Episode 14
Episode 14: Are We Human or Are We Tiny Dancing Queen
Book and Ocean enter the headquarters of archrival Hickory Fleek, needing his help.
This one is basically an episode of Ally McBeal
Transcript
Welcome to Oops!
Speaker:All Apocalypses, a show where we explore the collapse of society by playing fun, tabletop, role-playing games.
Speaker:I'm joined by one human and one dancer.
Speaker:Hey everyone, I am...
Speaker:That song makes no sense.
Speaker:No, I agree.
Speaker:I am dancer.
Speaker:Hey everyone, I'm Brady, I like to dance, and I play Bokeh McCready, a suspicious and obsessive individual who wants to solve mysteries.
Speaker:And I'm Jacob, I am a sick individual, still, and I play Ocean, a gentle giant who is a master at prolonged eye contact.
Speaker:No, he's not actually a master, he's pretty bad at it.
Speaker:A master at making people uncomfortable.
Speaker:I'm also dancing.
Speaker:Sorry, Stu, I did not mean to squash you there.
Speaker:It's OK.
Speaker:I just said I'm Stu and I'm also dancer.
Speaker:We're all dancer here.
Speaker:I'm dancer.
Speaker:Prancer.
Speaker:I think Jacob's human, and then that means Brady's tiny dancer.
Speaker:I'm pretty big for a tiny dancer.
Speaker:Combining a lot.
Speaker:Don't hold me closer.
Speaker:Next episode, I'll do a mashup of those two songs.
Speaker:Surely, that's not going to be impossible.
Speaker:I'm a tiny dancer, but if ABBA.
Speaker:Tiny dancer, if ABBA.
Speaker:Oh, God.
Speaker:We can throw another dancer.
Speaker:Mash it up, Stu.
Speaker:You got three things you got to mash up now.
Speaker:Release your inner Anna Kendrick.
Speaker:I would be the dancing queen, though.
Speaker:No.
Speaker:Out of us.
Speaker:Are you kidding?
Speaker:No.
Speaker:I'm the most dancing and the most queen out of anyone here.
Speaker:I can't argue with that, but I also know that I like that song more than you do.
Speaker:That's impossible.
Speaker:That's my favorite song to dance to.
Speaker:Yeah, but I like songs more than you like any.
Speaker:Stu is quite musical.
Speaker:I will give him that.
Speaker:He is quite musical.
Speaker:I'm like fake quite musical.
Speaker:I'm like musical in the pretentious and obnoxious way, and Stu is musical in the actually likes and is good at music kind of way.
Speaker:My 50th favorite song I like more than you like your favorite song.
Speaker:That's probably true.
Speaker:That's how liking things work.
Speaker:That's how it works.
Speaker:If you're talking about the amount of dopamine you get when you listen to your 50th favorite song, undoubtedly true.
Speaker:I am so deprived.
Speaker:I'm so deprived.
Speaker:Well, let's turn that around by falling in love and getting that good dopamine.
Speaker:Okay, let's get some oxytocin.
Speaker:Let's see if Book has a real answer this time.
Speaker:I've been liking my cynical, sarcastic answers.
Speaker:This one's fun because it guarantees it's going to take eight minutes, which means I have to cut down this intro by a lot.
Speaker:This says, take four minutes and tell your partner your life story in as much detail as possible.
Speaker:Good lord!
Speaker:So we don't have to take four minutes, but what I want to hear is Stu's opinion.
Speaker:I want to hear only things we haven't heard yet.
Speaker:Only things we haven't heard!
Speaker:Ocean doesn't have anything to say, so I'll just take all the heat.
Speaker:Oh, I could come...
Speaker:oh shit, that means I gotta come up with stuff regarding...
Speaker:Yeah, Ocean did a bunch of stuff that he remembers.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Alright, so little known fact about Book.
Speaker:He actually didn't start reading until a little later than most people.
Speaker:He really liked being read to, but he was scared of getting into books on his own.
Speaker:And then one night, his parents went off exploring and he was scared, and he decided to crack open a book, and I'm taking way too long with this.
Speaker:And you know, he started reading and sounding out words, because he had already memorized all the words in the book, so he was able to kind of sound them out as they went.
Speaker:And by the time his parents got back, he could kind of read.
Speaker:And then as he got older, we really fell in love with it.
Speaker:Obviously, that was not the origin of his name, because his name was already Book by that point.
Speaker:But it became fitting for him.
Speaker:Maybe some non-nominative determinism.
Speaker:By the time his parents left, Book had also found a way to, you know, had tried to encounter other media, like movies and comic books and TV shows.
Speaker:And the little that was left was very confusing, because it was never the pilot episode of anything, and it was never the first move in the series.
Speaker:But he liked Star Wars, and he thinks it's pretty neat.
Speaker:But he is much more of a Star Trek fan.
Speaker:He thinks Star Trek is better, even though there's only three extant episodes left in the world.
Speaker:What's his favorite Star Wars movie?
Speaker:Star Wars movie?
Speaker:He's only seen one, and it was Phantom Menace, and he thought it was great.
Speaker:No, this is popular.
Speaker:He likes the double-bladed lightsaber.
Speaker:Nothing made sense to him.
Speaker:I mean, to be fair, if we were all books, I think all of us at young Book's age probably thought Phantom Menace was the best movie ever.
Speaker:I did think it was pretty neat.
Speaker:I thought it was incredible until I rewatched it as an adult.
Speaker:I was always like, why do everyone hate this one?
Speaker:Yeah, that's true.
Speaker:And then I was like, oh, now I understand.
Speaker:You mean Jar Jar's annoying?
Speaker:I really think that Jar Jar should, what was supposed to be and should be a Sith Lord.
Speaker:I think that would have been an amazing reveal.
Speaker:I think it would have been great, too.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But anyway, Book then went on to become very disillusioned when he realized that his parents weren't coming back.
Speaker:And that's where his obsession with mysteries kind of broke into the world.
Speaker:We've kind of talked about that already.
Speaker:But it led to an obsession with mysteries and learning.
Speaker:And I don't think Book is a traditionally...
Speaker:I say he's a superstar smart sleuth.
Speaker:I don't think his IQ is off the charts, but I think that he's just very, very persistent.
Speaker:And I think that he has tried very hard to learn as much as he can.
Speaker:And that has led him to where he is today.
Speaker:I feel that was very insightful for Book, actually.
Speaker:That was actually a lot of information about Book and why he is the way he is came out there.
Speaker:Yeah, I like that he taught himself to read.
Speaker:That is actually very impressive.
Speaker:That is a hugely impressive feat to teach yourself how to read.
Speaker:Little known fact, that is supposedly how I started reading.
Speaker:Really?
Speaker:It was because I had met my...
Speaker:It was apparently a dinosaur dictionary that I had my parents read me every night, and I had memorized so many of the words that I started to associate those sounds with specific letters, according to my mom, who is probably lying.
Speaker:I think the very first thing Ocean remembers for our actual beginning of his story is waking up in pure darkness and being utterly terrified of both the light and the direction of up.
Speaker:And I think that is what kind of, when he first started, when he first came into consciousness, kind of like just hid in the dark for probably several days until he got like hungry or something and slowly crawled out and came near the Hamlet opening.
Speaker:I think he probably saw it in the distance and scrounged his way there.
Speaker:I think when he first got started, he couldn't talk, couldn't speak, couldn't really do much of anything.
Speaker:And I think he first started off just like doing odd jobs for people, like cleaning out, like sweeping, picking up dirt, picking up things out of the road.
Speaker:I think he probably wasn't making a lot of money, and he still wasn't really part of civilization.
Speaker:So he kind of started fleeing a little bit, going out, going back out into the caves that he was more initially accustomed to.
Speaker:He was just drawn to the stuff there and scavenging the things up there.
Speaker:Eventually, I guess people started noticing he started picking up weird things and was kind of interested in whatever he had.
Speaker:I guess that's what probably started his business.
Speaker:What else could he possibly know?
Speaker:And then he went to rob?
Speaker:I suspect, yeah.
Speaker:He started a life of crime.
Speaker:Was that his first time robbing someone or had he done it?
Speaker:I think it was his first time.
Speaker:I think it was desperation is why he started going for that.
Speaker:I just I feel like in the beginning he probably was borderline feral and then slowly kind of mostly just watched people and started emulating the way they acted.
Speaker:And thus the way he is the way he is is kind of quiet and subdued because he just kind of stayed back and watched people.
Speaker:And that's how he picked up most of his ability to speak and mannerisms.
Speaker:That explains a lot.
Speaker:I like it makes me feel a little more sorry.
Speaker:I like you're being afraid of the light.
Speaker:I think that's his first.
Speaker:I was trying to word that in a more dramatic manner, but I'm like afraid of something, the whatever is above.
Speaker:My takeaway is that Ocean is literally just Gollum.
