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The Final Rule(s)
Completely Improvised DnD campaigns! Prepare nothing for anything.
The Final Rule(s)
The Final Rules: Chaos | ★U~Me~WEHaul!★ (S3E4)
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After a five-year hiatus a cast reunites as The Final Rule returns! Bigger, better, and improvier than ever - The Final Rules manifests now as two simultaneously occurring and, as always, completely improvised campaigns.
Just as Ssssssylvia, Virgil, and Michael must reckon with a new, strange world, so too must Typhus (played by Logan Naddy,) Blair Codswallow (Zak Denley,) and Arnold "Gloves" McAffee (Brendan Bice) explore a familiar City - now turned strange. Power and information flow through the City like a river, and our heroes might get swept away without their better halves.
TFRs: Chaos is DMed by Timothy Underwood.
Please enjoy!
New episodes will be livestreamed on the Arcadian Renaissance Theatre Creatives YouTube channel on the first and third Mondays of the month!
The Final Rule(s) is produced by Arcadian Renaissance Theatre Creatives, a nonprofit organization from Livingston Parish, LA. Please visit us at https://www.art-c.org to learn more, and please consider donating so we can realize our ultimate goal: fair pay for our artists and collaborators.
Long ago, in a distant land, far beyond the reaches of common sense, a band of merry adventurers are Well, they're doing something, that's for sure. But it'll be all mystical and shit. Welcome to the Final Rule.
SPEAKER_07Hello, everyone. Welcome to uh uh the the first part of the chaos campaign. Uh the Final Rules Chaos. Uh I am the Dungeon Master Tim, uh, joined by three out of the six lovely players we have for the uh the podcast slash live stream this season. Uh we'll just go ahead and go in the order Brendan, Zach, and Logan. Just go ahead and introduce yourself real quickly, like we do at the start of every stream.
SPEAKER_05Hello, I'm I'm Brendan. I play Arnold. Hey Brendan!
SPEAKER_01Hi Brendan! Hey Brendan! Hello.
SPEAKER_09Uh I'm Zach. I play Black Con Swallow. Uh, and uh you can you can always find me uh working retail somewhere.
SPEAKER_13That it's so true. Hi, I'm Logan Natty. I play Typhus, who's kind of the calm voice of reason, and you can find me uh playing Typhus, the calm voice of reason.
SPEAKER_07Oh heavens. Uh well, welcome to uh this wonderful episode, everyone. Uh so for those of you who are watching and do not know, uh the Final Rules is uh now on its third season, complete completely improvised Dungeons and Dragons. Um, what that means is uh despite the normal amount of prep that a DM might put into uh uh uh any given campaign, any session for any campaign, I have done nothing. Neither has Justin, uh the DM for the order campaign. Neither has any of us, other than what we've uh created over the course of the campaign so far, with both the session zero, session one, and now orders first session as well. Uh otherwise, we are gonna be making this all up as we go. So uh I hope that we are we're all ready. Uh I'm basically ready to pull a suggestion and get rolling. I don't know about you guys.
SPEAKER_08Sounds good to me.
SPEAKER_07I love suggestions. Okay, beautiful. Uh well then, uh, just so everyone knows, of course, the suggestion is going to be pulled from our Discord channel. The Final Rules has a dedicated Discord channel, has for a long time. It is wonderfully maintained by uh Chase, one of our players on the order campaigns and president of the Arcadian Renaissance Theater Creatives, the nonprofit production company that is helping put this on. Uh donations are always welcome. Uh, if anybody has that wonderful PayPal in the corner, please know you will be donating in order to help us uh pay all of our artists at RT. We love that because our labor deserves uh recompense uh and proper money. Hey, I'm pulling a command by the way. Aw, mother f okay. So I remember look, I was looking at this one, right? Uh I have no idea what it is. Uh the suggestion that I just pulled is from Casey uh added to our Discord. It's IGO U-Hall. Hold on. I'm hoping that that's not something uh Casey wouldn't do that to me. Let me see. Hold on. Is that like Yowie? I I don't know, man. That is that word mean.
SPEAKER_05There are a lot of letters that made up a word I've never seen before. It's different.
SPEAKER_09I just was I looked it up on my phone.
SPEAKER_07A cute oh heavens. Oh no. Okay, so it's a uh it's not an aw no thing. It's a very Korean concept that I'm gonna have to interpret on the fly, according to Wikipedia. Aigio in Korean is a normalized gendered performance that involves a cute display of affection, often expressed through a cute voice, changes to speech, facial expressions, or gestures. Literally means behaving in a fur flirtatious, coquettish manner, and is commonly expected for both male and female k-pop idols. Okay, sure. I can I can do that. Y'all can do that, right?
SPEAKER_09Yeah, it looks like this very long specifically to hide my hands in.
SPEAKER_05The you haul stuff, it looks like it was a TikTok viral story. That's what's the deal with the well then, Brandon.
SPEAKER_07I hope you're ready to uh fold that into the narrative. Okay, so uh allow me to set the stage if you will. You know, Arnold, there were times when you imagined looking up at those big billbird billboards of uh of Mr. Grayer, that you always imagined, man, what it must be like to be one of those people who helps install those, to be up that high, that nice of a city, uh nice nice of a view of the city, overlooking such people as they bustle here and there like ants scurrying on the ground. And uh Blair, uh for you, I think the the the the wish, the desire was a little bit different. R rather than physically being up there, I think you imagined what it might be like to have your face up there, just like Mr. Groyer's orange demeanor, uh orange pallor. Uh what it must be like to have that much power and recognition, to have an entire city drive past and go, Oh, that's Mr. Groyer, regardless of what they say after. And typhus. Oh, your head is hurting, you unfortunate poor soul. Uh you feel like you're you're you're swimming, maybe, or or or or flying, maybe, uh some sense of vertigo. And then it dawns one by one, each in their own time, that oh, oh heavens. No, you're actually on top of one of these Mr. Groyer billboards, some somehow, one way or another. Whatever that weird artifact was that opened up with that uh very thick, it almost like you could feel concepts flowing through it as if they were pebbles in a stream, or or maybe just like slightly thicker, warmer currents. Uh all of that fades away now to a stark buffeting wind. Hard to hear anyone over uh overlooking uh one of the uh main uh skyline trails into the city proper.
SPEAKER_03What happened? Did one of you guys drug me?
SPEAKER_13Oh god, my head. Oh no. I think I'm gonna be sick. Can we get down from here?
SPEAKER_07Typhus, you make the unfortunate decision to lean over and see exactly how high up you are.
SPEAKER_13Oh, holy shit. I we're probably like at least 99 floors up. Oh, that's wicked high.
SPEAKER_08Oh no, that can't be right. Let me just ask.
SPEAKER_1399 floors up a billboard.
SPEAKER_08What the hell? Oh god. Surely this is too high for anybody down below to see. This seems like bad urban planes.
SPEAKER_07Immediate spotlights, uh, red and blue flashing lights from far down below. You've got to be kidding me. It is unfortunately looking like you're about to have another run-in with the enforcers.
SPEAKER_08Oh, okay, okay, cool. Well, you know, two in one day, that's like double jeopardy or whatever.
SPEAKER_14Yep, yep, you have to down first. We'll come willingly. We'll come willingly. Just break come up here and bring us down. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We get them to come up here, bring us down, two birds, one stone, or this is a this is a a bold idea.
SPEAKER_08We could just jump off, see what happens. I mean maybe they'll catch us.
SPEAKER_13I'm all for I'm all for jumping. Alright, Virgil, come on!
SPEAKER_08I don't know where where's Virgil?
SPEAKER_03Where's when where's the rest of the rest of the f our roommates? I think they're down there. Did they fucking put us up here? Are we being pranked right now?
SPEAKER_04This is like the top five meatest prank someone's ever pulled on me. If they already jumped down.
SPEAKER_07Uh a m a the feedback of a megaphone as a sort of like ups, you know? Uh, and then from down below you hear attention!
SPEAKER_01We are going to be deploying an emergency featherfall net. You may come down at your leisure, but be prepared to face questioning upon your arrival. Otherwise, we will be forced to hold you, and then your penalties will be more severe.
SPEAKER_13I immediately dive down head first. Oh, he's gonna think Yep, I don't know if they started it already, or okay.
SPEAKER_08We better hope they're quick on the draw.
SPEAKER_04Okay. Alright, you go you go second, Blair. That way I know it's safe.
SPEAKER_07Oh, I'm waiting a second Yeah, Typhus is uh about it's around this time. Typhus, I think, is hitting terminal velocity.
SPEAKER_08Uh really falling ways down, typhus.
SPEAKER_07Uh about let's say three quarters of the way uh down. I want you to give me a um give me just like a general wisdom save. All right, I want to see how you're holding up here.
SPEAKER_13Uh that is a seven.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, Typhus, uh, I think a combination of what you just went through mentally, uh in conjunction with the artifact, uh, kind of tapping into whatever force was uh using you as sort of its conduit in that moment. Uh so having one HP and plummeting this far, uh, I think Typhus, I'm going to uh I think it's time for Typhus to reckon with mortality, perhaps in the first for the first instance in his life. Right. Right, Typhus. For the first time, like your confidence like like falters just slightly, and and the question finally enters your mind of what happens if like things just don't work out for me.
SPEAKER_13Oh my god. Might I also add five constitution total? Yeah, you had one HP.
SPEAKER_07I'm pretty sure you got knocked out from that. Yes, but uh basically, uh Typhus, I think that um you were just wondering what it would take to uh have someone draft your will uh and what you would have to give. Uh why don't you describe to me what you would leave and to whom?
SPEAKER_13If if I had to give everything, well, that's the problem. I only have the bag of things that I have with me. Everything I've ever made is blown up. Uh, and everything I was ever gonna make was supposed to also blow up. So, gee, I mean, I guess I'd leave my bag to Virgil, wherever the hell he is, but uh, it's not a very big bag, is it? It's just into that moment.
SPEAKER_07Uh the you cross uh a threshold, perhaps like 15-30 feet off the ground, where suddenly your ice, uh ice just floods through your veins as you see uh a couple of glyphs uh placed very, very particularly in a quick like little triangle around the base uh with a couple of buildings nearby and sort of a post that they've erected. And as you pass through it, uh all of the glyphs activate and you get uh blessed with uh featherfall. So uh you do float all the way down to the uh floor, crumpling immediately into a heap. Uh and you look up and around, no Virgil, not even down here. Huh. And then uh Arnold and Blair, you're still up top.
SPEAKER_14I pull out a dollar and hand it to Blair.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, you were right. I guess uh I guess if they weren't lying, they did want us to jump to our deaths. Wait, what did you give them?
