The Adventure Zone: Abnimals Ep. 23: A Lair of SCUZZ and Villainy!

In spite of what you've heard, we're at the height of our powers Atop the tallest and towers

never stop us by having to trust That we will do what we must Until it's turning out just like we plan

this long, but our mojo is strong

And unless I'm wrong And I'm not, we're at the height of our power

High above in the skies of River City,

a rocket,

now a rocket-powered escape pod, hurtles across the vast blue, cloudy sky.

Inside...

Unpack those adjectives, Travi.

I'm working on it.

We find inside the cramped compartment four figures.

We find Axel Isle, Lamar,

Navy Seal, and Roger Moore.

There's no windows or view screen or anything, so you can't see your progress, but you can definitely feel it.

The momentum, the G's, they are present.

What are your current states of mind?

Probably feeling a little self-conscious.

The G-forces are probably

making my sort of silhouette look a little like with all the,

you know, blubber and stuff.

Like, I'm a pretty body-positive guy, generally speaking, but there's a sort of

gelatinousness that is occurring, I think, as my flesh is being sort of forced backwards by the force.

It's not the most flattering angle.

It's not the most flat.

I mean, it's not flattering for humans either, but imagine if humans had like a thick layer of blubber.

Okay.

You look up at Axel Isle,

whose skin is utterly gelatinous, and you see it flapping around his skeleton.

Okay, I feel better.

He lifts up and he lifts, he gives you a thumbs up, like, okay, look,

Roger's feeling it in all four stomachs and

thinks he might have to let go of a little gas.

Oh, Jesus.

I know.

Oh,

yeah.

Roger, do you want to trade seats with me and to sit in the back?

Roger Moore

angles his arms so that his watch that shoots out little rockets.

Oh no, God, that's Roger Moore.

Oh!

Oh man, the kids are busting up.

I think

I'm losing it, dude.

Lamar's eyes are closed.

He seems very calm.

Well, he's got a shell.

It's different for him.

Easy.

Roger's just gonna clinch up.

He's fine.

Great.

A small video screen clicks on one of the interiors of the chamber, and you see Dr.

Kildeath pop up.

Hello, boys.

If you're watching this, it means the rocket hasn't exploded or fallen apart.

That was good news, isn't it?

Sorry, it's a video.

I've targeted the rocket towards the bay outside of what what is now RCF HQ, but I wasn't fully honest.

There's a hidden entrance to my old lair, and the rocket is headed straight to that entrance.

Surprise!

Now, I did seal that entrance when I left, but I've installed a device that should trigger it to open if the entrance still works, which it should, because the guy who installed it said it had a lifetime guarantee.

But what happens so if it even if it doesn't work and you die I'll get my money back so win win

we'll find out in three

two

one

I love you guys

I appreciate you on some levels

if you're still watching this it worked hooray

When the world turned its back on Dr.

Kilden, what are you doing?

I turned my back on the world.

That's his internet.

I created somewhere where I could do my dastardly work.

Where no one would see it.

Hold on.

If you hold your thumb on the side, it'll actually go at...

I think it'll go at double speed, man.

Oh, yeah.

Zoom through.

Where no one would see until now.

Looking upon, he squeezes.

I'm my lair.

Oh, wait.

There's no window or view screen.

Well, sorry.

Still pretty slow.

Hold on.

I'm thinking I can do 4X.

Okay, when you're not going to get out, pretend pretend like I just said what I just said.

Oh, I'm going to put it on 0.25 to really save.

Oh, we got everything.

No, it's slow motion now.

0.25.

Oh,

so we shot everything down,

but SCUS

should still be operational.

What's SCUZ?

And we'll be able to help you.

Any questions?

What is SCUS?

Haha, just kidding.

This is pre-recorded.

Stop the video.

Still, those were good questions, and you should feel good about them.

Anywho, have fun out there.

If you survive, come back for a barbecue sometime.

And the video clicks off.

I'm realizing now that Dr.

Kildeath is basically like a higher-pitched Bane.

Like, if you slow him down enough, he becomes sort of Bane.

You guys aren't talking about how much I sound like Bane, are you?

I'm going to turn the video off now.

There's a button right here.

It says...

And the video clicks off.

Thank God.

For a moment, this interior chamber, which now is, the momentum is slowed, there is, you can still feel a little bit of movement until you feel the rocket almost gently, just shy of gently, bump into something and stop.

And you're now where kind of at a,

you feel like you're laying down, at a supine kind of thing.

And you hear the chamber door that you came through to enter the rocket, like, unlock, the air hisses, and it begins to open.

Everyone, breathe out.

So to avoid decompression, you don't want the bins.

Empty your lungs.

Nice try.

I know that was a trap you're trying to give us the bins, but not today, pal.

Oh man, you almost got me.

Next time I'll get you.

