Last time on The Bad Articles, our new recruits broke into some lad's house and stole a wee robot.

Stick around to find out what happens next, unless you're a coward.

Since the dawn of time, Ireland has played host to unimaginable horrors, ushered in through an ever -weakening veil between our world and the other side.

They live among us, shaping our mythology, sowing chaos, scaring the shit out of people.

Not all hope is lost.

Underfunded, undergunned and underappreciated, the OSNA stand proudly in the way of unchecked, otherworldly chaos.

This secret network of brave volunteers put their lives and their sanity on the line, all for a better tomorrow.

Have you ever been at a family wedding and you bump into an uncle you haven't seen in ages and he spent all night chatting the air off you and buying you a rake of pints and stuff and he even did a speech at the dinner?

Class crack altogether.

But then you got home and thought, how long?

He died six years ago.

Sure I was at the funeral.

You better call the OSNA before you find yourself in the bad articles.

It's the following morning and it's a crisp one here in Spurs Hollow.

Not too cold.

Fallen leaves of brown, orange and red adorn the cobbled streets, and a light wind coaxes them gently towards the centre of town.

There we see a bustling market fair, full with food stalls, local crafts, games and entertainment.

We see our agents.

huddling around, holding this book that Lenny had given him.

They've got it open on the page that he said was the ritual they did.

And it's like a mixture.

There is some Ogham stuff there, but there's also a bunch of Irish.

And there's a big drawing that just looks like a big circle with jagged points that are all pointing towards the centre.

What do yous want to do?

There's loads of people here.

And you've got some ritual that you don't understand.

Clary is talking to a hot dog vendor.

He's near the end of his conversation, but he's just like, and you know, so I asked Margaret for a sign.

And then Derek came out with a shotgun.

So I don't know, maybe that was her sign saying that the father of the boy did come out.

So that's all I'm saying is like, maybe, you know what?

Asked the spirit word for a sign and a man comes out with a shotgun.

Maybe he is the true father of the wee boy.

Do you mean Dacky?

I mean Derek, aye.

Derek McAnally.

It's Dacky.

It's Dacky McAnally.

With the turnips?

Aye.

Aye, is it?

Oh, I've been calling him Derek this whole time.

No, no, it's definitely Dacky.

Like, he's lived here his whole life.

Aye, no, well, I'm not disputing you.

You seem to know him, so...

I don't know him that well.

I'm just trying to...

Well, I know him from the bottom down, let me tell you that.

But, uh...

I'm not going to touch that.

He ran out swinging a blade with not only a shotgun, let me tell you.

Who are you?

Oh, sorry, did I not introduce myself?

Clary Pussman, I'm the milkman.

Our milkman?

You're not my milkman?

No, I'm a milkman, but I'm the milkman too.

You can be a and the milkman, I'm just...

That's ominous, I don't like it.

No, I'm sorry, that's fine.

I was just sorry to unload on you there, but...

What do you want on your hot dog?

I haven't decided yet.

So I think that the...

This symbol, it looks pretty bad.

It looks pretty ominous.

It looks spiky and fearful.

What do you think?

Yeah, it does.

To me, it almost looks like a mouth or teeth or something like that.

Is this the horse hole that the horse went down?

So your theory is that there's some sort of tunnel for the horse?

I'm just saying that horse, we all saw the lock wasn't broken.

There's a big...

No, actually, we didn't really talk about it.

No, we didn't.

There's certainly merit to the idea that something's underneath, given how the turnips have happened.

And then I pull out the drawing of the farms again.

There's also just something odd that they're perfectly symmetrical.

No one designs farms like that.

I really want to see some of these turnips.

Clary walks over and has rolled a nine for supernatural.

Does he recognize?

The ritual circle.

Well, he would say that that doesn't look like it's part of the ritual.

That looks like it's an illustration of something.

To be honest, that kind of looks like a mouth.

That doesn't look...

That looks as if someone else has drawn that on there.

Yeah, it's a picture book.

Oh, is it?

Oh, never mind then.

Yeah.

It definitely does not look like someone else has drawn it on.

It looks like an illustration that was in this book from the beginning.

Does anyone here speak Irish?

I don't.

We can ask around and see if someone...

Yeah, can anyone translate?

I mean, some of this is too old to be legible, but...

Gonna go back to the hot dog man.

Hot dog man.

Hot dog man.

Excuse me.

These are my friends.

We're not his friends.

We are...

What do you want?

We just...

Can you read this at all?

Do you have any...

No, I don't speak Irish.

Would you know someone who does?

I know a bit of all of them.

Oh, sorry.

But I don't know the other bits.

I don't know the more modern bits.

Oh, okay.

We can get half of it, or, well, two -thirds of it.

Sorry, what's below half?

Well, I know how to write my name in Ogham because an axe taught me.

Is your name in this?

Some of the letters, but it's the lines and stuff, so it really is like the composition of it is kind of difficult.

So how much of it can you translate?

How much of it can I translate?

Do you have a codex at this point?

You sort of understand how some of that Ogham stuff works.

So you're picking out a few wee words.

You see the word boar.

You see bone.

You think there's a mention of venom and gullet.

