Episode 11
Episode 11: Hungry Like a Wolf
Ocean gets deja vu while Book has some Ninja Turtle-adjacent adventures. Both of them get some glimpses into their pasts, but they aren't too happy about it.
This one is mostly about the names of obscure medical equipment and having an open mind.
Transcript
Welcome to Oops!
Speaker:All Apocalypses, a show where we explore the collapse of society by playing fun tabletop role playing games.
Speaker:I am your host, Stu Masterson.
Speaker:I'm joined by Zero of my friends here.
Speaker:Hi, I'm Brady McDonough, and I play Book McCready, a super smart, sexy sleuth, sleuthing around, slendering up, and coming up with cool, funny things, talking about Lord of the Rings.
Speaker:And I'm Jacob.
Speaker:I play Ocean, a gentle giant who just learned the importance of reading in a medical setting.
Speaker:Don't be too worried.
Speaker:My real friends will join us in just a second when we get to the real episode, but we've all had quite a week, so this intro is gonna be just me bringing us in and kicking us off directly to the action.
Speaker:Thank you all for listening.
Speaker:Sorry, this one is so fucking late.
Speaker:Love you, hi.
Speaker:Last time, we ended with Book opening his mind to the psychic maelstrom and calling forth some of his good wolf friends who may or may not try to eat him.
Speaker:We ended, I believe, immediately as they started to arrive.
Speaker:You started hearing their howling, echoing through the tunnels around you and realized, they're here.
Speaker:I, okay, that's good.
Speaker:You're not in control, but what do you want to happen?
Speaker:Before I decide what actually happened?
Speaker:I just kind of want them to show up, like safety in numbers, basically.
Speaker:Watch me, watch me get eaten, dude.
Speaker:Honestly, I gotta, here's the thing.
Speaker:I got a vibe from them.
Speaker:And I was like, they don't wish me ill.
Speaker:That doesn't necessarily mean that they wish me well.
Speaker:And basically, actually, you know what?
Speaker:I'm gonna say that it's just an instinct.
Speaker:That's my answer.
Speaker:It was an instinct.
Speaker:In that moment, Book knew that he was in danger and that it's not something that he was gonna get himself out of.
Speaker:He is definitely pulling the trigger of that submachine gun, though, if he can.
Speaker:I'm gonna have you, as you squeeze the trigger on your gun in the darkness, in the silence, with the psychic maelstrom open and these wolves howling around you, I'm gonna have you have a do battle.
Speaker:Wait, can I ask you a question?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Do you think the loud noise is gonna scare them away?
Speaker:There's only one way to find out.
Speaker:I don't want to scare them away.
Speaker:He still wants to be friends with the wolves.
Speaker:You don't think they're scared of much.
Speaker:That's a fucking 10, 10 out of 10, 10 out of 12.
Speaker:It's another fucking 10.
Speaker:Your gun you do have, since we didn't talk about this before, it's going to be two harm close burst fire.
Speaker:And burst fire means that it has the area capability, which means if there's like a bunch of enemies in the same spot, you can basically shoot them all.
Speaker:So like if you're against the gang, it kind of counteracts those advantages.
Speaker:And then it also is the reload property where very small clip.
Speaker:Once you kind of burst through it, you're going to have to reload.
Speaker:That makes sense.
Speaker:Cool.
Speaker:So with your full success, you get seven to nine in one of those two categories, the act under fire and attack someone.
Speaker:And then you get a full success in the other one.
Speaker:So what are you choosing?
Speaker:And then what are your options once you choose?
Speaker:So in keeping with books kind of demeanor, I absolutely get the full success on the act under fire, and I get the partial success on the attack someone.
Speaker:And I have elected that my attack will impress, frighten or dismay, or actually, yeah, I'm still going to do damage, right?
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So that will, my attack is intended to impress, frighten or dismay, the salad fingers boy.
Speaker:You cannot see anything still, but you hear this yelp of surprise where it seemed to not think getting riddled with bullets was in the realm of possibility.
Speaker:As these fingernails tear into you, its hand almost palms your entire chest and tries to bring you down, but you remain stable.
Speaker:But you feel again, those fingernails start clawing into you.
Speaker:This initial grab does do two harm to you or three harm, but you have your cane.
Speaker:So my cane blocked some of its fingies.
Speaker:You're able to position yourself in a better way, basically, with your cane.
Speaker:Get it between you in some way.
Speaker:As these bullets tear through it, you see just this muzzle flash lights it up for just the second, and you see that it's pulling its face closer and closer to you.
Speaker:But in that last little flash, there's this just look of fear for a second on its eyes that is completely surprised by the bullets flying through it.
Speaker:But it is still right on top of you, and you hear those wolf howls getting closer and closer.
Speaker:I'm at a 10 in my count down, my harm count down.
Speaker:Yes, you're not in a good spot.
Speaker:Is my mind still open to the psychic maelstrom?
Speaker:Right now it is.
Speaker:The pain of it almost pulls you back.
Speaker:So yeah, I'm gonna say, do you want to stay in the psychic maelstrom?
Speaker:Do you want to keep your mind open?
Speaker:Or are you okay closing it for now?
Speaker:I would like for it to stay open.
Speaker:Okay, give me an act under fire.
Speaker:All right, let's do it.
Speaker:To keep your cool in this sudden burst of pain.
Speaker:That was a six.
Speaker:With your plus two?
Speaker:With my plus two, that was a six, which is a failure.
Speaker:That's a bad roll.
Speaker:That is a bad roll.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:You suddenly stop hearing those howls.
Speaker:The howls just disappear.
Speaker:Just like that first time, they get to like right almost at that apex point of the howl and they just cut off.
Speaker:And you hear echoes for just like a fraction of a second after going around and they also just seem to disappear.
