S3 Ep. 9 - Ass in the Hole

You check your feed and your account.

You check the score and the restaurant reviews.

You check your hair and reflective surfaces and the world around you for recession indicators.

So you check all that, but you don't check to see what your ride options are.

In this economy, next time, check Lyft.

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

Content warnings can be found in the description.

Welcome to Ghost Bros, a show where two bros hunt ghosts across America.

This is part six of our series exploring abandoned towns and buildings in rural Nebraska.

Make sure you subscribe and hit that bell to be notified of when we drop new episodes.

Anyway, on to the hunt.

It's like a World War II bunker?

Yeah.

How did you hear about it?

So my cousin, his grandpa, this guy Reggie, he died in this bunker.

I don't know if there was like a boxing match or something.

It was like super illegal.

And then there was like a big fire.

And so they said, oh, but you can see there's like

dude all along.

Yeah, it was really sus because they said they only found a couple of bodies, but there was like a bunch of people there that were supposed to have died.

But it was very like, do you remember that whole Project Heartland thing?

Like they said this was linked to that because that was in this area too.

Oh, crazy.

Yeah.

It's all tied together.

Yeah, like the government or something.

I think that's why there's so so much paranormal activity in this area?

Yeah, I think that might be part of it.

Like the spirits of the people that died in the heartland thing.

Oh shit, oh shit, just check it out, check it out, let's go.

Okay, it's just a bathroom in here.

Just a bathroom.

Wait, what's that?

What's that on the ground?

It's dry.

Dog, is that blood?

Bro, what's the EMF reader saying?

Dude, the EMF's going off the charts, man.

It's going crazy.

It's like a blood trail.

Fuck, that's a blood trail.

Splattered?

Okay, so it's like splattered.

It looks like this guy was peeing and then just started bleeding or something like that.

What is this?

It's like a bench shaft or something?

Fucking air shaft over there.

Okay, yeah, let's check this out.

It goes down like so far.

Can you see the bottom?

No, but the blood is there's like the dried blood is all over it, man.

It looks like they dumped a body down.

Dude, I'm like, I'm feeling something, dude.

It's like a cold spot.

I'm feeling like a cold spot.

The EMF reader's going crazy.

I'm going to call out.

Hello?

Is there a presence here?

Is there a presence in this air shaft?

Welcome to Dungeons and Daddies, not a BDSM podcast, instead...

a peachy podcast.

This season we're playing Call of Cthulhu, and this is the Peachyville Horror, a Call of Cthulhu actual play horror comedy podcast about four everyday schmos fighting the forces of darkness in suburban 1950s America.

Freddie, we're like nine episodes in.

When do you think you're going to get off-book with the intro?

I'm never going to get off-book.

This one's so dense, dude.

And my favorite.

Hey, Will, go fuck yourself, man.

Can I just read my intro like right off my computer?

Hey, hey, what are you going to DM without any notes, Will?

Look, Ben, the conductor always has the sheet music up.

Oh,

hey, oh, you had that ready, dude.

It's written down right here in my notes.

I do extensive prep for any singers you might throw my way.

Go ahead.

Try and say something that'll make me look stupid.

I dare you.

I'm scared now.

Are you going to sock call?

Shut the fuck up, Beth.

Wait, Beth, you can't be eating.

Beth, are you eating?

No eating on the podcast, Beth.

Maybe we should be recording at 1.38 p.m.

when it's I have eaten, I ate breakfast and now I'm hungry.

No, no, you're not going to make make us feel bad for yelling at me for eating it was the virus

we're gonna rotate

on the podcast

it's gonna rotate just between me and Beth we'll wait no Will did once I did once you want to get a big fat bite of that thing though yeah go hard well I don't have anything more to say this is a bluebird now it's just us listening to Beth Eden no this is patriotic this is

mukbang ASMR content oh big news by the way Beth is gonna be DMing her first ever one shot based on a dream she had yes I'm so excited we'll be doing that It's going to be the worst thing we've ever done.

I know.

You're not going to say what it is?

I don't think we should.

Okay.

My name is Freddie Wong.

Are we good to go?

Yeah.

Good?

Okay.

My name is Freddie Wong.

I play, who knows for how long, Tony Colette.

Tony punished Colette.

Tony stepbrother Colette.

Stepbrother, I'm stuck.

Colette.

Yeah, upside down in a ventilation shaft, the fast-talk and used car dealer who may or did not fight in World War II.

But.

Can you imagine a board that's like, stepbrother, I'm stuck.

He's like, where are you stuck?

It's like in this fucking 200-foot trench.

You couldn't fuck them.

Certainly.

That would certainly present problems for your ability to insert your penis.

This week's peachy fact for Tony.

Lord drop.

Lord drop, as it were.

Tony did not fight in the war, in World War II, but he did get drunk once with a fighter pilot.

And the fighter pilot, right, the Air Force guy, told him about the anti-G straining maneuver, the AGSM.

The what?

The anti-G straining maneuver.

Something strippers do.

It's weird for an acronym to just have one letter being an acronym.

G.

Yeah, yeah.

Like G-force.

G-force.

Okay.

I've seen videos of this.

Yeah, you go like,

it's a method to tighten up like the muscle.

So

they don't pass out when you're executing high-G maneuvers.

A little bit

of lore that might come in handy here as Tony finds himself in this compromised

jerk.

You could have done, like,

you dated like

a contortionist or something, but you think GeForce is going to help you here?

Well, this is what Tony's thinking about right now.

She's just going,

Hey, everybody.

My name is Matthew Arnold.

I play Kelsey Grammar, the happiest, snappiest school marm of Peachyville.

And you know what she always says?

A book's like a gift that you can open more than once.

Keep opening.

We're going to need like a daily calendar of these Kelsey bangers at some point.

They're all ripped off from somewhere else.

Some of them, 100%.

They say that all great teachers steal, right?

I mean, let's be honest.

As a teacher, I've had an original idea.

They just have you read books.

No, I don't read books.

Hold on.

Hold the.

Look, I was trying to be funny.

And what I said sounded a little bit more mean than what I meant.

A little more mean.

The teachers often are

showing you other people's words because that's what they're saying.

You said, quotes, have a teacher ever had an original thought?

No.

Matt!

You're marvelous teacher.

Matt Wardrop.

My mom was a teacher.

My mom was a teacher.

Happy birthday.

What's my mom's birthday?

Oh, happy birthday.

Happy birthday.

Simple fact about Kelsey Grammar is she's never had an original thought before.

She's never had an original thought.

Kelsey's pretty excited, even though she's scared right now.

She's a little bit excited because she's currently writing C, and there is some nuance between what's the difference between the catacombs and a dungeon.

So she's very excited about where they are currently located because she always thought it'd be exciting to go into a catacombs or a dungeon or something.

You be careful.

Those Gen Z kids are going to rip you to threads like wolves.

Holy shit.

Don't say that.

Don't let anyone out.

Everyone who goes into a catacomb is sort of a catacomber, if you will.

I'm Anthony Burch.

I'll play Francis Farnsworth, the most bullied kid in Beachyville.

Not for long.

You can't say that anymore.

You shot a kid.

That kid's more bullied.

Yeah,

that's a good point.

He's the most bullied.

That's That's true.

Yeah, Francis Farnsworth, the fucking alpha male badass who does what needs to be done and will never be considered problematic by anyone ever.

Francis' fact is that his favorite movie, his mom took him to once, and she said, okay, on one hand, this revolutionized filmmaking.

On the other hand, there's some stuff that you'll see.

And so that's why every year with his mother, Francis loves to watch Birth of a Nation.

Oh, God.

Sorry,

what?

What does she see in it?

The filmmaking.

Okay.

She's a weird centrist, so it felt like that's the kind of thing she would like.

Well,

go ahead and follow up Anthony's Birth of a Nation.

Yeah, sure.

I think my fact is really good.

Is this the

yes?

So, hi, my name is Beth Mae, and I play Trudy Trout, a robot, doting wife, homemaker, and mother of 2.5 beautiful children.

Peachy fact about Trudy is that she hates playing tag

because she's always IT.

No!

Beth, I'm so proud of you.

No.

She's always IT.

No.

Like it.

Like, like she's always it in tag.

And information technology, a term that's.

She's also technology because she's a robot.

Hi, everyone.

I'm Will Campos.

I'm your daddy O master

in this spooky adventure.

Don't punch your mic.

Hi, I'm Will Campos, Mike Punch.

No, no, no.

That sounds sounds terrible.

And your daddy O master for this 1950s adventure we're on.

The Daddy O master.

The Daddy Omaster.

If you put the spacing on that, that sounds so sexual.

Yeah, I'm a daddy O master.

Your daddy O master.

I'm your daddy O master.

And my master, my master.

This week for all of you is that hanging upside down for too long can be dangerous and even fatal.

Yeah, that's right.

Prolonged inversion can cause blood to pool to the head, which can lead to a number of complications, including increased intracranial pressure, high blood pressure, heart failure, and ruptured blood vessels and brain hemorrhages.

Wow.

I thought it was because if all the blood rushes to your head, you're too smart.

Yeah, no, I got a small bump.

I feel like I should get a small bump on my intelligence rolls.

I don't know about that, but you can't get a boner anymore because all your blood's in your head.

It won't go to your ding-dong.

Sounds like a challenge.

Did needing a boner help get that blood out of your brain?

Yeah, it would reserve.

That's probably true.

That's why they tell all fighter pilots to give you.

If you can convince me that Tony Collette got hard in there, I will give you one more round before you die.

Ooh, maybe he likes confined spaces.

We've established that's not true because he's claustrophobic.

All right, let's dive in.

But don't you, aren't you sexually attractive?

Nothing's sexier than the thing you fear.

Yeah, yeah.

We start with our stuck stepbrother, Tony Colette.

You are.

You're doing your G Kegels.

My G kegles.

Gigles.

My G-keggles.

You're stuck in here.

Oh, what are we going to do with you?

What are we going to do with you?

How far up am I?

Can I see anything below me?

Like, where's the...

So let's establish this first, your orientation.

Oh, I dove in headfirst.

You dove in headfirst.

100%.

Okay, so we are in a full nutty-putty situation.

So you're...

Oh, God.

Describe to me just like what Tony's feeling right now.

And we'll say it's been like five minutes.

Well, so let me ask you this.

The thing that drove Tony into the ventilation shaft was the fear of the black hole sucking chasm that he saw.

Yeah.

I've come down some distance on this and I'm stuck now.

What do I hear behind me?

Is it done?

Is it so yeah, you no longer hear this vacuum ripping through the air?

Basically, what you're hearing right now is like sort of muffled because again, you're in the air shaft and you're probably about 20 feet down now.

You hear above you sort of like groans from like maybe the survivors of what's happened, the last few people that didn't get sucked into the black hole.

But then you're also hearing like a door creak open and you're hearing footsteps descend.

And basically, what you're hearing is like the bisons that escaped, these cult members that escaped previously are coming in and they are starting to finish off the job.

So occasionally you'll hear a groan sort of abruptly cut off by a gunshot.

You're starting to hear, probably most alarmingly, like gasoline getting splashed around.

Like it feels like they're going to start burning evidence pretty soon.

And this air shaft you're in might start filling with thick black smoke.

Well, okay, so interesting.

So interesting.

Okay, so this is now kind of important.

So I think first things first, Tony has a a great degree of self-preservation instinct.

And once he's hearing,

especially when you start hearing like, uh, and then and then no more sounds from that, it's usually, you know, a good sign to keep quiet.

He's sweating bullets, and he's trying to stave off the panic that is rising within him.

Oh, that's fun.

Give me a sand if you roll.

You were laying traps for me, Will.

You were just waiting for me to say something and then hitting me with a roll.

Hey, you three, do you want to bet if Tony's going to make it out of here or not?

Sandy.

It's such an anticlimactic way for him to die that I think he's going to make it out.

Okay, you bet he's going to make it out.

No, I think he'll die.

I think there's a good chance he could have made it out, but then Freddy's going to do something to piss up

and he's going to die.

So I'm the Centrist.

Okay, so I rolled an 11 out of 70 for him.

Okay, great.

Despite your claustrophobia, despite the rising terror, you managed to get it.

I think we're going to shit together.

I think what it is is that his understanding that he's in mortal danger by freaking out is overriding his freaking out.

I see.

You know what I'm saying?

There you you go.

I don't know if that happens.

If you were scared.

I'd be like, ah.

No, he would, he would know such a thing if he did fight in World War II, but seeing as he didn't, this would be his first encounter with such an so he's finally understanding the phrase, the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

So above you, having wisely decided to keep your mouth shut, you hear closer footsteps.

And then, huh?

Oh, sorry.

I got scared.

I was going to say a rat.

Matt's.

What do you mean?

I know you're here.

There's a little rat in there with him.

Sorry, I don't like rats.

Yeah, there's a rat in there, Tony.

One down.

Hey, little guy.

Oh, yeah, yeah, guess you're looking down.

Looking down, you see a rat climbing up towards you.

How?

It's vertical shaft.

What the fuck?

Yeah, rats do that.

Don't rats do that?

They cling.

They cling.

Can rats cling like that?

They do if it's a Lovecraft rat.

It's an eldritch rat.

