Book and Ocean disagree over how to handle the future of Hamlet Opening.

This one is basically a FEMA exercise.

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 the two most problematic Phillies sports mascots.

Oh, I'm not a Phillies sports mascot.

I hate the Phillies.

Hey everybody, I am both of the Phillies, or the Philadelphia mascots, Gritty and the Phillie fanatic.

Oh shit, actually, I do love Gritty.

I do love Gritty, actually.

Too bad, I am both of them.

I have absorbed them both into my body.

To become the worst possible mascot known to mankind.

The worst possible human ever.

The meanest mascot.

I am so red and so green at the same time.

I don't know, Swoop from the Eagles looks like a pervert, at least.

That is true.

Hey everybody, I'm Brady and I play Book McCready, the very vindictive investigator who is out for blood.

Ooh, some V for Vendetta shenanigans there.

I'm Jacob and I play Ocean, a gentle giant and also possible new militia leader.

Unwilling militia leader, it seems.

I like when you guys disagree with each other.

I think it'll be fun.

I'm curious how it'll go.

You're my, you're also the vizier of our following.

I keep forgetting I'm that your vizier.

I'm your guiding light for your people.

The moral bastion.

I keep forgetting about that, actually.

What are you doing to that cat?

I'm using, I'm using my beard to give his head scratches.

Yeah, from our perspective, we're just watching Brady just accost this cat with his chin.

Like always, we have a BuzzFeed Presents Apocalyst.

Ready, hot off the presses.

That's such a good title.

I believe it's your turn, Brady.

I believe that it is.

And this week, our Apocalypses, Apocalyst, this week, our Apocalyst is name the top five cosmetic items you would take with you into the Apocalypses.

I need, I need elaboration.

When you say cosmetic.

Purely cosmetic items, like literally cannot have a functional purpose to them.

They, and the type of Apocalypses we'll say is nuclear winter, probably.

Yeah, it's my third favorite type of winter.

What's your first?

Alex and second.

And normal.

Alex winter.

The actor, actor rest.

Modern family.

No, the other guy in villain tents.

Is that not his name?

It is.

Boom.

Who am I thinking of?

Top five cosmetic items.

So you don't mean you don't mean like in a cosmetology sense.

This isn't like eyeliner.

It can it can be it can be eyeliner.

It can be a it can be a cool like you could do a baseball hat.

Do we have to do five are going to be three?

No, it's fucking five.

Okay, then we have to go fast and can't talk about it.

Sounds fun.

Damn, this is going to be tough.

I was thinking of Ariel Winter, who plays Alex Dumphy on Modern Family.

So I think I'm excused.

What a fun fact.

Okay, that is a pretty fun fact.

I liked it.

Okay, so the first purely cosmetic item that I would be bringing is a pair of cufflinks because they look fucking snazzy.

And if I supersede Stu as a cult leader, I'll need to look the part.

The second pair, these aren't purely cosmetic, but I need a cool pair of shades.

Keep the sun out of your eyes and look sick.

Well, during this nuclear winter, there's no direct sunshine, so they are purely cosmetic.

That's true.

That's very true.

Next thing I'm going to need, a shark tooth necklace.

Man, Book's turning into like an edgy cool dude.

Oh, wait, this is Book, not Brady.

Yeah, this is Book.

Fuck.

Okay, I have to start over.

It's way more embarrassing now.

I have to start over.

So, Book's five cosmetic items.

Fucking shark tooth necklaces are cool in the year 2024.

I can see Book thinking shark tooth necklaces are cool.

Oh, man.

Okay.

Book's cosmetic items.

He wants Sherlock Holmes' hat.

That weird hat with all of the flaps.

Too many flaps.

Okay.

Okay.

Second thing.

He wants Hercule Poirot's mustache, but it's a fake mustache, one you can put on and take off.

Next one.

Fuck.

Man, this would be way easier if it was three, wouldn't it?

It would be easier if it was three, but I'm not a fucking coward like you used to.

All right, here we go.

Number four is the guy from The Mentalist.

He wants his hair do.

Whatever product goes into that hair, he wants.

Great hair.

Ten out of ten.

Sean Spencer says his five percent better.

Next thing that's purely cosmetic is from the TV show Castle, the books that they published that were ghost that were written by Castle, the character.

The reason they're purely cosmetic is because there's no way on this planet that they're actually fucking good.

Number five, our last cosmetic item.

He wants.

What does Book want?

He's going to take a cool pocket watch that like clicks open, you know, with the button and shit, because that's something that the detectives have to check the time.

They flip open their little pocket watch.

They look at the time taken.

I believe Book will become a massive tool in this line.

Yeah.

That was good.

I thought those fit you well.

Thank you.

Ocean is just not a very materialistic person, so this is a tough list.

He literally has a hoard.

What are you talking about?

He does, but he thinks they all have function is the thing.

He thinks all of them have a use.

Things that have no use that he just carries around.

What about fire decals for the spider?

Oh, yeah, that's a good idea.

Some fire stickers do sound like a pretty good idea.

I'm going to say we'll go with the fire stickers for one.

