Hamlet Opening is confused about the re-appearance of our loveable idiots, as Book and Ocean try to figure out how to slow down a revolution that is already underway.

This one is basically an episode of Scooby-Doo.

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Oops! All Talkpocalypses for episodes 21-40 is coming soon! Sends questions, comments, or good vibes in the reviews, or in the spotify question thingy, or in an email to oops@stu.cool

Welcome to Oops!

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

I'm your host, Stu Masterson, and I'm joined by one kiwi and one pear.

I am pear-shaped.

I am well-known across the-

I swear there's a song with kiwis and pears in it.

I can't think of what the hell it is.

So I was just sitting there and I was like, what is the song?

I think I may be thinking of fruit salad.

You know me, you know me from The Wiggles.

Dude, I'm well-known across everybody who knows me for being pear-shaped.

Pear-shaped.

Oh, Lord, he coming.

I got wide hips for a guy.

I'm the opposite.

I am very broad at the top.

I'm like apple-shaped.

You guys would fit together well, like a puzzle piece.

We'd be best friends, except Brady would be a little bit gritty to the bite.

A little bit gritty, sand-papery texture, and I'd be nice and sweet on the inside.

Yeah, I would bite you.

Hell yeah.

I think technically I have a nice hourglass figure, but for a guy, that's the same as being pear-shaped.

I call it power glass.

Power glass.

Hey, everybody, I'm Brady, and I play Book McCready, a super sad sleuth who is bummed that his two best friends in the world wouldn't be friends with him if he was a wolf.

If he was a dog is what she said, a dog.

Whatever, a wolf, a dog, same thing.

They are the same species, to be clear, same species.

And I think you actually got definitive both.

It depends on the dog for both people.

So they didn't even say no.

Yeah, that's a no.

That's a soft no.

That's a soft launch for no.

And I'm Jacob.

I'm playing Ocean, a gentle giant, footprint enthusiast, and trade baron.

Nice.

I feel like I haven't played in forever.

I feel like it hasn't.

It's been a while.

It's been a little while.

That's because we haven't.

Why is that?

It's because of the damn holidays.

Every damn holiday just fucks everything up.

Yeah, we should cancel all the holidays.

I think we should.

And then Brady also had a whittling injury that took him out of commission.

That's right.

He did have a whittling injury.

It was chiseling, my friends.

Yeah, it was a whole spectrum.

I stabbed myself in the leg with a chisel by accident, working on carving a cane for my grandfather.

That's a big thing to stab yourself in the leg with.

It went pretty deep.

They're extremely sharp.

They're like razor sharp.

Yeah, I was thinking it was like a little knife, but a chisel.

That's a lot more painful to get embedded into your skin.

Thankfully, it was the skinniest one.

I don't know if that makes it better.

That almost makes it sound more painful.

Well, it went probably deeper, but it was a smaller wound.

It was only like a quarter an inch by a quarter of an inch, but it went like an inch, inch and a quarter deep.

Yeah, dude, it was nasty to look at.

And then so I stabbed myself in the leg, and then three days later, I got the flu.

And then three days after that, I had a reaction to the antibiotic they gave me for stabbing myself in the leg, and had basically an anaphylactic reaction to that.

Oh, shit.

He looked like a leper.

It was really bad.

I was covered in hives, and I...

No offense to our leper listeners.

And I'm still...

I think I have a little bit of pneumonia still.

So if my voice sounds fucked up, it's because I...

It is.

And in the next episode, Brady is out of the podcast because he has died.

Yeah, I'm just coughing a lot still, and it's been fucking almost three weeks since I had the flu.

He's got the black lung, Pa.

But we'll release more regularly, even if Brady's dead.

Yeah, you guys can track my decline.

I mean, Stu's recovered remarkably well from radiation poisoning.

That's all I can say.

He's looking pretty good.

He looks better than ever.

He does.

He's got a nice pinkish glow.

Healthy, pinkish, greenish glow.

He is a ninja turtle.

But I have been spending a lot of time with Master Splinter.

I guess 30 would be teenage for a turtle, right?

Would it?

How long do turtles live?

Like functionally forever.

They're like functionally immortal, aren't they, turtles?

I think you're both wrong.

I think a teenager is between 13 and 19.

That's close enough.

If you're 15 in turtle years, then you're a teenage mutant ninja turtle.