Like, you're not able to string loads of this together.

But it definitely seems like it's talking about some sort of creature.

But a lot of the details seem to be in that Irish stuff that you don't know how to speak.

Well, the one thing we know at least, none of that's to do with turnips.

It could be a bit horsey.

It sounds a bit horsey.

You actually might be on to something, Gideon.

And I'm sorry.

And I wasn't dismissing you.

I was just saying that you sounded like very hung up on it in the way that Kyra was hung up on the robots.

And I know that's a good thing, Kyra.

I appreciate your determination.

No, I'm fully off the robots now.

I have moved on.

There's conspiracies in this town, but I don't like the robots.

It's crazy.

I might be a little bit concussed.

But I think this thing might have eaten...

Might have eaten Margaret, the horse.

Is that a big...

So are we saying that's like a big worm?

Yeah.

Like a big worm with teeth.

Like Shai Halud from the recently released science fiction novel, Dune.

Good.

Maybe there might be someone in this town.

I'm going to go looking for any Irish teachers.

I bet you there's a stall here of someone willing to translate my name to Irish or something.

Yeah.

We'll all go our separate ways.

No, don't do that.

Stay with us.

Stay, stay.

So the four of you just have a wee look around.

There's all sorts.

There's people selling tat.

There's a band setting up later.

There's a fisherman.

He's just selling a bunch of fish.

Is that the wolf tones?

Is that the actual wolf tones?

Well, no, you actually notice their sign.

It says catechism on it.

Underneath, though, it is written in Irish as well.

Like, they've got their name written in two languages.

I think it's a marketing trap.

No, but this could also be like Maddie, who just, they know their name.

So...

Yeah.

Maybe they can only translate a few more words.

Well, we can try asking.

I guess.

Are they playing currently?

They are not playing currently.

I don't hear any music.

There's just a fella plugging in a bunch of stuff.

He's unpacking what looks like a guitar case.

Let's not bother with any crew.

What do you mean?

There's one man.

At this bandstand.

Why would he know the Irish?

He's not part of the band.

If we're going to find the band, there's no point in wasting our time with stagehands or whatever.

Oh, we can build a set.

Who gives a fuck?

Clary, you are displaying levels of snobbishness I would not associate with the noble profession of milkman.

That seems to be the kind of behaviour more suited for a milkmaster.

Yes, a milkmaster.

Yeah, Clary.

Curdled by your own hubris.

Well, I was shot at twice.

Last night, so maybe I'm going a little too hard.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry, sir.

You probably overheard all that.

Yes, I did, actually.

I am in the band.

Why?

No, don't.

Don't.

Why are you setting up?

Are you just good at that stuff?

No, it's a small bandstand.

I'm just helping set up.

The other guys aren't here yet.

Sir, I have to apologize for my friend.

He spent all night in a field.

Fearing for his life, and I think...

Why?

That's not true.

I got out of the field pretty quickly.

Do you speak Irish?

No, I don't, actually.

Our drummer does.

See, this is what I'm saying.

He's setting up the stage.

Could...

Is your drummer about?

We just have a few questions about a manuscript we found.

No, he's not.

He should be here in, like, you know, in about an hour or so.

But, like, because we're doing a set, so you can come see us.

Yeah.

Great.

What do you play?

Like, sort of like Christian grunge.

Like, come on.

That's why we're called catechism.

But you know, we draw lots of influences.

So it's like grunge, but with a positive Christian message.

So you're going to tell us about God?

Well, it's for some people.

It might be in the second person.

It might not seem like it's about God, but it's actually about God.

You know one of those?

Are you one of those?

Yeah, it's quite veiled in a few layers of metaphor and stuff.

But it's definitely about God.

Right, so you don't speak Irish.

It's great, though.

I don't.

The drummer does.

He'll be here soon.

Can I ask what the name of your drummer is?

His name is Jonathan Kilkenny.

Okay.

Yeah.

A cold sweat creeps across Maddie's forehead as they remember that name.

But what happened to that man after they broke up?

Maddie, are you okay?

You've been in a bit of a daze there.

Jonathan and me went out for...

a number of very intense months, and it was great.

All right.

It was a really lovely relationship.

You're staying over at his house, leaving toothbrushes and stuff.

I mean, yeah, honestly.

All right.

And that was about it.

I went to a family barbecue or two.

He taught me a little bit of Ogham.

I'm not very good at retaining the stuff that people teach me, but I have, like, little bits of knowledge.

That's class.

Well, yeah, so that's why I was able to look at the...

That's why you wrote down all those words for us.

He's actually probably a pretty good person to look at this for us.

So he knows all the man Irish.

Jesus.

Yeah, but I don't know if he'll remember me.

Aqua, why wouldn't he remember you?

You're a catch.

Look at yourself out here solving crimes.

Okay, well, we don't have that kind of...

Wait, I wasn't doing that then.

I wasn't solving...

I just committed a crime.

I just committed a few crimes.

I took a robot butler yesterday from a man's house.

Yeah, you told me to believe in you, and you believed in yourself so much, you've got a robot now.

I might add, completely useless so far, this robot butler.

I have to carry him.

Can the robot translate Ogham or Irish?

