Book and Ocean look for answers from an isolated soul.

This one is slimy.

Welcome to Oops!

All Apocalypses, a show where we explore the collapse of society by playing fun, tabletop, role-playing games.

I'm your host, Stu Masterson, and I'm joined by a 2024 Honda CR-V and a fully-loaded pilot with now fourth-gen V6 in there.

Ooh, which one of us is which?

Which would you prefer to be, Brady?

What are the options, a Honda pilot or a CR-V?

Just so you know, the new pilot, the fourth-gen that's out, is now really like a good off-road vehicle.

It's basically a Jeep, you know, yeah.

It's not just like a minivan in SUV clothing.

That's what most of these theater and things are.

I always liked the CR-V.

I always thought it was cool-looking.

You can be the CR-V then.

It's really top-of-the-line crossover, if you ask me.

I'll be the Honda pilot.

Hey, everybody, I'm Brady, and I'm a 2024 Honda pilot who plays Book McCready, a stern yet compassionate sleuth who's also covered in poop.

And I'm Jacob.

I'm a 2024 Honda CR-V midsize turbo.

And is that what you said it was a midsize turbo?

Because that's what popped up when I Googled it.

That's good enough.

Go for it.

And I play Ocean, a gentle giant who's currently struggling with whether he has a irrational love for the dark or a rational hatred for it.

Yeah, you're really teetering on the edge there.

Yeah, that was kind of a traumatic last little episode there.

So I hid a little subliminal marketing in the intro that I don't know if you guys caught, but it's my favorite time of the year, and it should be everyone's.

Happy Honda Days.

It's the holiday season, and we're finally at Happy Honda Days.

Oh, Happy Honda Days.

What are you guys getting for Honda Days?

No, no, no, no, Stu.

Which Honda are you?

Oh, I'm a Honda Accord, obviously.

Nice and reliable.

That makes sense.

No, it doesn't.

Stu's the least Honda Accord person I've ever met.

If we're talking about four-wheeled vehicles, but you know, a lot of people, especially for the Honda Days, you're like, I can't afford a new car, but people don't realize there's also the Honda Rebel, which some of the newer trim levels have a dual clutch transmission.

So you don't even have to know how to drive a motorcycle, really.

You just hit that throttle, no clutch, no gear shifting, you're good to go.

Are you a Honda Rebel?

I would love to be a Honda Rebel.

Does Honda sell any of those tricycles?

If so, we're not signing off on them.

You would be a Honda Trek.

She just licked up the Honda Rebel.

That's actually a pretty dope-looking motorcycle.

Yeah, that's what I would get.

That's the only reason I knew more than one thing about it.

You know what, guys?

We should just not do a role-playing podcast, and let's just start a car podcast.

Let's be like top gear, except we're just two or three people who knows the bare minimum about cars, and we talk about them instead of experts.

I know pretty much nothing.

Yeah, I think I know nothing about cars, and then you guys have jeeps, so you have to know a little bit about them.

I know vaguely about jeep things, and that's about it.

I'm still waiting on being ducked.

I've never been ducked, and it makes me sad.

You haven't been ducked?

My kind of jeep, I guess, doesn't really get ducked very much, though, so it's OK.

It's a Wrangler, isn't it?

No, it's a Renegade.

Oh, then you don't deserve a fucking duck.

I love my Renegade.

You shut your mouth.

I've seen Renegades that got ducked before, though.

I've gotten ducked like five times because I have a Wrangler.

I want a Wrangler.

One of these days, I'm going to get one.

Do you do the jeep wave, even though no one jeep waves back at you?

I had somebody jeep wave at me once, though.

That is actually something I had to do.

Was it another Renegade?

No, it was a regular jeep.

It was a Wrangler.

He jeep waved me, and I was like, I'm part of the family.

Even if I'm in my little mom car, I'm still part of the family.

I'm not really Wrangler elitist like I'm pretending to be, but I would love an old jeep Grand Cherokee with the woody side panels.

Like a nice navy blue paint or green, like a forest green paint with the woody side panel.

I miss wood side panels.

I wish that would come back.

Nobody else in the world probably wishes that would come back, but I wish it would come back.

I can't even say it was a nostalgia beacon, because that's like the most 70s shit I can think of, and I was not alive in the 70s.

You can be nostalgic for things you haven't experienced, can't you?

Isn't there a word for that?

I think that's something that you posted on your Facebook wall when you were 18.

That does sound like something I would post on my Facebook wall when I was 14.

Well, time to fall in love with Book and Ocean with some more questions to fall in love.

Question 30 out of 36 were a good five clicks the way down.

I decided I was cutting out all the talk about Over the Hedge or whatever it was.

But now you can't.

When did you last cry in front of another person?

Question mark.

By yourself?

Question mark.

I think for Ocean, all those things have occurred on the podcast live.

Yeah, same.

The last time Book cried was in front of people about his notepad melting.

I think the last time Ocean cried was to Book, and that's when Vesuvius got shot.

Yeah, I think that's the most recent out loud for both of you.

I guess by yourself, Ocean did in the car, maybe.

Yeah, smoking a cigarette while listening to...

When you spoke to him, I was going to say, that changes your character so much.

But what about Book when his last time on your own?

I don't think Book...

He doesn't know how to because he's a sociopath.

No, no, no, I was going to say, I don't think that Book has been alone in the last like 20 episodes.

Yeah, it can be before that.

That's the whole point of these questions.

Not to rehash things that are happening in the podcast.

It's just convenient for Ocean because all those things happened fairly recently.

Oh, you know what?

No, I think when Book thought that Ocean was dead because he went into the sewers and didn't find them, even though he was also like dying, I think Book teared up for lack of Oceaning.

Oh, that's pretty sweet.

We're two very codependent little individuals.

Yeah, I guess we are.

I think the answer for both of my situations is probably watching an episode of House.

I had to guess.

Of all the things, House?

Yeah.

Well, I guess House does have some sad episodes, actually.

Well, let's get back to the action.

Billy Loom.

This book, you find yourself at the very top of a massive lighthouse, and you have just been greeted by an individual who peeled themself off of a chair.

And announced that, oh, it seems I have guests here.

Jack Skellington?

What?

No, I didn't say that in character.

Oh, I'll be quiet.

He looks like Jack Skellington, right?

No, so he looks very, very thin.

The skin's just like barely hanging off him, but there's no exposed bones or anything.

He doesn't have big, giant cartoonish eyes.

Whatever, that would be more fun, but fun.

Book obviously jumps out of his skin because he thought that was a corpse.

Oh, Jesus.

Oh, gosh, are you okay?

How rude of me.

Should I, would you like a cup of tea?

Do you need food?