I'm going to give you the corners next time.

Okay.

That's the benz but worse.

Yeah, sounds like it.

Can we leave the rocket?

I would like to leave the rocket.

Yeah, I opened the door.

Okay.

I didn't even make you open the door yourself.

Appreciate that.

I am eight inches taller than when we left, but this will diminish after the first two minutes.

Yeah, I will stretch back, much like Stretch Armstrong.

I will return to my regular size.

I have sort of a light bulb shape now where a lot of my mass has been sort of stretched upward.

Um, but yes, also that will correct me.

Will you fellows go ahead and depart

and get out of the rocket real quick?

Just go on, go on, go on, please, please.

I mean, we might need to use it again.

Can you not do what you're about to do outside?

It's either do it in here or do it out there with you.

I'm gonna close the door for just a minute.

Wait, here, let me get out.

Lamar scrambles out.

You seal dad in his own chamber of farts.

Oh!

He does.

He dies.

Hmm.

Not bad.

Dad's characters always

suffer the most heroic deaths every single day.

Three months later.

I can't believe.

I can't believe we still have not done his funeral.

This is getting so gross.

You'd have to retrieve the body.

No, I closed it behind me.

Okay.

It's preserved perfectly.

So he's so cured himself.

Perfectly preserved.

But woe until he who opens the tomb of Roger Moore.

The Fartro's curse.

Okay.

Curse of the Mumi.

Oh, that was better.

Okay.

The rocket has come down through a secret entrance, and you find the water that it had sailed into is up against a shore here in some kind of underground docking bay.

But all of the lights have been shut off.

You see a little bit of like emergency light.

It's not completely dark.

There's There's like some backups going and everything, but everything is definitely shut down.

Okay.

It is a very large chamber with a large, you know, domed ceiling, sort of batcave-esque, where you can see like the stalag uh tights that come down from the top.

Yeah, that's right.

I know.

And uh, but you also see a mixture of technology and computers.

Very old,

very uh like 90s computers and technology, nothing up to date.

Is it but nothing's on?

Right?

I mean, you can see some like lights, but they're like, you know, if you were looking for an on switch on like a monitor or something and there was like a little red light letting you know that the thing was off.

You see a lot of those around.

Axel Lyle, what do your elf eyes see?

Can you find some illumination for us?

I'm having trouble getting my bearings.

Uh, yeah, I have, uh, I want to do a sort of little look around, do a butcher's too, but I want to use Travis, uh, I, my superior eyes, my incredible night vision, which is something of a superpower.

Now, I've shared with you,

I think you guys are all in this map.

Yes.

The detailed blueprints that Dr.

Kill Death shared with you of Dr.

Kill Death's totally rad and totally bad secret evil layer.

Travis, you've done it again.

No, sorry, this wasn't you.

It was Dr.

Kill Death.

Yeah, I'm seeing that now.

I mistook the handwriting, man.

Sorry.

I understand.

We have very similar handwriting.

It would be difficult for a handwriting analyst to tell the difference because we have, frankly, very similar psychology.

Yeah.

If I were to get up in your brains and walk around, you would find it very

terrifying.

Yeah, give me a looking around, Raw.

With your superior night vision eyes.

With my superior nocturno sense,

that's gonna be 3d8.

48.

Okay, 48.

Three successes.

With three successes, you're able to see near the docking platform that you're on something that looks like a

pretty outdated, but like security panel and a fairly large red button that says push for SCUS.

S, period, C, period, U, period, Z, period, Z.

Haha, I know what that is.

I remember James Bond Jr.

chases scums around the world.

That was scum?

Scum, man.

That was scum.

I remember from the hit series, James Bond Jr.

was scum.

That, by the way, for anyone, and no one listening remembers it except me.

James Bond Jr.

was his nephew, if I remember correctly.

And I don't think that's how that works.

That is not.

Like, I don't think I could have a kid and name him Joseph McElroy Jr.

But now you definitely could.

Now he's Bezos is boy, so you can have five sons.

Yeah, that's five beautiful sons.

Can you hit the SCUZ?

Hit the SCUS button?

I would gladly hit the SCUS button.

Yeah,

let him.

I don't want to push it.

And Roger, with great aplomb, pushes it.

You hear a whirring up, whether it is mechanical or technological.

You can't tell if it's a it almost sounds like a film projector whirring up, but with lots of unnecessary to your ears beeps and boobs.

And you hear a voice kind of echoing through the chamber.

Hey there, noob recruits!

Welcome to Dr.

Kildeath's Totally Rad and Totally Bad Secret Evil Layer.

I'm Scuds.

How can you do that?

Can you change your voice?

Do you have the programming required to change your voice?

Identify yourselves, bad dudes.

My name is Axelisle.

I'm like a sort of auxiliary member of the Infibal Force.

