Episode 22
Episode 22: The Spider and the Lamps
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Book and Ocean try to lose the trail of their hunters by braving the dangers of the Long Dark.
This one is mostly a lot of creeping and a lot of crawling.
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'm joined by two paths in the wood, one of which is less traveled.
Speaker:Which one is which?
Speaker:That makes all the difference.
Speaker:It's not about the number of travelers, it's how hard they stomp on you.
Speaker:Oh, God.
Speaker:Oh, this is a raunchy intro.
Speaker:I don't know what that means.
Speaker:Hey, everybody, I'm Brady and I play Book McCready, a sleuth who is as unstable physically as he is mentally.
Speaker:Oh, that's a good one.
Speaker:That is a good one.
Speaker:And I'm Jacob.
Speaker:I play Ocean, a gentle giant who may have gone to nursing school in a past life.
Speaker:You did have a couple things that were very knowledgeable.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker:When you're getting excited.
Speaker:I didn't mean to.
Speaker:I really liked your trick about like, hey, if you can come to me, come stand over here.
Speaker:Yeah, that's something that we're actually taught.
Speaker:That's part of our disaster triage process.
Speaker:And in the hospitals, I need to get more creative with my medical supplies.
Speaker:So you're not as useful.
Speaker:Like I need to like the medical supplies in this world should just be like cornstarch because you're bleeding too hard.
Speaker:Yeah, I don't know what I'd do with cornstarch.
Speaker:I mean, maybe make it like a gummy tack that you could use as like a glue to seal up a wound or something.
Speaker:Yeah, no, you just like someone got a gunshot wound in their shoulder.
Speaker:Just pour it on top.
Speaker:Speaking of gunshots, we have to make a small retcon from last episode.
Speaker:I just didn't describe something very well, but I realized that you're the back of your jeep got shot out and then the bullet got wedged in the hood.
Speaker:And my knowledge of geometry tells me that means your front window also got blown out.
Speaker:Yeah, for sure.
Speaker:OK, I didn't describe that at all.
Speaker:How I was imagining it was that.
Speaker:I wish I had a car to well, good thing people are only listening, so that's true.
Speaker:Yeah, how I imagine everybody picture two dice or a car.
Speaker:Yeah, he's like 45 degree angles, like an angle above.
Speaker:He shoots, goes through the back window, and it goes down.
Speaker:You said it was like through the engine block.
Speaker:So I imagine it like went through the dashboard and slam into the engine.
Speaker:Yeah, that's kind of how I imagined it.
Speaker:No, because that means my fucking car is wrecked.
Speaker:No, it got wrecked.
Speaker:It didn't go all the way.
Speaker:It got stuck before he was aiming for the engine block.
Speaker:So how I pictured it was it went through the back window, through the front window into the hood.
Speaker:Okay, well, you're the car that got shot.
Speaker:Which is easy to repair because you can, as we demonstrated last episode, you can rip a hood off and put a new one on pretty easily.
Speaker:Well, considering you're the one that got shot, I think you should have the right to choose how your car was shot.
Speaker:What really happened behind the scenes is I was going to make it wedge into your radio, but I thought that was too mean because I didn't want you to not be able to choose your music as you're driving.
Speaker:So I changed it to be in your hood.
Speaker:If that was your original intent, then you can stick it in the radio because God knows Book has listened to enough 21 Pilots in the last couple of weeks.
Speaker:That cannot be undone.
Speaker:You have to only listen to 21 Pilots.
Speaker:Which is the album that we're given to by Crandall?
Speaker:I forget constantly.
Speaker:Vessel.
Speaker:You need to listen to the whole thing so you can really get into the mind of Crandall.
Speaker:I really do.
Speaker:Stu, maybe it wedged into the radio, but it's still playing music, but now you can't turn it off and it's always playing 21 Pilots.
Speaker:That's good.
Speaker:It hit the volume knob.
Speaker:I can never put another CD in.
Speaker:Can't take it out.
Speaker:There's just...
Speaker:Okay, that's good.
Speaker:I like that.
Speaker:Yeah, that was really important to spend six minutes on, Stu.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:I pride myself on our world being entirely internally consistent.
Speaker:The fact that it wasn't for one little thing really bothered me.
Speaker:Our question this week, to fall in love with Book and Ocean, if you knew that in one year you would die suddenly, would you change anything about the way you're living?
Speaker:Why?
Speaker:I think Book is certain that he will, and he is already behaving as such.
Speaker:Living in an apocalyptic world like this, I think Ocean probably also is under the assumption that he is constantly, like, a year away from death.
Speaker:But I think if he was told definitively he would be dead in a year, he would probably just leave Hamlet opening and just start trekking into the Long Dark.
Speaker:Start digging.
Speaker:Start digging and seeing how far he can go.
Speaker:See how deep he can get.
Speaker:And he's like, fuck it, if I'm not going to be able to live much longer, I'm going to figure out what the fuck is down there.
Speaker:Yeah, I like that.
Speaker:I think an important thing to acknowledge here is that anytime that you're in an extreme situation, like, you're not thinking about, like, your legacy.
Speaker:You're worrying about how to survive today.
Speaker:So, if you're going to, like, in this situation, if you know you're going to die in a year, you're like, well, I could still die tomorrow, so I better go find something to eat, you know?
Speaker:Yeah, or it could mean you're guaranteed to survive that year.
Speaker:I didn't interpret it in that way, but that's fine.
Speaker:Then you would stop eating to prove you are some sort of...
Speaker:I would obviously, I don't know who would answer no to this question.
Speaker:That seems pretty wild to me, besides two people in the Apocalypse.
Speaker:I was not shitting on your guy's answer, but as a real person, I don't know who would answer no to that.
Speaker:Definitely clean out all...
Speaker:I would take all my money, put it in cash, and go.
Speaker:Just go ham.
Speaker:Do something cool.
Speaker:Just go have a good time.
Speaker:Buy some illicit materials.
Speaker:I don't like that one a lot.
Speaker:Feels like a really easy question.
Speaker:God, these love scientists are just dropping the ball, honestly.
Speaker:They don't know anything.
Speaker:Yeah, God.
