Book and Ocean start wheelin' and dealin' with the traveling merchants and get some leads on where some much needed supplies are. Then they delve back into Subtropolis to meet back up with Crandle. If that seems like a lot, it is because it is.

This one is mostly The Price is Right mixed with Junkyard Wars.

Welcome to Oops!

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

I am here with two mannequins that I have painted faces on.

Hey everybody, I am mannequin number two.

That's right.

I am the one that I Am Legend guy, John Legend fell in love with in the movie, I Am Legend.

What a powerful reference.

Thank you very much.

I play Book McCready, a sleuth who did not have OCD, but he does now after seeing what people did to his house.

And I'm mannequin number seven, and I play Ocean, a gentle giant who is a professional at home makeovers.

That's true.

Well, I wouldn't say he actually is a professional.

He's kind of a slob.

To him, he's a professional, but to everyone else, it probably looks like a rat's nest.

Hell yeah.

That's the best kind though, because that means no one's going to bother trying to steal from you, but you'll know if they do.

In two-ish episodes, I would say, depends on how fast you guys are, what crazy weird things you do.

Any percent speed run, let's do this.

Yeah, we're going to be doing a recap for the first arc of things that happen.

Oh, is that what we're doing today?

Not today.

I'm sorry, I know you're excited.

Jacob, when you're listening, he said in maybe two to three episodes.

Jacob is holding a mic while talking.

He can't listen to what I'm saying.

Jacob is a mic stand and a mic and a speaker.

We are going to be running through basically everything that's happened up to this point.

So we could probably use it as like a kicking off point for new listeners also, if they want to.

Like just a super quick recap, but it's mostly going to be questions.

So if anyone happens to have any questions about anything, you can send them to us at oops at Stu dot cool.

That's an email address.

OOPS at Stu dot cool.

And we will probably answer them because we'll only get like four.

Yeah.

Shouldn't Jacob and I be coming with questions?

Yes, you absolutely should be having questions.

I got to think of some questions.

I got a few questions I can think of.

Yeah.

Come up with some good things.

And I will basically answer anything you have that doesn't have some lasting impact to the story.

I'm going to answer.

I'm going to ask very strategic questions that don't seem strategic, but they actually are.

I would not bet on you outsmarting me.

That's fucking rude as shit, first of all.

But second of all, I'm going to ask you what Hickory's middle name is so that I can have authority over him.

His true name, as he is an Eldritch being.

Yeah.

Our question to fall in love this week is, what do you value most in a friendship?

I think Ocean values reliability the most.

Somebody that he can trust to help him with tasks, that he can feels like he can, you know, be an equal partner in whatever adventures and quests are going on.

So I think making sure that he wants to make sure that he doesn't have any, like, flakes or people that he doesn't really trust.

So somebody that he's that's reliable, dependable and trustworthy.

And that seems to be what Ocean values most, which I think sums up book pretty well.

Oh, that's sweet.

So someone who you can say, hey, I need you and you know.

Exactly.

They'll be right there.

Come whirling around that corner with questionable weaponry.

Yep.

I think book in a similar vein, I mean, we obviously, we learned two episodes ago that book really values competence.

But I think in a friend specifically, loyalty is more important.

Just somebody who's got your back and isn't going to turn you into hickory to get, you know, a leg up, you know.

Yeah.

So like Kalista.

No.

And like Frieda.

Thanks Frieda, our friend even now.

I mean, so we don't know that that happened, but that's true.

Book is pissed.

Book wakes up big.

Book wakes up pissed.

He just feels it in his bones.

I think what I value most in friendship is someone who is just very passionate about something.

I don't care what it is.

It could be like turtles.

And if they can tell me all the different types of turtles and the different the reasons they have different shaped feet, I'll be like, this is super interesting because I just want people to be able to talk about things they like that they enjoy.

I don't care about any of that stuff.

What do we like, Stu?

Or are we not friends?

This is how we learned that we're not friends.

This is how you learn that I don't like either of you guys at all because you've never told me about why some turtles have different back feet than other turtles.

It's like, oh, they got interesting voices and that's all I really care about.

So let's drag them on the podcast.

Me and Brady frequently talk about really weird podcasts and improv and computer science.

Brady likes all of those things a lot, and we'll discuss them in detail.

And then some music, but then me and Jacob also more specifically music.

Me and Jacob can talk about the naughty hotties whenever.

We both have very sad boy slash sad girl taste in music.

Brady's very offended right now.

Everyone can't see his face, but he's contemplating his life.

No, that's fair.

I think that's accurate.

Hey, everybody, and welcome to Book Snook of Booktakes.

Book Snook of Booktakes!

You get a creed over here to play the intro for us.

Special guest host of Book Snook of Booktakes is Stu this week, who has very recently...

How many words can we mispronounce in this intro?...

who has recently read and watched the Station Eleven book slash series, and it was so good, you all should read it and also probably watch the TV show.

I didn't even know there was a TV show.

Yeah, I'm a little biased because I read the book first, and I liked it way better than the TV show.

But I think if I hadn't, I would have been like, oh, this is a cool show.

But it is probably the book that is most similar to something I could see being written based on an Apocalypse World campaign.

The conceit behind one of the storylines, it's kind of like nonlinear and follows before, during, and after an apocalypse.

But in the post apocalypse, it's literally a traveling troupe of musicians and Shakespearean actors going from town to town just dealing with apocalypse shit the entire time.

That would be such a fun game to play.

