Book and Ocean surface from the dark depths of the subterranean sea with mostly broken stuff and violent people around them. But their destination is in sight, with just a few unexpected turns in the way.

This one is mostly a game of Operation, but instead of using tweezers you have to use a whole car.

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 one person who's like a bird and one Nellie Frittata.

What the fuck is that?

What the hell's a Nellie Frittata?

What does that even mean?

The, I'm like a bird, I wanna fly away.

Is that different from the Nellie in...

Yeah.

Yes, those are two entirely different people.

Hey, folks, I am one individual person named Brady, and I play Book McCready, somebody whose ability to read is seeming a lot less practical than his lack of ability to swim.

Yeah, I would say in this particular situation.

And I am Jacob.

I play Ocean, a gentle giant who's thinking about auditioning for the next Fast and Furious movie.

You can replace Vin Diesel.

I think you'd be a perfect Vin Diesel replacement.

You were the bird, Brady, because you were doing your fun spread arm thing.

I just want to make that clear.

You're the one who's like the bird.

That leaves me as Nellie Frittata.

That's a good glow.

We are going to continue to fall in love with Book and Ocean.

I know we're at a cliffhanger here, so we want to get back to it pretty quick.

Not as literal as a cliffhanger as the previous episode, I guess.

But still, not a great situation you guys are in.

So let's start with our questions to fall in love, which this week it is, complete this sentence.

I wish I had someone with whom I could share, dot, dot, dot.

Ocean wishes he had someone with whom he could share his past with, because he doesn't really know much about it, and he really wishes that, you know, he could sit there with somebody and talk about things that happened in the past, his memoirs and all that kind of stuff, but he doesn't really have that.

Yeah, he wants to be able to reminisce, he wants to share memories.

Or remember when we were young lads and doing this thing.

Yeah, yeah.

I like how you found a personal deficiency to say the thing you really want.

Yeah, that's unfortunate, because that's kind of exactly what I was about to say with Book.

Oh, really?

Yeah, I was going to say he wishes that he had somebody with whom he could share memories of his parents with, where like, you know, he could sit with somebody and they could remember the same events.

Seems like you guys are looking for each other, and you should have more meaningful conversations about your youths.

If we were dying, he doesn't have any memory of his youth.

Yeah, but you could become part of books past as he tells you these wonderful stories.

That is true.

That is very true.

Books should have been someone who can actually read to read with him, and oceans should have been someone who actually likes spelunking like a cool little cave partner.

That's what I was honestly thinking of saying at first, but I thought my other answer was a little bit more profound.

I liked both of your answers.

They were good.

I'm not saying mine were better.

I was going to say, like, what book really wants is somebody who could read to him again, because the last people to do that was his parents.

But that's not something you share with someone, you know, like that's something that somebody does for you.

I could share the love of books with.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But I feel like Ocean likes books.

He just cannot.

He likes being like nuzzled in and get a blanket and some hot chocolate.

And he would do a lot of book reads, a book, just a lot of nuzzling going on.

Well, let's quickly get back to the action.

No, no, no, no, you thought you could slide past answering this one.

Do I have to answer this one to you?

Yeah, you got to answer all of them.

I wish I had someone I could share like when I get too much food, but spicy food because my girlfriend doesn't like very spicy food.

So if I get too much, I just have to decide either to eat it later, which is usually a bad call with most spicy food, or to try to finish it, which is always a bad call with spicy food.

I empathize with that.

You want me to move back to Alabama?

No, I want you to have my food, Brady.

That's how you collect my DNA and create a little clone stew.

And then I'm off the podcast in seven to 18 years.

No, we're already doing that because we've been taking every episode, downloading them and feeding into ChatGPT and that AI voice generating software.

So we'll be ready in the next six months.

AI can never come up with my jigs.

Believe it or not, we've we've already done that.

This is our premiere of Stewbot the AI.

I am Stewbot.

That was us tinkering with the voice settings, actually.

And let's get back to the action.

Ocean, you have crested the water with these two men in your arms.

You get a big breath of fresh air, while Book, your head's spinning as you finally get oxygen back into it.

And you both see a person on a flotation device pointing a gun on you.

They're like half in the water, arms over the top of the flotation device, and they have a gun at you.

Let's do a read a citral first, and I'm going to say only Ocean, because Book is nearly dead.

Read in a situation.

Ocean, are you keeping my head above water?

Because I've demonstrated that I can't.

Of course, I'm not done.

Because if you get distracted by the gun, I was like, oh, I'm just going to start sinking again, which could be very funny.

No, I got, unfortunately, got both my hands full, so I can't do much right now.

But all right, that is an eight.

An eight, ask me, unfortunately, one question.

This is a really good one to ask.

Because some of them, yeah, some of them maybe you could already deduce, and then other things you may not be able to do.

So think of a good one.

I think it's obvious who's in control here because it's the guy with the gun at this point.

I think it's obvious he poses the biggest threat to me.

I think I'm going to go with...

What should I be on the lookout for then?

There's not much you can see here, obviously.

Pitch black.

You guys have no real lights.

There's the one huge light that has sunk to the bottom of the water, scattering upward, giving you just enough illumination to kind of see around you here, and you can see this guy.

But you notice he's been up here for a good bit.

All of that did happen pretty fast last episode, but based on how you saw him before, you feel like he's had time to kind of settle on this and wait for you to come back up before he reacted.

And you notice he does have a flare gun with him that he did not use.

So you think that's a little strange that if there were other people in the area that he could call for help for, he would have used something like that.