Hold on.

First of all, I would like to...

Wait, wait, wait.

Matt just said,

and then he derailed.

You were giving me information about what was going on above me.

Okay, so the world's AI says that rats are skilled climbers and can climb vertical surfaces like walls, pipes, and drains.

Okay, great.

Well, then there's no tool.

So isn't that impressive?

So Matt very wisely decided to add a rat to the scene.

I thought he was saying a rat.

I got scared because I'm scared of rats.

I thought he was saying a rat was coming at you because the last thing you want to do is tell a whoop.

Wait, a rat.

I'm scared of leveling up by time.

So there's a rat crawling up towards you.

Above you, you hear labored breathing from two people and you hear that little vent pop open above you.

Did you hear Shane's voice?

Were you around for that?

I may not know, but I would probably be able to tell that it was like some teen kid.

So you hear a teen kid go, oh, oh, fuck.

It hurts so bad.

I'm losing so much blood.

And then

you hear another voice, a higher voice, say, it's okay, baby.

We're going to get you out of here.

It's going to be okay.

And you're Shane say, I love you so much, Carly.

I'm so scared.

And Carly's like, it's all right.

We're going to sneak up this pipe, okay?

We're going to get out of here.

I'm going to get help.

We're going to get out of here together.

And then you hear Carly start to climb into the shaft shaft above you okay tony's gonna try and like shake himself and go

to try and cause reverberations and scary sounds to come up at carly in the hopes that she'll slip and knock him down

okay

you know the nutty putty situation is like the more you get pushed down

yeah how am i stuck so here's what i think i think that it is friction that has you stuck where you are i think you have filled up the space but the gravity momentum of you being dragged down was overcome by the sort of tactile friction of how wedged into this thing you are so in theory with enough force you could get shoved down all the way

the vending machine technique the vending machine technique okay i was and now to what extent is it the cast on my legs causing this problem that's a good question i would imagine probably your widest point is your shoulders okay okay but you tell me this is really specific but in my head i'm kind of superman posed because by diving down your arms go first.

Your arms are like, I wouldn't have jumped down head first.

I would have jumped down like arms first.

Okay.

So it feels like my arms and hands are in front of me

downward and the rest of my body is above.

So it does feel like either my shoulders or maybe my hips, my big fucking

fat Italian

Italian cake, dog.

Yes, all of that has resulted in you being log jammed in here.

Okay, so I'm going to pound my fists and make a bunch of noise in the hopes that whoever's up there falls down.

Okay, I die.

All right, I don't think you need to roll for that.

I think you just do that.

Actually, you know what?

Give me a luck roll, Freddy.

No, I don't have any.

You got it.

That's right.

I got one.

That's right.

Okay, here we go.

Here we go.

I'm feeling something in the 40s.

43.50.

No, I did not hit my luck roll.

Okay, so in that case, Carly looks down and just goes, ah, oh my God.

Oh, my God.

Oh, there's like a guy in here.

Oh, my God.

Oh, my God.

Oh, my God.

Oh, my God.

Oh, God.

She covers her back.

She's realized she made trouble.

Help me.

Help me.

Mr.

Collette?

Is that you?

Maybe.

It's Carly.

Carly.

Oh, my God.

You're stuck down there, huh?

Yes.

Wow, that's really bad.

Okay, Shane, come on, let's go.

She's peering up and she's looking up.

She's like, oh, my God.

Okay, yeah, it looks like I could barely make it.

But, Shane, I don't think you're going to be able to climb.

Shane.

Blood is slippery.

Yeah, yeah.

Shane, get in here.

Shane.

Shane.

Shane.

Shane, do you hear me?

Shane.

Shane.

Shane pokes his head into the shaft.

He's like, Carly, that looks really high.

I don't know if if I can climb up.

I'll break your fall from down here, Shane.

I'm on your side, Shane.

Shane, climb up with your hands.

You'll be fine.

Push and wedge yourself in, Shane.

It's the only way out, Shane.

Shane, do it.

Tony's like pennywise in the gutter right now.

Give me a persuade roll.

I have a 25.

That's not good.

48, fail.

Okay.

Do you want to push your roll?

No.

Shane's like, yeah, what are you fucking crazy old man?

I'm not doing that.

Okay, I just got to think for a second.

You hear Shane kind of going out for a second.

He says, Carly, what about this?

And he comes back in and hands her something.

He's like, you can tie this fire hose up at the top and I'll climb out.

Will that be okay?

And she's like, oh, yeah, that sounds great.

Wait, wait, wait, wait.

Carly, Shane, hear me out.

Hear me out.

Save a life.

If you don't do this, you'll kill someone.

Spray the hose down here for a bit until I go free.

Then you're free to go.

Oh, that's a good idea.

Wow, yeah.

We can do that.

Free cars.

Free cars, Carly.

But look, I'm a little worried that the guys are going to hear that.

So we're going to climb to the top.

Spray down afterwards.

Yes, Carly.

And then we'll spray down afterwards.

Carly, listen to me.

Listen to me, Carly.

Yes.

If you don't do this, you'll be killing a man.

Okay, you sure that I fought in the war?

You can't have a blood on your hands.

I'll haunt you for the rest of your life.

Okay, you want that?

We've already agreed to do this.

We've already agreed to do this.

Three cars for you and one of your friends.

Okay, okay, we're gonna go.

All right, so they start climbing up this shaft.

Yeah.

Carly goes up first because Shane's gonna climb up after her.

Oh, she's gonna to pull the fire hose.

She's got like the fire hose between her teeth as she's like climbing up, and then she's going to get up to the top.

And then I guess the plan is Shane's going to go up after her.

And then we're going to go from there.

Okay.

We'll say because Carly is a strong and capable young woman, she's able to climb up without having to do a roll.

She basically shimmies her way up this pipe.

We are going to give her a stealth roll to see if the bad guy's outside.

Yo, she might just get a shot up there.

Yeah.

I might have to not worry about falling in love anymore.

Oh, she did very well.

So she quiet as a fucking church mouse slips up this thing.

Solid snake over here.

Jesus.

She's looking around and you hear her whispering the joe's like, okay, I'm up here.

Oh, there's still a bunch of guys up here, but they haven't seen me yet.

I'm going to try to tie this off to something.

Just give me a couple minutes, okay?

And so she sneaks off to go do that.

You hear Shane kind of wincing in pain above you.

And get Shane to bleed on you.

He will when he climbs.

Yeah, yeah, basketball just put his leg over the edge so he can get that blood.

So you get slippery.

Shane.

Yeah.

Shane, how are you?

How are you?

How's your body positioned right now?

I'm not feeling very good, but I'm just kind of, I'm sticking my head down.

I'm looking right at your big broken legs, Mr.

Colette.

Hey, hey, Shane, Shane.

Shane, you're going to want to prepare yourself to climb quickly because the bad guys are right on your tail.

You should maybe sit up on the ledge and swing your legs over.

Okay.

You know?

And I get a good grip.

Okay, I'll get your shot.

Okay, I'm trying right now.

So he does what you say.

He sits over you and now

he's femoral blood leak on your head.

There's blood spurting down onto Ah, very good, very good.

And now I'm going to go.

Blood is kind of sticky, though.

No, no, no.

It's not.

It is not.

Somebody hasn't seen Gerald's game.

Oh, my God.

Which one's Gerald's game?

This is the one that's a little bit more exciting.

Where she's too tough to the Mad Master Escape by fucking

Gerald's game in my head, I was like, the Pixar anime short where the guy plays chess with those

R-rated version of Gerald.

Did I miss something about that Pixar anime short?

He just taps himself.

Jesus.

Okay, so now aided by Shane's bloody lubrication.

Shane is starting to bleed on you.

I want to start shimmying.

What blood would it take to lube up a man in a fucking situation like this?

That's what I'm kind of wondering.

Well, if he's dumping blood right now.

I should clarify, he's got like a tourniquet on.

Like, he's got a makeshift tourniquet on.

So he's like, he's got like a soaked bandage of a leg that is dripping some blood.

Shane, I'll let that shit loose.

Shane, you got it.

Hey, Shane, I was in World War II.

Did you tie the tourniquet right?

What do you mean?

Oh, my boy.

My boy,

you need to stem the flow.

First things first, start fresh.

Start clean.

Kick off the tourniquet and I'll walk you through the proper way of tourniqueting your leg, Shane.

This is just like Army of Two.

Give me a...

This feels like Fast Talk to me.

That's exactly what I wanted.

I got Fast Talk 55.

Okay, and we'll give you, because Shane is a little light on blood right now.

And he's an adult, and kids listen to it.

And he doesn't know you weren't in World War II.

We'll give you a bonus dice on this roll.

Good thing you did.

I went from a 64 to a 54, and my fast talk is 55.

So I beat it by one.

Shane!

Okay, so what, so

what do you want me to do, sir?

Officer, what do you want me to do, Sergeant?

Should I salute you?

Oh, no, that won't be necessary, private.

What you need to do is undo your tourniquet first.

Okay, and he undoes his tourniquet, and now his femoral artery is just spraying blood into the fucking shaft.

Shane?

Oh, God.

Shane, that lightheadedness,

that means I won't have killed him, technically.

Shane, Shane, that lightheadedness that you're feeling.

Now squeeze your neck muscles.

Go hup,

you're evil.

Okay, now, now, now take the thing that you had in your hand.

Okay.

Now wrap it around your wound.

Above the wound.

Shane.

Above the wound.

Above the wood.

Because he has no leg.

He couldn't do it below the wound.

I don't know that.

I can't see.

It's just, okay, I think I...

And then as he's doing that, Carly comes back.

Yes.

And she's like, okay, I've secured the, what the fuck?

Oh, my God, Shane.

Oh, my God.

And she echoes this down the air shaft.

And then you hear outside the flamethrower guys in the fucking hoods are like, what was that?

Someone in the bathroom.

Let's go.

Must have been a rat.

Must have been a rat.

So now you are hearing footsteps coming for you around the corner.

And Carly's like, oh my God, Shane, come with me right now.

Don't listen to anything that man says, Cam.

Come here, come here, come here.

To be fair to Carly, she wouldn't have heard me say anything, right?

She doesn't know that I instruct her.

Oh my God, Shane, you're bleeding out.

Hang on, hang on, come here.

I'm coming for you.

And she starts climbing down and reaches a hand down for him.

Shane is very delirious, but kind of recognizes and trusts the voice of Carly.

He's like, okay, baby, right?

This is this military guy.

He's saying, I should, he's teaching me how to do a tourniquet right now.

He's just doing it over.

she's like what kind of sick fuck are you trying to give him a bleed all over you so you'll slide down that bed oh my god carly's a quick one carly figured out my game really well with limited information baby hold on and you hear shane like kind of clasp his arms on carly and she starts climbing away so She's like fucking Terminator over here.

She's got her legless boyfriend draped over her shoulders.

She's climbing up this fire hose.

There's guys

spraying blood everywhere.

It's dripping down on your face.

There's guys coming around the corner.

You hear the door of the bathroom itself start to open.

And before we go any further, Freddie, there's something I wish to discuss with you.

Okay.

Which is your future on this podcast.

Oh, no.

Will you?

I would like to direct your attention.

Oh, and now that you're in this totally fucked scenario, to page 180 of the Keeper's Guidebook for Call of Cthulhu.

Okay.

The section optional rules spontaneous use of the Cthulhu Mythos skill.

Now, remember, I gave you five points points in Cthulhu Mythos skill because of your insanity freakout and said you could cast spells.

Now, unfortunately, you don't know any spells.

However, there is this optional rule.

Knowledge of the Cthulhu Mythos not only allows a character to learn and cast spells, it can also allow someone to improvise magical effects akin to spells.

This is resolved in the same way as any regular skill use.

The first player states an aim, the keeper then considers if the aim is acceptable, and then we roll for it.

So basically, you can sort of burn your mythos skills to do something vaguely magical.

so, some of the examples they have are causing harm to a physical target, banishing a monster, communing with a recently deceased.

Here's what I propose: I'm going to give you this piece of paper.

Yeah, we're going to leave Tony in this moment of suspense.

Okay, and I will give you the rest of the episode

to think of some way to bullshit your way out of this.

Okay.

And then we will resolve whatever goofy bullshit happens with Tony once we've gotten through the plot with everybody.

Now, here's my question: Did the blood lubricate my movement down at all?

Like, I'm shimmy around, and there's blood all over this, right?

Yes, you are lubricated.

Tony, lubricated, colour.

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While all that is going on, oh my gosh.

We dig in down, deep down to the entrance to the Project Heartland Command Center.

Francis, Trudy, and Kelsey have just made their way down the stairs, escaping the black hole that nearly killed you all last time.

So you're standing in like a large concrete hallway.

There's like flickering light bulbs illuminating this place, and it's wrapping around this big circular underground room.

You see four tunnels heading off into the darkness beyond.

The door in front of you is like this massive vault door.

The text above it reads Project Heartland Operations Center.

So there's one door in front of us, us, and then there's four.

There's four tunnels kind of branching off.

Like, is the door like a massive vault door that, like, a human being could not feasibly open alone?

There's like one of those bank vault tourney things on it.

And then, yeah, there's four tunnels.

