S3 Ep. 8 – Thing of the Ring

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I was cornered.

Sweat gathered above my furrowed brow, and my mind was racing.

I wondered who would be left standing when the droplets fell-me or the clawed sink.

Drain cleaner and pipe snake clenched in my weary fist.

I stepped toward the sink and then-Wait, why am I stressing?

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

Content warnings can be found in the episode description.

Good evening.

This is Dickie Bowles on behalf of the Anderson Ice Packing Corporation, purveyor of frozen goods to fine establishments all across the Midwest, welcoming you back to the Battle of the Bunker.

Our illegal underground title fight this evening takes place in a vaguely sinister Army bunker on the outskirts of Peachyville, Nebraska, where five-time Tri-Cities champion Dakota Johnson faces off against Kelsey, the Alpha, and the Omega Grammar in a three-round catch-weight mixed-gender fight to the finish.

Oh, oh,

sounded like a gunshot.

Oh, in the third and final round now, getting underway.

Grammar still nursing her ribs, coming out strong.

The two meeting in the middle, trading blows, and no!

Grammar is left standing as Johnson falls for the fifth time this fight.

It's taking all his effort to stagger back up.

He seems to be asking his mother if the spiders were worth it.

But Grammar's right there with a huge uppercut.

Johnson is down.

The ref is holding Grammar back, and that's it.

That's it.

The fight is over.

The crowd cannot believe it.

What an unexpected finish.

Grammar dominating that fight from the start.

And yes, it does appear that Johnson's prone body is now writhing and squirming as if containing torrents of bestial horror, which, yes, are now erupting out of him.

I struggle to describe what I'm seeing as this massive, formless shape takes hold of the referee and consumes him into its inky bomb.

What a night for boxing fans here in Peachyville.

This is Dickie Bowles signing off as I flee to the exit with the panic stampeding crowd.

But don't touch that dial.

Up next, it's Tucker Trout's World of Science only on KDS.

Oh my god, the place!

It's bad!

It's mad!

Welcome to Dungeons and Daddies, not a BDSM podcast.

Uh-uh, honey.

No, no, no.

Jake, we can't make that a thing.

No, not a thing.

Not a thing.

Shut up, Will.

Yeah, well, shut up.

Shut up, Will.

Hey, Will,

your turn.

Right now is Freddy's show.

Yeah.

It's your show when we introduce you.

Is this the only power Freddy gets to feel

five seconds?

Matt, you interrupted the last episode.

Shut up, Matt.

Shut up, Matt.

I'm sorry, guys.

Everyone, shut up.

Only Beth and I are sinless.

Yeah.

Shut up, Anthony.

This is the Peachyville horror we're doing this season.

Hey, Carl was the first one to interrupt.

Shut up, Beth.

That's right.

I have no problem saying, shut up to a woman.

I'm done.

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.

My name is Freddie Wong.

I play fast-talking used car salesman.

Tony Punished Colette.

This week's Tony Fact.

when tony gave away the car in order to secure his escape the ford fiesta the ford fiesta this is something that doesn't come through in the audio medium but i wanted to just paint a picture for those of you playing along in the theater of mind in your own minds tony made sure to stand in such a way to physically block like when he was like pick any car in the lot he like leaned against the trailer and like made sure to physically block the view from the cars he didn't actually want to give away because you know what i mean what's the prize pig of the lot?

Ooh, that's a good question.

I feel like he has a Cadillac.

He has a Cadillac that he acquired, and he's just been like quietly fixing it up on the side.

That's been his project car.

Oh, very masculine of him.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But he's also bad at it.

Like, he's trying to teach himself all this in a time before you could just look up how to do shit on YouTube.

Imagine.

Imagine, right?

Dude, 1950s YouTube.

Can you fucking imagine, guys?

Dang, dang.

Imagine there's no YouTube.

Hey, everybody, my name is Matthew Arnold, and I play Kelsey Grammar, Peachyville's happiest and snappiest school mom.

And you know what she always says?

Hey, stop it.

Stop it.

You can either learn it now or you can complain about learning at home later.

Jesus Christ, Blake, every day with you.

Anyway, so a little fact.

A little fact about

problem child.

Every fucking day.

Perhaps we will run into this Blake.

Congratulations.

Another little NPC for you to.

I'm writing it down.

Blake.

problem child.

Don't make him sympathetic.

We're probably

Blake Beth.

Let's find out, Beth.

Yeah, you had Blake Edwards, director of the Pink Panther.

Yeah.

All right.

So a little fact about Kelsey.

We know that she is now finally writing book C.

She's on the C word.

She'll get there.

And

though, I will say, so every day, Kelsey uses lunchtime to work on her encyclopedia.

And Friday is her favorite day because she's still on one word of B.

And that's because every Friday, she does extra research on burgers and she's going to have a burger.

Every Friday, she just takes a burger day.

That entry is about four pages long.

And as far as she's concerned, she still has plenty to learn about burgers.

And every Friday is a burger day.

I checked, and there was McDonald's.

In fact, I think Peachyville had a McDonald's at that point.

It was worldwide.

I looked, it was nationwide in 1960.

There's 223.

If you guys are very good,

the podcast will visit McDonald's.

Yes!

Guys, be good.

Be good.

Will, sorry for interrupting you.

As long as you don't derail the plot, maybe we'll get to McDonald's or maybe we'll just go home.

I just want one black coffee and then we leave.

Anthony.

Oh, it's me.

It's you.

I didn't realize your fact was done.

I'm sorry.

Shut up, Anthony.

All right.

No, no, I'm sorry.

Shut down allowed.

Hi, I'm Anthony Birch.

I play Francis Farnsworth, the most bullied kid in Peachyfield.

Maybe me, maybe not me more.

Maybe not once this gets out.

Francis' peachy fact is that he has learned how to cry completely silently.

Wow.

Oh, no.

No noise.

All stealth.

Tactical stealth crying.

He's the solid snake of weeping.

Do you hear the hydraulic?

I feel like somebody should get some sympathy, folks.

Yeah.

I'm just kidding.

Francis isn't special.

I can do this so easily.

Well, he's based off you.

Okay.

I think that's an honor.

Here's a question.

As someone who's had a good silent cry once or twice in his life, it's not the crying that gets you, it's the sniffle afterwards.

What's his sniffle strategy?

He just lets that shit go right into his lips.

Mucus just goes right into the cleft and just stays there until he can get his hands on a hanky.

Ironically, he would actually be able to hang out with fat bros because he's learned the same sort of techniques that you do for chugging, where just like you're

so against Lucy.

He just lets all that stuff just go straight down without draining it.

Just drain straight down in the gut.

All right, good.

He's got a good knowledge ahead of him.

Save us, Bethany.

Yeah, well, I can't.

I have probably the worst fact ever.

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 with the exception of shoes, she gets most of her clothes secondhand because she hates reboots.

Holy shit.

Guys, I remember a couple weeks ago

so far.

A couple weeks ago, yeah.

Beth came to me and she's like, it's so easy.

I'm so happy because now I'm just going to do

computer puns.

I'm going to do computer puns for all my facts.

No, I love it.

I love it.

I just, I'm, yeah.

No, I'm jealous and furious since fucking Matt went through the five senses.

Yeah, the five senses was a bigger cry.

But reboots is up there, Beth.

It's my favorite type of pun where it's a pun featuring a word that no one has ever seen.

So it's just not.

It's my favorite type of pun and that it's not that.

It's my favorite type of pun because to me, the best pun is one nobody groans or laughs.

It's just, oh,

it's just, yeah, it's specifically, it's a pun with a little bit of gaslighting in it.

It's just confidence of being like, reboots.

That's a thing.

That's what we call it.

When you get an old pair of boots, they're reboots.

If you can believe it, I had a worse one that I almost went with.

Save that.

I want that one next week.

So bad.

Next week.

It's not bad, Beth.

It's crazy.

No, it's like, it's truly rapidly.

Is it truly truly?

Yeah.

Hail and well met.

I am William Campos, your daddy.

Yeah, it's my full name.

Say it again.

William Campos.

Wow.

You founded America.

That's the name of somebody who founded America.

That's someone, the name of someone who colonized America.

Blink it out because Freddie's like, you're going to get your legal name out there and you don't want to.

I will caution my compatriots.

I feel like your middle name getting found out is relatively simple.

Just don't tell us the name of your first pet or the street you grew up on.

Or the first car you drove.

So my fact is that my first car, no,

my daddy-o fact for you all today is this, is a little quote.

Fire is popularly and quite logically held as one of the worst ways to die.

It is not quick.

The victim takes long seconds and even minutes to succumb as flesh, nerve, muscle, and eventually organs are charred to destruction.

Those who have observed such deaths give chilling accounts of the animal-like howls of the dying.

And this is from The Flamethrower by Chris McNabb.

Damn, I would have guessed it was the perspective of a book from Fahrenheit 451.

That kind of fucked me up because I just watched in From All Mankind, an astronaut gets shot by a gun and this this causes a spark in his suit.

So when they lift up his visor, he's burning inside of his suit.

And I was like, that's the worst way to go I could imagine.

So I hope there's a fire extra.

That's the way you go, you know to go so far.

Yeah, so that's what happened this week.

All right.

We all want to enter a chilling

spooky tail.

Yeah, yeah.

Actually, really quick, though, I forgot.

I had a second Kelsey fact, which is because she's a really responsible teacher and she doesn't trust the school's infrastructure, she always carries a fire extinguisher with her.

Oh,

don't buy it.

I

Damn it.

Her parents are alive, and she always gives us a fire extinguisher.

When last we left you all, Kelsey Grammer had just triumphantly won a boxing match, and Francis

dominated that match.

Kelsey just beat the snot out of Dakota Johnson, and Francis had just blown Shane's leg clean off.

Francis did better because eventually Dakota will get back up.

Shane ain't getting back up anytime soon.

He exploded into a tentacle creature.

Oh, right, right.

Yeah, he's not okay.