I don't know what this robot's capabilities are, but I can assure you it can't.

I think, yeah, I think it literally does poor strings.

Does anyone have anything they want to do for an hour?

I would love to get some food.

I'm going to get a hot bowl of turnip.

Yep.

My treat, my treat.

Thank you.

We cut to a montage of the four of yous walking around, chatting to people, eating bowls of turnip.

Pointing at big turnips.

Somebody get in this picture cutout and get my photo taken.

We're two turnips.

Get down, both of yous.

I think I saw him eating a hot dog.

Be careful.

Yeah, Dylan's eating a hot dog right over there.

And I can't move very quickly because this thing weighs like 30 kilos.

It's a heavy robot.

Give me the papoose.

Oh, hey, brother.

You guys passing around an Omnibot 2000 there, I see.

Pretty, pretty cool.

We're trying to keep it on the DL.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Is this a black market Omnibot?

It's illicit.

It's illicit.

Well, I wouldn't say that.

I think it's quite pure of heart.

I know robots don't necessarily have heart, but it's...

Yeah, for sure, for sure.

It's a sweet little guy.

I mean, if you knew its origin, you would know it's definitely pure of heart.

Hi, Glory Postman.

I'm the Milkman.

It's nice to meet you.

My name's Dave.

Dave, I'm a fisherman.

You guys enjoying the town fair?

Yeah.

Do you know...

Wear your shoes.

No, go ahead.

Oh, so I don't wear them anymore because I like to be one with the lake.

If you're so fisherman, wear the fish in your belt.

Excuse me?

I'm a milkman.

You see all this milk around my body.

It's a hot day.

That's curdled.

You stink.

I stand by it.

A lot of my best catches are on display.

Just a little market stall over there.

They're not for purchase or anything.

It's really just you guys can check them out if you like.

You got some time to kill?

Yeah.

I'll look at some fish in the sun.

So here's one.

Don't know what it's called.

but pretty big.

I don't know what it's called.

So far as fish go, pretty big.

So do you not know what it's called because of your capabilities as a fisherman or it's just an unknown species?

Brother, I caught it.

I caught it.

You know what I'm saying?

You're talking about my capabilities as a fisherman.

You're looking at my wares here, my catches.

You travel the world, right?

Well, I came from up north, popped over to the...

The old London, don't know if you've heard of that before.

Don't say that.

Over there, and then pop straight back.

Do you speak any Irish over there in London?

No, no, not myself.

I spend a lot of time out in the lake at the minute.

Now, tell you what though, out in the loch there, there's a wee island out there, absolutely gorgeous.

If you get a chance out there, check it out.

Now, I will say, I'd rent boats, no problem.

I can rent you boats, as many boats as you want, best boats you've ever seen.

The island out there, a bit tough to get to at the minute.

You've got to get round the back end of it.

You don't want to head in straight on.

It's pretty badly churned out there at the minute.

Little piggies.

I was walking around on the lock out there, let me tell you.

You mean your toes?

Yeah, that's the ones.

Just absolutely squelching, let me tell you, brother.

So you haven't seen this boy?

Oh, God, Clary.

Let the man show his fish off.

No, no.

No, I don't think I've seen that boy.

Not a lot of kids are in the lake, if you catch me.

Yeah, that's all right, then.

You've saved me a trip.

Cheers.

But, hey, listen, if you're here in time for a little bit, I would say, you know, have fun at the fair.

Obviously, you guys can check out my fish as much as you want.

And if you need a boat, if you want to check out the island on the loch, then, hey, hit up Dave.

Well, like, after the fair, what are you doing?

I'm just going to head back out in the lake.

You want me to boat you out there?

Yeah, that'd be great.

I was going to just show you a picture.

Is it another boy?

No.

You think it's another boy.

It's just the same photo of the same boy.

Is it going to be the same photo of the same boy?

No, no.

It's from this big book.

Have you ever seen that before?

This big circle thing?

No.

That's sad.

Go back to your lake.

Clary.

What?

Your desperate search for your son has rendered you...

This was on topic.

I'm just saying, your grief is tearing you apart, man.

It's making you weird.

Look at you.

You didn't know me before my grief.

You can't verify that.

You have got worse.

You can't verify that.

Gideon, I think we've established that for some reason...

Weird milk obsession and a son obsession are unrelated.

Thank you.

They run strongly in parallel, but unrelated.

Not causation.

Yeah, I feel like finding his son will not fix him.

I'm going to just start showing two photos around to everybody at the fair.

Maybe we make our way back to the bandstand?

Our agents head back to the bandstand.

The rest of the band seem to be there now.

There's a lad tuning up his guitar and there's a fella on the drums and he's tightening some of the skins.

At the front of the stage, Maddy sees a familiar face.

A beautiful shock of wavy blonde hair sits atop a chiseled jaw.

He's got an interesting wee beard and as their eyes track down this fella, they notice a new addition.

A priest's collar around his neck.

Maddy Murphy.

What brings you to Spar's Hollow?

It's, well, it depends the R in which you ask me that question, the response that I will give you, but it's really nice to see you.

It's so good to run into an old flame.

Goodness me.

Can I say that?

You're wearing a collar now.