But he currently has a flare gun.

It's like in one of those weird little top pockets here that he has not used yet.

But he has his gun trained on you, and he goes, don't move.

Hey, Stu.

Yeah?

Good improv.

Good improv.

Good improv.

Thank you.

Sounds good.

That's really interesting, though, that he makes me think maybe perhaps he is not a, because we're close, we can see the signs and everything from the other, for the town, right?

Yeah.

Where you think the town is, where that big gold star is, you definitely can see it.

It's still a good distance away.

It's probably like half a mile.

Like this is a massive cavern.

Yeah.

You can see those little pinprick lights.

Yeah.

So if we can see that and he's got the flare, it makes me kind of wonder if he's like a less than savory.

Like if he's somebody that's actively trying to avoid being seen by the town or something like that, maybe like a bandit or a scavenger.

Yeah, he did shoot a lot of guns, though.

Yeah, that's true.

Or maybe he just knows that there's no way they can reach him or he's trying to not get somebody's attention.

Do we have an idea of how many people were on the boat before it went down and how many people died or survived?

It was a tiny boat, right?

It was just like, yeah, it was a pretty small boat.

Oh, just with two giant fans on it?

Yeah, you think there were like maybe three or four.

You have one that's in your arms and one that's on this flotation device now, and you don't see the other people.

So either they're having a very bad time or that's really the only answer.

They're having a bad time.

Ocean looks at the guy and says, I couldn't move if I tried.

I'm holding two dudes here.

What threat do I pose to at this point?

He's going to kind of position himself a little bit better on the flotation device, and he's like pawing around for some sort of flashlight, but he can't seem to find it.

Let my man go.

Let him come over to one of those devices.

Toss the gun in the water and I'll let him go.

I saved him.

I don't want to hurt you.

If I wanted him to die, I would just let him sink, but I drug him up here.

Give me a Sway Someone roll, since you mentioned that you saved this dude's life.

That's horrible, though.

That's a five.

A five.

The second he makes it to the flotation device, the other guy shoots at you.

Like how much?

Like one shot or multiple shots?

He starts shooting.

I would say, yeah, he does one shot right towards Ocean.

Give me an act under fire roll, and tell me what you're trying to do.

So who's shooting at me at this point?

The guy that's pointing the gun?

Yes.

I will say, I haven't let go of the guy that I'm holding yet.

Oh, I thought you said you let him go.

I said toss your gun into the water, and I'll let him go.

I don't want to hurt you.

I say, he's still going to shoot you then since I already said that.

Still going to shoot me.

I think the moment he starts shooting at me, Ocean is going to, sorry, a book.

He's going to pull both of you guys under the water again so he can dive under, and he's going to try and swim as quick as he can to the spire to get cover and also get out his guns and stuff.

Give me an act under fire.

That's much better.

That's a nine.

You do take two harm from his handgun as it shoots into you, you dive under water as fast as you can.

These bullets start whizzing around you, but one of them catches you like right in the shoulder.

There's a little splash of blood.

You take zero harm.

I have one armor and then I have my counts as a small gang situation.

Yeah, so you take zero.

Roll a harm move for me.

Okay, that's a nine.

As you get shot in the shoulder, you let go of one of the people you're carrying.

It happens to be the person you saved, not Book.

So yeah, that person wiggles free when you kind of wince from this pain.

And you see they start very slowly start swimming up to the surface as you make it to the spider.

You grab onto the edge, you feel that cold metal.

Okay, I pull Book up out of the water and drink over the door frame.

So that way he's still covered by the other door because I think I opened it right or something.

So that way he's half in it, but he's no longer like having to support himself and I'm not having to pull him.

Tell him we can help.

Help him with what, Book?

You can heal him.

Oh, I see what you're saying.

It's a great idea.

Ocean shouts out over and says, I told you to stop shooting.

Like I said, I don't want to hurt you guys.

I can help you.

I can take away your pain.

Yeah, is there anything you could do to kind of prove that to him instead of just shouting madness?

Ocean.

Yes?

Break my arm.

Break your arm?

Just real bad.

Just do it.

You sure about this, Book?

I trust you.

Okay.

Yep.

Totally.

No, no misgivings about this whatsoever.

All right.

I'm going to have to make it very obvious I broke your arm too.

So.

Yep, I know.

I turn to the guys and I'm like, look at this.

And I slam Book's arm into the car.

Like, I slam the door into it.

I hold it like that, and basically on the elbow, so it bends backwards.

Nice.

Book, you take two armor-piercing harm, and you pull them up.

This causes them to stop for a second.

They definitely stop shooting.

They look a little horrified and confused, like you may have mixed up which guy you had brought with you.

Jesus Christ.

Okay, I'm going to try and take his pain away now.

Oh, shit, that's another nine.

Can you just bend my bones?

I don't care about the pain.

Okay, so yeah, I'll put your bones back together, and I'll take your pain away.

I'll say you heal one from that.

Yeah, I figured.

Heal one, and then give me a soy-someone roll with advantage.

With advantage, that is a seven.

Why can't I roll well on my damn cool rolls?

Can I help?

I think I just helped.

Yeah, you can help if you want to.

You have to roll help.

I got plus three with Ocean right now.

Are you going to show them that your arm is fine?

Mm-hmm.

I'm gonna bend it, wiggle around.

That is to say, I guess to help, what you do is very much exaggerate how broken it is.

I'm like screaming, and then when I do that, be like, whoa.

It's all better.

Seven.

Seven.

Okay, yeah, that pushes you up.

I needed the plus three hard.