Yeah, so at the apex of your triumph, a horrific, amorphous black goo monster exploded from the body of Dakota Johnson and rose up and gobbled the referee up in one horrific, huge bite.

And everybody started screaming and freaking out.

You saw a bunch of cultists running for the exit.

And we will now begin combat.

How did we identify these cultists again?

I guess you just saw 15 guys running for the exit.

You just saw a bunch of guys running for the exit that looked like they were working there.

They all had the same uniform.

It said like cult of Zazaba on the bottom of the

Zazaba.

How did you know Zazaba?

Zazu, what's the Zoozell?

Zuzel.

Zazu is the bird from the light video.

First things first, Anthony, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that Britannica Blue gave you the schematics for the bunker, right?

Yes.

And we were told that there's a door underneath the ring.

I have a present for you, sir.

Will is walking across the room and handing Anthony a piece of paper.

Just says you're gay on it.

Will,

Will, this is in the 90s.

That's not funny, Will.

Okay, cool.

I got a little map.

It's a fun MS paint map/slash high-tech schematic of the area that you're doing.

You know, when a good consequence for his horrible actions is you should have taken a thing of ketchup and just like splatter it randomly and then see if half of his map is gone.

Because

he didn't do anything wrong.

He's fine.

I can see it a little bit from where I am, and it looks like a drawing of a basketball key or a booby.

Oh, wow.

That's something I can't unsee now.

Wait, let me see.

Let me see.

Hold on.

A boob.

Let me see.

A boob.

Oh, my God.

Oh, in one?

When they're this big, you only need one, baby.

Anthony, do you want to describe the map for our listening audience at home?

Sure.

So it's primarily a large circle.

The top and bottom of the circle are split into two little slices, basically, that are rooms.

On the bottom of the map, to the south, there's a supply closet and a locker room to the top there's a bathroom and another locker room and coming out of the bathroom is a ventilation shaft in the very middle of the circle is a c an areola yes in the areola there is a hatch to the lower levels marked c and then going to the left going to nine o'clock is a long protrusion which is a stairway that leads to a stairway door which leads to the surface so if we go down the we can either try to escape through the stairway out to the surface or we can try to get down which is where i think we're closer to is the uh unless the the tentacle creature is like standing on top of the hatch.

He is.

There's also a ventilation shaft near the north bathroom that we could probably get out from.

We have to go past Shane.

So we don't know what's underneath the ring yet.

You do not know what's Bibi did not go there.

Bibi left.

You guys very wisely sent BB away.

Got to take care of the children.

Everybody, give me your dexterity scores.

25.

A roller?

No, give me just your score.

My score is 60.

60 also.

25.

25.

Ooh, 60, 60, 25, 25.

Okay, so.

Why are we so not dexterous?

I'm a woman in New Suck.

Matt and Anthony, play one round of rock, paper, scissors right now.

Okay.

I'm going to do rock.

I'm going to do your paper.

Okay.

Holy shit.

They both did exactly what they said.

So Francis will do our liars.

We're not liars.

Kelsey will go second.

Trudy and Tony, same thing.

Okay.

I guess I'll do.

I guess I'll do rock as well.

Fucking idiot.

I'm going to do rock.

Okay.

Ready?

On shoot.

On shoot.

Okay.

Bitch.

You can't call me a little bit of far.

Point of.

Point of order.

We're doing that again without the B-word, please.

If you are a real ally, you just give it to me, Will.

You're right.

Beth gets it.

Beth wins.

And the three of us are near the ring, but then Francis is like up in the...

I'm in the stands, basically.

I escaped from the bathroom into the forest.

Just like Jason Thorne.

Francis walked out of the bathroom and is murdered.

Yeah, Francis is in the crowd right now.

All right, so the formal spawn is going to go first.

As I said, it just swallowed Hole, the referee slash announcer.

Now there's nobody to tell him that's illegal.

Yeah.

And you can kind of like see something twitching inside this thing.

It looks like this guy is fighting to get out.

You can hear some muffled screams.

I guess, Kelsey, you're probably the one standing closest to me.

I mean, yeah, I was trying to help the guy when I thought it had a medical issue.

Okay, and then I think I ended by saying I'm turning and running or whatever.

Kelsey, get out of there.

There's no longer a ref.

This is an unsanctioned fight.

Oh, no.

Again, this thing, it's this pulsating blob, and then tendrils will kind of shift and morph out of it depending on what it's trying to do at any given time.

Just like Venom, dude?

We have a symbiote five going on.

So this thing reaches a big old tentacle and it's just going to try to smack you out of the way.

Okay.

Oh, good.

So it's like it senses a threat near it, essentially.

Oh, yeah.

I am a threat.

It gobbled up the memories of Dakota Johnson and remembered what you did to it.

So it's going to try to just stun you a little bit right now.

And we're on like a raised ring, right?

Yes.

If I want to pull off the Kelsey's signature of diving off the stage and then rolling underneath the stage like I did the house, is that just going to be a dodge?

That's the move.

That's the move.

We'll call that two moves.

One to dive off of the stage.

That'll be your dodge.

Okay.

And then on your turn, turn, you can make a move.

I roll underneath it.

Yeah, yeah.

Now, since the bell hasn't rung for the end of the fight, do I still technically have the two advantages like that?

I got that, but it's still in the fight.

He's still on the ring.

I still stay on the ring.

You are put out the winner of the fight, Matthew.

I didn't hear the bell.

I didn't hear the bell.

There's no, hold on, point of order.

There's no bell at the end of the fight after the guy got knocked out, Matt.

But I just feel like the adrenaline is.

Ding, the bell went.

I just feel like the adrenaline I got for the advantage.

The guy running away hits a bell on the way.

No, this is scary.

This is why you don't get advantage.

Everybody, give me a sanity roll for seeing this horrible, fucked up thing.

Fair enough.

That makes sense.

I don't know.

I've seen some pretty crazy shit.

20 out of 40.

I'm

going to go ahead and get a five pass as well.

Mario.

I got shut down because Beth was looking at penises from cats and ducks last episode.

So let me reconnect.

99 out of 70.

This is some freaky shit.

Man, you got high sanity.

Turns out getting it chipped out by the horrors of World War II didn't have to happen to him because he was here.

Yeah.

Trudy says, Tony, think of all the other things you've seen that are more horrible than this and don't worry about this.

Don't you understand?

Oh, you weren't here.

35 for 40.

So pass the sanity check.

Everyone who did pass, you take one sanity point of damage.

Okay, Freddy, give me a 1d10.

Five.

Damn.

Okay.

Give me an intelligence role.

You want to fail this because it is better for you to not understand what you are seeing than to see it.

53 out of 65.

I did good.

Okay.

So you took five sanity.

How much sanity do you have now?

I have 70, but do I take five sands?

All right, so Freddy, you are now temporarily insane for 1D 10 hours.

Can you give me a dice roll of 1D 10?

Natural 10.

No, that feels fitting.

You had a lot go on in the past few hours.

I feel like you're finally.

I haven't even needed to.

It's like you just unlucky on your own.

You truly got cursed.

Okay.

All right.

Upshot.

First instance of mythos-related insanity, you get five points to your Cthulhu Mythos score.

Who the fuck is that?

It means you can learn spells.

Yo, I could become a castor, dude.

I hate to break it to you, but you're insane.

There's a monster and all three of us are panicked.

You are not going to live through that.

Imagine the Gandalf moment when Tony comes back 17 years later.

I like to think that this form, what is it called?

A formless...

Formless spawn.

Formless spawn.

I feel like I looked at you and like said like, you're a cat and like your fucking intelligence is snapping.

Insanity, this is how insanity works.

If you'd rolled really bad one, you could have gone indefinitely insane, which you did not do.

Regardless, there are two rounds of this.

In phase one, you're going to have a bout of madness.

Character loses all self-control.

Keeper may take control of the character or dictate actions to the player.

Okay.

So during this initial bout, give me another D10 and we're going to see how long this bout of temporary insanity is.

You got a natural 10, I thought.

No, that was on how long he's going to be overall insane.

Oh, 10 hours.

But his initial bout of madness, this is all very ableist and fucked up.

I'm sorry.

This is just how this is.

this is like matt you can be high for a long time but it's when you first hit that deck yeah this is like this is when you're spiraling yeah you can be high but if you're high right now you're gonna be high forever

if you're listening that's right listener

if you're high right now forever hey hey hey

frank

you're gonna be high forever

hey frank

everyone knows it dude dude you're gonna die high

We're all laughing at you, Frank.

They were legally liable if there was a man named Frank who was high that hurt himself if we said that.

I don't think so.

Frank, you can fly.

Okay, so Freddie, I've decided as the all-wise and all-knowing daddy omaster, and you roleplay this however you want, but knowing that Tony Colette is deep down a coward for the next two rounds, you are running for the stairs or you are pushing yourself because you're in your wheelchair, right?

Yeah.

So you are taking off for the stairs.

Okay.

And that's how we will do that.

And then we will come back to you in in two rounds for the ongoing roleplay effects of all of this.

Okay, cool.

For the next 10 hours.

Buckle up, listener.

Oh, also, if you suffer even another single point of sanity to loss during that phase, it will result in another immediate bout of madness.

Oh, okay.

Okay, so right now you're just running for the majority of the music.

So just be cool.

Everyone, be cool.

You guys mind if I play like this for now?

That's fine.

With binoculars.

Matt has found my binoculars and is using them now.

It's a haunting vision.

He's just sitting here in the corner of the room, just looking at everyone with the binoculars.

Matt, Jesus is like looking at that bug-eyed guy from the fucking Del Toro movie.

Matt, what are your thoughts here?

It just feels like I'm closer to all of you.

It's nice.

That's usually so far.

What?

Oh, see, I can actually see the face Beth is making.

Maybe you just need a stronger prescription.

Like, you could split the difference here.

I don't think you need this.

Anthony, you have nice skin.

All right, I don't think Matt should have these binoculars anymore.

So Tony screams,

and just starts frantically wheeling his wheelchair towards the exit, which is also where the rest of the crowd is starting to go.