You should be able to look me up.

I should be early in the alphabet, but late in the A's, I would say.

Nothing in my database, cool dude.

What about you?

I am Mr.

Messup.

I don't want to give him my real name.

No information found.

Well, what about you guys?

I mean, what's in your data?

What is in your database?

Because I don't know when the last everything up to date to 2004, my man.

2004?

Um,

my name is

Dr.

Kildeath.

Ho ho ho!

Okay,

sure, poser.

And what?

And Lamar says, Scuz, uh, it's Lamar and the guys are with me.

Greenpack Guardian detect.

Sorry, maybe

let you take up to update.

Do you need private time?

Oh,

hey.

Hi.

Lamar.

Hey, welcome back, man.

It's been a long

time.

Sorry,

the place is a mess, guys.

Mr.

Mess Up, Dr.

Kill Death.

And what was it?

It was...

Axe Lyle.

Axel,

welcome.

Sorry, I didn't know we were going to have company, man.

I would.

Sorry, guys.

No apologies, Nita.

Why don't you just calm down a little bit, fella?

Sorry, it's just been a while.

I'm thinking about this.

Since anybody came by.

Sorry.

Take a deep cyber breath and focus.

You hear the projector, like, we're in and we're out.

Cool.

How have you been filling your cycles down here, brother?

Um

waiting

that's it.

That's rough.

That's existentially pretty challenging.

Someone could have at least kicked you a real hard math problem or something.

Imagine just something to keep you busy, right?

Pie to the infinite degree?

Something like that, man.

Does RCF just kind of let you put her around down here?

RCF?

Yeah, they built their whole thing on top of

on top of this secret base.

Are you really not aware of what's going on, like, upstairs?

Well, no, no.

Okay, you've been abandoned down here, man.

Why didn't Kildeth take you with you?

Well,

I mean, I'm just computer, and

I'm here to, you know, he left me behind, keeping an eye on the place.

I mean, he trusted me.

Uh, um, I'm kind of a student of Heraldry.

Um, what does S-C-U-Z-Z stand for?

Oh, it's just my name.

It doesn't stand for anything, but Dr.

Kildeth put the dots and stuff in there to make it look cool.

And

because he couldn't think of two Z words that would fit.

You've had like a lot of time to think down here.

Certainly, you've come up for with some it stands for, right?

Well,

I mean, I could, but give me a second.

Okay, you've had all the time in the world.

I'm gonna say, um, steal,

steal, cougar, uh, steel cougar, Uptown.

So we're really done see everything.

Okay.

This is just my question.

Suit suit.

Well, it would be suit suit, wouldn't it?

Yeah.

Okay, steal cougar uptown suit suit.

Do you think you could take us to Dr.

KD's room?

I'd love to have just like a good old-fashioned butcher.

Oh, you guys want a tour?

Please, please.

Yeah, hold on.

Let me turn on the lights for you.

And some like overhead lights start to click on.

Not all of them come on.

In fact, you would say less than half of them but what you do see come on is a lot of uh little red lights all around the room

and you start to hear movement

as

about a hundred little robots were to life all of them in various states of like rusting and disrepair pretty worn out some of them even like sparks coming out from disuse

and lamar says oh man the the kill death bots

yeah dude oh i haven't seen these in forever man

are they sentient like you are

are you talking to scuzz yeah

oh no man they're just like little almost like remote control dudes um

and that doesn't like mess with you doesn't that kind of mess your head up a little bit I don't know, man, when you play with action figures, does that bother you?

Well, the action figures aren't made of flesh and bone and other stuff that seals are made out of.

Aww.

You give me a lot to think about, man.

Yeah, I'm sorry.

We're really challenging you.

We need to go upstairs and save Carver.

Oh, sure, but

you wanted to look around and stuff, right?

If it's quick, I guess, and practical.

Okay, yeah, let me...

Let me take you on a tour of the place.

And you see four of the little kill-death bots come out, and each one goes to take your hand.

Oh, they are adorable.

That is kind of cute.

Okay,

look at look at him hold him.

Oh, look, look, look, look, he's got his little middle fingers wrapped around my hoof.

Oh,

is he tickling you?

What's going on?

I don't know.

It just feels weird.

It just feels weird.

I hear one of my cats upstairs crying.

You know what they're, you know, what they're upset about.

Just like the state of things and whatever.

No, they're only ever wanting one thing, and that's for me to get the smalls out.

Dad, we don't know how to.

Yeah, they love the smooth bird.

Dad, we want our smooth bird.

We don't have jobs.

We can't buy our own food.

We don't know how to order things.

Dad, we're so scared.

We're cats and we've gained complete human intelligence.

What's happening?

Where are we?

Yeah.

Where are we?

But you know what?

I calm them right down with smalls because you're going to get a package of smalls, right?