Damn, that's deep right there.

So you're telling me all these turtles in the sewers and teenage mutant ninja turtles are actually just 30 year old losers eating pizza and doing karate?

I was just going to say, Stu, do you feel better or worse about pizza since you got radiation poisoning?

I don't know if I like it more, but I do think it's more radical.

And I've gotten really good with Tonfa and Psy.

The two worst ones.

The worst ones.

Oh my god, at least Stu knows which turtle he sees.

That was the better response than I ever expected.

Well, let's try to fall in love with Book and Ocean before Brady passes away from natural causes.

We're wrapping up these questions now.

There's only four more left.

That means we only have four sessions until we have to end the game.

No, we will continue or you guys will die.

This is a good one this week.

So put on your listening ears.

If you were to die this evening with no opportunity to communicate with anyone, what would you most regret not having told someone?

What a relevant question considering Brady's dying.

Yeah, and there's a secret hidden second question.

That's a follow up to that, that I'll wait till the first person answers so the second person gets more knowledge.

Ocean would regret most for a variety of reasons about not telling Book about his past.

I think that's something he really wants to talk to Book about eventually at some point.

Still kind of piecing together everything that's gone on, but if he were to die today without having to uncover that information and not having shared his origin with Book, I think he would have a lot of regrets in that regard.

That's especially tragic because you literally can't.

Yeah, no, nobody would know anything at that point.

He's just lost.

You don't know your past to tell me.

Even if you wanted to, you could.

Yeah, do you mean the physical ability to, or do you mean you guys haven't had a conversation yet about the fact that maybe you were around or knew about his parents before you lost your memory sort of thing?

I think a little bit of both.

A little bit of both.

One, I imagine he's been kind of coy about that.

Probably hasn't really fully discussed the ramifications or implications of that with Book.

And also, I think he would, the actual ability to share his past being something he can't really share, considering he has very little recollection of it at this point, would also cause him some grief in the afterlife.

There's no afterlife in the apocalypse.

You just become absorbed into the psychic maelstrom.

So good luck.

Like in Final Fantasy VII, where you become part of the world, the world, the world, what's it called?

The World Stream?

Is that what it's called in Final Fantasy VII?

I don't recall.

Yeah, is it the World Stream?

The big green ooze that hazes the world, Evangelion style at the end?

The Shane Sun, Soul Wall type thing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Wait, are you talking about primordial ooze from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?

There's a lot of ooze in the animated shows, I'm realizing now.

Wait, is it primordial ooze?

No.

No, what's it called?

The stuff that made Daredevil blind?

Yeah, and also the stuff that made the Ninja Turtles Turtles.

And the ooze is called a mutagen.

Oh, it's just called the ooze or mutagen.

And your answer to the question...

Yeah, shut the fuck up about Ninja Turtles and answer the damn question.

So I don't think the book can regret not saying things to his parents because he never had the opportunity to, you know?

It's like it's more that he regrets that he never could have said something to his parents than anything that he could have actually said.

So, excuse me.

I think what Book would regret not saying to someone is...

I think he would regret not saying thank you to Ocean for being such a good friend.

If he died right now.

So sweet.

And you didn't have a chance for any last words.

That's a good one because it's nice and short, so you could squeak it in there if you're dying slowly.

Right.

So I'm going to ask the follow up question.

Why haven't you told them yet?

I already know yours, Ocean, but...

Yeah.

It's like this isn't two parts, Ocean.

It's one, you can't really tell much about what he doesn't know, and two, I bet he just doesn't want to deal with the conversation of, hey, I think I might have been hunting down your parents, and you know, did some bad things, and was probably not a very good person in the past to want to talk about it.

I don't think he was ready quite for that conversation yet.

Is Ocean aware?

I think he has some theories in his head, because I think Book has started piecing things together regarding visions and stuff that Ocean's talked about, and I think Ocean is also starting to piece things together in that regard too.

But I don't know if he's fully connected all the dots yet, because I sure as hell have not.

Some of these visions are fucking intangible.

I have no idea what they mean.

Same.

To answer the second hidden question, I think Book takes...

I was going to say takes Ocean for granted a little bit.

I think that's true.

I think that Book has said similar things, you know, to Ocean.

I think that Book has said words of affirmation to Ocean before, but I don't think he's ever really put into words just how much, like, how alone he felt prior to Ocean coming around.

