Episode 18
Episode 18: Homecoming
Book and Ocean end their medical leave to investigate the state of Hamlet Opening and to find out how large of a target is on their backs after the explosion.
This one is kinda an episode of extreme home makeover.
Later day update to fix audio issue. Loveyoubye
Transcript
Welcome to Oops!
Speaker:All Apocalypses, a show where we explore the collapse of society by playing fun, tabletop role playing games.
Speaker:I am Stu Masterson, and I'm joined by two wooly willies.
Speaker:To what?
Speaker:Wooly willies.
Speaker:Wooly willies.
Speaker:Oh, are those the things you do the face?
Speaker:Yeah, that's the thing, the magnet with the face.
Speaker:For some reason, I was thinking of Mammoth, and I was like, damn, we're not that fat.
Speaker:Speaker, speak for yourself.
Speaker:I'm a I'm a beefy boy.
Speaker:Speaking of, this beefy boy is Brady.
Speaker:I play Book McReady, a super smart, super sleuth, who realizes that his his power of deduction could probably use a little work.
Speaker:And this wooly boy is Jacob.
Speaker:And I play Ocean, a gentle giant.
Speaker:Crap, I lost it.
Speaker:Who is dealing with ongoing tinnitus.
Speaker:But I was going to say, who is now an elite hacker man.
Speaker:Oh, that's good.
Speaker:This intro needs to be short because we're doing beginning of session moves, which are also as boring as our intros.
Speaker:So we're going to go to our questions to follow the whole episode.
Speaker:What is the greatest accomplishment of your life?
Speaker:Ocean is building the the spider.
Speaker:Oh, yeah, that's a good one.
Speaker:I'm excited to get back into the spider.
Speaker:We got to do more spider stuff.
Speaker:I'm very excited.
Speaker:I want to upgrade the spider.
Speaker:That's what I'm excited to do, like somehow tricking it out more.
Speaker:But Ocean's proudest accomplishment is building that hunk of junk and turning it into a very usable, very, very effective traversal of the subterranean depths.
Speaker:Hell yeah, let's get in that thing soon.
Speaker:I agree.
Speaker:Book's greatest accomplishment is teaching Ocean everything he ever knew about computers.
Speaker:As far as Ocean knows, that's true.
Speaker:I forgot to answer last week, so I'm going to do it real quick.
Speaker:Last week was what's something you've dreamed of doing for a long time but haven't, and why haven't you done it?
Speaker:I want to go to Antarctica.
Speaker:I think that would be very fun.
Speaker:Dude, me too.
Speaker:But I'm so tempted to sign up for those like year long programs.
Speaker:The pay is kind of all right.
Speaker:Can we do a live record in Antarctica?
Speaker:I think the internet is shit.
Speaker:20,000th subscriber will be for going there.
Speaker:And then like the greatest accomplishment of my life.
Speaker:That's way harder on a personal level, man.
Speaker:I'm glad I don't have to fall in love with anyone.
Speaker:Greatest accomplishment of my life?
Speaker:Besides this podcast that is overwhelmingly successful.
Speaker:Hmm.
Speaker:Oh boy.
Speaker:Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker:I guess like professionally, I'm pretty happy with where I'm at.
Speaker:Stu is very good at his job.
Speaker:I'm jealous.
Speaker:I think I'm happy with my job because I'm like, there's just, it's not even that impressive.
Speaker:It's just that there's not many people who do it.
Speaker:And I'm not going to elaborate on what I do, but it's just there's a handful of people who do it.
Speaker:And I do it pretty well compared to all those other people.
Speaker:I thought you were going to say something like being the most charismatic person you've ever met.
Speaker:No, I am the funniest person I've ever met though.
Speaker:That may be it.
Speaker:I laugh at my own jokes more than anyone else.
Speaker:I used to say this is actually a good transition because I used to, in my opinion, I'm now the funniest person because before, my three funniest people were Mitch Hedberg, Greg Giraldo and Norm MacDonald, which all have died in my lifetime, as they were my three favorite comedians for a very long time.
Speaker:One at a time have died, letting me climb the ranks to now be the funniest person of all time.
Speaker:You gotta start doing stand up.
Speaker:And let's get back to the action.
Speaker:We're going to kick off the beginning of session moves by rolling Book's new move, which requires him to roll Devotion to see how helpful his followers are going to be.
Speaker:So is it just a straight 2d6?
Speaker:No, it's roll cool.
Speaker:I got a full success.
Speaker:Nice.
Speaker:Excellent.
Speaker:So they're going to help you out to the best of their ability.
Speaker:We'll detail that in later.
Speaker:Yeah, I think that's a good idea because I have sort of some things that I actually want to do.
Speaker:And now both of you are going to roll Living Day to Day, which is plus barter.
Speaker:Or minus barter.
Speaker:I was about to say, I think we're both minus barter.
Speaker:I rolled a 3.
Speaker:I rolled a 3.
Speaker:I rolled a 3.
Speaker:Oh my god, I rolled a 10.
Speaker:No, you did it.
Speaker:Wow, this is the first barter success in 18 episodes.
Speaker:Okay, what happens on a miss is I make my move as normal, but I'm going to make something go wrong by choosing something you need and telling you that you haven't been able to get it at all.
Speaker:An easy one is medical supplies, but I don't know if I'm going to do that.
Speaker:I think I will because it's easy and I'm going to end.
Speaker:You won't be able to.
Speaker:You'll start off more wounded than you would have been.
Speaker:So if this wasn't the case, I was going to have you guys basically healed up to full by the time we kick off.
Speaker:But instead, since medical supplies are extremely limited right now.
