Dispatch One-Shot

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Hey, hate to do this.

Speaker 1 Could we reschedule? Our morning hike. I was just about to ask the same.
Next week?

Speaker 1 Yes, it's Duncan Original Blend Time. Staying at home with Duncan? Don't mind if I do.
The home with Duncan is where you want to be.

Speaker 1 G'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.

Speaker 1 If you'd rather rather listen to the full episode right when it comes out and without any ads, please consider becoming a Beacon member.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 Start your seven-day free trial today at beacon.tv.

Speaker 1 Now that we've got that covered, let's go ahead and get this adventure rolling.

Speaker 1 Hello and welcome to a very special one-shot in collaboration with our friends at Ad Hoc Studio and their new game, Dispatch.

Speaker 1 Dispatch is a superhero workplace comedy featuring voices from the likes of Aaron Paul, Laura Bailey, Travis Willingham, Matt Mercer, Aaron Yvette, and Jeffrey Wright.

Speaker 1 And I cannot emphasize enough how much fun it is. Episodes one through four are out now.
Check out bit.ly slash cr Dispatch to learn more.

Speaker 1 That said, while you may recognize the places and characters explored tonight as they are inspired by elements from Dispatch, we want to emphasize that the characters and events in this one shot are our own creations and are not official content from Dispatch.

Speaker 1 They're simply inspired by it. Thank you again to Ad Hoc Studio for letting us play in the wonderful world you've built.
Now, without further ado, let's get into the game.

Speaker 1 Monday morning in Los Angeles is especially brutal on the traffic-choked streets of Burbank. And today is especially brutal because it's raining.

Speaker 1 We see a powder blue stanza parked in a cute residential neighborhood. And at the wheel, we see a very interesting fellow.
Travis, will you join us at the table?

Speaker 1 And who are you playing today, Travis?

Speaker 1 I am playing Marty Green. I take a lot of pride in this powder blue.

Speaker 1 And also the custodial arts, which are not to be ever looked at anytime.

Speaker 1 And if one were to look in through the driver's side window, what would they see?

Speaker 1 You would see an immaculate interior, also powder blue, cloth fabric interior, but I have a wheel cover that's bright pink covered in chibi anime faces.

Speaker 1 She's five minutes late. She's always five minutes late.

Speaker 1 Laura, will you join us at the table?

Speaker 1 She has to be first on the route.

Speaker 1 She likes shotgun.

Speaker 1 Hey, Marty.

Speaker 1 Good morning.

Speaker 1 How are you on this fine

Speaker 1 sunshiny day?

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 The car doesn't start immediately.

Speaker 1 Clutches sticks a little.

Speaker 1 There's a tray. It's fine.

Speaker 1 As you tap your cigarette out the window, Barbara, what vision, what beautiful vision descended from the heavens would a passerby be met with?

Speaker 1 Barbara Honeycutt.

Speaker 1 Ex-beauty queen.

Speaker 1 I would argue current.

Speaker 1 Beehive, golden suit. She looks like she's seen some better days, but she's still a looker.
Don't you fucking mistake that.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 yeah, she got bees everywhere.

Speaker 1 Bees all over her. They fly around her all the time.

Speaker 1 They fly around your face.

Speaker 1 It's honeycut.

Speaker 1 Get back in here. And they fly back into her beehive.
We should roll up the windows.

Speaker 1 Marty, as your

Speaker 1 car gives out an alarming squeak, you really got to get that checked out.

Speaker 1 You are able to joltingly pull your way out of this cute suburban neighborhood into a slightly more downtown locale to pick up the intern you've taken under your wing at the Burbank branch of SDN.

Speaker 1 I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 I might smell like a wet dog. It's just rain and my hair doesn't play so well.
No, it's totally fine. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Morning!

Speaker 1 Morning, Fritzie.

Speaker 1 I reach into my purse and I hand back a brush. Oh, thank you.

Speaker 1 Normally it takes me about an hour and a half to get through it all, but I'll try to go faster this time.

Speaker 1 And what would somebody walking their dog in this in front of this dilapidated apartment building see as as poor Fritzie tries to tame the mop.

Speaker 1 Oh, well, you'd see a mop, a mop of hair, because Fritzie's all hair.

Speaker 1 Fritzie is

Speaker 1 four feet of hair and she's got cute

Speaker 1 highlights to kind of, you know, give some definition to the blob.

Speaker 1 And she likes to part to show her her right eye a little bit because girls gotta see.

Speaker 1 Is it a side part or a middle part? It's very important. Not a real part.
It's a manually created parting that likes to kind of come back.

Speaker 1 It's a lot of the Disney princess,

Speaker 1 you know, over and over.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Oh, but oh, but she doesn't wear clothes. She doesn't have to.
She wouldn't be like naked if she wasn't wearing clothes because the hair covers everything.

Speaker 1 You wear your modesty all the time. Yeah, but it's just everyone else wears clothes.
It'd It'd be weird if I didn't, you know? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Fritzie gets into the car. A little puff of static kind of erupts from the seat as she does so.

Speaker 1 The rain creates a sort of frizz situation that kind of creates an electric cloud of its own.

Speaker 1 And you pull away from in front of this ill-maintained apartment building to a much, much more posh neighborhood.

Speaker 1 Your car doesn't even make it up the drive before it's stopped by the security guard who takes one look at it and goes

Speaker 1 I'm sorry I'm here to pick up mr.

Speaker 1 visitor pass yeah it's it's around here we're here every day

Speaker 1 don't you remember us

Speaker 1 hey honey

Speaker 1 he does kind of

Speaker 1 blush a little oh uh good morning ma'am how are you doing today

Speaker 1 as ever a vision uh

Speaker 1 You're here for the

Speaker 1 Mr. Blackwell.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I do recall you being on his

Speaker 1 visitor list. Yeah, I'll buzz you.
What you doing later, honey?

Speaker 1 I'm going wherever you're going.

Speaker 1 He makes it look so easy.

Speaker 1 I don't understand that interaction at all.

Speaker 1 Get driving. Oh, it's right.

Speaker 1 You hear screeching wheels and a whining engine pull into your driveway, Mr. Blackwell.

Speaker 1 And it's raining, isn't it? It is.

Speaker 1 You watch as the red-caped and well-dressed branch manager, waiting at his front door, sigh heavily at the approach of such a

Speaker 1 disappointing vehicle as he waves his hand and the rain subsides

Speaker 1 and he walks halfway there before it continues and drenches him immediately.

Speaker 1 Good morning, Mr. Blackwell.

Speaker 1 Please drive. You got it, sir.

Speaker 1 Pardon my reading.

Speaker 1 I really need to get my charger fixed.

Speaker 1 It's always an interesting day when it's Marty's turn to drive the carpool that you have all agreed to, somewhat under duress. The parking situation at the Burbank SDN leaves much to be desired.

Speaker 1 And unfortunately, either by demotion, being transferred, or maybe you're new in this industry, this is the branch that you all have ended up in.

Speaker 1 Your job is a simple one, but one that comes with a very great cost, the cost of the safety of Burbank. For you work for the Superhero Dispatch Network.

Speaker 1 And Burbank's

Speaker 1 Well-being is in your hands and your hands alone, Travis.

Speaker 1 For without you the buses would run on time but the superheroes would not

Speaker 1 a resource in short supply and in great demand

Speaker 1 mr. Blackwell I hope the HOV lane is to your liking this morning

Speaker 1 very premier level it's interesting how car pulling somehow is slower than not you watch as he like brushes aside his kind of ratty comb over from his rather thick but well-kept mustache and glances into the side view mirror for a moment before going

Speaker 1 just ensure we can get there in time to find parking

Speaker 1 of course we can we can go faster if you need to I drop into a lower gear just if you hear it we

Speaker 1 there's a little speed increase that sounds like it's gonna explode

Speaker 1 Dry my hair.

Speaker 1 As you do, a massive belching cloud of black smoke comes out of the back of the powder blue stanza, leaving a gentle dusting of dry shampoo on your locks.

Speaker 1 I can work with this.

Speaker 1 Coffee clutched in weary hands,

Speaker 1 our characters must now

Speaker 1 embark upon their first challenge, the morning commute.

Speaker 1 Oh, no.

Speaker 1 You thought I was joking? Goodness with a dragon out the gate.

Speaker 1 You thought I was fucking kidding? That's alright, I was forcing the fires.

Speaker 1 Allow me to move to my dagger heart environmental stat block that I made.

Speaker 1 Especially for this game. We're a commute.

Speaker 1 Called

Speaker 1 bumper to bumper. Oh, my God.

Speaker 1 You now have to make it across the freeway.

Speaker 1 We can do it, I believe in us.

Speaker 1 As you

Speaker 1 sort of take the, you know, take your right turn to get onto the on-ramp, Marty,

Speaker 1 you come to a standstill just as it's time for you to enter the flow of traffic. And much to your chagrin, no one lets you in.

Speaker 1 Oh,

Speaker 1 blinker.

Speaker 1 Let me in! Sorry, I get a little

Speaker 1 aggravated.

Speaker 1 Clearly, there's an indicator sign that was built by the car manufacturer. Let you in.

Speaker 1 Marty, just force your way in.

Speaker 1 Force your way in. They're never gonna let you in if you don't just force it.
I have an idea. I open the door and I step out of the car, and just Marty's head turns into a red demon and goes,

Speaker 1 shrinks back down, and I close the door. Yeah, give me a.

Speaker 1 We'll call this presents.

Speaker 1 Give me a presence roll.

Speaker 1 It's a presence roll. Oh, it's a nine with

Speaker 1 eight with

Speaker 1 nine with hope. A nine with hope.
Not quite enough.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 As

Speaker 1 you

Speaker 1 enlarge your head into a demon-like shape and threaten to be let in, you're met with a middle finger and a shaking fist.

Speaker 1 This is a hard city. Alright,

Speaker 1 my turn. I'm gonna look back and

Speaker 1 a huge swarm of bees is gonna start to fly out of my hair and I'm going to make an apiarian cloud behind me, and it's going to

Speaker 1 cause a fog basically behind the next car so that we can get in so that it'll obstruct their view.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 I like this. Um, look at that smog smog.
So, I need to make a presence roll

Speaker 1 and see if I can actually cast this.

Speaker 1 That is

Speaker 1 what I can add, right? That's 12 plus

Speaker 1 214. I needed 13

Speaker 1 bees.

Speaker 1 Listen,

Speaker 1 the only unfortunate thing is I didn't fully read this.

Speaker 1 It gathers in a stationary area within very close range. Very close range.

Speaker 1 Do you have any idea what she's trying to do?

Speaker 1 She's wrapping the hair around my body tightly. So she's babies in the car.

Speaker 1 I could have gotten out. The man you opened.

Speaker 1 Open the window.

Speaker 1 Eyes of

Speaker 1 Damian Blackwell, once known as Mr. Memphisto,

Speaker 1 they darken over as

Speaker 1 he attempts to conjure using his minor illusion ability

Speaker 1 the look of flashing red and blue lights atop the vehicle, as well as shouting out the window.

Speaker 1 That was good.

Speaker 1 Wee-woo, wee-woo.

Speaker 1 Alright, that is going to be a

Speaker 1 14 with hope, which is a success on the minor illusion. Very shit.
Mine was with fear. I didn't tell you that.
Oh, that's okay. That's okay.
Let me adjust my countdown here.

Speaker 1 This helps you greatly.

Speaker 1 People are not...

Speaker 1 People are not surprised that you have a siren on your car with the B situation happening inside. Most people assume this is a pretty dire emergency.

Speaker 1 A good-meaning, a well-meaning I should say, Samaritan does sort of let you pull in in front of them as the car in front of them lurches forward. They kind of wave you in.

Speaker 1 Not everybody is so nice, but you do see a couple of cars kind of shift in and out of the way to accommodate the red and blue flashing lights.

Speaker 1 Are you trying to specifically look like police or just an emergency vehicle?

Speaker 1 I'd say in this state,

Speaker 1 looking at the type of vehicle he's currently riding within,

Speaker 1 an emergency vehicle is more likely. Right.

Speaker 1 Yeah, people are a little bit more sympathetic to that. So the car is kind of peel

Speaker 1 out of the way,

Speaker 1 especially Marty's screeching definitely pushes it over the top. Stay in the first gear.

Speaker 1 I have a long shot to try and help with the bee situation. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I think you have to fix it. Yeah, I got the hair full of smog, right? And smoke calms bees.
Oh, shit. Can I do a little

Speaker 1 shake true?

Speaker 1 Remanifest that smoke. Absolutely.

Speaker 1 Give me a finesse roll. Okay.

Speaker 1 Supernatural.

Speaker 1 Okay, so it's 14 with fear. 14 with fear.

Speaker 1 Speaking of, I should start tracking these. Let's get rid of these small ones and get some big fear.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I love it.

Speaker 1 It matches my steering wheel cover.

Speaker 1 My sailor moves through.

Speaker 1 You are successfully able to calm down the bees.

Speaker 1 The smoke from your hair kind of gets them to settle.

Speaker 1 They lay themselves down, kind of in a sleepy sort of position on your shoulders, on the car seats, on any surface that they can in your powder blue stanza.

Speaker 1 They're nuts. That's what I've been telling you.
It's very helpful.

Speaker 1 Staged by the intern, Barbara.

Speaker 1 Keep driving.

Speaker 1 You get to work five minutes late.

Speaker 1 And unfortunately, at the Burbank SDN, that is very, very looked down upon. You are able to find a spot underneath that one tree that happens to always drip sap all over your car.

Speaker 1 But it is an open spot.

Speaker 1 You're able to just fit the stanza in, the wheels kind of scraping against the rough curb as you do so. It's always so hard to judge these things, especially when your car is full of bees.

Speaker 1 Sleeping.

Speaker 1 Taking a nap. Get back in here, y'all.
Wake up. Get back in.

Speaker 1 And you make your way into this sort of business park with a very nondescript looking building with very sad windows with a pale fluorescent light that kind of greets you as you come in.

Speaker 1 You smell,

Speaker 1 You smell that air that's been recycled through the same HVAC system that's never been cleaned forever.

Speaker 1 That low-pile carpet

Speaker 1 that kind of scrapes against your shoes as you come in. As you turn the handle to open that front door, it shocks you just a little bit.

Speaker 1 And you are once again embraced into the despair that is your nine-to-five.

Speaker 1 So many coffee stains. I really have to work on these.

Speaker 1 As you come in,

Speaker 1 you hear him before you see him.

Speaker 1 The young sales rep with the shining smile.

Speaker 1 You know him as Owen, Owen Rook,

Speaker 1 and you hear his voice come floating to you through the barely cracked open door as he goes, somebody's got a case of the Mondays. You guys are rolling in late today.

Speaker 1 Hello, B team.

Speaker 1 Hello, B team.

Speaker 1 Get it?

Speaker 1 Oh, late, late, late, late, late.

Speaker 1 Good morning, Ed.

Speaker 1 Huh? Good morning.

Speaker 1 Good morning, Mr. Meth Blackwell.

Speaker 1 Blackwell. Are the

Speaker 1 clocks here digital or are they analog? Analog.

Speaker 1 I want to summon a drone of bees.

Speaker 1 At a very close range? No, no, listen. I'm going to have a cloud of bees escape from my hair,

Speaker 1 trickle down, and they're going to fly up to the clock and scoot it on back so it looks like we got here on time.

Speaker 1 I would love to see you try that.

Speaker 1 This is very ambitious.

Speaker 1 It's far range.

Speaker 1 I don't even have to roll for this. They just come on out and do shit.

Speaker 1 Okay. But I'm sure it may be like

Speaker 1 to do it undetectable. Yeah, yeah.
We're definitely going to need to, there's going to be a stealth aspect here.

Speaker 1 Which of your senses do you think this would hone in on or your experiences?

Speaker 1 Maybe. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I could use my office manager experience. You've probably done this before.
If you want to spend a hope, I would actually say you pull this off without even rolling.

Speaker 1 You've probably, this is probably like a maneuver that you've done. Yeah, I'll do it.
All right. Goodbye, Hope.

Speaker 1 You send out a thin stream of bees.

Speaker 1 They know their way into the back of the clock. They gently push it.

Speaker 1 His back is turned to you. How do you keep his attention on you while this is happening behind him? Or rather, the clock is behind him.

Speaker 1 How do you keep his attention on you while your bees go behind and move with that? Owen, is that a new shirt you're wearing?

Speaker 1 I think I've had this for like years, Barbara. I don't remember ever seeing it on you.
That color's

Speaker 1 becoming.

Speaker 1 Oh.

Speaker 1 I don't think you've ever paid me a compliment before. You're looking so swell today, I just couldn't help it.

Speaker 1 You see over his shoulder the bees have finished their little maneuver. Oh wait, I have seen that shirt.
It looks like shit.

Speaker 1 Owen, we're here on time just like we always are. I don't know what you're talking about.
I head to my office.

Speaker 1 He whips around to check the clock, notices that it is indeed 8 a.m. in the morning,

Speaker 1 and kind of looks in his own coffee cup and gives it a sniff.

Speaker 1 What?

Speaker 1 And then he checks his Apple Watch.

Speaker 1 I'm telling you, that clock's running slow, you hear as he starts to walk down the hall.

Speaker 1 That was very impressive.

Speaker 1 Get to work, Marty. Sorry, uh, yes, uh, right away.
Um,

Speaker 1 Fritzie? Yeah. I need that hairbrush back.
Oh, I'm so sorry. Clean it out before you give it to me.
Okay.

Speaker 1 One of your assistants comes clipping up to you, Barbara.

Speaker 1 What do we have on the agenda today, ma'am?

Speaker 1 Order some new supplies

Speaker 1 okay I could probably do that um

Speaker 1 so you want like just the usual

Speaker 1 yeah but um paper and stuff

Speaker 1 yeah we go through a lot of paper which is stupid with all the digital stuff happening lately but I feel like everybody wants hard copies of everything I don't really get it but it doesn't make any sense would you like for me to walk you to your office and I got oh I've only got your tea in there for you I want a coffee okay thank you how would you like your coffee

Speaker 1 Black.

Speaker 1 Just from like the drip from like the from the break room.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Okay, yeah.
I'll bring you a cup.

Speaker 1 Is there anything else you'd like to have me handle today? You've got a meeting with...

Speaker 1 Well, we have a morning stand-up that

Speaker 1 Valerie would like for you to have the entire team present for if you could just assemble them. Or I can do it for you if you'd like.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you can do it. Thank you.
Okay. That's going to be in the big boardroom.

Speaker 1 I hear it's a pretty serious affair.

Speaker 1 What's about?

Speaker 1 Well, I've heard they're downsizing and they're potentially talking about shutting down this branch of the operation.

Speaker 1 Really? Mm-hmm.

Speaker 1 Who who who's

Speaker 1 well I just I just did I just overrito that didn't quite sit right so I was just sat in there for like forever

Speaker 1 and while I was in there I heard Valerie

Speaker 1 talking to well they brought in a consultant there's like there's like this guy from India or whatever and I guess he used to work here like 30 years ago what wait what and then he like retired and then like they've brought him back in but like he's like I don't want to work here but they're like trying to like get him to like come on board or whatever and they came into the bathroom and he was over here like oh I'm going to change things up I I helped build this company it's not gonna fold on my watch or whatever and then she was like oh

Speaker 1 no I was gunning for this position I've been working for this this is like so unfair and then he says something he says something and then she said something and then I guess like there's these like consultants and they did they're doing a report and that like on Wednesday

Speaker 1 They're gonna either like fire a bunch of people maybe

Speaker 1 maybe they're gonna sack them. I think that's what you actually you guys don't say that they're gonna fire them and then they're uh maybe they're gonna shut the whole thing down

Speaker 1 get Diamond in here get Diamond in here

Speaker 1 Which one is that in your coffee? I'll get him.

Speaker 1 Mr. Blackwell!

Speaker 1 Are you taking drink orders and like a strawberry iced latte.

Speaker 1 Damn it! Yes.

Speaker 1 Get in here!

Speaker 1 Very well.

Speaker 1 Would you want me to leave you alone?

Speaker 1 Should I close the door? You want me on this side of the door or the other?

Speaker 1 Lizzie Sprout shuts the blinds. She has

Speaker 1 mold where there should be a curtain of hair and it kind of leaves a gentle dusting of spores as she walks around your office.

Speaker 1 What's her

Speaker 1 Lizzie Sprout?

Speaker 1 So you want me on the other side of the door then? Dispral. Okay.
Thanks, Lizzie.

Speaker 1 Oh, where did you come from?

Speaker 1 I know. Sometimes people think I'm a coat rack.
Oh.

Speaker 1 I thought perhaps you were like a very strange Christmas tree. Do you think because I'm an unpaid intern, my job might still go away?

Speaker 1 I mean, probably. Were you here the whole time? Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 I was cleaning the hair out. I've got something else lined up.
You should too. I would never do this job for free.
I do everything you do, but I get money from her. This is my dream.

Speaker 1 Oh, no, I plan on climbing the corporate ladder.

Speaker 1 Right. Um, what is it you require, Barbara? Perhaps we should discuss this as adults.

Speaker 1 Baby, office.

Speaker 1 Okay. Right.
You want me to remove her?

Speaker 1 Okay, come along now, little one. There you are.
Come on.

Speaker 1 We've got to get Mr. Blackwell the coffee.
And she gently ushers her out of the room.

Speaker 1 Wait, do you want to know?

Speaker 1 Did that spring any

Speaker 1 memories the way you were describing the consultant? 30 years past and

Speaker 1 it definitely did.

Speaker 1 You know of a very special superhero that can conjure six spectral arms one super smile and an acumen that can see the future and the past he knows all for he is annoying she is surely talking about govi hexa duparam

Speaker 1 govi for short

Speaker 1 now you know that he left to he left behind the world of material riches for spiritual riches and went to India, but

Speaker 1 he might be back. He is just the kind of consultant that they would bring in to potentially reprise a role here.

Speaker 1 Yeah, makes sense. Barbara, you look a bit hairy.
Is there something that your branch manager could do to help alleviate your stress?

Speaker 1 We might be getting sacked.

Speaker 1 What what? They might be shutting down this whole branch. You might be out of luck.
Out on the street, Damien.

Speaker 1 The girl goes against the door. Looks outside.

Speaker 1 What did you mean? What are you talking about? What did you hear? Who knows this?

Speaker 1 Lizzie was just talking about how she was taking a big old shit in the bathroom, and people came in and she overheard them.

Speaker 1 And they were talking about how a consultant was coming back in who used to be here 30 years ago.

Speaker 1 Does Govy do brom

Speaker 1 ring any bells?

Speaker 1 Do I also am I aware of Govy's history?

Speaker 1 An old rival of yours from your super villain days.

Speaker 1 A master of the arcane and mystical arts.

Speaker 1 What was Govy's superhero title?

Speaker 1 Um

Speaker 1 actually I have it here somewhere.

Speaker 1 Spectra. Spectra.

Speaker 1 It would be Spectra, wouldn't it?

Speaker 1 I need to sit down. I need to step.
See, having.

Speaker 1 I can see. He's having a panic attack in some way.
You know he can see the future.

Speaker 1 He can see the past. You know this place is a dog shit pile.

Speaker 1 Of course you're going to close us down.

Speaker 1 Marty. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Marty.

Speaker 1 Not now, Marty. What was that?

Speaker 1 Marty, get out there by Fritzie's desk. You know she sheds everywhere anyway.
I already hate it once this morning. You want one more? Heat it again.
You got it.

Speaker 1 Wait, wait, wait.

Speaker 1 I closed the door behind Marty.