And I think that part of that is that he...

it's like a hard thing for him to talk about.

He's strong and independent.

Yeah, emotions are hard.

We're emotionally stunted men.

We're not the new...

the...

What is it?

I'm not going to cry, I'm going to cut some wood.

I love cutting wood.

I love that.

Let's get back to the action.

Cut it.

Last time, we ended with you guys back in Maple's place, starting to kind of explain all of the shenanigans that have gone on when you heard a loud pounding on the door.

And for a second, he looks just like terrified, like his heart freezes.

He's already pretty old and pretty pale, but the color just like leaves him entirely.

And he leans back and looks to the peephole, and he exhales and opens the door.

And it's Calista.

So you don't have to explain this shit to us.

Oh, hey, you, Maple, what's been happening?

We'll tell you everything that happened, and we'll show you all the supplies we got for you.

But we heard over the radio that things have been going kind of south here, that people are going missing.

People think we're dead.

Even without Maple answering you, you can tell things have been going on.

Both Maple and Calista have weapons, which you've never seen them have before.

Calista has a small SMG strapped to her chest, and Maple has a revolver at his side.

And Calista also has a knife and a sheath on her forearm.

She's never been strapped up.

She is loaded up.

Damn, girl.

And she looks so tired.

Or she has big sunken eyes, and looks like she hasn't slept in a week.

Which is only about how long you guys have been gone.

I go, what the hell happened to you?

And then I realize I said something kind of offensive, but I just clenched my jaw even harder and cracked another tooth.

Have you guys really not been here this whole time?

And as she says, this Maples is already picking through your supplies you brought, and he seems pretty happy.

I would say we've been through hell and back, but it kind of looks like you all have to.

We at least thought you were still here.

Juniper was certain you weren't, but we thought you were still in town because the video.

Did you guys not have anything to do with that?

No, what video?

No, there was this big projection on the side of the, well, there was a countdown, and then there's a big projection on the side, and it was like you holding up someone's head and threatening Hickory.

Wait.

And saying that you're going to come for him or something like that?

No, that I did.

No, no, no, no.

You seemed very angry and you pretty directly threatened him.

No, I told him that we were going to go fix some things.

That's I think literally what I said was-

That was not in the video.

Okay, I think somebody may have edited that.

I did have a head.

This is Vesuvius.

Vesuvius, this is Kalista.

Nice to meet you.

I believe we've met before.

I don't have you.

Oh, yeah, I guess you did.

Yeah, you absolutely did.

Kalista, this is who I warned you about.

And I point to Vesuvius.

Yeah, we did record a video that we weren't threatening.

It's been a while since we've recorded that episode, so I can't quite remember.

You don't remember everything from four months ago?

I think I actually told Hickory that he could tell everyone, if he didn't want us to come back, he could tell everyone that we died and we would just leave.

Yeah, that also didn't happen, and that also wasn't in the video.

Do you have like a copy of it or anything?

A what?

Yeah, we filmed it, right?

We can't we just go grab the camera?

We filmed it on and I don't know.

I've never I've like never done a copy before.

Like, isn't that plagiarism?

Book, it's your own video.

But look, look, I can go grab that.

I'll let me go try and find the camera that we recorded it.

I'll bring it back.

We can we can show them what we recorded and we left the video for who did we give it to my boyfriend?

Yeah, we gave it.

Yeah, he dropped off that video.

He never watched it, but he dropped it off at Hickory's.

He snuck it into some sort of delivery that was supposed to go, I think.

Yeah.

Yeah, that is his name's Den Wallace, by the way.

Den Wallace is my buddy.

Look, I'm gonna go try and find that camera so we can kind of get to the bottom of this real quick.

You said a countdown.

Can you just explain the countdown real quick?

What the fuck was that about?

Yeah, there was a bunch of graffiti.

We assumed it was Frida, but there was a lot of it was.

Was the eyebrow on it?

Yeah.

And it was this big countdown.

It started way too high.

It was very frustrating.

It was like it went down once a day and it started something stupid like eight or nine.

When it got to zero, there was right when all the lights went out for the night, a bunch of projectors all turned on at once and projected this video kind of throughout the town.

But the largest one was right on the side of the courthouse.

That's some Spider-Man Far From Home shit.

I haven't seen that.

I know.

Well, here real quick, I'm going to go try and get the krama.