I got two twos.

Yeah, I got a one and a two and a three for my advantage.

Nice.

They seem very taken aback by this display of this arm audibly snapping and echoing throughout the cavern, and then being just this warm glow immediately heals it back up in seconds.

And they definitely seem taken aback.

They actually do not seem to want your help.

The one turns in and goes, just let us go over here and just leave.

Just leave us here.

Listen, man, your femoral artery, with the amount of blood that you're losing, we may have nicked it.

Just let them heal you, and then we'll go our separate ways.

Like I said, man, I could have let him die.

I pulled him up.

I don't want to hurt you guys.

You were shooting at us.

I was just defending myself.

Give me a sway roll book.

That's a nine.

Do you want to help?

Sure, I'll help to get it a full success.

I got plus three with the book as well, so I don't think there's any way I'm playing on it.

As I roll snake eyes.

Knock on some fucking wood.

No, that's a twelve for my health roll.

A twelve.

Okay, you both get plus one HX, which I think rolls both of you over.

So you also get one experience each.

The one with the gun looks at the other one and kind of gives him a little shrug, and he looks down at his leg and goes, it's pretty bad.

And he slowly keeps his gun trained on you, and he pushes his friend over, he pushes the flotation device, so he just like gently bumps up against the spider.

Are you going to heal him or is this a betrayal?

Ocean's going to heal him.

We're trying to get on their good sides at this point.

We're trying to get information out of them.

So Ocean's a gentle giant.

He's not going to hurt somebody unless he feels like he has to.

So that is an eight.

What's two are you going to do?

So with an eight, let's see.

I'm going to heal their tissue damage, stop their bleeding.

And then since it's been exposed to water for so fucking long now and it's a soggy, deep cavern, and who knows what kind of junk is on that little ink thing that shot through them.

I'm going to say it's going to remove any disease or purge infection.

He looks down at his leg and he goes, wow, it seems way better.

And he kind of moves it around and he's able to like tread water by himself.

And he pushes himself back over towards the man with the gun who does still have it on you.

And the man with the gun says, what are you?

That's a good question.

I honestly have no idea.

But we come here for looking for medical supplies.

I promise we're not here to hurt you guys or anything.

We just our home's in danger and we just we're looking for people to help us.

Well, I don't think we're in any position to help you anymore.

Listen, we're all a little worse for wear as far as transportation goes.

Where are y'all headed?

We usually stay out on the water.

We mostly stayed in that boat that is now at the bottom of the ocean.

But we have some caves around here, but you would certainly not be welcome there.

We may not be welcome there now that we lost the boat.

Who are you with?

What are you even doing?

Why were you shooting at us in the first place?

We didn't know what you were.

There's big spooky light and like, yeah, it was just something strange.

We knew something was wrong.

He's lying to you.

Was that so that's that's your that's your gig.

You trap people in that big crevasse and then you shoot first and ask questions later.

Take the ship.

You trapped yourself there.

We didn't do anything.

Kind of seems like you you guys know the cycles of when the water empties out.

I don't know what you want from me.

I want in exchange for us to get you back home.

I want you to trade with us.

All we have is floating around the water right here.

Well, can you take us to the mainland here?

We cannot go there.

They would probably shoot us on sight.

Okay, bye.

And I pushed their flotation device away from us with my sword cane.

Good luck, guys.

Well, just point us in the right direction.

That's all we ask at this point.

They're floating away.

Are there any boards floating next to us?

There's broken pieces of their boat and stuff.

Okay, I want to toss them a paddle and say, good luck getting yourselves home.

They slowly drift out of the light, and now they're just in darkness.

You can still hear them a little bit, like some splashing sounds.

Did they take the paddle and use it?

Yeah.

Ocean just turns to bones, and says, fucking bandits is what I'm betting.

Fucking hate those guys.

I'm so sick.

Ocean, I got to be honest.

I just, I'm tired.

I'm really tired.

I mean, every time we go out, we have a plan, and we do it, and like, it just, it never, it fucking never works.

We roll so bad.

Well, at the very least, we made it, Book.

We just gotta, there's the light down there.

I think that's our, that's our ticket there.

So, we were attacked by bandits.

If they ask why we're so fucked up, we can just tell them we were attacked by some bandit group, and we just need help.

I would like to grab two more boards out of the water, so we can start paddling the spider.

Wait, hold up, you got some tinkering now.

Oh, wait, where's, where's fake Sufi's Ocean?

Oh, he's in my bag.

I opened the bag up so we can talk, we can hear him.

Does he need air?

I don't think I do.

Fuckin.

That would make sense.

I do not have lungs.

That is true.

Yeah, you haven't had lungs for a long time.

Well, Book, once we get to some dry land, I was actually looking through the spider, and there's, there's this notebook for you, but this box that had some belongings and a note for you left by the...

Slumithy Jimothy?

Slumithy Jimothy.

So, I don't...

One of them's made of wood, so I don't think we should probably get it out while we're treading water here.

That's nice of them.

It's nice that you had this waterproof bag.

Yeah.

Where's, where's your light, Book?

I, so it's still on my shoulder.

I turned it off before I went underwater, before I let go of the rope.

So that's the only light you guys have?

Yeah.

So I'd like to shake that out, and try to turn it on.

You let the water drip from it.

It looks like it's pretty sealed.

It looks like it was made for being outdoors, even though you're underground, and there's not rain.

But you, you flip it on, illuminate.

It's a bright, powerful beam.

Give me a read of Citral.

Fuck yeah.

Ask me four questions.