That's what Fred Dale do.

Kill him.

Oh, yeah, we should give Fred Dale a sanity roll.

That's a good point.

He also failed his sanity roll.

So he is going to take 1d10 of sanity and got a two.

So he's fine.

He just sees you and he's like, you're his boss.

So he sees that you're trying to go away.

So he's just going to grab your wheelchair and help you run out the door.

So the two of you are going that way.

Okay, cool.

So there's a stampede for the exit and there's just a big bum rush for the door right now.

The formless spawn is now going to go, as I said, and he's going to take a swing at Matt or at Kelsey, rather.

And then I'm trying to dodge.

You're going to try to dodge it.

Give me a dodge roll.

32.

And my dodge is 32.

So you got a success.

Just barely.

But did it roll?

My dex is 60.

So I don't know why my half dex is 32, but you probably put some points in it.

So that would make sense.

He got a normal success as well.

And in that case, with a dodge, you win.

Okay.

This thing sweeps like a reaper's scythe, this big, flailing, thick tentacle that just oozing blackness and just straight at your head.

How do you dodge out?

I feel like I was just running and I slipped on some of the like viscous fluid on the floor and the thing missed, like, just went over my head.

And then taking that chance, I just like quickly scramble and roll off the stage.

Okay, so you splat a couple feet down onto the ground, which again, you see everybody frantically scrambling out of the way.

From down there, you also see Dakota Johnson's fight team, which was Dr.

Mann Mann and Dakota Fanning, and I think two other guys all ducking under the curtain of this box.

So they're also underneath it.

They're making a break for the door as well.

Okay.

They're like not hiding under there.

They seem like they're going towards the center of the ring.

They're making their move for under the ring, under the boxing ring.

And then, since I probably like turned around and ran back, like, am I running towards where Trudy and Yes, you're running if you want to.

Oh, yeah, where's Trudy?

Because Tony Colette's running away.

What's Trudy?

Trudy's on the platform where the boxing match was held, but I think she's going to try to sneak under the ring.

Okay, so you're going where I am.

Okay.

After the formless spawn, the cultists go.

So yes, on their move, you see four of these guys duck under the curtain, the skirt of the boxing ring, way off at the stairs leading out of the bunker.

You see another group of cultists slipping out the door and slamming it shut behind them.

What I know as the one exit, more or less, other than under the ring.

Okay.

Francis, it is now your turn.

Would it be possible to shoot and move on my turn?

I believe so.

Dog, you're going to just start shooting this formless thing.

He's in as safe a position as he will ever be in.

He's on a platform raised up above everybody and i'm beneath him so my shot is only going to go up which means it lowers the chances of hitting somebody innocent franc is just living every single call of duty player's dream just yeah shooting their bully and then you shoot a big monster

to save a couple women normally if you're shooting before you move you get a plus 50 to dex for using a readied firearm like if you've like taken aim are you moving and then shooting are you moving while shooting my thought is to shoot at a distance and then move up.

All right, give me a firearms roll.

And again, I think you still have two of your little advantage dice.

I sure do.

Okay, Okay, so yeah, give me a firearms roll with an advantage dice.

Feels so good.

I got an eight out of 25.

Okay, great.

That training paying off, dog.

You hear a deafening boom as another blast from this car 98 rips through the air.

Oh, before that happened, I went down.

So other people around me knew to get down.

Oh, that's right.

Actually.

Shit.

All right.

Well, I'll give it to you.

I should have been factoring that there's a bunch of people running around you and one of them might have gotten shot because you're aiming up.

But you did a really good shot.

So, okay.

So, yes, the bullet sails through the air.

People dive out of your way.

They're barely listening to you as they're screaming and scrambling for the exit.

And you see the bullet sink straight into this formless spawn and it appears to do absolutely nothing.

Oh, I don't roll damage?

You can roll damage if you want.

Okay, I got 11 damage.

Okay, it does nothing.

All right, great.

Basically, you just see the bullet hit this thing, and then it just sinks into the black goo that makes up its heaving, writhing mass.

Cool.

I just saw Kelsey try to go under the ring.

And I feel like I got to protect Kelsey, so I'm going to go under the ring.

Ooh, so you're going against the flow of traffic.

What's your move score?

Eight.

We'll say this round, you can get to Kelsey, but you cannot get under the skirt of the thing yet.

Okay.

So Francis has just run up to you.

Okay, so you're at me?

Yeah.

Oh, okay.

Give me a spot hidden, check.

Damn, I'm too good at spot hidden.

I'm going to see 39.

Yes, I pass.

Okay, so I'm going back to Dexter in my brain when Dexter is doing that blood spatter analysis.

Dexter's sitting in that white room with a weird mannequin full of blood, and he shoots the mannequin in the back of the knee, and a bunch of blood explodes.

Would there be blood on Dexter?

I think it's realistic that there is blood, and you picked him up by the scrub.

Oh, yes, yes, he was.

There would be blood on my legs, probably.

Yeah, his legs are covered in blood.

Oh, my God, Francis, are you okay?

Are you hurt?

There's blood all over you.

Yeah,

you should see the other guy.

What?

Okay.

Okay, Trudy.

Trudy, I'm going to look at Trudy.

God damn, I'm just going to have to fucking leave you.

Where's Tony?

You don't care about me.

Tony, Fred Dale is pushing Tony with the rest of the stampede.

We're going to get you out out of here mr collin and i see that they're gonna close the door they've just slammed the door okay okay can i where i'm going yes

can i use my move can i use my move to pull trudy down i want to pull her off the stage she says she's standing up on the ring or the platform the cut man wouldn't be like on the platform right the cut man would be like i think at the end in the end of the fight yeah okay yeah she's up there you can as your action do it basically a non-resisted maneuver to bring her down that's what i want to do i want to like grab her by the bring matt arnold to pick up the other characters characters and move them where he wants her.

She won't be eaten by this thing.

That doesn't take comfort.

So, yes, I'm going to go, Trudy, down.

And I'm going to pull your feet to bring you down.

She's a robot.

How much should you weigh?

Yeah, I was actually about to say that.

I say the entire time she goes on a scale, she's like, oh, 500 pounds.

That's a lot.

Do you feel like Trudy is like 500 pounds?

Do you feel like she's like super heavy, or does that not make any sense?

It doesn't make any sense.

She'd be breaking shit all over her place.

Just describe you picking up Trudy and I think I'm literally just like grabbing her by the legs and like sliding her.

Like I'm like pulling the legs up every time.

You've seen that in a tag team match.

Yeah, I'm just like, the guys on the other side, they pull and they might take the legs.

She might hurt her butt, but I think it's worth it.

But it's worth it to not get fucking swiped by this like creature.

Okay, so you've yoinked her off the stage.

Close the door.

There's no exit.

We got to get the hatch.

I saw there's cultists or somebody went down there.

Let's go.

Before you do that, I have one more favor to ask you.

Oh, okay.

What do you think is the most important part of learning to read?

Oh, Trudy, that.

Okay, well, sure, let's talk about this.

I guess there's a few

things I love more than read.

The most important part about learning to read?

Yes.

Well, reading is a window to the entire world.

Like, even if you're just stuck in a small title.

Even worlds I can't understand.

Even worlds you can't understand.

Yeah.

Yes.

And you can't possibly know everything.

So like, if you know something and you want to share with other people, the best way to do that is write it down.

So like, why are you asking me this?

We got a fucking room.

I'm going to move towards the hatch.

Okay, so you're going to go under the curtain?

Yes.

All right.

As you go under the curtain, you see the last of the cultists slipping down a set of stairs and and he locks eyes Doctor Man.

He locks eyes with you and then he slams the latch shut.

Okay.

Trudy, it's now your turn.

Okay, Trudy takes out the book that Mothman gave her.

Let's fucking go.

Opens it and is like, so would I sound out these words or are they not words?

Or should I, should I just piece them together letter by letter?

Okay, so as you open the book, you realize that it's hollowed out in the middle.

You know, like a naughty boy hiding his like, you know, secret stash.

It's kind of carved out out in the middle.

What kid has done that, though?

I mean, maybe the kids.

I did that.

You carved a book out the hidden book.

Yeah, I put my Game Boy Advance in there.

Wait, what?

That's dope as fuck.

Yeah.

Wait, what did you do?

I think I told something.

I put my Game Boy Advance in my Latin book.

I had an extra Latin textbook.

I carved it out.

We put a Game Boy Advance in there.

Wait, wait, you like strip took a knife and carved it out?

Yeah, and then glued it.

And then we passed the Game Boy Advance around during line class and played Advance Wars.

So we take a turn and then pass the book and then take a turn and pass the book.

Holy shit.

And then a fucking shitty kid who we didn't like play, to be fair, raised his hand and told us, us, he's like, Excuse me, I think Matt and his friends are playing video games in the book.

What in my shit had the moment he raised his hand, I knew what he was doing, so I switched out my textbook with my other textbook.

And then my teacher was like, okay, Matt, come up, like, show me the book.

And I played it, like, oh man, you caught me.

And I was like,

and I looked at the guy and I was like, thanks, Alex, and whatnot.

And then she opened the book, and it was just a normal textbook.

She's like, Alex, what are you talking about?

What are you doing?

And I was like, you motherfucker trying to fucking knock on us because we were playing Game Boy Advance, asshole.

So

basically, so yes, this is this old leatherbound tome and it's covered in these strange arcane runes.

I mean, you would know they were magic runes if you knew how to read, but you don't.

So all words are strange arcane runes to you.

And then the pages themselves all seem to be scribbles of these weird glyphs and stuff like that as well.

Until you get to this hollowed out part in the middle and a deck of cards falls out of this thing.

Written in curse.

Well, you don't know what it is.

There's something written on the front of it as well.

But there's an old deck of cards and there seems to be a sort of poem or something written on it so trudy can't read i have a proposal for you yes could i roll like a cult and see if i could access the original trudy's novel yes i love that what's your um edu skill

all right from now on the next time someone makes that roll everyone has to do a sanity roll

hey hey next time we do the edge you i hardly know you joke we're doing a sanity roll we'll call it a hard education roll and if you fail, there might be a sanity roll.