Speaker:Maybe.
Speaker:Reverse Gollum.
Speaker:Reverse Gollum.
Speaker:He's reverse Gollum.
Speaker:But that's the first thing he remembered.
Speaker:So whatever the hell happened before is what instilled those initial fears.
Speaker:Okay, there's a podcast that I listened to called the Anti-Donna podcast.
Speaker:And for like 10 episodes in a row, they recapped every episode at the end by singing the plot to We Didn't Start the Fire.
Speaker:And it is the funniest fucking thing because that song, like the meter is really a little bit fucked because there's like 16 bars of an intro.
Speaker:And then the length of the course changes a little bit each time.
Speaker:Anyway, it's really fun.
Speaker:It was very, very fun.
Speaker:That sounds wild.
Speaker:Yeah, that sounds good.
Speaker:Why are you promoting other podcasts without them paying us?
Speaker:Don't listen to that one, listen to ours.
Speaker:It's probably better than this one.
Speaker:That's not true.
Speaker:That's not true.
Speaker:And you know it.
Speaker:That's not true.
Speaker:I will narrow down my life story to things relevant to me hosting this podcast.
Speaker:Does that sound fair?
Speaker:Good.
Speaker:Yeah, I think so.
Speaker:It's all new things that we can't know about you already, Stu.
Speaker:I do music and editing and oh, I got this.
Speaker:I do music and editing and host a podcast.
Speaker:That's what I do.
Speaker:So, yeah, I started with music super early.
Speaker:I think I got my first guitar when I was like seven or eight.
Speaker:And then then I got really into rap and started rapping a lot.
Speaker:Bet you didn't know that one.
Speaker:That makes so much sense though.
Speaker:I did not know that.
Speaker:Oh my God.
Speaker:Until I was like in like late middle school.
Speaker:And then I got back into like punk music and started playing guitar again, playing drum some.
Speaker:Kind of stopped through high school and got really into strategy games, which relates to this.
Speaker:But then got back into music and even more strategy games in college.
Speaker:And then also got a little bit back into rap, but mostly just writing stuff.
Speaker:College is the time for doubling and tripling down.
Speaker:Got way more into guitar in college, like actually started getting good at it instead of actually just like messing around with it.
Speaker:Oh, I've been playing like keyboards and stuff for years.
Speaker:And that's when I first started trying to produce anything, like with like music editing software and stuff, but it was all really bad.
Speaker:And then after college is actually the first time.
Speaker:This is the most shocking thing, more than middle schools do rapping, is I didn't play D&D until after I graduated college.
Speaker:Oh, shit, really?
Speaker:Oh, shit, that means.
Speaker:Wow, that means I'm the most experienced D&D player in this chat thing.
Speaker:Maybe not hours wise, though, because I was like hours wise, definitely.
Speaker:Then I went in hard.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So yeah, I didn't start playing until after college and was mostly to keep in touch with some of my friends from college.
Speaker:And we were all interested in playing.
Speaker:But we didn't in the easy time where we're all in one location.
Speaker:So we did it all remotely.
Speaker:And we would play for no joke, like 13 hours straight.
Speaker:We would start more than that, actually.
Speaker:We would start at like 9 a.m.
Speaker:and finish at like 3 30 a.m.
Speaker:And by finish, I mean people are falling asleep on the phone, even though I'd be like, hey, we should stop.
Speaker:And they're like, no, no, we're good.
Speaker:And then I'm like, not me.
Speaker:I would hear snoring.
Speaker:It was great.
Speaker:Some of those people listen to this podcast.
Speaker:So, hey, guys, then I got well, Stu, don't forget you have a time turner or just how you have enough time to like to do all this show.
Speaker:All these things.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:That's why I'm not mentioning my job right now.
Speaker:And then got into more different RPGs after that.
Speaker:Obviously, it got even more back into music, especially like in, I guess, pre-COVID, but when COVID hit, I was playing guitar for like 12 hours a day.
Speaker:I mean, what else are you going to do?
Speaker:I'd better say all I did during COVID was work in the COVID isolation for 12 hours a day.
Speaker:Yeah, it was.
Speaker:We were basically the same.
Speaker:I'm Jacob and I contribute to Assassin's ID.
Speaker:I wouldn't say that.
Speaker:None of my music is like any of the music I've used for this thing.
Speaker:This has been very weird and strange and different.
Speaker:Well, no, didn't you do the intro for the song?
Speaker:Our intro song?
Speaker:Did you write that?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:That one's the least wacky out of all of the music.
Speaker:That's the least out of character, probably.
Speaker:But you crushed it.
Speaker:I don't.
Speaker:It's OK.
Speaker:I love it.
Speaker:Stu also wrote the, I think, the best song that I've ever heard.
Speaker:It's one of my favorite songs.
Speaker:It's in the top 70.
Speaker:It's a good song.
Speaker:Well, for our special Patreon subscribers, that'll be the stretch goal for 20,000.
Speaker:We're setting that goal high.
Speaker:OK, so that, if my math is correct, should have been exactly 12 minutes of intro, which is already over my preferred length.
Speaker:I don't even think I probably talked for four minutes because I couldn't come up with anything.
Speaker:Over my preferred length.
Speaker:So let's get back to the action.
Speaker:Thanks for.
Speaker:No idea what Morse code is.
Speaker:Okay, so Morse code is...
Speaker:It was used, was developed for the telegram.
Speaker:Actually, it was probably developed before.
Speaker:No, I don't know.
Speaker:It was used on the telegram, and basically, the signal would either be a dot or a dash or nothing.
Speaker:And from that combination of values, you would be able to create words.
Speaker:You can send whole ass messages via Morse code.
Speaker:Why wouldn't they just say it, speak it, like I do?
Speaker:So the cool thing about that...
Speaker:So they probably could.
Speaker:They could have...
Speaker:What I'm thinking is maybe it's a recording, and so it's easier for them to put that on a loop because you can use a ticker tape.
Speaker:I was actually speaking of that.
Speaker:Does the recording replay or is it only that one time that we hear it when we turn it on?
Speaker:Ooh, give me a try something challenging.
Speaker:Try something challenging.
Speaker:Ocean's, he's pretty observant, but I don't think he knows much about audio engineering.
Speaker:So let's see if he can piece this together.
Speaker:No, he can't.
Speaker:He can't.
Speaker:It's a three.
Speaker:So Ocean, like he's listening, is like, I don't hear shit.
Speaker:What do you hear in a book?
Speaker:You get this idea to listen to the repeat and you feel there are some like sounds that are like very higher pitched than some other sounds they try to like hone in on and wire listening, trying to see if it repeats, it cuts out.
Speaker:That sucks.
Speaker:So the other thing I was thinking, if it was like a binary signal of some kind, we would be looking at like the amplitude and all this stupid shit anyway.
Speaker:Do we record that?
Speaker:Do we implement the recording thing or just the send and receive?
Speaker:Just the send and receive.
Speaker:OK, we should test.
Speaker:I said, OK, Johnny, now that we don't have the interference, let's actually test to see if we can receive other signals besides beeps.
Speaker:Yeah, that sounds great.
Speaker:Let me go back outside and he runs out and he turns on his microphone and as you when you see him talking out there and you do not hear anything coming through it and you try to like change the frequency and you get to a level where you can hear him just kind of barely and very muddled.
Speaker:And it's off of the frequency that he told you he was going to broadcast on just by a little bit.
Speaker:Interesting.
Speaker:So I write down the difference.
Speaker:It's pi over four.
Speaker:So I waved Johnny back in.
Speaker:I was like, we're going to have to we're going to have to tweak this because the receiving is not working so good.
Speaker:But I also think that we kind of should address the pressing matter of the, you know, doppelganger that is infiltrated our town.
Speaker:Yeah, that seems very important.
Speaker:Do you want to come, Johnny?
Speaker:Absolutely not.
Speaker:I just thought like your company is kind of nice.
Speaker:Nope, you're on your own.
Speaker:I'm really tired.
Speaker:I look at Ocean, how are you today feeling?
Speaker:Dreading going to talk to Hickory, but I mean, I guess that's the next step we have here.
Speaker:So I look at Johnny.
Speaker:I'm assuming that he looks like as energized and chipper as ever in his Mario outfit.
Speaker:He's fresh shaven somehow, even though you've seen him for two days straight.
Speaker:And I say, Johnny, thank you.
Speaker:Once again, you've been a real a real help.
Speaker:Well, thank you.
Speaker:I'm about to start a super long broadcast fest to get out to everyone out there so everyone can hear me.
Speaker:I'm going to go for 24 hours straight.
Speaker:Johnny hurts to the veins.
Speaker:Johnny, we just went for 48.
Speaker:Yeah, but not on air.
Speaker:If it's not on air, it doesn't count.
Speaker:Oh, are you?
