Thank Goodness it's Thursday! CRF's 90s Charity One-Shot Benefitting NCWIT | Sponsored by Ebay Live Part 1

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Good day, critters.

Travis Willingham here and welcome to the Critical Role Podcast Network.

We are thrilled to have you here and thank you for making us a part of your day.

You're listening to part one of this episode right now and part two will arrive the following Tuesday.

If you'd rather listen to the full episode right now and without any ads, consider becoming a beacon member.

You'll receive access to exclusive content, discounts at all of our online critical role shops, exclusive pre-sales for live events, and much, much more.

You can start your seven-day free trial today at beacon.tv.

Now that we've got all that covered, let's go ahead and get this adventure rolling.

Hello and welcome to TGIT.

Thank goodness it's Thursday.

Sponsored by our friends at eBay and eBay Live.

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We're on eBay Live right now over at bit.ly/slash CRF eBay.

And I'm going to go ahead and send it over to Ashley Johnson to tell us more, Ashley.

That's right, Matt.

Folks online have the opportunity to win the most exclusive items used in tonight's show.

Things like gorgeous retro dice sets from 1985 games and, ooh, dispel dice.

Ooh,

yes, yes, yes, I know.

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Oh, and I...

Might have hidden a few little special somethings in the sleeves of some of these domain cards in some of the, actually in each of these binders so uh you don't you don't want to miss this

that's right matt we actually have our dagger heart core rulebook available to bid on right now and these aren't just any dagger heart core rulebooks matt these are autographed by the cast of critical role perfect for the game master or collector in your life yes and there'll be more to look forward to bidding on tonight so dive into ebay Live, where excitement meets real-time shopping.

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Matt, back to you.

Thanks, Ashley.

I know, I know.

Now, we can't jump into tonight's episode without touching on who this is all for.

Hi.

Tonight's charity, One Shot, is benefiting CRF's newest charity partner, NCWIT.

NCWIT

is helping build the technology workforce of the future for high school and college-aged students across the country through through programs that offer meaningful opportunities to build skills, connect, and receive the support needed to thrive in technology fields.

And we are so excited to have them join our CRF family.

And tonight, with your help, the more we raise, the more we can help.

So you can bin on eBay Live, donate on Tiltify, and to add more incentive, our friends at eBay will be matching up to $10,000.

So give what you can and bid, bid, bid.

Yes.

Thank you so much, Ashley.

Lastly, your donations will affect the game.

So check out the list over on Tiltify.

You can unlock things like special guest appearances, hope to the players, or fear to me.

So, like Ashley said, every little bit helps by bidding on these items at bit.ly slash CRF eBay or donating at bit.ly slash CRF Tiltify.

And I think with that, that's all of our announcements.

And I think it's time for us to jump into tonight's episode of Thank Goodness, It's Thursday.

Staring

Will Fredel.

Jody

Sweeten

Christine Lakin

Stacy Keenan

Johnson

Ryder Strong

and your GM for the evening,

Matthew Mercer.

Hello, friends.

Thank you all so much for joining us.

This is going to be fun.

Yeah, I figure we'll kick off first off, say one of our wonderful players at the table that was supposed to be here, unfortunately, hurt her leg and is recovering at the moment, so couldn't join us.

Uh, but in doing so, brought us a wonderful Stacey to join us as well.

So, thank you for coming along.

Um,

uh, so yeah, to begin here, first off, uh, super happy to have you all here.

Um,

everyone begins the game with two hope.

So, if you haven't marked it already, start with two hope.

Uh, two hope, just two hope

to begin with two ashes.

But because we have six players, I start with six fear.

And I'm going to be using these pogs.

Yes.

Yes.

My fear counters for the evening.

Great.

Like a true badass.

I'm just saying.

Amazing.

Some good shit.

Alrighty.

Six Pog Fear at my disposal, friends.

And for those of you at home, a couple things to go over.

We are reusing custom classes that I built to match the sitcom archetypes within the theme of what we're playing tonight.

I also slightly altered and re-skinned all the Dagger Heart cards to also fit within the 90s-centric child star themes.

And if you hear the term skillcraft, that'll be replacing spellcast for the evening since there is no real magic in this world.

So, Skillcraft will be taking that term.

So, if those of you who know Dagger Heart, if you're a little confused, that's why.

You all ready to jump in?

You're saying there's no magic in the 90s sitcom, Matt?

How dare you?

It was all the magic.

How dare you?

It's all magic.

You're setting the scene.

Welcome, my friends,

to the grandiose film lot of Salamander Studios.

Here in the dry heat of the Los Angeles summer, the year is 1996, and the bulk of production that supports the FRC channel's Thursday night lineup of family-friendly sitcoms and after-school specials calls the western edge of this studio lot home.

A majestic grid of towering concrete soundstages are buttressed against a patchwork collection of outdoor sets, a metropolitan city street, a library courtyard, a suburban neighborhood.

It is here that the magic of television is expertly crafted by all manner of talents.

Cinematographers, makeup artists,

makeup artists, art departments, sound engineers, directors, grips, wardrobe, an army of PAs, and of course, performers.

And none so crucial to that success of these TV series of that era as the youthful actors that bring them to life.

Here, in the late afternoon heat, multiple productions have stopped down for the day due to a pending production restructuring, allowing a tired cast and crew a reprieve from the barely functional air conditioning of the oven-like soundstages.

Here, among the tarmac streets, gang bosses move vehicles between a zipping sea of golf carts and hand-carried set-flats.

A massive central white tent lends a shady shanctuary, shanctuary, sanctuary, to to numerous tables and a mighty spread of mediocre catering.

This is the crafty tent.

And it's around here that some of our players begin to arrive.

As we look off to one of the nearest studio sets, the doors have swung open and the crew is shooting out into the hot summer day.

We see what looks to be a number of figures walking around, brushing past,

one of which is a young boy, a writer.

If you would please introduce us to Lucas.

Yeah, it's Lucas, it's Lucas Belucci.

Not Belucci, no relation.

Belucci.

I'm wearing, I always wear my fishing vests because it's got a lot of pockets and I want to keep everything in there.

I'm the only kid on my set, so I

spend a lot of time reading, going through a heavy Dean Koontz phase.

And Dean Koontz.

Never even went through a heavy Dean Koonz phase.

Yeah,

96, man.

So yeah, so

my mom went back to Texas, so I kind of have no one here anymore except my

caretaker, Chad, who's an assistant on my agency.

We live at the Oakwoods.

Anyway, so yeah,

I'm the only kid on my set.

So I guess right now I'm just going to try and kill some time before I head home.

Fantastic.

As you brush past looking forward to something on your grumbling stomach, you hear the kind of grouchy voice of a familiar figure, Hal.

You see a male in his 50s or so, balding head, looks kind of like Don Rickles a little bit, who currently has affixed to the edge of his arm, a weird, gnarled-looking purple latex puppet with weird boggle-like eyes as he comes by and goes, Hey, nice day there, Lucas.

Maybe you can learn your fucking lines for once.

We wouldn't have to retake it over and over.

Hey, Hal.

How's it going?

I'm all right, all right.

You getting some snacks?

Yeah, I was gonna try and see if they had more red vines.

Red vines, yeah.

All right, you see, you gotta figure out how you really let the time pass here.

And you see him kind of slips a small

metallic vial of some sort of liquid that he quickly swills under his lips for a second before the stench of strong alcohol hits you in an exhale.

And he goes,

How old are you anyway?

I'm 13.

13.

That's almost old enough, right?

No, how

you remember what happened last last time?

If they catch you drinking this much on a shoot day?

We're getting canceled in two weeks.

I ain't worried.

And he walks past and heads to the start pocketing nearby bits of

kind of stuffed rolls and turkey sandwiches as you kind of stumble up to the open table where we glance over and see Paloma has been sitting.

If you wouldn't mind introducing us to Paloma, Stacy.

Hi, I'm Paloma Polinski.

I am the 15-year-old star of Tiny Podiatrist,

which is the

thank you.

Thank you,

an anchor of the TGIT lineup.

Tiny Podiatrist tells the story of a child prodigy, that would be me, who graduated medical school at age 12 and has gone on to do foot surgeries at the hospital in my signature lavender scrubs and fanny pack.

So,

podiatrist.

That's me.

I'm your tiny podiatrist.

Paloma, as you glance up and you see a rather kind of perturbed and rattled Lucas kind of stands up to the side of your table looking for somewhere to sit.

Lucas, sit here.

Why don't you come and sit here?

Oh, ignore Hal.

You know how it is.

He's always drunk.

You don't need to mess with him.

Sit with me, get something to eat.

Let's just relax, all right?

Uh,

sure.

Where's Chad right now?

Uh, he's he's back at the apartment, and I gotta wait for a ride later.

Um,

you seen any red vines?

Oh, there, of course, there's always red vines.

There's always tons of red vines.

Here, I'll get you some.

Oh, that'd be cool.

You just have a seat.

And you know what?

Forget about Chad.

I'll give you a ride home tonight.

Uh-oh.

I mean, my driver, but you know, we'll drop you off.

That'd be cool.

Of course, anytime.

Diploma, as you stand up from the table and head over to where one of the numerous red vine repositories are across the uh uh the crafty tables.

Uh you see one gentleman sitting off the side in his patented leather jacket, uh, scoping out

others in the space.

Uh,

Joey, if you wouldn't mind introducing us to who we are.

Yeah, how you doing?

Uh, my name's Joey Powers.

I uh everyone calls me squawk, but you know that, right?

I uh currently uh filming a movie.

It's uh the sequel to Outsiders called Outsiders 2, More Outsiders.

And I'm a practitioner of the Meisna technique, which actually until last week I thought was Mizna.

I thought it was wrong.

So I never dropped my accent because I got to stay in character.

You know what I'm saying?

That's just the way it is.

I was on a sitcom before called, whoa, that's not my room.

But that got canceled.

Which is good because I'm trying to get into film.

And this new Outsiders film is going to be by break.

That's just the way it is.

You know what I'm saying?

Amazed.

Amazing.

What are you passing your time with here at the edge of the table?

What's caught your eye?

It was going to be a Rubik's Cube, but it turned out to just be a square block.

So frankly, I'm just sitting here.

Luma, you catch Joey just staring at a small concrete cube very intensely.

Squawk.

Hey, little doctor.

What's going on?

Hey, what's going on over there?

I see that you've got your pet wooden block.

You okay?

Well, again, I thought it was something else, but it's been past the time.

I've been here like three hours.

What have you been doing?

I mean, working, Squawk.

You know, here's the thing.

How's the show going?

So it's going really, really, really well.

It is, because I saw, yeah, when I saw the Q ratings, not everybody's going really well.

Well, I mean, my show is, yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, not every character, but it's working.

All right.

You know, we're playing around with different breakout characters, that's true.

But I, you know, we're anchoring the lineup.

So, you know, that's what's important.

As long as we're still performing that important function for the lineup, then that's.

That's what matters.

They're the anchor show.

Let's say, hey.

Hey, Lucas, how you doing?

All right.

How you doing?

I'm doing all right.

The accent sounds good.

Hey, thanks.

I've been working on it now since this morning.

Yeah, I was going to say, because

you don't even start shooting for like a couple weeks, right?

Yeah,

I don't technically have the role,

but I'm working on it.

Oh, yeah, it sounds you're from LA, right?

Not a real, I mean, Bakersfield, but you know.

So

that's why I'm really kind of working on the accent.

I was told this is what it sounds like when you're from the Midwest.

I didn't really do a whole lot of, you know, kind of researching.

I just have you read The Outsiders, the book?

They made a book out of that?

Oh, man.

About this time, you hear joint laughter of two figures also joining here under the tent.

We'll begin here.

As one of the two figures, Casey, Casey, what do we see as you approach alongside Sam?

Well, I approach alongside Sam and

I see Squawk.

And he and I have never gotten along.

It's always been a thing.

And he's with that stupid pet Block again.

I mean, he's been carrying this thing around for a year and a half.

Yeah.

You'd think he'd at least draw a face on it or something.

I'm gonna figure it out one of these days.

Anyway, I came over to get some cookies.

All right.

And Sam, if you wouldn't mind introducing us to what we see with Sam.

So I'm Sam Stone.

I am formerly Sam Rabinowitz.

My manager made me change it.

I

currently doing a babysitters club

reboot.

I really just want to be doing like action films, you know, like deep, like deep meaning, but I keep getting typecast in these other roles.

So it's like annoying to me but whatever it's paying the bills my mom is away in asia they're doing um a tour my brothers are in a pop group so they've got like a really big pop tour in asia so anyway i you know i've got a beeper she calls me i call her back

i gotta take a smoke break like every five minutes but um anyway uh KC and I have been friends for a long time, you know, ever since we did that show together five years ago.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's been

an interesting ride with this one.

But Casey,

I didn't really introduce her properly to everybody.

But Casey,

it's Casey or KC.

Either one.

You know what I mean?

The SAG thing was,

I kind of had to abbreviate.

There was already a Casey in there.

But I'm a goofball.

I'm just kind of silly.

You know what I mean?

Like, this is...

We're a good team.

We're a good team.

You're sitting there smoking.

I'm sitting here with silly string.

You know what I mean?

The smell of cigarettes almost precedes the laughter that catches your attention as these two eventually join here at the edge of the tent.

Yeah.

Already smoking, huh?

What's it to you?

Nothing.

Just wondering if you had one.

I've got one.

Have you ever smoked before?

Of course I've smoked before.

Come on.

I'm an outsider.

Come on.

I'm good.

Don't worry.

I'm actually all right.

Don't worry about it.

90s were a different different time.

