Episode 41
Episode 41: Thx fr th Mmrs
A familiar face brings Ocean back to his past, where we explore his life before Hamlet opening.
This one is mostly a Castlevania-esque boss rush, where instead of bosses it's traumatic events.
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 your host, Stu Masterson, and I'm joined by one, Jacob.
Speaker:It's just me.
Speaker:Who do you play?
Speaker:I play Ocean.
Speaker:This is hard when it's just us, because normally two of us are saying dumb shit at the same time, so I get to choose which dumb shit I get to cut and keep.
Speaker:Yeah, which dumb shit to get to pick.
Speaker:Yeah, you basically have to keep everything I say in the podcast, otherwise we're not going to have any content.
Speaker:Or yeah, it won't flow anymore.
Speaker:Normally if you like, if you're stuttering and repeating the same thing 10 times, I just cut you out and put whatever dumb thing Brady's talking about, like Brady's sitting there talking about caterpillars or whatever, throw that on top.
Speaker:People are finally going to see that I am terrible at improvs.
Speaker:If you guys can't tell, Brady's not here.
Speaker:We thought it's a good opportunity with the way our last episode ended to have a one-on-one session with Ocean, where we dive a bit into his past, maybe.
Speaker:This is going to be much more useful and relevant than the old book one shot from Forevergo.
Speaker:We still got a little bit of info from that one.
Speaker:Yeah, that one was pretty good, but that one was made for purely technical reasons of us not being able to record.
Speaker:This one makes sense logistically, so it should be better.
Speaker:But what's even more exciting than Brady not being here is that we've reached our one-year anniversary.
Speaker:What?
Speaker:Brady's not even here for our one-year anniversary?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I door-dashed everyone cake.
Speaker:It's sitting on Brady's porch, apparently, Rodan.
Speaker:But yeah, it's our one-year anniversary.
Speaker:We've been doing this.
Speaker:It's actually a little after it when this comes out, but we're recording this about the time of our one-year anniversary.
Speaker:So I thought I'd do a little fun quiz on you for some information.
Speaker:Don't open our analytics is what I'll say, no cheating.
Speaker:Okay, I was just about to open up our analytics.
Speaker:Okay, yeah, so we've been going for about a year.
Speaker:How many continents you think we got listeners on?
Speaker:So how many continents?
Speaker:I'm gonna say all of them except for Antarctica.
Speaker:Nailed it, got it.
Speaker:Yes, yes.
Speaker:All right, listeners, one of you guys need to fly to Antarctica and listen to our podcast so we can at least swim nearby or something, and then hope that it buckets it into that one.
Speaker:US is number one total downloads, total listeners, because that's where we're from, and the only place we've ever told people to go listen to it.
Speaker:What do you think the top five countries are after the US?
Speaker:Back in the beginning, I remember we had two listeners in Australia, and I remember being like, wow.
Speaker:So I was like, what are you two doing?
Speaker:How'd you hear about us?
Speaker:Top five, Canada.
Speaker:That seems like an easy one.
Speaker:United Kingdom.
Speaker:I'm gonna say Australia, because in my heart of hearts, I feel like Australia was on there.
Speaker:Brazil, just because I think that would be fun.
Speaker:Let's say Ireland.
Speaker:Why not?
Speaker:Ireland, interesting choice.
Speaker:You actually did pretty good.
Speaker:So in order from largest after the US is Brazil, nailed that one.
Speaker:Oh shit, hell yeah.
Speaker:Second most listeners.
Speaker:And then Canada is right under that.
Speaker:Hell yeah.
Speaker:Doing pretty good.
Speaker:Our lovely hat of the hat of America is really coming in strong with us.
Speaker:Then Sweden.
Speaker:Sweden?
Speaker:Number one European country we got.
Speaker:Yeah, with pretty good listenership.
Speaker:You missed India entirely.
Speaker:I just didn't think anyone in from India would listen to us, to be honest with you.
Speaker:And then technically, you are correct with the United Kingdom, because there's a tie for fifth place.
Speaker:But Singapore was what I was tracking.
Speaker:Let's zoom in a little bit on the US.
Speaker:Okay, what's our, you should probably know this one, but what's our most popular state?
Speaker:Alabama, right?
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:We are still number one in Alabama.
Speaker:Still number one in Alabama.
Speaker:All of us have lived there at some point in our lives.
Speaker:Yeah, and we all got quite a few connections in Alabama.
Speaker:Most of us don't anymore, but we used to all live there.
Speaker:Let's do top five again.
Speaker:So after Alabama, top five.
Speaker:Oh, crap.
Speaker:Let's see if I can remember states.
Speaker:Washington.
Speaker:DC or the state?
Speaker:State Washington.
Speaker:State Washington is one guess.
Speaker:California is my second guess.
Speaker:And this is total number, not like any by population.
Speaker:So, yeah, total number, not per capita, just total.
Speaker:Yeah, I figured.
Speaker:So California is a smart guess.
Speaker:So California, California, Washington, New Jersey.
Speaker:I'm going to guess New Jersey, Virginia.
Speaker:Going for my hometown.
Speaker:I am.
Speaker:I'm going for the places that I know we have connections in.
Speaker:So I'm going to guess Colorado.
Speaker:You were OK.
Speaker:Our number one, number one, Alabama, as we mentioned, and then Virginia coming up to, which, yeah, that is where I grew up, have some fun people there.
Speaker:Illinois is number three.
Speaker:I don't know anyone in Illinois.
Speaker:I know a few people, but I think a lot of that was from our crossover with Gigi Level Up.
Speaker:They have a lot of that's where they're centered.
Speaker:Anyone who came to us from them, hey, love you guys.
Speaker:Yeah, thanks for thanks for listening.
Speaker:Right under that, we actually very close our Pennsylvania and Texas.
Speaker:Texas.
Speaker:It's a big state.
Speaker:A lot of people.
Speaker:Thanks for listening to us all you guys in Texas.
Speaker:I don't know how you found out about us, but strong work.
Speaker:And then New Jersey.
Speaker:And then after that, it's pretty much all in population order of what you would expect states except with one small issue.
Speaker:Final question.
Speaker:There are 10 states that don't listen to us.
Speaker:Pro tip, Hawaii and Alaska are two of them.
Speaker:So there are eight continental states that do not listen to us.
Speaker:These are where people just naturally hate us.
Speaker:This is where I'd like to tell our listeners that if you happen to know anyone from here, send them a copy of our episode.
Speaker:Don't even tell them what it is, just so they have to click it and download it.
Speaker:And then we'll fill in this gap because it's driving me crazy not having one smooth filled in country.
Speaker:Buy a bumper sticker or something, then put it on your car with just our Oops!
Speaker:All Apocalypses on Spotify or whatever.
Speaker:So people look at it and they're like, what the fuck is this?
Speaker:Okay, give me a fast guess.
Speaker:Kansas, Nebraska, Rhode Island, Utah, South Dakota, Mississippi, New York, because he said one does surprise you.
Speaker:So I'm going to say New York.
Speaker:I need one more.
Speaker:Did you say both Dakotas?
Speaker:I only said North Dakota because I thought it'd be funny.
Speaker:So we'll throw South Dakota in there too.
Speaker:You did pretty good, actually.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:We have a big chunk right in the Great Plains up there.
Speaker:I think those, that's what that region's called, where North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho are a big chunk of contiguous states that are not listeners yet.
Speaker:You guys really got to work on that.
Speaker:In the Northeast, we're missing, you accurately got Rhode Island.
Speaker:Good job.
Speaker:And then New Hampshire.
Speaker:Sorry.
Speaker:I'm very bad at states and it's not telling me.
Speaker:I'm just getting their shapes.
Speaker:But I am correct.
Speaker:New Hampshire, which is annoying because I know someone from New Hampshire who listened, but they were in Vermont.
Speaker:Oh, those punks.
Speaker:I lived briefly in New Hampshire for a while.
Speaker:I guess I never once listened to an episode of our podcast when we were in New Hampshire.
Speaker:You could have solved my terrible problem with this.
Speaker:And then you did get the one that I thought I think is the most surprising actually, which is Mississippi.
Speaker:Mississippi.
Speaker:The closest state to Alabama, where I have our most listeners.
