The Final Rules: Chaos | A Lot of Goblindegook (S3E6)

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.

Typhus (played by Logan Naddy,) Blair Codswallow (Zak Denley,) and Arnold "Gloves" McAffee (Brendan Bice) have been tasked with clearing out some squatters by the insidious Mr. Grueyere. Little do they know that a familiar soul is waiting for them at Neo Goblonia- as well as a spunky barbarian and what might be the only being capable of fighting the Mainframe (if only our heroes could understand Goblinspeak!)

Thank you to our Very Special Guest Emily Miller, and TFRs: Chaos is DMed by Timothy Underwood.

Please enjoy!

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.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Long ago, in a distant land, far beyond the reaches of common sense, a band of merry adventurers are stuck between order and chaos. So hang on to your data slab. And welcome to the final rule.

SPEAKER_07 1:07

Amazing. Hello, everybody, and welcome to uh episode six of the final rules. We are, of course, uh the chaos party. Uh I am joined by uh three very wonderful regular players, as well as our very special guest, Emily Miller. Um, everyone, Emily is uh our new one of our new officers here at Artsy, but also a very talented uh improviser, does a lot of work with Comedia Delarte, Louisiana Shakespeare Company. Uh, very well read and well studied. Emily, it's an absolute pleasure to have you on.

SPEAKER_06 1:40

Thank you. It's an absolute pleasure to be here. Hope I don't disappoint.

SPEAKER_07 1:45

No, I I Emily, I know you well enough that I know that you will not disappoint in any way, shape, or form. Uh, and besides, it's all improv, right? Uh, there's no there's just like baseball, right? There's no crying in improv. There's only yes and exactly. But Brendan, Zach, Logan, it's uh it's great to see y'all. I hope that y'all are ready for this session, just like I am. Uh, but as always, with our uh with the final rule, it it is all completely improvised, which of course means that we have to draw a suggestion because improv is built on suggestions. So I'm going to go into our trusty Discord. I am going to ask iBot to pull a suggestion. And our suggestion has been pulled. It is from our stream manager Spencer on our Discord, submitted in the Discord channel the bucket. It is Super Demonic Bunnies. That is our suggestion. Super demonic bunnies. Alright, so with the suggestion pulled, with us being live, is everyone ready? Yeah. Yeah, let's do it. Alrighty. Uh, so we left off last time with the introduction of an old familiar name for the final rules, uh, uh Derek Stormfighter. Taking residence in a uh a home that has been lost in legal limbo. Somewhere at some point it was meant to be an inheritance, but who was and who had versus who is and who has is lost a little bit in all of the bureaucracy forms traveling from one desk to another in the city. Uh, but it has left it in a slightly precarious situation, especially for Mr. Gruyer, who uh whose client it is that's trying to reclaim this property, uh claiming some sort of uh again an inheritance of some kind that has been lost to time. Uh Derek invites the entire party in. Uh, it is rather late as y'all were approaching there. So Derek just kind of motions to uh he the the overall uh setup of what Derek calls Neo Goblonia, right? This is a about two-story-ish house, uh, maybe like an old converted like condo, um, two sides to each of it, uh, a handful of living quarters upstairs, a communal kitchen downstairs, uh, as well as like a den, a study, and what looks like a makeshift office, uh sort of all on the first floor. However, this uh this house is not in any way unsettled. Not only do we have Derek here, but we also have uh what some more civilized people might call an infestation of goblins. Uh these goblins stand right at around two and a half to three feet tall. They are covered in iridescent scales that can lift up off of their skins and shimmer. Uh, and they can also uh cause those scales to change colors uh depending on mood, environments, uh their emotional state. A lot of people consider these goblins to be um some more of like the simpler kind of creatures out in the wild. Some of them have been domesticated, but it there is probably a group of let's say 10 to 12 goblins here that all sort of skitter away as you come in and out of this place. Derek welcomes you in. Uh he still has uh probably about half of his uh joint left of the spark leaf. Uh and he's just sort of puffing it as he's showing you around. Oh yeah, these are gonna be uh we have some places to stay upstairs, uh down here, uh mostly the the the communal area. I got a door off close to the right. Just just don't go in there until the morning. I I I've got some things to explain, but uh unfortunately it's it's bedtime around here, all the goblins are starting to uh nest down for the night, and trust me, you don't want them to lose out on sleep, or they will wake you up at 5 a.m. with the worst noises you possibly heard. So uh not to cut off any uh introductions, just know you are safe here. This is a place where travelers come all the time. Go ahead and get some rest. We're gonna be talking in the morning, I'm sure. All right. Okay. So uh Derek leads you upstairs. Uh there is an unoccupied uh two bunks and then well well, two bunk beds. Uh, so four total sleeping spaces, none of which are uh occupied currently at the moment. But uh as Derek sort of shows you into the room, he does kind of point off to the side and say, Yeah, we have a couple of other intra-bed travelers who who just happen to find their way here that are also staying here. So mind quiet hours will get you off for breakfast in the morning. Um, but uh just so you know, this place is a kind of first come, first serve. So you have these three beds. But if anybody else comes in here, just know they might end up bonking with you.

SPEAKER_12 6:37

Oh, fine by me. And is like is breakfast on us, or do you like you take care of that sort of thing?

SPEAKER_07 6:43

Is it a communal tiger? Look, when y'all are in Neo Gablonia, we are all taken care of. It's one of the the major rules that we set down uh as we started to found this place. Everyone gets taken care of by everyone. So breakfast is not on you, it is not on me. Together we shall accomplish breakfast, but not until the morning. Are you saying somebody can just get in my bed while I'm sleeping?

SPEAKER_04 7:09

That's yeah, that's a good question, actually. Well, dude, what the place is this?

SPEAKER_07 7:14

I'll I'll not well knock first. I look, y'all can go outside and go rest if you want to. I won't stop you, but I figured having some nicer beds might, I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 7:24

I'm sorry, I if I offended, I'm just saying, what's the point of a bed if somebody's just gonna get in while you're s I felt like that maybe it's just me.

SPEAKER_12 7:35

Years. Okay, okay. Maybe just try it out again and see how it takes you. Okay.

SPEAKER_07 7:46

Uh so the the night the night winds on, y'all all y'all all start to like bed down a little bit, you know. Uh it's probably I would say like 11-ish p.m. by the time that y'all get more or less settled.

SPEAKER_12 8:04

Left it at the apartment. I'm on page two of Infinite Gest.

SPEAKER_10 8:10

You're not really that far. I you you might be able to just uh you know pick up a another book while we're while we're out.

SPEAKER_12 8:17

No, no, no. I it's further than you think.

SPEAKER_10 8:21

Is that the one with the really, really big pages? It was like three feet tall. Is that the book you're telling me? Blair, I don't think good for you.

SPEAKER_12 8:36

No, no, no. I get like a little headache when I read it. It's fine.

SPEAKER_04 8:40

I think I think there was a disclaimer on the back, yeah. Yeah, you always look sick after you're done reading Infinite Jess.

SPEAKER_12 8:47

It's mostly the text content.

SPEAKER_10 8:52

It just gives you migraines to read.

SPEAKER_11 8:54

It just gives me migraines, but it's really good, guys. I promise.

SPEAKER_04 8:59

I don't know. You uh you you look sick, you feel sick. I feel sick. We all feel sick when you read it. Blair, what happened to the book?

SPEAKER_12 9:09

Oh, it's just left at the apartment.

SPEAKER_07 9:12

Uh how long has it been since y'all have been back to where you live, by the way?

SPEAKER_12 9:17

Oh two days now, if I had to guess.

SPEAKER_07 9:21

Yeah, two days. I gotcha. Okay, just I I I wanted to make sure that I was keeping our timeline uh uh on track. But uh the the night sort of you know creeps on as it does, and uh y'all have one final moment of sort of a a party solidarity before you all you know get to sleep, not in a jail cell, not out and about, not even in your apartment, but like a new kind it's kind of like a hostel, you know what I mean? That's surrounded by small creatures that could start screaming at any moment.

SPEAKER_10 9:51

Weird that the the fact the small creatures actually kind of reminds me of the apartment, but uh everything else is pretty new. I don't like how we keep calling them small. I think they're all taller than me. They're they they they appear to be a normal goblin size, I guess. I typhus, I had really clocked it. You're kind of a short guy.

SPEAKER_04 10:12

Three foot eight.

SPEAKER_10 10:15

Well, that's not too short.

SPEAKER_12 10:17

You'd be the tallest goblin I've ever seen.

SPEAKER_04 10:20

Cobold. What the hell, man?

SPEAKER_12 10:22

I know you're a cobalt.

SPEAKER_11 10:23

I'm saying if you were a goblin, you'd be the tallest goblin.

SPEAKER_04 10:25

Claire, we're not doing this again. I climb up in the top bunk and go to bed.

SPEAKER_07 10:32

Uh well uh the the at some point uh Typhus doesn't respond to any more prodding, Blair and Arnold. Uh so Typhus is on the top bunk of one of the bunk beds. Arnold and Blair, are y'all bunking in the other one? Yeah.

SPEAKER_10 10:47

I'm assuming this is like a three, like a triple decker uh bunk bed.

SPEAKER_07 10:51

I thought it was like it can be. I was thinking like two separate bunk beds, but but if you want it to have three bunk beds and then like one regular bed off to the side, y'all can all three can gladly take the bunk bed.

SPEAKER_10 11:01

I assumed that's how they did things in new goblonia.

SPEAKER_07 11:04

Um we'll get there, but there's a there's a marked difference between new goblonia and neo goblonia, all right.

SPEAKER_10 11:11

Neo goblonia, excuse me. Let me put the neo in bold.

SPEAKER_07 11:19

Just really make sure it's important, okay? You we'll get there, we'll get there. It's an eight-point font.

SPEAKER_10 11:24

That's why I can't read it. It's just like infinite gist.

SPEAKER_07 11:27

But uh, as I'm I'm going to say, like, as uh uh Arnold, like you're you're starting to slip off to sleep, you have these thoughts of of new goblonia and neo goblonia, and like really wondering how in these last two and a half days you've ended up here. And in reality, I think all of the party as they start to slip off into a long rest, uh, kind of has that same thought of wow, like if you had if you had like told me not even like a week ago that I'd be bunking in a squatter's home on the fringes of the city, uh, that is infested with goblins, and also a 50-year-old sparkly smoker who is being rather cryptic, but very open with his home, you know. So like it it is something I think that is very new, uh, and and and it influences your dreams as you start to uh slide into sleep. I think that overall uh the the stress of the past couple of days affects your dreams differently. And I would like to take a moment to kind of explore our player psyches uh to a little bit of a degree. Uh Blair, whenever you slip off to sleep, what what what sort of things are going through Blair's mind in his uh in the deep recesses of his subconscious?

SPEAKER_12 12:41

I I'm doing the same thing I've been doing every night as I as I you know get down to sleep, and it usually kind of bleeds into the dreams a bit. I'm uh I'm workshopping ideas for my my play uh about the you know, my play with Sylvia on the uh on the Wright brothers. It's spelled with an R, they're different guys from the other guys. Uh called the Wrong Brothers. And Clever. It's a good play on words. It hits you again.

SPEAKER_07 13:10

Yeah, yeah. You're you're like as you get that dopamine burst, like as again the dreams are starting to take hold, and you're like, man, what a great name.

SPEAKER_12 13:17

That's just a great name. We've got to make the rest of this work. And so I'm like, I'm going through the outline in my head and like living in the scenes a bit.

SPEAKER_07 13:26

Uh what about you, Arnold? How's uh how's your dream starting to manifest?

SPEAKER_10 13:31

It's probably starting off normal. Like it's Arnold and Michael are probably hanging out around the kitchen table of the apartment. Uh Michael's probably doing some topiere trimming, and and Arnold is playing uh a Call of Duty. Copyright infringing Call of Duty. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, and then there's like a comfort he finds, and like just kind of the very normal pace of the day, and he goes to like look out the window um to like see a pleasant afternoon, and then like the uh large uh billboard of Mr. Greyer uh turns to beckon him and leans down into the window and just like begins pressing at the glass, and I think Arnold just kind of stares at the wall and just can't tell what's real and what's a dream anymore. Everything's so strange.

SPEAKER_07 14:32

So a a bit of a uh uh a restless night, perhaps for Arnold. Oh, certainly restless, yeah. And Typhus, uh, so you have been hijacked by a higher being, you have spent now two days in jail, uh, and also uh fell into a world that you're not entirely sure was ever actually real. How are your dreams shaping up?

SPEAKER_04 14:53

Uh similar dream every single time. Me as a as a little baby cobalt, uh, I see a large hairy figure in the distance walking away, and I I want to go towards him, but it's like moving underwater. It's like I'm in jello, and I just can't get there.

SPEAKER_07 15:13

Wow. That you say that's that's a recurring dream for Typhus? Three days straight, longest dream streak I've ever had. Wow. That's uh well that's uh that's probably fine. Typhus Typhus is probably totally fine, if I had to guess, a completely stable individual. Great. Um but uh I I think that um probably Arnold, you get you get kind of roused from sleep first. Uh you know, the the the billboard comes in, uh the eye of Mr. Groyer seems to get closer and closer. Uh you look into the eye and you see uh like a swirl of data uh just kind of flying past the the emojis that you remember seeing on the the Ikean's uh cube that y'all tried to your best to bring back for Mr. Groyer. Uh itch floating around in there, and then suddenly you hear permeating through the dream, you hear me, time for me, and then you just Mr. Gruyer.

SPEAKER_10 16:21

I remember that.

SPEAKER_07 16:22

Something Blair. Uh uh, you're you're you're in your bro in your dream, you're going through uh the you're you're on act two. You and Sylvia just finally had your big uh your your your big intermission number, you know, the the big final like building up to act three, and then you know, Sylvia looks at you, and uh Typhus, you are dead asleep. You you don't get woken up by anything. You're still you're still swimming through the jello. Uh but Arnold Blair, like you both kind of like snap two uh roughly at the same time, uh, and you see that standing in the middle of the room, the the door is wide open, is a uh uh goblin who is seemingly staring straight up. Uh so just like how birds uh sort of on the side of their beak have uh their eyes sort of uh off placed. Again, the as I described last time, the goblins kind of have a very hard, almost like a plate on the front of their head that they usually use to like bash down on things that they need to break open, like nuts and stuff as they forage through the forest. Uh, this goblin is staring straight up and with its uh very, very articulate vocal system is screaming to the heavens.