Speaker 1 You've been a fine employee, Marty, haven't you? You've done

Speaker 1 such a grand job of doing as you're told, of being a fine, upstanding member of our dispatch unit, correct? Yes, Mr. Blackwell.
Trustworthy, immensely.

Speaker 1 Good. We need to keep our allies close.
We need to see who we can trust and who we cannot within this office. If indeed Spectra is to come within the very bosom of our company's safe space.

Speaker 1 You're right. You're right.
We need to stick together. We need all of us.

Speaker 1 Get out there. Get Fritzie.
Get Lizzie.

Speaker 1 Who else is do we lack here?

Speaker 1 Is there anybody?

Speaker 1 You have an assistant. Melody Rack.
Mm-hmm. Good melody as well.

Speaker 1 Melody.

Speaker 1 Sorry, Gummer Powell was on a second ago when I can't shake it.

Speaker 1 As you walk out.

Speaker 1 He's so very odd. Weird.
So weird.

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Speaker 1 the rest of us will do. I got bees, Daimian.
Bees.

Speaker 1 I know, it's many mouths to feed.

Speaker 1 We'll figure something out, all right? I mean, we've been through.

Speaker 1 We haven't been through worse.

Speaker 1 We've been through a series of small scenarios that I think, if you combine them, would be the equivalent of one such dangerous big thing like this. Before, I think we are also very accomplished.

Speaker 1 Some of us have done some things.

Speaker 1 We.

Speaker 1 We gotta make sure that we look like we're successful when they come in.

Speaker 1 Yes. Yes.
I have your strawberry latte with two sh two pumps of vanilla, Mr. Blackwell.
Can I come in?

Speaker 1 You may enter Frizzy.

Speaker 1 It's Fritzy, but it's okay.

Speaker 1 It's Frizzy today.

Speaker 1 Oh, that's true.

Speaker 1 Lizzie follows after her.

Speaker 1 And so does your own assistant, Melody, fetched by Marty.

Speaker 1 You are in

Speaker 1 your sort of cramped office, Barbara. Yours is a little bit smaller than Mr.
Blackwell's, but it is also a little bit more secure.

Speaker 1 There's fewer eyes that kind of fall on this part of your fluorescent piece of paradise. And as you pull down the blinds, you have a moment to confer amongst yourselves.

Speaker 1 They're gonna shut us down. Well, they might be shutting us

Speaker 1 down.

Speaker 1 Sorry, Marty. I know you rely so much on this position.
Who's shutting us down? It couldn't possibly. It's an institution.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Did you mention a Spectra?

Speaker 1 Spectra, you remember Spectra?

Speaker 1 It's a

Speaker 1 supervillain, former? No, he's a hero. Oh.

Speaker 1 I have to update my files.

Speaker 1 Although some might say he's a villain, I never really liked that guy. Perspective scenario, really.

Speaker 1 Well, if he's a hero, then he must be a good guy.

Speaker 1 Does he look like this? I'll go

Speaker 1 and six arms come out

Speaker 1 and I'll return to my side. Yeah, that's him.

Speaker 1 That's him. Melody comes and stands quietly next to you.

Speaker 1 Kind of like almost shoulder to shoulder, back to back, and says,

Speaker 1 what do you think? You think they're really going to shut us down, boss? Melody, I do believe they can try.

Speaker 1 However, we're a well-oiled machine here at the Burbank office. And I think with a bit bit of faith, a bit of spit and grittle,

Speaker 1 I think not only can we keep ourselves afloat, but perhaps we can embarrass Spectra once and for all.

Speaker 1 Maybe cut it down on the twiddling of your thumbs.

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 1 it's an old habit when I get the caffeine in me.

Speaker 1 Sorry.

Speaker 1 We do need to do that, though. We should fight some crime.
We should take care of some shit. You know, we've been really bad about making sure that crime hasn't been happening lately.

Speaker 1 Right, we are a bit behind on a number of calls.

Speaker 1 No, I am the branch manager.

Speaker 1 It is the responsibility of my employees to be better at their job.

Speaker 1 Well, you know, boss,

Speaker 1 from the way Lizzie tells it, they're either gonna shut us down or they're gonna lay people off. What if we push them more towards

Speaker 1 Park B and then we can get rid of all of the people here that we don't like? Ooh,

Speaker 1 He is the mascot.

Speaker 1 Owen.

Speaker 1 So, what's our strategy going into this stand-up meeting?

Speaker 1 Perhaps we.

Speaker 1 What if we blame it all on

Speaker 1 bees?

Speaker 1 You're in my office.

Speaker 1 I can hear you.

Speaker 1 Well, I'm.

Speaker 1 Wow. Just saying some of it, the wasteful spending, it's

Speaker 1 half of our budget goes to paper. I can't help.

Speaker 1 I can't help. You're the one that likes to write so many post-it notes.
Listen,

Speaker 1 it is not my fault if we're spending money here, all right?

Speaker 1 She's shitting everywhere. I gotta get new vacuums every five days.
I just like the way they sound. I can try braiding it.
Wait.

Speaker 1 You should try braiding it, you know?

Speaker 1 Why haven't you ever done it? It takes a long time.

Speaker 1 Melody, do we have collected the past six months of expense reports internally?

Speaker 1 No, but I'm sure I could put it together. See, all of a sudden, his face goes paler.

Speaker 1 Collect and bring those post-haste to ensure that we can

Speaker 1 correct them

Speaker 1 to facilitate an extremely

Speaker 1 beneficial looking, an exuberant definition of our expertise and capability, and to remove a few line items that could be questionable.

Speaker 1 Maybe we can also show how

Speaker 1 we derive other lines of revenue in the company. I've been starting up my custodial ASMR channel.

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 1 it's got 13 followers, but I think with a little amplification,

Speaker 1 a little organic, then we can bring it to the front Marty. All right.
It's

Speaker 1 Sorry, Marty. People go to sleep too.

Speaker 1 The tingle. Right.
Appreciate that. You're such a loyal boy.

Speaker 1 I worked in corporate accounts payable for a long time.

Speaker 1 Well, three days before they transferred me to a different apartment, but I can go get those records too to see who our biggest corporate clients are.

Speaker 1 Do you have access to them?

Speaker 1 Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I've been in 14 different departments in the last nine months as an intern,

Speaker 1 and they never remembered to revoke my access.

Speaker 1 You are

Speaker 1 such a fine example of an up-and-coming talent here.

Speaker 1 Thank you. Do you think I can get paid?

Speaker 1 That can be discussed. Okay.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. Yeah, I'll talk to HR.
Great. We've been compiling your reports, and

Speaker 1 let's just say that your capability in offering your knowledge, skills, connections, and access to such documentation would greatly reflect on your future here at the company.

Speaker 1 Oh my gosh, I'm putting it on my LinkedIn profile.

Speaker 1 I'm gonna start

Speaker 1 cleaning up my office a little.

Speaker 1 Just shoving the f

Speaker 1 yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 Matter of a job.

Speaker 1 Not yet, Marty. Thank you.
Not yet.

Speaker 1 Marty, just keep your chin up, you know. You're so good at the the streak-free

Speaker 1 windows and

Speaker 1 I thought besides you're like an icon like my little niece she's got a little guy that looks like you and she's like oh I love that guy my zetamorph dates

Speaker 1 oh gee yeah you're like from like the animated series that's like classic stuff honestly this job's beneath you Marty thank you that's very kind they they said I had a hard time establishing a character voice and holding it, but

Speaker 1 those days are kind of behind me now. And after all, I do like serving quite a bit, and it's really nice seeing what everyone on this planet does in their spare time.

Speaker 1 You do serve well, Marty.

Speaker 1 And this day, this very day, is an opportunity for you to rise above your station and prove your worth. Today is the day that you can prove that you're not going back to managing that American eagle.

Speaker 1 No matter what they do, they can't send you back there. All right?

Speaker 1 That will never happen again.

Speaker 1 Sad news.

Speaker 1 Mr. Blackwell,

Speaker 1 I will help, however, I can.

Speaker 1 Thank you.

Speaker 1 Thank you. Thank you, Marty.

Speaker 1 Those are the spores.

Speaker 1 Do we know how soon we're supposed to have outsiders arrive?

Speaker 1 Well, I'm assuming they're gonna probably introduce him at the morning stand-up. Which is in um

Speaker 1 what 30 minutes?

Speaker 1 Uh, more like 13.

Speaker 1 I'll go to the floor with accounts people!

Speaker 1 Maybe I can get out on the floor and just uh uh see what I can hear.

Speaker 1 Oh, uh, um, any

Speaker 1 speak uh stealthy. Uh

Speaker 1 I should go.

Speaker 1 I'll uh I'll pull up all of our uh successful missions and um make sure that the paperwork is out for that so that's the first thing they see.

Speaker 1 Perhaps um we might be able to call back if it's not Colonelinius one of our finer

Speaker 1 BB plus teams and see if we can do a meet-and-greet as well.

Speaker 1 Good idea, good idea.

Speaker 1 I'll um

Speaker 1 freshen up, and he's going to use his minor illusion to uh make his mustache a little thicker, his hair a little fuller, and his skin a little less sweaty.

Speaker 1 So, you would all like to zhuzh for the morning stand-up as much as you can. Let's go ahead and do a group roll.
Who wants to take the lead on this?

Speaker 1 I mean, you're the album zhuz.

Speaker 1 All right, sure.

Speaker 1 All right.

Speaker 1 So,

Speaker 1 you'll be our main roller. You'll get a plus one bonus for each role that is successful from your party.
And now you'll just narrate how you all help, which you kind of already did.

Speaker 1 So, I think you said you were going to

Speaker 1 clean up my office and call

Speaker 1 some people

Speaker 1 that like our biggest names in the superhero network and try to get them into the office oh on your team so that

Speaker 1 you know so that it looks like we're important we keep important people around us high caliber SDN yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah so this will be we'll kick it off with a presence roll from you along with any experiences you think would play into this am

Speaker 1 Am I

Speaker 1 basing this on everybody else's role or is this.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you'll get a bonus for everyone who is able to successfully help you here.

Speaker 1 So how would you like to help Marty?

Speaker 1 Can I use one of my experiences?

Speaker 1 You'll be a janitor.

Speaker 1 And I go around and just

Speaker 1 try and tidy everything up, but also I'm just constantly going around and listening for anything we can steal and claim as our own.

Speaker 1 Yeah, go ahead and give me an instinct role, and you can definitely add your experience.

Speaker 1 Double ones, baby!

Speaker 1 A crit.

Speaker 1 Fantastic. Doesn't help you as a reaction role, but it's not.
Tupa!

Speaker 1 So that's a plus one. Okay.
How would you like to help? Hmm.

Speaker 1 Interesting.

Speaker 1 I'd say using my Shadow Weaver subclass feature, I'll walk about the grounds of the space where the meetings to take place, and I'll use, I'll spend a hope to add a plus two to this role to make some of the

Speaker 1 exterior halogen lights to darken, to give it almost a more intense, brutalist feel that I feel exudes an atmosphere of professionalism. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 Some mood lighting. Exactly, beautiful.
It's what

Speaker 1 the sorcerer does.

Speaker 1 That's terrible.

Speaker 1 That's gonna be a ten. A 10.
Yeah, not quite enough. Uh-oh, it's a reaction.

Speaker 1 Fuck.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 as you adjust the lighting for the mood, you notice people kind of relax at work and get a little bit more sleepy and lackadaisical. No, no, no, no, no, that's all special.
You see them

Speaker 1 start yawning, being like, I really like this mood lighting. I don't know why we had those bright halogens on.

Speaker 1 That's how I dress my bedroom.

Speaker 1 Fritzy. Yeah, I'm sneaking down, super sneaky, to corporate accounts payable, and I want to pull Owen's sales records and change the name of the salesperson to

Speaker 1 all three of them.

Speaker 1 Mr. Green's done some good work on the sales front.
They're all moonlighting as salespeople, it turns out.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 I mean, this could be finesse to see if you can get away with it. Okay.

Speaker 1 You got this.

Speaker 1 It's 18 with hope. Oh, yes.
Very good. That's right.

Speaker 1 So, yeah, you're able to get down there. You're able to acquire the file.

Speaker 1 I think that modifying it and putting it back will have to be like a second action, but I think you can glean some important information here if you take some time to like look over Owen's numbers.

Speaker 1 Wow, we have the Empire Shopping

Speaker 1 area as a client. That's huge.
Well, that's a really big

Speaker 1 lots of big box stores.

Speaker 1 I think if we can get our names on that one, that's pretty juicy.

Speaker 1 A Walmart Andalo's?

Speaker 1 Double Griffiths!

Speaker 1 All right, so I think this gives you a plus one, because I think the plus one gets canceled out by the minus one.

Speaker 1 Got it. Okay, so plus one.

Speaker 1 And I'm going to use my experience of seeing it all

Speaker 1 to call up all my buddies that owe me favors.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 And what, oh, what am I, is this a present? Yeah, yeah. You're trying to convince them to kind of come in and look important today.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's 22, 24,

Speaker 1 27, 28. Smokes.
Yeah, I'll call that a success with fear.

Speaker 1 They're going to show up, but you're going to owe them one.

Speaker 1 All right.

Speaker 1 Usual. You're able to bring in the A-team off the street.

Speaker 1 Lightly misted with rain, fresh from a hard hard day of work, they look good. Normally they would hit the showers, but they don't because you told them not to.

Speaker 1 So they look like they've been working hard. Shiny latex, rippling muscles, a little bit of smoke and grime right where you need it.

Speaker 1 The A-team comes in, lines up, and pretends to be...

Speaker 1 Pretends to be sort of like staging for a call when you come in.

Speaker 1 They're sort of on ice right now, so they're just like pretending that like they're getting their kit together so that when the consultants come in, they're just posted up in a perfect picture.

Speaker 1 Like a Michael Brandon. Right at the entrance.
It's like a Baywatch episode.

Speaker 1 Melody, make sure the team has access to all the powdered donuts in the kitchen.

Speaker 1 You're delightfully mischievous, boss.

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What are you? Oh,

Speaker 1 this is what I do when I'm home alone. Drink Dunkin' Original Blend or pretend you're an influencer?

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Speaker 1 you go into the boardroom and wait for the stand-up meeting to begin oh yeah I forgot I get a fear because your role is

Speaker 1 another one Pritzy how'd it go It went really well.

Speaker 1 I found out we have some very big, lucrative clients that make us a decent amount of money. They don't call very often.

Speaker 1 But,

Speaker 1 you know, maybe if

Speaker 1 we can attribute that success to us, we'll have a little bit more, you know, staying power here. Mondris, hold on to that information.
And when you're called upon, be prepared to prove your quality.

Speaker 1 The door slams open.

Speaker 1 As it does, you see the drywall crack, and you see the regional manager of SDN, Valerie Halliday, walk in. Halliday, Valerie Halliday.

Speaker 1 She is all thighs and all traps. Formerly known as Shield Maiden, she is an immortal warrior queen and she wants nothing more than to be the chief growth officer, a position that has just opened up.

Speaker 1 As she comes in, the lights feel like they get a little bit darker.

Speaker 1 She's glowering, she's angry,

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 1 like worse than all of that

Speaker 1 she smells really good

Speaker 1 like chanel number five

Speaker 1 and espresso

Speaker 1 double whammy

Speaker 1 So I suppose you've heard the news, Maggots.

Speaker 1 Yes, Miss Halliday, we were aware of you stopping by.

Speaker 1 This branch can't shut down. I've put in too much work for it to shut down.
So you have two days to turn the operation around. Because if my branch gets shut down,

Speaker 1 getting fired will be the least of your problems.

Speaker 1 Well, what do you want us to do?

Speaker 1 These goddamn consultants are going to be here in eight freaking minutes. So we gotta cut the fat.

Speaker 1 I'm not letting that six-armed freak come in and take the job I've been working for for two years. Thank you.

Speaker 1 And if I go down, you go down. No.
Because I'm your reference. I know.

Speaker 1 Valerie, we just gotta find the people around here that we can cut the fat with.

Speaker 1 It's not gonna be easy. Get rid of Owen.

Speaker 1 Owen's our top seller. No, he's a shithead.
He probably ruins the sales for everybody else. I think he does it on purpose.
Well, the numbers don't really lie. I don't know.

Speaker 1 We got numbers right here that say it's all us. Yeah.

Speaker 1 These numbers say

Speaker 1 that

Speaker 1 Mrs. Honeycutt

Speaker 1 got

Speaker 1 this big client.

Speaker 1 That's right. Did you want to see the proof

Speaker 1 or just take my word for it?

Speaker 1 Give me your presence, Roll.

Speaker 1 I'm going to spend a help

Speaker 1 to help her by going by going.

Speaker 1 And as you know, the upper northwest of the San Fernando Valley has been a unnecessary acquisition for some time. We're pushing into possibly Panorama City.

Speaker 1 It's a cesspool over there of crime.

Speaker 1 Oh, no. Oh, no.

Speaker 1 Wait, wait.

Speaker 1 Wait, we're done.

Speaker 1 Wait, wait, we got the help action, right?

Speaker 1 Do you want...

Speaker 1 I added a five to whatever it was. Okay, so add a five.
Um

Speaker 1 okay

Speaker 1 once per rest. Wait, are you impressing or persuading? I think deceiving.
Oh shit, I can't even do that anyway. That's for somebody that's gonna make sound.

Speaker 1 So it's well, okay, so it's three, but my

Speaker 1 domain cards, you got this, buddy. Once per rest, after an ally attempts an action roll, but before the consequences take a place, you can offer assistance, rewards of support.

Speaker 1 When you do, your ally can re-roll their dice. Here you go.

Speaker 1 Okay, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, I'm gonna, um I'm gonna mind meld with everyone here and I'm gonna give everybody a focus die so you can add a D6 to your roll.

Speaker 1 Wow, you can do this, Frizzy. Fritzy.
Oh my god, she got my name right! Fritzy is actually uh the quite quite the asset around here.

Speaker 1 It's really the glue that keeps things together, and I think an underrecognized talent that might lead to some

Speaker 1 additional revenue for the company in the future. You can take a D6 and you can take a D6 as well.
So we all get a D6 focus die to spend on something.

Speaker 1 So I roll all of them?

Speaker 1 You can use that now or you can use it after you roll those dies and see if you need it. Oh, you know what I'm saying?

Speaker 1 Oh my god.

Speaker 1 Better!

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Uh, so uh, it's 20, but minus one. Um, so it's 19 with hope.
Plus five. Plus five.
It's twenty-four.

Speaker 1 Twenty-four.

Speaker 1 Nice. That's great.
That's really much better. You're doing great.
Thank you so much.

Speaker 1 Valerie's figure towers over your own.

Speaker 1 Her shadow falls over your face with the newly dimmed lights.

Speaker 1 And she says, I'll take a look at those later, but I can take your word for it for now.

Speaker 1 You've been doing some good work around here.

Speaker 1 Wondering if maybe we should consider bumping you up to an assistant.

Speaker 1 Do I get paid?

Speaker 1 Well, yeah, that's what having a job here would be instead instead of an internship.

Speaker 1 This went from the worst day of my life to the best day of my life. Well, we have to see if we stay open.

Speaker 1 So that's gonna be kind of part of the deal. Maybe some special incentive, yeah? Okay.

Speaker 1 Okay. Thank you so much.

Speaker 1 I have a poster of her in my cubicle.

Speaker 1 Her dark hair kind of falls in a heartbreaking shadow over her face as she looks like the vision of despair framed against the dark windows looking out on the black asphalt and Marriott light kind of far off in the distance.

Speaker 1 I've fought a lot of villains in my day.

Speaker 1 Sometimes it's easier to fight with your hands, with weapons, than with little post-it notes and

Speaker 1 spitefully written emails about how you hope this finds them well when really you wish it would find them dead.

Speaker 1 Thank you for bringing powdered donuts today, Mr. Blackwell.
This is quite literally the least I could have done. And mark my words, Miss Halliday.

Speaker 1 We will show and prove our ability.

Speaker 1 Today is the day where we gather our resources and gather our might.

Speaker 1 Our brains, our minds, our cleverness together. This office will rise above the expectations of this entire corporate structure and we will destroy Spectra once and for all.

Speaker 1 We will prove our office as worth maintaining.

Speaker 1 I hope so, because compared, they're comparing us to DTLA's numbers. What?

Speaker 1 And we're coming up real short.

Speaker 1 Come on, I mean, it's Burbank. Yeah, downtown.

Speaker 1 That's too high a bar. Too high a bar.
Listen,

Speaker 1 what if we commit some crimes and then fight it? So it looks like our numbers are big.

Speaker 1 We're going to do our absolute best to provide incredible numbers in the presence of the assigned individuals.

Speaker 1 Alright.

Speaker 1 They're coming. Let's take our seats.
Why is the janitor in this board meeting?

Speaker 1 Just Weddex for ammonia.

Speaker 1 Ah, you know, I'm just busting your balls, Marty. You're an inst your fixture around this place.

Speaker 1 You're an institution unto yourself. Thank you very much.

Speaker 1 As the nerves kind of take over, Damien in his chair, he kind of like focuses and gnaws on the side of the cape a little bit and goes like, Sanator, are you with me?

Speaker 1 You hear a little voice come up. Yeah.

Speaker 1 What's that?

Speaker 1 Do I have your assistance this day?

Speaker 1 I don't know I can do this alone. Lorp.

Speaker 1 I'll take that as he has. Thank you, mighty Zanator.
Your

Speaker 1 contributions and your arcane gifts have seen me through so much. Let this day be yet another step of our fine partnership.
I got you, bro.

Speaker 1 You too, bro.

Speaker 1 I think we'll be all right.

Speaker 1 I think we'll be all right.

Speaker 1 Sorry.

Speaker 1 You take your seats at the board table.

Speaker 1 And soon you are joined by your other employees. And then eventually,

Speaker 1 The slightly floating figure of a gentleman comes in. His feet kind of drag along the floor, a little bit like an ice skater as he moves in.

Speaker 1 He has the perfect silver hair that comes back in a perfect wave and coiff from bronzed skin, eyeliner that is gold and kind of comes up to his temples.

Speaker 1 And every once in a while, almost like a trick of the light, you think you see a beautiful array arranged like a lotus flower of hands around him.

Speaker 1 But then, just as you look away and look back, it's like they're not there anymore.

Speaker 1 He comes in and sits at the opposite side of the table from Valerie and introduces himself as Gavi Hexedburm.

Speaker 1 And as he does sit down, you notice that he has a briefcase, a very large briefcase that levitates and comes in behind him and just hovers above the ground next to him.

Speaker 1 What do you think is in the briefcase?

Speaker 1 What do you think he can do with all those hands?

Speaker 1 It's not that special really. It's just about the technique.

Speaker 1 He flashes you all a fangy smile.

Speaker 1 His immaculate gray and purple pinstripe suit pressed just so.

Speaker 1 Sorry, I'm a bit late.

Speaker 1 Flying in these weathered conditions can be a little bit dangerous.

Speaker 1 Did you drive in?

Speaker 1 I rode in.

Speaker 1 I have a driver, you know, like successful people have.

Speaker 1 Is that what we're calling it these days?

Speaker 1 It's good to see you as well, Mr.

Speaker 1 Deparum.

Speaker 1 Yes, it has been some time. It is indeed.

Speaker 1 Remember the fond days when your old mentor

Speaker 1 wasn't a villainous piece of shit.

Speaker 1 Well.

Speaker 1 Matter of perspective, but

Speaker 1 it has been some time.

Speaker 1 Perhaps this job is a sort of repentance for you. A way to make up for all of the horrible things you've done with and to your life.

Speaker 1 I'm glad that we could play some small part in that.

Speaker 1 Not a small part. A rather large role in seeing that we have ascended as a troop of meaning-given individuals.
As your presence here, I think,

Speaker 1 astutely allows us to observe, you are amongst equal greatness.

