Book and Ocean find themselves behind enemy lines, with answers to their questions within their grasp. Can they decipher the code and make a quiet escape?

This one is pretty much an early 2000s Ben Stiller movie.

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 two animatronic rodents.

Hello, everyone.

I'm Chuck E.

Cheese.

I'm an animatronic rodent.

I'm not gonna do it, please.

You're a coward.

I can't do it.

Jacob, you can go.

I don't think I'm gonna offer anything else.

You're not gonna say, okay, all right.

I'm Brady, and I play book there.

There you go.

That's perfect.

And I'm Jacob.

I play Ocean.

A gentle giant.

Fuck yeah.

Who may be using computers in past life.

Keep it going.

Keep it going.

You're almost there.

Good.

When I asked if you guys are ready, this is what I meant.

Not if you were physically present.

No, I was thinking about it, but then I was like, yeah, I'm ready.

And I was like, I was just going to say something about how you was maybe good at computers in this past life.

I'm set.

And then we started recording and my brain was like, I think it was that I went all squeaky.

And then you had three minutes.

I could not comprehend.

We have two fun games and I forgot what the second one is.

But we have two fun games we're going to play in this intro.

The first one, I've warned my co-hosts about, and they've already submitted their official responses before we started recording.

But there was a fun little editing trick in the last two episodes.

If you guys had listened to our intros or outros, you know that the audio was all done fucked up.

And there were two little editing tricks that are consistent between those episodes.

And I've put it on my host to try to guess what the fun fact is related to the last two episodes.

Could you guys repeat your submissions now or come up with them on the spot?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, Jacob, I'm going to give you a minute to think about yours because I don't think you actually put any in the chat.

Oh, I didn't put any in the chat, but I suspect it has something to do with the panning in the ears, because you're talking about how you pan the ears to make it seem like Brady's on the right and I'm on the left to trick people to think it's the other way around.

But to trick people into thinking that we're like sitting next to each other, which we are, by the way, we're definitely sitting next to each other as we record.

We're actually holding hands.

Yeah, it's very sweet.

I can't DM if both my hands aren't being held.

It's very sweet.

That's why I like this system, because I don't have to roll dice.

When I D&D, I'm using my mouth a lot.

But my theory is that you hid some editing cuts by panning us in ways that you did not previously do.

Interesting guess.

The winner gets a $50 Chuck E.

Cheese token redemption policy, by the way.

So that's your official submission, Brady.

All right, so I put two in the chat over last week.

Well, I mean, you didn't stipulate how many guesses we could submit.

My first guess was just that the neat trick was that you were on your laptop and not your desktop, which made everything worse.

And then the second one that was serious was that I felt that you used tippy tapping music to hide the tippy tap of Jacob's dog, which was such a damn good guess that I was like, damn, that's probably right.

Okay, I will say I did choose to use music at the end of last episode because or two episodes ago because there was a ton of dog clicky clackies.

But none of you got the correct answer, which is I completely re-recorded all my audio for the last two episodes.

Oh, I actually did.

Oh my God.

I suspected that actually.

I genuinely I was listening to one of the episodes and I was like, I don't remember Stu sounding like this.

No way.

So all of those laughs were fake, not a single true laugh.

Oh my God.

I mean, so I mean, you did use music in both of those episodes.

I just want to have that all wrong.

That's fine.

Dude, did you do like word for word?

Did you like change up what you said to make yourself sound smarter and funny?

No, word for word almost entirely.

Like I would I intentionally would just like listen to it and then try to repeat it though.

So like I left in all my like mistakes and stuttering and things.

I didn't I did not clean it up.

I guess that's how you hit it so well.

Because I'm already adding two hours of editing to the job.

So I was going to spend more time.

Did you use the transcript at all or just the raw audio to audio?

Just the audio.

There were some times where I was listening to it while I was talking.

If it was really long, I was like, this is going to take too long.

So like the visions and stuff like that, I would listen to it and just be repeating like four seconds behind.

Man, that's clever, doing it, making sure you add the mistakes in and don't make yourself sound smarter.

Just word for word.

And I loved when you guys just talked back and forth for so long, I would be so happy while I was doing it.

I was like, oh my God, this is great.

For once, Stu was happy about my tendency to rant, my propensity for ranting.

So was your audio just that bad?

Oh yeah, it was completely.

It was using a webcam mic on my laptop the whole time.

Oh, so my my cringey sound, I make it the outro of two episodes when I had you thought you lost all your audio.

That was what everything sounded like.

Just wow, gravelly garbage.

There were there were sometimes any of the times my words didn't match up.

It's because I literally couldn't understand what I was saying.

So I had to guess it.

Man, I genuinely actually considered that at one point.

I remember distinctly listening to one episode and being like, Stu sounds different than I remember.

And I didn't think anything of it.

I thought maybe I could not remember.

I don't mean this is an insult, but I'm genuinely for one.

I just you did a fantastic job with it.

So kudos.

But also, I just didn't think that you would have taken the time to do that.

I think you would have just if that happened, I assumed you were just been like, hey, this audience fucked.

I'm sorry.

Next week's it'll be better.

I did casually suggest to you guys that we re-record some of last episode one time, but we ran out of time.

That was part of the reason why.

Jacob's audio was also really messed up.

Yeah, it was fucked.

It was bad.

But we're all good now.

I think we all figured out the reason why our audio was crap, and mine was because of this shitty USB C hub.

Yeah, don't trust Amazon.

Bezos makes he's like Bezos is a great guy.

We all love him.

Oh, yeah, he's such an epic human being.

Don't trust Bezos' soldering capability.

That's all I want to say.

Don't trust his soldering.

Anything that requires electronics, you're good with like stuffed things.

His sewing, he's such a good sewer.

He's so key with his little thimble on.

But he's really fast, too, with making this stuff.

Like, yeah, he does a lot.