SPEAKER_01 17:36

It's a time for wake up! Come on, come on, come on.

SPEAKER_07 17:39

And you can hear that coming from every single room, all the way down like uh this top floor. Uh every is a chorus of these goblins that are calling for a wake up.

SPEAKER_13 17:52

Hello creature.

SPEAKER_07 17:57

It uh one of its eyes focuses on you, and you can see its pupil get smaller and smaller until it's a print pick, uh just a pinprick, and then suddenly uh all of its scales uh sit bolts upright, like uh these these tiny diamond skewers sticking out from the goblin's uh underskin as it flashes red uh in warning and it uh and it just flies, it just like runs out of the of the room.

SPEAKER_11 18:26

You think it was matching the color of my skin? Should I be upset about this?

SPEAKER_10 18:29

No, I think you made eye contact with it and you uh it made it feel threatened in some kind of way.

SPEAKER_06 18:36

Yeah, you're not supposed to make eye contact with anything.

SPEAKER_07 18:39

Oh Jesus Yep, uh sure enough. Sitting on the the non-triple decker bunk bed is uh a uh a halfling who uh looks to be of uh of pretty uh strong build, very corded muscles, very stout. Uh uh Emily, talk to us a little bit about what your character looks like.

SPEAKER_06 19:00

Uh yeah, so she's a very stout little halfling. Uh she's got some light brown hair uh that's chaotically done up in several different braids of different sizes and different lengths, all kind of amassing into uh one long braid uh with some puff balls hanging off the end of it. Uh and she's got just some uh very earth-toned clothes-on kind of a tunic shirt with the sleeves like cut off and some really nice shoe boots.

SPEAKER_07 19:37

Alright, so Arnold Blair. I'm about to say uh this is the first time that you've noticed that somebody managed to to creep into the room while y'all are asleep besides just the goblin.

SPEAKER_13 19:47

Hello Ruby, what shaken?

SPEAKER_10 19:57

And and and each of our uh kind of grasp on reality. Those two things mostly.

SPEAKER_06 20:03

Yeah, you're you're not really supposed to make direct eye contact with the goblins, it kind of spooks them and then they go into hummingbird mode.

SPEAKER_12 20:12

What on earth is hummingbird mode?

SPEAKER_06 20:15

Well, you were just witness to it because you made the grave mistake of making that eye contact. You gotta you gotta learn how to duck and weave with the eyeballs.

SPEAKER_10 20:27

What's the best way to address them? Do we just kind of talk at them? How do they know we're talking to them if we don't know their names or anything?

SPEAKER_06 20:34

Yeah, you really shouldn't talk to them at all. They're like real skittish.

SPEAKER_10 20:38

Oh.

SPEAKER_06 20:39

Yeah, if you get a whole group of them near each other, then they all start screaming and then your ears start bleeding, and you gotta deal with that whole situation.

SPEAKER_12 20:50

I kind of thought they were cute, but now I'm I guess I'm doubting myself.

SPEAKER_10 20:56

Yeah, no, it kind of seems like a pest problem at this point. If they uh I don't know. I don't want to jump to any conclusions, but may maybe I just haven't really uh I'm not familiar with the culture of the goblins, I guess.

SPEAKER_07 21:10

Typhus, in your dreams, as you're moving through slow motion, you trip over a shoelace and you start to fall towards the ground, still in slow motion, and the ground rushes up to meet you in your dream and suddenly you snap awake.

SPEAKER_13 21:28

Oh well, let's go evict these guys.

SPEAKER_04 21:37

Hey, go on, typhus. Let's do it, let's evict him, guys. I think we got a good night. We tripped them. We were able to and now are are we killing or are we evicting? I don't think we ever decided on that.

SPEAKER_11 21:47

Yeah, I don't think we ever did.

SPEAKER_10 21:50

We have uh someone grabbed the single bed, by the way, typhus. Just something to keep in mind. Uh we we have a roommate with us. Oh, hi, what's

SPEAKER_06 22:00

Your name. She starts slowly picking up a great axe and just like holding it, and she goes, You guys, you guys trying to start a fight?

SPEAKER_04 22:10

Ideally, no. No. No, we're not the fighting type. We're the we're lovers. Yeah, look at us.

SPEAKER_10 22:18

We're not really into that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_06 22:22

Yeah, uh, I'm thinking more of a platonic relationship. Uh, I'm not looking for anything serious, uh, unless you want to fight, in which case I'm super down.

SPEAKER_13 22:36

Oh. Well.

SPEAKER_04 22:44

What? I couldn't say it. You guys remember yesterday? We were outside the club? Yeah. Talking about killing this, killing that, fighting?

SPEAKER_12 22:53

Yeah, yeah, that was mostly like you know, like the 1% kind of deal for me.

SPEAKER_10 23:00

I also I feel you were kind of riled up too.

SPEAKER_12 23:02

I went I was riled.

unknown 23:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 23:05

I'll say this. Whenever I meet a stranger who's willing to do violence with me, I I don't think I've ever. Which is often. Which is often. I have never been able to say no. And every single time I don't regret it.

SPEAKER_07 23:21

Typhus, it occurs to you that Delrin that uh this halfling has pulled a sleight of hand and not actually told you her name.

SPEAKER_04 23:30

Hey, wait a minute. I don't think you've actually told me your name.

SPEAKER_13 23:35

You haven't told me your name.

SPEAKER_06 23:38

My name's Typhus. My name's He's not lying. Delren.

SPEAKER_13 23:44

Delren. Yeah, with a D.

SPEAKER_04 23:49

Delren, what do you know about goblins?

SPEAKER_06 23:52

Well, I know you're not supposed to look them in the eye, because then they start getting all skittery and hummingbird mode, and then they scream like your uh friends made them do. They're gonna settle everybody off. And then breakfast isn't gonna be delicious.

SPEAKER_10 24:07

Is the breakfast delicious if they're not startled?

SPEAKER_06 24:11

Oh yeah, the quality of the food goes way up depending on the calm abilities of the goblins.

SPEAKER_04 24:18

Gentlemen, it appears Delrin is a goblin expert.

SPEAKER_12 24:26

Well, I guess sort of on a on the the relative sliding scale of all things. She's certainly passing me.

SPEAKER_04 24:39

Delrin, if you were to to to surmount an insurrection from within a building full of goblins, what would be the first step you would take?

SPEAKER_06 24:49

Take out their legs.

SPEAKER_04 24:51

Holy moly.

SPEAKER_06 24:53

They can't run around if you chop them off at the kneecaps.

SPEAKER_04 24:56

Oh god.

SPEAKER_10 24:57

Pulls out a notebook and starts taking notes. Fascinating.

SPEAKER_06 25:02

This also helps to have the element of surprise. For example, and she holds up her hand and outskitters from her sleeve a little mouse from all the way up here, because she was wearing that sleeveless thing. It skitters all the way down her arm and lands in her hand.

SPEAKER_04 25:17

Oh.

SPEAKER_06 25:18

Squeakums here is really good at the element of surprise.

SPEAKER_07 25:22

Oh, not squeakums.

SPEAKER_04 25:23

I'm gonna scurry down the bed. Delrin, what do you think we could do with this? Pull up in my bag and show like loose gunpowder and bolts.

SPEAKER_06 25:35

Probably a lot. Uh, but it might also involve our deaths, and I'm not too keen to uh lose lose my bones about it.

SPEAKER_10 25:44

It's funny you bring that up. That is a pretty important part of criteria we're looking for, is to make sure that we don't die in the process of anything we're about to do.

SPEAKER_11 25:52

So at least tell you it seems like that's around basically every corner, no matter what path I go down. Somebody wants us dead. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 26:02

Well, this building is definitely not up to code. I feel like sometimes if you sneeze wrong, it's just gonna collapse down.

SPEAKER_04 26:09

I heard that about all the brimstones in this area.

SPEAKER_07 26:14

The brim- is that like the brownstones, like brownstone buildings, but it's brimstones? Brimstones. Okay, good to know. Uh it's around the man, it must smell terrible like anywhere those buildings are. Freaks. Uh the the it's around this time that I think that uh you hear some clomping coming up the stairs, and at some point Derek like kind of appears in the doorway. Uh he's wearing an apron that says kiss the chef. Uh, and then underneath it says dot dot dot when it says twice, uh, with like a winky face right at the end. Uh stained, smudged, you know, like obviously gets used uh pretty often down in the kitchen. Uh and he sort of cocks an eyebrow at everyone in here and he says, So uh y'all, y'all, y'all coming to breakfast, or uh oh yes, yes.

SPEAKER_12 27:01

And I've got some uh questions for you actually that I think will go lovely with a meal.

SPEAKER_07 27:06

Uh then let's get downstairs. I I could use a couple of hands actually with getting that meal done.

SPEAKER_06 27:11

Derek, they look the goblins in the eye. They set one off on a hubbing bird motion.

SPEAKER_07 27:16

Oh, I probably should have explained that. Yeah, no, you don't you don't really unless they tr unless you've earned their trust.

unknown 27:25

Right.

SPEAKER_07 27:25

You cannot look a goblin in the eye, because otherwise they'll see they'll they'll see too deeply into you, you know.

SPEAKER_04 27:30

Derek, I have a question. How do you earn a goblin's trust?

SPEAKER_07 27:36

Well, you start by coming downstairs and eating goddamn breakfast, y'all.

SPEAKER_09 27:40

I'm in the middle of cooking something. I don't want something to burn. Come on.

SPEAKER_12 27:46

I'm gonna give him I'm gonna give him hash browns.

SPEAKER_07 27:49

Uh everyone ends up going downstairs. Delren, are you just kind of following along with uh your roommates?

SPEAKER_06 27:57

Yes.

SPEAKER_07 27:58

And uh and uh how long have you been here, Delren? Like are you just stopping by for the night or have you been by here before, staying here long?

SPEAKER_06 28:06

Uh Delren is a frequent flyer of of this area, um, kind of going out and doing odd jobs and venturing here and there. Never stay in one place too long.

SPEAKER_07 28:20

Absolutely. Uh so like you you know you know a good like sort of way house whenever you find one, a place where you can just like stop in for the night, crash, and no one asks any questions coming in or out. You know, they see a familiar face, they might say hi, but very few people might even ask your name unless you offer it.

SPEAKER_06 28:35

Yeah, they would know me on site, but they have no idea what I'm called.

SPEAKER_07 28:39

Wonderful. Uh well, as you all go downstairs, you see that uh all of the goblins have gathered together uh in like the little common room. They're all up on top of like the mantelpiece, a couple shelves on the wall, knocking a couple things down. Uh and as they do, they kind of like cock their head at the side, look at each other, bonk their heads together. And they're all like kind of yapping together. Uh, but you see, like in in sort of the cluster that they make, uh, waves of color are sort of rippling out from uh the sort of goblins closest to the center who are like bonking their heads together, and the goblins who are sort of surrounding on the outsides. Maybe a splash of blue that ripples out almost like uh a stone striking a pond, followed by verdant flashes of green and red as a couple of the goblins get more uh uh into whatever conversation they might be having, sort of like bickering almost, you know, of like little flashes of red uh amidst like the flowing tides. And uh Derek, you know, is sort of busies himself in the kitchen. He's like mixing up some eggs. He he looks over at uh Arnold and he's like, uh can you do me a favor? I I have a couple of um of uh of tubers over on the side. Could you mind just like cutting them up, getting them all good for a hash?

SPEAKER_10 29:54

Yeah, I can do that. Just just like slices or cubes or uh whatever strikes your fancy.

SPEAKER_07 29:59

And then like is sort of like sort of dashing salt everywhere, putting a little garlic powder on a couple of things. Uh a couple of the goblins start to hop up on the counter, and he like with one hand moving, like stirring something, picks the goblin up gently and sets it down, not looking it in the eye. It scurries off somewhere. Uh, and then uh Blair, as you're sort of just watching this happen, uh you feel uh something very, very hard and heavy uh basically hit you in the back of the kneecap and like buckle you down slightly.

SPEAKER_12 30:35

I very carefully turned the look while like trying to keep my eyes like down and on top so they don't I don't go straight for eye contact.

SPEAKER_07 30:46

Uh unfortunately the goblin was already staring directly at you. Oh and as soon as you turn, like no matter how careful you are, the goblin immediately locks eyes with you. But for a moment, there is a a kind of silence and and and Blair, you look into this goblin's eye, and instead of going down to a pimprick, it actually opens up uh to where it almost encapsulates the entirety of the eye socket for this goblin, and you just Blair.

SPEAKER_12 31:20

Yes, that's right.

SPEAKER_07 31:22

And then it's gonna flash up with the red, and this eye is gonna go to Pimpricks and it's gonna scamper off. And uh Derek just, oh that would that one must like you.

SPEAKER_12 31:34

Well, that's neat. Should I like I had an idea I want to run this over with you? Should I like headbutt one? Is that a good idea? I've got the horns and all, so I feel like it could go alright for me.

SPEAKER_07 31:49

Derek just sort of like turns slightly and like cocks an eyebrow at you. Like, well, uh, here's what I'll say.

SPEAKER_09 31:57

Uh I have been accidentally uh the subject of one of the goblins uh territorial disputes, and uh one trip from the emergency room later with a mild concussion would would lead me to believe that you really shouldn't tempt them because even if it's all in good fun, uh those they they they pack more of a punch than you might think.

SPEAKER_12 32:19

Okay, okay. That's why I wanted to run it by you first.

SPEAKER_06 32:22

Yeah, and he says you should totally do it.

SPEAKER_07 32:27

Derek like glances over and goes, Oh, you're back.

SPEAKER_09 32:31

It's been what a couple months or two, I think, since the last saw your face here. You you're staying longer than usual.

SPEAKER_06 32:39

Yeah, hey bid D, how's it going? I'm just excited to be back. Got a couple of things cooking.