We'll go with, I think, a bar of soap just so that way.

Can't be useful.

Is it really useful, though?

That's a real deep question.

Is it really useful in an apocalyptic situation?

Yes, I would contend yes, because your hygiene is incredibly important.

I will let the creator of this BuzzFeed Presents Apocalypses to judge if a bar of soap counts as cosmetic.

In my opinion, is that I don't know if being, like, cleaned and, you know, smelling nice.

If you said conditioner, conditioner is cosmetic, bar of soap is definitely not.

If you said a can of Axe body spray, then I'd be like, I get you.

That's just cosmetic.

But Bart, you should know this as a medical professional, that soap is very important for your health.

Okay, fine.

We're going to change that answer.

I will go with a can of body spray.

I'll go with that just to have the illusion of, you know...

Axe or Lynx, or are you going bod?

He's going to go...

Chocolate Axe.

Say chocolate.

I think Ocean would be an Old Spice guy, actually.

I think he would smell like a grandpa.

I think that's kind of the...

He's an old soul, so I'm going to go with...

Old Spice, the original scent.

It smells just like a grandpa.

Third item, maybe some tints for the windows of the spider.

Yeah, that's fine.

You think that's...

I mean, I had a hat, you know?

No, again, this is in this nuclear winter.

There is no sunshine.

So extra tint is only going to hurt you.

So if you said a giant fluffy winter jacket, sorry, that's functional.

Okay, I'll do tint for the spider's windows.

A nice pair of jeans, a nice crisp pair of jeans.

That way he can feel a nice...

I don't see him wearing a dress shirt or anything like that, or a fancy Sherlock Holmes cufflinks like Book would, but I think a nice pair of jeans would make him feel a lot more comfortable.

And the last thing, would you say fingerless gloves are pure cosmetic?

Oh, yeah, I think it was gloves.

Like driving gloves for driving his car.

Very cool.

That's a pretty good list.

Are you guys ready to get blasted by my radical choices?

I'm so ready.

Okay, how many glow sticks count as one item?

I would say in...

I would say in nuclear winter, glow sticks are very useful unless they're the ones that only last like 10 minutes.

No, these are only for doing cool glow stick tricks, which I don't know how to do yet, but I'll learn during the apocalypse.

Like those cheap ones you get at Dollar General, you can spin on a lanyard.

That's one item.

Yeah, we can say they're powered by being continuously spun, so they're not useful for actually lighting such a trick.

Then obviously, if we're going with cosmetics, I'm going to go with probably some nice, very dark black eyeliner is a good choice.

Then I think three, third most important thing is a skateboard, which I'm saying is cosmetic because I'm really not good at it.

I have enough experience to generally roll around, but I have not skateboarded well in many, many years.

Hell yeah.

And I'm really just using it as a fashion statement.

A four, I'm going to go with a guitar, a very cool acoustic guitar.

I feel like that could have some kind of use.

I don't fully cosmetic.

That is, if we were playing D&D, that would be a way to give people bardic inspiration, but because this is a real life, this is super real.

Real life, people can get inspired by music.

That's a real thing.

But not stews.

Real life, people can get inspired by fingerless gloves.

I just burned stew really hard, but nobody heard it.

I just powered there.

Don't worry.

I'll isolate it during the replay.

And also the silence around it.

And as my fifth item, so I said glow sticks, eyeliner, skateboard, guitar.

There's one thing missing tying all these together, and that is infinity scarf.

That's good for infinite different uses, but it's not actually warm enough to keep me alive in the nuclear winter.

That's a pretty good list.

I like the spinning glow sticks.

That's my favorite item you picked so far.

Thank you for coming up with this week's BuzzFeed Presents Apocalypses.

Brady, that was a good one.

I appreciate it.

And with that, last time I said this and I was wrong, and now we really are going to do both end of session and beginning of session moves.

So we should go ahead and wrap it up and get back to the action.

Last session ended with y'all in the library with your many, many friends circled around as Book played the real, original version of his video he provided to Hickory, not the edited Frida version.

And Book made an impassioned plea for them to work together, round up Hickory, and publicly execute him.

One of you please give me a read, a sitch roll.

Just one.

I got three sharp, I'm doing it.

I was about to say, I'll give it to you, you're the one giving the speech.

Oh, mother fucker, I rolled two ones.

Nice.

But it's plus three.

That means nothing.

I still get one question.

Yes.

Because of sniffing wins.

And my question is who here will do what I ask?

You think Crash U is on board 100P, and then Johnny Hertz and Crandall, and then Ocean, what about you?

I don't know if Ocean would be okay with executing Crandall on the spot like that, to be honest.

So since he's unsure, I'm going to say the only ones that you feel confident with, your failed role there, are Crandall, Johnny Hertz, and Crash U.

Book doesn't really give a fuck.

Book sees the faces and says, the only way to ensure that an actual transfer of power will take place is to ensure that the previous power no longer exists to be a threat.

We do not have time to waste.

We do not know how long our invaders will remain incapacitated, Hickory's punishment later.

But right now we have to act.

And Book kind of just starts walking for the door again, as he is wanted to do.