Oh no, I have more than I need here.

Sir, how long have you been here?

Oh, most of my life.

Here, I'm being a bad host.

Here, have a seat, have a seat.

No, no, no, I'm okay.

He pulls out a chair for you.

You can ignore it if you want.

But he pulls out a chair.

There's like a small little table that's basically just an in-table.

And he pulls out a little stool next to it.

And he goes, and around the corner, he turns on the sink that is still connected up as he cranks one of the handles.

It takes a second, and there's some glugging.

It's a little brown as it comes out, certainly at first.

But suddenly, there's a spurt of water.

You can smell it.

It's very earthy.

It's not necessarily like a bad smell.

Super earthy smell comes out, and he starts filling up a little electric kettle.

Can I wash my hands?

Yeah, yes, you do have a bit of a stench on you.

Yeah, I just had to cross that field out there.

My name is Book McCready.

I think you may have known my parents.

McCready, McCready, yeah.

Oh, you're back already?

Charles and Margaret?

Wait, I'm back.

No, yeah, nice to meet you, Charles.

I think we've met before.

No, no, I'm Charles' son, Book.

Hmm, that can't be right.

Why, why not?

I don't think he had a son.

When, when were they here?

I'm sorry, my memory is really bad.

Maybe I'm misremembering, but what would you like, Chuck?

I got a couple of different tea options.

He kind of swooshes his arm against the side, and there's just like a different collection of fungus that's like growing off of the wall and on some wood that's there.

I'll take whatever you, you, you're having.

Oh, so pick me up.

Sure.

Where did we, where did I go when I, after I saw you?

Oh, how long ago was that?

My memory is not quite what it used to be, but I don't, I don't know.

You were, you came asking me all sorts of questions, but I don't remember why you even came here.

I would like to use compassionate presence.

I guess this went so well the last time.

Yeah.

How are you gonna be compassionate?

Well, I already asked him if I could get him some food.

I feel like that's pretty fucking compassionate, Stu, in this post-apocalyptic society.

He has more than he needs.

He has slime.

He has wall slime.

Mm-hmm.

Hey, sorry, I'm being rude.

What is your name again?

My name?

Oh, God, it's been so long.

It's been so long since I've even had to tell people what it is.

It's Preen.

Preen?

No, that's not right.

Shit.

Yeah, I think it's Preen.

Preen?

Yeah.

Okay, Preen.

Well, it's very nice to meet you.

Ween?

Maybe?

No, Preen.

Well, you just, you think on it, and you get back to me.

Winkle.

Prinkle?

Pringles.

No.

Winkle.

Preen?

So, Chuck, what have you been doing these last few years?

Well, that's just it.

I don't know, and I need your help to find my family.

Oh, you lost them.

Yeah, there's way fewer of you than there were last time.

Well, where did you have them last?

When I lose something, I think, where's the last place I had it?

And I look there, and luckily I only have like three places here, so I can usually find it.

I don't remember, but I think we were headed for the surface.

The surface?

Yes.

Why would you want to go up there?

We got everything we need down here.

We got shrooms, we got slime, we got light.

I point to the ad on his board for the Google Dome homes or whatever.

Google Dome.

I don't think that we'd have to be down here.

I think that I don't think there's anything up there that we should be afraid of, or at least I didn't.

I don't know what we found, but I need to get back and find my family.

Well, you young people, you don't know how good you have it.

So I actually, I was born before the world ended.

I remember being down here, and there's all sorts of cool, fun things to do.

We had internet, we had things would fly through the caves, that we can get back to that.

People would just sit and keep doing their jobs.

What ended the world?

I don't know exactly.

I was a wee lad of like two or three before it ended.

My parents brought me here, and I've been here ever since.

Winkle, that's my name.

Winkle.

There we go.

All right, Winkle.

No preen.

No preen.

Is that a reference to something?

No.

He doesn't know his name.

Winkle, my friend is down the stairs.

He's very hurt.

Do you have any medicine?

Oh, yeah, we can get him back on his feet.

So do I get to use compassionate presence or not?

You can roll.

Okay, so I got a partial success.

Stu, do they blurt out any pain that they are holding on to?

You hear a high-pitched whine as the electric kettle finishes boiling the water.

He goes and pours it into two cups.

You see the cups are pretty gross and covered with that slime.

He plops a couple of mushrooms into the top of, and he slides one across from you, and he sits down, and he goes, I'm really sorry, Chuck.

I do remember you a little bit, but I cannot remember your family well.

Can you remind me who they are?

Yeah.

It was me and my wife, Margaret.

She went by Mags.

Doesn't seem right.

I don't know why.

This doesn't seem right to me.

We had a son, both.

I'm sorry.

But we left him behind.

A little one.

Yeah, he was about ten at the time.

No, that's not right.

Why did you go after this?

I don't know, Winkle, but I need to know, were we being hunted by the wolves?

The wolves?

The wolves of the maelstrom.

There are some steps that go around the outside in a big circle.

You're kind of in an alcove at the bottom of this huge platform.

And he goes up to the top so he can see over the windows on the edges where the light's shining out in this big beam.

And he stares off into the distance for an uncomfortably long time.

It's like almost two minutes before he kind of shakes his head.

And he goes, We haven't seen wolves here in a long time.

But I haven't been here in a long time either.

No, it's been at least a year, months.

When were you here last?

It was about 15 years ago.

15 years?

Maybe a little less.

I don't remember canonically.

I must be in my 20s at least.

You don't look a day over.

Are you drinking the tea?

Oh, yeah, totally.

Give me an act under fire.

Oh, no.

Well, that was an eight.

As you bring it up to your lips, you see this mug is just coated in this slime that's also covering the wall behind him.

But it seems like that's almost intentional.

Like you look where you had the cups stored, and it's like it's naturally dripping into a few of them.

As you taste it, it's like a very thick soup, like a little too mucusy almost, but it doesn't taste necessarily bad.

Awesome.

Just tastes very earthy.

And you kind of, the texture is rough, and you kind of shake your head, but you're able to keep drinking it without seeming too rude.

Give me a Rita Citroel.

Oh, okay, great.

That is A12.

Ask me four questions.

I would like to know what poses the biggest threat to me.

I may have drank it just now.

I would also like to know who here is the most afraid, and I would like to know how close are the wolves, and then I'm debating between a best opportunity for me to do something or who here would do what I ask.

Oh, I don't really have that many people here.

There's exactly one.

What represents the best opportunity for me to jog Winkle's memory?

For the biggest threat, it actually seems pretty safe here.

This old man has obviously been able to survive without being harassed.

You look around, you actually don't see any weapons anywhere in here.

