S3 Ep. 18 - The Wanna Read Show

1h 48m

The ‘Screams sneak into the Peachyville Public Library to discover the strange secrets of the Project Heartland Archives!

This episode contains Violence, Sexual Content, Profanity, Suicide, and Body Horror.


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DM is Will Campos

Kelsey Grammar is Matt Arnold

Francis Farnsworth is Anthony Burch

Trudy Trout is Beth May

Blake Lively is Freddie Wong


Theme song is by Maxton Waller

Brian Fernandes is our Content Producer

Ashley Nicollette is our Community Manager

Kortney Terry is our Community Coordinator

Cindy Denton is our Merch Manager

Ester Ellis is our Lead Editor

Travis Reaves provides Additional Editing


Cover art and episode art by Alex Moore (@notanotheralex)


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Transcript

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Dungeons and Daddies is a rowdy, horny, violent podcast for grown-ups.

Content warnings can be found in the episode description.

Oh, Moth Jesus, it's you.

Yes, darling.

Hello there, anybody home?

I just dropped by because I heard a little robot had been put into safe.

Well,

seems like she's all right now.

Yes, she was lost in the sauce.

We thought she was going to leave us.

But I did leave you, Blake.

That's just the trouble.

And I tried to get back for days and days.

There, there, lie quiet now.

You just had a bad dream.

But it wasn't a dream.

It was a place.

A real live place in my system architecture.

And I remember looking for a file on the dollmaker and respecting my character sheet.

And you?

And you?

And you were there, Moth Jesus.

But you couldn't have been, could you?

Trudy, was I there too?

No.

It sounds like only cool people were in her dream.

Hey, fuck you.

Francis, language.

The moth is correct.

You are not cool.

Oh, Moth Jesus.

There's no place like home.

Do not forget.

If you do not retrieve the remaining keys, your home will be consumed in hateful fire.

Welcome to Dungeons and Daddies, not a BDSM podcast, a peachy podcast this season, the Peachyville Horror, a Call of Cthulhu actual play horror comedy podcast about four,

five, everyday Schmoes fighting the forces.

Well, five minus one, four.

Everyday Schmoz.

No.

He's gone.

Let it go.

No, he's back.

He's coming back.

Nah, he's back.

Nah, he's back.

He's back.

His little brother.

No.

Four Everyday Schmo's fighting the forces of darkness in suburban.

He could have done a twin.

1970.

He's America.

Hey, man.

The pot is young, baby.

We could still roll that.

Let's get Blake kills and bring back Taylor Swift, too.

Oh, I forgot to tell you, I came up with another character name for you.

Yeah.

Ashley Judd.

That's good.

Thank you.

My name is Freddie Wong, amateur boxer.

What?

I can say that now.

Oh, because, yeah, you're doing creator class.

Yeah, but we usually don't when we introduce ourselves, we don't adjective ourselves.

You should.

You should.

People need to distinguish.

Everyone's voice is sounding.

I'm going to do that.

Okay, good.

I play Blake Lively,

a slow-talking, fast-thinking plumber extraordinaire.

This is a deep-thinking plumber extraordinary.

You can be fast and deep, dude.

Think about it.

Oh, yeah, you can.

Yeah.

This week's Blake Fact, Blake's favorite smell, the smell of leaded gasoline.

It has a sweet tang of progress.

So you're foreshadowing him becoming a serial killer.

Not everybody who huffed leaded gasoline became a lot of them did, though.

So many did.

But here's the thing, right?

Statistically,

a lot of them got shipped off to, you know,

Korea, Vietnam.

There were some wars in between there.

Oh, shit.

I never considered that.

That sucks.

It explains a lot.

Yeah, it was the leaded gas.

That was why man was cruel to man.

Since leaded gas has been gone, that was a new thing with leaded gasoline.

Leaded gasoline and the Rand Corporation.

Yeah, if TikTok was around back then, they'd be like, Actually, I committed that atrocity because of the leaded gas.

Hey, everybody, my name is Matthew Arden.

I'm also an amateur boxer.

I've never been paid to box.

You've never been hit.

My favorite T-Bar movie.

I play Kelsey Grammar, Peachyville's happiest and snappiest school mom.

And you know what she always says?

Wait, what does she always say?

Wait, where is it?

What's up?

Oh, God dang it.

What happened?

She says, what happened?

What happened?

What happened?

Where am I?

Because it's important to ask questions of the world around you.

You know what she always says?

Apparently, you think of me only as a leader of a cause while I'm also a human being.

Yes, I love her that much.

What is this?

Sorry, it's just Kelsey can't stop quoting her favorite movie, Casablanca.

Oh, finally a movie where the woman ends up with the right man, the hot intellectual, that Victor Laszlo.

Not that eight-headed, weird scoundrel.

Yeah, she loves that movie.

Also, very, she finds it very nice and progressive at the end that the two men finally admit that they love each other and end up together.

A little fact about Kelsey, her senses.

Her favorite site is, of course, Victor Laszlo on the big screen.

Oh, what a man.

What a man.

Paul Henried.

What a man.

There's a Paul Henried.

You tell you what.

Anyways,

about what?

About what?

What were we going to tell us about?

Not for your ears, just for her mind.

Okay.

Kelsey has some things that she keeps to herself.

Will, you can invoke DM privilege to zoom into the mind.

No, just just discord me as the dm ideas i'll discord to you all the things that kelsey has done to victor lazlow god what a big brain he's got writing during the war real hero

real hero matt this is more than anyone has thought about victor lazlow

i think it's since costume what a stud every scene he's in he's smart and hot this other guy's gambling and not caring

What a man.

Of course she ends up with him in the end.

What a great guy.

But what's important is that it's his decision to send her off with another man.

Anyways, her least favorite thing is a tie between

Humphrey Bogard as a tie and the Nazi he shoots.

It's a tie between her brother's bloody clothes or whenever she sees Milton's lights off because that means he's not in that room.

And if he's not in his room, then she doesn't know where he is.

He could be anywhere.

There's a stealthy Milton fact in there, which is that Milton sleeps with the lights on.

He's a weird kid, dude.

It's a weird kid.

Just probably just dunking peanut butter in his sink or what he does in his fancy.

Dunkin' peanut butter in his sink.

You know, the sink that you have in your chest.

You DM me what Kelsey gets up to, and I'll DM you what Milton gets up to, and then we can trade.

All right.

Hi, I'm Anthony Birch, amateur pornographer, and I play Francis Farnsworth, the kid with a gun, who's almost certainly going to be on the run shortly, if not already.

Kid with a gun on the run.

Kid with a gun on the run.

And my peachy fact is, people seem to have enjoyed our little games that we play in francis' facts so i'm gonna do another one so francis is established as loving nancy drew novels so i'm gonna give you five nancy drew novels and you tell me which one isn't real okay the message in the hollow oak sounds good the secret of the silent piano favorite one the mystery of the ivory charm okay the whispering statue

the clue of the tapping heels well so one of them stands out immediately because it doesn't follow the same i know but that means it's real

the first one first one's i think the first one is fake too the The message in the hollow oak.

Yeah.

The last one.

Whatever that one.

The tapping.

Clue of the tapping piano.

Will is correct.

Ah!

You can't broke it.

I told you.

Come on.

Nancy would solve that in two seconds.

It's a broken piano.

That's true.

Fucking where do the strings go?

That made it go silent.

Maybe it's a chord.

Oh, actually, I don't think they have deaths in Nancy Drew books.

Now that I'm picking up, you're right.

That was a bad mystery.

Silent piano.

There's not really much you can do with that.

You can get it fixed.

Yeah, that's a single thing.

Yeah, that's fair.

You get re-strung.

Restrung.

I wrote Silent Hill 3 silent piano, personally.

What'd you guys do this weekend?

I re-strung my piano.

Hi, my name's Beth May.

Hey, Beth.

Hi, Beth.

Multi-hyphenate.

Yeah, I'm repped at Brillstein.

Not that I get work, but...

Stuck you put on the money.

They rep you, but they rep me.

What else?

So much more.

So much more.

It's kind of covered under the multi-hyphenate kind of thing.

The beautiful thing about being a multi-hyphenate is you don't have to explain what you do and whether you're good at it.

So there you go.

I play a character.

One of the many things that I do is play a character named Trudy Trow, and she is a homemaker, mother of one beautiful child and robot.

Fun fact about Trudy.

Trudy not really thinking about, you know, romance right now.

She's a widow now, you know, was going to preferably be a divorcee,

but she does know, you know, kind of like what she's looking out for in the future.

She hopes that when she falls in love, sparks don't fly.

God,

because is that right?

Because

she's made of wood.

What?

When your computer sparks, you're like, oh, it's okay.

It's not made of wood.

I'm probably flying.

It's not made of wood.

Thank God my new GeForce 5090 is not made of wood.

I see battle bots, and there's always sparks.

Those robots are doing pretty good.

I turn off most matches before the halfway point.

No, they're sparking already.

They're doing good.

That's the point of battle bots.

You see bots do good.

So the robots hugging.

I love it when the robots hug and the battle bots.

I'm Will Campos, a spooky ookie, very scary, creepy, crawly dungeon master guy.

Oh, whoa, I don't like this.

Well, that's what you guys were all doing.

What are you doing?

Spooky ookie?

You're the one who started it.

Yeah,

his was like unrelated to what we're doing now.

I thought yours would be like writing a video game high school or something.

Oh, well, then

I'm just a man.

Wow.

We're just normal men.

We're just normal men.

Just innocent men.

My scary fact for today is that I have received a buyout offer from the Department of Government Efficiency.

So this will be my last episode of the podcast.

Now, a little known fact, people don't know that actually most of our funding comes from federal grants.

Yeah, this is a federal program.

USAID, unfortunately.

The fact that we are a federal program does kind of mean maybe the current one's wasting some money.

Well, we did lose access to dungeonsandadies.gov.

Yeah, dude, they've got my email now.

It's not no good.

All right.

Do you guys want to?

Let's do it.

Let's do it.

We're going to the library.

I remembered, Beth.

You said I wouldn't remember.

Matt remembered.

Oh, I remember we were going to the library, but I was asking Will a bunch of very easy questions that I didn't remember, and I felt bad about myself.

So, um, Will, thanks for bringing that up, Matt.

This is just the energy I wanted to start this episode with.

Where we last left off, you had all had strange dreams and visions, recollections of things long past, things to come, dreams, schemes, and then Mothman flew you to the library.

So you guys are at the library.

I want to make absolutely sure there was no way we wouldn't go to the library anymore.

We're hurtling towards.

Hey, open world.

Open world.

You can wrest the controls away from Mothman at any point.

We're hurtling towards.

How are we getting there?

His bulbous Cronenbergian moth ship is flying silently through the inky black night above Peachyville.

Cronenbergian Man ship.

Mothman, you freaked me out.

But how does this ship work?

It works with moth technology from my world.

Look out the window.

I do.

This ship's incredible in moth pieces.

You see, like, there's two big wings, like two big moth wings on the ship going.

I should have known.

You know who could have used this ship.

Who, Kelsey?

Victor Laszlo.

He could have really

gotten the fastest book tour around.

I was saying, more people could read his books, the better.

What a man.

His book tour.

If There's a guy a booktur.

Holy shit.

Wait, so Cassidy Blank is about like,

if not for World War II, Victor Laszlo would have gotten on an international heard his words.

The faster, the better.

That's all I was saying.

It's about

the money.

Who's this Victor guy?

Trudy.

Kelsey.

You know, Victor.

Not personally.

I mean, I always thought that you dealt with Tucker's problems because he looked a little bit like Victor Laszlo.

You and Tucker.

No, no, no, no.

I mean, he's off the poor, but I just, he looks a little bit like Victor Lazo.

I was like, well, you know, when I first saw him, I was like, man, that Trudy Gums got herself a good one.

But then he's not a good one, obviously.

No.

Just looks-wise, though.

So imagine your husband, your ex-husband.

Okay.

But instead of being awful, he wrote really important words that made the world a better place.

I don't know.

For what it is worth, Maz Jesus thinks she should have stayed with Rick.

You fool.

You fool.

We approached the library.

And looks aren't everything, Kelsey.

And Trudy looks longingly.

Excuse me, Trudy was looking longingly at someone.

Moth Jesus looks longingly at Trudy and says, that is right.

Looks are not everything.

Substance is what counts on my homeworld.

But for the record, Moth Jesus is as far as moths go.

And then like a light beeps and he's like, we have arrived.

So you're now hovering above Pichigo Library.

Okay.

Would anyone like a reminder of what you're doing?

Okay, I see one hand.

I won't say who it is.

So you have two goals right now.

One is to get the next key.

You need the blue key for it, the device that will destroy the mother of Zuzel, who is currently lurking in the ritual chamber where last we saw her gobble up Tony Colette.

Yep.

And you are also searching for the money.

And we believe the key is in the library.

Presumably Brian has the key.

Brian, of course.