Okay.

Okay, I got a 12.

Oh, fuck you.

This is great.

All right.

Describe to me the memory you see of the original Trudy Trout that reminds you that you know how to read.

Trudy Trout is 10 years old in school.

It's like three days after Trudy has like been introduced to the concept of reading.

She sees the word F-I-S-H on the whiteboard and everybody's trying to sound it out, but the S-H sound is kind of tricky for everybody.

But it clicks in her head, trout, fish, fish.

And she raises her hand and she says, fish.

And she loves reading and she loves just like connecting to a word and immediately having that knowledge and that wonder.

And then she flashes back to robot.

current Trudy and she looks at the deck of cards.

So you see on the deck of cards a poem written in a sort of old cursive-y hand, and it says, In 1503, I saw through the veil and cried 666 words in a whale.

Ask me a question and draw out three cards, and with them I'll show you the fate and your stars.

Oh,

Kelsey,

so this is a book.

I know that.

I know that, obviously.

And that's the deck of cards.

Yes.

Based off of my, I'm learning about cards now, and that doesn't look like a normal deck of cards.

It's a magic deck, maybe.

And so all we have to do is think of a question that will maybe the answer will be how to defeat this little blob, this big blob guy.

And then all we have to do is ask three questions and maybe it will tell us.

Well, that's a good question.

Just ask how you defeat it then.

Quick.

Both of you can tell that there is a sort of dark and malign aura to this deck of cards.

It's giving you the same vibe that you were able to stifle down when you saw this horrible void shape writhing around.

Like there's something cursed and unknowable about this deck.

You The more cards you draw from this thing, the worse and worse effect on your sanity it may have.

Are there many things involved with this deck?

There are.

So it's got the vibe of, like, if I asked, like, how to get world peace, it would say, kill everybody.

Like, it's got that sort of dark vibes.

No, it has the vibe of like, it feels like if you drew one card, you may have to do a 1d force sanity.

And it feels like the second one might be a harder card.

So, everybody can't.

With more damage.

So, if Trudy asks a question, like, each card pulled gives you more information.

Yes, it's going to give you information about the situation that you currently find yourself in.

And you don't need to ask three questions, just one question.

Yeah, you can stop if you want to, but it'll only give you up to three.

Okay.

Each of you can draw one card per round.

Just a quick joke for Anthony.

Anthony, it's like the hint system in the seventh guest.

Fuck yeah, it is.

Fuck yeah, it is, bro.

My bro always got me.

My bro, bro.

Not everybody that got me, but my bro always got me.

Seventh guest ass hint system, dog.

I say we go for this because we find ourselves in a very dire situation.

Ask a question.

How do we get out of here safely?

Maybe.

Oh, I like it.

Oh, don't do the maybe.

Oh, okay.

How do we get out of here safely and promptly?

And certainly.

Yes.

And I draw a card.

Give me a sanity roll.

First, things first.

And I don't need to take one.

It's just her because she's asking questions.

You pass.

Okay, great.

You pull this card out and it looks blank and then two words form on it.

And it says salvation below.

It says, get good.

It also says you're gay.

That's weird.

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Now we're moving on to Tony, who is in his first, we'll call it your second round.

I'll be nice to you.

We'll call this your second round of Mad Flight.

You've reached basically this crush up the stairs.

You're about halfway through this panicked mob.

Well, no, actually, so here's the thing, though.

I think I would have gotten to the stairs and no further because my legs are all jacked.

Well, remember, Fred Dale is pushing you.

Yeah, but he ain't pushing me upstairs.

Fred Dale gets down in front of you and says, Mr.

Khalif, do you want me to carry you up the stairs?

Should we go up the stairs?

We're trying to escape, right?

There's a bunch of people up the stairs in front of you that are slammed up against the door.

And there's like, there's another crowd rushing towards you.

Okay, so Tony here in his temporary insanity and his cat-like reflexes

knows that as a cat, you don't ever want to be trapped.

This is my cat all the time.

Always looking for the exits, dude.

My cat, real Jason Born.

Your cat is literally asleep.

On my computer, chilling.

She is.

She deserves it, best.

But when she women rest, when she's skittish,

she's always looking for the exits, right?

So I think that, like, instinctually, I would understand if Tony with his cat-like sort of, you know, past would feel the ongoing rush of people coming from behind and like look for a sideway, like not go towards the big crowd, right?

That feels like that's scary in both ways.

Okay, here's what we'll do.

I like that.

Yeah.

I'll let you run away from this crush, you know, because I like that.

But you will gain a phobia, which is claustrophobia,

which will play with your character going forward.

Yeah, is that you're claustrophobic so in this moment like your fear of running up the stair you're still trying to get the hell out of here but your claustrophobia overrides your desire to get up these stairs yeah so i'm gonna score it off to the side okay are you wonderful choice of words so fred is still holding the wheelchair so what are you gonna do i'm going to go like

and then like

is this like you know this is your temporary insanity

noise this is very revert to his game what what what what and i'm like looking and pointing and gesturing towards either to the left or the right.

Let's roll a coin left one.

To the right.

Oh, okay.

So you're pointing towards the bathroom.

Okay.

Yeah.

All right.

So Fred is going to just basically turn you around and wheel you towards the bathroom.

Like a Tron light cycle taking a turn.

Turn all the time.

Yep.

And we will say you're going to use your full movement with Fred and you make it to the door of the bathroom.

Okay.

Can we say that while you're in this like repressed cat state, you're also like remembering all the training from your two assassin dads and you're going like born identity.

Like, how do I know this?

Oh, I do know where all the exits are.

Sure.

Okay.

In which case, I'd like to know where the exits are.

The stairs.

There's a stairs.

But wasn't there like a hatch?

Yeah, that's underneath the room.

Yeah, but you didn't see the ventilation thing.

All right.

Ventilation thing.

Oh, ventilation drill.

Your Assasino dads would have told you.

Whenever air can come out, it means you can go in.

Look for where air goes out.

That means a body can go in.

That's what I tell you.

Okay.

All right.

Thanks, Dad.

Give me a no roll as well.

Five.

A brilliant success.

Okay, so not only do you...

A powering success.

Not only do you in your sort of mad fancy remember your asasino father telling you about climbing through air ducts.

My asasino Paisano.

Your asasino Paisano.

You also are able to logically deduce that it would make sense for someone to put a bathroom by a ventilation shaft so that stinky fart smell can go out.

So you'd begin to suspect that there's probably a ventilation shaft in the bathroom.

So I think we bust into the bathroom, right?

You're at the bathroom door.

We'll say that.

Okay.

All right, we're back at the top of the order.

The formless spawn, reacting from this bullet, sort of turns its eye and it's trying to look for who shot it.

And then it also sort of writhes and shudders and it vomits up the referee.

And this guy's corpse looks like it's 100 years old.

It's just desiccated and withered.

It's like something was trying to just...

merge with this thing and it couldn't do it or rejected it for some reason.

And so you basically just see this human being that looks like beef jerky covered in black goo.

It just barves out of this thing.

It's the formless being that makes you old.

And you hear an unearthly growl, somewhere between rage and frustration, as it starts swishing around like it's trying to find something.

Three tentacles shoot out of it all at once.

It's scanning about the room and it's going to one by one grab people.

So the first person it sees is Reggie Regular Pine, the Chipper Cherry School Spirit mascot teen of

Peachyville High School, who is panicking and really sad that his dad isn't proud of him, and the monster is just gonna shoot out a tentacle and try to wrap itself around him.

And he rolled a 21.

So, yes, like a boa constrictor, it basically twists around him and raises him into the air.

Trudy, what do you think is going on up there?

I imagine, and this is just,

I imagine that everything is coming to an end worldwise.

And we have reached absolutely the end of Peachyville, and it's up to us to save it.

And so I don't think things are going very well up there.

Okay, it also rolled off 35, which means it's also grabbed Spooky Middleton, beat Nick's Seeker of Darkness, is also caught and writhing in this tentacle as this thing's bringing two people closer towards it.

And you're seeing tendrils kind of like grope around and feel on the faces of these screaming teenagers.

And then the monster seems dissatisfied with them and throws them across the room and it sort of sense seems to turn and you see it like pulsing almost like it's sniffing the air and then it locks in on Francis and Francis it's going to make a grab for you of course it is it sees the blood on your legs and this smoking rifle in your hands and somehow you get the sense that somehow you intrigue it like somehow it recognizes you drawn to you it recognizes you for the alpha that you are my man It is going to try to grab you.

We'll call this a maneuver.

What is your build size?

My build size is zero.

are you going to try to dodge fight back or uh maneuver away from this thing so what is the difference between dodging and maneuvering away a maneuver would be like he tries to grab you and you try to grab it it's so much bigger than you that that's not going to be possible i'm just going to dodge that okay so you're going to go for a dodge give me a dodge roll uh no

all right so it got a regular success so it basically grabs you and raises you into the air and in one turn it uh is probably going to try to spawn okay that's okay

okay now it's the cultists turn up as we said four of the cultists have disappeared down this shaft and slammed this door shut behind them up at the top of the stairs again there's this crush of people slamming against the door screaming pounding begging to get out you hear a slot in the door slide open you know like how those like some big heavy doors have like an open like a window latch on it this portal opens and the barrel of a flamethrower sticks into the door face to face with this massive crush of people and there is just this roar as a massive jet of flame just sprays directly down onto this huge crush it's bringing out everybody that's trying to leave yeah and you hear just a thousand screams the smell of charred flesh everybody give me another sanity roll that's what i was talking about yeah you hear the most horrible thing you've ever heard in your life wow mr collette you really knew where to go i got a one oh wow i got a 17.

i i failed my sanity i got 58.

freddy tony collet 56.

no problem kelsey give me a 1d6 i don't have a d6 so I'm just going to roll until I get a 1 through 6 on my d10.

I got a four.