Yeah.

It's impressive.

It's really impressive how much work he does.

Have you ever seen him with a tape gun?

Yeah, he packages everything himself.

Me either.

Let's go.

The second thing, before we get to our questions to Fall in Love, is not a game I finally remembered what it was, but it's about the Psychic Maelstrom, which I thought I should elaborate on here.

I think you guys have mostly figured this out now.

This has been bothering me for the entire recording.

But I just wanted to make it clear, especially to our listeners, but especially you two.

When I'm describing Psychic Maelstrom stuff, I'm going to quote one of my favorite songs by my favorite band, Say Anything.

Awesome band.

And It's a Metaphor Fool is one of their best songs.

And also when I'm talking about the Psychic Maelstrom, it's almost entirely metaphorical.

I know that may be shocking.

We're dense.

It may be shocking to you guys based on how you've been playing this entire time.

Wait, what the fuck do you mean it's metaphorical?

Jacob seems like he already knew this.

What the fuck are you talking about?

I figured it wasn't one to one.

Yeah, there aren't actually real giant energy beasts fighting each other constantly that are just invisible to you because the Psychic Maelstrom exists.

See, I figured that was the case.

I figured that just represented the two AI going against each other, the back and forth that you talked about.

Yeah.

That's what I was thinking that meant.

So I guess part of me did subconsciously feel like, okay, it's probably not literally what we're seeing.

It's just like...

Oh, yeah.

But it is fuzzy because it has impacts on the real world.

But like wolves exist in some way, right?

Yeah, and Ocean did see that happen, right?

You're not saying your description was metaphorical?

No, the description was literal, yes.

Ocean saw that.

Ocean literally saw that happen.

But the Psychic Maelstrom was a metaphorical representation of literal occurrences.

Yes.

So my hand going through the object...

It happened to you.

Yes.

What happened?

You experienced that.

Whenever I'm describing something, you're experiencing exactly how I'm describing it.

But that doesn't mean...

Okay, Brady's incredibly confused by this.

You all can't see his face right now, but...

I'm with you, Stu.

I'm struggling.

What we see is equivalent to instrumentality or the events that occur in Evangelion when the pilots become one with the goo or whatever.

Exactly.

They're physically experiencing this.

I haven't seen Evangelion.

But what I see is like metaphorical.

It's just all kind of like hodgepodge, visions, craziness.

It's like if you took LSD.

Okay, so when my hand went through the wire or whatever I was trying to grab, it wasn't a metaphor for it being out of reach.

My hand literally went through it, and I literally saw it, but somehow it's also metaphorical.

It could be both.

Yeah.

I'm on board with that.

You know what?

Nuance is fine.

I'm cool with nuance.

Yeah.

So is that the thing that you mentioned to me a couple weeks ago where you're like, there's been something I've been trying to get you guys to pick up on that you're just not picking up on at all, and I'm making it more and more obvious?

No, that is unrelated.

Yeah, you guys still have not caught some of my little bread crumb clues.

It'll all come to head in the next few episodes anyway.

After this arc, I think we're going to do a little recap bonus episode where you guys can ask me some questions that I'll answer as long as it doesn't still have lasting implications on the story.

I'll just be like, hey, for this stuff.

That's a fun idea.

Yeah, and I think I want to be very upfront with people how I'm DMing this and what shit I am pulling out of my ass and what stuff is planned, because I think part of the cool thing of these systems is a lot of stuff is just straight up pulled out of my ass while I'm talking.

And I want to I want to kind of connect the dots on how that stuff gets built, how there are these little tiny random things that then coalesce into an overarching idea.

A bunch of nerd stuff.

So if you don't like listening to that, we'll tell you what bonus episode to skip.

But first, let's fall in love.

No, I think that sounds really fun.

Okay, I'm ready for it.

The question this week to fall in love with Book and Ocean.

Is there something that you've dreamed of doing for a long time?

Why haven't you done it?

This is a very judgmental question.

Oh, geez.

Or you can take it more positively.

You know, I think Book always wanted to try carpentry.

Oh.

I think in terms of having like a methodical, like something you can do while you're thinking, something like very rewarding with like a tangible outcome, as opposed to like a lot of what Book gets is very like metaphysical.

What's the word for it's like gratification?

Yeah, like very metaphysical gratification, and where this would have like a tangible...

A concrete, yeah, very concrete gratification.

The problem is he doesn't have enough, for one, he lives in a cave, so like options are already pretty limited as far as like what wood to work with.

There aren't any trees that are growing underground, and he doesn't have enough space for like a full workshop, or at least he didn't until a whole new section of his house caved in.

Yeah, maybe you can upgrade that workshop for woodworking.

That's something you could definitely potentially do.

Ocean, I think, really would like to learn to read.

I think that's what he would like the most.

I think it's holding him back pretty a lot.

I think he feels pretty bad anytime somebody has to read for him, and he feels pretty like infanticized.

You know, when you like speak down to somebody and treat them like a child when people have to...

He doesn't have the most pride and ego of some of like the average person.

I feel like he's pretty...

He's a pretty chill, laid-back guy, and he pretty much takes things that is.

But I do think an element of pride of like sitting down and having to like ABCD and reading like juvenile children's books and stuff just makes him feel bad for having to go through all that, like from the beginning.

Can I add a little bit of color to that?

Sure.

I think Book absolutely promised to teach Ocean how to read, but like it was just one of those things where like he said it and he meant it and he absolutely intends to, but he doesn't realize that it's like actually a big deal to Ocean.

So Book also just keeps putting it off.

And I think Ocean doesn't make, and I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I think Ocean maybe doesn't want to ask someone else because he doesn't want to like betray Book in that way.

Oh, no, I like that.

No, he doesn't want to ask.

He doesn't want to be a burden to Book to sit down and teach him how to read.

To actually like make good on his promise.