Like that would be my favorite game to be a player in.

That's what I say.

That sounds absolutely incredible.

Yeah, it would be so much fun.

But the book itself is also just like beautiful and about struggle and hope and hopelessness and all the sorts of fun things.

So everyone should read it.

I read the whole thing in one day because I liked it so much.

I've seen the book at the store, like at random bookstores and stuff, and I really like the cover.

Like it's such a beautiful looking cover with like the little tents and the dark blue sky.

And then the simple text.

But I honestly did not know there was a show about it.

Yeah, I would read it before the show.

The biggest thing, I'm not someone who's like very strict on, oh, that's different than the book.

And it like gets me mad because I have the strong opinion that they're different mediums.

So they should show different things.

What the TV series does way better is it does spend some more time in that post apocalyptic part because that's where like action fun things are.

And that's what TV shows are good at showing.

So it kind of while the book jumps over over the place more and can sit on foreshadowing for a longer amount of time.

That's cool.

The way the book deals with some characters, the characters are all pretty similar.

Some of them are a little different, but the way it deals with some I just liked way better, which I won't get into without spoiling it.

But read the book and then also watch the TV show.

Or if you don't have time for a book, just watch the TV show.

It's still pretty nice.

That's my book Snook Recommendation.

I love that.

In the vein of mispronouncing lots of words recently, I give my dog flea and tick medication every month.

And every time I get the flea and tick medication, I say, I accidentally, it's never on purpose, I always say tea and flick medication.

That's interesting.

But do you remember that really good commercial that was, they had a parody of Camp Granada where it was the cute little puppy singing?

Hello, mother, hello, father.

Oh, shit, that just triggered a memory that I had repressed.

I'd like to show you all my new tricks.

Thanks for getting me Canine Advantage.

Man, I had repressed that apparently, but that just flashed in my head, that exact commercial.

That's my favorite non-berries and cream commercial of all time.

Nice.

And with that, let's get back to the actions.

Okay, so where we left off last time, I'm the host now.

Because I don't want to let Stu do something else without us.

We left off, I was giving the traveling salespeople who had shacked up in my house.

I was giving them 15 minutes to put all of my shit that they stole back and getting out of my house.

And as soon as that is done, I would like to go inside and look at the mirror and make sure it's not broken and see if I see the little...

This has already happened.

This is revisionist history.

You've already done all of this.

You're asleep right now.

Wait, did we look at the light?

Yeah.

Oh shit.

You looked at the light, you recorded a whole last tape.

Oh yeah!

I did do that.

And that's what that's what Frida took.

Now I have to cut out all of you pretending to be the host in the intro and say, previously...

How about before I go to bed, can I take a book off of one of my shelves?

I'm gonna look and see if I can find a book, a specific book.

Yeah, what book?

It's the Book of Marine Biology.

Yes.

And I want to take it off of my shelf.

I don't want to look for the page about cephalopods.

And I want to flip it open.

I want to slide it across the table towards ocean.

And I want to point at a squid slash octopus slash cuttlefish.

And I want to say, hey, was this what you saw in your vision?

And I'm pointing to a tentacle.

It does look like what you saw in your vision.

Yes.

Yeah, that's remarkably similar.

The timeline of how all of this is happening is terrible to me.

I hate it.

We've left and gone back to the intro.

And we've gone.

I want to...

Oh, shit.

Ocean can't read.

No, I can't read.

I was going to be like, let's look into this.

Then I shrugged and was like, okay, cool.

And I go to bed.

Yeah, it looks kind of similar.

It was massively different scale, but when you saw the walls kind of writhing in that last one and you saw those weird circular shapes, it looks a lot like the sucker on the bottom side of a tentacle.

Oh, my God.

I never even considered it to be a wall of like a tentacle or something.

But it looked very stone like though.

It was like stone colored.

Oh, that's so weird.

So then I flip to the page where it talks about, what are they called?

Shit, I know this.

So octopus, some octopus and all cuttlefish and some squids, they have specific cells, chromatophores.

They have chromatophores in their skin that allow them to change color.

So I talk about that.

So I said, it's possible it looked like stone because it changed the color of its chromatophores to match its environment.

There's some big words, Book, but that's so bizarre.

What would a creature like that be doing deep underground like this?

I have a more important question.

What was the spider doing in your vision?

What was I doing in my vision?

No, but didn't you make the spider after you?

Yeah, we worked on it together.

Right.

So could that vision have been from the future?

I don't know.

Maybe it's something that I forgot when I was going on on one of my expeditions on my own, and I just never...

something occurred, and I just blocked it out.

I have no idea.

Maybe it's not even necessarily something that's happened.

Maybe it's just something we've missed.

Maybe it's a metaphor.

Maybe it is a metaphor.

Out of character, Jacob, I spent, like...

I re-listened to that vision, the recording of that vision, probably up, like, a hundred and five times.

I'm just trying to figure out what the heck that thing is.

Going through, like, logically, I was like, okay, it was like an arching structure of stone with disks on it.

And so I was like, I was like drawing it and redrawing it in my head.

And then eventually I landed on something that looked like a tentacle.

And I was like, huh, maybe it was a tentacle.

Fun fact for me is there is no scientific term for suckers.

The scientific term is sucker, and I hate that so much.

So you guys go to sleep and book snuck.

It's been cleared out of all the vagrants who had been staying here.

You don't notice anything like overtly missing from a cursory glance.

How do you sleep with Vesuvius' head on you?

