Book and Ocean try to use both bullets and brain to fight their way out of the Courthouse.

This one is basically a game of XCOM where 95% accuracy actually is 95% accuracy.

Welcome to Oops!

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

I'm your host, Stu Masterson, and I'm joined by one co-host and one co-ghost.

Hey, everybody.

It's co-ghost Brady here.

I play Book McCready, the super shocked sleuth, that's hard to say, who still hasn't quite realized that he has done his first murder.

The adrenaline is still coursing through his veins, and when it wears off, he is in for a treat.

Yeah, Stu went back and listened to our all over episodes, and he did indeed find out that that was the first time Brady has killed somebody in the podcast.

When Book killed the poor guy who just woke up and was shocked that someone fell out of his roof with a sword.

You say poor guys if he literally hadn't shoved a gun in my face.

Poor man, just trying to sleep.

Listen, guys, Book has aided and abetted many murders before on purpose, but he's never actually finished anybody off so far, which is kind of sad.

I mean, we've been doing this for a year now.

But I'm Jacob.

I play Ocean, a gentle giant who is currently also coming to terms with a probably a little bit more violent past than he was anticipating.

Yeah, we got to do your fun solo sessions.

So now all of us have done a solo session with Stu.

How do you guys like it?

How did it feel?

I know Brady's was like a calendar year ago.

Yours was the best.

Stu talking to Stu is way more entertaining than Stu talking to either of us.

He just has much better chemistry with himself than he does with us.

That one was the longest or the hardest to edit.

But I don't know, I feel like Brady's was a long time ago.

I feel like that was very smooth, but that was just because we were literally in the same room, just talking with one mic in the middle of a table.

And then Jacob's...

That was a panic record.

Yeah, that was a panic record.

Jacob's one-on-one, I thought, went smoother and I liked better, but to me it was harder.

I was thinking real hard.

I noticed I was closing my eyes like all the time while I was recording with him, which normally I'm staring into my computer screen.

Well, I remember specifically starting that episode, I asked you, hey, Stu, you got any ideas for what's going to happen with Ocean's past?

And you're like, no, not really.

And you asked me if I had, and I was like, no, not really either.

So, neither of us had any idea what we were going to do.

We literally just said the whole thing.

Yeah, that's how it's supposed to go.

That was the plan all along.

I thought it turned out real good.

I think it turned out great.

But I do prefer when both of you are here, so we can have a nice real episode this time.

Yeah, so that way we can cut to Brady anytime I'm just stammering and forgetting my lines.

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

Hey, this is not a scripted podcast.

I just want that on record.

That the viewers know of.

When it's only one of you, I can't like sometimes I say something that I just know you guys will just talk about for like 40 minutes.

So I just say it and then like lean back and it's all nice and relaxing.

But when it's just one of you, I have to sit there ready constantly to respond.

It's terrible.

We've been holding off on our new intro mechanism of weird, fun icebreakers that Brady's wants to call the Apocalypses.

The Apocalypses.

That's a good name.

This week, we're going to do one that you got a sneak peek of with just me and Jacob playing ourselves.

But I want the character answers to this for Book and Ocean.

So Book and Ocean, if you were trapped on a desert island and you knew you're going to be there for quite a while, what three movies would you bring with you?

And for all of these questions, for as long as we keep doing this, assume you have knowledge of all of media history, the world.

Don't narrow it down to just what?

Oh, Ocean's only seen two movies, so he's bringing those.

These are to really just get into your character, your thoughts, your feelings.

So I think Book is going to approach this from a very logical perspective.

And he's going to be like, I want the DVD box set of Bear Grylls', what was the show?

Man vs.

Wild.

Man vs.

Wild is the big one.

So Book's got the DVD box set of Man vs.

Wild.

That's not a movie.

You've already failed.

All right.

Then he's got a documentary.

He doesn't know.

I don't know one.

But he's got a documentary on island survival of like, of like ancient methods of island survival.

And then the last one is his only fun movie, Sherlock Holmes, the Robert Downey Jr.

one, but the second one.

The second one, not the first.

Something of Shadows.

Is that right?

Yeah, I think so.

Game of Shadows, maybe.

Can I tell you a secret?

Light on me.

I haven't seen either of them, so I don't know.

Well, the first one is the best one, though.

I would say I enjoyed them.

Yeah, I think they're very fun movies.

They're not very Sherlock Holmes-y.

They're more like action movies.

I'm a huge Guy Ritchie fan, so I was excited when he was doing Sherlock Holmes movies.

Forgot it was Guy Ritchie that did it.

Ocean, what are your three?

I think Ocean would bring movies that would comfort him.

So Book, he's going to account for Book, bringing probably lame survival movies.

So he's going to leave Book to do that.

So he knows that he has to bring the entertainment.

So he's picked probably his favorite three movies, and I've got two of them, and I'm trying to figure out a third.

It'll come to you.

Just start going through it.

And his first favorite movie, I would say, the first movie he'd bring is probably The Descent, because I think that would be a movie he would like very much.

Hell, yeah.

Very good movie, too.

Very depressing movie.

Very scary movie.

But it kind of fits.

The second movie, and I think this is a movie that is kind of a guilty pleasure, but he enjoys because he somewhat relates to it, and that is Fifty First Dates.

He needs an actiony movie.

So let's go with, I think, actually, the first Raiders of the Lost Ark would probably be his last pick.