Speaker:How about we say that he sewed up Ocean first and then realized he was completely out of suture thread.
Speaker:He's some philosophical book.
Speaker:So he just used tape and floss and super glue.
Speaker:Both of you are going to be stable now because you have seeked appropriate medical attention.
Speaker:So you're at least stable.
Speaker:You mean sought?
Speaker:Seated.
Speaker:You have seeked out medical attention.
Speaker:And so both of you are stable.
Speaker:Ocean, you're going to be down to three o'clock harm, and both of you are still at six o'clock harm.
Speaker:But I am more stabilized.
Speaker:Yes, but you are stabilized.
Speaker:That's not bad.
Speaker:So I have two harm.
Speaker:So Ocean has one harm and I have two harm.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:That's the smart way of saying what I did.
Speaker:Since you are a full success.
Speaker:I love it.
Speaker:Since you rolled a full success, Ocean, there are two things that are going to come very easy to you.
Speaker:And they're going to be news.
Speaker:There's going to be a outside group that has previously I mentioned that you guys had been missing a lot of like trade caravans recently because some of the issues with the town.
Speaker:But an outside group has recently showed up in order to do trade.
Speaker:Probably not the best time for that to happen, as an important infrastructure has just exploded.
Speaker:But they are arriving now, and we can do a little scene with you guys meeting them at some point.
Speaker:Right now, something that is easy to come by is also access.
Speaker:Right now, Hickory's men are scrambling to repair things.
Speaker:They are not very focused on their day to day harassing of the people.
Speaker:So besides the fact that you may be directly dangerous people, potentially, in their minds, you don't know what they figured out, what they think right now.
Speaker:But besides that, just generally in the town coming in and out, there's not as many people on his team staked out, checking things out.
Speaker:Most of them are around the courthouse right now.
Speaker:Okay, that's actually pretty helpful.
Speaker:And then we have a beginning of session move with Ocean, where I believe I still have hold two on you.
Speaker:So there's a good chance you trigger a vision right now.
Speaker:It's at the beginning of the session, roll hard.
Speaker:On a 10+, the MC holds one.
Speaker:On a 7-9, the MC holds two.
Speaker:On a miss, the MC holds three.
Speaker:If the MC now has three hold or more, they must begin the session by spending one.
Speaker:So there's no way for you not to begin this session by spending one, I think.
Speaker:Excellent.
Speaker:That also means I think I was supposed to spend one last time, but I didn't.
Speaker:All right, let's see.
Speaker:Let's see how much you got on me.
Speaker:That's an 11, so...
Speaker:OK, so just three total, and I'm going to spend one immediately.
Speaker:You're going to be down two.
Speaker:Pick your vision you want to have as you're coming out of your medically induced coma.
Speaker:Let's go with an unsettled place of constant motion, shuddering and pitching.
Speaker:And I am going to go for the person, a child face half covered.
Speaker:I like picking the weirdest possible combinations just to see what you do.
Speaker:Yes, I appreciate it.
Speaker:As you're kind of drifting in and out of conscience, you've noticed these last couple days, it's going to be like two weeks later.
Speaker:Can I just say, canonically, the reason the subject of the vision is a child face half covered is because when Ocean unconsciously can still see the corpsless head of Vesuvius.
Speaker:That could be what triggered it.
Speaker:You're just fading in and out of consciousness.
Speaker:You've noticed this last week or so, you've started feeling a little better.
Speaker:You've been able to keep food down well.
Speaker:You got the appropriate amount of blood back in you.
Speaker:And some of your like extremities are starting to recover.
Speaker:Are you seeing a week has passed?
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:So what happened to the town hall meeting?
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:I was about to say, I think we'll learn soon.
Speaker:Sorry.
Speaker:I'm just an anxious little boy.
Speaker:I know.
Speaker:I was excited for the town hall meeting scene.
Speaker:I was too.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Then you guys had to go and get blown up.
Speaker:No, but I had a plan for it.
Speaker:That sucks, doesn't it?
Speaker:So did it still happen or did it get postponed?
Speaker:You'll find out.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:You said that already.
Speaker:I'm sorry.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:As you're drifting in and out of consciousness, another vision comes to you.
Speaker:And like always, it starts in the dark, which actually feels a little welcoming to you.
Speaker:It's nice, relaxing.
Speaker:You can tell you're deep, maybe deeper than you've ever been before right now.
Speaker:And you, the spider is behind you, actually.
Speaker:And you go over to it and you flick on the lights and it shines against this beautiful cave wall.
Speaker:And you see, it looks like something used to be here and has collapsed downward.
Speaker:And the ground feels a little different than normal.
Speaker:You're in mostly a lot of very rocky places or things that have been paved centuries ago.
Speaker:But this is like loose sand.
Speaker:And it's actually like hard to get your footing in it.
Speaker:It's a little abnormal.
Speaker:And as you're walking through it, you look around, you don't see anyone else.
Speaker:But as these lights flick against the walls, you keep thinking that they're moving some, like there's just a little bit of movement.
Speaker:But as you focus on them, that it goes away.
Speaker:It seems just like stone wall.
Speaker:You look at this wall closer with the lights shining on it.
Speaker:And again, it just keeps seeming like it's like almost writhing just a little bit, and then it stops.
Speaker:And you can't really figure out what it is.
Speaker:And you're starting to piece together what it looks like.
Speaker:There's these large, it's not just like a smooth wall, there are these large circular structures spread all throughout it on this huge arching stalagmite coming out that goes all the way from the ceiling or from the floor to the ceiling.
Speaker:Stalagmites start on the ground, just covering these walls.