Speaker:They don't like naturally decay down into reverb.
Speaker:They just stop suddenly.
Speaker:And you're there.
Speaker:You feel the breath of this horrific beast right on your face right now.
Speaker:And my light is out, so I can't fucking see.
Speaker:Oh, but it's still touching me right now, right?
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:You know right where it is because its hands are on top of you.
Speaker:You feel four of its fingernails growing into you.
Speaker:You don't know where that fifth one is.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:So but my cane is in between its hand and my torso.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:So I'm going to grab the cane.
Speaker:I'm going to basically, I have to at this point, just drop the gun.
Speaker:I'm going to grab the cane and try to push its hand off of my chest.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Give me a try something challenging role.
Speaker:Cool.
Speaker:Rest in peace.
Speaker:That was a nine.
Speaker:Book has a Spider-Man moment.
Speaker:So to be able to wrench him out, you're going to either have to leave behind the light.
Speaker:He's got when he went and shattered the light with one hand, you realize that that one's still in it.
Speaker:As you start pushing away, you feel it leading that way, or you're going to have to swap which arm you're hitting and knock that one out of the way.
Speaker:And you think his remaining fingers will at least scratch on you before you separate.
Speaker:Either way, you're going to be able to separate.
Speaker:But those are your two options.
Speaker:So right now, I am more much more worried about not dying than I am about not losing the light.
Speaker:And, you know, there's always a chance that I can come back and find it.
Speaker:So I'm going to let him swipe the light off of me, and I'm going to wrench his hand, his claws out of my chest.
Speaker:That light I worked so hard for.
Speaker:You get your cane wedged up between those and pry it off.
Speaker:His hand is still in the spotlight and it comes off with him, basically.
Speaker:You feel it rip off of your shoulder.
Speaker:But you have this kind of gap between you that you think would certainly give you enough time to reload and shoot again, or to run away.
Speaker:Those are basically your two options.
Speaker:And when I say time to run away, that doesn't mean successfully get away.
Speaker:It means to start trying to run away.
Speaker:If I have enough time to reload, do I have enough time to like grab stuff out of my pocket, maybe?
Speaker:Possibly.
Speaker:Because I still I'm assuming I can't see very well.
Speaker:It is literally pitch black.
Speaker:You cannot see at all.
Speaker:Not just very well.
Speaker:That is complete darkness.
Speaker:Okay, then I'm going to put the gun basically away.
Speaker:I'm going to put it in the shoulder holster.
Speaker:And then out of my pocket, I'm going to pull out my my flashlight that I had before I lost that light.
Speaker:And it's just a tiny like very weak, like I don't think it's going to deter this thing, but it's at least going to let me see it.
Speaker:And I'm going to hold it in front of me and my cane in front of me to try to ward off more attacks.
Speaker:You shine this, you turn this flashlight on with your like a Jedi knight wielding your cane in front of you.
Speaker:And when it illuminates this creature, it does wince back and actually like almost stumbles back a couple steps.
Speaker:It was just very unsurprised and not expecting to see a light.
Speaker:It doesn't look like it like physically burns or anything, but he does not like it.
Speaker:As he stumbles back a few steps though, he winces in pain as something invisible seems to jump towards him and just tear off a hunk of his flesh.
Speaker:And he kind of hunkers to the side and then another one from the other side and you hear this skittering in this darkness, you're shining your light, you don't see anything.
Speaker:But bite after bite, claw after claw, he starts stumbling backwards and more and more parts of him are starting to just get torn up.
Speaker:And he's looking like he's either he's clawing around like haphazardly, not knowing where these things are coming from, and looking scared and confused.
Speaker:I think so.
Speaker:How am I when you're at 10 harm?
Speaker:Like, is there a countdown until you pass out or anything like that?
Speaker:Is there anything I need to be aware of on that side of things?
Speaker:You will if you're not stable, you will continue to lose when and that's either just as time goes on, or if you try something particularly challenging related to your injuries, or maybe you fail a role or a role and make success on something, you will just lose.
Speaker:I think in this moment, like I am in a lot of pain, and I am not thinking 100% clearly, because my torso has been torn open, and my shoulders still hurts.
Speaker:And I have a bunch of bug bites all over me.
Speaker:I am going to, I guess, read the situation.
Speaker:You can.
Speaker:What are you trying to figure out?
Speaker:Is there something, like, you don't have to read a situation to get information.
Speaker:You can ask me a question.
Speaker:So I'm assuming, like, it looks like the wolves have shown up, and that they are actually fighting this thing, which I think is super cool.
Speaker:And I don't want to run away, because I don't think I'd get very far anyway, and like, I would just get lost in this sewer.
Speaker:So like, these wolves came when I howled.
Speaker:So like, I got it.
Speaker:I guess you're like, I also like, I don't know if I still think that Ocean came down here and tried to fight this thing.
Speaker:So I want to know, like, is Ocean here?
Speaker:As you shine your light forward, you feel I guess you feel like you have a second to take a look around while this thing's getting kind of pushed back and you see it's actually getting pushed towards what looks like maybe like a den.
Speaker:There's no major alcove out of here.
Speaker:There are some of those bulkheads that are closed right now, but this is actually a dead end at this point.
Speaker:Oh, interesting.
Speaker:So if Ocean came this way, he's in this thing's tummy.
Speaker:Oh, good.
Speaker:But he didn't eat that woman.
Speaker:So I don't think he would have eaten Ocean.
Speaker:So I'm going to try to reestablish my connection to the psychic maelstrom.
Speaker:Dangerous.
Speaker:But go for it.
Speaker:Open your mind.
Speaker:That was an eight.
Speaker:Your vision shoots forward like you almost leave your body for a second, and you get this perspective of these creatures running around, taking bites and tears out of whatever this mole, pointy-fingered, cheese-face man is.