SPEAKER_07 32:46

Yeah, little D, I uh I I do too, actually. So uh why don't you go ahead and uh everyone go ahead and set the tables, you know? And uh he he hands a couple of like uh uh silverware rolls to Typhus and uh uh Arnold, you know, you've transferred the tubers over. Uh did you end up doing them slices or cubes? Uh I I I would have done cubes. Cubes. Okay. I that that's I think I think that Derek looks over with like a discerning look and like ends up nodding, like, oh yeah, and that's that's what I would have done for sure. Yeah. Uh and and you guys get everything set up, you all sit down, uh, and uh you know, you're all sitting at this. It's almost it's it's almost cozy for just a moment. It's almost Arnold and Blair, like you're back at the apartment having family brunch, you know. Like uh Sylvia has uh scrambled eggs, but has like four raw ones in front of her, and she's just like putting one whole egg in her mouth and doing like the snake thing to like uh you know, but everyone else's are scrambles, you know. But there's this moment of like connection of community here that uh everyone for the first time I feel like can just like breathe and their safety uh to a certain degree. Um and Derek's just like you know, kind of kind of munching, you know, thoughtfully eating. Um uh he he says, Oh, and I almost forgot my morning ritual. Uh and he's going to like get up from the table really quickly. He's gonna go around, you hear some rummaging, you hear a couple of glass things clinking, and he comes back with a giant fucking gravity bong that he has like filled the bowl to the top with spark leaf.

SPEAKER_09 34:16

And he's like, you know, I used to I used to not be uh into any of this stuff, but um after I got done with the uh with the enforcement uh the Imperial Enforcement Squad, um, you know, it just it it helps me get through the day.

SPEAKER_07 34:32

And uh he's going to like take the biggest fucking rip. It's going to sound like the 4th of July, like fireworks going off everywhere, there are sparks flying, all the goblins at once turn to watch and like listen, and every single one of them starts to like uh spark their uh some of their scales as if they were little stars lighting up in the night.

SPEAKER_04 34:51

What the hell, dude?

SPEAKER_07 34:52

It's like 9 a.m. We're up. What are you, a fucking enforcer?

SPEAKER_04 35:00

No, I'm just saying you sparkly. You fucking enforcer?

SPEAKER_06 35:03

She holds up a great ass enforcer.

SPEAKER_04 35:05

I listen, I just think it's kind of crazy to spark leaf at 9 a.m. Like you got a whole day ahead of you. Like, how are you gonna get anything done?

SPEAKER_06 35:13

Smoke it if you got it.

SPEAKER_12 35:15

I think feeling good, Typhus. I think that's how he's gonna get it done.

SPEAKER_10 35:19

I I'm with Typhus on this one. You know, 9 a.m. is a little egregious. We haven't even gotten anything done yet. I feel like you're having a little treat before you've heard it. Thank you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_04 35:29

Dessert does not come first. Dessert comes after all the.

SPEAKER_11 35:33

Can I hit that?

SPEAKER_10 35:35

Yeah, he's gonna like immediately like just like pass it off to the left. He did make breakfast, so I guess that's kind of the you know, it's warranted. He woke up earlier than we did. I suppose it makes sense.

SPEAKER_06 35:48

Uh they are they always this less boring? No, we gotta roof your base.

SPEAKER_04 35:55

I just feel like we've got a lot to do. We got a lot on the docket today, you know. Some, you know, I don't want to say the e-word out loud, but I think we all know what I'm thinking. I think that's what I'm thinking when I say the e-word.

SPEAKER_10 36:09

Yeah, we hear you loud and clear, Tys. Maybe let's hold off on the uh e-word at uh at B reakfast, you know.

SPEAKER_07 36:20

Derek is just like again, he he's taking his moment, he's having his ritual, he takes another huge rip uh after Blair passes it back, and then he just for a moment again, just like that that serene feeling of safety is there. And then Derek's eyes open. And uh, due to the, you know, that as we all know with Spark Leaf, it it causes uh all of the veins, like all the redness in your eye to go completely white, right? Like no redness, no blood or anything like that. The opposite of a bloodshot eye, as we all know, right? We all know exceedingly clear eyes. Uh Derek looks straight at Typhus and says, What E-word are you referring to?

SPEAKER_10 37:02

Enforcement uh is what he meant. We didn't realize you were uh used to you used to be enforcement, uh Derek. We did know you were a retired uh Imperial Enforcement.

SPEAKER_06 37:14

That was the E-word.

SPEAKER_07 37:16

Yeah, absolutely. Are you who are you in trouble? Come on, Delrin.

SPEAKER_14 37:20

Come on. You know Arnold Mugton.

SPEAKER_07 37:22

Arnold. Okay, Arnold, give me a it'll be a contested uh deception versus a wisdom save from you, Delren.

SPEAKER_10 37:31

I have to move my pork shop out of the weapon. I've been hiding it. Not bad. That's a 17 on the dice.

SPEAKER_07 37:42

A 17?

SPEAKER_10 37:44

I got 14.

SPEAKER_07 37:45

A 14. Okay, yeah. So Delrin, you you, you there's something about like the fact like you know, Derek said, you know, he he mentioned in the enforcers, you know, Arnold mentioned the enforcers, and like there, there's there's definitely it seems almost too easy to pick up on as an E-word, but like at the same time, you know, you don't know these people, you know, it could be anything. They're and they're acting weird, you know. Maybe better just like send them on their way sooner rather than later. They are too. Uh, and about so you share a meaningful glance with Derek too. Derek kind of looks at you with those those all too clear eyes that that if you if you look for a little bit too long, you can imagine that you see almost like flames burning behind them, but then they they're gone just as quickly as as they appear. Um, and Derek goes, hmm, well, uh, as long as none of that enforcement business that you've got going on comes back on me nor any of the other denizens of this place. We we are all uh sovereign in our our corporeal rights, obviously, and I would imagine that no enforcement would ever take that away from us. Isn't that right?

SPEAKER_11 38:55

That's totally right. Are you going sovereign citizen direct storm fighter?

SPEAKER_07 39:03

No, but oh interesting, interesting. I call this place Neo Goblonia. Neo Goblonia is a location, but but it evokes, of course, the image of New Goblonia, which was a location before this location. Uh this one though, Neo Goblonia, New Goblonia, lost to time. No one knows where that guy came from, but but it has been passed down uh from from from goblin speak from from generations ago to now. Uh they they tell the story of New Goblinia. And and even the the the sage uh mentioned like I think on the one time that I've heard him speak, uh, also muttered uh of Glob Goblonia and and of the duty that all goblins have to it.

SPEAKER_02 39:55

Uh yes, yeah. Guys, I think this is a lot of goblin-de-gook. I mean, I think I think Big D is a flat planer.

SPEAKER_10 40:07

I I think you're right. Did you need to see did you mean to say goblin de gook or did you we gotta get out? We gotta we gotta do the E-word quick.

SPEAKER_12 40:20

I just I don't I don't know if I'm up for that right now, Typhus. You know, I just Blair feels like kind of you just it feels like being somebody's dog, you know, and I don't wanna be anybody's dog right now.

SPEAKER_04 40:36

And I'm gonna leave the gang. Guys, I just feel like yesterday we were all on the same page, and today I feel like I'm the only one who wants to either kill or evict all of these goblins.

SPEAKER_07 40:50

If a beacon is Zalrin, please give me a perception check.

SPEAKER_06 40:54

Yeah. I'm perceiving the crap out of you. Not really. I got a seven.

SPEAKER_07 41:02

Uh, you know that they just said whatever the E-word is, but you don't know what that E-word was. You like just missed it. Um and uh Derek continues after a certain point, after again letting letting it be like a sort of pregnant silence. You know what I mean? Like full of meaning. The the the threat lingers in the air. And Typhus, he looks over you uh as you say the dreaded E-word, and you can't tell because those eyes are just a little too clear and unblinking whether or not he knows what you were meaning. Uh a little bit unreadable. But after a time, he continues with You mentioned the enforcers.

SPEAKER_09 41:45

I I I I do I I simply must know. In all jests and in all honesty, and I will not kick you out and I will not harm you. It is not within my nature to do are you with the city?

SPEAKER_10 42:01

Oh no, no. We're actually uh kind of I don't want to say criminals, but we're certainly not favorably looked upon by any sort of government official or anyone tied to the city, or anyone through the offices of Mr. Grier for that matter.

SPEAKER_11 42:17

We've been arrested twice in two days.

SPEAKER_10 42:20

Yeah. Honestly, we've I'd be surprised if we weren't arrested by lunch at this point.

SPEAKER_12 42:26

Yeah, that would seem on par.

SPEAKER_07 42:30

Uh Derek is watching again with like those unblinking eyes, and he turns back towards Typhus.

SPEAKER_09 42:37

And you.

SPEAKER_07 42:39

You seem very much like you have uh a story to tell. Why don't you tell me how you came to the footsteps of Neo Goblinia?

SPEAKER_04 42:51

I my friends and I were told by a tall man to go down to where it's all goblined and have a nice time.

SPEAKER_13 43:13

Give me a deception check, Typhus.

SPEAKER_07 43:17

I I was I was I was I had to I had to let it sit for a second to see how Derek would have felt, but he's he's he's looking daggers through you right now, straight through your being.

SPEAKER_04 43:26

Alright, that's a natural three, actual two. Sorry, natural four, actual two.

SPEAKER_07 43:32

Oh, okay, okay, okay. Gotta make sure that the record's even worse somehow. He's a talker, he is. So again, Derek's eyes look right through you, Typhus, into your very being, and you know that he is seeing whether it's an aura or an energy or the soul itself. He's seeing what makes you you, and and and the clock, the gears are are are turning, your clock is ticking, and he knows exactly how all the mechanisms fit together. And then he looks away and continues to eat.

SPEAKER_04 44:06

I guys, I'm not gonna lie, I was so close to still in the whole beans there. You guys have no idea how close if he didn't look away there, it would all be completely on the table.

SPEAKER_10 44:17

Yeah, that would have been unpleasant to say the least. I think you guys are talking.

SPEAKER_12 44:26

I just I don't know, I don't know what to do anymore. I feel like my life's out of control.

SPEAKER_10 44:32

Yeah, I feel like we've been turned into weapons for the state. Wait, are you guys saying you guys don't want to go through with this? I I I can I be completely honest. I feel like they're lowballing us way big. We couldn't even get someone to I my my neighbor moves boxes for five times what we're getting paid for this. And this is way harder.

SPEAKER_04 44:54

Five doubloons is more than I've ever seen in my whole life. All right, so first off, we're not getting lowballed.

SPEAKER_10 45:01

All right, we're gonna be rich. Let's not base our the standard of how much we get paid on how much wealth you've seen in your entire life. Typhons, I hate to say this. I think you've been impoverished for a long time and you don't understand what a fair wage is. Really, you know how I feel about it. I'm not trying to come off a certain kind of way, but I just based on the You know how I feel about that word, and you would still say it to me? I didn't mean that you're you're coming off as that kind of way. I don't, I'm not saying it at all that you are poor? Is that what I said? You're putting words in my mouth, Typhus. Come on, man. You're hearing all of this.

SPEAKER_06 45:38

Super poor. Like, it's just the look to you that you got that you got that look in your eyes that's been like, I've been poor, uh, and I'll be poor again because I'm gonna make bad life choices.

SPEAKER_04 45:48

That's it. And I'm going for I'm looking for the eviction notice in my bag. I know I don't know.

SPEAKER_10 45:52

No, no, no. Typhus, please, typhus, wait.

SPEAKER_07 45:58

I uh think yeah, ty if I'm saying as typhus is pulling it out, it's covered in gunpowder.

SPEAKER_10 46:08

I think maybe we should just reconsider all of the you know stuff they asked us for. Mr. Gruyere hasn't cut us a good deal, and I feel like he's cutting us an even worse deal to do this. And I feel like maybe we're we've we've been put on this path to find an alternative route that might help us achieve some other goals, maybe, depending on how like-minded other individuals in Neo Goblonia might be.

SPEAKER_07 46:39

Like Cyphus, give me a slide of hand check.

SPEAKER_04 46:42

Oh come on, you know I'm good for it. Let's see. Seven.

SPEAKER_07 46:50

Uh a goblin very quickly runs up behind you and snatches the eviction notice. And uh as it runs past, Derek just very like very like fluid motion just reaches down and grabs it from the the plate sort of overhangs where the actual mouth is on the goblin. So like you can just kind of really quickly, like, if you're if you're fast enough, you can snatch basically anything from their mouths. And he looks at it for an uncomfortably long time, seeming to read every single word, seeming to notice every single brush stroke, unblinking eyes scanning over the entire document.

SPEAKER_12 47:28

My fork down. I think I'm done eating now.

SPEAKER_10 47:33

Push my plate away, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 47:38

Uh Derek is going to set the paper down and then stand up. Uh, and this it's about this time. Again, it's like whenever Derek stands up to his full height, like this is a six foot three, like, obviously, like even though he hasn't been in the service for a while, he takes he still takes care of himself to the best of his ability, you know. A little bit of that of the the dad bod going on, you know, like he enjoys himself pretty well. But uh, whenever he stands up to his full height, you get a glimpse of uh the the soldier, the enforcer that used to be Derek Stormfighter. And for a moment, it's like that that chill kind of hits everybody the same of this is an individual who has killed before and you know very easily could kill again. But instead, he simply says, Come with me.

SPEAKER_13 48:30

Okay. Fair enough. Fair enough.

SPEAKER_07 48:35

Uh Derek, you know, uh and motions also for Dalrin to join. Uh in and and uh Delrin, please, uh I I I have not shown you this yet, but I feel like now is a good time. The the the the harmonies of the planes, I think, are are calling me to something greater. And and he continues to move off towards the door, like kind of uh so the door that was closed uh in the kind of common area, just off from where the rest of the goblins are. Derek walks to that door and motions for everyone to be quiet, and even the goblins, all with their uh consistent in their goblin talk, go silent, all of their scales dropping down to be uh to become completely clear, revealing uh that you know it has a nice, like kind of powdery gray underskin for all the goblins that you can only see whenever it's not displaying its colors. Uh, and all of them seem to go completely silent and in and almost like a reverence. Uh this building, since you've woken up this morning, has not been quiet for like a single millisecond because of these little dudes. But they all for one like at once silence the moment that Derek touches the door. And then very slowly Derek opens it for to find a room that has east-west facing windows and a single uh cushion on the ground, upon which rests a what appears to be an impossibly old goblin. Like goblins usually live, like depending on uh where they're from and like the the sort of subspecies of goblins. They can live anywhere from like 20 to 40 years, uh, but as they do, their scales start to fall out uh just naturally, you know. It starts to go look a little ra uh raggedy. This is a goblin that only has one scale left right in the middle of its forehead, and it pulses with a steady light of a color that you can't quite name, but feels safe. A kind of clear almost blue, but uh no description of color can quite capture because it's uh almost clear, but not quite. There's something there, and it slowly pulses in and out of this ancient goblin sitting in the middle of this room.

