Ho Shit! Its Brennan & Smythe!

I think it should be clear by now that the sponsors for these are meaningless. I'd rather smoke than drink, Murphey's Law pretty much only kicks in for me when I find it theatrically interesting and clearly I've no intention of getting my shit together. Which brings us to today's sponsor!
It was there for you when you decided to stand up to your asshole boss. When you were an infant and the whole world was new and fascinating, it held you up above your parents and their friends. Every time you've had to choose between what You wanted and what They wanted from you, it had your back. Not Giving a Fuck. Because its not the end of the fucking world.



Consciousness returned dragging agony behind it. I felt as though the shriek had shaken something loose from my essence, in addition to ringing my skeleton like a tuning fork. Once I had managed to convince my eyes to focus, the ache in my bones settled into my wrists and shoulders, where I'd apparently been bound. The camp lay completely undisturbed, though all of my companions were similarly disabled. Patrick, having unsurprisingly beaten me to alertness, sat struggling across the campfire from me. Between the two of us we managed to loose our bonds and set to work freeing our compatriots in short order.

My assertion that our things had been left unmolested proved wrong when, upon checking our packs, we all found a small stone talisman resting atop our belongings. Fortunately, the markings on the talisman proved quite familiar. I had, in fact, had the same mark inked into my forearm after it had proven both quite legitimate and incredibly useful when we'd first encountered it some years ago in Paraguay. Either our assailants had accidentally all dropped their own protection carefully into our closed packs, or these people did not wish harm upon us. The symbol could mean something else to these people, but given it's intricate detail and the general disconcerting similarity amongst the cults we'd investigated so far, I was willing to wager on our safety.

I asked the young Englishwoman we'd conscripted as our interpreter to loudly and clearly express our peaceful intent to the jungle at large, of the mind that whomever had accosted us was also likely keeping us under surveillance. Sure enough, not five minutes had passed before a small child strode into the camp to lead us (presumably) to his people.