Dead Letter Bureau - Delta Green

Read by Max of 9MM Retirement Radio. The Cats of UltharBy H. P. LovecraftIt is said that in Ulthar, which lies beyond the river Skai, no man may kill a cat; and this I can verily believe as I gaze upon him who sitteth purring before the fire. For the cat is cryptic, and close to strange things which men cannot see. He is the soul of antique Aegyptus, and bearer of tales from forgotten cities in Meroë and Ophir. He is the kin of the jungle’s lords, and heir to the secrets of hoary and sinister Africa. The Sphinx is his cousin, and he speaks her language; but he is more ancient than the Sphinx, and remembers that which she hath forgotten.In Ulthar, before ever the burgesses forbade the killing of cats, there dwelt an old cotter and his wife who delighted to trap and slay the cats of their neighbours. Why they did this I know not; save that many hate the voice of the cat in the night, and take it ill that cats should run stealthily about yards and gardens at twilight. But whatever the reason, this old man and woman took pleasure in trapping and slaying every cat which came near to their hovel; and from some of the sounds heard after dark, many villagers fancied that the manner of slaying was exceedingly peculiar. But the villagers did not discuss such things with the old man and his wife; because of the habitual expression on the withered faces of the two, and because their cottage was so small and so darkly hidden under spreading oaks at the back of a neglected yard. In truth, much as the owners of cats hated these odd folk, they feared them more; and instead of berating them as brutal assassins, merely took care that no cherished pet or mouser should stray toward the remote hovel under the dark trees. When through some unavoidable oversight a cat was missed, and sounds heard after dark, the loser would lament impotently; or console himself by thanking Fate that it was not one of his children who had thus vanished. For the people of Ulthar were simple, and knew not whence it is all cats first came.One day a caravan of strange wanderers from the South entered the narrow cobbled streets of Ulthar. Dark wanderers they were, and unlike the other roving folk who passed through the village twice every year. In the market-place they told fortunes for silver, and bought gay beads from the merchants. What was the land of these wanderers none could tell; but it was seen that they were given to strange prayers, and that they had painted on the sides of their wagons strange figures with human bodies and the heads of cats, hawks, rams, and lions. And the leader of the caravan wore a head-dress with two horns and a curious disc betwixt the horns.There was in this singular caravan a little boy with no father or mother, but only a tiny black kitten to cherish. The plague had not been kind to him, yet had left him this small furry thing to mitigate his sorrow; and when one is very young, one can find great relief in the lively antics of a black kitten. So the boy whom the dark people called Menes smiled more often than he wept as he sate playing with his graceful kitten on the steps of an oddly painted wagon.On the third morning of the wanderers’ stay in Ulthar, Menes could not find his kitten; and as he sobbed aloud in the market-place certain villagers told him of the old man and his wife, and of sounds heard in the night. And when he heard these things his sobbing gave place to meditation, and finally to prayer. He stretched out his arms toward the sun and prayed in a tongue no villager could understand; though indeed the villagers did not try very hard to understand, since their attention was mostly taken up by the sky and the odd...

Gavin Ross, played by Max of 9mm Retirement Radio.Some debts aren't paid in cash, and some secrets aren't buried deep enough. The sun rises on a cabin in the swamp, but the morning light only illuminates the cracks in the team's trust. A shared breakfast turns into a confrontation, and a ritual intended for liberation summons something far worse than judgment. When the sky tears open and the payment comes due, we learn that the cost of knowledge is always flesh, and the only thing heavier than a weapon is the weight of a friend you couldn't save.CastNick Sayers... Writer, Handler, and EditorKristina... Agent RyanRyan... Agent BaroneJordan... Agent DelPodcast art by Studio JanieMusic and Sound Effects from Envato.Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/576NbWAEm1uOBDxlW1F4Os?si=c7228e49ddb94035Listen on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dead-letter-bureau-delta-green/id1826992923Find us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@deadletterbureau Find transcripts: https://dead-letter-bureau.captivate.fm/Talk to us on Discord: https://discord.gg/2RFYaWHm33Here are some other shows we love! Search them up.9mm Retirement RadioRPG ReanimatorsBlack FlareHand on the DoorSorry, Honey, I Have to Take ThisStories and LiesThis Line Isn't SecurePublished by arrangement with the Delta Green Partnership. The intellectual property known as Delta Green is a trademark and copyright owned by the Delta Green Partnership, who has licensed its use here. The contents of this podcast are ©Nick Sayers, excepting those elements that are components of the Delta Green intellectual property.

