Book and Ocean start questioning their friends in Hamlet Opening, no longer trusting everyone is as they seem.

This one is mostly a slow-ish descent into madness and treating service industry workers in ways they don't deserve.

Welcome to Oops!

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

Oh no.

Oh no.

I'm joined by two-

Where's my gain at?

Quit ruining my intro.

Sorry.

I'm just looking at stuff.

I'm trying to see where my gain's at.

I don't want to peek.

I don't want to get yelled at by Stu.

It hasn't stopped you before.

I'm joined by two banditos.

Hey everyone, Brady here.

I play Book McCready, 25% detective noir, 75% sad boy.

That's cool because it has math in it, and everyone knows, all my homies love math.

I mean, I'll know Brady is good at math too.

My name is Jacob.

I'm playing as Ocean today.

He's playing Sinus Infection today.

I have caught Stu's radiation sickness, I suspect, through a thousand miles and a internet connection.

It has somehow transmitted to me.

Revenge.

It's making me very upset.

It was singing a thousand miles by that person the whole time.

Oh, that's 500.

That's 500 miles.

That's what I'm saying.

You didn't know Vanessa Carlton.

Oh, yeah.

We referenced that song.

We referenced that song already, did we?

I was assuming I was with Jacob.

I assumed you forgot the lyrics to the other song because how could you forget Vanessa Carlton and the other one?

I think the other one's harder.

Is it like the Proclaimers?

Stu, what are we here to do?

We're here to get fucked up.

We're here to fall in love.

Mission accomplished.

We're here to fall in love with Book and Ocean as they fall in love with each other.

This has all been a long romcom with quick sojourns into fun, melty-faced monsters.

Book is played by Miss Piggy.

So if I can just walk everyone through my logic there, in my head, I thought, oh, it's a romcom, except everyone's played by Muppets.

And then I said out loud, I'm played by Miss Piggy.

But out of context, it makes no fucking sense.

The only romcoms Brady watches are Muppet related.

It's Sesame Street.

The only love he can understand comes between a pig and a frog.

And a cookie monster and his cookies.

And a Burton and Ernie.

Happy Pride, everyone.

Hell yeah.

Oh, I guess that is started today.

But we're here to fall in love with Book and Ocean.

Oh no.

And to do that.

Which is, I guess, some little pride stuff, actually.

Well, our question today, to fall in love, is if you could change anything about the way you were raised, what would it be?

And it can't be your parents left you.

Just being raised.

I'd like to have been raised.

Did you not hear the last part of the question?

No, that's not really what I want to say.

Yeah, because it doesn't fit the question.

Correct.

If Book had to change anything about how he was raised, he would elect to have been potty trained earlier.

I will not elaborate.

What?

What does that even mean?

No further questions, Your Honor.

Has he been potty trained yet?

Yeah, he has.

I feel like he has to have because I feel like we've mentioned something about his toilet in the past.

Let's just say this, he figured it out.

That's not the type of answer that's going to make you fall in love with someone.

That's why Book can't get a date, dude.

Well for Ocean.

Yeah, this is a hard one.

This is a really tough one for Ocean because I don't think he really remembers much about his being raised at this point.

Maybe you could infer some things.

Yeah, inferring from the way Ocean acts, I think he would probably like to have been raised in a manner where he's more expressive and open with his emotions.

Oh, that's sweet.

I think he struggles with that.

So I think that's something Ocean, if he knew how he was raised, he would, you know, probably like that.

That's a very good answer.

That's much better than books answer.

More finger painting.

Books.

No.

And just for that, I'm going to make it so you find your parents before you find books parents.

It'll be extra sad because I won't even recognize them.

They'll recognize you.

They'll be like, my boy, my boy.

Have you guys seen Lemony Snicket's series of Unfortunate Events first season?

I've seen all the seasons.

Yes.

Oh, wow.

Well, that's in the first season, you know how they kept like teasing the parents for the Baudelaire's and it turns out it actually wasn't the Baudelaire's parents, the Hontal.

It was like the the Quagmire parents.

That's what I'm imagining.

We've been following this train to find Book's parents and it turns out they're actually Ocean's parents.

Yeah, that would be so good.

And I was adopted.

Just because of Stu's response.

Oh no, we just don't care about your parents.

That's fine.

That is also fine.

This is a fake memory.

Fake.

That was a deep fake video you saw with your dad.

And Stu, stop stalling and answer the fucking question.

Oh, I have to answer too?

Yes.

If I could change anything about the way I was raised, what would it be?

We're about to learn a lot about Stu.

Yeah, I would probably have preferred to not move as much.

I think that would be it.

Maybe stick around one general reason, because I lived in like many, many states.

Yeah, you should have stayed in New Jersey and then we could have been friends earlier.

Oh, that's not the one I would have picked.

Well, let's get back to the action.

Last episode, Book and Ocean interrogated Vesuvius and tried to trick him into admitting that he is a robot or clone or something.

Is that right?

Is that what you think he is?

Yeah, I think he's a doppelganger with a with different vocal chords.

Or the other thing that Book had a suspicion of is that he was a cheese monster that evolved, like that molded its cheese face into another person's face.

Oh, shit.

Yeah, he mentioned something.

I didn't even consider that as an option.

Book tried to track down some more information from the video that he watched that his poppy left him and determined that he the clue left behind was that they were going to a lighthouse.

Yep.

What are you guys doing?

Book would like to go home from the bar and unlock his improvement.

What's your improvement?

So the improvement that I would like to unlock is establishing an observatory in the workspace of cosmology and getting tinkering, which is a move, I think.

Yeah, you can tinker with an observatory.

That is going to come in handy.

What does your observatory look like?

What I'm picturing is I got home from the bar kind of drunk with gasoline and morphine.

And I sort of like on the way in, I think I stumbled and like bumped into a part of the wall.

And it just fricking like, like, like slid open like secret door slid open.

And I passed out on the couch, did not notice that it happened.

Woke up in the morning to a new room in my cave, like just a whole new wing of the cave.

And I think we discussed that there might be something real cool about that, like a crack that a crack that I can see all the way up through.

And that there is a light at the end of the crack, and there's a big lens in front of it, like a giant magnifying glass, but it's just one lens in front of that crack.