I'm an outsider.

A darkened shape kind of looms in the distance.

As it approaches, you see what at first might have been the intense arrival of an adult, which is already a momentary cause for attention.

But as she pulls back the curtain that's kind of holding the outside of the tent, you see Miss Evelyn, who is the on-set tutor for a lot of the children, children, who's approaching.

Beautiful,

delightful woman in like her late 20s or so, red, kind of crimped hair, permed.

And she has her hands over the shoulders of a young girl.

And it's like, no, no, it's okay.

You can go sit with them.

If you could please introduce Karin to us, Ashley.

Hi,

I'm Karin Marie Thomas.

It's spelled like Karen, but you say it like Karin.

And I'm 14 and I'm working on a made-for-TV film.

It's actually a sequel, the first one I won a Youth and Film Award for.

That's impressive like this.

She brings it up.

Yeah, I tell you.

Right?

She is, she has huge cargo pant shorts on because she has, and they are full.

You can tell there's just a lot of stuff in there.

Mousy, brown, dirty blonde hair.

She's just, she's a little weird.

She's just a kid who's always hung out with adults.

Miss Evelyn, come in.

Excellent.

Children, so nice to see all of you.

I see that you've congregated here in the feeding space.

If you'd be so kind, I'd like to introduce you to Karin, who has had a hard time integrating socially with the other child actors here.

I've taken the liberty to hopefully make new friendships amongst you.

Isn't that right, Karin?

Thank you, Miss Evelyn.

Hello, everybody.

I feel like some of you I've maybe met before, but

it's really, really nice to be here on your lot.

And

I just, thanks for letting me sit at your table.

Yeah.

That's no problem, Cameron.

I like your cargo shirts.

You know, my kind of got the little matching thing here with the pants.

Yeah, you've got a cool thing.

I like the flames on the bottom.

The flames on the bottom are kind of awesome, but if you want to ever borrow my catcher's mask, you know.

Really?

Totally do that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Thank you so much.

You're welcome.

Hey, did Miss Evelyn say anything about me?

Um...

Like anything at all?

Maybe something.

Maybe.

She wouldn't want him to go out, get some dinner or anything.

Kind of mentioned that.

She didn't say anything like that.

She mostly just said you give her the most trouble.

Oh.

That's so, Miss Evelyn.

You have a thing for her?

No.

Maybe a little.

She likes me.

It's what it is, you know.

I can't help it.

Cool.

Things everybody likes him.

Congratulating House on your youth and film awards.

Oh, thank you so much.

Thank you so much.

Yeah, it really was just like so much work went into the part and

it was just really a lot of,

you know, it took a lot out of me.

It was very special.

Raise your hand if you've been nominated for a Youth and Film Award.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, raise your hand if you've won.

Oh, yeah, all right.

That's fair enough.

I'm sorry.

Okay, well, Karen lays it down.

That's ridiculous.

You hear a voice ring out, and you see what some of you recognize to be the director known as Vanessa Drogan.

She's a woman in her late 40s,

kind of dark brunette hair that's going gray in streaks.

She's very fashionable with a leather jacket that's way too hot to be wearing, and you see her all chain smoking as she kind of darts through.

She's the director, currently a tiny podiatrist, makes eye contact with you and goes,

and subs off.

And somebody's like, I'm Miss Miss Drogan, what seems to be the problem?

She's like, I just...

I'm supposed to be making art.

I've directed 20 of the most expensive music videos of the past 15 years.

And here I am making a ridiculous sitcom.

And it goes and brings her a bottle of wine.

And she immediately unquirks with her claws of fingernails.

And she begins to take a heavy swig from it.

And then

a voice next to her looks like an assistant.

Some kind of goes like,

Mr.

Onkin, do you...

And they look over in the distance.

We should get out of here.

Of course.

We should.

And they both kind of scatter and you see other people in the tent start looking over in a particular direction and beginning to like gather their food and begin to leave the middle of the tent.

Can we see what's causing them to scatter?

You two.

You glance over and you see a golf cart approaching.

How good?

The network.

The golf cart itself, a very well-kept one, you see.

Like, most of them are just standard golf carts, but this one has like a unique kind of velvet trim along the top.

And you see, in the front of it, the first face you see is Myers, this kind of sheepish looking gentleman with a plaid button-up and horn-rim glasses and very, very heavily slick back hair.

Someone who would have been fired from Weezer for looking too nerdy.

And it's just kind of driving the golf cart first.

You know him to be the assistant to the Salamander Studios executive who is sitting behind him.

A portly gentleman in a very well-filled out jet black business suit

with a shaved head and a thick chin beard where an ever-smoking cigar puffs in it.

This is the Adam Pearson, the studio head executive.

As the cart begins to saddle up alongside, you see a smaller third figure sitting alongside him, who is quietly listening to him as the executive is chatting with him.

The golf cart comes to a stop and Myers steps out.

Sir, we're here.

The

Adam Pearson steps out.

A good time.

Very for all of you.

What do we have?

Perfect.

Perfect.

You're one of the individuals I wanted to see.

Luke.

Lucas.

Luke Lucas.

Lucas.

Lucas.

Of course.

Please.

Understood.

No worries.

Where?

And kind of looks over.

Ah, there.

And he points off to the side.

Gerald!

Come here!

And you see around the corner hiding almost is this older man in his 40s with a gray beard and a baseball cap and glasses who's the director of the film that you were just on and comes out.

Yes, Mr.

Pearson, can I help you?

Yes, yes.

I wanted to talk with you for a moment here with the young Lucas.

We've had

a shift in our production schedule here.

Well,

needless to say,

well, I'll introduce you.

This is Logan.

And he looks behind and you see stepping off of the golf cart is a young, like 13-year-old boy or so, very similar hair color,

very similar outfit, who kind of just steps over, smiles, and turns to me.

Hello, Lucas.

It's nice to meet you.

Hi, hi, Logan.

So, Logan here.

I'd like the two of you to hang out, and

I'd like to study.

Just think, you know, this is part of a

kind of studio-wide precaution since children tend to be children and get injured, and suddenly our productions are behind schedule.

Think of it as like a classic,

what's the word that all the...

Understudy?

Understudy.

That's in the theater kids.

I know what this means.

I teach in my lines, and then next week I get a call from my agent to not come to work.

This is

classic.

That's not, I didn't say anything about that.

That's wild.

That's not legally binding in a court of law.

So Logan's going to hang out with the rest of you and just get lay of the land.

Treat him well, all right, if you don't mind.

Thank you.

Myers, we're out of here.

And he gets back into the back of the golf cart, which kind of like rocks as he sits in and puffs up a secondary cigar.

kind of gives a once over glance to the rest of the kids and goes

straightens his jacket and then Myers

scoots it off.

The rest of the crew begin to slowly emerge like cockroaches that have, you know, waited for the light to pass and begin to.

Adam Pearson, the man who invented the after-school special.

Unbelievable.

He's incredible, that guy.

Yeah, just so smart.

Yeah.

So, just incredible.

And I love the smell of cigars.

You know, one time back in the day, I thought it was hilarious.

I took an M80, like one of the little explosive ones, you know?

I put it in his toilet, in his office, set it off, exploded, whole thing.

It was everywhere.

Absolutely hilarious.

I mean, I did have to pay for a whole new office for him out of my salary.

But you know what?

It was fine.

It was worth it, you guys.

It was really worth it.

It was totally worth it.

It was awesome.

Very much like for us to spend time together and play games like children.

Oh, man.

Holy shit.

Hi,

What's up?

You probably like sports, right?

I like all sports.

Outside,

yours, ball throwing.

You know what?

Why don't you go hang out with him?

He's gonna love showing you around the studio.

I've been told to stay with you, Lucas.

But no, I was getting a ride on with Paloma.

Um.

Uh,

okay.

Um,

wait, wait, what do you want to what do you want to see?

You want to just see my script?

I don't think I can show you my dressing room.

Where are you?

From Logan.

Indiana.

Where in Indiana?

That's kind of where I'm from.

Indiana.

Holy shit.

I will play what games you play.

Show me, Lucas, what you do.

I play poker.

Poker?

Show me this poker.

Lucas?

Are you from Europe, dude?

What's going on?

I'm from Indiana.

Are you homeschooled?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We were homeschooled.

Yeah, yeah.

Show me your poker.

And he slaps you on the side of the shoulder and he kind of pushes you a little bit away from the tent oh god guys can

i don't want to hun him don't don't leave me alone sorry lucas can we get can we get rid of this kid yeah please

let's damage

that he had to shadow him yeah but like what if we could get him you know like let's let's like put him in some heavy heron makeup or something and dishonest hang out with him and then we can run away my head you know i can heal everything you're saying

you're from Indiana.

You told him you're from Indiana.

You're playing with a block eating red vibes.

Like, go hang out with a bunch of people.

Weirdo kid.

Why do you talk like that?

This is how it's where the outside is supposed to be.

Indiana.

It's an Indiana accent.

Oh, my God.

Yeah.

See?

Okay.

Why doesn't your accent sound like his Indiana accent?

Because I'm a better actor.

Wow.

I am also a better actor.

Yeah.

See, they're going to replace me with this guy.

He's kind of terrible.

Not very original.

Yeah, he's

gonna parrot stuff back.

Sort of like, you know, look, man, you're not gonna

be able to do it.

Why don't you play baseball or basketball or whatever, you know?

Oh, are you imitating me?

You guys.

He's totally studying me to take my place.

Show me your poker.

Just take my place, man.

I don't care.

I want to go home anyway.

It's a Meisner.

Okay, so he's homeschooled and a method actor.

He's just a nice actor.

Meisner's not method acting.

Don't you know anything?

What are you talking about?

Of course it is.

Okay.

That's why I do Meisner.

Yeah, because I like method.

Yeah.

Some people, right?

Am I wrong about that?

He keeps staring at me, you guys.

It's really creeping me out.

Hey, Logan.

Logan.

Yes.

What other shows have you done?

You stage actor?

Where are you from?

Indiana.

No, but I mean, what kind of shows you done?

You done Nickelodeon?

I've done local community theater.

Who's your agent?

He's a real actor.

Johnson.

Johnson?

And Johnson.

Oh my god, this guy

with Johnson and Johnson.

With Johnson and Johnson, he puts his hand over your shoulder and with an uncomfortable grip for a child your size, begins to lead you away from the crafty tent.

I've seen this happen.

No, guys, this wait, we have to stop this.

This guy's creepy, and I think he's a robot or something.

Yes, something's wrong.

We need to get him away from the middle of the game.

You watch as both Lucas and Logan are now being pushed away beyond the nearest lot and around the corner.

All right, all right, all right, that's it, that's it.

I'm freaking out.

I'm gonna stomp on his foot and try and run.

Stomp on his feet.

Yes, I'm stomping on his foot.

I need you to go ahead and make a strength roll for me.

First roll the game.

Now, mind you, we have, but before you roll,

we do have from the audience

up to 20 plus ones that we get to share amongst your rolls at the moment.

So if you'd like to, take

any of that 20 to spend on this.

How many would you like to spend?

Wow.

I'm really not that strong.

Okay, so I feel like I should take some.

Take some?

How much do you want to take?

Wait, so say it again?

We have 20 plus ones that we can add to this.

As much as you want to take it?

20 plus ones?

Okay, okay, okay.

So how much do you want to add?

We have to decide beforehand.

Yeah.

Can we just four?

Five?

What do I have?

Give me five.

Give me five.

I'm negative one strength.

No, you're negative one strength?

I need this.

I only weigh like 80 pounds.

Is that too much?

I want five?

Seems like a lot.

We just started.

Seems like a lot.

We have to save this two.

What if we only get 20?

Okay, okay.

Never mind then.

I'll be.

I'm just gonna stomp.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, you guys don't care about it.

Let's do two, two, three, two, two, three, two.

Two, two, two, two, two, two.

Three.

Okay, so take so take a hope.

Big hope.

So bad at fighting, guys.

Always the guys, the boys taking my place.

Take a hope.

As you find within yourself a rare moment of heroism, that fight or flight really kind of billows up inside.

And you lift your knee and slam your foot down into what feels like a chunk of iron.

And immediately you feel this pain shoot up your leg.

And you all hear him kind of shout out in pain just as he goes around the corner.

And Logan kind of whispers in your ear, you must keep watching where none are.

and keeps dragging you.

You're now your feet are kind of like dragging on the ground as he's lifting you by your shoulder into an alley aside.

Lucas!

That kid's really strong.

He's He's Lucas.

I'm going to grab some provisions from Crafty.

I would like to bet, I would like to grab like a box of Frosted Strawberry Pop-Tarts.

Smart.

I would like to maybe.

Can I just grab some stuff to put in my

pockets full of crafty you can add to your pockets full of crafty.

I don't know how much you're going to need.

You start after him.

I just start after him.

All right.

I'm picking up the pace too.

As you're getting farther away.

All right.

Yeah, I'm fine.

Use case.

So you see them like vanish around the corner.

Squawk picks up a pace.

Did anyone join with Squawk to follow?

Yeah, I'm going to go too.

Yeah, we have them.

And where you go, I go.

So

I'm just shoving things in my pockets and running.

Can we see him ahead of us?

No, you saw him go around the corner and you hear the yelp, which is what gets you to kind of follow up quickly.

Sam and Casey, you follow up after Squawk with a Paloma.

Are you following as well?

Yes, I'm there.

I'm freaking around on a plan, everyone.

All right.

I'm just, I'm with you.

I'm behind you.

I'm great.

I'm processing right now.

With Karin holding up the rear, trying to get everything mashed into your pockets proper.

Lucas.

keep them good.