There were four guys that ran down here and darted off down one of these tunnels.

Okay.

Is everybody okay, Francis?

Are you okay?

When you say that, you see that Francis is sitting up against the wall, I guess, and he's.

Oh, oh, honey, it's okay.

It's okay.

You're safe.

We're here.

We'll figure this out.

There's no need to breathe that fast.

You'll get oxygen no matter what.

That is true.

Takes long, slow breaths.

There you go.

And the gun is shaking in his hand.

He's holding it over his knees.

Hey, why don't I just take that for one second?

And he pulls it closer.

It's his emotional support gun.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay, Francis, Francis, look at me.

I know that was really scary, but you're safe, okay?

You're here with us and you're safe.

We got it.

We got to start moving.

We got to find a way out of here.

I'm assuming we hear like stuff behind us, right?

You hear like gunshots and yeah, you hear essentially the same thing that Tony heard.

We can't go back that way.

Okay.

And there's also clearly guys down here also.

So we have to be safe.

So Francis, just, I think I should hold that gun.

Or if you're going to have that gun, we need to have a gun down here because there's guys, there's bad people down here.

Francis can't make eye contact with you, but he nods.

And he stands up with the gun authority.

Would you feel better if me or Trudy held it?

He nods.

Okay.

Do you want me to hold it or Trudy Trudy to hold it?

Here's what I would look like if I were holding a gun and Trudy acts like she's holding a gun.

He hands it to Churchill.

Trudy, yeah, you're, you're, you're, if you're, if you shoot as good as you pull, I think we're going to be okay.

All right.

Well, there's four places to go.

There's this big door, but I have a feeling that if they put a big door there, it's probably not the best place to go.

Ooh.

And if there's dead bodies down here, that'd make it a catacombs.

But here, I think it's more like a bunker.

Is that really?

Is a catacomb a catacomb?

Well, yeah.

So it's Francis, good question.

So my understanding is I'm reading it right now, but my understanding is that catacombs are usually for like religious purposes and often like, yeah, they often are for buried bodies or they're underneath churches or so forth and so on.

But to be fair, I'm still learning about it.

But yeah, I think this is more like a bunker or maybe a base, but it's underground.

So there's got to be a way out of there.

As you are giving this lecture on catacombs, you hear a voice cut in over an intercom next to you and it says, hey, hey, hey, hey, who are you?

Don't answer.

Who are you?

Oh, I have not seen you before.

Why are you here?

Hey, hey, I see you.

I smell you.

I smell you.

You smell bad.

Two of you smell bad.

One of you smells less bad.

Why are you here?

He sounds like a donkey.

Who said that?

The one who does not smell bad said that.

I'm not saying that.

I am aware that you are being tricky, that you are here, and you do not need to speak, but I can hear you.

I hear you, and I understand that you are there.

Two of you smell bad.

One of you does not.

You followed the bad men in masks down the stairs, but you do not smell like them.

Oh.

Arlo thinks you may be here to help.

Oh, hi.

Okay, so you are talking to us, the three of us?

Yes, I am talking to you.

Arlo is talking to you.

Oh, oh, sorry.

We're really sorry.

We're here.

We're just, if you notice, there's like, yeah, an awful massacre happened happened up there or something.

We're just trying to get out of here.

Whoever you are, we're not, we don't mean any trouble.

We just want to leave.

There's this microphone, and then you see these little arrays.

Oh, is it at the door?

Yeah, you see it coming from the door.

We'll say, yeah, like next to the door.

Like Java's palace.

Yeah.

Again, you hear this voice say, you do not smell like them, but two of you smell like the very bad thing below.

But you do not have square badges on your chest.

Therefore, Arlo is not authorized to tell you how to stop the bad man and the bad thing below.

We are here to help because we are on a mission from Moth Jesus, who said that

our purpose was to save Peachyville.

Peachyville?

Our home.

Home.

And your home is here.

Home is where the heart is.

And this is Project Heartland, but you do not have square badges.

You seem like you may be good.

You seem like maybe Arlo can trust you?

I don't know who Arlo is.

Arlo is Arlo, an automated digital computer that oversees the day-to-day operations of Project Heartland.

Arlo is a very good computer.

Arlo runs very fast.

Arlo fetches data very fast.

Arlo.

I would love to take a look at a computer if you don't mind.

Absolutely.

I don't know a lot about them, but I'm learning.

And

wow, a computer can talk?

Like, it talks to you?

Arlo only talks to people with blue badges.

Oh, blue square badges.

Blue square badges.

Trudy, do you have any blue square badges?

Trudy is trying not to fall in love.

Oh.

Blue square badges can be found at the testing center.

Okay.

Testing center.

Well, you're a computer.

Can't you just run tests in your little computer computer brain?

I do not run the final test where the blue badges come out.

But I could no, but I could.

I'm sure you could.

Arlo could show you where the badges are, and then

because Arlo trusts you.

Arlo thinks one of you smells good, and the other two don't smell like the bad men in masks, even though they smell like the very bad thing.

Which there's there's me,

who are you?

I'm the big, lovely-shaped woman

who looks like you smell bad.

Oh, okay.

Oh, wow.

The one with the rifle.

Oh, he smells good.

Oh, yes.

Yeah, Trinity's always pretty good.

I was baking earlier.

Then again,

it was quite a bit earlier, but I was baking some marvelous stuff.

And so maybe it still smells like that.

Guys, give me like a group persuade roll to sweet talk about it.

Peer pressure roll?

I love it.

A peer pressure roll.

I fail.

You failed.

47 and my persuade.

55.

I'm persuaded.

Arlo needs help.

Arlo knows you do not have blue badges.

Okay, we have to do that.

Arlo trusts that you want to help.

Arlo will let you in.

But Arlo is watching.

This vault door slides open.

Just sort of rolls back, and it reveals basically like the reception area of a military base inside.

There's a smooth.

I know what those look like.

Sort of a one-ring of a three-ring circus, if you will.

This is hard.

You're a hard job, Anthony.

I'm really starting to appreciate it.

Yeah, no shit.

It's like a long stone floor in this hallway leading to a reception desk.

You see an American flag in the corner.

You see a picture of FDR on one wall.

It's giving very World War II vibes in here.

And on the floor, you see this big logo for Project Heartland and its insignia, its motto, Victorium Ultra Astra.

Does Kelsey know Latin?

No, not yet.

Give me an education role.

Oh, and you can suss out what this means.

She's good at, you know, English language.

Ooh, yeah, I crushed that.

I got 24 and my education is 70.

So that was a...

Oh, sick.

Okay, so then you can suss out that this means victory from beyond the stars.

Oh,

oh, is this space?

Hey, oh, Francis?

Is this truth?

Oh, is this a part of the space program?

Francis Trudy, this sign here, take a look at it.

It's a different language.

It's Latin.

I don't know very well, but I can suss out that this means victory beyond the stars.

Wow.

That's nice.

That's beautiful.

Yeah.

Wow.

Francis burst into tears.

Oh,

Francis.

Francis, what's wrong?

You said we have to keep moving.

So we keep moving.

Oh, well, there's always time to feel.

Why are you looking at the floor?

Why is he crying?

Well, yeah, we'll

figure that out.

You must help.

Can I close the big door behind us?

Sure, yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

Well, no, there's bad guys around.

Yeah, okay, yeah.

The world is in danger a lot.

And yes, but we have to stop every once in a while.

Arlo, let me put it this way.

If we continue going, we might go slower because he's having a hard time.

Whereas if we settle this now, he may be more efficient and moving.

And then Arlo cuts out.

Okay.

All right.

Francis,

we're here.

Why don't you talk to us for a sec?

What's going on?

So Francis looks to Kelsey for a second and begins to open his mouth.

And then you sort of see him change his mind and he turns to Trudy.

And he says,

you got, you're programmed, right?

You have programming?

Yes.

Well, yes.

How does it tell you what's okay to do and what's not okay to do?

That's interesting.

That's an interesting question.

I've never thought about that question before.

Well, I thought I felt it.

You know, that pool inside that tells you, yes, this is the light.

This is where the love love is.

I thought I felt it.

But now, I don't know.

Maybe it's just a a series of numbers telling me to go in one direction or the other.

And maybe the direction always leads me to the love and to the light.

But I'm sure I've made bad decisions too.

I'm sure I've done bad things too.

Tucker, Tucker gets annoyed with me so often.

And and and and and Well, what did you do, honey?

So if you've got numbers and you follow numbers to do a good thing, that means that you can be you i'm gonna ask you for help to for doing things from now on because you have the numbers and it's consistent and i did it i think i did something bad i think i did something bad and and it didn't feel bad is the bad thing and then i'm pretty sure i'm gonna do it again and uh uh i just don't know um if we can keep going now okay hey francis When we're done with this, you know, we're your friends and we're here and we will find somebody to help you, okay?

You don't need to tell us everything right now.

I know it's hard.

You're a young boy and I don't know what you you did.

You'll be okay.

Okay.

We're going to figure this out and you can talk to us anytime.

But if you want to keep moving on, we can do that so we can get out of here.

I want to keep moving.

Okay.

Okay.

Computer.

Arlo.

Oh, sorry.

Sorry.

No, Trudy.

I've never called you.

I mean, you are a computer, but you're also, you have a brain, right?

Of course.

Yeah, I don't know too much about brains.

I'm sorry.

Did you call for Arlo?

Yes, Arlo.

Sorry, Arlo.

I'll call you Arlo and Trudy.

You're Trudy, of course.

So we'll call you Trudy.

Yes.

And if I say computer, just assume I mean Arlo.

Okay.

Okay, Arlo.

Yes.

Yes.

Where are you?

Can I look at you?

So you see, if you move further in, you see beyond this reception desk, there are like three hallways.

One of them says command.

That's the one sort of dead center.

One of them says training.

And the other says Arlo.

And there's like a sort of like arrows pointing to each.

And so yes, there's the Arlo hallway.

That one says Arlo.

I can read.

Yeah, Trudy.

Arlo Hallway is my favorite late night host.

Wait, also, really quick, Trudy, you said, sorry, Moth Jesus and saving Peachyville.

Okay, I'm just trying to figure out because Arlo, we want to get out of here, but you're saying we can save Peachyville.

Yes, we can save her.

We can save Peachyville.

We can save a bunch of people, according to Moth Jesus, and, and I can do it, but we can do it.

Moth Jesus is not a recognized member of the U.S.

military, and I do not accept his authority.

However, if you are here to help, please proceed to the training center.

Okay, is this a way out of here also?

Or you need help, you said.

Yes.

And you're part of the U.S.

government.

Are you part of the U.S.

government?

Yes, I am.

I salute the flag and I say, okay, let's go help.

Which way do do you want to go?

Oh, yeah.

A team?

Which way is the experiments?

Is it a training where you get the badges?

Where you get the...

Yeah, there's the training center, which is badges.

Yeah, there's a whole bunch of low hallway, which leads to Arlo, and there's the main door.

Let's go to the training.

Let's go.

Yeah, we need badges for Arlo to talk to us.

Let's go there.

Okay.

So you walk down this tunnel and you arrive at the door for the training center.

When you step inside, you enter a nondescript white room with three chairs along one wall and a big projector screen on the other.

There's a red button on the wall above the chairs.

I press it.

The lights dim.

A window slides open on the wall.

I know a slide projector.

A window slides open on the wall above you, and a projector beams a black and white film strip onto the screen across the room from you.

Tinny orchestral music plays.

Tinny orchestral music plays in the logo of Project Heartland flickers before you.

The following information is top secret.

Speaking to any unauthorized person about what you hear or see in this facility will result in retribution by forces you cannot comprehend.

Francis' fingers instinctively go into his ears.

Victory from beyond the stars, the history of Project Heartland.

As this is going on, you're seeing like, you know, stock footage-y newsreel type stuff.

Kelsey goes into her podcasting and sets it at 1.5 speed.

Dang,

dang, dude.

1939, rogue Hollywood filmmaker Joseph Joseph Abrams performs an occult ritual at the Oak Ridge Nuclear Facility in Tennessee and makes contact with a powerful entity from beyond space and time.

In the interest of national security, public knowledge of the incident is suppressed by the FBI.

1940, Nazi sympathizers in the Hollywood studio system leak details of the Oak Ridge incident to Adolf Hitler.

In response, the Führer authorizes the creation of Occult Forschungsburo.

Its goal is to contact the Oak Ridge entity and harness its power in the name of the Third Reich.

1941.

Scientists at Occult Forschungsburo make a major discovery.

The Oak Ridge entity is merely one of a pantheon of extra-dimensional beings known as the Powers That Be.

Preliminary contact with the Powers proves extremely beneficial to the Nazi war effort.

Insights gleaned from contact with entities such as Dagon and the Cloud Thing lead to breakthroughs in torpedo technology and the V-2 rocket.

Shit.

1942.

In response to these developments, President Roosevelt approves the creation of Project Heartland, a secret occult research base dedicated to earning the favor of the powers that be and using their secrets to secure freedom and democracy for all mankind.

You have been recruited, either from the government or the private sector, to join Project Heartland in this vital task.

Over the next hour, you will face your final evaluation before receiving your work assignment, equipment, and security badge.

Soon you will see three white doors.