Are you doing anything, Ocean?

Ocean wants to stand up and go to the stand as well.

So he stands up and walks up to it and says, you guys have seen the consequences of the silent with your own eyes.

I think all of you have probably at this point heard the noises and sounds coming from the town, from the courthouse.

We have a genuine threat that's going up against us that's far worse than anything that Hickory or anyone could possibly have brought up against us in the past.

We have to do something to make sure this town is safe.

And if we just stand by idly, I think we'll all die.

As Book is passing Frieda, I would like to nod at her.

I just say Frieda and kind of motion with my head that she should follow me because I need to talk to her.

She will follow you.

Back at Ocean, Calista will stand up and say, well, what did the silent have to do with all this going after Hickory business?

How does rounding him up and certainly executing him help with that?

Well, one thing we know for sure is that Hickory has been siphoning power off of silent facilities.

That's why this town still has power.

That's why our town has started to experience these blackouts as far as I'm aware from what we've looked into.

We need to get off the power grid that the silent are currently utilizing because it's a threat.

We witnessed it once.

There was a hospital settlement that we visited.

I think Maple, you're probably aware of it, right?

Yeah.

That's the guy that sent us there, right?

Yeah, they've been around for quite a while now.

Beethoven goes and trades with them, but they seem to be out of commission now.

They were utilizing power and assets from the silent, and the silent managed to get themselves connected back to the hospital and essentially take it over.

And Meanie is the only survivor, as far as I'm aware.

They want to take the town and utilize it for their own resources.

We don't know what it is, but I'm assuming it's to control us and turn us into some sort of slaves to the being that controls it.

Johnny Hertz here with a quick question.

Could you tell me, to the best of your knowledge, of course, I know you don't know everything, who the fuck is she?

And he points to Kara.

Book is going to interrupt Johnny because he doesn't want Ocean to answer that question.

And he kind of pushes open the door, the front door hard, so it makes a loud noise.

And he says, I'll tell you why we have to go, and I'll tell you what the Silent have to do with this.

We have no reason to believe that what we, the force we just came up against was anything less than just the first wave in a full assault to take this town.

If we treat it as anything less, we are offering up our lives to a machine.

Give me a Interfere with Johnny Hertz.

What stat do I use?

History with Johnny.

It says I have zero history with Johnny Hertz, but I feel like that's not true.

What it sounds like is you chose not to increase his when you should have previously.

Well, that's a five again.

So fucking whatever.

Can Ocean assist with this considering, you know, he's also helped out just kind of by way of proxy?

Do you understand what he's trying to do?

Yeah, Ocean will help out.

All right, give me an aid.

That's just my history with Book, right?

Correct.

That is exactly a seven.

You see that Johnny Hertz definitely still seems worried about her, but he just sits down, kind of looks at her and narrows his eyes and doesn't say anything else.

As the loud scrunching of the door draws people's attention towards Book instead of the last statement.

Then Din stands up and he says, yeah, I understand your like nice big impassioned speech right there, but what are we like literally going to do?

I think our first step is what we need to do is head over to the courthouse and kind of-

And kind of save our fucking town.

Yeah, I get courthouse.

That's exactly what I'm talking about.

Like I get, yeah, hurrah, man.

I'm not trying to fight you or fight back.

I just, what are we literally going to do?

Do we need to get all of our guns?

Do we need to get-

There are secured hostiles that we need to go secure.

Dude, just tell me the truth.

Just tell me exactly what's going on.

Don't have to like-

Take the people who are currently passed out because their brains got blasted with weird mental sound.

We gotta tie them up so they don't fucking kill us when they wake up.

Ocean interrupts and is like, look, it's been a pretty stressful couple of hours.

Let me tell you exactly that, what happened at the courthouse.

And Ocean wants to lay out fairly accurately the events that can transpire.

Leaving out, of course, them raiding the courthouse in the first place to find freedom.

And maybe Book pressing the button that blew it up?

Yeah, yeah, we'll leave those parts out.

But he wants to describe, instead of saying that Ocean and Book were infiltrating the courthouse at the time, they're going to say that they were scrounging around nearby trying to keep an eye on Subtropolis because they heard, because of previous encounters, they wanted to kind of make sure that nothing was coming.

And then they saw the force coming and they jumped in to help Hickory.

Okay, give me a confront someone.

Confront somebody?

That's an eight.

And while you're thinking Ocean wants to add, after giving the story, he's going to turn to the group and says, I think fighting alongside Hickory's men turned a few of them around to our cause.

And I think they're still at the courthouse.

So by us going there, securing the silent that were knocked out by whatever occurred, and I think we can probably get Hickory's men to help us too.

I think they're pretty disillusioned after this whole situation.

Din definitely stops contesting the situation, but he still seems a little bit confused.

And he just kind of sighs and goes, okay, do we need guns?

I think it would be a good idea to bring some just in case.

Hickory's forces were hit pretty hard, and I don't think they'll have the will to fight much more after everything that occurred.

I don't think there'll be much of a threat, especially if they see us coming back.

At least I hope so.

