Episode 32
Episode 32: All Along the Sloptower
With sandy shoes and full hearts, Book and Ocean finally lay eyes on the long foretold Lighthouse. But a revelation prompted by one of Ocean's previous visions clues them in to a lurking danger between them and their goal.
This one is basically an advertisement for citronella.
Transcript
Welcome to Oops!
Speaker:All Apocalypses, a show where we explore the collapse of society by playing fun, tabletop role playing games.
Speaker:I'm your host, Stu Masterson, and I'm joined by the appropriate number of people to make the thing go right.
Speaker:That's so similar.
Speaker:You cheatin, you cheatin already.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Good joke.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:Hey, everybody, I'm Brady and I play Book McGready, a super soggy sleuth who's trying to solve the mysteries of his past.
Speaker:And I'm Ocean, a gentle giant and truffle hog.
Speaker:Beautiful.
Speaker:Earring shows are so much more serious than mine.
Speaker:Normally I use the serious ones and you go with something goofy, but last few episodes, it's just been pure goof out of me and pure serious out of you.
Speaker:I think after I said that he peed his pants like two episodes in a row, I stopped trying to be funny.
Speaker:Yeah, you're trying to be more serious now.
Speaker:That was a little too much.
Speaker:You didn't like the direction your character was going.
Speaker:I get it.
Speaker:I do like the truffle hog arc of Ocean now.
Speaker:I think that could really be a foundation for your future character.
Speaker:I think when I end up covering my hidden beauty, which is an improvement I can get, my hidden beauty is that Ocean accidentally, his skin gets torn a little bit, and he realizes he's just wearing a suit.
Speaker:And when he takes it off, he's just three pigs in a suit.
Speaker:Yep, three pigs in a suit.
Speaker:They're all very good at finding truffles.
Speaker:That's why he has so many complicated visions, because he's sharing three separate.
Speaker:He's just three pigs that got fused psychically.
Speaker:God, this is such a good idea.
Speaker:Oh, this is a good idea.
Speaker:Unfortunately, the real thing that appears after Ocean takes off his skin suit is a big bad wolf.
Speaker:Oh, that's true.
Speaker:There's no truffle wolves, though.
Speaker:There are truffle dogs, actually, now that I think about it.
Speaker:He's a truffle dog.
Speaker:Inside of everyone are three little pigs and a big bad wolf.
Speaker:This week, we're going to try to fall in love with this truffle hog and this soggy detective by answering another question on the list of 36 questions to fall in love.
Speaker:We are at the very serious section of this question where things start getting real.
Speaker:Brady has so far still not been impressed.
Speaker:He's hard to please.
Speaker:This one's gonna be like, what's your body count?
Speaker:How many breads have you eaten in your life?
Speaker:This is a pretty good one.
Speaker:I like this one a lot.
Speaker:How many cans of beans have you shared with other people?
Speaker:It does have share in it.
Speaker:Hell yeah.
Speaker:Share with your partner an embarrassing moment in your life.
Speaker:I feel like we've seen a lot of embarrassing moments for Book.
Speaker:Yeah, I would say so.
Speaker:I would say so.
Speaker:Your eyes got really big when you said yes.
Speaker:Okay, when Book was young, I'm gonna tell, okay, I'm gonna tell the story of Book, how Book learned that he had to get potty trained.
Speaker:That was something that you talked about previously.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:What a weird arc of backstory to cover for the last couple episodes about Book's potty training.
Speaker:This is the second episode we've talked about this.
Speaker:Yeah, well, I think in the past, I mentioned that the Book maybe took longer than most to get fully potty trained.
Speaker:Indeed.
Speaker:And so I'm going to say that when Book was five, he still had to wear pull-ups at night, and he thought that was completely normal.
Speaker:And he thought that everyone, including his parents, wore pull-ups at night for when you had to pee.
Speaker:He one day was talking to Calista, who I think grew up in the same town as him, and he asked her what pattern is on the pull-ups that she wears at night.
Speaker:Nice.
Speaker:And he got completely humiliated.
Speaker:Hoping for a good Spider-Man answer, yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:He didn't get to tell her about his cool Spider-Man pull-ups, and he was completely humiliated in front of a large group of people, including his parents and her parents and everybody, including when the parents started laughing is when he really felt terrible.
Speaker:That was painful to listen to.
Speaker:So I suspect that is indeed very embarrassing.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:That was, yeah, I would say so.
Speaker:You had to one-up that Ocean.
Speaker:I don't know if I can.
Speaker:That's...
Speaker:This is B-type of style.
Speaker:We keep going.
Speaker:That has possibly the most embarrassing thing I could possibly imagine.
Speaker:That's impressive.
Speaker:That cakes the cake.
Speaker:So the thing that Ocean is super embarrassed about, and it's something that he's been realizing was quite a mistake many, many times, and it's one he's living with for a while, is that when Ocean and Book were working together on getting the spider up and running, I'm going to say the spider initially did have four tires, four wheels.
Speaker:But Ocean was convinced because he saw buggies one day, like sand buggies and stuff that only had three, that that was a much more effective means of traversal.
Speaker:So Book kept saying, now physics says that doesn't really work.
Speaker:That's a bad plan.
Speaker:But he took off the thing anyway and made that little weird third tire system.
Speaker:And he's always said that it was a great idea.
Speaker:I'm going to say within like 12 hours of doing it and driving it the first time, he was like, oh shit, this is terrible.
Speaker:This is not as effective as I'd hoped it would be.
Speaker:But he was so embarrassed by the fact that he essentially made it out of aesthetics instead of functionality.
Speaker:He never wanted to admit that he was wrong to Book.
Speaker:That to this day, he has argued that it was the optimal choice.
Speaker:But just now he's coming out and being like, Book, you're right.