Do you leave it there or do you give him like his own pillow?

No, I put I put his head on like, I guess he needs it.

I asked Vesuvius, how do you want me?

Like, how do you want us?

Do you sleep?

Yeah, of course I sleep.

How do you want to?

I try to get my eight hours every night because it keeps me on my feet for all those many hours of guard duty I would be on.

Do you want a pillow?

Do you want me to like strap you to the back of a chair upright?

Do you like how do you?

I'm normally a side sleeper, so just maybe put my head on a pillow.

And he is on my right shoulder, right?

Yeah.

So I put him on his left side so that his weird fleshy bits aren't blocking his comfortability.

Aren't impeding his comfortability.

So you detach him and put him down?

Does he grow spider legs like in the thing?

Nope, not yet.

He...

Not yet.

He very quickly drifts off to sleep.

And I'm guessing...

Does he honk shoo or?

Yes, I mentioned that previously.

That he does honk shoo sleep.

You already did know he slept because you watched him do it as he looked inside of his fleshy hole before.

That's true.

That sounded...

Yeah.

That sounded, hey...

That's what you did.

I didn't say he didn't say you could, but you did.

Book is sleeping and he's having a dream about all of the mysteries he hasn't solved.

That sounds like a nightmare.

Yeah, it is.

You guys wake up kind of naturally.

There may be a little bit of a startle.

This is me pulling this completely out of my ass, but I assume Book is a little bit less...

More of a light sleeper.

I think Ocean sleeps like a brick.

He's so tired all the time.

He just dozes off in like 30 seconds.

He's got that military sleep power.

So you wake up first, Book, and you wake up halfway through a sentence of Maple talking to you, and he apparently has just led himself into your cave.

He's coming with...

He has a big cup of coffee in his hand and a cigarette, and he's just halfway through a conversation with you that you've been sleeping through this entire time.

Was I responding?

No, not at all.

He was just talking to two sleeping people.

So I think that's going to be probably the safer option, but I don't know if you'll be able to get as much out of it.

What's going...

Maple?

How did you get in?

You got to get ready to go.

You got to leave soon.

The door was locked.

How did you get in?

Oh, don't worry about that.

Not a problem.

I'll fix it later.

Don't worry.

What?

Fuck.

Something tells me Maple has a less than ethical background.

I sit up and I start like slapping Ocean Shoulder.

What were you saying?

Why do I have to leave?

Where am I going?

You guys owe me my medical supplies that you promised you'd get right when I got you on your feet.

Yeah.

And I've been giving you the couple of leads that I think would be very fruitful for you.

You have been?

Meaning, like, your went?

Now, yeah, I've gone through.

You guys, you got to listen way better than you are.

We were sleeping, sir.

That was evident.

At this hour?

What time is it?

What time is it?

You look at the clock, it's very early.

Sir, did you ask the people selling the things out front if they had any medical supplies?

I'll buy them for you.

They're still sleeping, and they're not going to have the quantity that I'm going to need, I bet.

Yeah, those lazy people, they're just out there sleeping still.

It's ridiculous.

It's like four o'clock in the morning.

But just the quick recap, I guess, is...

Can you give me a second, dude?

Yeah, can you please put some pants on?

It's...

Yeah, I can.

It's very unbecoming.

I can.

I can.

Turn around.

Ocean's sleeping on his full cargo pants, his jacket, and he's sleeping in full clothes.

Are your knee pads still on?

Knee pads still on and everything.

Oh, that's so uncomfortable.

I would like to put my pants on and grab Vesuvius' head and press his on button.

There's no on button, but you shake him a little bit like a Magic 8 ball.

Good morning, morning, morning.

I got a nice restful sleep, man.

My back feels great.

That's because I've never felt this loose.

I feel like I was carrying a lot of tension in my torso, and it being completely removed from me has really freed up a lot of neck and back pain.

Yeah, you were also carrying a lot of TNT in your torso.

I think that was near my appendix, but I'm not a scientist.

Was the couch comfortable?

Did you sleep all right?

Oh, yeah, slept great.

He like stretches.

Yeah, good rest.

And he like dusts his dust knee pads off.

Did you have any more, any other things we should review?

Any other visions?

And I feel weird saying visions in front of Maple.

He like whispers it into my ear and I'm like, no, actually, I don't think I had any dreams.

Okay, no more tentacles.

No, no more tentacles.

Only the good kind of tentacle dreams.

No, no tentacles.

Stu's making a face.

Stu did not like that.

No, I don't know.

I don't really know what causes them.

They seem to just come on out of nowhere.

Like some deity is just putting them in my head random times between important moments.

So you got two options here.

There's a hospital down in Subtropolis that some less than savory folks work out of.

In the past, Beethoven apparently has worked with them and been able to get some supplies from them.

But they are chock-a-block full of all sorts of different things.

Do they take batteries?

If they are willing to trade with you, they will take batteries probably.

That's kind of a definite choice.

But I've also heard that, do you know about the stew?

The stew?

Yeah, it's a little bit down the long dark.

There's these tunnels and chambers that just flood without any known reason about them.

And there are some people that live down there.

And I've heard some rumors that they have come across a big collection of some medical supplies and were potentially willing to trade.

That one is a little less definite.

I think those are in general some nicer people than who lives in the hospital, but that's a pretty dangerous region.

I don't know if it's any more or less dangerous than Subtropolis though.

Listen, Maple, what's our timeline on this?