Speaker:I look at Johnny really closely.
Speaker:I look at his eyes.
Speaker:He goes, I'm Johnny hurts.
Speaker:That sounds like Johnny.
Speaker:I'm still looking at his eyes.
Speaker:Do I see any glints?
Speaker:No.
Speaker:Is he robot?
Speaker:Is he robot?
Speaker:He could be.
Speaker:Anyone can be.
Speaker:He's robot, but he's nice.
Speaker:So I'm fine.
Speaker:I'm fine with that.
Speaker:I'm assuming he's robot, but he's nice.
Speaker:Unlike Vesuvius, who's been a real dick to you guys.
Speaker:He's just been a real unpleasant man, going out of his way to help us.
Speaker:I don't think he helped us.
Speaker:I think we helped him, if anything.
Speaker:We did help him, but we do have a man on the inside now.
Speaker:Possibly.
Speaker:We don't know how.
Speaker:Or we have a monster on the inside.
Speaker:That's what I was about to say.
Speaker:Or we have a horrible monster on the inside.
Speaker:That's true.
Speaker:We know that he has motives that he doesn't know what he has, but we don't know what they are.
Speaker:Stu, can you edit that so that it made sense?
Speaker:Impossible, but yeah.
Speaker:Okay, cool.
Speaker:Alright, let's go.
Speaker:Let's walk to the courthouse.
Speaker:I look at Ocean as we're walking, jauntily, with so much energy, and I say, I've been thinking about fake Suvius a lot, and recently I've had pretty good luck with my dreams being helpful.
Speaker:I don't remember what the last example of that was.
Speaker:Go back and listen to episode 13 if you want to find out.
Speaker:But my brain's been spinning, even in the little sleep that we got, and I think I have a pretty good idea of what's going on.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Really, it's kind of long, and we don't have a lot of time before we get to Hickory, but hopefully I'll explain it when we're there.
Speaker:But long story short is, I think Vesuvius might be the cheese monster.
Speaker:What makes you think that?
Speaker:What's going on?
Speaker:You see Pistachio Jones is out front.
Speaker:As you're walking up, he interrupts your conversation.
Speaker:Hey Pistachio, this is important.
Speaker:Can we talk to you and Hickory?
Speaker:Maybe, maybe.
Speaker:He's inside.
Speaker:Did you uh, you gotta let me know.
Speaker:Vesuvius a mole?
Speaker:What?
Speaker:No.
Speaker:Vesuvius a mole.
Speaker:A mole?
Speaker:A mole.
Speaker:Like a mole monster?
Speaker:Maybe.
Speaker:What the fuck?
Speaker:No, like a spy.
Speaker:Is he a spy?
Speaker:For who?
Speaker:No, he's-
Speaker:You guys!
Speaker:He's your friend and he shows up and he's like, Oh, I'm just coming here to help you know man.
Speaker:He was looking for a job.
Speaker:I was supposed to say, he is our friend, Pistachio, but no, it just sounds like he's been having some hard times right now.
Speaker:It sounds like he's lost the group that he was a part of.
Speaker:I just figured maybe you could use an extra man to, you know, kind of make amends for the one I took.
Speaker:Listen, Pistachio, I'm gonna level with you.
Speaker:We don't really trust him either.
Speaker:So we thought he would be in the safest hands around the people with the most guns, which is you.
Speaker:Well, we gave him a gun.
Speaker:Yeah, you gave him one gun.
Speaker:You have more guns.
Speaker:Yeah, but he's he's scary good with it.
Speaker:He's like, really good.
Speaker:He's probably out of my shot.
Speaker:That's unfortunate.
Speaker:You guys will see the Hickory.
Speaker:We gave you a good man then.
Speaker:But now you're telling me he may be not trustworthy.
Speaker:We don't know that.
Speaker:We don't know that.
Speaker:I'm just saying, like, I would only put a mole in place that I trusted because like, who's to say if I if I didn't trust him, then like, he would maybe be a mole for you just as much as for me.
Speaker:Like, I'm saying there's we're at an impasse here.
Speaker:Give me a Sway C'mon roll.
Speaker:No.
Speaker:Oh, I love Google so much.
Speaker:That was an 11.
Speaker:I think Google's cheating, Stu.
Speaker:Well, I guess that makes sense.
Speaker:If you don't trust him, he's at least not a mole for you guys.
Speaker:But yeah, no, he's been very good.
Speaker:Good.
Speaker:We can.
Speaker:So why do you need a meeting with Hickory?
Speaker:I'd like to propose a temporary alliance.
Speaker:I'd like to...
Speaker:I have concerns.
Speaker:I have a plan.
Speaker:I'd like to run them by you and see if we can form a temporary alliance and address these concerns that I think are bigger than whatever disagreements that we have.
Speaker:I think at the end of the day, we all want...
Speaker:Where do we live?
Speaker:Hamlet opening.
Speaker:Hamlet opening.
Speaker:I think we all want Hamlet opening to thrive, maybe in different ways.
Speaker:I think how you envision that looks a lot different to how I envision that.
Speaker:But you don't want to destroy this town.
Speaker:I don't want to destroy this town.
Speaker:And I don't want to be dramatic here, but I'm concerned that there may be forces in play that do want to destroy this town.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Well, follow me.
Speaker:And he turns around and he starts walking up.
Speaker:There's this courthouse that is actually pretty well put together still.
Speaker:It looks like it's been repaired somewhat.
Speaker:There's like boards and mismatched cinder blocks on one of the walls, but it's built up and it looks pretty nice.
Speaker:It's probably one of the larger buildings in Hamlet opening.
Speaker:And he leads you up the stairs.
Speaker:Big huge wooden doors that he pushes open.
Speaker:And inside you see the entranceway.
Speaker:In this room, there are several armed guards.
Speaker:There is a large desk and a bailiff's counter.
Speaker:And he leads you over towards the counter, goes around to the other side of it, and pulls out a table tape recorder and clicks it on and goes, well, let me know what do you want?
Speaker:What are you looking for here?
Speaker:Where's Hickory?
Speaker:You gotta talk to me first.
Speaker:And then if I think it's important enough, I'll bring in Hickory.
Speaker:I respect your authority here and everything, but I think that our previous conversation already demonstrated how serious I am.
Speaker:You can take my weapons in case you think I'm here to assassinate Hickory.
Speaker:I'm not, so feel free.
Speaker:You can't say, assassinate in this building.
Speaker:Don't do that.
Speaker:Don't say that.
Speaker:That's, you see there's like a guy behind you, like puts his finger on the trigger and like starts walking up a little bit.
Speaker:Well, I just said, I'm not.
Speaker:So I think saying not assassinate is better.
Speaker:Oh, don't stop saying assassinate.
Speaker:That's the one word.
Speaker:Don't say assassinate.
Speaker:And there's another guy who I look at Ocean helplessly.
Speaker:It's like, look, look, we just think this information needs to get directly to Hickory with as little possible chance for there to be any kind of miscommunications or any kind of possible overhearing from other people.
Speaker:I mean, so, yeah, and I lean in, I leaned into Pistachio and I say, we don't want this getting back to Vesuvius either.
Speaker:And I, and I try to, and am I in arms reach of his recording thing?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I click it off.
Speaker:I said, we don't want this getting back to Vesuvius.
Speaker:Ocean, give me a Sway Someone roll.
Speaker:That is a seven.
Speaker:Pistachio Jones looks at you.
Speaker:He looks down at the recording device.
Speaker:You clicked off.
Speaker:And he reaches over and clicks it back on.
Speaker:And he goes, give me the thousand foot view plan you have.
Speaker:And if I like it, we can go talk.
Speaker:Basically, I don't think Vesuvius is who he says he is.
Speaker:I don't know who he is.
Speaker:I have a theory that I'm happy to share, but he said something.
Speaker:Are you familiar with the warlord, Crandall?
Speaker:Uh, oh, Crandall, yeah, yeah.
Speaker:Vesuvius said that Crandall has been acting weird.
Speaker:And I don't know if that's true or not, but I would like to send a team, myself and Ocean included, out to Crandall's place to investigate and see if he has also been potentially replaced by some kind of doppelganger.
Speaker:I would also like to see if the Vesuvius that I know is potentially alive and well and still there.
Speaker:And so that's why I want to keep this out of Vesuvius' ears, the Vesuvius that's here.
Speaker:I don't want him to find out about it because I don't want him to come along because he will stop, he would stop us from interacting with the real him.
Speaker:Is that enough?
Speaker:Yeah, yeah, that sounds somewhat straightforward.
Speaker:I just gotta say, I've always heard Crandall is pretty weird anyway, so I don't know him acting weird is particularly out of character.
Speaker:We've heard Vesuvius used to work for Crandall, and he said that he started acting differently.