Speaker:Yeah, I do know a good number of people from the Mississippi.
Speaker:I have a lot of family from Mississippi.
Speaker:Oh, those punks.
Speaker:I haven't recommended it.
Speaker:I don't think I've talked to the people I know in Mississippi.
Speaker:I didn't think would really, you know, want to listen.
Speaker:So I didn't think.
Speaker:But we don't care about all the people from these states where no one did listen.
Speaker:So we like the people who did listen.
Speaker:So thank you everyone else in all the other states.
Speaker:We love all the people in every other state.
Speaker:So Jacob, do you know what the one year anniversary is?
Speaker:What that one's called?
Speaker:You know, like the 50 year, I think is like the golden anniversary.
Speaker:25 is silver.
Speaker:I did not.
Speaker:60s diamond.
Speaker:You don't know any concept of what I'm talking about here.
Speaker:You just don't know.
Speaker:I have no idea.
Speaker:You are throwing me for a loop.
Speaker:Okay, well, the first, the one year anniversary, the littlest anniversary, many people would say, is the paper anniversary.
Speaker:You're supposed to be having a gift.
Speaker:The paper anniversary.
Speaker:Yeah, a gift with paper, which is nice because that's money.
Speaker:That's, hmm.
Speaker:I didn't know this at all.
Speaker:Well, that's good.
Speaker:So we're going to play a paper based game rock, right?
Speaker:Okay, what I got here, I got a list of paper based idioms, and I'm going to come up with song title puns that tie into the paper based idiom.
Speaker:I'll give you a short description of what it is.
Speaker:So I'm going to be describing the overall phrase that includes both the word paper, some format of the idiom, and some format of a song title all inside of it.
Speaker:And I just got to piece together the song title from this, right?
Speaker:It's a pun title, but yes.
Speaker:If you know the song title or you know the word paper, you'll be able to figure out what it is.
Speaker:There's only three.
Speaker:I came up with three of these within about two seconds, and I was really happy with them.
Speaker:And then I tried to come up with a fourth one for two days straight.
Speaker:And I failed.
Speaker:There's not a lot of paper idioms, is what I'll say.
Speaker:So I can't give you an example, because then I'll run out of one third of our ones.
Speaker:Let's see it.
Speaker:Let's hear it.
Speaker:This may all get cut.
Speaker:Rob Thomas gets a little bit angry when the customer skips section 7A on the 2140 despite clear instructions to fill in all bolded sections because he is a...
Speaker:I know the fucking song, but the song title is blanking in my head right now.
Speaker:Do you know the chorus?
Speaker:That'll help you with the title.
Speaker:Oh, there's three questions here.
Speaker:I will give you one Stu sing me the chorus in the total of all three questions.
Speaker:For all three questions that will basically give you the answer.
Speaker:Gosh, it's Matchbox 20.
Speaker:I feel like I should know this a lot better.
Speaker:I've heard this song a dozen times because it drives me insane because I hate the way he taught the the the waiver and his voice drives me insane.
Speaker:So I can't remember for the life of me.
Speaker:Think of a paper based idiom that that behavior would describe.
Speaker:That would make you feel a little bit angry for not filling out things besides being despite being told.
Speaker:Despite being told.
Speaker:Yeah, there's instructions here, but no one's following them.
Speaker:So he's upset about it because he's one of these things.
Speaker:Stu, sing me the chorus.
Speaker:I want to push you around.
Speaker:I hate this song.
Speaker:Maybe that's why I hate this song so much.
Speaker:It's it's oh, I think it's like the most popular Matchbox 20 song, but I fucking hate it.
Speaker:A paper pusher.
Speaker:Yes, paper pusher.
Speaker:Got it in one.
Speaker:Oh, I hate that song so much.
Speaker:So, yeah, the song is pusher.
Speaker:The idiom is paper pusher.
Speaker:That one is the most clear.
Speaker:Oh, no, I won't say the easiest.
Speaker:I don't think that one was the easiest.
Speaker:OK, I'm in trouble.
Speaker:Razzin up on the back of a giant eagle, Dave Bickler of the band Survivor extends a firm middle finger to soar on the deceiver.
Speaker:From the safety of his mount, he has no fear to fight despite that scornful gaze.
Speaker:As he knows, this nerd is just an.
Speaker:This is a less known idiom, but I think you know it.
Speaker:This nerd is just a paper based idiom.
Speaker:It's Eye of the Tiger, right?
Speaker:Yes, OK.
Speaker:So you're halfway.
Speaker:OK, you're more than halfway.
Speaker:OK, I'll give you a hint.
Speaker:You have to add the word paper somewhere in there.
Speaker:A paper tiger?
Speaker:Yeah, I've never heard of a paper tiger.
Speaker:I think that's the least common of my three here, but a paper tiger is something that seems formidable, but really isn't.
Speaker:OK, that's a cool idiom.
Speaker:Yeah, I've never heard of that.
Speaker:So the actual answer was Eye of the Paper Tiger.
Speaker:I am uncultured, apparently.
Speaker:You have two-ish points.
Speaker:OK, two-ish points.
Speaker:Approximately maybe 1.5.
Speaker:OK, last one.
Speaker:All right, let's hear it.
Speaker:Cardi B is a certified freak seven days a week, but her workout plan frequently skips lats and traps, which makes her pull up game week.
Speaker:Don't bet on her in any combat sports because she couldn't this.
Speaker:When is Brady when you need him?
Speaker:I know he would have had all three of these immediately.
Speaker:I think he would have probably had all three of these because he is an expert at trivia.
Speaker:He's an expert at dumb trivia.
Speaker:This idiom means you're either very weak or you couldn't fight well.
Speaker:It usually means you're super weak.
Speaker:It's like, is it like a wet paper kind of thing?
Speaker:Yes, that's part of it.
Speaker:You're getting there.
Speaker:Wet ass paper?
Speaker:Yeah, you're really close to it.
Speaker:There's more to the idiom, but yes, the end of it.
Speaker:You're close enough that I'll give you.
Speaker:It ends with wet ass paper bag.
Speaker:Paper bag?
Speaker:So you couldn't punch your way out of a wet ass paper bag.
Speaker:I've actually not heard that idiom either, but I know that her most popular song was WOB.
Speaker:I think you got a solid three ish of those.
Speaker:May cut all of that out, but let's go ahead and get back to the action.
Speaker:Ocean, you see this individual that you recognize from your previous vision, and she looks kind of surprised and a little startled, and she immediately just says, Ocean, is that you?
Speaker:And then I'm going to take that opportunity to trigger one of your visions.
Speaker:But this isn't gonna be like your normal role.
Speaker:I'm not gonna make you pick two things.
Speaker:We're gonna do a little deep dive into your fun little tragic past.
Speaker:Let's do it, I'm excited.
Speaker:I'm very excited.
Speaker:I don't wanna tell you everything yet, because there's still gonna be some fun things to figure out.
Speaker:But seeing this person seems to trigger something in you that shoots you back.
Speaker:You can tell you're going back in time, in your brain here.
Speaker:You don't know what's happening now, especially since I'm allowed to take you out of the action.
Speaker:Maybe Brady's getting shot or eaten by something large and scary, as we speak.
Speaker:But for you, you wake up.
Speaker:It's very dark, like fucking always.
Speaker:But you see a bunch of little beeping lights all around you, screens, and I think for this whole episode, you can read.
Speaker:Fuck yeah.
Speaker:Hell yeah.
Speaker:It seems like you're in a very small room.
Speaker:All of you hurts.
Speaker:All your muscles are sore.
Speaker:You feel rattled, like your brain smashed against the front of your skull at some point.
Speaker:But you're in what seems to be like a pretty high tech room.
Speaker:It's like spherical, and there's all sorts of little beeps and boops and stuff around you.
Speaker:What'd you do?
Speaker:You don't remember anything before this.
Speaker:Okay, so I don't remember anything about what's going on.
Speaker:I just wake up in a round, technological, fancy ass room.
Speaker:Is there, well, since I can read, looking around, do I see any panels or any sort of like text anywhere?
Speaker:Yeah, you see there's a big crate that says only open in case of emergency, and it has a big cross on it, like, hey, do not touch this.
Speaker:Like, an emergency is underlined like 12 times.