Speaker:Also, can you imagine asking that question on a date?
Speaker:Sitting across from somebody, asking somebody if you were to die in a year.
Speaker:And then you pull out a knife.
Speaker:This feels like a mood killer to me.
Speaker:Oh, there are some good ones coming up, though.
Speaker:I'm really excited.
Speaker:Yeah, just to keep people on their toes.
Speaker:Okay, well, let's just get back to the episode.
Speaker:That was hard.
Speaker:Previously, Book and Ocean have left Subtropolis, taking the winding, turning, that's a synonym, path of the Long Dark to try to throw off the trail from the Yellow Humvee people, one of which is hunting them down with a sniper rifle.
Speaker:As your two vehicles roll into the Long Dark, you enter this winding series of tunnels.
Speaker:It's nearly pitch black most of the time with just your headlights lighting the short distance in front of you.
Speaker:Luckily, Ocean, you have been down here a good amount.
Speaker:You kind of know the area a little bit.
Speaker:And right now, you're on a main thoroughfare.
Speaker:I described last time that this was an entrance into Subtropolis, and it's actually like a major, it's like a huge mixing bowl interchange from what was once well-maintained roads into the city that leads into these massive tunnels.
Speaker:And your goal here is to kind of throw them off your trail.
Speaker:So you go in there and take a few winding paths, and we're going to kick off with you guys just stopping for the night to look at your wounded, maybe rest up a little bit when you think you're at least far enough away where they can't catch you for the next few hours.
Speaker:Psst!
Speaker:Ocean!
Speaker:Brrp!
Speaker:Uh, yes Book?
Speaker:Brrp!
Speaker:Are you sleeping?
Speaker:Brrp!
Speaker:Uh, no, not just yet.
Speaker:I'm still going through my, the Humvee here, trying to get everything and sort it out before we leave tomorrow.
Speaker:Brrp!
Speaker:Okay, so I can stop whispering.
Speaker:Yeah, no, no.
Speaker:I don't think.
Speaker:Is anyone else sleeping?
Speaker:I would not mind if you would still whisper a little bit.
Speaker:I'm trying to sleep on your neck, so.
Speaker:I imagine we're both probably in our individual cars here.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Yeah, so we pulled off.
Speaker:We're kind of maybe it's like a long tunnel.
Speaker:I okay.
Speaker:So I'm going to envision and I'll let you kind of decide whether or not this is like a good spot to have for us to stop.
Speaker:But I have imagined that we've kind of winded through a bunch of tunnels and then Ocean knows specifically of one really long, tight corridor that is just like a long stretch that very few people access.
Speaker:It's not really an easy place to drive through because it's basically got room for your cars, but you can't really open the doors or anything like that.
Speaker:That's mostly just used for people trying to like make quick switches between different tunnels.
Speaker:So kind of like an access tunnel in the like the maintenance tunnels you do in a regular like in the actual for real tunnels that you'd have under bridges and stuff.
Speaker:So imagine he's pulled into that and we've gone a little bit deep into that.
Speaker:So if somebody were just to casually kind of stroll in, they would see just like long darkness and then have to actually do a long trek into that little access tunnel in order to actually find where we're at.
Speaker:I think that makes sense.
Speaker:If you guys are both cool to have.
Speaker:I have no objections.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Oh shit.
Speaker:I'm just kidding.
Speaker:We don't have to start over.
Speaker:So I'm going to go, sorry, Vesuvius.
Speaker:I didn't mean to disturb you.
Speaker:I just wanted to let you know, Ocean.
Speaker:Shit.
Speaker:I'm going to hit the button that makes his radio go, regret!
Speaker:The Iago button.
Speaker:Yeah, the Iago button.
Speaker:Oh, she's going to recoil.
Speaker:Book, what are you doing?
Speaker:I just wanted to say that I know that today was probably scary for you, but we're going to figure everything out, okay?
Speaker:And we're going to figure out why you look like a wolf in the Psychic Maelstrom sometimes.
Speaker:Well, thank you, Book.
Speaker:I appreciate that.
Speaker:I think we really need to sit down and plan out what we're about to do here.
Speaker:At our current junction, it seems like all we can do is drive either straight ahead or straight backwards.
Speaker:I mean, yeah, that for sure.
Speaker:But I mean, in a grander scheme here, what's our plan?
Speaker:What are we trying to accomplish?
Speaker:We get everyone healed up, then what?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Are we just going to go back to Hale and Opening?
Speaker:I guess we still need to get those supplies for them.
Speaker:But well, the thing is, I think the best thing...
Speaker:I'm nervous about leaving Crandall's crew at this hospital because he's a warlord and he's got this weird infectious charisma.
Speaker:He's got the Riz.
Speaker:And I just...
Speaker:I don't know that we can leave them there.
Speaker:I think we might have to take them with us or at least take them somewhere.
Speaker:So I think my vote is first step is get to the hospital.
Speaker:Try to get some supplies, get everybody treated.
Speaker:And then step two is find somewhere for Crandall to go.
Speaker:And then step three is we go pick up your spider and go get the rest of the medical supplies.
Speaker:I think that's a good plan as any.
Speaker:I just feel like the more we do stuff, the more complicated of a web it seems to be leaving.
Speaker:Like, what are we going to do about your parents?
Speaker:About this information, about this AI, about these Humvee people that seem to just be constantly chasing us down.
Speaker:Is that something we need to worry about now?
Speaker:Is that something that we just need to let be?
Speaker:It sure seems like there are a lot of side plots we'll have to wrap up.
Speaker:Humvee people's a dumb name for them.
Speaker:Which one of us hears that?
Speaker:That's whoever sent yellow Humvee people.
Speaker:That was me.
Speaker:I turn over.
Speaker:And a bunch of people are sleeping in the back of the Humvee, but you see one sitting up with a cigarette lit reflecting in his eyes.
Speaker:He goes, I've called them the Silent.
Speaker:They just stand there.
Speaker:Look at you.
Speaker:The Silent.
Speaker:I mean, they were pretty loud yesterday, but okay, pal.
Speaker:Yeah, they usually don't use rocket launchers.
Speaker:I'm sorry.
Speaker:Who are you?