Speaker:So if somebody that's with Crandall thinks he's been behaving strangely from a man we already know is fairly strange, then his unhinged nature could become more dangerous and less quirky.
Speaker:I lean in again.
Speaker:I keep leaning in.
Speaker:I gotta stop saying that.
Speaker:You've leaned in even further now.
Speaker:You started at like 20 degrees.
Speaker:Now you're at like one.
Speaker:You are caressing his ears with my lips.
Speaker:Tenderly brush his earlobes.
Speaker:No, they don't.
Speaker:I say, listen.
Speaker:Oh, that tickles.
Speaker:How do you like that ASMR?
Speaker:I said, we'll say infiltrated.
Speaker:We've already been to Crandell's place once before.
Speaker:I know some things about him that we can use to judge whether the Crandell we're dealing with is legit.
Speaker:I think it's the best we can do.
Speaker:I can't say for certain that we're going to get there and everything's going to go perfectly.
Speaker:As you know, it's fucking subtropical.
Speaker:It's a shit show.
Speaker:But I think that our chances of figuring this out and reaching the other side of this and saving Hamlet Opening are a lot better if we work together.
Speaker:Well, I'll tell you right now, you're not going to get a team of our finest to come follow you out into some potential death trap.
Speaker:And to be even more frank, I know that's not my name, but to be frank, I don't think Hickory would give you anything.
Speaker:I don't think he would give you a single person.
Speaker:But what I can do right now, if you just turn around and walk out of here, instead of trying to push this up to Hickory, I can give you one of my guys to watch your back out there.
Speaker:I...
Speaker:Oh, that's a douche.
Speaker:Um, I appreciate that, Pistachio.
Speaker:I actually want Hickory to come with us.
Speaker:There's not a chance Hickory's going to come with you.
Speaker:That's fucking ridiculous.
Speaker:I want Hickory to come with and half of your men.
Speaker:If you want to talk to him, you can.
Speaker:I guarantee you he will not be okay with that.
Speaker:He's not leaving the town.
Speaker:I want Hickory to come and let me explain.
Speaker:Hickory mentioned at our last meeting that he's been working on procuring sources of energy.
Speaker:Crandall's well known for having lots of shit.
Speaker:I would like our party to parlay with Crandall under the guise of trade.
Speaker:And I think that that will be a lot more believable if Hickory the light bringer, I say, and I roll my eyes, is there with us to sell it.
Speaker:I understand that that's going to be a hard sell, but I'd at least like the chance to do it, to try.
Speaker:He clicks off the recording device and says Hickory does not do that stuff himself.
Speaker:He has people for that.
Speaker:There's not a chance.
Speaker:He's going to leave the safety of the town to go wander around some tropolis into a dangerous location.
Speaker:Like, he doesn't do that thing.
Speaker:He's good at leading us.
Speaker:He's not boots on the ground.
Speaker:He shows up rarely.
Speaker:He's pretty good with that gun.
Speaker:Well, do you think you can send us with a man to guard us, and whoever in one person that you guys send that does the parlaying and the bartering?
Speaker:I nudge Ocean, and I shake my head slightly.
Speaker:I think that one man is probably going to shoot us in the back as soon as we get to Subtropolis.
Speaker:I think Pistachio is offering that as a means of getting rid of a problem, not actually helping us.
Speaker:If you want to talk to Hickory Fleek, I will set up a meeting, but I assure you that he is going to not go out of this town.
Speaker:Zero percent chance.
Speaker:Okay, maybe a video of him would be enough.
Speaker:Who's to say?
Speaker:And if I work this meeting out, he may say you get nothing, and then I'm not going to be able to send anyone with you.
Speaker:Right now, we're in a place where I have some leeway to give you a person, but if you go talk to him, what he says is going to be final.
Speaker:If he says, get the fuck out of here, you're going to turn around and get the fuck out of here with no more discussion.
Speaker:Yeah, I'm cool with that.
Speaker:Ocean, are you cool with that?
Speaker:Ocean will strike me like, all right, let's do what we got to do.
Speaker:Hey, it's probably going to have to be tonight because he's got his big meeting tomorrow.
Speaker:What's got to be the meeting?
Speaker:Well, he's got the town hall tomorrow, so he'll probably have to talk to him tonight.
Speaker:Yeah, the sooner the better.
Speaker:Give me a couple hours.
Speaker:As Pistachio walks away, I turn to Ocean and I say, I don't...
Speaker:basically what I said already, but I don't trust Pistachio setting us with one man because he's going to be better armed than us and he's probably just going to come out there and shoot us in the back.
Speaker:But do you trust Hickory to send us with anybody?
Speaker:No.
Speaker:You think Hickory is not going to shoot us in the back any less than Pistachio would?
Speaker:No, but I think if we can convince Hickory to even send...
Speaker:like basically, I am judging the response by as how seriously they're taking us.
Speaker:If Hickory is willing to send even five people, that says to me that he's taking this threat relatively seriously, and that means we're worth something to him, and he doesn't want us dead yet, because we are probably the only people who are going to be able to figure this out.
Speaker:All right, well, you're a smart one.
Speaker:I trust you.
Speaker:I don't feel very smart right now.
Speaker:I want to go find Vesuvius.
Speaker:That's easy enough.
Speaker:You look around.
Speaker:If you ask anyone, they could probably point you in the right direction.
Speaker:But there's a courtyard in this courthouse.
Speaker:Wow, that's confusing, that has entry away from the inside, and he is out there doing some target shooting with some other people.
Speaker:You can actually see him through a window before you have to go talk to him.
Speaker:I don't want to get on the range if I can avoid it.
Speaker:I'm going to wave at him and see if he'll come over and say hi.
Speaker:Yeah, you kind of get his attention, and eventually he puts a finger up to the guys around him, and he comes and pokes his head out the door.
Speaker:And he goes, Oh, hello guys.
Speaker:It's been a couple days since I've seen you.
Speaker:How's it going?
Speaker:Well, how's it going with you?
Speaker:How's you doing with Hickory and them?
Speaker:Pretty good set up.
Speaker:Yeah, I'm doing swimmingly.
Speaker:They are very impressed with my shooting capability, and I think I've started to make a couple friends here.
Speaker:I didn't know you guys were like allowed in this area.
Speaker:I thought this was kind of closed off.
Speaker:I don't know for a while, but we're here.
Speaker:What are you guys doing here?
Speaker:I just wanted to check in and say hi, and I stick my hand out for a handshake.
Speaker:He will shake your hand.
Speaker:I want to look at his nails.
Speaker:Normal, like manicured or normal, like bitten?
Speaker:Very dirty.
Speaker:Very dirty.
Speaker:They're normal length?
Speaker:Probably average underground dweller length.
Speaker:Average underground dweller dirt?
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:But they're not like they're not jagged or anything?
Speaker:They're not growing visibly.
Speaker:They're not growing visibly.
Speaker:I stopped shaking his hand.
Speaker:That was an awkwardly long handshake.
Speaker:And a little limp, I would say.
Speaker:You should probably work on that.
Speaker:I'm just happy to see it.
Speaker:Is there anything you need from me?
Speaker:I was just wondering, you know, if you've gotten a chance to familiarize yourself with everyone, and maybe, you know, get a chance to check in on what's been going on.
Speaker:What have you been up to?
Speaker:Not much.
Speaker:I'm still.
Speaker:I've literally only been here this is my second day.
Speaker:So I haven't even seen the big man himself yet, but they kind of ran me through a gamut of skill challenges to see if I had the right stuff to join their security force.
Speaker:And I passed with flying colors.
Speaker:And since then, I've just been trying to ingratiate myself with some of the other members of the team and show my value.
Speaker:I have not got any direct assignments.
Speaker:I think I'm in some sort of training phase.
Speaker:Okay, that makes sense.
Speaker:But I'm really glad that you found a place here.
Speaker:Do you have somewhere to stay?
Speaker:Not yet.
Speaker:I've been sleeping.
Speaker:They have a couple rooms here that some of the guys stay in.
Speaker:They seem okay putting me up.
Speaker:They didn't ask for any money, but I'm hoping eventually I can save up enough to kind of get my own place.
Speaker:Nice.
Speaker:Well, when that happens, definitely let us know, and we'll have a little housewarming party.
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:More jerky, hopefully.
Speaker:Yeah, I'll work on getting my hands on some more.
Speaker:Hi, Ocean.
Speaker:I still will pay you back, I promise.
Speaker:I trust you.
Speaker:I trust you.
Speaker:Pay him back for what?
Speaker:Oh, I paid for his first night to stay.
Speaker:I thought he stayed with you.
Speaker:He stayed with me, but until he got hooked up with Hickory, I let him some change so he could stay in an inn.
Speaker:Oh, I see.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:Is that what I did with the money?
Speaker:No, you just let him stay at your place, and you probably paid for most of his drinks.