Well, I'm really completely out, so every day I don't have them.

People are probably going to get sick and someone may scrape themselves with a nail and die because they don't have antibiotics.

Book, when Book hears scrape with a nail, he feels the pain from his psychic maelstrom cut again.

And he shudders, and he looks at Vesuvius without a body, and he shudders again.

And then he looks at Maple, who I assume just is peering at him very intently, and he shudders a third time.

And then I just say, all right, I guess that makes it pretty clear.

I can draw you.

I don't really know much about navigating the stew.

Not many people do, but I can drop a map of roughly where this hospital is at in Subtropolis.

He'll go to your chalkboard and draw a rudimentary map.

Looking at it, does it seem like it's near anywhere near Crandle's turf, or is it kind of in a completely different area?

It's not completely out of the way.

It's not down where the yellow Humpty people are in their turf.

All right, Maple, we'll be in touch.

We'll get on that unless you want to come with us.

See you soon.

And he walks out.

What do you think, you think the hospital or the stew?

First things first, those those people outside out front seem to have both information and and gear.

So did did Maple give us like a list of what he needs?

Nope.

Is he still?

I run outside.

Hey, Maple.

Yeah.

Do you have a list of what you need?

Oh, just all sorts of things.

I'm like out of everything.

Definitely need antibiotics.

I need some bandages and any sort of painkiller is always good.

You know, the normal stuff.

Blood.

Blood is a great thing.

Anything I've given you, basically.

I try to scratch all that down on my notepad.

All right.

We'll ask the people for a little bit of everything.

Good luck.

All right.

So I turn back to Ocean.

I say, listen, we have those people that were traveling and that guy who talked really fast.

We should ask them about this too, see if they know anything.

I was just about to say, I bet they probably have much better information on these places.

I'm sure they've probably done business with both of these groups.

All right.

I chuck my coat on.

I strap Vesuvius to my shoulder.

Was that a burp?

No, that was Vesuvius getting strapped noise.

All right.

And then I, oh, I checked the mirror.

Is there a light?

There is not a light.

I would like to, yeah, I think I just throw a quick bag together because I figure we're just going to roll out right from here of some supplies.

And then let's walk down to the to the caravan and ask them for information and goods.

Give me a barter roll.

This will determine your buying power.

All right.

So I got a an 11.

I got a natural 12 minus one.

Oh, nice.

I got an eight.

Okay.

On a 10 plus, you are very rich.

And on seven to nine, you are only rich.

SlimothyGemothy sees you guys coming up, coming out of the house.

And he goes, hey, who was that first guy who came out?

That was a medical man.

Oh, okay.

Are you having...

Do you have some scrapes and bruises on you?

I must say your clothes don't look great.

We are recovering from a slight interaction with a concussive blast.

Yeah, we had some issues.

By the way, does our harm change at all from sleeping?

I'll let you guys each get one back.

Sweet.

I'll be nice.

Yeah, that is very nice.

But what I'd like to say to Slimothy...

Slimothy?

I'd like to walk up to him, shake his hand.

So yeah, we're currently recovering, but we're both doing well.

You know, you already actually got a pretty good look at what I have to barter, but I'd like to also just say that I have quite a lot of information that you might find valuable as well.

And I kind of pat him on the shoulder and I go, since you guys have been making good use of my front step, my front lawn, I was thinking that maybe we could, you know, create a deal here where, you know, you're welcome to continue using this space, but maybe we have a partnership going forward.

Anytime you come back through, you share what you've found in the long dark and maybe on the rest of your travels.

I think that sounds very amicable.

You do have a very nice place there, where you got a strange collection of things.

I noticed you had a lot of books and a lot of written material.

You a big reader?

It's one of my favorite things to do.

Excellent.

Yeah, no, we got some big readers here, too.

We like to scrounge up whatever we can.

There's a lot of people who are really into how the world worked before everything went to shit, and they just really enjoy going through all that shit.

Yeah, I would say when you guys come through, like I said, anytime you want to stop here and use this as your place of operations, feel free to knock on the door if I'm there.

Obviously, I'll be happy to trade some books with you or maybe even function as a library while you're here.

You know, your kids are welcome to borrow some books as long as they give them back.

And you know, like I said, we can swap some information, keep each other well-informed.

Excellent.

No, that sounds like a great trade.

Well, what are you looking for?

Right now, I think the main thing that we want to know is if you have any information about the stew.

What specifically?

I'm sure you know it's a place where there's this periodic flooding sort of thing, goes on, it's pretty gross in there.

We try to stay away generally.

What are you looking for?

Well, we heard that there may be some supplies that just were discovered around there that our medical man might need.

And we might be in a position of acquiring some.

I'm also kind of just curious what we need to know about the place itself.

Neither book nor I have ever been there, so the customs of the people, things to be on the lookout for, that kind of thing.

Well, we don't like to give away some of our sources of resources very easily.

Do you have anything you would be willing to give up for some of that?

Slimothy, I think I might have a book on scuba diving.

Would that help in your future, like if you need to go into the stew in the future?

What is scuba diving?

So maybe not.

Scuba diving, it's where you strap air tanks to yourself and use that to breathe underwater so that you can search the bottom of deep places.

Oh, that is very cool.

No, yeah, I think we could definitely have some people who are interested in that.

The book is called Shadow Divers.

Is that a real book?

Did you come up with that?

No, it's a real book.

Have you read it?

I have.

Is it informational or narrative?

