have to see when it gets here.
And as the probe droid's entering back into the ship and it brings that cloth, I hear the unmistakable sound again of this mountains moving, and I decided to move away from this volcano as fast as possible. Which I do.
SATAH: [Die clattering] It's a six. I… don't fuckin' at me; I'm Saturday chillin'! On the blue planet! I spot this while I'm resting, baby! It's a nine of hearts!
So hearts are "ruins" and a nine is "deep underground." Ohh,  interesting. I was so ready to be like, "Oh, it's a big ruined radio tower and I climb up it because I'm trying to get to high ground or whatever," then it says deep underground, and throws me for a… beautiful little loop.
Why am I underground?
Maybe, similarly to the– sort of in the- in the theme of this planet being very different in the night and the day, there's some sort of predator fauna that is only active during the height of the sun. So it's- it's- it's really only for a couple hours, but this creature appears and threatens me and I run.
And I think it's- it's a combination of on purpose and by accident that I sort of– I start– I'm trying to duck into a cave, and it turns out it's not a cave, it is… a. Hole. And I just end up sliding down, way into this place. And so I do successfully hide, and- and it hurts my little knees and my elbows a bit, and I'm- I'm nursing these wounds. And I'm… I think– I like the idea that I've been on this planet for a few days now. We haven't seen all of it, but I really have just been like, "I'm gonna chill here for a little while." And my coordinates are unscrambling. I've got that going. I'll– I will leave, when I know where I'm going. But I'm not hurrying it up.
So I'm resting. I've learned how to listen for the sounds of the sun rising and setting. There's just– the activity is just so different, based on whether the sun is up or not, that I can hear it. I can hear the difference; I've learned the difference. And so I'm sitting underground, hiding from this… alien jaguar… and I spot a ruin.
So this one isn't a spaceship, but I like the idea that it is somehow related to it. It's… a tent. Not exactly like mine, but it is a precursor to mine? Obviously a very old, but standard issue explorers shelter of some kind. It's in the same colour as the captain's uniform, the pilot's uniform that I've seen a couple times now. And it's been abandoned… trying to think if there are signs, like I… this- this gives me time– I can actually investigate it for signs of what might have happened?
And I think all I can really see is that they did plan to come back. There are, like– their– I can see their system of rations, you know? They've got everything organised, and I can count how many days they were here by their very tidily piled empty containers, and I can see their full containers that were organised for future days, meal by meal. And all evidence points toward: they were planning to come back to this shelter. And something must have happened while they were gone. No idea what, but they spent some time here.
And I hang out in that tent for a while, I think. I- I check the expiry date on the rations… ooh. Does that give me information? … No. I think it's- it's just it's the same, it's… well, it's information I might not have had, but it's- it's information that, if I could contact that person who's investigating the first ship I found, in the garage, it would be congruent with that. Like, these are OLD. But they don't look as old as they should? It's- it's food from fifty years ago that only has two years of grime on it, or something like that.
And I take them. Because I think they're probably fine. And I wait until sunset, and…
I want to leave a note, I think. Just leave a card that says. "I'm looking for you," and a radio frequency? I want– it… it's not "I'm looking for you," it… "I'm on your trail"? "I'm following you"? I know that's threatening, but it's just… "I'm right behind you" and a radio frequency on a card. The idea that if they, in their loop, return back to familiar places, maybe, to see where they went wrong, or maybe because they're figuring out the perfect time loop and it involves going to the same place over and over again occasionally. I've decided to start leaving notes. Ooh, maybe some of the rations are from– there are very different levels of rust and grime on some of the rations, which leads me to believe that this person has been here more than once. Maybe not recently, but who knows how long these things take.
So I leave the card. "I'm right behind you." The radio frequency. And I see one more thing on this planet.
JESS: And I got one more for this planet. [Die rolling] I come upon it suddenly. I really get surprised by a lot of things, which is why I'm in this line of work. To be surprised by plants. Let's find out if it's a plant. Spades. "Natural phenomena." Close. My second favourite thing. And it's a three: "by a gentle river." Bringing it back around.
See– I'm gonna– I really want a lot of this planet to be artifice, and so I think I'm going to say that like I descended a bit into the city, and… I think, actually, when it comes to natural phenomena, what I'm looking at here is decay. And specifically, like, if you're gonna have this city– like this is– this massive, like, continent sprawling city, you got to feed it, and it generally takes much more land to feed a place than it does to house the people in it. That's how society works, and I guess also whatever lived here. And so they have a lot of hydroponics, is my guess.
And there's this building with what I recognise as- as potentially hydroponic setups. I'm a botanist, so I would know what that looks like. And there's these pipes that are all over this building, um and- and collection ones, too, so- so lots of– planet of environmentalists. And they're gathering lots of water, and so those water gatherers, those just like passive reservoirs, are still filling, but there's no one to drain them. There's no one to direct the flow. And so it's just this flooded building where they used to grow these plants.
And hilariously, it's not any more vegetated than anywhere else, because… it's ruins. It's, uh– life prevails, in some way. But it is this, like, massive–almost waterfall, now, I think. That's what– that's what the quote-unquote natural phenomena is, is this building has been turned into a waterfall because all of the runoff from everywhere nearby was funneled into this building, for this massive vertical farm. And with no one to direct that flow, and, like, all of these decrepit systems, it has turned the face of this building into a waterfall.
