The Final Rule(s)
Completely Improvised DnD campaigns! Prepare nothing for anything.
The Final Rule(s)
The Final Rules: Chaos | Beheld (S3E8)
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After a five-year hiatus a cast reunites as The Final Rule returns! Bigger, better, and improvier than ever - The Final Rules manifests now as two simultaneously occurring and, as always, completely improvised campaigns.
The defender of Neo Goblonia has failed.
Typhus (played by Logan Naddy,) Arnold (Brendan Bice,) Blair (Zak Denley,) and ex-mayoral candidate Marmalade (played by Very Special Guest Hollis Russell (@skeletorg)) find themselves adrift, again, following behind a beleaguered Derrick Stormfighter as they try to make sense of a world going mad,
and something evil watches them.
The Final Rule(s) is a livestream and edited podcast produced by Arcadian Renaissance Theatre Creatives (ART-C,) a nonprofit organization from Livingston Parish, LA. Please visit us at https://www.art-c.org to learn more, and please consider donating to help us realize our goal of fair pay for our artists and collaborators.
We are ART-C.
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. Welcome to the final rules.
SPEAKER_05However, uh, we are all very happy to be here. I think it's going to be a really phenomenal stream uh for everybody who has been keeping up to date on both the uh campaigns. The order uh party just had a really phenomenal session. So uh luckily we have all uh we are all in our formal wear, our formal attire right now. You see, I just simply don't have formal attire, so that's why I'm dressed like this. Uh however, uh, as I said before, uh we are the Chaos Campaign. My name is Timothy Underwood. I'm gonna be your dungeon master. This is produced by the Arcadian Renaissance Theater Creatives, a nonprofit theater production company out of Livingston, Louisiana. Uh, and uh I'm gonna go pass it off to Brendan. We'll go Brendan, Zach, Logan, and then our very special guest, Hollis. Just give yourselves brief introductions if you don't mind.
SPEAKER_11Hello. Uh I'm Brendan, and I'll be playing Michael. Is this brief enough for you?
SPEAKER_05Michael, yeah.
SPEAKER_11I'm Zach.
SPEAKER_04I play Blair Swallow. Brendan doesn't talk anymore because it's blur soon. And I have always had a proclivity for baked beans.
SPEAKER_02Amazing. Um, Logan. Hi, my name is Logan. I'm contracted to play typhus for X amount more weeks, and I'm happy to be here.
SPEAKER_05Uh thanks, Logan. We'll have to discuss the terms of your contract. That was uh you weren't supposed to say anyway. Uh, and last but not least, um, one of our favorite traditions that we have here on the final rules is that every week we try to have a new uh local artist, uh, somebody who uh makes things who is a creative like the rest of us. Uh this uh month for the kiosk campaign, we have Hollis. So please give us a brief introduction. Tell us what you do.
SPEAKER_07Hi, I'm Hollis. I'm an animator, an artist, uh, occasional musician. Uh I have a YouTube, I have an Instagram, and I have a Twitch. And I sort of just wandered in here and now I don't know where the exit is.
SPEAKER_05You'd be surprised at how often we hear that exact same thing from every single one of our guests.
SPEAKER_07Well, you guys hide the exit pretty well.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Some might say there are no exits.
SPEAKER_07Um exactly.
SPEAKER_05Uh, and last but not least, we have uh Brendan. Brendan, do you want to introduce your character uh with the I was reading some notes that I made.
SPEAKER_11I'm not Michael. Michael is the person that I have the strongest bond to, played by Vincent Bianca. My name's Armin. Amazing. Did you say you were Michael? Yeah, yeah, I said I was Michael.