Speaker:And they all have these strange kind of circular shapes spread all along the inside of them.
Speaker:And just whenever you're not looking at them, it seems like they just start writhing a little bit, kind of twirling downward.
Speaker:And you feel the sand start swirling around you just slowly and slowly.
Speaker:It gets even harder to catch your footing.
Speaker:And you hear someone yell out.
Speaker:You hear this just kind of scream.
Speaker:And you turn around, and you see a face that looks a little familiar to you, but you can't piece together who it is.
Speaker:But it is a young child, and they're reaching out from the sand, trying to grab on and get purchased, but it has reached up right to their nose.
Speaker:So you just see their eyes poking out of it as they're scrambling, trying to grab on, trying to just little bursts of yelling are able to escape from the sand before the sand covers back on top of them.
Speaker:And as you run up to help them reach down and grab their arm, you snap out of it.
Speaker:Weird.
Speaker:I didn't understand what you meant about the circle of things at all.
Speaker:That's fine.
Speaker:But you probably wouldn't recognize it either, so me describing it poorly is very accurate.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:If I said what this thing was, you guys would be like, oh, okay, that's obvious, but it's something you haven't seen before.
Speaker:And I described it accurately-ish.
Speaker:I was about to say, this one strikes me as much more symbolic than my previous visions.
Speaker:Well, apparently, everything is still a metaphor.
Speaker:Yeah, it's a metaphor, fool.
Speaker:Okay, you guys are coming to from your thing.
Speaker:Maple is still over you.
Speaker:We were out for a week?
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:Finally, it's been like almost seven days since you've been out there.
Speaker:I sit straight up.
Speaker:I sit straight up.
Speaker:I'm like, seven?
Speaker:Are you fucking kidding me?
Speaker:What happens?
Speaker:The Suvius tumbles off of your lap.
Speaker:Oh, no, help.
Speaker:Hey, I do not like being on the ground.
Speaker:I pick him back up.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:Ocean's just going to groggily come forward and be like, what?
Speaker:What?
Speaker:How?
Speaker:What happened?
Speaker:But the town hall, what happened?
Speaker:Did they still have the town hall meeting?
Speaker:Yeah, it turned a little more to like an emergency town hall meeting to try to figure out what had gone on at the courthouse is pretty awkward from my perspective, because I do think you guys may have had something to do with it.
Speaker:But I already told you, we didn't.
Speaker:His torso did.
Speaker:Yeah, thank you for specifying that it was my torso and not me.
Speaker:I had no control over that.
Speaker:I promise you.
Speaker:Well, yeah, the he it was not the normal.
Speaker:It wasn't a planned event.
Speaker:Basically, people were going a little crazy, a little worried.
Speaker:They don't know why we would have some people attacking us.
Speaker:Some people think Hickory did it on purpose to try to draw more scarcity.
Speaker:I think that's that's the Johnny Hertz opinion of what went on in this situation.
Speaker:Have we had any power since it happened?
Speaker:Yeah, yeah, power power has been on.
Speaker:It's been a little less stable.
Speaker:You'd probably be dead if the power didn't come back on just to be honest here.
Speaker:But it's been on.
Speaker:It's been flickering way more than usual.
Speaker:But it's we have some power.
Speaker:Book just nods his head slowly and kind of lays back down and pets Vesuvius' head.
Speaker:Ocean's going to turn to Book and be like, wait, Book, weren't you supposed to speak at the town hall?
Speaker:Yeah, I don't really want to think about it right now.
Speaker:Vesuvius, not Vesuvius.
Speaker:Hickory's going to fucking kill me.
Speaker:I was just going to say, what the fuck, is he wondering what he's going to, wondering if he's looking for us, wondering if he blames us for it?
Speaker:Callista comes in, goes, yeah, he's been going to it, or they ransacked your places a little bit.
Speaker:Oh, God, did they break the mirror?
Speaker:I don't know what you're talking about, but would not be surprised.
Speaker:They, yeah, they're definitely looking for you.
Speaker:I think they think you left town, which is what a smart person would have done if they sabotaged and blew up a building.
Speaker:But we didn't.
Speaker:I don't think they, I promise.
Speaker:Yeah, they certainly don't think you were also blown up with it.
Speaker:So you're a little bit off their trail right now, but I'm not.
Speaker:I don't know if you start showing up.
Speaker:I don't know who will and won't talk.
Speaker:Well, I think that rules out Hickory sending some men with us to Crandall's place.
Speaker:But do we even need to go anymore?
Speaker:I look at Vesuvius' head.
Speaker:This obviously wasn't Crandall's doing.
Speaker:Please do not take me back there.
Speaker:You were never there, Vesuvius.
Speaker:I don't know where I was and where I won't.
Speaker:But I hold his head to my face.
Speaker:I make eye contact.
Speaker:I hold his head up, and I make eye contact with him.
Speaker:And I say, listen, Vesuvius, I know that we hurt your feelings before, but do you trust us?
Speaker:Do you believe us now that you aren't the original Vesuvius?
Speaker:I will admit something is afoot here, as my torso has left my body, and I am still A-okay.
Speaker:I came out of this better than you guys, apparently, even though I am just a floating head.
Speaker:So I will admit something is wrong here.
Speaker:I don't think it's my fault.
Speaker:And there may be, I understand what you're saying about there potentially being another Vesuvius.
Speaker:So listen, Vesuvius, it's...
Speaker:Have you heard of the Ship of Theses?
Speaker:Unfortunately, I have.
Speaker:It wasn't your conscious fault, but you were made to fulfill a purpose, and I think that, I hope that purpose was fulfilled just now.