Speaker:I've been so embarrassed to tell you about this shitty design on the spider.
Speaker:I just can't have been able to bring myself to tell you.
Speaker:Nice.
Speaker:That's very good.
Speaker:That is good.
Speaker:That one probably stings for longer.
Speaker:It sure stings anytime I drive the spider.
Speaker:In high school, I was running the mile backwards and I tripped and broke my wrist.
Speaker:Oh, I have a insanely similar story, actually.
Speaker:An insanely similar story.
Speaker:So I guess we're just sharing real embarrassing stories now.
Speaker:But in high school, I also broke my wrist, but I was doing it to impress a girl.
Speaker:I mean, so is Stu, clearly.
Speaker:I'm assuming he probably was.
Speaker:He was running backwards.
Speaker:No, all my friends were doing it.
Speaker:I'm just a sheeple.
Speaker:And then we all agreed to stay with each other the whole time because we're running it together.
Speaker:And then at the very end, I said, eat my dust, motherfuckers, and tried to sprint backwards.
Speaker:And then that's when I fell and broke my wrist.
Speaker:Oh, that's pretty good.
Speaker:Mine's not that great because for me, there was a deck that everyone was jumping over.
Speaker:And we're doing cool parkour moves.
Speaker:I was trying to show off to the girl I had a crush on at the time.
Speaker:And I did a cool parkour move.
Speaker:And I botched the landing and I broke my wrist so bad that they had to put a metal plate in.
Speaker:And you can still see the big ass scar that I have from that.
Speaker:Holy shit.
Speaker:That's beautiful.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:I've never done anything embarrassing.
Speaker:I know.
Speaker:Nothing at all.
Speaker:And with that collection of wonderful stories, let's get back to the action.
Speaker:So Book's been pulled up now, so.
Speaker:Yep, Book's up, kid's up.
Speaker:Now Ocean has both of his feet stuck in various different places.
Speaker:Oh, yes.
Speaker:Wait, and the jaws are wedged open a little bit?
Speaker:They're pretty much all the way closed, maybe like a tiny, tiny gap.
Speaker:They seem to not have much trouble with the metal.
Speaker:It slowed it down a little bit, but.
Speaker:Can we just cut the bindings that attached the metal thing to Ocean's foot?
Speaker:He can also cut his legs off, yeah.
Speaker:But yeah, you can basically break your shoes so you don't have them anymore.
Speaker:But yeah, you guys are at the top with this kid who was panting heavily, and his hands look like torn up.
Speaker:So Ocean falls flat on his back next to the kid and just joins him in just like panting.
Speaker:And he looks over at Kidd and says, what the hell were you doing down there?
Speaker:I didn't mean to go down there.
Speaker:I was trying to get a picture of the light.
Speaker:No.
Speaker:Kid, kid, guys, we don't, is this thing gonna reactivate?
Speaker:Is this thing gonna open back up underneath us?
Speaker:What do I look like?
Speaker:A calendar?
Speaker:Go, go, go, go for the exit.
Speaker:Ocean, I'm gonna cut your leg free.
Speaker:I'm gonna cut your foot free.
Speaker:And I start to saw at the rope that is binding the shoe to him.
Speaker:And then I wanna start digging around his other foot to try to free it.
Speaker:There is still sand falling on you, not like directly on top of you.
Speaker:This was actually strangely off center a little bit of where the like center of the room was.
Speaker:That's why you guys weren't like standing on the middle when this opened up.
Speaker:It pulled you into the side.
Speaker:Interesting.
Speaker:You're able to definitely get him out of his shoes pretty quick and with your help, get out from the wedged foot.
Speaker:Book can't help himself from looking up into the slit and trying to see if he can see anything up there.
Speaker:It hurts your eyes because sand falls in them, but from up there, you cannot see much.
Speaker:It's just not illuminated and it's just a pretty small crack.
Speaker:So you just see the sand.
Speaker:No moving parts, just sand falling.
Speaker:You can't see any moving parts.
Speaker:Interesting, very interesting.
Speaker:Okay, I would like to scramble the fuck out of this hellish fucking stupid fuck room.
Speaker:Which exit are you going to?
Speaker:The kid ran back towards the town.
Speaker:No, I'm going towards the lighthouse.
Speaker:So Ocean looks a little torn briefly because he sees the kid run off and he starts heading towards the kid, but he sees Book run off the other direction and just exasperatedly he's going to shake his head and then he turns and he yells over to Pringle Fries and shouts, Remember, it was Book and Ocean that saved your ass.
Speaker:Tell the town we saved you.
Speaker:And then he runs off towards Book on the other side.
Speaker:Kid, toss me your camera.
Speaker:I'll get that picture for you.
Speaker:He stops for a second and like considers going back onto the sand and he does run back up to you and gives you the camera and then runs away.
Speaker:I said toss it to me.
Speaker:What are you doing running across this?
Speaker:He's not throwing the camera.
Speaker:That's very valuable to him.
Speaker:Can you give us any?
Speaker:Have you have you actually been there before?
Speaker:He's gone.
Speaker:He's gone.
Speaker:God damn it.
Speaker:This is a huge one.
Speaker:You can't have a conversation across these distance.
Speaker:Whatever.
Speaker:Book slings the camera around his neck.
Speaker:So Book now he has a Book has a light on one shoulder of Vesuvius head on another and the camera slung from his neck.
Speaker:Ocean looks at Book and goes.
Speaker:So as they're running, Ocean looks at Book's amalgamation of shit.
Speaker:And it's like, do you need me to carry something for you?
Speaker:Absolutely not.
Speaker:You have lights, camera and action.
Speaker:Oh shit, he does.
Speaker:I have the director in my ear.
Speaker:So you're able to make it to the exit.
Speaker:It becomes clear that this is a road that was created at some point.