Speaker:A large screen right above you that has coordinates on it, and you kind of looking at it, you kind of know what coordinates are.
Speaker:And it says Pacific Ocean over top of it.
Speaker:And you see an open hatch that has a little open arrow and a little direction.
Speaker:There's no like key code, anything like that.
Speaker:Next to that, it just seems like a physical latch.
Speaker:Is there any warning lights or sounds or things going on right off around me?
Speaker:Yeah, give me a read-a-sit rule.
Speaker:Oh, wait, I have my Psy thing, so that's a nine.
Speaker:A nine?
Speaker:Ask me only one question.
Speaker:Only, uh, let me pop down to the questions again, because I'm not normally the one asking these read-a-situation questions.
Speaker:You're the one reacting to situations.
Speaker:I'm going to say, what should I be on the lookout for?
Speaker:Yeah, since you specifically asked that question for like alerts and things like that, I'll focus it in on that.
Speaker:And you do see on that screen that says Pacific Ocean, there's a red exclamation point, and looking at it, it seems like this red dot is saying something's not where it's supposed to be.
Speaker:This red dot is flashing.
Speaker:On the screen, it's a few inches away from like a little target area.
Speaker:Looks like there's a little target like you would play darts at.
Speaker:So it looks like something missed something.
Speaker:I don't really know what it is.
Speaker:But more concerning for the short term, you hear a hissing sound.
Speaker:Don't worry, not a snake.
Speaker:You follow it to where it's coming from, and you see there's a little electronic reading next to it that says the oxygen level is dangerously low and the nitrogen level is dangerously high.
Speaker:Okay, so I think this warrants an emergency.
Speaker:So Ocean opens up the crate that says open in case of emergency only to check and see what's in there.
Speaker:You fiddle around with it for a minute, and it doesn't really seem to have a latch or anything, but then you find a little handprint on the side that you put your fingers into, and it just goes beep beep and opens up.
Speaker:And you see, I want you to describe what it looks like, but it is a tactical shovel.
Speaker:Tactical shovel.
Speaker:Tactical shovel.
Speaker:Tactical shovel.
Speaker:Top of the line shovel.
Speaker:OK.
Speaker:There's some more stuff in here, but this is the most important, so start that.
Speaker:OK.
Speaker:So I imagine it looking like it's got the head, the head of the shovel, right?
Speaker:And then it's got multiple bits kind of right next to it that you screw together to make the handle.
Speaker:Oh, sweet.
Speaker:So you screw and they're like the they look like, I don't know the term because I'm not very good at tactical.
Speaker:I have literally no military background with carbon fiber.
Speaker:Yeah, the carbon fiber, those tubes that you see a lot on, like flashlights and stuff.
Speaker:Oh, yes.
Speaker:That's what I'm assuming the handle's like.
Speaker:It's like that, except it's in like four segments that you screw together.
Speaker:And I bet each one of those you unscrew one compartment.
Speaker:It's got something in it like maybe a knife in one, like a little cutting knife in one and screw another.
Speaker:It's got like a screwdriver with multiple bits or something like that.
Speaker:And the tip of the shovel is like it's got a shovel, but one side is sharpened like a blade, and the other side is serrated like a like a saw.
Speaker:So it folds up.
Speaker:So that is a saw and screwdrivers and a knife that are within the compartments.
Speaker:Once I unscrew it and pull it apart, when you see this, it's like some instincts just flashes through your mind and you assemble a few parts that need to, and you immediately check all the different little compartments to make sure everything's right where it should be.
Speaker:And your hands are just like moving without you thinking.
Speaker:And you're like, check, yep, that's good.
Speaker:Reattach it.
Speaker:Boom.
Speaker:Get it up.
Speaker:Hit the right button to make it pop open.
Speaker:Make sure it's good.
Speaker:And you're like, this is it.
Speaker:And then you kind of stop for a second.
Speaker:You're like, wow, why did I do it like that?
Speaker:That was weird.
Speaker:Can I add one more thing to my tactical shovel that I just thought?
Speaker:One more thing to the tactical shovel.
Speaker:At the very end, like, you know, you got the shovel head and at the end of the shovel, like the end of the handle, can I say there's one of those things that you use to break glass.
Speaker:So like, I can just shove the back of my shovel into like those little, what are those called?
Speaker:It's like a spike.
Speaker:Glass breaker.
Speaker:My glass.
Speaker:What a good term.
Speaker:Okay, I definitely have that.
Speaker:Less exciting inside here, you see there's like a small plasma cutter type thing that looks like it could cut through most metal.
Speaker:It's not like good as like a weapon or anything like that, but with time, it would definitely let you cut through pretty much any material.
Speaker:It has like this pack on it that has to hook up.
Speaker:It looks like it takes a while to heat up.
Speaker:But again, you kind of know how it works.
Speaker:And then you see a radio that as you toggle it, nothing happens at all.
Speaker:There's just static on every single channel as you flip through it.
Speaker:And there is a single gun.
Speaker:It's just it looks like a very nice pistol, very fancy, very shiny, very chrome, which is weird, but it's like a semi-automatic pistol and not a ton of bullets, not as many as you would expect.
Speaker:But there are some.
Speaker:It has like two backup magazines that are right by that are filled already.
Speaker:What is Ocean wearing?
Speaker:He looks down after to kind of examine himself after opening this up.
Speaker:Almost like a jumpsuit.
Speaker:It's like gray, almost like a flight suit from but a little lighter, I would say.
Speaker:Does it have like multiple pockets and stuff?
Speaker:Yep, you got some pockets in there.
Speaker:OK, so he's going to take everything.
Speaker:He grabs the shovel, grabs the plasma cutter, puts the gun in the magazines and two of his little pouch pockets here.
Speaker:And is the plasma cutter, is it like a short, like a kind of like a tiny little handheld looking thing, or is it like a big old arc cutter kind of thing?
Speaker:Big hand, or sorry, little handheld thing.
Speaker:OK, in that case, he'll put that also in one of his pockets.
Speaker:And at that point, after looking through it, he is going to Ocean, heads out the door, the hatch that he that with the arrows pointing this way.
Speaker:You crank the hatch open, there's a large hissing sound as the door swings open.
Speaker:It's very heavy.
Speaker:As it swings open, you're greeted with just absolute darkness, literally cannot see anything here.
Speaker:You get a very strange gulp of air that feels like something you really, really needed, but it's also the stalest air you have ever tasted in your life.
Speaker:You're like, this is gross, dirty air, but you can't see anything out here.
Speaker:And as you're kind of looking around, you're maybe check for like a flashlight or something like that.
Speaker:Is there a flashlight attached to the pistol?
Speaker:Like one of those?
Speaker:Yes, that would make sense.
Speaker:Yeah, it's one of those little tiny little ones.
Speaker:So not very good for like spelunking, but good enough for giving me a little light.
Speaker:And about the time you turn that on, though, you shine it and you see it's like woefully inadequate to light up wherever you're in.
Speaker:Huge floodlights come on all around the top of whatever this tiny little room you're in.
Speaker:And you see it's the sphere that is smoldering on the ground, and you seem to be in this massive, massive cave.
Speaker:So the sphere that I was inside has the floodlights on the top.
Speaker:Yes, and they seem to have activated a short time after you opened the door.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Looking up, do I see like a hole or anything like the sphere would have come down through?
Speaker:You shine your little pistol light up, and it doesn't show much, but you see you get these glimpses of like a collapsed in something that looks like something rocketed through here.
Speaker:There's actually like pebbles falling still on the side.
Speaker:And you think that makes sense.
Speaker:You came from up.
Speaker:Ocean steps back into the sphere and in the compartment, he's going to look around and see if he has any kind of like mission missives or anything to describe what he was sent down here for.
Speaker:At this point, he's thinking more than likely, he probably got concussed from falling from the sphere coming down in here.
Speaker:And he thinks maybe that's why he's not really remembering much.
Speaker:Maybe he just got like concussed or knocked out, and he's trying to see if there's any hint or anything regarding what he's supposed to do at this point.
Speaker:I think since he failed your previous role, the answer has to be no.
Speaker:I failed my previous role?
Speaker:Or you only asked one thing?
Speaker:Yeah, I did only roll one thing.