Speaker:And then your vision comes back to your perspective, and you can see all of these wolves of the maelstrom.
Speaker:They look just like they did before with these large, bestial bodies and these heads that are just clouded in shadow, with nothing but these black reflective eyeballs showing in that cloud of darkness.
Speaker:And they are leaping around it, tearing it out with both their mouths and their claws.
Speaker:And it looks like they clearly have the upper hand right now.
Speaker:For the first time, you experience that similar sensation that you did before of this large tower shining its light on you.
Speaker:That reappears for just a second, piercing its way through these dark tunnels, bouncing around the walls, around these sewer tubes, until it fully illuminates you, and you just get this very well-lit view of everything around you.
Speaker:You see some of the blood.
Speaker:You see this horrific rotten nest that this thing seems to sleep in, with just this moldy, dark just material pressed against the walls.
Speaker:And you are transfixed by the almost dance these wolves are doing with this creature, just tearing them apart, just gracefully.
Speaker:He's swinging wildly away from where they're at.
Speaker:They seem to know where he's going to attack before they even move.
Speaker:And they are almost playing with him as they slowly push him back.
Speaker:I have a question.
Speaker:Is the light in front of me, like the thing torn off?
Speaker:Oh, that it ripped off?
Speaker:Yes, you do see it.
Speaker:Can I grab it?
Speaker:OK, I'm going to grab it and stuff it in my pocket, and then I'm going to stumble away and try to follow the light coming from that tower.
Speaker:I'm going to try to follow that light.
Speaker:OK, give me a Try Something Challenging roll.
Speaker:Cool, cool.
Speaker:Oh, looks like his reign of tins is over.
Speaker:I am just racking up XP, though.
Speaker:I rolled a two.
Speaker:Oh, OK, that's the lowest you can know.
Speaker:You can roll ones with minus one.
Speaker:So this was a three minus one.
Speaker:You see you turn into this light and it's nearly blinding, but you view it as kind of this path to salvation and you stumble back towards it.
Speaker:Your chest is torn up.
Speaker:Your shirt is like completely ripped and you look down and you see this like concerningly dark blood start pooling up around you, dying, falling down your pants.
Speaker:You stumble into this light and you're following it more and more, trying to get it to lead you out of here.
Speaker:But every step you take, you're just getting tired or you're losing more blood.
Speaker:And you don't notice that one of these bulkheads right next to you just opens up and pours water out onto you.
Speaker:And you fall to the ground, you stumble, you like hit your head a little bit on the edge, and you feel that familiar like tingle of those creatures on you again, but you are just so singularly focused as you are not in control of yourself in this opening your mind to the psychic maelstrom.
Speaker:To follow this light that you just keep pressing on and pressing on until your vision just darkens around you.
Speaker:Does that mean I take another harm?
Speaker:You take at least two more.
Speaker:That means I'm dead.
Speaker:You're not dead, your life has become untenable.
Speaker:Okay, back to Ocean.
Speaker:Two days in the future, wonder how he turned out.
Speaker:You know Book is inside the bottom floor of this tower.
Speaker:You feel it with your mind still open, and that's when you tried to rush back to reality to be able to deal with the situation, and you experience a vision.
Speaker:I forgot that's what we were doing when we come back.
Speaker:What is your choice for vision options?
Speaker:So I picked for place the interior of a machine bigger than human making, roaring.
Speaker:And for people, I chose a person you loved whom you long to see again.
Speaker:Keyword loved.
Speaker:What does that mean?
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:Stu is about to let me know.
Speaker:As you try to pull your vision back into reality, it goes just a little too far.
Speaker:You feel yourself fall back into your head.
Speaker:You are out there in the maelstrom.
Speaker:You come back in and you fall back into your own memories or what someone else is trying to do to your mind.
Speaker:You're not sure yet.
Speaker:But you experience this vision where you snap to and you are immediately aware of your surroundings.
Speaker:You are in this room with these huge server towers.
Speaker:All of these beeps and boops and gauges cover all of the walls.
Speaker:And you hear all these fans humming to life.
Speaker:It's almost deafening in here.
Speaker:And you see large control panels spread around the room.
Speaker:And you know you are looking for someone.
Speaker:You're trying to track someone down, and they're very important to you.
Speaker:And this is where you think you find them.
Speaker:You punch a complicated series of numbers into this terminal, and the doors slowly open with these hydraulic hisses.
Speaker:And as it's spread apart, you see a well-lit room with someone you recognize laying on a stretcher, and they have this long brown hair, a few highlights in it, just like apples.
Speaker:But their eyes are closed, and as you go up to them, you put your fingers on their neck, you tell that their heart is still beating, and this wave of relief comes over you.
Speaker:But then you hear another hiss, and a door to the side of you opens, and another hiss, and another one opens, and you notice suddenly the room seems to have rearranged itself, and you're in this perfectly circular room with dozens and dozens of doors all around you, and as each one opens, you see the same exact scene with this woman laying on this stretcher, and you go from one to one, and they all seem to have this beating heart, but none of them are responsive at all.
Speaker:What do you think you would do in this situation?
Speaker:Ocean is going to shake the person, be like, please wake up, wake up!
Speaker:And then he's going to be like, help, help!
Speaker:Is there anyone there?
Speaker:You do most of that like last time.
Speaker:You go and you try to shake the first one you found awake, and at first there's no reaction, and you kind of let go and go to move the next one, but then their eyes pop open, and for just a second you see their eyes are this electric blue, just nothing else, and then slowly they pixelate and form into exactly those eyes you remember, these like hazel eyes of this person you've been trying to track down, and they look just like they did before, but you know this is not them, and you snap out of your vision.
Speaker:Huh.
Speaker:I like it.
Speaker:What does it mean?
Speaker:All the way.