Speaker:I'm sure we've seen each other at a glance, but.
Speaker:Yeah, I was the one who was about to bleed out and die, but I'm the one who used to.
Speaker:I was a courier for Crandall, and I would bring supplies to them, and they would always just stand there and stare at me, and I'd put it down and walk away.
Speaker:They call me Razor.
Speaker:Well, Razor, that's a much better name than what we've been calling them.
Speaker:I thank you for giving us an actual name we could use.
Speaker:They're not going to stop hunting you.
Speaker:What are they hunting us for?
Speaker:I don't know what they want.
Speaker:They don't know what they want.
Speaker:How long have they been here?
Speaker:Oh, as long as I can remember.
Speaker:Nine months.
Speaker:Same, bro.
Speaker:He falls asleep.
Speaker:Nine months.
Speaker:Just passes out.
Speaker:He has narcolepsy.
Speaker:I mean, after being shot six million times, I think I would probably be on the verge of passing out and sleeping constantly as well.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So what is your, how are you guys, you guys just think you have a pretty safe spot and you've pulled over and sleeping for the night?
Speaker:Do not like that question at all.
Speaker:Well, the goal was to pull over and hopefully recover just a little bit, use the whatever supplies we've scrounged from Cradle's bag to see if we can get Book a little bit more stable before going on to our next area.
Speaker:See if maybe we can heal up ever so slightly.
Speaker:I think if anything, we were stopping for like a nap, just like 25, 30 minutes.
Speaker:Just to kind of catch your breath, catch everything ready and.
Speaker:Okay, I'm going to be generous here like always.
Speaker:And I'm going to say that with the medical supplies, your limitation before was like just not being able to stabilize people, because it's not professional medical equipment.
Speaker:But you had more than you used, certainly.
Speaker:It's not like you used up the last little bit of everything.
Speaker:So I'm going to say with this time in a safe spot, you can both heal too, but you are still unstable.
Speaker:Book.
Speaker:Because you need actual medical attention.
Speaker:Healing too is a lot.
Speaker:Okay, that is actually so insanely generous.
Speaker:I'm very nice.
Speaker:So heal too, but Book is still unstable, which could spiral out of control very, very easily.
Speaker:Also, I just saw you traverse the Long Dark roll.
Speaker:That's a dope roll.
Speaker:I like that question.
Speaker:I like it because you don't get fucked over guaranteed every time.
Speaker:That's what you think.
Speaker:I'm sure there's going to be massive, massive drawbacks, but I like this one.
Speaker:This is a cool one.
Speaker:Good, good design.
Speaker:Okay, as foreshadowed by my co-hosts here, when you traverse the Long Dark, we have a custom roll here, which is going to be a plus hard roll.
Speaker:So whoever is leading the way, I'm assuming that will be Ocean.
Speaker:Yeah, he's in the lead car for sure.
Speaker:With no air in his tires.
Speaker:So let's get this roll as you guys take back off after your quick little nappy poo.
Speaker:You're going to roll hard.
Speaker:On a 10+, you get to choose two of these.
Speaker:On a 7+, you choose one.
Speaker:The three options you can choose from are you find something you didn't expect, you find something you did expect, or you avoid something blocking your path.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Oh, this is interesting.
Speaker:That's a 9.
Speaker:I lean towards picking you find something we did expect and that and saying we something we...
Speaker:Real quick, should we avoid something blocking our path?
Speaker:That's a really good one, too.
Speaker:Because just because we're trying to, we're not staying in the Long Dark.
Speaker:We're not here to scavenge.
Speaker:We're just trying to get in and get out and get healed.
Speaker:I am now, after what you said, leaning towards the you avoid something blocking your path.
Speaker:Because I think getting to that hospital as fast as possible, and it gets you to get Book stabilized, is probably our best bet.
Speaker:Final answer?
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:I had to think about it for a second.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:It's a tough one.
Speaker:That's a really tough one.
Speaker:Everyone loads back up into your two respective vehicles, packed with Crandlemen and bodies in a sled still, I believe.
Speaker:Hell yeah.
Speaker:And the cool thing about the sled is that now it is erasing our tread marks.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:That's how it works.
Speaker:And not leaving just one giant tread.
Speaker:Can I roll for Treadrager?
Speaker:You can try.
Speaker:Should I?
Speaker:Give me a act under fire.
Speaker:Oh, no.
Speaker:That is a good idea actually to try and hide our path as best we can.
Speaker:Judging by the look and the silence, I'm expecting we probably just made those tracks a little bit easier.
Speaker:A six is a failing.
Speaker:Can I help?
Speaker:I don't think so.
Speaker:You're in a whole ass different car.
Speaker:That's true.
Speaker:And I did specifically state this is not...
Speaker:And you're in front.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And this is not a tunnel that's easy for us to get out of.
Speaker:But he could have helped by taking us on a path that was softer soil so that the the treads were easier to...
Speaker:or harder soil so that there were less treads to do erasing.
Speaker:As you continue down the winding path, Come on, come on.
Speaker:you reach back up to where it's a little more open, kind of the main Long Dark.
Speaker:So the Long Dark is these series of massive, huge wide tunnels.
Speaker:But then also just spreading out around them are these thin little coils that go off into different areas, may loop back up and meet with the main tunnel.
Speaker:And that's what you did just now is you went off into these windy little ones, took a little break, and then made it back to the main tunnel.
Speaker:And your goal is to make it back to Subtropolis, taking from a separate entrance, which is going to put you out of the way and hopefully off the trail of any of the people attempting to follow you.
Speaker:So as you at 15 miles per hour stroll down these wide tunnels, darkness just fills your view.
Speaker:The very powerful LED lights, this Humvee has some like aftermarket lights on it, and they just provide this wide sweeping view in front of you as you go along.
Speaker:So you're clearly showing the path and you see what looks to be a broken down vehicle in a little alcove off the side that has four tires on it, which is something you are lacking.
Speaker:Oh, shit.
Speaker:OK.
Speaker:The front is like smashed.
Speaker:It looked like maybe it like crashed into a wall here.
Speaker:The doors you can see from a distance, the passenger door and one of the back doors is open.
Speaker:I'm going to radio book.