Do you want to just meet at Frieda's Alley in like 10ish minutes?

That sound good?

Yeah, that sounds good to me.

And he heads out.

Crandall already has his giant machine gun with him.

Most of the other people start to filter out, but Frieda is off to the side with you, Book.

Frieda?

Yeah.

That was a long pause.

Yeah.

I am, I chose not to implicate you in what's been going on here, but I need to know, I need some answers.

I need to know why you've chosen to make us your pawn in some game that you've been playing with Hickory.

And I also need to know what exactly you were trying to achieve by framing us for like at least two things.

At least two things.

And also I try to get Ocean's attention because he deserves answers to this too.

You can easily join this conversation, Ocean, if you would like, if there's no one specific you would like to talk to before they start filtering out.

It's pretty obvious.

Book's over here and you guys are usually kind of in the same spot.

So you know where he's at.

I think as everyone's starting to filter out before Ocean comes over there, he's going to just kind of stand up and say, I know this is a lot to take in, guys.

And I know you guys are all probably pretty wary about everything that's going on and all that.

And I understand.

We're just, there's a big threat around the horizon and we're just trying to do our part and making sure you're all safe and everyone in this town as well.

So please just bear with us.

We'll try and answer any questions you have.

We just want to help you guys.

It's okay.

We love you, Ocean.

Thanks.

We know you didn't mean to do it.

Didn't mean to do what, Crandall?

Oh, you know what I'm talking about.

Crandall, Ocean looks around genuinely concerned and confused about what he's talking about.

He gives you a big wink.

But then he sees Book kind of motion him over and he comes over to him too.

I wasn't trying to necessarily frame you.

I was just trying to get the revolution kickstarted.

Are you happy now?

What do you mean?

No, this is terrible.

Well, it's what you wanted.

No, this is not at all what I wanted.

I didn't want a bunch of robot people to come blow up the courthouse.

Beggars can't be choosers, Frieda.

I wanted, what does that even mean?

You pitted Hickory, the leader of our fucking town, against the, as far as I can tell, the only two people who are actually trying to do some fucking good around here.

You were already against him, I was just helping out.

I didn't pit you guys against each other, like you went on that radio, and you called for everyone to fight back.

We took a stand, Frieda, we weren't fighting.

I just like assumed he had something on you, because you started, you made a 180, like at that town hall, you're going to, you're gonna tell everyone to back off, and I know that's not what you wanted.

After One Ocean comes in, he's like, Frieda, we just, we could have used some heads up, just kind of put us in a bind.

We came back from town, and suddenly everyone was against us.

I mean, we've been working together for a long time, haven't we?

I just figured you'd talk to us first.

I didn't know how like deep it was.

I don't know why you guys started acting differently.

I just knew what you really wanted.

I knew you didn't want Hickory in control.

And I thought this was the best way to just get people focused.

Like you kickstarted something huge, way faster than my art or any of the other things I've been working on.

Like it took you guys one sentence each on one radio call, and more people showed up than to like any of my statements.

And I know we want the same thing, or you guys wouldn't have been helping me for so long, but just when you told Hickory that you were gonna take back every single thing you said to start this revolution, I knew that that wasn't right.

And I knew you guys shouldn't be working with Hickory, right?

Like you shouldn't be working with Hickory.

He did have something on us, right?

Like just kind of out of character.

He had that, what you're...

Yeah, you threw a shovel into someone's clavicle.

That and wasn't it, you were trying to work with him to get more information about your parents too, or something like that.

That was one reason we agreed to help with Hickory.

I think it was literally just that like, we were like, Hickory's not the worst thing that, like we went into Subtropolis, there was the weird cheese monster, and we're like, I don't know that we're, like we can't lead the town and do what we need to do.

So like, we need to at least warn him, because like, he is defending the town, even if he's an asshole.

So we're like, you know, kind of the devil we know is better than the devil we don't.

And now we're seeing the devil we don't in action, not to keep spewing platitudes.

But yeah, I think that was kind of the whole vibe, was we were like, eh, we need some bigger guns in this fight.

It was mostly so you could get two guys with you to go see Crandall.

We wanted like more than two people.

That's what we got.

No, you really wanted Hickory to come with you for some reason.

Yeah, because then if he died accidentally, it's not our fault, that's not true.

Frieda pauses for a second and then says, before I saw your tape, I thought you were just playing it.

And then I even thought you blew up that server room and that was your way of like covering your tracks after you snuck in there and figured some shit out, I don't know.

But then in the tape, you admitted that it wasn't you and just that.

Frieda, we were sneaking in there and getting stuff done, just not blowing things up.

I mean, we were trying to, we were basically trying to undermine Hickory while still keeping the peace in this town so people didn't have to die.

I mean, we were in that server room to try to get information and we didn't blow it up.

We were trying to leave peacefully so that Hickory never even knew we were there and there was value in that.

But I do have to say, like I said, I chose not to rat you out today, but I need to know that you're not gonna go rogue on us again.

I don't know what you mean.

Well, it's just previously, it was part of the reason that we really didn't want to kind of go up against Hickory with force.