Speaker:Okay, okay, I was about to say, I couldn't remember what I paid for.
Speaker:I think you did give him some batteries.
Speaker:I don't know if you took them back after he stayed at your place.
Speaker:Well, I'd like to take a nap on a bench.
Speaker:Well, hold on now.
Speaker:Do you want to check out the lighthouse while we're killing time?
Speaker:I nod.
Speaker:That's probably a good idea.
Speaker:I kind of figured I'd just ask Hickory about it when we get a chance to meet him.
Speaker:You trust Hickory to give us the right information regarding that?
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:I don't know why he has any, if he would have any incentive to lie.
Speaker:But now that you say that, I'm fucking worried as shit.
Speaker:So I guess we can snoop around.
Speaker:And I heave myself off the bench slowly.
Speaker:Is there a part of the courthouse that would be considered Hickory's area?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Or does Hickory, like, does Hickory live there or does he live in another area?
Speaker:You probably know this.
Speaker:I'll just say it.
Speaker:But there's a judge's chamber is where he mostly stays.
Speaker:And he does most of his work out of the largest courtroom in here.
Speaker:Hmm.
Speaker:And that judge's chamber probably has an attached office, right?
Speaker:Well, it would normally be a large office.
Speaker:And it's just very fancy, fancy, large room.
Speaker:Hmm.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Can we go there?
Speaker:It's through the main courthouse.
Speaker:So it would be difficult, probably.
Speaker:But you can certainly try.
Speaker:Difficult without getting caught, you mean?
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Yeah, physically walking there is not the issue.
Speaker:But I guess what I'm saying is like, if we just look like we're supposed to be there, is anyone going to fucking stop us?
Speaker:Maybe.
Speaker:Because we can always tell them we're waiting on a meeting with Hickory.
Speaker:You did just shoot some of their men last week.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So they probably mostly know who you are.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I mean, I didn't.
Speaker:Oh, we're still with Vesuvius, right?
Speaker:He went back to shooting because he started talking about things that you probably didn't want him to hear, unless you want him to hear all that, then he could be standing there.
Speaker:I wave him back.
Speaker:He actually looks a little frustrated this time.
Speaker:He had like just got up and started me goes, OK, hey, what is it?
Speaker:Have you ever heard of Star Wars?
Speaker:No.
Speaker:Do you have handcuffs on you?
Speaker:No.
Speaker:You got rope?
Speaker:You're going to have to explain why you're asking me this question.
Speaker:Ocean looks a little confused, too.
Speaker:I'm asking you to escort two prisoners to through the main courthouse.
Speaker:Absolutely not.
Speaker:I will almost certainly get fired on my second day.
Speaker:Fair enough.
Speaker:Well, you wouldn't even let me roll away someone.
Speaker:Well, that's what you would have said if you got a full success.
Speaker:Is that's fair.
Speaker:The when we I'm trying to go back to that clue about the lighthouse.
Speaker:I was interpreting it as meaning like being in reference to, I guess, the power where the power is like an actual like energy place and not necessarily like like a power plant rather than like literally Hickory's house.
Speaker:But I think that's possible.
Speaker:But like Hickory is known as I was about to say, but now that I say that he is known as the light bringer and the lighthouse.
Speaker:I don't think there's any way for us to know without asking him or looking.
Speaker:I was about to say, yeah, I guess we should probably even know what we're looking for.
Speaker:Yeah, well, yeah, I guess now I think about it.
Speaker:Yeah, probably best if we actually just talk to him first, get whatever he says.
Speaker:Be like, oh, by the way, what do you know about my parents?
Speaker:If he gives us anything not super helpful, we can snoop around later.
Speaker:Yeah, but I guess on the same day to get lost, let's say on the same day that we're supposed to be meeting with them, maybe we shouldn't be caught snooping around his place.
Speaker:Now they think about it.
Speaker:Yeah, I agree with that.
Speaker:I would like to Ocean, I would like to go back to where we talked with Pistachio, because I think that's where he's going to look for us.
Speaker:And I'd like to take a fucking nap.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:You lay down on the bench, fall asleep pretty quickly, you're pretty tired from your all nighters.
Speaker:And that's true.
Speaker:We did have an all nighter.
Speaker:Yeah, that's why I was tired.
Speaker:That's why I said, oh, I thought you were just I was acting.
Speaker:I'm fucking method.
Speaker:I get it now.
Speaker:I get it now.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:I'm on board now.
Speaker:Ocean, as you sit down and try to wait for this a few hours, it is just painfully boring in here.
Speaker:You hear just this tick tock of the clock and nothing else.
Speaker:Like every once in a while, a door opens and someone closes out, but it is just like deafeningly silent.
Speaker:And your eyes start to unfocus.
Speaker:And I'm going to do one of the transition visions.
Speaker:Transition vision.
Speaker:Transition vision.
Speaker:Let's check and see what I got.
Speaker:I'm going to go.
Speaker:A place where the stars are visible in a black sky with impossible clarity as the place.
Speaker:Have we used that one before?
Speaker:I've used the interior of a machine bigger than human making and an unfathomable labyrinth of underground chambers and a green and beautiful garden.
Speaker:So I'll go with a place where the stars are visible.
Speaker:And I'm going to go with inhuman beings moving and acting with manifest intelligence.
Speaker:Oh, gross.
Speaker:Seems like an interesting combination.
Speaker:Your vision kind of fades out for a second, and you don't even realize you've slipped into this vision as you're just sitting there on this uncomfortable bench staring forward into nothing with Book's head on your lap.
Speaker:I'm just patting his head gently.
Speaker:And then you break his neck.
Speaker:Pull a linear from from my some nice and then my some men.
Speaker:That's it.
Speaker:Damn it.
Speaker:You don't realize it.
Speaker:And you think maybe for a second that you just fell asleep and there's just darkness.
Speaker:But then suddenly little pinpricks of light start appearing above you and slowly illuminating this massive cavern you're in just little dots poking around.
Speaker:And they start coalescing more and more.
Speaker:And you've probably never seen stars before.
Speaker:No, I don't think you probably at least don't know what stars are at all.
Speaker:So yeah, so this seems very strange.
Speaker:You can tell there's these little lights above you, but it's almost like they're strangely different intensities and almost at different distances, even though, you know, that's impossible.
Speaker:And they have to all be at the top of this cavern to be providing light here.
Speaker:They start coalescing and you see there's this large kind of central light that appears and kind of shoots out almost like a spotlight and starts sweeping around the outskirts of this cave.
Speaker:And then you realize you're in this massive open room and you can't see any of the walls.
Speaker:You just see the darkness, these pinpricks of light and this huge spotlight sweeping around in a circle.
Speaker:Am I in like an actual room?
Speaker:Is it what it seems like?
Speaker:Just like judging by the floor or is it like a...
Speaker:It looks like a big cavern.
Speaker:A big cavern, okay.
Speaker:Yeah, the floor is all stone and rock and you can't even see the edges of those.
Speaker:It would probably be the biggest cavern you've been.
Speaker:If this were true, and at first you just see this darkness, but then you realize this light has to be reflecting off something else on the walls.
Speaker:And you look closely and you start seeing that something's moving right as the light reaches it every time.
Speaker:You just see this flutter of movement.
Speaker:It's long legs, maybe wings, kind of leathery, all skittering out of way of the light the second before it gets it.
Speaker:So they're never fully illuminated.
Speaker:But you just see it's like this wall is almost writhing around you, perfectly dodging this massive light coming from the stars.
Speaker:And then you kind of shake your head and wake up.
Speaker:He's going to open his eyes.
Speaker:He's going to be like in a cold sweat.
Speaker:And he's like clutching Book's hair like really tightly, but Book is still sleeping.
Speaker:He's just like like lifted off the ground if it's so slightly.
Speaker:He's going to look around and then he'll like kind of start realizing and just like slowly put Book's head back down on his lap.
Speaker:And right about then a door opens and you hear Pistachio Jones go, come on in.
Speaker:Time to talk to Hickory.
Speaker:Let's shake Book away.
Speaker:Book.
Speaker:Book.
Speaker:How long did I sleep, Stu?
Speaker:About an hour and 57 minutes.
Speaker:When you when you look up at Ocean, you see he looks visibly unwell.
Speaker:Hey, Ocean, are you are you OK?
Speaker:Yeah, it's a weird dream again is all.
Speaker:And I feel you know, like when you've been sleeping and you feel like your hair is pointing in the wrong direction.
Speaker:And like, I feel that, but it's like different.
Speaker:And I kind of smooth my hair back and I just shake my head.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Are you going to be OK for this?
Speaker:Or do you want to?
Speaker:No, yeah, I think I should be OK.
Speaker:I pass him my bottle of water.
Speaker:Yeah, he's going to take a big sip and then splash some over his face.
Speaker:Like, OK, let's let's get this over with.