Speaker:Hey, I found a car.
Speaker:It looks like it's been broken in.
Speaker:I think we could probably use some of these pieces to kind of get our our vehicles patched back up pretty.
Speaker:I like it.
Speaker:Let's do it.
Speaker:Ocean will pull up.
Speaker:You said it's in a little alcove, you said, right?
Speaker:So he's not going to pull up in front of it.
Speaker:So where he's blocking it, he's going to kind of pull up behind like past it.
Speaker:He's going to pull up a little past it.
Speaker:That way, he's not like blocked in by the car if it chooses to cut him off or anything like that.
Speaker:For some reason, it's still working.
Speaker:I'm going to turn to Crandall.
Speaker:Crandall, watch out.
Speaker:Keep a good lookout here.
Speaker:I'm going to go check out this car.
Speaker:I got your six.
Speaker:Then I'll hop out and I'll go check the car.
Speaker:As I get close, I want to bring my...
Speaker:I'll take the combat shotgun I found.
Speaker:Nice.
Speaker:And I'll have it with me so that way I can, you know, just in case something pops out at us, have something to fit myself.
Speaker:You head up towards the car.
Speaker:You can definitely tell it's wide open.
Speaker:You actually see the keys with a massive key ring dangling from the ignition.
Speaker:Give me a read-a-cich roll.
Speaker:That's another nine.
Speaker:Nice.
Speaker:Ask me one of those questions.
Speaker:I was going to say, should I help by pointing my headlights at the car that you're now exploring?
Speaker:Since you pulled past it, your headlights are no longer illuminating it.
Speaker:Do you want me to help or do you think?
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker:I'll take some more questions.
Speaker:And I roll with my history?
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:Which is plus one.
Speaker:Are your dice being bad today?
Speaker:You miss that Google dice roller, don't you?
Speaker:He's no longer using that cheaty dice roller on Google.
Speaker:Yeah, that's another six.
Speaker:Sorry, I should have just kept my fucking mouth shut.
Speaker:OK, ask me your one question.
Speaker:What haven't I noticed yet?
Speaker:That's a good one.
Speaker:Yes, that seems like a very good one.
Speaker:Also, can we say that by pointing my headlights at that car, it just blinds the fuck out of you.
Speaker:They're at that annoying jeep height, which is right at the pedestrian eye level.
Speaker:Yeah, he pulls up and you kind of wince away from it and you blink your eyes a few times and you look into it.
Speaker:It looks like this has been pretty cleaned out.
Speaker:Like this maybe has been here a while.
Speaker:You notice the keys are still in the ignition, but they're kind of stuck as you wiggle it.
Speaker:You're sure the battery is dead.
Speaker:Like it must have been at least doing the annoying beepy thing for a very long time now.
Speaker:It doesn't look like it's been here for a year.
Speaker:It's been a tremendously long time.
Speaker:It looks to be in pretty good shape.
Speaker:The tires do still have air in them.
Speaker:As you're poking around there, you look up towards Book for a second, and you see a massive shadow silhouetted on him.
Speaker:And it seems to be getting larger and larger.
Speaker:And you notice that something catches the corner of your eye, and it's a very long, surprisingly wet-looking leg that pokes down into the earth.
Speaker:And as you look up, you are directly behind this massive spider-shaped creature, but it's a little too symmetrical with its legs.
Speaker:You can't tell if it has like eight or ten, but it's like a perfect circle around it.
Speaker:And it's moving towards like 15 feet above Book right now, looking ready to lower down on him.
Speaker:But it has these very impotent-looking little fangs that are just kind of dangling underneath.
Speaker:But the most probably concerning part of it is it has these just way too many eyes just haphazardly placed all over the top of it.
Speaker:That are in every direction.
Speaker:A little not quite.
Speaker:They're larger and kind of more, they're almost perfectly spherical, just poking all the way around the back of it.
Speaker:Oh, that's so terrifying.
Speaker:Not in like the way you would expect them to be like right in front of the fangs that are just drooping underneath.
Speaker:Just like eyes covering its torso kind of thing.
Speaker:Yeah, but you see these, there is some sort of very viscous liquid slowly dripping off of the fangs that are right above Book right now.
Speaker:I'm going to quickly...
Speaker:Book, look up, look up.
Speaker:I might wait.
Speaker:Am I still in the car?
Speaker:Give me an act under fire.
Speaker:Am I still in the car?
Speaker:If you want to be.
Speaker:I thought I was, but I was planning on getting out.
Speaker:So we can say that I just opened the car door.
Speaker:And then stepped out.
Speaker:All right, I'm acting under fire.
Speaker:Is that cool?
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:It's a nine.
Speaker:Wait, seven plus two is nine.
Speaker:I can fucking count.
Speaker:Don't at me.
Speaker:Right as you look up, this massive just goop of liquid falls down towards you, and you see it just in time to move your head out of the way.
Speaker:It hits you on the shoulder, and you feel it just dissolving away.
Speaker:On Vesuvius or on my shoulder?
Speaker:Because Vesuvius is on my shoulder.
Speaker:Yeah, give me a roll a 1d6, and if it's odd, it's on Vesuvius.
Speaker:If it's even, it's on your other shoulder.
Speaker:Oh, no.
Speaker:It is on me.
Speaker:It's a 2.
Speaker:Why are you relieved, you fucking traitor?
Speaker:What the fuck?
Speaker:Because that would kill Vesuvius almost instantly.
Speaker:You got some harm left in you.
Speaker:Dude, he's indestructible.
Speaker:He took fucking shrapnel to the face and was like, I feel fine.
Speaker:You take one armor piercing harm, as this starts just dissolving within seconds.
Speaker:It's all the way through your coat, and you feel it burning into your shoulder.
Speaker:OK, so we do not have time to get in, to get the tires off this car.
Speaker:So I'm like, Jesus fucking Christ, shoot it.
Speaker:OK, get back in the car Book, let's get out of here.
Speaker:And I'm going to pull out my gun, and I'm going to start running to the car, and I'm going to take a shot with my shotgun at it as I'm hitting that way.
Speaker:OK, do battle.
Speaker:Also, is it actually like descending on me right now?
