S3 Ep. 19 - Long Maze Journey Into Night

Speaker 1 Okay,

Speaker 1 only 10 more presents to wrap. You're almost at the finish line.
But first.

Speaker 1 There, the last one.

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Speaker 1 Dungeons and Daddies is a rowdy, horny, violent podcast for grown-ups. Content warnings can be found in the description.

Speaker 2 Hey there, Java heads. It's time once again for open mic night at the Peachyville Cafe.
Up first, we've got

Speaker 2 the Chainmaster with an original poem called Yowl. Give it up for Chainmaster.

Speaker 1 I saw the best maze of my generation destroyed by bowlers. Barging, heretical, hated, whisking themselves through the biblio stacks at dusk, looking for an azure key.

Speaker 1 Dunderheaded plumbers blowing through the ancient labyrinthine concourses to the librarium phallos and the sacrificial rite, who guttural and book-pilled and goo-handed and high, crept up skulking in the supernatural darkness of archival shelves, floating past the dead ends of corridors, contemplating anagrams.

Speaker 1 Who bashed our brains to heaven under the hole and saw the Bisonian cultist writhing on obsidian floors illuminated as she rose reincarnate in the fleshy pages of the book in the manifold shadow of the godslayer and inscribed the suffering of Peachyville's naked mind for love into an epi, epi, epi, dermy, dermy, dermy con cry that shivered the dewies down to their last decimal decimal with the absolute spine of the Book of Blood bound from her own body, good to read for a thousand years.

Speaker 1 Thank you.

Speaker 1 Okay, all right.

Speaker 2 Up next, get those fingers snapping for the rock and roll tunes of

Speaker 1 the Bigfoot Bopper.

Speaker 1 Hello, God, what is that lazy? Shat Killer

Speaker 1 Face and Boned Tail Clean.

Speaker 1 Welcome to Dungeons and Daddies. It's not a BDSM podcast.
Say what? A call of Cthulhu podcast this season. Welcome to the Beachyville Horror.
A Call of Cthulhu Actual Pay.

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Speaker 1 You spend $10 on the Dungeons and Daddies Battle Pass, and at the end of it, you might get $10 back in our currency.

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I don't think we can joke about this when we have a Patreon.

Speaker 1 No, but this show's free, but our DLC is on the Patreon. So please join our Patreon show.
Traditional DLC as God intended. It's not a season pass.
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Speaker 1 This is not a live service podcast. PGBL Horror, a Call of Cthulhu actual play horror comedy podcast about four, five, everyday Schmoe's fighting the forces of darkness in suburban 1950s America.

Speaker 1 My name is Freddie Wong, and I play Blake Lively. Yes.
Blake Lively as the town handyman. He's a handyman now? Here's the thing.
He came in looking for odd jobs, and then he ended up as the plumber.

Speaker 1 He looked for handy jobs. Handy jobs.

Speaker 1 Yeah, handy jobs plumbing is kind of an odd job if you think about it it's your poop sort of one of the more normal jobs that like humans need prehistorically a pretty yeah a poop hand i'm gonna say this right now plumbers last ones to get replaced by a oh yeah oh yeah yeah yeah yeah oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah blake oftentimes you know people will go for coffee in the morning you know

Speaker 1 blake came up with his own version of an energy drink in the beginning. He didn't call it energy drink.
He calls it his pep juice. It's juice to give me a little pep in my step.

Speaker 1 And what it is, everyone taking notes, the recipe here. Yeah, that's why I have my phone out.

Speaker 1 You take some coffee beans, you grind it up. If this is just coffee, Freddie, I'm going to put you off the podcast.

Speaker 1 And then you take the diet pills that all the housewives seem to be taking. Oh,

Speaker 1 and you grind that up too. And that keeps you awake.
Wait, what do you do? You drink it. Oh, okay.
So you put put it in water

Speaker 1 you brewing speed yeah so this is coffee with a little bit of something in it

Speaker 1 yeah my appetite has never been more suppressed

Speaker 1 hey everybody my name is matthew arnold i play kelsey grammar peachyville's happiest and snappiest school mom and you know she always says it's not about your grade it's about how much you learned but your grade is a representation of how much i think you learned continuing the journey of the five senses of kelsey uh i'm just gonna go straight to her favorite uh sounds

Speaker 1 I hate when Matt does. When Matt dusts this old chestnut off.
I mean, it's really on us for not taking advantage of that and doing it ourselves. But we have

Speaker 1 self-respect.

Speaker 1 It's like a pair of pants you got in college that still look great.

Speaker 1 I don't know if they look great, but they do their job. They still look great.
You don't get arrested for going outside with them. They don't look great, but they do their job.

Speaker 1 Obviously, Lee's favorite sound, obviously, you already know this, the shushing from Brian. And then her favorite sound is when you pop that cherry of a brand new book.
That little crack of the spine.

Speaker 1 That little crack of the spine. When you fuck a book, book that first, that first, you know, if you get a brand new book and you open the spine, you feel like that little, it's a little, no, it's not,

Speaker 1 it's a little crack of the paper.

Speaker 1 It's like a door creak almost, but it's just like

Speaker 1 the wax on the binding? Yeah, the wax and the glue on the binding the first time that spine gets cracked. And you just know that that book's never been touched.

Speaker 1 That book's never been fucked.

Speaker 1 You're the first one to read. I don't like that, man.
You're not the first one to read the book. I don't know why you said that.
And they'll be dickheads different when you're the first one in him.

Speaker 1 I feel like barely legal should be a category reserved for books. Like, oh man, we almost burned this one, but it's barely legal.

Speaker 1 Fuck this book.

Speaker 1 Almost banned books. Books that are banned in a few states, but are still around in your state are barely legal books.

Speaker 1 Don't take this one. A lot of barely legal books coming up soon.
Stepbook. I'm trapped in this guy's library.

Speaker 1 Push that wheel ladder over here like Bell.

Speaker 1 I'm going to check the copyright on that one. That seems a lot younger than they seen here.
A weird ladder?

Speaker 1 Yeah, the one that bells on when she's fucking grabbing the book says

Speaker 1 a weird ladder. I don't, it's just a ladder on wheels.
What's the word for it? It's a laterally moving ladder. When's the last time I moved?

Speaker 1 It's a ladder on wheels. A real ladder.
It's weird. I thought it was fun.
I wonder why. I didn't think it had wheels, but we don't need to dive into it.
How did she move? How does she move, bud?

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Okay, stop. Stop.
Look at the ladder. We're listening.
Stop buying time for yourself. How did it move? I thought it was on a rug.

Speaker 1 Sorry, what? Wait, what? If a chair is on a rug, it moves easily. But, like, so she just slides around on a rug on the bookshelf? I'm just saying that, yeah.

Speaker 1 You're telling me, Belle, whose father canonically is like a quirky inventor, right? Like, that this is the best they could come up with. I invented a rug.

Speaker 1 I happened to have just pulled up the scene and you do see the wheels on it. I'm sorry.
I'm just saying that it could have also... They didn't need the wheels.
It's fine. They didn't need the wheels.

Speaker 1 Sufficient rug.

Speaker 1 It would have sufficed. Yes, it works with the wheels, but it would also work without the wheels.
Where would you see the floor without a rug? Do you mean two really tight?

Speaker 1 That's bad. That's poor interior design.

Speaker 1 That's true. The rug ties the room.
Well, no, no, because there's wheels and the wheels wouldn't work on a rug, Beth. Well, that's true.
And we're going to move on. So, Anthony's up next.

Speaker 1 Hi, it's me, Anthony. I'm up next.
Hi, Anthony. I play Francis Varnsworth.
A kid with a gun that now talks to him. A kid with a complicated relationship with his gun, I guess.

Speaker 1 Really status with my gun. It's complicated.
It's complicated. This is my rifle.
This is my gun.

Speaker 1 Francis' fact is that he has gotten to first base exactly once. Ooh.

Speaker 1 Because he was playing baseball. Yes.
And he peed himself because he was so nervous because everybody's looking at him when you're up to bat. And he was just so nervous and so anxious.

Speaker 1 And he pissed himself. And everyone was busy laughing so hard that he just kind of like strolled to first base.
And that was the first time he ever got any points on his scoreboard. He stole first.

Speaker 1 That's hard to do. Yeah, that's actually.
Anthony, I don't mean to. You don't get points on a scoreboard.

Speaker 1 Sorry, I meant a scorecard, like, you know, for going on the first baseball.

Speaker 1 He had a single.

Speaker 1 Also, can I ask, you said the only time he's been to first base, did he not get to second base? Oh, God, no.

Speaker 1 The second they were like, ah, god damn it, he got on first base. Immediately, he made, he tried to steal, and they just

Speaker 1 out of him. He got to, he got tagged out, but he did feel someone up on the way out of the game.

Speaker 1 He did get to second base. He's a bad guy in a lot of ways, but not that way.

Speaker 1 Concentrally. Hi, my name is Beth Mae, and I play Trudy Trout, a homemaker, mother of one beautiful child robot.

Speaker 1 Fun fact about Trudy, now that her mind is expanded, opened up to new possibilities, and she's read the Bible, she's actually come up with a theory that there was a robot or two in biblical days.

Speaker 1 Say what?

Speaker 1 What? Hello, Ramsey's anyone?

Speaker 1 Yes!

Speaker 1 Really good. Hey, Beth, I'm good.
Hey, Beth. We had a full 45 seconds to guess where that was going and none of us got there.
Hey, Beth, I'm loving these.

Speaker 1 Thank you.

Speaker 1 I'm loving it. Pontius Pocket Pilot.
Is that anything? No.

Speaker 1 Fuck.

Speaker 1 Pontius Pilot. I will, Campos.
I am your daddy master. And my dad fact this week is that I am this week's guest star on Pitcherton, an improv comedy podcast on many-sided media.

Speaker 1 This is a super, super fun, wacky, deranged Sons and Suds Dability adjacent, I would say, Regency podcast. Oh, so how much money do they owe us? None, because we don't own the Regency era.

Speaker 1 What if you could? What if you could?

Speaker 1 What if we could take the Regency era and turn it into an NFT? Into a seasoned past. So their concept is fucking great.

Speaker 1 It's like four sisters, and the dad is like, if none of you get married, all my money is going to go to like, you know, somewhere else. But then he dies.

Speaker 1 And they all realize that they're all trying to keep the fact that he's dead secret while they're all dead. It's my weekend at Bernie's.
Yeah, it's like

Speaker 1 Register meets Weekend at Bernie's. I play Benjamin Franklin.

Speaker 1 Are you you a guest? Are you a regular cast member? I'm a guest on this week's episode. Or last week's episode, by the time you're hearing this, go check it out.
Bitch or 10.

Speaker 1 It's wherever you get your podcast. Fucking great.
Check it out. Do you want to play Ben Franklin appropriately horny? Yes, I do.
Nice. And inappropriately still alive.