I think that would fulfill his desires to scrounge around and find stuff.

Or Moon.

Moon, actually, maybe.

Have any of you guys seen Moon?

Yeah, I love Moon.

It was made by David Bowie's son.

Is that right?

Am I making that up?

To be honest, I have no idea, but I choose to believe you.

And it stars Sam Rockwell.

And by star, Sam Rockwell is the only action movie, I believe.

Yeah, essentially.

It's about a guy just being alone on the Moon, maintaining his survival base.

And weird, surreal things start happening.

It's really good.

I can see that as a movie Ocean would very much enjoy.

Ocean has really bummer taste in movies.

So we're going to go with Descent, Fifty First Dates and Moon.

He's going to be like, Book, let's watch these great movies.

And then you're just going to be bummed out, because these are the only three movies you're going to see for the rest of eternity.

Book would be terrified in all of them for different reasons.

He's terrified of romantic connections.

He's terrified of dark things.

Me personally, since I didn't get to answer, mine are easy.

I want A New Hope, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jurassic Park.

Wow, those are great choices.

Those are just good classic, good classic choices.

You guys already got mine, so I'll give you Crandles real quick.

It's going to be Scream 4, A Star is Born, and Happy Feet.

That makes sense.

Book Snooker Booktakes!

Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Book Snooker Booktakes.

I'm your host, Book McCready, and this week we're talking about the hit new series on Amazon Prime.

Motherfucker.

Tortured Poet Society out now.

What were you going to talk about, Brady?

Is there a more relevant one?

Nope, that's it.

It's Taylor Swift's thing.

There's a new show that came out on Amazon Prime.

Is that right?

I forget where I watch everything I watch.

Called Fallout, and that's probably the most relevant book we could possibly do.

Fucking amazing.

Two thirds of us have seen it.

Yeah, I haven't seen it.

Who hasn't seen it?

I haven't seen it.

Shit Cup.

I'm the only one.

Slacking.

So we got a good coverage here because I'm a super Fallout fan.

I've played like almost every single game except the very newest one.

And I think I gave up on Fallout Tactics after like 10 minutes.

But besides that, huge fan of Fallout.

Love it so much.

And watched it, watched the new series and still loved it.

Still love the series.

Fit Fallout really good.

Brady's never even smelled a Fallout before.

But you still liked it.

Is that right?

I thought the show was some of the best television I've maybe ever seen.

Holy hell, that's high praise.

The characterizations were both absolutely true.

Like there were no character decisions that I felt deviated from what we'd seen.

Like nobody did anything that surprised me from a characterization perspective.

But there were also so many twists and surprises through other things.

So it's just really, really excellently written.

Like nobody was an idiot, people were naïve, and people did dumb things because they were dumb.

But nobody did just absolutely meaningless, stupid things.

Nobody did dumb things because it felt like the writers needed them to do a dumb thing.

Precisely.

And it was just so well crafted.

Top to bottom, visuals were amazing.

They did a lot with what I think was probably not a crazy budget.

The mech suits?

Power armor.

Sorry, the T-60s looked awesome.

I also like the way they told the story.

They follow a lot of different characters that do intertwine and come together and stuff like that.

But it was able to capture many distinct storylines simultaneously without it becoming jarring or getting boring.

I didn't have many moments where I was like, why don't they get back to that other person?

Which is really common and even stuff I really, really like.

I'm like, damn it, why did you go away?

I want to follow that person longer.

They did a really good job of pacing that out, of jumping to the right people right when you wanted to hear more about them.

Or at a moment where you're kind of on the edge of your seat and you're like, oh, what's about to happen?

And then they kind of leave you.

They do some cliffhangers very effectively.

I also felt like you rooted for everybody even when they were despicable.

Oh.

Yeah, you liked it.

Everyone was very likable.

Yeah, and they give you enough information about one character in particular to know that he is, even though he is objectively the biggest asshole, you know that he's doing it for a good reason.

You just don't know why yet.

Yeah, so many, if anyone who's listened will know exactly what we're talking about, or who's seen the show will know exactly what I'm talking about.

But so many other series would have done it the opposite way, like introduced him as badass evil dude and then been like, oh, but actually he has a heart of gold.

He has this trauma in his past.

He has these things.

And they did the exact opposite in this one.

So it was like perfect.

And but it didn't stick around that other part so long that you're like, this is so out of character.

This is dumb.

You're like, oh, I get it.

I know what's going on from a game perspective.

It like fit the tone of fallout super well.

It didn't really contradict like anything in the fallout storyline.

So I think even the super fans will love it.

And it really captured like the lightheartedness and ridiculous violence and also very serious moments that fallout does really well.

I'd say it's a little less funny and quirky than the games, but I think they did it.

Yeah, I think they did it just like the right level for a TV show.

I think if they went full, full, full, it would have been a little dumb, but they kept it in the right level of like 10% more serious.

Oh, it was very funny.

But a lot of it was the actors were also very good.

A lot of it was the actors reactions.

The actors were so good.

We have already taken way too long for this intro, though.

We literally have more things to say.

You guys are just gushing, gushing and gushing.

Well, we are in the middle of a cliffhanger that's been dangling for over a month, I think.

So let's hurry up and get back to the action.

You all are not feeling great.

You're in the middle of a courthouse that the power is completely out on, that is currently being attacked by a pretty large force of the Silent.