Speaker:Now you look good.
Speaker:Now he looks nice and sweaty.
Speaker:Hot.
Speaker:Slicks his hair back.
Speaker:Pistachio leads you up this set of stairs that with a and then there's a large pair of doors that he pushes open and holds for you.
Speaker:And you find yourself in a very well lit, massive courtroom.
Speaker:So that's probably the largest courtroom you'd see on any primetime television, televised courtroom case.
Speaker:Like OJ Simpson trial sized Supreme Court sized courtroom.
Speaker:You see that Hickory is already in there sitting where a judge would traditionally sit.
Speaker:I'm describing all these things, but you guys probably have no idea of traditional courtroom locations, but just for reference for the players.
Speaker:OK, yeah, this is like at the first time I assume that our people have even our characters have even seen.
Speaker:Yeah, so you're not going to be like, that's weird.
Speaker:Yeah, so he's sitting there on top of the massive judge's throne.
Speaker:You see where the jury would normally sit are a bunch of his men well armed, and there is a light machine gun on a stand on the front of the floor where they can like reach from the bench and grab it.
Speaker:Wait, that Hickory can just reach and grab it?
Speaker:No, not Hickory.
Speaker:OK, the people who would be jurors.
Speaker:OK, OK, but they're just as men.
Speaker:It's a nice security bench.
Speaker:Is the light machine gun like pointing out at us?
Speaker:Or is it like pointing up?
Speaker:Yes, yeah, out at you guys.
Speaker:Right now, it's angled.
Speaker:No, right now, it's angled down because no one's touching it.
Speaker:So it's like it's top heavy.
Speaker:So it's pointed down.
Speaker:But someone could lean forward in their seat and grab it and shoot it in like four seconds.
Speaker:Ocean's going to turn over to Book and he looks more visibly unwell than he did before.
Speaker:Well, at least I have a cane worth one armor.
Speaker:Pistachio closes the door behind you and stays at the doors.
Speaker:And you see in the normal, like, viewer's seats, the pews of the church, the pews of the courthouse are just a random smattering of some more of his men.
Speaker:Well, not a lot of them.
Speaker:Most of the people who are in this room are on the jury table.
Speaker:So we're still by Pistachio, right?
Speaker:Yeah, you're at the entrance right now.
Speaker:So I say, Pistachio, I thought we said we wanted to keep this on the down low.
Speaker:Well, this is the only way he's going to talk to you guys.
Speaker:Do you have a chalkboard?
Speaker:Go on up.
Speaker:Do you have a chalkboard?
Speaker:Yeah, of course there's a chalkboard in a courtroom.
Speaker:Are you stupid?
Speaker:I don't know how to answer that, so I just walk up.
Speaker:Hickory gestures towards the defendant's table, wanting you guys to go sit over there.
Speaker:I mean, I do that.
Speaker:The second you guys sit down, he stands up, and you hear his thick, loud chair scoot back as he stands up and goes, the men before you today want to risk some of your lives for some reason.
Speaker:I've not gotten all the details yet, but they wanted some sort of clandestine meeting between me and them to bargain with the value of your lives, so I thought it would be a little more pertinent to have you all hear their case for why they want to potentially put you all in danger.
Speaker:Real quick, I was just about to ask, I'm looking around, do I see Vesuvius?
Speaker:Vesuvius is not here.
Speaker:I have a feeling he might be called as a witness.
Speaker:Maybe when we're talking, I think we should minimize the talking about Vesuvius and more talk about the things he said about Crandall's changes, is what we should focus on.
Speaker:I agree with that.
Speaker:Just in case this gets back.
Speaker:I say, Your Honor, I'd like to request a recess.
Speaker:That's what?
Speaker:I appreciate the honorific, but where are you trying to go?
Speaker:I'm talking to Hickory.
Speaker:Yeah, I am Hickory.
Speaker:I thought Hickory sounded cooler than that.
Speaker:Is this not Hickory's voice?
Speaker:I don't remember Hickory's.
Speaker:I thought it was like all deep and sultry.
Speaker:Yeah, maybe I'm still sick.
Speaker:No, his voice is exact.
Speaker:I'll tell you what his voice is.
Speaker:It's the guy at the beginning of Bad Touch by Bloodhound Gank.
Speaker:It goes, well, now we call this the act of meeting.
Speaker:Oh, that is his voice.
Speaker:Yeah, because I remember with it, like I was so shocked when I first heard his voice when you said it, because I was expecting something a little bit more like...
Speaker:I was expecting, bury me with my money.
Speaker:That's what I was expecting.
Speaker:Well, now what?
Speaker:A recess already?
Speaker:Yeah, I would like to discuss...
Speaker:Me and my co-counsel would like to discuss with you and Pistachio in your chambers.
Speaker:Just for a minute.
Speaker:Yeah, deny.
Speaker:He bangs his gavel.
Speaker:I figured.
Speaker:Give it a shot.
Speaker:Can I use the chalkboard?
Speaker:Can we just...
Speaker:Are we...
Speaker:How formal is this?
Speaker:You can do whatever you want.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:I guess if we're not talking about Vesuvius, I don't need the fucking chalkboard.
Speaker:I mean, we can.
Speaker:It's just I'm worried it would get back to him.
Speaker:I agree with that.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I agree with that.
Speaker:Now that we're surrounded on all sides by soldiers that he works with on a daily basis.
Speaker:I turned up Ocean.
Speaker:I was like, is this...
Speaker:Should we just go ourselves?
Speaker:At this point, like, is this worth the effort?
Speaker:I think we should still plead our case to see if he'll send somebody to help us negotiate with Crandall.
Speaker:I think maybe...
Speaker:I turned to Hickory.
Speaker:I go, hey, did my parents leave you anything before they left?
Speaker:This is off topic.
Speaker:I know it's off topic, but like, I don't think that we would have really had a good clean opportunity to ask you that anyway.
Speaker:So I'm just going to ask you at the top.
Speaker:Uh, no.
Speaker:Are you sure?
Speaker:What do you mean?
Speaker:Elaborate.
Speaker:They le...
Speaker:You know Juniper.
Speaker:I'm just laying it all out here.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:You know Juniper.
Speaker:They left him...
Speaker:They left him a video.
Speaker:A little videotape.
Speaker:What was on it?
Speaker:Kind of a riddle.
Speaker:And that riddle is?
Speaker:Basically, my parents were just saying that they wanted me to follow in their footsteps, and they gave me a clue as to where I should look for them next.
Speaker:And the clue...
Speaker:The answer to the clue was the lighthouse.
Speaker:And, you know, that made me think that you might know something about it, since that's kind of your domain.
Speaker:You know, once upon a time, y'all were buddies.
Speaker:So, you know, I just figured it was worth asking.
Speaker:Are you sure you got the riddle right?
Speaker:No, but I mean, yes, Stu told me.
Speaker:I said, I'm very confident.
Speaker:I am as close to 100% confident you can be, while still acknowledging that you can never be 100% sure of anything.
Speaker:And what does this have to do with the...
Speaker:What you want my men for?
Speaker:Nothing.
Speaker:This is separate.
Speaker:But like I said, I just didn't really think that we would have a good opportunity to discuss it at any point.
Speaker:So I figured that that now is as good as any.
Speaker:Yeah, they did not leave me anything.
Speaker:I do not know what a any lighthouses that's I don't call my pad that or anything.
Speaker:But yeah, so and you please stay on focus a little bit here.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So Hickory, your eminence, are you you're aware of Crandall, the warlord in Subtropolis?
Speaker:Yeah, well, small time warlord.
Speaker:Not a big deal.
Speaker:Well, we are friends with a former employee of his that is now in your employee named Vesuvius.
Speaker:And he warned us that Crandall has been behaving strangely and has been Vesuvius wasn't specific.
Speaker:But he said that Crandall was trying to acquire items that he normally wouldn't that weren't.
Speaker:And I am going to try to quote here and say that, you know, he used to find stuff that made Crandall's place a good party pad, and now he's looking at other stuff.
Speaker:And I don't know what that means, but I'm worried about it because he has a lot of men with a lot of technology, and we are a small town.
Speaker:And Oceano Cudamon is like, we met Crandall in one of our expeditions.
Speaker:He seemed more quirky and harmless and eccentric, but not dangerous.
Speaker:But from what we've heard, it sounds like that he's becoming much more violent and aggressive with the kind of things that he's seeking out.
Speaker:It just seems concerning.
Speaker:The other thing we know is that he sent one of his people to follow us, and they were killed, but they made it all the way to the bottom of the switchbacks leading out of Hamlet opening, which I don't know what their communication capabilities are, but I think that we have to assume that Crandall knows where we are.
Speaker:And I think he also has to know that we have, you know, we clearly have energy.
Speaker:You can see it reflect, you know, see our lights reflect off the ceiling, and energy is a vital resource.