Speaker:Otherwise, I don't know what we're gonna do with you.
Speaker:That was my torso's doing, like you admitted.
Speaker:I did not have anything.
Speaker:I only came in there because I thought I heard something was going on, and I thought maybe you guys were up to some of your classic shenanigans.
Speaker:So I was like, if I'm the person to check out this building, I'd rather it be me than this other tool.
Speaker:And I came in there and then that's when I started feeling bad.
Speaker:That's when I got like I thought it was maybe an acute appendicitis coming on.
Speaker:But apparently it was some sort of explosive device that had been installed in my general Torsic region.
Speaker:Yeah, I kind of came to that conclusion as well after you blew up in my face.
Speaker:Which of his shoulders is still partially intact?
Speaker:His right shoulder.
Speaker:I still have the strap from the light, basically the light that broke.
Speaker:I never fixed the light.
Speaker:I never remounted it to the strap.
Speaker:So what I would like to do is I'd like to like basically secure Vesuvius' head to my shoulder where the light was and use the bits of his shoulder as like sort of a brace against my shoulder.
Speaker:So it looks like I have two heads.
Speaker:That is disgusting, but okay.
Speaker:I thought you were going to go with a crank situation.
Speaker:I was about to say, they strap into your back room.
Speaker:It works?
Speaker:No, I don't want him to have to look like look behind me though.
Speaker:I mean, that would be useful, but you know, I mean, he could warn me of things coming up from behind, but I kind of just wanted him to be the most comfortable that he could be.
Speaker:Yeah, thank you.
Speaker:He has been greatly washed off.
Speaker:So now he just kind of has a hunk of skin flap down there.
Speaker:So it's not as gross as it was before, but you're able to affix him to your shoulder.
Speaker:Yeah, I want to like use his skin flap as like a sewing, a place like purchase straps and hooks and things.
Speaker:So it looks really disgusting.
Speaker:Ocean is going to question, how does one armor by any chance?
Speaker:No.
Speaker:Ocean is going to kind of like turn the book and be like, I still think we might want to head to Crandell's place.
Speaker:I'm curious to see if this is Vesuvius or if there really is another Vesuvius like.
Speaker:Well, it's definitely not this.
Speaker:It's this.
Speaker:It's.
Speaker:Yeah, I agree.
Speaker:Maybe they took the old Vesuvius and transplanted him with a bomb.
Speaker:And the thing is, I am still worried that Crandell may be like, I don't know.
Speaker:Hey, Vesuvius.
Speaker:Did Crandell sound different at all or just act different?
Speaker:No, I can't.
Speaker:How many times must I elaborate?
Speaker:He was not personally acting any stranger.
Speaker:He was telling us to go collect things that were abnormal.
Speaker:For him?
Speaker:Yeah, for him.
Speaker:Your distinction that you're trying to draw right now is not very convincing.
Speaker:It's a very important distinction.
Speaker:He was not suddenly being all weird and like so reclusive or anything like that or yelling at us strangely.
Speaker:I mean, you acted just like Vesuvius.
Speaker:You just spoke with a slightly different accent.
Speaker:Yeah, he sounded the same to me, but who knows?
Speaker:Maybe my ears are different than other people's ears.
Speaker:Maybe.
Speaker:Well, but I don't want to bring you back there because you just asked us to not.
Speaker:But I don't want to like I like I don't want to leave you by yourself.
Speaker:Like you can't move.
Speaker:You can't.
Speaker:Can we what if we disguised you?
Speaker:Would you feel better about it?
Speaker:Yeah, like with those sunglasses and one of those fake mustaches and a hat.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I mean, you already kind of look like Burt Reynolds just without the mustache.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:I take that as the highest compliment.
Speaker:Did all of these leave Vesuvius with with the fuck?
Speaker:What's his name?
Speaker:Den.
Speaker:Den, because Den likes us.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Since you rolled a full success on that, he would take him if you wanted him to.
Speaker:But if you want Vesuvius with you, you can definitely bring him.
Speaker:You do have to give him a disguise that you described, though.
Speaker:Yeah, I would like to give him a disguise.
Speaker:I like having this little muppet creature on my shoulder.
Speaker:Are the lights on or is it did we awake in undercover of darkness by any chance?
Speaker:Perhaps, mayhaps, maybe.
Speaker:If you want to, you guys can leave this building whatever fucking time you want.
Speaker:So if you want to leave at nighttime, that's cool.
Speaker:Well, the thing is, I would like to go.
Speaker:I feel like as a person, we would go back to our places and see the damage.
Speaker:Yeah, you can try to do that.
Speaker:But are our places being watched is the question?
Speaker:Maybe.
Speaker:You can ask one of your followers to check it out.
Speaker:No, I don't.
Speaker:No, I'm not.
Speaker:No, it's okay.
Speaker:Actually, I do ask Den to come with us though.
Speaker:Yeah, sure thing.
Speaker:I'll go with you.
Speaker:Check it out.
Speaker:Make sure none of his men are scoping it out.
Speaker:Be a little extra firepower if you need it, you know.
Speaker:Please don't make me shoot anyone.
Speaker:I would I wouldn't dare unless I really need to.
Speaker:I say under my breath.
Speaker:Do we want to go to Books or my place first or Ocean's place?
Speaker:Based on the map that I started to draw today, I think Ocean's place is closer because you have to kind of like hike up kind of into the cave wall in order to get to the cave opening that I live in.
Speaker:Now let us give us a chance if we go to your place last, that will give us a chance to take a look at the secret room again in the light.
Speaker:Yes, indeed.
Speaker:You guys are very careful and sneaky around the edge.