And you've recently decided that running away isn't much of an option, and you're going to help Hickory's men defend it.

To complicate matters even further, you've just ran into someone from your past Ocean, who we talked about extensively in our solo episodes, but you have ran into Kara, who is someone who used to be one of your close partners in crime when you were a member of The Silent in your past.

So I think Ocean is just in kind of a mild state of shock, and he's just kind of staring at her.

I think the last thing he said before was, Kara, are you alive?

Are you alive?

And I think at that point, he's just kind of frozen.

I like that one better, actually.

I like the first one better.

Yeah.

And she looks like just as confused to see you here, and it looks like she's about to say something when the whole room is rocked by some explosion that happens outside.

Not like you guys didn't just get toasted up in here, but like she falls to her knees, all the stuff on the counter smashes to the ground.

That kind of shakes Ocean out of it, yeah.

Book is on his ass.

Doing what?

No, no, meaning I think he fell over when the building shook.

So we got to figure out real quick before we keep talking here.

We got to figure out what is it?

What are we doing?

Where are we going from here?

Well, first things first, I'm going to stand up since I got knocked over.

Back to you, Ocean.

That's all I got, dude.

Negative contributions.

I'm at a 10 out of 12 to being dead.

So right now, the courthouse is under attack through the main entrance basically.

They're mostly attacking the front for some reason.

Or you guys don't know why, but it seems like they've decided that as the most advanced strategic maneuver to take down the courthouse.

And as they're going straight through the front, you guys tried to escape out the back basically.

You jumped down the courtyard in the middle and were making it towards the back, winding through all of these courthouse hallways and rooms and stuff like that.

When you were assaulted by a bunch of the Silent, who were like kind of the strike force meant to track down, Ocean and Book or both of you, you don't know, but it felt like they were intentionally trying to find you guys.

You handled all them slash awoken their minds and seem to have broken their connection to this AI that was controlling them.

You don't know if that's permanent, temporary, whatever, but it seems to have happened for now.

So you roughly know where the main strike force is.

You also know the courtroom directly outside of Hickory's office was exploded by Book unintentionally.

I mean, I pressed the button.

And you've sent Frida out the back to go round everyone up so you can meet them at the library at some point.

Kind of ASAP is what we said.

Yes.

So Ocean has two things he would really like to do in this situation right now.

Kiss Kara.

Prior to seeing Kara, here's what his goals was.

First thing he wants to do is he wants to find Hickory.

And the second thing, I think the priority would be to find the main force of Hickory's men, and figure out where their most bummed bunker down, and try and provide some assistance to them.

So that was what his...

But after the explosion, he looks around at everyone, and he's like, all right, you guys all right?

And he helps people get back to their feet, and he's like, okay, are you guys going to fight with us?

Book got a tiny gun, tiny pistol revolver from the robot, right?

Sure.

That's what, right?

We were handing out guns, you said there was a little pistol.

You got, there was a really nice pistol.

So Book is going to fall on his ass, stagger upright, draw his sword with his right hand, draw the pistol with his left hand, turn to the people whose minds he just broke, and he's going to say, Yarr, matey.

No, no, he's going to say, join us, our trespassers, and deliver us from AI.

And he's going to start walking forward.

Give me a sway, someone.

That was a little biblical reference, you know?

After he says that and he starts walking away, Ocean's going to put his hand on Kara and be like, Kara, we'll talk about this.

I don't know why you're here, but my friend's really injured.

As you can see, I don't think he's in his right mind.

Can you help him?

I'm not sure.

I don't know if I've done that in a long time.

So listen, folks, I rolled a 7, which is not great.

It's nice in the middle.

Does Ocean's presence at all help?

Well, maybe if you didn't undermine me by saying, I think he's fucking crazy, it would have helped.

Yeah, give me an aid roll.

An aid roll.

Okay.

Snake eyes.

You walk out of the room all dramatically, right?

That was your plan?

Yeah, I just thought it'd be kind of funny.

You say this and walk out of the room dramatically.

You have that short conversation with Kara, and she's like, when you have a chance, I can try to help him a little bit, but I don't know if we can right now.

And the other guy's like, who are you guys?

Like, something weird just happened.

I know it's weirder that we're here, but what's going on?

Book pokes his head back in and he goes, you guys are being controlled by AI, I say we go kick some ass.

Yeah, Ocean turns to the guy and is like, look, I don't know exactly the circumstances of everything that's happening.

All I know is that it seems that you guys have been placed under control of some hostile entity and you're currently sieging on an innocent town that has nothing to do with whatever conflict that's going on.

I think you're overseer, the person in charge of things, is trying to capture this settlement and maybe take out me and that other guy that you saw over there, because we haven't had the best encounters with them so far.

And all I know is that now that you've been separated, I don't think they're going to let you live either.

I literally never advocate for this, but I think maybe we need to get some tinfoil hats going to prevent any reconnection from occurring, you know?

You know, that's not a bad idea.

You hear a gun reloading and you look over, and Kara is doing a bunch of quick swips and swaps on some fancy submachine gun she has.

And she goes, Ocean, you know, I trust you.

Where are we going?

They'll come with us.

And she like glares at them.

And the other dude looks kind of like freaked out.

And there's still one who's just kind of like dazed, who's like leaning against the wall.

Seems like he's not in a great place.

OK, we need to find the main fighting force here and provide them some backup.

I think they're about to get overwhelmed.