SPEAKER_14Sorry, uh a dollar, Bill. Dollar nice. One dollar.
SPEAKER_04One dollar. And Blair bet me a dollar right after Typhus jumped that they were gonna actually slow us down, and I said, no way. And uh and here we are. Oh, Blair, a dollar.
SPEAKER_09Okay, well I don't see a little kobold paste, so my turn. I'm gonna jump off and fully cannonball.
SPEAKER_07About say same thing. Right at the end, you get caught uh quickly, just as the glyph activates that cold shower feeling, just uh even though you're completely dry as you slowly uh again, basically right next to where Typhus landed, and you do see uh on the ground that Typhus is not doing okay, like curled up into a ball, shaking, repeating where's Virgil over and over again. Yeah, sort of like that. Uh, and you see that there are also clockwork enforcers basically establishing a perimeter uh down here.
SPEAKER_08Hey, little guy.
SPEAKER_13I am not doing so hot.
SPEAKER_08No, no, I can see that.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, yeah, and then I have some oh heavens, Arnold. Uh, right before uh Blair has something to make uh Typhus feel better, uh, you take one last look out over the city from this height. Uh uh, how are you feeling?
SPEAKER_04I just feel like everywhere I go, annoying bullshit kind of follows me everywhere. And I just want to make sure my roommates are okay. And I'm really, really uncomfortable with how high up we are, and I I'm gonna sit down on my butt on the ledge and then slowly scoot myself out.
SPEAKER_07I feel like that would make it like way worse. It would disappear. All right. Uh well, Arnold, you're the last one down. Uh, and Blair is uh huddling over Typhus.
SPEAKER_04Are you shook up because you dove head first? That must have been I was terrified that was going down feet first. I can't imagine how you feel. I am off the leash, and it does not feel good.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_08Off the leash. I think he relapsed.
SPEAKER_04I wonder if that's a metaphor or if we need to find a leash for Typhus.
SPEAKER_13I'm gonna tell you guys this is the longest I've ever gone without somebody telling me not to do something, and I jeez, I oh god.
SPEAKER_04Well, first things first, Typhus, stop freaking out, okay? Just relax. Don't freak out, just stop doing that, okay?
SPEAKER_13Okay, that always helps when people tell me to stop freaking out. Makes me stop freaking out immediately. Thank you.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, of course. I'm glad I could do that for you.
SPEAKER_08I'm surprised it worked, but I guess.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, never worked in the apartment at all.
SPEAKER_07Basically, uh at this point, uh, some of the clockwork enforcers. Uh not as big as the Halboard 44 uh deefer model. However, uh sort of the the smaller, more standard guard fair. Uh, and however, uh Arnold, you were the one that uh had like knew about the clockwork enforcers, right? Like knew the uh the model, or was that uh Virgil? I'll get I'll tell you what, why don't everyone just give me history checks? Let's find out uh what you know about these clockwork enforcers. That's a 19. A 19? Well, Typhus, that makes sense. Uh however, typhus, I am unfortunately going to make the executive decision that you have disadvantage. You are currently going through a fucking crisis.
SPEAKER_13Oh, get ready for this.
SPEAKER_07Uh Blair, what was yours? 14. 14 out of a 16 from Typhus.
SPEAKER_0216 for Arnold as well.
SPEAKER_07Wonderful. Okay. So um these uh clockwork enforcers, right, they're pretty standard fare, I would say, at the city, right? Like these are these are functionally the beat cops of the metropolis, right? Uh, you see them patrolling up and down, they're kind of ubi a ubiquitous site. You know that these are uh S34s. Uh the S stands for short sword. Um, short sword uh 44s are again sort of grunts. Uh however, you also do see a ZH50. Uh that ZH50 is a Zvehond 50, and that is a much uh leaner, much meaner uh version, and it indicates that that model was sent out here because uh U3 may not be uh quite trusted, as it were, uh, for many reasons at this point.
SPEAKER_04You know it's serious when they bring the ZH bottles out. I guess we uh got in trouble again.
SPEAKER_13Yeah, one time Virgil got tabletoped by one of the ZH models. I mean, that does it would be a ZH bottle because Virgil's pretty tall. Yeah, that got down on his hands and knees right behind Virgil's legs, and then the other one came up and pushed him over.
SPEAKER_03I don't know why.
SPEAKER_04Well they're smart.
SPEAKER_13But yeah, that does uh he was a combatant. I'll tell you what, Virgil that day full combatant, yeah.
SPEAKER_07The next hour or so is a rush of uh flashing photography, uh lots of people with their uh portal slabs out, sort of uh streaming your images onto the data, uh the um the data dimension, as it were. Uh the uh we'll call it the icona sphere. Um basically, uh just like how we have uh smartphones and tablets in order to connect us to uh our uh plane of data, if you will, uh these uh data slabs are going to be sort of the uh the equivalent in this world, right? But it serves as an actual portal, right? Whenever you activate it, it almost appears as though like a small tear in reality, where no matter where you move it, you see what the uh what is the portal is showing you on the other side. Uh many times this uh is represented by the uh mainframe's algorithm, uh sort of tapping into the reality, uh like the physical dimensional reality of the person viewing it, as well as sort of the psychic energies that they give off just from seeing what they normally see, you know, how the neurons fire and where the dopamine comes from. Uh, that is very much uh the mainframe is able to influence the data plane in that way, uh, and show you aspects of it that are catered personally for you. Um, so a bunch of people have those out and are sort of using them uh instead of as a like them looking at the data sphere uh or the data plane, the like you guys can see right in and you can assume that they're broadcasting your images all over the data plane at this point. Like y'all are starting to uh gain traction as being these crazy, uh, who knows, like disheveled. Uh y'all are all looking pretty rough. Artists obviously haven't eaten in a while. When was the last time that you showered, Arnold, or even like really took the time to groom yourself?
SPEAKER_04Oh well, probably uh the last time we were in the in the cell with everybody, but uh not really a big fan of showers. I got my Tabaxi tug that kind of does most of the work. I've I've I talked to the rest of the roommates about why we should I shouldn't pay as much for the water bill, but it didn't never really uh panned out. I yeah, do and it needing a grooming pretty bad though. It was absolute question.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, yeah, y'all unfortunately, y'all do in fact look a bit rough. Uh all of you, even uh Arnold with uh uh again, Typhus looks like he's had Menti B, which is fair. Uh Blair and Arnold look like they just went to hell and back and also had to deal with too many cousins. Uh, however, luckily y'all have plenty of time to rest up uh it back in the cell that you uh started off in, funnily enough, or are one rather similar. Um we can uh count this as a short rest uh for the purposes of uh any hit point recoveries. Yeah, Typhus is back on the wall. Uh it's his safe space. Uh luckily though, uh, it is not uh too too long until the um same severe looking woman, uh the the uh policewoman uh who gave Virgil those terrifying wet willies. Oh man, oh heavens. I don't remember what her name is, unfortunately. I did not write that down in my notes. Uh but Uh she comes up and just takes one look at all three of you and then just sniffs, opens the door and like walks out. She's very clearly expecting you to follow.
SPEAKER_09Well, well, well, looks like we're walking out of here.
SPEAKER_07Typhus, you're getting really good at just like flipping those things off, too.
SPEAKER_13It's because my little yeah, my little dog wrists aren't big enough for the shackles. I thought it was because they'd never lock them. They don't lock them either, but I can also slip through.
SPEAKER_07Uh but y'all let's say as she's walking, she says, I did not think I would going to have to deal with you lots again. Certainly not so quickly.
SPEAKER_08Gotta be honest, me neither.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I kinda thought uh we would get caught a second time, so Well, I don't do well with repeat offenders.
SPEAKER_07And she opens the door into the same uh uh room, except for this time there's only one chair, the in the uh interrogation room. Well, who wants to go first?
SPEAKER_09You know what? I feel like you're too you two are taking this harder than me right now. Let me go. I'll be brave. Thank you, Blair.
SPEAKER_07No, all of you are are going in there.
SPEAKER_04Oh, so we have to stand and you get to sit down? That doesn't seem like that.
SPEAKER_07We're having a police ceremony uh in the in another room. I won't even be the one interviewing you. Though if I did, and she snaps one of her like leather gloves down a little bit more and like really just like pulls out a fingerful of saliva. And then she goes for a second one too, uh, implying that she would be able to get both of you at once with a uh uh just the most severe of torture.
SPEAKER_09This has to violate the constitution somewhere. Testy moment. Anyway, you could bring me back some punch.
SPEAKER_07She turns, spins on her heel, and walks out. Uh however, that before the door can shut fully, leaving y'all alone with your thoughts, uh, someone catches it, and you see orange, immaculately uh trimmed nails, and just like a sparkling, like beautiful diamond-encrusted portal uh watch that as he sort of waves his arm, you can see straight through it into the data plane. Uh, and he pushes open the door, and sure enough, the the loving uh paternal smile of Mr. Groyer that you've seen your whole life is right there waiting for you.
SPEAKER_04I guess glad to see you again, Mr. Gruyere. I must say not as good of a lawyer as I thought you were, and you're a lot meaner than I remember you in the commercials. But you are kind of a ball buster.
SPEAKER_07Speaking of the commercials, you'll never guess what set I got called out of in order to come here to deal with some miscreants on my billboard. Law and Order SVU.
SPEAKER_09No resurrections, your undead themed dining show.
SPEAKER_04My guess was also gonna be Law and Order SVU.
SPEAKER_07He's really good. I do love that show. It was it was a it was a commercial. I was filming a commercial. Listen, uh I thought I made it very clear the last time that I was in here that I did not want to be seeing any more trouble from any of you. And yet, here you are.
SPEAKER_13Uh Mr. Groyer? What of that artifact that we sent you off for? Um Mr. Groyer, if I may be so kind, um that quest you sent us on was bullshit. Um and we got our asses handed to us. What the hell, man?
SPEAKER_07By what? What the the the artifact was supposed to be basically just a handoff? What could have possibly happened? Dude, it gave me like all kinds of diseases, man.
SPEAKER_04It just kept shocking me. It it made me nauseous. I don't think I'm sick with anything, but I definitely made me definitely made me nauseous. You know the suburbs were still around? Yeah, I thought they were good. They're not though.
SPEAKER_13Yeah, every set the suburbs were cooked, man. We went out there, they looked just fine. That artifact, I'm telling you, dude, something's not right.
SPEAKER_07Describe to me these suburbs.