To get through that giant cloud of whatever was attacking you is quite a deterrent, but they don't seem to want to come in here at all.

So threat-wise, it's moldy, it's gross.

There's some of that fungus probably isn't good for you, but this old man has been in here for many, many years, and he seems okay.

So you don't probably need to be too worried about it.

Who is most afraid?

Unless you're gonna say it's you, there's only one other person in here, so it's going to have to be the old man.

But his fear is very...

Well, Vesuvius is also on my shoulder.

He's sleeping.

You're gonna wake him up?

No, no, no.

But specifically, I was wondering, like, who here is most afraid, in particular, pertaining to the wolves?

Like, has this man seen more shit than even I have relative to...

Like, between the two of us, who would you say is more afraid of the wolves, is what I want to know.

He certainly seems less afraid than you.

Most of his fear seems to stem between not being able to keep things straight or remember who you are, and remember the right things to be a good host.

Interesting.

You go look out that same window as he does.

You're kind of standing next to him now with your nice cup of mushroom tea, and you see this big swooping light still going around in front of you every few seconds.

It sweeps in front of you, revealing the cavern going all down this huge, massive tunnel where you can't even see the end of the light reflect across it.

You feel like you're pretty far away from any of the wolves right now.

You don't sense anything closing in on you.

Well, it's good to know that this guy's in a former Wolf of the Maelstrom, like some of my compatriots.

And the best opportunity to jog his memory, you see, you look around the room from kind of this better vantage point, and it seems like most of his little living area was all tucked on that far corner where he found him.

There's all the papers and stuff smashed up against the walls and these boxes filled with just rotting books all around the outskirts, but where he is, he has a nice little setup where it looks like he doesn't have to move too much.

He can reach the slime right from his, it's like a little love seat that he was sitting on.

And there's a little TV across from him that right now is on but not playing anything, but he's got a little VCR there, and you see a series of movies that you mostly recognize, but you notice that there is a copy of Two Towers, but not The Fellowship and Return of the King, which you know is absolutely insane.

Someone would just have the Two Towers.

At that point, it's been probably about a good 10, 15 minutes or so of...

Yeah.

So Ocean's just kind of laying there, he's leaned up against the door, caught his breath, keeps waiting and waiting and waiting, and then finally he's like, I'm just going to go check this out.

And so he stumbles up the stairs, comes to the door, pushes the door open slowly.

Book, if you've been gone a while, is everything okay?

Whoa!

There's a dead guy in here, Book.

I'm not dead yet.

He recoils backwards.

Your life has seemed to have gained a few pounds.

Winkle, this is my friend Ocean.

Ocean, this is Winkle.

Hello.

Nice to meet you, Margaret.

Hello, Winkle.

My name's Ocean.

I'm one of Book's friends, and he holds out his arm to shake his hand cautiously.

He shakes it.

He can't squeeze it all.

You just feel like this bag of loose bones.

I'm imagining my hand kind of dwarfs his hand as well, just like holding an actual skeleton.

He goes, no, that's not...

No introductions.

We've met before.

You were here with Chuck.

Was I?

And I turn over to Book.

And I lean towards Ocean's ear, and I just go, hey, we're just going to go along.

We're just going to go along with this.

Okay, he thinks I'm your mom?

And I'm my dad, and we're...

It's fine.

Okay, do you need me to put on a feminine voice?

No, I do not.

Unless you want to, in which case, go for it.

Hi, my name's Ocean.

Ocean cannot do a feminine voice book, I'm sorry.

It's fine.

I want to pick up the tape of the two towers.

It feels roughly VHS sized and light.

Does it have any, like, stickers with writing on it?

No.

You pull the sleeve out, and it's an unmarked tape.

Interesting.

Okay, is it rewound all the way?

Yes.

Okay, then I would...

Hey, Winkle, can I play this?

Yeah, how long is it?

I don't have all day.

It's only, like, three hours.

You're just kidding.

Yeah, that's fine.

Margaret, would you like some tea, too?

Sure, I'll try some of your tea.

Winkle, do you have any medicine for Margaret?

She's pretty banged up.

Oh, yeah, I can make a good mixture for her.

So, as Ocean, as Book is messing with the tape, and he's kind of looking around the room, from the mushrooms that he saw on that little plaque that the woman gave us, are the mushrooms that are on the wall here similar?

Some look very similar, but none of them look exactly the same.

Okay.

And you see the ones he's scraping off the wall for you do look pretty similar to some of the beneficial ones.

Okay.

You go find the VCR, put it in there, struggle with the inputs for a little bit, and hit play, and you see your dad pop up on the screen.

He looks like he's wearing the same clothes he was from the first video, which in the first one you saw, he was super well put together.

He looked like he had just finished getting dressed for the day and started heading out.

This one, he definitely looks a little beat up.

There's some tears in his clothing.

It's definitely a little dirtier.

He's got a little sweat on him, but he still has a big smile on his face.

And he goes, Hey, sport, looks like you've made it to the lighthouse finally.

I knew you'd figure out that super hard puzzle I left you.

I really hope you actually don't have to watch this.

But if you did find this, it means I still haven't come back, and Juniper has given you the last video.

You solved my very simple puzzle for you, and you made it all the way here.

We've had a heck of a time making it here.

I don't know how you would have.

Hopefully this video finds its way to you somewhere nicer.

If it did, then we found a large lighthouse deep within this place they call the Stew.

There's all sorts of gross muck and itchy things that you would hate to be near.

So hopefully you didn't have to go through all that.

There's this old man who's been living in this tower since before the apocalypse.

He said he was a small child when shit went down.

Oh, sorry.

Poop went down here.

Margaret Irv is going to watch your head.

When poop went down here, he seems to know a lot.

He's a little hard to get details from, and he pans the camera around, and you see your mom for just a second, and you see the old man, which in the video, he looks like the second oldest person you've ever seen in your life, with the first one being him now.

Even in this video from 10 or so years ago, he looks to be ancient, like over 100 even back then.

He does look even worse now somehow.

There's more slime coated to him in the current days.

So there's kind of fungus growing on his shoulder now.

But even then, he didn't look great.

And you see him kind of just spouting some nonsense.

He's definitely talking a little faster, has a little more energy, spouting some nonsense to your mom before the camera pans back over.

He goes, I think we've got some good ideas from him.

I think the next place we're gonna head is to the baffles.

I don't know much about that area.

It's supposedly very easy to get lost.

So if you have to track us down there, make sure you have a good way of being able to trace your steps back.

I know you've read some of those good Greek myths and things like that.

That's where we're headed to next.

I think there's a lot of good news.

I think the surface is fine.

And we're gonna get back there.

So hopefully I'll see you soon.

Hopefully I don't even have to make another one of these videos.