You're going to open it up.

You're going to put it.

in front of your cats there, put it into a bowl, whatever you're going to, I don't know your business.

But when you put it out there, these cats are going to freak out.

And you're also going to see some long-lasting effects.

In my experience, at least, my cats have been a little healthier.

They've had a nice, nice-looking coat, and they just love, they love smalls.

They love it.

Smalls cat food is protein-packed recipes made with preservative-free ingredients.

And it's delivered right to your door.

And cats.com named it their best overall cat food.

And get this after switching to smalls, 88% of cat owners report overall health improvements for smalls food.

That's a big deal.

For a limited time only because you are a zone.

I was really proud of that, Justin.

I was really proud of that.

Sorry, Trav.

That was great.

Thank you.

For a limited time only because you're an adventure zone listener you can get 60 off your first smalls order plus free shipping when you head to smalls.com slash adventure that's 60 off when you head to smalls.com slash adventure plus free shipping again that's smalls.com slash adventure hey this week we're coming to sorry to interrupt i just kind of burst in okay yeah sorry hey i'm also sorry i'm also sorry and i'm here and i'm interrupting too If you're coming to

our shows this week in San Antonio and Austin, thank you.

If you're not already planning on coming, why not?

We want to see you there.

We need you there.

Join us.

What are you doing?

It's so great.

Yeah.

If you're coming to the show and you want to have a question,

you got a question you want answered, you want a fear read aloud, we got you.

Email that to mbmbam at maximumfund.org and put your city in the subject line in Austin.

And also doing what, Trav?

What are we doing in Austin, buddy?

Well, we're doing Adventure Zone versus Hercules, and it's going to be a real treat.

You're going to

feel happier than you've ever felt in your entire life.

Yeah, we're also coming to Utah and California later this year.

Tickets for all those shows are on sale now.

More info and ticket links are available at bit.ly forward slash McElroy Tours.

Oh, we also have new merch because it's a new month.

Yeah.

A new month, new merch, new you.

Well, yeah, sort of.

We've got a brand new Gerald t-shirt over there designed by Lynn Doyle.

Go to mackerelmerch.com and check it out.

And 10% of all merch proceeds this month will be donated to equality florida which is dedicated to securing full equality for florida's lgbtq community so go to macroymerch.com to get yours now

you know we've been doing my brother my brother me for 15 years and maybe

maybe you stopped listening for a while maybe you never listened and you're probably assuming three white guys talking for 15 years i know where this has ended up but no No, you would be wrong.

We're as shocked as you are that we have not fallen into some sort of horrific scandal or just turned into a big crypto thing.

Yeah.

You don't even really know how crypto works.

The only NFTs I'm into are naughty, funny things, which is what we talk about on my brother, my brother, and me.

We serve it up every Monday for you if you're listening.

And if not, we just leave it out back and goes rotten.

So check it out on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts.

All right, we're over 70 episodes into our show.

Let's learn everything.

So let's do a quick progress check.

Have we learned about quantum physics?

Yes, episode 59.

We haven't learned about the history of gossip yet, have we?

Yes, we have.

Same episode, actually.

Have we talked to Tom Scott about his love of roller coasters?

Episode 64.

So how close are we to learning everything?

Bad news.

We still haven't learned everything yet.

Oh, we're ruined!

No, no, no, it's good news as well.

There is still a lot to learn.

Woo!

I'm Dr.

Ella Hubber.

I'm regular Tom Lum.

I'm Caroline Roper and on Let's Learn Everything we learn about science and a bit of everything else too.

And although we haven't learned everything yet, I've got a pretty good feeling about this next episode.

Join us every other Thursday on Maximum Fun.

They lead you through the first set of sealed doors and you know from your blueprints to the right is Dr.

Kildeath's room and to the left is the lab.

You could tell because it's labeled with science.

It also says lab.

Yeah, that should be.

It also says lab.

That's more sort of the identifier I was going off of.

Hey, what's going on over in the lab?

Oh, that's where like Cleft and Dr.

Kill Death would do a lot of like experiments and develop like new and cool and totally bad ways to like, you know, get the best of the Greenback Guardians.

No offense, Lamar.

Oh, none taken, dude.

Thank you, man.

And

then

they would, you know, maybe like develop some kind of like big robot fly that would attack, or some kind of like robot like mole that would attack, or like a big robot frog that would attack, or like a big robotic cheese that would attack.

Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay.

So is there anything like in there that we yeah, let's go look!

And you see, like, the lights light up down the hallway.

Okay.

They're saying if there's a robot bird, we could use that to fight RCF.

There's going to be a lot of...

Have you guys thought about the fact there's going to be like a lot of dudes up there?

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

Just making sure you run the numbers on that.

I've got a lot of punches saved up, though.