Speaker:I did.
Speaker:I don't think I can have you reassess the same situation.
Speaker:So instead, what I'm going to say is as you go looking around, you go back in it, you start taking stuff up.
Speaker:I will say you find like a slightly better flashlight.
Speaker:And one of those like in the armrest of the chair you're in, it pops up and you didn't realize that.
Speaker:You find some food that you're actually like starving.
Speaker:It's all it's basically like soylent.
Speaker:It's like liquid that you just chug.
Speaker:But it seems very filling.
Speaker:And you hear footsteps.
Speaker:It's coming from outside in the cave?
Speaker:Yes, this is a very small sphere.
Speaker:Ocean readies his pistol and he steps outside the sphere and kind of presses himself up against it and uses the flashlight in one hand to try and locate where the steps are coming from.
Speaker:Okay, give me a read-a-cich roll.
Speaker:You're going to get all the rolls you never got to get to do and books around to...
Speaker:That's a ten!
Speaker:That's a ten!
Speaker:Three questions.
Speaker:This is going great.
Speaker:I'm going to say, what represents the best opportunity for me to figure out where I am and what's happening?
Speaker:I'm going to say, what should I be on the lookout for?
Speaker:And who's in control here, I think?
Speaker:You hear these clomping footsteps, and then they stop.
Speaker:And you think for a second, and you realize that the room you're in has a lot of pretty high-pitched whining sounds.
Speaker:There's clearly something very thick between you and the outside.
Speaker:And you think someone would have to be an absolute idiot to be making enough noise for you to hear them.
Speaker:You think it has to be intentional, and that they're trying to draw you in the direction that at least they were pretending to be.
Speaker:As for what your best opportunity to figure out what's going on here, as you're trying to remain quiet, you see that same screen before that showed you that angry red dot with some target nearby it.
Speaker:A few other dots appear.
Speaker:There's three total, and you have no sense of scale or what these coordinates really even mean, but you see them pop up on the screen somewhere around this.
Speaker:Like two of them are on the western side, one's kind of northeast of it.
Speaker:And you feel like those dots have to know something.
Speaker:Okay, Ocean takes his pistol, he puts it back in his pocket, and he steps out, raises up his arms and says, Hey, anybody there?
Speaker:I think I've crashed.
Speaker:Ooh, I like it.
Speaker:Let's do an act under fire.
Speaker:Act under fire, all right.
Speaker:That is a 10.
Speaker:You step out with your hands up, you said you had your pistol tucked away.
Speaker:Yeah, I put it in my pocket.
Speaker:You step out and you're bathed in these huge floodlights that are illuminating the only areas of this massive cave that can really be seen here.
Speaker:And you hear much quieter footsteps on the opposite side of whatever weird sphere this thing is.
Speaker:And you hear a voice say, Don't move.
Speaker:Keep your hands up.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Do you have any weapons on you?
Speaker:I have a pistol, but I'm not using it.
Speaker:I've got it tucked in my pocket.
Speaker:You hear the footsteps come up behind you.
Speaker:Do you like trying to turn and look, or are you just trying to be as cool as physically possible?
Speaker:I'm trying to play cool.
Speaker:You hear them come all the way up to you, and then you feel padding around you, and they find your pistol, and they take your pistol.
Speaker:Where's your tactical shovel?
Speaker:It can have a sling, so it could be on your shoulder.
Speaker:Of course, it's a tactical shovel.
Speaker:It's got to have a sling.
Speaker:Oh, no, it folds up.
Speaker:You know how it screws everything in?
Speaker:I'm going to say it also folds, and it's got a holster.
Speaker:It's got a sheath on it.
Speaker:Very cool.
Speaker:Okay, that's excellent.
Speaker:So yeah, folds in half and then sheaths in, so you can pull out.
Speaker:She doesn't take that.
Speaker:She then goes, okay, turn around, and what the fuck is this thing?
Speaker:And you turn around and you see that same woman you saw in your vision, and in current real time, is staring at you.
Speaker:I'll be honest, I have no idea.
Speaker:I was inside, I woke up.
Speaker:I think I must have hit myself real bad when it came down, because I don't remember anything.
Speaker:I can't remember where, what's it for, or anything like that.
Speaker:It's got coordinates on there.
Speaker:I think it's supposed to show that I was being sent down to find something, but that's all I can tell you, really.
Speaker:As you're saying this, you look at her, and she seems dirty, tired, super thin.
Speaker:Like, I haven't eaten a lot.
Speaker:What is she wearing?
Speaker:Just out of curiosity.
Speaker:Torn jeans right now.
Speaker:And then the top is like a faded gray shirt that looks like it was torn off of something larger at some point.
Speaker:Ocean in the present would know that at this point, she doesn't look like she's part of the silent, but Ocean in the past has no idea what the fuck is going on.
Speaker:So just these are random person in a cave.
Speaker:Yes, that's what it looks like to you.
Speaker:To both of you, I guess.
Speaker:Do you?
Speaker:Where am I?
Speaker:What?
Speaker:Is this a big cave?
Speaker:How deep are we?
Speaker:Those are really weird questions.
Speaker:Yeah, this is a cave.
Speaker:Everything's fucking caves, though.
Speaker:And I don't know.
Speaker:What do you mean?
Speaker:Like how deep?
Speaker:Like there's deeper spots.
Speaker:I just.
Speaker:Where did you come from?
Speaker:What is this sphere?
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:But if I had to guess, it takes that brighter flashlight and shines it straight up.
Speaker:I think I came from up there.
Speaker:You see her and she definitely.
Speaker:Actually, give me a Sway Someone roll.
Speaker:Sway Somebody.
Speaker:That's a seven.
Speaker:She keeps her gun on you, but you see her eyes definitely, like as you shine your light up, like kind of look very interested up there.
Speaker:And their guard definitely seems down like a little bit.
Speaker:Does the brighter flashlight illuminate anything better regarding the area right below above where the sphere is?
Speaker:Yes, you're able to get a better understanding of the room you're in.
Speaker:It's a large cavern, like I mentioned before, pretty big, probably almost the size of like three quarters of a football field.
Speaker:Okay, pretty big, pretty beefy.
Speaker:And as you shine your light down, it looks what you can figure out is that this giant sphere you're in somehow hit a massive stalactite grouping on the ceiling, broke off a bunch and tumbled down.
Speaker:So it looks like it even like came in at an angle of some sort.
Speaker:But shiny up there, it just looks like debris.
Speaker:There's definitely like a dark hole extending upward that you came in on.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Which is fucking wild.
Speaker:There's like so much stone there.
Speaker:Like everything you know about physics, you're like impossible.
Speaker:How the fuck did it come down here?
Speaker:Unbelievable.
Speaker:That's all I know.
Speaker:That's all I can tell you.
Speaker:I'll be honest.
Speaker:I'm trying to tell you everything I can.
Speaker:Give me a read of Citroen.
Speaker:Past Ocean is so good at reading situations.
Speaker:That's a nine.
Speaker:Ask me one question.
Speaker:It's kind of boring, but I feel like it's just the most relevant here, considering I don't really know anything about the situation going on right now.
Speaker:But I'm going to say, what should I be on the lookout for?
Speaker:As you see, her guard kind of go down.
Speaker:Some still has the gun trend on him, but guard goes down.
Speaker:She seems super interested in this.
Speaker:Like as you shine your light around these different areas, like it seems like she's piecing together what happened to and is like odd by it.
Speaker:And this whole situation.
Speaker:And it looks like she may be interested in like going in the sphere, checking it out, stuff like that.
Speaker:But she's trying to figure out what to do about you.
Speaker:Like you, you are a definite complicating factor in the current situation.
Speaker:In my clothes that I'm wearing, it's really well put together.
Speaker:I'm like clean, right?
Speaker:I don't look filthy or dirty or anything like that.
Speaker:Yes, you are incredibly clean, cleaner than you've ever been before, or since at least cleaner than you've ever been since.
Speaker:As she kind of looks around, as she pulls out her own flashlight and is shining it towards the sphere, you catch just this glint of something moving in the shadows up.
Speaker:It seems like in the same direction that she came from originally.
Speaker:You stop for a second and listen, and you hear this like very hushed talking.