SPEAKER_09You know, they're just like any others, but sort of like inside the cliff.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and the HOA was clearly doing a good job of keeping the curb appeal up, but not too strict. It was a good balance of well-maintained, but not, you know, not too tight on the rules. I saw some garbage case.
SPEAKER_13Arnold, might I also reiterate once again, it was fully in a cliff. Like that's crazy.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, that is pretty.
SPEAKER_07Why, uh Frankly, I don't know why you would cause all of this ruckus just to come here and tell me bullshit. You mentioned that I sent you off on bullshit, you come back with more bullshit. Listen, I'm not saying that y'all didn't go out there and that you didn't fuck around during your time. We didn't, but I expected results. I have a mind to have all of y'all completely exiled from this city. So long as my visages look over it, they shall not see you. Little What does it feel like to fail so hard in your life that no one knows who you are other than three Yahoos up on a billboard?
SPEAKER_13Yahoo coming from the billboard, Yahoo coming from you. Got him. That's kind of what it called.
SPEAKER_09That's pretty good.
SPEAKER_13That's kinda mean. Yeah, honestly, honestly, you know what? Mr. Mr. Gryer, I don't need to take this shit from you, man.
SPEAKER_11My friends are gone. My best my best friend he tells me what to do. I don't know what to do now. I'm lost.
SPEAKER_07Now that young Kobold is actually quite an interesting thing you bring up. I I did expect to see your compatriots here. I had many more insults planned for each of you, I think, personally.
SPEAKER_09You were expecting to see us again, you rascal.
SPEAKER_07With the artifact, yes, I was expecting to see you again. Did they bring it back?
SPEAKER_08No. I was hoping.
SPEAKER_07Yes.
SPEAKER_08Mr. Mr.
SPEAKER_09Gruyer, um disregarding our status of, you know, fucking around, maybe not fucking around, maybe doing our very best.
SPEAKER_08Uh may notice that big big big uh big iron is uh nowhere to be seen.
SPEAKER_07Poor use of the city's taxes for these clockwork guards and the wasteful method in which they are sometimes deployed is notwithing here. What is, is that now not only are y'all in trouble on counts of topiary destruction and public embarrassment, however, you are also now trespassing on my personal property. You think that I rent those billboards out? No. I built them.
SPEAKER_13Bullshit. 99 floors up.
SPEAKER_04I heard the truth about that. Mr. Gruyere's a made mad. He built himself up.
SPEAKER_13No fucking way. There's no way he got up there. It took I fell for like four and a half minutes straight. Dude, I contemplated my whole life on that fall.
SPEAKER_08What's a really big billboard? It does seem too high up, sir.
SPEAKER_11Yes, there's no fucking way he built that billboard up there. What the no? Mr. Greg.
SPEAKER_07Y'all all speaking like somebody who hasn't had their eyes looking over the city for 42 years. Do you know what it's like? To be looking out over the city, to have your eyes scanning the horizon as far as they can be seen. To be a man on top of the whole world. I'll answer that for you. You do not.
SPEAKER_04I physically felt like we were uh on top of the world for a little bit at least.
SPEAKER_07Well, I hope that the taste was sweet. Because now you are back to being on the ground with the rest of the worms. Uh luckily, I I actually come here with uh not just insults, but solutions. Uh a way for you to well, uh not elevate yourselves by any means. Uh but let's just say uh uh help you avoid the worst of these penalties, at least as far as I'm concerned, and I have a lot of sway in the city. So here's what I offer. I have a client, uh well, my firm does, but I just frankly can't spare the workers. Uh everything that we're doing is far, far, far more important, and frankly, this is something more of the calibre of folks of your type. Uh in the meantime, we will be looking for your other compatriots, and hopefully by the time that you are done with this small task, uh they will all be united and we can figure out exactly what it is that y'all owe me for your trespassing.
SPEAKER_13Well uh wait. So we're doing more jobs for you, and then you're gonna bill us.
SPEAKER_07In a man up speaking. Depends on how you do. Who knows? Maybe I am wrong, and maybe you are uh not worms, but more like a like a caterpillar, uh waiting to cocoon into something better than what you are.
SPEAKER_13Guys, I feel like we need a different lawyer to talk to this guy, because this I feel like we're getting bent over here. I and I feel like if we leave it.
SPEAKER_07Who are you gonna find? Uh Mortis Bree.
SPEAKER_04Damn, maybe I was gonna find Mortis Bree. He can't be he can't be as bad as uh as you say he is. I've never seen this commercial.
SPEAKER_07If you go and look at his court records, I believe that that uh is very easily disproven.
SPEAKER_13Yeah, I think Mortis Bree was the guy who represented all those people that got run over by those buses, and uh yeah, they didn't get jack shit. Zero does.
SPEAKER_07Yep, but they had it caught on camera and everything. You'd be you'd really think.
SPEAKER_13Yeah, he really bungled all those bus people.
SPEAKER_09Was it blue defense, Mr. Career, that argued they would dress too much like the street?
SPEAKER_07Uh well, to be fair, uh I wasn't the one that was arguing that, and uh, I would have had a bit more of an eloquent. Okay, listen here, okay? We're not we're not here to talk about my legal defenses of the past, as immaculate as they may be. We're here to talk about the fact that I have a dead client whose heirs need to find out where they're uh uh let me start at the beginning. Do y'all know how fucking hard housing laws are? The legality of it truly leaves the mind spinning. But I have uh someone who is meant to be an inheritor who is looking for a very particular property, and uh unfortunately, somewhere in the legality of it all, the bureaucracy moving from desk to desk, uh, the actual everything regarding who actually owned the house in the beginning um must have gotten lost somewhere in the shuffle. So we don't actually have the property deed, but we do have the uh the succession paperwork lined up. I just need somebody to go out to the property and see if uh it is ready to be uh transferred in this way. That's all.
SPEAKER_13We're not evicting somebody, are we?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it sounds like you want us to either off somebody or evict somebody.
SPEAKER_07Okay, I think you can't evict someone, gentleman, who doesn't legally live somewhere. Oh god, he's a kid.
SPEAKER_09Yeah, it's a squatter. I didn't go to law school. But yeah, I would trust typhus on squatter's rights. He he seems like he knows about 'em.
SPEAKER_13Never paid rent. I've literally never paid rent. Every place I've stayed, I've been a squatter.
SPEAKER_07There's one of two ways this goes. Either you go to this property and you make sure that it is secure, or I make sure that every single one of you really gets a chance to see what hell is like. I know for a fact that the world wouldn't bat an eye if three nobodies went missing. Hell, three of you already did. So are you gonna do this and make something of yourselves? Or are you gonna let me throw you back in that gel cell until you rot? I guess the not rotting thing you are smart than you look.
SPEAKER_09For sure.
SPEAKER_13I just feel like we're gonna go evict some people that I probably know. Because I think I know most of squatters in this town. I thought you were unhomed. I well, come on.
SPEAKER_09Use between squats.
SPEAKER_13That's my bad. I didn't I didn't realize. I'm sorry, squatting is an exercise, and every time you you need you need reprieve every now and then, okay? So let's let's stop judging. Not judging, not judging. I'm sorry, Tavis.
SPEAKER_07Now, uh since you have already proven rather flippant with city resources, I'm going to give y'all leave to do this as you see fit. Uh you will find that uh these this property should prove rather easy as far as tasks go, so I expect this to be performed flawlessly. You may leave, pick up your things on the way out. Oh, and uh for the small kobold. Consider that those blasting caps you keep in your bag really should be better taken care of.
SPEAKER_13Are you telling me to blow some people up? Get out of my sight. Okay, I'm just almost really lo I don't know what he meant by that.
SPEAKER_09I feel like really it's like what I read. It seems like he was gonna either like he fucked with them somehow or like he bumps them used. Either way, let's let's love mixed vibes.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_07Typhus, how do you store your uh your your supplies, your artifice or supplies for your pipe bombs?
SPEAKER_13Yeah, loose in a paper sack, man. Yeah, okay, cool.
SPEAKER_07I just wanted to make sure I was reading that right.
SPEAKER_13It's like one pipe bomb disassembled in a bag.
SPEAKER_04I thought that was a bag of five guys' fries. I didn't realize that was explosives in that.
SPEAKER_09If the bag shakes in the right way, a pipe bomb will be assembled.
SPEAKER_07Yes, exactly. Uh, and on your way out, uh the it's the same actual officer who uh is at the requisitions, like handing you your stuff back, and and she gives you a nice little like pleasant smile, like, oh hey, nice to see y'all again, you know. But he's seeing you here again. Yeah, I don't know.
SPEAKER_01What brought y'all in? You know, like come here often?
SPEAKER_07You don't know. Well, I mean, I I am I'm almost here every day, you know, nine to five. Uh gotta pay my way through college somehow, you know. Crazy. Well, see uh and I have one more question since y'all seem to be rather acquainted with him, and uh, she slides you a picture of Mr. Groyer, like a glamour shot, and she's like, Can you get him to sign that the next time you see him? I'm a huge fan of his billboards and his commercials and all of his spots on all of the daytime TV shows. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's uh Yeah, he's really cool, huh?
SPEAKER_04Well, I've got a question for you, and it's more of like a professional question. Okay. Because I've only seen the commercials, so you might not be able to know, but you work here, so maybe you do. Um is Mr. Gruer a defense lawyer, or I sometimes I feel like he's like we're we're defending ourselves against him. I don't know. Is he a broad second?
SPEAKER_07He he almost breathes the law in a way that makes things like prosecutions and defense and verdicts and like uh judiciary systems, the the line between like politics and like justice departments, like really just starting to break all those things down, you know, like the the way that somebody might consider like uh like Julius Caesar and like the whole Roman Senate thing. Like he he really is just a visionary, legally speaking.
SPEAKER_04Sounds like whatever Sylvia would talk about washing the dishes. Uh okay. That that kind of answered my question. Thank you.
SPEAKER_13That he sounds like a dictator, and you know what? I'm gonna reach over and grab that picture. I'm just gonna tear it in half. And I'm gonna point to her. I'm I'm gonna save you some trouble. He's a bad man.
SPEAKER_07Well, that's just not very nice of you to say.
SPEAKER_04Well, he's kind of rude.
SPEAKER_09He's a kind of rude. And you know what, infernal creature here. You know, this is just me starting a rumor, starting up a little trouble. I do think he's a devil. It's just kind of the vibe I get. Pretty sure he's up in the hells.
SPEAKER_04Oh, after the last thing he told us, yeah, like I definitely think he's he's insidious.
SPEAKER_08Okay, okay. So we were all picking up the vibe devil for sure, demon at least.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, this is a bad man.
SPEAKER_09This is a bad, so I feel like I can say that.