I haven't punched anybody for about a week.

Okay.

Wow.

I have at least 17 or 18 punches.

Really backed up.

Okay.

Lamar says, have you thought about just continuing that on, my man, and maybe not punching anybody?

Oh, man.

Imagine Lamar.

if Lamar started punching good oh I don't punch anymore man no I know but I got I bet you got one in in the stored in the tank don't you man like one really good punch I mean sure listen

I'm all for you if the dire if the situation was dire enough and all the odds were against us right would there ever be a situation where I would turn my back on my newfound ideals of pacifism I doubt it

but if you did, man, like, it would be...

Save us.

If we were going to die if you did.

Or whatever.

Like, it'd be like a wild punch, man.

It'd be huge.

I can't even imagine how powerful that punch would be.

Like, they would write books about that punch and how heroic and amazing it was, but I cannot imagine a situation in which you would come to me.

You would be the true one puncher, man.

Yeah.

Oh, my God.

That would be the dream.

Would that extend to robots?

You know, inanimate objects?

Could you not punch one of them and not violate your pacifistic ideals?

Dang, ma'am.

You've given me a lot to think about, man.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm going to be quiet over here for a minute while I think about it.

Have you thought about how, for some reason, the Adventure Zone is kind of a show about the way in which we interact with AI without ever intentionally being a show about the way human beings interact with AI?

It's just all it's like this like really pressing, interesting, thematic question that we always kind of like brush past on our way to some sort of fart joke or something.

You know, I don't know.

But then we like see the skid coming and turn

gigantic ethical question of sentience is like this massive moving target on our show.

You're right.

And actually, skids show up after an unsuccessful fart.

We won't be able to cover our bases no matter which way the revolution goes.

You know what I mean?

We have plenty of pro and anti-machine.

We were on your side, guys.

Right.

Yeah, the one beefy guy ripped your arms off.

No one liked that.

But

that was satire.

That was satire.

That was

very...

Do you guys understand satire?

I hope.

Can we go in the lab?

Yeah, you go in the lab and you find just

a wide array of half-finished, almost finished projects.

A lot of them, you can see where there was like some, you know, material being laid over things to create like the look of a robotic animal or the look of sometimes robotic plants,

a lot of that kind of stuff.

But a lot of that has rotted away from sitting here in a somewhat dank cavern for many, many years.

There is a lot of materials here, a lot of outdated, but probably functional scientific equipment that could be at your disposal if that's something you wanted to investigate.

But nothing jumps out at you as like, oh, here's

a big, massive writable machine that we'd be able to

write off the lot, right out of here.

Are there any

computers or anything of the like in there?

Yeah, man, there's some of those, you remember those Apple computers that had like the clear plastic, different colored backs on them?

Yeah.

You see a lot of those.

I'm going to use Halicar Hack

on the Apple computer to see if there's anything in this lab I can complete.

As the artificer of the team, that's the thing.

I want to be able to.

That's news to me.

Hold on.

I'm looking at your sheet here.

Different arc.

Different arc.

Sorry.

Sorry.

No, but go for it.

Helicar hack.

That is

an abskill.

That's 3v8.

Have we refreshed our time to shine dice?

The ride on the rocket gave you so much to think about.

Really shook some stuff loose in your body.

So yeah,

your time to shine dice is all new and refreshed.

Done.

Your damage is still present, though.

Okay, 3d8.

Double success, seven and an eight.

Yeah, so you boot up the computer and you find projects kind of listed in completion.

It's a pretty archaic, you know, kind of file folder system of what it is, but they seem to be sorted in order of near, you know, how near complete they are.

What kind of thing are you looking for?

Well, I was thinking that it might be nice since we're about to, you know, face all these

foes, if there's anything in there that can improve.

our attack capabilities, like extend the range of my,

you know, cattle prod horns or anything that would juice up our our weaponry sure

um okay yeah so as you're investigating you find one project um that is listed for a robotic scorpion

and it lays out the schematics for electrified pincers for the front of the scorpion to grab with and you can tell from the blue parents that the pincers themselves are a singular unit that do not need to be attached to the rest of the scorpion.

To function, they contain their own kind of inner workings.

Okay, and with a little adjustment and some careful work, you think maybe they would be able to be fitted over your horns.

And what would be the effect of that?

It would improve your signature weapon.

Okay.

I would like to try to do that.

Okay.

So should I roll?

Well, I'm looking here to see, because this isn't hacking.

This is just building.

This is probably a silly question, but dad normally hides and dances.

What is his signature weapon?

He has

cattle prods on his horns that act as

that's his signature weapon?

He used it three or four times.

No, no, no, that's true.

I guess I just think of you as more of like a song of dance man.

Hiding or hiding.

Give me a C, a bouncing C.

Yeah, so I would say that you don't have any inherent mechanical skills.