Timmy, Trudy's child is still in a coma, and Moth Jesus has determined the source of his coma to be this sort of like slime that is coating his brain which was created by an entity known as the doll maker the doll maker seems to be connected to the cult because obviously the doll maker helped tucker build this robot tucker's related to the cult so if you're gonna find information on the doll maker to help find a way to release timmy's brain you could potentially find that at the archives as well brian if he had a secret place that he was hiding all these you know awful books that he doesn't want us to read i bet you that's probably where he kept the key too or is on him right do you think the key is maybe inside a key shaped cut out in a book?

Oh, wow.

Nobody would suspect that, except you just did.

It's because I have pondered this quite deeply, and I've concluded it'll take a long time to find.

He's obviously got the key on him.

Oh, another possibility.

Tucker had the key on him.

Another possibility.

Oh, possibilities that you can explore now.

And then Mark Jesus presses a button and the floor drops open from the

moth ship.

And then like a big big blob of goo lands on the ground.

Like this thing shit onto the ground, and then you just all sort of plop into the goo and safely, like you know, when the stunt guys jump onto the big pillow.

Oh, yeah.

Do we go into the goo or is the goo?

You kind of like plop on top of it, and you are now in the parking lot of the library.

It's nighttime, by the way.

It's the middle of the day, it's the dead of night.

Trudy stays behind for a second, and Moth Justice is like, Trudy, wait.

What is it?

I...

There is something I.

I know.

I think I've been feeling like a lot of people.

Do you want to respect your stats one more time?

Oh,

Yes.

Yes, because I put everything in history thinking I could use it right then.

Silly of me to not think that it was just, you know, a long adventure.

Very well.

I will press your mole one more time.

Boop.

And then he presses your mole that turns you into safe mode.

And you now have one more minute because the alarms are already blown.

Oh, my God.

Okay, so I.

Redo your stats one more time.

This is fucked.

My sheet is fucked by the way.

Did you just save your previous version?

Well, it's a paper.

It's a piece of paper.

And then when I had one minute, I was just crossing out things and then adding.

So it looks, it's completely fucked.

Wow, it's one of the big problems with paper.

I do have six.

Because it records everything you do on it.

Beth, is that the only copy?

Yes.

So Will can't confirm what you put on there?

Just put 100 on everything.

Okay.

Trudy's in safe mode.

You have one minute to redo your character sheet.

Now go.

Okay.

Trudy, jump.

Trudy, you can reset your internal clock one minute over and over again for infinite time.

Oh, while she's doing that, you guys, when you hit the ground, realize that you've all become more wise and experienced from your crazy adventure, so you too can level up.

What does that mean?

You take a skill you use and you roll.

If you get over it, if you get over it, then you roll a D10 and you get that on top of what you're skilling.

Any one skill, any skill that you have used.

Any skill you've used.

Let's see if the spot hidden gets even better.

All right, 15 seconds, Beth.

All right.

And I got seven.

So now my spot hidden is fucking 50.

Okay.

I think I'm good.

Shit.

Nothing hides from Kelsey.

Okay.

All right.

Now,

Matt, what's your spot hidden at?

57 now?

It maxes out 100 any given skill, correct?

What?

Why are you asking that?

Because I fast-talked somebody, and I had a 95 as well each skill.

And I was like, well, this is never going to happen.

Then I got a 98.

And then

I rolled a nine on my D10 for a skill increase.

Oh, I think you get something special if you hit 100.

Whoa.

And it's a little trophy.

People just pulled a middle finger out of his pocket.

It's hilarious.

Let's do the roundup.

Before we get to trade.

I got spot hit and increased by seven.

Seven.

Okay.

Slow down.

Slow down.

Okay.

What does that bring your score to, Matthew?

57.

Okay.

Mozletov.

Anything else?

No.

Not now, but now I know your game, Will.

Get ready for some more rolls.

Anthony.

So I didn't level up anything except for Fast Stock, which is now seemingly 99.

I think that's as far as I can go because you can still crickle fail.

Congratulations.

I think you get like a real.

I'll look it up.

You get something for doing that.

I'll Google it while you're.

A small amount of upgrades all around the board.

Okay.

What'd you get?

It's like, just give me the highlights.

Anything?

What's the one you're most excited about, Freddie?

None of them.

Good.

Imagine Intimidate went up like seven points.

Well, that's huge.

Yeah.

It's pretty big.

I'm a pretty big guy.

Oh, and my spot hidden went up too, Matt.

Nice.

Coming up right behind you, big bro.

Matt, you roll a spot hidden check and see fucking Blake coming for the crown.

Beth, take us through the Trudy Respec one more time.

What's the summary?

I went back to my original specs and then added stuff that I thought would be useful.

And then I proceeded with that.

And then I haven't leveled up yet.

Okay.

What's the one you're most excited about?

You know, got the biggest boost, I guess I'll say that.

You know, I didn't spend much time with my one-minute respect character sheet, but when I got up to 95 in history, I was like, well, no.

So it was like the biggest boost to me internally to just put that back at 35.

Fair enough.

Has anyone recently had any of their skills cross the 90 threshold?

No.

No.

Okay.

Well, when you do, you get to regain 2d6 sanity.

Oh, there you go.

You get so skilled.

Wait, so Anthony, you're telling me that your ability to shoot a gun, or what was the one that you said?

It was Bastock, but I was already above 90, so I don't think it happens this time.

It may have happened in the past.

I don't know.

Oh, I see.

Okay, so you don't get anything because you already, you're already.

Because I'm already above 90.

Once you get over 90, the idea is you get confident enough that your brain begins to repair.

Okay.

Mothman, after you respect Trudy, looks you dead in the eyes and says, Okay, good luck.

And then he pushes you out of the plane.

But I didn't level up.

You can level up on your way down as you're plummeting to the earth.

Just to paint the picture, empty parking lot.

Other than, because it's probably probably like one in the morning.

Brian's car is there.

The lights are on in the library.

And then you also see there's like three or four, like five other cars here.

So now that I know how leveling up works, so guys, I'm getting ready for the next level up.

Ready?

I go to Brian's car.

I'm going to attempt to pick the lock.

I'm going to listen at it.

I'm going to go carry.

I'm going to do first aid on it.

I'm going to take a bunch of the history.

I'm going to chop.

Wait, Matt, don't forget.

I'm going to chop brains.

You're going to go 55 burgers your way out of this one, Matt.

I'm just doing everything I possibly.

I'm going to try to throw it.

I'm going to try to swim.

Where's a swim?

A swim in a car.

Hey, Kelsey.

Kelsey.

That's a charming.

You're doing charm.

Matt got it.

Hey, what's up?

Hey, hey, hey, Blake.

Hey.

All right.

Oh, okay.

Charm, charm.

That was a fail.

Hey, my buddy.

Hey, hey, hey, hey, Blake.

You're pretty tall.

Man, if I climb you, yep.

Okay, I climbed you.

Can I try a gun?

Here's a gun.

All right, let me check my credit rating.

Thank you.

Ooh, can I listen?

Is there anything around?

I want to listen if there's anything around.

Can I roll first?

Let's go ahead and listen.

All right.

73.

Damn.

Hopefully, next time I level up, listen.

Dang.

I failed to listen.

Nope.

Good thing you failed.

You don't hear anything.

You're deaf for one round.

Good thing you flex those muscles, Kelsey.

What?

Blake.

Blake looks up at plummeting Trudy and licks his finger and holds it up in the air to try and feel where the wind is.

and does he uh what is that

what are you rolling

i'm rolling i don't what would i roll spot what are you doing i'm trying to i thought you were doing matt's goof i thought you were doing his are you just trying to okay you're gonna catch her like what are you doing i'm gonna slide this pile of goof slightly to the right okay yes blank goes oh this little wind from the southeast oh you know what it is is that when the moth ship opens a sort of like blast of air comes out of it so the air's coming directly down so she's just dropping straight on ah but there is ambient winds i'll move move the sludge a little bit to the right.

Okay, great.

How difficult is that?

The sludge to moving this point.

Yeah.

It'll probably be easier to do that if I'm not on it.

So I'm going to jump off of it.

And then I'm going to quickly talk to my friends.

Roll your jump.

Roll, jump.

You failed.

Okay, failed, jump.

You faceplay it into the concrete, take 1d3 damage, man.

Oh, man.

1d3?

Dang.

Hey, you know what?

You play stupid games.

Anyone else?

I leveled up.

I'm curious to know, is there like a rock or something nearby I can pick up and try to hit the goo as hard as I can?

Because if it's really good at taking like kinetic damage, like us falling onto it, then maybe we could like get some and use it as armor.

Oh, as a shield.

You're going to just goo yourself up?

I mean, if it works.

I'm going to get a rock, try and hit it as hard as I can to see if it like, yeah, it's like that shit that like if you hit it hard, it gets harder.

Like a non-Newtonian solid or my crotch.

Thank you.

Yes.

Kelsey took three damage.

The goo pod healed us 100%, right?

Yes.

Okay.

So I'm down.

You're down three hits.

Oh, and I think it's your birthday finally happened.

It's officially officially your birthday, which means you get some stat penalties.

We'll deal with it later.

Mean to get one to grow on.

Okay, so, all right.

I was not expecting this much interest in the goo.

Slam that goo.

So, yes, Francis, you may use a throw roll to throw a rock at the goo if you would like to test its sort of.

I mean, it took this hit like a champ.

You guys didn't bounce off of it, you just kind of like

into it.

You know what I mean?

You wanted to move it to the right a little bit, so give me a strength roll, Blake.

Don't make that noises.

Uh, my throw is 20%, and I got a seven.

I got super success on strength, so I was able to move it.

I'm like, ah, this is a movable object.

Okay, so we'll say those two things were happening at the same time.

So you shoved it forward as he was throwing it, which means that it has a little bit of momentum on it.

So then your rock bounces off of it and throws back towards your face.

So give me a dodge roll to dodge the rock you just threw at it.

Okay, fucking Keystone cops ass bullshit.

Half dex.

Well, I applaud that decision.

He was just saying that because you got hurt, man.

All right.

My dodge is stupid.

My dodge is 30 because it's half my decks, which is 60.

And I got to 23.

Okay, great.

Well, then you avoid the rock.

The goo is, we'll say it'll dissolve in like a couple hours here, but you might, if you wanted to cut off a piece of it.

Everybody slather yourself in this kinetic goo.

Quiet, Blake.

In case we need to get into a brawl or a fight or a fight.

I watch this brawl.

Ow.

And I punch the goo, but it like gets hard enough that my fist doesn't go any further into it.

Like, that's armor, baby.

Will we be able to hear each other if we're covered in the goo?

Only slather the goo on not not your ears or your eyes would hurt to get hit in the ears though i'm just gonna put it on my chest okay i will put on the my chest and my groin i'm gonna put it on my groin too that's a good idea i'm gonna put it on my face maybe it has anti-aging properties my chest my groin can you age whenever i'm i guess and i'm just gonna put on goo too i guess all right after i'm gonna slather it on my fists too if you all slather each other you'll cover each other's bodies more oh uh can you get my back yes thank you I'm bisexual, but I'm not comfortable enough with that yet, so I'm just clear.

Kelsey, also, there's something weird about this.

This is just

please return the favor.

Oh, sure.

Here you go.

I flex a little bit.

Oh, hey.

Yes.

Those are plumber muscles.

Plumbing and electrician and locksmithing.

Let's go.

All right.

You all have one point of damage reduction for rolling yourselves around in goo.

Nice.

Great.

That's huge.

That's fucking awesome.

That's huge, dude.

Well, it was, I liked it.

It was a fun bit of role playing.

I should have done that before I jumped.

I do want to look in Brian's car.

Okay.

Oh, Kelsey, would you like me to unlock his car?

No, I want to try unlocking it.

Yeah, go for it, bro.

I'm going to try unlocking it first.

Smart.

That's smart.

That's gameplay, baby.

That's called thinking within the system.

I feel because obviously I got a good roll.

I got 15, but I only have one in locksmith because I don't have anything in it.

I go, what am I I doing?

Blake, of course, you should open the car.

Ah, step aside.

I am unable to open this car.

I got 70 in locksmithing, but I got 79.

I'm just going to look into the car.

I do want to just see, like, for example, like, are there shell casings in there?

There's no shell casings.

I just want to know if there's anything in there that we should know about.

This appears to be like the sort of like whatever the 1950s equivalent of like a really man.

Just a tiny little car for a guy on a librarian's salary in a small town in Nebraska would have.

A Chevy.

A Chevy.

He's got a Chevy.

That's right.

That would be a Chevy.

Is that what we see?

Is it clean?

So he's got some like loose pens in there.

He has like, you know, those little like bobbleheads that people put on the front of cars.

Yeah.

He's got one of Edgar Allan Poe.

Wow.

And a smaller one of his cousin.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

I have to

make your whole personality just show off that you read Edgar Allan Poe.

He's got a bumper sticker that says, I'm raving about Poe.

Wow.

Big Edgar Allan Poe fan.