SPEAKER_13That's really funny that you say that because I was looking at that billboard on the way down, and I was getting like panopticon vibes. Like, it was all you know, it really was. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. He was looking into my soul, and it was not pleasant.
SPEAKER_09So we're on the same page.
SPEAKER_07The poor uh like requisitions officer is just like deflated in her like really too stiff old ass, you know, cities like city provided chair, like just listening to y'all talk about this, defacing one of her like icons. Uh bad.
SPEAKER_04Well, if it makes you feel any better, at least you didn't have to beat him. And Arnold will walk out.
SPEAKER_07All right. Um, yeah, so uh yeah, in uh she also does uh like right before y'all like leave the actual building, she also slides a little envelope um that has uh uh a task information inside, like scribbled out on it. Oh, fantastic. Yeah, it's a bunch of legalese on the inside that basically like binds y'all uh at least corporally to like all sorts of bad things if you don't go and do this. Uh, but on the upside, uh you can get like a $200 gift card uh for helping in this way, like upon completion of task, and then like a mail-in kind of uh like voucher system.
SPEAKER_05Um was this penned by Mr. Gruyere himself?
SPEAKER_07No, no, absolutely not. No, Mr. Groyer doesn't sign any things anymore unless it's like into reality. You know what I mean? Like like physically like etching it into the the dimension itself, you know?
SPEAKER_14Oh I'm gonna Can I see that real quick? Oh yeah, sure. Yeah.
SPEAKER_09Yeah, yeah. I'm gonna I'm not gonna hold it up and I'm gonna smell it. I'm gonna go.
SPEAKER_07Smells like justice.
SPEAKER_09Weird paper, man.
SPEAKER_04I saw them zooming something after the after it came out of the printer, they spritzed it with something. So I thought they were just like cooling off the ink. You know how the ink gets hot sometimes, they're cooling it off. I think they put a smell on there.
SPEAKER_07Uh, but you do see that it has uh on the furthest outreaches, like the the furthest away you can get from like anything worthwhile in the city. Uh it's just an address, you know, pointing its way there. Light rails don't even go there really anymore. Like the closest stop's still about like a 45-minute walk away from this place, like middle of fucking nowhere, uh, where he's asking you to go.
SPEAKER_09Boy, again.
SPEAKER_13Sounds like quite the trek, guys. You know, normally at this point in whatever caper I'm on, Virgil's kind of telling me to stick to the stick to the task at hand, and I'm really uh I'll be honest, I'm really out to see right now. Oh god.
SPEAKER_04Well, hey, we're we're heading out there.
SPEAKER_13You're doing a good job. Really? You're on the task. I guys, I feel like I feel like I bungled that last social interaction with Mr. Goyer and the that lady who handed us lots of things.
SPEAKER_09No, maybe maybe things could have gone smoother with the requisition officer, but you know, you spoke your truth.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and to be fair, I think it's high time that people kind of figure out that Mr. Gruyer is kind of a dick because I watch the commercials and he really is nice on TV. But he's been nothing but rude to us ever since I'm like he's been throwing me a lot of big signals, and he's really mean.
SPEAKER_13Well, I'll say this when he was on Law and Order SVU, his character did punch that woman in the back of the head in the courtroom. So that's right.
SPEAKER_07That's right. I heard that was good. That was uh based on true events, too.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. I can't believe he did that.
SPEAKER_07One more thing is uh actually at the bottom of the envelope, actually, Blair, as you uh sort of like rattle it around and really really smell it and look into it.
SPEAKER_09Yeah.
SPEAKER_07Uh a a small, it looks like some sort of like credits chit of some kind that says that uh giving y'all uh approximate funds, let's say like 20 gold, uh let's say like 10 gold that you can only spend um like to basically like a uh uh to supply yourself, right? So uh Mr. Groyer has basically given you a 10 gold, $10 gold, uh let's establish. Uh I I like the idea of a gold dollar being the you know what I mean, or like a like a dollar guilt or something. Yeah.
SPEAKER_13I think it's messed up that on the paper it said 20 crossed off and then 10.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, I did too. Uh they really reconsidered it too, but like at the end of the day, the the paper's law, you know. Um, so yeah, you have 10 uh gold uh what do you want gold dollar? Gold dollar, yeah. You have 10 gold dollars to uh to go spend. Uh GDs are usually what they're called or or go are uh go go dolls? What what what's a good what's snappy? What's something that we can do with that? The bloom the bloom the G D goddamn gold dollar. Yep, okay. Well let's just say the G D. Uh but it still has uh it hasn't a line through the G and a line through the D, like we have for our dollar signs with like the one line through the S.
SPEAKER_05Does the line go all the way through the G? Like the the line just kind of continues through the rest of the the back of the G? Yeah is there a second vertical line through the G?
SPEAKER_07Really like uh just kind of it's it's not elegant. Uh okay, so it's like GD with strike through. Yeah, yeah, we'll do a GD with a strike through. Let's do a GD with a strike through. Uh anyway, you have 10 gold dollars to go and uh requisition yourself with.
SPEAKER_09Well we could just uh you know call a ride fair.
SPEAKER_13I was gonna say pick up some psychedelic drugs for the journey over.
SPEAKER_04I was gonna say we could pay someone to uh well I don't want to say put a hit on, but we have to we have to unseat Mr. Gruer, guys, at some point. No, no, no, that's fine.
SPEAKER_13Goddamn gold dollars and put a hit out for the biggest man in town.
SPEAKER_04I don't think you're gonna do it with 10 GDs, but I think we could invest like a one GD.
SPEAKER_09Maybe just lunch too. I'm kind of hungry. We could get lunch. Here's what I was thinking. I thought you were gonna say we could hire somebody to go evict this, you know, the property that they uh that Mr. You know Gruyer's looking after. We offer to pay them seven GD upon completion of uh of the of the task. We come back. We call it five. Let's start at five, we go get lunch. Maybe we start at three, and then we can work our way up to five if they we find they're a little you know less than willing. Because if we're willing to do it for ten bucks, then who isn't, right?
SPEAKER_13We put five on the outsourcing, we do five for lunch, that leaves five for psychedelic drugs at the end of the day.
SPEAKER_07I like this plan.
SPEAKER_05The highest is the key word here. I don't think anyone's it's the you all really aren't.
SPEAKER_07It's it's 10 full wisdom, right? Yeah, yeah. 13. 12. Okay, beautiful. Uh well, Blair, uh, you almost like you're like walking and y'all are chatting about like who you can hire, and uh you cut you sort of like stumble a little bit into like one of those chalk um like tripod, or like uh you know what I'm talking about, like the signs outside of like cafes and bars, like a chalkboard surface, you know, like a special board, you know? Uh and you like almost like stumble over that, and you look up to see, man, uh Blair, if there were a place that you could hire somebody for for three to five gold dollars and also get a pretty decent meal, it's here at uh at at fighting uh Flynn's, uh, which is the bar that you have just stumbled into the chalkboard of and the bouncer gives you a a sour look. Uh, it is approximately 7 30 or so.
SPEAKER_04More dinner time than anything.
SPEAKER_13Oh, are you guys thinking what I'm thinking?
SPEAKER_04We ask for lunch menus, anyways. Yes, yes, they're gonna make it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_11The customer is always right, you know what I'm saying? Exactly.
SPEAKER_08They won't even say anything.
SPEAKER_07Uh well, y'all uh, you know, the bouncer sort of like eyes you as you go. Uh Arnold lets you through, Blair lets you through, Typhus handout. Oh, hold on, buddy. I'm gonna need some uh identification from you.
SPEAKER_13I don't have that. What I do have is a little something you might like, and I pull out my bag that's just like loose explosive paraphernalia. Take a look at this.
SPEAKER_07Nah, sorry, not interested, turns out. You're kidding. No, no, deadly serious here. You can't come in unless you have some ID.
SPEAKER_10Oh, this stuff is so good. I mean, like, you could make like at least three pipe bombs from this. What the hell, man?
SPEAKER_07I'm not gonna make any pipe bombs with it, so it uh doesn't mean anything to me. Okay, you got an ID, buddy?
SPEAKER_13Guys, what I don't wanna wait out here.
SPEAKER_08No, no, no, no, it's okay. I know what to do, I know what to do.
SPEAKER_14Do you have your do you have your your portal on you?
SPEAKER_04I've g I've I've got I've got but it's half dead, but I could I I got a little battery left.
SPEAKER_09I think what's not mind you, I just think I think it'll be best if like the you know the bouncer uses his for this. So you know he trusts his own phone, right?
SPEAKER_07Uh he says, uh fine, you got me, let me try. And he pulls it out and he shows it to he like sort of like looks at it and you know holds it up.
SPEAKER_09Now, what you're gonna do, because this is gonna have all the uh necessary identification. And I promise, I promise it's like no big deal.
SPEAKER_08Just look at the recent arrests for the city. Oh yeah, the highest.
SPEAKER_07He looks into it and like you see like uh his eyes like reflect for a moment like some arcane tint as like the the the data what what are we that the data portal just like kind of like taps into his like psychic connection to like reality itself, like that tether gets kind of uh like um bootstrapped, you know, by the data slab. Uh the the the data portal. The portal slab, what what what are we calling it? Let's call it a data slab. I like data slab. Uh portal uh is sort of like the colloquial term for it. That's sort of like an Apple uh iPhone versus like Android, like Motorola flip, you know, kind of thing. Uh but the the the the data slab uh he like looks at it for a moment and he goes. Oh, ain't no way y'all are coming in here. You two get back out too.
SPEAKER_08Nope, too late, no take back these.
SPEAKER_07Uh y'all just like spread in.
SPEAKER_08He's like, hey, hold on.
SPEAKER_07The type is you're you're too swift. Uh you walk in, uh, this place is uh, you know, sort of you know down home style, a little bit grungy. Uh probably could use a couple more mopping uh attempts before you know they start to kind of get the stale smell of ale out of the the the concrete floors. You know, whenever you looked at those in the past, you didn't think that they were supposed to hold on to smell, but goddamn, something is, you know? And there are three people in these bars. Each of you sees one, like you all see a different person simultaneously. Uh Blair, who do you see first?
SPEAKER_09Oh, I I see someone I know I know well. Old choreographer at the community theater. Dirty Mike. Oh heavens, not Dirty Mike. Dirty Mike, you know, a few things about him. He's like just a like a normal human, but he is fully like seven foot four and about 320 pounds.
SPEAKER_07Jesus.
SPEAKER_09Dirty Mike, you know, you can he moves like a ballerina, and he he's got the grip strength of you know the deep sea.