SPEAKER_05Hey, it's pretty close. It's pretty close. So uh if y'all are ready, uh, I am feeling pretty good. I'm gonna draw our suggestion because, of course, nothing uh this is a completely improvised Dungeons and Dragons campaign, has been since the very beginning. Uh, and what is improv without a wonderful suggestion? We have a uh an amazing Discord channel. And if y'all have uh if y'all are listening and you're not part of the Discord channel and you have ever uh been active in a Discord community, I think that ours is pretty great. You also get to uh put suggestions into our Discord channel, The Bucket, uh, in which we will pull live for the show, just like I am doing right now. All right, everybody. This is a very early suggestion by uh the order, one of the order players, Chase Bernard. Uh, this suggestion is Don Cappuccino. Nice. Don Cappuccino is going to be our suggestion for uh this episode, the session of the final rules. But I'm ready. If y'all are ready, uh then we can get going. I have a quick question about that suggestion. Yeah, yeah. Yes, like like uh like in a uh very Italian sense, uh I gather from the word. Like like the Don. Yeah, like the Don Cappuccino. Yeah. Uh okay. Uh we last left off, Goblonia, Neo Goblonia, under siege. Um, after spending a night uh sort of at this halfway house that uh is inhabited, uh, some may say infested by a group of goblins, a uh about two to two and a half foot tall, uh small kind of lizards, but with scales that can shimmer with different colors, that they can rattle and move, and with very expressive eyes, as well as vague abilities to mimic in their own goblin way. Uh Derek Stormfighter, a old name for people who are fans of the final rule uh in the previous seasons, uh, comes back. Uh, he is sort of the caretaker of these goblins. He is very wary of the mainframe and of the data slabs, uh, the portals that everyone carries to sort of access the uh the information plane. Um and sort of uh makes the party question more. Specifically, I think Typhus, who is very on board with evicting uh the denizens of Neo Gabalonia, which y'all were tasked to do by the enigmatic Mr. Groyer from the Billboards and the serialized radio drama uh that he started up recently. It's been getting good reviews, that one. Uh, but uh after sort of coming to terms with the fact that maybe this eviction, maybe uh acting in service of this strange orange orc, uh you have decided that perhaps, you know, live and let live, uh, just as a bunch of clockwork uh bombs in the shape of animals came uh and sort of blew holes in Neo Goblonia, uh Derek very solemnly goes out to bury the poor bodies of the goblins who fell. Uh, and after what amounts to, let's say, a night of not a lot of talking and you know, food, everyone I feel like kind of just wants to not think about the world and their predicament for a little bit. So a long rest passes in the night. Uh and uh in the morning, you know, you all come to in the triple deck bunk beds, you know, uh a couple of words here and there. Uh none of the goblins come up to visit you this morning. Uh they're all sort of huddled, still kind of scared, and uh around where the goblin sage is tucked away uh in the alcove beneath the stairs. Uh and the uh Derek hasn't said a word since he walked out to go bury the goblins previously, but as everyone makes it down you uh, you know, sort of see Derek, and it almost looks like he's attacking.
SPEAKER_12I guess do you wanna are you are you planning to come with us?
SPEAKER_05I I wasn't aware that you were going anywhere.
SPEAKER_04Well I I figured we weren't gonna stay here but with the the bombs. I thought, you know, basically any other place would be better.
SPEAKER_05Oh no, those are my thoughts exactly, but uh we called it arrogance. I I kind of figured that if anything, I'd be asking you to come with me, not assuming you know, the other way around.
SPEAKER_04Oh, well you know okay, you know that it doesn't matter to me, man. You know, whichever side we know who wants to lead, who wants to follow, that's just it kind of matters to me.
SPEAKER_02I think we're technically fugitives now. Well, we didn't really do anything wrong. It was mostly I think we were on parole. I think that was like a parole thing, like we do that job or else we go to prison.
SPEAKER_04A parole officer is like a realist, real like a a reality television star. I don't, you know, I I think the rules are kind of non-extant.
SPEAKER_10Yeah, I don't I don't think he's exactly our parole officer as much as a poor defense attorney. Guys, we were in jail for like three nights.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, but it was like three non-consecutive nights.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, but yeah, uh listen, I don't care where we're going. I just want to know that we're if if we're walking back into town, we're walking back into town.
SPEAKER_05But I just gotta We are not walking back into that town.
SPEAKER_02Okay, so we're not walking back into town. Well then I don't know what I'm worried about. Wherever you guys want to go, I'm sure I can find what I'm looking for.
SPEAKER_05Uh and Derek sort of like, you know, nods at those words, you know, sensing the wisdom and there of, yeah, you know, life is the journey, right? Uh you know, Typhus, you you you clocked it, Derek recog, you know, uh game recognizes game, right? Uh Zach, the goblin that had been sort of uh eyeing you up, sort of seeing if you were up to snuff, uh has uh sort of started to peek its way out of the uh the room with the goblin sage. Uh and is it is still definitely way leerier than it was, but at least a little bit quieter.