Speaker:But you're back at the base of this tower.
Speaker:Okay, he's going to snap too, and he's just going to be standing there and gasp, and he's going to look around in a panic looking for that person that was in his dreams and his vision before kind of piecing together what happened, and he's going to stop.
Speaker:He's going to take a few deep breaths.
Speaker:He's going to close his eyes, and he's going to try and ground himself, and then focus.
Speaker:He's just going to keep saying, Book, Book, Book, got to find Book.
Speaker:Where's Book?
Speaker:Book's in the tower.
Speaker:He's going to open his eyes, and he's going to start walking towards the tower.
Speaker:You are able to go up to the tower.
Speaker:Nothing immediately harasses you, and you see there is a surprisingly modern, I guess not modern is the right term, there's a surprisingly high tech door locking this building.
Speaker:This looks like a pretty fancy office building, but the type of door on this is something you would expect from a military site.
Speaker:It has a complicated passcode on it, it's not just a nice revolving open door or anything like that.
Speaker:What did you try to do?
Speaker:Okay, you said there's a little panel that you can try and access.
Speaker:Yeah, there's a little panel, it has numbers, and it also has a place for a badge.
Speaker:First thing I'll do, Ocean will try the door just to see if it will open up, just as a guess.
Speaker:Just pulls on it and see if it's open.
Speaker:It's locked.
Speaker:Yeah, you pull on it and it locks.
Speaker:It locks.
Speaker:It seems like a pretty secure lock.
Speaker:I'll go over to the panel.
Speaker:I'll tap on it and see what it does.
Speaker:It hums to life into the touchscreen, and it has a passcode.
Speaker:It looks very similar to the one that was just in your vision.
Speaker:I'm going to type the same passcode that I typed in in the vision.
Speaker:Oh, shit, that's a good idea.
Speaker:You type in that passcode, it was a very long, complicated, it's like a fucking 16-digit series of numbers, and the doors open right up.
Speaker:When it opens up, he's going to jump back a little bit, surprised that that actually worked.
Speaker:The password was Swordfish this whole time.
Speaker:Shocked, he's going to be briefly taken aback by the fact that the vision that he had somehow directly ties into where he's at right now.
Speaker:He's going to look around.
Speaker:Before going in, does he see anything he recognizes in the tower on that first floor?
Speaker:As these doors open, this first floor looks like a large lobby.
Speaker:There is a pair of elevators right across from you.
Speaker:It's a large lobby, like fancy, almost like a bank lobby.
Speaker:Very fancy looking elevators all the way across from you.
Speaker:Very dimly lit, like it's almost on backup overnight lighting or emergency lighting, something like that.
Speaker:But this lobby looks like it's been repurposed, and there are a lot of medical equipment in here.
Speaker:You see a lot of stretchers.
Speaker:You see a lot of IV...
Speaker:Fuck, what's the name of the little IV things?
Speaker:What do you mean?
Speaker:IV dragger balls.
Speaker:The IV poles?
Speaker:IV hangers.
Speaker:IV poles?
Speaker:IV poles?
Speaker:The ones with the rolls that you put the IV on and you can roll around?
Speaker:Yeah, it's just IV poles.
Speaker:Okay, you see lots of IV poles.
Speaker:That's stupid, but okay.
Speaker:And you see screens hooked up to measure vitals for people.
Speaker:This is clearly not what the room was intended for.
Speaker:All of this stuff was brought in and just kind of filling up haphazardly.
Speaker:Not very well organized.
Speaker:They're roughly in rows, but it looks kind of like a more high-tech version of a Civil War triage camp than a well-formulated hospital.
Speaker:And you see almost all of these are empty, but one of them has Book hooked up to an IV with his little heart rate beeping across it.
Speaker:He's going to rush over there, and he's going to start shaking.
Speaker:Book, Book, are you alive?
Speaker:I'm going to check for a pulse.
Speaker:Am I awake?
Speaker:Kind of.
Speaker:You feel a pulse.
Speaker:You very groggily come to.
Speaker:Both of you can tell, even Book internally, that you are on like heavy sedation right now.
Speaker:Ocean, did you get it?
Speaker:Did I get what?
Speaker:Passed back out.
Speaker:Book, I'm going to look around.
Speaker:I'm going to look at what he's hooked to, the IV pole.
Speaker:It has, it looks like, saline and then some sort of medicine.
Speaker:I don't know how good you are at knowing those things.
Speaker:It says more fine on it.
Speaker:As Ocean cannot read, he's going to look at it like, damn, it's Book.
Speaker:I need you to read these for me.
Speaker:What is this?
Speaker:Okay, he's going to, is he hooked up to a monitor that has like his vitals and stuff on it?
Speaker:I'm going to say you actually kind of feel like you understand that it seems like it's good.
Speaker:You don't know why, but something in you is like, yeah, this looks good.
Speaker:This is what it should be.
Speaker:You don't like know what any of the specific numbers mean or anything, but you're like, this seems right.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:It's beeping at a good rate.
Speaker:It's kind of got a nice rhythm to it.
Speaker:He just starts jiving.
Speaker:Oh, yeah, that's good.
Speaker:That's good right there.
Speaker:Is this just a stretcher have wheels?
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:I'm going to come back to book and it's like book.
Speaker:I need you to wake up.
Speaker:I have something for you book and I'm going to open up my bag and was like, I got I got a tape.
Speaker:I need you to watch it.
Speaker:I don't know what's on it.
Speaker:Wake up so you can watch this place.
Speaker:You got some I have some tape if you need some tape.
Speaker:Does the I'm going to look around.
Speaker:I'm going to take the drugs like the IV, the pump.
Speaker:I'm going to attach it to the stretcher.
Speaker:I'm going to disconnect him from the monitor and I'm going to start trying to wheel the stretcher out.