Hell yeah.

Oh my god, I'm so excited.

So before Book starts talking here, just real quick, can I still see the light that they had that is now at the bottom of the water?

Yes.

Okay.

As Book is looking around, he's like, hold on one second.

And I want to try and swim and retrieve it.

But I'll let him ask his questions.

It is a massive light, so it's going to be...

You can do it because you're a super strong boy, but you're going to have to try and strong.

There's going to be a roll.

I trust you.

Is it still...

How is it still on?

Like, wasn't it a combustion engine?

Hey, it was attached to a boat, right?

Yeah, but I guess the boat has a battery.

I mean, obviously it has a battery, but I imagine it would go out pretty quick without the engine running.

Only one way to find out.

So yes, Ocean plunges under the water while you shine your light around, trying to get some more information.

What should we be on the lookout for now that those people are gone?

What represents the best opportunity for us to get to the spider in some sort of working order?

What poses the biggest threat to us?

I think I'll ask who's in control here.

Interesting.

Interesting.

Because I think it's not the two...

I think it's not the people we interacted with.

They seemed afraid of someone.

You shine your light around in this water, and you notice that there on the cave wall around you, there are some tunnels that are like ledges that actually have stone windows cut out of them all around the outskirts of this cavern as you shine the light on.

That exists.

As you shine it through the water, you can't see too much.

It's still all filled with detritus.

You just see this big light illuminating ocean, but you do get the sense that there's more stuff moving down there than there should be.

Ooh, I don't like that.

Who's in control here?

I'll be very explicit with that, I guess.

Who's in control here?

You do think there's not an obvious answer.

You think those people certainly weren't involved with the main town or whatever collection of people, but they obviously had enough confidence to be driving around in a boat with a giant light, shooting at things.

So it's not super clear who is in control of this area you're in.

In the situation you're in, the dark depths of death are probably the only thing in control.

And you hear some whistling.

Someone's whistling, it's Trouble by Taylor Swift, but just the chorus repeatedly.

Kind of in the direction of those tunnels.

The spider will absolutely not be able to be paddled with just these half-eaten planks around.

You're going to need someone with an actual mechanic shop to be able to get it good to go.

But we still have two of the pitons at work, right?

Yes, the two rear ones work.

Ocean, you've plunged under the water, and you're going down towards this light.

Give me a try something challenging role.

Fuckin try something challenging.

At least I don't have zero negative one in it anymore.

That is a seven.

You make it down to the light, and you go and you try to pull it up, and it is way too heavy with how it's currently set up.

But you're you still have a good breath of air in you, and you poke around a little bit, and you see it's being powered by a bunch of car batteries that are in these like plastic cases right behind it.

And you could probably grab one or two of those potentially, or you could disconnect it and try to get the whole light.

You think both of those would possibly you'd be able to swim back up with that extra weight.

I think the light in the long run is going to be more worth while than the batteries because we have our working light.

And really what I want to get that light for is to have another thing to leverage for possible trade.

So I think Ocean is going to mentally prepare to come back down to get the batteries, but he's going to first try and get the light up.

You're going to have to break the connection with the batteries so it's not going to be like you can just Lego it back together.

You'll have a functioning light, but you'll have to work on it.

You'll have to get the wires or something fixed.

Okay, yeah, that sounds fair.

You could try to open these battery case in there, but you think there's a pretty good chance you would get a light.

Yeah, I think I will wait for that.

Okay, so you rip out these wires, and you pull, you wrench the light off of the front, and it brings some of the bottom of the boat with you, but you're able to slowly kick your legs up, fighting gravity, and eventually grab on to the bottom of the spider.

As I surface go, Book, look at this!

I got their light.

Held this massively.

I'm assuming it's out now?

Yes, yeah.

From the surface, Book, you just see suddenly almost entire darkness around you when he rips it open, and only your little thin beam of light shining around.

Okay.

Then he surfaces.

Are there any flotation devices left from the wreckage?

Yeah, there's one that's half eaten and one that looks like a pretty good shape.

I want to grab the one that's pretty good, and I figure we can use it to...

Is it big enough to hold the light up out of the water?

It can help, yeah.

It may, like, you would have to, like...

It won't balance well.

It's too big to do that.

But it will help hold it up, yeah, if you, like, tie it off or anything.

Which you can do.

So you just want to tie it to the spider, so...

Yeah, I kind of figured it was unwieldy, an unwieldy thing to put on top of the spider.

Can we, so we can't use the spider as, like, you know, there's no way to get it back to working order right now.

But is there a way for us to take the kind of the detritus that's around us to essentially turn it into a raft and push it and use it kind of like a cargo thing so we can slowly push it back to the surface?

Yeah, maybe we could put the raft under the broken wheel.

What does that do?

Sorry.

Oh, just so that way we can...

Yeah, that's very confusing.

No, I get the raft part.

I got it.

I'll ignore the other stuff.

Oh, oh, the...

You may be able to.

You could try.

Okay.

Hold on, Book.

Well, first, Book, shine that light straight down there.

There's some car batteries down there that I've got my eye on.

I want to put, like, the glass of the light, like, just barely submerged, so that I prevent, uh, refraction from...

It explodes.

Uh, it shines down.

You still can't see very much, but it illuminates the little broken wreckage of the front of the boat.

Ocean wants to try and grab...

Ocean tries to go grab the two-car batteries to bring them up as well.

Give me another try at something challenging.

There's always something challenging with you.

That is an eight.

Should I help since I'm shining the light?

Does that count as something?

If you want to.