And I think it was probably maybe something that my parents did stuff with.

That's pretty cool.

Yeah, I like it.

Just a big crack, like a big crack.

Yeah, you go back there, you wake up the next morning, and when you go back there, you see there's like a workbench, and there is some weird variety of tools, and you see some parchment laid out that has like a compass and rulers and some like weird markings and measurements on it that you don't understand yet.

When you say compass, do you mean like north, south, east, west, or do you mean like the split leg thing you use for dead reckoning on ships?

The split leg thing.

Fuck yeah.

You see this crack that goes all the way up, and at the bottom, there's this mirror that is positioned in this perfect way to give you this glimpse up all the way up through this crack.

It's a mirror, huh?

The very bottom, yeah.

It's like snorting coke off of.

No, it's at an angle.

That's good, because Book does not partake.

What are you doing with it?

Just happy it's here.

I think I'm hung over, so I'm gonna like squint at it with one eye closed, and I'm making that face that you all can't see, and I'm gonna squint at it, and then I'm gonna go pour myself a cup of coffee, and we're gonna cut over to Ocean.

I was about to say, I think I fell asleep in front of the door because I was trying to stay up and watch Vesuvius.

Yes.

Did not go very well.

I passed out.

And he woke up before you, and was like, why am I locked in here?

But very nicely, like he always is.

I was about to say, I think I played it off as like, oh, sorry, I must have fallen asleep.

And so yeah, he'll come out and he'll say, well, I really would hate to keep holding you up with my presence in here.

Is there, do you have any recommendations for something I could use my services at to give me a source of income so I can get my own place?

Well, Zuvius, I guess there's, this town's always needing stuff.

It's pretty run down at this point in time.

What are you good at?

I mostly just, I would keep watch and I would go on some of the expeditions with them.

I'm a really good shot, really good shot, but I don't have a lot of like book learning type things, but security, anything like that.

I want, Hickory fleaks would have obviously be the, you know, maybe I should point him in the way of Hickory because I mean, if he's really something that's, if he's really like, not actually Vesuvius and is actually like sabotaging things, then you know, putting him in the, in the way of some dude who were opposing it doesn't sound like a bad idea.

We could have a mole.

We could have a mole.

Yeah.

You know what?

Screw it.

I'm going to be like, well, you know, Vesuvius, you could, could always go talk to the, the services of the sheriff.

Oh, you have a sheriff in this fine town?

Well, sort of.

We have, we have kind of a de facto law enforcement that kind of does everything, I guess, manages the most of our energy services.

But because of that, they're kind of in charge of those things.

Was that a pun?

In charge?

Yes.

Yes, it was.

Funny.

So I think you would best talk to that.

Talk to them.

Yeah.

There's a there's a the center of the town.

There's a there's a I guess I'm deciding where Hickory's little power.

Yeah, you can come up with it.

I'm going to say it's an old rundown courthouse that's in the middle of the town.

That's it's probably not where he does like all of it, like the actual like all the power source and stuff is.

But it's going to be where like the barracks and where he keeps all his people and where they do their their their bookkeeping and that kind of thing.

And I imagine has like his office is like one of the actual courtrooms.

It's the only place with a throne.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So Ocean will tell Vesuvius.

Yeah.

You just the looks like an old courtroom or courthouse just down the town.

Talk to whoever's at the front desk.

Let them know your skills.

Maybe they'll let you let you get in there.

I do think that my skill set would fit right well with what you described them as.

So thank you for pointing me in that direction.

I will I will let you know how it goes.

Do I do I look good?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Oh, always Vesuvius.

I'm going to give them a link.

Thank you.

I am just remembering I sold my only gun.

And by sold, I mean gave as a present to that fun person in that bar.

Well, it's probably better off if you go without a gun, to be honest with you.

They're pretty easily intimidated over there.

So I'm sure if they let you do it, they will let you give you resources and everything you could possibly need.

So, okay, I appreciate it.

Just don't put up a show.

Just go in, state your business, and tell them that you're just looking for work.

Thank you.

I do appreciate it.

And I will pay you back if I get a job there.

I will pay you back for this night I spent in your cupboard.

And we will be even.

It could be pretty beneficial if you get a job there, too, because, you know, Book and I, we don't really necessarily always see eye to eye with Hickory.

He's got some different goals and plans that, you know, kind of hurt the little guy a little bit when it comes to going and getting taxed for bringing stuff back.

So maybe when you're, if you get a job over there, you could, you know, talk to us a little bit on the things going on there so we can help come up with better solutions for the problems.

Give me a sway someone role.

All right, let's see.

Where the fuck did I put my dice?

I know for a fact they're right in front of me.

They were indeed right in front of me.

They're rainbow colored, but they kind of like reflective, so they blended in with my computer.

OK, I'm actually somewhat OK at swaying somebody.

All right, let's roll this dice.

Oh, that's a 10.

I think that sounds like a fair arrangement.

I will keep my ear to the ground, my nose to the grindstone, and my eye on the prize and let you know if there was anything that seems a foot.

Well, we appreciate that very much.

A very much of the city when he said each of those, he pointed to all of his corresponding body parts, including at the end, he pointed to his foot when he said a foot.

It was very good visual again.

For the time being, it's probably best not to mention that we're the ones that sent you over there.

Oh, yeah, I completely understand.

Do not worry.

Good luck, Vesuvius, and I wish you well.

And sorry for the mix up with your voice.

It's just, you just sound a little different, I guess.

I guess you just maybe had a cold that one day or something.

Yeah, I guess so.

This is how I always remember me sounded, but I heard no one really knows what their own voice sounds like.

It's always a little different in their head.

So maybe when I was like sick or something, I thought it was me, but I don't know.

But I'm going to head right there.

I'm going to show them I can be there bright and early, and I bid you a good day.

Well, good luck to you.

I'll give him a little two-finger salute with his finger.

He will tip his non-existent hat and walk out.

And then you hear a boop.

Ocean, I got something you're going to want to see.

Hey, Book, what you got for me?

I just woke up, had an interesting conversation with Vesuvius.

What do you got for me?

Come to the Bat Cave.

Bat Cave?

Just come to the cave.

You know the cave.

Your cave?

You talk about your cave?