All right, so you take four points as hanity blocks.

Okay.

As this jet of flame comes streaking down the main stairwell, you hear screaming.

The first four rows of people are just basically incinerated.

And then you're also now starting to see flaming people just doused in fire, climbing over each other, trying to get back down.

And in a round or two, this fire is probably going to be spreading through the room.

Okay, so we're now at the top of your turn, Order.

Francis, it's your turn.

What would you like to do?

Okay, well, what are my options?

It's holding me.

The tentacle.

Presumably he's made of the same shit as the rest of the things.

And it's also like, I can get my gun out.

And it's like, Francis, Francis, like Venom.

Like Venom.

Can you bite it?

Could I bite it?

That seems like a bad idea.

Only so many options.

Well, I still got my ice cream scoop.

So firstly, I'm going to scream, ah, help.

It's got me.

Can you hold turns?

If we're the same initiative?

You can hold your turn.

I'll let you hold your turn if you want.

Okay, well, I'll say that and then hold my turn.

Okay.

That way then I can go, I guess.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So yes, it takes a while.

Two are two characters die instead of And you hear Francis.

I imagine I saw like his feet again, since it was all like tight.

Yeah, you know.

Francis was right there.

I was waiting for him to go underneath the stairs.

Then we started talking about reading.

And then Francis got

a focus down there.

I see Francis' feet get shot up in the sky.

Yeah.

Okay.

I'm going to use my move to move out.

Okay.

I'm going to ignore the crisping people to the left of me.

I'm going to look up and see that indeed Francis is held by this creature.

How high is he being held?

Can I leap and grab like his feet?

If you use your move action

and give me a dex roll to jump up and grab him, yes, you can grab his feet.

Okay, I'm gonna like, I'm gonna like climb the ropes and do a fucking like give me an intelligence roll real quick.

I failed.

I got 75 out of 70.

Okay, never mind.

Oh, is that good?

Because it was

bad.

It's fine.

I don't want to do what I'm doing anymore.

Okay.

What am I rolling for the move, for the maneuver?

Give me a dexterity roll for the jump.

Okay, that I passed with flying colors.

I got a 16 out of 60.

Okay, so great.

We'll say that you are now hanging onto his legs.

Francis, on your turn, I will give you advantage on a skill roll of your choice to try to wriggle out of it.

For a 16 out of 60, and depending, since I said I climbed the ropes, can I do like I like leaped out and like I'm trying to keep my feet like on the ropes.

Sure.

Yeah, you can be trying to catch the ropes.

You've wrapped your foot around the ropes.

Okay, great.

I'm like stretched between the rope and holding Francis.

Yes, that'll make it a little easier because he's got more resistance trying to.

And then hopefully maybe Trudy can like grab my legs or something.

Okay.

It's Francis' turn if he wants.

Yes.

Okay, go for it.

So can I just do like a straight dexterity check?

Because I feel like I'm just wriggling, like I'm trying to.

Yeah, let's do a dexterity check.

This thing's got you pretty tight.

We'll call it a hard dexterity check, but we will say that you've got an advantage dice.

If Trudy grabs my legs, would it be even better for Francis?

It would be, but.

So I got a 33, so I'm going to spend three luck points to make it a 30, which is a success for my hard check.

Okay, great.

So yes, you wriggle out of this thing and you both go slamming onto the ground.

Cool.

And it roars in eldritch rage at having its Corey slip through its fingers.

So it is pissed.

My name's not Corey.

Okay, so now Trudy, it is your turn.

Trudy beckons Francis and Kelsey back under the skirt of the boxing ring.

Quick question.

Yes.

At my old boxing gym, the space under the ring was used for storage.

Is there stuff under the ring?

I love that.

Yes, there is.

What do you want under there?

Another flamethrower.

Another flamethrower.

There is not.

There would be boxing stuff.

Boxing stuff.

What would have been under the gym?

We had extra rope.

We had headgear and then like bags, heavy bags.

And if they ever did professional wrestling in the spunker, there would also be steel chairs and razors.

Yeah, razors for blading yourself.

Baseball bats with barbed wire around them.

All right, there's no baseball bats with barbed wire, but I will let you have whatever you feel like would be reasonably under a boxing ring.

Rope sounds useful.

I'll throw that out there.

Yeah, I was about to say it's boring, but can you just like pull us?

Yeah.

Pull me by my feet like down.

Yeah.

Well, you guys have fallen onto the ground.

Oh, we fell backwards.

Yeah, you wiggled out.

It's great.

If you're going to make it easy for us, I was thinking, since I was attached on the rope when he wiggled out, we just fell flat down onto the ring, like my feet.

like almost at the edge of the ring and Francis is in the middle of the ring like we're like a oh sure that's fine yeah that's better okay great yeah you guys are on top of the ring make it hard for yourselves that's fine

thanks man sorry

Trudy, give me a turn.

I saved you.

Imagine how much tragic it's going to be when you kill me.

I pass.

Okay, so you realize and maybe even feel that the deck of cards could give you a hint about how to fight this monster.

Okay.

If you are willing to pay the price.

I'm absolutely willing to pay the price.

I'm wondering if Trudy would just let her friends be on the mat like that, though.

I'll say, you can either use a move action plus an action to drag Kelsey off the ring and Frances towards the edge of the ring, or you can read the book.

I think that Trudy,

so enamored by her reconnection with the written word, is just like, oh, well, let's see.

They'll probably be fine.

I just need to know the next thing.

So I pull out a card.

Give me a sanity roll.

This is going to be a hard sanity roll.

All right.

Ooh, I pass.

Wow, I'm rolling so good.

Sick.

Okay, in that case, you draw a card and three more words appear on this card.

The beast of flame.

And then you see like a spooky drawing of like a crazy ogre monster on fire.

So it either wants flames or it doesn't.

So there's going to be a change coming for you, either negative or positive.

Oh, shit.

But I also grab rope and I have rope.

Yeah, you've got the rope.

Yes, I'll give you the rope.

Sorry, Anthony.

I didn't want us to fall outside the ring because I thought Beth was going to grab us and pull us.

Yeah, yeah, that's kind of

where you know the uh

divergent lives in Beth's hands.

Yeah, the one who played Ron.

You know, yeah, it's just too rough.

I respect that, I respect it, yeah.

Okay, so Freddy,

I think Fred Dale gets the hint.

Get inside this bathroom.

All right, so you guys burst into the bathroom.

You now have control over your character again, although you are in a jumpy state, okay, and you are suffering the adverse effects of claustrophobia.

Is this the same bathroom that the yes, it is.

There's only one one bathroom?

So, yes, it's a rogue forward thinking gender-neutral bathroom.

Anyone can piss in here.

It doesn't matter.

As you burst in the door, Fred Dale is going to take a dexterity throw.

Okay, so he does not eat shit on the huge pool of blood on the ground.

I like the thing that he slides a distance with me.

Like, do you ever get a shopping cart and you just get it going and then you like coast?

Yes, you guys coast into the room in like a sort of Tom Cruise in that one responsibility.

Kind of way.

So you are now in the bathroom.

And is there anyone here?

You see that this pool of blood drags off towards a bathroom stall.

Oh, all right.

Well, I mean, I'm not bothered by that.

I want to look for any exits.

On the far wall, you see a grate about the size of like this AC shaft up here.

Like, you could just wriggle through it.

For the audience, that is about two and a half feet by three feet.

Just there you go.

It's about like a little larger than a PS5 size hole in the wall.

Yeah.

Okay.

Except this vent has more games.

Oh, shit, dude.

Going for straight.

Sony, dude.

My boss.

My former boss.

Dude, you think the president of Sony felt that?

Like, he woke up staring across the bay and was like,

I was too busy laying off everybody at Bungie.

We'll say Fred has used

Fred has used his move to get you guys into the room, but you can use your move and the two of you together can get to this thing if you would like.

Yeah, I think the move here is going to be to frantically point

and then, like, you know, try and rip the grate open.

You're going to talk like a normal person again, by the way.

Okay.

So, yes, he wheels you over to this vent in the wall.

Give me a strength check to rip it off the wall.

44 out of 70, a regular success.

Is that where you want to go, Mr.

Colette?

What's that, boy?

Little Timmy fell down the well.

And I rip the grate open.

Okay, so good news.

You rip this grate open.

If you stick your head inside, you see a long, narrow shaft

that seems to jut up towards the night sky above you, a short ways above you, and a little crate on top of it.

And then you see like another like drop.

All of this is meaningless because I stick my head in there and then immediately pull my head out and go,

exactly what I was going to say.

That's the good news is you found an exit.

The bad news is you're terrified of cramped spaces.

But hold on, there are rules for your phobias.

You're a policeman.

You're a policeman.

There are rules for policemen.

For phobias, actions other than fighting or fleeing may only be made with one penalty die.

So basically anything you're going to try to do in this narrow shaft, you're going to have a penalty.

You have to fight the phobia for it.

You have to fight the fear.

I also remember, I remind you that your legs are broken is another humdinger here.

No, this is not an exit.

I mean, it is in theory.

You could go up or down.

Yeah, but like, I just think realistically, me dragging my whole ass in there, my legs are in a cast.

You know, give me a spot.

I feel like a vent would be a great place to escape if your legs were in a cast.

Yeah, you can just pull.

Yeah, but like, bro, I'm not even claustrophobic.

And even the thought of going into this already, I'm a little bit.

Freddie Wong is a little bit like, oh, they don't want to be there.

You know what?

I'll give it to you.

There is a fire hose on the wall.

Okay.

It's like one of those emergency fire hoses that you could wheel out is what this thing has.

It could also maybe be used as a rope if you wanted to use it as a rope to, I don't know, safely descend somewhere.

Just pointing that out.

Oh.

Oh.

I'm going to unfurl.

this rope nice this fire thing and shove it down the vent shaft okay and then point solemnly at Fred Dale to have him go first and go down.

Oh, you want him to go first?

Yeah, okay, great.

It's very generous of you.

They're too scaled.

So, Fred Dale's going to take a look at them.