Speaker:It is actually standing over your car at this point, lowering itself down.
Speaker:Its legs are like 20 feet tall, and it's lowering itself down towards you.
Speaker:Oh, that is a 10.
Speaker:Oh, OK, that means you get a full success on either attack someone or try something challenging.
Speaker:And then can I use my cane to like try to push its fangs away from me?
Speaker:Yeah, sure.
Speaker:Give me a do battle.
Speaker:So I'm going to choose to do the full success with attack somebody.
Speaker:For my options, I'm going to pin them down so that he can't really descend onto Book.
Speaker:And I'm going to try and get him out of the way, so that way he's no longer right above the jeep.
Speaker:I rolled an eight, so I would like to...
Speaker:I would like to seize hold of the jaws.
Speaker:I like that call.
Speaker:So yeah, it's lowering itself very slowly, awkwardly on you.
Speaker:It doesn't look like...
Speaker:Like you've seen spiders before, they just kind of pounce on their prey.
Speaker:This is just kind of lowering itself on you with these dangly little fangs.
Speaker:You shove your cane upward and you actually pin one fang into the other one.
Speaker:And this just squirt of goo comes out the side.
Speaker:You see the top of your cane is starting to dissolve a little bit, but you are just smashing it up into the corner of its mouth right now.
Speaker:So you feel pretty okay for your current circumstances.
Speaker:Not great.
Speaker:Meanwhile, Ocean, you unload with the combat shotgun, right?
Speaker:Yes, the combat shotgun.
Speaker:Can we tell Crandall to like pop out of the top of this hunvy and put some rounds in downrange?
Speaker:Well, I told him to keep watching.
Speaker:He's not doing a very good job.
Speaker:It's been like four seconds since I've noticed this thing.
Speaker:Crandall's an operator, dude.
Speaker:He goes barefoot so he can feel the vibrations in the fricking in his little tower, dude.
Speaker:He is on lock.
Speaker:Can I kind of retroactively do something here?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:When I radio Book telling Book to look up, I'm also going to shout, Crandall, start pulling the car out of here.
Speaker:And you see him kind of you see both his feet press up against the window on the inside as he moves over to the driver's seat.
Speaker:Your shotgun does three harm, close, messy reload.
Speaker:So as you have to move a little bit closer to get a good shot with the shotgun.
Speaker:So as you take a few steps towards it, you unload just into its center mass, and you see this just spray of goo and a bunch of things fall off of it onto the ground a little bit in front of you, about four feet away from you.
Speaker:And you see it is those same eyes you saw on the back have fully shank it off, and they have eight legs around them, holding themselves in the air with very sharp looking pincers coming right out of the bottom.
Speaker:That is so disgusting.
Speaker:They start skittering towards you at a concerningly fast pace.
Speaker:But the overall the large spider creature starts kind of toppling over a little bit its last its back two legs buckle.
Speaker:So it kind of leans on the back side of the jeep as you're holding at the fangs askew.
Speaker:Interesting.
Speaker:But there's about seven of those little eyeball creatures running towards Ocean right now.
Speaker:As they start skittering up towards you, your attention kind of draws towards them for a second.
Speaker:And you don't notice this massive spider leg come down from the side and it pierces through the bottom of your leg.
Speaker:You take three harm.
Speaker:I was about to say, does my gang reducing thing count here?
Speaker:No, you guys are in even right now.
Speaker:Ocean will, after taking, he's gonna go, fuck, I think he's gonna stumble forward and run towards Crandall's car, brandishing his shovel now to swing it at the little creatures in front of them to try and bludgeon them and make a path open to them.
Speaker:And I'm going to beat them with my shovel.
Speaker:Give me a doing battle roll against the little swarm of eyeball creatures.
Speaker:After attacking him, as I'm doing this, I'm running towards the Humvee.
Speaker:And then while he is swiping at those bugs, can I hop back in the Jeep and drive forward and try to squish him?
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:Oh, by the way, that was an eight for my success.
Speaker:Get them out of my way.
Speaker:Nice.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:They have an unnatural intelligence for like spiders.
Speaker:They seem to know you're running directly towards your Humvee and they move in a way to try to block you.
Speaker:But you take your shovel and you just golf swing at them on the ground.
Speaker:They're about Boston Terrier sized.
Speaker:Those are way bigger than I thought.
Speaker:That's not tiny at all.
Speaker:That's scary huge for like spiders.
Speaker:That's just an eye with legs.
Speaker:Oh, they also have very sharp pincers on the bottom of the eyeball, which you feel as you're running through and you are able to just golf swing them.
Speaker:And a lot of them, as soon as you make contact with them, they just explode into whatever is on the inside of an eyeball.
Speaker:No one knows.
Speaker:No one's done the science to figure out what that should be called.
Speaker:No, and you just smash them left and right running towards it.
Speaker:But you feel this skittering very quickly go from the bottom of your ankle to the top of your shoulder and then a hard piercing to armor piercing damage.
Speaker:Oh, fuck.
Speaker:I'm still OK.
Speaker:I am now back to being unstable and I have two slices of my pie left.
Speaker:As you run towards the Jeep, what you see, Book, you look over and you see this happen.
Speaker:You see him seeming to be handling these very well.
Speaker:You notice the one crawling up his leg, but it's way too fast for you to even call out a warning or anything.
Speaker:You see, right as it bites into him really hard, the eyeball just rolls off onto the ground.
Speaker:It just looks dead, but the thing is still pierced into his back.
Speaker:You look up, pull your cane out, and you notice the bottom has completely been eaten away, but there's metal in the middle of it.
Speaker:Huh, OK.
Speaker:I'm going to...
Speaker:So I'm ducking back into the Jeep, and I want to like shake the cane off and then pull back in the car.
Speaker:I'm not going to look at it right now because there's a spider on top of me, and I'd like to drive forward and try to squish the remaining little buggy boys that are...
Speaker:Give me an act under fire.
Speaker:That's a natural 12 plus 2, 14.
Speaker:Nice.
Speaker:OK, I was going to definitely make some acid fall onto you, but you hear it start dissolving the top of your Jeep really quick, but you do a Tokyo Drift powerslide, and you see the sloop of acid come off the side as you side swipe, like six of these little eyeball things that all just pop, pop, pop, pop on the ground.