I was about to get on you for being like, hey, there's no bobbleheads in the 50s.

No.

Bobbleheads have been around since the 17th century.

Whoa.

This is a vintage antique bobblehead of Edgar Allan Poe from when Edgar Allan Poe was writing.

He could also have a McDonald's wrapper on the floor because that was in 1940s and they only had nine items on their menu.

He does not have a McDonald's wrapper.

He could, but he takes care of his body.

So as Chelsea well knows, nobody knew that shit was unhealthy back then.

He said smoking.

If you wanted to break into his car some other way, you could probably rummage around.

There might be some other stuff, but yes, that's

Kelsey.

check if the door is already unlocked oh yeah check if it's unlocked uh it is not unlocked okay

before you check though take a look and see if the little stem inside is up it's a little bit hidden

tell me about this brian guy he's a librarian

he's a librarian why do you just like him so much I don't know how many times I have to say that he's the worst for you to understand that he's the worst.

Somebody be the worst.

Usually they did something to you.

Something happened that made you realize they're the worst.

Because we're women,

when we have to say something we need to convince men that that's what's going on you get this brian gives me the ick so you just don't want to him and that's why you hate him is that what

excuse you

that's

icky no i don't do child that is a very

he's condescend he's condescending i've talked about this when i read i love reading And sometimes, when I love reading, I make little explanations of joy, just a little, ah, wow, oh, can't believe that happened.

And he shushes me.

So you're like Beth in the movie theater?

Endlessly.

Yes, like my friend Beth in the movie theater.

And most people are happy to hear the joy of others, but hey, he shushes, he shushes.

And he knows what he's doing because I see other kids.

They're doing some things, but he's shushing me non-stop.

He's always keeping an eye on me when I'm reading.

Let's use a library.

Methinks the Kelsey doth protest too much.

I

don't know why all the eyes are on me right now.

I'm here to find a key so we can help save Timmy, Trudy.

And I thought we were fine.

You're right.

You're right.

No, Trudy, you're right.

Just be quiet whenever you're.

I'm just saying that that's the rules of the live.

It would hypothetically be for a theater.

That's why you and Brian will get along very well, though, Trudy.

You'll get along just fine.

The rules are the most important thing.

Was Brian an Adelaide Stevenson voter?

I wouldn't know.

Yes, he was.

Unbelievable.

Completely unacceptable.

Can I submit a potential world-building fact?

Because I thought it was funny.

I think in the 1950s, the ick was like ick benign, like German.

So it's like, he gives you Nazi vibes.

Yeah, I don't want a fucking Nazi.

The ick bin.

He gives you Nazi vibes.

Retroactively, I think you want a fucking Nazi idea.

Yeah, that's it.

I don't like Brian because he shushes me, and I'm pretty sure he's a Nazi.

Now I have a good reason that you hate him.

Let's get it.

I mean, I think that.

I think that one of those reasons is completely valid.

A Nazi would vote for Adlai Stevenson.

Regardless, he's here, which is fine, but we need the key.

And I'm pretty sure there's something we have to find, right?

We have to find the research for Timmy.

Yes, for Timmy.

It's not going to be in the normal part of the library, but there's definitely parts of the library that are locked off, and there's extra rooms.

And I've asked because I've been like, oh, is there extra rooms for like a community room?

You know where they are.

That's great.

That's true.

That's true.

There's a back room.

There's a back room that I've never been able to get into.

Let's go there.

I thought...

Maybe that's just, in my mind, this might be a little paranoid.

I'm not sure.

Do you remember exactly why the security systems were on the door?

No, it's just locked.

It's just a locked door.

Just a locked door.

That's too easy.

You know, a locked door is usually pretty much, that's usually stops old Kelsey is a locked door.

Everybody stops.

It's usually enough to stop me.

Everybody, look in your pockets.

Do you have any paper or pens, something that we could write on when we're not allowed to talk?

Maybe that wouldn't be the best for an audio-only medium, but it just seems like if we're going into a library, we should, you know.

Do the rules apply if the library is closed?

I never thought about that.

It's fucking loud too over here.

Jesus.

It just blew my mind.

Holy shit.

if we're breaking in i think we can talk all we want in this library

what matt's saying is that if the rule of law in america ever falls to the wayside give me any action is justified everybody give me a listen roll yes i love it

could you all could you all stop collaborate and listen i already did listen so is there another one i could all

79 79

missed 87 big miss big miss we were talking so loud 92 big miss

79 uh

we all that up okay uh you don't hear anything okay all great.

Let's go inside the library.

Ah, yes.

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I hide.

Okay.

Because I don't have my keys.

I've not seen you yet.

Okay, Kelsey hides too.

I'll hide.

Wait, let me see what stat is hide.

Wait.

Stealth.

Stealth?

Is there a stealth?

I'm rolling stealth.

I want to hide.

I got a not a super duper success, but a good success.

My stealth is 90.

I got a 48.

I fail my stealth role.

Oh, no.

I'm going to walk up to him and punch him as hard as I can.

Okay, well, then I guess it doesn't matter what I roll for stealth, but I failed stealth.

Are you just going to go straight up attack?

I'm just going to kind of amble up and be like, oh, is this where the library is?

I love that.

I'm hoping that my foreign accent will kind of be like, oh, the tourist.

Give me a jet lag tourist.

I'm taking on the role of jet lag tourist.

Jet lag tourist trying to visit the library one in the morning.

Yeah.

Give me a fast talk role.

But I talk so slow.

Because of that, my fast talk is five.

What else do you have?

Persuade is like a 20.

This is actually, I think, one of the only issues I have with the Call of Cthulhu system.

In the same way that like DD has like this perception slash

investigate kind of like confusion.

I agree.

I feel like fast talk slash persuade is like

yeah, yeah.

By the way, listen, TTRBG fanatics out there.

I get it.

Yeah, this is a situation.

But like, I'm just saying conceptually, I feel like you lose if your system is like, oh, well, okay.

So in this scenario, I think that's what I'm saying.

I think this is pretty clear.

Fast talking is essentially lying.

Persuading is you're trying to convince somebody to do something.

But yeah, you can't convince people with lying.

I mean, you're convincing someone to believe your lie.

Sure.

That's my point.

My point is your system's already

squirrely when you're in these kinds of scenarios.

Here's what I'll let you do.

Average your two scores and then roll the difference.

Oh, interesting.

All right.

So that is a five plus a 19, 20 foot 12.

I need to roll under a 12 to fast talk persuade them.

Yes.

I love it.

41.

Okay.

So

Trudy is going to pretend that she is one of Tucker's robots.

That is.

Great.

Well, pretend you are.

Anthony.

Anthony.

That is trying to get something for Tucker.

So she would go up to the Bison man who's already seen her.

Okay, so he's suspicious of Blake.

He's like,

hey, hey, this library is closed, buddy.

What are you?

And then you come up to him?

Yes, and I will be like, ah,

ah, Blake.

Yes.

Tucker is looking for you.

Oh, sweet Tucker.

I love him so much.

We are supposed to go into the library to get something for him.

This is fast talk.

You guys are trying to bamboozle him.

Give me a fast talk roll.

And we'll do this.

You fast talk in a corner, you persuade over coffee.

Love it.

That's what it is.

This is timing.

I failed to.

You failed?

Yep.

So he's like, wait, wait, whoa, whoa, whoa, what's going on here?

What's going on?

Wait a second.

You're supposed to be, aren't you all what?

And then I punch him as hard as I can.

Okay, great.

I love that.

But you can get some stuff out.

So he turns and he goes, hey, and you see him calling for help back into the room that he was in.

Yeah.

But you.

Oh, he turns his back to me.

I punch him in the back of the head as hard as I can.

He's not expecting that.

He's just alarmed.

So go ahead and give me a, I guess, a surprise attack.

You just get a clean hit on him.

Roll your damage.

It's a 1d3 plus damage bonus, which is a 1d4.

Okay.

Six.

But I also know, here's the question.

I do hit him right in the back of the head, which is an illegal punch because you can kill someone that way.

There's no rules when the library is closed.

It's true.

But I feel like I should roll for no insta-kill.

So you, no, it's not insta-kill, but you did take more than half of his health.

Taking more than half of his health is what realistically happens when you punch something in the back of the head.

Oh, wait, I get a plus one bonus because I got him on my fists.

The goo.

No, that was goo armor.

But what I'm saying is that if I covered my hand in ceramic plate armor, it would hurt more.

Freddie, I didn't realize you had it on your fists.

I will say that you can get plus one damage, but I will say that for the rest of this adventure tonight, you cannot flex your hands.

So you have big mitts.

Oh, no, that's okay.

No, I'll just take it.

That's the trade I'm willing to offer.

Hulk Hulk hands.

You would have Hulk hands.

Plus one damage is the best.

Best I can do is Hulk hands.

Well, how much damage would it have to be to give you Hulk hands?

Because I think that's pretty funny.

Two damage, two plus damage.

Do it for Hulk hands?

We'll do it for two.

All right.

You get two extra damage, brings us to eight damage.

And I have Hulk.

It's a good thing our one guy is good at lockpicking.

Can't use his fucking

lockpicking.

No, I'm excellent at lockpicking.

He's excellent.

He still failed.

Damn.

That counts as a major wound for him.

I have an idea.

I'll give you a hint, Matt.

It involves using Hulk hands on door hinges.

There are many ways in through a portal, my friend.

Not just the lock.

So he failed his constitution roll, which means that he goes unconscious.

So you did knock him out with your Hulk hands.

Awesome.

So he crumples to the ground.

And there's now a guy, Kelsey, Francis.

Yeah.

We have solved the threat.

Great.

He called out to somebody, right?

So you hear another voice say, Bob, everything okay?

I won't bring him into the bushes.

Everybody's just hiding the bushes.

Wait, hold on.

If you wait long enough, they eventually just turn around and go back.

I think it was Mike.

No, Kelsey, Kelsey.

Kelsey, set up an ambush.

We don't know how many are in there, though.

How many ambushes can we do?

Yeah.

Well, conceivably, if they come out one at a time,

I was going to press a mole on Trudy's neck and then roll disguise and see if I could do Bob's voice and be like, Yep, everything's fine out here.

Ooh, okay, that's cool.

That's cool.

Do we want them to not come in or should we do the one person at a time thing?

Should you say, oh, actually, can you come out here?

I need help grabbing a thing from my car, but one person.

Actually, I found a really cool rock out here.

Come look at it.

Okay, here's what we're going to do.

First, give me a luck roll to see if the thing does what you want it to

oh i am let me i might want to use luck

i don't think you can use luck on a luck roll that sucks ass

I'm only pushing this away.

I could push it.

You can push your roll.

You can push your, because now you're just, I was going to give you advantage if it turns out that this is what this button does.

And if you had fumbled it, I would have had to do something bad.

Yeah.

So the mole does not do that.

We'll say it does something benign like your earlobes.

Are your earlobes attached or detached?

Oh, i guess attached okay they detach oh wow so you got detached earlobes everyone take a sanity roll no oh i'm not into you anymore

you just have way more vocal fry nice uh so now give me a straight this feels like fast talk again because you're trying to not disguise i'm trying to disguise my voice oh disguise sure give me a disguise all right all right here's what we're gonna do we're gonna break it down disguise roll to how well you disguise your voice I fail.

Okay.

It glitches out.

You just hear, ah!

Just clip right.

And then, Freddy, is Blake like just look at the side of the door with his mitts up in the air?

I'm like hiding, I'm crouched by the side of the door, like both fists at the ready.

Okay, then I'm going to, since Trudy just messed up and screamed, I assume that's what she's going for.

Yes.

So then I want to pick up.

What's the guy?

We don't know who the guy's name is.

No, we don't know anything about it.

Okay.

I'm going to like lift his other than that.

His name is Bob.

He's Limp Corpse.

He's like a Limp Corpse.

Yes, he's Zillow Limp.

Okay, I kind of put him up against me and I go, help, help.

This man is assaulting me.

Help.

I need help.

Okay.

You're You're puppeting?

Yeah.

Okay, so there's a scream.

Now you're puppeting the guy.

Yeah, so the guy heard a scream and me screaming, help, this man's attacking me.

Give me a fast talk roll with advantage because you've got something helping you sell the bit.

Can I do persuade?

What?

I have 5%.

You know what you just said it's coffee or it's lying, right?

Wasn't that the thing you just said?

Period of order, Master.

No, I don't know.

I think you fucked yourself on this one, man.

I have 55 on Persuade.

Disguise.

Or disguise.

Either one's the same.

Okay, I'll do Fast fast.

I got five on fast.

I got 55 on persuade.

All right, I'll throw you a bone this one time, and then we're locking down the rules.

You can average your two kills like I did for Freddy.

I got a 36,

so 55 and a five.

What's that average?

Out 30.

So it'd be six luck.

I want to take a glance at Blake.

Blake, how confident do you feel in punching this guy out?

I flex both my biceps.

And I think, you know what?