Speaker:Did you hear that?
Speaker:What?
Speaker:The like electric, like the electric...
Speaker:No, it sounds like somebody was talking.
Speaker:You weren't saying anything or anything, right?
Speaker:No.
Speaker:Do you mind if I look around a little bit here?
Speaker:You can look inside the sphere all you want.
Speaker:I'm not doing anything.
Speaker:I'll follow any commands you got.
Speaker:Yeah, don't go too far.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Can I identify where the Ocean walks over to where he saw the glint?
Speaker:Are you just like shining the light out?
Speaker:Yeah, he's just waving the light around.
Speaker:Do I see the other people that were with this woman as well?
Speaker:See any other people that were with this woman?
Speaker:Yeah, you said there's a few other people with her, right?
Speaker:Or is it just her?
Speaker:Okay, never mind.
Speaker:I thought you said there's multiple dots on the radar.
Speaker:There were dots on the radar, yes.
Speaker:Oh.
Speaker:You don't know what those are, though.
Speaker:Okay, I just assumed that would be her people.
Speaker:Okay, that complicates things a little bit.
Speaker:You stop and you don't hear anything.
Speaker:It's just complete silence, complete darkness.
Speaker:As you sweep your light around, you don't see anything everywhere.
Speaker:But you are confident you heard something.
Speaker:Hmm.
Speaker:So trying to triangulate where, based on the radar that I had inside my sphere, as well as where I saw those dots, can I pretty confidently say that one of those dots was probably the woman?
Speaker:I'm going to say no.
Speaker:Okay, so these dots are not what I...
Speaker:You cannot confidently state that.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Is there anybody with you?
Speaker:Is this...
Speaker:is it just you?
Speaker:What?
Speaker:Uh, yeah.
Speaker:Who are you?
Speaker:My name's Kara.
Speaker:I just live around here, you know?
Speaker:So you live in this cave?
Speaker:No, not this cave, but around here.
Speaker:Oh.
Speaker:That's crazy.
Speaker:There's nothing.
Speaker:And I live near Septropolis, like, on the outskirts.
Speaker:Septropolis?
Speaker:What the hell is that?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Dumbass name.
Speaker:That is a dumbass name.
Speaker:What is it?
Speaker:Some kind of underground city?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:You've been.
Speaker:Everyone knows...
Speaker:you really don't know what Septropolis is.
Speaker:I just was guessing based on that dumbass on-the-nose name.
Speaker:It really seems smart, even if your brain's a little rattled there.
Speaker:And then you hear a bolt cocking on what sounds like a rifle of some sort from behind you now as you're turning, talking towards her atmosphere.
Speaker:Oh, shit.
Speaker:Oh, shit.
Speaker:And she has my pistol, right?
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:She's probably a good 20 feet away from you, too.
Speaker:OK, when I hear the bolts cock, Ocean shouts, Somebody has a gun, get down!
Speaker:And he is going to dive down onto the ground.
Speaker:He's gonna give me an act under fire.
Speaker:OK, he's going to try and dive out of the way as he hears the cock.
Speaker:That is a old Ocean is so much cooler than new Ocean.
Speaker:That is a 13.
Speaker:You yell, somebody has a gun, and then you hear some other small sound happening, and you just instinctively rotate your body 90 degrees.
Speaker:So you start falling straight down.
Speaker:And right when he hit the ground is when you yell, they get down as a bullet rings out, and you hear it land like two feet away from you.
Speaker:This person was certainly aiming at you, and you look up, and Karen seems to be reacting to the gunshot with much surprise.
Speaker:You legitimately don't think they're with her based on how quickly she dives behind the sphere and pulls up her gun.
Speaker:From the ground, Ocean's going to yell at Karen, saying, throw me my pistol.
Speaker:Oh, this is way someone.
Speaker:Gosh, he's so cool.
Speaker:That's an 11.
Speaker:You have to change your playbook to a cool pace playbook.
Speaker:Yeah, I just I've rolled this so many times now.
Speaker:I've just got another experience from rolling cool.
Speaker:Yeah, I think I might have to spend my extra my last.
Speaker:Give us one any stat to cool instead of hard now.
Speaker:You see, there's like a millisecond of doubt flash over her face, like not given this dude a gun, but then she immediately understands the severity of the situation.
Speaker:She realizes she's a little too far and she actually leans out, puts a few shots down range and then does a hard toss of your pistol over towards you.
Speaker:You pop up and snatch it out of the air, finger already on the trigger as you spin around and you see that there are three dudes here.
Speaker:One's wearing like a big miner's hat that's off right now, and under that, like thick, thick goggles that you can't really see his face, and the other two have bandanas around them.
Speaker:And they all have what you would describe current Ocean would describe as shitty guns.
Speaker:Are the all three of them pointing gun at me, or is it just one currently?
Speaker:One of them has a, what looks like a hunting rifle held up to his shoulder that there's a little trail of smoke flowing off of the one with the miner's helmet on has a pistol that's not aimed up at you right now.
Speaker:It looks like he was like talking to the other guy.
Speaker:And then the other one seems to be scrounging through a bag trying to find something quickly.
Speaker:When Ocean catches the gun, he sees the guy, he's going to turn and he's going to fire a couple shots at the guy that shot at him.
Speaker:Do battle.
Speaker:Yeah, that's a 13 again.
Speaker:Past Ocean has real big main characters.
Speaker:He does.
Speaker:He does.
Speaker:Which one do you want a full success on?
Speaker:Attack someone or act under fire?
Speaker:I'm going to give a full success on the attack somebody.
Speaker:And I'm going to say, pin them down and get them out of my way for my two choices.
Speaker:You turn and you see him quickly reloading as you aim down.
Speaker:This is a pretty far distance for like a handgun shot, but you shoot once and it makes contact right with the guy with the rifle center of mass as he's pulling the trigger.
Speaker:And the shot goes wide.
Speaker:It grazes your shoulder.
Speaker:You take two damage minus one.
Speaker:So you take one damage.
Speaker:You don't have armor on right now.
Speaker:You still have your gain bonus.
Speaker:Are we going to retroactively say currently, should I start a new harm clock at this point?
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Keep track of your old one.
Speaker:OK, there we go.
Speaker:I got my two clocks, but he seems done.
Speaker:Like you put this one shot right into his heart and he collapses flat to where he was.
Speaker:His gun bounces a few feet away from him.
Speaker:The other two dive away behind some other rocks nearby.
Speaker:The one of them who was digging through a bag leaves the bag there.
Speaker:So he doesn't have his shit.
Speaker:They're both separated and they're both hunkered down.
Speaker:Ocean shouts out, put the gun down or I'll shoot again.
Speaker:I think this is a confront someone.
Speaker:Yeah, I'd say so.
Speaker:Let's see if I'm as aggressive.
Speaker:He is!
Speaker:It's an 11!
Speaker:Gosh!
Speaker:Old Ocean is so good!
Speaker:What the heck?
Speaker:This is making up for fucking...
Speaker:Why in a flashback where there's no freaking consequences to everything I'm doing?
Speaker:I'm rolling so well.
Speaker:Yeah, you could be failing all the time here and it would just be fun and fine.
Speaker:I'm hilarious.
Speaker:Current present day Ocean, I step on a pebble and I take three harm because I rolled a five or something.
Speaker:You're gonna come back after all of this fun, exciting success and then die.
Speaker:Probably because I have a minus one ongoing that has been not fun.
Speaker:The one who was wearing the miner's helmet, you see him holding his gun up above the rocks.
Speaker:He can like see his hand.
Speaker:He's holding it flat, pointing towards the air.
Speaker:And he goes, just let us walk away and we won't cause any more trouble.
Speaker:Leave the gun, leave anything you got.
Speaker:You hear some whispering, but they're kind of far away.
Speaker:So it's like a stage whisper.
Speaker:And he's like, dude, leave your gun.
Speaker:No, no, you leave your gun.
Speaker:I want all guns left.
Speaker:Shit, I think he can hear us.
Speaker:No, man, I think he can read our minds.
Speaker:No, they're silent for a little bit.
Speaker:And you're, fuck, OK.
Speaker:And one gun skitters down the wall.
Speaker:And like 14 seconds later, the other gun gets tossed a little bit closer.