Speaker:When you disconnect them after like five seconds, it starts doing like an alarm type thing like to call in the nurses.
Speaker:But you're able to wheel him out.
Speaker:You take where you take.
Speaker:What are you doing?
Speaker:Jesus Christ.
Speaker:He's going to dump me back in that fucking sewer to finish what I started.
Speaker:Get back in the hole.
Speaker:I want to try and take Book out of Subtropolis.
Speaker:I want to try and get him back to the back to Hamlet opening, which I know is a decent walk, but I want to specifically try and avoid the route that I noticed the Humvees.
Speaker:Yeah, give me a plunder Subtropolis role where your plunder is Book's life.
Speaker:OK.
Speaker:I want to know more about the wolves.
Speaker:Why are you taking me away?
Speaker:Ocean thinks you're dying.
Speaker:OK, that's an eight.
Speaker:Eight.
Speaker:That means I get to pick two, right?
Speaker:I think it's one.
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:You know, it's one that's a partial six.
Speaker:Stu made it so that when you're plundering Subtropolis, it never goes exactly.
Speaker:So it's always got to be something that goes wrong.
Speaker:Well, I'm going to pick.
Speaker:I don't lose anything.
Speaker:I'm going to pick that one again because I don't lose a book.
Speaker:That's good.
Speaker:Actually, I would love it if I just end up back in the fucking basement.
Speaker:Okay, you wheel him out and you are you feel suddenly very exposed without your connection to the psychic maelstrom before, like pinpointing where these people are.
Speaker:You're just in the streets of Subchopolis with this loud, rattly stretcher as you're pushing them around.
Speaker:You're like, this is literally the loudest thing I've ever heard.
Speaker:One of the wheels is stuck perpendicular to the to the chair.
Speaker:It's like a Walmart cart.
Speaker:It's not like a good target cart.
Speaker:Two of them are locked, but you don't know that because you're not you.
Speaker:OK, so can I change something ever so slightly because I just thought about it?
Speaker:Yes, absolutely.
Speaker:So instead of wheeling him on the stretcher, I want to take the IV pole because he doesn't want to disconnect them from the medicine because he has no idea what any of those things are.
Speaker:So he doesn't want to.
Speaker:But you could also be like, I think it's poison.
Speaker:So, you know, that's true.
Speaker:He could think he doesn't know he can't read.
Speaker:He doesn't think exactly.
Speaker:You can't read the letters on the bags.
Speaker:See a bunch of big you.
Speaker:The first letter is very spiky and scary looking.
Speaker:That's intimidating.
Speaker:So he is going to take the IV, the IV off the pole.
Speaker:He's going to put it in his big old bag, and he's going to sling book over his shoulder, and he's going to take him that way.
Speaker:OK, awesome.
Speaker:I hope that IV is very secure.
Speaker:And I'm like bouncing.
Speaker:I'm bouncing on your shoulder.
Speaker:I'm like, Dad.
Speaker:Oh, that's so sad.
Speaker:You run back, and the options you chose are that you get lost and you something follows you, right?
Speaker:Yeah, by method of elimination.
Speaker:That is indeed.
Speaker:So you pick your course back to Hamlet opening.
Speaker:You know how you got here, especially once you got that vision through the psychic maelstrom of where this tower actually is.
Speaker:It's much easier to kind of reference yourself than when it was suddenly disappearing on you as you were trying to find it the first time.
Speaker:So you start working your way back, but you see or you hear first some of those Humvees coming around a corner.
Speaker:And it seems like they've started, some of them have decided to start expanding their search region.
Speaker:Like they've, it's taken enough time where they haven't found you that they're starting to move out a little bit more.
Speaker:So you have to take more back roads, try to cut around and before long, you don't exactly know where you're at.
Speaker:You think you know how to cut your way back to Hamlet Opening, but as more and more time goes on, you're getting more and more worried.
Speaker:At about this point, I would say, Book, you start becoming a little more aware.
Speaker:You are still getting sedated, but you've been jostled around a lot moving.
Speaker:So if you want to say anything cogent, you can.
Speaker:Cool.
Speaker:If you don't know, that's fine also.
Speaker:So as we were moving around, I was like, did you finally come back for me?
Speaker:And then as I kind of keep getting jostled, I get wicked.
Speaker:I'm like, wait.
Speaker:And I like sniff.
Speaker:And I'm like, Ocean?
Speaker:Book, Book.
Speaker:Oh, oh, shit, it's Ocean.
Speaker:I'm going to put him down on a, on a, on a, on a, oh, we need like a bench.
Speaker:I'm just going to put him down on the bench so I can be sitting upright.
Speaker:Hey, man, what's your, what's your problem?
Speaker:You look sweaty.
Speaker:I'm going to pull the IV, pull the IV pump out, and I'm going to point towards it.
Speaker:Book, I need you to tell me what these medicines are.
Speaker:Can you tell me what this says?
Speaker:And I'm going to point towards it.
Speaker:He's going to, it's like, please, I need to know what these are.
Speaker:Stu, do I like, am I in my normal clothes?
Speaker:Do I have all my normal equipment?
Speaker:Do I, do I have my glasses on?
Speaker:Oh, that's a great question.
Speaker:Since you chose to not lose anything, very smart option.
Speaker:You did, Book's pack was underneath the gurney, and you grabbed it when you swapped him to your shoulder.
Speaker:So you have all of his stuff, but you are wearing a very futuristic looking hospital gown.
Speaker:Interesting.
Speaker:Do I have my glasses on?
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So I'm going to squint at the bag, and I'm like, still swaying.
Speaker:I'm swaying left right.
Speaker:I'm like, that says morphine.
Speaker:Is that a lot?
Speaker:Can I take that drug off you?
Speaker:Is that dangerous?