Hey, hey, God's love is in all of us, yeah?

Was the breakup that bad?

I thought we ended on pretty decent terms.

Sorry, I'm kind of like jumping straight into it.

No, it's totally cool.

It's so great to see you.

How's your mum?

She's good, yeah.

Still knocking about.

I send her checks now and then.

She's not working so much anymore.

It turns out that playing drums in a Christian rock band and doing weddings and so forth in a small town, it really pays the bills.

That is the most...

Beautiful man any of yous have ever seen in your life, right?

It's not just the collar.

I would have thought a shock of hair would look odd.

But on him, it was incredible.

I don't know if there should be a halo above him already, but my lord.

So you're here just on holiday or for work?

Well, kind of for a hobby.

And then we lied for a bit and said it was for work.

And then we've got entangled in this kind of thing.

Do you still speak Irish?

Yeah, yeah.

As you well know, I learned it to come over here.

It turns out nobody speaks it.

I thought that was very endearing.

Because you even learned, not even like recent Irish.

I learned it all.

Yeah.

You really committed.

That's what I do, Maddy.

Yeah, I mean, you committed to me, now you've committed to God, I guess.

It's not in a bad way.

It's less of a...

Just surprised.

It's a partnership between me and the big man, you know what I'm saying?

I feel what he wants me to do in my soul.

Did you date anyone else before the priesthood, or...?

No, you were my last.

Oh, God.

Okay.

So, what's your interest in Irish?

So, me and my friends slash milk trainee fellows...

Are they all guys?

What has that got to do with it?

They're looking at us.

Wave, wave.

We see three men waving.

I think I should give him a nod.

Is that a little robot he has in a papoose?

I stole him yesterday, but don't tell the big man.

Oh, plugging my ears for you, Maddy.

No problem.

So this Irish, your companions are here on a hobby, partially work.

Yeah, it's kind of become a bit of a, I guess, almost a scavenger hunt.

And then part of that has involved us getting this book and there's some Irish in it and there's diagrams and there's some Ogham in it.

And I kind of got bits and pieces of that, but we've kind of hit a wall with it.

So we thought, you know, happy coincidence.

We came here.

There is a fair on.

Like, this is a lovely little way to spend the afternoon.

Heck yes.

Yeah, we thought we'd run into some people who also properly speak Irish, but it turns out it's yourself.

Well, it would be my honour to try and translate it for you if you have it handy.

Oh, yeah, one of the guys, or the robot has it right now.

These are the guys, by the way.

Oh, hi.

Hi.

This is Jonathan.

This is the book?

Yes.

Oh, there's the book.

Let's have a look here.

Huh.

This page here?

No, the next, sorry, ten more pages in.

Sorry.

The one that says about the gullet.

Sorry, go back one, go back one.

The gullet one.

Yeah, we've written bone, we've written bone on the side of it.

No, you passed on to the next one.

Oh, there, no, sorry, there.

It's very impressive that you got, what was that, bone and boar and...

Gullet.

Gullet.

Venom 2.

Interesting.

Thanks, Clary.

I can...

Believe in yourself.

I can certainly do my best to flesh out the rest for her.

You could bring a man back from the cloth.

I don't want to do that.

I'm kind of okay doing my own thing at the moment.

You're on holiday.

Well, do whatever you want.

It was bone that bore her from marrow once soaked in hatred.

Split open by the arrogance of man, she spilled into the lake.

A worm in nothing but name alone.

A mountain of scale and shadow.

mother to all that coils beneath the earth.

The land remembers her breath, venom in the wells, ash in the grass, cattle in their thousands and the screams of vanished children.

The rivers wept red, not from war, but from hunger.

Saints could not sanctify her.

Even holy men found her belly before they found escape.

She is the gullet of myth, the chasm that dreams of swallowing gods.

Banishment did not slay her.

She sleeps instead beneath the lock.

In time, the moon will once more disappear.

The blood will boil.

The silver dull.

Yes, in time, another will call her name.

Sound about a worm, I guess.

I mean, yeah, it feels a bit riddly.

There's a summoning ritual here next to it as well, and beneath that, a binding ritual.

This worm takes children?

Well, from what I can glean here, this is about an ancient beast.

Wait, stop your beautiful mouth.

Have you...

Look at another photo.

Could you look at another photo?

It would be my pleasure.

Have you seen this boy?

No.

No, you don't have to answer that.

Well, no, I haven't, but...

I can ask the Lord to keep an eye out for him.

Sorry, Maddy.

Thank you so much.

So, this poem appears to be about a creature, an ancient creature called the Kurano.

It's a legendary beast.

I suppose you'd classify it as some kind of worm or dragon, maybe.

They're said to inhabit numerous lakes and rivers across the land.

Now, the summoning ritual here...

It says it needs to be performed beneath a new moon.

Well, it's been cloudy for the last few days, so we don't know when that's going to be.

Well, I mean, that would track with the behaviour of the two kids.

What do you mean?

They did it a few weeks ago, right?

Yes, by accident, perhaps.

So we need to go back and ask them how long ago they did it?

Well, how about we let the father here complete...

sentence before we look at the weather report.

That's fine, yeah, sounds good.