SPEAKER_10 50:53

I've never seen anything so old like that.

SPEAKER_12 50:58

I was wondering what he meant by sage.

SPEAKER_10 51:02

It's probably this old little goblin right here. Also, does that color taste like root beer to you guys, or am I looking at it wrong? It tastes like root beer to me. It's parrot fuchsia with a mix of again by making my braid hurt a little.

SPEAKER_04 51:17

No, you're right on the money, Arnold. That's that's damn that's Barks.

SPEAKER_12 51:22

Yeah, yeah, yeah. From here on, we'll call it Barks color. Everybody agree?

SPEAKER_10 51:26

Yeah, that sounds good.

SPEAKER_07 51:30

Doran, uh, it it it occurs to you that that they are right. This is actually like and Derek talks about the sage like almost flippantly, but with like a clear reverence, uh, but never like always tells everyone to come in not to go into the room that he just opened. And the fact that he's inviting you to come look too, there is an element of like ritual and reverence to it that even though Blair, Arnold, and Typhus don't really tap into that same reverence, the the weight of something very important is going on in this room kind of settles on everybody uh relatively equally. Um and Derek is quiet. Uh again, sort of thoughtful. Uh the goblins, uh the goblin sage's eyes are uh completely dilated to the point where it even seems to extend over the boundaries of its iris, like the entirety of its globes are completely dark and fathomless as this small light begins to pulse a little bit faster upon your entering. The goblin sage doesn't blink, the goblin sage doesn't acknowledge, the goblin sage sits perfectly still in the middle of this room with that slightly pulsing light. Uh from behind uh typhus, you sort of glance behind you, and all of the other goblins have that one uh that one that same scale also glowing and pulsing in that same rhythm. Yo guys They're all doing it It's just Stormfighter I imagine this is probably the true target of the eviction notice This here What you are looking at is the single most important thing that has ever and perhaps will ever happen you are looking at what it takes to maintain gobblonia and he sort of like again looks at this goblin sage and just like with a with an with an extreme reverence and then walks out of the room and beckons everyone to follow.

SPEAKER_06 53:46

Yo, guys, I think that was the giver Yeah Goblins are like a half mind.

SPEAKER_10 53:53

It seems like that's the sort of like network node of all the goblins. Yeah, ancient wood AI.

SPEAKER_13 54:03

No, I what? No.

SPEAKER_10 54:07

Were we looking at the same thing?

SPEAKER_04 54:09

Yeah, uh what's it called? The big center where they do it costs a lot of water. I know that. Mr. Greener's house? That goblin is so small, he wouldn't drink that much water. I think he could drink a lot of water. I think if you fed a tube to him, he'd be drinking water all day long.

SPEAKER_10 54:23

It'd be a lot.

SPEAKER_11 54:25

We could give him a glass of water.

SPEAKER_10 54:26

That is the driest looking goblin I've ever seen. There's no way that thing's drinking water. Dude, I'll take it.

SPEAKER_06 54:32

He is like absorbing it through his skin like osmosis.

SPEAKER_04 54:36

Water or not? Did you see the rest of the goblins? They're all like Yeah, they're doing the same thing.

SPEAKER_12 54:42

They would do a same thing, you know, it's like hierarchies exist in nature, right? And it's sort of like a natural societies that some creatures form, like ants, right? Like ants, so this is kind of like an ant deal, I think.

SPEAKER_04 54:55

It's the queen of the He also uh he also didn't give back the eviction notice, so I don't think we can uh I don't think we can evict them now.

SPEAKER_12 55:04

Well we try.

SPEAKER_04 55:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 55:07

Yeah, Delrin, uh, this is you are now hearing plainly that they're just talking about eviction. Uh I don't know if you saw the uh the notice as Derek took it, as uh as the goblin took it from uh typhus and brought it to Derek, but it is clear now that these three people were sent here to clear everyone out of this place.

SPEAKER_06 55:25

Yeah. She's pulling out her great axe and just holding it up in a really like menacing way. So you guys you guys do work for the city. You're a couple of narcs. You're coming down here trying to evict nice people, bunch of weird ass goblins. You trying to enforce your ideals and your unnecessary cleanliness upon these people.

SPEAKER_03 55:52

We're paralegals, we're paralegals. We work for we work for a lawyer.

SPEAKER_10 55:57

It's contract work that we were strong armed into doing to lighten our sentence.

SPEAKER_12 56:03

Lady, I'm in a hoodie in my boxers. Does it look like I'm really on the job right now?

SPEAKER_06 56:10

I don't know. Servants of the devil have really sweet tongues.

SPEAKER_12 56:15

So he is the devil. I am a tiefling. You can't talk to me that way.

SPEAKER_10 56:20

Oh, were you talking about Blair? That's not cool.

SPEAKER_04 56:23

Yeah, that's a faux pas. You can't call Blair. Oh, okay. Yeah, okay. That's fine. Yeah. Well, actually, that's actually for spot odd, actually.

SPEAKER_06 56:32

So uh how could that possibly help lessen your sentence? And how would you agree to ruining a bunch of people's lives just for a reduced sentence?

SPEAKER_10 56:45

That's why I was so hesitant to do it. We were just kind of forced, and we were trying to get types. Maybe you know we should reconsider because they're pushing us into doing a lot of tough stuff that doesn't really seem it's worth it.

SPEAKER_04 56:56

A lot of money on the line, actually. So actually, there's Tim Dabloon.

SPEAKER_06 57:02

Three bucks could get you. If I give you, if I give you four dollars, can I get you to go like fuck a dude in the ass with a stick? Probably.

SPEAKER_10 57:12

Hey, I know you're you're tough and you have a cavalier attitude. You don't talk to Typhus like that. Typhus has lived a long life being uh living with symptoms similar to impoverishedness. And and don't don't you dare call our friend poor. That's rude. I will fuck you up if you call Typhus poor again. Holy cow.

SPEAKER_06 57:33

Bring it on, dude. You're here trying to ruin people's lives. I've seen enough in my life. I've been around, and it's always the people in power using the guys who are lower than them, being forced to do the devil's work, but it's just an excuse for not having your own goddamn backbone.

SPEAKER_11 57:53

I'm gonna go to the back.

SPEAKER_07 57:59

Uh Arnold, I want you to put down in your bonds overly protective of typhus. I think that I think that you've that that's developed. Uh yeah, Delrin, uh you and you and Arnold are like, you know, kind of uh well, Arnold, how tall are you? You're like six foot something, right? I'm like like very yeah, like six, like six foot flat. Okay, maybe. Yeah. So but our Arnold, you you and Delrin are staring daggers across that height difference, and typhus, even shorter, uh, or a little bit taller than Delrin, is like stuck in the middle, just moping, or maybe like you moved off to a corner somewhere, like just not having a good time. Uh Blair, you step away. Derek is sitting at the table and he's sort of like thumbing the eviction notice. Uh, Arnold and Delbin are gonna work this out uh sort of off to the side for a moment. Blair, you sit down with Derek, uh, and uh Derek, you know, is rolling another joint of Spark Leaf uh and lights it with a match, you know, makes a couple of fireworks go, uh nice crackle of it, uh, and he he hands it to you. And um he, you know, a moments pass, a couple of puffs pass between y'all, and eventually he says, You seem a little bit more spiritually in touch than the others.

SPEAKER_13 59:27

Arnold You know.

SPEAKER_12 59:31

Arnold and I we're part of an artist's collective. We're artists first and foremost. We just kind of have our balls in a vice at the moment by the guy who wanted us to hand you that piece of paper. I uh I saw some things yesterday that have um sort of made me feel a little more apprehensive about kind of working for somebody with that level of wealth and power to tread on somebody doesn't really necessarily exist in that same system or play by those rules.

SPEAKER_11 1:00:10

Does this piece of paper like that even mean anything to you?

SPEAKER_09 1:00:14

You know, I asked myself many questions about whenever I was enlisted, whenever I got those summons, whether or not that piece of paper truly meant that I had to suffer in the ways that I did. But and and forgive me, uh I know your name is Blair. I overheard it from your friends.

SPEAKER_08 1:00:34

Blair, would you like to know about Goblonia?

SPEAKER_13 1:00:44

It sounds interesting.

SPEAKER_07 1:00:47

Tell me, Blair, what do you feel when you interface with your portal with your data slab? Do you have one on you?

SPEAKER_12 1:00:56

Yeah, of course. I got anybody here in my phone-hoodie pocket.

SPEAKER_09 1:01:01

Whenever you look through the portal into the data plane.

SPEAKER_13 1:01:08

What do you feel? I'm worried this answer is gonna disappoint you, but not much.

SPEAKER_12 1:01:20

It's never really been something that got me. A lot of people I know they spent a lot more time on this thing than I do, and a lot of the more popular ways to interface with it have never really caught on with me, although I do like reading on it.

SPEAKER_09 1:01:36

It's just Do you know how it works?

SPEAKER_12 1:01:42

I think you know it's in the name, right? It's a it's a portal to a sort of a pure dimension of data. I know like those are the words and in that order, but I don't necessarily understand what that means.

SPEAKER_07 1:01:57

So imagine, if you will, a reality, uh uh, a plane, an entire existence that is simply information, uh that exists at all times about everything, from the smallest to the greatest, infinities within as infinities without. How would one even begin to process that level of information, much less seek out things that are specific for that person? Have you ever thought about that?

SPEAKER_12 1:02:32

You know, not really. I just kind of assumed there was just like a quasi-search engine functionality going on there.

SPEAKER_07 1:02:43

Uh and uh Derek sort of like chuckles and says whenever it it's just funny for me because I grew up without this technology and it got introduced later on. But you lose so much of foundational knowledge. The the the way that the portal connects you to the data plane is by tapping into your psychic energies and the ripples that your spirit manifests as you exist, as you're a conscious and see things, the various emotional and chemical impulses that we give off, the very same thing, in fact, that causes the goblins to shift color. We just happen to have no such expressive mechanism. These things, these psychic pulses, the portal reaches out through your experience of it and and plays your mind in those psychic resonances until your brain interprets the information that the mainframe wants you, or that the mainframe can interpret that you want to look at and serves it to you. Does that make sense? So let's say you open up your portal and you're thinking about the news. Well, the mainframe taps into your psychic resonance and feeds and plays the chemicals in your brains until you staring into the portal see the news.

SPEAKER_13 1:04:17

Is that why it always starts with a picture of my ex-girlfriend?

SPEAKER_07 1:04:26

Probably. I don't do you have a bad experience, like a relation, like what happened? Are you okay?

SPEAKER_12 1:04:33

Yeah, no, no, I'm fine. Sorry, sorry, let's just get back on topic. My bad. I just I just I thought you would know. My I don't know why I thought you would know. I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_07 1:04:42

Um let's flash over to uh Dalrin Arnold and Typhus real quick. Uh y'all are sort of on the fringe of whatever conversation Blair and uh and Derek are having in the other room, uh sort of smoking on their spark leaf. Uh tensions were high the last time that we left off. Uh Typhus, you are sort of moping uh off to the side from Dalrin and Arnold who were arguing. Uh what's going through your head, Typhus?

SPEAKER_04 1:05:08

Yo, maybe it's wrong to evict other poor people. I've been evicted so many times. Maybe I just wanted to feel what it was you know like to be. I don't know. Maybe I want to be rich really bad. Maybe maybe I want to punch down on poor people, or maybe I just want to help them. I don't know. I just don't want to be poor anymore. This this shit sucks so much.

SPEAKER_07 1:05:33

Oh man. Uh Arnold Delrin, where are y'all at in y'all's uh the the spat you've been having?

SPEAKER_10 1:05:42

Wheezing my fork, just kind of staring at Delrin. I'm more frustrated that like uh Arnold is frustrated because he he teetered pretty close to upsetting Typhus with the impoverished comment, and then Delrin decided to cross the line, and he's more mad because he feels Like she knew and chose to cross it anyways, and it's just like, what gives you the nerve?

SPEAKER_07 1:06:08

And Delrin, where are you coming at this from?

SPEAKER_06 1:06:11

Uh, so Delrin has been poor for most of her life, and that's half the reason she's like a wandering soul, just doing odd jobs, uh, and is just deeply offended at the hypocrisy of being poor and serving rich people to punch down on their fellow poor people. So it like it just triggered something emotionally deep within her.

SPEAKER_07 1:06:40

Yeah, I think I think once things like simmer down a little bit, uh, you know, the a quiet kind of falls. And and and uh, you know, y'all are in the common room just outside of where the goblin sage was still. Uh, and you see like once the the the the big emotions got out there and everyone has a second to breathe, uh, all of the goblins are glowing like vibrant, angry red, like all locked on to this argument that's going on. Uh except for one, which is uh well, the two actually. One's closer to Blair, uh the the same one before that was sort of uh eyeing him up. And uh there's one now that is also uh looking at typhus and and is and is a very, very deep ocean blue, the the color of salt tears falling into salt water, and in its pupils sort of like pulse uh as it tries to take in typhus and like and and respond to the the psychic energy that typhus is giving off with his emotions. It seems as though the goblin is very keen on picking up on that from him right now.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:48

Alright, I'm gonna stop yelling at you because the goblins are pissed. So we gotta like bring it down.

SPEAKER_10 1:07:59

I'll be chill, I'll be chill. If you're gonna be chill, I'll be chill. Let's just yell anymore. I'm being chill.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:06

I'm super chill right now.

SPEAKER_10 1:08:08

I'm being chill. You feel like you seem like you're not being as chill as I am. I'm being very chilly.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:13

Way more chill than you. I'm like an ice cream cube in the Arctic during winter. Arnold?

SPEAKER_04 1:08:22

What's up, Typhus? What? Dalrin's right. I am poor.

SPEAKER_10 1:08:30

You are you are poor, Typhus. But people don't have to tell you that. I'm poor and I'm proud.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:39

That's excellent, man. I'm poor and I'm proud. And Dalrin help me realize that.

SPEAKER_10 1:08:47

This is big for you, man. Monumental boarding. This is insane. Uh it's okay to be poor. It's okay to do that.