I think we talked over each other a little bit there.

Yeah, just the cave, my cave.

The cave.

Our...

You got power back?

Uh, I look up.

Yes.

Be right there.

That was fun.

That was a fun gag.

Hey, Ocean, are you still there?

Yeah.

Over and out.

All right.

I'm gonna head over to Book's cave.

Okay.

Yeah, you make it to Book's cave pretty unacosted.

I think we've come to the conclusion that you're on the same side of town as him.

Yeah.

Right?

I think so, yeah.

I can't quite remember how that long conversation ended up going by.

I do remember we kind of drew a little bit of a map of things.

We'll have a map soon.

Brady's gonna draw one.

Now that we've come to an agreement on the major landmarks.

Absolutely.

But you go, you see Brady's cave, which is a just in hewn into the wall, just south of where the entrance to the long dark is.

You see that way the tunnels all extend outward, and you see it's just beaten down dirt.

And you see this cave here with a couple street lamps out front lighting a very well made door.

I think I'm waiting outside for Ocean to get there.

Then you also see Book outside waving as you approach.

I'll wave back like, Book, yo, what you got for me?

And I'm going to start heading over his way.

I kind of smooth my hair back a little bit because I'm hung over from stuff.

And I'm leaning on the cane as well and holding my coffee, like that guy in Knives Out, the guy who dies at the start.

And I go, Hey, Ocean, come take a look at this.

And I kind of waddle inside.

And I point at the new, the cavernous crack that is falling.

I think it's just next to my mystery board.

Just thankfully, it didn't rip my mystery board in half.

Yeah, I think-

Where the hell did this come from, Book?

I think there was a-

you can change this if you don't like it, but there was a full length Target bookcase that was filled with DVDs.

Nice.

Right there that you probably didn't watch too many of, but when you fell into that, it was just cheap particle board, and DVDs are pretty light, so it just kind of fell over, revealing this hidden entrance.

It fell what?

Over.

Revealing this hidden entrance.

Nice, cool.

I'm down with that.

In the morning, I picked up the mess, so I think there are some shattered remains of a bookshelf, but all the DVDs are now stacked neatly.

One of them broke them.

It's just a big gaping hole in your wall.

It was the movie Compact.

I don't think I have a DVD player to watch them with, so that's fine.

No.

I assume we don't even have a TV to watch them with, even if we had a DVD player.

When you were young, you had a portable DVD player, but your father took it with him.

Nice.

So Stu, I want to turn off my lights, and I want to kind of see where the reflection of the light points in the room.

Have you been in there yet?

What is it?

I have no idea.

It's a crack, and it goes really far.

It's almost like a vent, but it's clearly not a thermal vent, because we'd be dead.

But it's some kind of vent.

I don't know where I see light at the end of it, so it's either the surface, or it's that same light we saw about a year ago.

Well, shit, you want me to go in first?

I want to, yeah, go take a look, but I want to try something, and I turn the lights off, and I want to see where the reflected light, if it points anywhere on the walls or the ceiling.

When you turn the lights off now, you actually do not see any reflected light.

Hmm.

But is there still, is there any, can I see anything in the mirror, or is it just black now?

It's just dark.

Okay, I turn the lights back on.

Do I see stuff now?

Just like the normal way lights would let you see things.

Not anything cool.

So there's nothing I can't see.

So I turn to Ocean and go, I swear there's, Ocean, I swear there's light.

I could see something in the reflection.

I don't know where it went, but it was there.

It was there this morning.

Well, let's head on in, see if we can find out what's at the end of this.

I don't think it's, I think it's like a very small vertical crack.

Oh, it's not something, oh, I thought this was a big hole that we could walk in.

There's a hole, yeah, a little is a little confusing because me and Brady both described it, I think, in different parts.

But it's OK.

There's a hole to get into this hidden room basically that was hidden behind this bookshelf.

But the actual thing itself is a mirror at the bottom of a very small crack that you basically can't even like, for a little bit, you could probably fit some fingers up into it, but it is very small and you can't see what goes up there.

But earlier today, Book did see a reflection of some light coming off of the mirror.

But it's very straight.

It's clearly a very straight vent because otherwise you wouldn't see shit.

I was just going to peek in and was like, what the hell is this?

What does it do?

It seems like it has some kind of purpose.

I don't know, but I think whatever it is, it's what convinced my parents to go explore.

How did things go with Vesuvius last night?

Where is he right now?

Funny you should ask.

I fell asleep after getting him back, so I was unsuccessful with watching him.

But I think I found a solution that could benefit us for both 1.

getting him out of our hair and 2.

possibly undermining slash giving us a mole into Hickory's operation.

Sounds like maybe it went way better than I thought it would.

I was kind of worried for your well-being.

No, he seemed completely normal.

It seems like besides his voice being different and maybe some patchy parts of his memory, it seems like it's Vesuvius.

So Ocean, I've been thinking about this.

Really, I dreamed about it.

I just woke up a little bit ago, as you can tell, and I scratched my stubble that is not very well-grown.

So I had a couple thoughts last night.

The first thought is Vesuvius seemed to know more about what we were doing in the last 24 hours, 48 hours.

How long was I dead?

I'm not sure, to be honest with you.

Well, how long since you went into...

I went in...

So our whole adventure together...

There was two days, I think.

I was about to say, it was about two days going down and going on that whole fiasco.

So yeah, I went in...

I must have went in after you did.

Because I was only down there for about two days.

So I missed Taco Tuesday?

You did.

That was good.

Fucking damn it.

Well, anyway, so my thought was, Vesuvius seemed to know more than he let on about what we did for the last two days, because he mentioned the Psychic Maelstrom, and I don't remember bringing it up.

I might be wrong, because I was, you know, not in my right mind, but I'm pretty sure there is something fishy going on there.

And I'd like to talk to Vesuvius some more.

But the other thing that I thought about was that he talked about before he left, he said that Crandall changed.

He said Crandall started acting differently.

He said that he started collecting stuff that he wouldn't normally be interested in.

And I think whatever swapped bodies with Vesuvius swapped bodies with Crandall first.

I think this goes...

Now it makes sense.

I think it's spreading out from there.

And I am worried that Vesuvius is the foothold for whatever is happening into our community.