Also, we should probably follow my friend over there.

He's wandering off on his own.

Book is 300 feet down the hallway.

He's very smart, but he's not very good in a fight.

So we need to probably provide him some backup.

You know that scene in The Batman where there's gunshots going off and it's illuminating the Batman just kicking ass?

That's what's happening with Book.

I imagine it's more like that scene in The Third Pirates of the Caribbean where he's just walking slowly down the hall except he's got his sword raised and he's looking really intense and there's explosions going around behind him and gunshots shooting into the walls.

Book's in a fugue state for sure.

He's in the zone.

He's ready to kick some ass.

About 20 seconds later, a few people awkwardly jog up behind you as you continue your march down the hallway.

Your plan right now.

You mentioned wanting to see Hickory.

You know the main path to Hickory is through basically the front entrance where you're at now.

There's this big major hallway that leads to this junction where the main entrance is and that's what you assume is being assaulted right now.

He is down one of those hallways to the side behind the major large actual courtroom.

If you take the direct approach, you'll basically have to fight some people first.

If you take a non-direct approach you come up with, you may be able to get to him, talk to him, figure stuff out, whatever.

I think our priority at this point is probably to reunite with the main fighting force of Hickory's men.

Like there's fighting that's going around around us right now, right?

Yeah, it's mostly at the front entrance.

You know exactly where that is.

You guys can get there pretty quick.

I have a fun idea.

Does this building have some like heavy oak doors, I assume?

Say yes.

Some of them.

What Book has done since when you guys catch up is he has used his snapped pocket knife from when he made that plug for...

It's a multi-tool.

Yeah, his multi-tool.

After he made that plug for Crandall, he's used it to pop the hinges, the bolt in the hinges, off of a bunch of heavy oak doors, and he has them laying basically like scattered.

And can we say for argument's sake that they have like a push-pull handle?

So there's like a pretty solid handle.

Sure.

Attach them.

Make me a handle.

You can take the bathroom doors off.

Yeah.

Basically, he has...

How many people do we have?

So it's me, Kara, I have...

Three others?

Yep.

Five total.

Book is going to...

When everyone catches up, he's going to try to pick up one of the doors and probably is not able to in his currently damaged status, but he's going to start dragging them towards people and handing them out and saying basically, we're going to make a tortoise.

Oh, that's like the Roman shield formation?

Like the Roman shield formation.

That's not a bad idea.

I kind of like that.

What the fuck is a tortoise?

Imagine like your rib cage grew out of your skin and fused together into a massive shield that was also your body.

I would love to be able to do that.

How do you do that?

I'll show you.

Grab this door and just kind of hold it overlapping with the door next to you and we'll have a little tortoise.

Kara's like, I think he's talking about just like a classic phalanx formation.

And he's like, oh, yeah.

No, actually, actually, a phalanx requires the use of spears, which we don't have.

Okay, so this is a tortoise.

Okay, Kara, stay in your lane.

Let's confirm last.

We'll call it the tortoise phalanx position.

No, a phalanx is appropriate.

They do have a lot of shield shit going on there.

Okay, you guys form up and your plan is to what?

Charge your asses down the middle and stampede some people or?

So I think what Ocean's playing currently is to find the first group of Hickory's men, assist them and try and get like a bigger group, because right now it's just the five of us.

We're probably not taking down very many people.

So I think two of us are super injured.

So like Book and then one guy that's really shell shocked.

So Ocean wants to find another group of Hickory's people to provide assistance to them and see if he can pull them into the pack so that way we have a bigger fighting force so we can like mount a larger charge.

I like this.

Good idea.

Give me a read a sitch roll Ocean.

You can be doing this while Book is disassembling doors and handing them out to everyone.

Okay, read a sitch is...

I get my size, so that's an 11 minus 1, 10.

10 total.

Ooh, nice.

That's like one of your best read a sitch ever.

It is definitely up there, yeah.

Ask me three questions.

All right, so I'm going to say, what is my best way to Hickory's men, the closest Hickory's men, what's my best opportunity to find a way to convince them to join us, and then what is my biggest, what should I be on the lookout for?

The best way to find Hickory's men is going to be actually pretty straightforward answer.

Yeah, you think you know where the main defenses, so if you want to get a lot of them quickly, there'll be a lot there.

If you aren't comfortable going to where they're all at yet, you can probably find a smaller group by just following the sounds of gunshots somewhere else.

Like, oh, here's a little place off to the side where there are people clearly fighting.

You'll be able to do that without any trouble.

Your best opportunity to convince them to join, you think a sudden, powerful display of violence against the people attacking them will pretty much immediately turn them to your side.

If you can prove to them that you're there to help them, they will back you up.

You think your words mean a lot less to them because they don't know why you're under attack.

There's a lot of radio chatter that you're the reason this happened.

So it's going to be really hard to just convince them of, hey, I'm here to help follow me.

It's possible, but it'd be very difficult.

Gotcha.

But if you blow up a bunch of dudes, they're going to be like, OK, all right, they're not on the same side.

Yeah, we're on the same side here.

What you should be on the lookout for is if you show up with Kara and these other two guys, it's going to be way more suspicious.

And there's a good chance people will just shoot on site because they still look exactly like the silent except not wearing helmets.

They're wearing the exact same get up, exact same uniform.

Are there any dead Hickory's men nearby?

Yes.