There are lies we tell with our tongues, and there are lies we tell with our bodies—dragging ourselves through the mud to feign a salvation we do not deserve. Inside the sanctuary, the laws of biology have been repealed. A feverish hunger demands a sacrament of brass and fire, a hot casing swallowed to silence the singing in the veins. We peel back the skin of the mission to find the rot of betrayal waiting in a fifteen-year-old photograph. The healer descends into the earth to sleep, leaving the patients to wonder if the cure is simply a slower, heavier form of death.Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/576NbWAEm1uOBDxlW1F4Os?si=c7228e49ddb94035Listen on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dead-letter-bureau-delta-green/id1826992923Find us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@deadletterbureau Find transcripts: https://dead-letter-bureau.captivate.fm/Talk to us on Discord: https://discord.gg/2RFYaWHm33CastNick Sayers... Writer, Handler, and EditorKristina... Agent RyanRyan... Agent BaroneJordan... Agent DelPodcast art by Studio JanieMusic and Sound Effects from Envato.Here are some other shows we love! Search them up.9mm Retirement RadioRPG ReanimatorsBlack FlareHand on the DoorSorry, Honey, I Have to Take ThisStories and LiesThis Line Isn't SecurePublished by arrangement with the Delta Green Partnership. The intellectual property known as Delta Green is a trademark and copyright owned by the Delta Green Partnership, who has licensed its use here. The contents of this podcast are ©Nick Sayers, excepting those elements that are components of the Delta Green intellectual property.

Read by Jordan Written by Nick Sayers Memory is a complex thing. Do you remember something, or do you remember someone telling you about the thing? And does it matter? I don’t think anyone told me about these memories. Some things carry a weight that is hard to shrug off.Like any true American horror story, it starts off in healthcare. My mother had colitis. Colon cancer.My dad would drop my sister and me off at our great-grandma's and disappear for hours or days. We’d play Uno, watch black-and-white TV reruns, and play with Legos. I still remember the texture of her carpet on my feet. When I close my eyes, I can smell the cheap pizzas she would cook for us. No one told me those memories; they are mine.My great-grandmother took us to church every Sunday, which was a nice break from her one-bedroom apartment. She’d feed us breath mints in the pews to keep us quiet while the service happened. Years later, I’d help carry her coffin between those same pews. She was the first loss in my life. My mother almost took that ribbon instead.Sometimes my dad would take us up to Seattle while my mom was in the hospital. The visits before her surgery were the peaceful ones. She’d try to put on a smile, give me a bedside hug, and do her best to talk to me. To a young child, it was all confusing. My parents explained they had to cut out a bunch of her stomach parts and fuse other parts together.After the surgery, it was the first horrific scene. I was allowed to visit. My mother, who kissed my head, yelled at me when I did something stupid, and held on to me every day, had monstrous tubes going into her nose. They were long and snake-like. I couldn’t believe it was her with such serpentine plastics haunting her nasal canals. She tried to speak, and it sounded like a demonic perversion of my mother. As a child, I wondered if she’d be like this forever. I am sure it felt like forever to her. Seeing her sitting up in this alien, sterile, and gloomy place haunted my dreams for years. The most haunting moment was a day my dad ushered me out of the room so I didn’t have to bear witness to her pain. Too much for a child. And too late for me, because I was a witness.My mom was groaning strangely. It was like an animal. What transformation had she undergone? My dad stood up and tried to speak to her, but the groaning persisted. Her head flung back, the tubes a mockery of human biology, still hung from her place, going to an unknowable location. She made a guttural screech and a strange croak. A witch turned toad? My imagination had so many explanations, but the reality was, well, worse. She started to throw up. Those incomprehensible tubes in her body were a bypass from her throat. As my mother started to turn into a shrieking animal, a strange, colored, viscous mix started to fill the tubes, as her vomit forced her liquid diet out of the feeding tube. I was dumbfounded, chin ajar, frozen. My dad said something like “Okay.” Then ushered me out of the room. As we walked down the hall, I could hear this creature that used to be my mom wretching over and over again. Surely, she was going to die, I thought. I am assuming she wished she had just died in that moment.When you realize your parents are just human like other people, your childhood irrevocably changes. That person you rely on to regulate you, hold you, protect you, is not a god. They are not immune. They are susceptible to all sorts of horror that comes from cell anomalies and genetic hauntings. Selfishly, I never wanted to see her like that. I wanted her to live forever. For if she can die, so could I. Selfish childhood thoughts in hindsight, but a profound paradigm shift at the time.Days. Weeks. I’m not sure. We were back. My mother was pumped full of drugs. She lay on her side, maybe to avoid vomiting through her feeding tubes. This was the first time I saw what the butchers had done to her. A massive cut in her...