Sorry, Jonathan.

The summoning ritual requires a vessel of water drawn from the loch before dawn, a thigh bone scorched with ash, hawthorn branches formed into a spiral, willing blood from animal or man, and chalk mixed with bog iron to inscribe the circle.

Sounds like a load of nonsense to me, but if this is what your hobby is, fair enough.

All right, Jesus boy.

Jesus boy.

We need him for the next bit, and then we can say whatever we like about him.

It's fine.

We ended on good terms, right?

So far, so good, Maddy.

And he is a man of the cloth.

Do show him the respect.

Thank you, stranger.

And he is the most gorgeous man I've ever seen, so please.

Can you stop saying that, Clary?

Thank you.

What about the binding ritual?

Well, the binding ritual is similar, but a little less involved.

Also to be performed beneath a new moon, beside natural water where no church bell is heard.

Well, that is...

Well, I suppose these are very old.

Yes, the ash bark soaked in lake water.

A mirror.

Three drops of venom from any serpent.

A brazier fed with peat and sheep's wool.

And a voice of lament.

There's some instructions beneath here as well.

This is mad.

That is an absurd list of things you're asking from us here.

Well, it seems like the boys, we know at least that they were waving a stick around.

That could have been the Hawthorne branch, so...

No, but we don't care about what they've done, right?

Well, we need to know what they've done to understand how to undo it.

Well, we know what they've done.

They've done the summoning ritual, so we can ignore that bit and move right to the binding.

But do we believe that this is what's happened?

Do we believe this is what's happened to the turnips?

There was something under the ground.

To the horse?

It's this or the fucking robots.

I would just, based on the poem, it seems like the actions taken by this creature would be far more severe than a dozen turnips.

Do you guys need a sidebar or something?

It's odd that you're speaking about this while I'm just standing here.

No, you stand there.

Um, Toland?

Actually, so we can see you just, like, come into the circle?

If you still need to do setup, that's totally fine.

I do need to finish tuning my snail.

Well, okay, how about we'll all let you finish the binding ritual.

Or are you finished?

Well, I've told you the materials required.

Now, the instructions are fairly simple.

Begin as the last light phase with the brazier lit and a mirror placed beside it reflecting the fire.

Place the ash bark into the brazier.

Drip the serpent's venom onto the fire and recite Bone of Beast, Hand of Man.

What was released shall now return, sleep again in blood -stained brine.

Someone must then sing their lament.

No words, only grief.

Omnibot's transcribing all of this.

This wail opens the veil.

As they wail, pour a ladle of lake water onto the fire.

If the smoke rises black, the Kurana listens.

If it rises white, she resists.

Take the mirror and hold it up to the water's surface.

If her reflection forms, say, mother of monsters, child of marrow, by blood and bone, by saint and sword, I bind thee.

Return to sleep beneath the red lake.

Smash the mirror into the brazier.

Do not look at the water.

I'm going to go back to the fisherman and just ask him, because he's nautical and stuff, if he knows when the next moon is.

He would have seen the stars and stuff while he was away.

Maybe not, Cloudy.

Hey, guys.

Back again.

I will give you all of the money in my wallet for one of your fares, but I don't need to go in the fare.

I just need to know when the next moon is.

The next...

Well, it's the same moon.

Full moon.

Full moon.

Well, the next full moon.

Or an eclipse.

Well, I know when the next new moon is, for sure.

Right.

That's tonight.

Do we need a full moon or a new moon?

Let's go back to...

I think the two of us never left, Jonathan.

And what about...

What about no moon?

That never happens, brother.

No, but the moon is completely...

I can't remember the term.

That's what a new moon is, yeah.

That's what a new moon is.

Is that tonight?

That's tonight.

Oh, we're fucked.

We've run back to them and relayed this information.

Was it a new moon or a full moon we needed?

I'm in the middle of saying to Jonathan, do you still have my purple jumper or did you give it away?

You know, Maddy, as a priest, I can't lie.

He just walks off.

Is it a new moon?

After those two ran off, Dolan went to a corner shop to get a newspaper which has the weather and moon cycles in it.

Dolan knows for certain that it is a new moon.

Can you check if there's any natural water on the farm?

Check the drawing.

There's none.

There's none.

And there's a church quite nearby as well.

In fact, the irrigation's terrible.

The island, did you want to go there?

No, it was just whenever there was mention of water, I was like, oh, cool, the lake has been very heavily alluded to.

Maybe that's the source of water.

I mean, looking at the notes, we do seem to have to...

The lake seems to be heavily involved in the show.

We have enough exposition that's pointing lakewards.

It feels impossible to do without the lake.

Why are you trying to avoid the lake?

I just don't think it's the lake.

I just, I think we go back to the farm.

You thought Decky was called Derek.

Yeah, but I'm trying to think, like, I think we need to go back to the farm.

It all started at the farm.

I just, my gut instinct tells me, and I realize it's been wrong a few times in this one, but you gotta trust me.

I think.

Okay, Clary, we've trusted you with your plan for us all to be milk apprentices.

It worked surprisingly well.

Now you'd have to trust us.

And our gut says the lake is involved on the basis that we have a massive tome stating that the lake is involved.