Speaker 1 I was like, I wanted to play old horny Ben Franklin. They were like, no, he died before the Regency era started.
I was like, or did he? Or did he?

Speaker 1 That's what he wanted you to think. That's what he wanted you to think.
He was actually alive in 110. But he's

Speaker 1 an additional daddy master fact, a Ben Franklin fact for you that I learned doing research for this character, which was that he brought tofu to America.

Speaker 1 He was like the first person in America to use the word tofu in a letter or something like that.

Speaker 1 And he was like, I have just been back from the Orient where I've discovered this lovely Chinese cheese.

Speaker 1 Wow. So he was big on tofu.
He has ahead of things.

Speaker 1 When last we left our group, you had all speed ran the labyrinth that is the Project Heartland Archives Department.

Speaker 1 You arrived at the beating center, the heart of the library to find Kelsey's rival, Brian Strokes. Brian strikes Mitchell, right?

Speaker 1 Brian Strokes Mitchell is a full sentence. Because it's like Brian Mitchell who plays Cam Linston, Fraser's rival.

Speaker 1 And then you were like, instead of Stokes Mitchell, he strikes Mitchell because of bowling. Yes.
I remember. That's fucking funny.
Someone has to remember everything on this podcast.

Speaker 1 It's not going to be any of you. So I got to do it.

Speaker 1 So Brian, the leader of the archives department, was there performing a gruesome ritual in which they were turning Checker Zoo Lan, I think was her name, the assistant librarian, into a gross skin book called The Epidermicon.

Speaker 1 You interrupted them just in time to save Bibi and Milton from being human sacrificed. You guys got the key off of Brian.
You did, yeah. You got the key after knocking him on the head.

Speaker 1 I believe there are two unconscious people. A chain guy on fire.
Big chain's man got lit on fire. Chainmaster.
Chainmaster. They performed this ritual.

Speaker 1 This woman transformed into a horrifying, creepy skin book before your eyes. The pages flew open.

Speaker 1 And now books of plenty are being sucked through this maze at a terrifying speed and being absorbed by the epidermicon in the middle of this book labyrinth as the whole place is shuddering and shaking and shifting around you.

Speaker 1 How does Kelsey, lover of books, feel about this sort of thing? I mean, I think the amount of books or what type of books in here is the least of her concern.

Speaker 1 Swore by the fact that this world maze is changing around us. Yeah, geology saw the fucking Omaha beach.
We're like, look at all these

Speaker 1 whoa! The sand going everywhere. Dude, do you think John just

Speaker 1 went every time a gun is fired? It must be like that poor rock. That poor rock.
Thousands of rocks mindlessly thrown. So that's the situation.
Open world, what do you want to do?

Speaker 1 We just have to get an eye on the map. Thank God we got to that.
We got a bigger maze. Oh, yeah, that was so easy.
We didn't even hit a single dead end. No, we haven't gotten to the maze yet.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that was my question. Trudy and I fell down at the end of the last episode, and we were threatened with a larger maze.
Oh, yes.

Speaker 1 You sensed the environment around you rumbling and shaking and shifting and expanding in strange and terrifying ways. Is there maybe an emergency exit that is just a direct way out?

Speaker 1 Kelsey, you know the library.

Speaker 1 I don't know. If there was, it's in a different spot now, but I've never been here.
I've never been in this maze. As Blake, town handyman, do I have any history of doing any work here at the library?

Speaker 1 You know, like, I feel like I would have done, you know, some plumbing. I feel like I have an inkling of like what the underlying structure of this building is.

Speaker 1 I probably would have known there's like a big sub-basement. I probably would have assumed that's where they like store books.

Speaker 1 I will remind you that to enter this library you put a weird book into a shelf that was in the middle of a floor that spun around

Speaker 1 book

Speaker 1 Next tour we're getting every audience to chant that back on us Yeah, my question is though like if there's a giant weird spinny thing the pipes still have to flow around it, right?

Speaker 1 Unless there's not a shitter down there. Yeah, there's a lot I'm saying above it.
There's a shitter, right? No, not a shit. Is it a library? It's in the dead center of like where the books are.

Speaker 1 How many bathrooms do you think are in a library? Here's what I'll ask you: Would you like to use your plumbing knowledge to try to intuit from the space around you? Like just a basic layout.

Speaker 1 Just lift your finger and touch the wall. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I want to put my hand.

Speaker 1 What do your plumber eyes see? Exactly.

Speaker 1 Okay, so yes, go ahead and do that. Give me a roll.
Now, what would that be? Just use plumber use. What are you fucking stupid? We don't have plumber use.

Speaker 1 Well, we could call this an education role and say that you went to plumbing school. Okay, education role.
Out of 28, I'm going to roll. So, not a very good plumbing school.
31. Okay.

Speaker 1 This room has a toilet. And a similar mindset of what Freddie's doing, but maybe it makes a little bit more sense.
I'm going to use my library. Wow.

Speaker 1 Just to get a sense, like, I guess this maze is changing, but can I sense any pattern of this maze? Beth is about to say what I was about to say.

Speaker 1 But now I've seen the bad guy.

Speaker 1 I'm like Billie Eilish, the bad guy.

Speaker 1 You have disadvantages. Yeah, oh, that's okay.
I can have disadvantages. Yeah, go ahead.
Yeah,

Speaker 1 75. so just to paint the picture, you guys, there's like one ring of a three-ring circus in the middle of this thing, if you will.
Thank you. Now I understand.

Speaker 1 And you guys are like right at the edge of it, like in the aisles of the labyrinth. These like ceiling-high bookstacks are stretching out in every direction.
Okay, so yeah, so we can't climb up over.

Speaker 1 Yeah, nice. Um, I rolled a 10, okay, and then I rolled a 19.
Okay, great. So that's a super.
So you got a super duper success. So

Speaker 1 you're super success. No, not quite super duper.
Super success. Okay, I will say with that, you zero in on the numbers, like whatever the Dewey Decimal System is.

Speaker 1 The numbers, Mason, what do they mean and it's not the dewey decimal system

Speaker 1 you are able like an archaeologist deciphering ancient pictography you're able to figure out like the basics of how this system must work and i will say that because you got a successful role you no longer have disadvantage on your library use skill and you can use your library use skill instead of your navigate skill to navigate the maze.

Speaker 1 Yes. Yeah, because that makes sense.
I figure it's like when we get to a corner and there's multiple places to go. It's like like which number continues in this.
You already got the W.

Speaker 1 Don't push me off.

Speaker 1 I'm trying to paint a picture. You figure numbers have more pages? No.

Speaker 1 Well, inside the book they do. The numbers do represent the pages.
I don't think that's true. No, is that the book? Yeah, it is.
Inside the book. Inside the book.

Speaker 1 Inside the book. I see.
Okay. Those numbers at the bottom, Will.
You notice when you're reading, they get bigger?

Speaker 1 Wait a second. You're right.

Speaker 1 Speaking of painting a picture, while you guys are getting your bearings here, you hear some scuffling from the center of the room, and you notice that, like, the vortex that's going into the epidermicon has stopped and the book slams shut.

Speaker 1 And you see Brian stagger to his feet, kind of dazed as he's shaking off this heavy blow and he locks eyes with you, Kelsey.

Speaker 1 And then he gives you like a little knowing smile and then he grabs the epidermicon and he vanishes from sight. Oh yeah, you're going to try to grab it.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I was going to try to grab it, but I think he did it too fast. That's how it happened.
It's funny. It's the cutscene where we're like still getting up and the black bars are still on the screen.

Speaker 1 You match the X button. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Literally, give me control. You press B, but it's just like, skip this.
You're like, damn it. Come on, skip the holy something.
I need to know how much I'm skipping when I say skip.

Speaker 1 And then the second thing you notice is this henchman also coming to and realizing that Brian is gone and seeing all of you guys there. And he's like, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, don't come any closer.

Speaker 1 Stay back. Stay back.
Okay, you just got promoted. And he is going to reach into his pocket and pull out a big glass vial.

Speaker 1 And you see him hold his breath. He goes, oh, I hold my breath.

Speaker 1 smashes it down on the floor in the middle of the um maze and this like purple mist just erupts and starts flowing and there's like way more mist than should be in this vial it's a lot of mist and you see him take off into the distance in a different direction away from you okay so he's going should we follow him

Speaker 1 let's follow this guy he must be leaving the maze yeah great uh i hope so

Speaker 1 This would be a great way for him to sacrifice himself and kill us all.

Speaker 1 Dude, what a move.

Speaker 1 You guys are going to run through the mist towards the guy.

Speaker 1 Is there only one exit? I'm pointing to my nostril. Was there only one exit of the circle that we're in?

Speaker 1 So basically, imagine like a circle, and then there's like 10 rows of books. Like the center of a labyrinth has multiple entrances.
Okay, so it's multiple.

Speaker 1 I would love to try to kick that glass vial down one of the hallways like adjacent to us, so away from us. Okay,

Speaker 1 anyone who is going towards the mist is going to have to give me a constitution role to hold it.

Speaker 1 Have we established that smokes and tear gases and stuff work on treaty or don't work on treaty i can't think we have that's a good point

Speaker 1 yeah can you act like an air filter can you

Speaker 1 i have a big that test you i suppose if my friends would like me to do that that i could do that act like like a hepa filter a hoover a hoover yes trudy just try kicking it you don't need to do this

Speaker 1 the gas is quickly filling there's a wave of mist flowing towards you right now kick it away from us okay give me a constitution saving throw. Okay, and I roll a 26.
Okay, what's your score? 50.

Speaker 1 Okay, great.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you kick it down the hallway. It is now slightly farther away, still pumping mist at an incredible rate.

Speaker 1 If you stand behind me, I'll hoover it up.

Speaker 1 Wait, is there like a bowl? Like when cops shoot tear gas at you. Yeah.
Is it like pouring out or is it like the glass thing break and just says? It's yeah, it's shattered. And now there's just

Speaker 1 magically happening.

Speaker 1 Oh, my bad. Sorry, sorry.
Sorry. I feel like a flare going.

Speaker 1 I was listening to our DM. Yeah, there's more gas than there should have been.
I think we need to run. Let's try the Hoover thing.
Okay. I'll try to get away with that.

Speaker 1 Try run away if you cannot suck all this magic.

Speaker 1 Did I roll a constitution again? No, because you're just breathing it in. Okay.
Don't roll constitutions with that.

Speaker 1 We'll say because you're a cyborg, rather than just having this happen to you, give me a disadvantaged constitution check. This is a silly question, but is she a robot or is she a cyborg?

Speaker 1 Because she's got a human brain and a robot body. Okay.

Speaker 1 Ooh, my worst role was a 16. Wow.