Okay, Ocean turns to Kara and is like, Hey Kara, I think more than likely you'll be shot at on site wearing that gear.

Have at it.

Points motions towards the Hickory's dead man and says, I think you could probably get changed.

And then Ocean turns to Book and says, I think we should find a smaller group.

I think we'll have a better opportunity to get in a smaller group of Hickory's men to join us first.

And then when we have more of them on our side, we can find a larger group.

And then I think we'll be more likely to convince them if there's already some of their buddies fighting with us.

I think that's a good plan.

But every moment wasted is man lost.

So we have to move.

Folks, if you can just find a big jacket, drape it over your shit.

We gotta get rolling.

Book, since you haven't rolled in a while, just give me an act under fire to represent you guys getting to the right spot quickly, getting these people dressed appropriately.

It's like wrangling a bunch of toddlers, kind of.

Your boy rolled two sixes.

Oh, baby, that's why we keep you around.

Plus whatever my cool is, which is two, so 14.

That's a very good roll.

Not only do you say this, but as you're saying that line, you're just reaching down and grabbing a few jackets and things and tossing them to the right people.

Can I describe what I do?

Yeah, you can describe what you find and what you do.

No, so I definitely do that.

I grab, I just start ripping overcoats, chucking them at the former silent, and then I arrange our phalanx, or our tortoise, so that basically starting on the right side of the wall, we have the first door basically, and then a diagonal cascade of doors along it, so that the first door, the weak point, the vanguard of our force is bolstered against the wall, and then everyone behind it is also supporting that front door.

And so we are basically going to clear on our right side, we're going to clear the hallway door by door.

And so via that mechanism, we're able to kind of hide ourselves and block any frontal attacks while we go through along this hallway and clear at any resistance in the rooms to our right.

Since you rolled a 15 with the plus one from the read-a-sit roll, and that's over double what you need to be successful, then I'm going to say not only do you execute that flawlessly, but when you open one of these doors, it's like the back of it's been blown out, and you can actually see the courtyard, and you can see across the other side, and you guys see a perfect position to actually flank some of the silent who have come in through the fire emergency exit on that staircase that Ocean went down a really long time ago to catch Frida.

They came in that way and are kind of assaulting the main force from the edge, but they don't see you.

You have a pretty good drop on them.

They're like a distance away still, so you can approach however you want to.

Poppy loves a flank.

Ocean turns to Book and says, You ready for this?

Let's fucking go.

And he cocks the pistol.

Charging guns, please.

Magazine falter.

Book picks up the magazine, slams it back to the bottom.

He's like, let's rock.

I think we're just going to try and attack them while they're surprised.

They're attacking the main force.

We're going to charge in through the side and flank them.

In the courtyard, as we're flanking, are there benches that we could lean the doors up against to provide additional cover while we lay down this flanking maneuver?

Good.

There are a few actually things you can do in the courtyard, because they use the courtyard for target practice.

Oh, hell yeah.

There's bales of hay and shit that are right there that you can go reinforce with these there.

So your plan is to basically go run out, set those up, and then assault them as soon as possible.

Build up some cover for us so I can hide behind.

And then specifically, I want to make it so Ocean is very obvious in the fight, fighting against the people that are attacking Hickory's men.

Okay, so you actually want, you particularly want to be very visible.

Yeah, Ocean wants to be very well-defended.

Do Hickory's forces have a flag in the courtyard?

I don't think there's a flag for Hickory.

What about like a poster?

If you can come up with what a flag or a poster would be, then yes, you can have it.

It says, okay, it's a poster.

It's just a big light bringer propaganda.

No, literally.

Yeah, it's a poster of Hickory standing with his hands on his hips, but it's drawn in like crayon.

And it just says, Hickory...

Dickory Dock.

Without me, you have no clocks.

Sure.

It says that.

Sorry, I said you could come up with it.

It says, Hickory brings victory, and he has like a big light coming from behind him.

And it says, join the lightbringer at the bottom.

This is giving me some serious Axis vibes.

Yeah.

Oh yeah, no, no, no.

He's a fucking asshole.

I tie it around Ocean's neck like a cape, but it's made of paper, so it's just giving him little paper cuts on his neck.

As you slap him on the butt and telling him he's good to go.

So I'm assuming you're maybe not the muscle behind setting up the barricades, but it's your plan to set up the barricade book.

So while he does his first attack, do you want to roll for that?

So like he rolls a go, attack someone while you roll the set up the defenses.

Hell yeah.

So you give me an act under fire book and Ocean, you actually give me an attack someone, not a do battle right now, because they completely don't know you're there.

Yeah, so yeah, he's just trying to make it so it's obvious that he's fighting for Hickory's Man right now.

He does not want to be seen as, you know, he wants to make it obvious, try and show them that.

Ocean yells for the lightbringer as he charges into the fucking breach.

I rolled a 10.

OK, that is a 9.

That's an 8.

8 currently.

Go with inflict terrible harm.

Wonderful.

He said, impress them with a massive firepower.

Well, one of those options is impressed, frightened, dismayed.

Oh, shit, that's true.

I'm going to go with impress then.

You guys are in the back of this room.

You scope all of this out.

You put on your cape as one.

You all charge out.

The back of this room is like blown up.

And there's just like a knee high wall in the back.

And you all run out leaping over this wall together while the former silent are carrying these big big oak doors.

Book goes and slides behind one of these hay bales and points out exactly where to put them down and hunkers in one.