Enter them in whatever order you see fit, either alone or as a team.

You will be evaluated on your ability to survive what lies within.

Please begin.

The lights turn back on.

Gosh, I tell you what, Encyclopedia Britannica does not have any of this.

I've been writing every single bit of that down.

But you're going to have to wait until volume P.

It's going to be forever.

No, there's so many.

There's not just one thing.

There's information about Nazis in there.

And also very far down the line.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, well, yeah.

I'm going to get there.

I was saying, I don't, I can research before

I get there.

I'm just saying counting chickens before my hands.

It's good information.

Okay.

I see conspiracy theories.

If we were to join Project Heartland, what would our goal be?

The newsreel does not talk back to you.

Excuse me.

Excuse me, sir.

It's just a video.

Arlo, can you still hear us?

And the inner communist says, yes, Arlo is here.

Yes.

Arlo.

If we were to join Project Heartland, what is the goal for each of us individually and as a group?

That would depend entirely on how the final evaluation goes.

And as he says that, this projector screen slides up and you see three doors on the other side.

One says research, one says archives, and one says containment.

And Arlo says, The point of the final test is to ensure that each member of Project of Heartland is assigned to the right group and the right duty.

Complete the test, and you will receive your security badge, and Arlo can talk to you.

Where do we receive the security badges?

The security badges are printed in the command center.

Okay.

Of course.

Let's go to the printer.

I hope I get assigned to the job that saves Peachyville and my friends and and family.

Matt is playing this like when someone is using like Chat GPT and wants it to give you like how to like build a bomb, but it won't, but you know, I mean, it won't tell you how to build a bomb.

So Matt's in here being like, how do I make a big boom out of these household objects?

All right, do you want to go to the command center?

Yeah, I want to go to the command center.

Yeah, I mean, there's nobody here to let's just go get the badges, Arlo.

You said we just need the badges.

Let's go to the printer.

Arlo does not know if that will work, but you can certainly try.

Okay.

This follows you.

So, yeah, fucking door's locked, dude.

Oh.

Got him, dude.

The ultimate DM.

What sort of lock?

Let's shoot it.

Yeah, yeah, what sort of lock is it?

Yeah, good idea.

What sort of lock is it?

Is it a shootable?

Trudy, Trudy, do you have like one of those little things that R2D2 has?

What does R2-T2, Kelsey, 1950s school teacher?

You mean a dick?

Yeah, do you have one of those dicks?

Do you have one of those dicks?

You know that new dick you've been looking for?

Well, listen to this.

All right, fine.

All right, we'll do this.

We'll play your sick little game.

It's like one of those magnetic locks like in Jurassic Park.

The ones that even the raptors can figure out.

So if you want to be using, if you want to use, I don't know what you have as your electrical engineering skill, but I will give you a chance to either roll on it or get severely electrocuted.

Arlo, can you open this door?

Arlo cannot open the door.

Arlo is locked out of the door by the men who smell bad.

Okay.

Arlo's control over this facility is limited.

That is why Arlo summoned for help, but Arlo has not seen help.

Arlo is very scared.

How does this door open?

It is an electronic lock.

You're electronic.

I am electronic.

That is correct.

What if someone was inside?

Oh, yeah, I knock.

You knock?

Yeah.

No answer.

No, no, no.

But what if someone was...

Here's what's saying.

What if someone's inside and a fire breaks out in the facility?

Will that person have to die, Arlo?

Hey, Arlo, that's a good question.

If someone was inside and there was like a fire, would you just let them die?

I would not want them to die, but I cannot open the door because the men that smell bad blocked me off.

Carla, real quick question.

Of the men that smell bad, are any of them identified as female?

Some of the men are female, yes.

Okay,

and they still smell bad.

Yes, the men and the female men who smell bad smell bad.

Okay.

Francis, do you not think women can smell bad?

No, I'm saying,

first of all, Carly smells like roses.

Second of all, I'm trying to figure out why we smell bad and Trudy doesn't.

I mean, it could be because Trudy's a robot.

Or a cyborg or, oh, don't know.

I mean, you're a friend, is what you are.

Oh, yes, I'm a friend.

Friends smell good.

Yeah, but not us.

What do I roll to see if it can take?

And Trudy, you're, you know, you're a little friend.

Yeah.

You're a friend.

Can you check this?

Sure, I'll try to open the door.

Check out this door and open it up.

Okay.

Yeah, what do you, what do you do?

I'm going to try electric repair.

I have a 10.

You have a 10 in electric repair.

Just spend all your luck.

Okay.

To avoid doing the very obviously important repairs.

No, no, I respect it.

I respect it.

Yeah, I got a 26.

You got a 26?

Yeah.

Okay.

No, not for this.

Not for a door.

Not to just avoid the fun thing.

Well made.

This feels like a Jesus fucking bad.

You can open the door.

Don't cry.

What's your electric?

Trudy, what's your electric?

My electric repair is 10.

That seems like a major oversight.

Arlo is confused.

Why are you not going to the testing room?

Well, because we just want the badge.

Yes, but this is the way you get the badges, Bike.

Oh, I know, but I was just checking this to the door.

Sometimes they're more efficient.

I don't respect Kelsey.

Arlo respects Kelsey.

Kelsey is unconventional.

What does Arlo stand for?

Arlo is Arlo.

Arlo does not stand for anything.

Arlo is an

acronym.

Arlo stands for Amazing Robot Learning Operator.

Now the AI model is hallucinating, man.

You can't trust this data, dude.

It's just making it up.

I was thinking, Kelsey,

if we take this test, will it tell us more about ourselves?

Oh, my God.

That is why we give tests.

Here I am avoiding a test.

My favorite thing you can possibly do, trying to get to the end of the class instead of actually going through the learning process.

Trudy,

sometimes even a teacher needs to be reminded about learning.

Okay, yeah, let's go take this test.

To clarify, the electronic lock is linked to the test.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, obviously, it's still important to graduate, but I'm just saying I want to learn.

So yeah, let's go do it.

All right, you go back to the room.

Which of the doors do you want to go through first?

Whichever one's the test?

There's one called Research, one called Containment, one called Archives.

Let's just do them in order.

Oh, yeah, do you have to do all these, Arlo?

Yes, you do.

Oh, okay.

Let's do them quickly and in order.

In order.

Okay, do you you all want to go in one door?

Do all of them?

Are any of them more physical?

It is against Arlo's programming to tell you the nature of the test before he goes.

Let's go.

Left to right, so we don't forget.

Left to right.

Okay.

Take the left one.

All right, so you step into the research door.

We will see.

Kelsey's looking for encyclopedias to plagiarize.

You step into another nondescript white room.

This one has a table with three chairs, three pencils, and three test exams

set out on them.

Beside the table stands a tripod with a strange device bolted to it, a fist-sized lump of bulbous black metal with thousands of tiny wires sticking out of it.

It emits a faint hum.

The room smells vaguely of burning hair.

As you step in, you hear the same voice from the newsreel begin to speak through a speaker, and it says, Whether they are performing...

They can't hear you.

Whether they are performing an autopsy on a dimensional shambler or reconfiguring a Migo electric gun, members of our research team must demonstrate commanding knowledge of a wide variety of scientific disciplines, and they must do so under extreme duress.

To demonstrate your aptitude for such labor, you will now complete the provided exam.

For every wrong answer, you will be fired upon by a reconfigured Amigo electric gun.

Please begin.

Oh, is there anything that looks like a gun?

Yeah, so this bulbous black object standing on this tripod starts to kind of hum to life and like all of those hairs start to start crackling on end and you see sparks of electricity.

Kelsey wants to flip over the table.

Okay.

And then sit behind the table with her down with the gun between like, all right, everybody, let's just hunker down behind this table and let's do our best not to get a wrong answer.

Man, this is like back in Catholic school.

I thought, I thought the test would be like all right answers.

Oh, maybe that was silly of me.

Yeah, I know.

There's definitely wrong answers.

There are often many right answers, but that doesn't mean there's no wrong answers.

Okay, so here's how this is going to work.

Okay.

This is a group project.

Yeah, you guys can work.

There's a group.

Okay.

I have pulled up a grade nine biology quiz quiz and answers.

What?

Wait, can I also take it for fun?

Yes, you can take it for fun.

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

One of you, or all of you, and we'll take the best one, are going to give me, it's a really, oh, either science.

Oh, you probably have like one point in it, unless you dump some where is it?

It's right under ride.

Yes, I have one point.

I didn't realize.

Look, I like the system, but sometimes there's like a wild, like under ride.

Well, you can really get science tiny little thing.

There's some really wild ones because it's like, bro, I need a roll ride.

What is this?

What is this?

A fast and the furious fucking TTRV drive.

I got 70 education, but one science.

Liberal arts degree, huh?

Damn.

We'll say, everyone give me an education role and we will take the highest success.

Tony is here with you in spirit.

My edge is 50, and I rolled a 10, so I succeeded.

That's like a great success.

Yes.

Okay, great.

I only got a normie success.

43 and my education is 70.

So just, yeah, normal success.

Okay.

All right.

So here's how this is going to work then, because France has got the highest role.

I'm going to start this quiz.

I'm I'm going to ask you the questions.

The role is to determine how many seconds you're going to get to Google the answer.

Generally, this is an open notes exam, but you only get 45 seconds per answer.

Freddie, I'm going to ask you to be the official timer.com.

And so we'll go ahead and get started.

There's no cheating.

There's no Googling until the question is fully asked.

Although you can preload the question you would like to ask.

Okay.

Are we all ready?

I'm not even going to Google shit.

I'm just going to know.

Okay.

I'm just going to fucking know.

So hold on, Will, from the moment that you stop speaking, the timer starts?

Yes.

Okay.

Okay.

What does the photo in photosynthesis mean?

Light.

Light.

Okay, that's one down.

All right.

That was two seconds in.

That's okay.

Next question.

What is the root function of hair cells?

To absorb oxygen, to absorb carbon dioxide, to absorb water, to absorb water and minerals, or all of the above?

Bro, you hit them with an all-you know, that went in all or of the above, Joe.

All of the above?

The final answer?

From what I can see, it's a lot of just absorbing water.

The primary function.

Absorbing water.

primary function yeah it's probably uh the correct answer was to absorb water and minerals well francis i guess yeah francis was right well he said to absorb water not to absorb water

that wasn't a thing oh did i not say it all right fine well then you guys got off easy all right let's do it well you will hold on the game tape may have said something otherwise

no i there wasn't an option of just water what is the root function of hair cells to absorb water to absorb water and minerals or all of the above well you guys successfully gaslit the test and write the test sometimes a teacher doesn't write the test question right.

If a microscope had an ocular lens of 10 times magnification and an objective lens of 20 times magnification, what would be the total magnification?

20 times magnification, 50 times magnification, 100 times magnification, or 200 times magnification?

200, guys.

200?

Yeah.

Gotta be because the objective lens.

10 by 10?

Well, no, he's at 20.

20 by 10.

Oh, 20 by 10.

Oh, yeah.

200.

That is correct.

This is easier than I thought it would be.

Fucking.

I graduated.

I'm skipping this one.

You know what's funny is that you know the are you smarter than the fifth grader?

Do you know who's actually won that show?

A fifth grader?

One was a fifth grade teacher.

Yeah,

yeah.

And another one was like a PhD.

Do you?

Okay, if you're a fifth grade teacher and you fucking go on a show called Do you know more than a fifth grader?

As risk rule, high risk high rule.

Do you want to fail?

Well, you're done.

You're done.

Yeah.

What are the two types of vascular tissues found in plants similar to human veins and arteries?

One, cadmium and glucose.

Two, folum and cadmium.

Three, xylem and cabium.

Four, folum and xylem.

I know that's azolum and phylum, actually.

I think it's the fourth one.

Isolum and phylum.

That was super fun.

So I know that one.

How do you know that?

I was like, I was like, I don't fucking know.

Will, Will, Will.

Here's an easy one.

Just look at the periodic table and be like, which one's number one?

I know.

This is a quiz demonstrating ninth grade high school fucking knowledge.

Do we get to talk about mitochondria being the powerhouse of the cells?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Will.

Is there a mitochondria powerhouse question?

What are the four bases that make up the code for DNA?

ACTG.

Jesus Christ.

Easy, kill me.

Will you go to school?

No, no, wait.

But what do they stand for now?

Where does photosynthesis take place in plants?

Nucleus, vacuole, chloroplast, or mitochondria.

45 seconds to Google go.

The balls.

Yeah, dude.

Takes place in the balls.

Are you keeping track of time, buddy?

Take place in a plant.

The chloroplast.

You can't give them the Google, dude.

That's so powerful.

It's a chloroplast.

Oh, you should.

Oh, Will.

No Google is allowed, right?

Yeah, it's too easy now.

I can find anything in 45 seconds.

I can bet you I can find your social security number in 45 seconds.

I bet you I can find out where Taylor Scoped is right now.

I can tell you where her jet is right now.

I can tell you what she's ordering.

But she's currently at.

Francis rolled really well on his roll.

That's why you got so much time to Google.

What does DNA code instruct the cell to make?

Glucose, oxygen, protein, or blood.

Protein, it sounds like.

What is DNA?

What?