So I think this would just be a straight 2d8 roll.

Well, then I'm going to use two

time to shine dice.

Okay.

To make it 4d8.

And that's a triple wait a minute.

One, two, three.

Yeah, triple success.

Yeah.

Six and a five.

With three successes, you are able to, with a little trial and error and some guidance from Skuz and the little Kill Death bot that you've been holding hands with, he's pointing at little things.

It let's not personally, let's not personify it anymore.

Sure.

You are able to fit those over and increase your signature item attack to 48.

Nice.

Okay.

Hey, what about Dr.

Kill Death's room?

Can we pop in there?

Oh, sure, yeah,

I'll show you, yeah.

Um, this way, follow me.

And you see the lights kind of light up

down across the hallway from the laboratory.

Now, according to the map here, it says no kill death bots are allowed in.

Yeah, they all stop right outside the doorway, and they're kind of peeking in.

Okay,

so uh, Dougie, I need you to pop squat right here, okay, pal?

pal?

I named my robot Dougie.

Oh, my God, did you guys hear that?

That was so good.

That's adorable.

Uh, I want to go in the room.

Okay, yeah, as you enter the room, you see it's a strange combination of like a cavern, but with a lot of very

art deco kind of decorations and a lot of you know gold and black um kind of highlights on everything very a lot of like metallic sharp corners it's very well decorated very pretty um and threatening at the same time think a lot like uh like the room from uh street fighter where uh why am i forgetting his name Mbison?

Yeah, where Mbison lives.

It's like M.

Bison's room.

I have no idea what that means to you.

No, in the movie.

If Griffin and I, if Griffin and I don't know what you're talking about.

It's a dream you had, I think, of Raul Julia and his.

The famous bedroom of Mbison.

Yeah, when he's walking around in there and he's doing the for me,

it was at two straps.

I'm sorry, but like, there was not a bit in that where he was like, look at my famous room.

Yeah.

Hold on.

Take in its many details so that your mind can summon them later while you listen to brothers play adventures on it.

That's famous.

I want to look for a secret hatch.

A secret, but these bad guys always have a little secret hatch.

Or a secret little button that opens a hatch.

I'm pulling books at angles on bookshelves to see what kind of hatches they reveal unto me.

A hatch to what end?

Got secret, powerful stuff inside it.

Some of his best stuff.

Okay, yeah.

Give me.

Let's see.

What would...

Bug-eyed?

Yeah, give me a bug-eyed check.

By the way, I remember the room, Travis.

Three successes.

There's no way that's true.

567.

No, there's like a secret hatch with weapons in it that's all

had like red light behind it.

Cool.

There was a red and white cupboard.

Are you looking at the scene right now, Mac?

Yes.

Okay.

I mean, to to be fair, I am too.

Yeah, it's really cool.

Tell me what cool thing I find in the hatch with my three successes.

You find on his...

Treasure, please.

You find on his desk a snow globe with a little skyline of River City as it was.

I smash it open.

The secret is inside the snow globe.

Well, when you lift it up, it triggers the hatch.

You don't have to smash it open.

You still can if you want to.

Just to be safe, I want to make sure there's nothing inside the snow globe that like a key card or a SD card or a little key.

Do you guys want to hear more things that would fit in a snow globe?

A sled called Rosebud.

Okay, what is that?

Griffin, when you suggested inventing reverse 20 questions, where instead of asking questions, you would just list all the things that it isn't, I...

I really didn't think it would catch on.

But this is going wild.

Yeah, man, it's magnetic.

When you...

Well, there is behind a bookcase, the bookcase slides open, and you find...

I fucking knew it.

You find

a set of Dr.

Kildeath patented armor

that is both very

thin and flexible, but has kind of built-in shock absorption to it

to deflect some damage.

Okay.

Does it is it seal is it seal-sized?

You think that the shoulder shoulder pauldrons and the chest piece could be there

laced?

Okay, threaded so that you could fit them on.

Hey, can someone get me

lace me up?

Yeah, absolutely.

Okay, this sort of clashes with my aesthetic.

Yeah, it definitely does.

It has pretty sharp points on the successes for lacing up Griffin.

Huh?

Oh, yeah, man.

You lace the heck out of it.

What does that mean?

Do I have armor now?

You do.

Oh, that's fantastic.

You're going to to pick up one damage reduction from your shoulder pauldrons and chest piece.

I love that.

That's so great.

And you have kind of a like a 90s bad guy villain aesthetic.

That's less great, but I'll take the damage reduction for sure.

Hey, Scuzz.

Yeah, Scuzz.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You guys have any place around here where you used to like watch flicks, hang out?

Oh, yeah, man.

We have it.

It's totally cool.

Hey, follow me this way.

And you see the lights light up down the hallway, out of the room, and down towards the laser disc screening room.