Yeah, Book probably just casually meant to say, Yeah, I'll teach it to him one day.

And Ocean was like, Oh, shit, yes.

And I was like really excited about it.

The next time they hang out, you came with like a pen and paper.

And Book was like, So, let's go.

Yeah, he's not the most expressive.

So maybe Book was just like took it off as just like an off comment and is forgotten or something like that.

I like that.

I like that little spice.

Well, let's get back to the action.

Previously, you guys found yourself infiltrating the weird server shack behind the courthouse that Hickory Fleek's men call their home.

And you surreptitiously snuck in with barely any alarms getting thrown that we are aware of to gain access to the terminal that runs all these servers.

And you did some hacking and whacking and smacking and figured out that there's two competing AIs fighting over resources from the power systems in Subtropolis, where most likely Book's mother had helped program one that was working for the town to try to trick the main AI to provide more power than it thinks is necessary to the town and the overarching AI fighting back constantly.

You guys figured that out.

And then Ocean decided to try out a brand new move he just learned, which is Things Speak, which is a very awesome move.

And I'm excited to adjudicate that now.

What an exciting cliffhanger.

So give me that Things Speak roll.

Things Speak.

I roll weird.

I do have plus one weird.

The fun thing is if you fail this, it's like failing and open your mind to the Psychic Maelstrom roll.

Really?

Yeah.

Let's take a look.

Speaking of, I failed the roll.

I'm going to have to carry fucking Ocean out of this building.

That was a three.

I rolled snake eyes.

This is absolutely wonderful.

The worst part about this is that like I had a phenomenal plan for like if we got useful information.

I really want to be able to talk to Ocean and like formulate a really cool plan that we're going to use to escape.

And now I'm just going to expect that whatever Ocean tells me is a lie.

I was about to say this stuff on here.

Well, see, no, whatever.

It's not that I get wrong information.

It's that now I'm along for the ride.

Well, actually, it is worse than that.

You're not just along for the ride.

That is a mixed success on an open your brain to the psychic maelstrom.

This counts as a full fail on an open your brain to the world's psychic maelstrom, which means be prepared for the worst.

Okay, so I'm going to describe what you see book.

So you see Ocean suddenly.

It's like something just comes over him, and he starts just typing away on this keyboard at phenomenal speed.

He's like using weird shift control commands and different screens like popping up, and he's like jumping to different lines in the code.

You see him searching for different things.

It's like someone using Vim who actually knows how to use Vim.

Oh, yeah.

When you do it.

Oh, you mean the sexiest thing you can ever see a programmer do?

Yeah, it's just jumping all over the place, and you see him opening all these files, and he's like starts tracing things on the screen with his fingers, and he's just unblinking, staring at this.

And you see that going on for quite a while.

If you do anything like try to distract him or shake him or ask him anything, he just ignores you and is just focused.

I think this is, for one, this is the most impressed book has ever been, not just by Ocean, by anyone, period, and also the most attracted that has ever been, including Spade.

Spade and Calista put together.

Yeah.

Book's kink is somebody good with a computer.

No.

Just anyone who's super competent at anything.

Ocean, what you see is actually the same to begin with.

You seem to understand what's going on.

Again, you can't quite comprehend why these, you know this combination of different keyboard shortcuts that you're doing, but you're just typing away on this.

And you are like trying to make connections.

You're seeing stuff, you're understanding how this AI works somewhat.

And you're making these like little leaps like, okay, I think she did this for this reason, but nothing quite solidifies.

But as you're going, all of a sudden, the keyboard stops responding to you.

And you like hit like Ctrl C like 12 times, and nothing happens.

And you're looking at it, and then the screen slowly starts filling up, character by character, and it just says, Hello Ocean, period.

Hello Ocean, period.

Hello Ocean, period.

Hello Ocean, period.

And it fills up your entire screen.

You don't see this happening book.

You just see him.

He just kind of stops for a second in the keyboard.

And you just see him just staring at some random screen that looks like any of the other screens.

And he can read this.

So it's saying Hello Ocean.

Yeah, he can tell exactly what it says.

It just says Hello Ocean.

Hello Ocean.

Weird.

And it fills up the screen, and it just keeps going and going.

You see it start scrolling faster and faster and faster until the screen is almost just illuminated from the ghosting of all these characters going by, and it gets brighter and brighter.

And you kind of start wincing at this light, and then it's just dark.

Book, you see this too?

Everything just powers down for a second.

Everything's dark in here.

I think I'm going to take that opportunity.

So does that mean like lights go out like the server rebooted?

Yeah, it looks like everything's rebooting in here right now.

I'm going to go Ocean, now's our chance.

We got to get the fuck out of here.

Do I hear him at all?

Yes, you do hear him now.

You kind of snap out of it.

And I will say, you guys, I was going to remind you last time, but too much exciting stuff was happening.

You guys have been in this room for like 30 minutes because you had a few times or you just waited to make sure no one was there.

You currently have a cut hole in the gate that isn't particularly hidden because your plan was to obfuscate it with a fallen pole.

So if someone finds that, it's going to be red alert in here probably.

Point of fact, it is a slit.

Yes.

So the mesh parts meet back up.

So I'm just saying it's not super noticeable.

Right now, based on what you've understood, it's like one dude looking around, thinking something suspicious.

If he finds that, it's going to be...

Someone's probably broken in here.

And it's going to be all hands on deck.

So yeah, so I'm going to turn to Ocean.

Hey, now's the chance.

We've got to go.

If the power's out, that means the motion-activated lights probably aren't working.

So let's book it.

No pun intended.

Ocean's a little dazed, but like, oh, okay, let's go.

Oh, also, hey, whatever you did, great job.

That's exactly what I was going to suggest.

We just had to reboot, let things reboot, shut Powered Off for a couple minutes so that we can make our escape.

Good thinking.