Speaker:Nice.
Speaker:And you're able to peel off in front of Ocean.
Speaker:The trailer is scraping behind you.
Speaker:You're probably going a little faster than you thought was comfortable before, but you're able to move away.
Speaker:As Ocean, you jump into the seat, you look into the rearview mirror, and the large spider thing is only like dragging itself forward on like three legs.
Speaker:And yeah, as soon as you get in the car, Crandall will hit that gas and just bend all those rims.
Speaker:He pedals right away.
Speaker:Yeah, you hear this horrible grinding sound, but he does not slow down.
Speaker:He just takes off and you guys continue down the long dark.
Speaker:Ocean, this is important.
Speaker:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker:There's still, it's fangs.
Speaker:They're in your back.
Speaker:Have real Suvius pull them out.
Speaker:I turn back, like the Suvius.
Speaker:I feel something in my back.
Speaker:Can you just get it out?
Speaker:Yep, I got it.
Speaker:And he rips them out.
Speaker:You take one additional arm.
Speaker:Oh, damn.
Speaker:Throw them out the fucking window.
Speaker:Get them away from us.
Speaker:Actually, look at look at them first.
Speaker:Look at them real hard and then throw them out the window.
Speaker:I turn over to look at them.
Speaker:And it has these little pincer mouse that's mouth.
Speaker:It's almost like scissors or like dog toenail trimmers that kind of overlap.
Speaker:And they're like chittering still.
Speaker:What the fuck?
Speaker:And he throws it out the window.
Speaker:Were they electronic or organic?
Speaker:Organic.
Speaker:Disgusting.
Speaker:Everything is very organic.
Speaker:That's disgusting.
Speaker:Ocean leans back.
Speaker:What the fuck was that?
Speaker:I turn over to Crandall.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:What the hell was that?
Speaker:That big spider thing?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Oh, you haven't seen one of those before?
Speaker:No.
Speaker:What the hell was it?
Speaker:We had a guy come through who used to hunt them for meat.
Speaker:I wouldn't want to eat anything that that thing's got.
Speaker:Yeah, apparently those are all the babies and they just kind of Jaeger their mom around after they get birthed.
Speaker:That's so horrible.
Speaker:That is so, so horrible.
Speaker:How do they make the legs move?
Speaker:They're so long.
Speaker:I don't know how I heard that, but Crandall, has any of you guys been bit by one of those before?
Speaker:None of my men.
Speaker:Over.
Speaker:Have you heard any rumors about it?
Speaker:No, I heard their meat's delicious.
Speaker:I turn to Vesuvius.
Speaker:Vesuvius, can you just take a look at my back here?
Speaker:See if there's anything.
Speaker:Do we have anything you can patch it up with?
Speaker:Yeah, yeah, I can.
Speaker:It doesn't look great.
Speaker:It's a little bit.
Speaker:Have you had ground beef before?
Speaker:Oh, you're not painting a very good picture of my head, Vesuvius.
Speaker:It's pretty tasty, but that's what your back kind of looks like.
Speaker:Yeah, but I can wrap that up for you.
Speaker:All right, I'll let him.
Speaker:I'll kind of leave Crandall to be driving, because I'll have told him everywhere that we're going, and I'll let Vesuvius kind of tend to my back wounds as I sit in the front seat and guide Crandall where to go.
Speaker:You do know how to navigate back to both Subtropolis and to the hospital because of a previous role you made in our last episode.
Speaker:So I'm going to say you make your way out of the Long Dark.
Speaker:There's this very small entrance that not many people know about that puts you on a ledge overlooking this is an entirely different part of the city than where you were before.
Speaker:You guys have probably been away from Hamlet opening now for like a little over 24 hours, I would say.
Speaker:And you guys can make a very slow path with your vehicles down or you could go a little bit quicker on foot, but people are still pretty fucked up.
Speaker:I guess you guys are the only people unstable.
Speaker:So we're pretty close to the hospital now.
Speaker:I'll radio over to Book.
Speaker:Book, you there?
Speaker:Yeah, I'm here.
Speaker:I think we need to get these vehicles as close as possible so that way we can make I don't think we should be parked like right in front of the hospital, but I think we should make it at least a little bit close so that one, we can get out of there quick if things go bad and two, so they don't know that we got vehicles that they can steal or something.
Speaker:Honestly, I mean, I agree, but I'm not dragging this hood full of dead bodies to the hospital.
Speaker:No, no, we'll leave the hood of dead bodies.
Speaker:We're not taking that with us.
Speaker:We might have to trade one of the cars for their services.
Speaker:That's a good idea.
Speaker:But we should pick which one we want to keep.
Speaker:I know you're pretty fond of that jeep, so I'll let you decide if you want to get rid of it or if you want us to trade the Humvee.
Speaker:I mean, it's covered in acid and it's been shot.
Speaker:So I think we'll have to do a closer analysis, but the jeep definitely has better legs on it.
Speaker:But whatever do before we trade the Humvee, let's fill up the tank of the jeep.
Speaker:Ocean is going to pull into somewhere that's close enough to the hospital to be walking distance for all these injured people, but I won't.
Speaker:He's going to look for a spot that's a little bit hidden away from where they'd be able to immediately see if they looked outside and hopefully wouldn't be able to see us approach.
Speaker:Give me a act under fire rule.
Speaker:That is a nine.
Speaker:You see this was at one point, Ocean wouldn't know this, but to describe what it looks like, this was probably part of a very large hospital complex, like multiple buildings with sky bridges connecting them together and things like that.
Speaker:Most of those sky bridges are long since dilapidated and fall into the ground.
Speaker:You see there is a central building that is in the center of a large plaza.
Speaker:It is pretty open up around it.
Speaker:You don't think there will be many good ways of getting close without you being seen long beforehand.
Speaker:But you do see there is a parking garage, like a block and a half down that was probably originally used for the hospital that you could probably pull into.
Speaker:The top few floors are all collapsed, but the bottom ones look pretty stable.
Speaker:Yeah, I think that's a good spot as any.