And it's such an interesting way to look at a building, to imagine what a building can be, is- is the cliff face of a waterfall. And I think I'm really struck by that image, and I think it's something that sticks with my character as a way of looking at a more familiar world, you know?
SATAH: [Die clattering] And it's while I'm resting, baby! Another six! Do! NOT at me! I am Saturday chillin'!!
It's five of diamonds. Diamonds are "living beings" and a five is "in a treetop." Ooh!
My first thought was… someone trying to get the… tree… the- the- the ship that was in the tree– someone is investigating. It could be a local. Then I thought maybe the pilot. And now I'm wondering… if it's me. I see myself up in this tree, investigating the ship that's up there.
And… is it immediately obvious to me whether it's me from the future or past or unknown?
I think at first, I think it is the pilot, because I'm wearing the uniform. The me in the tree is wearing the uniform. And… the- the me in the tree looks down. And I'm just standing, stock still, staring, wondering if this is like an alternate universe… if this is more time travel, what it is… and they look at me. And they smile. And laugh and they go, "Oh, shit. I'm too early."
And I say, "What?"
And they disappear somehow; how do they disappear? No, ok– so it's, "I'm too early," and I'm just confused, and I'm like, "What? Wait! Tell me what's going on! Are you me? What are we doing?"
And they grin and they're like… they say, "Don't worry, you're right behind us."
And around me, all of those weird plants pop up as the sun rises. And it happened so suddenly. I try– I'm trying to fight my way forward, but I stopped, I was surprised, so I was pretty far back from the tree. And I'm trying to fight my way forward, but I can't see them anymore, and by the time I get there, they're not there anymore. And neither is the ship, I think. Which makes me think they were trying to… I don't know; I'll figure it out. Because the tone of that was very much, like, "You're on the right path," but then I like the idea they're taken the ship because they don't want me to follow… but maybe there's a whole other thing going on. And… it's fun. I– that's- that's okay. I… Lost ended in a satisfying way, right? So I bet this will. I've never seen Lost.
DUSTY: And I pull the king of hearts. More ruins, but now it's "floating in the sky."
I think I come upon these as I go over the water, trying to get away from the- the seismic activity. And from there, I keep going, and I see notifications of, like, my radar– of something blipping, not below me, but above me, which I can't see, as there's a layer of clouds. So I decide to fly up and I see that there is a floating structure. But it's almost akin to these rocks that I found. It's polyhedral in shape, that is seemingly just floating in the air. There's nothing tied to it, there's no visible symbols.
And you see that on one of its faces, there's clearly an opening to go inside, and I do. I fly my ship in there. It's clearly big enough for ships much bigger than mine. And inside this huge impossible shape, the structure, there's very little. In fact, it's mostly empty, save for holes in the ceiling to allow light to enter, and a table– or a pedestal, or some kind of coffin? Something strange in that shape in the middle.
And as I get out, these– both of these rocks in my hand actually begin to vibrate. And I'm getting closer, and they seem to be vibrating with more intensity and almost, like, starting to glow. So I decide to take them out and go towards the center, and you see, there, is a similar one. Sorry– a similar- a similar rock. Kind of similar in the same shape, but more or less sides, kind of hard to tell, and I see divots that– putting the two together, I decide to place those rocks in there. When they do, they stop vibrating. And then the other rock, and these two that I just placed there, all egan to glow brightly. I almost have to cover my eyes with how bright they glow.
And now I feel this dome shifting, shaking. At first it seems to just be reverberating, and now it's getting more tumultuous, and getting, almost, I feel, it's about to rip itself apart.
Right before I decide to run back to my ship, I see the rocks in front of me have kind of dissolved. And on this pedestal, this rock, this table, lies three coins that seemingly were inside these rocks, or something of that sort. I struggle with myself to decide whether or not I should take them. Whether I should just leave them here, or take them back from whatever purpose they're supposed to serve. I think, before I finish that thought, a piece of the ceiling kind of crashes down behind this table, a little bit ahead of me, and the floor in front of me starts to fall. And I just decide I do not need to go risk my life for that.
And run back. Run back to my ship start its engines and fly back off to space, which, um, despite its vastness, feels safer than this planet I was just on.
And I think… as I'm leaving, I think… in my logs, the only thing that makes sense to name this planet is Labyrinth.
SATAH: [Urgent distant meows] I gotta… gotta… I gotta get this young man out of here! [Sounds of walking away and opening a door]
OUTRO
SATAH: This has been Folio, an actual play podcast about solo and epistolary TTRPGs. To find where you can find the show, check out foliopod.carrd.co. Sign up as a paid member at patreon.com/foliopod to vote on games and participate in live streams, or join for free to get access to the bonus feed with edited audio only versions of the streams a couple of weeks after they happen.
You can find Jess Levine at jessfrom.online, jessfromonline on Bluesky and Twitter, and jumpgategames.itch.io.
You can find Dusty at dustehill, D-U-S-T-E-H-I-L-L on Twitter and Bluesky, check out their games at fromdusttodice.itch.io, and hear them on Goblets and Gays.
You can find Satah– that's me– at posatahchips on Twitter and Bluesky, and check out my other work at gaygothvibes.online.
Next week, Jess and Dusty and I will continue our games of Alone Among the Stars by Takuma Okada, linked in the show notes.
Thanks so much for listening, and take care out there.