SPEAKER_07 1:08:56

Derek like pauses like mid-stride in his conversation with Blair and like kind of turns and like motions everybody to like, you know, now that y'all are, you know, now that things have settled over there, like come join in on this, you know, what we're talking about here. Um and and you come in at sort of like the tail end of him explaining the way that like portals tap into psychic resonances, like just naturally within people's conscious experience and deliver to you uh, you know, the specified images that your brain is basically craving. Uh and and you know, Derek looks at your the data slab that you have out in your hand, Blair, uh, and the sort of the per the portal that it it uh you know it is showing to you something different than it would show to anyone else. All all portals uh key into whoever is witnessing it. Uh it's something about the conscious looking of it that uh that that evokes the images from it. And for a moment you wonder what does Derek see whenever he looks into one? And again, for just that brief moment, it's somewhere behind his eyes, there's a spark of fire that just dies as soon as it appears, as Derek sort of settles back a little bit.

SPEAKER_09 1:10:11

So my question became How do I protect my myself, my experience?

SPEAKER_07 1:10:22

If there's something out there that is so that is intuiting what I could possibly want to see at any given time, then where am I? What am I? Where do I take solace? Where can I rest? And I had no answer for it. Being shunned away from the enforcers after doing my duty, and then finding myself suddenly without so much of any compensation for what I gave for this city. I realized the only way to protect myself was to find some way to to throw up uh something in between the portal and myself to to stop the the the data plane from encroaching onto the material. And then I I heard in this room in this house that I thought was abandoned, except for minor skittering here and there.

SPEAKER_08 1:11:22

I heard a steady what sounded like almost a chant.

SPEAKER_09 1:11:27

And I opened that same door over there and I saw the goblin sage. And for the only time, and this was twenty some odd years ago probably at this point, I heard it saying you want to come.

SPEAKER_07 1:11:51

And I knew I I I knew in that instant. I looked at the sage and I realized exactly what that sage was doing. That goblin has sat there for untold decades projecting from its mind. Because people like to think that goblins are are are simple creatures, such a demeaning word, simple. There's an elegance to the fact that goblins perceive and then immediately respond. There is no contemplation that occurs between the senses and the being, the experience itself is almost instantaneous. And so if that goblin is in there and all that goblin does is consider something like goblonia, it it creates almost a bulwark in the mind. If we all spent some portion of our background energy thinking about a world that is full of equity and justice and and an order to things that make sense, perhaps if we all tap into some sort of uh well, almost like a psychic city-state, I guess you could say, perhaps we could all be sovereign citizens of Goblinia and and with a shield up of these pure thoughts, of sending great vibes out into the psychic sphere, perhaps, perhaps if we all are citizens of Goblonia, even something physical like the city couldn't stand. Because what could be a greater joy than to be a part of something good? And so I dedicate, though it is not nearly to the uh level of dedication that the sage can, I I I put aside a portion of all of my conscious thoughts into thinking about goblonia and how if we were all citizens of goblonia, we wouldn't need enforcers and and and money and wealth and the ideas of rich and poor fade away into only goblonia.

SPEAKER_13 1:14:03

We're gonna kill the cheese guy, right?

SPEAKER_10 1:14:07

Exactly. Yes, yes, we are. We're gonna kill the kill, Grier. Yeah, I thought that was kind of the point we kind of left off yesterday. Was not so much that evicting someone isn't okay, but that we need to do something to the 1%. And I feel like the person who's been most adversarial to us so far is the guy who may or may not be our defense attorney.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:32

Are you saying that billionaire lawyer, Mr. Grier, TV show host, TV show host, billboard owner, bus uh advertiser, you're saying that we are going to forcibly redistribute his wealth?

SPEAKER_13 1:14:48

I with force. I've just had an aha moment. Okay.

SPEAKER_12 1:14:56

Mr. Grier. He's a lawyer, receives a lot of legal papers every day, you know, packages all in and out, that sort of stuff, right?

SPEAKER_10 1:15:06

I think I know where you're going with this, but go, yeah, keep going. What do you mean?

SPEAKER_12 1:15:09

Keep going, Blair. We have a diminutive bomber in our midst. We have an eviction notice that shows us exactly what his legal letterhead looks like. And if we put our heads together, we can probably remember the goddamn envelope it came in. Should we just send him a bomb?

SPEAKER_10 1:15:29

Yeah, I've at least. I thought you were gonna say we should evict Mr. Griere. No, no, no, that was a way better idea. I frogged it live.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:41

I would love to, but I cannot copy the GOAT, man, the the unibomber, if you know him. He simply was. I could not. I could not.

SPEAKER_11 1:15:54

But why not? Isn't wearing your influences on your sleeves some of the best things we can do to grow as artists, as creators?

SPEAKER_04 1:16:02

Do you want me to sing, do you want me to write thriller? Do you want me to paint the blue man? I simply could not.

SPEAKER_06 1:16:10

Yeah, but isn't all art just like recycled? There are no new ideas, just like new ways of doing it.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:18

That's certainly, you know, you could make the idea.

SPEAKER_12 1:16:27

Look, I'm feeling fired up. I've discovered the rowdy part of myself again, and I kind of want to send a bomb to a really rich guy.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:34

I think this is just Dave, that's what you were saying.

SPEAKER_12 1:16:40

Look, if nobody else thinks it's a good idea, I can back down, but just because I think you're on to something.

SPEAKER_10 1:16:48

The same way that Derek and that goblin thing about Goblonia, if we think about sending a bob to Mr. Gruyere, that we might that's when we might get around to it.

SPEAKER_06 1:17:03

That's exactly what Big D was saying.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:05

No, I got I think Big D was preaching about think you know, manifesting the better world. I got that. I was hung up on his goblin speak because I can't understand what the hell he's saying when he does that voice. And quite frankly, I it might be offensive. I don't even know if it's or not.

SPEAKER_10 1:17:21

I was under the impression it was a second language, and can I be honest? I lean towards Tyvus and Blair. Sorry, Delrin, just one sec. I hate these goblins. I freaking hate these goblets. They remind me of birds and they're making me upset.

unknown 1:17:34

Okay.

SPEAKER_12 1:17:34

I I like them, you know. I it's just they're like, we don't get any animals in the city that aren't, you know, like made of the biggest. And this is why. This is why.

SPEAKER_10 1:17:43

And I think someone in charge of making the clockwork animals saw that these guys were walking around and said, Oh, how unpleasant to look at. I could have bombed that guy, too. I just I'm not mad about the clockwork birds, I suppose.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:01

And I'm gonna put my hand on Arnold's knee. I'm gonna say, Arnold, yeah, if you have my back. It's time for me to get yours. These goblins, they ain't so bad. Look at that goblin over there. He's the color of uh opal. He's blue, he's bright blue. That goblin's basically my best friend now. I couldn't bomb all these goblins.

SPEAKER_07 1:18:23

You suddenly, uh Blair, uh you're you're you're you're you were listening to Arnold, you're listening to Typhus, you like glance over. Derek is just like very thoughtfully, like just kind of like listening to everyone like he hasn't said anything, he hasn't even made like he's he looks like he is currently in the city-state of goblonia, like he's he's he's not he's not tapped in. But Blair, you hear a like a dunk, and then another one, dunk. A pretty rhythm, dunk, like at the front door. And everyone else is just sort of talking. It just you just happen to hear it over the cacophony of everything else, and then you hear a couple of goblins also like pick up on it and dunk, dunk, dunk, and every time that they do, they they sort of flash a silver.

SPEAKER_12 1:19:06

I may be misinterpreting this, but I think there's another goblin in the older one. I thought all the goblin. Step out front real quick.

SPEAKER_14 1:19:16

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:19:17

Yeah, you uh you go, you get closer to the front door, and you hear you that's where the sound's coming from. It's just a donk, a very it's not like someone knocking. It's like almost like something running into the door.

SPEAKER_12 1:19:25

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. I'm gonna open the door, like undo the locks, and I'm just gonna open the door a little bit to like poke my head out and be like, yes.

SPEAKER_07 1:19:35

Yeah, you see a little clockwork bunny there. Uh it looks like it looks like somewhere along its little path it was hopping. Now it's just hopping into the door. It's like it's you know, it's it's only move, it's only made to like move in one direction, you know. So like it it along its path is hopped up. You can see it's like footsteps leading off into the distance, you know, down the road, like through the yard, and it bonk, and then you know, you don't have the door open enough to where like you can really get in, so it bonks again. Uh and just kind of keeps running into the door like that. You can see like the little key in the back, like is uh is is kind of going, you know, it's on its little track, it's unwinding.

SPEAKER_12 1:20:12

I'm still in control of myself. I have not descended totally into violence. I will not kick, I will not kick this clockwork rabbit. I will grab it.

SPEAKER_07 1:20:22

You can see that the key is starting to go slower and slower, it's getting to the end of its winding, and the rabbit jumps up one more time and hits and then lands, and then suddenly it's normally, you know, black, lifeless Lin's eyes suddenly glow a bright red. And then I need you to roll me a sleight of hand check because this is a demonic rabbit bomb that's about to go off.

SPEAKER_12 1:20:46

Oh, somebody was listening to me. Oh no. Sleight of hand, and that's decks. No modifier for deck 16.

SPEAKER_07 1:20:55

All right, you are going to take four points of uh of force damage as the bunny explodes, blowing the door off its hinges. It explodes with uh it's not like a massive explosion, it's not like you know, plastic explosives or anything. It's enough to like pop the door open and you know blow you back a couple feet, Blair. Um, the goblin who was sort of like making the the knocking noise um makes a a a one last crack before it gets blown backwards, it hits against the wall, it stops moving. All of its color drains out of its scales, and every single one of the other goblins looks over and all of their scales start to rattle, making this like cacophony as if like hundreds of tambourines were going at once, and then suddenly from the back door, dunk, tunk, from the walls, tunk, dunk, at a window, tink, tink.

SPEAKER_10 1:21:55

Did we all hear the explosion? Yes.

SPEAKER_06 1:21:58

Oh, ohming birds.

SPEAKER_07 1:22:01

No, no, no, like that was that was an explosion. And uh, as much as I want to like get into this small counter encounter real quick, uh, I would like to go ahead and use this moment to take a five. Uh, just to let everyone at home and everyone here uh take take just a just a little bit of time, refresh yourself, get some water. Uh, we will be right back uh for the final rules, chaos. Yippee. Hello, everybody. We are back, and yet again, Zach, every single time, like it scares me just a little bit. My bad. Uh no, it's good. Uh so uh we are returned, knocking from all around the house. Uh, if anybody wants to try to hit me with a straight-up perception check uh to see if you can discern how many different areas around the house perhaps that we are you might be under siege from.

SPEAKER_06 1:22:54

An 18.

SPEAKER_07 1:22:56

An 18? Okay, yeah. So uh Delrin, you have been in here long enough, you kind of get the acoustics. It seems that in addition to the one that was at the front door, there are uh we have what sounds like one at a back door. Uh it seems like one is jumping very high to tap on a window that is uh in the common room where all the rest of the goblins are going. Uh, and we have two more that uh, you know, Derek has already looked out of the window upon hearing the explosion and sees uh that there are a couple on that side of the house too. So there was one up front, there is uh one in the common room, there is one out back and two on the side. Uh so we are dealing with what four of them still. Um, you don't know how long you have, you don't know when they're gonna go off. Uh Blair, you are concussed slightly, so I need you to make an initiative check with disadvantage. Everyone else, please go ahead and make an initiative check for me. This is not going to be formal combat. This is going to be more like a uh a timed puzzle solving, shall we say?

SPEAKER_10 1:24:01

Oh. Not good for for gloves. For I don't know, I call me gloves. For Arnold.

SPEAKER_13 1:24:10

Okay, so 19 typhus, I heard? Yes.

SPEAKER_07 1:24:24

Oh, I'm I'm like, I'm I'm trying to watch Emily what you were doing with your hands. I didn't quite get it.

SPEAKER_06 1:24:28

I was like, sorry, I'm five plus ten, fifteen.

SPEAKER_07 1:24:30

Fifteen, okay, so and Blair? Eleven. Eleven. So it's going to go uh Typhus Delrin Blair Arnold, correct? Uh and we'll we'll we'll just put Derek in about halfway there too. So uh Typhus immediately you hear the explosion go off, you hear the door fly open, you see Blair get like thrown backwards from uh the entranceway. Um and immediately, Typhus, you you you you sniff the air. Just uh, what is that? That's why that's that's salt peter. Not just salt peter, that's my god, that's gunpowder. Somebody just set off a bomb, typhus, and it wasn't you. What the hell? Uh but but you see Delrin also like glancing around uh at uh the like basically all around you hear these thumpings or these tickings from uh things hitting the window and the wall. Uh typhus, what do you do? What what what's going through your mind right now after having uh these multiple like uh everything just seemed to happen all at once?

SPEAKER_04 1:25:45

Uh I'm got my concealed carry, and I'm about to I'm about to peer through the front door and start blasting in a second here. I'm about to put the neighborhood on alert.

SPEAKER_07 1:26:01

Blair, from the ground, you like glance upwards and you see Typhus like strolling over. Typhus, uh, what are you wearing, typhus?

SPEAKER_04 1:26:10

So I got like rags like all the way down. It's kind of like you know, like an old timey conductor who has like the tails, it's like pure rags all the way down, little under and uh just a satchel on the side. Where are you pulling the the your flint lock from? It was from the in inside breast right here pocket.

SPEAKER_07 1:26:33

Uh uh Blair Arnold, were you aware that Typhus was carrying?

SPEAKER_10 1:26:43

I don't know how you got that out of the precinct.

SPEAKER_07 1:26:46

And uh Delrin, uh, you also see that the cobalt is stroke like walking towards the front door, pulling a pistol out from somewhere that you aren't entirely sure where he managed to hide it. But uh typhus, you yeah, you walk out the front door, typhus. Uh, immediately outside you see uh the smoking remains and small bits of like brass shrapnel from where the small uh clockwork rabbit exploded right at the front door. Do I see any uh any of them clockwork fellas? You do not see any more on this side of the house, no. Uh but if you glance out over the distance a little bit, uh give me an investigation check. Let's see what you can come up with just based off of what you see from this explosion. Oh, I'd be searching. Uh 14. 14. Uh Typhus, you uh upon looking at these rabbits and and just it based off of like what you remember, uh, you're you're full in artificer mode right now. Like you're thinking about machinations, you're thinking about the blast radius of this thing, you're looking at the way that the blast, like the the the remainder of the ignitable material, like left its image on the ground, and you very quickly determine. That if every single one of these were to go off, it would cause enough structural damage uh to make this place virtually uninhabitable, but not much more than that, unless somebody's standing directly near the blast. Um, and also you can tell that it went off, it would appear, just based off of the key that's uh it got flung off to the side, embedded maybe into the door frame, that these are wind-up explosives. So whenever the uh the key or whenever the whenever it's fully unwound is whenever it goes off.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:34

I'm gonna turn around and look towards the gang. It's a controlled demolition.