SPEAKER_07Wow. Okay, okay. Uh Arnold, who do you see?
SPEAKER_02I see a friend who's not not really a friend, but someone familiar. I think we live in the same neighborhood. Uh we folks, his name is Mr. Wellington, but folks call him Beef.
SPEAKER_05He's a 60-year-old twirtle man who wears uh a fedora and he's got like very pronounced forearms, uh, like Popeye. People aren't sure. He maybe he might have spent a lot of time in like the moving business or something, but uh just just what would we call him?
SPEAKER_07Dude, everyone's got to move in the city at some point. You can't stay in the same borough forever. Mr.
SPEAKER_05Wellington never runs out of work.
SPEAKER_07That's what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_13Uh in Typhus, who are you seeing? I see someone who I don't know, but it looks like Virgil in a wig. It's it's a lady Virgil. Lurgil. I know it's Lurgil.
SPEAKER_07Oh my god. Are you you you seem like you're just kind of in awe at this, typhus?
SPEAKER_13I've never seen anything like this. I don't know if I'm, you know, I don't know if I'm excited, I don't know if I'm disgusted, but I'm feeling something, and I am intrigued.
SPEAKER_07Alright, so uh about to say, y'all are still like in your little group having just burst through the door, you all see these people immediately, right? Mr. Wellington and Dirty Mike.
SPEAKER_13I think that's Virgil in a wig.
SPEAKER_07All three people turn simultaneously from their various seats in the bar, and they eye you three. And uh, but but it's uh it's Dirty Mike who stands first. And uh Dirty Mike, you old so-and-so, come here. Uh and you like this this unit of a person, like uh standing maybe is not the right way to describe the way that he sort of unfolds himself, and like whenever you're just thinking there can't be any more vertebra to kind of like align to gain him any more heights, he just goes a little bit more, and yet somehow, like the the the mass that fills out his frame like stays solidly built like a fucking tank. Uh and Dirty Mike uh goes to move over there and no sound to the footsteps, just the slight of uh like his bell bottom pants, sort of like scraping the floor, like the hems of him as he sort of saunters over, and he says, My, my, my, my, is that Arnold Gloves McAfee and and Blair Codswallow. I didn't think I'd ever see you boys again after uh what happened in uh Metropolis the musical.
SPEAKER_09I know there were a lot of lives lost that day, Mike.
SPEAKER_04It's horrible. I still think about it sometimes, but I try not to.
SPEAKER_09But you know why it was, Mike? Tell me, Blair. Because your choreography's always killer man, bring it in.
SPEAKER_07Oh, yeah, big hugs all around. Uh you see uh typhus from like the you you're like kind of trying to glance around this large, large human because you still want to keep eyes on Virgil in a wig. Uh and and it turns out that that that she might be uh looking looking over your way a little bit too.
SPEAKER_13Hey, I love how your makeup is like clown makeup, like you look like a blow-up doll. I think that's awesome. He's doing bad over there.
SPEAKER_07Uh the bouncer comes in and and very roughly goes to grab Typhus.
SPEAKER_11Hey, hey, before I go, just hey, like me, meet me outside. I got some information you might be interested in.
SPEAKER_07Wait, Beef swings his long, uh veiny, thin turtle turtleneck over. No, I think I have words for that one. Wait, where do you go? He's oh there he is. There he is. Come. Uh uh Arnold, uh I hope I don't uh uh distract you from your friend, but it seems as though uh those two have some catching up to do for but moments. Uh bring your small friend over to me and and uh your your your c collaborator can come once he is done.
SPEAKER_04Oh sir, certainly. Thank you, Mr. Wellington.
SPEAKER_07Typhus. Oh, again, Arnold, call me beef. You're right.
SPEAKER_04Sorry, Beef.
SPEAKER_07Uh no, call me Mr. Wellington. It didn't sound right when you said it that time. We'll try again next time. Uh anyway, but like uh yeah, like the bouncer sort of like cocks an eye at Typhus, you know, last warning style, like hits you with like the rock, you know, like really, you know, gets it up there, yeah. And uh and lets you go to leave you skedaddling over towards uh Mr. Wellington. Uh and Blair, uh meanwhile, uh Dirty Mike sort of pulls you over to the bar. Uh he is uh he has his own special uh bar stool actually at this bar. Um and uh he you know he sort of brings you next to it. Uh he sits down. Uh yours kind of creaks a little bit, but the way that like as you sit down, but the way that um uh dirty Mike sits down, again, the chair doesn't even make a noise. In fact, even whenever he turns, even though you can see there's a little bit of rust like on the actual mechanism, like as if it were freshly oiled. And he says, uh he says, Blair, didn't expect to see you again in these parts of town. Uh I hope that everything's going well for you and your uh your collective. I I see you managed to pick up another one. He points over towards Arnold.
SPEAKER_09Yeah, I don't even really remember how. He's just here now. Um, we know we met him a little bit earlier. I think he was like throwing rocks. It was great. We're like uh I mean he was up to some kind of bullshit, and uh we all got arrested together, and now we're all up to some bullshit together. Speaking of some bullshit, I got two questions for you, dirty Mike. One, do you still party?
SPEAKER_07Oh, you want me to answer them one at a time or like after you're gonna be a little bit more at a time, absolutely. Okay, one at a time at a time. We can take a moment here. If I weren't if I didn't still party, I think they'd be calling me squeaky clean, Mike, is all I'm gonna say to that.
SPEAKER_09If that ain't the truth, and then two, would you be willing to like evict somebody for five GD? What? Okay, never mind. We'll move right past that, man. Don't worry about it.
SPEAKER_07No, no, no. I'm you're evicting someone, or are is it uh is it it's not Sylvia, is it? She moves so sinuously.
SPEAKER_09It's yes, Sylvia and I, you know, everybody in the collective, we're all still we're all still friends, we're all still staying together. You know, sometimes we get into little disagreements here and there, like when Arnold didn't want to pay the water bill, it was total bullshit. He leaves the tap on for like hours at a time, drinks way more water there than he should. Unacceptable for him to try and get out of that payment. I think he should pay more. But look, we get over it, we get through it, and we're all still together.
SPEAKER_07So then who are you trying to evict?
SPEAKER_09Oh, just like I don't really even know. I just got the address here.
SPEAKER_07Then unfortunately, Blair, no. I I I will not. I I'm sorry, I'm a I'm a lover, not a fighter.
SPEAKER_09And I know it, Mike. And according to it. I remember all too well. Yes, very accidentally, as we have established.
SPEAKER_07Thank you. You should come to my show, by the way. I'll be you you and your cohort. Uh where where are the other two, by the way?
SPEAKER_09Oh, I don't know. We lost them somewhere around hell.
SPEAKER_07Do you mind if I buy you a drink while you talk to me about that? It sounds like you could use somebody to talk to, but absolutely.
SPEAKER_14I would love a little sippy sip.
SPEAKER_07Alright, and uh Arnold Typhus, uh Mr. Wellington, you know, did not stand up. Uh he has a small, well, I say a small, like a really nice, sturdy uh walking stick that he actually has a weight tied to that he normally keeps like coiled around. But while y'all are talking to him, he takes it and like you know, rotates the weight up, holds it, rotates the weight down, like you know, coiling it up there. Uh the entire time forearms are just fucking bulging out. Like we're talking like veins so thick you could stick a finger in them. Like we're we're this this this turtles you know why they call him beef. Uh but he but he sort of he sort of gestures you to the small like little table that he has, you know. Uh gets a high chair, you know, motions for a high chair for typhus so that he can see. Uh and uh so uh uh Arnold Remind me the last time that we saw each other. Was it at that that concert that you brought me to saying I needed to experience more of the music that exists now?
SPEAKER_04It might have been the concert, but I was on a little bit of psychedelics, so I don't remember if you were there or not. I thought I kind of manifested you, but if you remember it, then I probably did bring you. Um it's either that or we passed each other uh whatever I was running late to work the other day. One of those two things.
SPEAKER_07Oh, yes, and and who is your your your small friend here?
SPEAKER_04Uh this is Typhus. Typhus is uh an unhomed person I'm friends with.
SPEAKER_13Uh and we're looking to be homed as well.
SPEAKER_04So that's right. But we can't have but the apartment because we already have so many roommates, and we're kind of in the middle of a job. We're working together. Coworkers, I guess we you could call us.
SPEAKER_07Uh may I pry into what the job is?
SPEAKER_04Well, it's funny we bumped into you, Mr. Wellington. It's a moving job.
SPEAKER_13I think it's an eviction with a murder question mark.
SPEAKER_04Oh. Well, who are you evicting? Uh Tivus, do you have the folder or does Blair have the folder?
SPEAKER_13Blair had it. Honestly, I haven't even looked at the thing. I don't even know if it's my friends or not, dude.
SPEAKER_04I gotta be honest, Mr. Willington. It's in this direction, but I forgot where and who.
SPEAKER_07Why that seems like the kind of job that you really shouldn't be taking up if you don't really know what it is or why.
SPEAKER_13Well, I'll tell you what, we're only getting paid five GDs for it, so I mean Yeah, it's crazy.
SPEAKER_07Arnold, you know what my going rate is for moving.
SPEAKER_04Four G Ds?
SPEAKER_07You always wear a funny one.
SPEAKER_04I know.
SPEAKER_07Beef charges 50 GDs per box. We all Holy shit! I don't know what GDs you've been spending your whole life, but they're not worth a lot.
SPEAKER_13I've never even held four in my hand.
SPEAKER_04I think I gave one to Blair earlier after you jumped off the uh the billboard.
SPEAKER_07Uh well regardless, unfortunately, I I I cannot help you. Uh either of you. Uh all three of you, not right now. You see, even if you had the funds or I had the charity, I don't have the time. Arnold. I'm dying. Because you're old? No, you fucking it's Oh I'm I have cancer. What are you uh because I'm old, you say? I'm only like 60. Tortles live to like 200, I think. Maybe maybe more. Usually anyway. I mean, it's pretty bad from what I can tell.
SPEAKER_13Oh my god.
SPEAKER_07You totally botched that social interaction. I thought it was gonna be me. Oh.
SPEAKER_11Oh wow, this is I did.
SPEAKER_07Well, uh, regardless, I'm sorry, gentle people. I cannot help you. So as uh Blair finishes up the story about how Burbia uh gets good chuckles, uh, really like a lilting laugh, like really oh. Like really beautiful person, this dirty Mike. And you know, as everyone's kind of looking around, you catch up a little bit more uh with with Mr. Wellington, but everyone's eyes, you know, sort of meet each other, you know, shakes of the head, nah man, sorry, couldn't get the help. But then everyone's eyes slide back over to the the the the furbog that's sitting uh at the bar, uh, you know, with a a little bit a little bit of a stringy poofy style of hair, you know, very very well uh well kept. Um the last opportunity you have to find help here.