One more intersection down to the right, along with its own built-in bathroom.

But you GC labeled on the map.

But we won't stop the movie.

So you know that there were strict rules regarding this.

Why would he include that?

On the map, right?

Yeah.

It seems like, man, you could convey the information via a sign.

Yeah.

Uh, yeah.

You do see a sign too.

He was very thorough.

So, Scuzz,

this is, I'm sure kind of a long shot man but

i was hoping you might help me look through your your media collection here to see if you might have some copy of or some footage or some early dated something from the greenback guardian's pilot oh the real greenback guardian yeah i i know there was only one copy but Throughout the production, I was hoping maybe he would have been screen.

If it was screening anywhere, right, It would have been screening here.

So there's the one official copy, but I don't know.

I was hoping maybe some sort of thing might be here still, man.

I know, I don't know, I don't.

Give me a role

to observe what's going on to read the situation, that kind of deal.

How many...

Let's see.

Yeah, give me 3DA role for your powers of observation from apps.

Sorry, I forgot about Fregler's power of limitless foresight.

I don't even know what that is.

It's a power I gave myself where if I'm about to make a major mess up, I will harness the power of thought and reconsider the action in favor of a better path.

Awesome.

Oh, yeah.

But Fregler's power of limitless foresight can only activate when Lyle acts impulsively.

Is this the same day as the one where you were saying?

This is a different one.

He's getting your butt hit.

I'm not using it.

Okay, great.

Yes, that's true.

But yes, I already tapped into Fregler's power of limos foresight yesterday but i i don't have it today i'm using it i'm thinking of his metaphorical days yeah yeah interesting so 3d8 roll for i think he made it no i haven't made it yet

okay two successes okay yeah with two successes you see those lights that have been moving you like through the hallways kind of brighten around lamar and shift over to where he's standing and he's listening very intently to what you're saying and and thinking about it.

Lamar, do you know something?

Uh,

I mean, we

hey, Lamar, if there's something you're not telling us, man, the stakes just couldn't be higher.

I mean, yeah, Dr.

Kill Death consulted on the pilot.

He was a major character in it, after all.

So, we sent him, you know, some test stuff to see if he approved of his portrayal in the show.

So, they probably have some stuff like that.

Uh-huh.

Why do you, why do you want to see it?

Uh, you know, that's the funny thing about this tape, man.

Nobody seems to want anybody to see it, but nobody seems to know quite why.

And so, I don't know why I want to see it, except for a lot of people seem to not want me to see it.

Doesn't that drive you crazy?

Yeah, man.

Um,

all right,

Scuzz.

Yeah.

Yeah, Mr.

Lamar.

Cue it up.

And you hear a whirring.

The lights go down.

And the screen comes to life.

And you see a totally rad 90, late 90s style animated opening sequence come up.

And the narration begins.

In a world without heroes, villains ruled.

And you see like Dr.

Kill Death's like dark shadow,

you know, standing there.

But one group of abnormal heroes rose before them all.

And this, you see

little

tortoises, little, you know, normal-sized, normal just tortoise tortoises, crawling around a laboratory.

When physicist, surgeon, and extreme sports enthusiast Professor Dr.

Barth Monroe was working on a way to to improve the quality of crops around the world.

He had no idea the effect it would have on his pets.

And you see Dr.

Barth Monroe putting a burrito to microwave and starting it up, but you notice he's forgotten to unwrap the burrito, so it's still in its silver foil.

With a lab accident involving these chemicals and it flashes across the screen like what the chemicals were as there's an explosion from the microwave and all the chemicals spill in and you can see on the beakers at the different levels of like how much was in them as they're all measured beakers spill onto the burrito

the tortoises they enjoyed some lunch and you see the tortoises like eating from the burrito

and grew them into the real greenback guardians and they like morph into the powerful heroes we know and love

Lamar, Lovelace, Newton, and Carver.

And

Lamar now says, like, yeah, you can

stop there.

Yeah.

Um.

What's after it?

I mean, just the rest of the first time we kind of like fought Dr.

Kill Death and everything.

So you ate a magic burrito?

Well, a scientific burrito.

A scientific burrito.

Yeah,

like it was kind of like a chemical-laden, like radiated.

And tasty.

Oh my

God.

I know why you didn't want this pilot out.

Anybody watching this could recreate the accident that gave you your powers.

Yeah, I was a little too focused on the accuracy of it.

and wanted it to be like the real, you know, like the real story of the Greenback Guardians.

And then, like, we showed Dr.

Kill Death, and he was like,

No, you shouldn't do that.

And, like, Professor Dr.

Barth Monroe was like, I don't think this is a good thing, and like, we pulled it,

and but it was, it was a good pilot, man.

Like, I think people really would have liked the show, and so, like, I didn't want to, like, destroy it or anything.