So, I think...

This might sound crazy.

I know we just got back, but I think we should go see Crandall.

And I think that we should ask Hickory to come with us.

Or some of his people.

That's a ballsy plan.

And I think it'll be reasonable for us to ask Vesuvius to stay behind because he's trying to get away from Crandall.

But I think we should have people watch him.

And I think that we should send a team out, including you and I, to go see Crandall and see what's what.

What makes you think Hickory is going to willingly send people with us, though?

I don't think he particularly...

I mean, considering our last interaction, I don't see him being particularly happy to see us.

Well, the way I see it, Hickory is a lot of things, but he is a megalomaniac like no other.

And without a community to lead, he's nothing.

So if we put it in those terms, and we make it clear to him that this is a threat to all of us, I think he might just listen.

Well, I mean, I'm down to check it out.

And also...

I guess let's give it a shot, see how it goes.

I think that's a better plan than we've had so far.

Yeah, and if it gets us into the lighthouse, you know, maybe we could...

Oh, you want to use this as an excuse to head over that direction, as an excuse to go see the power plant, eh?

Maybe.

I think that's our best move.

What do you think?

I like it.

I think that's the best plan we've got so far, though.

You may excuse me for not going with you to talk to Hickory.

I'll probably just stand outside for that part.

No, you have to come.

Fucking don't leave me hanging like that.

Oh, God.

Fine.

Fine.

Ocean's still not quite okay with the last incident that occurred.

Yeah, I understand that.

I understand.

But luckily, Hickory wasn't there to see the worst of it.

Is there anything we should take care of before we go?

Well, is there anything else you want to check out with this little room in here?

I think we might just have to leave that for another day.

I'm wondering if there's anyone we should warn.

Anyone else we should talk to?

What do you think?

I mean, we have like three friends, so I feel like it wouldn't be that hard to warn those three people before we go.

Does that sound right?

Yeah, that sounds fine.

I think we should definitely talk to you.

What the hell is his name?

So we got Den Wallace.

We got Frida and we got Johnny Hertz.

That's who I was thinking of.

Oh, and Juniper.

I was thinking Juniper.

We got four friends.

I wonder if Juniper could send us some people.

I'm not counting Calista Furnace.

Calista and Frida are rolled up into one right now because I only talk to Frida through Calista.

So anyway.

You know, we haven't been to the Sogging Worm in a little while.

Because you hate it.

You told me you hate it.

I do hate it.

So I haven't brought us back.

I hate it, but it's a good source of information.

Do you think we should check in there and see if they've got any rumors or anything for us?

Maybe the menu's changed.

Yeah, who knows?

All right, Stu, we walk to the Sogging Worm.

That's such a good name, first of all.

It's such a horrible name.

I love it.

It's horrible in the best possible way.

You go and you see this haphazardly constructed shack of Cup of Noodles.

And you do see Calista right now is carrying two of them to some customers sitting at one of the shitty picnic tables out front.

You see Captain Noodle's back there working hard.

And you do see they do have a big exciting menu that says now with additional MSG.

And you see they have a bunch of season all ready to be added in on top.

Oh, man, I love MSG.

Is Dan Wallace around?

He's not sad.

He works during the day, usually, unlike you.

God.

So that's how we go up to Calista.

Oh, hey, guys, you need to make an order.

So I'm going to say, what is the code for we have information?

We'll have two shrimp packets on the side, please.

She kind of looks up for a second like she's thinking, and then she gets her notepad and flips to the back page and reads some stuff.

And goes, OK, yeah, sure thing.

And she goes back and starts preparing that with Captain Noodles.

OK, I just look at Ocean, wait for her to come back.

They're like, is that how she normally responds?

I feel like she's a little bit more, you know, aware of things than that.

I've successfully made you guys so paranoid.

I'm so happy.

She seemed a little more confused when we placed our order.

Did you notice that?

My eyes are kind of glazed over and I come to him like, yeah, I am.

You know what?

No, I think no.

Let's fucking A.

All right, dream boot.

All right, dream man.

I'm just trying to figure out like it makes the most sense that Vesuvius would be the first person affected to come here because we haven't had one of the things.

Okay, so we know from Stu, one of the things we haven't had a lot of is like skilled labor and trade with other places lately.

So we've been super isolated.

I don't think I think it makes the most sense that Vesuvius is the first person to have been infected.

Yeah.

Is Clilista back yet, Stu?

It's Cup of Noodles.

No, she's actually preparing it very, very slowly and waiting for it to be her.

You know that she does this normally, that she's waiting for it to be a time where she can take a break because you have to give her information.

Whatever.

Fine.

She doesn't know how long it will take.

So it's also very disruptive to her normal day and normal schedule.

So she makes them as slow as possible, brings them by, and then yells back to Cup of Noodles.

And she's like, hey, I'm going to take my five.

And he goes, no problem.

OK, got it.

As she's walking up, I whisper to Ocean, watch her eyes.

OK.

Give me an act under pressure or act under fire rolled.

No, you give me a sharp roll because I am using stern presence.

OK.

Well, how are you being stern?

What are you doing?

I'm just not being too friendly.

That's not stern.

Well, it's normally like I'm like super like flustered and like around Calista.

So I think she can tell like I'm pretty I'm acting pretty cool today.

She goes, Oh, what's wrong?

That's why we're here.

Oh, this is serious.

This is serious.

And I rolled an 11.

If anyone has intentionally told lied, told lies, betrayed trust or sown confusion, they can't meet my eyes.

If anyone here needs my help, they meet and hold my eyes on a 10 plus both.

And I got a 10 plus.

So there's not many people here.

There's a couple of customers, Captain Noodles and Calista.

Calista looks at you briefly and then seems to understand the gravity of the situation and sits down at the table ready to listen.

You look over and Captain Noodles is like sweating and looking away and looking down deep into his pot of noodles, definitely avoiding your gaze.

So Calista's neither, it sounds like.

She is neither.

She does not need your help, and she's not intentionally told lies, but trade trust or something.

Okay, perfect.

I nodded Ocean.

And I think now you can do your role.

What is it, the role for Act Under Fire?

Yep, Act Under Fire, Ocean.