But if so, I love you, son.

And then he goes to put it down, and your mom takes it for a second.

And she goes, Hey, your dad forgot to say one thing very important.

I hope you have found the little workshop hidden behind the bookshelf.

If you haven't, it's pretty easy.

Just push that old oak bookshelf out of the way, and you'll see there's a little kind of recessed handle.

You can pull it open in there.

We did a lot of work trying to figure out what the actual date was.

That's going to become very important.

So try to track that down.

And if you come to us, please bring record of it.

We think we may have like lost track a little bit.

We're trying our best to keep track of the days and the hours, but it's hard down here, so bring that, please.

Thank you.

Love you.

Bye.

Convenient.

A reason to go back to Hamlet opening.

Wait, Mom.

Book like reaches out for his parents and then realizes that he's talking to a video.

And yeah, he looks up at Ocean and at Winkle, kind of expectantly at Winkle, hoping that that will have done something to shock his memory.

Yes, when he shakes his head and he's like, oh, man, you really do look much worse, Margaret.

I don't mean to offend, but I forgot.

It's been how long has it been?

Ten years?

Yeah.

I must be at least 30 now.

Yeah, no, you asked me last time.

You asked me about my youth a lot, which it's really hard to get me in a good mind space for that.

But I remember telling you a little bit about how the world was before.

And then there was something, there was something you went to go get.

You went to go find something from here in the Baffles, like you said.

I've never been to the Baffles, but somehow I knew what was there.

Do you have any idea?

The Baffles?

Yeah.

You guys know the Baffles is currently where the Chaos Cult comes from.

Where the what?

I don't know if you guys have been there.

The Chaos Cult lives.

Oh.

Yeah.

Those are the...

The boxcar children.

The boxcar children.

Yes.

That gives us an excuse to go talk to them again.

There's one less of them.

Winkle, did I leave anything here last time besides this tape?

I think you hid a tape somewhere.

Okay.

Where did you hide it?

Oh, you left me a riddle to tell your son.

Between the hours of four and noon?

No.

The answer is two towers.

Oh, awesome.

I found it.

Thank you.

Well, let's pop that bad boy in there and see what's on it.

I just hit play again.

And we sit through the tape again.

Wow, you look much worse than I remember.

Yeah, I went through hell getting here.

Do you have the stuff to patch me up yet?

Some blood pulls down his face.

Oh, yeah.

Here, drink this for now.

He hands you an even thicker mucus-ier tea, that he also puts a spoon in it, so it looks like he may have to require a spoon.

And the consistency is like a cheesy chili that you microwave for like two hours.

So the cheese is like non-merely plasmified.

Ocean stirs it a little bit and cautiously brings it to his mouth and takes a big sniff.

You instantly heal six harm.

Give me a act under fire roll.

That is nine.

You can heal two.

Sweet!

The hardest part is definitely not the taste, it's the actual consistency of swallowing.

It's like trying to swallow a whole lot of snot at once, which is kind of hard to do, but you're able to get it down.

You've eaten some pretty bad beans before.

As Ocean drinks it, he immediately perks up, and turns over to Winkle and says, this stuff is incredible.

And this is just from the mushrooms that you're growing on the wall here?

Yeah, it's kept me alive and looking so good for many, many years now.

Well, Winkle, our home, they're having a really hard time with disease and some injuries and getting people all healed up.

They're running really low on medical supplies.

Do you think I could take a few of these back and see if we could try and cultivate them ourselves?

Give me a Sway-Someone roll.

I'm actually somewhat decent at swaying people these days.

That's a 12!

Yeah, I've lately, I don't really get around much.

I just gotta check to make sure the light's running every few days.

But besides that, I'm pretty much just loafing around.

I'm in my retirement years pretty much.

I think I may quit this job soon, but I really, I don't burn many calories.

I eat just like about this much a day, and he like grossly draws in the sludge on the wall, like four inches up.

And he goes, so really, as long as you don't take a ton, I should be fine.

Well, thank you very much, Winkle.

Ocean walks over there, and he harvests, he wants to make sure he leaves plenty for Winkle.

He doesn't want to take a whole bun, but he definitely wants to harvest enough that Maple has stuff he can use, and maybe one or two extra that we can attempt to harvest the spores from.

But can you remember what you asked me?

That will probably jog my memory.

How to get to the baffles?

No, not that.

I don't know how to get to the baffles.

Something I told you made you want to go there, and I know you asked me a bunch about, like, I don't know.

How did you get down here?

I was a wee, wee lad, living in a big city that's a few days away from here, and then something bad happened, and I don't know what it was, but my parents made us leave very suddenly.

In the middle of the night, they packed us up, got in our car, and drove as far as we could, and I remember passing the train stations, and they were all completely filled with people.

It looked like the trains weren't even moving, and we just drove past them, came all the way out here, and my dad had a key to this place, and brought us in, and I grew up here, lived here, with my parents until they passed.

And he opens a cabinet, and you see a skull with a bunch of flowers around it.

I'm sorry for your loss, Michael.

Oh, I got over it a few years ago.

Did you have a family of your own?

Just Ma and Pa.

What?

Do you know what the baffles are?

No, you told me last time that you had heard of it, but you didn't know much about it.

It's some sort of set of tunnels.

I think it's not like a city, it's not like this place, it's not like Subtropolis, it's just like a confusing set of tunnels.

I don't know why they exist.

I don't know who's there.

I don't know why you would want to go back there.

Book looks at Ocean.

It just seems odd to me that my parents would take all the time to get down here only to go back up to where the boxcar children are.

Unless there's an easier way to get there from here.

Like, why would they come here first?

What information could they have gotten from Winkle?

Perhaps maybe they knew he existed and that he was from the before times, and because of that, they wanted to come talk to him.

Winkle, do you know how we found out about you?

Or how we knew to come to you, or why we came to you?

Oh yeah, you told me that.

You definitely did.

You said that you had heard rumors that there was someone who was around from before, the end of the world, and that I lived up here.

I don't know how those rumors got out.

I don't have too many visitors.

I think I can, let's see.

And he goes and he pushes a bunch of newspapers, stapled to the wall away, and he has tally marks.

And he adds two more with little asterisks next to it, and there is a total of eight.

And he goes, this is how many visitors I've had in my life.

So are they arranged in a particular pattern, or are they just sequential?

He does five and then crosses them, like the traditional tally strategy, and then added two more, but he did put stars next to the ones he just added.

And he goes, because I think I've met you before.

Winkle, can you tell us what you do here with this lighthouse?

You say that it's a job and you're planning on retiring soon, but what is your job exactly?

It's to make sure the light keeps running.