It's both.

So it's informational.

It talks about there's this group of divers in New Jersey who discovered a U-boat, I think it was 60 miles off the coast.

Is that slang for Unterseeboot?

It's a submarine, a German submarine from World War II.

Actually, yeah, it's from World War II.

And in all of the identification, markings on the outside of the submarine had been worn away by time.

So they had to go into the submarine and search for a way to identify, figure out which submarine it was.

And so they had to figure out ways to be able to dive longer.

They obviously didn't.

With the current practices, it wasn't safe for them to be down for long enough.

And obviously they had to deal with things like the bends.

And so they actually experimented with different air mixes and different equipment.

And it's super, super interesting because it talks about a lot of developments in scuba diving that are now in practice today.

And then it also goes to the story of like how they identified the U-boat and the story of the U-boat.

It's a very good book.

Okay, yeah, he would definitely be interested in that.

If you go get that for him, he'll tell you what he knows about the stew.

Yeah, I run in and I grab Shad of Divers.

Is there anything you want, Ocean?

You guys, each get one.

You can work together.

Do you think maybe we could ask one of them to be a guide for us?

I think that could be very helpful.

We don't really know the area.

They know way more about the stew than we do.

Yeah, that could be helpful.

And we have, you know, we're coming from a pretty strong position here.

I mean, obviously, you look like you could protect just about anybody.

It could be beneficial to have somebody actually be able to show us around, show us how to get there, tell us about the customs, things we can avoid.

And then we'll say, as opposed to trading something for it now, maybe we'll let them have, you know, part of what we find.

Yeah, I like that.

That's a good idea.

I think that sounds like a kind of agreement on top of that first thing.

If there's anything else you want to ask for it to you.

OK, that's cool.

Something unrelated to that.

Something unrelated to that.

No, I think I think it's a good idea.

Oh, I just had.

Oh, my goodness.

So you've been down to the stew a lot.

What do you have any possible resources or leads on ways to make a buggy sized vehicle waterproof, as in maybe be able to go down in the depths just a little bit?

Let's see.

I'm not I'm not one of our technical people.

You know, I'm more of a people person.

But I think if you went and talked to Clever Hans, he may know just what you need.

OK, hold on.

Ocean's one.

He I warn you, he kind of he's pretty unique in the types of things he likes.

He's a he's more of a mechanic man.

Oh, yeah, me too.

That would be useful to him that way.

Then.

OK, well, hold on.

Let me run back.

Oh, look, you can talk to him for a bit, but I'm going to run back and grab some things from my place.

OK, so while Ocean does that, I'd like to talk to him about that agreement about sending someone with us as a guide.

We really we don't like to lose our people like we are.

We're very close in it here.

We're all basically like a family.

We could have someone show you how to get there.

I don't know if I would feel comfortable with them going all the way into the stew with you.

OK.

Because it is, like I said, it's a pretty dangerous place, but they can tell you all you need to know on the way.

I think that would be fair for maybe a small cut of what you get back from them.

Yeah, let's say we'll do a 20-80 split.

He shakes her hand and he starts asking around for who's OK for taking a week off to go hang out with two new people.

Hell, yeah.

I hope it's Timothy, Jimothy Jr.

I'm assuming Ocean's back already because he runs really fast.

Yeah.

Well, not all the houses are close by.

I was about to say, he's got his arms full of shit.

Specifically, what Ocean is doing is he's bringing the spider in his hands.

No, he's driving the spider.

He's bringing the spider over.

So you hear that rrrr of his janky little buggy thing, the spider.

You smell the diesel?

Mm-hmm.

So he's driving that in, and he's got the radiator device in his back.

Because I think if he's a mechanically minded individual, that could make a pretty good trade for helping make this thing a semi-aquatic cave climbing car driving vehicle, road driving vehicle.

Ocean, that's one of the things that was glowing, right?

Yeah.

Are you sure that we're not going to need that to assemble into some sort of mechatronic thing later in the story?

It seemed like it was glowing for a reason.

Or we're not going to be building any Gundams or anything?

I think, from what I've been able to tell about this device, I just don't see a means for us with our current capabilities of making use of it.

It seems like it requires a very advanced cooling rig, and I don't think we're going to be building any crazy computers.

So I think for the time being, if I can trade this into upgrading the Spider into a much more capable way, I think in the long run, that will be more beneficial for us.

And hey, I'm going to lean over to Book and be like, if it turns out we need it later, you just steal it back.

Hell yeah, man.

That's dope as shit.

That was Vesuvius leaning on to listen to her.

Wait, what did Vesuvius say?

Hell yeah, man.

That's dope as shit.

Book has serious moral quandaries about his two compatriots, but he just nods.

Slimothy Timothy points you towards Clever Hans.

So he's going to drive up to Clever Hans, and he's going to come up and say, Hey, are you Clever Hans?

Yeah, that's me.

He's going to hold on to his hand in a motion.

Slimothy Timothy sent me your way on possibly doing some trades and upgrades on my vehicle here.

Nice to meet you.

He's actually very skinny.

He doesn't look anything like you, but when you grasp his hand, it is just leather.

It feels just like yours.

You can hear an audible gritting.

I was about to say, it's like that handshake scene in Predator.

Ocean feels like he's met some...

Dust explodes between their fingers.

It's like instead of Muscle Man, it's just two very, very overworked people who are just clinging on to dear life.

So much less cool.

Well, I've got some stuff that I think I'd be willing to trade for you if you could help me kit out my vehicle here.