As you try to stare into her eyes without being incredibly creepy and obvious about it.

Lordy.

That's a four.

Well, what is it?

What's wrong?

I'm waiting for a nod from Ocean that he hasn't seen anything funky in her eyes.

You look over to Ocean and he is staring directly.

He's leaning over the table a little bit, staring into her eyes, and you see her awkwardly glancing at him and looking away.

And Ocean, you don't see anything.

I was just about to say, before I play it off, Ocean is going to shake his head and jolt back up.

He's like, oh, sorry.

Didn't get much sleep last night.

Zoning out there for a second.

I'm going to take that as an all clear, even though it's clearly not.

As he does that, he's going to turn to, as he shakes his head, he's going to turn to Book and give him a shrug.

Cool.

So I'm going to lean in and whisper, but I'm not going to whisper because this is an audio medium.

Hey, Calista.

I have some information.

It's not just for Frieda.

I think there's something going on here.

I think that we might have some kind of interloper.

He looks like someone Ocean and I met when we were plundering Subtropolis TM, trademark, copyright, 2023 Stu Masterson.

He looks like him, but he doesn't sound like him.

And I know that seems loose, but Ocean saw some things too.

I think I don't know what it is.

I don't know what he is, but if you encounter someone named Vesuvius, don't let them get too close.

Just keep your distance and let me know.

Let me know if anything happens.

Let me know what he wants.

And same thing for Frida.

I don't know where they are, what they're doing, but they should keep an eye out.

There might be more of these guys going around.

I think it sounds like there's at least one more in Subtropolis that we know about, but I'm anticipating that this won't be an isolated incident.

And we just wanted to let you know.

Well, yeah, that sounds like a lot.

Thank you for letting me know.

And yeah, I'll get in touch with our friend.

And make sure...

Give me a read someone roll.

That was an 11.

Okay, you get to hold 3.

So I'm going to hold 3, and what I'm going to say to Calista is...

Can you do me a favor?

Yeah, yeah.

What do you need?

Will you let Den know as well?

He's already been caught in the crossfire enough.

Yeah, of course.

The questions that I have are, are you telling the truth?

What are you feeling?

What are you thinking of doing?

What do you hope I'll do?

And how could I get you to do X?

I really like...

I mean, of course, are you telling the truth?

This is a big one.

Yeah, that's always a good one.

But how are you feeling?

Sounds like a really good one here.

And then what are you hoping I would do?

Sounds like she's definitely hiding something almost.

Yeah, I'm trying to figure out if I can use this hold to find out what she knows about Captain Noodles.

What a dumb sentence.

So, yeah, maybe that's my in.

Okay, so Calista, just a side note.

What's going on with Captain Noodles?

I don't know.

He seems fine.

He seems really stressed right now.

I don't know what's going on.

I probably need to get back soon.

I look at her and I say, I look at her in the eyes and I say, he's up to something.

You think he's one of these, these like Vesuvius?

No, I think if he was, he would be a lot more calm.

And then I'm going to spend my hold.

And I want to know if she's telling the truth about Captain Noodle's.

Yeah, she is being honest with her interpretation of the situation.

What do you hope I'll do about this situation with the, with Vesuvius?

So you get the feeling, especially when she mentioned going back to Captain Noodle's like he needs help, that she hopes you'll just leave her alone.

She seems very uncomfortable right now.

Like the whole situation is a very strange, out of nowhere thing, where this guy who just resulted in her boyfriend getting shot just came and stared at her eyes for a while.

And then you told her to be careful in a bunch of weird ways and then told her her boss is up to something.

She seems very uncomfortable and like she wants you guys gone, but she's way too polite to like say anything about it.

So she's just trying to be like, Oh, I think I need to get back soon.

This has not been the most.

I don't know.

I don't know what to do about this last hold.

I don't want to waste it.

But also Stu is making me feel very anxious about this interaction with this poor person, this poor woman.

I'm just playing it like I see it.

You have a massive crush on.

I'm going to.

OK, I say, are you all right?

But I'm asking, what are you feeling?

And I'm spending a hold.

No, I'm just I have.

Oh, that says a lot that you've told me.

And I don't know.

I just feel like I'm I don't know what you expect me to do about it.

Like, I appreciate you trying to warn me and say there's stuff going on.

But it sounds you're sounding like a little a little crazy.

Yeah, I suppose I do.

And I stand up and I start to walk away.

Dramatic exit.

Fuck yeah.

Leaving the noodles.

Yes.

I didn't eat.

I didn't eat the noodles.

Actually, I don't walk away.

Before before Kalista can get back to Captain Noodles, I want to get there first.

You can awkwardly.

She's heading straight back there.

So you have to like awkwardly jog past her.

That's fine.

To do that.

That's fine.

You awkwardly jog past her.

And I and I call over to Captain Noodles.

I say, hey, all of it is a final.

No, they were the noodles were were great today.

I just want I don't know what's in them until it's opened up.

If you don't like it, I see you didn't eat any of it.

But no, they're great.

And then I want to use compassionate presence.

How are you being compassionate with Captain Noodles?

Because I said they were great.

The noodles were good.

That is absolutely not compassionate.

Okay, fine.

So I say, hey, no, your noodles are great.

And I just want to let you know that you're doing a great job.

And also, are you okay?

You look stressed out.

Yeah, I'm doing fine.

I just I can't help you with your noodle problem.

I make them and I give them to you.

I'm done.

There's no noodle problem.

I'm sorry.

I didn't mean to add to your stress.

I love Google.

That was a 12.

So I need to know if he's ashamed of something and if he's holding onto pain.

Specifically, I want to know if he's ashamed of something he's done.

Just as an aside while you're doing this, I'm really liking the mental image of Ocean still sitting at the table with Calista still awkwardly standing there and Ocean's kind of looking around and goes, so sorry I got your boyfriend shot.

My bad.

He said it wasn't your fault, Mike.

It was very much Ocean's fault.

I don't know how it couldn't be your fault, but he said it wasn't.

And I think it's my fault.

I definitely think it's my fault.

So you can take solace in that.

Yeah, but he's doing he's doing OK.

He's he's back on his feet.

He's actually he started working again today.

That's good.

What's he do again?

I don't know.

He's always driving around in that truck.