While you ignore this cover entirely, Ocean, and walk into the center of the courtyard, give a big yell out and unleash.

What is your longest strange weapon?

I have a machine gun, a shotgun, and you charge out unleashing this doing three harm.

This is an even gang right now.

So you do three harm to all of them, just sprayed in the back.

You see you catch a lot of them and they stumble down.

It doesn't actually seem like anyone got taken out.

They got some pretty heavy armor on them.

But you notice Hickory's men, though all the bullets stop for a second firing from the silent as they are completely distracted, did not expect to be flanked.

And Hickory's men are able to get some really good shots off that one of them catches one of the silent like right in the head and he just collapses down.

And you hear a big cheer from them and they look over in your eyes like luck.

With some people you recognize, Mako is actually there.

One of the I don't know if you remember him.

He was one of the line layers for Hickory's men who sold you out at some point.

Oh, really?

He looks guilty when I walked into a room once.

Yes, you see him.

So you recognize him definitely.

And he seems a little surprised, but he yells out, They're flanking, push forward.

And it seems like Hickory's men start moving up while the silent definitely focused their attention more on you guys.

Both of you give me a due battle.

Okay, unless are you just getting shot at Book?

Are you shooting back at all?

I actually had maybe a different idea.

Yeah, go with your idea.

So it will be preceded by an act under fire, pretty much.

That's fine.

I would like to use my whispering truth to inspire Hickory's men, if that makes sense.

So it doesn't make sense to me yet, but if you can explain.

So one of the mysteries that I mark true is the world psyche maelstrom was created by human beings, and that's true.

So what I'd like to yell out is, They're just machines.

We made them.

We can kill them.

Okay, this is a lot of context you have to try to get across with this.

So I'm going to require also a sway someone role with this.

I think that's fair.

Sway someone is plus cool, yeah?

But I did get a seven.

So my dew battle would have been a fucking ten, but it's a nine.

Because you're minus one forever.

So I'm going to go with a full success on the dew battle.

Taking a risk.

I might regret this.

You go and yell that out and you see, you peer over the edge to see their reaction to it, and it is predominantly confusion.

But Mako, he seems like he kind of gets it, like he's nodding his head, and he like turns and it's like he's kind of trying to explain it to the other ones, but they look really confused still.

You give me an act under fire.

Okay, I rolled another seven.

Another seven, cutting it close.

I've rolled exclusively cool today.

I'm going to go with get them out of our way for my attack someone.

You hunker down after yelling this book, and machine gun fire starts shredding this door around you, but it does provide you two additional armor, but you just feel it beating against your back.

It actually just hurts holding it back against you.

So it would be three damage total, but minus two, minus another one.

No, pain doesn't help.

Oh, sorry.

Yes, so you do still take one arm.

Ocean, you are not using the doors at all.

So you are in the open here as they turn towards you, and you feel two bullets nick both sides of you, like one right above your hip and one on the opposite side rib.

Just like curses right through.

You would take four arm, but I think it is two.

Could I say scrounging around for the, when we were looking for the bodies and handing things off, that I was looking for some additional body armor that I could grab?

Yeah, I think there's time.

Anchorys men have some stuff.

Do you want anything like that to Book, or are you too attached to your style?

Oh, no.

Yeah, no.

Book is wearing a helmet, for sure.

You got it.

If there was like a armored vest, Ocean would have taken that.

It's like a motorcycle helmet, and there is a whole clean drive.

I was thinking like a World War II or World War I, where it's just like basically a bowl.

And when you put it on, this is going back in time, but when you put it on, Vesuvius goes, what the fuck?

And then I put one on him.

I go, shut the fuck up, Vesuvius, I'm working here.

Thank you.

So Book, you take zero damage from that, and Ocean, you take one damage.

OK, so that body armor gave me another plus one armor.

Yes, there's like just a metal plate someone had that they tied to their chest.

It's not very good metal.

It's like sheet metal.

It'll do for this.

But helps a little bit.

It would be very good if someone's hit you with a bat, maybe, but not very good for gunshots.

Ocean looks right out of Hell Divers right now.

He's got a cable.

Probably.

As you spray these bullets at them, you take out another one of the silent, and you seem to push them back towards that door, which gives plenty of room for Hickory's men to move up.

So you guys can actually meet with Hickory's men now as you've pushed back the silent.

They're still there.

They're still shooting.

But there's like kind of a clear line between you and Hickory's men.

Is this the main Hickory's force, or is this a like a side force?

It's a side force, but you guys are very near the front entrance.

Basically, I think I'll cut all those out, but there's a big junk T-junction right in the entrance.

I guess a lowercase T-junction, a four way, four way cross right in the entrance.

The big main hallway obviously goes straight down it.

Hickory's, if you're walking in the building, Hickory's room is to the left, and that's where the bailiff's counter is, where he talked to Pistachio Jones.

You guys, I'm picturing you guys now on the right side a little bit.

But basically, the silent has pushed in far enough that Hickory's force is now split along those three hallways because they've made it into the building.

So you've come around to this hallway on the side and have successfully dealt with those people.

They've been pushed back.

Ocean motions for the rest of the, for Kara and Book and all those crew that are behind him to pull up.

He's going to notice that Mako was the one that was kind of given the order.

So he's going to run up to Mako.

And when he gets up to him, he's like, OK, where's the main force of the Silent?