I don't know about this, Mr.

Colette.

It looks pretty freaky.

Give me a roll to convince him.

Use whatever skill you want.

Hold on, so you're saying that I can talk now, right?

Yes, you can talk.

But, but, but in deference to my character,

give me a second to calibrate this.

Yeah,

Tony Collette.

I want to close up a best face when Freddie does whatever he's about.

Matt is putting on the binoculars.

Tony Collette goes,

Tony, saw some people go down under there.

That's what you made us wait for?

I'm trying to combine cat boy voice with collect.

I couldn't even see Bess's reaction because she hit her face so quickly from shame of what you just did.

What do you mean you saw some people go down under there?

There was a secret entrance down here.

Quickly, Fred.

I like how this started with Freddy's like in deference to my character.

I mean, let me really think about this.

I think he's down there.

Give me a persuade roll.

Oh, no, hold on.

No, hold on, hold on.

Hold on.

Then Tony does the thing where he does two finger guns and he points them inwards and touches the tips of his index fingers.

Give me a disadvantage.

Penalty dice on a persuade roll.

I want him to die.

Yeah, penalty die.

Penalty die.

You're about to roll and then you added, you made it worse.

I don't like you guys.

Persuade.

I don't have very good persuade anyway.

So

96.

No, it didn't work.

Okay.

96.

Freddiel looks at you.

He's like, oh,

I've lost all ability to trust you.

You're on your own, man.

And he runs out of the room.

Well, he's good too.

You're a fired foot.

And we're back live during a flex alert.

Dialed in on the thermostat.

Oh, we're pre-cooling before 4 p.m., folks.

And that's the end of the third.

Time to set it back to 78 from 4 to 9 p.m.

Clutch move by the home team.

What's the game plan from here on out?

Laundry?

Not today.

Dishwasher?

Sidelined.

What a performance by Team California.

The power truly is ours.

During a flex alert, pre-cool, power down, and let's beat the heat together.

So we're back at the top of the turn order, which means it's time for the formless spawn to make its move.

Could it hold its turn until it's our turn?

It sure isn't going to do that.

And it's even more pissed and more determined than ever to have another snack.

Francis, it's going to make another move to grab you once again.

Cool.

What are you going to do?

You're going to dodge?

What's your plan?

Dodge.

As it is looking down at you, it starts to writhe around a little bit more, kind of desperately, and you see it spasm and shudder.

And you see like one of its tentacles starts to like twitch really quickly and almost against its will, start to shrink and writhe back into its body, like it's losing some sort of control over itself.

It's okay, guys.

This tentacle is writhing.

Yeah, I fucked up real bad.

Okay, it is going to pick you up again.

It got a very good roll on it.

So it snatches Francis back off.

I'm still holding him by his feet.

Okay, so you're still holding onto its feet, which means you are now both rising into the air.

Actually, you know what?

It's annoyed by you, Matt.

It's going to make an.

It gets two attacks?

Yeah, it gets two attacks.

It absolutely gets two attacks.

It's going to just try to swat you away.

You're like a little turd clinging onto its sandwich here.

So it's going to make an attack roll against you.

My goal is just to, I just want to hang on.

So what do I roll?

Ooh, that's interesting.

Yeah, I don't care.

I'm just going to take the hit.

You're just going to take the hit.

So you.

I'm not dodging anything.

I'm just not gonna let go of Francis.

What's your HP, man?

My HP is 12.

This thing hits like a Mac fucking truck.

I mean, is my other option to dodge it?

If you let go,

you'll get to dodge it without a penalty dice.

If you continue to hold on to Francis, you will get a penalty dice to your dodge.

I mean, Kelsey wouldn't let go of Francis, so you tell me what I do.

He's just gonna hit you.

Yeah.

My goal is to not let go of Francis.

It's gonna do the damage that it does.

He's gonna do two.

Don't worry, I'm not gonna let go.

So that's six damage plus another 2d6 is its damage bonus.

So another two, so it does eight damage to you.

Damn, which is a major wound.

Okay.

So give me a constitution roll to see if you fall unconscious.

I pass.

I got a 46 out of 60.

So it basically just swipes at you with all its might with another one of its tendrils and just smacks you like a pinata.

That's my student?

Yes, you ate this monster hit from this guy and you basically fly up like almost eye level with Francis.

So now the two of you are now for a split second making eye contact with him.

And now you're swinging around basically on the bottom of his legs.

And which now means, Francis, you still have another advantage dexterity roll if you want to slip out of him.

I'll just dodge again.

I succeed.

Okay, great.

You guys crash out of this thing's grip once more.

So you guys have both slammed onto the ground.

And so, Francis, you now have a move action.

I'm going to try to pull Kelsey as best I can under the ring apron.

That's what I was going to be doing on my move, too.

I feel like the two of us like almost like.

All right, yeah.

You guys, just we'll give you a combined move here.

What are you guys trying to do?

do?

I'm doing like the reverse wheelbarrow type thing.

Like I'm literally still holding your feet and I just start sprinting.

I like run and then like dive through the ropes and drop to the floor and start trying to roll underneath the

fantastic.

You guys are all now underneath the start of the ring.

This thing is above you.

You can hear the wood creaking and straining and it knows that you've gone under there.

So it's probably going to do something nasty pretty quick, but you also see this door in front of you.

I hope you're reading good stuff down here.

I was.

Okay, cool.

I was, as a matter of fact, Francis, are you okay?

Yeah, I'm a little shaky, but I'm good.

Okay.

Well, it says salvation below the beast of flame.

Oh.

You choose now to get into Christianity?

What's that?

What's that, dear?

Nothing.

Have any of you seen Tony?

Oh.

Huh.

Oh, no.

Well, surely he must have gone for an exit.

Yeah, I'm sure he found a way to run away from the danger and let other people do the job for him.

Well, I hope he's not dead.

Oh, well, I think that we should seek the salvation below and and and and try to open this door in front of us all right you guys should try to open the door yeah so it's basically you know like one of those like little spinning latches it's like one of those but this thing is huge and it's old and it's hard as it's like a big rusty heavy ass door it's got a pull and a yeah you gotta like crank it around so

we cultists right yeah opening it yeah but there were four of them i've got an idea Okay, so I could tie the rope around this little knob and then the three of us could try to pull the door open.

That is physics.

That's great.

Okay, so you guys can all do that together on her turn.

Here's how this is going to work.

Since it is three of you together doing this, it's going to be a hard success

to pull this door all the way open.

It would normally be impossible for one person.

Two people would be an extreme success, et cetera, et cetera.

So if you had all four of you, if someone had to run away, it would just be a normal dice roll.

You can each do this on your turn if you guys spend a whole turn doing it, but only one person is going to roll at a time.

Who's got the highest strength skill?

Mine is 45.

Yours is 45?

Mine is 40.

40.

And what's your strength?

60.

Okay, great.

So yes, give me a strength roll.

And you're trying to beat a 30.

Since we're doing this as a group, can we contribute our luck to the roll or something if it fails?

Sure.

Not that I'm necessarily going to do that.

I'm trying to beat a 30, and I got a 61.

Okay.

So we are now back at the top of the turnover.

We're back into it.

The formless spawn.

You guys wouldn't see this, but you hear it groaning and it's starting to sound a bit more panicked and a bit more desperate as it's twitching and convulsing and seeming to lose control of itself.

You hear this thunderous boom as one of its tentacles just flails and just slams into the wood on top of you.

And you hear this big crack.

So it's going to use one of its actions to make an attack roll to try to bust through the wood itself and break and drop down on you guys.

You guys have such an epic chance for Tony to do like a Jurassic Park.

Hey, Origin!

Oh, I'm sorry if I'm a little worried about ooh.

Ooh, he was going to do that.

I thought maybe you were too obsessed with that voice.

You weren't thinking about saving your buds.

Tony has punished Colette right now.

Why?

you hear this deafening crack and you see the wood begin to shake and splinter above you and the wood is starting to strain and buckle as it groans it looks like it's about to cave in and you also see another tentacle slithering under the skirt towards you guys and so it does not find you but it is groping around trying to find a leg to grab onto okay it is now francis's turn I wish I'd brought Shane's leg with me so I could hand it Shane's leg.

See now, you know my idea from last time doesn't seem so crazy but you can't give a tentacle something that's shaped like i don't know is there like practice that these are punching bags or oh yeah like a punching bag

i'll get i'll get it a what's the big one a heavy bag like a sparring okay you're gonna give it like a sparring bag yeah i'll roll a heavy sparring bag if you do this it will mean you don't get to use your turn to do another attempt to open the door that's okay okay be buying us time you drag this heavy speed bag over and yeah the tentacle feels it and wraps around it and just yanks it out like faster than you've ever seen and And then you hear the rage and disappointment in this thing as it realizes that it's been bamboozled and it's going to try to hit extra hard

Kelsey now, right?

Now, the way this works, since all three of us are pulling it, I can just use

Trudy's strengths.

Can I use Trudy Strengths?

Wait, I've got an idea.

It's not working.

Wait, I've got a different idea.

Okay, what's your dex?

My dex is 60.

Oh, shit.

That's good.

Okay.

Surely there are people who have been drinking here, right?

Okay.

I take a bottle of hard alcohol that i find and i take my handkerchief yep and i take my lighter okay

and i hand it to kelsey okay just throw it at the beast the beast of flame that's right chemistry starts with a seed so i know that chemistry comma sexual fire plus handkerchief is fire

handkerchief on fire plus alcohol is bigger fire and sure i'm gonna throw it uh some kind of cocktail if you is there any hole above us yet in the floor that it's been like...

No, you're going to have to go out and throw it.

Okay.

This is a way I don't want to get up because I'm lazy.

So I'm going to try to explain this with words rather than showing you will.

Also,

also as an audio medium.

For the sake of the audience, I'm going to explain it with words as well.

I'm going to lay on my back.

As opposed to the live audience watching right now.

She gets on her back and she scoots until just her shoulders are out from underneath the ring.