Speaker:You go along the ledge towards Subtropolis and sneak up along peering at Ocean's building, and there's no one there.
Speaker:They seems like they probably thought you guys have bounced from town after they checked it out thoroughly.
Speaker:It's hard to tell that Ocean's place is ransacked because it already looked like that.
Speaker:But Ocean, you can tell, like to you Book, it's like, I don't know if they were even here.
Speaker:Ocean, you know, all your special things are not in their special places.
Speaker:Exactly the spot that I feel like they need to be and things are off.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Ocean's going to look at this place and he's like, what have they done to my stuff?
Speaker:Just in a frenzy.
Speaker:Yeah, it's a travesty.
Speaker:Book looks tiny bit to his right and makes eye contact with Vesuvius and just shrugs, but Vesuvius head goes up and down and kind of jostles.
Speaker:In a frenzy, Ocean's going to like run to his place and start grabbing things like, this does not go here.
Speaker:This goes over here with the other thingamabob.
Speaker:And this thing comes with all the whirly gigs, and he's just like soaring all his things and like a frenzy and an angry passion.
Speaker:Like Ariel after her father blew up her human stuff?
Speaker:Yeah, I guess.
Speaker:Ocean is basically the little mermaid.
Speaker:Yeah, really, really he is.
Speaker:I always pictured him as a hoarder because his lack of memories, he was filling the hole of his lack of memories.
Speaker:That could be exactly why he is hoarding.
Speaker:But as Ocean is cleaning up his stuff, he is going to look, and specifically he is going to go to the spider and see if the spider has been touched or tampered with or anything.
Speaker:You look in the spider, your cigarettes have been dumped out onto the side, like they were looking for, see if there was anything hidden in there.
Speaker:The glove boxes are open, but everything else is the same.
Speaker:And my Jeep is there too, right?
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:How is that?
Speaker:How is my Jeep?
Speaker:Your Jeep didn't have anything in it, so I think it looks the same as it did before.
Speaker:Perfect.
Speaker:It actually, it had a 21 pilot CD in it.
Speaker:Okay, that is still in there.
Speaker:Ocean's gonna look for the radiator looking device that was in his, that he saw on the Psychic Maelstrom.
Speaker:That is still there, and it is wherever you put it, because it's pretty heavy, and they wouldn't have taken the effort to...
Speaker:He's gonna be like, real quick, I just want to try something.
Speaker:And he's gonna touch it, and he's gonna see if it speaks.
Speaker:Ooh, nice.
Speaker:And when poorly last time, but I want to know what the fuck this thing does.
Speaker:Okay, give me your weird roll.
Speaker:Let's see if it's better than fucking Snake Eyes.
Speaker:That's much better than Snake Eyes.
Speaker:That's a 8.
Speaker:Okay, I think you can ask me one question from that list.
Speaker:Let me pull it up.
Speaker:On the 7th or 9th, yeah, ask one.
Speaker:It's the same as like...
Speaker:Redisitch.
Speaker:Redisitch, except it's psychically reading a thing.
Speaker:What's wrong with this and how might I fix it?
Speaker:Ooh, that's the most exciting one.
Speaker:I did not think you were going to ask that one.
Speaker:I thought about some others, but then I saw that and was like, you know what, that will tell me exactly what this is.
Speaker:You touch this thing and you just feel inside yourself getting pulled through the entire history of this object since it was first created, when it was used, when it was discarded.
Speaker:But most of it just blows by you way too fast to notice exactly what's happening.
Speaker:You just see shadowy figures touching it, getting installed somewhere, moved.
Speaker:You see its recent history.
Speaker:This is all in jumbled order, not chronologically.
Speaker:You see its recent history, some people around it.
Speaker:You see yourself picking it up.
Speaker:But then you focus on it, and it kind of comes apart, and you get this schematic view of how everything ties into each other.
Speaker:The exploded view.
Speaker:An exploded view.
Speaker:And that's too soon to use the E word.
Speaker:And you see that this is accurately to how I kind of misleadingly or not misleadingly, accurate to how I ever described it previously.
Speaker:This was at some point attached to a very large CPU, something that's larger than you think should exist that wouldn't fit in a computer.
Speaker:Like you can picture the CPUs that were in all those racks, and they were normal size, like this little big.
Speaker:This one would be like this big.
Speaker:And I'm doing hand motions, which is useless to our listeners, but it was too big to fit in a mailbox.
Speaker:But big enough to or small enough to fit through a doorway.
Speaker:Picture your TV in like 2005.
Speaker:No, it's an extra large pizza place from one of those places that has way too big slices of pizza.
Speaker:It's how big it would be.
Speaker:Picture your TV from 1992.
Speaker:And to fix it, yeah, so sorry, that's I gave you not even what you asked for by that.
Speaker:So right now, the radiator part works, the fan works, but it seems to require some coolant that is not just standard like water cooled.
Speaker:It's something that can get to like near absolute zero temperatures.
Speaker:So something very rare that it does not have in it right now.
Speaker:It would work with just water, but be way shittier.
Speaker:You can tell for its intended purpose.
Speaker:It should be something that can be hypercooled to just beyond the Bose-Einstein condensate level.
Speaker:If someone understood what this was, it would be worth everything.
Speaker:If someone had a good use for it, it would be tremendously valuable.
Speaker:Well, Ocean is definitely going to hold on to that thing.
Speaker:He's like, well, this is going in a special pile.
Speaker:This is my new backpack.
Speaker:Well, he may come back to Book and be like, well, it doesn't look like anything's been moved.
Speaker:Well, it doesn't look like anything's been taken.
Speaker:They tampered with all my crap and moved it around.