And,

um, but yeah, it was, it was maybe not the best idea to kind of list what the chemicals were and maybe, like, have a clear shot of like the measurements of each one and stuff is your the is yours the only origin like this well yeah man after this you know all the other abnormals came from the convergence and so we were pre-convergence and

um

we're

are there sorry what i'm trying to get at is like are there similar methods

for the other greenback guardians or is it just his method no it's all four of them okay this is all you see all four tortoises tortoises eating this extreme and and now powerful burrito to become okay.

So they all have the same

Hey, I have a weird question though.

What happened with the burrito?

Oh, we finished it.

Oh, nice.

Yeah, man.

It was good, dude.

It was like carne sada and you know, still right amount of spicy, but we're like a lot of the spices like flavor related and not just heat.

Had guacamole.

Well, what are you afraid is going to happen if this information

got out there?

Like.

well someone could reverse engineer a way to make their own

abnormals would they need this footage

or is this something that like could i do this now having watched it i'm not thinking of doing that but i'm trying to understand well ask lamar

so lamar are you saying are you telling me that right now I could go and replicate the science breeding?

Well, no.

I mean,

no.

You'd still be missing a part of it.

Which part, man?

This is why I'm...

No, you know what, actually?

No.

He's got to answer.

No, no, Lamar, don't tell me.

Well, it's important.

No, but Lamar, don't, man.

It seems like he really wants to tell us though.

Yeah, but like, hey, guys,

it's not like that.

Just listen.

You asked the question.

Listen, man, if this is one of those things where you tell me and then I know both parts and then you kill me,

I'm saying right now, don't tell me.

No, I'm gonna tell you the part that's not there, but not tell you the part.

So, you're gonna tell me the part that's not there, but not not tell me what you're talking about.

If you let me answer you, dude, I'm starting to get that punch build up now, man.

Like, nice, keep that.

No, keep that.

I don't want a punch.

Use it easy.

The other factor you'd need to know is the level of radiation

from the microwave explosion.

And the only way to get that

is by like analyzing a member of the greenback guardians like dna or makeup

that's why i'm worried about carver man

okay yeah knowing that i i

i don't know how opposed i am to this information being out there

because i feel like everyone should have the choice whether or not they want to become superpowered but if that information is exclusively held by the the walrus or the the the

Jack Boots at River City First, then that's worst case scenario.

Let me ask you this, Amar.

Could they possibly

engineer this to create an anti-abnimal effect?

To turn abnormals back

into ordinary animals?

Well, I mean,

I could put your mind at ease there, my dude.

This is unrelated.

Like, this is just us.

I guess maybe they could do it to figure out how to turn the Greenback Guardians back, but we're, you know, retired now.

And as far as most people knew until recently,

maybe not even around anymore.

So

I guess you could, if you found a way to like neutralize all the stuff that was like powering the current generation generation of abnormals, you could do it, but I don't see how that would be related to us.

More things to think about.

What would happen, do you think, if an amnibal, if an abnormal ate the science burrito?

Ooh,

if an abnormal ate the science burrito,

man, that it might create a black hole.

I have no idea.

I'm not the science one, man.

Like, because man, all I can think is, like,

we should do this now.

I have some time and you have the DNA like let's do it you well

would you want to eat my DNA

I mean with cilantro and stuff like whatever else is in it

not just your DNA oh my god I'm saying let's fix up a batch

Let's fix up a batch of these scientific burritos and give ourselves the edge we need to make ourselves permanent members of the amphibaforce.

I mean, or whatever we want to, you know?

I don't want a turtle to grow out of my chest.

Like, there's so.

No, man.

What if that doesn't even happen?

What if it just makes your muscles big and makes all the seal ladies take a double take?

Okay, that all sounds great, but we, guys,

there's something important here that you guys are missing.

And that would be.

I hold up a box and I say,

They got Flubber.

They got flubber on laser disc

oh we could be watching flubber right now

okay tell you what let's take a deal let's take a break we're gonna watch flubber and then we'll come back to this exact conversation right now put a pin in it put a pin in it let's watch flubber And then we'll come back and speak on this.

Because this is like a huge conversation.

I want to have back with you guys, but I would love to watch Flubber and just kind of like center, you know what I mean?

Right.

Look, look right next to it.

What's that?

Son of Flubber,

son of a flubber.

Yes, this is gonna be the best afternoon ever.

But after this quick double feature, guys, let's promise ourselves exactly back to this conversation right now because it seems hugely important.

Absolutely.

But like

first flubber, right?

Yeah, absolutely.

All right, let's get a little popcorn going.

I'll get and if by watching flubber we learn how to make flubber

all the better.

I look at Skies.

Is that anything?

No.

Okay.

Okay.

Well, we could still enjoy the high drinks.

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