But before I go, maple here.

And I pull out the mushrooms.

Before you give me weird looks, these are medicinal right here.

They used them at the town.

That's what they all say.

They used them at the place that we're at.

They made them into like antiseptic and painkillers and stuff here.

I took notes to show you and he takes the notes and shows them what they wrote down with what the identifications of the mushrooms and all that stuff.

I got a bit of a sponge thumb, so I may be able to get these spores up and going.

Yeah, I figured we could try and get it growing and then you could have a more renewable source of medical supplies.

No, that's a great idea.

You can just stick them in a toilet.

They grow and shit.

Sure sir.

You want a box of Uncle Ben's dress.

I'm going to go run and grab that camera and Book, Ocean takes off to Book's place to try and find the camera that they recorded this haul on.

You make it back and as you get to the camera, the camera's still there, there's no tape in it.

Book looks up blackmail in the Encyclopedia of Brickitanica.

Brickitanica?

Yes.

Brick Titanic?

yeah, no, it goes into detail on blackmail and some common methods of it.

I think we're being extorted.

What's extorted mean?

It's when you take something and make it longer, I think.

Ah, yeah.

Oh no, that's contorted.

So Ocean, when he doesn't find the tape, he's going to make his way back to Mabel's place and when he finds the camera and everything, and when he comes back, he's like, Calista, is Din still here?

Can we talk to him?

I want to try to figure out where he took the tape, see if he's still...

Yeah, yeah, I can go get Din.

Smash cut.

Din, I was there and there was like, I just, all I did was find one of the deliveries for the cup of noodles that we send to Hickory, his tithe, and put it in a package and wrote with my left hand so no one could recognize it and said to Hickory, slipped it in there.

That's all I did.

I saw it.

I watched them take it and I watched them bring it inside the courthouse.

Well, good job, buddy.

I'm saying that earnestly.

I thought I did a great job.

No, you didn't.

I'm proud of you.

I know you didn't fuck this up.

I say with solidarity because I owe him that.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

What all has been happening around town since that video has gone up?

Well, we've had a lot of power.

Power has been out more than half the time, so it's been a little rough.

And Spade left, so Juniper's bar isn't quite as jolly and there's much less cool art based on a bunch of queen cards.

We heard that people, other people, are missing.

Did they leave around the same time Spade did, by any chance?

I think Spade's the only one who's missing, missing.

Oh, Crandall said that like 90% of the people were missing.

Yeah, Crandall doesn't know anything.

He's great, right?

Yes, he's so great.

Great's a word I would use to describe Crandall, that's...

He just spouts nonsense.

Uh-huh.

But I will admit it's a more entertaining show now that Crandall's out.

The viewership has gone up.

Yeah, it has.

We did that at our High Five Ocean.

High Five's back.

A couple days ago, there was a big explosion reported in Subtropolis.

That's the only other thing.

Yeah.

I think we should probably explain what we've been up to.

And then Ocean is going to...

These are all part of Book's group, technically.

Yeah, so they're all his followers right now.

So Ocean is going to share pretty much everything that happened, except he's going to leave out the part with him talking to the AI.

The Microbots?

Yeah, he's going to leave out that part.

And Book does not fill it in.

Maple kind of scratches that and he goes, well, the explosion that was reported happened after I saw you last.

It couldn't have been the same thing.

What?

Yeah, it was in.

It was a place most people don't go in Chopolis.

It was a little like right when you go down the switchbacks, if you go east and there was some big tower that there's an explosion at.

What?

The explosion that we're talking about when the hospital blew up, that was also after we saw you last, wasn't it?

You came back and you sent me this guy and he points in the corner.

Yeah, that's me.

And Meanie's there.

That's true.

Oh, fuck, you're right.

Hey, Meanie.

So I guess I didn't see you, but I saw Meanie, who told me the story.

Oh.

The tower?

Did the...

Oh, man.

That's not good.

Or that's good?

Is it the tower?

I look at Ocean.

Do you think it's the tower?

The one where I found you?

I would ask if it's not there anymore, but a tower that would blow up would also not be there anymore.

But yeah.

I guess we can check it out.

Ocean, can you draw the tower that you got me at?

Yeah, I can do my best.

Ocean uses this.

He tries to draw out where he found Book and kind of pinpoint on a map.

Was it here, do you think?

Did it look like this?

And he holds it up.