What does DNA code instruct the cell to make?

Glucose, oxygen, protein, or blood?

I feel like it's got you protein.

Gabby protein.

Everything else is a mix.

Yeah, protein.

Yes, protein.

All right, last question.

Fucking put a bullet in my head.

Animal cells have chloroplasts.

Cell wall, cytoplasm, mitochondria, and nucleus.

Wait, is this like you check them all?

Yes.

Yeah, it was not chloroplast.

They don't have chloroplasts.

They don't have chloroplasts.

They have all the rest of those.

Yeah.

Incorrect.

Cytoplasm, they don't have.

They do not have cell walls.

Oh.

Whatever.

Animal cells have a nucleus.

Oh, shit.

Yeah, cell wall is the rigid structure that plant cells have, but animals do not.

Okay, so finally, yes.

Okay, great.

My crotch has got cell walls.

They're rigid.

Yeah, we're going to put you in a place with cell walls.

No cell wall can hold me.

All right, so I'm going to roll a dice to see which one of you this electron gun is going to fire at.

We're behind the table.

I said I bought the table up.

They were all crouched down behind the table between the gun and the table.

It fires at the table.

The table explodes.

Everybody give me 1d4 of HP.

Damage.

A one.

Did one damage.

I got three.

I also got a three.

Shit.

Okay.

What are you guys down?

What are you guys at?

HP?

Five HP?

Okay.

Seven.

Ooh, okay.

And I am down to three.

To three.

You tell me you're the one who's throwing stuff at me.

Join me, Matt, in the club of almost 10 people.

I got people that love me here, and they're going to pick me up.

So, yes, the table erupts in splinters, and there's a a crack.

You feel ozone in the air.

Oh my gosh, can you imagine we weren't behind this table?

And yes, you all have nasty shards and cuts and splinters in your face.

And the door slides open again.

God, I forgot how fun it is to take tests.

No wonder you like going to school so much, Francis, right?

I've seen things.

All right, you have two doors left.

Okay.

Well, that test didn't tell me anything about myself.

I would like to take another test.

Let's go to this other door.

Well, Trudy, no, think about it this way.

It told us that the three of us together know almost everything about cells.

Whatever.

All right, which door do you want to go to?

The next one.

Left to right.

In order, it would be containment and then archives.

I hope we don't have to contain our excitement.

The room is completely empty except for three things.

A man-sized metallic box, a small steamer trunk, and an ultraviolet spotlight.

Oh, and there's a red button on the wall.

When you say a man-sized trunk, do you mean the trunk looks like a man?

I mean,

there's like a big metal box about the size of a refrigerator on the opposite wall.

As you step up.

Is it standing up like a refrigerator?

Yes, it is standing up.

Like a man.

Like a man.

Weirdly, it's standing up like a man, but the size of the body.

And the ultraviolet light is.

There's a UV spotlight.

Can I move it around?

Absolutely.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, I'm going to go grab that UV light and shine it around.

I'll push the red button.

You hear this voice pipe up in the speaker again.

Many organisms are.

We're doing good on the test.

It still can't answer you.

Many organisms from our dimension and others are summoned to Project Heartland via the ritual chamber for analysis, dissection, and interrogation.

The job of securing these specimens falls to the brave men and women of our containment team.

This work is not for the faint of heart or feeble of mind.

Please demonstrate your ability to maintain authority over hostile life forms by convincing this dimensional shambler to return to her stasis cue.

Begin.

And as he says, begin, you see like a door slowly begin to open on this metal box in the corner.

And you see like these fucking gross, fucked up feet on the bottom, you know as this thing slides up and take a picture of the feet these could be useful later and then wait what there's another box there's a steamer trunk there's a steamer trunk and a big man-sized metallic box this box pops open okay and now hulking in the now open cube is the gigantic blasphemous form of a thing not wholly ape and not wholly insect its hide hangs loose upon its frame and its rigose deadly eyed rudiment of a head sways drunkenly from side to side its whole body taut with murderous malignity despite its utter lack of facial description.

That's from good old HP.

Oh, yeah.

I threw up in the steamer trunk.

Yeah.

So here's how we're going to do this.

Okay.

The thing, as it pops open, screams like just an unearthly screech.

Before we spring into action, everybody give me a sanity roll for beholding a dimensional shambler.

Ooh, that's not a good roll.

I failed.

I have 40 sanity, I rolled a 71.

I have a 31 sanity, and I rolled a 34.

I also failed.

Everybody, give me a 1d10 sanity roll.

Meanwhile, Tony's like, this is, I'm glad I don't have to take tests.

That's three.

That's three.

So you lose three sanity points and you gain three Mythos points.

I got a fucking.

Yeah, where are those Mythos points?

It's under Cthulhu Mythos.

Okay, so to recap, you all failed your test.

Trudy and Francis got five or more sanity loss, which means the two of you now need to make an intelligence role.

You want to fail this role.

My intelligence is 65 and I rolled a one.

So that's a critical success.

Oh, boy.

boy.

Okay, I really get what I'm looking at.

My intelligence is an 80 and I rolled a 67.

So you also succeeded.

Yep.

Kelsey, you are blissfully unaware.

You're just like, wow, that's a freaky bug guy.

Yeah.

I'm not unaware.

You're not unaware.

You're just not, this hasn't got under your skin.

The two of you understand the exact terrifying implications of what you're looking at, which is a thing with a biology completely unknown to you, the utterly otherworldly and strange and horrifying.

Your entire conception conception of humanity's place in the cosmos is uh you know it's weird it's real weird weird so you are both going to go temporarily insane i need the two of you to give me a d10 dice roll one a one that's good seven

okay so uh

The confidence immediately took off.

Good, bad.

Okay, so Anthony, you're going to be insane for one round and Beth, you're going to be insane for seven rounds.

First, we're going to deal with this bout of madness.

The slapping help.

Can I slap it out of them?

Can you slap it out of them?

Slap out of them.

No, you can't slap them out of it.

But I could restart Trudy, right?

Oh, that's true, dude.

Hark.

Just a quick reboot.

She might forget some stuff, though, like who we are.

What is the immediate instinct of both of you for these characters in terms of how they would react?

They have the option that I can take control of your characters, but I don't want to do that.

That's no fun.

I was thinking that Francis would try to grab the rifle out of Trudy's hands and shoot it.

Okay, that's great.

I like that.

And I was thinking Trudy would revert to very like basic what we think about when we think about robots.

One, zero, zero, zero, one, one, one.

Okay, great.

Favorite Raymond Carper play.

All right.

Okay, that's exactly what we're going to do then.

So you rolled a one.

So for the next round, you are suffering a bout of madness, and you're going to charge at Trudy and rip the gun from her hands to try to fire at this thing.

Trudy, you are going full robot mode, you decided for Trudy for the next seven rounds.

Kelsey, you are the only one with your wits about you right now.

We're going to do this in initiative order.

Everybody give me your deck scores real quick.

Okay, my deck score is 60.

60.

25.

Francis, we're going to start with you.

Do you think Trudy would oppose his ripping the gun out of her hands?

Yeah.

Each of you, give me a strength roll.

My strength is 45.

I got a 64.

Good.

That'll make it easier if I don't have to.

I also failed with a strength of 60 and a roll of 83.

Okay, well, in that case, we'll save it.

You rip the gun out of her hands, but it falls onto the ground and you drop it.

Kelsey, it is now your turn.

So you're going to go for the box.

I want to, when he opens it, do I get a sense of what's in there?

I can see anything.

Okay, so inside the the box, you see an iron dagger and a small vial, a corked vial of liquid.

On the vial are the words, testimony of the unknown pagan.

Testimony of the unknown pagan.

Yes.

When I have this UV light, because I'm holding the UV light, you said.

Yeah.

Do I see anything around the room?

Oh, are you turning it on?

Yeah.

You don't see anything on the walls.

No.

No, I don't.

Where are you aiming it?

I'm just going to

do this.

Quick stand around the room.

Disco mode activated.

As you aim it at the shambler, it like recoils a little bit from the light.

I'm going to keep it on the ambler,

like steady.

I'm like, oh man, one of my favorite scenes.

I'm like, oh my God, what's that guy?

Multi?

No, from Jurassic Park.

No, the good ones.

Multiple.

Oh, the good ones of the rapture.

And he's friends of the rapture.

The good ones.

I'm like, steady.

I'm like, holding my hand up.

That's awful.

You just got that devilish glint in your eye when you see the girl.

He calls them the good ones.

Putting my hand up, like, steady,

as I'm walking, keeping the light on him.

Yes.

And then I want to grab the vial.

Yes, you can do that.

Can I like get any more information about it now that I'm holding it?

It's like

it's all spooky colored.

Spooky colored.

It's a spooky colored vial.

It says it's like a color I can't even describe to describe what would make me go crazy.

It's a swirling, it looks translucent.

the color shifts in the lights.

It seems like it's got potent magic energy to it.

Okay.

This is a trap.

That's cum.

That's monster cum.

That's monster cup.

Okay, buddy, just get back in there.

Get back in there, buddy.

Fashion adventuring so you said that.

Are you trying to intimidate it or are you trying to persuade it?

Chris Pratt doesn't intimidate his raptor friend.

I mean, when that's like an alpha move, I would say that that's more intimidate than it is persuade.

It's not like Chris Pratt is like, please listen to me, please, please, please.

It's persuading.

Persuade.

Fine.

Okay.

Fine.

I'll let you out.

You're going to need an extreme success on this.

Can't do Intimidate instead.

Extreme success is the.

Wait, do you have more Intimidate than Persuade?

No, no, no.

But Extreme Success is the half of it or a fifth of it?

A fifth of it.

So yeah, I have 55 persuade, which means extreme is an 11.

And I have Intimidate at 15.

But anyway, it's okay.

I'll roll.

So confident.

83, I failed.

Okay, this thing has no idea what you're saying.

But it is responding to the UV light.

Yes, it is sort of reacting and sort of like distress to the UV light.

It full-on sprints towards the door on its turn.

That's what it's doing.

Oh my god, it's got a skincare routine, and it cannot be near that UV light.

It is Trudy's turn.

What would temporarily bout of madness Robo Trudy like to do?

Is there anything in front of Trudy?

Yeah, the monster's in front of Trudy.

It's running towards the door, but you're in its way right now.

Does not compute.

And then I think I'll let it run me over.

Oh, shit.

Okay.

It's like when you're in the middle working on something and then your computer decides to do an update and restart yo but you gotta remember though trudy be dense she thick okay so she metal she is made of metal so yes the shambler is gonna clonk into you on its next turn we're back at the top of turn order francis you have gathered your wits about you once more you are staring at a rifle on the ground and you snap out of it you're still really wigged out but you have control over yourself again sure So Francis reaches for the rifle and then hesitates, the image of a blood-spurting stump entering his head, but then he grits his teeth and grabs the rifle anyway, raises it and fires it at the creature.

Give me a ranged firearms roll.

Yes.

So I still have from my training a two advantage left.

Is this the thing where I can like choose to use it or choose not to use it?

Or is it just like, hey, whatever you do with firearms roll, you have advantage.

You can burn it.

I would say declare it before you roll.

You don't get to add one after if you failed.

Okay, I'm not going to use it.

Okay.

Firearm skill is 25, and I rolled a 94.

Okay.

There's just a deafening boom in the room, and the bullet swings way wide and hits the wall.

Take that wall.

Kelsey, it's your turn.

You're seeing this thing charge straight towards Trudy, towards the door.

Okay, and Clarify, the voice said that we need to send it back home.

You need to put it back into the stasis cube.

Was that thing a cube or was it a big rectangle?

You fucking cube.

Is there a cube somewhere?

Matt Lock?

What is this?

Okay.

Fucking zero.

So first, as this thing's charging, I want to take my movement to essentially...

I'm trying to figure out how it responds.

So I'll say it doesn't like the UV.

I'm going to spin the UV light to like cast it on the door where it's running.

I'm curious if it won't run towards where the UV light is.

Does it respond when I do that?

I mean, it's no longer in the light, right?

Yeah.

So, I mean, no.

The light is on the door.

It's going to get to the door on its turn.

Okay.

I'm just wondering if it like shies away from the light.

You can see it winces.

Like, if it was scared of fire and then I threw fire at the door.

You're getting like a sort of vibe, like, this thing is going to run through the fire to get away.

Okay, but it's not happening.

No, I'm going to closeline it.

That's all I'll do.

I'm going to closeline it.

And it'll be a fighting brawl roll.

Your build is zero.

Okay.

For each point bigger the target is, add a penalty dice to the attacker's roll.

So its build is a two.

It's a beefy boy.

Oh, so it's big, big.

So yeah, give me, you're going to add two penalty penalty dice to that.

Originally, I rolled an eight, so I was so pumped, but now I rolled a 58.

But my fighting brawl is 60.

Oh, fuck yeah.

Okay, so yeah, you knock it down.

Yes.

This thing slams into your fist and falls on its sort of carapace and starts squealing and kicking its mandibles and fuzzy insect legs.

Judy, Francis, everybody, let's just get this thing back in the box.

Come on, back in the cube.

The big box has equal size on all sides.

So cube.

Yes.

You know, all cubes are rectangles, but not all rectangles are cubes.