I think we only have plus one help at this point, but...

Plus three aren't...

Oh, no, I did roll over.

We rolled over.

Do you want me to help, Ocean?

Sure.

Oh, gosh.

Ooh.

That was a twelve.

Oh, shit.

Book shines the light down and gives you just enough vision to stay on task and be able to track down right where these two batteries are and you're able to wrench them out and swim back to the surface with the battery in each arm, which is incredibly impressive.

Just my legs.

Just to go like pushing yourself up.

And you crest the surface with both of the batteries.

Ocean swings them both into the spider.

God damn it.

Every time I think I'm done with this life, you get more car batteries.

We're temporarily rich.

I think this could also help us with the trading.

But I think if we want to be able to get all this stuff back to the mainland, we got to somehow get some kind of raft together.

So you think you could help me try and convert this bad boy into a raft, and not a car?

A single tear rolls down his eyes.

I pat Ocean's shoulder, and I nod slowly, and start gathering wood and debris.

Flotsam, jetsam.

Flotsam, jetsam, and spin.

Floatables.

Okay, give me a try something challenging roll.

Hell yeah, that was a natural 12 plus zero 12.

I was going to help, but no.

Yep, you're able to get enough, especially with this added weight of the light and the two car batteries.

It is not super buoyant.

It's like barely treading, and it does still have this leak in the windshield that is slowly trickling water in, making it less and less of a useful flotation device.

But you're able to get enough of the stuff that's kind of floating around it, where you think you could kind of push it in a direction, and it would mostly go.

It's not boat-shaped or made for traveling in water, so it's going to be a lot of gently drifting and twisting and turning.

Can I put duct tape on the windshield to stop the leak?

Yes, it doesn't help.

I think MythBuster is actually in parameters.

Actually, it's in the seal, and it's already underwater.

Whatever, fine.

It probably wouldn't even get enough adhesion to stick.

They tested that too, but it's fine.

Damn, Stu's just not...

This is just not very scientifically accurate, thanks to Stu.

I guess it's reasonable to say that duct tape in the Apocalypses is a lot worse.

Less sticky by now.

Okay, I guess.

All right, Bookwell, let's try and drift towards those lights in the distance here.

Ocean looks around, and did you tell him about the tunnels and stuff that he sees, that you see, and the whistling and all that?

I think I pointed him out.

He was underwater.

Yeah, I was underwater while you were looking around.

Oh, so you didn't.

Oh, is the whistling still happening?

Getting a little quieter, but yes.

Ocean, do you have a whistle or a horn in this thing?

I'm sure I do.

I want to use the light to start flashing SOS, and I'd also like to honk the horn in an SOS.

So, before you do that, we did just get attacked by bandits, and they do live in the tunnels, so I wonder if we should actually do the opposite and turn our lights off and drift slowly towards the town to try and be as least noticeable as possible.

I'm rolling the dice.

I'm doing it.

What does your horn sound like, Ocean?

What does my horn sound like?

I think it sounds pretty jank because everything's really jank.

Maybe it's an old car, like, you know, the old-

Cars that they used to have that I stole from it and put in, so it just it sounds like this janky little old Volkswagen, even though it's like this big off-road thing.

So the horn does not fit its stature whatsoever.

So I go.

And you're shining your light in the direction of the whistling.

And you're flashing it as well.

The whistling stops a little bit later, you see a light shine towards you, but it's like a shitty small flashlight.

Like you think it probably is not doing anything for the person using it, but you're able to see where it's coming from.

And they're walking in these tunnels.

And they are coming closer to you.

They're basically walking back around to the point closest to the where you're at on the edge.

Well, I don't want to shine the light in their eyes, so I lower it so it's kind of reflecting off the water.

But it's still illuminating the area generally.

So with the with their flashlight, you think like where you're at now will be pretty hard for them to get a good look at you.

Do you want to move closer to them or are you standing staying right here?

Can I shine the light on down on us?

Yeah, you can.

To illuminate our faces like a spooky like a spooky as as book like shines it to illuminate us.

Ocean does this because he's not the most sure about this, but he trusts book.

You hear what sounds to be like some pretty friendly yelling, but you can't make it out over this distance.

Ocean, Ocean, can you fire a peaton and it's like a it's like a hey type sound.

I want to just honk three times to indicate that we received and I think that book only knows SOS and Morse code.

I don't think he knows the rest.

But I'm going to ask Ocean to fire a peaton in that direction and start pulling us towards it.

Yeah.

All right.

And I aim at kind of not at the tunnel itself, but kind of like the wall below.

Yeah, don't spear it.

So I don't accidentally spear the guy and I'll fire it.

Is it close enough that you think a peaton would reach to it from where we are?

Yeah.

Okay.

And then he starts slowly cranking his makeshift flotation device, his semi-aquatic, more aquatic than car, once spider, now what are those little?

Yeah, now sad, sad slug that's been in the water too much that's a little bloated.

And I think Book is very nervous about losing our newly gotten gains.

So I think he's like checking the lines as we crank forward to make sure none of them come loose.

You get closer and closer to the edge.

You're probably a couple dozen yards away, and you can actually hear some skittering.

So it sounds like a person, not like a spider.

Don't get too scared.

Because the last time you described skittering was like the cheese monster, I think.

A lot of skittering happening there.

Book's figure is very tight.

Are you shining the light, trying to like see them?

Yeah, you hear the skittering, you point your light, and you see someone dangling from one of the like windows, and they like let go and plop down onto like this rocky edge.

Did you say windows?