Speaker 1 In that case, you are able to inhale and hold on to without feeling any negative effects. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 Two lungs full of this mist, which is now enveloping you and still expanding towards everybody. Blake, you did a great job on the maze the last time.
We follow you.

Speaker 1 Trudy, you just stay behind us, run backwards, and just keep inhaling. You just act like a little, you know, you help, you just try to slow the spread.

Speaker 1 Okay?

Speaker 1 And then when you're full, blow out.

Speaker 1 Okay, so that's how we're right. Blake, you're leading us to the maze.
Beautiful.

Speaker 1 We're in between Blake and Trudy, and Trudy's like running backwards with her mouth facing the smoke, doing her best to

Speaker 1 necessarily have to be facing backwards.

Speaker 1 Her mouth needs to be facing backwards. Oh, yeah, but she breathes out.
I see what you're saying. Can you like turn your head 180?

Speaker 1 Cool.

Speaker 1 So you rotate your entire head around. Yep.
I'll hold on to Trudy's hand so she doesn't get lost when she's looking backwards.

Speaker 1 What about us? What about us? Says BB. Milton's like, where are we? What's going on? Milton, use your extrasensory perception.
I don't have have that. That's not a thing that blind people have.

Speaker 1 Milton,

Speaker 1 help Trudy. Breathe in as much as you can.

Speaker 1 We're already holding them. If I remember correctly, we're holding them.
All right, this is going to be important.

Speaker 1 I was holding BB and Trudy is holding Milton. I'll grab Milton from her.
I'll have Milton in my left hand, who's I'm ushering it sort of in front of me so he's running faster than me.

Speaker 1 And then I'm holding on to Trudy's other hand in my right hand so that Trudy doesn't get lost while she's facing the opposite direction. Terrific.
Okay. We're running through Cause of Doom.

Speaker 1 Trudy is Gandalf, and Blake is Aragorn in the front. So Blake's in the front, then Kelsey, then BB will say.
I'm holding BB. She can run.
Okay, good. There's BB and then Francis.

Speaker 1 No, no, Milton, then Milton, Francis, then Trudy. Trudy.
BKB MFT. God.
DBS Ph.D. That's our and our new Dogecoin that you can order from us.
We will rub pool you. And we have the cat, right?

Speaker 1 There's a cat that we can drink. Yes, marbles.
Are you still wearing the tail? Turn off the marbles ran into the fog. No!

Speaker 1 I think so. The skull provides.

Speaker 1 I think the skull provides both intimidation and head protection. Okay, great.
So, yes, the cat. Marbles have been napping this entire time.

Speaker 1 I should try. Marbles, it's like straight up.
You're just rat-tat-too-y at this point. You just have the skull helmet and marbles is in your helmet, though.

Speaker 1 If anything, you're one of the robots from Pacific Rim.

Speaker 1 You mean everything you've been doing were the actions of marbles? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Oh, my God. Somebody's always just playing a cat.
Here's how this is going to work. The person leading the group is going to make a navigate roll to navigate the mace.
Oh, version two, huh?

Speaker 1 Yes, this is version two. I want you guys to experience the wonderful content I designed for this mace.
If you succeed on your navigate roll, something good's going to happen.

Speaker 1 Fray, what's your navigate? 10. Okay, after this, in character though, so we paint a picture for the audience.

Speaker 1 Tell Kelsey that you don't know where you're going and she should lead because I have a 75 on library use. And Will are DMs that I could use that skill for navigate.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, well, we'll do it.
But it would betray the story we're telling if we did that right away. I feel like we have to use your navigate skill.

Speaker 1 We do get one shitty navigate roll, right? Okay, we go. Boom, 10.
No, I'm kidding. I got 58.
Okay, great. I'm so excited.
I'm so excited. Boy, oh boy, I get to finally use my niggas.

Speaker 1 It's nice to just let him

Speaker 1 do it. Little A hurt the players as a treat.
And you know, I had to do it to him. That's what Will's doing right now.

Speaker 1 I've been waiting so long to do it to him, Beth.

Speaker 1 You were going to roll a 1D 12 for me, Freddie. A 1D 12, got it.
A seven. Oh my.
Oh, my goodness. Wow.
He's a little bit more.

Speaker 1 He's got so many pages over there. You're able to outpace the fog pretty quickly.
So the mistake. Thanks, Trudy.
Is Trudy still holding her breath? No, she's like,

Speaker 1 she's like inhaling and blowing. No, she's holding her breath still.
I'm inhaling and then blowing out. Also, I noticed breathing.

Speaker 1 And then I turn around. I'm like, that's good stuff.

Speaker 1 Because she's just holding her breath. You wouldn't be kidding.
Is that your robot? Is that your robot voice? That's like a broadband. That's my high high voice, dude.
That's my high robot voice.

Speaker 1 That's good stuff. Okay, so you are sprinting through this maze.
You're zigging, you're zagging. Blake is doing his best, poor ability to try to figure his way out.

Speaker 1 And Blake, you round a corner and you almost trip on this book that's just lying on the ground. You kind of slide to a halt as you see it.
You look down at it, and it says, How Blake Escaped.

Speaker 1 Oh,

Speaker 1 don't read it, Blake. Who's it trapped? Who's it by?

Speaker 1 By a author. This seems like a poor book.
I will keep going. Dude.

Speaker 1 Books have never interested me. I like what your name is.

Speaker 1 There are many Blakes in fiction. But you're Blake.
You mean you're fictional?

Speaker 1 I can't handle this right now.

Speaker 1 I forgot that. Yeah, there was a pretty dank strain in that mist.
Kelsey runs past the Superman Candidate. I'm going to just turn around and kick it.
back with the way we came as far as I can. Great.

Speaker 1 One life-threatening puzzle dodged. Wait, did you really think we'd open the book? It's up to you guys.
It's up to you.

Speaker 1 Here's your problem. You name the book How Blake Escaped and not Why Blake is the Coolest Motherfucker in the

Speaker 1 Blake. I think at this point you've realized you're pretty well lost.
Kelsey, perhaps you should trade places with me. That's a brilliant idea.

Speaker 1 My library use is going to be the perfect skill for us to navigate with. I would like to roll my library use to navigate us.
I'm so fucking immersed in the story now. Thank you.
I passed it easily.

Speaker 1 Excellent. I got 61.

Speaker 1 Kelsey, using your skills as you weave through, everything makes sense to you in this place. And you feel like you have an intuitive sense of where you're supposed to go, like where you need to go.

Speaker 1 And the numbers are guiding you, but you kind of seem to grock it on this deep level as you're making these lefts and rights.

Speaker 1 And it's almost like the library itself is telling you where you need to go. And what you're doing is you're going to be doing it.
Even the scariest library feels like home.

Speaker 1 Dude, Kelsey, it's like you know this library. Isn't that crazy, Trudy? How are you doing back there? Oh, I'm good.

Speaker 1 You're making your way through. You feel like you can sense yourself approaching the exit.
And you round a corner.

Speaker 1 You find yourself in an aisle and right at the top, or actually recognize from the numbers that this is the seized documents section.

Speaker 1 So you see books and notebooks and like binders that all seem to be documents and pieces of evidence confiscated by Project Heartland over the course of its sort of disturbing career here in Peachyville.

Speaker 1 And as you are running down the hallway, this book kind of juts out a little bit at you, and you catch the name on it. It says the diary of John Grammer, which Project Heartland has.
Don't stop.

Speaker 1 You can just ask him. He's alive now, right? Well, yeah, he is, but I don't know if that's going to stay.
I don't know if that's. Plus men never say their feelings.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 No, it feels like if he wrote a diary, he wouldn't want me to read it. It is weird that they have it.

Speaker 1 Should I burn it? I stopped. Am I trying to get it?

Speaker 1 Hey, team. First off, Trudy, how much time do we got? Can I work this out with everybody here?

Speaker 1 Time to not read.

Speaker 1 What do you think, Blake? This is my brother's diary. But, like, I wouldn't want to read it.
If he wanted to tell me, he would tell me. I don't want anybody to read my diary.

Speaker 1 Ah, we can do what I like to call a move that hasn't been invented yet. The Grizzly Man move.
I will read it and tell you about it.

Speaker 1 Don't let me worry about this.

Speaker 1 You should destroy this. I'm just going to take it.
I'm going to take the diary. I'm going to put it in my coat pocket.

Speaker 1 This is for later, not now obviously the the smoke's coming okay the second you take the book you disappear stupid

Speaker 1 i didn't hear that i didn't hear that i disappeared

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Speaker 1 Kelsey vanishes without a trace. All right, well, that's fucked.
Well, we should let Blake rabbit. I guess you're charging him, Blake.

Speaker 1 Well, I'm pretty good here. I think I know where we're going next.
Oh, does the book go with him? Yes. You mean it's not like a missed trap book? Everybody, give me an intelligence role.

Speaker 1 And I know this seems nitpicky, but just a subtle point. Did I disappear the moment I touched the book or the moment the book left the shelf? The moment you pulled the book out of the shelf.

Speaker 1 I succeeded in my idea role. I also succeeded.
Super, duper success. Three.
You all connect the dots on two things.

Speaker 1 One, that Brian picked up a book that had relevance to him, the epidermicon, the book he was making. Right, right.
And he disappeared.

Speaker 1 And then Kelsey picked up a book related to her brother, the person whose disappearance she's been trying to solve, and she disappeared from the library.

Speaker 1 So maybe the key to exiting this library has to do with letting it lead you to a book that you need.

Speaker 1 Well, shit. My book is all the way back there.

Speaker 1 And she kicked it, destroying it. Well, shit.

Speaker 1 I'm stuck here forever. I don't know if that was the book you needed, though.
That's a good point. Hi, Trudy.
We could be a book. That is better suited.
Let me take a look.

Speaker 1 Have you heard of the Bible?

Speaker 1 Trudy, have you been reading the Bible? Yeah, I opened it up and I read it.

Speaker 1 And my mind was open. What part did you read?

Speaker 1 In the beginning. So you opened it to the beginning.

Speaker 1 A very good place to start.

Speaker 1 She's losing it. We have to go.
Mr. Lively, it's Milton.
Oh, yes, child. My dream child.
Mr. Lively, but what's wrong with Mrs.
Trudy? I would refer to him as your dream child. No, certainly not.

Speaker 1 No, so this child.

Speaker 1 This child will also be unable to read what's wrong with miss trudy she sounds like something's wrong with her is she okay she is tanking all of this uh smoke and if you'd like to trade places with her you certainly can well i don't know it sounds dangerous i don't know if i want to miss trudy are you okay well maybe you need to shut the hell up child and let the adults do the talking okay milton i have never been more okay

Speaker 1 oh okay bb yes what do your powers of deduction tell you for remember bb that you and i we've had many adventures solving.

Speaker 1 I know. I know that you're always helping me out on my mysteries.
Remember the case of the hamster that got flushed down the toilet? Yes. We busted that one right wide open, didn't we?