It was just me and Book.

We don't like Hickory, of course, when we wanted things to change, but just the two of us couldn't do much.

And sure, we had a few people that came and helped us, but it wasn't enough to raid Hickory's place or anything.

No, I don't want to do that either.

I think you guys just really don't understand me.

I didn't want to blow up a whole core house.

I don't want Hickory to die.

I just know that he shouldn't be in power and more people deserve more than they have right now.

And I thought that you guys could bring that to everyone.

I never wanted to start like a big war between you guys.

Well, to be fair, I don't think it was you that started this war.

He motions towards like the exploded courthouse.

I think it was a little bit of a third party interference here.

Unfortunately, I think it is up to us to finish it.

We could really use your resources, Frida.

You're really good at this stuff and, you know, propaganda and making us look better than we actually are.

And we could use that here, but we just want to make sure we're all on the same page and, you know.

You know, I don't know if we are.

I don't think we should like execute Hickory.

That's no better than him.

Yeah.

Ocean kind of stopped silencing.

He's your dad, isn't he?

Ooh, ooh.

Well, he's not like my dad.

He's like my father, but he's not like my dad, dad, you know.

I know what you mean.

Book stares out into the distance thinking about his own father who abandoned him at the age of 10.

Yeah, Ocean kind of sits there in silence and then kind of looks at Book and says, Book, I kind of agree with Frida.

I don't think we should kill Hickory assuming he's still alive after everything that happened.

I think she's right.

I think that just paints us as more dictators trying to come in and take power.

I don't think that's any way to get these people to listen to us, especially after we made all these speeches about changing things.

I know you hate him, and I hate him too, but...

He's a dick.

I just don't think that's the right call.

Out of respect for the both of you, who I hold in very high regard, I won't force anything, but I also won't stop it, if that's what people choose to think, if that's what people think is right.

The camera pans over and you can see out the window, Crashu is running by with an armful of grenades.

How does he keep getting grenades?

And Book says, but Ocean, I gotta be honest, man, I stood by your side even when you threw a shovel into some dude's chest, out of nowhere, like, I just, you know, I thought you would have had my back on this.

And I think, I thought you would have seen the value in cleaning the slate.

I do have, you do have my back, Book.

I trust you more than anyone else.

I just, I just think we need to set a different tone for things.

Why don't we just try him publicly?

Have the town decide what to do with him.

Book sets his jaw in like a very much like, I just fucking hate this guy so much way.

But then he nods and he goes, you're right.

I'm, my blood is too hot right now.

I mean, he did shoot you in the spinal cord and probably cripple your leg there.

Yeah, you guys have definitely been dragging around IV poles, by the way, with your blood transfusion and all of that.

I'm sorry, Freda.

It's been really hard these last couple of hours.

Freda, I don't think we've gone like more than three days without just the most insane pandemonium.

OK, like we watched an entire hospital drop dead for no reason.

OK, like that doesn't sit right with the person.

No reason.

All right.

It's true.

I was there.

Crandall, holy fucking shit.

Crandall, where are you right now?

Book, he is not on the ground.

I'm just putting that out there.

Book looks up, and I think Crandall is dangling from something like Batman.

Crandall has made it somehow to the roof of the burned out library, and he is looking down at you guys with binoculars right now.

Guys, I think you all should take a little bit of a load off after this next little bit.

You've had a really rough time.

I did too, but I'm a strong man.

Strong man with strong toes.

My strength has been in the suntan boot.

Got all the vitamin D, a year's supply of vitamin D, and a malnourished vitamin D.

Cal-L just fucking juiced it up.

If you give me three people, I promise you ain't nobody gonna attack this town for two weeks.

I don't.

I mean, to be fair, Crandall was a very successful warlord for a while there, so I kind of believe him.

Crandall, you can have ten people if we can take this fucking courthouse.

I don't mean take it with blood.

I mean literally just gain control of it.

We're in a very precarious position right now.

They'll listen to me if I go there.

Is your name Frida Fleek?

No, that's an absolutely ridiculous name.

Frida's like a pen name.

I mean, I figured, but then I was like, what is it called when the two letters are the same?

Alliteration.

I was like, the alliteration's pretty good.

If you think they'll listen to you, then I think you're our best bet.

Then talk to them, because I'm going to tell you right now, I don't think I have any more bloodshed left within me today.

As like there's multiple oozing bullet wounds.

You honestly don't have just blood left in you.

Like who are we talking to?

Frieda.

Ocean said, if you want to talk to them, and I was like, who's them?

The Hickory's men.

I mean, listen, if you want to, hey, if you want to step up to the mantle.

Oh, no, I'm not saying me be in charge or anything like that.

I'm just saying that they know and trust me.

You don't have to be in charge of the whole town, but I think you're the person in the best position to take command of those forces, at least.

So quick different question, but on like a scale of one to ten, how likely are the bodies of those robot things to explode?

Like 50-50 at literally any moment.

Ocean scratches and is like, maybe I should go with you too.

How do we know if they're going to explode?

We're gonna quarantine them.

That's what I want to do anyway.

Okay, where do we want to put them?