SPEAKER_12Could be a baby, it could be a baby.
SPEAKER_05Uh it continues to stare and like sort of like bobs its head up and down.
SPEAKER_04Oh my gosh, fine, yes, you can see into my soul, and I lock eyes with it.
SPEAKER_05Uh again, that that sort of familiar presence, sort of just brushing up against your consciousness, but uh almost like a moment in passing. Um as Derek sort of like continues to like put a couple of things together. Uh Brendan, you are sort of close enough, you know. Uh your your your stealthy ways, your padded feet kind of let you creep a little bit close to see what he's packing in there. Um, and you see uh a lot of uh like canned goods, uh things that look like they are sealed in like mason jars. Um, you see a couple of books, uh, some titles you don't recognize, some you kind of recognize as like uh early city like poetry, you know, like some of the early greats who uh in uh after the first hundred years or so uh of the initial founding kind of discovered uh or I guess maybe even rediscovered truths about the the land and the location, you know, and and sort of writes about it in this very nice, you know, natural way, uh very, very uh befitting of sort of the clockwork nature, you know, that that y'all experience. Um, and also uh a sought-off shotgun, uh as well as uh what appears to be two very long, probably let's say like just six and a half feet huge. They look like um what you'd roll up like maps or like uh like um uh what are they called? Like a drafting tube, you know what I mean? Oh yeah. Uh yeah, really a couple really long ones of those that he sort of has leaning off to uh against the wall to the side.
SPEAKER_10Whoa, whoa, Derek. Yeah, I didn't know you were a prepper, man.
SPEAKER_12You sure you didn't like look at him and think this guy's a prepper.
SPEAKER_10No, I'm just trying to I I think he kind of comes off as a prepper, but uh it's a lot of canned guns for what's the gun for? Derek. I I I can them all myself and obviously obviously that makes a lot of sense considering what what just happened.
SPEAKER_05You'd be surprised how often things like that have happened to me.
SPEAKER_12Unfortunately Derek fell down a big hole.
SPEAKER_04Just I think uh bad happening to Derek.
SPEAKER_10I think we're tripping too much on the new Neo Goblodia stuff, it's gotta be all fucked up.
SPEAKER_04I smoked a lot of that spark weed of us in the past 24 hours, and I'm starting to think it may have had some effect on my five senses.
SPEAKER_10Yeah, and I definitely have just a normal concussion, maybe CTE.
SPEAKER_04You were totally gonna we were pretty close to that one explosion when I threw that thing and then you tried to catch it.
SPEAKER_02I I think it's really important to point out that before yesterday, no guns. Today, I feel like everybody's packing, and I don't know if everybody just wants to be part of the club. I think we should have a club. I think we could call it the uh clubia rifle association, the NRA. And I like that. Thank you. Um, I have been working on that for a while, actually. But I don't know. I just I just thought it should be in the room, thought we should talk about it while Derek is just completely blank-faced over there. Like, I don't know, he's going to he's clearly yeah.
SPEAKER_10I uh I'm down for the right Neo Goblonia Rifle Association. The only thing is, and maybe uh Blair, do you have a gun? Because I don't have a gun, and but I want to be part of this club. So uh I'll tell you the truth.
SPEAKER_04I don't I don't have a gun, but what I do have is I I I found this thing a while back. Uh it's it's I think it's like a sword, but uh it really it came with the bag I have. You pull out the sword, but then you can't actually take it out of the bag, it just kind of keeps going. It's just more sword the more you pull out, and it just gets heavier and heavier. So, like, I I don't know how good it is really for defense, but it's kind of neat.
SPEAKER_02Where did you find that? Oh, backstage. Dude, that thing sounds like a hassle.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it is a hassle, but if you keep it in the bag, you really can't feel the weight. Now, when you start taking it out of the bag, heavier and heavier every time you pull it out. I haven't found the end yet. You know, me and the roommates, we've spent some serious time trying to find the end of that thing.
SPEAKER_10You know, I thought that was a plumbing snake the last time you brought that out. I didn't realize that was a sword. I've never seen this. I th I think you guys are making this up.
SPEAKER_04No, no. It's just upstairs. Let me give me a moment.
SPEAKER_10It's weird because you'd think like uh you could just hold it by the hilt and whip it around and it would get longer because of like sidriffical force. You're exactly right. I don't remember if it did that or not.