Speaker 1 The toilet would bust it open, yes. And the hamster was quite dead.
Oh, no. Yes, it was just

Speaker 1 me up at night. In the P-trap.
In the P-trap, that's right. The P-Trap.
That was what I was going to call that case in my files, the P-Trap.

Speaker 1 Colon, the case of the hamster that got flushed down the toilet. You guys used a book to get in here, right?

Speaker 1 It seems like the only way to get out is to find the book that you need, that you're looking for deep down on some level. So I guess, like, we've got to keep looking around this maze.

Speaker 1 We've got to keep trying to find the book we're looking for. I'm going to look around for a book called Shitty Assholes Who Suck.
Francis! It's for Blake. Oh,

Speaker 1 that's for me. Francis.

Speaker 1 That mist is probably slowly filling up this place, and we should really get to it. Although it seems like we're going to disappear one by one as it happens.
Let's plan to meet somewhere. Like in the

Speaker 1 in 20 years, we should all come back here. We should come back here and just just start to talk about how our lives change.
Yeah. We could.
Or we're going to be best friends forever, right?

Speaker 1 We could meet at the big pile of goo out front. Yes.
Yeah, goo crew. The goo crew.

Speaker 1 That's a great idea, Mr. Lively.
Just once again. And Miss Trudy, I think you're right.
We should all try to get out of here. Is that what we're saying? Yes.
Yes.

Speaker 1 I mean, it sounds like if the library is just going to give us a book that helps, we should just run in a random direction. It'll give us what we need.
I don't know.

Speaker 1 I don't know how it works, but I think we should keep going. We should keep looking.
Don't worry, children. I know exactly where where I am now.
54 out of 10. I'm fail.

Speaker 1 I'll navigate. Who is leading the group? Me.
Trudy, why don't you give it a shot? Trudy's going to take the lead? Me, me, me, me, me, me.

Speaker 1 Fail.

Speaker 1 Oh, maybe it gives you a bad book when you fail, and a good book when you do well. Maybe we'll find out how the maze works by exploring.

Speaker 1 But see, here's the best part about this: that we can just keep skipping books until we get a good book. Just like being in a real bookstore.

Speaker 1 Trudy, roll a D12 for me. D12.

Speaker 1 Three. A three.
Okay. D12.
So you guys press on through the labyrinth and you find.

Speaker 1 Press on. I hope nobody's pressing off

Speaker 1 because I'm a robot. Trudy, be careful.
Do not press on for four seconds. Okay.
In your wanderings, you come across like a help desk in the middle of this maze.

Speaker 1 There's like semi-circle desks around the chairs. You see just this old lady sitting in front of the desk.

Speaker 1 You know the lady in Monster's Inc with the order of glasses. Like she's serving that.

Speaker 1 And she's like thumbing through a little magazine. And there is a sign above her that says help desk, and a little sign that says no talking next to her.
Help! She looks at you, Trudy, and goes,

Speaker 1 Give me a willpower roll. I fail.
Dare I say, I fumble. You fumble.
Okay, Trudy, you feel your mouth just slam shut, and no force on earth could get it to open up right now.

Speaker 1 How can you make a phone call when you're unable to speak? It's that kind of heat. So, Trudy is no longer able to speak.
Ah, the answer to the riddle. I will text.

Speaker 1 Give me a willpower roll.

Speaker 1 17. Super duper success.
Okay. You feel your jaws about to slam shut on your tongue, biting the tip of your tongue out, but you're able to just barely resist it.
My tongue dodging.

Speaker 1 Maintaining your ability to speak. But thoroughly chastened.
The help desk lady glares at you. Hey.

Speaker 1 Is there, as is the case on most help desks, like a little jar full of pens? Yes, there is. Okay, I'd like to grab one and write on my hand.
Exit, question mark. What do you mean by exit?

Speaker 1 Is there a piece of paper I can grab? She rolls her eyes, sensing that this is what you want, and she slides a notebook over to you. I'm going to write as quickly as I can.

Speaker 1 It appears that certain books will allow us to exit this library. Where would might we find such books for our respective exits? She like rubs her temples.
Like, do you work here? No, I write.

Speaker 1 Well, then, I really shouldn't be helping you, but if it'll get you to leave, this is all I can tell you. You need to search the library for the book that you're looking for.

Speaker 1 The book you came down here for. The library knows deep down what information in the library you need, and you need to search for it.
Now, you can't just go wandering around everywhere.

Speaker 1 She's communicating this all dementally by rubbing her temples together, by the way. You can't just go wandering around everywhere.
You got to be intentional. You got to look for it.

Speaker 1 You got to believe you're going to find it. Because if you don't, you might get in trouble.
And if you worked here, you'd know that. It's very dangerous for you to be down here right now.

Speaker 1 In that case, I check the curse book that we got on the upper floor and see if that's having any like magical resonance with me.

Speaker 1 Oh, the book on curses? Yeah, because I was looking to break the curse with Brunhilde. This book is bullshit.
The one that gets like, this is not the good stuff, right?

Speaker 1 This was written by someone who doesn't know what they're talking about. But that's good thinking, though.

Speaker 1 I write down on the piece of paper, curse-breaking books, Dewey Decimal Number, question mark.

Speaker 1 So she looks at you and she looks at the question, and then she like writes, like, this is your job, period. Are you giving me attitude right now? Excuse me.
What's your name, young man? Francis.

Speaker 1 That's a dumb name. I agree.
That's a bad name and you're a bad person. And this is not my job, but I'm helping you anyway.

Speaker 1 You have lovely handwriting, by the way. Thank you.
Did you ask me if I'm doing anything later? Yeah, you can see because I wrote it.

Speaker 1 Just point back at the thing that I wrote. Truth be told, I don't have plans.
Why? Do you want to, how old are you? Enough.

Speaker 1 You want to go that way, kid. And she points down the hallway.
In the 50s, you wouldn't care.

Speaker 1 I have standards. I like an older fella.
Fair enough. And she points down a hallway.

Speaker 1 And as she points, her finger does this weird thing where like it twists and corkscrews, like going like a bunch of lefts and rights, like

Speaker 1 almost like its bones are breaking and extending and as you look at you realize that her finger is showing you the lefts and rights you're going to need to take to get to your book give me like a d20 with advantage and i will give you that as a bonus to your navigate skill for your check wow seven oh great goody goody goody you still you look a little lost do you need me to draw you a map i nod

Speaker 1 and so she draws you a specific map i say thank you you look lovely by the way those glasses are really couching on you oh you're such a charmer i try to be okay well is that that it? I mean, is it?

Speaker 1 I draw a picture of myself raising an eyebrow.

Speaker 1 They would like to know where their books are as well, period. Oh, well, this is going to take a while, but let's see.
What are you looking for, sir?

Speaker 1 Blake writes down, preserving the American way of life. Interesting.
Interesting.

Speaker 1 Not the one that's actually escapes. Well, I mean, also, escaping from mazes.

Speaker 1 There was a book. There's one book that's about preserving the way of American life and escaping from life.
Ideal, okay, look.

Speaker 1 If you had a choice between escaping from a maze and the American way of life is gone, or escaping from a maze and you can preserve the American way of life, you're going to go for the same thing.

Speaker 1 Okay, yeah, you're right. She gives you directions to the patriotic literature section.
She looks at BB, and Bibi's like, I want to know everything I need to know about this whole operation.

Speaker 1 I want to know the dirt. I want to know what the bisons are up to.
And she's like, okay, that's kind of weird, but I guess

Speaker 1 that sounds like some, you know, when people go for knowledge and they're like, give me all the knowledge. And then their head explodes because, like, it's greed.
I would just be careful.

Speaker 1 Hey, Francis, don't tell me what to do. I'm looking out for you.

Speaker 1 And Bibi's lips steal because she didn't fucking. I just write out, nice.
And she looks at you and she writes down like, don't tell me how to do my job, Francis. I get it.

Speaker 1 Is that it? I mean, I probably will in the future. I'm not going to promise.
I'm not going to. Okay, well, you're a kid.
Well, so are you.

Speaker 1 I'm like 16, which basically makes me like 15 years older than you in like, you know, maturity levels. Isn't that how you felt when you were a kid?

Speaker 1 When you're like, oh my God, that guy's in sixth grade. He's basically an adult.
Yeah, but I feel that way about you when I look at you. I look at you and I say, oh, well, adults don't know anything.

Speaker 1 And this kid doesn't know anything at all. Well, I look at you and I see like, oh, these kids in kindergarten.
He probably needs to be in the world. She's probably in kindergarten.
I'm in sixth grade.

Speaker 1 Effectively, you're in K-2. Bibi kicks you in the shin.

Speaker 1 So she,

Speaker 1 the help desk lady, begrudgingly draws out maps for you guys, like sort of rough gestural maps. Her handwriting is terrible to the areas you might need to go.
Trudy, what are you looking for?

Speaker 1 The only woman on this podcast has been silenced. So

Speaker 1 I don't know what I'm looking for. Trudy writes down,

Speaker 1 Trudy writes down poetry. Poetry.
I think we're looking for May, Beth, the Immortal Soul Savage Yard. The future.

Speaker 1 I feel it. She directs you to the cursed literature department,

Speaker 1 which has books by mad poets and stuff like that. Brutal.
Here's what we'll say: is you all have bonus on your navigate rolls now. You can use a bonus die whenever you roll for navigate.

Speaker 1 So then Milton's like confused and is like, hey, what's he's trying to whisper like very quietly because he can't hear any of you guys talking. Everyone just suddenly went silent.
He can't see.

Speaker 1 And so he's like, are you like really short? No, but he's blind. Yeah.

Speaker 1 he must be really short. He's blind, so he cannot ever, but

Speaker 1 he's gay. Sorry, he's blind.
He's like trying to listen, and he's just like, Well, what's going on? What's going on? Where is his mother?

Speaker 1 And I point at him with my other hand and do a shrug, like this kid's book. And then she like glares like,

Speaker 1 You like me.

Speaker 1 I say with my eyebrows, dude, where did all this Riz come from for Francis? I know.

Speaker 1 Apparently, so yeah, she looks at Milton. She's like, projects into his brain, all right, kid, write down what you need and what you're looking for.
And he just shrugs. He's like, I don't know.

Speaker 1 I don't know what I need. He's like, then I can't help you.
Get the hell out of here. I write down how to stop being obsessed with your aunt.

Speaker 1 She looks at it. She's like, uh, all right.

Speaker 1 And then she writes directions to the psychology department, the parapsychology department, because it's spooky.

Speaker 1 All right, so you've now all gained bonus on your navigate roles. And just as you say that, you see the mist beginning to creep around the corner.
Oh, no. I give her a quick thumbs up.

Speaker 1 I write my phone number down, and then I I start running. Who's leading? I got an eight.
Oh, great. I succeeded.
I succeeded too. I thought we were all going in different directions.