SPEAKER_13Don't make me guys thrown out of here. If I if I talk to her right now, I'm getting kicked out.
SPEAKER_09Who feels charming right now?
SPEAKER_04I I gotta be honest, I don't. I really botched that whole thing whenever Beef told me he had cancer. I thought it was just old.
SPEAKER_09Yeah, I mean, uh you that's rough. I didn't know about that. That's tough, man.
SPEAKER_13Uh I'll tell you what, if I had to quantitatively assess my charismatic capabilities on a scale of 120, it would be a six neutral, but we really we skewed down. I think we skewed down on 20.
SPEAKER_09Today we're we're just not batting a lot right now. Oh yeah. So you know what? Here, I'll give it a shot.
SPEAKER_14I'll give her the old Blair Consolidon. I I'm very familiar.
SPEAKER_04I have nothing but faith in you, Blair.
SPEAKER_09Alright, I don't know. Alright, so I walk over there and then I do the uh the uh the Riker sit over the chair, one leg top right over the chair into it. And I say, you know, they call feeble bow vine, but you're looking bow fine to me tonight, darling.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, no, that's gonna get the that's gonna get the bouncer. No, no way!
SPEAKER_08No, that was like normal!
SPEAKER_07It was like normal points to a sign in the corner that says no flirting at this bar. This is this is this bar is for non-flirtatious gatherings.
SPEAKER_03Oh no!
SPEAKER_13I would like before we go I would like to aid lend you aid in your in your charismatic attempt.
SPEAKER_07Okay, alright. Okay, fine. Uh you have one chance to to charm your way out of this, Blair. Uh, so hit me, hit me, please, if you would, with a uh, go ahead and get me with like a persuasion or a uh like a performance check. Like tell tell me tell me how you're going to salvage this situation with advantage from typhus. I'll hit the K-pop emote behind you.
SPEAKER_09Alright. I have proficiency and performance.
SPEAKER_07Obviously. Uh dirty? Dirty, dirty, yeah, yeah. Roll roll again just to see if you hit the crit. Come on, crit me, Blair.
SPEAKER_09That would be a a dirty 20 this time.
SPEAKER_07Okay, cool. Uh yeah, so you uh here's what Blair. Do you remember the first time that you flubbed a line on stage?
SPEAKER_09Oh do I. Eighty people died that night.
SPEAKER_07But how did you pick up and move forward as an artist?
SPEAKER_09Oh, I looked. I looked across the stage at me. And I saw my my co-stars. More than that. My roommates.
SPEAKER_07Among field dead. Among field dead. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_09You know, most of the crowd burning at this point. But on the stage we knew the show must go on.
SPEAKER_07And so, Blair, are you going to let one flubbed interaction stop you from asking this for a bulk for help?
SPEAKER_09Not at all.
SPEAKER_07The show must go on, Blair.
SPEAKER_08Did you stop drugs if you want to help us kill somebody?
SPEAKER_07Yeah, no, the bouncer's kicking y'all out. Okay. However, as the bouncer's going out, he uh he he slides you a little slip of paper. And like pat like under your you have like a little front coat, like a front shirt pocket, he slides in there, pats your chest a little bit, and sends you out onto the street. Y'all did not get lunch, by the way. Blair, you had like three sips of that drink.
SPEAKER_09Oh you know, maybe there's another CD cafe with a person each who could offer us help and you know, someone fun from the past lives. What do you think? Do you know of a place like that around here?
SPEAKER_04We live in a massive city. How is it it's it'd be impossible if there wasn't a second dingy bar that we could walk into?
SPEAKER_13But let me just check the maybe maybe we're thinking about this the wrong way. Maybe instead of a dingy dive bar, we need to find the most pristine, airtight, squeaky clean, good Christian bar that we can find this side of the town. I think I think we need to go straight to the top. I think we need to go um I think we need to go I think we need to go to the clean club.
SPEAKER_03Clean club. Clean club is the Gruyere's nightclub? I think we need to go to the clean club.
SPEAKER_07Clean club by Gruyere.
SPEAKER_08Typhus, I don't say this much. That's a brilliant idea. I've never heard him say it before.
SPEAKER_14That's true.
SPEAKER_13Oh guys, that makes me feel so good. You know, I was thinking, I was thinking the whole time. I was like, what would Virgil say? And he probably would have said Clean Club.
SPEAKER_09That sounds like him. Oh, so I'm still not sure. Do you think that lady I was talking to was Virgil in a wig and he was just trying to avoid us?
SPEAKER_04I feel like Virgil has a bunch of cousins. I thought it was cousin.
SPEAKER_14I guys, I think that was maybe. Or is mine?
SPEAKER_13I'm I'm not making sense of it either way. Anyway, I know the clean club is, you know, it's just down the way if we if we want to try our luck.
SPEAKER_04I mean, the worst we could do is spend all of our money on cover, get in, no one does it for us, so we end up being more broke than we started, and have to do it ourselves, anyways.
SPEAKER_09What money do we even need for like a minor eviction assault, perhaps manslaughter or murder one, if you know. Like I could do that for free, probably.
SPEAKER_04Probably, probably, considering that it's like, you know, only 10 GDs. We probably can't spend a lot of it on anything, anyways. I find this really was just money for lunch.
SPEAKER_13I will also say lunch money. Even collectively, this is also the richest I've ever been, so I feel great.
SPEAKER_09Yeah. Hey, you know what? You're the first of us to get up. Yeah. Think about it. And we'll follow right behind you, buddy.
SPEAKER_12You guys are funny, you know that? You guys are really funny.
SPEAKER_04Blair's always been the kind of like the speaker of the he's always had the best jokes in the apartment and in the in the group. Yeah.
SPEAKER_14No, come on, guys.
SPEAKER_04No, no, no, really, Blair. You you're so inspiring and funny at the same time. That means a lot, really.
SPEAKER_13Blair, I really like the way you got in that woman's face after after you flubbed that first line, you got in her face, and I could see the spit flying all the way like into her eye, probably.
SPEAKER_04I thought that was it was really effective how you grabbed her and yelled right into her. She there's no way she didn't hear what you were saying.
SPEAKER_09It was crazy.
SPEAKER_14I wanted it to be clear I wasn't flirting, and I was directly communicating about business. And that was not flirting. No one's gonna argue about that.
SPEAKER_09Nobody's nobody was gonna mistake that. And so I think we did a good job, all things considered. And maybe they were just being a little bit too tough on us.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, kind of like Mr. Gruyere.
SPEAKER_14They were just gonna be kind of like not as mean. Speaking of, let me check the contract here, see if there's like a time limit or anything.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, where are we going? Because I kind of forgot the first time.
SPEAKER_07Who are we uh who are we uh you're you're looking uh from what you can tell, what you have is uh the copy of a copy of like a copy of a deed. Again, like we're we are looking, like you can see the darkest part of like the printed text, but like again, like whenever we're talking about like legal limbs, like we're talking about like this level of like bureaucratic slop, you know what I mean? Like this is this is probably the best that they've got. Uh and and it's actually really like even though it's on the outskirts of town, it's at least somewhat close to the clean club by Gray Air. Um, so you could actually kind of hit up the clean club on the way. It's still the better part of like with light rail transit and like walking. Uh you're probably looking at like a two-hour trek beginning to end.
SPEAKER_049 30.
SPEAKER_07No, no, getting there late for sure.
SPEAKER_09A lot of connecting on this.
SPEAKER_13Hey, I say we get straight on that light rail and we hit the clean club.
SPEAKER_09You know what? Is it on the way? I think if it's on the way, why not?
SPEAKER_04Well, yeah. Again, worst we could do is spend all of our money on cover, get kicked out, beat up, mugged, robbed, and then we're unhoused as much as typhus is and we forget to do the eviction part. Yeah, and you know what? That'd be fine.
SPEAKER_13Yeah, but that's the worst case. Imagine the best case. We go in, we all get like probably 10, 15 more GD just in tips, because we all tick picked up part-time job serving for I don't know, maybe just 30 minutes, hit a table or two, uh, put on a little show. You guys do theater. Um, what were we going in there for again?
SPEAKER_04To see if other people would do the thing we were sent to do.
SPEAKER_09We wanted to see if in the nicest nightclub in the city there was someone who would be willing to do our job for us for, and I quote, five dollars.
SPEAKER_04To be fair, the people we would expect to do it hiding in the dingy places, they wouldn't be there because we expect them to be there. Same way the enforcers would expect to be there. The enforcers aren't expecting these guys to be in clean club. They're not. That's what all the that's where everyone everyone knows all the real G's hide in Clean Club. Everyone buttoned up, they're not really buttoned up, they're a bunch of freaks deep down.
SPEAKER_07I don't know.
SPEAKER_04I uh I dated someone who went in there once and I heard about it, but I've never been in there myself.
SPEAKER_13Okay, gotcha. It's the only place in town that has an escalator going up to the front door.
SPEAKER_09Yeah, it's like four steps until you know.
SPEAKER_07I do like to imagine that it's like literally like five steps that is just like really just there for the status of it. Uh, but yeah, the the the light rail uh is um you know nice, it's usual, you know, pretty smooth. It flies over. What um because the light rail uh sort of branches out, uh it's really the main thoroughfares of the city. Uh sort of like a metro, but I imagine sort of suspended more in the air. Uh it is um, there's a couple of transfers that you have to make where you actually have to like step from one car into the other while it's still in mid-air, but like they kind of uh they they they uh they attract towards each other as they sort of climb into the mid-air stations. Um, and uh y'all manage to, you know, take your elevator up to the station that's nearby uh where you were at uh fighting Flynn's. Um and as you get up to the top, you know, you wait a little bit, you get onto the first of the rails uh uh in the car, and you sort of speed off into the distance. Um as you're sort of sitting around, you know, people are looking here and there, a bunch of people on uh on their data slabs, uh, you see that the advertisement slabs up top, uh the big banners across um is made out of it's the same technology that uh allows the portals to access the data the data plane, right? So uh while you're looking at it, even though uh beneath it you can see the horizon kind of moving past, uh above it on these uh running bars, it it's like you're staring into something that isn't moving, right? And what you're actually watching is a music video. Uh it's a music video for uh a new sort of like uh it's the direction that pop music has been heading in for a while, where uh the everything but the voices and the hands of these pop artists are now completely digital, like overblown expressions. We are looking more like uh again, sort of a uh the digitizing of emotions to being even more exaggerated than any human face could be, but still keeping like relative proportions, and then of course the hands, because those are always kind of difficult to uh to get around, you know. Uh, but they're they're they're prevering uh a brand new song that has already uh apparently reached like top of the hits. Like you, you know, you're looking at your portals uh of various kinds, and you see that uh, you know, tapped into your cerebral cortex that they've hit multi-platinum uh over the course of like three hours of this song coming out, but it's been playing nonstop since. Uh, and as you sort of like tap in more and more into uh the advertisement banner, uh the rest of the world kind of bleeds away as your psyche is kind of overtaken by uh the song and the music video.