Special guests: Gwen and Wyatt. Human throats cannot sing some songs, melodies that require the snapping of bone and the reshaping of the soul to articulate truly. We find ourselves at the intersection of medicine and monstrosity, where a dying man seeks a cure in the geometry of the unnatural. To survive the swamp is to accept its infection. A pact has been offered in the static. A hollow jar waiting to be filled, a tapestry demanding one final, terrible thread. The lines between the healer, the patient, and the disease have dissolved. What remains is only the hunger for a heavy metal communion and the terrifying realization that the only way out of the labyrinth of the flesh is to shed it entirely. Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/576NbWAEm1uOBDxlW1F4Os?si=c7228e49ddb94035Listen on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dead-letter-bureau-delta-green/id1826992923Find us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@deadletterbureau Find transcripts: https://dead-letter-bureau.captivate.fm/Talk to us on Discord: https://discord.gg/2RFYaWHm33CastNick Sayers... Writer, Handler, and EditorKristina... Agent RyanRyan... Agent BaroneJordan... Agent DelPodcast art by Studio JanieMusic and Sound Effects from Envato.Here are some other shows we love! Search them up.9mm Retirement RadioRPG ReanimatorsBlack FlareHand on the DoorSorry, Honey, I Have to Take ThisStories and LiesThis Line Isn't SecurePublished by arrangement with the Delta Green Partnership. The intellectual property known as Delta Green is a trademark and copyright owned by the Delta Green Partnership, who has licensed its use here. The contents of this podcast are ©Nick Sayers, excepting those elements that are components of the Delta Green intellectual property.

In this episode of Dead Letter Bureau, the hosts introduce Delta Green and guide new players through gameplay mechanics. The narrative unfolds as players explore a dark and mysterious world filled with moral dilemmas and unexpected twists. The story follows two characters, Barone and Emmett, as they navigate a series of investigations, uncovering secrets and facing challenges. The atmosphere is thick with tension, and the players must work together to solve the mysteries that lie ahead. As they navigate through the horrors of the past, they grapple with their sanity and the moral implications of their actions. Cast and CrewNick Sayers... Handler, and EditorZach... Agent EmmetRyan... Agent BaroneListen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/576NbWAEm1uOBDxlW1F4Os?si=c7228e49ddb94035Listen on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dead-letter-bureau-delta-green/id1826992923Find us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@deadletterbureau Find transcripts: https://dead-letter-bureau.captivate.fm/Talk to us on Discord: https://discord.gg/2RFYaWHm33Here are some other shows we love! Search them up.9mm Retirement RadioRPG ReanimatorsBlack FlareHand on the DoorSorry, Honey, I Have to Take ThisStories and LiesThis Line Isn't SecurePublished by arrangement with the Delta Green Partnership. The intellectual property known as Delta Green is a trademark and copyright owned by the Delta Green Partnership, who has licensed its use here. The contents of this podcast are ©Nick Sayers, excepting those elements that are components of the Delta Green intellectual property.

Silas played by Caius of 9MM Retirement Radio. The night is thick with the promise of violence and the fellowship is broken in the dark. One man speaks a forbidden tongue to the uncaring stars and is answered by a terrible birth. Another is broken and carried bleeding to a house of false sanctuary where a doctor with a crooked spine offers a salvation made of mercury and pain. The blood is spilled and the metal is swallowed and the road narrows to a single point of suffering. Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/576NbWAEm1uOBDxlW1F4Os?si=c7228e49ddb94035Listen on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dead-letter-bureau-delta-green/id1826992923Find us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@deadletterbureau Find transcripts: https://dead-letter-bureau.captivate.fm/Talk to us on Discord: https://discord.gg/2RFYaWHm33CastNick Sayers... Writer, Handler, and EditorKristina... Agent RyanRyan... Agent BaroneJordan... Agent DelPodcast art by Studio JanieMusic and Sound Effects from Envato.Here are some other shows we love! Search them up.9mm Retirement RadioRPG ReanimatorsBlack FlareHand on the DoorSorry, Honey, I Have to Take ThisStories and LiesThis Line Isn't SecurePublished by arrangement with the Delta Green Partnership. The intellectual property known as Delta Green is a trademark and copyright owned by the Delta Green Partnership, who has licensed its use here. The contents of this podcast are ©Nick Sayers, excepting those elements that are components of the Delta Green intellectual property.