Speaker:It reminds you of some of the more nice roads in Subtropolis or even some parts of the Long Dark that are like very well paved.
Speaker:It looks like this is asphalt or concrete of some sort that leads out to a big open chamber that has water all along the ground and a huge swirling beam of light shooting around the outskirts.
Speaker:This is a huge lighthouse.
Speaker:Well, be damned Book, it's a lighthouse.
Speaker:I want to first take a picture for crinkle fries.
Speaker:Snap, it works.
Speaker:It starts printing out the picture.
Speaker:I take another one for me.
Speaker:There was only one picture left.
Speaker:Oh, shit.
Speaker:Well, this is for crinkle fries.
Speaker:I put it in my pocket.
Speaker:Actually, I put it in the waterproof bag, and then I shine my light around, and I look for mushrooms for Ocean.
Speaker:He sees the lighthouse.
Speaker:Ocean is briefly just like, man, it's a lighthouse.
Speaker:And then he immediately is like, man, nobody been here.
Speaker:There's probably mushrooms everywhere.
Speaker:He starts looking around.
Speaker:This book is probably enamored by the lighthouse.
Speaker:How deep is the water around us?
Speaker:Is there water between us and the lighthouse?
Speaker:You go shine your light into it.
Speaker:So the place you come in is like this doorway that opens up to a very massive room.
Speaker:And this lighthouse is like large, large, large lighthouse, like as big as you could expect to see on the east coast of the United States.
Speaker:Barnacat Bay Lighthouse.
Speaker:I got you.
Speaker:And it looks like the ground's at least wet between there.
Speaker:As you're shining your light on it, you see a lot of glinting off of it, but it seems like it's very...
Speaker:There's something weird about it.
Speaker:As you're shining your light there, it almost like flutters before you can see this light wet reflection.
Speaker:Like it moves?
Speaker:Huh.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And then the rest of the room cannot even see the edges of it.
Speaker:This is a huge cavern that you assume extends out in every direction.
Speaker:As you're watching the massive beam of the light go around the edges of it, for about three quarters of the room, you can see it reflecting off of the walls.
Speaker:And then the last quarter, it seems to be shooting off into a big deep distance that you can't see.
Speaker:But as it's reflecting off the walls, Ocean, give me a Rita Sitch role with advantage.
Speaker:Rita Sitch with advantage?
Speaker:Wow, that is going to be a seven.
Speaker:I'm going to tell you a thing, and then you can ask me your one question.
Speaker:So this reminds you of one of your visions tremendously.
Speaker:Now, see if you can remember all your visions.
Speaker:Like the one where the walls is moving?
Speaker:Maybe.
Speaker:Oh, God.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker:Do you remember the one where there was like, I think there was a light moving around the room and where the light wasn't, you could see things like writhing?
Speaker:Yeah, the one with the, it had the like the tentacle wall kind of looking thing.
Speaker:That was another one that was weird.
Speaker:It was a different one.
Speaker:Oh, my God.
Speaker:They've all blended together.
Speaker:I should have taken better notes about what my visions were.
Speaker:I thought that room was going to be the tentacle monster.
Speaker:Yeah, me too, actually.
Speaker:That's what I was thinking.
Speaker:This was one where it was exactly what Brady described pretty much.
Speaker:Yeah, there was a massive light circling around a room and wherever the light wasn't at, you could, it was like on the outskirts of the light, you could see this fluttering.
Speaker:And I think I described it as like wings and claws and wet.
Speaker:I can't remember that vision to save myself.
Speaker:I'll be 100% honest.
Speaker:Well, that gave you advantage on this, so you can still ask me one question.
Speaker:Well, while Ocean thinks about that, when I move the light around, like, is that happening on the floor too, the fluttering?
Speaker:It's happening on the floor in front of the, when you're shining it into the like lighthouse.
Speaker:Where you're at now, it isn't at all.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Can I see like the edge of where that starts?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:As you're shining the light, that's kind of a difficult thing to pick out.
Speaker:It is very subtle.
Speaker:It's not just like...
Speaker:I think I'm going to go with, what should I be on the lookout for?
Speaker:Before Ocean does that, when he's looking around the room and he notices all this stuff slowly, he starts kind of forgetting briefly about the mushrooms.
Speaker:That's kind of like, memories kind of flash back to him.
Speaker:He's going to stop and he's going to look at Book very slowly and goes, I've been here before.
Speaker:I'm tired of hearing that.
Speaker:It's never been a good thing.
Speaker:I'm so sorry.
Speaker:I don't know what else to tell you, Book.
Speaker:I saw this place.
Speaker:It's a little different than what I saw in my head, but the fluttering, the lighthouse, I saw this in one of my visions.
Speaker:Ocean, why would you be where my parents went?
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:Maybe there's something in that tower that will tell us more.
Speaker:Now Ocean is very interested in the lighthouse.
Speaker:Ocean, have any of your visions had a man and a woman in them?
Speaker:There have been.
Speaker:I've had some visions, but I don't think any of them.
Speaker:I did have one vision once.
Speaker:It was a woman lying on a table, but I don't think she looked anything like your parents.
Speaker:But Book is looking a little bit suspiciously in Ocean's direction.
Speaker:Ocean, what?
Speaker:You've been here before.
Speaker:What can you?
Speaker:What do we have to do?
Speaker:Where do we have to go?
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:I didn't see that much.
Speaker:I just saw the wings on the walls, but I saw something with teeth and claws as well.
Speaker:So I think we should be on the lookout.
Speaker:But you said it was avoiding the light?
Speaker:I think so.
Speaker:So I shine the light basically at our feet as we start to walk forward.
Speaker:Yeah, and it's to answer your previous role and also Book's kind of question about where does this start.
Speaker:As you're shining your light in front of you, you see there's definitely some sort of swarm of things in here.