Speaker:And what we are proposing is that we scout out Crandall's, whatever has caused a change in Crandall's demeanor.
Speaker:I think that we should set up a meeting with him.
Speaker:I would like for you to either come or give us a message in the form of video or audio that we can play for Crandall and offer a trading partnership with him.
Speaker:You said that you were looking to develop new sources of energy.
Speaker:I don't think we have to be that specific, but I think we can tell him that you're becoming interested in technology too, and you'd like to set up a partnership to trade.
Speaker:And I would like to use that as an opportunity to investigate the changes in his demeanor and determine if he is a threat to our town and our way of life.
Speaker:And I think that the best way to do that would be to parlay with a group of enough size to suggest that we are larger than we really are.
Speaker:And we're basically gonna bluff and discourage him from viewing us as an easy target.
Speaker:You said you've been, you've seen Crandall before?
Speaker:Were you at his base of operations?
Speaker:Yes, we've been there, we know how to get there, and we might even know some people that would be favorable towards us if we ran into them.
Speaker:What's the security like there?
Speaker:Cameras, they have cameras, and they have lots of guards staked out in the buildings around, and basically all of your entry points are covered.
Speaker:The last time we got in by approaching directly, and I think we should take that same tactic.
Speaker:That's why I'm suggesting that we view this as a parlay.
Speaker:So we don't do business with warlords?
Speaker:That's not something we try to do in this town.
Speaker:We are all upstanding citizens, and we try to earn an honest living not stealing from other people.
Speaker:I know that, I know that, but Crandall doesn't.
Speaker:Ocean's gonna be like, I don't think we need to necessarily do business or parlay with him.
Speaker:I just think we need to use it as an excuse to investigate the potential threat.
Speaker:I don't understand why you're afraid of Crandall's men.
Speaker:We know about him.
Speaker:That's not a huge outfit.
Speaker:He, like you said, is more of just eccentric.
Speaker:If he's stealing other things, that's what warlords do.
Speaker:Maybe he's partnered with someone else who wants different things than what he did.
Speaker:Why is, why do you think he is an existential threat to our society?
Speaker:Vesuvius, the Vesuvius, when we last ran into him, he was very happy at his place of employment.
Speaker:And whatever changed that forced him to flee and come to us, I think that's worth investigating.
Speaker:I don't think anyone's left.
Speaker:Did he think it was dangerous?
Speaker:Did he dislike?
Speaker:What makes it dangerous now?
Speaker:He was traumatized.
Speaker:That's all I know.
Speaker:Okay, well, let's call him in here, and we can get his opinion on it.
Speaker:Then he nods to Pistachio Jones, who goes away.
Speaker:You guys can talk quietly for like 30 seconds if you want to phrase anything else.
Speaker:Ocean, I don't think this is going very well.
Speaker:It's going better than I thought it would.
Speaker:I think you made a very good point, I believe.
Speaker:I think what you said was about as good as we can ask for at this point.
Speaker:Maybe we should stress that we don't necessarily need him to send a man just somebody that can make our visit with him seem official.
Speaker:Right, like Pistachio.
Speaker:Yeah, maybe.
Speaker:We can tell him we can go ourselves.
Speaker:We just want somebody that will.
Speaker:I'm worried that that person is going to be Vesuvius.
Speaker:Well, you know, give us a chance to study for Vesuvius, see what he's like.
Speaker:All right, let's see what we can do.
Speaker:The door is slammed back open, and you see Vesuvius come in, and Vesuvius looks like confused a little.
Speaker:He's like shocked by the openness of this room and how many people are here.
Speaker:And he walks up, and Pistachio leads him up to the Waves Chair.
Speaker:I wave as he walks up.
Speaker:He waves back.
Speaker:He still looks very nervous, though.
Speaker:And he sits down, and he goes.
Speaker:Hey, Vesuvius, I'm gonna try to jump in before Pistachio or Hickory says anything.
Speaker:Hey, Vesuvius, it's good to see you again.
Speaker:I was concerned by your comments about Crandall, that you said he had been behaving differently.
Speaker:I know that he has a lot of weapons, and I want to make sure that we're safe here.
Speaker:I want to make sure that you're safe here.
Speaker:And so I was wondering if you could share with us some more about why you chose to leave and if you consider Crandall a threat that we should take seriously.
Speaker:Oh, I feel safer here than I ever did while working with Crandall.
Speaker:I feel like you guys have quite the defenses and settlement here.
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:I felt danger every day living out in Subtropolis, but here you guys seem to have a nice little foothold.
Speaker:I was, like I said before, I did not enjoy working for him, especially near the end there.
Speaker:But I think this is a nice, safe, and well put together home thanks to our good friend here, Hickory Fleek.
Speaker:You've done a wonderful job, sir, if I may say.
Speaker:What do you think, what was going on at the end that made you so concerned?
Speaker:Well, he was sending us out into very dangerous locations to try to collect things that we did not see any benefit from.
Speaker:And I just, I didn't know why he was doing it, and I felt like if I had an opportunity to leave, it was better to do that.
Speaker:I have had some reservations for a while now, and I just felt like it was a good opportunity.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Can you share some of the things that he had you collect?
Speaker:I do not know what they are.
Speaker:I'll admit, like, they were complicated technological features of some sort.
Speaker:They would be, like, in server rooms sometimes, there would be all sorts of messes of wires.
Speaker:We would sometimes get some pictures and schematics of them.
Speaker:We would get these print offs that were printed from some computer that would tell us exactly what we needed to find and would frequently give us some locations for it.
Speaker:And we would track down, get that specific thing, and get out.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:I have two questions for you.
Speaker:Has Crandall said anything about expanding his territory recently?
Speaker:No.
Speaker:We are at a...
Speaker:There's those very dangerous people just south of us that we would never expand into.
Speaker:They got all these yellow humvees and stuff.
Speaker:And I don't think he would ever try to get into that area.
Speaker:And besides that, no, he's pretty happy with his little fiefdom.
Speaker:He seems to just want to be able to live life large in his...
Speaker:Then why did he send one of his men to follow us?
Speaker:Are you talking about the deceased?
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Yeah, she...
Speaker:I don't know if he sent her.
Speaker:She may have just followed you on her own volition.
Speaker:He did not mention that to anyone else to follow or track you down.
Speaker:Huh.
Speaker:You're sure about that?
Speaker:No.
Speaker:He absolutely could have ordered her to follow you, but I don't know the specific timelines of things.
Speaker:I was on patrol at the time.
Speaker:I was at my post, as you know.
Speaker:Did you see her when she left?
Speaker:No, I did not.
Speaker:You saw us, though?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:You swung by and said hi.
Speaker:And bye.
Speaker:Do you know if there's any other ways in and out of Crandall's territory that we wouldn't know?
Speaker:Well, I'm guessing it had something to do with the suas, since that sua, there's a big smearin of blood leadin to it, and the top was knocked off of it.
Speaker:Yeah, maybe.
Speaker:Um, this is, you said Yellow Humvees?
Speaker:Yeah, H2 Hummers.
Speaker:Who are they?
Speaker:We do not know.
Speaker:We do not get near them, or we die.
Speaker:They shoot at us at a distance.
Speaker:But they also have not expanded into our territory in any way.
Speaker:The Yellow Humvees, were they the same ones that were piling up around me?
Speaker:I can't remember what the color of the car was there.
Speaker:We said they were yellow?
Speaker:Yeah, they were yellow.
Speaker:H2s.
Speaker:Yeah, they have not expanded into our ground, but they are much more dangerous than Crandall, I promise you that.
Speaker:Yeah, I believe you.
Speaker:You said Crandall's personality was also changing.
Speaker:What changed about him?
Speaker:I do not recall saying that.
Speaker:I remember saying he started going off, looking for different things.
Speaker:Yeah, he was acting strange in the way that he was requesting us to accumulate different items.
Speaker:I appreciate you sharing all that with us, Vesuvius.
Speaker:Is it fair to say that you're not privy to the higher level dealings that Crandall does?
Speaker:Oh, absolutely.
Speaker:And planning?
Speaker:No, no, not at all.
Speaker:I turn to Hickory and I say, Listen, I know this isn't a lot to go off of, but I think there might be going on here than we think.
Speaker:And I am going to follow up on it, whether or not you want to help us.
Speaker:I think the least that you could do is allow us to record a message for Crandall that would at least lend some credibility to our claims.
Speaker:Is that something you'd be willing to do?
Speaker:Well, I think the least I could do is probably nothing, which is probably more likely in your cards.
Speaker:Why?
Speaker:And let's see if anyone here wants to come with you, if they want to risk their life for this matter, to go attack a warlord.
Speaker:We're not attacking anyone.
Speaker:Hickory?
Speaker:Oh, yeah, showing up with 10 to 15 men to a warlord's front door.