And I pat him on the back.

I'm like, Book, I have no idea what just happened.

Book is going to try to kick the door open.

I'm not kidding, I'm totally kidding.

But it is locked from the outside, right?

And it's a mechanical lock, not an electric lock?

Yeah, one of you give me a read a situation.

I'll let Ocean do it.

All right, I'm reading a situation.

That is much more successful.

That's a nine.

Before you ask me those questions, I will give you a little thing to lead you in what those questions may be.

You hear two voices suddenly outside.

That's what causes you to read this situation.

You hear one that you don't recognize, and you very softly hear what's clearly Vesuvius talking.

I don't think we want to get him involved, but at the same time, he might be able to let us out.

I just think that's going to add more suspicion.

Does it sound like they're coming towards us too?

It sounds like they're not too far from the front of the door right now.

You kind of go close to the door, and you hear a voice you don't recognize going, Yeah, there was just like this light came on out of nowhere.

And he's like, Oh, would you like me to help check out some of these areas and see if something's afoot?

That is very strange.

I don't know what would cause one of these lights to just flicker on like that.

OK, so I have one question for seven through nine.

Damn, if only I got one more.

I'm going to go with the boring, straightforward, and most useful and helpful question here.

And that is, what is the best way out without being seen?

Without being seen, you don't know if it would be quick enough, but going out those exhaust vents out the back, which would be difficult, and it could cause like damage to the whole setup here if you do it bad.

But that's the best way without being seen, because they are near the front of your door right now.

You can hear them on the other side of it.

If you want no one to see you, you would probably have to go in the back.

I think we need to go out the back.

I don't want to be seen here at all.

Book is still looking at Ocean with awe.

He's like, hey, whatever you say, dude, I am in.

Book is like, this man's a genius.

I got to follow whatever he's doing.

And Ocean's just like, I have no idea what I'm doing.

Book's like, Book is literally kicking himself in the ass right now, because he's like, imagine how useful Ocean would have been if he just could just fucking read.

How relevant.

So Stu, what do these duck ducats look like?

So you see there's a huge exhaust fan open to the back of the room behind all the servers that seems to be slurping out the air into a very wide duct.

It's definitely person crawl throughable size.

And if there's a fan in there, because the power is out, the fan is stopped, right?

I'm assuming.

Yes.

But it's not like a giant fan blade that you can just squeeze between them.

No, it's not that big.

Fair.

And it's got like protective grating over the top of it anyway.

You would have to disassemble this fan or rip it off the wall or something like that to get through.

But from then, it would be pretty easy.

You know, from the outside, there's just a grate on the end of it.

This duct, it makes like an elbow turn and then goes along the back.

And we still each have one tool that we can spend.

I believe so.

Yeah, because I used to you said what we each had three, right?

Yep.

And you use two to get in the fence in a more surreptitious way.

Yep.

And then the slingshot counted as two for a book.

So you each have one normal ass item that you wouldn't normally have.

OK, so I think I'm going to turn to Ocean.

I'm going to be like, look, we've already made quite a bit of noise.

Well, not quite a bit of noise.

We haven't done the best job of covering our tracks.

Here's what I think we should do.

I think you should lead the way through the ducts.

I will follow you, and then I will work my way back out the way we came and put everything back the way we found it.

And then you can come around and unlock the door from the outside and let me out.

It's risky, but I guess it would work.

So Ocean has a breaking tool, and you have a repairing tool.

That's what you were saying.

It's a good separation.

I was about to say, yeah, I think Ocean probably would have brought, for any kind of situation like this, a crowbar.

I think I'll use my crowbar here to...

I'll use the crowbar to open up all the shafts so that way I can climb them through.

Give me a lovely try something challenging.

Do I get any advantage for using my crowbar?

You can get advantage for using your crowbar.

Okay, that's pretty good.

That is a 10.

You go and you basically go to each corner of this giant fan that's bracketed onto the walls and you peel it enough.

Yeah, I'm going to say you actually only do two of the sides, which is going to be just enough for you to squeeze through.

You kind of break this fan off the wall.

So it's almost like hinged out, not in a way it's supposed to be hinged, but you're able to pull it out just enough to squeeze through, crawl through this vent.

It's like literally just a couple feet, few feet.

And then there is a grating on the end that with your crowbar is pretty easy to wedge in there and pry open.

And it tumbles to the ground, hitting the floor.

You slide out, you're now behind it.

All of this stuff is still disassembled.

What's your plan on putting it together?

So I think as far as like the external grating goes, I'll squeeze in to the duct and I'll hold it in place so that Ocean can kind of like hammer whatever he popped out back in to place.

You know, obviously if there were screws, he probably stripped the threads a little bit with the pry bar, but I'm expecting there's still enough friction that the screws will hold in place.

Your last item can be gorilla.

Well, no, I was going to say, I was going to say like even if it was just like chewing gum or like a toothpick, something to wedge into the holes to give it a tighter fit.

Actually, okay, I got it.

Can I say that I had a coil of wire?

Do you want that to be your last item?

I think so.

Yeah.

Yes.

Okay.

You can have that.

So I'm going to snip off because I have a multi-tool.

I think we established that earlier.

My multi-tool has both of this as both of the knife blades broken off and the screw and the corkscrew broken off because I used it to create a plug from Crandall.

But it still has like a can opener.

And I use the can opener thing to clip off, to pinch off four sections of wires so that Ocean can basically tighten the screws as he hammers the screws in, it's going to deform those sections of wires to make it a tighter fit, to make it seem secure.

I hear you saying, OK, that one, I will say you can do without having a roll for the grate.

OK.

But then you still have to deal with the fan with just your wire.

Yep.

I'm going to wiggle my way back out, and then obviously, I have a screwdriver as part of my multi-tool, but again, the threads are stripped.