Speaker:All right, come out where I can see them.
Speaker:Can we go now?
Speaker:Come out first.
Speaker:They come out with their hands up.
Speaker:What were you shooting at me for?
Speaker:You have this big, shiny sphere.
Speaker:Looks like there's cool shit in it.
Speaker:It works.
Speaker:There's lights on it.
Speaker:Get the fuck out of here.
Speaker:They kind of hesitate for a second, and then they like slowly walk back into the shadows.
Speaker:About that time, Kara comes jogging.
Speaker:It's like, holy shit.
Speaker:Like, you shot that dude from like 30 yards away.
Speaker:Who are you?
Speaker:Ocean walks up to the bag and the guy that he shot, and he's gonna grab, Ocean grabs the rifle, and he rummages through the bag to see if there's anything in there.
Speaker:There are several grenades.
Speaker:There is food that you would never eat in a thousand years, even though you're still kind of hungry.
Speaker:But a week from now, you will absolutely eat.
Speaker:What's one more thing?
Speaker:There's one more thing in there.
Speaker:There's a map.
Speaker:Maps are always fucking good.
Speaker:They're always great.
Speaker:Fairly crudely drawn.
Speaker:But it has a box that says safety with an exclamation point in it.
Speaker:There are some landmarks labeled around it, and it's stuff like green tower or like mossy cave entrance.
Speaker:Or things like that.
Speaker:Ocean slings the bag.
Speaker:He just takes the whole bag and slings it over his shoulder, grabs the rifle.
Speaker:It's waterproof.
Speaker:Oh, fuck.
Speaker:Pretty nice bag.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And he just slings the rifle as well over his shoulder.
Speaker:And he turns to Kara and is like, well, I guess you don't really know anything about what's going on.
Speaker:Does this mean anything to you?
Speaker:And he shows her the map.
Speaker:She looks at it for a second.
Speaker:She's like, I think I know the tower they're talking about.
Speaker:I have no idea why, what this safety thing is.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Have you seen anyone else like me before?
Speaker:Anyone that looks like me?
Speaker:No, I have never seen anyone like you at all.
Speaker:You got any place for me to stay?
Speaker:Well, I try and recover and see if I can figure things out.
Speaker:I'll share this with you.
Speaker:And he holds out the bag with the food in it.
Speaker:She cranks it open and there's like some and pulls out some beef jerky that is disgusting to you.
Speaker:It looks so dried and like maybe moldy also somehow, even though those should be like directly opposed things.
Speaker:But she eats it like it's delicious.
Speaker:And I see there's, you said disgusting things like a punctured can of plain Vienna sausage.
Speaker:Yes, that she shotguns the juice out of the side.
Speaker:And it's all good for you.
Speaker:That's people don't realize a lot of times when you're dehydrated, you need that.
Speaker:You need that sodium.
Speaker:It's pure sodium.
Speaker:There's nothing better.
Speaker:There's nothing more sodium filled than the juice of Vienna sausages.
Speaker:Yeah, I don't stay in one spot too long, but you can come with me for a little bit.
Speaker:I think I just need a little bit of rest and a little bit of recovery.
Speaker:And maybe I can figure things out more about what's going on.
Speaker:Yeah, I have a camp nearby.
Speaker:We can definitely stay there for the night.
Speaker:Thanks for taking those people out.
Speaker:Oh, I was certainly outnumbered.
Speaker:Thanks for not shooting me when you saw me first.
Speaker:I would have.
Speaker:She laughs.
Speaker:Then we move six months into the future.
Speaker:Oh, fuck yeah, six months into the future.
Speaker:You're still traveling with her.
Speaker:You don't know why, but you are.
Speaker:And you are in Subtropolis now.
Speaker:You see her point up and go, well, there's the green tower.
Speaker:And it's just this like completely dilapidated hotel.
Speaker:It has this gross copper siding that is completely oxidized.
Speaker:You think it probably would have looked gaudy even when it was new and fresh and pretty shitty.
Speaker:But now it looks like this just absolute relic of some old age.
Speaker:Might as well stop there for the night, I guess.
Speaker:But I think we're getting pretty close to whatever the fuck the safety thing is.
Speaker:Give me a read of Citroën.
Speaker:OK, that's just a nine.
Speaker:OK, one question then.
Speaker:What is the biggest threat to me?
Speaker:OK, you guys get into this building.
Speaker:It's a little concerning because it doesn't seem super stable, but you find a place that you feel comfortable with.
Speaker:There was a big elevator shaft in the middle that seems like it stood up to whatever brought down the other areas.
Speaker:So you feel like around here, nothing is going to fall on you or break off in the middle of the night and spear you with a gross rusted piece of copper.
Speaker:So you guys set up for the night there, set up your different little sleeping bags.
Speaker:So by six months, you are definitely eating the bad food.
Speaker:What do you think you've scrounged up at this point?
Speaker:Well, if I scrounged up, that's bad food.
Speaker:I can't I'm going to say it's a can of spinach that has been punctured a long time ago and completely dried up to the point that it's just crispy.
Speaker:Yeah, it's like it's like baked kale, but tastes terrible.
Speaker:Yeah, but at some point in time, this was a can of wet spinach.
Speaker:Yes, you're just crunching on these little flakes and it's just enough to keep you going enough to be able to fall asleep without being starving.
Speaker:And as you lean off the wall to go start laying down for the night, you realize your back sticks to it.
Speaker:And as you pull forward, it makes the squelching sound and it's like very gunky.
Speaker:You're able to get off of it.
Speaker:You're not stuck.
Speaker:But something made you like ooze into the wall for some reason.
Speaker:When Ocean comes off of the wall, he turns around with the flashlight, shines this light on the wall and tries to examine a little bit closer.
Speaker:Yeah, you see, it's coated in this like the reason you didn't notice it just coming in is it's like very dark brown, which is what a lot of this room wall building looks like.
Speaker:But it is this like thick, sludgy, dark brown material.
Speaker:And as you pan your flashlight up slowly and dramatically up along the outside of this elevator shaft, you guys are leaning near, you see this writhing mass of what looks like like almost very thick nightcrawlers.
Speaker:Like worms, not like the X-Men, but they have these spindly arms that are coming out of the front of them, dragging them forward, leaving behind this big kind of snail trail everywhere they go.
Speaker:And they're probably about the size of your arm, maybe a little bigger, and they are dragging themselves in your direction.
Speaker:In the six months that I've been with Kara, have I seen any of these horrible, horrible, horrific creatures before?
Speaker:Or is this my first time?
Speaker:Let's say this is the first time you've seen stuff that was definitely strange.
Speaker:You saw like a bear that was like massive, like way too big for a bear, and it was kind of like shaggy and segmented.
Speaker:And you're like, that's not my understanding of what a bear is, even though I don't know why I know what a bear is.
Speaker:And you saw, you've seen insects that are like big and gross.
Speaker:Everything's a little off, but this is the first thing that's just like...
Speaker:That's just been horrifically terrible.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:So as they're coming towards me, I'm like, uh, Kara, what the hell is this?
Speaker:She goes, Oh, yeah, the wall is disgusting.
Speaker:Oh, my God.
Speaker:And she looks up and sees this giant mass of things.
Speaker:And right when she says that, one of them falls down right onto your shoulder.
Speaker:Give me an act under fire roll.
Speaker:Oh, that's a six.
Speaker:Oh, a failure.
Speaker:A failure.
Speaker:Let's make it real bad since I'm going to be mean since you've been so successful.
Speaker:So it falls on your shoulder, which at first, it's mostly just like a disgust feeling you get.
Speaker:But you quickly feel a pinch, like right near your collarbone.
Speaker:On the side.
Speaker:And you notice that its ovipositor side, the back section of it, of its abdomen, has latched on to you.
Speaker:And suddenly the whole worm wrings itself out.
Speaker:The arms curl around itself and just like a wet washcloth that just wrings itself.
Speaker:And you feel a massive amount of something course into your bloodstream, just right in your shoulder.
Speaker:And it just knots up in this huge, bulbing, painful mass.
Speaker:And it looks like this thing definitely killed itself in the process, but there are more coming.
Speaker:You take two armor piercing arm.