Speaker:I don't think there is a way to get in completely unseen.
Speaker:Are we all going to go up there or what?
Speaker:What's the plan?
Speaker:Well, I think initially it would probably be a better, best idea if Book, Crandle, Vesuvius and I went up to them.
Speaker:That way it's less people or less threatening.
Speaker:We can have you guys watch all the stuff, and we can come back and let you know how things go.
Speaker:I think a whole party of all of you guys popping up in front of these guys would be a little bit a little bit intimidating, possibly.
Speaker:I mean, we're not we're all in pretty bad shape.
Speaker:Yeah, but I agree.
Speaker:I think that's a good plan.
Speaker:What Vesuvius did you want to come with you?
Speaker:Both.
Speaker:I interrupt.
Speaker:I interrupt Ocean and I say both really loud.
Speaker:Then we should probably put on my disguise.
Speaker:Way ahead of you.
Speaker:I pull out the tattered fedora, put it on his head and the sunglasses.
Speaker:But the mustache is still on.
Speaker:It's still half a mustache.
Speaker:Yeah, it'll just sell the fact that we've been hurt pretty.
Speaker:But it'll just sell that better.
Speaker:Am I riding your shoulder again?
Speaker:Always.
Speaker:OK, let's get going.
Speaker:Everyone on your feet.
Speaker:Not everyone, just the people that Ocean named previously.
Speaker:Sit back down.
Speaker:The special.
Speaker:What was the name of that guy?
Speaker:Blade.
Speaker:Not Blade.
Speaker:What was his name?
Speaker:Razor.
Speaker:Sit back down, Razor.
Speaker:You're not going to be good.
Speaker:You start sharpening a blade.
Speaker:Before we go, do we want to get rid of these bodies or do we want to just keep lugging them around?
Speaker:I thought we would find somewhere like nice to bury them.
Speaker:But I mean, that's up to Crandall.
Speaker:Even the weird person who was shooting at us?
Speaker:No, he's from for experiments.
Speaker:I'm just kidding.
Speaker:No, we just we want to see if there's any intel that we can gather from the tech that he has on him.
Speaker:It was a weird thing to do, but OK.
Speaker:You're a fucking warlord, dude.
Speaker:What are you fucking?
Speaker:Why?
Speaker:Why?
Speaker:You're talking to Sufi.
Speaker:Oh, you're super bad with voices.
Speaker:I was talking to I said Crandall gets to decide.
Speaker:So it's kind of weird already that you've dragged them all the way around.
Speaker:I'm just saying you've been dragging this body that you don't even care about long distances.
Speaker:It's a little weird.
Speaker:Book is very offended.
Speaker:And he started to pout.
Speaker:I think we I think we just want to learn more about these people seem to be able to change how they look and what they do.
Speaker:So yeah, and maybe we might need a disguise.
Speaker:I don't know, idiot.
Speaker:I think we could get some useful information by figuring out if these people are even human or if there's something else.
Speaker:But well, then why don't you just look at them?
Speaker:We've been dragging them all over.
Speaker:Yeah, we probably could have gone three miles per hour faster.
Speaker:I'm sorry.
Speaker:Were we not handling the spider hard enough for you?
Speaker:Well, we took a nap and now we're sitting in the parking garage.
Speaker:I've seen lots of opportunities.
Speaker:All right, Crandall, do you want your guys to bury your dead here?
Speaker:Is this a good spot?
Speaker:Do you like this spot?
Speaker:Does it make you feel happy and flowery inside?
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:I don't give a single shit.
Speaker:Okay, that's great.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:For you folks that are staying behind, with the exception of the corpse of our enemy, do a burial and say some words and I don't know, remember these people?
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Thanks, Scorpion or whatever the fucking name was.
Speaker:You know, Book, before we get going to the hospital, maybe we should take a look at this body.
Speaker:If this is truly some kind of medical place, maybe they could, if there's something going on with this body that's unique, we could possibly use it for some bargaining chip.
Speaker:I mean, good idea as any.
Speaker:And I want to peel.
Speaker:It has a mask on, right?
Speaker:Or like a face thing?
Speaker:Yes, full face mask with these giant discs for visors and some complicated looking like gas mask thing.
Speaker:I would like to slowly lift the mask away from the face.
Speaker:Okay, you reach under it.
Speaker:There's a little sound as you seem to disengage some sort of air supply.
Speaker:Good band, by the way.
Speaker:And you pull this mask off and it looks just like a dude.
Speaker:It doesn't look identical to Ocean.
Speaker:No.
Speaker:That would have been a cool reveal.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Just a regular looking dude.
Speaker:Does he have like a little mustache or anything?
Speaker:He's got like a five o'clock shadow.
Speaker:Oh, hot.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Does the helmet or the mask have any like electronics inside of it or anything?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I just searched the whole body.
Speaker:I don't we don't have to go bit by bit through it.
Speaker:I searched the whole body.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It seems like the suit itself is very advanced.
Speaker:It was applying some sort of oxygen to him.
Speaker:You see there are a bunch of different settings that he can control with his gloves that change what the mask does.
Speaker:It can like look for like infrared light or it can like emit these bright beams.
Speaker:But the dude, the guy himself just looks like a dude.
Speaker:I want to check his teeth.
Speaker:Got like big canines or anything.
Speaker:You check his teeth like he's a horse.
Speaker:And it looks like normal human teeth.
Speaker:And I want to open his eyelids.
Speaker:You see human eyes.
Speaker:Oh, OK.
Speaker:They're not like, huh, they're like super reflective or anything.
Speaker:No, you can poke them if you want.
Speaker:Normal fingernails.
Speaker:Normal fingernails.
Speaker:Fingernails freak me out now after the nine inch nine inch nail monster.
Speaker:I think we should save the whole mask apparatus thing, considering we're about to go scuba diving for stuff.
Speaker:Yeah, I think that's super useful, actually.
Speaker:If we can figure out how it works, I think that would be a very valuable tool for us to have.
Speaker:And I shoved that stuff.
Speaker:I shoved his clothes in the back of the jeep.
Speaker:That wasn't super helpful.
Speaker:Actually, fuck it.
Speaker:I pull out a knife.