It's like that Ramona flower is drawing its copy.

This is now the second thing you've ever drawn in your life to our knowledge, so it's 1% better than the last one you did.

Den goes and looks at it and he's like, yeah, that's about where it was at, I think, based on the reports we got back.

Beethoven went and said that he saw some big explosion down there.

Man, that guy's such a badass.

He's so cool.

I heard he eats cans of things by just eating the can.

He doesn't open it.

Like a goat just pulls it apart.

Even with soda cans.

Damn.

That's pretty badass.

Which is intense because the liquid, it's a lot of moving parts.

It's cool.

I'm so bad at Beethoven stuff.

I'm so bad at it.

While Ocean thinks of something he saw Beethoven do, I want to dismount Vesuvius and hold them in front of me.

Vesuvius, you remember when we filmed that video, right?

Yeah.

Yeah, I was there.

And you have a perfect memory because you're a robot?

I don't think that's true, but I can remember it.

I'm pretty sure that's true.

Can you imitate my voice and Ocean's voice and your voice?

Let me try.

At the same time?

No, no, no.

Not at the same time.

Individually.

Let me see.

I like reading books and things.

My glasses are smudged.

And I'm Ocean.

I'm...

I'm like jelly beans.

And no normal beans.

That's literally perfect.

Okay, so since they doctored our video, I think that we should doctor some audio.

Wait, why do I need you to imitate our voices?

We can just...

Yeah, you guys are right.

Alright.

I thought that had a cool idea, and now I'm realizing that everything I did was...

Anyway, Ocean, to you.

Take it back.

Take it back from what?

He didn't continue thinking.

It's fine.

Come on.

I was.

I just forgot.

Oh, man.

I heard...

Ocean jumps up and is like...

I heard when Beethoven eats salad, he just eats the dressing.

That's gross.

That's gross, man.

Nothing else.

Just with a spoon.

That's not cool.

That's not cool.

That's pretty badass.

That stuff's pretty salty.

I mean, to drink that with...

to just eat that with nothing else?

I mean, that's rough on the palate.

You gotta be a pretty tough dude.

And it's Italian vinaigrette, too.

So it's the really vinegary stuff.

That's badass, Book.

I heard that apparently he only eats salad dressing.

Apparently.

Just now I just learned that.

I heard that he's never bought a hat.

He just finds things that are flat and punches his head through them.

That would be comical if he wasn't so badass.

But yeah.

I've heard that instead of shooting a gun, he just takes a bite of metal, chews it up, spits it.

Yeah, though I heard from someone that he did that at least once.

I heard that his tooth enamel grows back like a shark's.

So we're like, he doesn't have more teeth.

They're just thicker every day.

That's expensive toothbrush set up.

Yeah, but he can chomp at it.

I mean, I think that's how he's eating the jars, you know?

Man, speaking of guns, I've heard the only time he ever used a gun was to light his own cigarette.

Like Tom from Tom and Jerry?

Wow!

Straight up.

I heard that he only showers in gasoline and he drives off with a lighter.

That's so fucking badass.

Fuck, man, that's badass.

Why can't we be as cool as him?

I don't think he's...

Wait, Vesuvius?

Book starts writing furiously in a notebook about the nature of Beethoven and the cow tools.

Things are amiss.

Let me just say that, ladies and gentlemen.

So what's our next move here?

Like, are we really taking down Hickory or is that all fake?

I mean...

Oh, no, absolutely not.

Wait, sorry.

Go ahead, Ocean.

I definitely don't think Hickory needs to remain in power, but I don't think we have the resources to go after him as we are right now.

Our video is more of us trying to expose some truths to you guys.

It wasn't us declaring war on him.

It sounds like the video definitely was tampered with, but no, I don't...

Our video's original one was actually literally a warning to try to help everyone and prevent the kind of things that ended up happening.

Yeah.

I really wish that one made it through.

We gotta talk to Beethoven about that explosion.

I think we also need to talk to Juniper.

Is it Hickory's men that are doing all this?

I don't know.

He could be rationing the power more, but you said that may have been, like, not his fault last time you were here?

Because the power went down when you exploded that thing.

Oh.

True.

Yeah, that could have been...

Yeah, we don't know.

There's a lot going on here.

Very well could have been something else.

And no one really knew why Spade was here to begin with, so I think them leaving isn't, like, too wild.