And we went through a large amount of effort and got a priest involved to verify that the lake is involved.

Also, if you go back to that farm, you will be shot.

We can take a vote.

Okay, the five of us are going to vote.

The robots included.

The robot votes with me, FYI.

Yeah, that's fine.

Are we going to the lake?

I'll say aye.

Aye?

Yeah, great answer.

Oh shit, it's three to two.

The robot voted against me.

This is a worrying development.

Can someone else papoose him for a while?

I don't feel comfortable with this.

I'll take him back for a bit.

Clary, use him down.

Use him down.

Just trust us on this.

Okay.

How about this?

I'll get your hot dog.

He knows you're my friend.

He won't give you one.

We're going to cut to your montage.

Our agents scar the town fair.

gathering the stuff they need for their own ritual.

Clary chases a sheep before yanking some wool off its back.

Matty jimmies the wing mirror off of a car.

Dolan has a lovely chat with a fella who's brought a bunch of animals down for the kids to hold.

You know the type, they've got a few spiders and lizards and maybe a rabbit.

Anyway, he manages to barter with the guy for some snake venom.

No idea why he was carrying it around.

The less we know about that, the better.

Gideon haggles with one of the junior hurling team to give him one of the spare hurls, because they're made of ash.

Don't you know?

With the rituals in tow, our gang meet up again.

Holding a bunch of stuff.

Right, well, I already gave all my money to the lake guy to get the information for the moon.

So one of you is going to have to pay him for the boat.

You ready to jump on board?

Do you have any, like, life jackets?

I've got a couple of cool jackets.

None that save your life in most scenarios, but you guys strong swimmers?

With this robot.

Oh, with this robot on you, you need to be careful.

You need to drop him if we go over, because he will drag you down.

Yeah, I'll put my vest on me first before I put it on.

I'm not a strong swimmer.

I'll hold on to the robot.

You don't touch the robot.

All aboard.

Oh, you're not using the boat.

It doesn't work?

No, trying to get into shape.

Okay, sorry.

You're looking all right.

You want a hug?

You want to jump on one of the other?

You could maybe sit behind me and wrap your arms around me and we could row together.

I'm a happily married man.

I'll do you one better.

Here's some milk for your gains.

That is not very helpful at all, but thanks, I guess.

There's a lot of protein in that.

Is there?

Yeah.

Like, actually, is there protein in milk?

Yeah.

Clary, what do you think's in milk?

What are you talking about?

Milk is a protein -dense liquid.

It's mainly dairy.

You know, it's like calcium and fat.

Yeah, of course it's dairy, but there's also other things inside of it.

Yeah, there's some protein.

Like fat.

Milk is a fairly protein -heavy drink.

I don't think that's factual at all, no.

You guys are insane.

I'm the milk man here.

This is a wild...

How far do we have to go here?

Maybe like...

They approach the banks.

Thank God.

Thank God.

The island itself, it's very small and pretty unremarkable.

There's wee tufts of reeds that line the banks before they thin out as a small mound rises up in the middle of the landmass.

The ground is that proper, like, claggy mud that sucks on your boots.

You disembark the boat, so you're all standing on this island with a bunch of stuff you found at a town fair.

What are yous gonna do?

Well, this seems like a pretty appropriate place to light that fire.

Well, hold on now.

We need to wait till the last light fades.

Yeah, but we can light the fire.

No, I don't think so.

Begin as the last light fades.

Yeah, that's for the brazier.

We can have the fire going and then we light the brazier.

How are we supposed to light the brazier at night?

As soon as that light goes, that's a moment.

We can't light a fire and light a brazier from that.

In one go, I think we're allowed to have the fire going.

Who brought the brazier?

I have it here.

Good.

Good stuff.

Set it down.

Set it down.

I'm going to dig a little hole.

Like a teeny tiny...

I'm just going to shove it into the earth so it sticks up, right?

I'm going to...

Just hold that one second.

I'm going to dig it out with my milk bottle.

They're strong.

They're sturdy.

Do you want my lighter?

What?

Do you want my lighter?

No, not yet.

Someone start building the fire.

Dolan, you want to collect some...

Some firewood?

Sure.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Make sure the ash is soaked in the lake water as well.

Yeah, that's all right.

We all have the same.

We all have Omnibot's notes.

We all know what's going on.

I'll go down to the lake edge.

You got the wing mirror?

Yeah, me and Birdie have the wing mirror.

Did you bring the snake?

I brought the venom.

I would love to have met a snake.

We can see it on the way back.

No, no, the guy's gone.

Oh, the fair is only one day.

Yeah.

Oh.

I mean, Pennington's a guy that definitely would be gone.

Shit, I missed Jonathan's second set.

His first set wasn't very good.

But were the drums good?

No.

Maybe the God stuff is just bringing him down.

It doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter.

I'm sorry.

Look, his calling may be the cloth, but it's certainly not the drums.

The sun is going down.

Yeah, well, we're all here.

We're waiting for it.

It's being pretty slow.

I'm still entirely convinced this will do anything.

Well, we'll just give it a try.

We'll just give it a try.

There are weird things happening.

Right.

What do we think the last light means?