You never know when someone's going to finally come back across that ocean, and you don't want them to crash into the rocks here.

This used to be water?

Oh, yeah.

There's still some out there.

If you look, and he leads you guys both up to the edge, and like I described before, you guys kind of came into this cavern near almost an alcove, and then the lighthouse has shines light all the way around it, but then there's one big section where it just seems to shoot off into nothing for a very long time, and he points down that big long tunnel and goes, there's a huge sea there.

I don't know exactly what's on the other side, but back when before everything happened, and even a couple of the years when I was young, I remember being about eight or nine, there would still be some big cargo ships that would come there, and they'd load up and drop things off.

This is actually the heart of industry for most of the underground world is right here.

This used to be a port.

Yes, that's the word, port.

Winkle, you never lived on the surface, did you?

No, no.

Not many people went up there.

My parents used to tell me, there's no point in going up there.

We have everything we need down here.

Why do you keep the newspaper clippings from before?

It helps me remember.

It helps me.

These are most of these things, or either things that we brought with us, or my dad tracked down.

He used to try to collect as many things from before.

To remember what life used to be like back then.

I wonder if there's anything important in those news clippings that we can look at.

Your parents said they wanted a date, right?

I assume they want to know what the current date is?

Is that kind of the implication that you got from them too?

From that video?

Yeah, I don't.

But I don't, unless we knew Winkle's birthday and exactly how old he is, I don't know that we could do much.

We could at least get the year.

You look at some of the newspapers on the wall.

You look at them for a little bit.

It takes you a while to kind of dig through what's important.

And he does still have like tons of boxes of just shit all around the corners too, or all along the edges too.

But the ones he has on the walls that he think are important, there's one that talks about a massive breakdown of communication networks.

He tells you this was from right around the time that they had to move away and get out of the city.

And it does have a date on it.

It's not a date that means anything to you because it's based on some other previous year cycle that certainly you're not using now.

Right.

How do you guys think you normally keep?

Do you even keep dates?

I don't think they...

Well, I assume we have to keep some kind of calendar, but I don't see there being seasons or months in the same sense that there are in, you know, modern times.

Because, I mean, I can imagine the climate doesn't change.

Yeah, I can imagine the climate doesn't change very much.

I think Hamlet Opening probably has a calendar, but I think it's different from everybody else's calendar.

Maybe it's the same calendar that they've used since the beginning.

Do you know how, you know, there's leap years and the months change?

It's always every date is the exact same date because it's just the exact same calendar.

That makes sense.

They found a cool calendar that had like a bunch of cute cats.

And that's what the leader of their society, the leader of the family.

And just when they run out of days, they start over.

Yeah, they just flip back to the start.

Winkle, do the bugs that are out there, why don't they try to come in here?

Um, I don't think they like the light, and there's always a little bit of light kind of diffuse in here.

I shudder to imagine what would happen if the light actually went out.

I'd probably be torn limb from limb immediately.

Well, Winkle, you might be safe, actually.

They seem to like to eat things, and I don't think there's much left of you to eat.

I think they may think you're just a skeleton.

You're always looking on the bright side, Margaret.

Speaking.

Where's your little one?

Our little one?

Yeah.

I don't know what you mean.

The little one?

Your children?

Well, Book, we left behind.

Oh, that's silly.

Shouldn't have done that.

I happen to agree.

Did you meet one of them?

Yeah, yeah, you brought one.

Did we now?

Do you, what do you?

Ocean looks at Book with wide eyes.

Winkle, I, what do you mean, Winkle?

Yeah, there were three of you.

There were three of us?

Yeah, obviously.

Can, can you tell me about my child?

I must have gotten a big hit on the head.

You forgot your own child.

I must have got bludgeoned really bad by those bugs.

You can remind me their name, or what do they like to do?

Was their name Book?

I don't think that's right.

What was their gender?

I think it was a little girl.

I have a sister.

No?

Well, I don't know, you didn't tell me.

Did we ever tell you about our son Book?

I think that's a hard name, because you guys were also looking at lots of books.

But I think in a video you left me, yes, there's a video to a book.

There's a riddle.

It's something between the hours.

Two Towers, Two Towers.

We got that part.

Oh, Two Towers, you are so good at riddles.

Well, we did make the riddle ourselves, Winkle.

Oh, yeah, that's impressive.

But this daughter, our daughter that you brought with us, we must have become estranged with her at some point, because I haven't talked to her or seen her in ages.

Can you tell me about her, what she did when she was here, how old she was, that kind of thing?

Oh, I'm not so good with ages.

I think she was like, she was not a baby baby, a little bigger.

So like a toddler?

Maybe.

She didn't seem like she was doing very well.

Book stands up.

I think he was still kind of kneeling by the VCR, and Book stands up and kind of grabs Ocean's, like, shoulders.

Honestly, no, he's more desperate than that.

He, like, grabs the front of his shirt.

He's like, Ocean, I have a sister.

That's kind of what it sounds like.

But why do they bring her and not you?

And why don't you have any recollection of your sister?

Winkle, what were they?

What was...

Our last name is McCready.

Does that help?

Charles Davis McCready?

Yeah, my name's CD and my wife is Mags.

What is my daughter's name?

I'm sorry, I didn't talk to her very much.

Was she holding anything?

I'm an auditory learner.

I don't know.

Okay.

Is she in the video?

I didn't see her.

Did we see her?

You could go rewatch it a few times, and you get a little glimpse.

The first time he pans the camera around towards your mom, you think you may see some long brown hair in the corner, but it's a millisecond, and as you go frame by frame, it's just a blur.

You can't notice anything, definitely.

I think Book at this point starts, like you said, he has papers on his desk and things.

Book is scrambling and flipping through them, looking for anything that has either of his parents' name on it or their handwriting or anything like that.

Give me another Rita Citroll.

That was a nine.

Ask two.

What should I be on the lookout for?

Then I'll say, what represents the best opportunity for me to find useful information?

Clearly, he doesn't go mess around with this stuff very much.

It seems like he's been kind of cemented to his seat for quite a while now.

Barely gets up.

You can see the thick dust that's covering everything is only really pushed out of the way in a path to the light where it looks like he checks out the light.

And then along some of the films that he seems to watch frequently, he really likes watching Miss Congeniality 2 and Legally Blonde 2, Red, White, and Blonde.

Oh, no.

He has a type, doesn't he?

Avatar The Last Airbender movie.

Oh, no.

Well, I mean, I guess if you haven't, if there's no source of the original, then it's all right for a...

No, this guy is a fucking menace.

You notice that there are some sections of the stuff around the wall that people clearly have moved at some point.

So if not many people have come here, you think you may be able to track down at least the areas your parents were looking because it's so undisturbed.