Yeah, it gives you a lot of leverage for throwing.

It's not much of an aim.

Like, I'm just going to throw it up.

Oh, sure.

Yeah.

And hopefully at an angle.

I mean, I'll do it in person.

This is a very easy throw.

I just want to say this for anybody here who has ever thrown anything.

This is about the easiest throw you can get.

Yeah, I want to see the throw.

Okay.

There's getting up.

Hold on, hold on, hold on.

There's no room in here for this.

No, I'm not even going to ask him.

I just want him to demonstrate.

All right, so Matt is getting under the table

with a cat toy, which my cat now is.

Matt is basically sticking.

This should be a fucking, like, anything above a 90s is success.

The easiest thing in the world.

Matt is just lightly throwing a ball

over the table.

No one can hear you, Matt.

No one can hear you, man.

They're hearing me walk over to the now audience knows that happened because they hear the sound of me walking towards the mic.

Okay.

Give me your deck score.

Yes.

You're just trying to hit the trunk of it.

You're just trying to get it.

I'm just trying to throw it up and land it somewhere in the middle of the...

Because this thing's like huge, right?

It's pretty much taking up the entire thing.

Boxing rings are made of canvas, which is

fine.

We didn't think about that, did we?

Yeah, we're right under it.

We better go fast.

I got 81.

Can I make a quick statement?

Don't call me bad.

That was the best idea.

That's totally a good idea, bro.

That's why I rolled bad.

Give me a luck roll.

Okay.

I failed.

Oh, no.

By how much?

Quite a bit.

Gotcha.

74.

I needed a 57.

It feels like if you had critical failed, it would have landed on your face.

It lands, lands, it shatters.

The ring itself is ablaze.

The thing itself did not catch on fire.

You missed it completely.

You hear it scream.

It's freaked out by this fire.

It seems like this fire can probably hurt it, as was foretold in the prophecy.

Okay.

But it is now burning and it's going to be easier for it to smash through this thing, which is the next thing it's going to try to do.

Trudy.

Okay.

I don't know if that was worth it, Trudy.

I could have just tried open the thing.

That's okay.

Well, let's all pull on this rope again and try to get a 30.

Yay!

We got a six.

You wrench the door open.

Yay!

And it pops open.

You're able to all push it over.

There's smoke billowing in now from the flames.

You hear this thing above you rearing up for one last strike.

Beth, you have a move left, so you can get down the stairs, but the two of you are going to have to move on your next turn, I believe.

Into the garbage chute, flyboy.

So all of that is going on.

You guys are about to make it out the door.

Tony, what are you doing?

Tony has slid up to the bathroom door opening.

Can you describe to me what happens to Fred Dale?

I I think he's just stunned, stupefied by what he's seeing.

He's just, he sees burning corpses all around him.

He's run out.

Yes, the air is heavy with thick smoke.

He has no idea what to do.

He's just sort of panicked, and it's like a freeze response.

He's just battling incoherently to himself.

And I see now Kelsey peek half her body out, maybe overthrow, but throw it.

Yes, you've seen, yes, if you want to have seen what happened.

And then Tony goes,

Must save save Fuinz.

Must save Fuens.

So Tony's going to grab the.

You gobble fart right now.

Oh, here's a far buckle.

Far buckle.

So Tony's going to grab the fire hose.

Okay.

And undo what we just did.

And roll it because this is all he saw.

He's like, front under there, going like, yeah, burned by Pat Monster.

And then he's going to roll out with the fire hose in his lap.

Okay.

Heroically, I might add,

up to the ring and point the fire hose at this monstrosity, this cavalcade of flame and tentacles.

So you do that.

Yeah.

And I want to turn on the fire hose full blast at the ring.

The blowback just pushes your wheelchair.

Yes, I know, exactly.

But the monster.

Out of range, out of range of the monster.

But the monster would definitely get hit by water or like hear this or whatever.

Okay, so a jet of water erupts from this thing.

First, give me a dexterity roll to hold on to it.

Dex 25.

Boy, oh boy.

I gotta say, 27 out of 25.

Oh, you should push some luck to have that.

Do you have two luck?

No, I don't have any luck.

Do you want to push the roll?

No.

Were you aiming for the fire?

Were you aiming for it?

Tony knows that you aim for the base of the flame.

You measure from the base of the flame.

You measure from the very base of the flame.

So, since you were aiming for the flame, we will say you miss the flame and hit the monster, which does nothing.

And then, yes, the force of this thing pushes you straight back into the bathroom.

But now the fire hose is out there and just spraying water around water.

And now, this fire hose is out there flopping water around wildly.

It hits Fred in the face and knocks him unconscious.

Fucking idiot.

You are now back in the bathroom by the face of the fire hose thing where the ventilation shaft is.

Now, here's the question.

Does Kelsey see this heroic movie?

Kelsey, give me a spot hidden.

Hidden?

No, she's pretty busy.

So yeah, let's give Kelsey a spot hidden to see if she saw this noble sacrifice that you made.

For sure.

I failed.

Okay, so no, she was not.

That wasn't pay attention.

It's not like it would have made things better for you if you had seen it.

You just see you rolling out like a moron and then getting blasted out.

She would have heard Tony go, Tony, help when yeah, it was important for Tony to know that if Kelsey thinks better of him, but absolutely, as far as I'm concerned, you abandoned it.

The only thing I know of Tony is that Tony ran away.

The last thing you see as you rocket back into the bathroom you were just wheeling yourself out of is that she absolutely did not see you and probably just thinks you abandoned them.

Okay, so we're back to

wisdom is that doing

without seeing.

Um,

this is a true Matt Arnold quote.

Say that again.

What is there with someone?

Fool heroism is the doing without the seeing.

Tony's in cat mode.

All cats have dyslexia.

The formless spawn

actual

spawn enraged by everything that's going on around it.

Its quarry has slipped through its fingers.

It's pounding desperately on the ground.

It gets distracted by this jet of water.

It seems to be convulsing faster and faster.

It's twerking.

It's twerking faster and faster than you've ever seen anything twerk before.

It's dummy thick.

All right, go ahead.

It's got a little hot and bothered there with that.

Faster than anything I've ever seen before?

My God.

It raises its

dummy thick cheeks up into the air to thunderously clap down on the burning ring around it to break through and get to you guys.

And right as it does that, something inside it just sort of gives way and it begins to shrink incredibly quickly, like its tentacles are spinning around and swirling into a little ball as it's just.

It's a lot of guys.

More and more compact.

It's getting denser and denser and smaller and smaller.

And reality seems to warp around it for a second as it shudders.

And then all of a sudden it collapses into itself.

And there's just a hole in space and time right where this thing has been banished back to wherever it came from.

And a massive vacuum of wind and gravity and energies just starts sucking everything into this room, up into this black hole, basically, that's floating in the middle of the air.

Trudy is down the stairs.

The two of you are making your way down when the entire ring above you gets lifted into the air and you see it just basically get crushed into nothingness.

Like twisters.

Like just like twisters.

Everything in the room now is getting sucked into this black hole.

There's a deafening roar of wind.

You are seeing screaming people and flaming corpses all getting hurtled towards this thing.

The newly unconscious Fred Dale just drifts like

almost like that

in American beauty.

Fred just sort of drifts and floats.

The entire fabric of who is, was, and would ever be Fred Dale wraps around this ball and just gets strung out into like a strand of spaghetti.

Kelsey is going to videotape it in case she wants to hit on somebody later.

If you feel it.

Feel it.

Feel it.

Okay, so that's its turn.

We'll deal one by one with the consequences of this.

Francis, what would you like to do?

You have one action before this thing starts lifting you into the air.

I'm going to throw myself down the stairs.

Okay, great.

You dive down the stairs.

It's like a spiral staircase.

So give me a dexterity roll to see if you take any damage.

Okay.

That's a 14 out of 60.

Okay, great.

So you land with the lithe grace of a cat on one flight of stairs down the spiral staircase.

I haven't thrown down stairs before.

You can still sense the air around you sucking up like a wind tunnel, and you can sense that you might get lifted in the air.

Do you want to grab onto anything?

Is the rope down here?

Did you take the rope with you?

Sure, I took the rope and I rolled it up like a cowboy does around my shoulder.

What I'd like to do is tie the rope around the banister and then try to throw the other end up to Kelsey.

Oh, I like

okay, great.

Trudy's like, no, this is my rope.

Give me another dex roll for the rope.

That's a 73 out of 60.

So it sort of

spends the

13 luck points.

Okay, great.

Kelsey, this rope sails beautifully up to your feet.

It's like sort of flapping in the air.

Like he throws it half the way and then the vacuum takes it the rest.

And again, you can feel yourself like you're about to start lifting into the air.

I'm looking towards the hatch.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm happy that one of my favorite students thought of me and threw a rope.

I'm going to run towards the hatch and grab the rope and leap down.

All right, great.

So you're grabbing onto the rope.

I'm going to try to close the hatch behind me.

Okay, that is going to be an extreme difficulty to do that because it's it's thrown open and now it's like oh, it's like super heavy.

It's like crazy heavy.

I'm just gonna dive down and try to run.

Give me a dexterity roll.

I got 4460.

As you dive down the stairs, you feel it's almost like you're being pulled by two spots of gravity.

The gravity of the earth and the gravity of this black hole.

The gravity of this black hole seems to be expanding outward.

As you leap, it's like you're right at the edge of it.

You can feel yourself going one way and then a little bit the other, and you just clear the grasp of this thing so that you are yanked by the gravity of the earth down these stairs and you stick the landing right next to Francis.

It's almost like an explosion of gravity coming towards you.

So the next turn, you guys are going to have to run like hell to get away from this thing.

Okay.

Tony, you're back in the truck again.

Nice.

I'm back

in the car again.

Now, how much of this did I see?

Is the doors like opening?

So yes, we'll see.

The first thing that happens on your turn is that the door to the bathroom is ripped clean open and the wall of the bathroom is not far behind.

So yes, you can sort of peer through the door and see that everything is getting sucked into a horrifying vortex.