SPEAKER_08I hate this fucking city.
SPEAKER_04Is this the is this a song about the truck? I can't remember anymore. I don't know.
SPEAKER_07The song uh the song title pops up whenever you think about the fact that you didn't know what the name of the song was. And it's called You Me We Haul is the name of the song.
SPEAKER_09Yeah, this is the one about the truck. Is uh Is Drake is Drake on this, the dragon rapper?
SPEAKER_07I thought he was. Um as well as some hot like uh fire from the dragons maw. Dragonborn rapper.
SPEAKER_04Yep, yep, yep. My least favorite thing about the the the way the medium changed is that they hot bars are legit hot bars now. No one can really spit game anymore.
SPEAKER_07Oh, some people spit acid, I think.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Some spit flames. Who was that? No.
SPEAKER_09Who said that?
SPEAKER_07Uh anyway, yeah, about to say it's uh so uh there there are uh there is a system called impressions that you can get uh that helps out your algorithm where whenever you think things while you're engaging with media through uh a data slab, uh, that it actually will uh sort of give uh impressions of other similar people who are looking into the same thing, like sort of their psychic echoes throughout the data sphere, you know? Uh but anyway, the light rail otherwise, uh, you know, the at the very least the music video makes for a pretty quick trip. Uh and you disembark, take the elevator down off of the SkyTram station, and um you are dumped in front of what appears to be uh glass. We'll say like five stories high, uh, but the glass has like filigree running through it, almost like marbling. Uh it is a feat of uh of arcane uh construction to be able to like make the gold flow in that particular way and then get sealed correctly in the glass. It's actually more of like a time stop on uh a gold and acrylic wash that uh that the magics that are inherent into the uh like the construction process and the glyphs holding it there basically have it suspended in animation.
SPEAKER_04I hear they're still paying the construction pages for the all the like tens of thousands of GDs just for this wood wall. Wow.
SPEAKER_07Sitting in front of it, of course, is Mr. Groyer's giant brassy G spinning, spinning away eternally. Guys, we have got to get in there, we've gotta get in here.
SPEAKER_13It looks crazy, man. I've never been I've never seen something so cool. We gotta get in there.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and even if we don't find what we're looking for, I we I think just the fact of like getting inside would be a pretty big deal for today.
SPEAKER_13Yeah, Virgil never believed me if I said we were in the clean club. Oh my god.
SPEAKER_09They welcomed us in with open arms, that's what we'll tell them. That's uh it's what it's 9 p.m.
SPEAKER_07or so, so there's already a line out the front of the door of people trying to get in.
unknownOh man.
SPEAKER_13Uh well, you guys, uh, contract out. Let's just uh cut on up to the top of the line. Why don't we?
SPEAKER_09Oh, yeah, we'll tell them we're here on business, we'll show them the G. Smooth sailing.
SPEAKER_04Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a good call, actually. I thought we were gonna wait blood.
SPEAKER_07Y'all all run up to the exasperated eye rolls of everyone from uh Azimar dignitaries who are coming in from the heavenly plains to sort of talk uh shop in the city. Uh, you've got, of course, uh the Kwotoa embassies, and those guys always leave things smelling interesting uh after uh they have their uh communions with their deep lords about uh just how much investment they can put into the various packs around uh the political affiliations of the city, you know. Uh and but of course, like they all have seen this before a bunch of uh ragamuffins, vagabonds, if you will, walking straight up uh as if they ever had a chance in the world. Uh much less uh whenever they have a kobold who's flashing 10 or 5 GDs right in front of them.
SPEAKER_08No, no, no, but you see here on the paper.
SPEAKER_07Uh you walk up. Uh well, uh at the door, there's not actually a doorman, there's just uh one of the clockwork ravens sort of perched up top watching everybody as they come through, and a QR scanner that opens the door. You see everyone has their data slabs out in their hand ready to go.
SPEAKER_04Right here. You're gonna have to switch your scanner to something else because you're gonna have to read this. No QR code, but come on down, little bird.
SPEAKER_07I grit my teeth from behind you in line as somebody like motions with their slab. Like, you know, are y'all are y'all gonna just just find it we're trying.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, we need a second, okay? Okay, okay, okay, okay. Bird doesn't see our our pieces of paper that are actually they have the stuff out here.
SPEAKER_09The most likely I'm gonna try. I'm gonna point my my my uh I'll get my my portal out and I'll put it right up to it.
SPEAKER_07Error. Too poor. Not enough GDs in the bank account.
SPEAKER_09Oh damn. Alright, hold on. Interface with me here a little.
SPEAKER_07No response.
SPEAKER_09Alright, gang. I think we're fucked. What do you say we uh I'm of two minds? Three minds.
SPEAKER_01Can you get out of the line even if you have three minds? I don't want you to.
SPEAKER_09Hold on, hold on. We're stepping back, we're stepping back. It's fine, you're fine.
SPEAKER_11You know what? No, no. This this this uh this is how I'm a person. I'm I'm not allowed in there because I'm I'm not good enough.
SPEAKER_07Uh the person that next in line like holds their slab up to the the scanner and it says sufficient funds, welcome, and opens the door. I mean it smells wonderful in there. It smells wonderful. Okay, actually, gonna try to push it.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_07Uh you're going to uh get probably command word uh halt, if I had to guess. So if y'all uh I'm going to it's gonna be coming from the bird. I'm gonna say uh um DC a wisdom save DC thirteen.
SPEAKER_06Okay.
SPEAKER_02Oh very nice. Nine for for uh for Arnold.
SPEAKER_07Okay. Blair.
SPEAKER_13Oh, you crit, okay. Type is I'm not running in, I'm just continuing on my title.
SPEAKER_07Well, Blair, uh, like both of you, like uh Arnold and Blair both immediately like the the whatever feral instincts drive both of you, uh compels you forward to attempt to make it through the door while in the brief moment that it was open. Uh Arnold immediately, it's as if you hit a barrier and immediately get brought to your knees. Uh and Blair, you feel the same uh sensation and sort of stumble your way through, and you get one glimpse of what the inside of the clean club looks like. Blair, Blair. Even if y'all had gotten in here, this place ain't for you, buddy. Like the moment you look around, you realize that no matter how much you've ever dreamed of fame and wealth, nothing like what it takes to make it in here, man. Like these people, their their like bodies themselves are outlined in brass and chrome. You know, they've had various pieces of themselves augmented at this point far, far beyond anything that you would even hope to. Hell, you even see um one of uh Mr. Gorrier's like top uh like legal aides has actually gotten the augmentation to where he has his uh entire like orbital cortex completely replaced with uh portal lenses. So he is always tapped into the data plane. Um and as you look around, uh unfortunately, even though grand dreams of finding somebody in here who would be willing to help you out, as you're sort of forcefully shoved backwards by a couple of the bouncers right immediately inside, uh, this is a world that you were never meant to glimpse. How how and as you sort of like get pushed back outside, uh Arnold gets released, and you know, the guards just sort of glare at you as the doors close. Uh yeah, that's that's quite an experience there.
SPEAKER_11In conclusion, fuck you, fuck you, and you know what? Remember the names! We got uh Arnold McCaddy, we got Blair Cottonswab, and me, Typhus, do not forget our names.
SPEAKER_09That works. I'm feeling um strange.
SPEAKER_04Is it because the bird yelled at you and you didn't it hurt my stomach whenever the bird yelled at me?
SPEAKER_09Oh no, it's uh The bird yelled at me and I That's what I saw.
SPEAKER_11Did you guys try and run in there while I was talking?
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah, we did. Um Is it shame?
SPEAKER_09Envy Fear I think it's fury, I think it's wrath and fury.
SPEAKER_08I think I think I would have killed somebody.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, I remember the first time that I got rejected from the clean club and smoking a cigarette next to you appearing out of thin air. Dang old Mortis Bree.
SPEAKER_14Mortis Bree!
SPEAKER_07Mortis Bree? Is that really you? I think that's the first time that I've been uh called by name in a long time. Uh Mortis Bree looks like he's doing roughly. He has like a uh about a I would say a 14 o'clock shadow at this point. Oh man. Yeah, he has uh he had a botched actually uh portal lens conversion. So uh like the entirety of like the right, like upper right portion of his skull is all just like a complete like portal into the data's plane. Like you can just see right through it and the music video is playing again. Still.
SPEAKER_09Mr. Brie, you found me at a at a strange time. Have you you've you know, you said you were rejected from the club. Have you ever, you know, you been in there?
SPEAKER_07Oh yeah, I used to be in there all the time before I had a massive portal to the data plane wreaking havoc in my skull.
SPEAKER_09Did you ever want to just like place a very large bomb at the center of it?
SPEAKER_07Well, I'll tell you what I'd like is for this music video to start playing. It's my entire I don't even know what y'all look like, to be honest with you. I just I felt a different presence. This is hell, truly for me.
SPEAKER_09Seems I've learned of three different hells today.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, the Justy Wait. There's so many more levels.
SPEAKER_04It's funny we bumped into you today, uh, Boris Bree. I actually I've got a question for you because we met a uh I I wouldn't say uh uh a peer of yours per se, but do you have anything to lose?
SPEAKER_07Uh you see like a portion the the the data plane like kit takes up a little bit more of his remaining face, like it just kind of like phases into that same like black, flat surface as playing the music video.
SPEAKER_03I have only myself left to lose.
SPEAKER_04That's yeah, that's pretty that's pretty fascinating because us three gentlemen also only have ourselves to lose because I'm pretty sure if if we can't find Sylvia and Michael, we're we're not gonna be able to pay red. We'll lose the apartment. And uh Typhon's growing Purdue Hope. But I think the three of us also have nothing to lose. How would you feel after we finish uh evicting someone uh uh about uh teaming up with us to ruin Mr. Gruyere's life?
SPEAKER_10Oh my god, that's such a good idea, right?
SPEAKER_09I wasn't gonna do it earlier, but after seeing the things I've seen, I'm kind of all about it.