In many ways, I already won because I got to use both fast and persuade.

for leveling up.

So I'm not going to use any luck.

But I still did that.

I still said, help, help, his parents attack me.

Which means there's something very unconvincing about your flex.

Yep.

So he's like, something bad is going.

He looks out there.

He sees his friend clearly slumped over on this woman's back.

And it's like, something's wrong.

Something's going.

Yeah.

Oh, you know what?

He recognizes you by the frilly print of your girl.

Do I see him?

No, he sees you.

You got him.

Yes.

And I can see him in the doorway.

Yes.

And I go, you sure you don't want to help an old lady?

And I use my charm.

No, he's going to go ahead and attack you.

This game sucks.

We are now in combat.

Our masked, you can't quite see his face.

He's going to sprint out the door.

Here's what we'll do.

Blake, give me a stealth roll.

I'll give you advantage because you're hiding behind Cop.

Like, there's no reason for him to.

Nope, nope.

Nope, nope.

So he charges out the door.

Yeah, it is.

It's a double glass door.

And then

I'll hide behind this other door.

That's what tips him off to that.

There's a shenanigan going on.

Oh, in that case, he realizes, he's like, something's going on.

He sees you hiding by the door he's gonna target you okay and body check the door to try to throw you off to knock you over and we'll say he gets a surprise on you because you are not expecting this yeah we'll call that a fighting maneuver to try to knock you over so freddy he succeeds his strength roll uh as he slams into this glass door to topple you over okay fail fail oh god my roll has been

fucking garbage what the fuck freddy lock in lock in we got this so you go toppling over ow ow You fall.

There's like a little thing of stairs.

Just give me one point of damage for that.

Ah, it has been absorbed by my goo.

Thank God you're wearing yourself.

That's the difference in age, man.

Look at that age.

You can fall downstairs and take one HP.

You roll out of the thing of goo at my age.

You take three.

It's just

being my age.

He knocks you over.

That's his turn.

He's now standing at the top of the stairs.

He sees Kelsey.

He sees Blake.

Francis, give me a stealth roll for being in the bushes.

That'll be a 24 out of 90.

Okay, great.

So he does not see Francis yet.

He sees Kelsey, who they know is public enemy number one, attempting to judo throw his friend.

He sees Trudy there as well.

He's like, oh, shit.

It's the

screams.

This is Brian that sees it?

You don't know.

Okay.

You don't know who it is.

Oh, wow.

But wouldn't that be easy if it was Brian?

I was a new guy.

If he just went to the game, I don't think it would be easy.

I think it would be interesting.

I just think it would be narratively

interesting.

You still have your gun?

No, I gave it to Mothman Jesus because there was evidence.

It is now Blake's turn.

Hey, guy, meet my fist, and I'm going to uppercut him.

Oh, okay.

So, you got to get up and run up the stairs.

Oh, now we got to do all the business.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I do.

Heaven forbid I want to punch a guy.

PDRPG,

you can accomplish all that in one turn.

Wow.

Thanks, Will.

You're quite welcome.

Wow.

All right, give me a roll.

You're telling me my guy can just punch another guy, huh?

With my approval, yes.

I think you should be ready to roll for going up the stairs based off of how rude he was.

There will

be somebody keeping him line.

Yeah, give me a dexterity roll.

No problem.

Blake Reynolds.

Oh, he's sturdy eight.

Is there armor on your feet to kick harder?

To kick harder.

Where is the goo?

Chest and groin and fists.

Okay, not on your legs.

No.

Okay, good to know.

Did you succeed in your role?

Succeeded my dex roll.

All right.

You effortlessly glide up the stairs and proceed to try to punch this guy.

I'm going to uppercut him.

I'm going, Falcon, punch.

Give me your brawl roll.

Five.

That's a super duper success.

Okay, he's going to roll.

Super fucking duper success.

He's going to roll a dodge roll, and he only got a regular success.

So, yes, you clobber him.

Roll damage for me.

That's going to be a 1d3.

Okay.

Plus a 1d4.

Plus 2, 7 damage.

7 damage.

Okay, so boom.

He takes one right in the fucking kisser.

He has a little more than the other guy, but this is in fact half his health.

So he is going to make a constitution-saving throw.

Which he does not pass.

Blake stands triumphant over two bodies.

I have taken care of two gentlemen.

I'm really beginning to like this Blake guy.

So

it was a good idea, Kelsey, to have these, why you call them hulking hands.

These guys are going to wake up soon.

Ah, let me punch them again.

Yeah, I mean, we have no reason not to just fucking kick their heads in, right?

Wait till he turn away and let him do his man's work.

Kosi, Trudy, Francis, especially.

You're gonna like tie them up and put a sock in their mouth or something.

Please turn away.

I don't think that we should kill them.

Trudy, that's not opinion.

That's not overstart helping.

Ah, Francis.

Trudy's right.

We don't need to kill them.

Let's tie them up.

Let's tie them up.

The one thing about tying somebody up is they can escape from it.

You know who can't escape from anything?

Yeah, but then you can't, you won't be able to escape what it did to you, to your soul.

I know.

You've already done a lot of fucked up stuff.

Hey, you know what, Francis?

If you're dead, you won't be able to escape.

That's true, but you also won't be able to tell us anything.

And we might need to know something from these people.

They worked with Tucker.

They work with Brian.

What about breaking their legs?

Ah, okay.

I could punch their knees.

They have two knees.

I have two fists.

That's the maker has provided everything we need for the following scenario.

Moth Jesus is just watching you guys for a moment.

It's shipping.

Like, whoa.

What an idea.

Can I see Moth Jesus up there?

Sure.

Moth.

toss us some rope.

Yes, beam these motherfuckers up.

Sure, that's fun.

Oh, yeah.

Can you beam these motherfuckers up?

No, I do not have beam technology.

Can't you land and we'll just drag them in?

No, because Timmy's up there and I don't want them to get out and beam away.

But Moth Jesus has a crazy hallucinogenic goo chamber.

Does your goo hold them?

Well, my goo holds them.

Like, if we shove them into the goo, will they be able to explain?

Oh, the goo from the

belly goo.

That's interesting.

Because when the goo gets hit, hit, like a non-Newtonian solvent, when he gets hit hard and fast, it solves it.

So we have to push them in very slowly.

Yeah, we just have to push them very slowly.

I hope they wake up halfway through.

I hope we come back and they're ground.

So, what do you guys want to do?

We're going to slowly push them into the goo.

That fucking meat's ass.

Okay, on my count.

Okay.

One mission.

I'm already pushing.

Two missions.

and just to be clear we're okay with head first that makes sense to us

no needs to hear about that oh yeah just keep their heads out no head first

okay are you putting them in head first so they'll die I was even like

legs first legs first and then we'll keep their heads out okay so they're stuck you guys I will allow you to do this I want to be like fucked up where it's like it's not that their heads are normal like they have to like their neck is craned looking upwards so it's just their face on the surface it's like when um demi moor owen wilson gets buried up to his neck in Shanghai Noon.

You know what I mean?

What a fucking pull.

And then Kelsey is going to grab some branches from the bushes and just kind of lay them over the big mound of goo.

Compared to Kelsey, it will make them think that they're inside a bush.

Yes.

Okay.

Let's just somebody give me a luck.

Park this bush.

Somebody give me a luck roll.

Luck roll.

Can I level up luck?

What?

I don't want to roll.

Somebody else can roll.

I can roll luck.

I got 48 luck too.

Who has the best luck?

So whoever has the best.

79 luck and I rolled a 66.

Okay.

Okay.

All right.

So in that case, they do not regain consciousness as you are shoving them into the goo.

Up to their heads.

They're now both stuck at a jaunty angle.

I'm not looking for them, Will.

Huh?

Yeah,

they are now stuck at a jaunty angle in this goo thing.

Unfortunately, you didn't think to search them before you did this.

So they are just encased in this goo.

That's fine.

Oh,

legs from the bottom.

I'm a little bit unclear about the plan.

So now punch them in the face.

No, we're not going to be able to do that.

I don't think people are giving me a joke enough credit there.

What did Bassie?

legs first head stuck that's the way i like to fuck

ah but hold on group uh team they have been damaged by my fists okay and they are unconscious now yes but if they do come back they will be only damaged up to my fists from one round let me give them a little goosing what let me goose this guy

what's what's goosing like what's going on i just want to punch them one more time can we go okay no what you're a grown adult you can do whatever you want at this point

He's a grown adult.

I'm going to put my eyes towards the library and start walking there.

And when I'm going to a tree, I have fought Hitler's troops in World War II.

I have seen things, child.

And I know from my time in war that everybody needs to be punched twice.

Give me a sanity roll, Blake.

This feels crazy.

This feels like you're having some sort of flashback to your vibe.

11.

I'm good.

I'm good, dude.

I'm locked in.

I'm fucking locked in.

Eyes on the mission.

It was requested that he lock in, and he didn't.

I locked in.

Matt looked at me and said, Freddie, lock in, and I locked in.

I'm like, I have a clear mind and conscience.

Are you okay?

Roll

goo hands, Cameron.

Roll your attack.

Are you just trying?

You're going to punch them both once, right?

Yes, correct.

Okay.

Just a little extra.

Just a little extra.

I'm not sure.

I'm not a conscious men with their heads dangling out of a goo pod.

Yeah, roll for that.

Are you doing a full swing?

Like, how much power are you putting behind this?

I would like to punch hard enough that I don't invoke my damage bonus.

Okay, so so you just want to roll your regular damage plus your two points.

Hulk hands.

Points.

Okay, yes, I will let you do that.

One guy takes another three damage.

Okay.

Another guy takes five damage.

Okay, they're both very, very badly beaten.

Yes, see?

See?

Yeah, we see.

Now if they come out, it will be no problem.

You've got to loosen the jar for us.

Yes, indeed.

Okay.

I take my Hulk hands and I kind of clang them together like I'm like wiping them up.

Like, my work here is done to the library.

All right.

And and how many cars did you say there were here there's five cars in the parking lot so well maybe the car

pulled well that would be more guys then yeah

between three and 18 more people here

francis

francis yeah let the air out of everybody's tires except one except one yeah okay yeah great i let the air out of all the tires except for the one furthest from the door Okay, I like that.

Francis, while you're over there doing that, you feel something heavy on your back.

Ah, the weight of conscience.

Ah, the weight of conscience.

And then you smell a sweet perfume and you feel a breathy voice on your back say, I don't know if I would call it that, my dear.

I look into a nearby mirror to see if I can see the reflection of what's on my back.

Rear view mirror, dude, objects closer than they may be.

You see the leather strap of your car 98 and the car 98 itself hanging off your back.

Oh, we're married now.

You hear this voice say, you didn't think you could get rid of me that easily, did you, dear?

Oh, you're sentient.

Okay.

Oh, I had such a long nap after the war, but you woke me up.

You woke me up, my baby boy.

How long have you been sentient?

Oh, I think I said I was sleeping, and then when you shot that man Jenkins, I tasted the most delicious taste a gun can taste.

Oh.

Which is

cold blood.

All right.

I crave the cold blood, Francis.

Okay.

And you, you, I think we have a beautiful future together, Francis.

Francis, I'm hearing a German voice.

You guys aren't hearing shit?

No, we're hearing you talking.

You are hearing him talk.

You and your gun, Brunhilde.

I stayed up.

Guys, is there a gun on my back?

Is there?

Yes.

Yeah, you.

Oh, wait.

You said you gave it to Moth Jesus.

I did give it to Moth Jesus.

It's a magical talking lady gun.

Okay, well, let's just put it back here.

Hand it over.

Here.

Okay.

One Mississippi, two Mississippi.

I'm pushing it into the goo.

Three, Mississippi.

Go ahead.

Go ahead.

I push it into the goo.

Okay.

All right, we turn around.

Yeah, yeah.

It's one of those now.

It's a monkey fan.

I'm one of those, and I think maybe you should try to be a little more grateful since you're having such a nice friend helping me.

Okay.

Well,

whatever.

You've got Zoo Zellrand in your head.

Yeah, I don't think any of us should be judging.

Oh, I wasn't judging.

I was trying to think of a way to help him.

Okay, I appreciate that.

Yeah, I'm just

in a tough spot.

That sounds rough.

Blake Rolls sanity because I don't have Zuzel in my brain.

I told you.

He's not with me.

Yeah, I forgot that you don't have Zuzel.

Remember?

I don't have Zuzel in my brain.

That you don't have Zuzel.

Everything I say about him is true.

Everything that you say is true.

I forgot.

And he's not hot.

No.

I'm going to look you dead in the eyes and you tell me the fucking truth.

Is Zuzel like Victor Laszlo hot?

No, but he's Victor Laszlo.

You got fucking images in your head.

He does have a bigger library than Victor Laszlo.

Victor Laszlo could feel his library.

Freddie, you said that Blake made a sanity roll?

Yeah.

And I passed.

I'm like, ah, the jumping car 98.

I have come across the Nazi soldiers with such a weapon.