Tony helped friends.

He so didn't.

He did nothing.

Tony, work here is done.

No, it's not a sacrifice.

You're not doing anything.

Just win.

So Tony's going down the vent.

So Tony's going to go down the vent believing that he's done everything that he's been able to do and has done a big part.

Can't wait to tell Kelsey about this way, though.

Okay.

What's happened to Tony?

Tony's temporarily insane.

He's a cat boy.

You're right, you're right.

So he's going to suck it up and do his best to roll the penalty die and just dive down.

Oh, he's going down.

Shoot, yeah.

Okay, great.

And he's also going to say, well, this is now Tony back in his mind a little bit.

Well, don't need to pay Fred this week.

What a horrible man.

What a horrible, horrible man.

Tony is the perfect example of how insanity isn't always palatable for other people.

You know, it's not always the nice, cute, sad in your room kind of insanity.

Sometimes it's really wild.

And sometimes you alienate everybody.

Well, no one knows this.

Here's what we're going to do.

Yeah.

Are you just diving or are you going to try to like, because it's like narrow enough that you could kind of try to shimmy your way here?

Here's my thought.

This is going to sound very strange, but based on the description of this thing, I was thinking that Tony takes up a pretty big percentage of this pipe.

Okay.

Right.

And if he does,

yeah, he fucking does.

Okay.

Have you ever dropped like a BB

down a tube tube or a barrel?

And the air cushioning.

All the time.

And the air blows on the ball.

You love you.

Also, do you relax?

Well, here's what it is.

The air cushioning slows the descent of the BB.

So my thought is the air cushioning plus the fact that there's now a vacuum above Tony means that if I dive straight down, I'll just descend at a gentle rate all the way down.

So you're trying to fill up the entire tube?

Me, I'm already a big portion of the tube.

Okay.

Tony's body.

So there's a a little bit of air escaping right what's compounded is that there's a vacuum above it now oh because there's airs getting sucked out above it so what's happening is i'm essentially diving into a cushion of air that will slowly descend me all the way down gently to the bottom i can prove this to you i know i understand what you're saying i understand what you're saying and if you take the bb and there's a and the bar understand shut up if you're shimmying down to not just plummet yeah it's three strength checks on the way down regular strength checks to go down or one hard strength check to go up but it sounds like you're going down.

Yeah.

I was going to give you a penalty dice for your claustrophobia, but you make this powerful point about vacuums and science and all of that.

So it's just going to be three regular strength checks to make it down without losing your grip.

With each one, you'll get closer to the bottom and any fall damage you take would be less.

But you only have three hit points, so you could still die at any given moment.

But like,

but will

I like this because I'm taking up so much space.

It's like worst case scenario, I just go, hoo, and then I'm stopped.

I mean, if you want to be a real asshole about science, it's like you're not perfect sphere.

Like, that works because the ball is exactly the same shape as not just like a vaguely, yes, correct, but there is an effect

if the wind, okay, if the wind

kill this man or let him do it.

If the wind is enough to pull a door off, Matt, there's a black hole in the room above, it's pulling the walls apart.

The physics of it,

how you shy away, William.

How you shy away from it.

Freddy's

skin character right now.

I don't have anyone.

No, you do.

Guess a number and rolling.

All right, baby.

He's going to dig deep.

59.

34.

Okay.

Tony Collette leaps into this hole and it works amazingly well.

Yeah, nice.

Sure enough, you are descending like a feather floating

ever so softly because, as you said, there's a vacuum and a black hole above you, and there's a nice cushion of air, and you begin to descend ever so slowly.

And then about halfway down, you just start to descend a little more slowly and then a little more slowly.

And you're like, gee whiz,

gee whiz, this is a little more narrow than I thought it was.

Boy, and I'm a little bit beefier and fatter than I thought.

Freddy, have you ever seen, have you ever read the enigma of the Amigara Fault?

Yes.

Okay, so you are now stuck 40 feet underground in a bunker.

and just an air shaft and no one knows you're here.

And no step sibling can save you now.

And because there's an air cushion above you, you have no way of scooching yourself down and no way of going forward, and you're claustrophobic.

I'd like to use a strength roll.

Oh, God, this is like, have you heard the nutty putty cave situation?

All right, Freddy Cave.

That's what this is.

You're in a nutty putty cave situation.

You are completely stuck in an air shaft.

And that's where we'll leave your character this week.

Anybody else?

All right, so

Trudy, you're down at the bottom of this stairwell.

You see a door in front of you.

And I know that Francis and Kelsey are safe.

Yeah, you just saw them land on the stairs in front of you, and they're sort of scrambling and picking themselves back up.

Trudy, run!

I opened the door.

It's locked.

Oh.

Is there a

combination lock, a keyhole?

Give me just like a no-roll on this door.

All right.

Do you know this door?

Where's the door?

I got a 24 out of 65.

You feel like probably, given the time you have, the best way to get through this would be to bash it open.

It's not like the door of the bunker.

It's like a door.

It's like a fire door or something really hard.

Oh, quick.

Kelsey, pass me one of your gloves.

I see that you're stuck in front of this door and I'm running full speed.

I'm just going to run into the door.

Okay.

Drew, I got a better idea.

I'm just going to take my speed from running down the stairs.

I'm going to put my shoulder and I'm just going to charge it.

It's still tied to me.

I run to try to catch up to make sure

you just drag behind me.

All right.

Do you guys want to do like a combined human bowling ball to get through this door or something like that?

I'm just trying to get into a locked room.

Okay, great.

All the way, Trudy.

If you guys are all going to smash into this thing together, we'll use Trudy's strength.

Give me like an athletics roll for your speed coming through the door.

Nice.

So then we'll call it a combo roll.

We'll use your strength, Trudy, and we'll use.

If you give me a successful athletics roll, she'll get advantage on him.

There is no

size, maybe?

If it's just pure weight, yes, we'll use your size and your strength.

So give me a size roll, give me a strength roll.

God damn, dude, bad dude, but I passed.

I got 55 out of 65.

And I got a 40 out of 60.

40 out of 60.

The The door blasts open and the two of you and Francis all stumble inside.

And just then, as you do that, you hear above you this vortex of sound stop as this black hole collapses in on itself completely and silence fills the air.

Close the door, Francis.

Close the door.

You sure?

It sounds like it's calm now.

Like we can just leave.

We can just leave.

And as Francis says that, you look up into the room that you're in and you find yourself at the nexus point of like a vast network of branching tunnels and rooms stretching out in seemingly every direction.

And as you look up, there's a flickering light bulb above you, sort of buzzing and flashing.

You hear footsteps pounding off down the distance.

The four cultists you saw run down here are somewhere off in the darkness.

But above you, written in big block letters on the brick wall in front of you, are the words Operations Center Project Heartland.

Oh, do we hear a faint muffling

of somebody?

Let's find out.

Freddy, give me a luck roll.

Mother, mother, fear me.

I am the broken sky.

All I ever wanted was to feel so ordinary

in a world that lies twisted in my mind.

And now I'm gone.

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

Swallowing my dreams and making them scars.

Too far, too far away.

But I stay

today.

Thanks so much for listening.

Europeans, we're doing some live shows in October this year.

Going to the UK, Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands.

Find tickets and tour dates at dungeonsandaiz.com slash live.

What am I saying?

You guys are all on vacation right now.

Did you know this?

Europe just takes a month off every year and they're like fine.

Their economy is fine.

We got down that level, America.

Come on.

Dungeons and Dads is Matt Arnold's Kelsey Grammar, Anthony Burches, Francis, Farnsworth.

Will Campos is our DM.

Beth Maya is Trudy Trout and myself, Freddie Wong, as Tony Collette.

Our theme song is A Hole in the Stars by Max and Waller.

Brian Fernandez is our content producer.

Ashen Nicola is our community manager.

Courtney Terry is our community coordinator.

Cindy Denton is our merchandise manager.

Esther Ellis is our lead editor.

Travis Reeves provides additional editing and Robin Rapp is our transcriber.

You can support the show directly and get hours of additional bonus content at patreon.com slash dungeonsandads.

What kind of bonus content you might ask?

Well, for example, Matt and Beth, they do a show called The Cristerion Christerion Collection, an additional podcast where a recovering Catholic, that's Matt, and an ex-Episcopalian, that's Beth, watch Christian movies.

And most recently, they watched Terrence Malik's A Hidden Life, which is like an actually good movie.

And like Matt and Beth are both film people.

They have tremendous insight into both the filmmaking and the religious aspects of the movie.

I listen in when they record, and it's honestly one of the highlights of my week, just getting to hear them pontificate and just chat.

about Christian movies.

Most of the time, the movies aren't good, but this one, this one's, it's a good movie.

What can I say?

It's a great podcast.

Check it out.

Patreon.com slash dungeonsandads.

And when you support us directly, you'll also join the likes of fine folks like Darcher, Squid, Bradley Hancock, Hunter McDonald, James Long, Jake Lee, Emma Scheidiger, Emily Severance, Rosebud the Sled, Wesley Long, Hannah Duffy Drys, Ian Geary, Josh Barnett, Courtney Mihachik, Jonathan Stratton, David Horgan, Matt Thomas, Iram Garg, Maura O'Leary, and Danielle.

Thank you so much for listening.

You can support us directly on Patreon at patreon.com slash dungeonsandads.

You can find our merch at dungeonsandads.com, as well as all the links to our stuff.

Live show tickets, dungeonsandaz.com slash live.

And our next episodes coming at you August 27th.

We'll see you then.

All that I can see is a hole in the stars

Swallowing my dreams and making them scars

Too far, too far away

But I stay

today.

I thought you got like phobias and stuff like that.

Here's what's strange.

No one's ever been able to explain this.

I'm afraid of pickles.

Are you a cat?

Yeah.

Well, yeah.

Oh, yeah, you are a cat.

Yeah, you are.

That's funny.

Okay, the funny joke was a crazy thing.

I'm afraid of pickles, but I was too far ahead for my co-host to understand the joke.