Speaker:It's always avoiding the light that's getting shined either by the light in front of you or by the lighthouse.
Speaker:But you cannot for the life of you figure out if they're roosting on the walls and keep having to move or if it's a massive swarm around the whole thing.
Speaker:Huh.
Speaker:We got our bodies have to stay in the light too.
Speaker:Not just our feet, which is difficult because we can't always be ocean.
Speaker:Here, can I take that light?
Speaker:And he grabs it.
Speaker:And since he's tall, he lifts it directly overhead like this, like a spotlight, the two of us.
Speaker:Yeah, but that's going to get my back or my front.
Speaker:Well, hopefully it'll hopefully be enough.
Speaker:Do we have any flames?
Speaker:The ambient light from it, even if it's shining directly on, I guess depending on what the creatures are, I think the diffuse lighting from it hopefully will keep us Yeah, I hope so.
Speaker:somewhat illuminated.
Speaker:Do we we do have the second light that I found, but I don't think it's hooked up to anything, right?
Speaker:The one that I pulled from the water.
Speaker:No, not right now.
Speaker:I guess you do have it with you.
Speaker:And you said that you said that it would require some electric work to get it working again if we ripped it out.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Oh, shit.
Speaker:Book walks in front of Ocean and starts walking towards the lighthouse.
Speaker:So you guys try to stay within the light under trying our absolute best to kind of illuminate us.
Speaker:It sounds like a very awkward, fun walk.
Speaker:Yeah, it just sounds like a walk where Ocean is very vulnerable.
Speaker:I think I feel like Ocean would have flares on him.
Speaker:I think, yeah.
Speaker:Wait, I think I specifically we specifically did have flares at one point.
Speaker:Something had flares.
Speaker:I remember.
Speaker:Oh, you know, Stu, is there any is there any like there's not going to be any wood on the ground, right?
Speaker:Not in here.
Speaker:No.
Speaker:Book searches frantically, comes up with nothing and says, let's let's go.
Speaker:You guys are walking very close to each other.
Speaker:I guess like smooshed up together.
Speaker:Is that what you're trying to do?
Speaker:As close as possible.
Speaker:So we're both in the light.
Speaker:So I'm assuming very close to each other.
Speaker:So you guys are taking like little baby half steps with each other as you're going forward.
Speaker:Both of you give me a act under fire role.
Speaker:Okay, of course.
Speaker:So you end up going, there's kind of this little ramp down into this wetter ground that you start walking in, and your boots start glomping more and sloshing around as you take steps forward.
Speaker:But you're able to stay in this light for now.
Speaker:It's an eight for me for act under fire.
Speaker:And I rolled a nine.
Speaker:As you're going along, you guys start to hear the sound of all these flutterings around you.
Speaker:These wings, these very quick flapping wings seem to be almost buzzing entirely around you as you're walking this little tiny spotlight of potential safety.
Speaker:Ocean, you start feeling on the outsides of your arms and certainly the tops of your fingers where you're holding over the light.
Speaker:All of these little wet pointy things start just, they seem to get on you for a second, and then they seem to go away.
Speaker:But then more and more start seeming to hold on and stay there.
Speaker:And you feel probably hundreds of little tiny hands or claws, you can't really tell, legs of some sort all over the top, the outside of your arms and hands.
Speaker:Oh, goodness.
Speaker:I fucking hate that.
Speaker:I don't like that at all.
Speaker:Oh, goodness.
Speaker:There's got to be something that we can do here.
Speaker:Ocean's going to take his tarp out, and he's going to wrap it around us, so that way the tarp is covering our tops, and he's going to hold the light, so that way the light's kind of reflecting off the tarp and the inside to kind of fully illuminate us.
Speaker:I like that.
Speaker:I like that.
Speaker:But that way we're covered on the top.
Speaker:The tarp that is covered in guts.
Speaker:Yeah, well, we're going to have the gutsy side facing the creatures.
Speaker:Maybe they'll clean it off for us.
Speaker:The hard part of this seems to be the exchange point of keeping this light up above you while you pull out this tarp.
Speaker:So I'm going to say, Book, give me a try something challenging roll.
Speaker:I think you're going to have to hold the light up.
Speaker:Yeah, I wish Book is going to have to take it for a second for sure.
Speaker:Because my aggro is zero now, so that's a full, I got a 10.
Speaker:Nice.
Speaker:You go and you hold the light and you feel that same fluttering against your hand as well.
Speaker:And you notice it seems to be leaving behind like a residue, like something thick and viscous that doesn't feel good.
Speaker:It's not like necessarily hurting you, but it seems like it's definitely like irritating your skin somewhat.
Speaker:By the way, do we see any mushrooms?
Speaker:You want to stop and look closer?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:On the ground underneath you, it's like a almost thick brown sludge that there are certainly some mushrooms growing out of.
Speaker:But to see if they're the good ones, you would have to like clean them off, stop, look very carefully.
Speaker:Once we get the tarp fully over us, maybe then we can, because we're not going to be able to see anything once we have the tarp up.
Speaker:So at that point, we just look at the ground and, ooh!
Speaker:While Ocean is wrapping us in the tarp, I click the light into my shoulder harness, and I just point it upwards so that I have my hands free.
Speaker:You said once he gets the tarp around you?
Speaker:Yeah, after it's on top of us.
Speaker:Do we trap some of those things in with us?
Speaker:We're about to find out.
Speaker:You go and you pull the tarp out while he's holding it above you.
Speaker:You kind of hunker down as small as you can and then get the tarp and you try to swoosh it around all of you.
Speaker:Yeah, it's kind of like turtle us underneath it.
Speaker:Yes, make a little turtle underneath it.
Speaker:And you're able to do that successfully.
Speaker:You immediately feel just dozens or potentially hundreds of small bodies immediately rocket into the outside of the tarp.