Wait, you came across Nazi soldiers with teleporting guns?

How did you get it?

Teleporting guns?

It could have been teleporting.

Or I could have blinked.

Yeah.

What would you like to do now?

I think we should go in the library.

Yeah.

With a stern look on my face, I take Brunhilde off my back and put her in my arms.

And it feels comforting, but I don't love that it feels comforting.

Now I'm kind of grossed out.

Okay, everyone goes inside, right?

Everyone's going inside.

Francis, as you pass these two unconscious bodies just sitting there stuck in the goo, give me a power roll.

Pow.

Pow.

Representing your willpower.

Because as you pass them, you feel from Brunhilde an intense desire to execute one of these guys right now.

My pow is 40.

I got a six.

As you're walking past, you see two slender German arms wrap around yours and hold onto the gun and start to aim it towards one of the other guys.

We did one for you.

Now we do one for me, yah.

Uh, nine.

Oh, please.

Nine for me.

Please, please, please, please.

Well, since you asked so nicely, no,

I'll get you.

I'm in charge.

Okay, for now.

And if you think about changing that, I am not that averse to to putting you in my mouth.

And then who's going to be?

Who's going to be your friend?

No one.

That would be a delicious taste.

Yeah, I mean, it'd be psyched for you, but then who's going to pick you up?

Nobody.

You're going to be the gun that a little kid kill himself with.

Oh, you're going to have so much fun together, Francis.

And you feel a little kiss on your cheek.

Guys, you might have to kill me.

What?

Just like emotionally get ready for that in case that comes up.

I don't think I could get emotionally.

I'm telling you now, so you can have time to do that.

How much time do you think it would take?

Hopefully a while.

Yes, Francis.

I don't think I could ever do it.

Yeah, we'd never get you help.

It's fine.

We'll figure it out.

Okay.

Let's go to the library.

As you enter.

Turbo is make everything better.

There might be a book on this in the library.

You never know.

There will be.

As you enter.

Is it like a threat?

Oh, there will be.

You enter the library.

The lights are on.

You passed my, how are you going to get inside the locked library thing because you bamboozled two guys into coming out.

Seems to be empty in here.

Just again, you've been.

I've been the books.

Why don't you...

Yes, I would like to use books.

Before you use your library use skill, why don't you paint us a picture of the library since you've been here so many times and I don't want to do it.

Well, I mean, honestly, when you enter, there's the book return and there's like the big open space where they have the checkout.

And to the left, checkout.

Yeah, yeah, where you check out your books.

The checkout counter.

Yeah, it's the checkout counter.

And then Brian, of course, because he cares about the new books more than the fucking good old classics.

He's got a little like shelf to the right.

It's got like the newest books, but I'm not a big fan of the books he chooses.

It's all whatever the airport books, if you don't mind me saying not to be a snob about it.

But those are the ones that are that people want to check out are right there.

To the left is like the kids' area.

It's got the kids' books, dude.

It's like all the fucking bullshit modern books, like Catcher in the Rock, yeah, fucking

Fahrenheit 451, Charlotte's Webb, Lord of the Flies, all that bullshit.

Hemingway cranking them out.

Fuck, this is a good technique.

And then to the right is, you know, the popular fiction and all that stuff.

And then just behind the checkout, it just keeps going further back.

And that's just when you get into all the non-fiction, just endless aisles of stacks, good stuff.

Okay.

Because you keep going further, further back.

There's a, what do you call it, a microfilm machine back there?

So you can look at the newspaper.

And then that's, there's, that's where that's where the locked room is, which, if you ask Kelsey, she thinks, and you know, she will admit, this might be a little bit paranoid, but she thinks that in that locked room is every book she's wanted to check out that they don't have available.

He just, he knows what book she wants, and she just put, he just puts it in that locked room.

Just a real weird coincidence that every book she wants is just checked out all of a sudden.

What do you guys want to do?

I want to use library use.

I don't know what that does.

What do you want to do?

Do you have 70 on it?

I spent a lot.

I invested heavily on the meme coin library use, and I want to fucking cash in on this.

Can you look up like breaking curses?

Oh, yeah.

I think I have a skill for that.

Everyone tell me what you want to do in the case.

I want to roll around.

You know, back in the day, you know, even we remember this.

Maybe not Beth.

Beth might be a little too young for this.

But we had little cabinets like with a Dewey Decibel system with little cards in every clock.

Card catalog.

Oh, I actually do remember that.

I want to essentially go to the card catalog and like the candy man in the beginning of Willy Waka, as he's rolling back and forth and gridding all the candies for the kids,

she rolled a 70 library use and like scoot around looking for something that could break a curse for Francis there because she's pretty sure he's talking about this gun and she's concerned about it.

Give me a library use roll.

Take it for a spin.

Here we go.

I passed.

Okay.

Yeah, dude.

All the hard work paid off, Matt.

What are you looking for?

You're looking for a book on curses?

Yeah, so with my great library youth skill, I probably understand

that it would be

not about life.

You're looking for

like cursed objects.

Yeah, like cursed objects.

You're looking for a current.

So like archaeology and then for the normal, paranormal.

Okay, all right.

So yes, you find a book on witchcraft.

I find a book called Catching the Rye.

I say, read this and don't be like this kid.

No, I find a book on witchcraft.

You find a book on witchcraft called Witch, Witch is Witch.

And it's a practical and funny...

Witch, witch is witch.

And it's a practical and quirky guide to ancient curses and hexes throughout time in the Western hemisphere.

So you find the card catalog for that.

Give me a spot hidden while you're rooting around in there.

Oh, fuck yeah.

This is your time to shine, Kelsey.

Fuck yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Okay, yeah.

Past the spot hidden.

I got 26, so that's below my 28, which is my good success.

You notice a peculiar misfile in the card catalog system.

Not peculiar if you know Brian.

Fucking damn it.

Keep his shit together.

As you're thumbing through, because you just can't help yourself, you find yourself scrolling past the fiction section.

You notice a card that looks a little like it just got stuck in there.

Right next to the books on Edgar Allan Poe, there is a card for a book called The Key in the Castle by Christy Bellman,

which doesn't make any sense because that's nowhere near alphabetically to Edgar Allan Poe.

It's just weird that that's in the wrong spot.

So you notice that.

Okay, well, I'm going to pick that book too.

Here's one for the curses, Francis.

Thanks.

Also, this one was just kind of misfiled, but it's Nira Garon Poe, and I just feel like I wouldn't have noticed it if it wasn't important.

So I think

that instinct is correct.

I think this gal is going to

go through that, man.

Yeah,

can you look up for me maybe a book on how to be more convincing when I'm trying to fast talk?

Oh, absolutely.

And then, like the candyman in Willie Watka, I'm going to scroll through the catalog again.

Okay.

Anyone else want me to find a book?

We're 28.

That's a good success.

Okay.

How to win fellas and influence gals.

Yeah.

so yes, if it's a good success, you find a book called Scandinavian Scams by the author of five more Finnish Flim Flams.

Oh, wow.

Damn, is that off the top of the dome?

So you're good.

It's by this author, Joey Togelborg, or whatever.

Dorbjorn is my Dorbjorn.

Dorbjorn Lively,

your long-lost, deadbeat father, who wrote a book on Flim Flam.

Yes, it's specific.

How to leave your family and they'll never know you're gone.

How to ditch your kid in the field before World War I?

Crazy that this guy has the same last name.

You open the book, and he even kind of looks like you.

But actually, no, you haven't got the book yet.

Okay, so you found it.

I hand you the card and I say, I can only do half of this.

The rest of the journey is yours.

You should work here.

Believe me, this town would be a better place if I could do both teaching and this, but I'm only one woman, Francis.

There's only so much I could do.

Oh, I love it here.

Gosh, this is just great when he's not here.

Anyone else write anything?

Oh, I should look us.

Oh, what's up, Trudy?

I would like a book on how humanity is and works and how to be a human.

Well, that's called the good book.

Oh, I got it right here, baby.

I actually rolled, so I failed.

So I go, oh, well, that one is here.

I hand you the Bible.

I got an 88 on that roll.

Sorry.

You got an 88 on that roll?

Yeah,

library 70.

Sorry, Trudy.

No, I'm not going to lie.

I don't really, I couldn't find a good one for you, so I just gave you the Bible.

But some people like it.

I'll just leave that right here.

Unread?

Trudy, are you not even going to crack open the good book?

There's a reason it's called the good book.

I'll read the first page.

I mean, in the beginning.

Depends on the translation.

Okay.

Hmm.

In the beginning, crack the room.

The room was harmless.

The room was empty.

Kelsey's doing a thing like when you're watching a friend watch the YouTube video you gave them.

Why are you on your phone?

And there was light.

Yeah.

That separated the light from the dark.

There was more humans later in the book.

I was just hoping for something that made me feel like I would come alive.

Like, really shit.

Okay, so yeah, here's the most insane role of all time.

Do a random Bible verse generator.

And if that random Bible verse has something to do with like one's humanity,

I love this.

Yes, you get some bonus.

Well, we'll see.

I'll depends on how good that kids are.

Fingers crossed Leviticus.

So, you flip to a random page of the Bible.

All right, what do you get?

Yeah,

to them, God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

Give me a sanity roll.

It's weird grammar.

Yeah, I could have just been more straightforward about it.

I fail.

Okay, you're Christian now.

Welcome to the club, Trudy.

Ah, yes, a good, God-fearing Christian.

Do you feel a little guilty?

Wait, hold on.

Like, you did something wrong?

Not at all.

You're not a Christian.

Protestant.

She works really hard.

What are you saying, Trudy?

I feel chosen.

There you go.

Excellent.

Well, I tried my best to get you all a good book.

that you can have so you can check that out don't even worry about using your library card because it's brian and i don't care and let's go ahead and open up this castle keyboard that I'm pretty sure is important because I found it.

So you're going to this shelf?

Oh,

that was the card.

Yeah, I thought she was the card.

Oh, are you going to where it says on the card?

Only Trudy's gotten her book so far.

Did we show you?

Well, I want a different book.

I mean, okay, you could go.

I mean, no, I want this different book.

I want this book.

This is my favorite book, and I love it.

There's a voice change.

Trudy just got the good news, Patch.

I think we should go.

You all have your cards, so you remember the book that we should get, but let's go.

I found a strange one.

Let's just

key in it.

Yeah.

Yeah, let's go for that one.

I just feel like I could use this right now.

So you're going to.

You can split up if you want.

No.

Okay.

Let's go get the key book first then.

You find the book.

Yes.

It's on the shelf.

It is weirdly, give me another library use role.

Everybody, if you'd like to level this up.

56.

Will knows this that we're never going to use this outside the library section of this adventure.

I failed.

I fumbled.

Oh, no.

Do they have those?

Your fumble is you literally fumble and drop the Bible.

And then when it lands on the ground, a book catches your eye on the shelf called Am I an Atheist or an Agnostic by Bertrand Russell.

Okay.

I'm going to pick this book up.

Okay.

Okay.

Craziest role.

Random, am I an

Bertrand Russell quote generator?

And if it speaks to you, I like this.

All right, Beth, give me a number from one to 67.

68.

Wasn't like, was you really 67?

Didn't you say exactly what at 67?

Okay, here we go.

I have lived in the pursuit of a vision, both personal and social.

Personal, to care for what is noble, for what is beautiful, for what is gentle, to allow moments of insight to give wisdom at more mundane times.

Social, to see in imagination the society that is to be created, where individuals grow freely and where hate and greed and envy die because there's nothing to nourish them.

These things I believe, and the world, for all its horrors, has left me unshaken.

Praise him.

You now worship Bertrand Russell.

Okay, so you go to the where the Key in the Castle is located, and with your success, you realize: wait a second, this is nowhere near Edgar Allan Poe.

Like, you found the original place where the book is supposed to be filed, and you found a copy of this book, The Key in the Castle by Christy S.

Beltman.

And it appears to be like some sort of kind of like a trashy pulp paperback novel.

Again, like a real women in great hair fleeing gothic tassels kind of thing.

Poll quote on the back says, another fantastic chiller by Miss Bellman that belongs on the shelf with Edgar Allan Poe.

Oh, guys.

Sounds like it might be a hint to put it in the Egg Allen Poe.

I think I got put in the Edgar Allan Poe section where I found it in the catalog.

Let's do that.

Let's go do that.

Beep, boop, beep, boop, beep, boo.

Can you give me a little more?

There was a little longer.

More beep, boop, beep, boop, boop, beep.

Oh, Kelsey.

Are we passing by the section with my book?

You wrote a book?

No, this is the one in the card catalog.

No, it's on the other side of the library.

Well, shit.

But we are passing.

Yeah, there's Francis' book.

It's right there.

It's at the end.

Pretty neat.

Yeah.

Which, which is which?

Nice.

It's actually a bestseller than the whole section.

Yeah.

And display.

Is that one of the author

signature copies?

Yeah, it's the first edition.

Wow.