Speaker:And then I lean closer, and it says, it says it's morphine.
Speaker:It's, hey, Jacob, the medicine man.
Speaker:What kind of drug is morphine?
Speaker:Morphine is an opioid-based pain medication.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So would it say that on the IV bag?
Speaker:Probably not.
Speaker:It probably just says morphine on it, and then it probably says it's concentration and then the ingredients in the bag.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:I'm going to assume that I've heard of morphine in the media.
Speaker:I was like, you've read things.
Speaker:I think it stops.
Speaker:No pain.
Speaker:It's for pain?
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:What about this other bag?
Speaker:And it's going to point towards the other one.
Speaker:The saline drip?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:That one's, it's so I don't dehydrate.
Speaker:Are either of these drugs important?
Speaker:Are they helping your heart, helping your lungs, anything?
Speaker:They help me feel good.
Speaker:I'm going to pull the IV right out.
Speaker:It hurts for a second, but you are okay.
Speaker:I take one additional harm.
Speaker:For your, it's not that bad.
Speaker:But for your playbook purposes, your life was untenable during those two days.
Speaker:So you have to choose one of those options.
Speaker:Do I have any memories of those two days?
Speaker:Do you think we're going to circle back to that?
Speaker:Am I back down to zero harm?
Speaker:Yeah, you're fully healed.
Speaker:I will be returning to play with plus one weird.
Speaker:I'm even weirder.
Speaker:We're just getting weird.
Speaker:Hell yeah.
Speaker:A weirder book like The Story of the High.
Speaker:So now my stats are stacked.
Speaker:Except for aggro.
Speaker:And hard.
Speaker:And if I die again, I'm going to come back with a minus one hard, so I'll have minus two.
Speaker:Okay, so now plus two weird.
Speaker:That's fun.
Speaker:I can talk to the wolves more.
Speaker:Okay, what are you guys doing?
Speaker:Fuck you, fuck you, Vino.
Speaker:Dude, I was asleep.
Speaker:I just got here.
Speaker:You are lost in some troubles.
Speaker:So I pulled the IV out of Book, and I'm going to just kind of like jostle.
Speaker:I'm like, what happened?
Speaker:Where have you been?
Speaker:Okay, so that's Sudden Jury.
Speaker:I like all of the memories that I have, like rush back to me in reverse order.
Speaker:So I've been knocked out a couple of times.
Speaker:And when you come to, at least in my experience, I've always remembered myself backwards.
Speaker:So it's always like been a really weird, like unnerving experience.
Speaker:So the last thing that I, the first thing that I remember is everything going black, then the wolves coming to save me, then me fighting the thing, and then, you know, it goes back from there.
Speaker:And so I look up at Ocean, I'm like, where the fuck, where have you been?
Speaker:Where have I been?
Speaker:I've been at home.
Speaker:Where have you been?
Speaker:You were home?
Speaker:Yeah, I needed to clear my head for a little while.
Speaker:I saw you go.
Speaker:What did you come to Subtropolis for?
Speaker:I saw you come.
Speaker:I saw you go to Subtropolis.
Speaker:I saw, wait, I saw your, I saw your footprints go into the sewer.
Speaker:I never know.
Speaker:I went down and I found that I was looking, I was just kind of going out to clear my head, and then I looked over and I saw there was somebody that was cut in half.
Speaker:You saw the body too?
Speaker:Yeah, so I went down there to investigate, but I never went down in these sewers.
Speaker:I saw your footprint right next to the manhole cover, the manhole opening.
Speaker:No, I never went down there.
Speaker:I thought you went down, I thought you saw the body, I thought you felt bad because that lady died when we could have stopped that thing.
Speaker:I fought, I fought the thing.
Speaker:He didn't even consider that.
Speaker:Book, what the hell are you talking about?
Speaker:What thing?
Speaker:What happened?
Speaker:The cheese melty boy.
Speaker:The mole creature from the sewers?
Speaker:If that was a mole, then I'm a fucking hamster pal.
Speaker:It was, yeah, but the dude with the nails, the growing nail in the face.
Speaker:How are you alive?
Speaker:How did you get here?
Speaker:I wasn't, I don't think I was.
Speaker:I don't think I was.
Speaker:Oh my God, I don't think I was.
Speaker:I feel, I feel weird.
Speaker:I didn't talk to the wolves.
Speaker:I held for the wolves, and they came and they saved me.
Speaker:Where are we?
Speaker:Where, where, why you're in the tower, the wolf tower, and I'll turn around and I'll point at it.
Speaker:It's gone.
Speaker:I was like, he's like, fuck, I swear it was right there.
Speaker:I, a bug crawled into my tear ducts.
Speaker:I'm going to push him away from me.
Speaker:I was like, hold on now.
Speaker:What do you think is still in there?
Speaker:Oh, let's, let's, regardless, let's get you back to Hamlet opening.
Speaker:I don't know what they did to you.
Speaker:I don't know what's going on.
Speaker:I don't know if you've got a bug in your tear ducts, but I am not looking.
Speaker:We're going to have Juniper look.
Speaker:I, I think I, I think I like that stuff.
Speaker:A crippling opioid addiction coming folks way.
Speaker:I have the few times that I've been on general anesthetic, like me personally, Brady, I, I've never been on morphine.
Speaker:I've been on Percocet, hated Percocet, but I, my brain just, I have the best reaction to general anesthetic.
Speaker:I have never been happier than after waking up from surgery in my life.
Speaker:That is not like...
Speaker:But it's not like, I don't have an issue.
Speaker:Like, obviously I'm not like, I don't like go...
Speaker:That's why you keep getting more surgeries.
Speaker:That's why I keep breaking my ankle.
Speaker:No, I just, I just like, I just have a good time.