Yeah, I said there's these stone cut windows.

Oh, I see.

And they went out of one, dangle down and drop down, and as you see them turn around, it's cow tools.

Are you fucking kidding me?

Cow tools?

What the f-

What?

I thought you were going home.

Yeah, but you guys had like a lot of cool stuff, so I thought it'd make more sense to just kinda see how you guys did.

We asked if you wanted to come.

Wait.

Yeah, I didn't want to come with you guys.

That seems super dangerous.

Cow Tools, wait, hold up.

Yep.

How did you get here?

Why did we have to go through all that if you were able to just walk down here?

I took the other tunnel, the left one, and then there's a little ramp up, and you kinda can wind through some other passages.

Did you look at the map I gave you?

It was not very helpful, Cow Tools, I'll be honest with you.

We took the most direct route.

Also, did you swim here?

Oh, that one's the most dangerous by far.

I actually like put like a little skull and crossbones, or like a tentacle monster symbol, or an X.

I asked you guys what you wanted to know, and you didn't say anything.

You're a bad guide.

I was just hoping.

Well, you're a bad guide.

Did you swim here?

No.

Well, that water is gross.

You do not want to be in there.

Well, Cow Tools, how close are we to the town?

Because you, as you can tell, our ship is looking a little rough right now.

Yeah, that doesn't look great.

If you get in these tunnels, it's probably about a mile.

I know it looks like less than that, but you really want to take the left path up here to go higher because this one we're in, or I was in, actually floods, like, I don't know, every hour or two.

If we take the other ramp, we can loop around and we should be pretty safe.

We were attacked by some guys in a little hovercraft.

They shot at us a whole shit ton.

Yeah, it sounds like bandits.

We took them out-ish.

Took out their boat, but we got their light and a bunch of...

Yeah, see, you got their light.

We got their light, a couple batteries.

The town people will love that.

They're going to be super happy you did that.

So is there a way that we can...

Can we drag this?

Hey Ocean, do you think you're strong enough to be the third wheel?

You want me to drag the spider?

You want him to curl up like Sonic the Hedgehog and spin?

Well, your engine still runs, so, I mean, your real wheel can drive.

We established that you have independent drivetrain, so we can just put the real wheel.

I can drive.

We can put the rear wheel at a crawl, and all you have to do is make sure just lift up and walk forward.

I say that like it's easy, but do you think you could do it?

I could give it a shot.

If it'll let us get this thing over to the town, I'm all for it if we can try and, you know, not lose my baby.

Couchles, is there anywhere, is there a ramp we could land at?

No, you'd have to like go all the way around the outskirts of the cavern wall, which will take a little bit.

I'm sure he pulls out a pocket watch and looks at it, and he goes, yeah, I think you'll probably get it hit by at least one flood.

So like I said, this tunnel floods, and it just pours water out all of these windows.

So as you're driving around that, it will kind of wash over you.

This water is usually a little safer.

It doesn't have like as much like shrapnel and stuff like some of the other ones, but there can still be some gross stuff in it sometimes, like real gross.

You would have to do that, and there's no like nothing's going to fit this giant Anka Junkin into these tunnels.

Hey, you have some fucking respect.

This is his baby.

Well, is there a way to you think we can take this to get landed near the town?

I can see the lights off in the distance.

Is it that far of a drive or I guess swim at this point?

If we stay out going towards the middle?

Yeah, the middle is a little more dangerous.

That's where the things live in the water, but you could definitely do that.

You could just like maybe if you float, float slowly enough, you just kind of go on the tech.

Oh, should we still have two peatons?

Well, do you think we could just crank this puppy out of the water?

We could try, but I don't think we're going to fit in those tunnels.

Oh, no, this, yeah, this cavern is way too massive to like swing across or anything like that.

I meant to crank it up under the ledge that Cattle's is on and like try to get into that tunnel.

You won't fit in that tunnel.

Well, I think from what he was describing, it's just like small little square windows of cutting the wood.

So I don't think we're going to be able to fit the spider through it.

Ocean, you have a wheelbarrow on this thing or anything?

I've got a shit ton of bags we can put our stuff in and a tarp that we can make a little carrier in.

But pretty much all of the things that we have, I am not capable of carrying.

So unless you could carry everything, you know what I'm saying?

It's like I can carry nothing.

What are you guys trying to bring that you can't carry?

The light and the two car batteries and the other stuff that we brought, right?

The training goods and stuff, the little scavenge.

But I think the scavenge, all that, I think it should be able to...

The light's the only really big thing.

I think we could fit everything else in one of the bags.

Because he's got a bunch of bags and stuff that...

It'd be heavy, but I think we could probably carry it.

If you're going to trade with them anyway, and part of that trade is going to be them coming and scooping this thing out of the water, then you'll have it once they get it for you.

They'll be there.

True.

But there's also...

They have salvage stuff.

They got this big claw thing.

That's scary.

There's also bandits, and they know that we're damaged.

Yeah, they've been struggling with bandits.

So I'm saying the bandits could come find our ship and take our stuff, and then we'll have nothing to trade with.

Yeah.

Ocean...

Bandits could come now.

Whatever you want to do.

Take your stuff.

Councils.

Yeah, but at least we're here to defend it right now.

When do you say it floods again?

How much time do we have?

The next flood should be less than an hour now.

If I'm...

But sometimes it's like three hours, so in that case, it could be like two hours.

If I bore this spider here with the pitons, do you think it would get washed away, or do you think it would stay where it is?

From here, no, I don't think it'd get washed away.