SPEAKER_04Well, I've never really tried to use it as a sword before. Uh mostly for like plumbing stuff and you know, opening packages. But uh you know, we could always try. I've never really been in a situation where you know it's time for me to start swinging a sword around. You know, swords are kind of gauche anyway.
SPEAKER_05Not like uh Derek snaps back to attention suddenly. Uh he said he says, sorry about that. I I I I lost myself but for moments. Um and uh true enough, you know, you look at Derek and it does seem as though uh some image of him perhaps has sort of left. Uh as though the the events of the prior day have uh have taken something from him, some some image, visage maybe of how he held himself.
SPEAKER_10Well that's what you get for smoking during breakfast, bid.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, no worries about it. I will have you know, first off, that I I have not had anything today, and second off, what if I didn't get off?
SPEAKER_10I'm just concerned for everyone's safety, that's all.
SPEAKER_05Believe me, I am too. I am more concerned, I think, than I have been in a while. I I have to know, did did did Droyer mention anything about this place? I mean, how could he have possibly found us?
SPEAKER_02Uh he just gave us the address.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Not even directions.
SPEAKER_02Dude, he didn't give us any description, actually. Like now that I think about it, it's actually crazy how little inf like we we made multiple stops along the way.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. We we needed lunch.
SPEAKER_10Yeah. And we tried to hire someone else to do this. Yep. We went to the clean club. Clean club was done.
SPEAKER_05That was bad. Yeah, that place always gave me, like, even whenever they were building it. Uh, did you know it used to be an orphanage? The fuck? That's crazy. There's a knock at the door, and uh there uh it looks like there's another intrepid traveler who is uh more or less kind of not paying any mind to the state of the building. Um a a really colorfully dressed uh and and just with a with a look of kind of wisdom in the eyes. Uh a hill dwarf uh steps in, you know, the the door itself, blown off of its head, like the devil's gone on that bad boy, and just the door kind of treakily opens up. And uh yeah, a a a a burly but you know sleek uh svelte uh if you will, uh dwarf is is standing there.
SPEAKER_12If you're he came for the yeah, hello.
SPEAKER_05Yes, you're uh and and for your uh about to say just making sure we have context, uh, this is sort of a uh a a spot for um trouvadours, uh vagrants, if you will, people who roam. Uh this is a place for them to stop where people don't really, you know, have anything other than friendly conversation, a good meal, a bed before you know people move on, like Delrin did after the commotion in the previous uh day. Um Little D swore to go find the people who did what they did to the goblins and also to squeakums, the her tiny mouse, which I'm pretty sure just ceased to exist after she threw it at the mechanical ram.
SPEAKER_12Well then what's the skittering?
SPEAKER_05Well, uh uh actually, yeah, about to say uh you do notice some skittering there. Uh and and and Hollis, forgive me. Are we going to be using the name that uh our character generator generated for you, or do you have another name that you would like to be referred to by?
SPEAKER_07Another name. Um the name is Marmalade.
SPEAKER_05Marmalade. Wonderful. So Marmalade, uh, you do hear a skittering really quickly, and like your ears just kind of perk up at it, and you glance over, and sure enough, there's a half-singed, uh, traumatized little uh it looks like a little door mouse, you know. Not big enough to do much other than uh, you know, try try its best to survive. And it sort of skitters around uh the the the uh on the floor of Neo Gabalonia sort of uh makes its way over towards you uh and just kind of sits there catching its breath.
SPEAKER_12Uh this this mouse has been through it.
SPEAKER_13The peasants here are particularly ugly.
SPEAKER_10I swear, if another another person says something rude about my friend Typhus, I'm gonna freaking lose it. I'm gonna lose it. Hello? Hello I'm Arnold, and these are my friends Blair and Typhus. Who who are you?
SPEAKER_07My name is Mama Lane, and who is this? He's pointing at the mouse.
SPEAKER_04I don't know, it's a fucking rat, I guess.
SPEAKER_10Yeah. I don't know if that was here before or that came in after. Guys, I think that's little D's mouse. Oh.
SPEAKER_12Well, I guess I think Little D's mouse is awfully close to my foot. Where's little D at? Skidaddled.
SPEAKER_10And she left her freaking gross mouse here?