Lucas, at this point, uh, Logan kind of grabs and turns you around and looks you in the eyes, and you see this like flash of yellow light that seems to almost like scan past you in two different directions before it says,

Soon, I will learn all that you are, and you will be obsolete.

Guys!

Oh my god!

All right, I'm I'm using my hairspray and lighter.

Okay!

Straight for the torch.

You hear the footsteps rising quickly behind you as you reach in your pockets, roll fast and pull up from your pocket your lighter and your hairspray.

Go ahead and make an attack roll for that.

That is that.

What's the trade-on?

Yeah, finesse.

All right, so go ahead and roll for a finesse roll.

Do you want to take any of these bonuses to it, given your three from the last roll?

No, I'm pretty confident.

All right.

I mean, these are free to spend, you guys.

People are donating for them.

Should we add two?

Yeah, add two.

Add two.

Add two, add two.

All right, we're going to spend two of this.

Go for it.

All right.

17 plus two finesse.

So, 19.

With hope.

With hope.

Take a hope.

With that, you all rush the corner as a fireball emerges and surrounds the torso of Logan.

More than you were expecting around the corner.

You were expecting maybe a scuffle or a fight, but there is now flames surrounding the.

Just let that kid on fire.

He's not human, guys.

Go ahead and roll damage on that.

Lucas, what are you doing?

He's he's a weirdo.

His foot hurt my foot, and I was trying to stomp him.

All right, what are we

for damage?

Alright, damage is 2x10.

Yeah, 2d10 on that.

I know I went out for that shot.

No.

Six.

So six points of damage.

Alrighty, that is enough to be his minor threshold.

So the cyborg, as you notice at this point, the fire burning away, the skin shows like a weird combination of metal and organic material that is not human.

Parts of the where the burn is kind of curled away and the flesh is burned back black in places you see metallic teeth and this weird kind of whirring of uh odd gears and strange mechanisms on the inside just beneath the surface this robo kid oh my god um robo actor they're replacing us they're replacing us with robo kids also

because it can mark a stress you watch as the flames emerge around it from actually no for this one the first hit he wasn't expecting so he's not gonna do that uh the flames burn back i'm going to immediately spend one of my fear to interrupt this as you all turn the corner the headcount turns to you

you will all be replaced and it's gonna go ahead and grab and crush you.

Oh, no.

Mark a stress to do so.

Ooh, that's going to be

an 11 to hit you.

Does that hit your evasion?

No, I'm 12.

12!

He goes to grab and crush you, and as you do, you kind of slip out of his grasp and pull back.

It kind of hits the air with nothing, turns around and now notices the approach of the rest of you.

And all of you can now see this burned figure.

This is not a human child actor at all.

What would you like to do?

I'm in the front, so I'm at full bore at this point.

Go for it.

So, full run.

I'm going to try to just put my shoulder into his chest and slam him as hard as I can.

Okay.

Go ahead and get ready for that roll.

It looks like the audience has delivered unto me eight negative ones to apply.

So I'm going to apply three to that.

So you have negative three to apply.

Come on, guys.

I'm telling you, people have a thing against child actors.

We've been saying it for the next year.

Also, also, really quickly, the Dispel Dice Fun City are available right now on Bitly forward slash CRF eBay.

So go get them.

I got awesome ones too.

These are great.

Yeah.

These are great.

All right, make it roll.

Make my roll.

Here we go.

Here we go.

All right, come on, ponyboy.

Stay golden.

Seven with fear.

Seven with minus, minus,

minus three.

So as you rush forward, full board, you're ready to like impact, even with the little bit of non-human visual you got.

This isn't a massive figure, but it's like hitting a freight truck that's parked.

You just,

you immediately feel two hands grip you from the back and lift you up.

And it's going to go ahead and take the throw action and throw you at Sam.

So with this,

you've watched suddenly as Squawk is lifted up.

That is going to be

only a 10 to hit you.

What's your evasion?

Nine.

Nine, so it does hit you.

You both take as part of this

10 points of damage to each of you.

You can use your armor to reduce it by one threshold if you want to, but that's 10 damage to each of you as you both

onto the ground.

I'm going to do my not in the face ability.

Okay.

Not in the face, not in the face.

And I'm going to mark a stress.

Mark a stress to reduce it by one threshold.

And I'm also going to, well, so if my minor damage is 11.

Yes.

And you gave me a 10 and I bring it down to 10, it still hits, right?

Well,

if it's 10 damage, your mind threshold is 11, you said?

Yeah.

That'd be one, that brings it to zero.

Okay, great.

So then, so perfect.

You're great.

Excellent.

But I, but I mark a stress.

Gotcha.

You got it.

Alrighty.

So after that throw is done, you announce that the entity is standing in front of you now.

It's arms gonna be

and the eyes begin to glow bright red.

What do you want to do?

All right, as my inventory weapon, I do have a shave trigger 38 that I've been carrying ever since that whole stalker incident.

You know, it's in the fountain.

Hello.

So I know.

So it is.

So I'd like to, I want to try to shoot him.

He's so strong.

What else can we do?

Tiny badass.

I mean, that'll probably work.

That's a little bit stronger than what I have.

Well, that's what I'm saying.

I mean, we have to pull out the big guns here.

I mean, it's not that big of a gun, but it's the biggest one we have.

Pull out the tiny badass.

Do it, do it, do it, do it.

As you pull out the gun and everyone reveals this, it kind of changes the perspective.

The audience has voted to give you all one hope.

So that's six hope from the pool.

You all gain one with two remaining if needed.

Thank you down the road.

We'll take it.

We'll take it.

Thank you.

thank you.

Thank you.

Oh my goodness.

Audience can give, audience can take away.

All right, so you pull out your hidden gun here that no one's noticed.

From the face of the gods.

Oh shit.

What are you doing?

We're liberating everyone.

I go to the range every weekend, okay?

Is that right?

They are brightening.

Like a red glow begins to emanate brighter and brighter from the eyes of this cyborg clone Logan.

Go ahead and take your roll for your shot.

Now, this is

the D6 plus 4.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So you roll the two dice, the 2d12 to see if you hit first.

Okay.

And you add, is that finesse on that one?

There we go.

Oh, you got a crit, hit!

Critical!

Out of the gate!

Out of the gate.

We got a crit.

So take a hope.

If you had a stress, you would clear that as well.

But that's an automatic success.

And here's the fun thing about the damage on a crit.

So what was it?

It's 2d6, you said?

Yes, 2d6 plus 4.

so you take maximum damage on that so that's 12 plus 4 which is 16 and then roll the dice on top of it oh

roll these dice again yeah roll the 2d6 you'll roll 2d6

that's all good wow that's great yeah

crits on on attacks are awesome yeah

nice seven all right so 16 plus seven that is going to be 23 points of damage

that is going to be that would be two hit points to the target it's going to go ahead and spend a stress.

As the bullet hits, you see this

wave of blue energy, a force field.

Sourcelessly, technology you've never understood.

Seems to slow the bullet down.

It still penetrates through and hits part of the shoulder, kind of carving open.

You can see now this like blue energy

sparking on the inside.

It still takes a hit point damage, but it reduced it through some sort of force field that seems to protect it.

But the gunshot rings out.

It's probably going to cause a little bit of chaos here around the lot, as immediately we can hear voices go, what, what?

Who's up next?

Miss Evelyn is definitely going to be on her way over here.

All right, so who wants to go next?

No.

No.

I'm going to run up.

Yeah.

Knowing that

probably I'm going to do as much damage as a gun.

I'm going to take out my primary weapon, which is a Trapper Keeper.

Yes.

And I'm going to take a swing.

I'm going to take a swing at his face.

Go ahead and roll.

I'm going to go.

You want to spend any of these bonuses here?

From the audience?

No, I'm going to save those.

All right.

I'm gonna save those for anyone else.

I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna use my own.

Let's go.

Oh, that's not awesome.

Oh, no, it's not that bad.

Okay, so, um, um, instinct plus two.

Okay, so we got eighth, tenth, limb, nope, three, four, fifteen, twenty.

Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, 17.

17 hits.

17 with hope.

With hope, take that hope and roll damage.

Oh, I forgot.

Okay.

Okay, 2d 10.

We can do it now.

Can I take?

Where's my 10?

Where's my tens?

Okay.

I'll just do this one too.

Alright, so we got eight, nine,

uh, twelve, that's five, seventeen points of damage.

17 points of damage.

That is still a trapper keeper.

It's a she keeps it.

I played softball.

There's a lot in there.

SAT press.

You rush up.

Whack!

It nearly knocks it off its feet, but that same force field seems to deflect some of the blow.

It's going to mark another stress to reduce the damage by one, so it only takes one hit point.

It impacts the head kind of off of the side.

And you can see now there's like part of the skin of Logan on this side of the face, and the rest is just this like exposed cyborg skull.

This kind of weird Terminator-esque sort of like it clicks back into place.

The voice now becoming more synthetic.

You will all be made obsolete.

You will be destroyed and forgotten.

I'm gonna go ahead and spend a fear

to activate immediately after you, even though it was on the spotlight was on you.

And I'm gonna go ahead and spend another fear to use its laser eyes sweep.

The eyes now

brighten up, and the head turns.

I'm just like,

and an arc of red laser just scoots through for all things in front of them in close range, which I'll say would be.

Wait.

Yeah.

I have a counting crow's CD in my cargo pants.

I bet I could use that to reflect the lasers back at him.

Oh my god.

Is it August and everything after?

It'll work.

It'll work.

Okay, okay.

All right, so what I'll do.

I'll say.

So this is great.

Go ahead and roll.

I will say either knowledge or finesse.

Your choice of these two as a reaction roll for you.

It'll still sweep across all of you, but this will help protect you for a moment and see if it can back you up.

I'm going to go.

Do I go with the one that I should have higher?

I'm going to go with knowledge.

I'll go with knowledge.

This is you kind of looking at the angle.

In that moment, it's sweeping by, looking at where you should hold the angle of the CD and where to place it to try and protect yourself.

Okay.

So this is going to be...

All right.

That's...

I rolled a six plus two.

It's an eight to hit.

Does that hit anybody's evasion?

Can I add scaling mockery to this?

If before she rolls it?

If you want to.

Does eight hit anyone's evasion?

What's your evasion?

Nine.

Nine.

Ten.

Eleven, yeah.

So you don't even need to.

Oh.

Because right now, and we'll say from a narrative standpoint, you pull out your counting crow's CD, and as the laser arc's about to happen, you step forward and hold it in place.

As it hits the edge of the CD, boom, it arcs in all all the directions.

It's a perfect blue building.

It carves all the way down.

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Incredible.

That finishes its turn.

It kind of looks frustrated and uncertain about how you you managed to pull that off, but it is back to you.

What would you like to do?

Casey, you're brilliant.

Brilliant.

That was amazing.

That was incredible.

I'm really sad, though, because that was my favorite CD, and now I have to go to Tower Records and buy another one.

We'll find you another one.

I'll find you another one.

You're carrying the stuff in your cup of the game.

Get out of here.

We gotta just run away.

So he's just coming after us now, laser on us.

I feel like he did an arc of lasers trying to get all of you, but it was deflected over here by Casey's savvy.

Should I just step up and try to knock this guy out, like for real?

With your with my baseball bat?

I got a baseball bat.

If you want to.

Hey, guess what?

Jody's Trapper Keeper is right now up for auction.

Go!

Let's go.

Ooh!

So, Sam, do you want to rush up there and take a swing?

Yeah, because we're going to go to the bottom.

We're going to get shot him.

Getting shot and got up.

Stop going.

I also love how we shot him once and then stop.

We got to go find Mr.

Myers.

Should we?

Oh, God.

You don't know what I can do with a baseball bat.

I keep it on me at all times.

So I'm going to walk up to him.

I'm going to take my baseball bat out of my baby backpack, and I'm going to beat this cyborg senseless.

Let's go.

Go ahead, Doug.

Do you want to take any bonuses from the community here?

Yes.

Yeah.

Take a bonus.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yes.

How many do you want to take?

We have currently 15.

Oh,

what do we do?

Oh, no, we didn't spend it earlier, did we?

So we stalled 20, technically.

You didn't spend it on that roll.

Well, he did.

No, he did.

The first roll was horrible.

Yeah.

Oh, right.

You did spend it.

No, I think we'll bring it down to two for you.

Yeah, but we maxed out.

Yeah, we went to two.

So we tried to really.

Yeah, let's grab another two.

Yeah, let's try to nail it.

Yeah, two.

Yeah, yeah.

Two more.

Two more?

Two more.

Sure.

Okay.

Take a plus two we're gonna take two from that

okay uh nine and uh six that's 15 with hope 15 with hope that's a success

to take a hope and go ahead and roll damage for that baseball bat as you rush up and

crack heavy hit on the cyborg's head and shoulders hold on damage is six

is this correct yeah okay

two

Let's go

seven.

Seven points of damage total.

Yeah.

All right, that is gonna be a hit point on on it.

It's not going to reduce that.

A heavy crack.

You watch the head kind of snap at the side.

It's starting to look a little, starting to serve some damage, some wear and tear.

Like, it's still holding strong, but it's not immune to your assaults.

And for a moment, it seems to almost halt for a second at the impact before it writes itself angrily at you.

The audience.

I'm still an adult.

No, they're useless.

No.

Okay.

Sorry, I'm not an adult.

Come on.

It's true.

It's true.

It's true.

We're all here.

Okay, can I use, can I use, because I'm a big computer hacker.

I'm really into that.

Yeah.

Can I use my

knowledge to see if there's anything that I might know about a weakness in the neck or like anything that I'm seeing?