Speaker:Like after, after my, after I got my wisdom teeth taken out, I painted my face with my mouth blood and was like running around my house, running around my house yelling, war paint motherfucker.
Speaker:And my grandparents were there and they were very offended.
Speaker:That's worse than anything I've said in this podcast, I think.
Speaker:I think more people have problems with that sentence.
Speaker:There's a lot wrong with that sentence.
Speaker:Yeah, it was funny.
Speaker:I have, my sister took a video of it.
Speaker:It was very funny.
Speaker:When I can't...
Speaker:We'll share that on our Twitter.
Speaker:The most exciting I think ever I did come out of surgery is after I had like a tooth implant that they had to do.
Speaker:And when I came out of that, all I did was ask for windies and tried to explain to my mom why weed should be legalized.
Speaker:That was too funny not to keep on it.
Speaker:Okay, so Book, in keeping with that energy, Book, who's feeling way too confident, is going to try to stand up and start running towards Hamlet opening.
Speaker:Okay, give me a read a situation with disadvantage.
Speaker:I'm trying something challenging, Stu.
Speaker:I just said I'm trying to run while I'm high.
Speaker:I'm just kidding.
Speaker:The hard part is figuring out where you're going.
Speaker:Oh, well, no, I don't even think that Book is trying to.
Speaker:Like, I think that he's just running in a direction.
Speaker:Ocean, as he runs off, Ocean will be like, Book, Book, hold up, hold up.
Speaker:And I'll grab him by the shoulder and put him back down and be like, I think we have to be careful, Book.
Speaker:I think something is following us.
Speaker:And I'm going to explain to you about the Humvee people that I saw nearby where you were.
Speaker:I rolled a, unfortunately, I rolled a six plus two.
Speaker:Eight.
Speaker:Eight.
Speaker:Well, you only really need one question.
Speaker:That's true.
Speaker:Better be a good one.
Speaker:I see that laugh.
Speaker:What is my best way back to the tower?
Speaker:Wait, no, no, no.
Speaker:I did.
Speaker:Hold on.
Speaker:I did say I started running back towards Hamlet opening.
Speaker:Yeah, I think that that's more in keeping with who I am, because Book is curious.
Speaker:He wants to know what's going on.
Speaker:So what is what is my best way back to the tower?
Speaker:Probably dying again.
Speaker:The only way you know to got you know how you got there is opening your brain to the psychic maelstrom.
Speaker:Well, I'm not going to do that.
Speaker:That's the only way either of you got there.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:You don't know that part of it.
Speaker:Well, that's not very helpful.
Speaker:So I guess I run towards Hamlet opening.
Speaker:I look around for the tower.
Speaker:Well, you have no fucking idea where Hamlet opening is.
Speaker:I'm on drugs.
Speaker:So I just start running.
Speaker:Like I literally just start running.
Speaker:Ocean's going to exhale.
Speaker:I think I should roll for luck.
Speaker:And he's going to start following.
Speaker:Am I barefoot right now?
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:It's like, Book, please here, at least put your clothes back on.
Speaker:And he's going to hold your bag out to give it to you.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:I just take the jacket out and I put it on.
Speaker:And I keep running.
Speaker:Okay, Ocean will follow Book.
Speaker:He will run after Book just to make sure he doesn't get into further.
Speaker:Wait.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So and I think I'm getting more lucid, right?
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So then I realized and I start.
Speaker:Now I want to look and see if I recognize anything.
Speaker:If we're in Crandall's territory.
Speaker:Now I'm like, oh, shit.
Speaker:Like, oh, shit.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:You know what happens?
Speaker:I run forward and like into the street because I'm assuming we're in like kind of like a side street area because you put me on a bench.
Speaker:And so I run out into the street and I just see the vastness of subtropos before me and like just instant panic, just instantly like, oh, fuck, everything rushes back to me.
Speaker:And I'm like, oh, shit.
Speaker:And now I would like to reread the situation.
Speaker:Is that okay?
Speaker:No, but I will say I'm going to still account for the negative things from the earlier roll.
Speaker:You know the way back.
Speaker:Okay, I write.
Speaker:Are we in Crandall's territory right now?
Speaker:You're not deep into his territory.
Speaker:You are on the outskirts of his territory in a direction towards like into the heart of subtropolis.
Speaker:Oh, shit.
Speaker:So like we have to perpendicular to Hamlet opening basically.
Speaker:Yeah, that's probably more.
Speaker:So are you saying that we need to will have to pass through Crandall's territory to get to Hamlet?
Speaker:You'll be near it.
Speaker:Okay, but you don't have to necessarily go like through it through it.
Speaker:I would like to intentionally jog around it.
Speaker:Okay, so not going into his territory.
Speaker:Correct.
Speaker:Okay, we could see Vesuvius.
Speaker:I'm gonna look at a book and be like, I don't think you're in the state to be seeing Vesuvius right now.
Speaker:I think we need to get back to what was the name of the dog?
Speaker:I never really said that in character.
Speaker:But I absolutely did.
Speaker:I absolutely did.
Speaker:So books like, no, no, I'm good.
Speaker:I think I'm I feel better.
Speaker:Can I have my shoes?
Speaker:Yeah, I hold your bag out.
Speaker:I tried to give them to you.
Speaker:Oh, I can take this now.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:And I put all of my clothes back on.
Speaker:And then I look at the shattered light in the bottom of my bag, and I shudder because it reminds me of everything that happened two days ago.
Speaker:And Ocean's gonna see the shattered light in your bag.
Speaker:And he's going to remain stoic.
Speaker:But you see a single tear go down his eye and he's like, I worked so hard for that.
Speaker:We can fix it.
Speaker:I will fix it.
Speaker:I just hope we're going to make it waterproof.
Speaker:I'll tell you that much.