SPEAKER_05I think Derek sort of like without even looking up, just she mentioned something about it having moved on in the night. I I thought she meant that it had died, to be honest with you.
SPEAKER_13Yeah, so no one else is going to take it?
SPEAKER_04I'll take that.
SPEAKER_10Are you gonna eat that?
SPEAKER_07He'll take it?
SPEAKER_04He's gonna eat it. So keep so I would anybody else who's not gonna eat it probably get first dips.
SPEAKER_02I don't even remember if I ate breakfast or not. Don't give that mouse to Arnold. He's a giant cat person.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_12You want this mouse? Big kitty. Yeah, I was gonna eat that. What would you give me for it? Uh uh.
SPEAKER_10I don't know.
SPEAKER_05The mouse isn't even fighting. Like that this mouse has given up on any idea that life will ever be normal again.
SPEAKER_02Guys, this is the MeToo guy. The saddest possible mouse I've ever seen.
SPEAKER_07Like a brands of the mouse. If you do want for it to not go to your friend, then let's do an auction. Who wants this mouse?
SPEAKER_10I want the mouse. What do you want the mouse for? You don't have any right to auction this mouse off for now.
SPEAKER_07Type of school you're good at.
SPEAKER_05Around this time, I would say uh Derek sort of like finishes uh doing up his little rucksack that he has. He glances again at uh the uh long carrying tubes that he has, and then begins to and then makes his way into the room with the goblin sage. Kind of uh you you hear him not shut the door entirely behind him, and you hear some uh little little prep noises of preparation, right? Like like he's doing something in there too.
SPEAKER_02Guys, I think I think Derek's about to abduct the Giver Goblin.
SPEAKER_04No, I think the Giver Goblin and Derek have like sort of a you know, understanding of some sort of a psychic bond, sympatico kind of deal. What? Is that what you guys have been thinking this whole time? Kind of. Yeah, it seemed chill to me.
SPEAKER_02I thought that was like Derek's prisoner.
SPEAKER_04I just think it doesn't really move.
SPEAKER_10Yeah, I thought he said it couldn't move, or it would get all wonked up.
SPEAKER_04Were you just not believing him, and we were believing him? Is that kind of the I don't know.
SPEAKER_02I don't know. To be honest, I I think I need a third opinion here. Uh Marmaline, have you ever been to uh Neo Gabalonia before, this place? Secret room.
SPEAKER_07I think I remember being there, and I think I remember not liking it very much, and I think I remember trying not to remember it and being drunk for the past several days. So would you remind me of where I am and who I am and uh when I am?
SPEAKER_02You're my kind of friend. Holy shit. Wow, what are you on right now? Is it ketamine? What is it? Mushrooms? Come on.
SPEAKER_07You know what? I don't even remember, but I remember it was uh sort of square-shaped, and then I put it on my tongue, and then wow, you're you're really into this stuff.
SPEAKER_02That's great. Yeah, this is gapponia, the building we're in. There's goblins and they're crazy.
SPEAKER_07Oh, that's what they are. Okay, I just thought the population here was just a bit. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And then you happen to work for like the government uh or anything, like any kind of I'm working on it.
SPEAKER_07I'm working on it. So on like on your resume or okay, I had like an ongoing campaign for a little bit, and then there was something of a scandal, and then um now I'm you know it's sort of looked upon differently in in the eyes of the populace. But that's neither here nor there. My my image is going to change after I go and do some noble deeds and and pick up little mouse and and do something noble with it. Somebody needs to see me do something noble with this mouse.
SPEAKER_04Someone former mayor, Marmellon Lady.
SPEAKER_07No, the former mayor, I was so close to winning, and I would have. I would have.
SPEAKER_05I uh flashback to I what I'm imagining here is like a gag where like the names are so close to each other, uh, like on the mayoral ballots that people are like, oh shit, like which one who am I supposed to vote for? There was the the person that was really evil and into all those capitalist things, and then there was also the person who was sort of like this grassroots uh like bulk singer, uh general artist, uh, that people were really kind of going for for a bit. But uh yeah, no, that that you do remember actually uh the Brendan, probably Arnold, uh in Blair. You remember whenever that mayoral candidacy uh happens, uh and that it was not pretty. Uh lots of scandals around that, that's to be sure.
SPEAKER_10I remember that. That was brutal, and it was it's all because of the illiteracy crisis.