Read and performed by Max from 9mm Retirement Radio, go give them a listen now!Nyarlathotep By H. P. LovecraftNyarlathotep . . . the crawling chaos . . . I am the last . . . I will tell the audient void. . . .I do not recall distinctly when it began, but it was months ago. The general tension was horrible. To a season of political and social upheaval was added a strange and brooding apprehension of hideous physical danger; a danger widespread and all-embracing, such a danger as may be imagined only in the most terrible phantasms of the night. I recall that the people went about with pale and worried faces, and whispered warnings and prophecies which no one dared consciously repeat or acknowledge to himself that he had heard. A sense of monstrous guilt was upon the land, and out of the abysses between the stars swept chill currents that made men shiver in dark and lonely places. There was a daemoniac alteration in the sequence of the seasons—the autumn heat lingered fearsomely, and everyone felt that the world and perhaps the universe had passed from the control of known gods or forces to that of gods or forces which were unknown.And it was then that Nyarlathotep came out of Egypt. Who he was, none could tell, but he was of the old native blood and looked like a Pharaoh. The fellahin knelt when they saw him, yet could not say why. He said he had risen up out of the blackness of twenty-seven centuries, and that he had heard messages from places not on this planet. Into the lands of civilisation came Nyarlathotep, swarthy, slender, and sinister, always buying strange instruments of glass and metal and combining them into instruments yet stranger. He spoke much of the sciences—of electricity and psychology—and gave exhibitions of power which sent his spectators away speechless, yet which swelled his fame to exceeding magnitude. Men advised one another to see Nyarlathotep, and shuddered. And where Nyarlathotep went, rest vanished; for the small hours were rent with the screams of nightmare. Never before had the screams of nightmare been such a public problem; now the wise men almost wished they could forbid sleep in the small hours, that the shrieks of cities might less horribly disturb the pale, pitying moon as it glimmered on green waters gliding under bridges, and old steeples crumbling against a sickly sky.I remember when Nyarlathotep came to my city—the great, the old, the terrible city of unnumbered crimes. My friend had told me of him, and of the impelling fascination and allurement of his revelations, and I burned with eagerness to explore his uttermost mysteries. My friend said they were horrible and impressive beyond my most fevered imaginings; that what was thrown on a screen in the darkened room prophesied things none but Nyarlathotep dared prophesy, and that in the sputter of his sparks there was taken from men that which had never been taken before yet which shewed only in the eyes. And I heard it hinted abroad that those who knew Nyarlathotep looked on sights which others saw not.It was in the hot autumn that I went through the night with the restless crowds to see Nyarlathotep; through the stifling night and up the endless stairs into the choking room. And shadowed on a screen, I saw hooded forms amidst ruins, and yellow evil faces peering from behind fallen monuments. And I saw the world battling against blackness; against the waves of destruction from ultimate space; whirling, churning; struggling around the dimming, cooling sun. Then the sparks played amazingly around the heads of the spectators, and hair stood up on end whilst shadows more grotesque than I can tell came out and squatted on the heads. And when I, who was colder and more scientific than the rest,