Go ahead and make a knowledge roll.

A knowledge roll for me is you inspect the now exposed part of the case.

Yeah, because I might recognize a wire or something that is a weak.

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking.

All right, knowledge is plus three.

I rolled 18 plus three.

18 plus three is great.

With hope or fear?

Fear.

Fear.

Okay, good to know.

So, that's all good?

So you glancing at it, this technology, like you're familiar with, you know, this is Unix.

I know this.

You know, you're looking at the machine.

The intricacy of the electronics that are exposed is strange to you.

It's advanced to a degree that you're like, there's no port of entry for cables from what you can see.

It's like bio-organic in an odd way.

And there are like sort of strange exoskeleton shell parts to it that are beyond most of the sci-fi that you've read.

This is some government-level technology, probably.

You could try to to look for other ports but at the current moment most of its body is still kind of meh it would probably need to take more damage to try and find something to do so guys we got to get out of here how far away are we from it uh right now you're about 15 feet from it you're all like right around it and you've all been kind of closing in on its current position

is there a way to get is there a way for me to get around it in any way is any yeah you can just you can just run around it if you want it's not moving anywhere all right i'm gonna try i'm gonna try working my way around it i'm gonna try to be circumspect about it you know yeah yeah it's like it's you see like one eye like track you as you move, but it doesn't seem to react at all.

Okay, so

I'm trying to get up behind it.

Yeah.

And once I get up behind it, I'm gonna pop both my stilettos

into the side of the neck.

That's good.

Let's give it a shot.

Meisner paying off.

Wow, right.

He is 24 in this market.

It's just what it is, both in the side of the neck.

Let's go.

He is.

I also have the power of the Nepo Baby.

I don't know if that matters to this robot.

Tell me how the Nepo Baby experience helps you against this technological market.

Here's how

it helps you in life.

So my second uncle is Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was in RoboCon.

Terminator.

Spend that.

So there you go.

You've watched this enough.

I've watched Terminator and

with my family.

Yeah.

He's my family.

Absolutely.

I love it.

Spend that hope and add that Nepo Baby bonus to your attack.

God.

It's literally like wheaten.

It's

six with

unfortunately with fear.

But I add three, so it's nine with fear.

It is.

All right, so nine with fear, unfortunately.

But wait, I'm also going to

add.

Yeah, so

no, I can't do that.

No, it's just nine with fear.

Yeah.

Okay, nine with fear.

That is a failure with fear.

You go and you go and sneak up from behind, and the head swivels around.

And technically, I would have taken a spotlight after you because you roll with fear, so I'll take two in a row for this one.

As it spins around and looks at you.

Oh, hello.

Yep.

First, I'm just going to go ahead and it's going to go ahead and just take its giant metal fist and

try and punk you right.

Not in the face.

I'm hitting not in the face.

You can.

That's going to be a 17 to hit you, which I think does.

It does.

So you take, from the impact, let's see what we've got here.

That is...

Oh, no.

11 points of damage as it just clocks you right into the jaw, but you put up your hands in time to try and prevent it and kind of take it mostly to the forearms.

So then, yeah, I don't take any damage, right?

Because it goes

from 11 to 10.

Correct.

And 11 is my...

Yes.

So the second spotlight there is going to go from the earlier one does.

It's going to go ahead and let's see.

It's been around.

And with each of these hits, I'm getting a fear because of its momentum reaction.

So I'm just adding that would be two there.

And then it's going to go ahead and with unnatural speed,

you watch it kind of like, it kind of darts between a bunch of you.

And as you've been kind of like backing up from this,

it appears with an...

incredible burst of speed that both lets you know that there's no way to outrun this, but also it's now refocused itself on you.

And it's going to go ahead and mark its last stress to grab and crush you

That's going to be a 12 to hit to hit your armor class.

Yeah, well I have a 12 evasion so so that does hit you exactly.

Okay, yeah, already and so as far as damage goes here you take

16 points of damage as it you guys watch as it rushes up to Lucas grabs him by the throat lifts him off the air and then

begins to just squeeze his throat.

Lucas!

Okay, okay, look it's better to reduce that a few points too.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Oh, Oh, so I spend one armor.

Gotcha.

In my fanny pack, I have my pet tarantula.

So, what if I take him out and just

maybe he's never, maybe this creature, whatever it is, has never seen anything like that.

I could just hold it up and try to distract him.

And maybe scare him?

You're gonna scare the sideboard?

I mean, it seems to have some kind of intelligence, so it might be curious about what this creature is and just kind of forget about Lucas for a minute.

Try it, try it, try it.

We have to try it.

Hold on, throw it!

Throw the jumpy shit out at him!

Try it, anyway!

Just throw the spider at his head.

Yes?

No!

It's my cunt!

You just have to become its friend.

Wait a minute.

Wait a minute.

Karen.

Karen.

Whatever.

Do you have any water in those cargo pants?

Yes.

Maybe we need to throw water on the robot.

I like the body.

Oh, that's a good idea.

I get that.

Alright.

Let's shorten it.

We need to short circuit it.

Yes, yes, because I dance.

That was a good idea.

Short certainly.

Forget the spider.

Let's short circuit the robot.

Brilliant.

Great idea.

Do it.

Great idea.

Do it.

So

when I was at Craft Service, I definitely took water bottles for each one of us.

Absolutely.

And you fit them all in your master car.

I did, I did.

Hell yeah.

I love it.

Water bottles, not crystal Pepsi?

Yes.

Crystal Pepsi would have saved us.

It always was.

All right.

So, um...

Yeah, I want to just point and spray with the water bottles.

All right.

I would say go ahead and make a finess roll for me to see if you can.

Finesse or agility.

I'll say your choice on that one.

To try and see if you can aim this towards some of the damaged areas, the parts where its exoskeleton had been carved open by the bullet fire, by the baseball bat striking the side of its head, and see if you can get it properly there.

Oh no, I'm just like, come on, I can't run.

Will you someone move?

We might have to move.

Okay,

12.

I'm gonna go with 15.

15 succeeds?

Yes, it does.

Okay, it does.

So, as you fire the water and kind of splash it into these areas, it sinks in for a second.

And you see it kind of like still holding Lucas up.

Its head kind of looks over towards you.

One eye

kind of sputters out and the head

sparks begin to flow.

I need you to roll 3D20 for me.

Sam, it's working.

It's working.

Oh, my gosh.

3D20.

Okay.

Okay, two sixes.

And a 19.

Okay, that is far beyond its severe threshold.

So it takes three hit points as it begins to short out from the exposed interior circuitry and the amounts of water put into it.

It's now like holding Lucas in the air, but its body's

one eye is still kind of functioning, the other one's kind of darkening and coming in.

It's on the edge.

It's trying to get under Lucas, like shoulder to try to spend it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, try and catch him.

Catch him.

I'm going to spend a fear first to try and take its one good eye and do one more sweep of its laser eye towards all of you.

I'm also going to spend another fear to do so.

I have a VHS tape of pulp fiction in my bag.

Wow, between that and the tarantula, we're safe.

Can I hold that?

You can't certainly try.

If it was a laserness, I think I'd be able to save it.

That's going to be a 19, which hits all of you.

So

now, because it's lost one eye, it's only doing half the damage.

So

you all take eight points of energy damage as the I-beam scoots across everyone but you

because you're in front of it I'm just using air you get a hit point unless you want to use an army armor to reduce it by one to reduce it oh yeah no no so if it's an eight but it doesn't if it hits your doesn't hit your minor it still counts as damage I don't know yeah so so if it's below your minor it's just one point

gotcha gotcha gotcha between your minor your major okay I'm gonna sorry so sorry if it's if it's below your major then it's one hit point if it's it's equal to or above your major then it's two and if it's above your severe then it's three gotcha so as the as the one good laser laser ice streaks past all of you and hits you all,

on that point,

you all also mark a stress from the laser impact.

But it is on the edge of losing itself at this point.

Stress?

Who would like to go?

Well,

how mobile am I right now?

I mean, you're inspired through, but your arms are over.

I'm trying to get underneath you to try to get so you're not getting choked.

I'm going for my yo-yo.

I got my yo-yo attack.

I'm going to go.

Great idea.

Let's go.

Are you helping him or go?

I'm trying to help.

So spend a hope.

Great.

You're helping him by getting underneath.

So go ahead and make your attack roll and add a D6 to it from the health.

All right, Alan.

Whenever I mark a stress, I gain a hope.

Wait, before...

If I do, my next action roll uses a D20 for the fear guy.

That's beautiful.

So likely to succeed, though, with fear.

Let's go for it.

Can I, wait.

Can I embarrass the target, giving them a minus two penalty to their difficulty?

Or does it help?

If you want to, spend three hope to do that.

Oh, man.

That's capable of embarrassment.

There's one way to find out.

You wanna do that?

I'm doing it.

All right, so you spend three hope to use your hope feature?

Yes.

How do you...

I want to help Lucas.

Okay, so as this is happening, what do you say to this cyborg to try and embarrass it?

I look at the cyborg in the face, and I'm like,

like we say in show business, don't call us.

We'll call you.

Oh, babe!

The other eye kind of flickers.

It's less the statement and more the reaction from all of you that makes it feel ashamed it doesn't fully understand from this human interaction.

And as this is happening, that moment of distraction, you seize your opportunity, plot your high-anxiety yoga attack!

I use my high- Oh!

God!

You added D6 to it because of her help, right?

Okay, so I'm rolling finesse, right?

So that's so, oh, I added D6 to it.

I don't know.

Go on.

Wait, the d6.

7 plus 6 plus

2.

So what's that?

Yeah.

13 plus 2 is 15.

15.

14 minus 2 because that would be 12.

So that definitely succeeds.

Yeah!

With fear?

What?

With fear.

He was

very embarrassed.

Who's replaced now?

With hope.

Okay, there you go.

There was only 3 and it was a D20.

It's a little swingy.

All right.

And then my damage is 2d6 plus 5.

4, so 9.

It only has one hit point left.

How do you want to do this?

Yeah!

Describe to me how you destroy it with your yo-yo.

Stay golden, pony.

And I whip out my yo-yo as fast as I can.

I get a whole like extra twirl in it and I go right into the open wound in his neck right there.

And I just

aiming to lodge it in there.

Smoke spills out from its head and it shuts down.

Its arm kind of weakens and leaves you there for a second, and then it kind of just stands there still, non-functioning.

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Subject to change.

Are you ready to get spicy?

These Doritos Golden Sriracha aren't that spicy.

Sriracha?

Sounds pretty spicy to me.

Um, a little spicy, but also tangy and sweet.

Maybe it's time to turn up the heat.

Or turn it down.

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Try Dorito's Golden Sriracha.

Spicy.

But not too spicy.

That's like the third weirdest thing I've seen today.

Oh my god.

That was crazy.

Lucas, does this happen here all the time?

I yank my yo-yo out of his neck.

So do you think we're all gonna get replaced with robots like that?

It's just you.

As you yank the yo-yo out of its neck, you watch it had a like on its normal clothing that still mostly stands.

It had in its pocket something that clatters out.

It looks like a VHS tape.

Like,

it hits the ground.

What is that?

Somebody grab that.

It's a movie.

Tiny doctor.

Tiny doctor.

Go get that.

All right.

Is somebody going to talk about the fact that she has a gun?

She's carrying a gun.

She's pretty wild.

Awesome.

Wait, we don't have to carry that on set.

It's a security thing.

Now, we need a VHS player.

We were going to find a VCR.

They're everywhere.

What do you do?

They're everywhere.

Yeah.

There are CRT.

Yeah, our VHS is like.

Hold on, guys, we got to search this.

His

whole body.

Yeah, me too.

I want to do

as you begin doing so.

You hear this.

Get away from me.

Inside.

You all go to rush out of the way as it self-destructs and scatters pieces everywhere.

Because you were closest.

I need you to make an agility reaction roll for me.

Oh, no.

Wait, but he was on my shoulders.

Correct.

So you would also make it as well.

Okay.

Where's my other?

Okay, so I need two.

Come on.

So my hope is the yellow one.

Wow, it's a critical success.

Oh!

Which is fine.

It's a reaction roll, so you don't get any fear or distress from it, but that is a success.

All right, I got 18 with fear.

Both of you succeed.

Great.

So you manage to dodge and leap out of the way before any of the shrapnel hits you.

The smoke dissipates, and as you kind of get up and kind of, you know, look down, you still have the VHS functional to you, and you look over, and there are some other crew and people walking by to kind of glance over.

Just keep going about their workday.

We gotta watch this tape.

Yeah, we gotta go find a VCR.

I've got one in my dressing room.

All right, let's go.

Let's go.

I was watching pulp fiction before lunch.

You're so cool.

I know.

I'm not allowed to watch that yet.

So here in the late afternoon, as you can just barely make out like the beginnings of sunset, you begin to quietly gather yourselves, uncertain of who's a friend or not, and how are there more of these in the studio?

Who knows?

You gather over to your dressing room, and there inside, you find your television and VHS player at your disposal.

You pop in the tape and press play.

If anyone wants smarties, go for it.

And here's what you see.

is happening over at FRC Studios.

Okay?

I'm like the third child actor to be replaced off his own show in a week.

And what's worse than that is the child actor they got to replace me is creeping me out.

I mean, he's not even good at playing a real person, let alone portraying my character.

I don't know what Mr.

Pearson's thinking.

Anyway,

I managed to swipe something off of this replacement,

but I can't figure out what it does.

So I'm hoping that you'll have better luck at figuring it out than I did.

Anyway,

this whole thing has got me wigging out.

If you find this video,

maybe it'll make for a good horror movie.