So this time, because I'm assuming those bolts came out of like tile or something hard or drywall, something soft, drywall, drywall.

OK, so I'm going to try to fashion like drywall anchors out of the wire.

So where like I basically create like a T shape and I hook it through and then I wind it around the base of the screws that as I as I tighten it into place, it kind of tangles up the wire and tightens in the T shape against the back end of the drywall.

Does that make sense?

Yep.

OK, yes.

That's going to be a try something challenging role that you can have advantage on.

Excellent.

Advantage is so good in this system.

I love Advantage.

Woof.

Oh, no.

Oh, no.

Oh, God.

OK, so let me ask you something.

What did you get?

When you when you type, no, no, when you type 2d6 into Google, right?

It rolls automatically, right?

Yeah.

So it already had a number up, and then when you add a d6, it doesn't roll the other ones, re-roll the other ones.

It just rolls another one on top of that.

Yeah, it sounds like exactly what you wanted.

Yeah.

To do.

Right.

But then I was like, well, that doesn't feel right, because I already that that 2d6, when I typed 2d6 into Google, that it sounds like that.

No.

So let me ask you.

So I had rolled that like 10 minutes ago.

I'm getting bad vibes from this discussion.

So then I rerolled it because I added it.

I added a d6 and it came back with a 15, and it was like a five, a four and a six or something, which is a very good roll.

And then I rerolled it and I got a five, which is a three, a one, one, which means I get a three.

Yes, because it's four minus one, which is your actual roll.

Yeah.

Are you sure?

Yes, because if that was a good roll, you wouldn't have gone through it.

So with a three.

You rolled a three?

With advantage, yeah.

With advantage, yes.

It's heavier than it looks, and it's taking you a while to get this back in.

And you're starting to panic a little bit.

You can't hear or see Ocean on the other side, so you don't know where he's gone.

And you hear some jiggling on the front door.

And Ocean, outside, you see that Vesuvius has come up to the door, as you heard him say, let me recheck this building.

You said it was clear, but I just want to cross all that T's and dot all of the I's.

And he's going up to the door right now and unlocking it.

I think we should see what he does.

The door opens up because it's very easy to unlock it.

This is one of those little turny, turny boys.

Can I say that book hid when he heard the door jangling?

Yeah.

But obviously the great still looks super fucked up.

He comes in the room and he has a big flashlight that shines across all the walls, and it pretty immediately goes to that grate.

And he goes, well, good.

And he closes the door behind him.

And you see him go up to that terminal, which is just now finished rebooting.

And it's just that a blank screen, just little cursor flashing.

And he goes, what is going on here?

Oh, that's strange.

I don't feel so good.

And give me a read a citral.

All right.

Okay, that's a 12.

12?

Nice.

Ask me three questions.

Okay, so for my three questions, I'm a very decisive person, as you know.

So right off the bat, who's in control here?

I don't think it's Vesuvius.

It's definitely not me.

What represents the best opportunity for me to not be noticed by Vesuvius?

And then lastly, what should I be on the lookout for?

I don't want to miss anything here.

This seems interesting.

There's not a lot of places for you to hide in here.

You think probably where you're at is your best hope.

Right now, he seems a little bit distracted.

I mean, that's a lazy answer, but I'll allow it.

Yeah, you want a different one?

Ask a lazy question, you're in one room, and you said you hid.

Your best way to not be seen by him is gouging out his eyes.

Because I'm assuming, oh, it would be cool if I just, if I retroactively say that the way that I hid was by crawling into the grate that I failed to.

Yeah, that would have been cool.

That would have been a different answer to this question, which is probably not moving because I'm guessing you hid away.

You know he will come over, and it seems like he's going to look at the exhaust fan.

So you want to make sure you stay out of sight of him as he moves over there, which may require you moving a little bit.

But right now, you're in a place where you can't be seen well from the door, and there's not really any other place you can hide.

I'm going to kind of roll together the who's in control here and the what should you be on the lookout for, because it's two related things.

You look over, he's still looking at the screen, but you see him kind of hold in his stomach a little bit when he said he's not feeling too good.

And you see on shining through his clothes, you see this red flashing dot all the way through his clothes.

And then you notice underneath that is a number counting down, which is at four.

Oh, shit.

And then it's at three.

Oh, shit.

And then it's at two.

Oh, shit.

Pure instinct.

What would Book do in this situation?

Because it looks like Vesuvius just turned into a bomb.

The old medical people like Jacob would say, fight, flight or freeze are the three things that can happen in this situation.

Book is going to just tackle Vesuvius and then try to rip his, like, try to, like, expose the area of skin that's glowing.

Give me a try something challenging roll.

Oh my god.

I got a five.

Oh my god.

That is a full ass failure.

Oh, no, no, no, no.

You get up, you see this thing flick down from four to three to two, and you go to charge at him.

And without looking, he just holds one arm out, and it just pushes against your chest, and you feel like you ran into a fucking brick wall.

Like he does not move an inch, and you just feel like your wind gets knocked out of you, and you stumble back, and it goes to one, and then that red dot starts beeping more and more, and his entire torso explodes.

This whole room just erupts.

Ocean outside, you're around the corner, and suddenly this blast just knocks you against the back fence.

Both of you take five harm.

Both of us?

I'm dead.

We both had one harm from the fence.

Yep.

It's not armor piercing.

So you take, both of you, I think, take four.

Oh my god, I'm still alive.

One, two, three, four.

Okay, so my cane fucking...

Okay, great.

So I'm one harm away from dying.

You're quite fucked up, too.

Both of your ears are just ringing.

If I had shot him, would that have disabled the explosive?

I have only one way to find out, which is a time machine.

I guess, actually, I guess the answer is...

I guess the answer is, if I rolled well, it would have.

It would have been better if you rolled well, no matter what you did, but yes.

But you got a full ass failure.

I'm surprised you didn't give me an extra harm.