Speaker 1 You're not incorrect. It is in my vested interest to keep this branch open, even if it means stepping in and taking things over for myself.

Speaker 1 You say I'm very good friends with the founders, and therefore it's important to me that their investment be protected, because it's also my investment, spiritually, of course.

Speaker 1 As he says this, you see Valerie snap her pen in half, sending a gout of ink up into the air.

Speaker 1 Only if required, of course, he says almost as in response.

Speaker 1 I don't think it'll be as necessary as you worry about. We are quite an accomplished troop.

Speaker 1 And of course, with our finest heroics at our disposal, and as he points to the A team who've hopefully finished their doughnuts.

Speaker 1 The A team does look good. You were very successful in staging them just so.

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 1 Uh

Speaker 1 crack team.

Speaker 1 Personally, I feel that perhaps the team isn't the problem, but the way they're being managed.

Speaker 1 Breathe.

Speaker 1 It's very clear to me you have a lot of talent on your roster.

Speaker 1 I think the problem isn't necessarily the ingredients, but perhaps the chef.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 I think with my influence, I could move most of you around to other operations if this one is found lacking. But I live so close.

Speaker 1 Govie,

Speaker 1 hey, you're married. Hello, Barbara.
Yes, of course. Good to see I'm not smoking in this meeting.

Speaker 1 Maybe, you know, when was the last time you... Oh, my God, I have it in my hand at least.

Speaker 1 When was the last last time you looked at our paperwork? You know,

Speaker 1 we've been handling stuff

Speaker 1 a lot better in the past few weeks. And if you haven't checked out that new stuff, maybe you should because, you know, our spending is down and our profits are up at least 3%.

Speaker 1 Well, why don't you send it over to me, Barbara, or we can set a date and you can run me through your numbers.

Speaker 1 I'll set a date with you.

Speaker 1 I'll look over at HR.

Speaker 1 Whenever you want to talk, you just come to my office, alright?

Speaker 1 You know, Barbara, I have to warn you, we're thinking of using the hamrick.

Speaker 1 And if it comes down to that,

Speaker 1 well, we might be able to save the operation, but to put it simply, some of you will be interviewing for your own jobs.

Speaker 1 Now,

Speaker 1 when would that be?

Speaker 1 Because I like you.

Speaker 1 Wednesday afternoon.

Speaker 1 Wednesday afternoon.

Speaker 1 It's Monday.

Speaker 1 We got two days. We find that the chance of an altercation goes down if you do a firing midweek.

Speaker 1 That is actually

Speaker 1 legitimate, good practice.

Speaker 1 We have on good authority as well that there is a mounting crime spree in the area that could very well threaten quite a few

Speaker 1 individuals and civilians. So we are prepared to show just with

Speaker 1 blazing flying colours how accomplished our organizational skills internally are. That's right.

Speaker 1 Plus, we got powdered donuts if you want some.

Speaker 1 Shit.

Speaker 1 Well, I mean I would like one if they're

Speaker 1 after my long flight. It'd be lovely.
Lizzie, more powdered donuts, please.

Speaker 1 Didn't you mean Fritzie? Nope, Lizzie.

Speaker 1 Lizzie rolls her eyes.

Speaker 1 Lizzie rolls her eyes and she says, I'm not your personal assistant, I'm her personal assistant, so

Speaker 1 Lizzie, go get some fucking barrel donuts.

Speaker 1 I just went there, the line was so long. Lizzie, might I, might I suggest the Krispy Cream in the Empire Shopping Center? Which we have.
Why do you keep talking about that place?

Speaker 1 Is it because Owen's got the contact?

Speaker 1 Oh no!

Speaker 1 Is it because Owen has got that account? Is it the one by the airport? Personally, I like flying out of there more than I like flying it out of the LX.

Speaker 1 Go get some donuts. Alright, don't get your knickers in a twist.
I'll go get your fucking donuts.

Speaker 1 Add her to the list. Take myself.

Speaker 1 I'm gonna.

Speaker 1 I put a question. Govy.

Speaker 1 Govey heals the stress.

Speaker 1 Lovely assistant you have there. Crack team.

Speaker 1 Look, if we're looking to cut fat, you know,

Speaker 1 I could give you some recommendations.

Speaker 1 Should it be necessary?

Speaker 1 Should it be necessary?

Speaker 1 Very well.

Speaker 1 Just know there's eyes and ears everywhere, and they'll be watching you work.

Speaker 1 And come Wednesday,

Speaker 1 that hammer is going to be unleashed. Just make sure you watch out for yourself.

Speaker 1 Go on.

Speaker 1 Shall dodge your hammer

Speaker 1 expediently.

Speaker 1 Alright then.

Speaker 1 And he floats up from his chair and gently wafts out of the room like a breeze. He smells so good.

Speaker 1 Valerie breaks another pen in half, sending now a red gout of ink into the air. No, not red.

Speaker 1 As she cracks the conference table and goes, God damn it!

Speaker 1 Is he really friends with the owners?

Speaker 1 I have no reason to believe that he isn't.

Speaker 1 They flew him all the way down from India.

Speaker 1 I could have flown himself

Speaker 1 well.

Speaker 1 What the hell is the hammer? Okay, listen, everybody round up.

Speaker 1 We have two days, which is ample time to prove

Speaker 1 our capabilities. We are

Speaker 1 the world.

Speaker 1 We are the children.

Speaker 1 Right. The children of success.

Speaker 1 Of corporate prestige.

Speaker 1 We are organizers, born leaders.

Speaker 1 Hey, hey, breathe. I need you to give me your eyes.
Give me your eyes, Blackwell.

Speaker 1 Look at me.

Speaker 1 You're my manager.

Speaker 1 This is like a... You probably don't know anything about sports.
Okay, let me try another way. We're like an army.
Yes, yes, yes. Okay? And I'm at the top and you're my corporal.

Speaker 1 You probably don't know anything about that either. Okay,

Speaker 1 you're my right hand.

Speaker 1 Barb here is my left hand.

Speaker 1 I need the right hand and the left hand to work together and I need you to find out what this hammer is he's talking about. Okay?

Speaker 1 Because I don't know about y'all. I'm not trying to lose anybody.
If I can keep my job and keep everybody in theirs, it's gonna help me sleep just a little bit better at night.

Speaker 1 I like all of you.

Speaker 1 Despite your many, many, many flaws. You've done right by me for the most part.

Speaker 1 Sometimes you come in five minutes late and I find dead bees in the clocks, but I don't question it.

Speaker 1 Because I like to think of myself as kind of a cool boss. A very cool boss.
The coolest.

Speaker 1 You know, I was hoping that I would move up to chief growth officer and one of you could be the regional manager. Did you ever think of not you? Oh, God, no.

Speaker 1 Oh, God, no.

Speaker 1 Like, not even...

Speaker 1 Like, not even close. I was just trying to include you, but no.

Speaker 1 Never you. That gesture,

Speaker 1 First, paycheck. Yeah.
Then sh, then your job. Well, don't you all usually get drinks at the what is that freaking strip mall over there, the Cape and Cow?

Speaker 1 Maybe go there, work the other departments, the other branches, see if they've heard anything about

Speaker 1 these

Speaker 1 the specialists or the

Speaker 1 hammerer.

Speaker 1 Yeah, we shall.

Speaker 1 And have no fear, Miss Halliday.

Speaker 1 Both of your hands will service you well.

Speaker 1 First one, then the other, then maybe two at the same time.

Speaker 1 Stop staring at me so seriously. It's just gonna make me laugh harder.

Speaker 1 You leave work

Speaker 1 and you go to the cape and cowl.

Speaker 1 It is now nighttime.

Speaker 1 The sky is turning the beautiful color of a bruise from light pink to dark purple.

Speaker 1 And it reminds you of your own bruised egos

Speaker 1 as you walk with weary feet to this nondescript bar in a part of town that people that don't work here don't go to. I keep my cape bundled up so it doesn't drag and get dirty.

Speaker 1 Why do you still wear that thing?

Speaker 1 Because it's the source of all my power. The demon encased within here has granted me eyesight beyond the arcane veil.
It gives me all sorts of abilities to twist reality to my whim.

Speaker 1 I don't want to get dirty.

Speaker 1 Soon, by pad, soon.

Speaker 1 The cape and cowl has a vague tiki theme.

Speaker 1 From the outside, it looks like it could even be a convenience store because the lettering is very kind of just like that plain neon lettering you see anywhere.

Speaker 1 It maybe just says bar underneath it on the window.

Speaker 1 When you come in, there's some of that like dried grass trim on the windows. It smells vaguely of cigarettes and old Guinness.

Speaker 1 Its most distinguished feature is a full-size shuffleboard table that usually people try to get dibs on pretty early.

Speaker 1 early, and it is full of costumed villains and superheroes off duty, all tired from a day's work, all eager for a pint and a little bit of companionship a lot of the time.

Speaker 1 It's your home away from home, a good place to pick up on rumors, intel, and maybe even catch up with old friends.

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 1 should we uh

Speaker 1 reconnaissance? Yes, of course. I I I'll hit the bar first.
Uh round is on me.

Speaker 1 Beer, wine, spirit?

Speaker 1 Shirley Temple, please.

Speaker 1 Whiskey on the rocks.

Speaker 1 Sprite and Malot, please.

Speaker 1 Sprite and

Speaker 1 that's a diabolical dream.

Speaker 1 I'll be happy back.

Speaker 1 It takes an arcane mind to appreciate the delicacies.

Speaker 1 You hear

Speaker 1 the boy. Shirley Temple! Oh my gosh.

Speaker 1 Please.

Speaker 1 Alright, so. What do we do? What's the plan here?

Speaker 1 Stuart, your contacts in the

Speaker 1 villain world. I d I do.
We cross paths every now and then. We have a bi-monthly karaoke night, but like, you know, I haven't really delved in any villainy since signing my initial paperwork.

Speaker 1 But I'm sure I mean, what do we do? Do we spread rumors? Do we do we try and insinuate or cultivate a villainous network? Are we building a sub-company to go against the other company?

Speaker 1 Are we going for villain?

Speaker 1 Oh, I don't think so. Okay, got uh

Speaker 1 let's see, whiskey rocks, uh, Sprite and Malort,

Speaker 1 Shirley Temple,

Speaker 1 and a double shot of Everclear.

Speaker 1 Cheers,

Speaker 1 just throw it on my face.

Speaker 1 Jesus.

Speaker 1 Um

Speaker 1 uh I watch a lot of um you deep dive YouTube videos on um uh on villains and um maybe I recognize some people here and and can um try and talk to them because I know I know so much about them.

Speaker 1 Yeah, give me a preference roll. Okay.

Speaker 1 Oh, oh boy

Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 1 Uh-oh.

Speaker 1 Okay,

Speaker 1 uh, so it's You just need to be the 10. Okay, 13 with fear.
Okay, 13 with fear. Interesting.
The later of the paperclip. The paperclips? They're such beautiful colors.

Speaker 1 Um, yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you.

Speaker 1 You recognize a couple people. You recognize one of your own fellow interns who was kicked out of the program and is kind of looking a little bit disgruntled in the corner.

Speaker 1 And he seems to be talking to a very low-level villain that you've heard of. Actually, he's less of a villain and more of an anti-hero.
His name is Johnny Lathe.

Speaker 1 Lathe? Lathe, yeah.

Speaker 1 Now, you probably know him

Speaker 1 as you're maybe a bit of a fan of this group back in the day. There was a little tiny group of superheroes called the Pariahs, and they needed

Speaker 1 your classic edge lord in the mix, so they had this real real piece of shit named Johnny Lathe

Speaker 1 he was kind of their just like token knife boy his specialties are like close-up magic and and knife tricks

Speaker 1 but then when they later decided to soften their image they kind of cut Johnny Lathe to the curb so he's currently unemployed does he have a butterfly knife he does and he's doing tricks with it in the corner and doing that thing where you like you know I don't know the name of that game yeah yeah his his pastimes other than close-up magic include making women generally uncomfortable and wearing more camouflage than is appropriate at a

Speaker 1 bar.

Speaker 1 Jeff was at the high school with this guy.

Speaker 1 He probably has a camo hat on right now and he's like doing little lighter tricks. And he thinks he is the center of the party, but he is in the corner.

Speaker 1 And the women he is talking to do not want to be talking to him.

Speaker 1 But I do.

Speaker 1 Is that a past flame of yours? No, I just want to see what Johnny's deal is. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So I'm going to

Speaker 1 walk up and I'm going to offer my hand for him to do that thing with it. But

Speaker 1 I'm actually going to hide my fingers.

Speaker 1 But it looks, because I'm so hairy, it looks. So he's just doing this and he's, he's, he would be hitting every finger.
Yeah. And I, and I,

Speaker 1 Johnny, wow.

Speaker 1 What a life you've lived.

Speaker 1 I've heard so many stories about

Speaker 1 just... Not me? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 Johnny Lay! Johnny Lay!

Speaker 1 That's what people say!

Speaker 1 Yeah. I was good for a while.
Yeah, I was good.

Speaker 1 What are you up to now?

Speaker 1 It hasn't been great, man.

Speaker 1 You know?

Speaker 1 I've been trying to get my headshots updated, so...

Speaker 1 If you got any money, like, to help out with that. Oh, I'm an unpaid intern.
Oh, aren't we all? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Well, if you want to take some cards and spread my GoFundMe, that would be like. Yeah, oh, yeah, I'll do that.
Yeah, I've got a Patreon too. Yeah.
It's called Johnny Lades.

Speaker 1 Wow. You know, I watched it.
I'm on YouTube.

Speaker 1 Are you on YouTube? Um, no,

Speaker 1 I watch it. I consume content as a consumer.

Speaker 1 Um, I was curious if you've consumed any knowledge

Speaker 1 about something called like the hammer

Speaker 1 ever heard of it

Speaker 1 are you trying to be subtle about this at all can't you tell

Speaker 1 me do you have any experiences that can help you

Speaker 1 um this is not the this is not the ex-intern right this is who the ex-intern was talking to yes okay

Speaker 1 you could you could just give me a straight presence roll you'll just want to beat like a 15

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Anybody can help if they so if they can figure out a way to

Speaker 1 rest before the drinks. Oh

Speaker 1 Yeah, I oh wait, but you have a you have a focus you still have a focus die. Okay, wait, I need a 15.
So if I rolled a 15, whatever. Meets it, beats it.
Okay, yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah, because I rolled a 16 with fear, but I got a negative one on presence. Okay.
You just got it. You just got it you rolled it with fear

Speaker 1 um i think the complication here is that he thinks you're a little bit into him

Speaker 1 but he's willing to talk to you he's like

Speaker 1 oh yeah like uh yeah i know everybody yeah i know like everybody i was part of this group they were big for a little while

Speaker 1 street crowd with the indie crowd

Speaker 1 Yeah

Speaker 1 Oh, that's the name of the group? No, it's called the it's called the pariahs and I was like, kind of like the face a little bit, like kind of the brand a little bit. Wow.
I know lots of stuff.

Speaker 1 That's so interesting. I do a little hair flip.
The whole body.

Speaker 1 Whole body.

Speaker 1 I know lots of stuff, you know.

Speaker 1 I like your hair, by the way. Thanks.
Yeah. I like when girls keep it long instead of cutting it all short.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 I keep it real long. It's long everywhere.
So about that ham.

Speaker 1 What about that hammer time?

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. Yeah.
I don't worry about the hammer. Oh, yeah.
Like, what, though? Specifically.

Speaker 1 Oh, because we should do shots.

Speaker 1 Okay. Let's do shots.

Speaker 1 Shots, shots, shots, shots. Let's do shots.

Speaker 1 Come on. I'll tell you.
Come on. Follow me.
Follow me. Follow me.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 He takes you up to the bar and says, Two shots.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Gives one to you. What is Tequila? What? Oh, Tequila.
Oh, boy.

Speaker 1 My kryptonite.

Speaker 1 Um.

Speaker 1 Never had a drink.

Speaker 1 I say to myself. Oh,

Speaker 1 can we see what's going on? Oh, yeah, yeah. He's doing, he's making a bit of a spectacle of himself.

Speaker 1 I might contact. Mm-hmm.

Speaker 1 Do you want help?

Speaker 1 I'll I'll saunter on over

Speaker 1 and say, oh,

Speaker 1 Fritzie, thank you for getting me my shot. I've been just dying to drink some more.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Tequila.

Speaker 1 She loves tequila. I love tequila as I'm holding my whiskey in the other hand.

Speaker 1 Who's this young gent you're talking to? Is it a lady?

Speaker 1 Yeah. He was just telling me about the hammer.
Oh.

Speaker 1 You know about the hammer? Yeah. Clink, clink.

Speaker 1 Clink, clink.

Speaker 1 Give me a.

Speaker 1 This is just to determine whether or not you make a face.

Speaker 1 I think presence. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I was going to say strength because it's tequila, but I'll say presence. Okay.

Speaker 1 Oh.

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 1 11 with fear.

Speaker 1 I'm going to take the fear, but that is enough to succeed. You don't make a face.
Oh, he has a lot of fear.

Speaker 1 You don't make a face.

Speaker 1 And this raises his opinion of you in his approximation. He thinks you're very cool now.
And he's like,

Speaker 1 as he downs his own with like nothing, doesn't even use the lime or the salt, leaves it on the bar.

Speaker 1 Oh yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 It's this guy.

Speaker 1 They call him the hammer for short. His name's Hammerick.
And if he comes to your office, just know things are bad.

Speaker 1 What does he look like? Well, it's like, it's kind of like two guys mashed into one.

Speaker 1 And it's like a smart dude and like a strong dude. So like if they have to like restrain you and throw your computer out and throw you out of the Hariah building.

Speaker 1 Oh this is a sore subject.

Speaker 1 I'm so sorry, Johnny Lee. No, it's fine.

Speaker 1 You ever seen the hammer around here?

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 1 Around the cape and cowl? No. No.
It's in that type of scene. He's really like professional and stuff, you know.

Speaker 1 Because it's like a big dude with a little dude growing out of his torso, it like scares the chicks off and stuff. So

Speaker 1 yeah. Nothing like you, Johnny.

Speaker 1 Johnny Lane. Johnny Lane.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. You guys, um

Speaker 1 do you guys like darts? You wanna play darts?

Speaker 1 Maybe. You know, I'm alright.
Another time.

Speaker 1 Thanks, Johnny.

Speaker 1 I have a tattoo.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 I believe you. I would say it.
Don't need to see it.

Speaker 1 He lifts up his shirt and then pulls down his pants a little bit to show the top of his hip bone.

Speaker 1 Uh-huh. It's a knife.
It's like a little

Speaker 1 bit like it tucked into his waist pants. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 Is it pointing in?

Speaker 1 Oh, no.

Speaker 1 It has wordings above the blade.

Speaker 1 That's like fall on the blade and get laid. Oh, boy.
Oh, boy. Wow.
That was a choice, Johnny.

Speaker 1 Wow.

Speaker 1 Is a hammer local?

Speaker 1 Oh, no, no, no, no.

Speaker 1 That's like an entity they gotta like wake up or whatever. Oh, Jesus.
Wow.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 And they say he can, like, fix everything. Like, not gonna lie, when he was done with the pariahs, you know, they

Speaker 1 took off.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 You know?

Speaker 1 They took off.

Speaker 1 Without you, huh? No,

Speaker 1 I didn't survive the hammer. I went into that room and I was made redundant.

Speaker 1 That's unfortunate.

Speaker 1 And the hammer's coming coming Wednesday? Wednesday. Alright.

Speaker 1 Great. Yep.
You guys getting hammered? No, I mean, a little tonight.

Speaker 1 Any tips

Speaker 1 and when we see the hammer?

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 Be on time.

Speaker 1 Don't be late for work. Ever.
Because that goes right, like, somehow, like,

Speaker 1 Hammerick will know.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 have an impressive project to talk about during your interview.

Speaker 1 Like, one thing. Got plenty of them.
They're very surface level, right? So, like, if you can get them, like, two good bullet points. I didn't.
Uh, I launched into a song I had written.

Speaker 1 Um,

Speaker 1 they didn't go for that. They didn't like that.
It was inspired by Radiohead. They didn't care.
Um,

Speaker 1 yeah, so that doesn't if you just keep it, like, bullet pointed and keep it simple, That'll help

Speaker 1 have we got what we needed

Speaker 1 He got punched in the face again, didn't you? Yeah

Speaker 1 Jimmy slightly

Speaker 1 We got some information sure did Fritzy's she's good. I talked to to Johnny Lathe mr.
Lae

Speaker 1 who's right here Jonah Lae Johnny Lae, I forgot you guys got a shot glass in his hand Johnny

Speaker 1 go away.

Speaker 1 Go on. Get.
You can just say no. Get on it.
You don't have to be

Speaker 1 your corner. You don't have to be a

Speaker 1 bitch about it.

Speaker 1 I don't.

Speaker 1 I don't like that language.

Speaker 1 You're going to fight the queen, Johnny.

Speaker 1 You're going to fight Queen Bae.

Speaker 1 Are you going to sting me? You're going to sting me?

Speaker 1 I'm gonna um last I heard you're like old enough to be somebody's mom.

Speaker 1 Moms are cool, Johnny. And I'm gonna have a distracting swarm fly out of my beehive

Speaker 1 and I'm gonna try to knock them out. All right, yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I have to make a presence roll.

Speaker 1 I don't have any hope. I can't add any experiences to this.

Speaker 1 Can I spend a hope to help?

Speaker 1 Um,

Speaker 1 a second hair.

Speaker 1 I believe you can.

Speaker 1 Wait, but in what way would you like to help?

Speaker 1 What were you doing again? I'm sending bees out to knock him out. Right.

Speaker 1 Um,

Speaker 1 I do another really distracting hair flip so he doesn't see it coming.

Speaker 1 I'll take that. I'll take that for a hope.
I'll take that for a hope.

Speaker 1 So I roll with advantage. I think you get a d6 to this.

Speaker 1 Okay,

Speaker 1 why can't I roll with fucking hope for to save my damn life?

Speaker 1 Okay,

Speaker 1 I'm gonna add my

Speaker 1 focus to it as well.

Speaker 1 22

Speaker 1 with fear.

Speaker 1 Put him up there.

Speaker 1 God,

Speaker 1 maybe I should just switch my two out and I should call the other one Hope.

Speaker 1 Lower psychology. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 The bees stream out.

Speaker 1 What do they do? As they like kind of, do they attack him? Do they sting him? My bees are very intelligent and they know exactly what nerves to sting, to knock, to knock him out.

Speaker 1 So they like hit these little spots on the back of his neck.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 He goes down like a stack of bricks and the entire bar is better for it.

Speaker 1 There you go, Johnny. And he will

Speaker 1 stay that way

Speaker 1 until he takes damage or unless you want to spend a fear to wake him up.

Speaker 1 But you don't have a lot of fear, so I don't think you should waste it.

Speaker 1 You think it's probably best to call it a night? It's starting to get a little late. You're all feeling it a little bit, except you, who is stone-cold sober somehow and still manages to do this job.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 This is the time of night where the bar tends to get a little messy. Anytime superheroes and booze are involved, it kind of gets a little sloppy.
Is there any rumors you want to try and leave here?

Speaker 1 I haven't had as much luck, but.

Speaker 1 Marty,

Speaker 1 you're an unknown presence amongst the villains here. Perhaps there's an opportunity here for you to

Speaker 1 make some new friends, leave an impact,

Speaker 1 be a newcomer who has some very reliable information. Oh, I did.
I've been buying lots of drinks. People usually adjust it instead of wear it, which is peculiar to me.
That's good.