Speaker:Can we establish how long we've been here?
Speaker:Has it been like three hours of Ocean just slightly adjusting the position of Tiny Antos?
Speaker:It's been like 45 minutes.
Speaker:He's going to come out and say, it's going to take me days to fucking reorganize this.
Speaker:But nothing's been taken, I don't think, from what I can tell.
Speaker:I'm going to pat him on the shoulder with my left arm because my right arm has a Vesuvius head on it.
Speaker:And I'm going to say, I'll help you put everything back, I promise.
Speaker:As you do that, he picks up a plate and switches it in play location with another plate and puts it right back.
Speaker:Much appreciated.
Speaker:But yeah, I don't think anything's been taken.
Speaker:So if we want to check your place out next.
Speaker:Sounds good.
Speaker:You head towards Book's pad, Book's cave.
Speaker:It's a pretty cave.
Speaker:I just had a really good idea for something.
Speaker:Go for it.
Speaker:No, go for it.
Speaker:Fuck it, dude.
Speaker:So after touching the radiator, Ocean's going to be like, you know what?
Speaker:I got a lot of information from this.
Speaker:And he's going to like, what artificial things am I now?
Speaker:Do we have else going on?
Speaker:He's going to look at Vesuvius.
Speaker:Hell, yes.
Speaker:His eyes dart back and forth.
Speaker:Hell, yes.
Speaker:Vesuvius, this might feel a little weird.
Speaker:And I'm going to see if it speaks the artificial bits of Vesuvius.
Speaker:I want to know if he is a cheesoid.
Speaker:Roll a thing speak.
Speaker:Such a cool move.
Speaker:That is another nine.
Speaker:Exactly the same.
Speaker:But that is actually perfect because there's only really one question I really wanted to know, and that was who made this?
Speaker:You put your hands on the side of Vesuvius' head and he goes, what's going on?
Speaker:Well, I don't like this.
Speaker:I don't like this.
Speaker:And suddenly his eyes kind of just like go blank and blank and you shoot into his mind and you see some images of the Vesuvius you know and love drinking in the bar with you, staying at your house.
Speaker:And then it shoots backwards and you see him in a room that looks fairly similar to your vision, where you saw all of the same person and a bunch of different doors open up, except much more realistic and not infinitely spanning in a circle of a bunch of identical doors.
Speaker:You see him in one of those and you see a bunch of robotic arms looking at this scan of an image of Vesuvius.
Speaker:There's a picture of Vesuvius on this giant monitor and you see these robotic arms moving around in all these different places, constructing him, and it creates this completely Vesuvius like person.
Speaker:And as his eyes open up, you snap out of it.
Speaker:Can I ask you a question?
Speaker:The picture of Vesuvius that it was basing it off of, did that look familiar to Ocean?
Speaker:Yes, it looks like it was taken exactly from the angle of that high def camera that was in front of Crandall's place.
Speaker:So he's not Cheesoid?
Speaker:Interesting.
Speaker:Hmm.
Speaker:As Ocean comes to, it's like Vesuvius.
Speaker:Yeah, that was weird.
Speaker:Did you see any of that?
Speaker:No.
Speaker:Well, I'm going to turn to Book.
Speaker:I was like, this is going to be hard to believe, but you're not the original Vesuvius.
Speaker:And then I'll share everything.
Speaker:Are you sure?
Speaker:And then I'll share everything I saw in the vision.
Speaker:And Book nods and goes, so I guess you weren't a mole monster thing.
Speaker:But but like, how do I know everything that happened from before then?
Speaker:Like, probably because you are a mole monster.
Speaker:I'm going to I'm going to look at him.
Speaker:I'm going to squint at him real hard.
Speaker:And I'm going to squint real hard at Ocean.
Speaker:And I go, how do you get the jerky?
Speaker:Would you like to touch me again and try to figure out?
Speaker:That's a joke.
Speaker:Don't do that.
Speaker:I think one is a no.
Speaker:Don't do that.
Speaker:No, I don't understand, because I remember my papa, Papa Pay.
Speaker:And Ma-May.
Speaker:It's Papa M-Pay.
Speaker:Papa M-Pay.
Speaker:Papa M-Pay.
Speaker:And Mama St.
Speaker:Helens.
Speaker:Mama.
Speaker:Mama St.
Speaker:Helens.
Speaker:Like Mount St.
Speaker:Helens.
Speaker:I remember them growing up with them as an only child, and living down here, scraping by, finding Crandall, and thinking, man, this guy's weird, but he seems to have a pretty cool place joining on with him.
Speaker:I remember hours and hours of just terribly droll watch just sitting there shining that light, and howls coming several once in a while, and getting startled, and then you guys coming out, and I remember all this, I remember all that.
Speaker:I remember yelling down at you, and saying, like, I can come right down, or I could stay right here, something like that.
Speaker:Shit, I can't remember the exact word anymore.
Speaker:But it was kind of funny at the time, in context, not in isolation.
Speaker:It was kind of funny in context, and not in isolation.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:We got a lot of things we got to figure out here.
Speaker:But why, why were you, did they create you in the first place?
Speaker:How did they, we don't have any of the puzzle pieces here.
Speaker:We just know the end result.
Speaker:Do you have any missing time?
Speaker:No, I don't.
Speaker:I remember everything.
Speaker:Like, boom, boom, there's no, like, time period.
Speaker:Again, I don't keep calendar very well, but there's nothing that jumps out to me as missing from my history.
Speaker:It's all up here in the old noggin.
Speaker:Well, that's neat.
Speaker:And I keep walking towards my house.
Speaker:You go towards your house and you, your cave, sorry, and you do see people camped out front.