Speaker:I'm just going to hold you to the fact that it maybe helped you save your life.
Speaker:And that will be my justification.
Speaker:Oh, before we get going.
Speaker:And I'm going to hands book the VHS player and the camera.
Speaker:Oh, shit.
Speaker:I'm going to watch it right now because I book has no patience.
Speaker:As you take it out on me like Juniper told me to give this to you.
Speaker:I don't know what it is, but it's partly why I came to find you this.
Speaker:So that seems important.
Speaker:Are you going to try to be anywhere out of major site or are you just?
Speaker:Yeah, I think we can let stuck into a bill.
Speaker:I think I went into a building to put my clothes back on.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So we ducked back into a building.
Speaker:And as we're going through the bag to get your stuff and I see you doing that, and then I'll pull out the bag, my bag and hand that to you.
Speaker:It takes you a little bit to figure out how this camcorder slash VHS player works.
Speaker:But after messing around with it a little bit, you figure out how to play the video, how to rewind it, things like that, without fucking it up and recording.
Speaker:You're smart enough to do that.
Speaker:Let me play it.
Speaker:Yeah, I know.
Speaker:I know what a play button is because I taught Crandall how to use iTunes.
Speaker:That is true.
Speaker:So I hit the play button.
Speaker:OK, you hit the play button and you see from its perspective, it definitely looks like a home film thing, probably filmed with something very similar to this camera.
Speaker:And you see it kind of shakes around the screen for a second before it nestles into one spot and you see sitting on the back of a El Camino.
Speaker:Oh, shit.
Speaker:What?
Speaker:An El Camino.
Speaker:That's OK.
Speaker:Yeah, an El Camino.
Speaker:Your dad.
Speaker:Oh, and it's Hickory Fleek.
Speaker:And it's Hickory Fleek.
Speaker:No, your dad.
Speaker:And my dad who is canonically named Charles Davis McCready.
Speaker:Craigslist McCready.
Speaker:Craigslist McCready.
Speaker:You see your dad and it's kind of shocking for a second, but then he sits down and he goes, Oh, this is our first video recording.
Speaker:It's me, Charles Davis McCready, and I'm here with my wife, Margaret.
Speaker:We are going out to save the world.
Speaker:We're going to bring everyone back to the surface.
Speaker:We have created a series of very easy to accomplish goals to get everyone back to the safety of the perfectly fine topside world.
Speaker:We're leaving this as kind of a record of our exploits and something that can be followed in the rare rare event that we are not successful.
Speaker:The person most likely to see this would be our son, Book McCready.
Speaker:Now, I'm leaving this with our good friend, Juniper, to gift to you when you're ready to see this.
Speaker:I know we had to leave pretty suddenly, and if you're hearing this, it's probably been quite a while, probably months since you've seen us last.
Speaker:I want you to know that when you're a big strong boy and you're able to follow us, I want you to follow in these footsteps, and hopefully we can be reunited again.
Speaker:Now, I don't want to say exactly in case these fall into the wrong hands.
Speaker:There are a lot of questionable folks around Hamlet opening, but I will say the first place we go to, and if something goes wrong, you do need to track us down, remember?
Speaker:Very important, we may need your help ASAP, but the first place we go is one of the few places written about by both Virginia Woolf and Edgar Allan Poe.
Speaker:That's all I'm going to tell you, but I'm sure you know right off the top of your head what I'm talking about, and he winks at you like three times.
Speaker:And then he goes, well, hopefully next time we'll have a lot more technical details and what we've discovered so far, but until now, out.
Speaker:And then he goes...
Speaker:Oh, shit.
Speaker:He said months.
Speaker:It's been a bit longer than that book, I think.
Speaker:Why did you got this from Juniper?
Speaker:Yeah, he gave it to me.
Speaker:He said he was trying to give it to you, but he couldn't find you when he went to your house.
Speaker:Why did he keep it for so long?
Speaker:Maybe he didn't think you were ready for whatever they did.
Speaker:That fucking bastard.
Speaker:It wasn't up to him for him to decide.
Speaker:I've been looking for something like that.
Speaker:I've been way...
Speaker:Look, let's get back to town, and then let's talk to Juniper ourselves.
Speaker:I don't think there's any point dwelling on it and where we are right now.
Speaker:I think the best thing we could possibly do is get to the safety of Hamlet Opening, get you checked out, make sure you're medically good, and then we can talk to Juniper.
Speaker:Book nods, but there are tears in his eyes, and he does not say anything.
Speaker:Okay, Ocean will start trying to lead the way to get back to Hamlet Opening now.
Speaker:And kind of let Book sit with his thoughts for a little bit.
Speaker:Okay, you have an awkwardly quiet walk back.
Speaker:It takes a couple hours to make it back, taking this longer route to completely avoid the people.
Speaker:The Humvee people.
Speaker:You got to come up with a name for them.
Speaker:But the Humvee people.
Speaker:But you make it, you approach the switchbacks, you see them above some of the buildings.
Speaker:And as you walk around the corner, you see a familiar face.
Speaker:And they walk around and they go, Hello boys, it is your good friend Vesuvius here to bring you back to your home of the precipice.
Speaker:And that wasn't me fucking up his voice.
Speaker:I was just about to ask, was that what he sounded like?
Speaker:Thank you so much for listening this week.
Speaker:Join us next week or next Wednesday more accurately to hear our next episode in this ongoing eternal series of Tabletop Role Playing Games.
Speaker:The music and editing is done by Stu Masterson, and that logo you see in your podcatcher and some ancillary art that you probably haven't seen yet is by Brady McDonough.
Speaker:Jacob provides the sloppiest, wettest sounds directly into the microphone without request.
Speaker:Love you, bye.
Speaker:Bye.
Speaker:Oh, ee-gah, it's my roast.
Speaker:Are close.