Speaker:That's going to...
Speaker:armed men?
Speaker:That's what you want?
Speaker:Have you never heard of a parlay, dude?
Speaker:Yeah, you usually send some weak-looking person who they could kill at any time.
Speaker:Hi.
Speaker:Hi.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It doesn't matter if there's 15 people behind you.
Speaker:Yeah, but you don't send one person.
Speaker:You send enough people.
Speaker:Yeah, it is risky, but I think that's a risk I'm willing to take in this case.
Speaker:The crowd of people do not seem to be jumping on the opportunity.
Speaker:Lasilius looks like he kind of raises his hand a little bit, but puts it down.
Speaker:Well, we gave it a try.
Speaker:I look at Hickory and I say, no, I'm not settling for that.
Speaker:Listen, it's going to take a minute of your time.
Speaker:We already have a camera here.
Speaker:We'll write something up for you to say.
Speaker:It'll take a minute.
Speaker:And that way, at least, Crandall won't kill us on the spot.
Speaker:Even if you're just sending us, you're risking literally nothing.
Speaker:You're sending just us to go see him.
Speaker:Wouldn't you at least like to know if we find something?
Speaker:Wouldn't you at least like us back here alive?
Speaker:I'm not worried about Crandall at all.
Speaker:And I think it's only dangerous for me to be spouting lies to a camera that you guys can then use for any purpose you want.
Speaker:That seems like not a good call for me.
Speaker:Poor lords, it's best to stay out of their hair and maintain good defensive posture.
Speaker:If I go out there taunting him in some way, if he takes this wrong, then that's when we're going to be risking things.
Speaker:It's just you guys.
Speaker:I don't care.
Speaker:You guys can do what you want.
Speaker:But don't speak for the town.
Speaker:And here I thought you gave a shit.
Speaker:Do you dramatically walk out when you say that?
Speaker:No, no, no.
Speaker:Um, and I revealed that I've been recording this whole thing.
Speaker:No, I haven't.
Speaker:I haven't.
Speaker:Um, fucking A.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Well, that was a bust.
Speaker:I don't know why we wasted our fucking time.
Speaker:Uh, cool.
Speaker:Well, thanks for nothing.
Speaker:Well, good luck out there.
Speaker:I really I don't even want a video from Hickory to kind of explain what was going on.
Speaker:I was just hoping we could get him in a room one on one so we can fucking talk to him.
Speaker:Well, are we leaving at this point?
Speaker:Can you think of anything?
Speaker:Anything we can do that would get us in a room with him?
Speaker:With alone with Hickory?
Speaker:I don't think he's going to let us get alone in a room with him.
Speaker:Just punch a dude.
Speaker:Yeah, but that I thought about that, but there's no guarantee we would get him in a room.
Speaker:Fuck.
Speaker:We could, like...
Speaker:Well, why do you want him alone in a room?
Speaker:Because I want to explain to him that I don't...
Speaker:Like, we've been talking about what we think is going on with Crandall, but we haven't said anything about what we think is actually going on with Vesuvius, and that they might be related.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But it also seems like maybe our emcee just is railroading us down another path.
Speaker:I am not railroading you anyway.
Speaker:To be honest, I think he's acting pretty in line with what I think Hickory...
Speaker:What I was expecting Hickory to respond with.
Speaker:I agree, but I do feel like that might be different if he...
Speaker:Well, there's nothing to say that he'd believe us.
Speaker:There's also nothing to say that he's going to let us leave.
Speaker:But yeah, I guess...
Speaker:You can try to come up with a reasonable approach for him to take and roll for it.
Speaker:I feel like I've given several reasonable approaches.
Speaker:Every single thing I've said right now, I've been looking at the Sway Someone roll, and it would have been as if you rolled a 10.
Speaker:That's why I haven't asked for any rolls, because he's explained why he's refusing everything you've done, and you haven't given him something that he gets anything out of.
Speaker:He honestly does not believe Crandall's a threat.
Speaker:You have not convinced him in any way that Crandall's a threat.
Speaker:I was really hoping Vesuvius would say something a little bit more damning.
Speaker:Yeah, Vesuvius doesn't think Crandall's a threat, or he wouldn't have come here, because he does seem to like you guys.
Speaker:That's true.
Speaker:But he also is operating on orders that he doesn't even know.
Speaker:So what could we give?
Speaker:You gotta say something dramatic to end the episode.
Speaker:But what could we give Hickory?
Speaker:What could we offer him?
Speaker:Like, what does Hickory want?
Speaker:So if your goal is to really talk to him alone, you could say something that would make him want to talk to you alone.
Speaker:I know that sounds stupid, but if there's something that would be like, hey, I want to get out of this broom and just have a one-on-one conversation instead of making a big show of it, I don't have an answer for that.
Speaker:That's why I felt comfortable saying it.
Speaker:Can I do a read-someone on a Hickory?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:What are you trying to think about?
Speaker:I just want to know if he was telling the truth about my parents.
Speaker:You think he...
Speaker:for his understanding of what you asked, he was telling the truth.
Speaker:That's suitably vague.
Speaker:Hmm, hmm.
Speaker:You can still roll for it, though, and try to get more information as it going out, like, hey, I've three more things to ask you.
Speaker:Nah.
Speaker:Um, I probably should have used stern presence, but I think everyone would have looked away as soon as I walked in the courtroom.
Speaker:Looked away?
Speaker:Is that when they've done something that they're ashamed of?
Speaker:When they've told lies, betrayed trust, or so.
Speaker:That's everyone in this fucking room, except for Vesuvius.
Speaker:But even he has, he just doesn't fucking know it.
Speaker:He just doesn't know.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:I say, look, Hickory, I know that we haven't always seen eye to eye, but I also know that you care about this town.
Speaker:And I care about this town.
Speaker:I hope that's evident.
Speaker:Seems like you want to get out of here to me, but just like your parents.
Speaker:Oh, if you ask me, I feel like all three of you don't care about this town.
Speaker:Then why am I still here?
Speaker:I could have left years ago.
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:I just told you why, because I care about it.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Don't be a dick.
Speaker:Doesn't seem like it to me, but go on.
Speaker:I know that we haven't given you a whole lot to go off of here, but I trust my gut and I think that you should trust my gut too.
Speaker:I think I've demonstrated that I have a knack for this sort of thing.
Speaker:And I understand that you don't want to send anyone with us.
Speaker:That's fine.
Speaker:I am just going to ask for one minute of your time before we leave alone.
Speaker:Give me a Sway Someone roll.
Speaker:You didn't have to say it so ominous.
Speaker:That's a seven.
Speaker:Ocean will try to help.
Speaker:Ocean will try to help.
Speaker:And he'll help by billing.
Speaker:And if it makes you feel more safe, I'll step out.
Speaker:I mean, he's obviously not a threat.
Speaker:So what can he say?
Speaker:I got a plus three.
Speaker:So am I rolling a just a plain help roll or do you want me to roll?
Speaker:OK, just help is fine.
Speaker:OK, that is a seven.
Speaker:Seven push it.
Speaker:So with a seven to nine, that is that makes it a full success.
Speaker:So he goes, OK, right now in my chamber, let's go.
Speaker:And he stands up and goes out a door to the back left.
Speaker:All right, I'm going to give book a little.
Speaker:I'm going to dump him on the shoulder reassuringly, old Pat.
Speaker:Give him a nod and be like, go get him, Tiger.
Speaker:And as I walk towards that room, I look over my shoulder at Ocean and I nod.
Speaker:He goes in the door and it closes behind him.
Speaker:So you're just in this open room with a bunch of people in the door in front of you.
Speaker:I walk.
Speaker:I go through the door.
Speaker:I pulled, but I pulled the chalkboard behind me in behind.
Speaker:You drag the chalkboard, there's like two steps.
Speaker:So it's like up these two steps and you pull it in.
Speaker:And as the door closes behind you, he clicks a light on and you see he has a gun pointed directly at your chest.
Speaker:Oh, shit.
Speaker:Oh, shit.
Speaker:And thank you so much for listening this week.
Speaker:As always, join us seven days from now, or maybe four days, because this is probably three days late.
Speaker:Reach us at oops at stew.cool, or check out our website stew.cool, but like written like a URL.
Speaker:So like go to Google and put that in.
Speaker:Maybe do a www dot.
Speaker:Don't know if you have to do that anymore.
Speaker:But if you do that, we have some transcripts up for some of the episodes we're working through our backlog right now, trying to figure it out.
Speaker:And a few other things, more exciting stuff in the future.
Speaker:Music and editing is performed by Stu Masterson.
Speaker:Brady McDonough does all that art you see, including our logo.
Speaker:And Jacob does all the mic checks, but not for audio quality for like spiders and things.
Speaker:Love you, bye.
Speaker:Bye.