Speaker:Oh lord.
Speaker:Just latching on to it and the weight adds up very quickly.
Speaker:Give me a zero harm harm roll.
Speaker:For that, I guess we just roll 2d6.
Speaker:Just 2d6.
Speaker:Me and Ocean?
Speaker:No, just Ocean.
Speaker:He's the one holding this tarp up where he just got basically hit by a bike.
Speaker:So seven.
Speaker:So with your seven, I get to choose one of the following.
Speaker:You lose your footing.
Speaker:You lose your grip on whatever you're rolling.
Speaker:You lose track of someone or something you're attending to.
Speaker:You miss noticing something important.
Speaker:All of those are bad.
Speaker:All of those are pretty bad.
Speaker:I'm going to say as this massive force hits you, it's like literally getting a pedestrian getting hit by a passing cyclist, like this massive weight.
Speaker:But from all directions, you end up stumbling forward.
Speaker:Book, you lose hold of the light.
Speaker:You're all still under this tarp, but you get smushed into this gross wet ground underneath you.
Speaker:The light is mostly covered up right at this moment.
Speaker:Ocean, you on top holding the tarp behind you feel a lot of sharp things starting to pierce through the top of the tarp and into the back of your arms.
Speaker:You take one armor piercing harm for now.
Speaker:What do you guys do next?
Speaker:So none of those things ended up in the tarp with us?
Speaker:Doesn't seem like it.
Speaker:Oh, I don't like that answer.
Speaker:Book, I think we need to get to the lighthouse fast.
Speaker:I immediately scrambled to grab the light and put it into the holster, like I described.
Speaker:You grab it, pull it up.
Speaker:There's still a bunch of mud caked on the front of it, so it only kind of partially illuminates.
Speaker:Can I wipe it off with my fingers?
Speaker:Yep, you go to wipe it off.
Speaker:This whole time, there's still more and more things bundling up around the outside of Ocean.
Speaker:You can't feel it, Book, but you hear them.
Speaker:It's just a lot of skittering.
Speaker:Book, we gotta move.
Speaker:We gotta go, Book.
Speaker:It's like a meat on meat sound or a skin on skin sound just all around you.
Speaker:Ocean, you're on top of me.
Speaker:I can't move until you move.
Speaker:Ocean's gonna push himself up and he's going to kind of stabilize Book.
Speaker:So that way we're kind of like arms on top of each other's shoulders.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And he's going to try his absolute best to go as fast as he can to get to the lighthouse.
Speaker:OK, so you're going to try to go quick under this tarp while Book is illuminating it to try to keep it as like a little safe light bubble is the goal.
Speaker:OK, both of you are going to have to give me one more act under fire.
Speaker:OK, that was a seven for Book.
Speaker:OK, nine for me, seven for Book.
Speaker:You guys start moving faster and faster trying to make it to the lighthouse as quick as possible.
Speaker:You guys do now remembering in your mind's eye, it seemed like for some reason these things were not piled up around the actual lighthouse itself.
Speaker:You could actually see it illuminated dimly in the distance.
Speaker:You know, you're well over halfway there now as you're running along, going as quick as you can.
Speaker:But as this is happening, the tarp kind of is billowing up a little bit at the bottom.
Speaker:And you guys feel a couple little things sneak in here with you and you don't get a good look at them, but you feel something very kind of proboscis and sharp around your ankles right now.
Speaker:Both of you take an additional harm and both of you give me a one harm harm roll.
Speaker:Is this one armor piercing or no?
Speaker:This is armor piercing.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:If the things are wrapping around your ankles, it's usually armor.
Speaker:Ocean is now unstable.
Speaker:They're like under our clothes.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:Perfect.
Speaker:It's dark in there.
Speaker:That's a two.
Speaker:Wait, so it's my roll, which was a three minus one, which was also a two.
Speaker:That was not the time to roll that bad.
Speaker:Hey, Ocean, I think we're going to die.
Speaker:Ocean, you, since you just got unstable with that, as you stumble forward a little bit, the tarp goes like taut against your back, and you feel a bunch of them start piercing into you from the tarp side as well.
Speaker:And you collapse unconscious.
Speaker:Unconscious?
Speaker:You are unconscious, yes.
Speaker:Book, you have no idea what caused that, but you see him just suddenly go limp.
Speaker:He seemed like he was kind of okay just a second ago.
Speaker:Like he definitely was hurt a little bit by that, but he just collapses face down into the mud, pulling this tarp down tight on top of you as you fall down, you also lose your footing, and you're on the ground now with him, and he seems unconscious.
Speaker:What do you do?
Speaker:Cow tools, help!
Speaker:Just kidding.
Speaker:Okay, so Book, oh man, Book tries to stay under the...
Speaker:but fuck, what does it matter?
Speaker:Fuck it.
Speaker:This is such a fucking shit show.
Speaker:Why is everything such a shit show?
Speaker:And as you go to the ground, you think maybe literally that mud seems to taste a little bit like very healthy poop.
Speaker:Oh God.
Speaker:Of course it does.
Speaker:I want to try to roll Ocean onto his back and also try to keep the tarp on us.
Speaker:You can do that.
Speaker:He's heavier than you expected actually.
Speaker:He was already big, and when you roll him over, that was actually difficult, but you're able to do it without a roll.
Speaker:And then I want to inspect, is he breathing?
Speaker:He is breathing.
Speaker:His heartbeat is still there.
Speaker:It looks like he is very suddenly broken out in a big sweat.
Speaker:He is slimy.
Speaker:That was actually part of the reason it was hard to turn him over.
Speaker:It's like a little slime monster trying to flip him.
Speaker:He was like a fried egg that wasn't quite ready to be turned.
Speaker:I take this time to investigate the ground around us.