And then for what you should be on the lookout for, there are a couple big binders with a bunch of different clippings that have clearly been separated from everything else.

They're actually sitting near one of the ledges, and he says he doesn't remember why they're out.

Like, that's not something he's been looking at.

One of them is related to defense technology.

You see it's this big binder, it's a bunch of press releases with some spec sheets from Raytheon, which it looks to be is a huge defense contractor.

And then there is another book related to some astronomical analysis, which seems particularly not useful when you're underground, but it's been pulled out for some reason.

That could be useful with your observatory.

Yeah, I think book just spends however long it takes to go through literally every page of everything you just pointed out.

Okay, what are you doing during that, Ocean?

So I imagine Ocean's book is a pretty fast reader, but I don't think he's that fast.

So Ocean's going to be a little bored here, but he does have an idea to help maybe make Winkle remember things a little bit better.

It's like, Winkle, how long do you think you've been down here?

Well, let's see.

I know I was at least 20 when my parents passed, well, when my dad passed, and then I was 24 when my mom passed.

24, exactly.

Yes, I remember.

It was 24.

How did I keep track of that?

And he kind of looks around the room for like a calendar or anything, and he's like, I don't know.

And then I know that the last ship we saw, did it crash?

No, it left.

It left in a hurry.

It was one that was anchored here for years.

We used to go there.

We used to steal supplies from it.

Back when we didn't know the slime was so tasty, that one was stolen, at least like it has to be five to ten years after my parents passed.

I couldn't do anything to stop them.

And then how do I know?

Oh, wait, let me see.

Let me see.

And he goes and he finds this stack of these Moleskine journals that have a bunch of dates on them.

And he pulls and go here.

Yes.

And he turns to a page and he's like, look, I found it with a big smile on his face.

And their page he opens says, my mom is dead with a big sad face and like scrawls all around it for a date, which may or may not be like the accurate date.

But looking through these, you can't read, I forgot.

No, but I can see, I know numbers.

Numbers he knows.

You know big frowny face.

Book has taught you your numbers very well now.

And you see, it's at least for a period of time, it looks like he was writing in each date of this.

You don't know if it was actually like one day at a time, but he has many of many of these books.

And as you go through them, you see, it looks like he was at least taking these notes for like 80 years.

Why did you stop taking the notes, Winkle?

Oh, about 20, 30 years ago, my hand got really tired.

It was sore from the pen.

Well.

And I just thought, who was going to read them?

My vision is not what it used to be, so I can't read most of the old ones.

So they just kind of thought they only started when his mom died?

No, they're older than that.

They go from, it looks like when he was a kid, you don't know, again, actual dates, actual ages, but it looks like little kid handwriting, all the way up to like 80 years later.

And then he says that was 20 or 30 years ago.

So it sounds like he's been here for at least 110, 120 years.

Well, Winkle, I think these notes are very important, and I'd love for you to, if we could like keep them and look through them.

I'm not much of a reader, so I can't really keep much track, but I think they could be of use for us if you don't mind if we take them.

But I think you should keep taking notes, and I might be able to help you with your hand to help you keep being able to write.

Are you going to try to heal someone?

He's going to try and heal someone, only if Winkle's okay with it, though.

Yeah, no, he goes, oh, yes, no, wife, go ahead, give me a good hand massage.

Okay.

So Ocean puts his hand and he's going to try and heal him.

And the main reason he's doing this, he wanted to find a good excuse for Winkle to let him, but he's hoping that if he heals him a little bit, maybe it'll heal his mind a little bit, too.

But he's not played around with these abilities very much, so he's not quite sure what all they heal, so.

Yeah.

All right, let's see.

That's a seven, so I choose two.

So I'm going to say the touch knits the bones back together, because I think that's probably, arthritis is probably what's causing him to not be able to write.

You're the medical professional.

And I'm going to say, I'm going to heal their tissue damage and stop their bleeding, which I mean, they're not bleeding, but I'm sure that.

Please tell me outside.

So that's what I'm going to do.

You see the blood starts flowing through his fingers more, like his skin, all of you are very pale, obviously, because you live underground, but he was just like translucent.

You could see each and every vein on his hand and all barely hang on the bones.

The little meat on his fingertips were just like dangling down.

And as you touch this, it almost plumps back up, and you kind of see him kind of shake his arms a little bit, and he goes, what was that?

I feel better than I've ever felt before.

You look better, Winkle.

You got my juices flowing.

I'm just an expert in Zeus.

I know how to do it.

He looks almost as good as he does from the video.

Winkle, do you...

The ten-year-old video.

Now that I got you nice and feeling a little bit better, do you think, do you remember anything more about the baffles and what we were trying to find down there?

The baffles, I still...

I don't think I ever have been to the baffles in my long life.

I've pretty much just been here.

Do you remember at all what we were asking about to get down there?

Yeah, you had a map, and you were cross-referencing it with something else that you had.

And you had a new map, and you looked at one of my old maps.

Yes, that's what you did.

And that told you to go to the baffles, and you were very, very interested in how things were before, when I was very little, which again, I can't remember too much, because I was like three and four back then.

You asked me a lot of questions about that, and I told you everything I could.

I don't know if any of that was actually useful.

And then you, for some reason, this didn't seem important, but he points to Buck, and he goes, he was asking me about, like, what all the machinery apparently almost fell into a sandpit, and you guys were asking me why all that stuff was there, and things like that.

What a coincidence.

We just almost fell into it again.

Two times.

I told you how to avoid it, you guys.

Can you remind me how to avoid it?

What cluts?

Yeah, there's only one opening, so, like, the sand is bad, but just go to, like, the left of the big heap, and you'll be fine.

Just cut straight across on the left side.

Just don't go to the right side, or don't try to climb the sand mountain.

Okay, to the left.

Okay, we got it.

We're not very remip.

Buck finally kind of perks up.

Why is it there, though?

Oh, they use...

This is actually...

Oh, yeah, that's what brought up the map.

And then your dad was excited, and then he's like...

I remember there was, like, a little spat between you two, where you were like, don't ask him these questions that don't matter.

He's kind of struggling.

And then you were like, if I didn't ask him that, I wouldn't have seen the map.

And he goes and he finds the same map that he had before, and he pulls it out.

Wait, before he touches it, I go, wait, was my dad...

Was I the last person who touched that before you?

I think so.

Ocean, let it speak to you.

Oh, oh, clever.

Okay, Ocean reaches out and he touches the map, and I'm going to see if it will speak.

Don't fail.

Okay, that's actually a 14.

I think that's the best I've...

That's about as good as you can do.

I think that's the best I've ever fucking rolled.

Did you roll a 12 or an 11?