You guys can just like start walking heading in that direction.

Do they need to be like outside in like maybe a hard cave, maybe or something like that?

I look at Ocean and I'm like, you got a fence.

It's not the best fence.

You have enough material to put a roof up and make it.

I'm sure I can find something.

I thought there's wind.

And I've got enough supplies at my place.

I'm sure I can utilize it to cough.

Oh, there's wind underground.

Differences in pressure.

I'm sure it gets drafty, but there's not like gale force winds that are going to kill these people.

I'm just joking because I said there was no wind one time and you busted it.

Oh, I know exactly what you're referencing.

And I want you to know that I had that in my brain.

As I said, there's no wind.

I was like, Stu's going to say some fucking shit.

You don't know how many silent there are total.

It wasn't a ton ton.

A good amount died and it wasn't a huge force coming in.

It was very like surgical in their attack.

So like best case scenario, there would be 10 ish people still alive that didn't you didn't see get killed by pretty much just you.

My question is, though, like, have they woken up?

Like we've been here for a while.

I don't fucking know, dude.

We'll find out.

You guys make it back to the courthouse.

Don't worry.

I won't kill you.

I know you have one health.

I have a little bit more.

I have two health.

Give me some credit.

I'm one, but I'm stable.

With Frieda, it's almost like a switch flips when she gets back in sight of the courthouse, and she starts walking with more authority, more up straight.

Her eyes are forward and focused on different areas, and she starts asking people who are just kind of poking around the rubble for status with a very, like, authoritative voice.

It looks like they've already been pulling out some of the silent, and also just about now it looks like some are starting to stir.

But certainly not all of them.

Hickory's men are over them, like yelling at them, pointing guns at them, telling them not to move.

And they don't seem to be fighting back or anything like that.

Ocean, you and Kara need to purge them ASAP.

Is Kara there?

Sure.

Okay.

Ocean wants to come over, first starting with the people that are stirring, and he wants to kind of do the same thing he did on the two that he woke up.

He wants to do the healing touch where he purges the disease and take the pain away.

Okay.

Just give me one healing touch roll.

We're not going to do this ten times.

That sounds terrible.

I figured it's not.

Yeah.

He wants to do that starting on the ones that are stirring and then kind of on the other ones.

But he wants to make sure Kara is nearby, seeing them too.

So when they wake up, they see Kara.

Wise.

That is an eight.

So when you do it on the stirring ones, they say they feel better, but you don't notice any immediate change on them.

By the time you poke through the rubble, talk to everyone around, and heal as many as you can up, there are four of those people who are feeling better and kind of getting on their feet.

So four that are still alive?

Four that seem to be still alive.

You try to use it on some other ones who don't have any visible wounds, but there's no reaction.

They don't seem to come back.

There's no warm blow.

Out of those, it's a mixed bag on if they are robots or not.

You're able to like disengage their helmets and see which ones are people.

The ones that are for sure robots, like I take them off and they're like clearly mechanical.

Ocean wants to immediately take those, like a bomb disposal, gently.

And he wants to...

I'm trying to think.

Is there a...

Does Hickory's Place have like a basement?

Okay.

Is there like a far out kind of like watch house?

Like, you know, like where the server rooms were, the server room was and stuff?

There's a barracks out there that is still very much intact.

It is still a very good living space though, so you'd be eliminating that capability unless you want people living with the robot corpses.

It's not necessarily...

I don't think he wants to keep them there permanently like the robots.

I think he's just right now trying to figure out a way to kind of make sure they don't explode and kill everybody instantly.

So he mostly just wants to use it for now to get them far enough away from the people that are alive that if they do blow up, they're not going to kill anybody.

We also...

They're robots.

Like, they could wake up at any moment, and they're strong.

Like, we need some fucking chains.

Stu, is there like a garage for the trucks that Hickory has?

Yep, and it looks like it's still in good shape because it's like outside of the courthouse proper.

Okay.

Got some winches in that bad boy?

Yeah, there's stuff like that.

There's stuff made for laying wire and things like that.

And when I say wire, I mean power cables.

Ocean, why don't we winch them up real good and then we'll put them where you want?

That makes sense.

Ocean has a brief PTSD flashback to how tough it was to take that one robot down.

They fought and he's like, okay.

With Freida's help, some of Hickory's men would actually aid you in this.

Would you ask them to help you out?

Yeah, get as many as Hickory's men out of this building.

Yes.

Yeah, I think Ocean wants to make a display of working with Hickory's men too.

Do you still have your cape on?

Yes, please say yes.

Sure, Ocean has not taken it off.

He's probably forgotten it's still there, because it's probably stable to his back.

Wait, actually no, Book takes it in case he...

Wait, no, no, he doesn't.

I was going to say if Hickory is dead, he could drape it over him.

You guys are able to successfully do that, and let's say as you are making their little temporary housing, rounding them all up, tying them up, making sure they're secure and safe.

Let's do our end of session.

Let's do one more thing that I would like to do.

Where is Crash?

Crash U is at his house, which is not a house, and actually a series of small tents behind the broken leg.