Speaker:Do I see any mushrooms?
Speaker:You're really looking for mushrooms?
Speaker:Well, the healing mushroom could be useful.
Speaker:There are some small cluster of these probably poop-covered mushrooms.
Speaker:You cannot tell if they're good or bad, but you could definitely grab them.
Speaker:You could even shove them in his mouth if you wanted to, but...
Speaker:The skittering starts getting stronger.
Speaker:You start feeling the weight now that he's not holding the tarp up for you on top of you.
Speaker:Like, maybe hundreds of these things are starting to land on top of this.
Speaker:Okay, I use the sword cane to prop up the tarp into a tent.
Speaker:So I kind of want to wedge the bottom of the sword cane into Ocean's armpit and then try to prop up the tent.
Speaker:Yeah, you got a little half tent here, but there's a lot of weight on it.
Speaker:You think it will not last very long.
Speaker:Okay, I have water.
Speaker:I'd like to rinse off Ocean's face and the mushrooms.
Speaker:Okay, they get clean.
Speaker:Okay, are they good mushrooms?
Speaker:Do you have your little cheat sheet?
Speaker:Ocean has it, I think.
Speaker:So I search Ocean's pockets.
Speaker:Just give me a sharp roll.
Speaker:Also, but the ones that Ocean touched before hurt him really bad.
Speaker:Yeah, these didn't hurt you really bad.
Speaker:That is double sizes, natural 12, plus what was it?
Speaker:Plus sharp.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Yeah, 14.
Speaker:This is actually two different mushroom types clustered together.
Speaker:Seems like they like eating the same things.
Speaker:And one of them is the antiseptic one.
Speaker:Cool.
Speaker:What's the other one?
Speaker:Not on the sheet.
Speaker:Fuck.
Speaker:So nothing good.
Speaker:It's not on the sheet?
Speaker:Yeah, it's not.
Speaker:Okay, great.
Speaker:So I pick out the nice ones, and I shove them into Ocean's mouth.
Speaker:Actually, no, I shove them into my mouth.
Speaker:I masticate and spit it into Ocean's mouth and try to get him to swallow it.
Speaker:That's sweet.
Speaker:That's horrific.
Speaker:That kind of snaps you out of it for a second, Ocean.
Speaker:Yeah, it's very bitter.
Speaker:And then I...
Speaker:Very slimy.
Speaker:Can I smear more of my mushroom spit paste onto his wounds?
Speaker:You can try.
Speaker:He said it's antiseptic, right?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I don't think you're supposed to ingest antiseptic.
Speaker:No, not at all.
Speaker:Topical.
Speaker:It was like he just poured rubbing alcohol in his mouth, which only come up.
Speaker:But I just I realized that after I did it.
Speaker:But yeah, so I spit a little bit in his mouth, but then I try to rub the rest on his arms and stuff.
Speaker:Book, that's the only place you can easily get to is like his ankles where they got him before.
Speaker:Oh, yeah.
Speaker:Do I see the little fuckers on his ankle?
Speaker:No, it doesn't seem like they're still there right now, but they are smashing themselves into the tarp and it's about to.
Speaker:Are they still on my ankles?
Speaker:No, there's none in here right now.
Speaker:You're you're all the way on the ground, like smooshed in it, like barely off.
Speaker:Okay, so while I do that, I want to.
Speaker:Big brain moments.
Speaker:If we tie the sword into the car batteries, it might get hot enough to glow.
Speaker:So I'm going to do that.
Speaker:The car batteries from the light.
Speaker:I want to I want to hook them up to basically the either end of the sword or just a section of the sword and see if it gets hot enough to glow.
Speaker:Okay, give me an act under fire.
Speaker:This is dumb.
Speaker:This is dumb.
Speaker:Isn't it?
Speaker:This is a dumb idea.
Speaker:This is dumb.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And eight.
Speaker:What is it?
Speaker:You said act under fire.
Speaker:So that was a 10.
Speaker:Yeah, you put it on there and it does start glowing.
Speaker:It gets incredibly hot, like very quickly.
Speaker:You're just basically shorting out this battery, right?
Speaker:So yeah, it very quickly gets very, very, very hot starts giving a dim glow.
Speaker:Does it set the tarp on fire?
Speaker:The tarp starts melting on it.
Speaker:What starts melting on it?
Speaker:The tarp starts melting.
Speaker:Does it catch fire?
Speaker:I don't think tarps catch on fire.
Speaker:I'm pretty sure it melts.
Speaker:Plastic's flammable for sure.
Speaker:I think that most of them, they intentionally make not catch on fire.
Speaker:So I'm going to say it melts, but it is giving off a dim glow.
Speaker:So you guys got a little bit more light.
Speaker:It's not very much.
Speaker:It's not like positional.
Speaker:You think it may keep them a little away from you, like if you like waved it around in them.
Speaker:So when this tarp starts melting and Ocean sees how hot the stuff is, Ocean is going to grab his shotgun, crack it open, like, you know, open it up, grab two of his shit, the shells, pull out the gunpowder from the shells, pour it on the ground and put the sword on it to see if they can get the gunpowder to light and start a small fire and then book to the other side.
Speaker:Because also we can light other stuff on fire.
Speaker:Like, do we have anything?
Speaker:You guys do not have much seconds as you're limiting factor here.
Speaker:OK, true, true, true.
Speaker:Also, tarps are flammable.
Speaker:I just looked it up.
Speaker:Go fuck yourself.
Speaker:Anything's flammable if you do it well enough.
Speaker:True.
Speaker:I'll say we put some we put the gunpowder on the melted parts of the tarps so it sticks together.
Speaker:Use the sword to light the gunpowder makes it possibly a bright flash.
Speaker:Oh, I have the fucking camera, too.
Speaker:So I don't have any more film, but I have the flash in the camera, right?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I start flashing the camera like crazy as you go.