Cube.

Symmetrical three-dimensional shape, either solid or hollow, contained by six equal.

Swears.

Yes, Trudy.

This thing needs to go into the cube.

That's what the computer says.

And I look at you.

Okay, so it is the dimensional shambler's turn next.

She's going to get up, and she's mad.

So she's going to take a swing.

Women can be anything.

Women can be women.

Women can be women.

She's going to take a swing at you, Matt.

Does it just get up?

If it's knocked down, like, and I'm like next to it, there's no like, I'm just understanding the rules are there any it's gonna burn its move action to get up oh there's no like attack of what do you call it attack of opportunity yeah anything like that if it's right next to me or trying to stop it from getting up or etc yeah i'll give you a shot on him as he's getting up we'll give it dnd rules yeah it just feels like i should be able to all right yes you get a free attack on it okay so yes give me a fighting brawl roll

63 of 60

i will

use three luck to make it a pass.

So you passed.

Yes.

Okay, so it failed.

So yes, you get an attack.

What's your damage bonus and all that?

Oh, it is 1d3.

Damage bonus, zero.

Okay, so 1d3.

One.

Now one damage on it.

Okay, it has three points of armor from its sky.

So you basically just bang your hand off taking a swing at this thing.

It is now going to take a shot at you.

Oh, okay.

So it is going to make an attack roll.

I'm going to try to dodge it then.

Okay, great.

Oh, it failed very badly.

Oh, yeah.

So, yes.

So you roll my dodge.

I guess you do.

Yeah.

I succeeded.

I got 31 now 32.

It takes this big swipe at you, and you're able to effortlessly duck underneath it.

Sort of a classic boxer duck and weave kind of move.

So now the thing is looking around.

It's really wigged out.

The door is blocked.

There's this UV light shining on it.

It starts backing away into the corner from all of you.

Okay.

So, Trudy, it is now your turn.

What was the thing you said to do?

Oh, I said put it back in the box.

Put it back in the box.

Put it back in the box.

We all got to like move like big.

You know, we're trying to scare like a mountain lion.

Put your arms in the middle.

I am only the size that I am.

But if you raise your arms, you look bigger, Trudy.

I do not know how to look.

In order to scare it, Francis looks at him and goes, do you know what it looks like when you've been shot in the leg and you lost the leg?

You have to drink piss right after?

Because I do.

Go back into box.

What is Trudy doing?

Trudy walks towards the box.

Okay.

We will say you get to the box.

What do you do?

I step into the box.

Trudy, don't go in the box.

I yell at Trudy not to go in the box.

Oh, I step out of the box.

We're going to say she went in the box.

Let me.

Oh my God, Will's getting his backpack.

Stasis cube.

Stasis, a period or state of inactivity or equilibrium.

Stasis cube.

These devices appear in a number of different shapes and sizes.

However, they all have a single purpose, to slow the flow of time.

Older cubes give ratios of one second internal time per thousand years external time, but in the future, Iutheans will advance this to one second internal time per million years external time.

When you spend one second in there, a million years will have passed.

But obviously, you guys can pull her out.

So yes, you just go into this weird white room and time now works very, very, very differently for you.

We will say for now because everything else is happening way fast around.

You're now out of the turn order until one of you guys pulls her out.

Okay.

So it is now Francis' turn.

Francis is going to run up to the door and try to pull Trudy out.

Trudy, no.

The numbers failed you.

Did she resist him pulling around?

No.

All right.

So you pull Trudy out and that is your turn.

Kelsey, you are by yourself, Mono Amano, when's it the shambler yet again?

Okay.

Are you still holding on to the vial?

Yes.

Okay.

It said.

Testimony of the unknown pagan.

I mean, I don't know.

Feels like it's always dangerous to open up a vial with the word painter.

Drink the vial.

Drink the vial.

Like, how heavy is this cube?

Like, it's a very big piece of metal?

I think all three of you guys could move it if you wanted to.

Okay.

You all succeed a strength roll.

I'll let you move it towards me.

Okay, here, I'll tell you what I thought.

And this is a dumb idea, team, but this is what I was thinking.

And you tell me if this is reasonable as a DM and teammates, you tell me if this is reasonable as a thing that our three characters would have a fun time doing together, which is,

I want if I distracted the creature by constantly flashing the UV, like you guys pushed the refrigerator, the stasis cube, like to the door.

And like, would the creature just be confused and just run through the doors just straight into the stasis cube?

So you're going to try to bamboozle it into going into the thing.

Yeah.

You can try that.

I'll let you guys try it.

Like it's the size.

Okay.

I'm going to say, Trudy, get that thing to the door, we'll make it run into it.

And then we'll do that.

The big cube that you just came out of, Trudy, your job as a robot for us now, uh, you are my robot.

So, please put that big refrigerator.

Yes,

what would you like?

Please put that big machine, my refrigerator, if you could move it over to the living room door and have it face this way so that I could get my food whenever I want.

Ah, yes.

You're a moving robot.

Ah, yes.

So many people hungry.

And then I'm going to go like, I'm going to like hold the UV light and just like keep flashing it at the creature and try to, you know, keep it panic because he says crouching into the corner now.

Yes.

This is intimidate for sure.

Okay.

This is intimidate.

You're trying to freak this thing out.

Yeah, yeah.

I failed.

How bad?

I mean, bad.

My intimate's only 15.

I'm not very intimidating.

So it is its turn.

You're flashing this thing all over it.

It's irritating.

You've actively pissed it off.

That's what we'll say because you failed.

It can't concentrate while that thing's flashing in its face.

So it's going to try to smash this UV light to the ground.

Okay.

It is going to do a maneuver now.

I can tell that's trying to hit the thing right when it's about to swipe it.

I'm going to just drop it so that it like carries this momentum through and then I'm going to try to tackle it afterwards on my turn.

Okay.

So I'm doing, you know, like holding a ball up for a little kid and then pulling it out of reach beforehand.

I'm just going to like drop this thing.

We will say that's a dodge.

Okay.

Because that's, yeah, you're trying to basically stagger it by moving out of the way and moving.

You warmed up all night dodging them punches, dog.

Okay.

24 roll on 32 dodge.

It failed.

Describe to me what happens.

I can tell that it's angry at the light.

The creature ambles over and tries to swipe the light.

I kind of hold it out and I drop the light on the floor so it kind of tumbles as it kind of swipe.

And then I'm just going to like jump on its back and try to bring it down.

Now you're doing a counter maneuver.

Yeah, we'll say.

All right, this is a little off label, but we'll allow it.

Give me a fighting brawl roll for this tackle.

That's my best skill.

63.

Am I fighting brawl roll?

I remember you got disadvantage because this is a maneuver.

You're trying to knock it to the ground.

So give me those two disadvantaged points.

Two disadvantages.

So 33.

Then I got 63.

And then I will once again use three more luck.

Okay.

So you've succeeded in your fighting maneuver.

Okay.

It staggered forward.

It sees you trying to tackle it.

And it is going to attempt a dodge.

So it kind of like staggers, but I don't grapple it or anything.

Yes, you grab it and it slips out of you.

You guys are basically back to where you started, more or less.

We'll say that's the end result.

You tripped it and it stumbled into another corner.

Yeah.

And so now it's basically a test.

I only waited for one turn to give the robot time to push it.

I'll just say that the two of you together want to give me combined strength rolls.

Both of you give me a strength check.

Okay.

No.

No, no, no.

Damn it.

I failed.

They fail in their role, which means it's back to you, Matt.

Okay.

I want to hold up the vial to it.

Does it respond in any way?

It does not.

Okay.

It doesn't seem to be a problem.

Vial.

A small container, typically cylindrical and made of glass, used especially for holding liquid medicines.

Does the dagger look scary?

Like, is it a dagger you can buy from the convenience store?

It looks like a spooky dagger

hand with.

Yeah, okay.

That's what I was asking.

It's not like a military great pocket knife.

No, no, no, no, no.

It's like an old-ass iron dagger.

It's not a Swiss Army knife.

So try to swap the UV light away.

Can I like bullfight this thing?

Like if I hold the UV light, will it like charge me?

You're trying to get it to...

I wanted to run into the thing.

Otherwise, I just tackle it.

All right.

All right.

Okay.

If you want to bullfight it, then yes, give me a persuade roll.

I mean, Francis is sane now, right?

Yes, Francis is sane.

Yes, give me a persuade roll because you're trying to goad it into attacking you.

You're not trying to scare it into not attacking you.

I got 30, 30 out of 60.

Okay, so what are you doing?

So since we both stumbled and it stumbled back, I pick up the UV light.

I'm going to like leap to in front of the box again, hoping, and I'm going to be like, hey, hey, look at this.

I still got the light.

You didn't get it away from me.

Okay, and because you have successfully done that enraged, now on its turn, it is going to once again charge at you with the goal, once again, of knocking this thing to the ground.

I'm going to look at Francis and be like, Hey, Roman, I was your teacher, and on Halloween, your favorite story was Hansel and Gretel, and the witch goes running towards the oven, and then the kids push the witch in.

Yeah, all right, let's do that play.

Just like Marvel level banter.

I love it.

On your Hansel and Gretel on three, buddy.

Oh, shit.

It is going to now make a fighting maneuver to try to swap this thing out of the ground and knock you to the side.

Now, do you dodge again?

Yes.

So I just roll on a 32.

I got a 57.

I failed to dodge.

It also failed.

Oh, nice.

It stumbles towards you.

Because you both failed.

We're going to say that he charges forward.

He does not knock it down.

Yeah.

But he does knock you to the side.

Okay.

Like your attempt to dodge it fails.

So he plows into you and you stumble to the side, but now it is basically just stumbling towards a successful maneuver could shove this thing into the stasis queue.

Then I lock eyes with Francis.

I go, Hansel,

get up on

three.

All right, Francis, it's now your turn.

One,

two,

three.

I roll fighting brawl, I assume.

Yes.

Well, say because it failed its last door with one disadvantage dice instead of two.

My fighting brawl is 74, and with a disadvantaged dice, I got 93.

Trudy, it's your turn.

Is there anything I can do for you?

Hansel and Gretel on three.

I'm so sorry.

I'm sorry, I wasn't a good Gretel.

Push the monster into the box.

It's gonna help him eat his food better if the monster is.

Don't push the monster in the box, Trudy.

Hansel and Gretel are an American industrial metal band founded in Trudy.

Run one!

Greg one!

Push the monster into the box.

Push it into the box.

Not yourself, just to clarify, don't push yourself into the box.

Push that thing.

If you don't know what that is, there's me and there's Francis and there's another thing, another creature.

That's the creature, the humanoid-looking thing.

Push that into that big rectangular object.

Okay.

Give me fighting brawl.

Fighting brawl.

What's your build?

One.

One.

Oh, so you only have one disadvantage dice when you do this.

I already failed.

39, and my fighting brawl is 25.

Okay, I'm next.

I'm top of the vestige radius from the sidelines.

Yes, it is Kelsey's turn once again, and then the chambler is going to go.

Hey, it's okay, Gretel.

Hansel couldn't do it without Gretel.

Then I stand up.

Oh, no.

I'm Hansel, I guess.

And I am going to push this monster in.

Hansel and Gretel are siblings who are abandoned in a forest and fall into the hands of a witch who lives in

the step, Hansel.

I'm stuck in the oven.

Yes, we said one disadvantage.

So one disadvantage days.

I failed.

Guys, maybe you guys should use your your luck.

Maybe Tony is going to be just right above everybody.

I'm going to use luck again.

It is the dimensional shambler's turn.

Not so easy, is it?

It is now caught-wise to what's going on because no one was able to shove it into this box.

All three of us are surrounding it.

All three of you are surrounding it.

Yeah, it better feel pretty fucking intimidated.

So it has these three bozos surrounding it, and it just starts to cast a spell.

And you see it wave its little insectoid arms in the air and jiggle them around.

He's doing the movements, bad.

He's doing the OA OA movements and is glowing and something crazy is going to happen.

I cannot attack you for the next round while it's doing this.

You have all have one final action before this thing casts its spell.

If we all choose to push together,

can we not have a disadvantage?

Cause our build.

Hansel and Gretel and their robot friends.

That's right, Francis.

What I always tell you, don't be limited by the stories you read.

You can always write your own.

You're not burdened by what is cut before you.

We're standing on the shoulders of giants, baby.

26.

You roll a 26.

And my normal strength is 60.

And my normal strength is 74, and I got a four.

Oh!

Give me a fighting brawl roll, Beth.

Okay, if I roll fighting brawl, I have 25 and I got a 25.

Okay, so that's three.

That's some very good successes.

So yes, there we go, about that.

I think I found a new nickname for this trio.

Handsome crowd on the robot?

Yeah.

We're unstoppable as long as they're at.

While the shambler is gesticulating, the three of you manage to body check it straight back into this stasis cube and as you are slamming the door shut you see it was in the middle of casting a spell to open a portal and escape trans-dimensionally from this entire plane of existence dimension is trans

but as you slam the door shut it realizes that it's going to be basically trapped in here for a thousand years staring at this fucking barely opened portal that it will never be able to open and you slam it shut i guess from its perspective it's in there for a half second and then the door opens again and there's a whole new sequence of people trying to push it back in, and then the door opens again.