We're thinking about traveling down to the stew, and I'd like to make my vehicle a little bit more traversable with the water.

Let me look at it, and he pours over the vehicle, trying to see how it works.

He has you turn it off and on a couple times.

He notices the areas that are just exposed batteries with wires unprotected, no insulation connecting them to each other.

And he goes, I think I can do it.

The big thing is making sure engine does not flood with the water.

It'd be a pretty steep price, pretty heavy hours over the next couple of days.

Well, here, I'll show you something I got for trade.

I lean into ocean and go, that would give us time to check on Crandle.

Ooh, that's like perfect, actually.

As you show him the radiator, his eyes just start glowing.

They go wide as they could possibly be, and he starts reaching for it like a child seeing a cookie on a counter.

I'm about to say, I'm going to swat his hands but not until we have a deal.

He goes to shake your hand.

He goes, this is a fair trade.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Meanwhile, canonically, this thing is worth more than every building in Subtropolis.

To pick it up, he literally hugs it and rests his head on the top of it, and then grabs it up and brings it back over to his workstation.

And you see at first, he starts trying to investigate it clearly.

He starts pulling out all these different magnifying glasses that stack on each other, and then he shakes his head and realizes he's supposed to be working on your shit.

And he goes and puts some gloves on, and he starts working.

And what he's going to do is try to insulate all of the electronics.

He's going to try to attach a snorkel to it.

So you're going to be able...

And he lets you know that it's not going to be like full-ass submarine submergible, but you're going to be able to go through water as long as you have a clear path to air above you.

Hell yeah, I think that's pretty dope.

Dude, he reminds me of the guy from...

Do you remember Atlantis, the animated Atlantis movie?

Do you remember the really old Tinker guy?

No, the mole guy, but then there was also the...

Did he have big glasses?

The old lanky guy with the glasses.

Yeah, because the mole guy is obsessed with dirt, and this guy was like...

Just like Ocean.

Yeah, yeah.

Maybe Ocean and the mole man.

Ocean is the mole guy to this guy's old lanky guy from Atlantis.

I have to look up his name now.

Hold on, hold on.

But he gets to work.

While that happens, Slimothy Timothy says, Do you want me to give you the rundown now, or do you want to wait till the person we send to escort you there?

They can kind of tell you everything you need to know if you don't mind waiting a little bit till you head out.

Two days, sounds like.

Yeah, two days.

Two days works.

We'll hold off on...

Just so I don't have to explain this now and then again in the next episode.

But yeah, we'll hold off on getting the information from you until we come back.

Okay, sounds good.

See you guys in a couple days then.

Alright, I feel like we...

The guy's name is Cookie from Atlantis.

Cookie?

Cookie Masterson, my namesake.

Ocean, do you want to take the jeep to check on Crandle?

Ocean will longingly look at the spider and then look at the jeep with its...

Awful paint job?

No winch, no crazy wall climbing capabilities.

Bright white paint job.

With its stinking four wheels and be like...

It does have a 21 pilot CD.

And be like, yeah, let's take your jeep.

We both got the exact same record.

Same...

Yeah, it's Vessel.

Yeah, that's the one that Ocean was listening to when he was smoking.

But you were listening to car radio.

So yeah, as we get into the jeep and you play it, Ocean has like a brief flashback to that moment and you see a single tear rolled down his cheeks.

Nice.

You guys are booking through Subtropolis.

You know what that means?

Oh, it's that stupid roll.

Plunder Subtropolis.

It's that stupid roll that we can never truly succeed.

I rolled a 9 and Ocean would like to help, probably.

Ocean can help, especially since he's navigating.

8 for help.

Okay, that does improve it to the next level.

That's cool.

Which means that we don't lose anything and we don't get lost, which means that we probably get followed.

Okay, you're choosing to get followed.

Choosing to be followed.

Because I don't want to lose nothing.

When we get to the bottom of the switchbacks, I would like to stop by the sewer grate that the Mole Monster crawled out of.

Is the body of Vesuvius' friend still there?

Yes.

It still has the cloth over top of it, or it may have just been her jacket.

But yeah, it looks just like when you saw it.

It's like super rotting and gross.

If you get close and poke around, probably.

I say to Vesuvius, hey man, you may want to close your eyes for this.

Thank you for warning me.

And I'd like to get a tarp out of the jeep, and I want to collect the body so we can bury it.

Oh, that's sweet.

Yes.

I feel like there's an Altair mode of the game.

Well, I mean, no.

I'm not going to like dissect the body, but I do want to bury it, because I remember like last time, I didn't even like...

I just stole her gun and went in search of Ocean, and now that we have some more time to actually...

And then I'm going to also go inspect the sewer grate, and I want to go down there with my flashlight.

You go down?

I have a hand-held flashlight this time.

You shine your flashlight down the tunnel.

You know which way are you looking towards or going towards the direction where you fought the cheese monster before.

I have my flashlight in one hand and my machine pistol in the other.

Ocean, are you following them too?

Yeah.

Are you just waiting?

No, I'm not following.

You both splash-pash into the water.

Right now, it's very shallow.

You don't have to be too worried about all those disgusting bugfish that were crawling in you last time.

First thing I want to do is I want to go to where I tossed the jerky.

Is the jerky still there?

The jerky is not there.

Who knows what kind of critters?

Yeah, I mean, it's been a while.

It's been a couple weeks.