Speaker:I'm assuming this is as you're running.
Speaker:Like, yeah, OK.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:You guys have you guys have said like 30 things that are going to at least require a role.
Speaker:So but yes, OK, I'll say most of this can be rolled up into Ocean.
Speaker:Give me an act under fire role to quickly bite off this gunpowder, light it on fire with a sword and start falling out.
Speaker:Hey, it's a flaming sword.
Speaker:It's a flaming sword at this point, or at least a very hot sword.
Speaker:That is an 11.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:You pop open your shotgun shells while they're still in the barrel.
Speaker:Rip off the tops with your teeth and pour it onto the ground in front of you.
Speaker:And Book, you're able to quickly put the sword into it, which caused this big little flash of fire that shoots up and catches fire to the far side of the tarp that I'm assuming you abandon and just sprint.
Speaker:Oh, I'm holding it.
Speaker:I'm holding one end of it since it's holding on the other side.
Speaker:So that way, at least it's coming with us.
Speaker:So we have a source of you're dragging this flaming tarp in front of you while you run trying to shoot as many flashes of this as possible.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And I'm waving the sword like I'm obviously I saw the light, but it's still pointed up.
Speaker:Yeah, like Sherman bringing justice to the south.
Speaker:I'm waving the sword and I'm flashing the camera.
Speaker:Give me a try something challenge.
Speaker:OK, I can do that.
Speaker:That's a five.
Speaker:As you're running forward, you guys sprint carrying, dragging this tarp behind you.
Speaker:Book gets a little bit of a lead not having to wield this massive tarp and he's flashing this bulb as much as he can to try to scare away whatever these creatures are.
Speaker:And with each little strobe of the flash, you can get these glimpses of them just in the hundreds or thousands swarming around you.
Speaker:You just get little glimpses of features and they're all kind of look like bats, kind of look like large insects or locusts.
Speaker:It's really hard to tell.
Speaker:Like at first, you may think it's bats.
Speaker:You see these leathery wings, but then you realize they're like segmented and there's like two pairs of them and their head is very hard to decipher.
Speaker:Definitely has some fangs on it, but there's also this like perpiscous, almost like a wasp face, but you do not get great read of them as you read forward, run forward.
Speaker:Leading the way, Book, you end up taking three harm, not armor piercing, from them as they swarm in around you and you feel these scratches and these bites and these instantly itching spots.
Speaker:They just get this massive histamine response as they brush past you before you stumble onto the little platform surrounding the lighthouse and Ocean leading the back with your tarp.
Speaker:That seems as you wave it around, it does definitely seem to be scaring them away and a lot of them seem to be reacting to like the dark parts of the tarp and dive bombing it and crowding it around you.
Speaker:And near the end, it does actually get wrenched out of your hands, but you're able to jump up on the edge.
Speaker:You do take an additional two points of harm, but so yeah, you still take one harm.
Speaker:Ocean has two armor, I thought.
Speaker:He has gang size helps, but again, that doesn't help them here.
Speaker:Okay, I have one armor, so I'm at ten o'clock.
Speaker:I have one health left.
Speaker:I have one little slidy boy left.
Speaker:One, two, three, four, five.
Speaker:Yeah, one left.
Speaker:One on my pie chart.
Speaker:But you find yourselves on this little rocky platform on the outskirts of this massive tower.
Speaker:The door is actually conveniently right in front of you with a few little steps in front of it.
Speaker:It's an old wooden door painted bright red.
Speaker:So Ocean collapses against the door and pushes it open.
Speaker:And as he's pushing it over, falls face first into the room to try and get out of the get inside the lighthouse.
Speaker:Yep, you guys are able to get in.
Speaker:The door is actually unlocked.
Speaker:I assume you close it behind you.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:Then as closing it, he slides down onto his plate and looks over at Book and is like, Well, I think we're stuck here now.
Speaker:I ruined the heat treatment on my sword.
Speaker:We have more pressing concerns, Book.
Speaker:Ocean looks like he's barely clean to life.
Speaker:I don't know that we do Ocean because if we have to use this thing and I have a soft edge Ocean.
Speaker:Do you have any of those antiseptic, whatever it was left, that poultice?
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:Don't ask how.
Speaker:I don't want to know how you made it.
Speaker:I have more in my cheek, like just in between my teeth and stuff.
Speaker:And I spit it into my hand.
Speaker:Oh, put it on my back.
Speaker:Yeah, I'm going to say as you rub that into his back underneath his jacket, you can heal one.
Speaker:Oh, which I feel like is a kind one.
Speaker:Yeah, we're both at 10 o'clock.
Speaker:Oh, Lord.
Speaker:It's very dark in here, but it looks like there's one dangling incandescent light 80 feet above you in this tower.
Speaker:And there's just one very spirally wooden creaky staircase going all the way up to the top.
Speaker:Book pats Ocean on the shoulder and goes, Listen, pal, you can you can rest up, but I need to see what's up there.
Speaker:And Book starts limping up the staircase.
Speaker:Before we go, he presses his hand on Book and uses healing touch.
Speaker:I hope it fails.
Speaker:I don't think.
Speaker:Can you healing touch yourself?
Speaker:I think we've ruled that we can't, that I can't.
Speaker:It's a 14.
Speaker:That's a pretty good roll.
Speaker:Perfect timing for this.
Speaker:OK, so healing touch.
Speaker:I get to choose three.
Speaker:OK, so I'm going to say I take your pain away.
Speaker:I heal their tissue damage, stop the bleeding, and I remove any disease and purge infection.
Speaker:And you get to decide whether that heals one or two harm.
Speaker:I'm going to say that heals two harm.
Speaker:You feel way better.
Speaker:You are still unstable.
Speaker:Of course.