He does he does stuff that's like complicated.

I think he's like really good at like machines.

He's very smart.

He's like the smartest person I've ever met.

Book, does Book hear any of this?

Not if you're not if you're using compassionate presence.

Just imagine the most awkward conversation.

If Book hadn't heard any of that, he would fucking be glaring.

Back over at Captain Noodles.

Yeah, what's Captain Nudes saying?

He goes, OK, I admit it.

I sometimes I do mix a little bit of the styrofoam back into the noodles.

Just sometimes, like, it's only if they're very light.

Like, I think something's missing from them, so I just melt some of it down, and it gives them a good heft.

I don't think it's bad for you.

I've eaten them, and I'm fine.

But are you saying it tastes bad?

I don't say anything.

I just, I just roll my eyes.

And so he's admitted to something he's ashamed of.

Does he say anything about holding onto pain?

No, he has no pain.

Okay, so as Calista approaches, I just say, never mind about your boss.

I'm sorry, I'm just super paranoid right now.

Oh, okay.

Then, then I...

You still want me to talk to our friend?

Yes, definitely.

Yes, 100%.

That's real.

That's real.

That's real.

Probably.

That's real.

And she walks behind the counter.

Ocean will turn to Book and be like, I think that went pretty smooth.

I think that went so bad.

That went so bad.

Captain Noodles.

So I told him, I was like, Captain Noodles, first of all, I take...

So I'm assuming that Ocean was, like, just about to take a sip of noodles, and I slap it out of his hands.

I was like, don't eat those.

It's literally poison.

I knew it.

I knew there was something wrong with these damn noodles.

We have so much, so much microplastic in our lungs.

All right, now we go to the...

So I think how we laid it out is that the soggy worm is...

Or sorry, the broken leg is, like, in the middle of town.

So it's in between the soggy worm and fucking Johnny Hertz's place.

So let's go to the broken leg.

I want to pop in and just let Juniper know the same.

We can skip that if you want to.

Yeah, I don't think I'm not using any stern presences on him.

Unless any of you have any other things you want to say.

You can just say you stopped by and told him or anyone else on the way to your next destination about your...

I guess we tell Spade as well.

Do we want to see if Spade wants to come with us?

I mean, we're going into Subtropolis, but I'm worried that they would just run off and try to find that stupid tower.

That's true.

You broke their brain.

I forgot.

Then again, at least if they're with us, like they could end up trying to go anyway.

So if they're with us, they won't.

We could at least keep an eye on them.

And it would help us control Hickory.

Let's invite Spade along and see what they say.

I think we should just see how it goes.

You go into the Broken Leg.

Insert Broken Leg music here.

You see Juniper at the bar.

He goes, hey, you guys usually don't come in here for a drink, so what's up?

Nobody likes us, I'm learning.

We're burning all our bridges so bad.

Did you figure out that message?

Probably.

I know that you said that you didn't think that my parents gave Hickory anything, but I'm pretty sure we got to go to Hickory's place.

So we're going to go do that.

He seems nervous about that, but he's like, if you think that's what's best.

Yeah, well, don't worry.

We're doing something stupider first, and then I walk away from the bar.

Today's the day for dramatic.

I'm still hungover.

I want it on record.

Not me.

Brady Book is.

Ocean, you want a drink?

Give me something stiff.

I got you.

This one's on the house since you took a bullet.

Wait, you didn't take a bullet since you made three other people take a bullet.

Since I cost a lot of bullets to be taken.

Book took a bullet.

You wasted a lot of bullets.

I'm sorry.

No, in the good way.

You wasted their bullets.

Yes, that's true.

Less bullets to shoot at us in the future.

Exactly.

That's how I look at it.

Your way.

You can't correct yourself.

You can teach them to read.

I call from across the bar, it's fewer.

They have fewer bullets now.

But he pours you a big drink and he's going, Hey, what's what's up with Book?

I think he's a little paranoid right now.

I think things going on have kind of gotten him a little bit riled up.

And well, he did like almost die, right?

Almost twice, almost died.

Yeah, indeed.

Both times.

Probably my fault.

OK, I think I think you're being a little too hard on yourself.

But like, I don't know.

Do you think I should like talk to him or something or?

It could be helpful.

He's pretty focused right now on this situation we've got with the stranger that came into town yesterday.

Yeah, I think something you think there's something weird with them.

I don't know if there's something weird with Book, but this stranger's got us all paranoid because we knew him prior to him coming today and he's different.

And that is definitely concerning.

I understand that.

And he was one of Crandall's men.

Yes.

We're thinking about going to investigate Crandall himself.

Messing with Warlords usually isn't a great idea, but usually when people are leaving them, that's a good thing.

I don't like I don't know many Warlords trying to pull off advanced espionage to Hamlet Opening.

Like there's not much here for them to take, you know what I'm saying?

In my opinion, it would have to be like personal, you know, like this this guy's got something on you or Book.

I don't know.

I don't think we really when we were when we first met him, I don't think we really gave him too much information about us.

So I don't really know what he could know, but it sure seems like he knows more about us than what we've been telling him.

That is strange.

Well, here's a second.

Okay, over at Spade Spade, as soon as you come up, flips the tablecloth over and shows you all the work they've made on their crazy person board and goes, Okay, I think I've been having some ideas.

So you said the wolves like howled, right?

Every time I think like so that howl is, you know, how radio waves work.

Like I think it's there's something to the fact that like the frequency experience them.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But so like Johnny hurts, you know, and all the weird stuff he does this.

You didn't run into this situation until you were helping him out with his radio things.

And I feel like the way they communicate is basically the same.

So like I think it's something to do with what that device you got.

What was that device?

The TTE.

Yeah.

Through the Earth Communicator.

Do you know how that works?

I do know how it works.

I think it might be related.

It could be similar to the tower, but the tower was definitely communicating not through the Earth.

It was through our minds.

But I think that's and the wolves also don't go through the Earth.

That's right.

Yeah.

Spade is definitely just a red herring generator.

So that's cool.

So I'm going to I'm going to like, okay, we got to figure out a way to reverse this.

I'm going to try to break Spade's attention from the board.

And I want to say, hey, Spade, we're heading into Subtropolis.