I think the main hallway, we got separated from them.

But I think they're back over that way.

And he points behind his shoulder and there's like an explosion.

Because I think they're over there.

What do you know what's going on here?

We got to get to Hickory.

Yeah, we're being attacked by the Silent.

I don't know who that is, but I assume it's these guys.

Have you ever seen people driving yellow Humvees around when scavenging out?

No, I stay in town mostly.

And someone else like, yeah, I've seen those.

I've seen them.

I know these guys.

Well, they're not good, and they've got us outfired.

So we need to be smart here.

None of these people you're looking at right now seem like they are very good fighters.

Like they have not shot.

Well, this is not one of Hickory's attack forces, which he really doesn't have.

He really just has like some people are pretty good shots.

But like you learned before, Suvius was by far their best shot that they had before he lost his torso.

So as Ocean looks at all the men, he's going to say, yeah, we're going to have to be really smart about this.

I think if we position ourselves, we might be able to flank them again with your main with the other Hickory's, with Hickory, with the other force.

I think that's our only hope.

Stu, are there any like riot shields or anything lying around?

Yeah, some of Hickory's men have them.

There's like a couple, not many, many.

Are they still holding them?

The ones that are alive are.

There's one from on a guy who died.

So there's one riot shield on the ground.

Okay, I would like to pick up a riot shield.

Sounds like a downgrade from a door, but okay.

No, I agree.

I agree, but I need to be more mobile for what I want to do.

Is there a passage?

Basically, what Book would like to do is while Ocean kind of continues with this assault, Book wants to find the PA system.

Oh, interesting.

And so he's going to take a riot shield and his sword, and he's going to try to run through the hallway to wherever that is.

Okay, do you ask them where it's at?

Sure.

Yeah.

So you ask them where you could reach the PA system, and they go, oh, it's a little bit down the main hallway there.

And he kind of describes it, and it's in that main middle part.

It's the first door on the left.

So it's kind of across the way from the courtyard a little bit, but it would definitely put you like right in the line of fire for where the main fight is going on, but not far distance wise.

Okay, I know what I have to do.

Ocean grabs Book by the shoulders like, wait, before you go.

And then Ocean motions for Karen like, Kara, can you protect this man?

You want me to go with him?

Yeah, I trust you.

I know you can hold your own.

He's feeling, he's look, he's...

Yeah, he does not look great.

I'll keep him safe.

Yeah.

Yeah.

She clasps you on the shoulder.

Book coughs and blood just fucking flex, hits her in the face.

Don't worry, I'm used to it.

Okay, let's go.

You lead the way until you tell me to get in front of you.

I'll see you after.

And then Book turns and goes.

Ocean's like, I need both of you guys back alive.

I need a book because, you know, I need you.

You're my bro.

Kara, we have a lot to talk about.

Hell yeah.

All right, and we go for the PA system.

Okay, so you kind of break off and you go back alongside the courtyard.

You move towards that area.

Ocean, you're trying to flank down the main hallway here.

Yeah, he wants to take the main force and the other guys that the five of the, I guess now we're down to three people because Book and...

It's you and you and Two Silent.

Yep.

Yep.

So he wants to take them and the Ocean, Hickory's men to try and flank the force attacking Hickory's other force.

I think with this many people, you're going to actually outnumber them when you get there.

I think it's going to be because of you, not an actual people number, much, much lower an actual people number.

But because of you, I think they're going to be a small gang and you're going to be a medium gang.

So you push forward.

Again, it's very dark here.

There's at least from outside, it seems like there may be a few outside lights that are now working.

You don't know if the silence set them up or if Hickory has some emergency lights or some that are run on like generators.

There's some like scattering light coming in from just the front.

And it's just illuminating this super dusty, cloudy hallway that is just being flashed briefly by gunfire and small explosions and things like that.

And you head straight towards those explosions.

Is the plan for you to distract them before Book runs across?

Or is it?

Yes, actually, yes.

I don't know if we discussed that, but I think Ocean immediately.

You don't have to discuss it.

You just feel it.

Ocean knows that they're going to get lit up if we don't provide some kind of backup.

So, yeah, he's going to try and charge in and distract them.

OK, as you charge in, give me a do battle and tell me what weapon you're using.

Oh, fuck.

He's so good at battle.

I assume I have to be using the machine gun again, because we're not close enough for the shotgun to be useful, right?

You can get close enough for the shotgun to be useful in these conditions.

OK.

If you want to.

That'll be you'll be in a little more dangerous spot, but it will be more distracting.

I think I'll still stick with the machine gun for now.

Because it's got the area tag, right?

Yep.

Do battle was an 11.

OK, what two options?

Pin them down and inflict terrible harm.

Three, four, five harm total.

That's a lot.

Oh, OK.

You push again.

You can barely see anything as you're going through here.

It's almost too late by the time you notice the first person, the first silent in front of you, and you just catch their glowing eyes illuminating outwards.

It seems like they have this.

They have it on red mode, whatever the fuck that means.

They have these big red glowing eyes that turn towards you.

And as soon as that happens, you notice like six more pairs of them all immediately focus on you as you just spray down, trying to just sweep it across all of them.

And it does cause a bunch of them to just like dive out of the way, fall to the ground, move back, try to hide behind things, which there's not much to hide behind, as you know, coming down here to try to sneak and meet up with Frida or track down Frida.