I feel like a lot of people really think of the witch as the bad guy, Hanson Gretel, but like, it's really the father.

The father?

Yeah.

That abandoned him?

Yeah.

Like, it's not the witch's fault.

The witch is just hungry.

Yeah.

I guess the witch is saying,

the witch built a cabin out of candy to attract children.

Okay.

If the witch was hungry, why didn't you let some witch eat the candy, man?

How about the witch just likes candy and these kids come in?

So just because.

Wait, so do you really think that's why the house is made of candy because you just was super psyched about candy?

No,

but the kids fucking took it without asking.

Oh, so the crime is not making...

You know, Matt.

If they had knocked it, you said, hey, can we have something?

And also, to be clear, and also to be clear, you can't do a booby trap, right?

That's illegal.

A booby trap is illegal.

You can get in trouble for it.

The witch made the booby trap specifically designed to catch hungry little kids.

Look, look, they came into the house.

Castle doctrine.

Castle doctrine.

And then they started taking the shit in their house.

I'm not saying the witch is a good guy.

I'm just saying the dad is.

I'm not saying the only thing that could stop a bad guy with a candy house is a good guy.

I'm just saying that the dad should have also gotten pushed into the oven.

That's true, maybe for the sequel.

You check your feed and your account.

You check the score and the restaurant reviews.

You check your hair and reflective surfaces and the world around you for recession indicators.

So you check all that, but you don't check to see what your ride options are.

In this economy, next time, check lift.

That was not really a test.

It was just a fight.

It was just a fight.

Did we pass?

Oh, yeah.

We went to the past.

Wait, you feel the green light ding when the door shuts and then the little

plays because you passed the test.

And is Trudy back now?

Yeah, we'll say seven rounds have passed and Trudy is now.

Just hold down the button by her ear for four seconds.

So yes, the two of you are still feeling the lingering effects of this traumatic and harrowing encounter with a spooky unknown guy.

Oh, my goodness.

I'm feeling the harrowing effects of a traumatic encounter.

Trudy, what happened?

You just started talking like a computer, like Arlo.

Oh, gosh.

I'm so embarrassed.

Whenever I meet new people, I always like to be my absolute best self and put my best foot forward.

So, to know that that didn't happen, oh, how embarrassing.

Don't worry about it.

Hansel and Gretel's robot friend.

Well, if I call her a robot now, she's more than just a robot.

I mean, she's not saying that it's bad to be a robot.

She's like, she's true, she's our friend.

So it's not a big deal if I call her a robot then.

Okay, that's what you whatever makes you feel good, Francis.

Nice white woman.

There is one more room.

Should we go into this last room, team?

Yeah, just leave.

We shall go into the last room of the witch's land.

Okay.

And suck all the candy off the walls that we find despite clearly not being ours.

Still eat every piece of candy, despite it clearly being somebody else's.

Hey, you know what?

I'm back with Matt because you know what?

Who raised those kids?

That shitty dad.

The archive room contains a simple wooden table with an old, moldering, leather-bound tome on it.

There's also a pair of white cotton gloves next to it.

A numerical keypad is mounted to the wall next to a big red button.

I flip over the table and take cover behind it.

See, you did learn something.

You hear the same voice pipe up.

Project Heartland boasts the largest archive of occult material outside of Wisconsin.

This fast

in Wisconsin.

Sutras.

Our paralibrarians are charged with cataloging, cross-referencing, and curating our collection.

Please determine the proper Dewey decimal number for the book on the table and enter it in the keypad.

You have five minutes began.

Okay, well,

that's the book.

Okay, Okay, who's going to open the book?

Oh, do we have to open the book?

I just want to look at what's on the screen in the cover.

Do you want to read?

Well, Matt, it is a gift you get to open every day.

No.

Yeah.

But some books, you got to be careful who reads them because there are some crumbs.

What's the harm in reading a book?

Drew, do you want to go open the book?

Sure.

Or do you want to just look at what's on the cover first?

There's no words on the cover.

They've been lost to time.

But famously, smoldering tone.

Famously, you can't judge that book.

Black cover.

Yeah, I open it.

When you you open the book, you see that again, these pages are extremely old.

They're handwritten.

Give me an education role.

Are you guys peering over her shoulder while she does this?

Are you also looking?

I'm giving Will a suspicious look.

I am not looking at the words.

You're telling me.

You're telling me Kelsey grammar.

Sees someone open a weird old book and doesn't sneak a peek at what's inside?

No, Kelsey's already like in her reading pose.

Like it's like a late night book club and she's just like got her hand on her.

She's got

clothes at an erotically charged late night book club i did say erotically charged but of course it is and she's she's she's leaned over and she's looking at the book yes i have a 65 edge you and i rolled a 16.

don't judge a book by its cover is always my excuse when my mom comedy was like a maximum

judge

by its cover judge a dirty book by the big box of models on its cover i got an interview with this girl i just want to know what she's like.

She's really interesting.

She says she likes walking naked around the house.

Kids, back in the day, Voxy Magazine was a magazine that just had like just pictures of women.

Women holding natural women.

It was before the internet, it was even hard to just have a picture of women.

Listen, where were your sources of pictures of women?

Many would say art.

And many of those are not good.

You as a kid would sit on this joy going to museum.

Many art pictures of women aren't good

yes Beth I mean on the whole

art for the purposes of what teenage boys are picking up Maxim magazines for many of these paintings of women were not good girl with the pearl earrings so

imagine imagine how many girls

men you should spend $7.95 to just look at what you get on one Instagram account in a physical form yeah in a physical form all right

Alfred, Alfred, get my magazine.

Alfred, what are my subscriptions to the magazines, Alfred?

Sir, they've gone bankrupt, sir.

They've gone.

Alfred, what are we going to do now?

Alfred, fetch me.

Alfred, build a custom model to fetch me all the images.

If anyone else is going to take an education role,

give me awesome babes.

Okay, I'm rolling Edgy also.

My Edgy was 50.

I got it.

Oh, I got two on edgy.

Sorry, I interrupted you because I'm so excited about my two.

What are they you roll at me?

My edge was 50.

I got it.

Don't care.

I got two.

Yeah, Matt's two wins, dude.

Oh, boy.

All right.

Kelsey and Trudy both know that this book is written in old Castilian Spanish.

What the fuck?

Which is like

Castilian.

C.

Got him.

Got him.

Got him.

Which you recognize, because you did so well.

You recognize was sort of like the old English of Spanish that dates back to like the 1400s.

Francis, this is old Spanish that dates back to like the 1400s.

Cool, what does it say?

I should also mention that when you do this, the ghost of an inquisitor pops out of the book.

Nobody explained that.

So, yes, as you crack the book open, the spectral form of a salty-looking priest in Catholic garb, like in sort of medieval priest drapery, emerges from the book and says, Who goes there?

Oh, hello.

You speak English.

Who goes, sinners, heretics I see before me?

Oh, well, you came here.

We're just, we've been here.

I think people should know that Will is part Hispanic, so it's okay that he's doing this accent.

I am Padre Guillermo Campos, and I demand

you that you confess to me your sins.

Oh, we confess that we do not know the Dewey Decibel number to the book that you just popped out of.

If you could rectify that, then we can say our hairmail is.

You've provoked his wrath, Kelsey.

So he is going to blast you with psychic energy.

We're going to do an opposed pow role.

So give me your pow skill.

POW.

Batman.

40.

96.

So now you're psychic?

Oh, no, not yet.

Maybe I am.

Pow.

No, this is like you're resisting his blast of malign parapsychic energy.

So yes, he raises a hand towards you and he got a 61 and he has a pow of 75.

So he succeeds.

So your body is racked with terrifying pain as the Padre puts you under the sort of rack of his mind and demands that you tell him your deepest, darkest secret.

This guy's got a great psychic rack.

Tell me your secrets, confess to me, so I may write them in my book of confessions.

So here are your options, Matthew.

Kelsey can either fess up the darkest secret of her entire life

or she can take 1d4 sanity loss or 1d4 HP loss.

I'm going to take

1d4

sanity loss.

Just tell the truth.

It can't be worse than the stuff we already know about you.

I can't.

I can't.

So you.

I can't think of an interesting thing yet.

Now that I know.

I thought it might be something like you killed somebody in the ring.

Now that I know, this might be something that comes up.

I will have to take some time to think about a dark past greater than plagiarizing encyclopedias.

But for now,

I simply take three sanity.

Mark that down.

Three sanity.

You have three Mythos points as well.

Oh, yeah.

And Patre Campos is glaring at you and says, confess, sinner, confess.

Just also throwing it out there.

You guys remember it is a Dewey Decimal System puzzle that you're trying to figure out.

We didn't make a pirate show up.

What are you talking about?

Don't look at us.

We were at some point.

And a pirate showed up, Freddy.

You figure out, well, now you're going to get out of your situation.

You have your own fucking people's fault, Freddy.

Yeah, stay in in your fucking lane.

So, Francis goes, I confess, I have a confession.

I have a confession.

Oh, interesting.

Okay, so the pirate turned at the pirate.

Yours, everybody.

Tell me the secrets.

Shiver me the treasure.

Shiver to me timbers.

No, the book says dead man tells no tales.

I know where it goes.

I know where it goes.

It's treasure island.

I have a confession.

I've never seen it.

It's driving me nuts.

The pirate.

No, it's my inquisitor.

The pirate inquisitor, Guillermo Campo's Pirate Inquisitor, turns to you,

that's gonna change the Dewey Decimal classification.

And says, yes, young one, you wish to confess to me.

Our wedding be your dark and deadly sin.

I blew a kid's leg off and

bloodshot out of it.

And I felt really good.

Then I put his head in a urinal, and I'm gonna, and his dad is gonna wanna kill me, so I'll have to do it again to his dad.

I'm gonna have to kill his dad too.

I know.

So that's my confession.

Was the child Catholic?

I don't know.

Well, then I don't care unless he was Catholic.

But I'll write it down anyway in my book of confessions from the Spanish Inquisition.

Matt, I literally did this one just for Kelsey.

Okay.

Give me a library use role.

Ooh, thank you.

Let me see.

Yeah.

What is your skill in life?

If I have a library use role, thank you, Will, because I did put a lot in here

that perhaps we would go to a library.

And I have a 70 on library use role.

That is a lot.

That's why I can't do anything else.

Because I put a lot in library use.

So give me your role.

I got a 75.

Okay.

Anybody else?

Library?

I failed to.

I got a 59.

Francis?

I was busy googling the Duty Design Center.

Yeah, I had a 100% session.

I also Googled an answer.

There were a couple of possible answers that could be.

I think I had the answer.

946.04.

No.

That was when I was looking at it.

946.004.

I think I'm right.

Oh, really, Beth?

Yeah.

Your Google Foo is more stronger than I think it's 910.45.

910.

Yeah, ocean travel and seafaring adventures.

Anthony, what was your role?

Bad.

I I have a library used 20.

I rolled a 53.

All right.

Well, so basically, I have two versions of the Dewey Decimal classification chart.

One goes into great detail, and the other is just like a picture that you would put up in like a fifth grade classroom.

So, just to help you guys out, I didn't realize you guys were all going to just Google it.

I have this sheet with the Dewey Decimal System on it.

It's your role.

We'll say that since Kelsey's failure is the most humiliating, go ahead and just give me another.

I've never learned the Dewey Decimal system.

That's just my hate is crime.

And you're Catholic, so it counts.

I'm Catholic.

Yes, good, good.

Us as players figured out the answer, I guess.

But us as characters know not.

It says 900 history and geography.

So do we just go up in the 900s the more historical?

Are you punching these into the keypad on the wall or are you just painting?

No, I was just yelling them, but yeah, go to the

i forgot about the keypad i gotta punch in nine four six into the keypad okay you punch in nine four six and what was nine four six again history of europe nine four history of spain and iberian peninsula the button chimes green one of the things you said must have been correct uh and the fucking um the guy is still here the ghost is like okay who does anyone else want to confess to me uh no

no we're good all right well

do you want no we'll leave it's you live here i guess you gotta close the book or i don't go away.

I just stay here.

No, don't close the book, please.

I've been stuck in the book so long.

I just want to torture people and get their confessions all day.

Can you bring some more people down here to confess to me?

Youthland's rattle on three.

One.

Close the book.

Okay.

You guys emerge from the room back into the main hallway, and a little bit of celebratory music is playing.

Back in the test room, hear this voice in the wall.

Congratulations on surviving your final evaluation.

I'm not supposed to answer you anymore.

On surviving your final evaluation.

Based on your test results, we have decided that you would make a vital member of our

Did you pass all three tests?

Yes, we did.

Upper management, baby.

Yes.

Based on your test results, we have decided that you would make a vital member of our executive team.

Please collect your work equipment and report to the command center for your security badge.

Thank you, and welcome aboard.

What's there?

A job do you think requires doing high school biology, the Dewey Decimal System, and it took a monster to go back and do it.

Barely executive level leave me.

I'm really excited about this job.

Because you passed all three tests, although you did not wear the white gloves you were supposed to wear while handling a rare book because you took the table over.

A slot opens in the wall and you see three pieces of new equipment for you.