Like, it's feeding.

Do we need it?

Like, is there a split second moment?

Oh, fuck.

Okay.

All right.

An immersed place behind a brazier?

Yeah, okay.

Yeah, okay.

Just...

I'm just reading through it.

No, just...

I am placing the ash bark into the brazier.

You got the venom?

Yep.

I'm dropping the venom onto the fire.

Bone of beast, hand of man, what was released shall now return.

Sleep again in bloodstained brine.

All right, Claire, that's your cue.

You begin to hear a low rumble in the distance.

It grows.

Can I have an awareness roll from the earliest?

Oh, a one.

Oh!

Everybody else as well.

Chosen.

A natural one.

One?

Oh, shit.

36.

Dolan and Clary, as the last syllables leave Dolan's mouth, both of your heads turn round to see a disturbance in the water heading straight for the island.

Once it comes in contact with the shore, it disappears momentarily, before a path of churning earth winds its way towards you.

Suddenly, bursting from the mud, you see what seems to be a girthy earthworm about the size of a sleeping bat, with patchy hair poking out in tufts from its dirt -caked body.

Concentric rings of teeth, but some of them are missing, lie in the beast's mouth.

Imagine like a tapeworm, but with male -pattern baldness.

It lunges towards Clary.

What do yous do?

What do yous do?

I dive into Clary and I knock him out of the way of the worm.

35.

It's not enough.

Gideon leaps, but he misses.

He bangs into Clary and then falls in the mud.

No!

He screams.

He just screams.

Lament, Chloe.

Lament.

I said we shouldn't have went here.

I said it.

No words, only grief.

I'm sorry.

I'm too angry to be.

Just wail.

Just wail.

Chloe punches you in the nose again.

Wail, Chloe.

Oh, wait, no.

Gideon wails in pain.

Gideon, you gotta wail with grief.

Ah!

Ah!

Hold on.

Dolan has it here.

He grabs a stick and smashes the robot.

No!

No!

Bernie!

I'm just giving you a name!

No words!

Dolan, what the actual fuck, man?

The big worm leaps at Clary because he didn't get pushed out of the way.

No!

No!

This thing...

leaps through the air and clamps onto your forearm.

You know, up to the elbow.

Gets your whole arm in its mouth.

How dare you take children from their fathers and he punches it in the eye.

And you take 12 damage.

You feel blood coursing out of your arm.

And this thing is locked on.

Mother of monsters, how do you feed losing children?

What are you doing, Maddy?

I think I'm trying to wield the mirror as a weapon.

Maddy swings a mirror at this thing.

94.

It's a swing and a miss, unfortunately, from Matty.

No!

How did you miss a huge fucking monster?

It's a very small mirror.

I go on my arm.

I scream at Gideon, keep wailing as I try and pour the lake water onto the fire.

Dolan takes a solitary deep breath before grabbing that ladle.

and pouring that water on the fire.

Gideon, keep wailing.

Look at your dead robot son and wail.

He's being gripped alive.

This big old worm is wiggling and jiggling all over Clary's arm.

He's waving it around like a big flag.

I rip the metal dead serrated arm of my beautiful robot son and I use it to slice Clary's arm.

When I bring that serrated arm down, I do so not with might, but with the power of medicine.

That's right.

I'm going to try and medically remove Clary's right arm.

What?

23?

You hear an indescribable squelch as this tiny robot's arm cleave straight through Clary's meat and bone.

Why wouldn't you go for the worm?

I'm sorry, I panicked.

I thought the worm would be immovable.

The worm thuds to the ground, sated temporarily by a full arm of a grown man.

You lose another ten.

Eight points.

I can't be much left.

But you're bleeding a lot.

Eight points.

It's the fire out.

Fuck the fire's out.

I can't even stand it.

A wisp of black smoke.

Rises from the fire.

Whatever this creature is.

Turns.

And seems momentarily distracted.

Clary bleeds.

A lot.

Give me a medicine roll.

Get away from me!

Get away!

Shh, shh, shh.

Bad.

97.

You pull off your belt and try to wrap it round his arm.

It's his neck.

Maddy, you've got to take the mirror to the lake.

Okay, I'll let the water look at itself.

Is that all you've got?

Do you remember the words?

Mother of monsters, child of marrow, by blood and bone, by sin and sword, I bind thee, returning to sleep, beneath the red lake.

Maddy throws the mirror at the brazier.

Do not look back at the water, remember.

No, I'm looking at the ground.

I'm looking at my feet.

This thing slithers backwards towards the water's edge.

Don't let it get away.

A chunk of meat flopping out of its big old mouth.

I'm going to make a grab for Clary's arm.

I feel responsible.

I feel responsible.

I have to try.

Give me an agility roll.

Oh boy, this needs to be good.

Leave it.

Leave it.

Don't bring that worm by.

Nope.

It gets sucked down into the gullet of this thing and it disappears from view.

Clary's moaning on the ground.

Clary, let's staunch our wounds against each other.

What happened to you?

I tried to help.

Looking now, Gideon seems to have lost a finger.

The sun now set.

Our agents are able to gather around their fallen comrade and wrap a bunch of tourniquets around that arm.