Speaker:At that point, when Ocean sees all the creepy crawlers and bites into him, he opens up his bag and pulls out one of their grenades and tosses up the elevator shaft and tries to get to stick it to the wall.
Speaker:Oh, hell yeah.
Speaker:You are attacking the mass of them, so I think it's going to be an attack.
Speaker:So, OK, perfect.
Speaker:Roll them in.
Speaker:That's a nine.
Speaker:OK, choose one of those options.
Speaker:I'm going to say inflict terrible harm.
Speaker:You hurl this grenade upward.
Speaker:It's actually a pretty fancy grenade.
Speaker:You has like a switch for safety and then a button you push.
Speaker:And you you played around with these before to figure out how they work.
Speaker:I may have been not the best play session, but you figured it out and you hit the safety switch, hit the real button and a it starts beeping.
Speaker:You cook it just long enough, toss it up, and it does stick in the wall.
Speaker:But you're already running out of there.
Speaker:I imagine you're not sitting there to wait around to see how we're getting out of there, or at least to the point where we feel like we'll be safe when the explosion goes off, because I assume it's probably not that long of a cool down before it blows.
Speaker:As you toss it up, Kara already starts pulling you.
Speaker:She like grabs the back of your collar and yanks you as soon as it leaves your hand.
Speaker:And you guys turn and start running and dive to the ground as there's this wet explosion as there's a lot of mass up there.
Speaker:And then you hear this raining, plopping sound of hundreds of these bodies just all over the ground.
Speaker:Some of them seem to be limply crawling towards you, but they're easy to like pick off, smash, things like that.
Speaker:There's not much with her anymore.
Speaker:But for you, which I'll say Kara does, Kara grabs your pistol and just kind of shoots some of the ones near the end, steps on a few of them and then slides it back over you.
Speaker:But while that's happening, this mass in your shoulder, you feel is just spreading throughout your blood.
Speaker:And it's just like this thick coagulating mass that you can feel inside of you.
Speaker:Everywhere it goes, it's moved down like your arm a little bit now.
Speaker:It's like almost reached your elbow and you feel like this ache in your like bicep.
Speaker:And as you move it, you can feel it sloshing around.
Speaker:Oh, gosh.
Speaker:Ocean steadily kind of stands up and kind of hobbles to his feet.
Speaker:He's like, Kara, I don't feel so good.
Speaker:Yeah, that doesn't look great.
Speaker:Let's get you patched up a little bit.
Speaker:At first, she tries like just normal first aid things and you guys continue for a day or two.
Speaker:But it keeps getting worse every day.
Speaker:It starts hurting really bad.
Speaker:No matter what you do, you like go out of your way.
Speaker:And she tries to, she raids an old Walgreens, an underground Walgreens, and takes finds a bunch of medicine in there.
Speaker:Anything you do, she finds some like lidocaine to apply to your skin doesn't help at all.
Speaker:And you end up getting worse and worse if we were tracking damage carefully, you would be getting more and more unstable as time goes on.
Speaker:And finally, she goes, okay, I'm going to do something, but you have to promise never to tell anyone about it.
Speaker:But I think I can make you feel all better.
Speaker:I trust you.
Speaker:Just do anything you can.
Speaker:And just let's not talk about it too much.
Speaker:But okay, breathe, just breathe in, close your eyes.
Speaker:And there's this blinding light that you have to react.
Speaker:You can open your eyes and look.
Speaker:And she has her hands on your shoulder.
Speaker:And there is this just warm light that immediately takes all of the pain away.
Speaker:And you feel, sorry, that's about to be really gross, but you feel all of this gunky, goopy liquid start just oozing out of your skin.
Speaker:Like when you squeeze a sudsy washcloth, and it just pushes its way out of your outer skin layer.
Speaker:But you feel it leaving you, and it feels you can breathe, you can move your arm, and the pain is just entirely gone.
Speaker:Holy hell, what was that?
Speaker:How did you do that?
Speaker:I don't want to make it like a big deal, but...
Speaker:This is a big fucking deal!
Speaker:You just healed me with your touch!
Speaker:Yeah, it's...
Speaker:have you noticed that kind of staticky thing that's like always there?
Speaker:Has Ocean noticed this, you think?
Speaker:It's up to you.
Speaker:No, I really haven't.
Speaker:I don't think I've noticed that at all.
Speaker:If I did, I'd just assume it was part of the gunk of the cave.
Speaker:You would know it.
Speaker:There's something weird about you.
Speaker:Maybe it's because you're not from around here.
Speaker:You're from some higher cave or something.
Speaker:But down here, we all feel it.
Speaker:And we normally don't talk about it.
Speaker:Just it's kind of a part of life.
Speaker:But we call it the psychic maelstrom, which sounds way more cool than it actually is.
Speaker:It's really just kind of this static that's everywhere, always in your brain.
Speaker:I think it's from when the world ended, you know?
Speaker:Is the world gone where you are from?
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:I still don't remember anything.
Speaker:Something must be above, if the pod came down, carrying me in it.
Speaker:But I don't know what's up there or what happens.
Speaker:Yeah, I think the psychic maelstrom kind of came when the world ended, but other people think other things.
Speaker:I don't know what's true.
Speaker:That's just kind of what I feel.
Speaker:But other people think it's all manmade somewhere.
Speaker:Other people think like T-Bone thought it was a wizard.
Speaker:I don't think that's right, though.
Speaker:So this like healing thing I do it.
Speaker:I learned it like from that.
Speaker:I can't explain it.
Speaker:It didn't like teach it to me.
Speaker:It doesn't talk to me.
Speaker:I'm not crazy.
Speaker:I promise.
Speaker:But like I felt it letting me do that when I was around someone who I really didn't want to die.
Speaker:And they were very close to the edge there.
Speaker:It kind of told me how to do that.
Speaker:And it's worked since then pretty consistent.
Speaker:Yeah, I'd say that works like nine out of 12 times.
Speaker:It's such a bizarrely specific amount.
Speaker:I assume that's the number of times that you've tried.
Speaker:Well, thank you.
Speaker:I'm pretty sure I probably wouldn't have survived without treatment.
Speaker:Yeah, that's why I don't like to like use it a lot.
Speaker:I will admit like it scares me some.
Speaker:It's definitely weird.
Speaker:I haven't met anyone else who can do it.
Speaker:Is there other things that the psychic maelstrom that you call it lets you do?
Speaker:Uh, I don't know.
Speaker:Maybe.
Speaker:I think it's not all good, certainly.
Speaker:Like, I think those things come from it.
Speaker:And she points to one that's like has one arm left dragging itself closer to you and smushes it with her foot.
Speaker:I think they're from that.
Speaker:Yeah, they followed you for two days.
Speaker:I forgot this was two days later.
Speaker:It's been following you, but that was kind of your pet for a while.
Speaker:But yeah, maybe.
Speaker:I hope not.
Speaker:It's I don't want to like give it credit for everything.
Speaker:It just kind of taught me how to do it.
Speaker:But let me know if like you can ever hear it, because that seems important that you can't.
Speaker:Two weeks later, you guys have been wandering around the same area now for a while, and you're starting to lose your mind a little bit.
Speaker:You swear not only is the place you're trying to get to moving, but the map itself is changing.
Speaker:You're looking at this map that has been drawn, where the safety is, and there's a few landmarks around it that are kind of giving this bounding area to look in.
Speaker:And you swear they're moving, not by much, but just by a little bit.
Speaker:Like they'll even maybe switch sides, like, oh, this is where there's the broken down Maserati, and this is where there's the statue of some weird dude on top of a horse.
Speaker:And you feel like they've like flipped, and you guys like start like writing on the map to like double check like, right, this was the horse.
Speaker:But it still seems to be changing.
Speaker:And like, it started with like some disagreements between you guys, where like you thought each other were being completely dumb.
Speaker:But at this point, you guys have realized like something's wrong.
Speaker:It's yeah, there's something going on here.
Speaker:One of these days, you're still wandering around, you've come up, what's an idea you came up with to try to eliminate this confusion?
Speaker:What's a way to try to really nail down how to get to the spot that's around the triangle of objects?
Speaker:I'm going to say we've started marking where we've been like physically marking.