Read by Bill Rafferty (billrafferty5811) Ex Oblivione By H. P. Lovecraft When the last days were upon me, and the ugly trifles of existence began to drive me to madness like the small drops of water that torturers let fall ceaselessly upon one spot of their victim’s body, I loved the irradiate refuge of sleep. In my dreams I found a little of the beauty I had vainly sought in life, and wandered through old gardens and enchanted woods.Once when the wind was soft and scented I heard the south calling, and sailed endlessly and languorously under strange stars.Once when the gentle rain fell I glided in a barge down a sunless stream under the earth till I reached another world of purple twilight, iridescent arbours, and undying roses.And once I walked through a golden valley that led to shadowy groves and ruins, and ended in a mighty wall green with antique vines, and pierced by a little gate of bronze.Many times I walked through that valley, and longer and longer would I pause in the spectral half-light where the giant trees squirmed and twisted grotesquely, and the grey ground stretched damply from trunk to trunk, sometimes disclosing the mould-stained stones of buried temples. And always the goal of my fancies was the mighty vine-grown wall with the little gate of bronze therein.After a while, as the days of waking became less and less bearable from their greyness and sameness, I would often drift in opiate peace through the valley and the shadowy groves, and wonder how I might seize them for my eternal dwelling-place, so that I need no more crawl back to a dull world stript of interest and new colours. And as I looked upon the little gate in the mighty wall, I felt that beyond it lay a dream-country from which, once it was entered, there would be no return.So each night in sleep I strove to find the hidden latch of the gate in the ivied antique wall, though it was exceedingly well hidden. And I would tell myself that the realm beyond the wall was not more lasting merely, but more lovely and radiant as well.Then one night in the dream-city of Zakarion I found a yellowed papyrus filled with the thoughts of dream-sages who dwelt of old in that city, and who were too wise ever to be born in the waking world. Therein were written many things concerning the world of dream, and among them was lore of a golden valley and a sacred grove with temples, and a high wall pierced by a little bronze gate. When I saw this lore, I knew that it touched on the scenes I had haunted, and I therefore read long in the yellowed papyrus.Some of the dream-sages wrote gorgeously of the wonders beyond the irrepassable gate, but others told of horror and disappointment. I knew not which to believe, yet longed more and more to cross forever into the unknown land; for doubt and secrecy are the lure of lures, and no new horror can be more terrible than the daily torture of the commonplace. So when I learned of the drug which would unlock the gate and drive me through, I resolved to take it when next I awaked.Last night I swallowed the drug and floated dreamily into the golden valley and the shadowy groves; and when I came this time to the antique wall, I saw that the small gate of bronze was ajar. From beyond came a glow that weirdly lit the giant twisted trees and the tops of the buried temples, and I drifted on songfully, expectant of the glories of the land from whence I should never return.But as the gate swung wider and the sorcery of drug and dream pushed me through, I knew that all sights and glories were at an end; for in that new realm was neither land nor sea, but only the...

They went looking for answers in the dark, but the darkness was already inside them. A seemingly mundane dinner quickly turns peculiar when one agent develops a disturbing appetite. Following this unsettling omen, the team attempts a low-profile night mission into the local swamp, seeking signs of the strange gatherings they previously uncovered. The truth is out there, but this time, it came with teeth.Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/576NbWAEm1uOBDxlW1F4Os?si=c7228e49ddb94035Listen on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dead-letter-bureau-delta-green/id1826992923Find us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@deadletterbureau Find transcripts: https://dead-letter-bureau.captivate.fm/Talk to us on Discord: https://discord.gg/2RFYaWHm33CastNick Sayers... Writer, Handler, and EditorKristina... Agent RyanRyan... Agent BaroneJordan... Agent DelPodcast art by Studio JanieMusic and Sound Effects from Envato.Here are some other shows we love! Search them up.9mm Retirement RadioRPG ReanimatorsBlack FlareHand on the DoorSorry, Honey, I Have to Take ThisStories and LiesThis Line Isn't SecurePublished by arrangement with the Delta Green Partnership. The intellectual property known as Delta Green is a trademark and copyright owned by the Delta Green Partnership, who has licensed its use here. The contents of this podcast are ©Nick Sayers, excepting those elements that are components of the Delta Green intellectual property.

Dr. Thorne, played by Liv from Sorry, Honey, I Have To Take This. The agents find a fragile sanctuary at a decaying roadside motel, but the swamp's influence has followed them. While one agent tends to a festering, unnatural wound, another's mind begins to fray, consumed by a new, frantic obsession with the artifacts recovered from the bog. Paranoia takes root as they analyze their grim trophies—a severed finger, an ancient text, and a mummified brain in a sealed, alien cylinder. As they await a mysterious runner and plan their return to the black water, a tense confrontation at a lonely mailbox proves the true enemy may already be inside the room.Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/576NbWAEm1uOBDxlW1F4Os?si=c7228e49ddb94035Listen on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dead-letter-bureau-delta-green/id1826992923Find us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@deadletterbureau Find transcripts: https://dead-letter-bureau.captivate.fm/Talk to us on Discord: https://discord.gg/2RFYaWHm33CastNick Sayers... Writer, Handler, and EditorKristina... Agent RyanRyan... Agent BaroneJordan... Agent DelPodcast art by Studio JanieMusic and Sound Effects from Envato.Here are some other shows we love! Search them up.9mm Retirement RadioRPG ReanimatorsBlack FlareHand on the DoorSorry, Honey, I Have to Take ThisStories and LiesThis Line Isn't SecurePublished by arrangement with the Delta Green Partnership. The intellectual property known as Delta Green is a trademark and copyright owned by the Delta Green Partnership, who has licensed its use here. The contents of this podcast are ©Nick Sayers, excepting those elements that are components of the Delta Green intellectual property.