But she seemed...

she was paid by Juniper to stay, to be protection, so...

Yeah, it was a very sudden departure.

I know why Spade left.

Why?

Oh, shit.

And I think I know why that tower blew up.

Oh, shit!

Those seem like two unrelated events.

I don't think they are.

I told Spade two pieces of information that changed her psyche, their psyche.

One was that the psychic Maelstrom is man-made, and the other is that we think we know the source, and it was the tower that blew up a couple days ago.

And with that, I would like to open my mind to the psychic Maelstrom.

Oh, it's been a while since we've done that.

Normally because it goes so poorly for us.

Give me that weird role.

You're more weird right now.

I got plus two weird now.

Oh, we're both very weird now.

Fairly weird.

Oh, so you see some of this result as well.

I got snake eyes.

That's why I started describing what was happening.

So Ocean, you see his eyes kind of roll back into his head.

But unlike many of the times when someone kind of lets that always existing kind of staticky fuzz in the back of your mind wash over it, there's an immediate result all around you.

Vesuvius' head turns right into Book's ear, and this horrible screeching modem sound shoots out at an ear splitting volume.

Even you across the room from him have to cover your ears as this blares out echoing all through Hamlet Opening.

And Book, you're not fully cognizant of this.

Your eyes are just faded over and your brain immediately starts hurting.

All you can see is static and hear pain, and you quickly snap out of it, but he is just continuing to screech, just unleashing this ungodly loud noise.

Ocean rushes up to Vesuvius' head, and he puts both of his hands around Vesuvius' head, and he is going to use the healing touch.

Oh, hell yeah.

Hey, I healed all of my harm from before, right?

Yes, you guys are completely full right now, except for that.

Okay, perfect.

Oh, sweet.

That is a tin.

Okay, with a tin, as you run up, you don't have to tell me your choice.

I know what you're trying to do.

Yeah, you run up, and as you put your hands around him, there's almost like a rebooting sound, like Windows XP coming back up.

There's just this immediate silence, and then woot, and Vesuvius is back, and he shakes his head, and you go, what was that?

All my throat hurts.

Vesuvius, what just happened?

You just started screaming.

Man, there must be something wrong with me.

I don't know.

It's like soul.

It's like I ate too much jerky.

Book somehow has the wind knocked out of him, and he kind of falls to one knee, and then in between heavy breaths, says something is very wrong with the psychic maelstrom.

Kalista and Dinwallis obviously heard that as well.

They're holding their ears, and they're like shaking their heads.

All of you have a little bit of a headache, but Book, yours is like splitting.

Like you're seeing little waves in your vision still, and your ear is still ringing from the proximity of him screeching into it.

Maple looks concerned.

He's like, I think a lot of people may have heard that.

I would appreciate if you guys maybe tailed it somewhere else.

Yeah, I think that's a great idea.

We're going to go to Juniper's.

Thanks for telling us about all this.

We're going to try and make it right.

If people show up, you need to have an explanation prepared, but we appreciate it.

And if people catch us, they won't come back to you.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

I got an idea.

And he turns and goes out the back door, and it closes behind him, and you hear him go, what the hell was that?

Really loud.

I think we need to talk to Juniper.

He knows about Spade.

He was probably there when she left.

We can figure out more from him.

And while we're at it, we can go swing by.

There's the Talks of the Mural.

I imagine it's probably where we normally go for...

Are people going to be flooding the streets right now, trying to see what's going on?

Well, maybe it would be a good way to get us to Juniper without being seen.

Everybody knows this ocean.

Not a single fucking...

They shot our faces into the sky.

But if everyone's running towards Maple, if we take the back streets, Juniper is the opposite direction.

Book puts like something over his head.

Something?

Yeah.

Like the rich tapestry you're painting.

Oh, he takes the empty bag that used to have all the mushrooms that he was carrying and puts it over his head.

Not concerning at all.

As you guys go out the front door, someone give me a Rita Citroen.

I'll let Book do that since he is the more observant of the two of us.

He does have a bag on his head.

That's true.

Hey, hey, hey, nine.

Ask me two questions.

I would like to know what is my best way around to Juniper's Bar, the Broken Lake.

I would also like to know what represents the best opportunity for us to not be seen.

Great two questions for your current situation.

You think from where you're at now, going back through that Frida's Alley is probably the best, quickest way to do it.