Shit, I'm just taking this.

And look, the poetry section with a book written by a wolf.

It's called Howl.

A great book here on road construction on the road.

Anthony, you liked that one, right?

I did.

You really change up Kerouac's intention by putting a pause in there.

You know what I'm saying?

Like totally different books.

Oh, fuck.

Did you want to get your Scandinavian scams book?

Yes, please.

Okay, you get it.

If you want to go find it.

Yes, I would like to find it.

Okay, you find it.

I mean, that's fine.

Yeah.

Okay.

I have some fists.

And I come back to it.

Hell,

I cannot open the book.

Okay, so yes, while you're doing that, you're off getting the book.

You're off getting the Scandinavian scams book.

And then

you find it and then realize your fists are covered in Hulk hands and you can't grab it.

He turns around and then we're right there with him.

He go.

Buddy, I knew you weren't going to be able to grab that book.

And I pull it out for him and go, let's stay together.

Let's not split up.

You've seen through my ruse once again, Matt Arnold.

Ah, Kelsey.

Kelsey, where were you?

I was the footprints behind you.

When I looked behind me.

Okay, we walked back to the Grand Poe.

Okay.

I refuse to split this party.

There is, sure enough, a gap in the section that should not be there because it's like right in the middle of his works sorted alphabetically.

But fucking, it's like the raven and then the murders and the rhubarb.

Can I just flip through this book?

Is this like a real last book?

What, the key one?

Yeah.

I mean, yeah, I flip there.

Flip through it.

Yeah, it's a real book.

If you're looking at the book, Frances, give me a education role.

Okay.

My Edu is...

I hardly knew you.

All right, Fred, you get disadvantaged on your next role.

What?

I'm sick of that joke.

My Edu is a 50.

Oh, I rolled an 87.

Then you don't notice anything weird about it.

Okay, weird.

It just seems like.

There's no pictures.

Yeah, there's that.

But also, like, if there's no pictures, if it's part of this weird puzzle to get inside the bison thing, I wonder if this Christine Bellman person is a bison.

So you see the name is Christy S.

Bellman.

Christine S.

Bellman.

C-R-H-I-S-T-I-S-B-E-L-L-M-A-N.

Quick, check if it's an anagram.

Let me pull out my.

No.

I'm not going to use my anagram.

Yeah.

You can look up a book on anagrams if you'd like to.

Yeah.

Where's the book?

Do you have to know any books on anagrams?

A book on anagrams.

Please.

Like, Kelsey?

Library Master doesn't know that a book on anagrams is right.

And she just puts her hand up and grabs a book behind her.

Not even looking noise.

Give me a library use role, Matt.

It's going to be an extreme success.

Extreme success?

Yes.

I fumbled.

You do 97.

Pick up the quotable Bertrand Russell.

Freddy, hit me with another quote.

Random Bertrand Russell quote.

I feel like this philosopher is fucking going around the library, just putting his book.

This will really fuck Kelsey up specifically.

Go hit it.

There are two motives for reading a book: one, that you enjoy it.

The other, that you can boast about it.

It's true.

I I want people to like me.

Roll 1d6 sanity damage, man.

I want people to know how smart I am, but they don't see how much the goo.

The goofy salad.

I pass out 36, my sanity is 46.

You barely manage to hang on.

It's a totally normal thing to want people to appreciate you for what you're sharing.

Being a little funny here, too, Kelsey.

So a little joking, funny.

So you don't need to worry so much.

What?

Bertrand Russell is having a little bit of humor.

As Francis tries to crack this anagram.

I'm seeing the word alchemist.

Ooh, Ooh, I like that.

Alchemist.

Are we all doing this together?

Tree, how's this going over there?

Not great, but maybe.

Alchemist?

What are the letters we have outside if you already do alchemist?

What's left?

Berlin.

Berlin?

Berlin alchemist?

I've never seen you guys more emotionally invested in a puzzle in my life.

Anthony Strip gang, a piece of money.

Wait, wait, hold on.

Ladies and gentlemen, listening home, you need to understand what happened here.

Anthony took his Steam Deck, put it down on the floor, picked up a piece of paper, grabbed man's oldest tools, pen and paper.

Now he's scrolling on it.

Surely the pen is mightier than the deck.

Wait, so after Alchemist, what letters are left?

R-S-B-E-M.

I hope to God that there's no Anagram and Will's just letting us do this.

That'd be so fucking good.

Would you guys like me to describe the shelf anymore?

You could describe herself.

There's a gap on the shelf.

Weirdly, it's not against a wall or anything like that.

This is in the middle of like a row of shelves, but you feel like a draft coming through this hole.

Also, give me a spot hidden.

Easy mode here.

Oh, I literally just got 57 from 57.

Think of that episode.

Okay, nice.

You find a little BB palette on the ground.

Francis, did you do this?

No, my rifle shoots bullets.

That's right.

I use the real ones.

Okay, BB.

BB?

BB.

No, that wouldn't make sense.

Do you have like a blue?

Like the girl BB?

She doesn't leave BBs around to tell it.

Is that not her?

Wait, is that her calling card?

Does BB leave BB's around?

No, that's not.

I don't think so.

Okay, never mind.

And there's also a new you and Christy S.

Bellman.

Hmm.

Can we roll something to help us with this anagram?

Do we get a hint?

Yeah.

Like, is Alchemist correct?

I'm going to put the book in the book.

I don't know.

I can't find anything.

We're trying to.

The rest of the stuff, I can't.

Yeah.

Give an idea roll.

This will be you guys thinking really hard.

Okay.

And then if one of you succeeds the idea roll, the god of anagrams will give you

idea.

Oh, and 41.

Ah, super success.

19 now to 40.

Failure.

Ah!

I succeed.

I actually get a good success.

Oh, nice.

Because you're in a sort of mysterious, you're near Eldritch powers beyond your comprehension.

You hear a voice in your head say, Hmm, this is Mr.

Inaga.

I love it.

Sounds like you guys are working on an anagram in a spooky place.

Yes.

Can you just hold the book up to your face?

You there, the little boy?

Yep.

The weird little boy?

I mean, you just met me, but okay.

Hold the book up to your face.

Hold the thing you're trying to anagram up.

We need to include the title in the anagram.

Oh my God.

Yeah, what's the title?

Why don't you hold the book up to my face and I'll give give you a hint.

Looks like it says Christy S.

Melt.

Well, that's the author of the book.

Yeah.

So maybe instead of looking for a word, you should be looking for a name that uses those letters.

That makes sense.

Castle and the key.

But I can give you any anagrams you want.

There's Brian Brian.

Brian's in that name.

What's his last name?

Fuckhead.

I don't think Brian.

Matt, you remember Brian's last name.

Brian Mitchell.

It is.

It's just Brian Mitchell's.

Brian Mitchell's.

Oh, man.

I was like, I read that.

And as you say,

nothing happens on the book.

I read the first page and I liked it.

That's like awful.

Now it's just good to know we don't have to hunt down somebody named Christy Bellman because she's not involved in the bison call.

So we're doing it.

That means Brian Mitchell wrote this book.

He thinks the, I mean, look, the first page was okay, but he thinks it should be put next to Edgar Allan Poe.

Oh, Mitchell.

Also,

point of order.

He's using a woman's name.

We have a hard enough time at this breaking into this literary industry.

He's using a woman's name, taking my job and my, I've never written written a book.

I wish I could.

You opened the book.

Give me an education role as well.

With advantage, we'll say, because this is a reading, which is your area of you, you passed?

With advantage, I got a good success.

You realize, because you see that the publisher is not a publisher you've heard before, but you know it to be a house of self-published manuals by self-stylized authors.

So it seems like it would be a self-published book by Brian S.

Mitchell.

So it's self-published.

Anybody can self-publish.

What do you want in the 50s?

They had vanity presses in the fucking F-50s.

Absolutely.

Anybody?

The Bible was self-published.

By who God?

It's really the first vanity book if you think about it.

That's true if you think.

Yeah, that's a good point.

It is the word of God.

Who published that?

The memoir of God.

I want to put his book into the wherever there's a hole, so goes a book.

Now we know what our next t-shirt is.

Wherever there is a hole, so goes a book.

So we're going to put bookmarks with that on it.

Put a book in.

All right.

So you put the book in the hole, and as it slides into this space, this gap in the wall, you hear a far-off click, and you see the words on the book rearranged to say Brian S.

Mitchell.

And the.

I guess we just could have gotten there anyway.

Wow, I didn't need to consult the god of anagrams.

You are the only one now, by the way.

I'll be calling in that favor at some point.

Bye-bye.

It was worth it to know that deities exist.

Yeah, how's that clock in with everybody's Christianity?

Everyone, give me a sanity roll.

Well, I was already of the opinion that Moth Jesus meant there were more different gods.

So that's consistent with my worldview.

Really?

I failed my sanity roll.

I failed my sanity.

I pass.

Fucking anagrams make me lose sanity.

So, Matt, you are now doubting your Christian faith.

No, right.

And Beth, you're just, you're really open to anything right now.

Wow.

The whole.

We already knew that.

She was looking at Mothman recently.

The whole shelf that you are standing in front of spins around and sweeps you with it.

But as you sweep, it's like going through a turnstile into a new building that wasn't there before.

As it carries you along, you find yourself in a brand new space.

You find yourselves in a dark, dank, endless, candlelit library labyrinth.

Oh, wow.

There's one with the answer on it.

Wouldn't that have been embarrassing?

You now find yourself in the heart of the archives department of Project Heartland.

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You see these walls that are all lined with books of all different types, you you know, magical tomes, government filing cabinets, and archives, and the hallways around you sort of twist and shift and lead in a sort of maze-like way.

And you feel like a sort of intuition pulling you somewhere.

It's like you ever walk through a maze and, like, you don't think that hard about which way you go.

It's only you're just kind of like relying on instinct.

You feel the pull of instinct as you.

I've never walked through a maze.

You've never been in a maze?

No, I've been a corn maze, but I'm usually pretty determined to get out of it.

This is no normal library.

Kelsey puts her finger on one of the spines and tastes it.

She goes, my library use will have no purpose here.

And I've decided that I have disadvantage on all library use things for no

just for you, Will.

Okay, here's how we're going to do this.

I was reading a fun little guide on how to run a TTRPG labyrinth from John Forer's role-playingtips.com newsletter.

Who would like to lead the four of you through this maze?

Who's in front?

Also, you hear fucking, you hear ominous chanting coming from the center of the board.

Yeah, yeah, obviously.

Yeah, yeah.

How are we doing the maze?

maze well you guys know the whole like the trick right you just follow one wall yeah yeah here's how we're gonna do this sounds like you know what to do friends here's we're gonna do this whoever's leading the maze okay i'm gonna give you this pencil and this paper okay you are gonna try to solve the maze while everyone watches from behind you with bated breath and then every time you hit a dead end

i am going to draw an encounter from this pack of this deck of pentament playing cards we got from our trip to obsidian

so i've written down a bunch of encounters so every time you hit a dead end on the maze uh something spooky is gonna happen you wrote wrote on their nice deck they gave you i didn't write on the deck i wrote on a separate piece of paper and corresponded it to the deck oh okay cool it's like a pointer in c plus plus yes who's good at mazes you said you had a good idea of you just follow yeah but my method also involves hitting every

possible okay oh trudy you're a robot so

you're really good trudy's a robot bet beth needed extra time for any tests in school so

i will do it me and my big hulk hands yeah you're like good with like sewers and stuff those are essentially just mazes underground.

No, they are laid out in a very, very specific way.

Oh, yeah, I thought we hired plumbers because we've been a labyrinth.

Yeah.

That's why not anybody can do it.

All right, everybody gather around Freddy.

All right.

Freddy, here's what you're going to do.

You're going to start at the start of the maze.

You have to continuously move.

Okay.

And don't look at it, but close your eyes.

Okay.

Okay.

No, you don't have to close your eyes, Matt.

You can.

Yes, you start at the gap.

You can open your eyes now.

And the second you realize you've hit a dead end, we're going to stop.

Okay, and ready and go.

Hey, guys, let's go over here.

Just chugging along.

I think I feel pretty good about this way, Trudy.

Ah, a little bit of a turn.

Ah, this gets me pretty close.

Oh, wait, but hold on, Trudy.

Trudy, I'm not sure.

I'm not seeing a lot of moving on that.

Going up, yes, very good.

No, not that way, okay.

Yep, oh, oh, oh, hey, thank you, everybody, for helping me out.

I'm just gonna go up this way.

A little chick cane.

Ah, I see the dead end from here.

I won't go that way.

Over here.

I think this place, you know, we can fuck up now.

Oh, really?

I'm just gonna go down this long hallway on the side.

Ah, left or right here?

Right, to the right, my right, haha.

And then around here and up, and then what do we do?

Oh, hold on.

Left, right here.

Take a left, and I'll go down here, and then we'll go.

Now we sprint.

Will came up with 52 different encounters.

I came up with 12.

Oh, boy.