Speaker 1 You're making friends. Yes,

Speaker 1 I got a couple numbers for us.

Speaker 1 Well, um...

Speaker 1 Great. Yeah, what were you doing?

Speaker 1 What happened to you?

Speaker 1 Fell down. Oh, that's very unfortunate.

Speaker 1 You know what? I bet the steps aren't indicated with a nice, bright, reflective yellow tape, which is good to indicate a change in surface level.

Speaker 1 Probably against regulation, and we should report them.

Speaker 1 Regardless, well, they're good with those numbers. Perhaps you can make some calls and we can try and maybe seed some of this chaos that we could then beat down.
That's right.

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 1 I'm gonna go back in there and look for somebody to go home with. Y'all good.

Speaker 1 Also, be on time. That's the other thing he said.
Oh, be on time.

Speaker 1 But we always are. We always are.
We are.

Speaker 1 I could pick us up 15 minutes earlier.

Speaker 1 Actually, that might be quite helpful.

Speaker 1 Why are you looking at me?

Speaker 1 Maybe we never put the car. I'm always on time.
Just keep it rolling so that way we don't have any transmission or you can't.

Speaker 1 A moving car. Yeah.
That's a good idea. That's good.
Test our reflexes. That's right.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Very well.

Speaker 1 Rest up.

Speaker 1 put together your brain cells, and prepare to prove our quality.

Speaker 1 I'm going to try to find somebody to sleep with.

Speaker 1 Make a two for one. Find someone who can help us.

Speaker 1 I think that might be a good place for a break.

Speaker 1 I feel like that's like a great place for a break.

Speaker 1 Wake up from there after a break and take the next 30 minutes to hopefully finding someone to sleep with. We can just fast-forward past that, everyone.

Speaker 1 Oh, hey there, Matthew Mercer here. If you're enjoying the show, you can tell your own stories in Dagger Heart right now.
Check it out now at daggerheart.com or your friendly local game store.

Speaker 1 Speaking of which, let's get back to the story.

Speaker 1 And we are back. Mr.
Blackwell.

Speaker 1 You are seated in your chosen mode of conveyance the morning after

Speaker 1 the events at the Cape and Cowell. Indeed.

Speaker 1 Thankfully, my charger has been repaired, but unfortunately, that means the cycle of our carpool lays upon my shoulders. So

Speaker 1 I leave my abode to retrieve the rest of my compatriots within my digitruck, a fantastical polygonal device that is the utmost of luxurious rides.

Speaker 1 It's big and you get a little bit carsick if you're in the back seat. It's one of the features.

Speaker 1 It's very, very brutalist and dark.

Speaker 1 There's a massive screen that mostly doesn't work and I press a button and it drives for me, but I have to keep taking over because it almost crashes about five or six times on the way.

Speaker 1 You already have Marty and Fritzie with you. Marty, do you take shotgun shotgun when you're not driving? Never.
No,

Speaker 1 I would never do that. No, in fact, I just make sure that the seat is clean

Speaker 1 for

Speaker 1 Miss Honeygai before she arrives.

Speaker 1 I wouldn't dare take the front seat, so I'm also in the back. Yeah, backseat crew.

Speaker 1 But you see, this here is a lesson. The two of you have aspirations of rising within the company.
You must learn to embrace your divine right to receive. One of you must command this

Speaker 1 accompaniment.

Speaker 1 Who here has the proverbial nethers

Speaker 1 to prove yourself? Nethers?

Speaker 1 Do you want the divine

Speaker 1 right?

Speaker 1 Could be yours if you like. I don't talk about my nethers.
Okay, very Barbara's.

Speaker 1 As you say this,

Speaker 1 you hear a syrupy, sweet, thick voice in your mind as your cape kind of ruffles a bit to life.

Speaker 1 We long for the souls of the wicked. We long for the old ways,

Speaker 1 the dead ways.

Speaker 1 I understand that.

Speaker 1 We long for power

Speaker 1 to feast on the plorpy flesh of our enemies.

Speaker 1 What have we become? Chauffeurs to the diminutive and weak, the hairy and the hair-brained? They are means to an end, my demon lord. Um

Speaker 1 I assure you that everything

Speaker 1 everything has a purpose and we are on track. A pleurpuse.

Speaker 1 Everything has a purpose, yes.

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 1 Oh, my God.

Speaker 1 You must do my bidding this day.

Speaker 1 I long for blood blood and misery. Right, tonight I will feast on tears.

Speaker 1 See that they are someone else's and not your own.

Speaker 1 I shall

Speaker 1 do my best, Then

Speaker 1 in exchange,

Speaker 1 grant me the capabilities of bringing low the terrible majesty of Spectra.

Speaker 1 I will do what I can. I appreciate that.
Just consider it. Just keep it in the back of the mind.

Speaker 1 I lock down it.

Speaker 1 Was that out loud?

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 1 Absolutely.

Speaker 1 I feel like.

Speaker 1 Do you want to sit in the front? Because I don't want it here.

Speaker 1 I'll go sit in the front. If you press this button, it makes the road rainbow.

Speaker 1 Sorry, just a second. I definitely have something stuck in my teeth.

Speaker 1 Do you want some here?

Speaker 1 I was eating popcorn.

Speaker 1 And that's how it happens.

Speaker 1 The ultimate killer.

Speaker 1 Popcorn.

Speaker 1 All right, I think we're good.

Speaker 1 I think we're good, the individual says, rolling out of your bed, Barbara.

Speaker 1 Who did you go home with last night?

Speaker 1 Johnny No!

Speaker 1 You can leave it up the chance! You can leave it up the chance! Johnny!

Speaker 1 Really?

Speaker 1 Barbara! He's a sure bit. He's a sure bet.

Speaker 1 You followed the blade?

Speaker 1 I followed the blade to get laid.

Speaker 1 Okay, it's awful. It was not good.

Speaker 1 I regret everything.

Speaker 1 As you muse this to yourself,

Speaker 1 Johnny is rolling out of bed, putting on his hoodie, putting on his camo hat.

Speaker 1 I could like make breakfast for you, babe. Like, how do you like your coffee?

Speaker 1 Get

Speaker 1 out.

Speaker 1 Now.

Speaker 1 You're not a morning person.

Speaker 1 How about a little smoochie? Little smoochie. Nope.

Speaker 1 Get out the window. Oh, God.
Go out the window. Go out the the window.

Speaker 1 Out the window right now. You take too stress

Speaker 1 as he leans in for a kiss. No.
Just a little kiss for my special girl. Oh, oh, just a little kiss for the girl.
Swarm of honey, I'm going to knock him out again.

Speaker 1 The scene has been cleaned. I'm going to try to knock him out.
I'm going to try it for you.

Speaker 1 I can't knock him out.

Speaker 1 I don't think so. I don't want to help you on the side.

Speaker 1 I only rolled an eight

Speaker 1 on presents.

Speaker 1 With hope. Oh, wow.
This time. Oh, I'm going to take that hope.
Did I recover any hope while I was sleeping? Oh, yes. Everyone recovers to hope while you're sleeping.

Speaker 1 Everyone recovers to hope. Thank you for asking.
Shit.

Speaker 1 You somewhat recover from the events of the day, and you feel more hopeful today

Speaker 1 as the sun is out in Burbank. It's not a rainy day.
Hopefully traffic will be better.

Speaker 1 With that failure, Johnny goes and answers the door for you while carrying your stuff. He's trying to be nice.

Speaker 1 He's got your bag, he's got everything.

Speaker 1 He opens the door.

Speaker 1 You guys all see him come out. He's in boxer shorts and a hoodie and

Speaker 1 a camo hat.

Speaker 1 I'm gonna run up and just lock the door behind you.

Speaker 1 Get on home. Go.
Get. He walks up to the car with your items.

Speaker 1 Can you like take care of this or like make sure that it's you know my girlfriend's you just want to take that?

Speaker 1 This is her phone. She forgot to charge it last night.
We were pretty busy.

Speaker 1 I keep my hand over my eyes as I

Speaker 1 bays are gonna try to chase him away from the car.

Speaker 1 Your little love bites. You're so funny.
Honeycott,

Speaker 1 have you bathed?

Speaker 1 No, I have not.

Speaker 1 My suit coat and put it over the seat.

Speaker 1 Oh, she's bathed in very cheap dracar noir.

Speaker 1 Yeah, dracar noir. Smells like axe body spray and regret.

Speaker 1 We should get going.

Speaker 1 Shut the door. We're gonna be late.
We can't be late again.

Speaker 1 Crawl down that way, though.

Speaker 1 Nobody ever mentioned this again. Alright?

Speaker 1 Do you want your phone?

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 1 Your phone screensaver has been changed to a picture of the two of you. Yes.
While you were sleeping. Yes.

Speaker 1 Such a mistake. Oh my god.
Come and delete that picture and change it back.

Speaker 1 Busy sleeping bare hip blade up.

Speaker 1 You know what, Travis? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Bare hip, blade up. That's going in my notes.

Speaker 1 You begin your morning commute.

Speaker 1 We'll start another counter. Oh, geez.

Speaker 1 We get an earlier start this time, though. We did.
You did.

Speaker 1 Although your interaction cost us a little bit of time. I'm always a little bit of an interaction interaction in the morning, all right?

Speaker 1 This was normal

Speaker 1 amount of time

Speaker 1 for me. Of course.

Speaker 1 In your rush to be free of Johnny Wade, you actually do make it to the digitruck a little bit faster than you normally do.

Speaker 1 There's probably a run in your stockings and

Speaker 1 you're not in the best shape.

Speaker 1 But, you know, you're on time at least. Now, it is sunny, so you would hope that the traffic is better.

Speaker 1 Tuesday is typically a little bit kinder on the soul, but on this particular sunny day, a young woman by the name of Harriet Butterbell, distracted by a cute manotaur posing in his underwear on a billboard, managed to turn her car completely perpendicular on the freeway.

Speaker 1 Now,

Speaker 1 Harriet Butterbell is not a normal-sized lady and therefore she does not drive a normal-sized car.

Speaker 1 It is the size of basically a small domestic armored vehicle and it has unfortunately blocked two lanes, resulting in four lanes of traffic being reduced to two, meaning that all rolls today are increased by a difficulty of two.

Speaker 1 As you kind of get onto the on-ramp and try to merge into this

Speaker 1 very slowly moving river of cars, you do see Harriet Butterbell, a massive Minotaur herself, in booty shorts and a tank top, flexing by her car, trying to chat up the highway patrolman who is like kind of looking perplexed at how to tow this thing that has completely lost one of the wheels on its axle when it went sideways.

Speaker 1 Thankfully, no one is hurt that you can see. But what is hurting is your chances to get to work on time.

Speaker 1 Wait, now wait a minute. Are your bees going to lift it out of the way?

Speaker 1 Do I have on speed dial on my phone, do I have in my contacts any of the superheroes that have super strength?

Speaker 1 Let's see, actually. Yeah, you probably do.
You probably know a couple of them.

Speaker 1 Thank you very much. Do you want to see if you could try to get one of them to come by? Yeah.
Just fly in real fast and just move it.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Um, give me a knowledge roll. It's amazing the depths of a digital black book.

Speaker 1 Right. You'll want to get a 15 on this.
15. 15.

Speaker 1 Can I add my seen-it-all experience to this? Absolutely.

Speaker 1 Alright, alright, alright. Spend that hope.
Mm-hmm.

Speaker 1 14. 15.

Speaker 1 15.

Speaker 1 Meets it, beats it. Hell yeah.

Speaker 1 You managed to get...

Speaker 1 You managed to get the big woman herself on the phone, Valerie Halliday.

Speaker 1 Listen,

Speaker 1 Val,

Speaker 1 uh, the highway's blocked. I need you to get over here on the 101 stat, all right? Because we can't be late again.

Speaker 1 Should we?

Speaker 1 Can we paint this as a crime? That shit is. There's a crime on the highway.

Speaker 1 And you're gonna help fight it, right? Because, listen, all of our jobs are on the line now.

Speaker 1 You want me to come move a car? Yeah, but it's a big car. It's a crime car.
It's Harriet's car.

Speaker 1 Like a PR move. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, like Burbank SDN cleared the traffic jam. Exactly.
Traffic this bad is criminal. Oh.
Alright. We'll make sure that...

Speaker 1 I'm gonna film it. I'm gonna film it on my phone when you get here.
Alright.

Speaker 1 I'll be right down there. Thanks.

Speaker 1 Well done.

Speaker 1 Should we have some villains come?

Speaker 1 Two of the guys that we talked to last year, I think they would be perfect for this. Ali Alioxenfried and Toots.

Speaker 1 They said they were very amenable. Toots do.
Toots? Yeah. I mean, he toots.

Speaker 1 Forceful.

Speaker 1 It clears out a crowd. Crowd control is actually what he's used for.
He's a former embassy security officer, yes.

Speaker 1 I'm digging in my purse to look for some makeup so I can fix my face up before all this PR.

Speaker 1 Would anybody else like to do anything while you wait for Valerie to make her way over here?

Speaker 1 I could

Speaker 1 try

Speaker 1 a forceful push on this cart, but do I need to

Speaker 1 if we have I can solve this you can stage to maybe

Speaker 1 help Valerie when she gets here. Yeah, yeah, oh yeah, yeah, this is my chance to get a paycheck.
This is she's a mission. She is to be seen.

Speaker 1 Merely a shield maiden from 8th century Vinland. She could definitely probably use a hand.
I'd love to see her. She hasn't been in the field in a while.

Speaker 1 You get out there with your phone as well, get a different angle so we can get it on social channels. Okay.

Speaker 1 Valerie doesn't drive there because she knows better. Traffic's at a standstill.

Speaker 1 Instead, you hear the groaning of concrete as she climbs up with one leap, grabbing one hand onto the side of the freeway, and then pulls herself up in a perfect pull-up, vaulting over the side.

Speaker 1 Her suit and pencil skirt, the lycra in it flexing to the maximum of its tensile strength as she does so. To the flicks.

Speaker 1 Her calves look like steel wrapped in silk stockings.

Speaker 1 And her red bottoms clack, clack on the asphalt. As she walks over to the car, winks at you, knowing that you've got this set up and she's going to attempt to move it.

Speaker 1 You said you're going to help her? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah, go ahead. And would you like to spend a hope to do so? Or are you using an ability? I'm using an ability called forceful push.

Speaker 1 I make an attack with my primary weapon against the target within melee range, so I could just walk up. You can just walk up.

Speaker 1 I'm just walking up to this turned over car because it ain't going anywhere.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 So now I do that.

Speaker 1 Oh,

Speaker 1 um, it's a 13 with fear.

Speaker 1 Not gonna lie to you, uh, I rolled a two.

Speaker 1 No. Valerie, no.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Um,

Speaker 1 you said a 13 with a fear? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Oh no, Lily. Um,

Speaker 1 as uh

Speaker 1 Valerie walks up with you and uh you both get ready to push this car, the heel on Valerie's Louboutin snaps

Speaker 1 and she completely loses her grip, tumbling over.

Speaker 1 And as she does, one of her legs kind of juts out, taking your legs out from underneath you, and you both kind of collapse, taking one stress each as you're kind of embarrassed on this busy road full of cars with your coworkers that kind of watch you completely biff it.

Speaker 1 I drop my cell phone

Speaker 1 and I head over and I will use an animal incarnation, my

Speaker 1 elephantine size

Speaker 1 uh and you'll see like a big swell appears in my chest like a like a bullfrog

Speaker 1 and then it just moves into my right arm where my right arm turns into like an elephant drunk but it's super fucking blacksmith muscly crazy it grabs one of the tires and you're

Speaker 1 i try and like help pull the car while picking up uh uh Madeline at the same time. Valerie.
Yeah. Oh, you try to pick her up at the same time? Yeah.

Speaker 1 All right.

Speaker 1 Let's get a strength check.

Speaker 1 Come on. You still got that focus, right? I do.

Speaker 1 And you get a bonus from your ability, too, I believe, right?

Speaker 1 I

Speaker 1 do

Speaker 1 not.

Speaker 1 But I marked a stress to use it.

Speaker 1 That's amazing. We're going to say this gives you advantage because you're using your ability.
Great.

Speaker 1 23.

Speaker 1 24. 24 with fear.
24 with fear. 25 with fear.
Sorry, I can add. Yeah.
You are easily able to move the car,

Speaker 1 but

Speaker 1 I think

Speaker 1 the little bit of consequence here is that as you move the car and pick up Valerie, she's not happy that you picked her up. Oh.

Speaker 1 I'm still on the ground, too. You didn't pick me.

Speaker 1 That's okay. I can get him.

Speaker 1 Ma'am, it's all just all about that. Marty.

Speaker 1 we've talked about this

Speaker 1 When DigiCar drives up, I lean out to the window to the PCH officer, the CHP officer, and Hannah Hanneman invoiced me like, So yes, the Burbank Sabir Dispatch are gratefully happy to have aided you in your endeavors this morning.

Speaker 1 Take that to your commanding officer, and hopefully, we'll have payment in the next month. Thank you very much.
Let everyone know, let everyone know

Speaker 1 that we did it.

Speaker 1 Received a better job.

Speaker 1 Now,

Speaker 1 you begin to make your way down the highway.

Speaker 1 It's a little awkward. It's a little icy.
Valerie is stuffed into the back with all of you.

Speaker 1 Listen. Have her heel.
Do you want your heel back? I would like my heel back, thank you. Val, I'm gonna edit this video in a way.
Don't make sure it looked like you were right there doing it too.

Speaker 1 I really thought I had it.

Speaker 1 I've just got my elephant trunk hanging out the window because I can't change back until I take severe damage. Don't make it touch the side.
It's very likely to take prints. Don't stop it!

Speaker 1 It's so hard to clean that!

Speaker 1 Okay, so I've edited the video to where it looks like. Valve jumped in,

Speaker 1 went to lift, and then the video cuts.

Speaker 1 And then you, I'm going to have video of you also lifting. And as it goes up, it cuts.
And then it's y'all three standing there at the end together with the traffic flowing by.

Speaker 1 Wow, the magic of editing.

Speaker 1 And there's like heroic music. I'm going to put heroic music under it for the reel.

Speaker 1 You make it to work sort of on time.

Speaker 1 As you pull in, it occurs to you that your digitruck, there's absolutely no way you'll fit underneath the sappy tree. That the blue, powder blue stands always fits underneath.
That's fine.

Speaker 1 I'll just pocket wherever. Nobody seems to bother with it.
Oh, no.

Speaker 1 You just park it

Speaker 1 like in the middle of the. Yes, they'll respect a vehicle of this size and prestige.
Oh, yeah, yeah. Those lines don't mean anything to you.

Speaker 1 Too real.

Speaker 1 It was too real.

Speaker 1 Mr. Blackwell blocks three cars.
Oh. Actually, six, if you count the ones on the other side, with how wide this vehicle is, by parking in between the lanes.

Speaker 1 And you all walk into work, where you are met

Speaker 1 with that beautiful white light that washes over you all, immediately aging you all 15 years, bringing you back with a strange chime into that mode where your personality melts away and you become a tool in the corporate hands of the Burbank SDN.

Speaker 1 What time is it?

Speaker 1 It is one minute to 8 a.m. Jeezy.
It's the best we've done.

Speaker 1 As you walk in,

Speaker 1 a young woman is sitting at the receptionist desk and kind of answering calls.

Speaker 1 It's very clear she's just trying to look busy. In fact, the attitude and mood in the office is very strange today.
Instead of standing by the door gloating at you, Owen is actually

Speaker 1 working. Melody is actually working.
Lizzie is not working. Lizzie filing her nails and smoking in a corner with her mossy hair kind of cascading down over her tweed suit.

Speaker 1 You can cut the tension with a knife.

Speaker 1 Good morning, everyone.

Speaker 1 Immediately, Owen is like, good morning, and at the front desk, good morning, Mr. Blackwell.
You've got a three o'clock, a four o'clock. I can push your two to maybe five.

Speaker 1 Yes, do that.

Speaker 1 Who's that? Who was that? Do we know her? Huh? Do we know where the reception is? I was gonna say, I thought never seen her before. Never seen her before.

Speaker 1 I thought thought answering the phone was my job. Well, you should have been here.
I'm Rarley.

Speaker 1 Who are you?

Speaker 1 You're getting paid now.

Speaker 1 You don't have to work. You get a finger.

Speaker 1 Burbank SDM.

Speaker 1 Yes, of course. I'm more than happy to direct your call.
Hold, please.

Speaker 1 Burbank SDN.

Speaker 1 Yes. I'm more than happy to direct your call.
Hold, please.

Speaker 1 Burbank SDM.

Speaker 1 Yes. I'm more than happy.
Do you know their extension?

Speaker 1 Please hold while I find it for you. Burbank SDM.
Okay, I'm gonna take my hair, okay, and I'm gonna wrap it around that phone and I'm gonna yank the phone towards me.

Speaker 1 Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, no, no, no, no, no.

Speaker 1 And then the other strand also wants to push that finger out of my finger. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Are you using one of your powers for this or would you just like to roll your... You could just roll your finesse if you want.

Speaker 1 It could maybe. It could maybe be finesse or Jillian.
No, it could maybe be my hair storm.

Speaker 1 It temporarily restrains.

Speaker 1 I think that's perfect. Yes?

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 This is a strength goal.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 It's 15 with hope plus my one strength, so 16 with hope.

Speaker 1 16 with hope. Amazing.
Yeah, definitely a success. Your hair wraps around her finger, very rudely in your face, and the phone, and she looks stunned for a moment as you yank the phone away from her.

Speaker 1 Yeah, this is my job, lady. What's your name anyway?

Speaker 1 Donna.

Speaker 1 Okay, well, Donna,

Speaker 1 I don't know who you are, but you're awesome. Well, I'm Donna Dazzler of the New Hampshire Dazzlers.

Speaker 1 I am the new intern.

Speaker 1 I come from Covey's office.

Speaker 1 I'm handling his affairs while he's in your building.

Speaker 1 Y'all, he's observing today.

Speaker 1 Wait, it's Covey? When I was saying Govey, is it Covey? Mm-hmm.

Speaker 1 Oh, shit.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Her name was Donna.

Speaker 1 Donna's a bitch. Wait.

Speaker 1 Donna.

Speaker 1 What about our other intern? I don't know, go sort mail or something.

Speaker 1 They've already done that.

Speaker 1 And they moved me to reception.

Speaker 1 Okay, but nobody wants to be received by you. You're like busted up.

Speaker 1 I'm still restraining you, right?

Speaker 1 You are. I still got that finger in my hair, right? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Absolutely do. Can I fuck up that little finger?

Speaker 1 Yeah, snap that metatarsal.

Speaker 1 Give me a strength check. Okay.

Speaker 1 Uh-oh. Well, okay, so it's 15, 16 with fear.
16 with fear.

Speaker 1 Um,

Speaker 1 it succeeds. You break her finger.
Her finger.

Speaker 1 This one, this one, right? Yeah. Yeah.
You break her finger and as you do, she lets out a hypersonic screech.

Speaker 1 Like, it's like a DJ booth is in this woman's throat.

Speaker 1 And as the

Speaker 1 sub-woofer-like vibrations literally make the air in front of you ripple, they also rack your body.

Speaker 1 Um,

Speaker 1 let's see. How would you like to react? Would you like to avoid this in any way? This is an attack.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. I want, I, yeah, I wanna, I wanna spin out

Speaker 1 Yeah, give me an agility check. Oh shit.
Oh, oh, I'm good at that

Speaker 1 Okay

Speaker 1 16 with fear

Speaker 1 16 with fear. Yeah, you're able to get out of the way and instead this like

Speaker 1 Sonic screech that it sort of involuntarily escapes from her mouth shatters a Herman Miller chair that is sitting in the corner. We have a Herman Miller

Speaker 1 sending the incredibly expensive office equipment into its parts of which it is made across the entire reception room.