I can't promise that we're going to get a chance to look at that tower, but it's going to get you closer than you've been the last three weeks.

I didn't know if you wanted to come.

What are you doing?

So listen, do you remember that guy I asked you to talk to last night?

Yeah, Vesuvius.

Well, and we told you that we thought he might be not who he says he is, not the guy we knew.

Not Vesuvius.

Fake Vesuvius, I think you said.

Yeah, I think there might be more of him, and I think I know where we can find them.

And I don't know if they're related to the psychic maelstrom, but I know that it's another mystery, and I got to follow it down.

How do you think they're related?

Well, I don't, to be honest, but I also don't know.

Actually, you know what I do?

Hold on.

Maybe I do, because do you remember I told you Ocean had this vision, and in the vision he saw a doppelganger with robot eyes, and Vesuvius' eyes had a glint to them.

Anyway, Ocean's vision, in that vision, that's what led him to the tower where he found me.

He saw the code that he saw in the vision got him into the tower that I was in.

So I think they might be related, actually.

So if...

I'm not saying we have to figure it out now, but I'm saying we are going to go investigate it.

Do you want to come?

I don't know if I can get out of my job that easily.

That's okay.

It's okay if you can't.

I just wanted to offer extended invitation.

How long are you going to be gone?

The last time we went to see Crandall, we were there and back in about 24 hours.

Yeah, I don't think I can miss a whole day.

Just, can you like radio up here if you're going to the tower?

Yeah.

Yeah, we can do that.

Damn tower.

Probably.

God damn tower.

And I think it's time to go see Johnny Hertz.

Johnny Hertz?

Yeah.

Yeah.

These are other friends we got to warn about the spooky people.

Ocean, I walked back up to the bar.

All right, Ocean, did you tell Juniper to be on the lookout for spooky robot people?

I did.

I did, Book.

Juniper's like two feet away from you right now.

And he, when Book says that, he stares right at you, Ocean, and his eyes go like huge.

So you're making me out to be the crazy one.

That's fucked.

I'm doing nothing.

This is gaslighting of the highest degree.

Anyway, we go to Johnny Hertz's.

You walk by the lovely Frida Alley, you see some dried blood still caked on the ground.

Yeah.

Sprayed up against one of the walls.

Ocean has a blank stare for a couple seconds.

Book throws the horns at Ocean.

Not really.

But you see Johnny Hertz, his shack is up around the corner.

Alright, I go in.

You see him sitting at the desk.

You can't hear him, he's through the glass, but he is recording right now, and he sees you as you walk in.

Is there a paper and pen?

Yeah, of course.

Okay.

I could write him a note, but if he's gonna come talk to me, I'd rather do that.

Okay.

He holds up a hand like five minutes.

Okay, so I turn to Ocean.

I think we should probably set up the TTE before we go so that we can talk to Johnny Hertz.

I don't think our radios will reach back to...

all the way back to Hamlet Opening.

I think that's a good plan.

Do we want to make it...

I know we initially talked about kind of hiding some features...

hiding some features of the TTE from Johnny.

Do we want to do that, or do we just want to leave everything out to dry?

I trust Johnny at this point, and we need him to operate it while we're gone.

So I think we just have to put all our cards on the table.

I do think...

Let's do it.

Now that I have Tinkering, can I roll Tinkering to set up the TTE?

Oh, yeah, you've got that.

You have Tinkering with cosmology.

You can Tinker with your workshop to try to make it do stuff like that, but you haven't done that yet.

Can one argue that because the TTE exudes cosmic signals?

Does it?

Yeah, radio waves, right?

Those are cosmic signals?

They are, yeah.

I guess everything's technically...

I was gonna say, we're all technically cosmic signals.

Stu, okay, let's go that way.

What does TTE stand for again?

Through the Earth.

Would you say that the Earth is a cosmic body?

Not specifically that type of Earth.

I feel like I've made some very strong arguments.

That stone and dirt is a cosmic body.

Yeah.

It was at some point, yeah, but like everything is.

Please?

It's also not at your workshop.

Everything's here.

You could do cool stuff with that.

You should have got your workshop with your first improvement.

But no, you can use your guys' normal knowledge.

Johnny Hertz hits his big switch that you can hear through the glass, and he takes off his headphones, and he goes to the door and goes, Hey, guys, Johnny Hertz here.

Are you here to finally set up that TTE?

Yeah, Johnny, we are.

We also have some more, some news that we need to, something we need to talk to you about.

Cards on the table.

There's some shit going on.

Gotta explain it to them.

That seems like some heavy stuff.

You want to come on my radio show and talk about it?

Not until we figure it out.

I don't want to give, if this is a real threat, I don't want to give them too much of an indication that we know what's going on.

But what if talking about it is how you figure it out?

I find that to be the case 99% of the time.

If it's all right, Johnny, I'm going to ask that we keep this under wraps for now.

Okay, I am very discreet.

So you have nothing to worry with old Johnny Hertz.

Actually, you know what?

You know what, Johnny?

Fuck it.

You know what?

Feel free to talk about it on your show, but don't say it came from us, because just yeah, just put some...

Oh, my sources are always fully hidden.

Put some feelers out there.

Let us know if you get any...

That is to say, actually, yeah, using him might actually be pretty useful.

Pretty could be potentially useful.

Well, that's probably going to have to wait like three or four days because I'm going to be out of commission while we're setting this up.

Fair enough.

Three or four days?

Yeah, this thing's complicated.

And it's got to work to fit into my setup.

That's a long time.

I'm just I'm just worried that this situation might be more time sensitive than that.

Ocean, what do you think?

Um, well, I would always be happier to get up to speed quicker if you want to pull like a couple of nights.

Is there a possible way to set it up?

Yeah, I was about to say, depending on how we do, we might be able to push ourselves to try and set it up even quicker.

Are we about to have a montage?

Gonna have a montage!

Honestly, though, maybe having a couple of days to let Vesuvius do some feelers, see if we can go through and see how people have been like reacted to him.

We can like let him go.

I'm just worried, like we don't know how this thing propagates.

So like, if it's like the thing three or four days is the entire town is infected.

That's true.

But we even don't even necessarily know that he's something that's infecting people.

Like we don't know nothing about how it works.