Stolen Dreams by Loluan/Lukas of 9MM Retirement Radio. The leaves made a crunchy sound as they cracked under my boot. The sound cut deep into the surrounding night and felt as unnatural as what we pursued. With baited breath, we moved forward, trying to calm our nerves. It was only the two of us, me and Agent Serena, and we both felt as if we weren’t up for the task.Our shaky hands held the submachine guns as we moved ever closer to our target, our sounds masked by the running river close by and in the cover of the night, which only the moon dared to break up when the clouds stopped harassing it.It has already be en two weeks since we entered this village hidden from the world behind old trees and located right where the river looped. If we hadn’t been there on an assignment, I would have called it beautiful, but something was not right here.We noticed the moment we set foot into it: Everything felt wrongly colored. The trees moving in the wind didn’t produce any sounds besides their creaks, which sounded like cries against the ever-changing world around them. The grass felt dry, and for every step, I held my breath, fearing it would cut my skin once it came in contact.The first few days went by fast. We mainly stayed on the outskirts of town to stake out everything. We saw who lived their lives and where they remained during the day and night, and found out their rhythm. See who didn’t belong and felt as wrong as the whole thing.Lastly, we moved closer, deeper into this town.The orders we got were clear. Carpenter told us about a defective scientist who got cold feet. There was also something about a facility amid these huts and shelters that calls itself a village. They seemingly told just enough to get Carpenter's attention, but not enough for us to know what was happening.Some branch of the government seemed to be conducting experiments, and here was all we were told. Find out what it was, get the scientist out of there alive, so they can tell us what the fuck is going on, and stop all of this.They made it sound simple.The second night was when I felt it for the first time. Serena took the night and continued to watch while I lay down, tossing and turning. The little barn we had hidden ourselves in didn’t grant the luxury of a comfortable bed, so we collected the old hay together and improvised some beds.The hay always pricked me with every move, but dug into my back once I started to lie still. But for a bit, it all made sense. While I layed there trying to sleep, everything felt as if two images of this world had been perfectly superimposed on each other.The wrong colors vanished, and all sound felt as if it started to hit the exact frequency my brain had always longed for. It felt as if I had achieved everything I had always wanted.Serena woke me up roughly and commented something about having the best sleep of my life, but I didn’t even listen as she told me about her findings during her watch. I was still there, or rather, I wanted to stay there. I was clawing at this reality that felt so wrong.The next days only made it worse. They went by in a haze as I always longed for sleep again. The moment of absolute serenity always felt further away, as if it was slipping through my fingers every time I got ahold of it.Serena must feel it too; she never overslept, but waking her felt harder every day.We knew we had to do something.When the fifth day rolled around,, we were sure who lived here and who was outside personnel.We just recognized the looks, the dissociated look that goes through everyone they met, the short hours of activity and the long hours of silence that fell over the town.We...

By Caleb Stokes Read by Fae Kells The following is the first chapter of Performance, a novel set in the world of Red Markets: A Game of Economic Horror. Purchase the entire novel! When the tired joke of the zombie apocalypse clawed its way out of the subconscious and into terrifying reality, society's cultural obsession killed as many as it saved. After the chaos finally subsided, the apocalypse ended up unevenly distributed... just like everything else. The world is now more divided than ever: haves and have-nots, living and dead, The Recession and The Loss. It's a world ruled by the Red Market, where supernatural terrors born of nightmare join forces with the inexorable pressures of undying capitalism.  Nickel, Bloom, Dono, and Bait, four strangers barely surviving in the shadow of the system, find their grim futures cut short as an undead terror shakes the foundations of their dystopian reality. As the Crash leaves them even more marginalized and dispossessed, they must join together as a crew of Takers, mercenary entrepreneurs risking their bodies and souls to trade between the monstrous wasteland and a civilization that abandoned them. Even as their shared trauma insists they find a new family in their co-workers, the market demands they profit from each other's suffering. Can the crew survive the snapping teeth of the hordes, the strangling hands of the market, and the madness inspired by their never-ending struggle against both?  Performance is a novel set in the world of the Red Markets RPG by Hebanon Games. For more information, visit redmarketsrpg.com