Speaker:Oh shit.
Speaker:And I would like to go to the spot where Vesuvius, where the light blinked on Vesuvius, and I would like to do a little dissection and see if there's anything there.
Speaker:Oh goodness.
Speaker:How delicate is this dissection?
Speaker:It's a pretty it's it's the knife is like it's like a folding like it's so it's not it's not my multi-tool.
Speaker:It's just like a little hunter knife.
Speaker:So you're really just shoving a knife into someone's spinal column and saying if it hits me, I would like to say that I keep it pretty sharp.
Speaker:But but no, I'm yeah.
Speaker:Yeah, pretty much.
Speaker:You flip him over and you press it into the back of his neck and it goes right through the skin after a little pressure and then you feel a bone just crunch underneath it.
Speaker:You don't hear any metal.
Speaker:Don't see any metal from your one poke.
Speaker:But but Vesuvius had like organic bits too.
Speaker:Was I looking at that same spot?
Speaker:Yeah, you think this is exactly the same spot you saw that thing connected to like right the back of his head spinal column area, right?
Speaker:There was some sort of there was some electronics that were like emitting this like dim blue light and he does not seem to have that.
Speaker:OK.
Speaker:Not that it's just I really was expecting not just to be a regular dude.
Speaker:For some reason, I was expecting would pull him up and be like have like implants or some something to make him so actually somewhat important.
Speaker:Does he have a navel?
Speaker:Yeah, belly button.
Speaker:Yes, he does have a belly button, but it's an Audi.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Well, that was weird.
Speaker:That was weird.
Speaker:I turned to Razor.
Speaker:I'm sorry.
Speaker:I turned to Vesuvius.
Speaker:Yeah, you're right.
Speaker:That was weird.
Speaker:I feel weird about it.
Speaker:Don't feel great about that.
Speaker:And well, I guess we should bury him with the rest of them.
Speaker:You've heard of this guy, too?
Speaker:Thanks, Razor.
Speaker:Man, these guys are really fucked up.
Speaker:You're super dependable, dude.
Speaker:I'm sorry.
Speaker:I'm sorry, man.
Speaker:I'm sorry I was mean to you earlier.
Speaker:I turned over and be like, look, this guy on Book's shoulder, he came from someone similar to this.
Speaker:So we just wanted to check and see if maybe he was also some kind of cybernetic creature or whatever.
Speaker:But well, Book, do you want to keep your body?
Speaker:What?
Speaker:Why would you?
Speaker:If so, could you please tell me why?
Speaker:You don't know about that one, or do you?
Speaker:Did we tell you about that?
Speaker:I mean, I'm assuming there with all it was kept with all the dead bodies and the tarps.
Speaker:Yes, I'm keeping my body.
Speaker:Wouldn't you if we had taken this mask off and that was you underneath, wouldn't you want to not stick it in a hole?
Speaker:It could be useful, I admit.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Well, I feel very judged.
Speaker:I'm not judging Book.
Speaker:I'm sorry.
Speaker:I didn't mean to insinuate that.
Speaker:I just was wondering if now we had the chance to offload all these corpses we've been carrying around to see if maybe now is a good time to do it.
Speaker:And I kind of wipe my brow and then I lean on my cane out of instinct.
Speaker:You hear grinding metal on stone noise.
Speaker:I look down and I want to look at the metal that's protruding out of the end.
Speaker:So there's a blade coming out of the bottom, like seven inches of your cane.
Speaker:And I'm like, that's weird and not that useful.
Speaker:And then I want to like, I want to like, I want to mess with, I want to like tug on the tug on the cane, grab it at the top, grab it at the bottom.
Speaker:There's like a little latch at the top that if you move that latch, it just unsheathes.
Speaker:And it's a cane sword.
Speaker:That's fucking sick.
Speaker:Ocean's got ocean recoils a little bit like, whoa, what the do?
Speaker:Is that is that a sword?
Speaker:Does a little guard like pop out?
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah, yeah, it does.
Speaker:You've been carrying around a sword this whole time.
Speaker:I guess this was a weapon after all.
Speaker:And where did you even get this?
Speaker:It's just been I got it.
Speaker:It was my dad's.
Speaker:At least I thought it were made with my mom's one of theirs.
Speaker:And I would like to sheathe it.
Speaker:But there's still a fucking place to get them out of the bottom completely removing the benefit of anything.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:And then I want to like it's a sword now.
Speaker:So I guess I'm going to tuck it into my belt because it's not going to be much use as a cane anymore.
Speaker:Not until I repair the bottom smash cut.
Speaker:The four of you are walking towards the hospital.
Speaker:Are you guys trying to like make yourself known or trying to?
Speaker:Yeah, I think we should like ourselves known.
Speaker:I don't think we should be sneaking into it.
Speaker:Yeah, both of you give me an act under fire rule.
Speaker:OK, we should like Crandall lead since Crandall does know these people.
Speaker:Yeah, I think that's a 10.
Speaker:That's a four.
Speaker:You're in this massive plaza in front of it.
Speaker:Looks like at some point, this is very nice with like a little garden to walk around in front of the hospital.
Speaker:And as you're coming up, you do see there is a guard that's sitting on the top of the overhang of the hospital.
Speaker:And he definitely notices you and he kind of gives a half hearted wave in your direction.
Speaker:And as you start moving a little bit closer, you guys hear very quietly just some whizzing through the air, it's like three whooshing noises.
Speaker:Book, you see Ocean just fall to the ground and you see there is a some sort of dart in his neck.
Speaker:Oh, shit.
Speaker:And you look over and Vesuvius has one coming into his forehead and Crandall crumples in front of you.
Speaker:Oh, shit.
Speaker:Shit.
Speaker:Hey, everybody, thank you so much for listening this week to Oops!
Speaker:All Apocalypses.
Speaker:Go ahead and leave us a 5-star review on your podcaster of choice, and let us know if you liked or disliked our special bonus episode where we just talked about the episodes for a super long time, so we know if we should do that again in 10 or 20 episodes.
Speaker:The music and editing was performed by Stu Masterson, Brady McDonough made the art and logo, and Jacob taught us the meaning of friendship.
Speaker:Friendship.