SPEAKER_07I think you were because I was illiterate and they didn't want an illiterate man.
SPEAKER_10Oh someone told me that, and that's not what I took away from it. But that that I see that being the scandal, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I thought the illiteracy crisis was more of a city thing, but now I see it was more of a candidate specific issue.
SPEAKER_10Yeah.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, no, a lot of people can't read. I think it's a very common issue.
SPEAKER_10It's common to me, and therefore And you don't think it had nothing to do with the fact that you had a similar name to the other person running for mayor who was bad and evil, and because a lot of people are illiterate, there was a mix-up, and you were supposed to be elected, but didn't get elected. Also, you owe me that mouse. You did you said that during your acid trip that you were gonna give it to me. Yeah, you did say.
SPEAKER_01Oh, okay. Well here it is.
SPEAKER_11I uh I shove it in my mouth as fast as I can.
SPEAKER_12Yep, you get it.
SPEAKER_06Wait.
SPEAKER_05Uh the door the door to the goblin sages room opens again, and uh Derek emerges amidst uh the a flood of all of the goblins um with what appears to be what appears to be like a covered palankin um that is completely blacked out. Uh for uh the the people uh listening or watching who are more visual uh interpreters, uh it's a birdcage with like a uh one of the big cloths over it so it can't have light in uh that's been fashioned into uh an attachment to a rucksack. So it kind of rests, it'll uh as Derek kind of like gets the rest of his uh materials together, he has what is essentially like a hiking rucksack um that he has like managed to smush everything down enough to where basically from his shoulders up he is carrying this cage on top of the rucksack. He has uh a sort of um harness that helps to spread out the weight, but uh without a doubt, uh uh a pretty good burden even for uh such a small creature.
SPEAKER_12Goblin cage. Yeah. Yeah, I don't think there's a burden there. I told you, abduction. Okay, you know.
SPEAKER_07And what do the constituents think about this? Is this good good thing, bad thing?
SPEAKER_04Not your constituent didn't win. Um that is not very nice. You know, yeah, you know what? I I've had a tough new days. I apologize. That was on me. That was on me.
SPEAKER_07If I get another mouse, the next mouse, I will give to you.
SPEAKER_12Don't want one.
SPEAKER_07My campaign promise everyone gets a mouse.
SPEAKER_10That's probably not the best platform to run on. Yeah, there's only so many people that are looking for mouses, I feel like. The tabaxi vote, though. Yeah, you'll get you'll get the tabaxi vote. We love mouses. I don't know how that'd go for the mouse vote. Get mouse vote.
SPEAKER_13I'm starting to think that politics are very difficult.
SPEAKER_02If you want to talk to politics, talk to Derek. He's abducting the Goblin King right now, or whoever the hell that guy is.
SPEAKER_12He also had a lot of poetry books as well versus.
SPEAKER_07I'm gonna go chase after Derek.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_05Uh Derek is finishing up the last couple of attachment points. He does a couple of like little small uh like cross-slashings just to make sure that everything's secure and that like uh you know, a large majority of the weight is being distributed, you know, to where uh it's as comfortable as possible for Derek, as comfortable as possible for uh the goblin sage. Um and yeah, marmalade, you you walk over to him. Derek is about uh just over six foot, uh, not by a terrible ton. Uh looks like somebody who used to be in like terribly good shape, uh, but in the time after that has enjoyed himself uh in his life uh a little bit more than he did um, perhaps in what some might consider his prime. Uh but he has uh just incredibly clear eyes as a result of his spark leaf habit, um, which as we all know when you smoke it, uh removes any trace of uh any bloodshot, like irritation, swelling in and around the eyes. Uh and he is just uh, you know, he sort of glances up at you as you approach, you know, a small smile. Uh and uh well I'm uh I'm I'm awfully sorry to say that uh now might not be uh a phenomenal time to stay here. Or well, uh damn, I I don't even know anymore. Maybe now's the best time.
SPEAKER_12How did you how did you come across this place?
SPEAKER_13I walked mostly.
SPEAKER_07Now, I hear that you were taking this uh goblin sage somewhere. Um is this some sort of power play or uh to a safer location perhaps? Maybe after this devastation in Goblonia?
SPEAKER_05I after this devastation in Goblonia, I'm not really sure if anywhere safe anymore, but I am the defender of Goblonia, so I do as I must to protect it, and and right now that's uh right now that's finding somewhere for this guy to go.