Drawn by the memory of an unholy hymn and an impossible craft seen at sunrise, the agents push deeper into the swamp's suffocating gloom. Their pursuit leads them to a site of recent ritual, where a trail of degenerate, human-like tracks disappears into the black water. When the agents brave the murky depths, the swamp does not give up its secrets.CastNick Sayers... Writer, Handler, and EditorKristina... Agent RyanRyan... Agent BaroneJordan... Agent DelPodcast art by Studio JanieMusic and Sound Effects from Envato.Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/576NbWAEm1uOBDxlW1F4Os?si=c7228e49ddb94035Listen on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dead-letter-bureau-delta-green/id1826992923Find us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@deadletterbureau Find transcripts: https://dead-letter-bureau.captivate.fm/Talk to us on Discord: https://discord.gg/2RFYaWHm33Here are some other shows we love! Search them up.9mm Retirement RadioRPG ReanimatorsBlack FlareHand on the DoorSorry, Honey, I Have to Take ThisStories and LiesThis Line Isn't SecurePublished by arrangement with the Delta Green Partnership. The intellectual property known as Delta Green is a trademark and copyright owned by the Delta Green Partnership, who has licensed its use here. The contents of this podcast are ©Nick Sayers, excepting those elements that are components of the Delta Green intellectual property.

Written by Rhys Aled Owen Read by Ryan Murphy Check more of Ryhs work on his SolumProtocol Substack.

The Hand of Glory Cycle by PC Bilbee.prologuemurder's lost meaning; i've realized my potential... in this form.my evolution awaits. it is but my death away.fit, the first: vellumi scrive my soul's deed, both with word and with action; this fresh vellum fills both roles.it holds fast the pact, and seals it with unborn life... i still hear the mother's pleas.fit, the second: candlesi can now reap my harvest; months of gluttony paid full. the tallow vat before me and the scalpel in my hand... after rendering and wicks my tapers will be ready.fit, the third: promisei asked no promise, but i made one of my own. no threat, a promise.secured: my disposition. may my Patron's will be done.fit, the fourth: anticipationi have set my path; signed, with blood, the pact; bound with promises, bound men by contract. and now i shall step into hell's cataract.my grin spreads, glee spills from my eyes; glee ablaze.fit, the fifth: dominoher head in my hands, i walked up to the bobby; the man nearly swooned."i must confess," i told him, "i am unfit for this world."fit, the sixth: escapethe noose bites, breaking, clean, my neck- then darkness.fit, the seventhmy eyes fly open. then i have been disinterred… and all contracts have been met.i am become death; these binding spells unbind me from this world i now predate.epiloguemy hand of glory: holding sticks of rendered self, casting empty light

The Tailypo: A Ghost StoryRead by Jordan Railsback Told by Joanna Galdone Illustrated by Paul Galdone Tailypo is a North American folktale about an old man who cuts off the tail of a strange creature, cooks and eats it, and is then haunted by the creature demanding its "tailypo" back.Published by Clarion Books, a Houghton Mifflin Company imprint, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10003. Text copyright © 1977 by Joanna Galdone. Illustrations copyright © 1977 by Paul Galdone. All rights reserved.

The agents push deeper into the primeval gloom of Boggy Depot, following a trail of incongruous, barefoot tracks through the suffocating humidity. The path leads them to a shunned chapel at the heart of a ghost town, a place sealed against a decay that seems to emanate from within. As a strange, psychic pressure begins to exert its influence on the team, one agent's investigation into a fungal anomaly culminates in a terrifying, ecstatic communion with a vast and hungry intelligence. When night falls, an unholy hymn rises from the bog, a lover's desperate call to a silent, watching sky, and the agents learn that some prayers are answered by a geometry that does not belong to our world.Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/576NbWAEm1uOBDxlW1F4Os?si=c7228e49ddb94035Listen on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dead-letter-bureau-delta-green/id1826992923Find us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@deadletterbureau Find transcripts: https://dead-letter-bureau.captivate.fm/Talk to us on Discord: https://discord.gg/2RFYaWHm33CastNick Sayers... Writer, Handler, and EditorKristina... Agent RyanRyan... Agent BaroneJordan... Agent DelPodcast art by Studio JanieMusic and Sound Effects from Envato.Here are some other shows we love! Search them up.9mm Retirement RadioRPG ReanimatorsBlack FlareHand on the DoorSorry, Honey, I Have to Take ThisStories and LiesThis Line Isn't SecurePublished by arrangement with the Delta Green Partnership. The intellectual property known as Delta Green is a trademark and copyright owned by the Delta Green Partnership, who has licensed its use here. The contents of this podcast are ©Nick Sayers, excepting those elements that are components of the Delta Green intellectual property.