But I also want to go towards the nest, the cheese monster nest.

And I'm not like Tate.

I'm being careful with the light, because obviously I know it's afraid of light.

But I'm not as timid as last time.

You're heading down.

I just kind of drop forward.

Yeah, the splashes are echoing all the way down, and you don't hear any horrific scraping noise or anything like that as you move down.

Your light does pass over the back of a body.

You see a body in the tunnels.

Is it the cheese monster?

No.

This is around the corner from the cheese monster nest where you saw it getting attacked by the wolves.

This is a body face down.

You see some dark hair and some like completely tattered clothes.

I'd like to flip it over.

As you go up towards it, give me a read a situation roll.

That's scary.

Okay, I got a 13.

Ask three questions right now.

What is the threat?

What is the best biggest threat?

What should I be on the lookout for and who's in control here?

I will say you're not going to get any useful information for that last one.

So if you want to ask me a different question, you can.

What is my...

Yeah, what represents the best opportunity for me to identify this body?

You look down on it and you recognize the back of this person looks exactly like you.

Hair is the same, torso is the same, legs are all the same.

Does Ocean see this or is Ocean kind of standing back?

I'm going to say Ocean...

I was about to say, I'm going to say Ocean standing back and doesn't...

He like sees the body and he's going to like, right before Book went up to investigate on who was here, I'll watch out.

I'm flipping it over, yeah.

Oh wait, no, answer the rest of my questions.

As you turn over the body, you see the front is all torn up, but the face is like blank.

It's like there's nothing there.

It's like vaguely humanoid shaped.

There's a spot for eyes, there's a mouth, but it does not look anything like you.

It looks like almost like a kind of putty-y random dude.

Okay.

An extra random type person.

And then I want to investigate the wounds, and does it look like either wolf bites or gunshot wounds?

Neither.

It looks a lot like the claws from the monster in all the wounds.

And you notice, looking very carefully at it, that these wounds are all exactly where the ones that were on you are.

And you actually look at some of the scars that you still have, or some of the healing wounds on you are in exactly the same spot, like 100%.

Okay, I definitely call Ocean over.

Ocean...

Ocean will come up and is like, What's going on?

What?

And he's going to see the body and go, Holy shit.

And I point to, like, I don't know what's going on.

I stumbled past the body and I want to go look at the cheese monster nest.

Okay, you turn the corner, you shine your light down there, you're hit by that rancid smell you noticed before, and you see the monster is torn to shreds on the ground.

Huh.

So, wow.

And like, if you look closer, I'm not gonna make you roll for anything, checking them out.

It looks like wounds you would have expected from the wolves.

Like what you saw happen.

Teeth marks and claws and weird burns.

Okay.

Weird burns.

I dig that.

But they're in the areas where you would expect to see wounds.

Okay.

I turned to Ocean, and I said, I think we should grab this body too.

Not the cheese monster, the me.

Real quick, so while Book is going over to investigate the cheese monster nest, Ocean is gonna get on down on his knees, and he is gonna look at it, and he's gonna touch it and see if it will speak.

Because it says whenever you handle or examine something interesting, roll weird.

This seems pretty interesting.

Give me that roll.

I love this move so much.

All right, let's see.

Come on, give me something good.

I almost just started telling you things.

I got so excited.

I forgot you had to roll.

I want to get a full success for that.

That was a nine.

Choose one question.

I keep only getting freaking nines.

Okay, let's see.

Yeah.

All right, Stu.

I'm going to go with what has been done most recently with this or to this.

You touch this weird body.

And as you're moving around it, you see that the front part is like how I described.

Like it's just kind of generic, kind of gooey face.

But as you're looking at it, the backside of it, you've seen books back more than he has.

People don't have a lot of mirrors, you know.

It is 100% accurate.

Like you see a little freckle he has on the back of his neck is right where it should be.

The hair is exactly like his.

The build is 100% the same.

And you go and touch this body, and you just feel it almost speaking out to you in this just muddled voice that's just like that starts like kind of chirping, and it actually reminds you a lot of the radio you heard with all the beeps and boops coming through very quickly, but kind of more organic and gross.

And you seem to just understand what happened nearby this recently.

And you see some of the men that you saw come out of the yellow humvees carrying this body and putting it in the sewer and positioning it in a very precise way and heading back out.

That's neat.

Huh.

Ocean's going to turn a book and be like, this body was placed here by those people in the yellow humvees.

It wasn't just here, it was placed.

Vesuvius, you mentioned the yellow humvee guys.

Yeah, they are.

I don't know about them.

Not much at all, I will say.

They, we were told to stay out of their area.

They would not encroach on us.

If we were moving around in our zone, we would not be bothered by them.

And sometimes we would see them out when we're going on expeditions, and they would also seem to leave us alone.

They would always be like very ominous looking at us.

But if we had, if we were ever going out into their area, they have just shot at us.

Just basically on reflex.

We stay away from them.

They're pretty scary.

They got very good weaponry.

I think we should take this body.

Starting a collection.

Does it smell bad?

Everything smells bad down here.

So it is impossible.

No, I'm not starting a collection.

I want to bury your friend, but I also think that maybe having a dead body that looks like me could be useful in terms of getting hickory off our back.

Yeah, we need to disfigure the front a little bit more, because right now it just looks like a person made of clay.

I grab another tarp from the back of the Jeep.

You're down to eight tarts.

And I roll this body up and I put it next to the other one.

Where did we get all these tarts?