And as you see him as you walk by, he has a giant wheel that he is spinning and sharpening a scimitar on.

That's fucking cool.

I thought he was running with grenades towards the courthouse, though.

Yeah, he was before.

You don't see those grenades right now, though.

Aren't we still at the courthouse?

Like, I'm saying, did I see him at the courthouse?

You didn't see him at the courthouse.

Okay, well then never mind.

I don't go find him.

But I do want to try to find Hickory.

Okay, do you want to do that before the end of session moves?

Or after?

Well, I don't know.

I mean, I feel like we're clearing out the rubble.

I feel like it would make sense that we would at least know where he is.

Okay, now you can do it now.

The courtroom is behind a bunch of rubble and shit, so it's going to take a little bit of time for that all to be cleared out.

How did I get out of it then?

You were in Ocean's arms getting carried out while he threw a grenade.

Oh, okay.

Sorry, I didn't mean to say that like you were dumb.

No, no, I didn't realize that the grenade collapsed part of the building.

Yeah, his intention when he threw the grenade wasn't to kill a bunch of people.

It was to clear out your escape so you couldn't be followed.

So that's kind of how that worked.

When I threw the grenade, it was meant to kind of form, like kind of be a smoke screen for us to get people out of our way and not stop us when we're trying to escape with your dead body.

He wasn't dead yet.

He kind of died right after.

That's true.

But you don't have to worry about me making him like disappear on you just because I tricked you into waiting till after the end of session moves.

I'm not mean, Brady.

That could be a good cliffhanger, though.

And Hickory's also sharpening a scimitar.

You wake up in the middle of the night hearing a yell and then Crashy's head rolls down into the room.

Look who's back.

Tabasco and Crash.

End of session moves.

Are you guys happy with your place in the world?

Where will we ever be?

Every single time you ask this question, I think Ocean's less happy about his place in the world.

Excellent, then.

Get one XP.

Hooray.

Does your scavenge still hold true?

Um, no.

Yeah, I think it actually probably has changed at this point.

No, because Book just lied to his followers several times to get them to do what he wants.

And so basically my scavenge is, my options are the truth has value, you don't seek material power or comfort, and are satisfied merely to survive.

You have barter minus one.

Or to you, the truth is not sacred.

You use your knowledge to manipulate people and sell your secrets to enrich yourself, which is where Book is now at.

I don't know my scavenge options, I'll be honest.

I didn't know there were scavenge options.

You, as your playbook, actually do not have scavenge options, but they can change.

And you also have an improvement that can just make yours better.

Yeah, I think previously Ocean was just scavenging for stuff to keep alive, right, and trade and stuff like that.

That's kind of what we've been doing previously.

Yes, technically your scavenge option was that you do not have a good name to trade on.

Yes.

Oh, and everybody loves you now.

I think yes.

I think it's changed at this point.

I think now Ocean's more looking out for Hamlet Opening itself at this point.

I'm going to say that Ocean, you can change yours to a plus zero for now.

Plus zero for now, okay.

But you do not get any additional experience since your scavenge has changed.

So basically now both of you are richer, now that you don't have the oppressive foot of hickory on your throat.

Now Book, I believe you have an end of session move called interrogating realities.

I do indeed.

And I'm going to tell you a mystery that I would like to tell you, I'd like you to tell me if it is true or not.

Also feel free to like, be like this is a bad mystery, guys, because I have obviously have not thought about this enough.

My mystery that I believe is that the AI that lives in the psychic maelstrom is hoarding power to run a machine.

I will be extra nice and not just give you a yes or no since I am a kind and benevolent MC.

I will say you think in some ways that is true, but you know the AI is still providing power to Hamlet Opening right now.

Even at this second, you see things are well-powered right now.

And if the AI was just hoarding power for a different purpose, you can't think of a reason why it would be doing that.

We got some time here still, so let's do our beginning of session moves so they are out of the way for next time.

Unfortunately, we are skipping one of them, which is Book's follower move, because we technically rolled that last session to figure out how many people were going to show up to the library.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

So let's start with Living Day to Day.

Both of you guys try out your brand new improved barter roll.

Yeah, I have a whopping plus zero.

Incredible.

Have I successfully rolled?

I think I've successfully rolled one barter roll.

You rolled one really good.

I rolled one full success and everyone has been a complete failure for Book.

I think Ocean has rolled a lot of partial success.

I got a seven.

Partial success?

Good thing you got that improvement.

I know, that would have been a six otherwise.

Book also rolled a seven.

Yeah!

We're finally showing it, finally getting a name for ourselves.

After we did an accidental terrorism and rebellion.

An accidental rebellion.

How old is...

You said Frida is Book's age, right?

Because they went to school together?

Frida is Calista's age.

Which is Book's age, is it not?

I think you're at least similar in age.

Yeah, it's very close.

If anything, you're a little bit older.

Right, because I tutored Calista or whatever.

Yeah, but you were also probably tutoring kids about your own age because you were just smarter than everyone.

And I needed money because I had no parents.

Your parents loved you less than all of them, but you were smarter than all of them, but you were poorer than all of them, and less parents.