Not a lot of places to hide.

So you're able to just unload on them as a few good shots get off on you.

You don't have any cover.

You just have your armor, but you do get plus two armor.

So I don't think it actually does anything to you.

Give me a harm roll of zero.

Hell, yeah.

So that's just a flat flat 2d6, 2d6.

It's a 10, a 10.

Oh, then I can't do anything to you.

Yeah.

So you feel a few shots go against you, but it just doesn't pierce this armor plate you have on you.

It must have been like shrapnel or something.

I got deflected.

So you're just standing there in the middle with your keep waving as the other five to six ish people behind you all push forward to yelling, shooting the ones that dove on the ground, trying to clear some space out.

And Book, where you're at, you see Hickory's.

You can see some of Hickory's men kind of between you and the door you're trying to get into.

And they seem to get excited for a second, like they have a gap to move forward.

Do you care about seeing by Hickory's men or are you just trying to not get shot?

Oh, no, I don't care about being seen.

OK, give me a try something to give me act under fire.

OK, you're literally under fire.

I forgot.

Nine getting better.

They're still still a mix success.

And you dive across trying to get to this hallway.

Kara sees you going there and tries to kind of block for you.

But right when you leap across, you make it into that door.

A grenade goes off and you hear this to Ocean.

It's not too far away from you.

Definitely causes ringing in your ear.

But you're you make it all the way into the room.

But you would take two harm total.

But you have one armor, so you take one.

Book, once Book gets into this room with Kara, he closes the door and wedges the riot shield under it to try to block it in place.

And I turn to her and I say, Kara, I know you've been through a lot today.

And I don't want your friends to die any more than I want my people to die.

So I need your help.

And I would like to roll Compassionate Presence.

That's pretty compassionate.

That's a 10.

I want to know, basically, I know that I said Compassionate Presence.

Basically, what she needs to tell me is if she's ashamed of something she's done and if she's holding onto pain.

But I want to tie it into my question, which is, what do you call yourselves?

And have you always been under the control of this AI?

I really don't know.

I don't want to be here anymore than I think you wanted us to be here now, but I can't talk about what happened before.

And we just represented the tower.

I don't know.

We don't have a name for ourselves.

We're just part of a much larger community.

There's a lot of people in that tower.

If Kara is ashamed of anything she's done, she blurts it out.

And if she's holding onto pain, she blurts it out.

All of her shame and pain seem to be related to stuff she may have done that she didn't have control over herself for.

But she doesn't know what that is, but she feels like she shouldn't have been here.

That's what I was kind of hoping for.

Okay, Kara, I need to know one other thing.

Yeah.

How do you become the wolves?

I don't know.

What do you mean by that?

I've seen...

You have to elaborate a lot more.

I've seen members of people of the tower, and they've appeared as whores in the shape of a massive wolf.

And I've communicated with them in the psychic maelstrom by howling.

And I need to know what controls that transformation.

I don't know anything about these wolves.

Huh.

Well, here goes nothing.

And Book turns to the PA microphone.

He puts something heavy on the on button basically.

And then opens his mind to the psychic maelstrom.

Give me a roll.

That sounds like a bad number.

I rolled snake eyes.

That's the worst number you can get.

There's a big textbook on its law for dummies.

And you go and you drag it over and put it right on top of that little red button that activates the PA system.

And right when you do, you just hear this ear splitting feedback sound just pierce through the entire courthouse.

It's just racked with this sharp, painful noise that you can't even react to.

Like you go and try to lean back and move it away, but your brain just gets overloaded with static.

And you hear all of these voices speaking to you at the same time in just this robotic pitch.

You can't really understand what they're saying.

Kind of sounds a little bit like how Ocean's described the different commands coming through before.

But as you stagger back, all of the lights in the building suddenly flash on.

You see this too, obviously Ocean.

You just get this almost ridiculous clarity of the situation around you.

All the people who have been shot dead, all the silent out there, not behind cover, anything like that.

And it's like shockingly bright and like sobering for a second.

And this ear-splitting splitting screech is being broadcast throughout the entire building.

And it suddenly starts changing to this very quick chirping.

Just like that you can't track.

And outside Ocean, you notice that all of the silent suddenly just collapsed to the ground, completely stopped moving.

And Book, you take two psi harm.

I'm dead.

You know, that's not how psi harm works.

How does psi harm work?

Roll plus your psi minus the psi of your attack.

So you have no psi, right?

So then just roll 2D sex minus 2.

By the grace of God, I have rolled the 10.

You're startled or confused, but you suffer no harm.

You stagger back and you feel the cold concrete wall behind you knock against your head and you kind of snap out of it and knock the book out of the way.

But you look and you see Kara is in this room collapsed as well.

Oh no.

No.

Thank you so much for listening to our episode this week.

Now that Brady is back from either the dead or many, many trips, we are back to our regular weekly Wednesday schedule.

But you may be hearing this one episode a little early, since I feel bad about how long it's been.

Don't tell anyone, but we've also already recorded like the next three weeks, so they'll definitely be on time, and they're also really good episodes.

The music and editing was performed by Stu Masterson.

Brady McDonough made that logo.

And Jacob teaches us really cool ways to lace up our etnies.

Love you, bye.

Bye.

I have returned, have I missed any exciting developments?

Yes, Brady has just rolled a three on and opened his mind to the Psychic Maelstrom roll.

That's…

that's not good.