He goes and kind of like pulls on the piton a little bit.

No, the water here, it's getting slowed down by having to come out of this little thing here, and it like shoots out some, so it's not like...

The water will fill up at the bottom some.

I think you'd be okay.

Well, look, I think we should park the spider here.

I can fire the pitons, hold it in place.

I think we should just walk the rest of the way.

I don't think it's going to be particularly...

I think either way we go, it's not going to be safe, but I just think dragging the spider with us is...

I think it's going to put us at more risk than it's going to help us at this point.

She's on her last legs.

She needs a doctor.

She needs help.

And I can't provide it.

I'll carry fake Suvius and the weird thing you found in your yard, I guess.

I don't want to leave the thing you found in your glove box behind.

That's already in the bag.

That'll fit in this bag.

That's already in the Suvius' head sack.

All right.

Then I have that, and I leave Ocean to pull up the rest.

What do you bring, Ocean?

Bring in the light, bring in the car batteries, and then he's going to try and fit, because the light he can carry in one arm, the bag he's going to put on his side, I think he's going to get another bag that he can fit as much of the scavenger units.

Imagine it's kind of like one of those IKEA bags, if you know those.

Of course.

I'm going to put a bunch of stuff in it, put it on his shoulder, and just take what he can.

He's going to have to leave some stuff in the spider, but he just wants to take the most valuable things like his guns and the batteries and the lights, so that way, if bandits do come and pick it clean, we're not, you know, fucked and can no longer pay the guys.

Is there anything we can do to disguise the spider?

Like pull seaweed on over it or something?

Nah, it'd probably get washed away.

You could sink it.

Sink it?

That's actually not a bad idea.

Well, we got to get going or we're going to get to the next level.

I want to stick my hands up, and I want to ask for Cowtools to help me pull up.

Cowtools skitters up the wall, and as you go up, he does help you pull up.

It's a way harder climb than it looks.

Then he makes it look.

He just like grabs these like little tiny hand holds and wrenches himself up.

And you can struggle a little bit too, Ocean, especially with all your heavy shit.

He's like a little spider monkey book.

Ocean has a ton of shit on him.

That's got to be like 200 pounds of shit.

Yeah, you're kind of wobbling a little bit as you go down.

And Caltules is trying to make you guys hurry.

He's like, come on, come on, go faster.

He keeps looking at this stopwatch he has, or pocket watch.

So specifically, just to kind of specify, Ocean's bringing some ropes.

He's bringing the tarp and then some scavenging stuff.

And then his guns.

So that way, you know, I got my...

He's got ropes and stuff, which I can see being useful.

Standard survival equipment is in the bag, and he's prioritized that over the salvage.

He just mostly wants to bring the two batteries.

Book has a cane.

Mostly wants the two batteries and the light.

Okay, both of you give me a tough roll.

Hard, sorry.

That's an 11.

Nice.

The minus one has killed me.

I have a six.

Oh, can Book help?

Ocean help here?

Nope, you're fully encumbered, I would say.

You can't make him go any faster at this point.

Can Fake Suvius help?

I have history with Fake Suvius.

How can Fake Suvius help?

He doesn't have arms.

He's got teeth.

So you guys are pressing through these tunnels.

Caltools is leading the way.

He leads you down these random turns that seem to be bringing you further away from the lights, but he assures you that you're going in the right direction.

And he goes, okay, I think we're making good time.

We should have at least 15 minutes before the next flood.

And then you guys hear this torrential rushing water sound.

And he goes, my clock must be off.

And he takes off on a sprint.

Full speed.

Oh, shit.

He's already like 20 yards away.

And you think it like you could lose him very easily in these tunnels you're in.

So you got to move quick, think quick.

At this point, I mean, I'm hoping as soon as he starts running, I'm going to try to run.

But I think I already filled that role.

The moment Ocean hears the heavy huffing and sees Cow Tools just absolutely booking it, Ocean is going to drop the bag that has the scavenge from his house.

So at this point, now he's only carrying the bag with fake Suvius and the guns and stuff and the light and the batteries.

And now he's going to start huffing it.

You drop the scavenging metal and you hear this clanking behind you as you start running.

And you guys are able to keep Caltools in your sight.

He's making a bunch of these random turns, but you're able to hear him at least a few times.

You may lose him for a second, but you're able to keep on his trail.

But the water starts filling up around your ankles first.

You notice that you're sludging through this.

It's really draining your energy to have to run through it, but you haven't seen any giant torrential pouring yet, just slowly filling up the tunnels.

And before long, it's knee high, and it's very difficult to keep moving.

And you lose sight of Caltools for a second, and you realize he has wedged himself into a small little gap on the side of these walls that will definitely not fit all of you.

Oh, shit.

He's wedged himself into like, and kept moving, or wedged himself into like, lock him into place?

He has locked himself into place.

Caltools, is there another one of those wedges?

Uh, they're all sized for me.

I would like to take out my sword, and I would like to drive it into a crack.

Caltools.

Into a crack?

Ocean quickly kind of tries to press himself up against one of the wedges that he sees.

I think he's a little too big to fit, but he's going to get the rope out, he's going to tie himself off to the window, to the stone.

It's like a stone outcrop to kind of hold himself to the wall.

Around the corner in front of you, you see this.

It's actually not a rushing wave of water yet.

You see this kind of concerning looking very foamy material.

It looks like when you see like a waterfall, and there's kind of that strange foam that you don't know if you're like, is that normal or is that something?

Uh-oh.

Like, doesn't just look like bubbles.