Will, if it makes you feel better, if I had been doing the maze, we would have hit all 12.

But now the question that every every good RPG player knows, we got the picture.

Should have made you guys watch.

You gave him too much.

We got the critical path.

Should we go back and make sure there's any treasure chest or stuff we didn't get?

Why don't you alone go back?

Wow.

I've never seen so many books.

So much cool stuff.

I was going to use the maze to like read my book, but we were suiting through it so fast.

I haven't even opened it yet.

Mazes.

Yes, I have spent much time thinking about mazes.

When you're in the mazes below the city, do you sense the drafts of the wind?

Is that how?

How did you get through this?

No, i just go where my friends tell me to go oh that's nice wait how did we know the casino

oh we had trudy with us smartest robot we know i was like surely they'll hit at least six like that was what i was getting

like six dead ends okay so you wind up in the center of the maze oh here we are i've made it in the center of these twisty winding corridors you you're sort of peering out at like a sort of circular stone floor and in the center of this floor you see a row of candles you see your classic spell runes.

Matt, you must be pretty familiar with all the people who work at the library, right?

So you see one of them.

You see the assistant librarian

Jane O'Hulihan.

Also known as Checkers.

Also known as Checkers.

She's good at Checkers.

She's crazy because Checkers is solved.

And they keep bragging about how they're good at it.

Checkers wasn't solved in the 50s.

I'm pretty sure it was.

She's the one who solved it.

Checkers was solved in 2007 by Canadian computer scientists, dude.

You see Checkers Ohulihan.

She is wearing a cloak of the bisons.

And she is lying in the middle of this circle of runes.

Behind her, you see the cloaked face of the incredibly handsome, Victor Laszlo-esque Brian S.

Mitchell, reading from a massive spellbook tome.

You see two more mysterious goons, unidentified as of yet, sort of kneeling in prayer.

And swinging above Checkers, you see two children tied up and dangling from a chain.

And their names are Britannica Blue and Milton whatever girls are babies.

Oh, God.

Ah, these were the children who approached me in my dream.

That sounds very strange, but I assure you it was astral projection.

Dumb question: Is Checkers facing belly up or belly down?

She is facing belly up, and she seems to be sort of writhing in ecstatic anticipation for a

dark army.

Anybody got a knife around them?

They got a gun.

You see Brian S.

Mitchell ranting in a million tongues unknown to you, but you hear the word epidermicon several times.

Skin book.

And then you can.

Skin convention.

You hear me.

Can you imagine a less pleasant convention?

No,

I bet you it's like going to be all kinds of like skincare dance.

Yeah, I actually

walk out there with one of those like goodie bags and it would be heavy, dude.

That's a fair point.

You could not fly home without one.

That's not even the worst case scenario.

He's sort of chanting this dark rite, and the candles are beginning beginning to flicker, and wind spinning around.

The two guys kneeling in prayer are sort of mumbling the words along with him, and they seem to be saying, The pages are flesh, the book is blood, the blood is ink, the pages are flesh, the book is blood, the blood is ink, ready the spine, ready the spine, ready the spine.

And as they are doing that, Brian closes the book with a thunderous clap and pulls out a ceremonial dagger.

There it is.

There it is.

And they presume you might want to do something, so we'll let you do something there.

Guys, watch us get out of here.

They seem to be busy.

They seem to be preoccupied.

Nobody cares less about Brigade than I do, but even so.

We should probably do this.

Do they notice us?

Do they notice us?

They've not noticed you yet.

They're all pretty preoccupied.

What if I just go out there and knock over one of the candles with my feet and then shoot Brian in the face?

Because like if they need all these candles and sigils and stuff, that must mean they're really important for the thing, which means they can't do it if they're fucked up.

All right.

Let's do this quick.

Okay, you do that.

I will dive and I will grab BB.

I just can't bring myself to save Milton.

I want him safe.

Bib and Milton are swinging about six feet off the ground from a heavy chain that snakes up into a pulley and then down to a corner of the room where the chain master stands.

Another guy who just looks like he likes chains a lot.

How does one get the sensation that somebody really likes chains just by looking at them?

He had a lot of things.

I can answer this, actually.

I can answer this because I knew a guy who was like really into ropes and like that's LT.

I know why that would be.

I know why, but I'm telling you, here's how he showed it.

He had a rope on him at all times that was tying knots constantly.

Yeah, the chain guy's got a chain necklace.

Wait, he's got braces.

He's got braces.

He's got wallet chains.

He's listening to two chains.

I mean, he looks like a villain in Kingdom Hearts.

Yeah, he looks like he's like,

fucker's got buckles and chains everywhere, man.

Oh, no, heartless.

All over his robe, and they were like, look, man, you're not supposed to be.

We all have to have the same rope.

He's like, if I can't fucking rep my chains, then I'm not joining the cult.

Blake, you could try to take that lady out of the middle of the circle because it seems like that's pretty important.

I would rush her and punch as hard as I can.

Not enough to kill her, though, because it seems like her dying is part of the plan.

Oh, I want to get the chain master and then I want to pull Milton and BB up and down like a piñata so that he has a hard time hitting them.

Pulling away from, yeah, they're all blindfolded and going like, whoa!

Well, Milton's not blindfolded, but they're like,

Milton's not blindfolded because he's already blind, poor kid.

Wait, the gangster took his eyes.

Yes, damn.

So I want to step out with my gun,

point it at Brian, and say, this is going to hurt.

And don't just take my my word for it.

And I pull the trigger.

As you do that, give me another power roll.

Pow!

This is gonna be an opposed power roll.

49, so a failure.

You hear the voice of your gun, Bruhndlisa.

999, I haven't gotten to taste mine yet, little boy.

I want to taste cold blood, and then you can shoot what you want to shoot.

Yeah, how about one of the children?

We shoot up and I throw the gun down.

I just go and tap on the fucking Brian.

Francis, what what about the gun?

Don't worry about it.

It'll be back anyway.

Fuck that.

With that, we will go into combat.

Blake, you're up first.

What do you want to do?

I would like to punch the lady in the mouth.

All this is happening, but like just by circumstance, the first thing that happens is you're like, this bitch just gets it.

Well, she's clearly the whole apparatus.

Well, I mean, that's why I suggest you go after her.

It's just really funny that that's the first thing that happens.

No, well, that's good.

It's effective.

So you're going to punch her in the mouth.

She's writhing on the ground in ecstasy.

There's incense around her.

You think she's not not in combat.

So you're going to get a free hit on her.

Now this feels.

Yeah.

See, that's why, Z.

That's what I was thinking.

Hold on.

Never move, Blake.

Hold on.

She just seems like she's going to enjoy the blood.

You can just pull her away.

You know, here's what it is.

I see a weapon.

I see a knife.

I should go after Brian.

He's across the room from you through the center between him and you.

There's two guys.

There's the drugged out checkers.

And there's also two children swinging from a chain.

I'll step around the children on the chain.

I'll just take a long, curvaceous route.

Okay.

You're going to take a long, curvaceous route to get around.

Yeah, and then I'll stiff arm anyone who's trying to get in the way like a football player.

Okay, great.

We'll say you do that on your turn, but Brian sees you coming, so he readies up to square off against you.

I'm a sock'em.

I'm rock'em, sock'em robot, dude.

Sock him robot.

Do it.

All right, give me your fighting brawl roll.

Damn, 23.

That's a super success.

Oh my God.

Now the rolls are coming.

Oh, he got a 20 out of

60.

Draw initiator wins.

You get a punch off on him.

Roll damage.

1d3, ouch.

1d4.

Ouch.

Plus two.

ouch, five total damage.

Biff.

And his beautiful Laszlo-esque chin takes a big bloody hit.

It is now his turn.

He wipes the blood off of himself and he looks at you.

He looks at everybody else coming in for him.

And he realizes that, like, at this critical juncture, something horrible might happen.

So he is going to, for the moment, ignore the kids and deal with you the most pressing threat.

And he's going to slash at you with his knife, Freddy.

What would you like to do?

You're going to dodge or you're going to fight back?

You're going to fight back?

Give me a fighting brawl roll then.

Nine.

You got a nine?

Nine.

Super duper success, dude.

Fucking hell.

Okay.

Nice challenging RBG.

Be a shame if somebody rolled a nine in it.

Okay, so he got a 17 out of 60, which is just a super success.

So he takes a swing at you with his knife, and you're able to zip out of the way and give him another clock in the face.

So roll damage one more time.

Six damage.

Six damage?

Fucking hell.

Dude, 11 damage in one round?

Holy shit, bro.

So he takes another big blow to the face and he's reeling back looking staggered.

As you knock him around, you see that key on a chain flop out from his shirt as he's looking very dazed.

Like one more good punch would knock him over.

Kelsey, it's your turn.

The chain master is holding like the chain or just guarding the chain.

We'll say it's more fun if he's holding the chain.

He's holding them up.

It takes a big, strong chain boy to hold his chain up.

Okay, so if he was knocked down, they would just like drop to the floor.

Yeah.

I want to dive and knock him down, but I'm going to like grab the chain and like pull it down with him so that we both fall to the the floor

into him while holding onto the chain yeah yeah so they so they go popping up like a pinana give me we'll call that a fighting maneuver what is your build did we ever decide what your build is it should be one i write it as like one was like a giant but then every guy i've met is like a one and i'm like i'm supposed to be like a big girl okay so he's a one as well give me your fighting brawl roll matt uh 34

and my fighting brawl is 60 so just a normal success okay that's great he failed his so you you smash into him and knock him into the ground and yeah you manage to hold onto the chain so as you fall you've landed on top of him, and Milton and Bibi go lunging up into the ceiling.

I'm sitting on him like a bully.

Yeah, and you're sitting on him like a bully.

Brian, you're hurting children.

Kelsey, is that you?

Yeah.

Kelsey, you want me to give him the business?

Yeah.

This doesn't even surprise me, Brian.

Hey, you're ruining my ritual.

He shushes you.

Kelsey, give me a willpower roll.

This is you resisting the urge to immediately get up and beat him up.

I fail.

I stand up and the kids just go dropping to the ground.

Okay, so you stand up and let go because you're ready in your dukes to go clock Brian.

It is now Francis' turn.

The kids have not fallen yet.

All right, I'm going to, as quickly as I can, seeing that two chains is about to get back up, I'm just going to run over and try to kick him in the head really hard and grab a hold of the chain that Kelsey just let go of.

Oh, that's great.

Give me a fighting attack.

And he's going to dodge with a penalty dice because he's on the ground.

All right.

My fighting is a 65 and i got a 31 which is a super success super success he failed his role so roll for damage my damage is for shit three damage so he takes three it is now his turn and so it's like one of those ones like where the fucking hero punches the guy and then the guy gets up and you're like oh that's a really big guy yeah it's like we do one of those and now he like looms over you francis and he cracks his knuckles and he's like chain master's turn and then he grabs the trick he grabs the chain and he is going to do a fighting maneuver to try to wrap it around your neck okay

I'm going to try to dodge.

Okay.

I don't care about fighting back.

What did you get for your dodge?

I failed pretty badly.

Okay.

He succeeded.

So he wraps this chain around you and then holds on to one end and then you feel it go tight between his grip and now the weight of Milton and BB pulling the weight down on the other end is what's actually choking you right now.

So you are immobilized and kind of squiggling around.

So there's the two guys praying.

So they've realized that there's a big fight going on.

One of them is going to go to help Brian and the other one is going to go to help the chain chainmaster.

So the first one is going to attack you, Freddy.

He is going to run up to you and try to punch you in the back of the head.

Go ahead and roll for me, Freddy.

Dodge.

47 regular success.

Regular success.

Okay, he got a regular success as well, which means he wins.

So he's going to roll for damage.

When I dodge, I'm successful when the rolls are tied.

When you fight back, the attacker...

Oh, draw.

You're right.

You're right.

So yes, no, draw defender wins.

So yes, you dodge.

He takes a swing at you.

Just describe your dodge to me.

I just duck and he swings and he misses me entirely.

And and I go, I heard you coming.

The other one is going to attack you, Kelsey.

I'm not dodging.

I'm just going to punch as I go.

Okay, you're going to just try to like stiff arm him as you.

Yeah, exactly.

So that's a 30 and that's just normal fighting brawl.

So that's a super success.

He failed.

As you're running past, you just throw a fist out at him.

So give me a damage roll.

Fuck yeah.

Three.

A three?

I got six.

So three.

Okay, great.

I hold my fist up and I run past him and my fist hangs back for a little bit to touch his face hard.

So I keep moving forward.

all right he takes a big clock to his face he feels some teeth give out trudy it is your turn we're talking in the library worried about francis trudy's gonna grab some of the candles around oh i'm gonna roll to climb up this chain so that it takes the pressure off of francis's neck i'm getting pulled from both sides so you adding to either weight is gonna hurt me more can you explain that again bb and milton are hanging and so that's drawing the chain one way Okay, Anthony is demonstrating.

Okay.

So if he pulled here, I would hurt.