Speaker 1 I'm so sorry, Miss Honeycutt.

Speaker 1 Get in my office, honey. Okay.

Speaker 1 I can't believe she broke my finger.

Speaker 1 Sorry about that. You should find a...

Speaker 1 You know, the kitchen's over

Speaker 1 there. You could probably probably find a napkin or something to wrap around it we have some drink stirrers next to the coffee machine i'd use that

Speaker 1 she takes your advice leaving the receptionist desk vacant you have won your little turf war you don't think she's gonna be wagging her finger in your face again

Speaker 1 we should figure out where gobby is is observing from i'm gonna clean up this chair and then i'm gonna make my way around and and be back in your office gotta run some recon yeah

Speaker 1 while this is happening, do you have those contacts that you managed to acquire in the bar last night? Yes, yes, I'll text it to you. Bumblefuck, all the olioxin-free and toots.

Speaker 1 All right.

Speaker 1 Um.

Speaker 1 Is Valerie still with us?

Speaker 1 Yes. She is about to get ready to go to her office.

Speaker 1 Uh, Val?

Speaker 1 Can we look at getting Pritzy here upgraded to my assistant?

Speaker 1 These are desperate times, and I don't know if I can rely on Lizzie.

Speaker 1 I think we could do that.

Speaker 1 Do you want us to let Lizzie go or find another position for her?

Speaker 1 You know, here's the thing.

Speaker 1 On Wednesday, they're going to be cutting the fat, right?

Speaker 1 We need to have some people that they can cut so they feel like they're doing their job. So maybe you just find another place for Lizzie to be for the meantime.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 I don't think Owen has an assistant.

Speaker 1 Yeah, he could use the help.

Speaker 1 Oh,

Speaker 1 I'll put her under Owen.

Speaker 1 Fritzy, you're on me.

Speaker 1 We have about three hours of HR videos for you to watch, and we have some W-2 paperwork.

Speaker 1 If you go downstairs and you talk to Ronnie,

Speaker 1 there's going to be a quick onboarding.

Speaker 1 It'll only take about six to ten hours and then

Speaker 1 could I do that Thursday? No. Okay.
No.

Speaker 1 I mean, not if you want to get paid.

Speaker 1 Also, it'd be a bit of a liability. So there's a great video that was made in the 80s about respecting your coworkers that you need to watch.

Speaker 1 Probably doesn't involve breaking their fingers, huh?

Speaker 1 What if I forgo my paycheck for a couple days?

Speaker 1 So I want the title, but you don't have to pay me yet, so I don't have to watch these videos.

Speaker 1 I wouldn't have gotten to where I've gotten without upgrading people to jobs that

Speaker 1 are not within their job description, but not giving them the commensurate pay.

Speaker 1 Two days. Just kidding.
I don't operate like that. But

Speaker 1 considering the circumstances,

Speaker 1 I'll see what we can do. Maybe Ronnie can fast-track you a little bit.
He is very slow, though. Right.

Speaker 1 Uh,

Speaker 1 honestly, guys, I think today you might just want to keep your heads down,

Speaker 1 stick to the grind.

Speaker 1 Just do your job, do it well. Okay, no shenanigans, no chicanery.
Ideally, don't break any more fingers.

Speaker 1 Right? Something came off. We don't have to pull some grand heist.
We can just do what we do and show them that we are really good at doing it. I'm trying to give you a pep talk.
Is it working?

Speaker 1 Absent duty. I'm checking my numbers on Insta and talking to him what

Speaker 1 those videos did.

Speaker 1 Alright. How are they doing? I need you to get this team on board,

Speaker 1 but

Speaker 1 I'll put the new intern on that. On the social media.
Maybe that's more her speed.

Speaker 1 You don't like the new intern?

Speaker 1 She might not like us.

Speaker 1 Fritzy, you good at social stuff?

Speaker 1 There you go. Yeah, I spend hours at night doom scrolling.

Speaker 1 Oh.

Speaker 1 You get it.

Speaker 1 I'm gonna text you this video. You get it up there.

Speaker 1 You have my number?

Speaker 1 I do not hear. I need you to send it to yourself.
Yeah, that makes more sense.

Speaker 1 You can check out my ASMR channel on Squirrel Social. It's all custodial.
It's the waxing is really quite relaxing. Go on now, get out there and

Speaker 1 find some info.

Speaker 1 I have I have quite a

Speaker 1 quite a busy morning to attend to some immediate meetings. I'll just adjourn to my office to deal with my positively important business for the day.
Thank you, Valerie.

Speaker 1 You retreat to your offices. Let's go ahead and place our tokens on where you are.

Speaker 1 Oh, we have tokens.

Speaker 1 I don't know.

Speaker 1 Over here? Yes, thank you. Is this your desk?

Speaker 1 So, am I sitting at reception or do I have to go down to Ronnie? That's up to you.

Speaker 1 Gotta be out of commission for hours watching hours.

Speaker 1 This is the building entrance area. This is the reception area.
That's reception, but you wouldn't be there anymore. You'd be this is the janitorial closet.

Speaker 1 Where would my assistant be? We have

Speaker 1 the little office next door to me. This is the exit.
Or actually, your assistant would be here. Sure.

Speaker 1 Honestly, an assistant would probably have one of these. Just kidding, you got this little cubicle.
I'll take it. Yeah.
Oh, no.

Speaker 1 Here we have.

Speaker 1 They're still vanished. bit

Speaker 1 of shoveling.

Speaker 1 Shuffle board was needed.

Speaker 1 Put you right outside Miss Honeycutt's office.

Speaker 1 Here we have like the showers and the locker rooms where

Speaker 1 A team and B team kind of get ready. Some elevators that go down to the first floor and of course like there's our reception desk and break room and what have you.

Speaker 1 Do you all go about the normal humdrum of your day? No. Oh.

Speaker 1 Absolutely not. We have to do what we can to persevere, to exemplify, to rise above.

Speaker 1 I close the blinds in my office, go to my phone, look over the numbers that Marty here had sent me, and I'm going to first call

Speaker 1 Bumblefuck.

Speaker 1 Does he also deal with bees?

Speaker 1 You don't want to know.

Speaker 1 Rolly poliser is there.

Speaker 1 Buzz, buzz, bumblefuck.

Speaker 1 What can I do you for? Mr. Bumblefuck.

Speaker 1 You're with me, right?

Speaker 1 Doesn't hear anything from the skip? Shit!

Speaker 1 You have met an acquaintance of mine. Last night while drinking.

Speaker 1 He is a gentleman with glasses.

Speaker 1 Quite a uh

Speaker 1 quite an accomplished killer in his own right. But he gave me your information as possibly someone who's interested in making some quick money.

Speaker 1 Yep.

Speaker 1 Alright, so like, how it works is one throw costs $400.

Speaker 1 Two throws, you get a discount.

Speaker 1 No, you misunderstand.

Speaker 1 Some real money. Some

Speaker 1 criminal money.

Speaker 1 I'm pretty sure this is criminal money too, buddy.

Speaker 1 There are shipments coming in.

Speaker 1 Mass amounts of extremely

Speaker 1 gold bullion weight in illegal substances. I need them to be recovered and brought back to my warehouse within the hour.

Speaker 1 Give me a presence roll.

Speaker 1 You're gonna wanna be a 15 on this. Alrighty.

Speaker 1 Uh-huh.

Speaker 1 You hear a soft plorp from your cape.

Speaker 1 I need to make this guy believe me.

Speaker 1 Will you help me?

Speaker 1 Plorp.

Speaker 1 Glorp.

Speaker 1 You get a plus one to your roll.

Speaker 1 All right.

Speaker 1 I will

Speaker 1 live for this evil stuff.

Speaker 1 Here's what I'll do. Here's what I'll do.
I'm gonna spend a hope.

Speaker 1 Be like,

Speaker 1 and do not worry, this is not traceable, but you will be paid in crypto.

Speaker 1 Is that a plus two to that?

Speaker 1 Okay,

Speaker 1 that is 19

Speaker 1 23 with fear. Oh, 23 with

Speaker 1 the fire. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 23 with fear, resounding success. You will find them within the Burbank Ikea,

Speaker 1 hidden

Speaker 1 in the blue couches.

Speaker 1 You do not have much time, but you must carve into them until you find it. Then run.
I will be utilizing my contacts there to bring security away, so you will not be spotted.

Speaker 1 You know, normally normally I use my powers to like squeeze people up into little footballs and pump them through goals.

Speaker 1 But I feel like this is a job that is well suited for me.

Speaker 1 So, I've heard. And if anyone gets in your way, pumped away.

Speaker 1 I'm on it, boss. What's your cut gonna be? What do you get out of this? Well, you deliver it to me, the goods we distribute.

Speaker 1 So, quite a bit.

Speaker 1 Besides, Gliffcoin is on the way up

Speaker 1 Hold on to it for about two years and it will change your life

Speaker 1 Okay, I think I understood like 30% of that, but

Speaker 1 most people do

Speaker 1 I thought I was supposed to buy GameStop

Speaker 1 It's transferable

Speaker 1 immediately call over to Barbara

Speaker 1 Barbara

Speaker 1 Could you please send one of our available teams to the Burbank Ikea in about 45 minutes to an hour? Stake out there is going to be an attempted raid and destruction upon the property.

Speaker 1 And let's make sure the cameras are rolling.

Speaker 1 What y'all been up to, Damien? I like it.

Speaker 1 Let me look at who we got today.

Speaker 1 Alright.

Speaker 1 I'll make some phone calls and get some of our B-plus

Speaker 1 heroes out to fight that.

Speaker 1 How does the first part of your day go?

Speaker 1 Outside of those phone calls right there,

Speaker 1 I will be

Speaker 1 going through my spending reports,

Speaker 1 finagling them to make them look like, you know,

Speaker 1 they're not as bad as they are.

Speaker 1 Give me a knowledge roll. All right.

Speaker 1 What do I got? All right.

Speaker 1 Shit.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 All right.

Speaker 1 That's 1920.

Speaker 1 20. With hope? With hope.
Amazing.

Speaker 1 You are able to

Speaker 1 not only identify a couple of places where you could cut costs and where some expenses are doubled up, but with that resounding success with Hope,

Speaker 1 you actually notice that Owen's expense reports seem a little weird.

Speaker 1 The numbers are a little too round at very regular intervals.

Speaker 1 That little motherfucker. His travel expenses specifically don't seem to add up.
There's a lot of flights, hotels, things on there that don't match up with what you think he's been doing.

Speaker 1 The dates are off.

Speaker 1 It would take a very careful eye to notice such a small discrepancy. But you're like, why does he always need a train ticket or an airplane ticket on the 21st of the month?

Speaker 1 I'm definitely.

Speaker 1 Why is lunch at Chili's always exactly $64?

Speaker 1 How many trip dips is this man eating?

Speaker 1 They have lunch specials there. It should not be that expensive.

Speaker 1 I'm going to call Marty. Mart, actually, Fritzie.
Yeah. Get Marty in here.
Marty.

Speaker 1 Sorry, I'll stand up. Thanks so much.

Speaker 1 Yes?

Speaker 1 Marty, get in the office. Which one? Mine.
Oh.

Speaker 1 Yes, ma'am. You're discreet, right, Marty?

Speaker 1 You can be discreet. Right, Marty?

Speaker 1 Yes. All right, here's the deal.
Okay.

Speaker 1 I need you.

Speaker 1 Today at lunch,

Speaker 1 I want you to follow Owen.

Speaker 1 All right?

Speaker 1 Be discreet.

Speaker 1 See where he goes. Because I got a daily report here saying he goes to Chili's for $64 and I don't believe a second of it.
What do you get? Chili's for $64? Exactly. There's nothing

Speaker 1 on the menu that would be that much. I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 It went out the wrong pie.

Speaker 1 You follow him.

Speaker 1 Hold on.

Speaker 1 You follow him.

Speaker 1 Alright?

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 find out what he's actually spending money on because I think he's lying. And

Speaker 1 we could nail his ass. We can get him out.
And I know we've been trying to do that already. I can do that.
I can be discreet. I can actually blend in extremely well.
That's right.

Speaker 1 Change your little shape there. And you go on out to Chili's and you do something successful and useful, Marty, and you show people exactly what you're made of, all right?

Speaker 1 All right.

Speaker 1 I can do it. All right.
I'll save the branch. It's all on your own.
Single-handedly kill Owen. What? Only if you absolutely have to.

Speaker 1 But listen, I think you should not do that, and we should throw him under the bus tomorrow. Oh, great.
Yeah. I was going to try and figure out where Covey was holed up and working in the office.

Speaker 1 Oh.

Speaker 1 Well, shit. I can do that first,

Speaker 1 and then I'll follow Owen, because

Speaker 1 it's not even lunchtime yet. Yeah, we'll do your shit fast and then you go do my shit.
I won't let you down.

Speaker 1 You never do Marty.

Speaker 1 Get on out of here now.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 I'll leave and pick up the trash can that was just outside the door and I'll empty the

Speaker 1 little trash cans by the desks as I move around. But I'm not so much looking at the little islands in the common work areas.

Speaker 1 I'm more keeping an eye on the perimeter offices, conference rooms, break rooms, anywhere where I might spot or smell a heavenly note of spectral flower energy. Give me an instinct.

Speaker 1 An instinct check. You're gonna need to be, this is gonna be hard.
You're gonna need to beat a 20.

Speaker 1 It's gonna be very difficult.

Speaker 1 I'm going to use,

Speaker 1 I'm gonna burn, I'm gonna spend a hope to use my experience

Speaker 1 from outer space

Speaker 1 and I'm gonna let my real alien nostrils develop, which are four times the size of average human nostrils. Like they just fucking suck in all sorts of shit,

Speaker 1 but it also helps me like

Speaker 1 get the hint of anything that's along along the way.

Speaker 1 Okay, that's a

Speaker 1 22, 23, 23 with fear. With fear, okay.

Speaker 1 It's enough, though.

Speaker 1 You do catch a whiff

Speaker 1 of

Speaker 1 what smells like fresh rain and lily pads.

Speaker 1 Sure.

Speaker 1 And a gentle wafting breeze that you know isn't coming from the HVAC system because it doesn't have the kind of power to move air like that. It doesn't.
That shit smells like crayons.

Speaker 1 It's coming from the stairwell.

Speaker 1 I will.

Speaker 1 This one over on this side. Okay.

Speaker 1 Can I creep up to the stairwell ever so carefully and just

Speaker 1 see if I can hear any conversation coming from within it? Mm-hmm. You most definitely can.
Give me a finesse roll to see how quiet you are.

Speaker 1 You'll get a snippet of conversation either way, but this just determines how much of the snippet of conversation you'll get.

Speaker 1 That's a 16 with hope.

Speaker 1 Hope.

Speaker 1 You glide towards the stairwell, and as so often the most important people that uphold our society are, you are not noticed. as you drift through the space.

Speaker 1 Even though you maintain it, without you, none of these trains would run on time. You have a penchant for blending in.
And so you walk through and it's like you're not even a person.

Speaker 1 And as you approach the stairwell door and maybe even crack it open a bit, you do hear Govy's smooth voice speaking to a voice you've never heard before.

Speaker 1 And the part of it that you hear is,

Speaker 1 well,

Speaker 1 I would really prefer if we didn't shut down the whole branch.

Speaker 1 You don't think it's possible, even with your considerable skills.

Speaker 1 Well, I've heard that you've hammered many an operation into shape.

Speaker 1 You hear a second voice, silky smooth as the first, be like, well, now

Speaker 1 I can't work miracles. You know, I'm definitely going to get in there.
I'm going to try.

Speaker 1 Got to do what you got to do.

Speaker 1 Things being as they are, be that as it may,

Speaker 1 you know, it's just looking at the numbers the call volume it's not really at what we need we're gonna need a little bit of an adjustment gotta synergize the operation

Speaker 1 take what we have divide it and turn it into something that works not only perpendicular but parallel

Speaker 1 And as my associate here would tell you, were he but capable of the English language, you would know

Speaker 1 that

Speaker 1 he agrees. And here is, and here is the rub.

Speaker 1 You know, sometimes you got to cut off the hand to save the arm. Sometimes you got to cut off the arm to save the body.
And here's the thing, too.

Speaker 1 People land on their feet. And also keeping in mind

Speaker 1 who our loyalties are to.

Speaker 1 Who are we working with? Who are we working for?

Speaker 1 let's look at job descriptions you know

Speaker 1 but

Speaker 1 I think if we could get this down by 30%

Speaker 1 we could talk but you'd have to you'd have to I mean you're kind of what you're asking me for

Speaker 1 well

Speaker 1 You're asking me for the moon and I'm I'm well if anybody could deliver it to you I guess I suppose I would be that guy

Speaker 1 Ah, you know. But, you know, I won't take up too much of your time here.

Speaker 1 So let's maybe huddle up. Let's reconnect.

Speaker 1 Get on a call later today.

Speaker 1 And maybe we can figure out what we can do to

Speaker 1 get your

Speaker 1 product back online. Does it sound like he is this individual is in the stairwell with him or like on a digital call? Like coming through a device? It sounds like he's in a tunnel.
Got it.

Speaker 1 Oh, a tunnel.

Speaker 1 You hear Govy, and it doesn't take an incredibly insightful person to know that he is incredibly fucking annoyed. And he's like, yes, of course.
Thank you so much for your wonderful insight, Mr.

Speaker 1 Hammerick.

Speaker 1 Well, you know,

Speaker 1 30% is a number that maybe

Speaker 1 we could get down to.

Speaker 1 I mean, I can think of a couple people that could go.

Speaker 1 Typically, when such reorganizations are done, you go for the highest salaries.

Speaker 1 And that abomination of a car in the parking lot, I don't think I have to tell you who the highest salary is. Perhaps instead of removing 30% of the employees, we remove two.

Speaker 1 Just something to consider.

Speaker 1 Well, you know, here's the thing. We gotta talk about institutional knowledge.
We got to talk about loyalty, you know?

Speaker 1 And when you remove the head of a company, you're losing that institutional knowledge. We got to think about that.
We got to think about high-skill worker. We got to think about low-skill worker.

Speaker 1 Oh, God, I just peel away from the stairwell.

Speaker 1 You're all really hot, so you can get all of it.

Speaker 1 I leave and I high tail it back to

Speaker 1 Miss

Speaker 1 Honeycroft's office tonight. Lee and I go, you're fine.
And I leave and go to Mr. Blackwell.
As you're heading that way, your phone rings.

Speaker 1 Yes, DN Burbank. Without major call.
Miss Frisbee, this is Mr. Blackwell.

Speaker 1 I have a question to ask of you. If there were a place in Burbank that would be a a place to stage spectacle that comes to mind.
A location that you think a grand fight and showdown could occur.

Speaker 1 What would your mind go to immediately? Ooh,

Speaker 1 it would go to

Speaker 1 the Whole Foods off of Olive Avenue.

Speaker 1 God, Sean.

Speaker 1 Specific, we're gonna break that down later.

Speaker 1 Thank you so much. You're welcome.
I'll keep this in mind for your report. Okay.

Speaker 1 As you get off the phone,

Speaker 1 I'm going to spend...

Speaker 1 Lost it. That's fine.

Speaker 1 I'm going to spend two fear. Oh, God.

Speaker 1 And two things happen

Speaker 1 simultaneously.

Speaker 1 Melody approaches you at the front desk, looking quite worried, and sort of in her simpering way,

Speaker 1 because she is an assistant to, you know, a wonderful villain.

Speaker 1 Hey, um.

Speaker 1 I need your help.

Speaker 1 What can I do? Okay,

Speaker 1 so uh I brought my dog to work. I'm not supposed to bring my dog to work, but I brought my dog to work and there was this whole thing with the

Speaker 1 dog sitter. And I think

Speaker 1 he kind of

Speaker 1 ate part of her. But

Speaker 1 I'm on my last strike. I'm not supposed to bring bird dog to work.

Speaker 1 And I brought bird dog to work and I lost bird dog because I put him him in this end garden on the second floor and that door is gone.

Speaker 1 There's a lot of broken glass and I think he's somewhere in this office. And

Speaker 1 if

Speaker 1 they find him

Speaker 1 and they realize I brought my dog to work again, I'm done. Like I'm just, I'm cooked.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I'll help.

Speaker 1 You'll help? Mm-hmm.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 What do we do?

Speaker 1 Can I have a second? I just gotta make a call.

Speaker 1 Yeah, okay, okay. And then I'm gonna get

Speaker 1 all my buds

Speaker 1 on a conference call and say, okay.

Speaker 1 Before that happens, the Did spend two fears. Oh, that's right.

Speaker 1 The glass of the conference room window shatters.

Speaker 1 Oh, no!

Speaker 1 And in jumps a ridiculous looking man with the most spindly legs you've ever seen in your life and a horned helmet and a long wispy beard. And he shouts, Aliali oxen free!

Speaker 1 And as he shouts it, a billion miniature oxen sprout from his beard.

Speaker 1 And he goes, I come to challenge you, Marty,

Speaker 1 for our duel is as yet unfitted.

Speaker 1 Chaos erupts in the office as the oxen begin to just charge forward in a wave.

Speaker 1 You won't

Speaker 1 escape my vengeance this time, Marty. This is my branch and you are not to stomp it with your beasts.
I'm gonna go ahead and charge from my office towards the direction of where the oxen are coming.

Speaker 1 The tiny, there's a a bunch of tiny ones. They're about the size of like small dogs.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 And there are, let me give you a number here.

Speaker 1 There's 32 of them. Wow.

Speaker 1 And they've all swung into life from his beard. Yep.

Speaker 1 All right, so here's what I'm going to do. He's standing with his crotch up, like

Speaker 1 leg on the table, other leg on the chair, shaking a fist menacingly. All right, as the M for Mr.
Mephisto that still besets the center of his cloak begins to glow, his eyes go black.

Speaker 1 And I leap off of one of the desks to put my feet, like flip up to the ceiling and use wall walk to shoof, affix my feet to the ceiling and continue to walk towards the area above of where this mass of tiny oxen are rushing and attempt to rain of blades as I begin to under my breath,

Speaker 1 and I'm gonna go ahead and open my cloak And from the shadows within, a bunch of arcane blades

Speaker 1 tripping into rain down from above onto these oxen to try and prevent them from fucking up our office. Amazing.

Speaker 1 Fantastic.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I think we're in combat, so go ahead and roll to hit. All right, let's go.
Come on, oxen killer. I'll just spend a hoke to do this.
It's an instinct roll for me. All right.

Speaker 1 Oh, that's not great.

Speaker 1 That's not great at all. That's going to be an 11

Speaker 1 with hope.

Speaker 1 An 11 with hope. Just give me just a moment here.

Speaker 1 This would be against all targets within very close range. Okay.

Speaker 1 That hits. Okay.
Fantastic. Oh, good.
I almost used that feature to let you re-roll.

Speaker 1 Alright, so for that, they're not vulnerable, so it's just going to be

Speaker 1 seven points of magic damage upon any of the oxen that are within kind of a very close range below me. Fantastic.
So seven points of damage.

Speaker 1 You see several of the oxen kind of turn into puffs of wispy beard hair as your blades come down on them, kind of thinning the herd a little bit, thankfully, before they hit the glass wall on the opposite side of your conference room.

Speaker 1 So you see some of them kind of veer off, trying to avoid your blades, and they go out the door, and the rest of them kind of go k-thunk against the glass because there's not enough force to go through it.

Speaker 1 And you see several of them just kind of like disappear into puffs of beard.