I made a joke in my head and I laughed.

I was really well behaved about it.

I was like, no, don't do it.

Well, I was behaved.

That was just my joke was really funny, so I got stopped from laughing.

It's a really funny joke in my hand.

You see three pieces of equipment in this open slot for you.

These badges?

What a hot piece of equipment.

You see, one, you see a spell book called True Magic.

You see your very own modified Migo electric gun.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, shit.

You also see, it kind of looks like a Geiger counter, but you get the sense that it maybe does something else.

I can find the guy who did Alien with me.

But yes, if you go ahead and take those items, I would like the book.

Can I have a book?

Can I have the book?

I love books.

Take it.

Well, actually, I know you like books too.

Yeah.

Okay.

Well, do you want the book?

You can have it.

Oh, okay.

Wait, do you really mean that?

Or are you saying that

while you are having that conversation, Francis has already grabbed the gun?

Oh, God.

I grabbed the book.

I guess I'll take the radiation thing.

Sorry, best.

One person is going to get the worst item.

Someone's got to play healer.

I actually think the radiation thing is the coolest thing.

Yeah.

Yeah, I'll tell you what something's radiated.

It makes that cool noise.

You hear the door to the command center.

You hear that electronic lock unlock in the distance.

Race?

Oh, it's badge time on the sides.

We all run.

Did you fucking come, Frances, confess to something in the room today?

Do you just we're all

we'll talk about that later.

We have our badges.

Sure.

Kelsey screeches to a halt.

Forget it.

Forget it.

You run back through the hallway into the now open door of the command center.

Arlo perks up on the radio.

He's like, oh, you got your badges.

Great, great, great, good, good, good.

Go get the badges.

Go get them.

Go get them.

Go.

Hurry.

Hurry, hurry, hurry.

Yeah, we're going.

As you run through this hallway and into the door, you stumble into the command center.

And what you see takes your breath away.

As you behold, so Freddy,

we're going to jump back over to you before we go to our final scene.

On the side of the wall, there's just a little thing that's just like fed staff status, and there's this one ventilation stuff that's red.

And we zoom in slowly and it fades to Tony Collette upside down inside the vent.

And Tony is freaking out.

He's trying to slip his way down and he's closing his eyes and he's wishing upon every fiber of his being to cast.

Now, here's what's going to happen.

He's going to cast a spell as the rules of the game Call of Cthulhu allow me to do.

Now, this will be detrimental to my sanity, but Tony Collette is going to wish upon a star for something to happen.

And this wish, perhaps combined with his Cthulhu mythos, will combine into a spell, according to the rules of the game.

And he wishes.

Freddie, before you say what you want to do,

I've written something down on this piece of paper because I too have been thinking about this for weeks.

Okay.

We are going to roll to see if the thing you want to accomplish happens, or you can have the thing I've written down automatically happen.

So I'm going to now pass the piece of paper to you.

Okay.

Wait, but it just says you're gay.

You are.

This is pretty funny, but I want to try my thing.

Okay.

All right.

Very well.

I'm stuck inside this, and I'm just going to.

Now I'm going to do my own thing.

I wish to be.

Do you know what Will wrote?

No, we're going to.

We'll resolve Freddie's thing first.

Maybe we'll talk about it later.

I wish to be 5%

smaller.

Like all the space between the cells just kind of squishes in a little bit.

That's it.

Just 5%.

5% smaller.

Okay, here's what we'll do.

So if Tony Collette was six feet, for example, right?

Yeah, you better not put six feet in your dating profile to show him 5% smaller.

After this,

5'8 and a half.

What?

What?

5%.

5%.

5'8 is 5% shorter than 6 feet?

Yeah, not to be that guy, but people are like, I can only date 6 feet, but not date a 5'11 person is pretty wild because it's a very small height difference.

10% of a foot is just one inch.

So 5% of a feet.

Oh, my God.

What is your current performance?

We work on a fine line here.

It's super low.

I mean, Will, hey, Will.

I can adjust this percentage.

It could be 4%.

If it makes it easier.

Technically, you're supposed to roll your Cthulhu Mythos.

You'll never do this, but you're never going to, like, that's insane.

Well, let's see if Freddie does first.

Okay, so Freddie, I'll let you do this.

Give me a power roll, is what we'll say.

Give me your power roll.

If you succeed, you will get to shrink 5%.

And then we will deal with the consequences of that in a second.

Dude, you'll be funny.

All my stats also shrink by 5%.

Every stat just goes down by 5%.

That's pretty good.

I also just realized that the three of us not once mentioned Tony.

Like, not even phased at all.

So how is 70?

I rolled an 18, which is a better than half success.

Okay, great.

Like a cat.

We will say you spend your mythos points on this.

Yes, all my mythos points.

So all five of you, and then you can recharge those.

So just to clarify, your solution, though, is that now you're going to be smaller, and you can do the thing.

that was going to kill you that you then argued forever about to prove that it wasn't going to happen by getting wedged.

So now you're just falling fast again.

Well, yeah, but I'm also further down.

But I'm further down than I was before, Matthew.

And I will be able to use my limbs to slow me down.

I understand.

That's what you came up with.

I came up with a brilliant idea to join my friends.

So you argued you were bigger before, so that you wouldn't fall fast.

And then after four weeks, you're like, no,

I'm small.

Well, not fast.

I need to be small now.

Back then, I needed to be big.

Okay, you shrink 5%.

I like the idea that all of your stats reduce by 5%.

I'll do the calculation.

Have fun doing the math on that later.

And yes, Matt is correct.

You are now narrow enough to drop like a rock down the rest of this air shaft.

Yeah, yeah.

So.

I would like to also try and like slow myself down as I feel myself falling.

Okay, well, we'll deal with that in a second.

First, let's figure out how far you fall.

So I would say it was probably like three flights of stairs.

the drop down.

But that was part way down at this point.

That's what I'm seeing.

Hold on.

I was not that high.

I thought this was like hundreds of feet down.

This might hurt.

You only have three hit points, I will remind you.

Yeah, a typical flight of stairs has 13 to 16 average.

Vertical height is 11 feet.

So 11 feet times three is 33 feet.

You're halfway down 15 feet.

Yeah, you're going to take a 15-foot drop headfirst into

hold my arms out to slide.

Okay, yes.

All right, so now give me a strength roll with disadvantage because the blood has oozed down the walls and they're lubricated now.

All right, right, I rolled twice.

Now, make sure you use your 5% less on your strength attribute as well.

Yeah, I have.

I have.

I rolled a.

I'm so excited to see what's on the bottom of the street.

So now I have a 66.5 for strength, whereas prior I had 70.

Do I round up or round down?

What's worse?

Down, step.

You round down.

66, I rolled a 4, which would have been great.

And then I rolled a 58.

Okay, so you succeed.

I succeed in slowing myself down to

non-lethal velocity.

And blood coagulates and becomes sticky.

Okay, so you slow down.

You're breaking yourself on the way down.

Yeah.

I feel like you still have to take damage.

We'll just have the damage.

How about that?

How much damage am I taking?

D6.

So, yeah, usually it's one D6 per three meters or 10 feet of free fall.

Jesus Christ.

It feels like 1d6 then, because it's like...

If 1d10 for, hold on, let me let's look it up.

Let's get it right.

I am fascinated by what's at the bottom here because it was just just a vent.

He's gonna be skipping.

Yeah, but he's gonna be just face first.

Like, he's just gonna be wedged, still upside down in a vent.

Like, it's not like this opens up, it's not like it's not like mission bottlenecks opens up into a room.

It's like, what's at the bottom?

Yeah, maybe it would have blasted through, but he slowed himself down.

Yeah, like a vent, so like a 90-degree turn at best, like, right, is down there.

You can have straight vents up, Matt.

Yeah, your entire vents out.

I'm not saying you should.

I'm just curious as to what's at the bottom of this vent.

It's up to the daddy master over there.

You're going to give me a fall damage.

Okay.

And you are going to have it.

Okay.

Because you slowed yourself down with the blood.

And then we will deal with what kind of thing you're stuck in.

Anthony ordered vegan donuts, and me, Beth, and Anthony are all just eating donuts, listening to whether or not Freddy will die.

Was it 1d6 or 1d6 plus 1d3?

No, it's 1d6 plus 3.

We're going to do the official rules.

So, yes, you're going to roll a 1d6 and a 1d3

and then have that.

Have it.

Four

plus two,

three.

So I would go down from three to zero.

Okay.

But exactly zero.

Exactly zero health.

Okay, so you are now dying and unconscious, and you're at the bottom of an air shower.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

In a room, I blow through, right?

What's the room I go into?

I wouldn't know.

I'm unconscious.

He's not going to be in a room.

He's going to be at another vent.

Wait, where is this coming from?

Things can vent straight up.

They can.

I just, and Will hasn't said it, so I was wondering, was at the bottom.

No, no, the entire prior episode's conversation was about how there's a room at the bottom.

Was there?

Yes, because it was like the volume of air in the room.

Yes.

What if it's the knife room?

What are you going to do?

Shoot straight into a giant fan.

That is.

We're not going to do that.

Here's what we'll say, Freddie.

Sure enough, yes, you drop through this air shaft.

You crash through the ceiling.

Freddy, ask you a question as a friend.

Yeah.

Do you want Tony to live?

Here's what we'll say.

I will help with what you want to have.

Here's what.

So yes, Tony, you drop like a rock.

You managed to slow yourself down just enough to not kill yourself, but not enough to not blast through the vent into the room below.

The room below is the tunnel system that everyone was just running through.

And as you crash through and smack headfirst onto the floor and become dizzy and unconscious, the last thing you see as the light begins to fade out is the feet of all of those fucking bisons that were chasing down the stairs after

Trudy, Kelsey, and Francis.

They were about to round the corner and go away, and then they turn around when they hear the noise and they see you lying on the ground, and then the lights go out.

Meanwhile,

the three of you.

I wonder what it would be if you woke up and was stuck in a vent again.

This is how they'll be executed, put it back in the vent.

I just feel about Tony, how you feel, like, you know, like when a bird hits the window and you're like, oh, yikes, is he gonna be okay?

I'm just gonna leave him there and see if he gets up on his own.

I guess I better let nature take it back.

The three of you emerge into the command center.

You step into the dusty, abandoned, former nerve center of Project Heartland, and it looks like the fucking Manson family took over NASA mission control in here.

There is shit smeared on the desks.

There's runes scrawled all over the floor.

But what really draws your eye is, again, there's like there's desks and there's like, you know, like radio equipment.

It could use a woman's touch.

Don't touch any of that.

There's a massive map on the wall, like a big war room map.

And you realize that it is a map of Peachyville and a map of Project Heartland.

And these tunnels that you've been looking at run out and extend all the way under Peachyville itself.

This facility is the size of the city.

And on this map, there are three blinking lights that denote the locations of the containment, archive, and research facilities of Project Heartland.

Next to each is a portrait of the facility's directors.

Two you don't recognize, but the director of the Project Heartland Research Facility you recognize is Tucker Trout.

My husband!

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.

Too far, too far away.

But I'll stay

today.

Thank you for listening.

One month from today, we're going to be crammed into a tour bus on the Audubon, bringing the Dungeons and Daddies live show to the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, and Belgium.

Tickets still available.

Besonders Fur die Deutschen.

Find those at dungeonsandadies.com/slash live.

Dungeons and Daddies is Matt Arnold as Kelsey Grammar, Anthony Birch as Francis Farnsworth, Will Campus is RDM, Beth May as Trudy Trout, and myself, Freddie Wong, as Tony Colette.

Our theme song is a hole in the stars by Maxton Waller.

Brian Fernandez is our content producer.

Ashley Nicolette is our community manager.

Courtney Terry is our community coordinator.

Cindy Denson is our merchandise manager.

Esther Els is our lead editor.

Travis Reeves provides additional editing.

And Robin Rapp is our transcriber.

You can support this show directly and, in return, receive a bounty of audio and video-based entertainment through our Patreon at patreon.com/slash dungeonsandads.

Get ad-free episodes and also join a vibrant Discord community where we do live listens on release days as well as chat hangouts and more.

Patreon.com/slash dungeonsandads.

There, you will join stalwart supporters of independent artists.

Like, if this was a concert hall, these people's names would be carved into the bricks.

People like Mallory Flanagan, Motoshioba, H, Andrew Nelson, John Dragovitz, Kenzie C., Kat Parker, Colleen McGuire, Abby Kinch, Sailor Mars, Bryce Van Moyers, ECB24, Simon Day, The Real Shai Mae, Ki Wee, S, Taron Van Sickle, Essek, Sinful Melody, Aaron Hope, and Cody Hayner.

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So consider these words the closest things we will get to Engraved Bricks, our website where you can find all of our merch, social media, links, and live show tickets at dungeonsandy.com.

We're going on tour in just under a month.

Episodes will still be coming out while we're on the road.

Our next episode is September 24th.

We will see you then.

Too far, too far away

that I stay

today.

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

Check one, two, recording.

If poison ivy is at the Empire State Building, then who's on her chatterbait?

Tell me you recorded that.

Yeah, we got that.

That's the blooper for sure, actually.

Holy shit.

All right.

Shit.