I told you I didn't want to come here.

We use the papoose to tourniquet?

The papoose.

My boy!

I go to Omnipot.

A feeble sign of electronic life is in his eyes.

I see a horrible vision of death in his little glassy orb.

No!

I can't say.

I could possibly say.

I can't say.

I can't say.

What did you see?

I can't say.

Did you see my boy?

Not your boy.

Why did you aim for the worm, man?

I panicked.

I thought the worm was...

Why did you aim for the worm?

I thought the worm was going to gobble...

I thought the worm was...

It was.

It was going to gobble me up.

I grabbed one of the milk bottles from his belt.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

Just take a sip of this.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

What is it?

What is it?

I just had a little recorder deep.

Yeah, he'll get this.

We fade to black.

as Clary's one remaining arm falls limp after handing over the tape, milk pouring over his unconscious lips.

Three days later.

We're back in the bar.

We see our three agents and a half -broken robot sitting in White's tavern.

Mervyn and Assumpta are sitting at a wee circular table just opposite them.

Good lord!

You lost a finger!

Three glasses of milk, please.

Where's the potion?

Four glasses of milk, please.

Sorry, the milkman.

I do not wish for a glass of milk.

I understand the symbolic gesture, but...

Just take the fucking milk.

Just don't drink it.

It's unpasteurised.

That's fine.

It's what he would have wanted.

I don't think it is.

He complained often.

I didn't know him that well.

Let's call it spite milk.

He wouldn't have liked that either.

I know.

Here, hold on a wee second.

Spite milk?

Doesn't matter.

Now there's something in that, Mervyn.

There's something in that.

I'm going to make a drink.

Called a Spite Milk.

I don't think he would have liked any of this.

No, I feel bad.

We're not honouring him well.

What would he have liked?

He would have liked us to find his son.

Yeah.

I have the tape.

Can we get a more prominent picture of his son?

Omnibot.

Can you play this?

Okay, Omni...

He's dead.

I had just started calling him Birdie.

Okay, I'm...

It doesn't matter.

I'm sorry, but...

Birdie, would you...

He'll show you.

Brody?

He's part of the crew.

Can you play this, Brody?

Okay, you can do this.

You can do this.

Okay.

Hey, CJ.

It's Dad here.

If you're listening to this, then I guess I'm not there with you now.

And if I'm not there, I just want you to know that I never stop looking for you.

My boy.

My sweet, brilliant boy.

I love you with all my heart.

I love you more than milk, son.

Oh, that was...

That was something.

More moving than I thought that fellow was capable of.

Well...

That man had a plight.

I reckon this wee bot here has to stay with us now, in the pub.

The other arm.

It wasn't the one that served drinks, was it?

I believe one of the arms transcribed ancient Irish texts and the other one served drinks.

This robot can do three things.

This is why we wanted him to be part of the crew.

Have you seen the wanted posters in town?

Dylan still wants his robot back.

I'm really anxious for what happens when he finds out it's missing an arm.

We're not going to send you back to Spars Hollow anytime soon.

If you send me back to Spars Hollow for the next mission, I swear to God.

That was a goddamn bloodbath.

No, you're not going back.

Look, but you held your own.

I've got to say, you were very impressive.

I mean, the worm did not do that much damage, I would argue.

It killed one of your pals.

It killed a man.

No, it bit someone's arm and then the arm was...

Severed.

No, don't make it sound like Gideon.

Don't blame Gideon.

I'm going to blame him a little bit.

No, don't.

Blame me.

Thank you.

Break my nose a third time, won't you?

No, a third time?

I only broke it once.

Did I break it twice?

No, it was broken twice.

It was broken twice.

Okay.

Look, I'm not blaming you entirely.

That was one of Clary's last actions.

With that arm, yeah.

Here's those milks.

Thanks.

I'm absolutely not drinking that.

Jesus Christ, that's foul.

Well, if none of you will drink this unpasteurised milk as a symbolic gesture, then I will...

I immediately feel unwell.

I have to go now.

I have to shit myself.

And credits.

this wee story, our heroes have now officially become knuckles upon the mighty fist that is the OSNA.

Join us next time as we continue our fight against fright.

Stay vigilant out there, unless you want to find yourself in the bad articles.

to welcome you back to Rathgool for our next otherworldly investigation.

The Bad Articles is created by J .R.

McCormick and Aidan Kelly.

It is produced at Felburn Studios by the wonderful Clark Phillips.

Starring Conleth McVeigh as Clary Postman the Milkman, Laura Conlon as Maddie Murphy, Patrick Meyer as Dolan Gibbons, and Niall McKenna as Gideon Hubble.

If you've enjoyed the bad articles, we encourage you to spread the word by telling your friends about the show.

We can do all the marketing in the world, but nothing beats your pal telling you to check out something cool.

If you'd like to discuss anything related to the bad articles with other fans and those of us who make the show, we have a Discord community where you can do just that.

And if you want to support the show further, you can head over to our Ko -fi and drop us a little tip to help keep the lights on and the cast warmed.

Improvisers are notoriously chilly people.

You can find links to everything you need in the show notes.

My name is JR McCormick, and I will see you on the other side.