Speaker 1 That's why I rolled. No, that's why I sued two.
I guess here's my point: is that if you're all going together, unless you're all splitting up, do you guys want to split up?

Speaker 1 Well, it feels like all of our books are in different places.

Speaker 1 We can cover more ground that way. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Are you guys leaving the kids?

Speaker 1 I'm taking the kids with me. Okay, so you're taking the kids.
Okay, so you're all splitting up. Okay.
Babies are having babies. So Francis succeeded.
Trudy succeeded. Trudy succeeded.
Blake failed.

Speaker 1 Blake failed. We'll start with Francis and Trudy.
Trudy.

Speaker 1 So you go wandering off by yourself, doing your best to, you know, avoid any suspicious-looking alleys and make your way using your intuition to where the library might be trying to lead you.

Speaker 1 And you find yourself passing the cursed literature department. But you feel like this isn't where the library wants you to go.
You can still go to the cursed literature department.

Speaker 1 You might find something interesting. But there's a nagging doubt in the back of your head.
Hmm. I think I'm going to press on.

Speaker 1 You're going to press on into the cursed literature department or press on

Speaker 1 past it. Okay, great, great, great, great, great.
You find yourself in a long hallway. You see a sign that says containment specimen files.

Speaker 1 And as you're walking past these huge stacks of filing cabinets, one of them clicks open and slides out. And you see a file in there marked the doll maker.

Speaker 1 And on top of the filing cabinet, someone has just sort of like lazily left a book out.

Speaker 1 And on the front of the book is what can only be described as like a 15th century like erotic illustration of two moth people going at it in, like a kind of comma sutra-esque way. My, my, my.

Speaker 1 And it says, mating rituals and sexual practices of the mothman species. And choose wisely.

Speaker 1 The dollmaker, of course, is the name of the

Speaker 1 person who created the brain goo that has got your son kept in a coma. Can I roll Constitution to see if I'm not high anymore? Sure.

Speaker 1 Ooh, barely squeaked by with my sobriety here. Okay, you're right on the edge, but you're coming down.
Music doesn't sound quite as good to you anymore. Damn it.

Speaker 1 Well, I must say I'm interested in that book, but this is

Speaker 1 for Timmy, so I grab the doll maker file. As you do that, you two vanish, although no one is there to see you vanish.
Let's go to Francis. So you've got Bibi and Milton with you, right? I do.

Speaker 1 You are making your way through these hallways. I was looking for a book on breaking curses.
Beebe's looking for a book on knowing everything.

Speaker 1 And Milton's looking for a book on how to not be creepy about about your aunt and I feel like I'm hoping to get their books first. If you were to set an intention, who are you trying to find?

Speaker 1 I think Milton's probably the weakest of our group. So I'm going to try to go for that one first.
Milton, you describe any book.

Speaker 1 Any book. Read a book, Milton.
Any book will be not creepy to your aunt. It's fine.
Okay, you find yourself in the cusp of the children's section of this underground library.

Speaker 1 And it's like, you guys, have you seen the children's section of a library? It's like you got the

Speaker 1 play carpets and all the kids' books and stuff like that. There's rugs where if you have ladders, you can just like slip.
Yeah, nice walk.

Speaker 1 Just slippery on those slippery rugs.

Speaker 1 You can feel yourself being drawn to a book on the far wall that's sticking out. It's like this, like a little composition notebook.

Speaker 1 You don't quite make out what it is, but it seems like that's where you need to go. Like, I personally need to go with you.

Speaker 1 No, where, like, if you've been trying to help Milton, look, that seems like where you guys are trying to head.

Speaker 1 All right, I'm going to leave Milton over there, grab his wrist, and put his hand on the book. As you are walking through the children's area, give me a spot-hidden roll.
I've only had Kelsey here.

Speaker 1 41, and my spot-hidden is 25. You feel like you're getting shorter as you walk into this place.
This peaceful sense of nostalgia is overcoming you.

Speaker 1 You remember going to libraries like this when you were a little kid. I feel so safe.
And as you say that, your voice has shifted up an octave or two.

Speaker 1 And you realize that every step you take in this place, you are regressing slightly in age. And by the time you reach Milton's book, you are now like eight-year-old Francis.

Speaker 1 Okay, so is the gun still on my back? Yes. Well, you're dragging it behind you like Linus with his blankie.
Oh, that's really cute.

Speaker 1 So I put my other thumb in my mouth and I point at the book. I say, Milten quab dot.
Oh, it's babies here. You're eight.

Speaker 1 Milton is now. So Milton is now a baby.
How old are eight-year-olds? What an eight-year-old deck like? I don't remember. I feel like a person.
Eight-year-olds are like eight-year-olds.

Speaker 1 You're two years older than Dorothy. Like a person.

Speaker 1 Is Dorothy a person? I don't know. I haven't treated her in a long time.
Milton, grab that book. Yeah.
An eight-year-old will probably tell you to go fuck yourself.

Speaker 1 You're not going to fortnate yourself. I don't respect you or anything.
Milton, I'm grabbing your hand. Dad, dad, Fortnite, Roblox.
I'm putting your hand on the book.

Speaker 1 I like this deeper voice, eight-year-old.

Speaker 1 This is me pre-anxiety, so I have the confidence necessary to speak like an adult.

Speaker 1 You put Milton's hand to the book, and he feels it, and he's like, what is this? Like, what am I holding here? Like a composition book, like from school. And as he holds it, he feels something on it.

Speaker 1 Like, there's something about this book that's familiar to him as he touches it.

Speaker 1 And as he holds onto it, his face goes completely pale and he's like oh no oh no oh no and then he just disappears he's probably fine let's find your book baby it's probably been doing weird pictures

Speaker 1 what did he just and bb is like probably she's a little older than milton you were 16 right so we'll say your age is divided in half she was in sixth grade how old is sixth grade that's like 12th grade yeah like 11 12.

Speaker 1 yeah so she is now six years old so she's a little bit younger than you still and she's like oh no i'm six again i was so stupid and immature when i was six oh no this sucks it's fine shut up and she kicks you in the knee.

Speaker 1 Ow. Find maturity in the pages of this book.
We'll go to you guys in a second. Let's handle Freddy.
You failed your role, right, Freddy? Yes. Give me another D12.
Two. Oh, this is nice.

Speaker 1 Your sojourn through the library, you come upon an emergency book handling station. So this is a, you know, like a breaking case of emergency fireglass kind of thing.

Speaker 1 It says locked door, but through those little slats in it on the inside, you can see a gas mask and some cotton gloves. Ah, I will break this and grab both of those.
Your hands are gooed together.

Speaker 1 Well, the first part's going to be easy. Okay, so give me, I guess, like a strength roll, we'll say, and then we'll see if you bust it open.

Speaker 1 65 out of 75. Okay, give me just your fighting brawl, your damage roll, plus two for your Pulkands.
I got seven. Yeah, it pops open.
And yeah, you see this gas mask and these gloves inside.

Speaker 1 Well, the gloves. Wait, hold on.
My hands are in gloves of a sort. That's true.
Oh, no. Am I completely fucked? Well, first things first, gas mask on.
Give me a dexterity roll with disadvantage.

Speaker 1 92. Okay.
75. So that does not work.
Okay, but here's what I can do, though. Can I try just like smashing my face into the gas mask?

Speaker 1 Yes, okay, hear me out. Hear me out.
Yes. The gas mask, right, has an area where your face goes and then straps to tie it out your face.

Speaker 1 Okay, so it's hanging from a hook right now. Okay, using my teeth, I want to pull it off of the hook and then smash my face into the normal gas masky part.
Here's what we're going to do.

Speaker 1 Matt, you're wearing a hat. Yes.
Hang your hat on that doorknob over there. And Freddie, if you can get the hat fully on your face, I will let you do this without using your hands.
Wow.

Speaker 1 That's going to be a fun smell for you. Yeah.
I wear this hat a lot, Freddie.

Speaker 1 Hang it up, baby. They've recently tasted victory.
No. So it's victory sweat.
That's Michael.

Speaker 1 Where am I putting it on the doorknob? Yeah. Freddy is now walking over to the hat.
Freddy is walking. Oh, I gotta say, Freddie, that's a tough one one.

Speaker 1 That doorknob does not have a lot of clearance between the edge of the doorknob and the door. You'll see what I mean.
Oh, wow. I mean, he just face fucked out of this shit, dude.

Speaker 1 All right, now turn around. Freddy's a pro.
I mean, it's got to stay on your head, Freddy. He's got it.
He's got it. He's one of pros.
He's having a work supernatural.

Speaker 1 And now he's going to use his mitts. He's going to use his mitts to keep it on.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Now, Freddy's got it. All right, fair enough.
All right, Freddy. You now have a gas mask, which might help you with regards to that mist.

Speaker 1 Then I break my glass and I go, but there was time all the time

Speaker 1 francis give me another navigate roll okay and you're looking for bbs now is that the plan okay oh 17. okay wow you once again have a choice

Speaker 1 10 your navigate is 10 okay

Speaker 1 i'll spend seven luck okay great bb who is searching for information about project heartland you find yourselves in the classified documents section where once again you see filing cabinets and cases, a lot of redaction highlighters lying around.

Speaker 1 We can hold those markers. Yeah.
Yeah, there's a huge marker supply. They're like, please use the whole marker before you throw it out.
Like, we're burning tons of money on markers right now.

Speaker 1 Bibi's like drinking this all in.

Speaker 1 She's trying every single locked cabinet, but none of them are busting open until she grabs one and all of a sudden it slides open and this file falls out and spills across the ground.

Speaker 1 And the file is labeled Zuzel Seed Candidates. And she looks at them.

Speaker 1 Holy shit, what is this? That seems like it might be a little adult for your eyes.

Speaker 1 Can be like flowers? What do you mean? I'm sick. Seeds is like a flower seed, like a sunflower seed, right? Let's hope that.
She grabs this file and starts sticking it back together.

Speaker 1 And as she's kind of looking through it, something catches her eye on this list of candidates. And she looks up at you, Francis, and she goes, holy shit.
And then she disappears as well.

Speaker 1 That's probably fine.

Speaker 1 And now there were two. Francis and Blake.
You are both separated in this maze that has been slowly filling with mist.

Speaker 1 Give me a navigate roll. Let's start with Blake.
Well, so now I have a gas mask on. Yes, you do.

Speaker 1 So I can just kind of walk walk around very nicely right yes you don't live here now yeah 23 well haven't found it time to keep looking

Speaker 1 francis give me a roll i actually rolled a 10.

Speaker 1 so you succeeded francis you find yourself at a fork in the road you feel yourself being torn in two very strong directions as you come to this fork in the maze one side would lead you towards surveillance files and you have a strong sense that there's something that would be very useful to you in this section of the library.