Speaker:But you can tell these are not hickory's men.
Speaker:These are a bunch of people wearing exotic foreign clothing that you would not see from people from this area.
Speaker:And there is a small caravan set out right outside of your home.
Speaker:And it looks like they have a couple large carts that they've been pulling with these like tractors, like John Deere tractors.
Speaker:It seems like how they traverse the underground, which I guess you guys don't know what farming is, but they're good for pulling these large things.
Speaker:And there is probably a dozen or so of them.
Speaker:And it looks like they're setting up camp for the night.
Speaker:I think Book perceives that they aren't a threat, or maybe not.
Speaker:They're not the threat that Book was expecting.
Speaker:And so he's curious and he wants to investigate.
Speaker:So I'm going to walk right up to them.
Speaker:And one of them stands up and goes, Hey, hey, did you are you one of the locals here?
Speaker:Are you?
Speaker:We're kind of closed up shop for the night.
Speaker:But if you need anything, we can spin back up, looking to make a trade.
Speaker:What do you what do you what do you sell?
Speaker:Oh, we got all sorts of cool things.
Speaker:We've been all over.
Speaker:We've been trolling through the long dark.
Speaker:I'll find all sorts of cool caves.
Speaker:We've come across a few different settlements and pick up what we can.
Speaker:What we think is interesting.
Speaker:But you just have a look at all sorts of things for you.
Speaker:Why don't we be here in the morning?
Speaker:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker:We're going to be here about two more days, probably before we move on.
Speaker:Do you guys?
Speaker:I turned to my my compatriots.
Speaker:Do you guys want to check up at my place for the night?
Speaker:And then we'll we'll take a look at their wares tomorrow, see if there's anything useful for our trip, like any fake mustaches or anything.
Speaker:Yeah, that seems a good enough excuse for me.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:And I want to I'm on Book is kind of itching to get back into his back to his cave and see if anything's broken.
Speaker:So yeah, as you walk by, you go, Whoa, whoa, whoa.
Speaker:Where are you going?
Speaker:We'll see.
Speaker:We'll see you tomorrow morning.
Speaker:Is that OK?
Speaker:Why?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Why are you going into this cave?
Speaker:Why?
Speaker:Why do you ask?
Speaker:We got some people in there sleeping.
Speaker:That's that's my how that's my house.
Speaker:Did you take anything out of there?
Speaker:Uh, no, no, I thought it was unoccupied.
Speaker:No, that's my house, pal.
Speaker:Oh, shit.
Speaker:Give me his way someone.
Speaker:Ocean, can Ocean help here?
Speaker:I'm assuming by your.
Speaker:Oh, damn it.
Speaker:Notebook needs a little bit of help.
Speaker:Then that was a 10.
Speaker:OK, never mind.
Speaker:It was.
Speaker:Oh, shit.
Speaker:Yeah, we my bad.
Speaker:We thought this was unoccupied.
Speaker:You've been gone for quite a while.
Speaker:How long have you been here?
Speaker:This is our fifth day.
Speaker:Cool, cool.
Speaker:Are you guys?
Speaker:Did you guys take a good care to take good care?
Speaker:Oh, absolutely.
Speaker:It was like when we came here, it was pretty pretty tumbled over.
Speaker:But yeah, I think somebody broke in.
Speaker:Yeah, it wasn't us.
Speaker:It was already broken in when we came here.
Speaker:But it's probably saying that it's even cleaner than it was when we got here.
Speaker:Give me a read a person.
Speaker:That was also a ten.
Speaker:He's being honest about that, that it was already ransacked.
Speaker:It is probably cleaner now than when it was.
Speaker:You think it's unlikely they didn't take anything.
Speaker:If they thought there was like a completely unoccupied place and there were valuables, they almost certainly would have taken them.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So I hold three.
Speaker:Can I hold that three until tomorrow morning?
Speaker:Yeah, when you interact with this guy, you can use him.
Speaker:You use probably one there with the...
Speaker:Were they telling the truth about?
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Were they telling the truth?
Speaker:Yeah, but I think that they did take stuff.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Okay, cool.
Speaker:He goes, let me go clear it out real quick, and then you can have your place all...
Speaker:And I'm going to give him a chance to like...
Speaker:I'm going to say, okay, we'll wait down here, but I'll be expecting that everything will be...
Speaker:Maybe not right where I left it, because again, it did get ransacked by a bunch of fuckheads, but I'll expect that everything is there.
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:And I nod at him.
Speaker:Giving him a chance to be the good guy.
Speaker:Yeah, and put my stuff back.
Speaker:Let me go clear it up real quick.
Speaker:And he jogs off into your cave, and you see another, like, nine people come out.
Speaker:Nine?
Speaker:Yeah, there's like a couple dozen total here.
Speaker:Okay, and as they come out, I'm going to say, like, if you guys need bedding or anything, like, I can spare some.
Speaker:Oh, no, we got enough.
Speaker:We just thought it was a nice place.
Speaker:You got a lovely place here, a wonderful cave.
Speaker:This is top ten caves we've ever stayed in.
Speaker:Thanks.
Speaker:I like it.
Speaker:Yeah, but no, we got enough to stay.
Speaker:We're used to traveling on the road, but we just thought we'd take advantage, put our kind of weaker...
Speaker:You saw most of the ones that had come out are, like, children aged or not, like, six year olds, but, like, teenagers.
Speaker:We put our more delicate people in there so they could have a little bit of safety.
Speaker:But it seems like you guys got a real safe town here.
Speaker:But yeah, we'll talk to you tomorrow.
Speaker:Go ahead and get a good night's rest.