Speaker:Like I take my tactical shovel and I scrape the rock or the metal or something, whatever structure is to leave a very big prominent mark, just to prove that that is where we have been.
Speaker:And if we run into it again, we know there's something going on.
Speaker:You've been doing that for a couple days and you haven't ran into new ones, which is good.
Speaker:You're like, OK, we haven't doubled back yet.
Speaker:We've been going in the same direction.
Speaker:You should be narrowing it down.
Speaker:Give me a read-a-central.
Speaker:What the fuck is my dice?
Speaker:There's Google dice roller.
Speaker:Oh, that's a four.
Speaker:Ocean's starting to lose his cool.
Speaker:You're going along.
Speaker:You feel like you guys have made progress and you turn around a corner and you see one of your shovel marks right in front of you.
Speaker:Or would you do that kind of gives away your location, something loud or something?
Speaker:Not necessarily within character.
Speaker:What is the shovel mark on?
Speaker:It's on a fire hydrant.
Speaker:Ocean sees the fire hydrant that he has marked, and in a fit of rage, he is just going to start wailing on it with his tactical shovel and like break it.
Speaker:Yeah, you go smashing into this, and it is like an explosion of anchor that you probably haven't, we have probably haven't seen Ocean have in the podcast at least.
Speaker:I don't think so.
Speaker:Kara gets it.
Speaker:Like, it's not like she's concerned or scared like this situation.
Speaker:Absolutely sucks.
Speaker:So she just kind of slunks down behind you, and she's like sitting on a curb while you just beat this fire hydrant until a part of it bursts.
Speaker:And this spray of water goes shooting out into the air.
Speaker:And that kind of pushes you back a little bit.
Speaker:Like there was massive water pressure, not physically pushing you as water, but it makes you take a step back and calm down a little bit.
Speaker:When you hear a loud gunshot.
Speaker:Oh, shit.
Speaker:When the gunshot goes off, I know that in real life, by the time you hear the gunshot, if it was like aimed at you, it's probably it's already hit.
Speaker:But instinctually, Ocean is going to leap up and try and grab Kara and pull her to the ground to pull her down.
Speaker:You do that.
Speaker:You hear this gunshot.
Speaker:You turn around, jump.
Speaker:You feel something very wet and you look down, and there is a lot of blood, and it takes you a second to realize, definitely not you.
Speaker:All coming from Kara.
Speaker:It looks like she was shot like right in the stomach.
Speaker:By something that was large.
Speaker:Give me another Rita Citroel.
Speaker:The situation has changed, so I think this is fair.
Speaker:That is a six.
Speaker:Six.
Speaker:Six, okay.
Speaker:Okay, I'm making up for my previous successful re-rolls.
Speaker:You go look around trying to see where this is coming from, as you're trying to protect her, and you get shot right in the shoulder.
Speaker:You take three harm, but you tell where it comes from.
Speaker:You get knocked back.
Speaker:This is some huge high caliber round.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:It pushes you on to your back.
Speaker:But you look up and you see on a second story window from across the street that you guys are on, there's someone with a large sniper rifle propped up on the balcony.
Speaker:Do I get my gang bonus here?
Speaker:You are gang.
Speaker:Okay, so when Ocean turns, he rolls over on his back and he sees the guy, the guy in the sniper rifle, and he pulls the rifle, the hunting rifle that he has on his back, and he cocks it and takes his shot to try and take this guy out.
Speaker:Let's do a do battle.
Speaker:That is a nine.
Speaker:I'm going to go with inflict terrible harm here for the attack somebody.
Speaker:You see him kind of dive out of the way, because he realizes he's a sitting duck, and he has another gun that he seems to pull up.
Speaker:This is like a balcony with a hard metal rail and nothing underneath it, so you can still see him as he falls to the ground.
Speaker:But he pulls out his sidearm and shoots a bunch of bullets at you.
Speaker:One of them just catches you in the shoulder.
Speaker:It's too harm.
Speaker:But you're able to stay focused.
Speaker:You grit through that pain and aim right for his head and pull the trigger and success.
Speaker:They quiet for just a minute and you don't hear anything else.
Speaker:When I'm sure that he has been taken out, Ocean rolls back over and kind of drags himself over to Kara and goes, Kara, Kara, are you okay?
Speaker:She's not okay.
Speaker:She goes to try to say she's fine, but just blood comes out of her mouth.
Speaker:Ocean searches through his bag to try and find anything that would possibly help her.
Speaker:And I'm assuming you have some bandages, some old clothes type things that you try to tie around it.
Speaker:But as soon as you put any of that on there, your eyes are just soaking all the way through.
Speaker:There's not a chance the stuff you have is going to be able to help.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:In that case, in a fit of desperation, Ocean is going to try and do what she did, and she's going to lay his hands on top of her abdomen in an attempt to use healing touch.
Speaker:Give me, actually, since you don't have that movie, cheater.
Speaker:Yeah, I don't, I don't, but he's going to try and copy her.
Speaker:Give me an open your brain to the psychic maelstrom roll, actually, instead.
Speaker:I'm trying to think if you should have disadvantage, but I don't think so.
Speaker:I think it's fine.
Speaker:That is a 12.
Speaker:You go and you try to do the same thing.
Speaker:You put your hands on her stomach and you try to hear that static in your brain.
Speaker:You close your eyes, you focus super hard, and you still just hear nothing, just nothing.
Speaker:And then you hear a very, very quiet, Hello, Ocean.
Speaker:Hello, Ocean.
Speaker:Hello, Ocean.
Speaker:Hello, Ocean.
Speaker:And it kind of comes in with this static behind it that gets louder and louder.
Speaker:And what are you trying to do?
Speaker:Just healer?
Speaker:He's going to try and healer.
Speaker:Yeah, stabilizer, healer.
Speaker:Okay, give me a healing touch roll.
Speaker:Okay, that is a seven.
Speaker:So that's still two.
Speaker:That's still two.
Speaker:That's right.
Speaker:Healing touch is so good.
Speaker:It's busted.
Speaker:Well, obviously, I'm going to stop the bleeding.
Speaker:So I'm going to heal their tissue damage and stop the bleeding.
Speaker:And he said they're shot in the stomach.
Speaker:So not probably realistically going to have any bones that it shot through, unless it went through her back, through her spine.
Speaker:Fuck it.
Speaker:I'm going to say he'll knits the bones back together.
Speaker:Tissue damage, blooding and bones, just in case.
Speaker:You feel this warmth coming off of your fingertips.
Speaker:At first, it doesn't seem that much different than the blood that's been coming out all over you.
Speaker:But it feels better this time.
Speaker:But your brain still keeps getting wracked with this hello Ocean, Ocean, Ocean, Ocean, Ocean over and over again.
Speaker:But you try to just like shake your head through it, focus on what you're trying to do, and you feel all of the blood drying up around you, the tissue stitching itself back together, a little chip in the spine somehow gets healed back up all under your fingertips.
Speaker:But when that's done, you still feel this in your brain.
Speaker:Are you trying to like snap out of it or what?
Speaker:Yeah, he tries to when he feels when he notices her being all healed, he's going to try at that point to shut out the voice that he keeps hearing.
Speaker:Okay, since you got your full success, I'll say you can just do that.
Speaker:So you kind of shake your head, push it away, and the voice goes away.
Speaker:And you see Kara takes a breath and is not doing good, still in a ton of pain, but you think she's going to be okay.
Speaker:You notice that static just still stays in your brain all the way at the back of it, just constantly humming at you.
Speaker:So Ocean, he holds her for best by the shoulders, and he's got one hand on her shoulder, and he's still got one hand on the abdomen.
Speaker:He's just going to look at Kara, and he looks her deep in the eyes and go, I hear it.
Speaker:I hear the static.
Speaker:Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode.
Speaker:If you missed Brady being here, then please go to the pod catcher of your choice and leave a 5-star review and say, we want Brady back.
Speaker:If you don't, still leave us a 5-star review.
Speaker:The music and editing was performed by Stu Masterson.
Speaker:Brady McDonough made that logo an all non-paint-based art.
Speaker:And Jacob explains to us the reasoning behind all of the product line name changes for common beverage companies.
Speaker:Love you, bye.
Speaker:I hear it, I hear the static.
Speaker:Shoes.
Speaker:Shit.