SPEAKER_10 1:28:40

They're evicting us by force.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:43

They're they're they're evicting the entire building. Should I put my pants on?

SPEAKER_10 1:28:51

Did you still put your pants on yet?

SPEAKER_11 1:28:55

We don't have time. It was breakfast.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:59

Hey no, there's bombs. Blair, have you never been wearing your pants this whole time? No.

SPEAKER_10 1:29:08

Never wears his pants for breakfast. It's just kind of a thing he does.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:11

Guys, there's wind-up bombs all around the building. Gotta get everybody out of here. Well, we gotta get we gotta get the Giver Goblin out of here.

SPEAKER_07 1:29:20

Derek immediately like springs up and is like, you can't move him. Any lapse in his concentration might bring all of Goblonia down. And then nothing's going to be stopping the mainframe from completely overloading the psychic barrier that the that he's putting up.

unknown 1:29:38

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 1:29:40

If they're wind up arms, can't we just wind them the opposite direction?

SPEAKER_12 1:29:46

No, no, you want to wind up the same direction. They they will, you know, you don't want to go the way the tick, but yeah, yeah, yeah. You wanna you wanna wind them up like normally.

SPEAKER_07 1:29:55

Yeah, typhus, you also see that there are a couple of clockwork ravens beginning to perch on the roof, too. Two of them.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:02

Alright. Um that's it. I'm taking a shot, clockwork raven. I'm popping.

SPEAKER_07 1:30:06

Okay, go ahead. Roll the hit. Uh the DC's gonna be a 10.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:10

Alright. That is an 11.

SPEAKER_07 1:30:15

All right, uh, you uh go ahead and roll damage for me.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:21

That is a big six.

SPEAKER_07 1:30:23

A big six. Uh so typhus, you again, uh whenever you are whenever like you're looking at something like an explosion, for instance, or a bomb that you're making, or even any of the small like toys you used to make whenever you were younger, you get a sense for where all of the uh like how everything must fit together. Like there there's a there's a sort of um uh something almost cosmic in your brain that fits together whenever you're looking at machinery, and you're able to take a pretty accurate shot and you manage to clip the raven directly through its uh lenses up top, uh, and immediately you can you can hear it as it short circuits and it starts to tumble down, but right before it gets to the edge of the roof, it detonates uh like regardless of your shot and blows a uh hole slightly off from where it was supposed to. So it mostly just like removed a gutter off the the side of the building. Delrin, you heard a nut you heard a gunshot from Typhus up front and an explosion on the roof.

SPEAKER_05 1:31:28

We're not trying to speed up the process here.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:32

We someone we gotta do I just I gotta shoot something.

SPEAKER_12 1:31:39

You can't put a firearm in typhus' hands and expect him not to discharge it.

SPEAKER_10 1:31:43

I'm honestly blown away. We never clocked the gun.

SPEAKER_06 1:31:47

Literally nobody put it in his hand except himself. So I feel like you guys should strip search your friend better.

SPEAKER_10 1:31:54

Well, we know now. And now we can strip search?

SPEAKER_12 1:31:58

However, if you strip search your friend, you know what? We have more important things. Yep.

SPEAKER_10 1:32:01

Yep. After this.

SPEAKER_07 1:32:03

Uh Derek uh is moving towards now the back of the house. Uh Delrin, you are still in the kitchen at the table. Uh, you and Arnold are standing at this point. Uh you have you have what it sounds like two thumps coming from your side of the house where you are currently.

SPEAKER_06 1:32:20

Okay, um, I want to go for the closest thump.

SPEAKER_07 1:32:24

How are you getting outside?

SPEAKER_06 1:32:26

Uh what is the closest thump to me? Um is it just like against the wall?

SPEAKER_07 1:32:32

Yeah, the the there are there's one against the wall and one against a window.

SPEAKER_06 1:32:36

Uh you can kind of see whatever's out the window.

SPEAKER_07 1:32:39

Okay, you open the window up and you can see a clockwork raven starting to head right towards you.

SPEAKER_06 1:32:44

Nah, I want to hold up my axe and bash it. And bash it's a flat. Yeah, with the flat side of the axe.

SPEAKER_07 1:32:51

Gotcha. So I kind of see if you can like really wind up and like pitch it a bit away.

SPEAKER_06 1:32:54

Yeah, like a hammer situation, but it's an axe.

SPEAKER_07 1:32:57

Got it. Uh go ahead and roll the hit. Same thing. DC is gonna be 10.

SPEAKER_06 1:33:01

Fantastic. Uh 9 plus 4 is 13.

SPEAKER_07 1:33:06

That hits. Please roll damage.

SPEAKER_06 1:33:08

Yay. Do I still get the full damage even though I turn the axe sideways?

SPEAKER_07 1:33:12

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 1:33:13

Okay, sick. That's gonna be a D12. Uh 11.

SPEAKER_07 1:33:21

That uh you are going to not just hit it away, but you're going to hit it away just far enough to where whenever the uh the wind-up key finally unwinds all the way, the bird detonates about five feet away from the building. Uh, it does blow the glass pane out or inward a little bit just from the force of the explosion. Uh, but it's nothing more that you can't, it's like one slashing damage that you might take just as as the glass kind of flies at you. Um and uh Blair, you are on the ground. Uh thing thing you just got what what's going through your mind right now?

SPEAKER_12 1:33:58

I think I just burned off all my leg hairs. I hope everything's still attached.

SPEAKER_07 1:34:04

Oh, what's the second thing that goes through your mind?

SPEAKER_13 1:34:09

I fucking hate these clockwork animals. Third thing. Is somebody fucking sending these at us?

SPEAKER_12 1:34:21

I'm gonna gueel myself off the uh off the ground off the with like the the stairs I got embedded into.

SPEAKER_07 1:34:31

Yeah, you got you have like a little bit of a singe, like uh the the bottom of your box or like the the waistband of your boxers like singed a little bit just from like where you got flung backwards the the heat of the explosion.

SPEAKER_12 1:34:43

And I am going to run out the front door and like do a see if I can see any more of the uh of the of the clockwork animals heading towards us.

SPEAKER_07 1:34:54

Uh you run out the door and you see typhus having just like taken the shot, you see like the the the shingles and the gutter that got blown off the roof. Uh but you don't see any more anything clockwork around here. Uh, but you know that you heard more from inside. So you can assume that they're uh somewhere around.

SPEAKER_12 1:35:10

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll I'll let's just go left and I'll turn the corner uh around that side of the house.

SPEAKER_07 1:35:16

All right. Turning around to the left side, you are now on the side of the house where the common room is on the first floor where all the goblins are. So this is a very uh uh you the just so you know where you are in space. The the running into the wall here is uh not a rabbit nor a raven. It is actually what appears to be like a a large toad, a bullfrog, perhaps. Uh, and as it sort of hops onto the wall, you can see that uh the it goes to hop and like it tries to get a hand on it and like it sticks for a little bit and then it hops down, and then you see its throat start to swell a little bit more, and then it hops back up and it manages to get like two of its little claws on there, and then like it kind of slides off again, the throat swells up a little bit more, and then it latches onto the side of the building, and his throat begins to swell and glow uh with like uh an intense fiery heat.

SPEAKER_12 1:36:08

Typus, what happens if I take the key out?

SPEAKER_13 1:36:10

Uh you know what does that mean? Take out the key.

SPEAKER_07 1:36:26

Uh you go, jeez, man. Uh you remove the key, and the frog's eyes immediately light up red. Uh first off, go ahead and give me one more uh slide, give me a slide of hand check uh or a dexterity save with disadvantage. Okay.

SPEAKER_06 1:36:46

How Blair dies.

SPEAKER_12 1:36:49

Blair's fine, he's a tough eat. Cool. I lost my d20 somewhere in the shadow world.

SPEAKER_07 1:36:54

Uh no.

SPEAKER_12 1:36:55

Oh no.

SPEAKER_07 1:36:56

Well, luckily, Google's right there for you if you need to.

SPEAKER_10 1:36:59

Don't trust Google. It's never gonna be great. I'll roll it. I found it, I found it.

SPEAKER_12 1:37:07

Okay. Disadvantage, you said?

SPEAKER_04 1:37:09

Yep.

SPEAKER_07 1:37:11

Five.

SPEAKER_12 1:37:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_07 1:37:13

Uh Blair, you are going to take eight points of fire damage, or uh, so four points of fire damage because you are a tiefling, as uh the equivalent of napalm is spread all over this wall, uh, for and the force sort of blows uh an air, like um it blows a hole in the wall, and the air kind of carries the fire into the the building as all the goblins kind of scramble back. It looks like another one didn't make it. That was too close to this explosion. Again, all of the goblins are rattling, all of their scales, they're all uh starting to turn the different colors of the room as they sort of try to blend in with the walls a little bit more. Uh you can look right in their eyes and you know that they're afraid uh as they sort of like huddle together. Um, Blair, you are also going to be on fire. So uh at the start of every single one of your turns, uh you can make a uh a sleight of hand check to see if you can put out the fire. Uh, but otherwise you're going to be taking uh one d4 uh halved of fire damage. Alrighty. Uh but the house now is on fire uh from an explosion that rocked the side of it. Um dangerously close to where the goblin sage is locked away. Uh we are now on Arnold.

SPEAKER_10 1:38:34

Typhus went outside. As did Delrin. As did Blair Blair uh Delrin went to the side of the house?

SPEAKER_07 1:38:41

She's in the kitchen still. Uh she just uh knocked a bird away from the house and it exploded in the distance.

SPEAKER_06 1:38:48

I opened a window.

SPEAKER_07 1:38:50

There is uh in the kitchen, Arnold. Uh there is one, it sounds like there is one more thing on the side of the house trying to get into the kitchen. Uh, and you can still hear some things coming from the back of the house, too.

SPEAKER_10 1:39:01

I will make my way towards the thing on the side of the house trying to get into the kitchen.

SPEAKER_07 1:39:05

Um you want to hop out the window, you want to go around the doorway? What you think?

SPEAKER_10 1:39:09

I'm hopping out the window if the window is open.

SPEAKER_07 1:39:12

All right, yeah. You you get out there, uh, you see uh this one looks like uh a couple of the ducks from uh the park. Uh in fact, that one one one of them has a little bit of a dent in it. That that that was the one that Sylvia threw at the guard. You'd recognize that thing anywhere. I knew your spies all along. And they're all sort of like pecking at the there, there's three of them, and they're all pecking in unison on the side of the wall.

SPEAKER_10 1:39:39

Stop! Stop it! Uh I I'm gonna try and grab one by the neck and see if I can hold it still while I I uh I'm not gonna pull the key out.

SPEAKER_07 1:39:50

But I'm trying you can pick them up very easily, like you can pick all of them up if you want to. They're just dirt, they can only move in one direction.

SPEAKER_10 1:39:56

I can I pick up all three of them and kind of like hold them by the the neck. I I imagine like the the the narrow the the the duck I guess I'm thinking of goo geese, maybe like narrow neck. Can I like them up like I'm holding like yeah, yeah, wing pins?

SPEAKER_07 1:40:12

Yeah, yeah, you got you got them all. All the keys are still turning. Uh it looks like they're all like moving at slightly different intervals. You can't really tell when they're going to end, is the only thing. Is there is the street empty? Uh yeah, there's not a ton of people who live in this side of the city, like on this far the outskirts.

SPEAKER_10 1:40:31

I'm gonna try and carry them all out to the street and just overhand just just throw them just in the opposite direction from the house.

SPEAKER_07 1:40:37

Just just nearly. You're just gonna hurl them? Yeah. Uh you're you're just trying to hurl them as far as possible, right? I think I think that's the first thing that comes to mind. Okay, give me uh give me an athletics check with disadvantage because you're trying to throw multiple of them at once.

SPEAKER_10 1:40:52

Why did I pick the thing I'm bad at? Oh, okay. This is uh I add a one to this. I'm not bad. I'm not bad at 17 total. With disadvantage?

unknown 1:41:05

Okay.

SPEAKER_07 1:41:06

11. 11. Okay. Uh I will I will say two, like you, you, you, you, uh, you have them by the neck and you kind of like whip them around a little bit and like let them go. Uh two of them like tumble and they all get their wings out and like they're all flapping around as they go. Um uh they can uh you two of them manage to make it just far enough away. Uh one of them, like the key ends, detonates, uh, it blows both of them up, and then but one of them manages to catch the wind and is flying directly back at you, Arnold, from where you throw it. Uh and we're back to typhus now. Uh typhus, you are devastatingly sure that that neck that other raven up there is going to be one of the next things to blow. And judging by the uh the glow that's beginning to surround it, uh, you can imagine this one has some incendiary firepower behind it.

SPEAKER_04 1:42:01

Right into the bag. Take an aim again before this thing gets too close. And uh that is a 10.

SPEAKER_07 1:42:14

Alright. Uh this one uh you managed to actually well what's you were trying to aim at the same spot, Typhus, because you know what's the worst that could happen? You already got it once, right? Uh you actually manage to like clip it uh more along like one of its small slender legs and cause it to tumble down onto the ground outside of the roof. So it's still active, uh, but it's sort of like flapping around on the ground.

SPEAKER_04 1:42:40

Uh that looks like a problem. Somebody should do something about that. And I'm gonna kind of stand, I'm gonna begin kind of inching back just a little bit uh away from this explosion. Because I'm also kind of sickly curious to watch something explode. And it would, I mean, as much as we need to, you know, help all these goblins and everything, I'm not gonna lie, this is kind of a tickle in the back of my brain. The the sickness is a good thing.

SPEAKER_07 1:43:06

Something occurs to you, Typhus. If you can figure out how to stop this bird from exploding, you might learn a lot of things from how it was constructed. Maybe even who rigged them to explode this way.