Anyway,

I'm gonna keep looking into this.

Wish me luck.

Guys,

I always loved Joey Lawrence.

He too, he was my favorite of the Lawrence brothers.

Guys,

this is crazy.

They're coming for all of their creators.

Wait, he said he got something off of the body?

What did he get?

He did not!

You

find out!

You didn't go back and check the recently exploded body of the entity.

We'll say for the sake of brevity, you go back quickly and rush over to find it.

It's now getting darker and darker in the sky, and it's nearly nighttime at this point.

You go and inspect the body, and there's a piece of material that does not match

the remnants of the cyborg.

It's a strange disc-like piece of metal.

And as you kind of look it over and kind of flick it, you see a strange flash of like blue energy almost like a bubble around it as you acquired an advanced force field.

Sweet!

Alright, while this is in your possession and you take damage, you can spend any number of hope to mark any number of stress to reduce the severity of the damage by one threshold per hope spent or stress marked.

Wow.

When this object is used, roll 1d6 on a 5 to 6, the GM gains a fear.

Alright.

Hold on to that.

A force field, guys?

Yeah.

Do you use that multiple times or is that like a one-time thing?

When this is in your possession, and you take damage.

So...

Lucas, I'm happy for you.

Yeah.

Who else do you just think it's been replaced?

Well, I don't even know.

I would say you, but you don't actually have a job.

I'm this close to getting the role, okay?

It's basically mine.

Wait, then why are you on set?

That's a good question that we don't have time to answer right now.

So why don't we figure out who's been replaced?

It's his family connections.

He just.

He sneaks on.

He just hangs out all the time.

And he's always asking for a lot of people.

Just

waiting for someone to give you a job.

That's a great idea.

I'm Bette Midler's granddaughter.

So.

Bet Midler's granddaughter and Terminator is your great uncle?

Yeah, my family is

connected.

So ridiculous.

You're connected?

Why is he like this?

So

Hollywood.

Part of a famous Hollywood family.

Okay.

I can't believe

he's part of Halloween.

I'm not sure if I can do it.

I think Steve Gutenberg's his uncle.

That's the only thing I can.

Steve Gutenberg is also my uncle.

See, it's always something

to.

Yeah, did I get you the tickets?

Yes, but Anthony Keatus is not your uncle or your brother.

He's not.

He's my second cousin, like I told you, which is how I got you the ticket.

Okay, I think we need to go tell somebody.

Who?

Who can we trust?

Maybe we could...

Maybe we could go tell Myers.

That's what I'm doing.

Or maybe we could go tell.

Myers?

He works for Pearson.

Yeah, but why is he going to help us?

Maybe, maybe.

Maybe I'll tell you.

I don't know.

Oh, maybe I can.

Maybe Miss Evelyn.

Wait a minute.

No, wait, but sh.

Didn't she.

Yes, maybe Miss Evelyn will be able to do it.

Well, you just want to go talk to her.

You just want to see Miss Evelyn.

That's weird.

She might be able to help us.

What's happening with Vanessa?

Why was she drinking?

Does she know something?

She's a director.

I know, but has she been drinking the whole time?

She seems stressed.

I think she's going through a divorce.

She is always stressed, but you're right.

It was a little over the top even for her.

What's your relationship like with her?

She's directed like 20 episodes.

Well, you know, I just try to be perfect and do everything that she wants, exactly how she wants.

I mean, but she's never that happy.

You can't make her happy.

Oh my god, do you think maybe she asked Pearson to do this?

So that all the performances would just be perfect.

Maybe?

You know what I mean?

She knows.

Maybe she knows that we're all being replaced and she's only going to have to direct cyborgs from now on.

And they get extra hours.

And they don't have to worry about helping them.

And they don't have to go to school.

They don't need social work.

Because she disappeared right before this whole thing went down.

We have to ask her.

And right before that weirdo kid showed up.

It actually sounds like a pretty good idea.

People would save money by using these cyberspace.

No, no, no.

Karen?

No.

No.

No, sorry.

Sorry.

Sorry.

You can't.

You think you're going to get another youth and film award once you're replaced by a cyborg?

Come on.

It's Karin.

No.

Thank you, Paloma.

I actually am a really big fan of yours.

I am too.

At Paloma, I got a question.

When you originally got the script for your show, did you think it was just about a really small doctor?

Maybe, yeah.

A small podiatrist.

Yeah, I thought maybe it was like honey.

I was showing the kids.

Yeah, the guy really turned out she wasn't easy.

What do you think a podiatrist is?

Are you kidding me?

It's a race car driver.

That's what I thought.

Okay, I just.

Vanessa.

Hide.

Hide.

Wait.

Get under my couch.

Hide.

One coffee table.

Go in my closet.

Go get some clothes.

Yeah, what's up?

I'm changing.

Hal?

I'm a little worried, kids.

Hey, I saw you wandering around.

I heard a gunshot and a lot of noises.

And then

some weird shit going on.

I'm scared.

Come in.

Hal's drawing.

I'm not gonna let him go.

I'm just gonna let him go.

Hal's gonna get replaced so quickly.

I'll talk to him.

I'll talk to him.

Come on in, Hal.

The door opens, and Hal's there, and there's two security guards behind him.

He goes,

Sorry,

I gotta make rent, and steps away.

The two security guards kind of stand in the doorway as Hal begins to walk away.

These two kind of studio-suited figures stand there.

Hello, it's been coming to our attention that you've been meddling in executive affairs, and you are to be

taken in for custody and

generally asked questions as to whether or not you're part of this growing conspiracy.

What are you talking about?

Are you calling me?

We've been hanging out in here, watching stuff on her TV.

That's fine.

You can watch it afterward.

But for the time being, we're going to have to take you into the private executive suite and keep you all under lock and key until the police arrive.

I'm afraid

they get sushi in the executive suite, but I'm not sure.

No, I thought that

we need to call our lawyers first because we're not going to be questioned without representation.

That's our constitutional right.

Make a presence role.

Good, good, good, good, good, good.

Thank you.

Thank you.

No, we've got a lot of people.

As a note here, too, you can take any bonuses.

We now have 21 bonuses to add to rolls here.

You can pull from, and we currently have 10 re-rolls at your disposal.

Oh!

Thank you.

Thank you.

He tabs that.

So we can spend those as we go.

What do you think?

I mean, presence is plus three already.

That's good.

Yeah, yeah.

Do you want to use any of those or let's use a few?

Two, two.

Two.

Okay, so it'll be plus five.

Yeah, let's do that.

Ooh, nice.

13 with hope.

Plus five, 18.

Oh,

take that hope.

Do you want to re-roll?

Are you happy with what you got?

Capstick sticks to the five.

All right.

Oh, oh, okay.

Alrighty.

You see, one of the security guards looks at the other and kind of answered.

Is that how it works?

Like,

technically, legally, they do have counsel as children.

There's a whole bunch of weird laws with child actors.

I don't really fully understand.

So best not to, you know, mess with things.

I don't want to get fired.

That's a good accent.

You from Indiana, too?

No, I'm from Jersey.

Why?

Oh,

sound like you're from Indiana.

I'm working.

I saw him.

Just I got a good ear for these things.

So, all right.

Well, uh, all right, well, Mikael, we'll we'll wait until they reach out the representation and then we'll take them in, I think, is how it works, right?

Yeah, totally.

Uh,

closes the door, and they both kind of stay with their backs against the opposite sides.

You're now stuck chained.

So we're in the room with them, yes.

Okay.

Oh, they're no, no, they're inside the room with them.

No, they're outside the room.

Is there there a bathroom with a window?

Yes, there's

only a thing.

The bathroom.

The vent.

We're going to have to throw you through it.

You're the smallest.

Do we need to ask if there's a bathroom with a vent?

Or can we say that there's a bathroom with a vent?

You can ask me.

It's up to you.

Is there a bathroom with a vent?

There is a bathroom, and there isn't a window that exits, but there is a vent that leads into

an air vent that

probably leads to an eventual place.

I think we can all fit in.

I'm not sure if we can all fit in like this.

Not at once, but an individual file.

You can certainly try.

Is there a phone in the dress room?

Did you pay your phone bill?

Is there a phone in the dress room?

Now we're kind of whispering to each other on the opposite side of the door.

If there's anyone, we should call them.

We gotta move, guys.

Yeah, we gotta.

What if we have somebody call?

We put on a fake voice, pretend to be their boss, and draw them away from the door.

That's a great

idea.

How do we call?

How do we call them?

I don't know.

Okay.

Well, I do have a phone call.

Wait, look at the stage phone.

Just call down to the stage and somebody will go find them.

Oh, yeah, it's a good idea.

I have an ability

where i can do impressionist oh

so maybe in my pockets i have i have like

and and and um if i can mark a stress i can don the facade of any humanoid

um while disguised you have advantage on presence rolls to avoid scrutiny so um

okay wait place a number of tokens equal to your skill craft trait okay my skill craft trait i think is knowledge okay so we've got two.

So do you want to take any more bonuses?

You got re-rolls to use twos if you want.

Okay, so maybe I'll take two.

All right, take a plus two.

And then can I also use

my experience youth and film award

to

you again?

You had a cry on cue.

Yeah.

Okay, wait, so I can mark a stress.

Okay, wait, wait.

When you utilize an experience, you can mark a stress instead of hope.

So I'm going to mark a stress.

And if you do, double your experience modifier for that role.

Correct.

So that'll be a plus six.

Correct.

Now, here's a fun thing.

I'm going to throw it here too.

The audience has voted with their dollars to give four of you, your choice amongst you, to add plus two permanently to one of your experiences.

Throwing this in now.

You can take them now or you can take them later.

But if up to four of you want to take a plus two to an experience, now's the time to spend them.

Who's got negatives?

Oh, but we're talking about our experience.

Oh, experience.

So, I'm thinking because of experience,

robots and stuff, like we should focus on computer hacking, computer skills.

And I already have plus three, so that would give me plus five.

Yes.

All right, that's a question.

One question for that?

I have photographic memory and horseback riding.

My dad was a handyman, so he's really good with tools and taking apart stuff.

I can do that.

I'm gonna take apart posters all the time.

All right, so take a plus two to Handyman if you want to do that.

Eliza Minelli is his second cousin.

No, no, that is not good to go off her.

No, no, no.

I've got chemistry and lifelong residence at the Oakwood.

Jesus Christ, what have I done?

Chemistry's good.

I don't know how life is.

Chemistry can be used for a lot of stuff.

She's the queen of the Oakwood.

That's why I was getting a racket from her.

I've got chemistry plus three, so do plus five.

So plus five to that.

And did you want to take a

look at your

pluses, pluses?

Should I do photographic memory?

If you want to, yeah.

Go for it.

Yeah, do it, do it, do it.

Alrighty.

Yeah, because you can remember that.

You can remember all the infra workings of

everything else.

You want to do it.

Like any sort of manual.

All the manual.

All right, so you begin to gather things.

What are you trying to make?

Gather stuff up.

Okay.

I could act like.

Are you going to be Pearson?

I could be Pearson.

I could try to be Vanessa.

I could try to be Miss Evelyn.

I think Pearson.

Pearson, be Pearson.

Okay, to tell them

there's an emergency on stage six

and they're needed over there.

There's a crisis.

They're the kids.

Leave the kids.

Because she's an impressionist.

Remember and they're new kids.

Somebody's got to go back.

I'm sorry.

I want a youth.

How are you going to be Mr.

Pearson in here?

I am talking to them out there.

I have a bald cap in my pocket.

You see this?

So impressionists.

So

no,

I will put on a bald cap because I have all of this in my pocket.

Please dress.

I will put on a fake beard.

Got it.

As you're rummaging through, by the way, you also uncover things that you'd forgotten were in your dressing room because the audience has

five healing items.

So

we'll say that's three slam jam beef sticks.

If anyone wants to mark that down, and two packs of gummy bears.

For everybody?

No, just amongst you, just share.

So you guys decide who has one.

Here and there and everywhere.

You guys can decide who gets...

So there's three slam jams.

Slam jams?

You know the excitement?

Slap into a slam jam.

Slap into a slam jam.

That is the actual phrase.

Does it matter who has which?

Like, if you have the gummy bears,

you just mark down that you have one, and then you can mark down another one if you are the one that carries.

I'm confused.

Sorry.

Do we have to?

We have to decide who gets the new stuff.

Right.

So you have that there as a point of reference.

I've always written down.

I mean, I only have one hit point taken away.

Me too.

Who's hurt the most?

I got one.

My problem is only have one hip stress.

Are there stress?

Does the gummy bears take away stress?

Two hit points?

Yeah,

I have three stress.

I have a beef stick.

I have three stresses.

Yeah, you, yeah.

I don't need, I mean, it says this thing says clear 1d4 stress.

I only have one stress, so I don't think I need it.

I'm gonna take a gummy baz if that's okay.

Can you get it later?

Yeah, yeah.

Does anybody mind if I take a gummy baz?

You have a gummy stick.

Take it.

Take it, guys.

What is it?

So, what is a gummy baz take away?

One stress?

1d4 stress.

1d4.

I'm going to have a beef stick.

You got it.

Thanks.

You should.

You've earned it.

Stress.

Oh, three.

Great.

Have you figured out?

Have you finished your discussion?

Can we take you to the

holding area now?

All right, so um goodbye, sir.

I'm gonna walk out.

Thanks for the good news.

Hello, Mr.

Pearson.

Hello, uh, gentlemen.

What are you doing here?

I know it's weird that I'm in this bathroom with all these kids.

Don't mind me.

What are you doing?

What are you doing here?

I would like you to make a present stroll for me.