Right now, you are correct that everyone is probably going to be kind of checking out this area, because it's going to be pretty well known that this is the direction the sound came from.

It is really hard to pinpoint like a high pitch noise like that, but people will at least be hanging in this general vicinity.

So you think either some way to distract everyone away from where you're at now, or making it so you will not be recognized at all, blend in more with the crowd, are probably your two best ways.

Hey, Ocean.

Are you thinking what I'm thinking?

What you thinking?

We stack on each other's shoulders and wear a really long jacket.

I wasn't thinking that at all, Book.

I'll be honest with you.

Okay, never mind.

Plan B.

What's Plan B?

So if we can create a distraction that makes them not look our way while we slip into Frida's alley.

Hey, Vesuvius.

Wanna do something crazy?

Crazier than that thing I just did?

No, probably not.

Objectively.

Then yes, I would like to keep it less crazy than that.

I would like to mount Vesuvius on top of my head and kind of put my jacket around his neck so that...

Because I think he still has some fleshy bits of his shoulders remaining.

He's got almost one entire shoulder.

Yes, and I think that's pretty blown off.

Yeah, so I want to use my head to fill the other shoulder.

Sorry, the other...

Yeah, I guess so.

I put the jacket over my head so I look taller and with Vesuvius' head.

This is disgusting and also you look kind of silly.

Yeah, I reckon.

Ocean's going to pull out his garbage gun and he's going to look around for just like an assortment of objects that I think if they fell, they would hit a loud noise, like a glass bottle, some large rocks, just some tin cans, just stuff that would, when it hits the ground, will make a large clattering noise.

Book looks admiringly at Ocean, shakes his head and thinks to himself, this is a worse idea than the choice he made.

I'll give you a couple options for things, and it'll work as well based on the choice you make.

So you do see there is an unbroken little glass canister that looks like maybe at some point it was designed to hold perfume, but right now it's empty.

You have no idea what Maple would have used it for, but it's sitting just on the end table, kind of in a prominent place.

Looks like it's made of some sort of crystal, so you could easily break that, put shards of there in there.

You see he does have a little baggie of marbles.

He has...

You probably couldn't fit many in there, but he has teaspoons, like the little tiny teaspoons.

The little itty bitty things.

Yeah, the little itty bitty things that you think you could fit like four of them into a shelf.

There's obviously rocks and sand everywhere, and that's not something that's difficult to get.

And one more thing...

Is there by any chance one of those Nerf footballs that has the whistle in it and also a stick of fireworks?

There are neither of those two things.

There's also one medically adjacent item.

You have to describe it though.

Jacob, I guess not Ocean, Jacob.

You can choose any medical or medically adjacent item that you would like.

I'll be honest.

I think the marbles will be working, will work absolutely perfectly for what I want to do.

They'll be deadly as fuck.

I'm not gonna shoot nobody with it.

That's true.

Ocean loads up the garbage blaster with some marbles and he steps outside and in the opposite direction of the way we need to go, away from the pathway that we're gonna bolt down once we get the distraction, Ocean's going to hold out the gun and he's gonna arc it for like a tin roof or something, something that's metal and loud, that when these marbles splatter on it, it's gonna hit it, it's gonna make a loud clanging noise, like, you know, when hail hits on a tin roof, that kind of thing.

Give me a Try Something Challenging roll.

Try Something Challenging.

Oh, that's a six.

You go and you aim it and you shoot at, there's this tin roof that's at an angle on one of the buildings.

It's like a building with a right triangle roof.

And you think if you hit there, it may just scatter them upwards and away from everyone.

And you go and you shoot at it and you do hit it.

But the gun itself, you haven't shot yet, and it makes a very loud sound as it goes off.

It is not discreet in any way.

And it definitely overshadows the sound that's made as those marbles tear directly through the roof and go out the other side of it.

Do I need to roll for my disguise?

Both of you roll me and act under fire and Ocean, you have disadvantage.

It was such a good idea.

It was such a good idea.

If you did a good roll.

That's plus some cool.

Yes.

Well, I got a seven.

Thank golly gosh.

With disadvantage.

That's a-

With disadvantage.

That's a four.

You guys quickly scurry in the direction of Frida's Alley, trying to stay away from everyone, but there is a pretty sizable group of people already heading in that direction.