SPEAKER_04 1:43:19

Oh, an idea! And I'm going to like prance towards this bird. I'm gonna go pick it up like a gleeful little boy, completely.

SPEAKER_07 1:43:30

All right, Delrin, uh the you are you you pick glass, like little bits of glass out of your uh out of your uh your hair, you know, like you have a little cut across your cheek from where like one of them got you, you know, you're brushing off your shoulders and stuff, all the but uh and you see uh you saw Arnold uh this this lithe tobaxi dive out the window, uh, grab a bunch of things and throw them, uh small explosions off in the distance. Um, and uh there are still uh as far as you know, you can still hear some things coming from the back of the house. Uh you uh there appears to be from what you can tell, uh maybe like two-ish more sounds that you can identify uh sort of out the back door.

SPEAKER_06 1:44:12

Okay. Uh is it faster to go through the window or or through the house?

SPEAKER_07 1:44:16

Uh at this point, it'd probably be about equally speedy either way.

SPEAKER_06 1:44:20

Okay, I'll go through the window.

SPEAKER_07 1:44:22

Okay. Uh, yep, you round the corner and you shure as shit see uh what looks like a small mechanical cat that's like scratching at the door, like inching up closer to like the handle. Uh and you can even see like its little clockwork paw start to extend out into what looks like grip, like uh actual, like um, what's the word I'm looking for? Vestigial like digits that can like grip and turn and is reaching for the doorknob. And on the other side of that, uh, it looks like a uh a small or about um like the size of a toy poodle, but it is a ram and it is slamming into the side of the house and actually starting to break off some of the sideboards of the house.

SPEAKER_06 1:45:05

Okay. Um at the cat, I'm gonna say squeakums go, and I'm gonna throw my mouse uh like in front of the cat to try to get its attention. And then I'm gonna try to murder the ram.

SPEAKER_07 1:45:23

Okay. Uh the your squeakums uh sails gracefully through the air as squeakums always does and bounces kind of pitifully off the cat's like faceplate. Uh and like lands on the ground is like, and then the the cat just continues like grabbing onto the door now. You can see like it's trying to get its claws like articulated enough to where it's not sliding off the metal, but actually getting purchase on it. Uh roll to hit that ram, though. The DC's gonna be 12 on it.

SPEAKER_05 1:45:54

Dang.

SPEAKER_06 1:45:57

Uh I got a 10.

SPEAKER_07 1:45:58

Got it. Uh you swing as hard as you can, like blade side first, uh, on the axe, but you clip its horns at like uh just at the wrong angle. You're trying to sever it like right at the neck, nearer to the nape where the uh the key is that's winding. Uh but unfortunately you glance off of the horns and you can actually see uh the key skip uh ahead a little bit in its winding. It looks like you jostled it uh a little bit uh like uh closer into its explosion cycle. Um Blair, you uh just got exploded again and are now on fire. You wanna roll a slide of hand to see if you can get it out?

SPEAKER_12 1:46:40

Uh yeah, do you want me to take damage first?

SPEAKER_07 1:46:43

Uh yes.

SPEAKER_12 1:46:46

Alright, I rolled a three there, and so halved is we're gonna do one or two.

SPEAKER_07 1:46:52

Uh rounded down.

SPEAKER_12 1:46:54

Rounded down, okay.

SPEAKER_07 1:46:55

Yeah, so you're gonna take one point of fire damage. And we're unable to put it out.

SPEAKER_12 1:46:59

But uh uh I have uh yeah, let me roll my slight here.

SPEAKER_07 1:47:03

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go for it. Three, so yeah, that's not happening. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I gotcha. Yeah, yeah, you you you you singe a little bit more. It's it's not the worst fire you've ever felt. I mean, like you've been in a couple of situations, you know, failed pyrotechnics, you know, got too close to a flame juggler at one of those festivals, you know, that you used to like. You the one that uh where you met Michael, actually, you know, one of those uh fringe sort of music festivals, uh lots of uh lots of tablets of things getting passed around, thanks to Lick, you know, good music vibes. You got caught on fire there. That one was worse. Uh this though it still does kind of suck. But uh looking into the small hole that was just blown into the side of this building, you can see a bunch of the goblins starting to hide away, you know, edging away from the edges of the house. Um, but there is uh a good amount of fire that's beginning to spread along uh this side of the house from uh the bullfrog that exploded here.

SPEAKER_13 1:48:08

What can I do?

SPEAKER_12 1:48:09

What can I do? Right now, Blair is trying to like run the mental calculation of should I try to put out this fire through unknown means, or do I need to deal with the other bombs?

SPEAKER_07 1:48:21

Uh these this is a question for you, Blair. All you know is that there are some scared goblins in there that are getting dangerously close to uh a lot of things that would do them great harm, uh more harm than already the poor goblins that have uh suffered hands. Derek, do something. Derek suddenly Derek appears from where he was. Uh he it looks like he was like shuffling around for something downstairs. He's carrying two giant buckets of water, and it's like, what are you doing? Don't just stand there, and he's gonna like toss one like sort of in your direction, is gonna start like immediately trying to put out some of the fires.

SPEAKER_12 1:49:02

I I get my head into it first and then start to yeah, you're you're you're no longer you're no longer on fire.

SPEAKER_07 1:49:09

Uh but Derek's gonna like you know, yeah, you you it's gonna probably take a little bit more time to get most of the fire out. Derek uh goes to like get some more buckets, you know, and uh he's like uh fill these up.

SPEAKER_09 1:49:21

Find a way to get the goblins to safety.

SPEAKER_13 1:49:28

Come on.

SPEAKER_07 1:49:31

Uh they they all just sort of like you know, they're still shying away, they're still like you know, obviously terrified. You're you're you're going to have to have uh something more convincing to get them to I I look around for my goblin.

SPEAKER_12 1:49:45

I look around for my buddy.

SPEAKER_07 1:49:47

Uh you see you're the you see the goblin that was sort of uh the vibing with you, Blair? It's somewhat close to where the goblin sage is, like backing up against that door.

SPEAKER_13 1:49:58

Okay. I'm gonna look at him. I'm gonna point upstairs.

SPEAKER_11 1:50:11

You, you and everybody else. Upstairs is safer. They're attacking us at the ground level. Get upstairs. We'll be okay.

SPEAKER_12 1:50:19

And I can also like grab weapons which are like good for defending us from the threats. Oh look at me! Look at me! Look at my heart!

SPEAKER_11 1:50:28

I was on fire for you! Come on, trust me!

SPEAKER_07 1:50:31

The the the the the goblin looks at you, Blair, and really and for a moment you sense a presence uh like sort of nudging against your psyche. Uh a kind of like a a fuzzy, sort of gentle like tugging at your very being as this goblin stares into your eyes and you stare back, the effects of the spark leaf causing you also to be clear-eyed and unblinking. And for a moment, you glimpse it's sort of how the eyes glimpse things, like that, but the soul, like an emotional pull and feeling that you're like something about it uh goblonia makes a little bit more sense to you. It's it's not that it actually exists, and it's not necessarily that like the the thoughts are not what upholds it. It's it's putting something, a moment of reflection in between where what you're thinking and what everyone else is experiencing around you, that's what causes the bulwark. It's it's nibbling at the corner of your mind, but then suddenly your the goblin uh jolts awake and like starts to bang its head on the door to the goblin sage's room.

SPEAKER_11 1:51:44

I just I don't know if we should it do you want to go in there?

SPEAKER_01 1:51:49

Queen, queen, quee, donk, dunk, dunk, dunk, dunk.

SPEAKER_07 1:51:53

I open the door. Uh all the goblins rush in there. And they all start to again like pulse uh with the sage who is still sitting in the middle of the room.

SPEAKER_12 1:52:04

Uh do I hear any thumping on the other side of the wall?

SPEAKER_07 1:52:07

Uh not in here. It would seem as though this is almost completely quiet on this side of the house.

SPEAKER_12 1:52:15

Alright, I'm going to stand at the door and ready a defensive action.

SPEAKER_07 1:52:19

Amazing. Arnold, you have one uh angry duck flying at you.

SPEAKER_10 1:52:26

I'd like to, in the most cat-like way possible, jump up and pluck the duck from the air.

SPEAKER_07 1:52:37

Yes. Give give me give me give me a good acrobatics check there. Let's see how well you do this. No, sorry a little bit louder in someone? A seven. A se a seven. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:52:52

Lucky sevens.

SPEAKER_07 1:52:54

You you jump up and as you go, you're you can okay, so you uh Arnold, not not to uh stereotype a tabaxi per se, but you know how cats do that like chittering thing whenever they see like birds or like squirrels, like where they're really excited, they really want to go after it, but they know they can't. Yeah, you start like something something deep inside of your being like calls to you in that animal fashion, and uh instead, like you go to like jump, but instead your mind plays out the jumping and you're chittering at the bird, and it isn't until you come back to yourself where you realize that you've jumped completely behind where the bird was, and your big cat eyes like sort of keep tracking it as you chitter and it flies back towards the house.

SPEAKER_10 1:53:36

Uh oh. Oh boy.

SPEAKER_07 1:53:40

Uh this is uh yeah. Uh you if you got a if you got a spell or something you want to sling, Brendan, or anything uh range-wise, I would uh I would let you take a shot.

SPEAKER_10 1:53:53

I don't I've got stuff from like the starting gear, but I don't think I'd actually carry around like a short bow. I I I would say I'm still holding the fork from breakfast. May I throw the fork at the duck? Yes, please go ahead and throw go throw the fork.

SPEAKER_07 1:54:10

Uh yeah, throw the fork. Give me give me just uh a good dex attack roll on it.

SPEAKER_06 1:54:15

We love an improvised weapon.

SPEAKER_10 1:54:18

That is a just dexterity check, 19 or 21. Uh 21. Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:54:25

Sheesh. Uh yeah, man. Like you you throw that fork and it like uh again, like the the calculus of your mind uh as you go to throw it is like you you already have plotted out where the trajectory is, like your your your feline brain, like the hunting instinct has already like told you where your hand's gonna move before you even do it. And that fork flies and catches itself right in the wing joint of this duck in flight, causing it to uh uh curtail down in a corkscrew. Uh in typhus, uh, as you uh you know are looking over this uh this potentially new bomb, you do hear a small thud behind you, and you see that the uh the duck that Arnold just uh dropped to the ground is just enough behind you, but you can tell that you have time to either run away before both of these things explode, or try to figure out how the one that you are looking at works and risk blowing up.

SPEAKER_04 1:55:30

Risk?

SPEAKER_02 1:55:32

Oh man.

SPEAKER_04 1:55:34

Oh, instantly I'm I'm taking every bit of uh reverse engineering knowledge that I can possibly get, and I'm going to go through every piece of this this little bird as quick as I can, with uh, I'll say it, little to no caution with the fear blowing up in my mind. I am going to fully investigate as much as I possibly can from this contraption right in front of me.

SPEAKER_07 1:55:59

Amazing. Uh please go ahead and give me an investigation check.

SPEAKER_02 1:56:03

Come on, Papa needs a new pair of shoes.

SPEAKER_07 1:56:07

That is a 16. With a 16, typhus, you are able to very quickly uh you have you you've messed with these birds before in the park, like whenever no one's looking. Yeah, and and you just crack open its case with a simple twist, uh, something that not a lot of people you know would know that these do. But as you do, you can see that yeah, someone was definitely messing with this thing. This is not the same type of uh the the same type of ravens that you've seen in the park. Somebody has changed around the the gear ratios, these things have gone a massive distance to make it to where they are now, seemingly all time to get there together. Uh and you sort of uh manage to uh unpluck the payload from this one. Uh, and so in addition to your general pipe bomb making uh uh you know, your general blasting caps, a little bit of uh of the the gum powder inside, you now also have uh an incendiary payload uh that you can add to your inventory. Uh whenever you are doing your tinkering as an artificer, uh you will be able to use that uh incendiary payload to modify one of your uh your your your tinkering gear. Uh what are they called? The um yeah, the your artificer uh yeah, my little artificial thing. Yeah, your artificer things. That being said, yeah. Uh typhus, if you would, uh go ahead and give me a slide. Um I will tell you you can either do acrobatics, you can do a constitution save. Oh, constitution.

SPEAKER_04 1:57:50

Okay, yeah, go for it. Alright. Uh that's a three uh NASCAR, that's a zero uh actual.

SPEAKER_07 1:58:01

Uh I'm just going to say that you're you Typhus, you get the payload, you you very gently like put it in your little paper bag, you roll it up nicely, you know, you stick that in there. You go ahead and you put you put away your gun too, and you're just like, wow, I really did it. Uh, and then you're going to be knocked unconscious as the explosion blasts you back inside through the door. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_10 1:58:23

He put it in, he put it right next to the other explosives. It's a terrible idea.

SPEAKER_07 1:58:28

Uh so Typhus's uh uh small form kind of thunks into into the like through the door right across. Uh Dalrin, uh from outside, you were still are dealing with this uh this this ram and this cat. The cat is very close to getting inside.

SPEAKER_06 1:58:46

Yeah, I'm gonna grab that cat.

SPEAKER_07 1:58:48

You're gonna turn away from the ram?

SPEAKER_06 1:58:50

Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:58:52

Okay, so you you uh this cat has finally like dug whatever pneumatic systems help it uh articulate its claws, it's finally dug into the metal of the door frame and is like or into the doorknob and it's starting to twist it to like you hear the kick of one of the locks as it starts to push inside, and you're going to go ahead and take a swing. Uh yeah. Are you are you are you aiming for any particular part or are you just trying to to whatever seems like it would do the most damage?

SPEAKER_06 1:59:17

Um probably whatever's gonna do the most damage, knowing that it might blow up, so maybe not aiming for like the clock, the the key parts. I gotcha, like too deep ending. Yeah, that seems to be the big uh mess with it, it explodes situation. So I'm gonna hit like yeah, go ahead and give me an attack.

SPEAKER_07 1:59:38

Go ahead and give me an attack roll because you're aiming uh uh yeah, just let's see what you get.

SPEAKER_06 1:59:44

Woohoo, uh mama got a 23. Sheesh!