The Idiot God by Nick Sayers I used to be the type of person who nonchalantly said, "The only time I feel lonely is when I'm with other people." I’d refuse any entreaty to dent my thick shell with curiosity and be on my way. I can’t say I'm the same after the colorless cloud Ryan and I found in the woods.Hometowns feel like a tomb to the college-bound, but I always regretted leaving. It was never a tomb to me. Not until it was. Back home, Ryan and I would spend an evening drinking cheap beer, talking about high school girls and the cosmic indifference of a post-religious world. Sometimes, the best times were spent in a shitty easy chair, staring at the stars in complete silence. The infinite things we'd never say to each other passed between us with gentle repose. It was usually when one of us would grunt and say something stupid or get up to take a leak—a balance of the sacred and the mundane in every moment.It was during one of these perfect, quiet evenings that the realization hit me: I'd have to go back to school in three days. The thought gave me a gnawing sense of nausea about my life and my little-to-no place in driving it. I tried looking at Ryan to distract myself, only to develop a feeling of a familiar mix of jealousy and pride over his simplicity. The feeling was quickly siphoned from consciousness as a sound vibrated from the dark woods behind Ryan’s house.“Did you see that?” Ryan asked.“No, but I heard it. What was it?”“The flash.”I sure as shit would've seen a flash. I looked at Ryan and saw deep fear in his eyes, mingling with the reflection of his cheap LED porch light. I let my “what flash?” become another one of those infinite, unsaid things. My skin turned cold, and I could hear myself panting slightly. I tried to mask it with deep, quiet breaths, but it only made my hunger for oxygen more dire. It meant nothing because Ryan’s eyes were streaming with tears.“Ryan. What’s going on, man?”He looked at me as if I had just walked into his trailer after being away for a semester—a hanging “what the fuck are you doing here” in his gaze. “Ryan?”“What?”I stared at him, then looked toward the treeline. He stood up and started to walk toward the darkness.“Dude. No.”He ignored me. It was like those situations where someone stands in an elevator normally and everyone else enters and faces the other way, until the one person not in on the joke turns around to face the wrong way, too. Here was my dipshit self, standing off my chair and following him.“Where are we going?”“Did you see it?”“No, dude. What? I hear a weird sound.”“You didn’t see the flash? The air and colors?”“No,” was all I could get out as we started to jog into the darkness.Hindsight screams, don’t fucking go into the dark forest after the non-Euclidean, flashy cloud your drunk friend just saw. But that’s not how these things work. Not with Ryan and me. From poking a dead raccoon for hours, to playing chicken with an Amtrak train, to discussing the complete isolation of being an individual in a connected universe, we always chased the bunny deeper. We never asked why or by what means we'd exhaust our curiosity—a boyish hubris about knowledge always present.I would have scratched my scalp if I had remembered how to work my hand as I saw what was in the clearing under the weight of the starlight. A cloud? A portal? A simple trick of light? What fucking light? Ryan looked at me for the first time since he knew me and simply stated, “Now you see.” A simplistic understatement that shook my grip on my, well, everything.Then Ryan touched the damn thing. If "touch" were a sufficient sensory experience to describe it. His fingers elongated through the cloud like they were in a fishbowl, reaching for heaven. When he finally collapsed on the ground and woke up three hours later, I had him...

The agents push into the black water of Boggy Depot, a primeval landscape where the air is heavy with the weight of things left to rot. One of them feels it first: a gaze without eyes, the unnerving sense that the land itself is aware of their intrusion. The trail is a paradox of old decay and new trespass, leading them to the bones of a forgotten town and a single, sealed building that even the desperate souls haunting this place have left untouched. Breaking the seal, they don't find a monster, but something far more insidious: a presence in the decay, a strange and terrible faith that begins to bloom in their own minds, pulling them toward a dark sacrament at the heart of the rot.Guest intro done by Charlie of Null Project. Hear him regularly on This Line Isn't Secure.Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/576NbWAEm1uOBDxlW1F4Os?si=c7228e49ddb94035Listen on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dead-letter-bureau-delta-green/id1826992923Find us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@deadletterbureau Find transcripts: https://dead-letter-bureau.captivate.fm/Talk to us on Discord: https://discord.gg/2RFYaWHm33CastNick Sayers... Writer, Handler, and EditorKristina... Agent RyanRyan... Agent BaroneJordan... Agent DelPodcast art by Studio JanieMusic and Sound Effects from Envato.Here are some other shows we love! Search them up.9mm Retirement RadioRPG ReanimatorsBlack FlareHand on the DoorSorry, Honey, I Have to Take ThisStories and LiesThis Line Isn't SecurePublished by arrangement with the Delta Green Partnership. The intellectual property known as Delta Green is a trademark and copyright owned by the Delta Green Partnership, who has licensed its use here. The contents of this podcast are ©Nick Sayers, excepting those elements that are components of the Delta Green intellectual property.