Speaker 1 There's another fork in your path that will lead you towards a section of the library that is all about curses and hexes and how to cast and how to break them, all sorts of manner of dark tone.

Speaker 1 You're going to have to watch her step in there, but you feel like the information that you're seeking about Brunhilde would be in there. Brunhilde is like, hello, Francis.

Speaker 1 Hey, what are you doing there, little boy? Which road do you want to go down? Which book would you be more interested in? Oh, me? You're asking me, Zagan?

Speaker 1 Well, I think we should look at the surveillance for you. Okay, I'm going the other way.
Oh, well, okay.

Speaker 1 You suck, I hate you. Fuck you.
Okay. You go down this section of the library, and there's like a smell in here, like a sort of moldering kind of smell.
These are old, old books.

Speaker 1 And you're in this dank, dark, sort of like candlelit. It's giving very gothic vibes in here as you're stalking down these hallways, sort of letting your intuition guide you.
You come to a dead end.

Speaker 1 You see kind of jutting out of this shelf, a tome on cursed weaponry, and you get the sense that this must be the book you're looking for. I grab it.
Well, hold on. Oh, sure.

Speaker 1 It's at the end of this hallway. Between you and it, you notice these like balls on the ground.
They almost look like paper-mâché, like torn up, tattered books that are all kind of clumped together.

Speaker 1 There's about six of them. Okay, I'm going to grab Brunhilde and try and chuck her at the nearest one.

Speaker 1 Okay, give me a throw roll.

Speaker 1 Ooh, 17 out of 20. She's like, Vehicle Fantasy, you'll do it.
And then you throw Brunhilde at this ball on the ground and it sort of cracks and it begins to break.

Speaker 1 And you realize that there's something alive inside of here, and that these are like eggs. And then you see something start to wriggle out.

Speaker 1 It's got wings, it's sort of insectoid and alien looking at the same time. Give me a sanity roll.
It's gonna be the other moth. Jesus is

Speaker 1 geezi. My sanity is 40.
I got a 25. Okay, great.
So you are able to hold on to your nerves as this thing starts wriggling out, and then it sort of pops its head out.

Speaker 1 It's got like six pronged antenna that are flailing around, and then they all shoot taut as it emits a high-pitched shriek as it kind of senses that it's in danger.

Speaker 1 And all of the other eggs begin to crack and hatch as well. You know, now I think about it, that was maybe the worst thing I could have possibly done.

Speaker 1 Freddy, let's do you. Oh, no, I cannot find it, and it's very foggy in here, but I breathe easy, knowing I have all the time in the world.
Give me a roll on your dice. Five.
What do you know?

Speaker 1 You stumble upon Francis, who's staring down a bunch of book eggs that are hatching right now. Francis, Hey, what's up? Whoa, you are both younger and a deeper voice.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I haven't had the trauma yet. Ah.

Speaker 1 Francis, maybe we should get away from the book eggs. Well, my book's on the other side, so.
Francis, where are the other children? They're safe, question mark. I don't know.
They got their books.

Speaker 1 Oh, okay. Mission accomplished, I guess.
Good job on your end. Have you seen my book? What's your book?

Speaker 1 The Monsters, the Eggs All Hatch. Time to run, Francis.
Time to run. Throw Francis over the monsters.
What? He's got to touch the book. Oh, oh, Francis, heave ho, you are smaller, and I can throw you.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah, I'm eight. And I don't have the gun on me anymore.
Fastball special. This is the exact maneuver.

Speaker 1 When you're like a kid and you're in a pool, when you're like dad, like crouched down in the pool in the shallow, and then he stood on his shoulders, and then he, you know what I'm saying?

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah, he stood up and you wanted to. You stood up, and you just get absolutely launched into the goddamn stratosphere.
Okay, I want to do that.

Speaker 1 Give me a, what do you want to roll for that, Freddy? Feels like just strength.

Speaker 1 You have a throw skill, right? Throw is a skill. Yeah.
This is more of a squat. This This is more of a launch.
This is like a heat.

Speaker 1 This isn't like a skill where you're just not throwing grenades at me. I'm basically crouching into a squat and then standing up as hard as I can.
Okay, great.

Speaker 1 Give me a strength roll.

Speaker 1 A boom. Six out of 75.
Okay, fantastic. I hit the wall so hard I died.

Speaker 1 Okay, yes. Francis, again, you're going to have to make a dexterity roll for the landing.
So go ahead and give me a dex roll. Francis, if you touch.

Speaker 1 You have to be a rules lawyer, but it's not, that roll wasn't for how fast you threw. It was

Speaker 1 how well you did what you wanted to do, which I was assuming is you wanted to throw him to the book. Yeah, yeah.
Either way, it's fine. My dexterity is 60.
I rolled a 43.

Speaker 1 Okay, so you land face first on the book and disappear.

Speaker 1 Fray, you didn't roll that well. You stick the landing in front of the shelf.
Blake, yes, you launch Francis through the air. Okay, good luck, kid.
Take the gun, maybe?

Speaker 1 No. Fair enough.
The book is high up on the shelf, so I will say it's going to take you a climb roll to get to it. That's fine.
But if you don't make it, you are going to get attacked by bugs.

Speaker 1 Okay, I'll make it. No, you die.
Well, my climb is 20, and I thankfully got an 83. Oh, wow.

Speaker 1 You climb your way up to this book, and right as you feel your hands grab onto it, it starts to give way, and the whole shelf flips around, and you vanish as well. Does the shelf have wheels?

Speaker 1 And then there was one.

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Speaker 1 Here I am. Rock me like a hurricane.

Speaker 1 Time to find my book again. I'll roll.
Give me a roll. 90 out of 10.
Oh, no.

Speaker 1 What a maze. What a maze.
Where's that role-playing game? It's kind of soft. Roll a D12.
Five. I came back around to the same place.
Okay.

Speaker 1 Can you imagine if each and every one of us, when you touch the book, we did die?

Speaker 1 So I was like, yeah, you're all dead. Like, now if you roll the check, that'd be so fucking funny with the books.
You're dead. Like, the only one one who's alive.
This is a one-man podcast now.

Speaker 1 I did not find it. Okay, yes, you find yourself back at the mods you have all hatched and now they are going to chase you as you are running through the maze.

Speaker 1 So now you now have six mods on your trailer. As long as I keep moving, I will not have any problems.
Okay. 92, another fail.

Speaker 1 I roll a nine on the D12. Guess what?

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. I was hoping we were going to get to this.
Guess what, Will? Looks like we're going to do your whole fucking page of fun adventures. You.

Speaker 1 You run. The bug's hot on your trail, closing in.
Hey, yeah, yeah, yeah. Sure enough, you come to a dead end, except for

Speaker 1 a hole in the shelf

Speaker 1 carved exactly in the shape of Blake Lively. With a pterodactyl head on.
With the pterodactyl head on. This hole must be made for me.
Time to squeeze. I would like to switch.
You're just going for it.

Speaker 1 Yes. All right.
You push yourself through this hole. That's literally just.
No. No, no, no.
I only have a push. It's the exact size of me.
Oh, have you read the Enigma of Yami Gara fault, Freddy?

Speaker 1 Yeah, but that hasn't been written yet. As you go through,

Speaker 1 you got him there. As you go through this hole, you realize that it's been literally carved out of a bunch of books, and there's a bunch of pages, sharp pages, sticking out on every end of this thing.

Speaker 1 And you can feel them cutting into your skin as you push through. Maybe I just back away from this one.
Oh, you see the mist and the bats closing in. I'm only afraid of one of those things.

Speaker 1 What do you want to do? I guess I'll just pushing through. Okay, give me a 1d6 for the thousand paper cuts you're going to receive.
Four.

Speaker 1 You emerge bloodied after 10 excruciating minutes on the other side of this hole and you find yourself once again lost in the maze. Ow!

Speaker 1 Well, that paper shredded your gas mask, too.

Speaker 1 Thank you, Matt. I love that.

Speaker 1 You wouldn't have been able to fit with the gas mask on. Well, no, but you said it was carved in my exact shape.
That's fair. That's fair.
That's fair. That's fair.
But you tell you what?

Speaker 1 Give me a luck roll to see if the gas mask got damaged. Fair enough.
Fair enough. Fair enough.
Matt, you get bonus dice whenever you want to use it. Wow.
What is this?

Speaker 1 You're not a fucking teacher's pet.

Speaker 1 Don't be mad.

Speaker 1 89 out of 31. So that's a fail.
Hey, you know, I got that bonus dice. I could roll to help any of you.
So maybe be nice. Okay.
How come the one time I was a teacher's pet, I didn't get shit?

Speaker 1 I'm never helping one like that. You get bonus dice.
Why did she ever do nothing?

Speaker 1 She narced on you and you narced on Freddie. I'm trying to like support narcs.

Speaker 1 Like, like on the HBO series, The Wire, I'm getting out on the street and getting my informants out there You know you got to help out your informants.

Speaker 1 I'm happy to not have a bonus die and remain stitchless because I'm not a snitch. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I don't think we use our data to help Anthony. No, I don't think

Speaker 1 I don't either. I've emerged unscathed slightly scathed.
You failed your luck roll. Yes.
All right, so there is, you notice, a puncture in your gas mask.

Speaker 1 Time to throw it away.

Speaker 1 It is useless now. Give me another dice roll.
Well, time to continue this fun maze adventure. 20 out of 10.
Ooh, should I burn some luck? Movies work this way. Should I burn some luck?

Speaker 1 No, it is a valuable resource I learned already.

Speaker 1 Time to roll another D12. Oh, no, yeah, no, D12.
Go for it. Six.

Speaker 1 Eventually, you'll do them all. Yeah.
Oh, another hole is there. Okay.

Speaker 1 Will, let's see how well these pieces are, huh? Let's see the rest of your cool adventures. Let's see the rest of our cool adventures.
Wait a minute. I want to

Speaker 1 do an exit sign.

Speaker 1 Do you want to look for an exit sign? Yeah. Sure.
Give me roll something. What are you going to roll? I will roll.
What are you looking for?

Speaker 1 Spot hidden. Spot hidden.
Okay. 46.
I guess this place is not fire code.

Speaker 1 Oh, wait, wait, wait. Hold on.
Wait, wait. That gives me an idea.
Yeah. Let me ask you something.
When I look up at the ceiling, are there like sprinkler heads?

Speaker 1 You know, there's a library and fire is always a concern in libraries. Look at Alexandria.
It's true.

Speaker 1 If they had sprinklers, they could have saved so much knowledge. I just feel like France Library is clearly like, so is it like a normal building? Like, you get that's like magical, right? Like,

Speaker 1 like, change and stuff. Like, like, I feel like,

Speaker 1 you know, it's not like,

Speaker 1 like, it's changing.

Speaker 1 I get it. I get it, Matt.
But look, they're still,

Speaker 1 even in magical ass environments. Imagine owning like a commercial building and then like the fire inspector comes to you, like, you get that it's magical.