SPEAKER_07 1:59:48

Oh uh mama definitely uh found like as the swing was going, you were originally going to be aiming more for like the head, but then the thought occurs to you of well, what's this cat gonna do if it can't open the fucking door? And so you just cut off the paw, and then the uh the cat sort of like falls down a little bit, and shoot, for good measure, go ahead and cut off the other one too. Uh and the cat just sort of like you know, is limp on the ground, kind of trying to shove itself against the door, but without anything to interact with it, the door just thuds shut behind it. And though it is still very much explosive, at the very least, it'll be explosive to the outside of the house and not getting in. Um however, yeah, absolutely. Uh you you have it in your hands, and the the the clockwork, like the eyes, the lenses of this cat uh are still peering directly at the door, and like even the back feet are trying to like jump out of your hand to kind of like get more towards the door. Like these things are without a doubt, they were sent here to infiltrate and to destroy this home. Uh, but you have this uh explosive functionally in your hand that's trying to get out uh of your hands, so um are you going to what are you gonna do with it?

SPEAKER_06 2:01:04

Um so I have a bedroll uh which seemingly I would assume has like a blanket situation.

SPEAKER_07 2:01:12

Yeah, yeah. It's got it's basically a sleeping bag.

SPEAKER_06 2:01:15

Okay, great. Can I get away with tying the cat to the ram? Okay with my bedroll.

SPEAKER_07 2:01:25

Uh yeah let's yeah, yeah, why not? You have something that can bundle it, like okay, so you're gonna just like kind of bundle the cat in the bedroll and then just kind of what what how are you going to secure the cat to the ram, I guess is my question.

SPEAKER_06 2:01:37

The ram's got like a neck, right? That's probably like the thinnest part of it. So I'm gonna like take the cat body, I'm gonna stick it on the neck, and then I'm gonna wrap the blanket around it and tie just a knot. Stuck stuck to the ram.

SPEAKER_07 2:01:50

So uh I would love to see how good that knot is that you just tied, because that's gonna tell a lot about what's about to happen. Would you give me a survival check, please?

SPEAKER_06 2:02:00

Sure will. Got a plus two to that. Aha! And I rolled a 16, so it's an 18.

SPEAKER_07 2:02:08

You the the cat, you're pretty sure like you managed to like bundle the cat into where it's like a flat lump on the back of the ram and like tie it underneath the leg so that it can't like jostle itself loose. Uh, and you now have a cat tied to the ram.

SPEAKER_14 2:02:22

Fantastic.

SPEAKER_07 2:02:23

Okay. Uh well when we'll come back to to what happens with that after. Blair, uh, you are protecting this room. Uh, you hear a lot of hoopla going on, you see typhus's lit body start to roll back inside from being blown through the front door the opposite direction now. Uh and you sort of glance around and you hear a chip chip chip chip chip chip chip chip chip chip chip chip chip chip chip. And you see very slowly scuttling its way towards you, just the the the smallest little it looks so cute little clockwork mouse, you know. It uh it's just scurrying along the ground. Seems like it may have gotten in from one of the other holes, you know. It's just sort of making its way in there. It's heading up through the door. It's like, oh man, what a cute little clockwork rat. What are you gonna do, Blair?

SPEAKER_12 2:03:14

I've learned my lesson.

SPEAKER_07 2:03:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_12 2:03:17

Uh you said it was moving pretty slowly, right?

SPEAKER_07 2:03:21

It was just going like uh it's skiddering towards you. Like it's sort of it's it's making its way, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:03:25

Catchable easily?

SPEAKER_07 2:03:27

Uh catchable, sure, yeah. Easily depends on how you're doing.

SPEAKER_12 2:03:34

Bad personally.

SPEAKER_07 2:03:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_12 2:03:37

Well, hold on, I've read my defensive action, so I feel like I should have an easier time intercepting here.

SPEAKER_07 2:03:41

Sure, sure. Yeah, go ahead. Uh yeah, just uh what are you what are are you going to try to hit it away? Are you going to try to grab it?

SPEAKER_12 2:03:48

So I don't have shit with me. I left that all upstairs. I just got a hoodie and a boxer to work with, and the boxers and the hoodies are both falling apart at this point. Yeah, yeah. Uh so I'm going to try to just swipe it and like grab it.

SPEAKER_07 2:04:03

Um pick it up. Yeah, uh yeah. Give me an animal handling check actually with a bandage to kind of ready for it. Yeah, yeah. Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_13 2:04:13

Um 15.

SPEAKER_07 2:04:18

You you sweep it up and you have it in your hands. It's like you can feel its little like clockwork legs kind of trying to kick its way through. Um, but uh you take one look at its little eyes, and you're like, man, this thing would've be cute if it wasn't a bomb. And then you remember that it is in fact a bomb and will probably be going off rather soon.

SPEAKER_12 2:04:38

Uh and then I am going to run out of the room toward this like the uh the sort of the portal of the front door. Yeah, and and using my my 15 strength for some reason, I'm going to throw this thing as hard as I can in the opposite direction.

SPEAKER_07 2:04:57

Just launch it out of the front door. Alright, one more check for me on athletics there. 19. 19. Wonderful. Yeah, you chuck it uh as far as you can. Uh Arnold from the distance, you see Blair hurl something small that's like heading into your like you ran out of the house, you know. You you were dealing with the ducks. You see, you see Blair uh run out the front door and throw something towards you. This is my keys. Oh, you you you raise your hands to to to to to to to catch what's coming in. You see what what looks like a um uh it looks like a little mouse actually is kind of flying towards you, and then the chitterish start back up. The the the the the cat brain deep inside is like, oh shit, something flying through the air at me.

SPEAKER_10 2:05:50

I'm gonna try and catch it, I suppose.

SPEAKER_07 2:05:53

I mean you can try to fight the instinct if you want.

SPEAKER_10 2:05:56

I I think I I didn't trust it immediately the first time, and I just gotta let instinct kick in. That's what happened, that's what went wrong.

SPEAKER_07 2:06:07

Yeah, yeah. So uh yeah, you hop up deft on cat uh in your mouth, you can manage to catch uh sort of like by by where the nape would be on this rat. Like it would have been a clean bite right through, like broken his neck if it was organic. No, no, no. Instead, you feel like the the the the small the slight crunch of like tin foil. Uh oh and then um you hear a uh what what appears to be like a ringing, uh, and you for a moment you feel like you see your body from the outside as this strange uh ripple emanates from this uh this mouse. And it doesn't explode, but it does emit something, and it seems to almost push your perspective out of your body to where you're looking at events from the outside, and you hover there momentarily.

SPEAKER_13 2:07:04

Is this goblonia?

SPEAKER_07 2:07:09

And then darkness. Uh Arnold, Arnold is unconscious outside. Um we'll call that your HP and psychic damage, whatever you have left, uh as as as rippled through you from this rat. Uh typhus, you're knocked out from the explosion. Delrin, you've got a cat tied to a ram. What are you doing?

SPEAKER_06 2:07:29

Okay, so I'm gonna rage uh as a bonus action.

SPEAKER_01 2:07:33

Yes, okay.

SPEAKER_06 2:07:34

It gives uh advantage to strength checks and saves. So I'm gonna grab the ram and I'm gonna throw it. Just hawk it away again as hard and as far as I can. It seems to be the plan and it's working pretty well.

SPEAKER_07 2:07:52

Yeah, that's uh so far, so good at least. Uh, give me an athletics check if you do not mind, please. And just so you know, this is gonna be like a DC 15. Uh, this is a very heavy thing.

SPEAKER_06 2:08:03

Well, I rolled a 19 on the dice.

SPEAKER_07 2:08:06

So holy cow. That's all right.

SPEAKER_06 2:08:09

Yeah, you a big number. 21.

SPEAKER_07 2:08:14

Yeah, nice. You are able to uh throw it about 10 feet away um enough to where like it sort of lands and like topples over. Uh, and you can see that uh because of the way that this thing's built, it doesn't really have like a self-writing mechanism. So you see like the the cat on the back is like kind of kicking with its back legs to try to get out of the blanket while the ram is just kind of like articulating its feet back and forth, like while moving its head like back and forth too. And eventually like you almost feel bad for it. Almost, because then it uh in the last moment you see its eyes light up red, demonic flare to indicate that it's about to explode.

SPEAKER_06 2:08:51

Around the other direction.

SPEAKER_07 2:08:52

Yeah, it it's uh it's the the the shock wave itself is gonna hit you, but the actual force of it isn't, it's gonna knock you down. Uh and uh as the dust sort of settles, uh Blair, you see uh Typhus and Arnold out the front door, uh completely out. Uh you see Derek desperately trying to put out the fire uh on the side of a house, uh on the side of the house. Uh one of the windows is blown through. Uh, if you sort of peek around the corner, you can kind of see Delrin like uh face first on the ground from a massive explosion. But at the very least, uh everything is quiet.

SPEAKER_13 2:09:35

Did we get all of them? Trying to look back at the sage.

SPEAKER_07 2:09:43

Uh the the door is still open, the goblin sage is still there, the same uh scale flickering in the light. All the other goblins are attuned, uh, they all have their eyes closed, simply that one scale flickering.

SPEAKER_12 2:09:57

Okay, okay, okay, okay. Let's um uh I'm gonna I'm gonna hope they're put up the fire now.

SPEAKER_07 2:10:03

Um I'm walking like a man who has endured two explosions at point blank rage. Uh Delrin, you come around the corner too, you see the same thing that Blair has seen. Uh Derek's put out the fire, and he's just sort of like staring out that side of the house where there's now a gaping hole singed on the side, and it he just looks a little bit like lost. Especially and then he he glances down at the two bodies no longer moving of the goblins that were caught in the explosions, and Blair and Delrin, both of you feel uh as tangibly as if it spawned from you itself the deep grief and sorrow of Derek Stormfighter, seemingly amplified through your psychic expressions by the presence of the goblin sage.

SPEAKER_06 2:11:03

I'm gonna go up to Derek and just like wrap my he's so tall. I'm gonna wrap my arms around his legs, because that's what I can reach. Um, and I just lean my head against him, and I'm like, it's okay, Big D. We kept him safe as much as we could.

SPEAKER_08 2:11:24

And what did any of these poor creatures do to deserve this?

SPEAKER_06 2:11:31

You know they didn't do anything to deserve it. It's just nasty tuckers being nasty tuckers.

SPEAKER_09 2:11:41

I I was meant to be the protector of these. I'm the protector of goblonia. I am the protector of goblonia.

SPEAKER_07 2:11:54

And then uh you start to feel again that's from that same uh deep Of despair, you now start to feel a red-hot wrath, like an iron poker suddenly getting stabbed into your heart, the fury beginning to spread within your chests as well. And Typhus and Arnold, through the darkness of your slumber, you also feel this passion as it ignites. And Derek Stormfighter, for the first time, stands up straight, his uh his robes now fully blown off of his shoulders, and you can see the deep scarring that mats this guy's body. He is he has been through, it seems, a meat grinder both of the body and the soul. But that passion as it flares up, Derek Stormfighter stands, and for a moment you see what the goblin sage sees or feels whenever Derek is around. And that is a being made of pure white light, standing tall in front of uh what appears to be a small settlement with tiny beings moving in and out, crops growing, but with a flaming uh with a sword that crackles as a bolt of lightning, this stalwart figure, the protector of Goblonia, stands. Derek Stormfighter. And as the as you feel as though your soul can't handle any more of this this anger, this wrath, this fury that Derek channels for all of the things that are lost and for all of the innocence that gets burned away by greed and evil, suddenly there is a psychic pulse emitted from Derek that is picked up by all the goblins, including the sage. And all at once everyone feels uh a kind of quiet that they don't think that they felt in a long, long time. This this burst of energy brings a kind of solemnity, a stillness, a peace that is not something that any of you really are are ever used to. And moreover, uh Blair, you know, you sort of uh you you you go back to the table, you know, kind of like just thumbing through all the wreckage, and you see your portal that was laying there on the table that you had you had gotten out to show to show Derek earlier. But looking into it for the first time, you don't see anything at all. It is simply a black piece of stone. And Derek, you know, sort of slumps after that that that outpouring of of huge psychic energy, and he just goes silently, but picks up the body of Typhus outside and brings him in, goes and and kind of helps Arnold up and and and walks Arnold inside too, you know, very solemnly goes up, puts them both to to bed, you know, tucks them in, goes downstairs. He picks up the bodies of both of the small goblins, cradling them in his arms, and simply walks out the back door. And we are going to call the session there. Uh so thank you everyone for uh joining in for this episode of the Final Rules Chaos. Uh I as always am uh Tim, your dungeon master, uh, joined by uh Brendan, who played Arnold, Zach, who plays Blair, uh Logan who plays Typhus, and our very special guest, Emily, who played the wonderful Delrin, Halfling Barbarian. Uh, Emily, since you are our very special guest, uh, do you have anything that is coming up for you uh on your own artistically that you're really looking forward to? Something you want to plug? Uh, I know you do the improv troop uh as well as things with LSC. What do you have coming up soon that you wanna get people aware of?

SPEAKER_06 2:15:55

Yeah, sure. Uh so the improv troop I'm with is called Justin the Femur, actually with Chase. Uh and we do a show monthly. Our next one is gonna be on July 10th at the Arts Council of Baton Rouge. Uh, and tickets are only like 15 bucks if you want to come see some improv. Um, we also will have Louisiana Shakespeare Company auditions for Hamlet on June 27th. It's a Saturday. I believe there should still be audition spots. If you want to look them up on Facebook, you can find the link to apply for that.

SPEAKER_07 2:16:33

All right, wonderful. Thank you so much, Emily. Uh again, having very special guests on has always been one of the best parts, I think, of uh the final rule. So uh I speak for all of us and Brice. Thank you so much. Uh, and of course, everyone watching at home, thank you as well. Uh, this has been the final rules. Uh, we do these live streams every first and third Mondays of the month. The first Mondays for uh the final rules order. Uh, and then we, of course, are the final rules chaos. We also have the edited podcast releasing on those days for the session previous. So you are more than welcome to catch up. If you like what you want, uh like what you see, please consider subscribing uh so that we can start doing our cool emotes from the Discord on the YouTube channel. That's like really the only reason why I want to reach that subscriber goal. Uh and also for that, uh to that point, uh, come join our Discord too. Uh, we have links, I think, in all of the bios of our various social medias, including the YouTube. Uh, join the Discord, submit suggestions into our bucket channel, come hang out with us. We're all, I feel like, pretty active on it. Uh, but otherwise, that's all I've got. So uh I have been uh Timothy Underwood. This has been the Final Rules Chaos, and I hope that everyone out there has a great night.