Speaker:We'll watch the front for you.
Speaker:Tell us if you want us to move a little further away or anything like that if you're uncomfortable.
Speaker:No, I actually think this is good for all of us.
Speaker:Some mutually...
Speaker:Not mutually, sure, destruction.
Speaker:Safety numbers, as they say.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:It's nice to meet you.
Speaker:What's your name?
Speaker:Book.
Speaker:Macbook.
Speaker:Red Macbook.
Speaker:Red Macbook.
Speaker:That's a really silly name.
Speaker:And you over there?
Speaker:Holy shit, why do you have two heads?
Speaker:Forget you, Ocean.
Speaker:Sorry, one second.
Speaker:Cool, nice to meet you, Ocean.
Speaker:What the hell is that thing?
Speaker:Oh, this is...
Speaker:This is...
Speaker:This is Everest.
Speaker:Everest?
Speaker:Well, yeah.
Speaker:Hi, Everest.
Speaker:Nice to meet you.
Speaker:Are you like that whole right arm?
Speaker:Or is he...
Speaker:What's going on here?
Speaker:He is currently looking for...
Speaker:We'll say he's currently in between bodies.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Yeah, I don't have time to get into that, but that is very concerning.
Speaker:Nice to meet you, Ocean.
Speaker:Nice to meet you, Everest.
Speaker:Nice to meet you, Red Macbook.
Speaker:I am Slimothy Jimothy.
Speaker:And I will talk to you tomorrow.
Speaker:Okay, bye Slimothy Jimothy.
Speaker:And he goes and starts lighting a fire.
Speaker:I turn to Ocean and Vesuvius and go, he talks really fast.
Speaker:He's just about to say, he seems a little tweaky.
Speaker:You go in, you see it definitely...
Speaker:Stuff is not strewn all over the place, but all of your stuff where you had it is like it looks like your books were probably all pulled off the shelf and then put back on, so they're not completely like different order.
Speaker:Your board is still intact, but they definitely saw it.
Speaker:They moved the thing that was obscuring it.
Speaker:You got something in front of it.
Speaker:People have seen it.
Speaker:It's just out for the open.
Speaker:You look in your workshop and it is...
Speaker:People have definitely looked through it, but nothing's broken in here.
Speaker:Do I see the light?
Speaker:Not right now.
Speaker:Fuck.
Speaker:Hey Den.
Speaker:Yeah?
Speaker:I don't want to put you under fire or anything, but do you think you could get something to Hickory from me?
Speaker:To Hickory?
Speaker:Yeah, like, not hand deliver it, but just somehow anonymously get him something.
Speaker:Do you think you'd be able to handle that?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I can do that.
Speaker:And I would like to record a video using the camera that we got from Juniper for Hickory Hufflake.
Speaker:So I'm going to hold the Subious in my hands and I'm going to go...
Speaker:We told you something was going on.
Speaker:We told you that something was wrong.
Speaker:We told you to look after this fucking guy in particular.
Speaker:And I point at the bodiless head and I go, I'm sorry, Subious.
Speaker:Do you want me to be quiet or is it okay that I can talk?
Speaker:No, you can talk.
Speaker:I actually think that probably, I don't know, emphasizes my point, which is that we told you to have people watch him.
Speaker:And now things have gotten worse.
Speaker:And it's not Ocean's and my fault.
Speaker:I think Subious will back this up.
Speaker:It was his torso.
Speaker:It was my torso.
Speaker:That did a blowing up.
Speaker:That did a blowing up.
Speaker:That did a blowing up.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And I'm just real frustrated.
Speaker:I'm just real frustrated.
Speaker:I'm sorry I wasn't at the town hall.
Speaker:I wanted to be there.
Speaker:I was unconscious owing to his torso.
Speaker:But listen, the deal's still on if you want it to be.
Speaker:And if you don't, then you don't have to worry about us anymore.
Speaker:And I hit the stop button.
Speaker:Dan Wallace grabs the tape and heads out the door.
Speaker:And then we see him back at his house with these big welders gloves on.
Speaker:And he's gently wiping it down with like a microfiber cloth, getting all the fingerprints off of it.
Speaker:And he gets some fancy brown paper and wraps it up and writes with his left hand on it for Hickory's eyes only.
Speaker:Then we see him give it to Calista, who carefully is wearing her whatever food prep gloves that food prep people wear.
Speaker:Nitrile gloves.
Speaker:And she places it in a Cup of Noodles box right at the top and closes it without taping it shut.
Speaker:And you see her walking over to Hickory's now very locked down courtyard, courthouse, and she brings this box up to the front, hands it to Pistachio Jones, who takes a quick look at the outside, sees that it's just their normal food order and brings it in.
Speaker:Sometime later, someone goes to finally grab a cup of noodles and sees this package at the top, and it's just one of Hickory's normal men, and he sees this package dressed directly to Hickory, and he goes and drops it off in a drop box in front of the main courtroom.
Speaker:It sits there for a few minutes until a shadowy figure walking with purpose walks by without looking, grabs it, and puts it into their cloak, and leaves behind a small business card that has nothing but a large unibrow on it.
Speaker:Thank you so much for listening to our less-explosive transition between arcs episode here.
Speaker:We are about to do a recap bonus episode in the next couple weeks where Jacob and Brady can ask me all sorts of questions about the first arc, and I will answer them mostly honestly.
Speaker:If any listeners happen to have any questions as well, you can send them to us at Oops!
Speaker:The music and editing was done by Stu Masterson.
Speaker:The logo was created by Brady McDonough.
Speaker:And all the lighting and special effects is done by Jacob.