SPEAKER_07Uh uh Mr. Bree kind of glances uh with his remaining eye, and you see the spark of someone who once was, but before he could say anything, uh he just he opens his mouth for a moment and his his sort of lips quiver and he just hands you a business card. And it is his personal business card. And he says, Whenever you are ready to take down that son of a bitch, you call me. And then somebody else goes, Oh my god, Mr. Bree, can you come over here? I haven't seen the music video yet from the line. And uh Mr. Bree just like turns, even though, like, again, what you're viewing into his skull just like stays flat regardless of the angle, and he wanders off to the line.
SPEAKER_13Look at this, guys. Mortis Bree, bus crash specialist. Ooh, yeah.
SPEAKER_04I think I think the numbers probably still good, but the the card itself is seems out of date.
SPEAKER_09Ooh, I gotta imagine he's got an old pile and a new pile back at the back at his place, and he may have mixed those up for quite a while now.
SPEAKER_07Oh, wow. Okay. Um well on the bright side, y'all have uh 10 gold dollars now to your name still, uh, despite your best efforts. And uh the the the night has set in at this point. We're looking at around like 9 30 or so by the time that uh Mortis ends up wandering off. Uh but uh again, just looking around, uh, this is like the the clean club is the last, what I would say, like um uh Neapolitan marker on this side of the city, right? It's kind of here as a statement, right? Like, regardless of all of the you know, uh wealth disparity that this particular area faces just on like an existential basis, I'm still going to put my gigantic gleaming tower uh directly in the middle of it, uh, regardless of what the district uh and various housing rules say. Um, however, that does mean that you are relatively close uh to where you're heading. Uh in theory, actually, uh a typhus actually, like now that you're in this area, I think that you've not to the the clean club per se, but but you and Virgil, I think, have have major rounds around this way. When was the last time that y'all were here? Bro, I was just squatting here.
SPEAKER_13Really? Yeah, it was a while. Yeah, I mean it's it's been a minute, but I think it was earlier this year. Oh my Blair, I gotta tell you, I really think I've been here before. Like, I think I've I think I might notice some people around here, dude. I don't know if I feel so good about evicting someone.
SPEAKER_09No, no, no. Look, here's here's the thing. Here's the thing. I'll level with you. I've had a change of heart since I saw the inside of that place. Evicting somebody is not really in my deck of cards right now. What I do want to do is talk to the guy that Grier wants to fuck over. I want to find out more about them and why Grier wants to fuck them over specifically. And then I'm gonna figure out how to fuck that infernal cheese.
SPEAKER_13Got it. Okay. I I do um just on the side there, I do think we should still perform the public service and evict this person for a gift card.
SPEAKER_09Look, I I get where you're coming from. I like I do have a bank account, man. I gotta level with you.
SPEAKER_13Okay, well, we'll get there, we'll see. Um, all right.
SPEAKER_07All right, yeah, y'all y'all make a uh finally like one last concerted effort, I think, to sort of push through to this uh uh it's actually like a for especially not even just for the area. I think in general, it's like it's a relatively nice home. And and really, as you're walking through, uh I I think that it strikes you all the sheer humanity uh of the places around here, where even though these aren't the nicest or biggest of homes per se, certainly not what you could find as you get more towards the heart of the city, uh, these are homes that people obviously have spent lives in. Uh whether it's paint slightly fading and chipped but still uh put on with care, or whether it's a couple of shingles missing from the last big um dust storm that blew in from the eastern uh the eastern crush. It's just one of those places that has a lot of history. And as you sort of turn around and you see that the the clean club is still dominating the horizon in the background, again, it just kind of strikes you how discordant that feels. In a way that perhaps uh you felt before, but never really uh had something that let's say like a symbol to channel it, right? To evoke that feeling. And I think at the very least, especially for Blair, now you do seeing these uh little family homes, generational homes, uh that are in desperate need of repair with this backdrop of this gaudy glass and gold building scraping the heavens as a Tower of Babel with as much pride, it strikes you that perhaps there is something here, right? You were just given this meaningless task, but maybe maybe there's something that can be made out of it, right? And as you sort of approach uh this house, two stories or so, uh an unkept lawn, but still, you know, signs of of moving in and out, right? It's a house that looks like it may have been legally lost for quite a while. Uh I think that that uh from what Mr. Groya told you is true. However, you definitely see some uh sort of large beady eyes glance at you really quickly from a window and then dart back inside.
SPEAKER_13Well, this is the place.
SPEAKER_09Do we like should we come up with a plan first, or do you want to just play it by ear?
SPEAKER_04I feel like a little improvisation is always nice, but I I am kind of not bad at breaking into places. If you guys wanna kinda talk to him and get the idea of, you know, hey, we're not actually gonna evict you. I think that might be a good idea that I could uh Or all three of us could, if we're not gonna actually do anything nefarious.
SPEAKER_09So I my my thinking here was like kind of one of two approaches. One, we walk in and be like, we're gonna squat here. We don't know anybody lives here, and just like try to open the door and go right in, see what happens with that, you know, just get the conversation flowing. I feel like with typhus by our side, we are as vagrant as possible right now. We're feeding squatter.
SPEAKER_13I will say, I'm very nervous about lying. Like, I'm not good at it. I'll go with it, but like I if you if if he speaks to me, I'm no typhus.
SPEAKER_09It's not a lie. You wanna live here, don't you, buddy? No, you don't want to live. It would be a lie. It would be a lie then.
SPEAKER_13So let's that's the dog park I used to light uh bombs off in when I was younger. And I'll be honest, I'm not I'm not welcoming these parts, buddy. So here, live here, no thank you. And if he says anything to me, I'm uh let's reconsider.
SPEAKER_04It's it's it's past nine, it's getting late. We don't want to stay here, but we have to squat somewhere. And if we gotta squat somewhere, we might as well squat in this nice place. It's our first choice, but uh okay. Think about it that way. We have to squat here. We have to.
SPEAKER_09It's just it feels like they're gonna be coming in hot, you know. We're knocking on their door late at night saying, What's up? It's it just feels like they're gonna come hot at us. And you know what? I'm feeling hot too, and I don't want this powder keg to explode.
SPEAKER_13Powder keg? That sounds like something I have in my bag. I know I've got those flashbangs in there. Virgil told me not to flashbang people.
SPEAKER_09We could no, we shouldn't.
SPEAKER_04Not the person we're gonna evict, but I think hang on to that for whenever we get back with Morris Bree.
SPEAKER_07We can flashbang all the people that work for who's going up knock knocking on the door. Who's actually gonna make the physical effort?
SPEAKER_09You know what, Arnold? I think this one's on you. We were talking about the charm earlier, and I think we saw where mine got us.
SPEAKER_04I'll give it a shot. Uh just don't say they're old. I'm not gonna talk about anyone's age. Um, typhus, whatever you squat in houses, do you kind of just walk in or do you knock first?
SPEAKER_13Uh I never I never knock. I always walk in.
SPEAKER_04Alright. Uh I go and try and just open the door. Locked. Shit. Uh hang on. I I think I could uh plan. We didn't play for the door to be locked.
SPEAKER_13Uh can't you uh don't don't you I I've seen you lockpick before. I think you've I've been to the last place we went to.
SPEAKER_04That's true. I'm uh I'm I'm pretty handy with some lockpicks, and I uh I could give it a shot here. Yeah, try try to pick the front lock here.
SPEAKER_07Alright, that's a slide of hand.
SPEAKER_02Didn't mark off on proficient, but I think I just forgot to wonderful.
SPEAKER_07Hey, it's all made up anyway, right?
SPEAKER_02It's all made up. A 17.
SPEAKER_07Okay. Yeah, you uh you uh you how how does Arnold pick locks? Because you you got paws, right?
SPEAKER_02I I do the puss and boots claw.
SPEAKER_05I kinda like flip my hand upside down, pull the claw out, and I kinda jimmy the keyhole a little bit until something makes a noise. The the act looks a little lewd when if you're if you're looking from the door.
SPEAKER_07Okay, wonderful. Uh yeah, the the deadbolt slides, and uh you go to push it open and the chain lock catches on the inside, so you're able to get it open like maybe three or so inches, right? Uh and uh you see you see uh a grizzled face uh sort of peer out, uh eyes that look like they've seen some shit. And you you hear and what do you want? And you hear the sound of uh what sounds like tiny fireworks going off as the man stares level at you, Arnold.
SPEAKER_04Well, I wanted to get inside, but now I feel like I kinda wanna talk to you because you're already inside.
SPEAKER_07Well, why didn't you say so? And he's gonna unlock the door and like throw it wide open. This is a this is a human probably in his like 50s wearing a robe that's only very loosely tied in the front, uh, as well as some like really nice like uh house shoes, um long, long hair, streaks of gray, uh, and uh sort of pull the he has the biggest joint of spark leaf that y'all have ever seen. And he goes and takes another pull off of it as the sparks sort of fly off of it, and he takes a big breath. Oh well, make yourselves at home. Welcome to Neo Goblonia, and uh sort of swings his arms wide open, and inside y'all can see um probably about 14, about uh let's say three feet tall, uh, with long uh scales that sort of link together like scale mail, but uh huge eyes placed on either side of the head with a long, sort of curving, uh hardened, it's it's like a nose, but it's like a hard cartilage, more like a bone that that these uh these creatures use to normally break nuts open on the ground. Uh and as they sort of altern, uh their eyes, their pupils versus their irises of different color, sort of lock in to like very small pinpoints. And every single one of these goblins uh starts to shake their scales as they flush with different colors at the sight of all of these new people. Uh and the uh the man at the door, as you all sort of walk in, shuts it behind you, and goes, So uh make yourselves a home, I suppose. Uh my name is Derek Stormfighter. And that is where we're going to be ending it for today.
SPEAKER_02Oh my god.
SPEAKER_07Well, so uh so there you go, y'all. Uh thank you. Uh thank you to everyone who was watching. Thank you for everyone in the chat, everyone who's checking out Artsy uh during the live stream or whenever this is out on podcasts or as a VOD on YouTube. Uh, thank you all again. Uh please do consider subscribing if you like what we're doing. Uh, we're trying to hit that 500 subscriber goal so we can start uh doing our custom emotes. And uh otherwise, please come join us on Discord. Feel free to donate to uh Arcadian Renaissance Theater Creatives or Artsy. It's the production company that makes these uh nonprofit based out of Livingston uh parish in Louisiana. Um but otherwise, uh my name has been Tim. Uh thank you all so much for watching uh Brendan Zach Logan. Thank you for playing. Let's all tell everyone good night.