Would you like to add anything to this?

you want to take any bonuses to this and you can take re-rolls if you'd like to i will tell you this is a very high difficulty because you are you are a child actor passing yourself off as the executive of the studio

however

it's not impossible but this is what this is the time to start spending some stuff

can we help her by doing like one of you can help her by spending yeah yeah i want to help how do you want to help spend a hope to help her i'm going to spend a hope and and and and

get in character and be like, oh, Mr.

Pearson, thanks for the, you know,

thanks for that really great help.

Yeah, that helping me out with the acting.

Listen, it's what I do.

I really like to be hands-on.

Yeah.

Really appreciate it.

That's probably not the thing to say in the bathroom with all of us.

I'd like to be...

I'd like to.

Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah.

Anything you're going to say doesn't sound right.

All right, so you get to address it.

Mr.

Pearson's been a little sick lately, so he's feeling a little under the weather.

I ate a little weird.

Yeah.

Okay, so we got, we got.

Come along.

So I have.

You have 22 plus ones to choose from if you want to use any of these.

Okay, so I'll use, I'll use, I'll use two on five.

Use five?

Okay, I'll use five.

I mean, spent a second.

Yeah, because I spent a hope.

A D6 on top of this.

Five, so I get a D6 plus five on this.

Plus

plus three twice, so that's a six.

So I get a plus eleven to start.

Yes.

Plus eleven to this roll.

That's enough, right?

So

okay.

10.

Okay, so 10 with hope so far.

Okay.

Plus one.

Okay, so 11 plus, did I say, plus 6, 17?

Yeah.

Plus.

Wait, that's it.

17?

Well, it was 11, you said it was the bonuses.

And then it was 11.

So it's 11 plus 11.

Oh, yeah, that's right.

That's right.

That's right.

I think that's enough.

Would you like to re-roll?

It seems like he said it's going to be super high.

Yeah.

I want to reroll it.

I'm trying to get away with the season reroll.

Spend a re-roll.

So I can spend a re-roll.

How many re-rolls do we have?

You have currently 12.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, my God.

Okay, okay.

Okay, okay.

Come on, big money.

Come on, big money.

All right, Karn, come on, Karn.

Okay.

That's what Kudu says.

So gave it a second.

So take a hope and clear a stress.

Take a hope and clear stress.

Okay.

Wait, do we all take a hope from?

No, just me.

So there's a moment where the two security guys step back and they both look at each other like.

Oh,

Mr.

Pearson, I'm sorry you're not feeling it.

What are you doing here?

You should be out by the...

You sent us to go retrieve the kids.

Huh?

You sent us to retrieve the kids

to bring them under

the building, but

I came to do it myself.

He's got us, okay?

So we can go away now.

He placed us all under arrest.

Yeah, we're fine.

We're going to talk about the kids.

That's impressive, Mr.

Pearson.

Can you please go to the gate?

Because there's people trying to break in to.

There's the tiny podiatrist stalkers here.

Does this mean your private meeting in your office is over?

The private meeting.

We're going to do that at another time.

All right, so we'll send the detail out to make sure nobody gets in.

Got it.

Yeah, I'll do that.

I'll do it as a detail.

I don't think we need the detail.

I really don't.

I don't think we need the security detail in the private meeting.

You're just going to go back to the state.

You do not need the security at the private detail.

You need to go to the front gate.

We're going to go.

Yeah, go to gate number three and make sure that tiny podiatrist stalker does not make it in.

Yeah, please.

Yeah, and we got to go back to that front.

This is Mr.

Pearson, and you're not needed here.

Understood.

Thank you, guys.

Squat kid?

Yes, great actor.

Fantastic actor.

Probably going to be an outsider.

Meisner.

Meisner.

I don't know.

He was kind of shaky in the last two projects.

Oh, I'm not sure.

Anyway, well, I'll card you.

I'll do my best, Mr.

Pearson.

The executive detail is a little intense.

Yeah, we don't need the executive detail.

Thank you, sir.

Have a good night.

Nudges the other guy's like, oh, yes, have a good night.

Good luck.

And they both kind of dart off, kind of looking at you like, what the fuck just happened?

Oh, my God.

Bye.

Bye.

Have a good night.

Man, you deserve that, youth and so much.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait, wait, wait, wait.

I forgot.

Did I lie?

I misplaced my set of keys for around the whole, my, my key set for all of the studio.

We need the master key.

Give me the key, master key.

Give me the master key.

You lost your mastered.

I need you to make another presence roll for me, please.

Okay, okay.

You're on the edge of freedom.

Pull them right back in.

I know, wait, wait, wait.

I have keys.

We can have a key.

Wait, what did you say it was?

Presence.

Presence roll?

Yes, do you want to take any more bonuses in this one?

Yeah,

I'm going to use my youth and film award again.

Yeah.

So that'll be a plus six.

And then I'll use stress.

She always uses that.

And then do you want to add some too?

Yeah, okay.

I've got a bunch.

I've got.

How many left?

No.

Ooh, the audience gave me a bunch of fear.

Thank you.

Oh, yay!

What are you doing?

What are you doing?

I'm just going to take three fear and put it up here for now.

All right, I'm going to roll this.

Oh, that's so terrible okay um um take a re-roll second reroll okay okay all right so second reroll used

all right

okay that's very good um 14 plus yes um with hope um um no um right nine nine plus twelve

oh twenty one with hope so 21 yeah 21 plus 6 27 um

27 27.

Are you happy with that?

I don't know.

Oh, yes, you're right.

27, 27.

Oh, no, because that's the presence roll.

Oh.

27.

27.

Sorry.

I'm happy with that.

Okay.

I'm happy with that.

Are we happy?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay, okay.

Sir,

I'm sorry.

I don't have the access that you do to the building.

I can give you my standard entry key.

That's fine, that's fine.

It'll get you in the door, but I won't get.

All right, here, sir.

I'll.

But what about you?

It's like, I have the same card, sir.

I wouldn't have anything to offer to you.

That's fine.

I'll put in a request for replacement in the morning.

Good night, Mr.

Pearson.

Okay, yeah.

And they dart off there.

No, I think you're right.

It was Pearson who sent them to come get us.

Yeah.

We just said it was Pearson.

Wait, wait, wait, having to go.

We got to go get a Pearson's private meeting.

What's happening at his private meeting?

That's where we got to go.

We got to go find out.

Now we have keys.

Okay, keys.

But she can't be Pearson to go see Pearson.

We'll just go spy on him.

Find out who he's meeting with.

She's got to use the noble one.

She could be anything.

Oh my God, it was you.

Kid, we knew it was me.

You're good, though.

She was really good.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Thank you so much.

She's one of the joy.

Gives you all an additional hope from the audience.

In the wake of the success of that absurd performance, which definitely earned that award.

No.

So, what do you want to do?

All right, so I'm assuming we know where Mr.

Pearson's office is.

You know where the executive building is.

Executive.

It's a three-story building that's kind of on the northeastern side of the lot.

You've only probably been in there a couple times, and it's often been paraded amongst shareholders and such.

Not a great experience, and it's been a while, so.

Don't you think they're gonna obviously looking for us?

What are we gonna sneak there under the cover of day?

Actually, right now, it is right.

Oh, are we gonna sneak there under the cover of dust?

That works perfectly.

That's awesome.

We just gotta find out what's going on, right?

I mean, he was probably meeting with somebody, like, that's that's you know,

what if he was meeting with whoever brought the robot?

That's what it's got.

That's what you gotta find out.

Okay, listen, I've got a bunch of extra backwards hats.

I collect them.

Cool.

I'm going to give them to each of you.

Wait, wouldn't they just be hats?

No, you have to.

Have you seen my juffle gangers?

No, there's no a backwards shot.

It's just a backwards.

It's just a pet.

That would just be a hat.

We have fun.

We will finally take your hat and maybe wear them backwards.

No, if you try to wear them frontways, it just disappears.

You don't want to just

show me backwards hats.

I mean, isn't it a beanie?

She said beanie.

Oh, my God.

But this will be a disguise for all of us.

I don't know, man.

We're kids on the lot.

I don't think we need to.

I mean.

If we all wear the backwards baseball hats, I've got my catcher's mask.

We can just look like we're the cast of that Sandlot movie.

Salot 2 movie.

It's the Sandlot 8.

This time is personal.

Yeah, it's the Sand Lot 8.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

This time is personal.

Okay, great script.

Let's try it.

It was so good.

It was so good.

I read it.

Yeah, great script.

I don't get cast on the sports movie.

You're killing me, Biggs.

You killed me.

Yeah, you're killing me, Biggs.

Yeah.

Yeah, they brought it back.

Now, I do have a doctor's coat that I can put on over my scrubs.

I also, in my bag of stuff, I have a fake ID, too.

She's like, gun and a fake ID.

She's so you fall asleep doing a gun and a fake ID.

She's so hot.

I'm an actor.

I'm an actor.

Of course, I have those things.

What else would I have?

She's a little bit of a drink.

She's the queen of the clubhouse at Oakwood's.

You should see it.

People just, she's there every night hanging out.

All the cool older kids.

Yeah.

Born in there.

Yeah.

The Southbird certificate.

Time to South.

You hear

a flare somewhere in the distance.

Which gives you the sense that there's something,

some sort of awareness amongst the lot.

The sheer impact of it shakes you to your core for what you're currently going towards.

The audience voted for all view to market hit point.

Oh,

as you all market hit point?

We all mark a hit point.

This is the your

bravery and sense of purpose kind of taking a hit as you kind of steal yourself into the night.

Is that my force field to protect them?

Or is it just

happens?

This goes directly.

But as you all come outside of the building, now you can acknowledge that it is nighttime in the lot.

It's almost my bedtime.

Aaron,

put it together.

I'm showing smoke.

I'm showing a smoke on the way, guys.

You've all been here past nine hours, by the way.

That is so bad for you.

We should call Sag.

Aaron, leave me alone.

Who?

Who is helming who's leading this stealthy charge across the lot in hopes of not being seen?

I'll take the lead.

I got a black coat on, so I'm sure that I'm just going to blend in seamlessly.

Oh, yeah, you blend.

I do.

Hey, my second cousin, Shokizugi, he played the ninja in Revenge of the Ninja.

Okay?

I know what I'm doing.

Okay.

Let's go.

Alrighty.

So,

I need all of you, all the rest of you, to make agility reaction rolls here.

So there's no hope or fear on it.

Just roll with your agility, and all those rolls will eventually affect your final role to help the group.

So we'll just go down the line here.

It's nine plus one to ten.

Depends on minus one.

My first role was

with hope.

So now I'm rolling with a D20 because of my superiority complex.

You do.

Yeah.

18 plus 7.

Nine.

Okay, that's a plus one.

What'd you get?

12.

12?

It's a minus 1.

Okay.

I've got 11 with hope.

11 with hope.

It's a minus 2.

So we're at a minus 2 total.

I got 15 with hope.

15?

It's a plus 1.

All right, so you get your final roll, which will correspond correspond to this whole thing, is a minus one.

And you can see weird little red lights kind of like moving across the rooftops of the different studios.

While all production's been shut down for the evening, it looks like there are sentries or something keeping watch that you haven't noticed before.

But again, you haven't been out on the lot this time of night.

So I need you to make a final agility roll with a minus.

Can I add you can why don't I take three?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, you guys have spent quite a bit here, I think.

Oh,

what are we at?

I think we have one more plus one to spend.

Is it worth it then?

Use it.

All right, I'll take a plus one.

All right.

But my agility is plus two, but I haven't.

So it'd be plus three, but minus one, so plus two.

Correct.

It'd be plus two total.

And you have, there are still re-rolls here to choose.

Right, okay.

Crit, baby.

Number five.

Woo!

All right.

Woo!

Beautiful.

As you all kind of gather behind Squawk and Kalo, the only thing really noticeable is the trail of cigarette smoke that kind of permeates behind as you go.

Sam having to indulge.

But as you leap from the darkest of shadow to the darkest of shadow, trying to zigzag through the lot's odd kind of

studio structure, you can see there are these odd, like surveillance drones, so like small mechanical dog-like quadruped entities that have cameras for heads and little red lights on top.

They kind of like

at one point, one of them you think picks up one of you and

you watch all of them, shh, almost like a hive mind swarm and go to the edge, but you all stay still, and a moment later,

they all begin to scatter off again.

Unnoticed, you slowly trek in the direction of the executive building before you can see it.

And it is this massive, very like industrial park, plain,

brutalist almost, you know, structure.

Three stories.

Most of the

windows are all dark.

The only thing that has a little bit of light is the lobby, which has a little bit of indirect light, but everything else in there is dark.

You

one of you might want to try and remember where exactly in the building Mr.

Pearson's office is specifically.

Perfect memory, right?

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, great memory.

You guys remember that one time that we had that network thing, like a brunch or something?

Yeah.

Where we had to go parade ourselves around and like take photos?

Yeah.

I remember that entire building, top to bottom.

All right.

Wow.

Amazing.

Did you?

All right.

So this is with with

plus five.

Yeah.

Go ahead.

Crit.

Yes!

Two in a row.

Dang!

Okay, well, all right.

So

remembering this, you immediately kind of close your eyes and kind of go into your own mind palace and you begin to recall.

It's the third floor.

It has a window that overlooks the courtyard set.

So it has an outward-facing window on the eastern side.

But with the crit roll, you also know that it's it's very reinforced, like it is like some executives would do.

They're a little overzealous, just in case.

It's it's like a very, very thick glass, heavy curtains on it, but you know directly where it is and where it's facing.

And if you, as you kind of move around the side of the building, you pinpoint exactly the window that leads to his office.