I rolled a 12.

Nice.

Full highest success.

That's the best I've ever rolled on that damn move.

Give me three questions.

So I'm going to go, who handled this last before me?

What has been done most recently with this?

And then what words have been said?

Do you think that's good?

Do you think that's about right, Ray Brady?

Yeah, that sounds good to me.

Okay, so those are the three I'm going to pick, because I think those are the three that will give us the most information.

You pull out this map, and you feel it, all the information of it just like course through your fingertips.

And as you unscroll it on this big table on the edge, you feel the history of this map.

And you see, it's a printed map.

It's not like some fancy calligraphy drawn thing, but this map is from the before times.

It has a lot of stuff.

You recognize some of the areas, like you see the Long Dark in it, but it's not called the Long Dark.

You see the Long Dark, it has a bunch of like stops and like train station looking stuff in different areas that you know isn't there anymore.

How many see Subtropolis, and it extends out way further than you could imagine all the way to the edge of the map.

Your mind just kind of dives into the last time someone was touching this, and you feel both of Book's parents on either side of it with the old man looking over their shoulders, and they're tracing their fingers along it.

And you see Margaret pull out a map and lay it on top of it, and kind of see, try to make it fit perfectly, and draw some Xs, and hear them say, yeah, that has to be right where the baffles are.

That's the only thing near there.

I don't know why that would be kind of sequestered away from the city like that, but I think that's where we have to go.

They hold up the copied version of the map, and you see it's a more modern, drawn version.

Modern seems like the wrong word there, but modern, where it has Hamlet opening marked on it, and you see the baffles.

It's worse but newer.

And then you see there is, they had started charting out a course through this big C, towards the baffles around the backside basically, that looks to be the path they plan on taking.

You guys know that would probably be dumb if you have the spider.

You could go back to the city and find another way to get on down there, but that seems to be the path they took.

Interesting.

And you snap back out of it, and you see that map, and you kind of understand all those different locations where they are on this map.

And on the old map, you point it out to book, and it says Advanced Research Center.

Oh, I bet there's some really juicy shit there.

Ocean says that aloud.

Nothing's juicier than my slime.

It's an ark, Ocean.

An ark?

What do you mean by that book?

I cover all the other letters, and so you just say A, R, C, like Noah.

You know, you know.

Oh, from the Jesus book.

Yeah, from the Jesus book.

Oh, I got one of those somewhere in here.

In the books you've gone through, you had those two different ones, one about some astronomical things, and then one that is all those different spec sheets.

And you found going through the astronomical one, there were some dog-eared pages in it.

It has a lot of stuff, has really complicated math, a bunch of Kepler's equations type stuff all throughout it.

But there's a dog-eared page on the metonic cycle, which is when the moon cycle basically lines back up with the normal year cycle.

Interesting.

And then in the spec sheet one, you can, like, all this stuff that's just like a bunch of crazy, a lot of it's just pretty boring military equipment, like radios and transceivers and GPS stuff, and some like, there's some cooler stuff, like some big drills and some actual weapons, like rocket launchers and air defense systems and things like that.

So you really don't have an idea what they would have looked at, except you notice on the edges of one of the pages, there's some pencil markings that are neatly cut off, like someone was tracing on top of it, and their pencil straight outside of the edges of the paper they're tracing onto.

And on that one, it's this page that is mostly wiped away, like there's barely any parts left on it.

You see this almost bodysuit left there.

It looks almost like a medieval set of armor from the portions you can see.

You can see kind of like the right side and down, down the feet.

And you see most of the letterings for sword, which is an acronym, but not defined anywhere.

And then there's a bunch of, the only thing remaining from all that is a bunch of specs that you probably don't care about, like some dimensions and some weight.

And then energy requirements, which are astonishingly high when you do some like back-to-the-napkin math for what is required to run it.

You're like, batteries would never do this.

What in tarnation?

Why would they want a suit?

That's weird.

I want to pick up all of the stuff that looks handled and put it in the waterproof bag.

Careful with my mushrooms.

I'm not even asking permission.

Whoa, careful with the mushrooms, book.

As you go to put it into that bag, you notice that pacifier in there.

Oh, I forgot to give that to you, Ocean.

What is this?

Oh, yeah, I forgot to tell you, it got swept away with all this stuff.

There was a wooden box in the spider.

It was stuff that they had found somewhere in your house that apparently was pretty sequestered away, and someone had stolen it.

And when they went to go put everything back, they didn't realize that they still had this stuff, and they ended up giving it back to you.

The book wants to inspect the pacifier and see if it has initials engraved in it or anything.

I didn't even think anything of the pacifier until now, and now I'm like, huh, maybe it wasn't Book's pacifier.

Yeah, you pull out this pacifier, which is like wooden, but like very smooth, like very nicely varnished.

It looks like it was probably handmade, and you see some initials on it that say NM.

NM.

NM.

No money.

That was her name, no money.

Book puts the pacifier in his pocket, and that was it, right?

That was the only thing that was in the envelope.

There was a letter that, as you read it, is apologizing for stealing your shit, saying, we got it back.

There are still some pieces of confetti in it.

There's US dollars cash, which you guys have possibly never seen before, is in it.

And there's a few little notebooks that are in your dad's handwriting.

Oh, God.

What do they say, Stu?

All sorts of shit.

Yeah, it's a bunch of equations and math, and you definitely see some pictures of the moon on it at different stages.

Do I see any names that would fill out the N and the M?

Nope.

Cool.

It doesn't seem like a personal journal.

It seems like this was a mix of scratch pad and important notes, but not something he felt he needed to bring with him for some reason.

And you also don't know where this was hidden from.

This was from your house, but you've never seen it before.

Yeah, that's interesting.

You did also find an entire room you didn't know about before, though, so maybe not too interesting.

I bet there's a lot of stuff in your house you're like, I'm never touching this, keeping it exactly how it was.

Just in case they come back.

I think there's probably an actual room with an actual bed, and it was his parents' room, and he refuses to sleep in there.

That's sweet and sad at the same time.

All right, Ocean, let's go.

I think we've got what we need.

I think we've exhausted all...

Well, Winkle, do you mind if we take some of these notes that you've got all down laying around here?

They are already stuffed.

Oh.

Yeah, fuck if I care.

I'm not going through them.

Can we take the map?

Yeah.

Yeah, I'm not much for traveling.

Well, Winkle, thank you very much.

This is probably the most information we've ever gotten.

Yeah, I'll keep writing, and if you come back for my notes, I'll give you.

Dude, does this area of the map make sure the world sees them?

Does this area of the map kind of get grayed out, meaning that we found everything that we were supposed to find here?

There's always more stuff.

I don't like that.