And you see a few of them are Hickory's men, and one of them seems to pull out his radio, and you actually hear him squawk, or he does not try to be quiet in any way.

He goes, definitely some suspicious people walking away from-

Oh, that's Ocean.

Ocean's back.

Ocean's here.

You guys are making it basically to Frida's Alley right now.

I whispered, Ocean, can we just say sorry?

I don't think that's gonna be enough.

I literally in the video, I told Hickory I'd do the town hall thing still.

Well, if we get captured, we can plead our case.

Ocean, should we just run away?

Like, do we really need to talk to Juniper?

We've been running away this whole town, and look what's happened to Hamlet Opening.

Our time away has just caused them more suffering.

Yeah, but, but, objectively, at some level, all of the recent stuff has been our fault.

It has been.

It has been.

Oh my god.

I just want to figure out what's going on.

You're saying this while walking briskly, but not running?

Oh, no, I think we're running at this point.

I think we're running at this point.

Wait, or, um, oh, no.

Can we take a more awkward path to throw off anyone that's seen us?

Like, instead of going like the direct route, we're instead going to kind of loop around in different directions to make it seem like we're going a different way than we actually are.

What if we did like a Scooby-Doo thing where we try to make an even bigger commotion and then just start running in and out of like hallways and shit?

Well, that sounds like basically the same plan.

Yeah, I wasn't thinking about making a well, I mean, the bigger commotion.

It doesn't really.

It's basically the same idea.

Yeah, just to make people think we're going somewhere else other than where we actually are.

Book yells jinkies and then runs away from Ocean.

Where are you running towards?

What are you trying to throw them off?

Think you're going in a direction.

I want to make it look like we're going to Hickory's.

Oh, that's an interesting choice.

Yeah, Book's not sure that he likes it, but he goes with it.

Yeah, my logic behind that is Hickory is in the opposite.

We can't make him look like we're going towards Maples because that's where we just left and we told him we'd try and drive him away.

We can't make it look like we're going to Juniper because Juniper is, you know, we're trying to go.

I like it.

Yeah, Hickory did something to tamper with the tape or somebody else did.

So maybe they think we're coming over for revenge.

And so they'll just fortify Hickory's place to prep for us.

And we just don't go.

I like it.

Give me an aggro roll.

So we try something challenging.

I think aggro fits this very well.

And I've got one improvement.

But I mean, I don't think it applies here yet because I got a roll first.

OK, that's much better.

Seven.

I mean, it's a partial success.

It's better than a fucking full ass failure.

I'll take it.

You take off going in a direction that looks like it's going to bring you to the back side of that fence, the same place you guys broke in before.

And it seems like some people do circle back there.

You see more people with radios in the distance that seem to be running in that direction.

And you take a quick turn down an alleyway and start sprinting off towards Junipers.

You guys are just trying to get to the bar.

Do we see the countdown painting on the way?

No.

You guys sprint to Junipers.

There are still people all around.

You pass by the soggy worm and most people are kind of looking up.

A few people do seem to kind of clock you guys as you run by.

Book, your run is incredibly awkward as you do not have much vision.

And it's mostly Vesuvius trying to guide you in which direction to go.

He's like, lean left, lean left.

It's a little Ratatouille situation.

Well, at least your disguise worked in that case.

It's a Ratatouille situation.

You push open the doors to the Broken Leg and immediately, it seems a little more dilapidated, a little more rundown.

Definitely less people in here than last time.

And you look at the bar and Juniper is actually not there right now.

But sitting at the bar, someone in a stool slowly turns around towards you.

And it is Pistachio Jones.

Aw, damn it!

Thank you all so much for listening, and for putting up with our very extended hiatus.

A little behind the scenes knowledge is we've actually recorded a few ahead, so we're not gonna be late for a little bit now at least.

No, never again.

And recording ahead lets me know there's some pretty cool episodes coming up.

Speaking of cool episodes coming up, there will be another Talkpocalypse, Oops!

All Talkpocalypse episode, where we go over episodes 21 through 40.

That's coming up pretty soon, so if you have any questions or comments related to those episodes or anything in general, or you really just want to say hi to us, send an email to oops at stoo.cool and we will talk about it.

I'll be the music, Brady does the art, and Jacob's a Batman or something like that.

Love you, bye.

Bye-bye.

Well, I'm going to have to check that one out now.

Ooh, you guys cut me off!

You guys cut me off!