Oh, God, we got we see this is see, we should have known to not get followed because the yellow fucking honvy people.

Oh, God.

Now that we've taken the body now that we now that OK, so Book Book is thinking about this now, and he realizes that they've been like their car has been sitting.

This bright white Jeep has been sitting out in the open for a while.

I'm like, oh, we got to go.

So I want to hop in.

I want to drive as fast as we safely can to Crandle's place.

You're booking along.

I forgot.

We didn't clarify this.

What does Vesuvius' disguise look like?

Oh, it's like a caterpillar of a mustache, sunglasses and a hat.

What type of hat?

A Lofedora.

OK.

So the hat is always poking me in the chin.

OK, so he looks like Tyson Park.

Not very Burt Reynolds-y.

So you peel off.

Give me a Rita Sitch.

Who?

Whoever's driving.

Oh, I'm driving.

My car.

That's a ten, baby.

OK, you would have been able to help, but you don't need to.

Ask me three questions.

So many questions today.

OK, now would who's in control here be helpful?

Yeah, potentially.

Who's in control here?

Actually, no.

Yeah, no, yeah, yeah.

Who's in control here?

What's my best way to Crandle's without being noticed?

What's the, sorry, what's the best way through to Crandle's?

And what should I be on the lookout for always?

What path were you taking before?

I guess I should have asked before I made you roll.

I think we were taking main roads because I was trying to go fast.

So you know the fastest way would be where the lookout was last time, where Vesuvius was posted.

That would be the quickest way.

But you know that that is kind of their lookout spot, so they would probably have someone posted there.

So if you're trying to get by without being seen until you're very close, that would not be your best path.

So that ties into who's in control here and what's your best way.

They're in control in this area.

What you should be on the lookout for here is as you're going along, you see in your rearview mirror just a flash in the distance of a Humvee going across the road that you're traveling on from one block to another.

Oh, like a Scooby Doo across the doorway behind you?

Yes, probably a quarter mile behind you.

How close are we to Crandle's?

Another quarter mile.

So I think that I'm going to like peel into a side road because like a quarter mile, like we can walk.

I basically I don't want Crandle to know that we have the Jeep with us, and I don't want the yellow Humvee guys to find the Jeep either.

So what I'd like to do is I'd like to like turn down into like a tiny alley, like maybe hopefully where there's like a garage door or something that I could pull in, and I'd like to go the rest of the way on foot to where we interacted with the Subbies last time.

OK, so you want to go right to that spot.

Actually, well, that part I should talk to Ocean about.

Ocean, do you, should we just announce ourselves again?

Like last time?

Yeah, should we bring Vesuvius, though?

I think we should probably leave him.

But I guess we could leave him to watch the car with like a radio.

I've been working on a new voice, what do you think?

Hey, it's me, Vesuvius.

I mean, wait, what's my fake name?

It was Everest, is what I called you.

Hey, it's me, Explorer Everest.

I mean, I'm new to these parts.

Hey, do you think you could hit a button on a radio so he could call us?

Yeah, with my nose, with my snoot.

Could I boop it with my snoot?

Is that what you're asking?

Yeah, I want to set him up so that he could radio us if anyone comes to investigate the car.

Yeah, I may only be able to do the chirpy boy thing.

I don't think I can like hit it and then talk.

But if I do with your nose, your lips can still move.

I'm telling you, I got one good hit in me, and then I may be on the side.

OK, I'll allow it.

I'll allow it.

Are you OK with that?

If you build me some sort of apparatus for my tongue, then in the future, I may be able to do this better.

We'll chirp you every 30 minutes to let you know that we're safe.

I swear to God, if you guys die, it doesn't matter.

Don't chirp me.

If you die, I'm ahead in a fucking vehicle.

What am I going to do?

I give them the frequency.

I give them Johnny Hertz's frequency, the one that you can barely hear people on.

How am I supposed to change this time?

No, we're all on that frequency.

But I tell them, you can hail.

But you're going to have to...

This is like an emergency.

Try to figure out.

If you don't hear from us in 30 minutes, you're going to have to do your best to not knock over the thing and hail Johnny Hertz.

Okay, this is a good emergency plan.

I like it.

Hands in, everyone.

That was funny.

I didn't realize you had a tumor.

Just put it on his head.

Okay, and I want to...

Ocean, now I ask Ocean, Ocean, are you all right if we just walk in like last time?

That seemed to go pretty well.

Yeah, let's do it.

We could be under the guise that we're looking for medical supplies.

Let's do it.

You walk up, you're trying to take the same path you saw before.

You see the very sad sight of the light fixture that was broken off that you took with you.

Dangling there, useless.

You move along the road.

You look up to the little perch where you saw the subies before, and you don't see anyone right now.

And you keep going a little bit.

You're trying to make your presence like you're not hiding.

No, we don't want people to think we're sneaking in.

You walk up with purpose down the middle of the road, strutting your stuff up, and then you hear, Check out these motherfuckers!

And Vesuvius pokes his head up and you go, What you guys doing back so early?

Shit.

Thank you so much for listening this week.

This one's coming at you a little bit early because one of our top 10 favorite listeners, Yiggles, requested that we put it out a little early so we could listen on a long car ride.

So if you want to ask unreasonable demands to any of us, shoot us an email at oops at Stu.cool.

All the music and editing was performed by Stu Masterson.

That logo that you love so much is by Brady McDonough.

And Jacob eats food while recording.

Love you, bye.