Speaker 1 Contain the chaos?

Speaker 1 I'm going to, oh shit.

Speaker 1 I'm going to, I'm, yeah, I'm going to, I'm going to hair storm it again.

Speaker 1 But this time,

Speaker 1 I want wanna like lasso.

Speaker 1 If any of them, they have to be within very close range. Are any of them in very probably not actually?

Speaker 1 I think I'm green. You could get up.
I'm green.

Speaker 1 I could get up.

Speaker 1 I don't view that as like a very far movement. No, I think you could move and do that action.
Okay. I'm gonna rule that you can.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I wanna get in the middle of it.

Speaker 1 I'm gonna got a couple lassoes going on. Oh, shit.

Speaker 1 Here, lasso's. Okay.

Speaker 1 So that's the strength roll.

Speaker 1 Ooh, okay.

Speaker 1 It's

Speaker 1 a 23. 24 with hope.
A 24 with hope. That is successful.
Oh, you are full on hope now. Oh, I'm full on hope now.
Full of hope.

Speaker 1 You can do it now if you want to. Oh, yeah.
I'm gonna

Speaker 1 get in the groove with no mercy. And I'm gonna spend three hope, and I'm gonna gain a plus one bonus to my attack rolls until my next rest.
Amazing.

Speaker 1 And then go ahead and give me... Did you give me damage yet? I didn't.
Okay. What do I want for this?

Speaker 1 Well, this is for the hair storm, which doesn't do damage. Oh, I just restrained a few.
Okay, you just... I'm just lassoing a bunch.
Anything that's within.

Speaker 1 Go ahead and roll me.

Speaker 1 Let's do a D6, and that'll be how many you remove from the horde. Okay.

Speaker 1 Three. Three.
Fantastic.

Speaker 1 So you're able to lasso up three of them.

Speaker 1 Fantastic.

Speaker 1 I'm going to go ahead and spotlight our villain.

Speaker 1 Sorry, sorry.

Speaker 1 I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 Say his name.

Speaker 1 He's going to use his ability mockery on you.

Speaker 1 And he's going to try to convince everyone that you're...

Speaker 1 He's going to try to scapegoat you. Give me just a moment here.

Speaker 1 He shakes his fist at you and goes...

Speaker 1 You've scorned me for the last time, for I, Ollie, Ollie, oxen-free, am not to be outdone. Three times you've hid from our duel, foolish man.

Speaker 1 You claim to be a cleaner of things, but your hands are filthy. Fill the with deceit and cowardice.

Speaker 1 Cowardice.

Speaker 1 Give me a presence reaction roll. You need to beat a 14.
Oh my gosh.

Speaker 1 It's reaction negative. Whoa, that's terrible.
That's a two with fear. But it's reaction, so fear doesn't count on a reaction.
Yeah, fear doesn't count on a reaction roll.

Speaker 1 With a two, you take two stress, and you are now vulnerable. Oof.
Ooh,

Speaker 1 dude.

Speaker 1 And then he throws an ox at you. I have to spend an

Speaker 1 option. I have to spend an additional.

Speaker 1 He throws an ox at you. Let's see.
He just like throws it through the air. A tiny ox.
Yes. Amazing.

Speaker 1 Technically, he pulls it out of his beard. Amazing.

Speaker 1 Let's see.

Speaker 1 Oh, it's not a super high attack roll. Eight.

Speaker 1 That misses. Oh, wait, but you're vulnerable.
I am vulnerable. Does that make my evasion...
I think, let me see.

Speaker 1 Plus D6 against you. Oh, yeah.
Oh, yes.

Speaker 1 Thank you.

Speaker 1 Okay, so in that case.

Speaker 1 So I said eight, right?

Speaker 1 Twelve.

Speaker 1 I'll burn an armor.

Speaker 1 Alright, it's gonna be nine physical damage as the ox comes flying through the air, kind of hits you and explodes in a puff of beard hair. Got it.

Speaker 1 Would you like to respond to your arch nemesis? As I am hit by this little bite-sized oxen,

Speaker 1 I will think to the great defensive beasts of this planet and my mind will rush through porcupine, blowfish, something in between. I'll go

Speaker 1 and these quills

Speaker 1 shoot out at me everywhere as I use my animal incarnation as I mark another stress.

Speaker 1 And when an adversary within melee range deals damage to me, they take 1d10 physical damage and it stays until I take severe damage.

Speaker 1 And I will reach over to my janitor's cart and I will grab both the mop and the broom and snap them in the middle.

Speaker 1 in a pre-broken area and conjoin the broom and the mop to create a fearsome dual-wielding staff and I will take a swing at the nearest ox next to me

Speaker 1 all right roll to hit you just need to beat a ten

Speaker 1 great that's uh 16 uh 17 17 with hope amazing all right go ahead and give me damage

Speaker 1 six seven eight nine ten physical damage

Speaker 1 ten that's quite a bit um what's

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 The remaining oxes, as you like, kind of go into the fray explode into more puffs of like beard hair as you manage to clear them all out, not only from around all the ollie oxen free, but also from the boardroom as you kind of cut a path with your carnage.

Speaker 1 Not residual hair. Not the hair.
There's hair everywhere.

Speaker 1 It's thin, fine, wispy, almost looks like wool. Hey, less.

Speaker 1 This is bad.

Speaker 1 How many oxen are still running around the office? Um, there's none right now, but Ollie, Ollie, oxen free is still at large, so that might change.

Speaker 1 All right.

Speaker 1 Take them down.

Speaker 1 All right.

Speaker 1 Um, I'm gonna run out of my office, and I'm gonna...

Speaker 1 Oh, I gotta be real close for that one.

Speaker 1 Shit, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna

Speaker 1 give a little B-cloud around him. I'm gonna run up.
Can I get close enough that I'm gonna be very close to Ollie at this point?

Speaker 1 Yeah, you're actually because Ollie was there and he kind of ran up here. I think I think you could get there.
All right, all right. I'm gonna go up and I'm gonna be cloud his damn face and beard.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah, let's do it. All right, and I'm gonna, oh, yeah, I don't

Speaker 1 little

Speaker 1 okay, okay.

Speaker 1 Um, that's uh

Speaker 1 17

Speaker 1 That's a hit. With fear, unfortunately.
Okay. Because I'm doomed in this game.

Speaker 1 And I'm going to do

Speaker 1 eight physical damage.

Speaker 1 Ooh, major damage.

Speaker 1 As your bees buffet this man, he's like, yes, for truly, this is like, oh, oh my.

Speaker 1 And it backs him up.

Speaker 1 Hopefully he falls over a disc or something.

Speaker 1 Roll for it. Okay.
Just roll it. Yeah, just give me like a luck roll.

Speaker 1 That's not a good roll. What was I rolling? Was I rolling two?

Speaker 1 I was going to do like over six or under six, like 50-50. Seven.
Seven. He falls off the desk he's on, kind of landing in a prone position on the ground, going, oh my, this is highly

Speaker 1 irregular.

Speaker 1 This isn't the last you've seen. Never skip like that.
Ollie!

Speaker 1 Ollie!

Speaker 1 Rotor walks and get out of our office.

Speaker 1 He attempts to crawl out of the office, and if no one stops him, he will

Speaker 1 crawl away. I will walk above him and just

Speaker 1 spin on him from above. That's right here on the ceiling.
Wow.

Speaker 1 Charlatan, it's the love of you. Charlotte.

Speaker 1 Am I close? Hmm? Am I close? I think we're out of combat. Oh,

Speaker 1 unless you do want to like... I wanted to grapple him back.
He did. He did what we wanted, right? Like, attacked the office, or do we want to capture him? Yeah, I want to cat.
I want the PR photo.

Speaker 1 Oh, you want to get him, get him? Yeah.

Speaker 1 The big fish on him. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. That's good.
Yeah. We did have security cameras were keeping all of this.
Oh,

Speaker 1 right. Oh, yeah.
That's right.

Speaker 1 Still holding. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Lassoing. Yeah.
This is a this is a

Speaker 1 mundane action that you don't have to roll for. He's covered in bees and crawling away, mentally defeated.
I called Bumblefuck, not Ollie Olioxin Free.

Speaker 1 Bumblefuck might be at Ikea right now.

Speaker 1 This is under the break.

Speaker 1 And you are able to restrain Olliolioxin-free. That's right.

Speaker 1 Get back here. Olli Ollioxin-free over here.
That's right. I look up at the security cameras.
Uh, yeah, and don't you ever cause trouble again, Ollie. You stay out of Burbank,

Speaker 1 and you remember that this dispatch office

Speaker 1 will always defeat you.

Speaker 1 Fucking suck it.

Speaker 1 You'll rule the day that you... You'll rule the day that you mess with us, heroes.

Speaker 1 Burbank doesn't suffer fools. Because Burbank doesn't suffer fools, honey.

Speaker 1 I love it.

Speaker 1 If you're trying to sell it to me, I'm sold.

Speaker 1 You can use the remainder of your free hair to restrain him strongly enough, and we'll place him within the broom closet

Speaker 1 until the responsible authorities arrive. Yeah, I just comb through my hair and I get all the shed.
I might have to get some stuff out there.

Speaker 1 You don't mind. But have you have chains, rope, anything that could be useful? There's lots of cheese ways.
Very cool.

Speaker 1 Oh, that. Yes, I'll find something to restrain him with.
Oh, what time is it?

Speaker 1 It's starting to get a little bit later in the day. It's probably about 3.45 now.
Oh, shit, we missed lunch.

Speaker 1 Damn it!

Speaker 1 Owen!

Speaker 1 Where's Owen? Is he at his desk? What is missing?

Speaker 1 Wait, I have a good idea.

Speaker 1 If Owen's not here, maybe I could pretend to be Owen.

Speaker 1 I'd really like.

Speaker 1 What's the phrase? Pooch the screw?

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's the phrase.

Speaker 1 Pooch the screw! We have hero trackers. We have trackers, right?

Speaker 1 Can I go to the computers and see where Owen is? Is he on the trackers? You could try to track down his particular tracker.

Speaker 1 Give me a knowledge roll. You're not in dispatch, so it's like a little bit harder for you.

Speaker 1 Oh,

Speaker 1 that's my best roll of the night. That is

Speaker 1 21, 22, 23 with hope.

Speaker 1 Yeah, 23 with hope. You are not only able to ascertain that he's on his way back from lunch, but you're also able to tell that he didn't go to Chili's at all.
Where was he at? He was at IKEA.

Speaker 1 Uh-oh. It's all starting to come together.
Do you think he knew?

Speaker 1 This possibility that either he is secretly part of the team that you called,

Speaker 1 or he is pumble fuck.

Speaker 1 That would make so much sense. Seven-layer dip of betrayal.

Speaker 1 I'm gonna go back. Oh,

Speaker 1 I'm gonna go back and look at all those records and see if I see any crime happening in those areas that those expense reports are coming from.

Speaker 1 You see that in this case it overlaps, but in other cases it does not. Well, shit, I got nothing.

Speaker 1 I really thought.

Speaker 1 How about we call him into a brief meeting, perhaps, to celebrate the fact that he might be receiving a promotion with the presence of Inspectra. Oh, sorry.
Goovie,

Speaker 1 in our office, and when we close the door, we get the information out of them. Yeah, I like it.

Speaker 1 Genu's my office.

Speaker 1 We haven't spent a lot of time in your office lately. I like it.

Speaker 1 Do I get to be Goovy?

Speaker 1 Oh, oh. If you'd like to.

Speaker 1 Oh, quick question. Melody lost a dog.
A bird dog? What? A bird dog? A bird dog. Um,

Speaker 1 but

Speaker 1 so she'll get fired if people find out that she brought this dog to work.

Speaker 1 You would all know, as not interns,

Speaker 1 that Melody Bird's dog is not a normal dog. It is a super dog.
Oh, shit. Uh-oh.
Uh-oh. Well,

Speaker 1 it got lost here?

Speaker 1 Yeah. So I was wondering, like, if we just want to put, you know, her on the list of the fat that we're trimming.
How soon Delane gets here.

Speaker 1 Uh, I'll look at the tracker. He's about 15 minutes out.
We have to find this dog. This could bring us all down.
Quick, search for bad dog. Oh! I'll take the second floor.
I'll check the patio.

Speaker 1 The patio outside?

Speaker 1 I'll take the opposite stairwell upward to see the second floor from that time. I'll check the ladies' room.

Speaker 1 Fitzroy, where do you want to go? Oh,

Speaker 1 I want to go down

Speaker 1 to the basement. Yeah, maybe Ronnie.
Maybe Ronnie. Good thing.
I seen it. Alright.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Everyone gives me an instinct roll who's looking for a bird dog.

Speaker 1 Ronnie's in charge of payroll. Oh.

Speaker 1 Oh.

Speaker 1 That is bad. Can you help me? Can I just re-roll some?

Speaker 1 You want me to use that now?

Speaker 1 No, it's not that important. No, no, you're not.

Speaker 1 20 with hope for...

Speaker 1 Okay, okay.

Speaker 1 24 with hope. Oh.

Speaker 1 14 with hope. 14 with hope.
That's good. 4 with hope.
With hope. Alright.

Speaker 1 The two of you immediately become aware of a slight rumble beneath your feet.

Speaker 1 And it occurs to you that perhaps your dog is growling somewhere on the floor right below yours, which happens to be a dental office that specializes in 3D printing and visalign trays.

Speaker 1 That is unfortunate. Like, I can't see from across the floor.

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 1 Quickly.

Speaker 1 You run downstairs to see all of the 3D printers going haywire.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's a horrible freaking sound. And you just see a massive hulking dog with a big streak of yellow down its like mohawk-like mane that runs down its back, big rippling haunches.

Speaker 1 And he's just like tearing up like what looks to be like giant pillars of filament, probably worth thousands of dollars.

Speaker 1 whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, and just like ripping apart everything in this building. People are screaming and running for their lives.
I don't understand pets on this planet.

Speaker 1 We gotta take it down.

Speaker 1 Birdie, bird dog, bad bird dog. Put it down.

Speaker 1 You say bad bird dog? Oh, no.

Speaker 1 Maybe.

Speaker 1 And then there were five.

Speaker 1 I don't have a pet. I don't know how this works.

Speaker 1 Bird dog turns around and goes,

Speaker 1 make an agility reaction roll. Oh no.

Speaker 1 That's a crit.

Speaker 1 Don't get anything for it, but still, success.

Speaker 1 Um, let's see.

Speaker 1 I think in that case, it actually, let's see, just a second.

Speaker 1 Okay, you're good. You see

Speaker 1 a wave of energy kind of emit from his mouth, and you're able to leap out of the way as you see a 3D printer on your left like shatter with the subsonic sound.

Speaker 1 Good, good bird dog. Very good bird dog.

Speaker 1 Give me a presence check.

Speaker 1 Let's say

Speaker 1 10 with hope. A 10 with hope.
Uh yeah.

Speaker 1 Bird dog then gets excited. I'm gonna spend another fear and he leaps onto you.

Speaker 1 You can roll agility or instinct here as a reaction.

Speaker 1 Instinct.

Speaker 1 That's gonna be a 14.

Speaker 1 One shy.

Speaker 1 So you take...

Speaker 1 Oh my god, 15 points of damage as Bird Dog leaps on your chest and starts licking your face.

Speaker 1 That's severe. I'll mark an armor slot to reduce that to major damage.

Speaker 1 His big tongue kind of wraps around your whole face, almost paralyzing you.

Speaker 1 As he does so, you feel like your skin starts to get a little numb.

Speaker 1 And his crushing weight is just like on your chest cavity. Marking!

Speaker 1 I'll run over with my

Speaker 1 mop, my mop blade.

Speaker 1 My mop saber, and I'll take a strike at the tongue

Speaker 1 trying to free Mr. Blackwell.
Mm-hmm.

Speaker 1 She made a 13.

Speaker 1 That's not going to do it. I can't even, you got this buddy myself.

Speaker 1 That is a

Speaker 1 nine with hope. Okay.

Speaker 1 Yeah, he's undeterred.

Speaker 1 In fact, as you poke at him with your stick, he thinks you're playing with him. And that gets him like a little more hype.
And then he does like a little bounce

Speaker 1 on top of Blackwell as he thinks you're like maybe trying to play fetch with him. And how big is a bird dog? It's like the size of...

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 1 he's about the size of like an Irish wolfhound and a half.

Speaker 1 But he's just dense. Like he has like a sort of almost gravitational force to him.
Like just energy compacted into a beast that's just fur and static.

Speaker 1 Fuck it.

Speaker 1 I'm going to take a stress to magically transform into a creature of your tier lower for the beast formless. So I'm going to assume this wolfhound is one of it.
I'm going to turn into a bird dog.

Speaker 1 But a there's a Loki story about this. But a seductive bird dog.
No!

Speaker 1 Yes!

Speaker 1 Yes!

Speaker 1 You gonna get mounted by a burden? I'm just trying to get him off of Blackwell, alright?

Speaker 1 Immediately, like, sits up, kind of like regally,

Speaker 1 and like

Speaker 1 does like a little, puts like one paw forward and kind of like ducks his head a little bit, sniffing at you curiously. I mirror it.
Back it up. Playfully.

Speaker 1 He does one of those things dogs are gonna do where they go.

Speaker 1 And I will

Speaker 1 bolt out of the room and break out and immediately chases after you.

Speaker 1 I have enough. How the girls are doing.

Speaker 1 I think uh

Speaker 1 you think we should have followed him? Uh, we probably got it. We probably got it.
Yeah. It's just a dog.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Like the size of a bird? Is that what a bird dog is? I think, yeah, it's just. Yeah, so that's not bad.

Speaker 1 With this, it's about 4.45.

Speaker 1 And as you all know,

Speaker 1 right before the end of the workday is when they celebrate any birthdays.

Speaker 1 Oh no.

Speaker 1 These last 15 minutes before 5 o'clock become very perilous for you all. As you assemble in the break room, bird dog now restrained in the parking lot.

Speaker 1 The office mostly put back to normal after the oxen-free attack.

Speaker 1 You all look a little worse for the wear. It's been a rough day, but you've done some good work today.
In fact, the office is a little bit abuzz, especially

Speaker 1 some of the work you've been putting in.

Speaker 1 As you kind of congregate and pass around plates of paper,

Speaker 1 you're actually celebrating Hal Doswell's Creation Day.

Speaker 1 A strange cyborg entity with a head like one of these monitors back here with a smiley face on it.

Speaker 1 This was the day on which he was created.

Speaker 1 He looks at all of you and goes, greetings, fine people.

Speaker 1 Tis I, Hal Doswell.

Speaker 1 Yes, we know.

Speaker 1 We congregate today for Mind Creation Day. Please eat, drink, be merry.

Speaker 1 Thank you, and let it not be misunderstood that we appreciate each and every one of our employees and treat them with due respect, appreciation, and celebration, like any branch worth maintaining.

Speaker 1 And I need to see your expense reports by tomorrow morning.

Speaker 1 As you all know, I myself cannot enjoy enjoy the delight

Speaker 1 of human cake.

Speaker 1 But whilst you partake, I shall be partaking in the holy thermal paste, which I shall apply to my divine circuitry.

Speaker 1 Oh, in fact, Owen, why don't you have the first bite?

Speaker 1 Owen.

Speaker 1 Look around. Owen's not here.

Speaker 1 Owen?

Speaker 1 What are you?

Speaker 1 Where'd Owen go?

Speaker 1 He should be. He's on the clock right now.
He should be in this office. Just as you say this, he comes in late.
Hair a little bit too sold.

Speaker 1 Oh, I didn't miss it, did I? Gosh, great one, Hal. Great job on that update.
Great. I mean, that rollover? That was crazy.

Speaker 1 Good one. This guy.
This guy thermal-phased.

Speaker 1 Love y'all. Oh, and there's another celebration today as well.
Owen,

Speaker 1 we've heard word

Speaker 1 that it's your Cultural Heritage Day.

Speaker 1 I'm white. Your family from Santa Barbara.

Speaker 1 Celebrating Santa Barbara Day.

Speaker 1 It does require we have a special reward for you in my office, though, if you wouldn't mind coming with us. It's Santa Barbara Day? Yes.

Speaker 1 Oh, my gosh, you guys can barely remember any of the holidays you remember this one so important

Speaker 1 look at you guys

Speaker 1 come we haven't i remember when i tried to get casual friday going you're a bunch of grumpy gusses you're like ain't nobody trying to do all that owen and now you got santa barbara day this guy this freaking guy

Speaker 1 yeah

Speaker 1 oh of course right away mr blackwell yes thank you everyone else please continue eating your embedments your divine pastes enjoy your cake Cost a fucking fortune.

Speaker 1 Right this way, Owen. Thank you.

Speaker 1 Shall I? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Shh, blinds. Shh.

Speaker 1 Owen sits down. I gotta say, I feel like this was

Speaker 1 such a delight. Such a pleasure.
Pleasure's all on this side of the table.

Speaker 1 I'm certain. Um, Owen, it's come to some of our understanding that you've some irregularities in your work habits.
Is that correct? What?

Speaker 1 Where have you been, Owen?

Speaker 1 I.

Speaker 1 What do you eat at Chili's?

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 1 I d I do.

Speaker 1 Those are expensed lunches. I am doing business at Chili's.
With who?

Speaker 1 With a a variety of associates that I meet with for our accounts.

Speaker 1 Why are you always taking the train?

Speaker 1 Well, you know, um

Speaker 1 sometimes I like to be more fuel conscious than some of us, you know.

Speaker 1 Why do your business associates at Chitties always have the same meal?

Speaker 1 Well

Speaker 1 uh

Speaker 1 God says these are some really weird hyper-specific questions.

Speaker 1 Where were you this afternoon, Evan?

Speaker 1 I was

Speaker 1 having lunch with a very important contact. At the the IKEA.

Speaker 1 They have a great food court. They actually do have a great food court.
Maybe I can find

Speaker 1 people straight there.

Speaker 1 You can get anything there.

Speaker 1 Give me a presence check. If you're trying to intimidate him,

Speaker 1 very, very much.

Speaker 1 Going to spend a hope to use my Shadow Weaver feature.

Speaker 1 And another hope to use my brand manager experience. I will hold it over him in my office, in my branch, and cause the corners of the chamber to grow darker around me.

Speaker 1 And the light seems to subside until it's just the singular desk lamp I have that's bouncing from underneath, giving me that sort of like Vincent Price underlit experience as I lean forward.

Speaker 1 Like, Owen, we know everything.

Speaker 1 This is now your chance to come clean.

Speaker 1 That's gonna be

Speaker 1 25 with hope.

Speaker 1 Wow.

Speaker 1 He immediately crumbles.

Speaker 1 I'm so sorry, Mr. Black.
Well, I really like this job. I really do, you know? But sometimes it's really hard to make the really tough sales figures.
So sometimes I listen in on your phone calls.

Speaker 1 And I take your leads.

Speaker 1 And when I heard about the lead at IKEA, I wanted credit for it. So I went to IKEA.
And as for the chilies thing, okay, there's a waitress there I like.

Speaker 1 and so I take my my business associates there and I always tip her really well and and I'm still a good worker.

Speaker 1 I'm still a good person.

Speaker 1 I haven't killed anybody.

Speaker 1 You eat people.

Speaker 1 I did I just I just I

Speaker 1 My dad used to own a Cadillac dealership. I was to not, I'm not even supposed to be here.
And I make the best of it. And you guys come in and you're all grumpy every day.

Speaker 1 And, oh, is it cool to want to know? Is it not cool to want to do your job?

Speaker 1 Is this the crash out you wanted, Mr. Blackwell?

Speaker 1 Tone it down, Owen.