But yeah, this whole thing has just exploded.

Book, I'm going to not describe what you're experiencing for a little bit, because you are in a lot of pain.

You're on the edge of passing out right now.

Like a bomb exploded very close to you.

It's a miracle you're alive.

Ocean, you are also very fucked up.

Both of you are unstable, but you're able to stagger to your feet, and you see Book laying down, not moving in this heap of a building.

These servers are blown against the wall.

You see the terminal is fully melted, and you see Vesuvius' head is just on the ground.

What the fuck?

Is it active?

You can check it out.

I was just about to say, Ocean is instinctively just going to run over to Book best he can.

Be like, Book, Book!

Book, you are conscious, but not doing well.

Can I see Vesuvius' head?

Yeah, while you're on the ground, you hear Ocean yell at you, and your eyes kind of open up, and you look, and you see Vesuvius is just staring right back at you, and he's looking down, and he goes, what's going on here?

What happened?

And his eyes are like darting back.

It's just like his shoulder to neck area.

He looks like he's full of normal human parts, is what it looks like from here.

But his head is still alive?

Yeah, he's able to talk, which you know, if you don't have lungs, wouldn't usually not be possible.

But he is still speaking.

Am I able to move?

Yeah, you can move.

You're both unstable, so that means when you're trying things, it's very possible that you guys take additional damage, like especially with even just mixed successes.

So you guys got to be careful.

We got to get the fuck out of here.

No, but people are like, there was an explosion.

So one.

So first thing we know is that going through the fence hurts us.

We take one harm going through the fence.

I'm assuming that hasn't changed.

You think you could probably get out of the fence without you know where that little dangly boy is now.

You could be a little careful.

It's not like it's an automatic scrape you for one damage.

But like, if we get found, like they're either going to find us in an explosion or they're going to find us trying to run away from the explosion.

I was about to say either way, I think we are fucked, but I think we're slightly less fucked if we get the hell out of here.

Let's say Ocean, give me a read a situation or all.

This is quite a situation.

I would say this is a very much a situation.

That is another nine.

Ask me one question.

This is one of those ones where three would have been nice.

It would have been so nice.

And I don't think Book is in a condition to help.

Hey, can you answer who was in control there?

Yeah, that was the red flashy dot.

Yeah, but what is the red flashy dot?

Not Vesuvius.

You don't know.

Okay, but I guess, can I get a little bit more, like, was it an implant?

Was it, you know, that sort of thing?

It seemed like something that was inside of him.

Also, I think we should grab Vesuvius' head.

Yeah, I agree.

I was going to say, because my character can sit up, the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to pick up Vesuvius' head and cradle it against my chest.

This is a concerning perspective.

I don't know what's going on.

Is he in pain?

I'm going to ask that.

Are you in pain?

No, no, I feel.

I feel weird.

Ocean's going to just look at Book and go, what the fuck just happened?

I'm going to I'm just going to like set my jaw and be like, fuck if I know.

And I'm going to try to stumble.

I'm going to try to get just going to try to get up.

Yeah, you're able to get up.

Everything hurts on you.

It's not even like there.

It's not like, oh, your leg hurts because it got broken.

But like right now, you can't even pinpoint where your injuries are.

It's just OK.

Everything.

Your head's foggy.

Visions blurry.

Like everything's not great.

Ears are still ringing.

I'm going to use my one question here.

What represents the best?

Who or what represents the best opportunity for us to get to Maple's house unharmed?

If you look around and right now there's like this explosion cause like there's burning shit.

There is smoke.

There's detritus blown everywhere.

Right now, you're relatively obscured from the main courthouse.

You look at the other guy who was checking areas who you've never met before and didn't know his name.

He does not look great.

He was not right outside it.

He was near one of the storage units nearby, but he got blown against it.

And you see he's unmoving in front of it with the metal grate is just like bent in a human shape.

Oh shit.

Where he got smashed against that.

So he is at least unconscious right now.

You hear a lot of people starting to get shit together near the barracks.

There's like a ton of movement, people yelling.

You think you have a very short opportunity to get up and try to rush out.

But there is since you are unstable, there's definitely a chance trying to like push yourself and get out of here quickly could cause you to take additional.

And both of you are right.

Yeah, one slice away.

I look at Ocean and I say, should we should we help him?

And I'm pointing at the point of the guy who's collapsed.

We don't have time, but we got to get out of here.

They're going to blame us for this.

Hell, it could be our fault.

I don't know.

I don't know what the hell I did.

I shake my head like not to like not in disagreement, but like to clear it.

And I go, it wasn't you.

It was Vesuvius.

I'm sorry, Vesuvius.

Also, do I see any like mechanical or robotic bits from Vesuvius' body, like in the carnage of his exploded corpse?

Like, do I see anything?

You would have to poke around, which would take some time.

Okay, yeah, never mind.

Let's just go.

We'll just investigate Vesuvius' head after we get out of here.

If you get out, okay, you can check that out in more detail.

So I'm assuming my leather jacket also took more damage.

It's tastefully burnt now, though.

Oh, okay.

Singed.

The downside of that is if they go door to door looking for people, you guys were clearly in an explosion.

Yeah, let's run.

I mean, not run, let's limp.

Especially limp as fast as we can.

I think we should go through the grate.

I think we should go through the slit that we made.

And I'm holding Vesuvius' head like half tenderly because we've just been through some shit together.

But then also half like this is the only thing that proves that I wasn't crazy the last few days.

So I'm holding it onto it like it is a physical manifestation of the one harm left keeping me alive or whatever.

Okay, as you guys go to get out, both of you give me an act under fire.

I don't want to, though.

I'm actually pretty good at acting under fire.

You're a pretty dangerous one.

I was about to say, I'm pretty...

You guys may have to help each other out.

I was just about to say, I'm pretty good at it.

That was a 13 for me, because it's plus cool.