Somehow in the Apocalypse, less parents.

When you roll a mixed success on day to day, you guys are supposed to do something, but I'll just do it for you because what the fuck?

You guys don't stand top of anything.

But you're supposed to ask me, Hey, Stu, what comes easy and what comes hard?

Oh, yeah, that's right.

We roll successfully so rarely on these.

What comes easy is strategic position.

So one, your guys' actual position within the town has increased.

You're no longer under the thumb of Hickory.

And from a stability standpoint, Crandall at least seems to know what he's talking about with how to keep the town somewhat defended, at least for the short term.

What comes hard is going to be connections.

So that's mostly because the general feeling around town right now is right after some major emergency or like terrible natural disaster.

Everyone's trying to take care of their own shit, make sure they're okay.

And certainly right now, they're a little wary of any outsiders.

So you're probably not going to get a lot of open arms for like trade care vans or things like that, certainly at a large scale.

So the impact on you guys is going to be no access to those sort of outside goods, but then also for any people internal to the town that aren't like already your friends, they're probably going to be way more standoffish and it's going to be harder to get them to do what you want.

That does not apply to Book's followers, though.

I mean, we did just get invaded, so I mean, everyone's probably a little bit on edge to say the least.

Let's then move over to Ocean's two beginning of session moves.

You got two of them now, so you can choose the order you want them to be done in.

We'll do the least interesting one first, which is just how many times you can fuck me over in a session.

Yes.

So let's see.

That is nine.

So I think that means you hold one, right?

Only one, which means I believe I'm up to two now.

Two total.

And so my next one, have we talked about this move?

I don't think we've even mentioned that you even have this move at all.

So as a little background, four episodes ago, I believe, you got you unlocked an improvement called Unleashing Your Inner Beauty or some shit like that.

Yeah, it's hidden beauty.

As a part of that, you got two moves, because that's kind of how your playbook seems to work.

You get more moves than everyone else, but I get to choose half of them.

Yep.

Both of them have not come up at all yet, but one of them is a beginning of session move that I believe is called Whispers of the Gray Something Something.

Whispers of the Gray Wing.

Can you read that for me right quick?

Yes, it says, At the beginning of the session, roll weird.

On a 10+, ask the MC two questions.

And on a 729, ask one.

Specifically, this mentions the MC has to answer frankly.

Let me put on my Frank voice.

And I figured I'd roll this.

Deborah!

Wait, wrong character.

But I figured this would be fun.

I roll, see what I got, and then I'll read you the guys the questions.

So let's do my weird roll.

It's a 10.

No, it's a 9.

Damn, I only have plus one weird.

So that means I was kind of hoping I failed because it's kind of fun.

It says on a misc, I get to ask one question anyway, and I get to ask an additional question as well, which is, upon which of us has death fixed its eye?

Which is a pretty fun question that I like.

So even failing this...

You were hoping someone was going to die.

Yeah.

So even failing this one has fun stuff.

So 7139, I get to ask one question.

My choices are, whose blood has been spilled and not yet cooled?

Where does the gray wing of death hover?

Who means to do death now?

Whose heart and will has turned now to violence?

Who needs our protection?

If we will give it to them.

And if we will be paid to do battle, who now will pay us?

And I think it's only fitting that the first question I ask here is where does the gray wing of death hover?

That is an interesting question.

So you find yourself over the next few days, between the beginning and end of session moves, we've kind of started a little bit of a downtime period where you all feel relatively safe moving around Hamlet Opening, doing your own thing without much worry.

One of the things you've done, Ocean, is help Crandall maintain the perimeter based on his Warlord orders.

And that perimeter has mostly just been, hey, one dude needs to stay near the precipice, watch over Subtropolis, and look for any yellow Humvee people.

And if they see one, go radio for them.

Pretty simple.

You're helping with that one of these days, and you're just gazing out over Subtropolis.

Your eyes are focused in the direction kind of where the tower should be.

But of course you can't see it right now because it never shows up when you fucking want it to.

But you're looking out in that direction, and you feel just this whisper in the back of your mind of this cloud of death that seems to be coming closer and closer.

But it definitely doesn't feel like it's coming from where the tower should be.

It draws you more north of the tower and deeper and deeper into Subtropolis.

And you feel like some threat that maybe you haven't dealt with yet is coming closer and closer by the day.

If that motherfucking cheese monster comes out of this fucking place and starts dragging the snails around, I'm gonna kill myself.

Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of Oops!

All Apocalypses.

If you ever got any questions or comments or feedback or even want to describe some cool monsters to me, you can shoot it over to oops at stu.cool, that's O-O-P-S at S-T-U dot C-O-O-L, it's a real email address.

The music and editing was painfully performed by Stu Masterson, Brady McDonough drew up that logo, and Jacob freeze dries all our ice cream so we can feel like real life astronauts.

Love you, man.

Book an Ocean.

Have a Rovin at the Library.

I think I listed all of the people.

Real quick.

Yeah.

You said a rovin?

Yes.

Is that a real word?

No.

When I say it, it is.

I'll let you get back to it.