SPEAKER_13Where would be safer for him to go?
SPEAKER_05Have any of y'all and Derek sort of includes everybody, uh not like what because the the goblin sage and his pack are basically done now, and the last sort of things to clear up are you know needing to be cleared up now. How much do y'all know about the lands outside of the city? Uh not not just where the suburbs suburbs fell into hell, but everything surrounding here.
SPEAKER_10They're still there. We know that.
SPEAKER_14I think obviously I think as a as a kid, I went over to the mountains once.
SPEAKER_05Yes, and uh and and were you with anybody who was able to explain how those mountains got there?
SPEAKER_02I was with Virgil, and you know, it's it's funny because he was yapping a lot, and I don't I'll be honest, at the time I was not listening. I really I was you know, and I I'm kind of uh I do have ADHD, so you know, no.
SPEAKER_12He he sort of like, you know, glances at Arnold do you know anything? My cousins live in the suburbs or we used to.
SPEAKER_10And I gotta be honest, Derek, I've had at least two head injuries this week, and there's no way that's good for me. But I do remember at least one to three of my cousins maybe being in the suburbs, and their house was okay, but they had a better backyard than our apartment, which had no backyard. No backyard, no backyard, not even a balcony.
SPEAKER_05Uh and uh Derek sort of smiles and he says, I I I think you'd be hard pressed to find anybody who really, you know, takes the time, unless they're enthusiasts, uh people who outlanders who who enjoy the the comforts of what's the places outside of the city can provide, as paltry as they may be.
SPEAKER_12The great crushing, I assumed, then rings the bell. I was never a big school guy.
SPEAKER_05And you're uh among company, uh at least uh in terms of the people I see in Gabonia, uh Neo Gablonia up until this point. The Great Crushing occurred whenever two of the moons uh fell on opposite ends of uh this place that we call the city, uh destroying and upheaving the land in seismic waves, stopping just outside of the city borders, just enough to make everything a barren sc uh uh wasteland, except for the city itself. And as of course you've been able to notice, the endemic life suffered greatly because of it, but the city, being ever free, I suppose, with its wonders, replaced most of them as best they could with their clockwork facsimiles. And all of this to say I'm going out onto the great fields of the crushing. Would you like to come with?
SPEAKER_01Oh hell yeah. Go to the place where the balls were crushed? Yes.
SPEAKER_10I'm dad to move to the suburbs. I don't know about the ball crushing stuff, but ball crushing stuff.
SPEAKER_04They were already crushed. You've got nothing to worry about, it's already been preordained.
SPEAKER_10Well, I've already been to the VET ones this year. Basic history, we just learned about it. So it clearly it's some sort of well-kept secret that they don't tell us in school to the people that are having a hard time listening to it.
SPEAKER_05Uh Arnold, will you do me a favor and roll a history check for me?
SPEAKER_09I will. Let me move my pizza out of the way. Roll straight on the pizza every episode. Wow.
SPEAKER_12That's okay.
SPEAKER_05That is fine. You actually those words escape your mouth of like this was obviously a like well-kept secret that we weren't taught in schools. And then you stop for a moment and like you really start to think about your curriculum, and it's like, no, you were told it like once in third grade, but it was like more about how great the city is and was, and less about like literally everything that died in the process of the crushing.
SPEAKER_04I don't know. It went suburbs of the hell, here's how cool the city is, suburbs of the hell again, ball crushing, Texas history.
SPEAKER_12Some might argue that Texas history was there the whole time, but Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Uh regardless though, Derek uh hoists up his pack on his shoulder and and you know, sort of looks at marmalade, looks at Blair, and are y'all are y'all are coming too, or is this where we part ways?
SPEAKER_04Uh you know, I think we can might as well. What else am I gonna do? Go back to my apartment, they're just gonna arrest me, then throw me in jail for a night, and then send me out again, and I'm caught in this fucking loop all over.
SPEAKER_07Sounds like there are people that my music can can touch.