All right, guys, exactly where it is, right up there.

How are we gonna get there?

Um, as you kind of are coming along this way in the shadow, something hits your foot.

You all kind of stop and look down.

And there, it looks like there's a small box and another VHS tape.

There's another one.

Hey guys, Ryder's dice set is right now ready to bid on, so go bid on it.

A question.

As I reach down to get the videotape, are there any rocks around me anywhere?

There's pieces of cinder block, small little things, that kind of stuff.

Yeah, these little chatters, little pieces.

I'm just going to grab everything, just start shoving them in my pocket.

You got it.

Just getting ready?

Yep.

I can't.

All right.

Is there maybe a monitor and a VCR and security where we can play the tape?

Let me tell you where there is.

Security.

No, no, no, no, no, no, but there's nobody there right now.

Where we have to go is the network casting room.

Yes.

This is where they make all the decisions.

They put us on tape and then they review the tapes.

I know exactly where it is.

It's two doors down, down the little set of stairs, into the theater.

Shit.

All right, should we go?

Let's go through the tape.

Let's take the tape.

We have the keys.

Oh, we have the keys.

We could just walk through the front door of the executive.

We need to see the tape, though.

They're gonna know that we're

if they're looking for us, we just walk it in.

We walk into the building.

We watch the tape first.

Yes, yeah, yeah.

And then we go find the executive.

And then we go find the executives.

Yes, yes.

Are our hats on backwards?

Yes.

Okay.

There are no bills.

Okay.

There's no bills.

All right.

So Max B.

All right.

So you're walking through the lobby and then going to find the casting room.

Just try to walk in and find the casting room, I guess, right?

It's down the side.

I know exactly where it is.

You go in through, in through the double doors, off to the left, down the set of stairs, and right there on the right-hand side.

Last door is open as you slide the key card that you managed to snag with a very, very high roll earlier.

Stepping into the main lobby area, you see feet up is the kind of one kind of lobby security guard who's in the process of reading a newspaper and glances over and goes like and looks up over the top of the newspaper as you all walk in.

Can I help you?

Hi, Phil.

It's me, Paloma.

Yeah, no, I know you.

Yeah, nice to see you.

You're tiny podiatrist.

Hi.

Looking forward to season three.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

So we are all going to go check out,

it's a little funny gag reel that we're making

just for the you know our our cast our current cast It's you know, so but we want to see it on the theater screen because so you know, so it's big we can really see you know are the is it is the edit any good?

We want to see the laughs smiling and nodding and he looks at the screen to him and his face kind of drops because he's like we're on a particular little security lockdown at the moment.

I don't know if it's probably safer in there.

If you want to go ahead and make a presence roll to try and convince him of the importance of your interior endeavor versus his current

work orders.

All right.

Plus three.

Nine plus five, fourteen, seventeen.

Are you happy with that or do you want to take a re-roll?

I think it's pretty good.

Is it with?

I think it's with further.

Oh, it's with fear.

Oh, it's with fear.

Yeah.

Wait, which?

No, no, no, no.

No, no, it's with hope.

Sorry.

Okay.

Do you want to go with that one?

I think that's pretty good.

Yeah, you're not going to on a re-roll.

You're welcome.

No, yeah, no.

I think we stay.

I think we stay.

I think we stay.

Okay.

He goes.

Okay.

Yeah.

No, go right ahead.

Thanks, Phil.

Good to see you.

No worries.

Thank you, Phil.

Of course.

Yeah, no worries.

Enjoy.

And you kind of walk by as he kind of leans in forward and like types of things on his computer and then goes back to his

newspaper.

It's all right.

We're here now.

Following your destruction.

Indeed, you go down to the stairs, you go into the viewing room, and there is

a VHS and a Laserdisc player.

Yes.

Yes.

As every room should have.

The quality of Laserdisc is impeccable.

It can't be beat.

Never gonna go out of style.

I mean, the clarity is crazy.

Definitely.

Bonus features.

Forget about it.

I mean, for days.

Alright, guys, let's put this tape in.

Alright, press play.

Hold the small box to your side and put the tape in and press play.

No one's coming.

Play.

Okay.

This is Tori.

I found Matthew's camera, and I'm worried.

He's been missing for a few days now and everywhere I turn it's

that creepy cobbler cat that's trying to take my place in here.

Just watching me.

Following me.

I hate it.

I went and told Mick about this and he said that he actually bought his replacement and it was some weird sideboard thingy.

Something is definitely wrong.

There's also some strange spooky board meetings happening at night in that exec building.

Apparently, we're gonna try to investigate.

I hope we can find Matthew and all the others who are missing.

Now, if you found this tape, turn it into the police.

Or come help us, please.

Here.

Mick found this on his replacement.

And it looks like some secret government technology.

So use it as evidence.

The little box that you had, you kind of pull it open, and you see what looks like a handheld, like, black box device with a handle and buttons on it, and a weird screen that has a strange, like, crackle of energy that kind of sits a similar coloration to that force field device that you had uncovered earlier.

Um,

she said,

This is what is uncovered from the box.

I'm handing these to you because you're you're the most tech-savvy and when kind of gathering the best use of these and these fine delver device.

Spend a hope to make a skill craft roll against a target within close range.

On success, on a success, you can hear the thoughts of the target for several seconds.

On a success with hope, you can ask for deeper knowledge or information within their memory.

Ooh, like a men in black.

Alright, so we all can use that if we need to.

Yeah, we need to get that cool for sure.

Are we just still going straight up to first of all?

Matt's Matthew's gone now?

They got him.

He's missing.

They got him.

And Tori's gotta be gone too though.

Yeah, they got him.

Even if we met, if we saw them, could we trust that it was really them?

No, that's what I'm saying.

I think they've already been replaced.

Guys, it's all deep fakes.

Oh, my God.

How do we know that everybody here

is actually human?

Come on.

What are you just saying?

Hilarious.

That's funny.

How would you know?

How would I know?

I think we gotta trust.

I'm gonna speak.

What if I'm fate?

I'm gonna spend a fear.

I don't think Slide works far.

I know.

At this moment in time, you hear a door close in the hallway not far from where you are.

And you hear two pairs of footsteps almost stepping in unison.

Are you all hiding?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Who is the group leader to this attempt to get everyone to hide?

Everybody down.

Alright, so once again, I need everybody to make another agility roll that'll modify your role.

No, but I said who's leading this and you stepped in.

15.

And then you added

22.

Not zero.

No, I know.

Right.

With fear.

I've got 11 with hope.

Okay, that's a minus one.

14 with hope.

15.

Minus two.

15.

So it's a plus one total.

Oh, wait, I got a 15 with fear.

Yeah.

The fear and hope doesn't matter for the reaction.

Oh, okay.

So you're all good there.

So plus one, you're fine.

This is plus one.

And this is what?

Agility?

This is agility.

So that's plus three.

Yeah, total, it would be out.

Now, you know, you hear these footsteps working in unison.

They're right around the corner, so you have to do this fast.

This is going to be a fairly difficult roll.

Can I add anything to anything?

No, I don't think I can.

There we go.

Oh, come on.

It's another crit.

No!

Damn, that's insane!

This is like the most crits we've had in a row in a short time.

It's a lot of fun.

We gotta go to Vegas.

Obviously, you'll have to.

Highly recommend you bid on these dice when they're available because apparently it's a hot table.

Right?

Hot table, hot table.

As you all kind of hide quietly, the door opens and you see two

elite security step in.

These are particular, these particularly like executive detail that you've only seen occasionally walking with Adam Pearson.

They They look like Secret Service agents.

As they step inward, they have sunglasses on, even though there's very little light in here, and they both kind of step in together.

Glance around the room.

Glance around the room in unison.

Disengage and step back, and the door closes, and you hear...

So you know now that the detail that couldn't be stopped by the earlier security is aware of your presence and searching.

What would you like to do?

What is happening here?

This is insane.

She's becoming more Chris Farley.

My dreams.

She's in a band.

My dreams!

Down by the river!

Guys, we just gotta get upstairs.

I mean, what else can we do?

Where can we go?

Why do we gotta go?

We gotta get- Okay, we've got the key.

We've got the key.

We've got the key.

We've got a mine delver.

We can get up there and we can delve into his mind.

Wait a second.

Have you, you know this whole building, backwards and forwards, right?

Is anything next to Pearson's office, like, where we can overhear what's going on

and use the mind delver to delve his mind?

Yes, well, of course.

I mean, there's his assistants.

There's two different offices.

One's his assistants, but I don't know if it has any

vents that we can hear.

Maybe we should ask.

You can, I'd say you've been in the office.

You do have, you rolled critical earlier.

I'd say you do know that there is a vent on the upper left wall if you're stepping inside the chamber in his office.

It's this massive dark wood stained chamber with a, you know, a desk that is obviously compensating for something.

All manner of like decorated shelf units and like cabinetry, beautiful dark purple carpet,

all sorts of gadgets and weird little, you know, sharper image acquisitions across the surface.

But up above the left-hand shelf, you do see there was a grate there.

Yeah, that was there.

Okay, okay, so what I think we need to do is I think we need to get into the vent from the bathroom the executive bathroom that's adjacent crawl through the vent and then position ourselves right there in his office and listen in.

Well, well all of us can't fit.

No, I'll go.

I'm a little bit goth.

Okay.

So I am a shadow stepper.

I can move from shadow to shadow.

And when I move into an area of darkness I can mark a stress to disappear where I am and go from one shadow to another.

So

I'm pretty good at sneaking around.

Yeah.

And I'm also my I have a little criminal ability.

So

some great rap name little criminal.

I think God that's a good idea, right?

How do we get to the existing bathroom for it?

Yeah, so why are we just gonna go?

Well the easiest

way, if I remember correctly, the fastest way is to come out.

Currently we're in this amphitheater.

We need to come out of the theater, make a quick left, go up a service elevator.

That will be a lot less conspicuous than going up the main elevator.

And then all we have to do is get down the hallway on the third floor.

And it's only about four offices away.

How far away is the service elevator from about here?

25 yards

outside the doors.

Should I just go by myself?

No.

I think we all have to go.

We need some kind of backup.

I think we need to go by yourself.

You need to go over there.

Make

I'm the smallest.

I'm the sneakiest.

You gotta send somebody with you.

You can't go alone.

Wait, send her.

Wait, send her with the gun.

Yeah.

Trying to help you out.

Send her with the gun.

Me too.

Send her with the gun.

Yeah.

Hey.

Okay.

Good idea, right?

Good idea.

I'll cover you with Paloma.

Okay.

All right.

Service elevator.

Service elevator.

We uh straight up.

Let's go.

All right, so Lucas and Paloma.

Two of you begin to dart around the corner towards that service elevator.

I'll say to as there are patrolling executive detail wandering this floor, I will have one of you roll the agility roll to help the other.

So who's helming this?

My agility is zero.

What is yours?

Plus one.

All right, so go.

But I have this shadow stepper, so I can move from shadows.

If I mark a stress to disappear for him, I can reach out.

Right.

So you can move pretty much without issue.

If you want to mark a stress, you can succeed, but then you have to still roll for yourself.

Okay.

She gets not a shot.

Well, okay, okay, no.

Oh, no, no.

I would never leave her.

Okay, so how can I add to her role?

I can.

So if you want to spend a hope to...

I can spend three hope after you or an ally makes an action roll.

Oh, no, that would just...

match her.

I'm good with numbers.

I can spend three hope after.

You can shadow step and then help her make her roll, which would help her overall do better.

Yeah, I'm gonna do that.

Okay, so spend your

stress to do my shadow step.

Yes, you mark a stress to do your shadow step.

You just dart to the other side where you can see the shadow outside of the

elevator.

Yep.

And then you kind of more or less guide her with your eyes the best places to run.

Go ahead and make an agility roll and spend a hope to add a d6 to her roll.

My good with numbers is that I spend three hope and I get to add three diamonds.

Or I roll

three D12, and if any of those match, tournament, then it's critical success.

But you do it after she rolls.

You can be like, oh, she rolled really bad.

Let me try and fix it.

Okay.

Let's first see what she rolls.

Gotcha.

So I'm adding.

So I just gave her the one hope for now.

Correct.

Gotcha.

We have a little time left to bid on this, by the way.

Let's do it.

More money that comes in, the more guest appearances and boons the players receive, because it's about to get more and more dangerous as it goes.

Yes, yes, yes, bid.

Oh my gosh.

Bid.

Well, there's two fives.

Yeah.

And then there's a 12.

So does that.

Is that a crit?

Well, as well

as the end of the 12s have to be together.

These two and then and it would have to be a 22 roll.

Yes, it's still great.

That's a good role.

22 is still very good.

So with your with your help and guiding through, you like dart from shadow, you hear footsteps, you dart another shadow and stay low.

The two details walk past again in the other direction, and it's it's it's an odd unity in the way they move as they're scanning through.

Like, are they cyborgs?

Could be.

Um, and you wait for them to pass by, and then you go and gather up to the outside.

you take the key card that you had received earlier

and hit the uh the side of the of the elevator and the doors open to let you in now

you have the key card to do so they do not do you leave the key card here for them later or do you take it with you

we're kind of safe where we are so maybe we can take like a rest while we're here you can if you want to take a short rest so and for the purpose of a short rest um you can take two downtime actions.

That includes like you can recover 1d4 hit points.

You can repair 1d4 armor.

You could gain a hope.

You can do two of those things.

I'm sorry, what was the hit points?

1d4 hit points.

You regain.

You get to clear those.

You can either take 1d4 stress, you clear off.

You can repair 1d4 armor to gain those back.