Correct.

How long would it take for us to just set the transmitting part up?

Just like not all of it the way set up, but just like the bit that we need.

Book would know that probably like if you guys worked nonstop for like 24 hours, you should be able to get up the transmitter working.

Maybe we can at least get the transmitter.

I say let's just burn.

Let's just do it all.

Do it all?

Yeah.

I guess trying to just like power through it only taking like naps.

Yeah, I think so.

Johnny Hertz gets so excited.

He's like, yes, this is going to be so much fun.

And like, I'm going to only be off.

Let me get on the air.

Let's start tonight.

You get set up.

I'm going to go close out my show, and then I'll go run and get some supplies.

I'll get some snacks.

I'll get some energy drinks.

It's going to be a party.

Party with Johnny Hertz.

Johnny Hertz is already on cocaine, and we're just going to punch a red bulb.

And you're not going to try to hide the receiving aspect from him?

No.

Are you going to tell him now, or are you going to tell him later when you're setting it up?

I'm going to tell him, I'm going to say, look, Johnny, this thing's actually super fucking, it's awesome.

And there's some capabilities that I don't think you knew about.

We can actually send and receive simultaneously with this thing, which means this has the potential to do some real good for our community.

Oh, wow.

I don't know what I would use that receiving for.

Well, we're about to go into Subtropolis, and it would be really helpful to have someone in Hamlet Opening that can hear our radio transmissions.

OK, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, sure thing.

I can keep a little emergency, like SOS frequency wave open for you guys.

Yeah.

Well, I think...

Stu, do you think the TTE can record transmissions?

Probably not by default, but you could try to scrounge up something to make that work.

Certainly with the weird shit that Ocean collected.

I got a lot of shit.

All right, that can be if everything else goes well.

We can do that as the end of the montage.

Both of you in this montage give me one Try Something Challenging.

Book, you can have advantage on the Try Something Challenging since you understood those schematics so well.

Should I roll three?

Yep, three and take the two highest.

And then also there's going to be an Act Under Fire.

Oh, no.

OK, so we're going to both roll Try Something Challenging and we're both going to do the Act Under Fire.

Yep.

Do I have advantage on just the one or both?

Yep, just the Try Something Challenging.

The Act Under Fire is working through these conditions basically.

Understood.

All right.

So my Try Something Challenging was a seven.

My Act Under Fire is a nine.

My Try Something Challenging was a five.

With advantage.

What's your Act Under Fire?

That is a nine.

Two nines.

OK, so we montage through.

Gonna be a montage.

Let's get down to business.

So many montages.

He comes back holding his Taco Bell Party Pack and a bunch of Baja Blasts.

And he comes up.

He's son.

Somehow while he's been gone, he comes back and he's wearing like a full mechanic onesie ready to go with like a welder mask up on the top of his head and big gloves.

And he unrolls the schematics that you brought back and you guys start trying to hook everything up.

His the thing that throws a big wrench into it.

Book is his setup is very complicated and very cobbled together from a lot of different things like he's got like random ass repeaters and a bunch of stuff that you don't even understand what does.

And when you try to talk to him about it, he's like, I know that when I didn't have that there, there was this like, and then when I put it there, it was just like, which is much easier that kind of just makes it sound like deep and like wholesome in my voice when I talk to people.

So I switched it to that.

And you're trying to figure out how this works.

You guys barely stay up through the two nights and it takes you the full time.

It's like the sun's coming up on two days from now.

There's no sun.

The lights all flicker on two days from now.

Oh, I just had an idea.

What's your.

What time of day did Book notice the light on the mirror?

That was right when he probably had slept in kind of late because he was drunk, right?

So that was probably like 10 a.m.

which you guys believe to be 10 a.m.

I was about to say, is what we believe to be 10 a.m.

So I don't know.

What if the light that he's seeing is actually real stars?

Ooh, what if it's an actually to find out?

Do it, coward.

You guys finish hooking it up.

You think you got everything set up right.

He tests the transmission.

He's so excited.

Somehow Johnny Hertz has maintained his level of energy through all of this.

You guys are just like completely drained, dead.

Like you only took like two naps each for like a couple hours.

And he was like waking you up right at the time that your shift was supposed to start.

He gets so excited as you hook it up.

Johnny Hertz is our golem.

He grabs a handheld radio and runs out to the outside of his shack.

And he goes, Hey, transmit something.

Come on, anything.

Just flip the switch.

So I listen to Johnny, but I crank it to.

OK, so let me think if we're going through rock, which is very dense, the higher frequency would go further, right?

I think it's the opposite.

I could be wrong.

I think it's the opposite because an air like radio waves go the furthest, right?

Because microwaves don't go very far.

Yeah, OK.

So I'll say I turn it to a very low frequency, something that I think will go the furthest.

And I say, I basically kind of try to talk to the surface and my parents.

I'm going to go, this is Book McCready calling from.

It works!

It works!

Guys, it's Johnny Hertz and it works out here.

That's awesome, Johnny.

Give me one second.

And I go back on and say, this is Book McCready.

I'm calling from a radio station in Hamlet Opening.

I'm hoping to reach anyone on the surface that can hear me, especially Margaret and Charles McCready.

If you're out there, just know that I'm coming.

And then I click off.

He comes in.

He is smiling so big.

He's about to accidentally eat his own ears.

Do we get anything back?

Do we receive anything?

He goes, well, let's let's try the receiving.

And he goes up and he flips a switch.

He has the you guys wired up some speakers that he previously didn't have to this other aspect of it.

And he flips the switch.

And as soon as he flips it, you guys hear.

Hey, everybody, thank you for listening.

Join us next week for an episode that will be way less walking between different people and talking to them for the entire hour.

As we approach summer, remember that while you're chilling by the pool or hanging out at the beach, you have your good Bluetooth speaker blaring one of our episodes.

And when people come up to ask you to please turn it down or off or change it to anything that's enjoyable to listen to, tell them, I will as soon as you like and subscribe this podcast because it's pretty good.

Stu Masterson performs the music and editing, Brady makes that logo and art, and Jacob uses his Tokyo 2 Connections to get us all the LCL we need to perform this podcast.

Love you, bye.

Sharknado really just jumped the shark, didn't it?