It's that weird, very light, fluffy foam.

Starts filling up around the corner and starts washing over you and you get hit with this horrendous stench.

And as the water starts filling up higher and higher around you, it has like a slimy coating on it.

That low tide funk.

You feel it's very like stuff starts accumulating on your skin and flesh.

I guess skin and flesh are the same thing.

Starts accumulating on your skin.

Give me a read a Citroll book.

That is a nine.

A nine?

Mm-hmm.

Okay, ask me two questions.

Alright, Stu, what represents the best opportunity for us to basically survive slash hold on during the onslaught of this wave of goo slash foam?

And also, what is our best way through the foam?

Or through to the town?

Through to the town?

You think at this point you would be hopefully lost without cow tools, so you want to make sure cow tools is safe and good.

The onslaught you see coming towards you, you start picking out some more things inside of it and they look very organic, like very chunky and decomposing.

And you think the actual force of this water may not be the thing you should be most concerned with, and more of getting it into any open orifices or cuts or even prolonged skin contact doesn't seem great.

Interesting.

An ocean ditch that Ikea bag that I could have climbed into.

Yes.

Oh, gosh.

Interesting.

I have a bag that has Vesuvius' head in it.

Yes.

But it's not very big.

No.

It fits our stuff basically exclusively.

Vesuvius' stuff.

I could throw Vesuvius' head out of it and put my head in it.

How mean.

Ocean does have tarps, because he got his survival stuff.

I think you said you had a tarp.

You have one large tarp.

That's what we'll say.

One very big tarp.

Can Ocean huddle close to Book, and then throw the tarp over us?

You want a burrito?

You can try.

Book has duct tape, I think we established.

So I would like to duct tape the arms of my jacket.

Clothes, basically just my hands are exposed.

And then I want to button it up and try to seal it.

Just basically try to seal it around my neck and around my waist.

Duct tape my pants around my boots as well, even though they're not waterproof, just to try to reduce the amount of contact.

Okay, both of you give me an act under five.

Okay.

Also, at some point, I yelled to Ocean that it's really yucky, and we don't want to get touched by it.

That's a ten for act under five for me.

Nice.

What am I rolling?

Thank Jiminy Christmas, because that is an eight.

Does my tarp help to push this up to a full success if I roll out?

Nope, it just changes what goes wrong.

No, it did help.

The fact that you were able to fully succeed on that was a very great thing.

So Ocean runs over and fully cocoons you up and kind of gives you this wraparound where all of the blowing foam and water is now being deflected around you and some of it's splashing up towards the couch, and you're like, oh, that's fine.

So we're both huddled around the sword, like the sword's in the ground, and we're both on either side of it, I assume.

Yes.

And you're trying to tape yourself up as quick as possible, going to all the things.

Again, you're in knee-high water, so it's really hard to get the pant legs and stuff done.

And as there's the largest torrent of water comes and crashes into you, Ocean has to lean forward against you, bends up against the blade, and you stumble to the ground for just a second, but your head fully gets plunged into the water part.

Ocean, you can quickly scoop them up.

Yeah, I'm trying my best to pull them back up.

But it smells disgusting and completely dunked in your face, and you feel this slick coating over you.

But you're able to withstand until it kind of slows down a little bit, and you feel a little tappy on the top from Cow Tools, who says, we can move now.

What the fuck was that?

When you come out, he has his shirt over his nose because it smells absolutely horrendous here.

There's still just all sorts of gunk just stuck in like all of the corners of everywhere and still like a few inches of water on the ground.

That isn't nice, crystal clean water.

Stu, was the water that we were in before, was that salt water or fresh water?

Salt.

Weird.

Interesting.

Hey, Cow Tools.

Most of the water you guys have seen is salt water, actually, I'd say.

Cow Tools.

Yeah?

Are we inside something right now?

We're in the stew.

What a weird question.

Ocean takes the tarp that he has, and he's going to kind of...

First, he's going to try and shake off as much of the junk as he can.

Disgusting.

As soon as you shake it, there's just a flinging goo everywhere.

But he's going to fold it up in a way where all the goopy grossness is on the inside of the fold, so that way we're touching and we can unfold it again and still have that clean surface if we need it in a disaster.

You got a nice little goo present wrapped in there now.

I'd like to pull my sword out of the ground and investigate the tip.

It goes...

What?

It squelches out.

That's what I thought you would say.

It was pretty gross.

It looks still fully intact and okay.

I want to investigate the tip.

What kind of residue is on it?

It's brown.

Is it like dusty dirt or is it like...

It's more gunky.

It looks organic, maybe?

It could be.

It's hard to tell because there's a bunch of garbage from the water as well.

Like it's all...

I want to drag the edge of the blade against the side of the cavern we're in.

Like in a cutting mode.

Clink, clink, clink, clink.

So it's rock?

Yeah, it seems like rock.

It seems like stone.

Interesting.

Ocean?

Cow tools?

I think we might be in a digestive system.

Hey, everybody, thank you so much for listening to this week's episode.

Sorry it's a little bit late, but we have a lot of stuff rocketing towards the pipeline that kind of jammed it up a little bit.

One of those things is a special Halloween one shot that turned into a little bit more than a one shot that we will be releasing shortly in time for the end of Spooky Season.

The music and editing is performed by Stu Masterson.

Brady McDonough makes all that art with his own two hands.

And Jacob dots our T's and crosses each and every one of our eyes.

Love you, bye.

Bye.

My sex organs?

Gross.

It's disgusting.

Cut that out, cut that out, that's not real.

Disgusting.