Speaker 1 There's a lot.

Speaker 1 I think that's when I get that. Plorp gets his wish and he probably starts crying.

Speaker 1 So embarrassing. My receipts in front of me like this.

Speaker 1 Why is it embarrassing?

Speaker 1 It's only because your life has crumbled around you and you realize your entire work effort has been a sham in the face of our crumbling company, in which they're telling us to let go people.

Speaker 1 You seem to be climbing to the top of that list, isn't that right, Owen? Oh, isn't that right, Owen?

Speaker 1 I unleashed the shadow from the corner so the camera in my room has been catching all of this as well. Oh.

Speaker 1 Cry for me, boy.

Speaker 1 Cry for Zanator.

Speaker 1 It feeds him. You're late every Monday.

Speaker 1 No, you have no evidence to...

Speaker 1 You shot down the Hawaiian shirt Friday, I guess.

Speaker 1 That was a communal decision.

Speaker 1 And I thought the picnic at the park was a fun thing to do.

Speaker 1 I'm gonna catch you for this. It's fucking hot outside, Owen.
Nobody wants to go outside for a fucking picnic.

Speaker 1 Probably also not on their day. It's 99 degrees yesterday.

Speaker 1 My cape kind of like curls up and starts like sucking the tears from his face.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you hear Plorp though. Yes, weep for me, little man.

Speaker 1 First your tears. That just

Speaker 1 do any of us hear Blorp.

Speaker 1 I don't think so. Do you see me going?

Speaker 1 Blessed salt. It feeds me.
Yes. Drink deep, my sweet.

Speaker 1 Nothing, nothing.

Speaker 1 It's almost end of the workday.

Speaker 1 Very well, Ewan. You will be part of our review tomorrow.

Speaker 1 I assume, lest you have some major means of making it up to the company, the Burbank STN will have much to discuss discuss with our guest tomorrow about your recent and

Speaker 1 glances at the papers over in your hand historical irregularities.

Speaker 1 Is there anybody else who you've been working with, or have you been working alone?

Speaker 1 Oh, it's just me.

Speaker 1 Damn it.

Speaker 1 Very well. Thank you for your time and your tears.

Speaker 1 Why?

Speaker 1 Collects his things.

Speaker 1 you see him take like one of the cardboard boxes and preemptively start putting his things into it

Speaker 1 the chop market's so bad so diddly dang bad right now

Speaker 1 when god closes the door he opens the window so you can jump out of it

Speaker 1 well that seemed rather successful

Speaker 1 Uh, come in. I'm standing there as Koovi.

Speaker 1 Right, I forgot that was part of the plan. She's doing

Speaker 1 six arms. This requires a lot of energy.
I'm starting to bleed out of my ears.

Speaker 1 Can you let it go? Can you let it go?

Speaker 1 Good job, Mr. Hide out a little bit.

Speaker 1 I almost died.

Speaker 1 How do we do it? You did great. Wonderfully.
He was so scared of your presence as you approached, he ran out and practically quit himself.

Speaker 1 Glad I can help him. Save the company!

Speaker 1 Alright, well.

Speaker 1 Y'all want to hit up

Speaker 1 drinks tonight?

Speaker 1 Cape and cow? Cape and Cal or chilies?

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 1 I preemptively made a phone call this afternoon to give a tip to one Toots

Speaker 1 that about seven o'clock this evening, when most are finishing with work and making their way to their local grocer

Speaker 1 to pick up materials,

Speaker 1 that a heist is to occur. Can we send real fast our evening shift team to encounter with a very

Speaker 1 extensive camera crew to prepare for the morning's report?

Speaker 1 Of course, I'll uh let Dispatch know. Thank you kindly, and thank you for the suggestion.
Yeah, you're welcome.

Speaker 1 I'm doing a very important napkin calculation. Before you leave work for the day, do you post the social media post?

Speaker 1 Oh, for sure.

Speaker 1 And it's a meme edit.

Speaker 1 What is that? What's a meme edit? You know,

Speaker 1 it's got like a, there's like a zebra

Speaker 1 superimposed on it.

Speaker 1 And the

Speaker 1 zebra's doing like a doot doot doot doot doot. Like the

Speaker 1 slag dance.

Speaker 1 You know, just to make sure we get those views.

Speaker 1 Hashtag.

Speaker 1 Oh my gosh.

Speaker 1 SeaWorld's Dead.

Speaker 1 Love all the things.

Speaker 1 Give me a knowledge roll to see if you can like comprehend and analyze social media trends. Oh shit.

Speaker 1 You got this. You got this.

Speaker 1 To help you on this.

Speaker 1 Alright, so I have a niece who does these posts quite frequently and while I'm not quite able to interface, I can suggest a few meme-tastic additions. Okay.

Speaker 1 So, you can add a decent. Okay.

Speaker 1 Uh-oh.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 It's a seven. Uh,

Speaker 1 you can do this, buddy, and once per rest, I'll allow you to re-roll by taking the words of support.

Speaker 1 Thank you.

Speaker 1 Okay, it's a, yeah, it's a 15 with hope. Plus five.
Plus five, it's a 20. A 20, perfect.

Speaker 1 Oh, you take a hit point for that. That would hurt me.

Speaker 1 But I needed it.

Speaker 1 As you load into the digitruck that is miraculously still there, not because it was, there was not an attempt to tow it, there definitely was, it's just that attempt was unsuccessful given the size of the vehicle.

Speaker 1 You notice that one of the plates in the front has fallen off, but your car is still there.

Speaker 1 But as you load into the digitruck, you notice that your video is kind of doing numbers just within the first 30 minutes of posting.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's amazing.

Speaker 1 Who keyed my car?

Speaker 1 Who didn't? I'm sure we could look over the security footage. It's highly accessible.
Sorry.

Speaker 1 We probably shouldn't do that.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 1 Focused on the tasks ahead. Yeah, we don't want to waste resources.

Speaker 1 Very well.

Speaker 1 Drinks then. Drinks.

Speaker 1 You head to the Cape and Cowell? Or chilies?

Speaker 1 Oh, right. Cape and Cowell are chilies.

Speaker 1 Oh, I guess. Cape and.

Speaker 1 Cape and Cowell have more people there that

Speaker 1 we could talk to.

Speaker 1 That you could talk to?

Speaker 1 Listen, it takes a fine selection.

Speaker 1 Although I've seen most of them, if I'm being honest,

Speaker 1 I have my hands attended to and then release them as it goes into a terrifying autopilot. And we're like, well, I feel like this is a rather accomplished day.
It's worth celebrating anti-story.

Speaker 1 So, yes, let's celebrate

Speaker 1 and see what other leads we might find.

Speaker 1 Sweet senator.

Speaker 1 You pull into the cape and cowl,

Speaker 1 and the crowd is a little bit thicker tonight. You notice people are kind of drinking out of stress, maybe not celebration.

Speaker 1 There's some people that maybe made blenders at work today and are a little bit on edge about how their reviews are going to go the next day.

Speaker 1 There's a lot of commiserating happening, but there are other people that feel like they're safe.

Speaker 1 The din is not its usual raucous sort of

Speaker 1 wall that you walk into. It's just a little bit more subdued than usual.
We should have gone to Chili's.

Speaker 1 I'm going to

Speaker 1 make my way around the Cape Pacau and just try and pick up on any conversations, anyone that seems particularly

Speaker 1 worried about today's actions. Yeah, go ahead and give me an instinct roll.

Speaker 1 The 14, I fear.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 You do hear something.

Speaker 1 14 is high enough.

Speaker 1 You hear your good friend, Ian, also known as the Incredulous Bulk.

Speaker 1 He's massive. He's purple.
And he's really been doing quite well since he took up the anger management.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 you notice him nursing a rather large flagon of something dark that smells a little bit acrid as he's sitting there and he's just like oh man

Speaker 1 all these years all these years I sat I just can't believe it

Speaker 1 you mess up one decimal spot you mess up one thing on the wrong day

Speaker 1 And then it's just, it's all gone. And then what am I going to do?

Speaker 1 You know?

Speaker 1 Bulk? Yeah. Is that you?

Speaker 1 Well, Marty. Did you say?

Speaker 1 What? Did something happen today because of your equations?

Speaker 1 I messed up big time, man. I messed up big time.
It's like my fingers are so big. Sometimes when I click on the little kizos,

Speaker 1 I hit the wrong one.

Speaker 1 And I did it today.

Speaker 1 And I ended up sending, you know, the squad with the fire user

Speaker 1 to the fire. And I ended up sending the squad with the water bender

Speaker 1 to the drowning. And people are really upset with me now.
But I just, I got the, I got it mixed up. And I don't know what I'm going to...

Speaker 1 I'm losing my job tomorrow. No, no, honestly.
And you know, Becca left me for a younger, hotter bulk. Oh.
So I already got to pay that, you know?

Speaker 1 And it's just, I've really been struggling because I just want to.

Speaker 1 You know, and I've just, I've really been struggling with it.

Speaker 1 What are you drinking there? Uh, a pulkie?

Speaker 1 Oh,

Speaker 1 this is Jaegermeister and Fournette.

Speaker 1 That's, that sounds like regret. Um, yeah, listen.

Speaker 1 It burns so good. Because all I want to do is burn down the Burbank SDN.

Speaker 1 It's okay.

Speaker 1 Because when you get in the ring with the bulk, you get the hulk.

Speaker 1 Sorry. Yeah, old habits, they die hard.
Yeah, sorry.

Speaker 1 Well, listen,

Speaker 1 if you think things are gonna go poorly, I probably have some people

Speaker 1 you could talk to, but I'm sure they recognize all of your excellent service up till now. You think so?

Speaker 1 Of course.

Speaker 1 Give me a presence check.

Speaker 1 Yes, that's a 13 with fear.

Speaker 1 He heals one's stress.

Speaker 1 I hope you're right. I really hope you're right.
You always got my back, Marty. Thank you.
Of course. Have you ever...
Have you ever been

Speaker 1 or has your branch ever been hammered before?

Speaker 1 No, first time.

Speaker 1 You know,

Speaker 1 I don't know that I wanna get hammered. There's normally guys like us as we's that do the hammering.

Speaker 1 Right. You know, when I was in the ring, I was somebody.

Speaker 1 And yeah, I pulped a few guys.

Speaker 1 You know, maybe that was bad.

Speaker 1 You know, but you can't make jam without squishing

Speaker 1 some apples.

Speaker 1 I think I think that's a thing that they say.

Speaker 1 You know what?

Speaker 1 I think you should talk to

Speaker 1 Mr. Blackwell or Miss Honeycott.

Speaker 1 We're going to be doing everything we can to save our branch. And you,

Speaker 1 you're an asset.

Speaker 1 Thanks, Marty.

Speaker 1 That place would have burned down a long time ago without you. Just stay with the Jaker.
I'll be back. I'll bring you an Everclear, okay? Okay.

Speaker 1 He fist bumps you.

Speaker 1 Just nothing. Just applesauce in my head.
I'll head back and tell the others. You know, Bulk's over there, and he looks pissed.
He thinks he's got to get the axe. What'd he do?

Speaker 1 He did some wrong. Dispatches, and now they're coming after him.
Add him to the list.

Speaker 1 Oh, no, but he's a great- he's a solid guy. Plus, I mean, maybe we could maybe

Speaker 1 use him.

Speaker 1 How?

Speaker 1 Well, I mean, instead of dispatching with the orders that he has, maybe he could, you know,

Speaker 1 play along the line.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 I suppose we could do that. Now, we're trying to cut the fat, Marty.
Mm-hmm.

Speaker 1 And so far we got, what, four names?

Speaker 1 Three in the question luck. Well, we got Owen.

Speaker 1 We got Lizzie.

Speaker 1 Got Melody.

Speaker 1 Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Speaker 1 Sorry, Melody.

Speaker 1 Melody, yeah, fucking lost her today.

Speaker 1 She's out. I know.

Speaker 1 You know how much money she probably cost us?

Speaker 1 But she has such a villainous way about her. It's my assistant like to draw, but I suppose we'll put her on there.
And now we got in.

Speaker 1 You know, that's a good amount.

Speaker 1 How many did you overhear that we needed to cut?

Speaker 1 Over here?

Speaker 1 Didn't you overhear people talking about percentages

Speaker 1 no

Speaker 1 oh all right never mind then

Speaker 1 but

Speaker 1 you could cut my pay

Speaker 1 cool

Speaker 1 i don't remember off the top of my head how much you make marty

Speaker 1 it's pretty bad

Speaker 1 cut marty's pay I'd offer to cut my pay, but I'm not paid.

Speaker 1 We can pay you and then carry it. That's true.
That would look good. Okay.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 That's complicated.

Speaker 1 But we got time. What are we doing? Wait, we should just be trying to save the bulk.
What time is it? Not the bulk. But the bulk of the

Speaker 1 is

Speaker 1 confusing.

Speaker 1 Is the grocery store under attack yet? Has that happened already? It should have been. Did you dispatch the secondary team? Yeah, of course I did.
Let's look at the news.

Speaker 1 You go and check if there are any information.

Speaker 1 You noticed that the news is reporting on a rash of attacks in Burbank

Speaker 1 and that perhaps

Speaker 1 there needs to be more done to invest in Burbank's security.

Speaker 1 This is our chance.

Speaker 1 Wait,

Speaker 1 but shouldn't the reports be that SDN is superheroes or fighting the rash of crime? Well, not if Ian's improperly dispatching heroes.

Speaker 1 Oh, shit.

Speaker 1 Was Ian the one that I talked to and dispatched?

Speaker 1 You don't recall.

Speaker 1 But the math is kind of mathing a little bit.

Speaker 1 Oh no. Did we up the crime and not properly handle

Speaker 1 the fix?

Speaker 1 Should we be shut down?

Speaker 1 Are we the bad guys?

Speaker 1 Oh,

Speaker 1 root rope.

Speaker 1 I'm gonna need a drink. drink.

Speaker 1 Alright, yes, I can get drinks.

Speaker 1 What did you want? I want a whiskey on the rocks. Whiskey on the rocks, Marty?

Speaker 1 151.

Speaker 1 Jesus Christ.

Speaker 1 Yes, you

Speaker 1 flee. I may need a drink.
Yes.

Speaker 1 Yes?

Speaker 1 What would you like?

Speaker 1 What's a nice alcohol?

Speaker 1 Lemon drop. Whiskey.

Speaker 1 On the rocks. Lemon drop sounds nice.
Vodka soda. That's nice and easy.
It's a little sweet. Okay.
Long island iced tea. Oh, yeah, that sounds- I love iced tea.

Speaker 1 Damien, don't you give her no Long Island iced tea. You know what that'll do to her.

Speaker 1 Is Long Island bad?

Speaker 1 I'll get you what I'm having. Okay.
Brandy and Faygo.

Speaker 1 Are we in a competition to come up with a nasty stream? I think so. There's no competition.
There's only a winner over here.

Speaker 1 I don't know.

Speaker 1 Literally, I was thinking of a drink with Fournette and you dropped that. I was like, oh, that's awful.

Speaker 1 Very well.

Speaker 1 There has to be a way about this.

Speaker 1 If indeed the social push on the media is that Burbank needs to be invested in its defenses, and we can take that and spin it with the coverage of the things we have managed to, did at least the Whole Foods thing to

Speaker 1 let's actually roll to see how well that went.

Speaker 1 I have somebody sent people and some people to film it to IKEA. Let's use the IKEA.

Speaker 1 The unfortunate

Speaker 1 part of this for you guys is that your NPCs have been rolling very terribly because I'm rolling for them.

Speaker 1 Let's see here.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Oh, that's a crit.

Speaker 1 So the Whole Foods job went very well. Great.
That's fantastic. You know, there were so many people there, they probably all got it on film.
Oh, yes.

Speaker 1 Which villain did you send to Whole Foods? That was Toots. Toots.
Yeah. Toots.
His name is Toots. Toots.

Speaker 1 Very different from Toots up in New Hampshire.

Speaker 1 Toots.

Speaker 1 Toots.

Speaker 1 Toots was apprehended and taken down. Great.

Speaker 1 For farting on the deli meats. Ew,

Speaker 1 that is disgusting. It's really terrible in the whole fruits, too, because there's no fast way to get out and rinse.

Speaker 1 The next morning, you're a little bleary-eyed. Yeah.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 we refer to last night. Yes.

Speaker 1 You recover your stress.

Speaker 1 Ah, yes, actually. Sorry, let me look.

Speaker 1 you can tend to your wounds,

Speaker 1 clear your stress, repair your armor, any two of those. Correct.

Speaker 1 All right.

Speaker 1 The morning commute, this morning is uneventful.

Speaker 1 It's the traffic is light.

Speaker 1 You all have a quiet, sort of somber mood.

Speaker 1 And this time when you come into work, Owen isn't there to mock you.

Speaker 1 The fluorescent lights,

Speaker 1 beam of hope, but a little bit of despair.

Speaker 1 Hope because you think that you've done some good work over the past few days. Despair because you still aren't sure if everyone's going to make it out of this in one piece.

Speaker 1 And even though this place some days feels like your prison,

Speaker 1 Some days it feels like you're family, away from family.

Speaker 1 But maybe that's because you work here way too much and you don't have a really good work-life balance.

Speaker 1 You get the familiar shock when you turn the handle. Curse the door handle as you do.

Speaker 1 The duct tape on the floor seems especially shiny.

Speaker 1 And of course you are ushered into the wardroom for your individual meetings with the hammer.

Speaker 1 Now,

Speaker 1 You are not surprised by the vision that you're met with. Actually, all of you got this information from the bar,

Speaker 1 but Mort and Gordy Hammerick are comprised of one massive boulder of a man with a super scientist psychic kind of jutting out of his torso that kind of does all of his communicating for him.

Speaker 1 And the two of them form the entity that will determine your fates and the fate of the Burbank SDM.

Speaker 1 The lights in the boardroom are bright.

Speaker 1 You can smell stale coffee, Chinese takeout,

Speaker 1 printer ink.

Speaker 1 In fact, Mort and Gordy's hands are blackened at the tips with printer ink as they kind of sit with steepled fingers.

Speaker 1 You're not called in first.

Speaker 1 It kind of feels like waiting for the executioner.

Speaker 1 You see different members, maybe some that you're closer with, some that you're not, go in and come out, either looking crestfallen or

Speaker 1 looking relieved. And it's a little hard to watch.

Speaker 1 You see a sad computer monitor with legs kind of droop, throwing up a sad face emoji as you realize that perhaps the good doc has not made the cut.

Speaker 1 You, as you sit kind of like waiting, Ian comes

Speaker 1 and says to you, Marty,

Speaker 1 I don't know.

Speaker 1 I don't know if I'm gonna make it.

Speaker 1 Yeah, probably not.

Speaker 1 It's pretty grim.

Speaker 1 They cut they cut Hal Doswell.

Speaker 1 That's feel that one hurt.

Speaker 1 I know he was an old model, but

Speaker 1 we probably could have gotten him an update or something.

Speaker 1 Printing budget was crazy with that thing, though. He couldn't, he had to like print out everything.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Marty, are you okay?

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 yeah.

Speaker 1 You know, it's a natural cycle, these

Speaker 1 things.

Speaker 1 Well, Marty, I'm sure you'll be fine. fine.

Speaker 1 You haven't messed anything up, have you?

Speaker 1 Don't

Speaker 1 I clean things up?

Speaker 1 Honestly, if you go in there and say that

Speaker 1 you know it's the anticipation that's killing me. I just wish I could burn it! But um

Speaker 1 thanks for, you know, no matter what happens, uh, good luck in there. You're a good one, Ian.

Speaker 1 You're a good one, too, Marty.

Speaker 1 I'm gonna go take a shit.

Speaker 1 Okay, last dump on the company dime.

Speaker 1 And he trudges with determination towards the bathroom to shit on the company dollar. Nice.
Respect. Very nice.

Speaker 1 Alright, I'm gonna have you guys roll to see who goes in first with the

Speaker 1 specialists.

Speaker 1 What are we adding anything to this or just a straight just straight? Okay.

Speaker 1 Sixteen.

Speaker 1 Thirteen.

Speaker 1 Thirteen as well.

Speaker 1 Six, but double threes.

Speaker 1 So I'll let you decide if you want to go first or last. Last.
Last. No, first.

Speaker 1 First.

Speaker 1 First. Ah! I'll go first.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 The

Speaker 1 desk has been polished to a gleam that you can see your own face in because you polished it.

Speaker 1 There's a massive stack of papers next to the two specialists. In the corner, you see the six-armed entity kind of gently supervising.

Speaker 1 And as you walk in, they're like, hey, buddy, the head on the torso says.

Speaker 1 Come on in, sit down. Great to have this little chat with you.
Just want to talk a little bit about what you do at the company

Speaker 1 and just see where you're at. Like what's your day like? If you just want to walk us through that and talk to us a little bit about, you know, just what you do here at Vertbank SDN.

Speaker 1 Oh, sure. I walk over to the chair and I kind of like clean off the seat before I sit down.

Speaker 1 You know,

Speaker 1 I'm really concerned with keeping the working environment tip-top. Because to function at your best, you have to look like you work at the best.

Speaker 1 Anyway, so I take care of the outside and inside of the building, and I also tend to anyone's needs inside the first or second floors.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 yeah, I kind of just fill in wherever I'm needed. Oh.

Speaker 1 Okay, would you

Speaker 1 describe yourself as a team player? No.

Speaker 1 Oh.

Speaker 1 Okay. I'm more of a like a lone wolf.

Speaker 1 Oh.

Speaker 1 you see the clipboard come out?

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Lone wolf.

Speaker 1 But but that operates in a pack

Speaker 1 as a lone

Speaker 1 well, you know,

Speaker 1 you know, it's it's just that we're looking for people that are really adaptable.

Speaker 1 You know, when a problem that comes up, how do you handle that?

Speaker 1 Something unexpected. I instantly mimic him by turning into what he looks like, and I go, I just adapt and handle it and return back to myself.

Speaker 1 Now, that's impressive. I'm really good at taking orders, and I'm a quick learner.
Quick, quick learner.

Speaker 1 You know, I just, I gotta say, you've got middle management written all over you.

Speaker 1 This is baffling to me.

Speaker 1 You know, you just got all of these qualities that on paper tell me that you are somebody that is begging for attention, that's begging to be seen, to be noticed. And maybe this is a chance for you.

Speaker 1 A chance for you. I think you haven't been properly challenged.
I think we want to challenge you.

Speaker 1 A spot just opened DTLA SDN

Speaker 1 that's a big building they got a whole janitorial staff down there buddy a whole staff a whole staff

Speaker 1 they need somebody to manage that staff

Speaker 1 I've been looking through your files I'll need some time to think about it I gotta say it, I've been looking through some of your files. Ships here.

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 1 it's a sloppily run ship. It's not a tight ship, but you gotta say it's clean.

Speaker 1 Clean as a whistle.

Speaker 1 That just sold me even more.

Speaker 1 I just, it would be my honor to just reach right across this table and just shake your hand and just, you know, offer you this position.

Speaker 1 I'll need some time to think about it. I do have a lot of other offers out there.

Speaker 1 I appreciate your interest, though. I'll get back to you.
And I stand up and I leave. Wow, you just hear them as they're as you walk away.
Wow,

Speaker 1 what a what a wasted talent. Wow, just

Speaker 1 who's whose job was it to look at that and think, Let's put them at the bottom of the ladder? Because let me tell you, and this is what you hear.

Speaker 1 I slap the door, I'm like,

Speaker 1 bloodbath. They're they're

Speaker 1 considering promoting me.

Speaker 1 What? Isn't that a good thing?

Speaker 1 I'm not sure.

Speaker 1 Promotion!