Speaker 1 Like, do I see sprinklers? Give me a roll for sprinklers. Do you see any infrastructure? I've rolled 100 critical fails.
Oh, god, just kill them. Give me a sanity roll.
Six, I do real good.

Speaker 1 Okay, so in that case, you don't.

Speaker 1 I was going to say, if you failed your sanity roll, you would have a panic attack because you realize the place isn't up to fire code, but you're able to keep it together.

Speaker 1 I've seen many buildings not up to fire code. With a six, you find yourself in the cartography section.
There's a bunch of maps, books of maps, atlases.

Speaker 1 Ah, my second hobby, cartography, exactly what I was looking for. Damn, I should have fucking opened that book the first time I saw it, huh?

Speaker 1 You see in the middle of this section, there's a big table and like a blank map sitting out on this table.

Speaker 1 And above it, hanging from a chain. It was a blank map.
Yeah, it's just a piece of paper.

Speaker 1 Shut up. No, it isn't a blank map.
It's a blank map. Shut up.
Shut up, shut it up.

Speaker 1 I'll tell you what it is. I'll tell you what it is.
I'll tell you what it is. I'll tell you what it is.
I'll tell you what. It's a piece of paper with longitude, longitude, latitude, grids.
Oh.

Speaker 1 And a little legend. Okay.
There's nothing in the legend. And there's nothing in the grid.

Speaker 1 You know what it is.

Speaker 1 It's a piece of graph. Okay, okay, okay.

Speaker 1 It's just a big blank piece of paper magnet. It's a blank map.

Speaker 1 This is the wonder of the

Speaker 1 cartography department. It has like giant, you know, like stationary? Yeah, yeah.
They have giant stationery for maps where they're like, it says like Project Heartland cartography department.

Speaker 1 And then it says like map name, and then there's a big blank. Matt and I, we're about to get into LACMA with a really good idea.

Speaker 1 An empty map. Like, this is just a piece of eight and a half by 11.
Is it a map? Or is it? LACMA balls.

Speaker 1 You could go anywhere. Another blank canvas.
This is a map of how to take a fucking Instagram selfie in front of those streetlights or whatever.

Speaker 1 Ah, it's a set of wings painted on the side of a building that I can do an Instagram sounds beyond.

Speaker 1 You see, by standing in front of it, it looks like I am the one with change the wings.

Speaker 1 You see this big blank map? This huge piece of paper. And swinging from a chain above it is like a funnel that has like a big like sort of cup attached to it that drains out of this funnel.

Speaker 1 And there's like a knife dangling from the funnel. Oh, free knife.

Speaker 1 Oh, man. And free funnel.
Oh, free funnel.

Speaker 1 Free funnel. Free paper.
Free. What a great library this is.
This is why it's always important to fund the libraries. Look at all the free things I would like to acquire.

Speaker 1 The map the funnel and the knife by the way i really do hope i really do hope

Speaker 1 i really do hope all the other characters are dead

Speaker 1 it's just it's just just blake's just blanky quick adventure blake you now have a big blank piece of paper a knife and a funnel how's this knife by the way was the funnel like moving like was it so the funnel is dangling on a chain in front of this thing and friend as you pick up both the knife and the funnel you see that they're both crusted in blood and you also see that there's like bloodstains on the table.

Speaker 1 Ah, I think I see what this is. A free chain.

Speaker 1 I see now standing on the table.

Speaker 1 And it's not just the free knife and the funnel, but the chain comes with it too.

Speaker 1 I would like to fashion a weapon from the chain and the knife. A knife chain, if you will.
Knife. Now I'm wielding the knife chain.
I would like to continue to explore the library.

Speaker 1 You just left the funnel? You can have the funnel as like a little

Speaker 1 funnel.

Speaker 1 I'm keeping the funnel in case I need to change my oil at any point. Nice.
Give me another roll. Ah, 15 out of 10.
It's like not a dirty.

Speaker 1 You could be like a Final Fantasy character. You put the funnel onto your fist and then the knife chain.
No, the funnel is like what you hold up after you slit someone's throat to funnel the blood.

Speaker 1 Is that too much? It might be.

Speaker 1 That's gross, Beth. Give me a dice roll, Freddy.
Give me a one-time. 11.
Freddie, try drawing a straight line on the blank map and then just to exit.

Speaker 1 Like, maybe it's like a level editor. That's an insane.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 We're going for it. You see, as you run around this corner, that goon that he would be no match for my knife chain.
I whip the chain at his feet with the knife attached to it.

Speaker 1 Finish describing the goon, please. Yes, go ahead.
You ever see like a sleepy dad

Speaker 1 in like a TV show where he fell asleep with a book on his face?

Speaker 1 So he's got like that kind of heat going on. He's just sort of sprawled up in a corner, and this book is just glommed onto his face.
And he's just sort of lying there inert.

Speaker 1 You can see that he's breathing and kind of groaning softly. Like, what kind of groaning? Is he gooning? He's not gooning.
Okay, he's not even a little turgid. Is he groaning in pain?

Speaker 1 You have to get closer to him to find out.

Speaker 1 Well, he appears to be occupied. Time to do another roll.

Speaker 1 I'm not going to protect you.

Speaker 1 59 out of 110. Another fails.
Here we go. Six.
Okay.

Speaker 1 You round a corner and you see on the ground in front of you, marbles, the cat.

Speaker 1 Hey, oh, hold on. Marbles? Is there marbles in my head? There absolutely is marbles in your head.
Ah, but this is the real one.

Speaker 1 You just get two cats.

Speaker 1 Two cats. That was the whole encounter.

Speaker 1 The marbles in front of you looks up at you and seems happy to see you for a second. Like it seems a little frazzled, like a little.

Speaker 1 Cats do not show happiness.

Speaker 1 yeah fair enough it starts to come towards you but then it hears this hiss on top of your head and it backs away in fright very good marbles let's continue marbles leaps out of your helmets and goes to attack this other marbles but give me a spot hidden roll 94 out of 33

Speaker 1 not your day i blink and i've missed i lose track of you blink give me another spot hidden roll no you have to take both of them 42 out of 33 okay i'm gonna give it to you anyway you notice that the marbles that was on the ground has green eyes, like the marbles that you know and love.

Speaker 1 The marbles that leapt off of your head red eyes. The red-eyed marbles takes off after the green-eyed marbles down the maze corridors away from the direction you were trying to go.

Speaker 1 And they just go screaming off down into the hallways.

Speaker 1 Well, the truth is, I have been basically bumbling around for the last hour and a half, so I guess I'll follow them because it's no different than the way I was going. Okay, we all pray.

Speaker 1 Give me a navigate role with advantage because it's your cat and you love your cat. And the audience will hate me if the cat gets lost.

Speaker 1 Nine out of ten. Yeah,

Speaker 1 you chase marbles down this hallway. Just give me a penal little picture of you chasing this cat with a bunch of bats and a fucking mist cloud chasing you around in this huge labyrinth for anything.

Speaker 1 And don't forget that I'm also swinging a rusty, bloody chain with a knife attached to it. And I'm using the funnel backwards to amplify my voice.
I go, marbles, marbles, come back here,

Speaker 1 Marbles,

Speaker 1 come back here.

Speaker 1 Finally, you get to a dead end, and you see one cat in front of you. Ah, you must be my cat.

Speaker 1 Oh, no. And this marbles has one red eye and one green eye.
Oh, no. I'm going to need to see the vet for that.

Speaker 1 This cat is by.

Speaker 1 And bisexual Christmas marbles scurries up to you, scoots up your body, and curls up on your head under your pterodactyl helmet. And you see that Marbles has led you to a certain book.

Speaker 1 What did you ask for again? How to Preserve the American Way of Life.

Speaker 1 Wow, it feels like forever ago.

Speaker 1 You see a book called How to Preserve the American Way of Life by

Speaker 1 Brian Kilmead.

Speaker 1 By Brian Kilmead Sr.

Speaker 1 Who is that? He's a shitty god.

Speaker 1 He's a piece of shit. He's an absolute asshole.
This guy has too much forehead yeah

Speaker 1 this guy's way too much forehead for television you feel a patriotic stir in your heart as you see this book

Speaker 1 say can you see i tried to open it up ah but the goo on my hands i headbutt the book you headbutt the book okay you headbutt the book and it falls off the shelf do you pick it up do you try to catch it what do you do i pick it up i have goo on my hands okay how are you gonna grab this book using my feet you're using your feet i'm gonna use my feet to turn a page okay great i love that it's on the ground as you pull the book out with your feet you vanish as well and you all died.

Speaker 1 It's the end of the podcast.

Speaker 1 By the way, we were done. No.

Speaker 1 You vanish and in an instant, Blake, you wake up. You are once again outside of Peachyville Public Library with your four to six best friends, Francis, Kelsey, Trudy, and Bibi and Milton.

Speaker 1 Did we all appear here like at the same time? So yes, you all. Oh, we don't know if what he saw is.

Speaker 1 Give me a second.

Speaker 1 What? I thought maybe you were gonna say, like, they're not really us. No, no, no, no, okay, we're gonna go.
We're gonna make it. Yes, you guys all made it.
You all made it out of the maze.

Speaker 1 You're all reunited once again. I won't say you're right in front of the front doors of the library.
You're on the inside in like that little area between the front door and the help desk.

Speaker 1 Because we're not out of the library. You're like steps away from the library.
In the checkout area. Yes.
In the checkout. Yes.

Speaker 1 Oh, hey. I would like to go.

Speaker 1 Wait, did you all? I grabbed a book. I grabbed my book.
Actually, no, I didn't even grab a book. I grabbed a piece of paper.

Speaker 1 A paper. Yes.
Perhaps we should continue this conversation outside.

Speaker 1 you're an adult again you're not a child anymore oh what's the matter don't worry francis don't worry francis as you can see i've acquired a new chain weapon and i swing around this cool

Speaker 1 i died how do you okay kelsey wants to like peek her head out the front door to see one if there's anybody like outside and if the people are still in the goo when you stick your head outside kelsey i'm just put my head up against the window

Speaker 1 against the window Are there windows? Yes. Okay.
Yeah, it's glass doors. Okay, yeah.
I'm not putting my head out. I'm looking through the window.
You're looking up at the window.

Speaker 1 I'm looking through the window. Not up at the window.
I'm using a window for its purpose, which is to look outside while staying inside.

Speaker 1 Kelsey, as you peer through the window, you remember that goo pile with the two guys outside? You know that goo you've been looking for? Yep.

Speaker 1 Does it look the same with the same amount of people inside of it? It's been a little torn to shreds.

Speaker 1 And the guys who are in it have been a little torn to shreds. Ghost.
What does it look like out there, Kelsey? You know how we put those guys in the goo? Yes.