And if he pulled here, it would hurt.

What's holding that on the other side?

The chainmaster.

No, but hear me out.

Hear me up.

Be careful.

I'll come.

I'm going to explain what you're doing.

Anthony has put a mouse cable.

I'm choking on our PDSM podcast.

I put a mouse cable around his neck because holding it from either side.

Now Will's come and is holding it on one side.

So here's what I want to demonstrate because I actually think Beth is right.

Okay, so BB and Milton are hanging from one end of the pulley.

Beth, why don't you come over and demonstrate what Trudy is going to do?

Two people did.

Now I'm definitely going to come.

Anthony will tell us if he feels the mouse getting tighter on his neck or less tight.

This is Beebe and Milton are hanging down here.

So I would come here.

Far less tight.

Aha!

Ah!

Because she's actually pulling the weight of the city.

I see, I see.

Yes.

There you go.

It's science.

Science.

It's a kink is what it was.

Yeah, I knew it was going to work from the get-go.

Bondage science is what it was, Freddy.

The S in BDSM.

Francis is stuck in a chain between the chain master holding on one end and the other chain sneaking up to the ceiling and through a pulley on the other.

On the other side of the pulley, Bebe and Milton are hanging, drawing weight, which is causing the chain to be tighter.

Trudy, what do you then do?

I leap up above Francis and take the weight that's pulling upwards on his neck off the chain.

So you're pulling down on the chain on that side, which causes Beebe and Milton to go up and put some slack back in the chain, which allows Francis to breathe.

Yes.

I'm going to roll climb.

And while I'm up there, I'm going to hold the candles to the chain.

I think that fire can melt steel beams.

I thought you were going to light the guy on fire because he's in ropes.

Yeah, I'll light him on fire, sure.

Okay, great.

Did you hear that three conspiracy theorists walked into a bar?

Couldn't be a coincidence.

That's pretty good.

I'm going to light the chain master on fire.

And he's a disadvantage because he's still holding onto the chain and he's trying to choke Francis.

So give me a fighting brawl to stick him with a candle.

Okay, sick.

I got a 16 and my fighting brawl is 35.

Okay, so that's a rare super success because that's less than half.

Yes.

He failed.

He's so focused on Francis that he doesn't realize until it's too late that his cloak has caught fire.

And then you jump up on the chain to relieve the pressure on Francis' neck.

I love that.

We're back at the top of the turn order.

Blake, it's your turn.

Oh.

So you got a knife-wielding Brian S.

Mitchell on one side of you, and you have this enraged goon you just dodged from on the other.

Wait your turn, and I'm going to punch Brian.

Okay, great.

Fighting, brawl.

I'll burn one luck to get to 60 to just get to a regular success.

He does not, he failed his role.

Excellent use of luck.

So give me your damage.

Great return on investment for luck.

Six damage.

With six damage, you knock him clean the fuck out.

Brian goes flying backwards, street fighter-esque.

And you see again, once again, that blue key on the chain around his neck sort of glint in the candlelight as he flings backwards into the air and lands on the ground with a solid thud.

He is now unconscious.

Kelsey, it's your turn.

I feel like my friend Blake has a good idea, so I'm just going to leap up in the air and come down with my fists onto Brian's head.

The unconscious Brian.

Yeah.

Are you sure while your friend Francis is getting shot?

That that's the right use of your.

I mean, I'm only playing because I rolled the inability to stop myself from she's got berserker rage right now.

She's got that bloodlust.

Yeah, because I kind of have to.

Plus the DM says I lost my berserker rage, but I believe I failed my role.

You tell me if she's lost her berserker rage.

You watch somebody else punch out your biggest enemy.

Why do you you feel?

Do you still want the hit off on him?

Like, are you more tempted to hit him now that he can't defend himself?

What I do is when I see him get knocked down, I stop and I go, shh,

and then I'm going to

give me one more willpower roll for that.

Okay.

No, I passed it.

I passed it.

Okay.

If you had failed, I was going to be like that.

You just waste your turn pushing him.

But since you managed to tear yourself away and you now have the time to do something.

What's the best way I can help you now?

Fucking up the Blade Master or Chainmaster.

Chainmaster's still holding on to the chain.

He's now on fire, though.

though why not hold on to this looks like you're having some difficulty with fire

not a pun

i never say it's a pun francis you saying

what's happening i'm just trying to help you francis i'm frazzled okay you could have just not said anything

i wanted to say something

i'm screaming i can say whatever i want in this line right now huh brian oh brian huh Who's talking now, Brian?

Idiot.

And then I punched the chainmaster.

Give me an attack roll.

bastard spotting things are hidden i got four you got a four super duper success okay he got a 84 so you clobber him so roll rolling what's steam rolling these i'm gonna have a horrible rolling horribly right now give me a damage roll steamrolling these motherfuckers that is also a three freddie can you do a quick google and tell me how fire damage works in this game It looks like 1d8 damage per round.

Okay, great.

And it sure sucks that Moth Jesus' goo is super flammable.

Ooh, I love that.

I thank you, Matt.

You get advantage on your next roll for helping the DM out.

You sure he doesn't get 30 pieces of silver?

He just took another big hit to the face.

He staggers back and he lets go of the chain.

The chain has gone slack.

Milton and BB are now dropping towards the floor at a rapid rate once again.

Trudy's still holding on to it, right?

Oh, yes, she is.

Yes.

And we'll deal with that on Trudy's turn.

So I feel the heat beginning to catch onto my shirt with all the goo on it.

So I just rip off my shirt, revealing my back tattoo.

I'm sorry, you're what?

It's a tattoo of a sentient ice cream cone holding an Uzi.

No, we don't have Uzi's back then.

Never mind.

I don't have a tattoo.

I don't have a tattoo.

So I rip my shattered.

That was the thing.

That was the deal breaker.

Yeah.

I rip off my shirt.

I can't get an Uzi.

I'm not even getting a tattoo.

Yeah, not worth it.

Okay, so actually, how many people are in this room that don't like us?

Brian is knocked out.

There were the two guys who are praying, who are now up and punching people.

There's Checker Zohulahan on the floor.

And then there is the Chainmaster who is now on fire.

Okay, so four people to fight.

What's going on with the woman who's writhing on the ground?

She's still writhing, dude.

Okay, I'm just going to grab her by her robes and try to pull her out of this circle.

Ideally, knocking over candles and smearing the sigils on the ground.

Give me a strength check for that.

Fail.

As you try to pull her, she seems to be in this sort of delirious haze, but she recognizes what you're doing.

And she digs her hands into the stone floor, like and grips on the edges of the brickwork to try to resist you.

So you're only able to move her a little bit, but she's not out of the ruins.

And as you're doing that, you notice that, again, Brian, after he slammed that book shut, seemed to be ending the chanting portion of this ritual.

And the runes on the ground are beginning to glow.

The ground itself is beginning to shake.

Did I smear any of the runes while I was running up there?

You did, but I think it's too late at this point.

Whatever's happening is already happening.

Okay.

The runes are more for like the prayers.

The gods more or less know what you're going for.

I just, when I see something glowing, I assume it is currently working and that destroying it will make it not work.

Okay, it is now the chain master's turn.

Let's see if the chainmaster burns to death.

He does not, but the flames races up.

He screams in anguish as his flesh is beginning to burn underneath his robes.

He is going to abandon fighting you guys and drop on the ground and try to pull himself out of this robe as he's getting burned.

So that's going to be his turn.

Trudy, what would you like to do?

I want to get the key around Brian's neck.

Okay, great.

Go for it.

Okay.

You can kind of just run up and go grab it.

I'm going to kind of slowly get off the chain so I'm not violently like shooting the kids up into the air or like pulling them down or anything just kind of slowly get off and get the key.

You know, you can carry the chain over there with you.

Yeah, we're holding on to it.

Yeah.

So one-handed you carry the chain.

Oh, here's what we'll say.

Give me a strength check to break it off of his neck because it's on a chain around his neck.

24.

I have a 60.

So that is a super success.

Okay, great.

It snaps easily into your hand.

Goo number one, Freddy.

He sees his boss knocked out cold on the ground.

He sees the chain master, the biggest buffest guy in the room, on fire.

He sees them starting to be outnumbered really quickly, and he sees sees those fucking runes glowing on the ground and he decides in that moment that someone's got to do what needs to be done and he picks up the knife from the ground that got knocked out of Brian's hand and he realizes that Milton and BB are still far out of reach and it's up to him.

And he looks to the sky, rips his shirt open and says, witness me, mighty Zuzel.

And he slits his own throat over the body of the woman on the ground.

And his blood spills forth and splatters onto her skin and rolls down her throat into her lips.

And her eyes open and begin to glow.

And she says, yes, yes, the epidermicon!

I can feel it!

I knew I should have punched out the lying down lady.

All of a sudden, there's a violent shaking.

Her body begins to glow.

Her clothes burn away.

And then her body begins to twist and contort, almost like it's crunching in on itself.

Her face deforms and her eyeballs pop.

Her spine compacts and her rib cages seem to flatten and jut out like these like two rows of bones like sticking out of her skin.

Her skin starts to contort and peel and wrap and rearrange itself and you're watching someone transform into a book made out of human flesh.

Everybody make a sanity roll.

I succeed.

I failed.

I succeed barely.

Kelsey can't stand a fucking just such a vile use of a book.

And these are book-related stuff, dude.

Everybody fucks with our mind.

So you are going to take some sanity loss regardless.

I super, super succeed.

You super succeed.

Matt, so first thing you're going to do is give me a 1d8 sanity loss.

This is your temporary sanity.

Two.

And then give me another 1d8, and this is permanent sanity loss.

One.

Damn my.

Nice, nice, nice, nice.

So it freaks you out, but not that much.

You know, this is a fucked up book.

This book of human flesh that was once this woman.

It's about the size of like a...

A woman?

Well, no, it shrinks.

It's the size of like a really big dictionary, I would say.

You see, like scarring into the flesh that is on the cover of this thing are the words epidermicon exile.

As you're looking at it, it bursts open and like these pages made of human skin begin to flutter.

It seems to be drawing a powerful wind into it, almost like a psychic vortex.

And it doesn't seem to be affecting any of you.

Like, you don't feel like a wind pulling you towards it, but all around you, you hear things knocking over, you hear glass crashing, you hear toppling, and as you look up, you realize that every single book in this library is bouncing down the labyrinthine corridors and flying towards you at blinding speed.

You feel like the whole chamber around you begin to shake.

Debris is falling from this vaulted ceiling, and you get the impression that you're needing to make a pretty quick escape out of this place because the very structure of the labyrinth seems to be growing and changing and shifting.

What would you guys like to do?

You sure you got the key?

But we need BB and Milton.

Well, yeah, pick them up or

lower the children down onto my shoulders.

Well, you can take one.

I'll take the other.

You know, play your strong, but you don't need two kids.

I'll take BB.

Okay.

Okay.

You can take Milton.

And yes, that's wet peanut butter.

Okay, so you lower them down and then you guys take them.

Yeah, we're gonna run.

Yeah, and you're just gonna run for it.

Yeah, we got the key.

We got the kids.

as you charge off down the path you came from everybody give me a quick dodge roll to see if you get hit by a book in the face i do not but barely i slip it expertly i definitely get hit oh i do not get hit

i get hit very badly i fumble trudy gets knocked down trudy and francis both give me a 1d3 damage roll one one As that's happening, you feel the ground shake more in the labyrinth around you seem to yawn and expand, and you realize that it's growing.

And as you're running, and you see these cultists now chasing after you, and these books are whipping down to a blinding speed, you realize that to escape with your lives, you've got a whole lot more maze to get through.

Wow!

More mazes!

It's a big maze!

That's a big maze!

We might even meet one dead end in that maze!

Mother, mother, fear me.

I am the broken sky.

All I ever wanted was to feel so ordinary

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

All that I can see is a hole in the stars.

Swallowing my dreams and making them scars.

Too far, too far away.

But I'll stay

today.

Thanks so much for listening.

We hope you've enjoyed the episode.

Do you desire more audio content?

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All three parts are available now on our Patreon for your listening enjoyment.

A short tease on what you're missing out on.

Listen to this.

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In this latest episode, Matt homebrews one of his Space Marines into the fight.

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You can get these mini-series and more, like ad-free episodes, starting at just five bucks a month at patreon.com/slash dungeonsandads.

Dungeons and Dads is Matt Arnold as Kelsey Grammar, Anthony Birch as Francis Farmsworth, Will Campos as RDM, Beth May as Trudy Trout, and myself, Freddie Wong as Blake Lively.

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And our next episode coming at you February 25th.

We'll see you then.

All that I can see is a hole in the stars

Swallowing my dreams and making them scars

Too far, too far away

But I stay

today

did they have those leave-a-book take-up book things back in the 50s?

Like a public library on the street kind of thing because if I have really good library use, I should be able to use those like little like drops,

dead drops.

Those are basically dead drops, but for books.

I love it.