That is an 11 for me.

Nice.

Okay, you both get full successes.

So you're able to get out.

You don't, I'm going to say, book you.

As you're stumbling out, you notice your multi-tool on the ground and pick it up real quickly.

That's nice of you.

Well, you didn't fail.

You got a full success.

Yeah, but also, like, my multi-tool has three of the useful things broken off of it already.

Soon it will just be tool.

I pull out my tool.

You guys stumble your way up against the back fence, and it's, like, hard to even orient yourself from where you're at, but you're able to follow the fence to the grading that you had cut previously.

You're, I'm guessing you're not trying to cover your tracks at all anymore.

No, your plan to knock over a telephone pole is OBE.

I think it's over.

I think we have time, but I think the explosion kind of eliminated, like, the best thing that we could have possibly done is left Vesuvius' head there, because then they would have just blamed the damage on Vesuvius and the cut fence on Vesuvius and everything on Vesuvius.

But like I said, Book was so focused on, like, that being the soul.

Like, that was his, he saw it as his, the only proof of his sanity, so he clung to it instead of leaving it behind to be the scapegoat that they needed.

Well, they're also going to find bits and parts of Vesuvius, so maybe they still will blame it on him.

True.

Yeah, I would say knocking over the telephone pole would put you at more risk of injuring yourself.

Yeah.

All right.

No, I guess we're not, we are just fucking out of here then.

No, I think we both, like, stopped by the telephone pole, looked at each other, and then I just like, I just shake my head.

It was an idea.

It was a good idea.

It was a good idea at the time.

Yeah, no, I really liked your guys' idea.

It was a great time until we...

Book does have wire in his pocket.

Can he, can I use the wire to, like, repair the fence a little bit to make it look a little bit less suspicious?

Or maybe just, maybe just, like, pin it at the bottom so that it doesn't, like, flap open in the breeze or whatever?

Yeah, you could, you could pin it quickly.

Like, you know, it's literally just wrapping one wire around it.

So it'll still be obvious it's cut if they go to look at it.

Right.

But it won't be like right now.

They won't be like, look at that open wire.

And yeah, I'm going to kind of do one at the bottom and one in the middle.

Yeah, that's fine.

There's no risk of hurting yourself.

Do I have to roll to try something challenging?

But you're fully out of wire now.

Sad.

That's it.

I mean, the wires are useful.

Yeah, you didn't have time to cut it.

So you kind of just, like, wired it, pulled it up and wired it.

Oh, yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure.

And you guys hightail it to maples.

Where does maple live?

Oh, fuck.

Do I know where Den Wallace lives?

Uh, yes.

I'm sure you stalked him previously.

No, books not a creep.

Books not a creep.

This is revisionist history.

Then no, you don't know.

You know where Calista lives.

I guess.

Does she live closer than the broken leg?

Uh, yeah, probably.

I guess.

I don't think going to Calista like this is a good idea, especially after she already is pretty suspicious of us from that last time we interacted with her.

I mean, or we could just be like, hey, we weren't fucking lying.

I was about to say we could do that for like, I just think because I know like Den, like Den would help us.

So if Den is there to stay the night, like Den would help us, I reckon.

Yeah.

Was Den a medical guy, too?

No, not even a little bit.

But I helped Den when he had his leg shot.

That's right.

That's why I think so.

Yeah.

OK.

Yeah.

Let's let's I think it would be nice drama if we went to Calista's.

So let's go there.

You show up at Calista's and you knock on the door and she opens it up and she goes, oh, oh, whoa, what?

Hey, what happened to you guys?

I'm still cradling a separate head in my hands.

Yeah.

Oh, shit.

What is what is what happened?

What happened?

Get in, get in quick, quick, quick.

And she leads you guys in and closes the door and locks it behind.

Is Den is Den?

Where's Den?

Den?

I can.

Yeah, I can go get him.

I can get him.

I think we need.

I just nod really vigorously.

And she actually goes out the front door and is gone for a little bit, leaving you guys alone in Calista's house, which is very tastefully furnished.

She's got a pretty cool sofa there.

Ocean is going to collapse on the sofa.

Ocean has no fucking manners.

Book is still standing like leading against the wall awkwardly because he wasn't invited to sit.

Then she comes back like four minutes later with Din, and Din goes, Hey, whoa, what happened to you guys?

Close to said it looked like you guys got like blown up.

We did.

We did.

I would say that's accurate.

We did.

Do you...

Maple helped you, your leg recover.

You went back.

Yeah.

Do you know where he lives?

Yeah.

Do you want me to go get him?

I have like a D battery.

Can we say that I have a D battery?

Yeah.

I hand it to him and I said, give him this, ask him to come.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, no problem.

Oh, geez.

And he's like looking at the box to see if he has anything that could help out.

He has nothing useful for your current situation.

And then I stopped and I was like, Kalista, if you don't want to be...

We can go somewhere else.

Let's go with Den.

I turned to Ocean.

Let's go with Den.

Well, like to Maples, I don't know if he...

He may not be too happy to have you guys showing up there and drawing heat to him.

Like, I can take some heat.

Ocean's going to be like, Appreciate your help, Kalista.

I think we should probably lay low here.

I think it's for our best best not to go anywhere book until we get...

until Den comes back.

The door opens back up and you see long gray haired Maples come in and go, Well, what happened to you guys?

This looks like something illegal to me.

I see there's a mighty big fire up near the courthouse, and you guys seem like you've been exploded.

It wasn't us.

Actually, it was him, and I point to the severed head.

Are you still holding the head?

Yeah, I'm still holding it.

I pointed the severed head in my hands, and I go, but he didn't mean to.

I promise I did not mean to.

It was not me.

It was my torso, which is no longer a part of me, so I would like to claim immunity from any actions that that torso took.

And he goes, what the fuck is this?

What is going on?