Speaker 1 And we didn't want to kill them? Yes. Something killed them.
Oh. Really badly.
What's going on,

Speaker 1 Beebe says as she pushes her way towards the door? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, kids gotta learn someday. Yes, child.
Take a good gander, Bibi. Oh my god.

Speaker 1 That is what man can do unto man. Look at that.

Speaker 1 Yes, child, and these horrors and more were what we at the greatest generation saw in World War II.

Speaker 1 Bibi's gonna take a sanity roll. Poor Bibbie.
She wanted to look.

Speaker 1 13. Okay, so she passes.
She's able to keep it together. She's like, oh, oh, that's so bad.
But it kind of looks like that hamster from the case of the P-Trap. Oh no!

Speaker 1 You know, just accept that we're all like that on the inside.

Speaker 1 What do you mean like this? We're just, it's just, look, it's

Speaker 1 a little bit more, but sometimes our insides get outside, and that's what that looks like. And smells like.
As you are saying that, you see one of the guys outside sort of heave violently and go,

Speaker 1 oh, I can't really get throw up. I can't look at throw up.

Speaker 1 He's not throwing up. He's gagging blood, and he looks at you, and his eyes are desperate.
And he, he likes, oh God, he starts looking towards you. He's motioning towards you.

Speaker 1 He's locked the door, Kelsey. He has something urgent to tell you.
No, I think you want to talk to Kelsey. Kelsey, lock the door, but we need to get out of here.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah, I peek my head out. What do you want? So this guy starts crawling towards you.
Who did this to you? Not the goo part. We did that to you, but that's the other part.

Speaker 1 And he locks eyes with you and he says,

Speaker 1 Doll

Speaker 1 her.

Speaker 1 Did he say doll maker? I close the door. He's like, guys, the doll maker did that.
So the doll maker is outside. Maybe they're right.
You need to talk to him.

Speaker 1 Why did you talk to the doll maker, Trudy? Because he can fix Timmy.

Speaker 1 Oh, okay. Well, I open the door back up.
Excuse me. Sorry, you said.
He was dead. Oh, no.
And he wasn't the doll maker, was he? Because I would feel so bad.

Speaker 1 And how they usually say their own names as they die.

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 1 let's go. Let's search his body.
Let's close the door again. No, that's not.
No,

Speaker 1 he can't be in here. Yeah, let's get out.
I open the door. I take a cautious step forward.
Take a shot. If you're out there, just do it now.

Speaker 1 You're like, guns are breaking bad. Your arms are just fucking open.
Just get it over with. Fucking training day over here.
Okay, I think we're good.

Speaker 1 I think we're good. Oh, I want to check.
Are there a car still out there? Brian's car isn't here.

Speaker 1 Brian's car is not here. You would know that.

Speaker 1 Unfortunately, as soon as he's in the city, you see, actually, yes, the key night person will see like two sets of tires that were kind of peeled out through the gory, bloody viscera.

Speaker 1 Someone's death tonight. He left his body.
And yet the one person who shut up.

Speaker 1 My question is, the books that we took that made us disappear, do we still have them? Yes, you do. Okay.

Speaker 1 I will read the first page of the doll maker, whatever the paper I got was. Okay, so.

Speaker 1 We all sit on the steps of the library like a bunch of cool kids

Speaker 1 late at night.

Speaker 1 Is that what you did that you thought was cool when you were young? I'm not done yet. I pull out some cigarettes.

Speaker 1 Yes, everybody on the front. Everybody, let's go step to the library.
We've had quite an adventure. Let us use some nicotine to calm our nerves.
Okay. Oh, yeah, I do smoke now.
Oh, cool.

Speaker 1 Thanks, says BB, and she takes one of the cigarettes. Let's all read.
This is cool. Can I have one too? Says Milton.
Of course. I guess it is the healthiest thing for a growing young lady.

Speaker 1 You're my prescription, right? Can someone light my cigarette?

Speaker 1 It's lit.

Speaker 1 Smooth.

Speaker 1 All right, Trudy. Okay, you can all read.
Trudy, what you learn about the dollmaker is that the dollmaker is an alien that was captured by Project Heartland's containment area. Okay.

Speaker 1 And the reason it's called the Dollmaker, it's kind of like a scorpion and it has this venom. When it stings someone with this venom, it's almost like a mind control virus.

Speaker 1 You're like, you know, like those ants that they'll get that fungus that makes them.

Speaker 1 It's like that. It can basically.
The Last of Us fungus ants.

Speaker 1 It coats their brain in this toxin that makes them extremely prone to suggestion, which is how it then sort of subdues its prey before devouring them with its hideous, vicious mandibles, the grim work of which you've just seen.

Speaker 1 In the files, you also see a note from Director Trout speculating that the venom of this alien could be altered chemically to create a barrier between a brain and machine interface so that a brain could control a robot body.

Speaker 1 Oh, interesting. So that's essentially where the goo that is surrounding your brain and surrounding your son's brain comes from.

Speaker 1 And presumably, if you find the doll maker and find this toxin, Moth Jesus might be able to create an anecdote to help you save your son. Okay.
You also have some in your brain.

Speaker 1 And you also have some in your brain, but it's the sort of altered version of it.

Speaker 1 So as you are flipping through the pages, the reports are getting more and more current.

Speaker 1 And you see that on the last page, there's a note that says that the doll maker, as of a couple of days ago, has broken loose from its containment cell and is currently stalking the shadows of Peachyville, attacking civilians with its venom and luring them to parts unknown for reasons unfathomable.

Speaker 1 And due to this emergency situation, the Zoozel seed candidate acquisition team will pause their search for the next seed candidate to capture or destroy the dollmaker. Seed candidate?

Speaker 1 Oh, hey, yeah, BB. You looked at me all fucked up when you were looking at the seed candidate stuff.
What was that about?

Speaker 1 Do you remember at the boxing match, they injected some guy with something and he turned all crazy and fucked up and tried to kill you guys, right? Isn't that what happened? That is what happened.

Speaker 1 That guy was a seed candidate for Zuzel for his ritual. And I guess these are other people that they think might be good seed candidates that live in Peachyville that they're trying to capture.

Speaker 1 When you say sea candidate, are you talking about a seamen? Like the Navy guys? No. She's like six.
Well, or she's 12 now. Okay, well, yeah, you can talk to her about semen.

Speaker 1 This is just an adult thing that we're talking about. Okay, understand.
So when you say seed candidate, are we talking about... I mean, we should know what we're talking about.
Why are we using this?

Speaker 1 We should know what we're talking about. You hear Zuzel speak up in your brain, Kelsey, and says, the child refers to the ritual in which I shall be brought into this world.

Speaker 1 First, an ideal candidate, a young warrior, someone of great power, is brought before me. They are given a potion, a concoction known as the seed of Zuzel.

Speaker 1 And then, when they are brought forth to the great mother, I shall be birthed into their body. Like, literally birthed? Like, are we talking biologically?

Speaker 1 It's gross and yucky, but it's part of a strange gross and yucky ritual. The toxin that Dakota Johnson, way back in the day, was injected with is the elixir that is used to create the seed of Zuzel.

Speaker 1 Okay, so he didn't pass, I guess, because Zuzel didn't come out. He just turned into a fucked up thing.
The boy is right. Tell the boy that I said he's right.
So Zuzel's. Wait, don't tell him.

Speaker 1 He doesn't know I'm in here, right? Yeah, I mean, hey, everybody's just so you know, Zuzel is not in my brain, and this is my own idea. Why do you keep saying that?

Speaker 1 I repeat everything that Zuzel said. How would you have that knowledge?

Speaker 1 Kelsey, Zuzel's not in my brain. Oh, I know what you're doing, Kelsey.
Oh, and he doesn't know what I'm doing. Zuzel is not in your brain.
That's right. I'm not.
Yes. That's right.

Speaker 1 Why do you guys keep saying that? And we're just going to keep saying it. And it's it's like a joke inside ourselves, an inside joke.

Speaker 1 I'm autistic. I can't pick up on social cues.
I don't know what you're doing.

Speaker 1 Bibi is like, so it seems like because Dakota Johnson wasn't the right person for this ritual, for this sacrifice, they're looking for more people.

Speaker 1 And there's this whole list of people in town that they think could be candidates that could work for this sacrifice. What are the names on the list?

Speaker 1 Well, there's a lot of them that I don't recognize, but Frances, one of the names right at the top, and she turns it to you and says, is yours.

Speaker 1 Mother, mother, fear me.

Speaker 1 I am the broken sky.

Speaker 1 All I ever wanted was to feel so ordinary

Speaker 1 in a world that lies twisted in my mind, and now I'm gone.

Speaker 1 All that I can see is a hole in the stars,

Speaker 1 swallowing my dreams and making them scars.

Speaker 1 Too far, too far away.

Speaker 1 But I'll stay

Speaker 1 today.

Speaker 1 Thanks so much for listening. Are you all caught up and looking for more? Well, why not give our Patreon a shot? Starting, you know, I should just do these reads in Tony Colevois.

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Speaker 1 Dungeons and Dags is Matt Arnold, that's Kelsey Grammar, Anthony Birch as Francis Farnsworth, Will Campos is our DM, Beth May as Trudy Trout, and myself, Freddie Wong, as Blake Lively.

Speaker 1 Our theme song is a whole in the stars by Max and Waller.

Speaker 1 Brian Fernandez is our content producer, Ashley Nicolette is our community manager, Courtney Terry is our community coordinator, Cindy Denton is our merchandise manager, Esther Els is our lead editor, Travis Reeves and Omar Romolino provide additional editing.

Speaker 1 This show is supported by a Patreon people with names like Rick's Gunner, Ball Plart, Adam Stanford, Frederick Sommer, Christian Carton, Haas Todd, Brianna Waugh, Nacht Krapp, Sunbear, Alec Agulo, Veronica Varga, Brendan, Katie Smiraldo, Maggie Hudak, Lechmann, Andres Maldonado, David King, Devin Caprari, Quinn Mahoney, and Joey Carey.

Speaker 1 We're All Gonna Die, the movie Mad and I made. It's in theaters March 7th.
More info, We're AllGonnaDie.mov. Support us directly on Patreon at patreon.com/slash dungeonsandads.

Speaker 1 Merchant more at dungeonsandys.com. Next episode, well, that's March 11th.
We'll see you then.

Speaker 1 All that I can see is a hole in the star.

Speaker 1 Swallowing my dreams and making them scars

Speaker 1 Too far, too far away

Speaker 1 But I'll stay

Speaker 1 today

Speaker 1 All that I can see is a hole in stars.

Speaker 1 Swallowing my dreams and making them scars.

Speaker 1 Too far, too far away

Speaker 1 that I stay

Speaker 1 today

Speaker 1 and it has this venom. Venom.

Speaker 1 Venom. When it's.
Sorry, I'm so sorry.