Question, because I want to make sure that I'm not cheating.

And I did this last time.

I had three stress, and I did 1d4, and I hit three.

So I erase all three of them.

So that's you're no longer stressed in that good good good good um I also because uh

four of you are resting I get four fear

so one d4 actually it'd be one d4 plus oh yeah no there'll be three fear then I rolled that there all right plenty of pogs on my side good enough

um

so

you get into the service elevator

I'm gonna spend a fear

it stops halfway up

and it seems seems like this elevator may not have been used in a while and is now stuck between the floors

okay I'm gonna um

can I uh check out the the instrumentation and try and use my knowledge of electronics and hacking and whatnot yes you may so go ahead and roll a knowledge roll for me to see if you can figure out what might be causing this issue or how to bypass it

oh well this is yeah Before making an action roll to learn information or something to someone, I can spend, because I've read about this, I have that skill.

So I'm going to spend a hope to do that don't go for it that's what it's for gains advantage on the roll that means another six yeah another d6 yeah

uh

11 6 all right one

uh so what's that set uh 18 18 with 18 with fear oh no wait and then well this is a knowledge roll plus three so 21 21 with fear with fear do you want to try and re-roll to knock it with fear or are you fine with that that's all i ask you yeah it's fear though i know but

all the fear is already gone.

Yeah, I'm gonna stay.

Okay, great.

So you're manipulating the interior of this panel, you can see that there's been a slight short that caused the lights to dim and kind of lock in place.

You go ahead and look into where that is and you can see where kind of the wire is kind of threading exposed.

You pull out a couple of your usual like

repairing, like electronic repairing, you know, electrical tape and a few other elements there and you kind of repair where that is.

Finish it around and then hit the up button again.

It takes a second before

the lights brighten up again, and the elevator continues upward.

The doors open,

and because you're old with fear, immediately across the way you can see two other figures that are also patrolling the third floor.

It looks like the details are on all the floors with the knowledge of your presence.

How would you like to proceed?

Well, let's

try and sneak up to the office, right?

Or we want to get to the bathroom to get into the vent.

I I mean, that was my suggestion, but you, you do, you boo.

Okay, so one of my experience elements is chemistry.

So what if I try to just

all of you feel a sudden shift underneath you, like the very concrete of this building quakes for a second from something below, like an earthquake seems to hit, and you all grab yourself for a second.

Oh shit!

That was night.

It was two years ago.

The hanging lights in the hallways are now like swinging, and you see the two details that we're walking and just kind of look at each other and keep walking.

And you all feel this.

They're from LA.

Yeah, exactly.

You feel

this faint, like

this thrumming vibration through the very structure of this building.

And you feel this sense of concern kind of drift over all of you.

The dust that is locked free.

This is an older interior building.

Well, that hasn't been done.

There's kind of like an asbestos that sits within the system here that's now breathing.

Uh, you all take a hit point.

Uh, before I do that, it's 1d4 to get rid of

a hit point for our rest.

Yeah,

I can see, can't see what that is.

Uh, can I eat my beef stick?

You may afterward, yes.

So, after you do, after you're doing that rest, you then take a hit point from the asbestos that is lodged from the shake of the environment here.

I'm gonna quickly die.

I'm gonna quickly eat my beef stick because I'm I have three hit points.

All right.

Three.

Get rid of them all.

I'm very scared.

So out of my cargo pocket, I'm going to pull out my first edition Princess Diana baby baby.

Whoa.

Just to hold on to.

Beautiful.

All right.

That's brilliant.

That's gonna be worth so much money someday.

It's gonna be worth so much money.

Baby E-babies are a good investment.

They're a fantastic investment.

I have 10 so far.

I know it's gonna pay everything off.

Smart.

Very smart.

And I love Princess Diana.

I'm sure she's gonna be queen one day.

The uh too soon.

So

sorry.

I'm so

wait, 96.

Sorry, Judy.

No, 97.

Oh my gosh.

I'm so sorry.

I'm sorry.

So,

as this kind of vibration, you know, thrums through the building and the two detail begin to walk past, you see one of them kind of like pulls into his jacket and drops something on the ground.

And you continue to walk.

As you kind of wait for them to pass, Ray dropped it.

You see something go,

like it's beginning to grow and unfold.

And you watch as...

This strange dark shape begins to expand across the ground and begin to climb up the sides of the walls like some sort of an odd

gravity-defying oil slick.

This like sludge begins to spread up and begins to encase elements of this hallway.

You're running out of space to traverse unless you hurry up and risk being seen to rush there, or you can wait for this to finish whatever it's doing.

I'll take the mine down for a try, but you stay in the surface element.

Are you sure, Lucas?

Yeah, it's too risky for both of us.

I got this.

You're so brave.

brave.

She's so hot.

Don't I get a bonus for that?

Once in life.

Okay.

I'll say honestly, I'll give you advantage in the roll.

Yes!

All right.

That's great.

Well,

okay, so do I roll

finesse to hide and stay, or do I use my shadow stepper skill by marking?

You can use your shadow stepper if you'd like to to leap immediately to the other side of the hall from what you can see, which isn't quite to where the bathroom is.

You have to go around the corner to get there.

So you have to like jump twice to get there without having to make a roll, or you could make two rolls or something.

See, whenever I mark a stress because I'm high anxiety, I gain a hope.

That's true.

And my next action roll is a D20 with the fear die.

That's true.

I'm going to make that whole situation happen.

Let's go.

You have so many skills, Lucas.

Hey, we have character art prints that will be signed by the whole cast here and they're live.

Woo!

One of them is live.

Go get it.

Go get it.

So I gain a stress, super anxious, gain of hope, and now I'm using my shadow stepper skill to just get there to the bathroom as quickly as possible through the shadows.

Alrighty.

You can do this, Lucas.

You watch Lucas.

He's a...

Bit of a dorky young kid with his pockets, and you watch as he kind of like steps into the darkness and then suddenly just appears around the corner for a second.

It's almost like magic.

It's wild how impressively skilled this kid is beyond just his talent as a performer.

You give like a little wave

and then vanish again.

As this is happening, you watch as this sludge is crawling up the sides and it's like the

rather like dimly lit interior of these halls is beginning to look organic in some way, almost like it's an expanding hive.

You see his like striated weird tendrils begin to expand and the hallway is becoming a nightmare within a matter of minutes.

You dart over to the bathroom, you kind of come under the door

inside.

There's nobody inside.

You look around and you can kind of see the vent in the wall that leads up and over to that office.

All right, I'll try and climb up and get in there.

Okay.

What do I roll for that?

Or do I need to?

So you, I will make this an agility roll to try and like squeeze through without making too much noise.

Yeah.

Or finesse, your choice.

Uh

finesse.

I guess go.

I have a plus two finesse, so I'm rolling a 20 fear dive because I spent that stress.

This, plus, I get a six advantage from her.

I do indeed.

I'm going to go ahead and spend seven of these minus ones to add minus seven to the roll.

Oh,

minus seven?

I got 18 plus

finesse is two.

So that's 20,

but minus 7.

That's 14.

You can re-roll.

You can re-roll if you'd like.

13, isn't it?

Minus 7?

Yeah, let me...

I would.

No, actually, I got a 5 on the D6.

It's really only one 3 that sucks.

I don't know if it'll be that much better.

So you have

18.

The 20 got 10.

Yeah, so you could roll better with the 20.

You have like 9 re-rolls.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it.

Get up this Matt.

Sorry, guys.

Seven reroll.

Are you good with that?

Or do you want to use another re-roll?

Plus, two, so it's 14 minus seven.

It's only use another reroll.

You got to do it.

That's another re-roll spend.

Come on, baby.

27.

Yes.

Okay.

Minus 7.

27 minus 7 with fear.

I'll take the fear.

Great.

So that just barely.

Even with the minus 7, it's a success because you needed a 20 to get through there.

You

begin to crawl through the grate and you get to the edge of it.

And the gate is, it's great, it's closed.

Like, Like wherever it is, like closing the other side so there's no airflow and you can barely see a little bit of light in the inside, but you do hear some voices.

Low.

You hear what it sounds like.

Mr.

Pearson, go.

No, of course, I understand.

Well, keep an eye out.

It can't be too far from here.

I have to attend to another meeting.

So if you don't mind,

we'll rendezvous in the next couple of hours.

Just

don't go too far from the office doors.

You hear two of the voices go.

Of course, course, sir.

Of course, sir.

And you hear a shh.

Shh.

Then a door close.

What do you want to do?

I'm going to use the mind delver to the bottom.

On

Mr.

Pearson.

Alright.

As you see him heading over, you can barely see where he is and he's moving away from his...

He's at his desk.

And then they hear that shh sound that begins to...

It sounds almost like a not too different from the elevator sound that you had heard below, just softer.

Like two elevator doors opening in the office.

And he stands up and moves out of sight right as you use that device.

So go ahead and roll for me.

All right, so I spend a hope

and I do a skill craft roll.

What does that mean?

So yes, that would be

just finesse for you because of your

goth.

Now, can I use any of these to help?

Right now, unfortunately, no, because he's on his own.

He's on his own.

Oh.

Yeah.

13 with a fear.

13 with fear.

Would you like to re-roll that?

It's kind of rerolled.

How many do we have left?

Seven?

Six.

Let's see here.

Six.

Six, yeah.

I say re-roll.

Yeah, I do too.

You gotta.

Come on, come on, come on.

Donate more to help them out, folks.

Mind Delver.

Alright, 20.

20 with hope.

20 with hope.

Oh, wait, plus two.

Plus two, because I have a huge.

Yeah, that's right.

Inadvertent.

Finesse.

That's with hope.

Yeah.

So you can...

Alright, so the surface thoughts that come to your mind for a few seconds,

you get just a sense of

greed and anticipation.

A person who thinks highly of their plotting capability and a big picture that maybe they don't fully understand or grasp, but they know they'll benefit from it.

You also catch a bit of nervousness.

A feeling of like, I hate talking to them every time.

But it's going to be okay in the end.

It's going to be okay.

You also get to push for some more memories.

What would you like to try and

reach for within his mind in this moment before he steps away from the range of your device?

What his next meeting that he's referenced was

going to be.

All right, while he's getting a whisper, I believe these are up next.

These are so cool.

These are

so cool.

Y'all, these are so cool, and we're all having a really hard time letting them go.

Yeah, really.

This little like VHS case, are you kidding me?

Yeah, so this is rider set.

Yeah, these are sick.

Coolest.

And they're all signed.

They're all signed.

Yeah.

Dies.

You have a fine autograph, Stacey.

I don't think I've ever seen a lot of it.

You have a great autograph.

Oh, thank you.

All right.

All right.

And then you hear the elevator doors close out of sight.

And that.

These are just like...

Yeah.

Alright, I gotta get back to the group.

I gotta tell them.

Alright, so...

Crawling backwards down the vent, back into the bathroom.

Are you going to shadow step back to the rest of your team?

Do you have the stress to spend?

Yeah.

Let's go.

Spend that stress, gain that hope, take that fear die.

I'm going to spend the fear as you're doing so.

and say that as you emerge from the bathroom, the detail is now walking towards your direction, and they may attempt to spot you, even in spite of your shadow step.

I need you to make an agility roll to see if you can even dive into the nearest shadow before they see you.

14 plus 1, so 15.

15 with?

Uh

fear.

With fear.

I'll take that fear back.

You dive into the shadow, but you hear them pick up pace.

They noticed you.

And they rush to the edge of the shadow where you are and seemed confused that you're not present.

So they're definitely aware that there is movement on this floor.

But you manage to get back to Paloma.

The two of you have reconvened now.

Locus, you made it!

That's all the craziest things we have to get.

We have to get by.

Okay, okay, let's go, let's go.

All right.

You head back down the elevator to the bottom floor.

Quickly gather it with the rest of the folks.

As you're walking, you hear a.

The building is on lockdown.

And all the doors.

You hear like all the exterior and the lobby doors all begin to electronically lock.

What did you do?

What was that?

Wait, what happened?

Alright, do we make it back to them yet?

Or we saw it?

You do.

You enter back into the viewing room where they've been hiding.

Oh my god, you guys, I saw the craziest thing.

It's it's it's aliens, I think.

There's like an underground bunker.

I saw in his mind, there's an underground bunker, and there are people and they're trapped under glass.

And uh...

This is a film?

And no!

No, I think it's what's happening.

You can't find it.

There's some weird tentacle stuff.

I don't know, but I think it's alien technology.

I think it's alien technology.

I think Mr.

Pearson is,

you know, he's working with the aliens.

He's in cahoots with the aliens.

Is he an alien?

I mean, maybe.

I don't know.

I don't trust anything anymore.

I'm going to spend a fear at this point.

The doors slam open to the chamber, and you watch as the two executive detail that were on the bottom floor step inward.

They look over at the rest of you clustered and talking, and you watch as their faces split open as masses of blackish green tentacles

begin to emerge

yes that's what they're talking about that's where we're gonna break

we're gonna take a short break here in return for this viewing room uh throwdown as the executive details true nature has been at least partially revealed as the rest of this executive building is slowly being corrupted into some sort of terrifying cataclysmic event uh and why where you find you need to go and what's safest next.

Thank you so much.

So far, great bids are coming up.

We have a few other milestones and thresholds that we can work towards.

Other guests that will arrive and have benefits to help them in what is going to be a continuously more and more challenging endeavor.

We'll see you in a few minutes.

That's a wrap for part one of this podcast episode.

Part two will land here this upcoming Tuesday at 5 a.m.

Pacific, and we'll pick up this story right where we left off.

Until next time, and we'll be back in this adventure before you know it.

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