Speaker 1 I need to go to the bathroom. Like,

Speaker 1 run to the bathroom.

Speaker 1 A promotion. That's good.
Right? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Where do you think they're getting the money to promo promote if they're promoting him?

Speaker 1 I've seen a lot of people leaving that office with a frowny face, you know.

Speaker 1 They're probably uh I'm sure they've cut some of the fat, but also I have an influx of interest from the successful endeavors that we've laid throughout the town.

Speaker 1 So I'm certain they're confident in our capabilities.

Speaker 1 Who's next?

Speaker 1 I rolled a 16.

Speaker 1 So I'm next. All right, top to bottom, huh? All right.

Speaker 1 I'm not walking without a cigarette

Speaker 1 because I'm serious about this business.

Speaker 1 Good morning, Mrs. Honeycutt.
That's right. Oh, amazing.
Please sit, sit. Would you like a glass of water or perhaps lemonade?

Speaker 1 I'm all right. Thank you so much.

Speaker 1 Really interesting office you run here. You're the office manager.
That's right, I am. Yeah, could you walk us through some of your formal education, if you will?

Speaker 1 It's all here, but I'm still going to have you repeat it just because I would like to know it through your words. Yeah, well, I'm

Speaker 1 Queen Bee.

Speaker 1 Served with the

Speaker 1 Star Children. It's a stupid name for a group.

Speaker 1 For several years.

Speaker 1 And then, you know, as I sort of settled down, I decided I needed

Speaker 1 something more permanent. So I've been serving here as an office manager for

Speaker 1 15 years now.

Speaker 1 You know,

Speaker 1 you caught a pretty big blunder in the system yesterday, I gotta say. I caught a few of them, actually.
You have an entire accounting department, and yet none of them missed

Speaker 1 this entire thing with Owen. He's gone.
Let him go. Get him out.
Club Reddit. That's right.
But I gotta say,

Speaker 1 it was really your quick thinking and attention to detail that got us there. Thank you, Mario.
And that's the kind of go-getter attitude we really like here. We really like that.

Speaker 1 You know,

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 1 the crime in this area has been rocketing, and it seems like you've just, you know. We really stepped it up.
Yeah, you did. You did.

Speaker 1 It feels like you really have both hands on the wheel here. Love Love to see that.
That's right.

Speaker 1 You know, love the knowledge you bring to the position. Love that you got boots on the ground experience.
That's really important. We really like that too.

Speaker 1 Just have a couple questions for you.

Speaker 1 Just some. Anything, yeah, you ask a couple people.

Speaker 1 The paper goods budget.

Speaker 1 You know, now I know that that's not the only part of your job,

Speaker 1 but what percentage of your job would you say office supplies is?

Speaker 1 you know 40%

Speaker 1 here's the thing 40% here's the thing

Speaker 1 up until yesterday

Speaker 1 now you might be aware I have

Speaker 1 fired

Speaker 1 Lizzie as my assistant

Speaker 1 and when I was doing all my

Speaker 1 My paperwork yesterday and looking at accounting and whatnot I realized that Lizzie was overordinering that paper by a lot.

Speaker 1 You know, so I moved her off of my assistant job, got Frizzie in her place, Fritzie. She's a great gal,

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 1 found she's capable of so many things. You know,

Speaker 1 I upgraded her to social media manager.

Speaker 1 You hired someone and then gave them a promotion within 24 hours? Well, it's my assistant job as well, you know. It's another title.
Still the same amount of pay, but it makes her feel special.

Speaker 1 And we've been needing some good PR around here.

Speaker 1 That's a really novel way of managing. When you give people excess responsibility, but the same amount of pay, it lets them know what they're capable of.
That's right.

Speaker 1 Give me a presence roll.

Speaker 1 Can I add an experience to this? You actually get a plus two to this for, let me check my notes here,

Speaker 1 fudging the sales records to make them look like they're in your name and for busting Owen. We've literally been graded through this entire

Speaker 1 session. This is awesome.
Can I add my seeing it all experienced?

Speaker 1 Okay, go ahead and spend the hope.

Speaker 1 All right.

Speaker 1 And I'm going to need to beat a 15.

Speaker 1 Oh, oh, okay.

Speaker 1 That's great. That's

Speaker 1 17 off the bat plus two plus three plus two.

Speaker 1 So way way over way over

Speaker 1 um with hope with hope

Speaker 1 well you know that's some really novel thinking you're bringing in some pretty cool

Speaker 1 new ways of managing uh when it comes to management we have several modalities as it were pardon the vernacular and uh you have a very unique fresh young and honestly We could use more women in management.

Speaker 1 It's good. Good optics.

Speaker 1 Now, I gotta

Speaker 1 ask you, gotta ask you one more thing here.

Speaker 1 Some of your dispatchers,

Speaker 1 if you had to choose which ones were to, let's say, be

Speaker 1 let go,

Speaker 1 which ones would you pick?

Speaker 1 Listen.

Speaker 1 Because looking at it, you got a crack team of soups.

Speaker 1 You got Marty just killing it in the logistics department.

Speaker 1 Lots of great up-and-coming young talent on the roster. They understand the importance of outreach, influencing, content creation.
Really important. We look at that a lot these days.

Speaker 1 We look at the brand a lot these days. But

Speaker 1 the dispatch, I'm seeing a big problem with dispatch. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Look, I don't want to talk bad about any of my employees. Oh, but we're not really talking bad.
We're just comparing notes.

Speaker 1 Professional to professional. I know that.

Speaker 1 Look, I don't want to say anything, but I know Ian's been dropping the ball a little bit lately. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Good guy. Good guy.
But, you know, making some big mistakes there. Who hired Ian?

Speaker 1 I don't know. I think that was...

Speaker 1 You know, Ian's been around a long time. I think he was hired before Mr.
Blackwell got in the office. So

Speaker 1 I was gonna say is you know some of the staffing issues.

Speaker 1 How much of the hiring would you say Mr. Blackwell does?

Speaker 1 Oh,

Speaker 1 you know, I'm not

Speaker 1 fully aware of all of it, but

Speaker 1 probably

Speaker 1 80 80% of the employees now

Speaker 1 were previously

Speaker 1 employed, and Mr. Blackwell brought in about an additional 20%

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 1 a lot of the people that you know he's hired have been

Speaker 1 they've been ringers they've been good he brought in Marty after all

Speaker 1 is that true sure

Speaker 1 give me a presence another presence roll this one needs to be a 20. oh god okay shit I'm gonna add my experience to that as well

Speaker 1 Because I think Marty predates Mr. Blackwell.

Speaker 1 Marty's ancient. Okay, well.

Speaker 1 Okay,

Speaker 1 that's 20.

Speaker 1 Yeah, hell yeah. But that's with a fear, unfortunately.

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 1 Marty's a great get and honestly, the only crime is that I feel like his talents haven't been adequately nourished.

Speaker 1 You know, Miss Honeycutt, we got no problems with you.

Speaker 1 We've decided we're not going to close this branch. We think it can be saved, but we're just going to be tightening up the operations a little bit.

Speaker 1 And as part of that, we might have you take on some additional responsibilities and maybe take on a bigger title.

Speaker 1 Thank you very much. It's good.

Speaker 1 Good.

Speaker 1 That wouldn't come with a pay raise, would it? Absolutely it would. Oh.

Speaker 1 And stock options.

Speaker 1 This has been a great meeting. You know, I really enjoyed talking to you.
Of course, Graham. Of course.

Speaker 1 We'll move you into a bigger office space. We're going to have a lot.

Speaker 1 We're going to have tons of it.

Speaker 1 But we're going to be moving to a more hot desk type of layout where the employees don't really have desks. They just have stations.
to kind of come into where they can use that.

Speaker 1 But you'll have your designated space and we might increase the number of people under you up to two so uh you'll be able to have everything you need to kind of do what you need to do best thank you very much

Speaker 1 this is this is great attend the next uh person yeah i'll send them right on in

Speaker 1 shut the door go straight for a cigarette

Speaker 1 so what's the bag went great went great i might be getting a promotion

Speaker 1 yeah i really talked you up in there all right you didn't have to do that and you too you're doing great Really? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Are we all getting promotions?

Speaker 1 This is going a lot better than we expected. Yes, this is one way.

Speaker 1 Gentlemen, they kind of ball together these past few days and really showed, showed their quality. You know what?

Speaker 1 I'm gonna...

Speaker 1 I think all of us have been great, and I'm gonna inspire us right now. And...

Speaker 1 And all of us right here, we get to take our stress away. Too stress.
If you got stress, you can mark it down. I didn't sleep very well.
So I know that.

Speaker 1 I know that, Fritzie. Thank you.
She got my name for it.

Speaker 1 Thanks, Bets, honey, for that. It's been Fritzy this whole time.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 So sorry. Oh, it is.

Speaker 1 You know what?

Speaker 1 You've proven yourself adequate.

Speaker 1 You go next. Oh, thank you.

Speaker 1 Here we go, Fritzie. Don't fuck out.

Speaker 1 You got this. Thank you.

Speaker 1 Hi, hello, yeah. If you could just come on in, have a seat.
Yeah, there's a jug of water there for you.

Speaker 1 Nothing to be nervous about. Just kind of want to know what you do here because it seems like you've been bouncing around apartments.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it doesn't look good.

Speaker 1 Trying to figure out where a puzzle piece fits is an important part

Speaker 1 of

Speaker 1 how all this works. So where do you think you fit in?

Speaker 1 I fit here.

Speaker 1 Okay, keep it breathe.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 I am a value add.

Speaker 1 I am

Speaker 1 a culture fit.

Speaker 1 I am

Speaker 1 unpaid.

Speaker 1 You know what? Went viral.

Speaker 1 I don't see any problems with any of this.

Speaker 1 You know,

Speaker 1 you got to pay your dues, you know, and you got to do the time. And I love a boots on the ground go-getter.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 I mean, I think we're done here. You want to send in the next guy?

Speaker 1 This was great.

Speaker 1 Leave. Fabulous.
Thanks. Wonderful to meet you, Fritzie.

Speaker 1 Keep doing you, hon. Okay, bye.
Keep doing you. God, I love college kids.
God, they're the best.

Speaker 1 Oh, I get paid.

Speaker 1 I think it went well. I don't...
I think I'm still here.

Speaker 1 That's cool. I think I'm still unpaid, though.

Speaker 1 We'll change it tomorrow. Yeah,

Speaker 1 forget that remedy immediately. Woo!

Speaker 1 Your turn.

Speaker 1 Right, of course.

Speaker 1 Apparently, it just seems to be the case. All right.
I'll see all of you cats on the other side.

Speaker 1 All right, Anatol,

Speaker 1 with me, friend.

Speaker 1 Blop.

Speaker 1 Hello.

Speaker 1 Hello, Mr. Blackwell.
Please have a seat. Of course, of course.
My pleasure.

Speaker 1 Was it Hammerick?

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 1 Yes,

Speaker 1 Mort, and I'm Gordy. Mort and Gordy.
Pleasure's mine. Yes, of course, Mr.
Blackwell.

Speaker 1 Your office is in shambles.

Speaker 1 Oh, that is a big exaggeration.

Speaker 1 It's it has gone through some challenging points in time, some beyond our control, but we've managed to pull it together each and every moment in which a challenge presented itself.

Speaker 1 I don't like to think of challenges as challenges. I like to think of them as growth opportunities.

Speaker 1 And we've grown. We have.
If you look at the

Speaker 1 numbers of successful dispatches in even just the past few days, callings of

Speaker 1 required assistance from the SDN here in Burbank.

Speaker 1 We had a wave of crime, criminal activity that seemed to threaten the very citizens, and yet, even overtime work was done to ensure they felt safe at their very home, their place of business.

Speaker 1 You're making some really good points, and I want to acknowledge those while also acknowledging that you could have been doing this much sooner.

Speaker 1 I would like to address your hesitancy in your action.

Speaker 1 Methodical problem-solving.

Speaker 1 How would you describe your methodology? I would describe it as

Speaker 1 plotting.

Speaker 1 Plotting. I have experience in plotting, you see.
What would you have experience with?

Speaker 1 Well, I was was initially...

Speaker 1 I don't know if you're aware of this, but I was once known as Mr. Mephisto.
Oh, I am well aware of Mr. Mephisto.
Well, then you know, I'm quite accomplished in plotting, actually.

Speaker 1 And so, for me, it's not so much the immediacy more than the long-term goal. Well, unfortunately, immediacy is important to this structure of work specifically.

Speaker 1 I mean, the SDN has very quick turnarounds and timelines. I question whether or not you would be able to adjust to our pace of doing business.

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 1 As a manager, you rely on your team to handle things that are beneath your surveillance.

Speaker 1 The big head growls at you. You take too stress.

Speaker 1 Well, yes,

Speaker 1 you trust in your team, and we do have quite a moving, shaking team.

Speaker 1 Some up-and-coming youth,

Speaker 1 one of which, you know, a fine Fritzie has already proven quite, and I will strongly recommend that they receive

Speaker 1 a fair compensation for their immediately proven position at this company for the experience

Speaker 1 compensation?

Speaker 1 Of course.

Speaker 1 But we pay in experience.

Speaker 1 You take another stress.

Speaker 1 Wouldn't you say that experience is its own reward?

Speaker 1 Building a

Speaker 1 catalogue of not only work history, but also contacts

Speaker 1 exposure

Speaker 1 in a corporate atmosphere, of course, but I also understand here. Burbank is not an inexpensive place to live, neither is Los Angeles in general.
And for someone

Speaker 1 to put their personal effort and interests into the company's aesthetic, such as a young, bright-eyed

Speaker 1 individual, as her.

Speaker 1 It is more than just a company interest. It is investment in her future, in her truth, and her ability to live and thrive under the banner of STN.

Speaker 1 So I would disagree.

Speaker 1 Give me a presence roll.

Speaker 1 And I'm gonna spend a hook to add my branch manager experience. Yes, please.

Speaker 1 All right, Sanai.

Speaker 1 A 20 with hope.

Speaker 1 You make some good points.

Speaker 1 Perhaps investing in talent is a great way to keep them on board. Indeed.

Speaker 1 And you

Speaker 1 did bring Marty on board.

Speaker 1 I...

Speaker 1 Yes, I did.

Speaker 1 Did you not bring Marty on board?

Speaker 1 And of course, he was...

Speaker 1 We were under the impression that you had onboarded... Oh.

Speaker 1 Your batting average is a bit strange. Let's talk about Melody Bird.

Speaker 1 Now you chose this young talent as your direct report. Yes, she has quite

Speaker 1 an energy about her that just it fit well with my work aesthetic.

Speaker 1 She has proven since to be a bit challenging in her responsibilities, and I would recommend her to possibly be some of the fat cut from the force, if you understand.

Speaker 1 When she was in here, she

Speaker 1 told us she had just been dealing with some personal personal problems.

Speaker 1 If you were in my chair, how would you handle that? And furthermore, do you ever see yourself in my chair? And furthermore, what are your plans to be in my chair?

Speaker 1 First and foremost, I was unaware that she was having personal problems, and I would first ask if these are anything that would impact her work.

Speaker 1 And then I would request her to do her best to not let them impact her work.

Speaker 1 And And if it requires assistance outside of work, I'd be happy to provide her with that sort of guidance outside of the work experience.

Speaker 1 As far as your chair, we are all aspirational beings, being human beings. And indeed, I have lofty goals to one day perhaps have my own little fiefdom here under SDGs.
Fiefdom.

Speaker 1 That's an interesting question.

Speaker 1 It's a poor choice. Is that how you would describe your managerial style?

Speaker 1 Would you describe it as a fiefdom? No. Take another stress.

Speaker 1 I would. Do you fashion yourself as a sort of king? A sort of ruler over your employees?

Speaker 1 I would not at all deign to assume such. It's a shared responsibility.
This requires a very clear, singular vision to guide it forward, which is what a manager does.

Speaker 1 Imagine a not a king over its subordinates, its employees. Take another stress.
Subordinates, king. These are troublesome words.
I like to think of myself as a thought leader, not a king. Right,

Speaker 1 I was using examples as

Speaker 1 metaphor. And I think it's a subordinate titles, whereas the one that you wear should hopefully be one that you earned or are qualified for.
Wouldn't you agree?

Speaker 1 I would agree. It was merely a...
I was making

Speaker 1 a reference to historical analogies to play for the storytelling of it all, which is what we do with our new social media push that has been so successful, is to tell the stories about our successes here.

Speaker 1 We're learning the opportunities to not just be a company and a business, but we are indeed a brand.

Speaker 1 Was the social media push your idea?

Speaker 1 He glances over his shoulder and makes contact with Barbara.

Speaker 1 No, that was Barbara's idea.

Speaker 1 Is there any reason we shouldn't consider Barbara for your position?

Speaker 1 How would you rate her work ethic and her ability to manage a team?

Speaker 1 And furthermore,

Speaker 1 where do you believe her flaws lie?

Speaker 1 Would she not be suitable for such a position?

Speaker 1 She is a very accomplished individual and a great

Speaker 1 asset to the SDN brand, especially this branch. She's proven quite quick on her feet, a wit that is adaptable.

Speaker 1 I would say she has unique taste in

Speaker 1 partners.

Speaker 1 Maybe not the most incisive ability to read the quality of someone she lets go.

Speaker 1 But outside of the professional space,

Speaker 1 I do not see that bleed into the office necessarily.

Speaker 1 She has a great high for detail,

Speaker 1 as well as a.

Speaker 1 I think she is a strong fit for any management position within the company.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 if we were to

Speaker 1 bring her into a higher role,

Speaker 1 what role do you see yourself fitting in?

Speaker 1 Well, to answer your previous final question,

Speaker 1 I see myself overseeing wider swaths of this company. Quite like the seat that you take to this day.

Speaker 1 One who can look into and read the insides and outs of others and judge them appropriately and see where best they fit in a long-fitting plot, such as the long-reaching arms of a company.

Speaker 1 Is that not plotting in its own right?

Speaker 1 I'm gonna let you decide what you want to roll for this.

Speaker 1 It can be

Speaker 1 you have options on your sheet. I do, I do.
I'm thinking.

Speaker 1 I think this is gonna be instinct because he's now trying to read

Speaker 1 Hamrick. Both Mort and

Speaker 1 Corey. That makes sense to me.

Speaker 1 Alright. Oh, God, oh God, how did I roll that?

Speaker 1 You just need to be the 15.

Speaker 1 Alright,

Speaker 1 Where are you at stress-wise?

Speaker 1 Oh, I only have one left.

Speaker 1 And the sweat beads are falling.

Speaker 1 I will say,

Speaker 1 as you see, true leadership shows entrepreneurial spirit.

Speaker 1 And I myself have been on the ground floor

Speaker 1 of crafting a financial future for myself and other like-minded suits.

Speaker 1 And should the opportunity arise after our discussion today,

Speaker 1 there might be a door open for you, Hamerick.

Speaker 1 Both of you.

Speaker 1 And that's a great game.

Speaker 1 It's the greatest game, Ramadan! is it?

Speaker 1 This is the greatest game!

Speaker 1 Oh my god! Holy shit! Double sixes!

Speaker 1 I was like, that's a nine. No, it's not.
Oh, my God.

Speaker 1 Well, I'm sure you would agree with the volatility of the market that looking at other forms of revenue truly is the way forward. I'm very interested in hearing about your

Speaker 1 alternative investment opportunities at a private time, I'd be happy to. And strangely enough,

Speaker 1 some individuals out there have been able to turn pieces of art into extremely valuable bits of digital currency. We'll talk about the time.
I think we need to have dinner at some point.

Speaker 1 I think things are going to be changing at Burbank SDN, and I think they're going to be changing for the better. I couldn't agree more.

Speaker 1 And with that,

Speaker 1 the efficiency experts leave Burbank SDN.

Speaker 1 In the parking lot, you see a dejected,

Speaker 1 incredulous bulk destroying a digi car.

Speaker 1 Just let him go. Smashing it to pieces.

Speaker 1 My CDs were in there.

Speaker 1 And you all debrief at the Cape and Cowles.

Speaker 1 Good job.

Speaker 1 Fritzy, I want to make sure you get on that payroll as soon as possible, alright?

Speaker 1 Agreed. Cheers.
Cheers. Cheers.

Speaker 1 I have to say,

Speaker 1 I didn't think we were going to pull it off.

Speaker 1 I did.

Speaker 1 I believed in us.

Speaker 1 Also,

Speaker 1 I feel like a lot of you really

Speaker 1 showed up for me, and I really thank you for all the encouragement

Speaker 1 to my face, and also the nice things you said, I think, behind my back.

Speaker 1 Right?

Speaker 1 That's right. Marty, are you sticking around? You're gonna go over to downtown? No, I'm going to downtown.
This has all been part of a larger plot.

Speaker 1 I thank you for your participation in what has been a carefully laid-out exercise, and you have all played your roles beautifully. I must take my leave now.
Your lives will be over soon.

Speaker 1 I'm just fucking with you.

Speaker 1 I turned down the promotion. I want to stay here.
Oh, Marty, that's great. Yeah, I mean, you know, that's wonderful.

Speaker 1 The lights still have all the bees in them and stuff, and until it's clean, I'm gonna stay and I'm gonna get mean.

Speaker 1 Happy to have you. As I withdraw my hand from under the table, the dark purple energy fades.

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 1 Mephisto.

Speaker 1 I've still got a few kicks of magic in me yet.

Speaker 1 You're a good guy, Mephisto. I don't go spreading that rumor around.
I have a reputation to build.

Speaker 1 And with all of you dreading that tomorrow is Fritzie's to turn to drive.

Speaker 1 It's going to be okay.

Speaker 1 You all get ready to go back for another day

Speaker 1 at Burbank SDN.

Speaker 1 There's some days that you wonder if maybe you've sold your soul for the almighty dollar.

Speaker 1 But on days like this, you realize that once in a while, you do manage to do some good.

Speaker 1 And maybe, sometimes, doing some good costs you a little bit of your soul under fluorescent lights, paper clips, and a lot of corporate jargon.

Speaker 1 Thank you for joining me for the screenshot.

Speaker 1 Thank you again to our friends at Ad Hoc Studio for letting us play in the world of Dispatch tonight.

Speaker 1 A reminder that while you may have recognized the places and and characters explored tonight as inspired by elements from the Dispatch universe, we want to emphasize that the characters and events in this one-shot were our own creations and are not official content from the Dispatch game.

Speaker 1 They were only inspired by it. That done, go check out Dispatch.
Episodes one through four are out right now. Check out bit.ly/slash/cr Dispatch for more info.
Good night.

Speaker 1 And that concludes this episode of Critical Role. If you liked the adventure, please consider leaving a review on your podcast platform of choice.

Speaker 1 We love welcoming new critters, and your review could be the roadmap that leads other kindred spirits our way. We hope you enjoyed the story, and again, thank you very much for listening.

Speaker 1 When your company works with PNC's corporate banking, you'll gain a smart and steady foundation to help you carry out all your bold ideas.

Speaker 1 But while your business might not be shaky, you might still experience shakiness in other ways. You might be outbid on the perfect summer house.

Speaker 1 Your kid might not attend your alma mater, or your yacht might be jostled by stormy waters. No amount of responsible banking can prevent these things.

Speaker 1 Except maybe the yacht, because we tell you boats are generally a bad investment. PNC Bank, brilliantly boring since 1865.
The PNC Financial Services Group Inc., All Rights Reserved.

Speaker 1 Hey, hate to do this. Could we reschedule? Our morning hike.
I was just about to ask the same. Next week?

Speaker 1 Yes, it's Duncan Original Blend Time. Staying at home with Duncan? Don't mind if I do.
The home with Duncan is where you want to be.