Speaker:Yeah, that feels way better.
Speaker:You immediately get some pep in your step.
Speaker:It's like you just catch your breath in one second.
Speaker:Like you had just sprinted as hard as you've sprinted in your life to get to this door.
Speaker:Which we probably did.
Speaker:He puts his hands on you.
Speaker:You just take one breath in, and your heart rate seems to be the normal rate.
Speaker:Your legs aren't itching.
Speaker:You seem pretty good.
Speaker:I hand Ocean the light because he needs something, and I keep the sword.
Speaker:I think it's still hooked up to the car battery, so I'm carrying the car battery under one arm, and I'm holding the sword out in front of me with the other.
Speaker:And as I start walking up the stairs, I whisper to the Vesuvius, Are you OK?
Speaker:Sorry, I've been taking a little bit of a nap.
Speaker:Did anything happen recently?
Speaker:Are you fucking kidding me?
Speaker:Right when we got to that sand room, I started counting the fallen sand, and it was just relaxing.
Speaker:I almost died.
Speaker:Ocean almost died.
Speaker:Ocean really almost died.
Speaker:Yeah, Ocean is leaning up against the door.
Speaker:His eyes are glazed over.
Speaker:I've never seen Ocean almost die.
Speaker:I believe you almost died.
Speaker:Oh, did we make it to that lighthouse?
Speaker:Yeah, yeah, we're there.
Speaker:Man, my quads are going to be burning after this hike, as he looks up to the...
Speaker:I think you mean our quads.
Speaker:Our quads.
Speaker:And you hike up these stairs, these creaky stairs, continuing upward and upward, many, many flights.
Speaker:I don't know if they count flights on lighthouses, but this is a massive lighthouse.
Speaker:So it takes you quite a while to reach the top that has a big wooden hatch.
Speaker:A big wooden what?
Speaker:Hatch.
Speaker:Yeah, so you're not at the fun light swirly part yet.
Speaker:There's a hatch at the top of the stairs.
Speaker:Is there anything...
Speaker:There's nothing, just stairs?
Speaker:Yep, just stairs, swirling all big spiral staircase all the way up.
Speaker:I push open the hatch.
Speaker:It very dustily opens.
Speaker:There's just this cloud of debris as soon as you poke your little head up there.
Speaker:And it's pretty well, but infrequently illuminated up here as a massive light is swirling around.
Speaker:That catches, there's a little reflection along the top basically that provides some illumination into this room.
Speaker:So you're able to quickly see this room is dusty.
Speaker:There's just decomposing paper and books and desks that look like they're almost falling over.
Speaker:Give me a Rita Citroll.
Speaker:Is the light bulb electric or is it a gas, like a fuel driven flame?
Speaker:If you were able to inspect it very closely or maybe you can get some hints from just looking at it, it seems to be like an LED of some sort.
Speaker:Pig ass LED.
Speaker:That is a 10.
Speaker:10.
Speaker:Nice.
Speaker:Ask me four questions.
Speaker:Let me take a look at my sniff the wind.
Speaker:Smells like wind in here.
Speaker:Hmm.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So what is keeping secrets?
Speaker:What should I be on the lookout for?
Speaker:Who's in control here?
Speaker:And what represents the best opportunity for me to gather information?
Speaker:I guess.
Speaker:Or like, find my parents?
Speaker:I'm going to answer most of those with a single thing, but just so you know.
Speaker:Oh, no.
Speaker:You don't have your light, right?
Speaker:You left it with Ocean?
Speaker:Yeah, I probably should have given you the hot sword that you could have used to cauterize wounds.
Speaker:Well, you got a flashlight, right?
Speaker:Yeah, you have your normal flashlight.
Speaker:I do have it.
Speaker:So you take out your everyday carry flashlight and shine it around this room.
Speaker:And it's very wet in here, wetter than you would expect.
Speaker:There's kind of dripping.
Speaker:You see all on the ceiling and all down one side of the wall, there's this like thick slime and then like a big collection of mushrooms, right?
Speaker:Coming out of like one edges of the big rotating light on the bottom, like a massive amount.
Speaker:Like you decide not to walk on that side of the room as you go around.
Speaker:You shine your light and you see a lot of very old newspapers, technical manuals, instruction manuals, magazine clippings are all attached to the wall.
Speaker:It doesn't look too different than your crazy person wall, except this looks more like a collage or like a teenage boy's room from the 90s, where they put all their favorite pictures up on their corkboard.
Speaker:And it's all sorts of things.
Speaker:Maybe the biggest thing that jumps out to you is a one page advertisement for something called Google Dome says the housing of the future.
Speaker:And it gives a little layout of people being able to live completely underground with all of these automated food delivery services and things like that.
Speaker:And you live in this little dome shaped building hundreds of feet under the surface of the earth is what it's claiming for, are claiming on the page.
Speaker:And as you bring your light around the other side of the room, you see probably the most shocking thing, which is this desiccated human body that is just like leathery, like skin completely pressed against the bones.
Speaker:Like this person looks like they probably starved for a very long time.
Speaker:Like they got down to like 70 pounds, like it's barely skin hanging on bones on this body.
Speaker:Leaning in this like moldy chair that has that same slime all around it, draped over top of it, kind of going over portions of the body, that when you shine your light on it, the eyes on it crustily open up, and it peels itself forward and goes, visitors!
Speaker:What did it say?
Speaker:Visitors!
Speaker:Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of Oops!
Speaker:All Apocalypses.
Speaker:Keep that podcatcher open that you're listening to this on, and go give us five stars, and leave a comment telling me what I should get Jacob and Brady for Christmas.
Speaker:The music and editing was performed by Stu Masterson, Brady McDonough made the logo, and Jacob tests all of our 9 volt batteries by sticking them on the tip of his tongue.
Speaker:Love you, bye.