One of you is going to have to give me a Sway Someone roll.

I grab his hand, and I kind of pull up close to me, and I go, Maple, I know you've helped Beethoven, you've helped people.

You know that there are weird things out there.

This is no different.

Just please, please make it so that I can't die in one more hit.

Give me a Sway Someone roll.

A seven.

Yeah, so a ten plus, they have to choose set reserve aside and go along with you, or else explain why they can't.

On seven to nine, they don't want to go along with you or refuse.

They can choose to ask you for evidence, time, a compromise, or some concrete assurance.

They must go along with you.

If you provide it on a miss, be prepared for the worst.

OK, this is a oh, it's if they don't want to go along with you.

Yeah, this is a pretty big deal here.

I'm putting myself on the line.

I feel like Hickory is not going to be too happy that I don't just go turn you in right now.

I do have the Hippographic Oath, though.

I do have to take care of people and.

But that doesn't mean I have to do it for free.

That's something they don't talk about a lot.

But I'm running a little low on medical supplies.

If you guys, once I get you patched up, can go fetch me some.

I got a I got a beat on where there may be some pretty a pretty good stash.

If you go promise to get those as soon as you're up on your feet, I'll get you up on your feet.

Well, we were planning on going over to the going out into Subtropolis pretty soon here.

And he already has the D battery, right?

Yeah, it's fucking cheapskate.

OK, I nod, I nod, and I'm still holding his wrist.

I go, I don't want to die again.

Clista, can you get us set up?

Set us up somewhere a little more discreet than in your living room.

She's like, yeah, no problem.

She goes and pushes a bookshelf out of the way, and you see there's like this little alcove back there that is just loaded up with papers and papers and documents.

And it's not very big, but it's big enough for her to be able to pull in a couple of cots.

And Maple drags in.

He had he kept it right outside the door, but he has his medical cart with a bunch of shit on it.

He pulls that in inside, and you guys hunker in this room.

It starts getting hot real quick, but he starts providing life saving medical attention to you.

He starts loading you guys up with a lot of blood that you lost.

Is the first thing he does.

And then after that, he starts getting you on some painkillers, and you start you slowly drift off to sleep and to let some of your wounds heal.

And that's going to be our end of session.

We're going to do end of session moves now.

Okay, at the end of every session, choose a character who knows you better than they used to.

Tell that player to add plus one to their HX with you on their sheet.

If more than one character knows you better, you can choose at most two.

Well, I think we should, I think we should pick Vesuvius.

You think you should both pick Vesuvius?

I think that makes sense.

I think we have been to...

I don't have HX with Vesuvius, but I guess I do now.

That's what it's saying.

So Vesuvius goes to plus one?

Vesuvius will go to zero.

At the end of every session, judge for yourself, does your scavenge choice still hold true?

If it does, you get one XP, which I don't want to talk for you guys, but I think both of them are probably still true.

I think it is definitely still true.

Mine might be close to changing, but definitely not yet.

Are you satisfied with your place in the world?

If not, you get plus one XP.

I feel like I'm less satisfied with my place in the world.

I am not, and I get an improvement because I'm not.

Nice.

Excellent.

Do you know what you want to get?

I think a really interesting thing for Book would be like now that he's wrangled so many people into his kind of bullshit, and because he's started like using his mysteries to manipulate people, I think it's a good time for Book to establish a following and get devotion.

Oh, interesting.

Like, as Dan Wallace, I feel like might be a part of that.

Now, I don't know what that means.

I don't know how you use devotion at all.

Devotion is basically how you're going to control people who believe in what you're trying to do.

You're almost like a cult leader over those sorts of people.

Yeah, and I think this plays into like Books.

If this situation goes as bad as I think it will, I think that that will be useful in the coming sessions.

Okay, so the way devotion works is it's when you have followers, and at the beginning of each session, you roll cool, which you're good at.

If your followers are secure and stable, you roll cool.

On a 10+, they give you all of their devotion.

They'll basically do what you want.

On a 79, they offer you all of their devotion, but choose one demand.

And on a miss, or if your followers are in crisis, all of their demands.

So my end of session move is interrogating reality.

And at the end of the session, choose one of my mysteries.

Tell the MC that you'd like to mark it true or false.

You can also do your custom thing, where you can solidify a thread between any two connections.

Yeah.

So I think I might do something more along those lines.

And I'm pulling up my mystery board that I do have.

And I should start publishing, because that's actually pretty fun.

My theory of what Vesuvius is has kind of shifted.

And so while I really want to know if I'm right about him being related, or at least gathering or getting some of his information from Cheesoid, what I really want to know is, was Vesuvius sent by the Subtropolis AI that controls the power?

I'm going to tell you that answer by having you come back into consciousness a little bit.

You're still very loopy.

You're still on probably morphine second time in a short amount of time for you.

And Vesuvius is still lovingly cradled in your arms.

And he is actually right now honk shoe sleeping.

And you look at this head and the sleepy eyes and the sleepy little face, and you turn them down so you can look into the disgusting opening on the bottom of them.

And right near the back of the spinal column, you see some sort of technology.

You see some wires wrapping around the top of it, and there's this like blue dimly glowing light right at the back of his skull that you can just barely see through all the viscous gratuitous violence on the bottom of his stump.

So you think he is certainly related to the AI in some way.

Thank you so much for listening this week.

If you could all just look in your phones right now, go to your text messages and find the last three people you talked to and send them the following message.

Hey, I listened to this really fun podcast.

You can also listen and be a better friend to me by going to www.stew.cool slash listen.

That will have all sorts of podcatchers that you're able to select for your listening experience.

The music and editing was performed by Stu Masterson while Brady McDonough makes a lot of art that you guys haven't seen yet and that logo that you do see way too often.

I made it purple though.

And Jacob is a gaggle of loose parakeets.

Love you, bye.