Do you need me to shine the light on you as you walk back?

If you don't mind, that would be good.

Okay, give me one second here.

And he goes down towards the light, and he flips like three switches, and then there's this huge grinding sound, and then you hear like engines starting up, and the platform raises up like two feet, and he gets this little control stick to be able to guide the mirror behind it so he can point to the light further down.

Whoa, this is quite the lighthouse.

He's wearing goggles now, and then he slides over his face.

They're tinted.

You ready to go?

Before we go, Winkle, do you have any film for a camera?

And then grab the camera from Book and show it to him.

I don't know.

Let me see.

Give me just a 2D6 roll.

Snake eyes.

Oh, hold on.

Let me look down here, and he starts rummaging through a chest, like a big leather chest.

And he ends up like, oh, I think I found something.

And he goes, and by the time he turns around, you see he has taken a roll of film and ripped the top off of it and is exposing all of the remaining film to the light that's rocketing around the room.

And he goes, is this what you're looking for?

I only had one left.

I guess he wouldn't know what film is for.

He's like, yeah, that looks about right.

You roll it back up, pop it in, and take a picture.

What are you taking a picture of?

A Winkle.

You take a picture of him, and it comes out solid black.

Wow, I guess the camera's broken, Book.

And I hand it back to him.

Or I'm a Dracula.

Maybe.

Book.

You could, Winkle.

Book is distraught because he knows what a film is.

And he pops out the canister and throws it.

Well, no, this isn't an open air lighthouse, is it?

It is.

Oh, it is?

But Book throws the canister out into the fucking poop.

See?

Well, Winkle, real quick, do you have a pen so I can just make a quick sketch of you?

Somebody wanted us to show...

Somebody wanted proof that there's somebody at the top of this lighthouse.

So I was just going to try and get...

Yep, sure thing.

And he sits there for a nice, beautiful sketch.

Give me a Try Something Challenging roll.

Yeah, I think it would be really funny if it's just absolutely horrible, because I don't think Ocean's ever tried to draw a day in his life.

That's a nine, actually.

You do pretty good, but you don't have any expertise in drawing, so it just pretty much looks like a skeleton.

It looks like Jack Skellington.

You got a nice Jack Skellington picture.

He puts it in his waterproof bag and is like, well, Winkle, we're going to show this to the...

There was a kid and he almost died.

So I think...

Don't let the children come around here.

It's pretty dangerous.

I don't know if you noticed, but there's a lot of these bugs out there.

Yeah, what are they?

I don't know exactly.

I've never got a good look at them.

Also, he never explained what the sandpit was for originally.

The sandpit before you go.

There's one more thing I wanted to tell you.

One last thing.

One more thing.

This whole area here, where we're actually at, you guys got distracted by the part of the map you actually liked, just like you did last time you were here.

But what I was trying to show you with that map is we're actually not too far from, we're a little bit southeast of this country they used to call Japan.

And we're near this giant trench underground called the Marianas Trench.

And we actually use a connection up to that to get some of the seawater, and we filter out some nutrients and salts and sands and all sorts of shit.

And there's all this AI that's running this complicated machinery to be able to kind of process that.

So all that sand you see there was actually at the bottom of the ocean.

We're underneath the Marianas Trench?

Well, where we're at now, we're kind of, I think, like southeast a little bit.

But the crack in my cave goes all the way to the surface.

That means that we're not far from land either.

That's wild.

Doesn't make any sense.

So either the oceans have dried up or Brady needs to look at a map.

Both are equally likely.

But yeah, don't get caught in that machinery.

It's just kind of mindless.

I said complicated AI, but I think it's just kind of one of those things you get going and click start, and it just keeps cranking through what it's supposed to do.

So when some bucket gets filled up, another bucket opens and crunches and stuff like that.

It's a good thing we didn't fall in it, I guess.

Oh, you would certainly be dead.

We'll be seeing you.

We'll come back.

We'll try our best to come back and see you.

Can we give you some kind of single so you can shine the light down to us, so that way we don't get eaten next time?

If I happen to be looking, maybe something loud enough.

Could you shoot a flare into here?

That'd be pretty impressive.

I don't know if I've got that good of a name, but we can try.

Anything that goes high enough, I should be able to see you.

Try to make it, what's your favorite color, Ocean?

Blue.

Blue?

Try to make it blue.

Ocean, you go head on down.

I'm just going to help Winkle tidy up.

Oh, okay Book, I'll meet you down there.

I'm assuming some sneaky shit's about to happen behind Ocean's back.

Are you actually going down?

Yeah, Ocean has no reason not to trust Book, so he goes down the stairs.

I do start helping him tidy up the mess that I kind of made with all the papers, but I ask, I want to revisit my earlier question, and I say, so Winkle, now that your memory seems to be a little bit refreshed, did I say anything about being followed or being hunted by the wolves?

You know who the wolves are, right?

I think everyone kind of knows about the wolves.

They're always there in the back of my mind, even when I'm sitting here watching my favorite movies, but I don't think you've mentioned them before.

I think last time you were here, you were all, you were very optimistic.

You were looking to the future, not kind of sad like you are now.

You know.

The, um, my, my wife who is just in the room with us, do you remember seeing her any other time before now, and when I wasn't here?

I remember.

Well, when you weren't here, I don't know, it was definitely when you were here last.

Try to separate how you remember her looking and to focus on how she looks now.

Um, give me a try something challenging.

Oh.

Okay, so thankfully, now that my aggro is zero, that's a seven.

Nice!

He kind of stares over your shoulder to where Ocean just left the room.

And he kind of thinks really hard, and he goes, I know I've seen them before.

And then he kind of shakes his head, and he's like, yeah, obviously, with you.

Oh, it's your lovely wife.

You were here with the little one.

But yeah, that was a fun time.

You should visit more.

I'll try to, and I give him a hug.

It's like hugging a fence.

Well, I'm covered in shit.

So this is probably the closest books ever been to his parents.

And under his breath, a book says, I was afraid you were going to say that.

And you head down the stairs and go outside.

And as you open the door, there's immediately this big shining spotlight that comes down, sweeping across the cavern, just pushing all of these bugs out of the way, and stops right in front of you, revealing a nice, safe path forward.

Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of Oops!

All Apocalypses.

I haven't mentioned it in a couple weeks, but remember to go listen to GG Level Up.

I have an episode on there pretty recently, and the entire series is very wholesome and fun and a nice geeky trivia challenge.

You can find it on Spotify, probably the most quickly-est.

This week, the music editing was performed by Stu Masterson.

Brady McDonough made the logo in any arch you find anywhere.

And Jacob taught us a lot of really neat vape tricks.

Book is a poop sack right now.