SPEAKER_05Uh and uh Derek sort of like nods, um, and he is going to uh sort of part the the blinds, the the cloth blind on this uh the cage, and he just like for a moment just kind of like peers into it and then sort of like nods and uh uh like sort of lifts up one side of uh the cloth and the goblin sage is revealed to this ancient goblin whose scales have all fallen off, revealing its uh its sort of soft leathery uh skin underneath those scales, and with the one that is uh still remaining on his forehead, suddenly a quick red pulse emits from it before it returns back to its usual steady glow of this strange root bear flavored, kind of indescribable, other than literally what it tastes like light. Um and but as soon as that red pulse goes out, all of the goblins in the room, uh just like before, the same uh where that scale is on the forehead pulses as well. Uh a lot, and almost all of the goblins immediately leave, running, sprinting full speed out the door. The only one that remains is the one that was bonded with Blair. He like the the goblin sort of like edges a little bit closer to you. Uh is still keeping a respectable distance, though, but uh is not willing to leave with the rest of the goblins, as uh it seems as though the goblin sage uh in some way I guess recommended.
SPEAKER_12Blair, did you goblin?
SPEAKER_02Did I what the what? Did you name that goblin? If you named it, we have to keep it, and really we don't have the economy for one more person.
SPEAKER_10We could barely afford our own lunch the other day. We can't afford a pill.
SPEAKER_02Blair, did you name it? It its name is Blair Jr. Oh my god.
SPEAKER_04I just think he seems nice, he seems nifty. He seems nifty, doesn't he? Come on, guys.
SPEAKER_01Olvis huge eyes. I can see the resemblance.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_05We both need what we have. It does occur to you too that uh Marmalade uh uh mentions music. Uh you very well might have another bard here, finally.
SPEAKER_06It's true.
SPEAKER_05Uh Arnold, same thing with you. You've been around enough uh like you know musically inclined people.
SPEAKER_12Uh you pick up on it too. Forgot what instrument I play come on, come on.
SPEAKER_04You know, you it's because of the headed rate. You know, you always doing that one, you know, that thing with the you know, it's got the you hit it and then it makes that sound.
SPEAKER_10Come on, we know that one block. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_05I remember that's like a tata tatami sticks, you know. Uh yeah, uh Derek hoists up the backpack after that. He sort of looks at the goblin who stayed, Blair Jr. Um, you know, sort of recognizes the the choice that that goblin made and continues on. Walks right out in the front of new Neo Goblonia.
SPEAKER_14I'm gonna sigh and just walk after Derek.
SPEAKER_04I'll uh I'm gonna lean down in front of Blair Jr. with my my now singed hoodie and be like, are you small enough? Can you like fit in the hood if I'm not wearing it? Can you just hang out back there?
SPEAKER_05Like you get a little bit close to it, and then the moment that like uh you come within like you know the distance where you could like reach out and touch uh you know the the the goblin immediately is not about it.
SPEAKER_04Cool. Hey. We can keep it casual. There's no need to commit to anything yet. Just uh follow along, we'll make sure we keep the other gobbles an ice idea, D.
SPEAKER_13And
SPEAKER_05Sort of the goblin uh glances at the door where Derek has has now left.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, come on, let's go, you and me.
SPEAKER_05And the goblin sort of looks around at Neo Goblonia, you know, looks at uh Arnold, looks at Marmalade, looks at Typhus, and finally settles back on you, Blair. And the the consciousness every now and then that rubs up uh against yours, uh for the first time you feel something that you haven't felt, I feel like, in a in a good little bit. And and maybe even feeling it from this goblin uh kind of makes you feel it too, and that's being homesick. Uh even before this goblin has left, the thought of being without its home evokes the feeling.
SPEAKER_12I know, buddy.
SPEAKER_04I know, but home's where you make it. It's where your your your friends are, where your your chosen family is. I had to leave Codsington, come here, and now you can leave Neo Gablonia, and we can find our new home. Little little guy.
SPEAKER_05And then the goblin, you know, uh waits for the rest of the party to finally finish filtering out, and everybody comes under a bright uh early afternoon sun, late morning, early afternoon, hot as balls outside, and Derek sort of, you know, glances around, uh then sets himself eastward towards the closest boundary of the city, uh, in the opposite direction from, I believe, the way y'all went to get to the suburbs.
SPEAKER_12Uh, and he starts to walk. Well could think about my walking shoes, eh?
SPEAKER_14Yep. All right. I'm following Derek. Looking forward to getting you my steps in today.
SPEAKER_04Hey, you guys also you guys all saw that like vision of him yesterday where he was like a pillar of of white light, seemingly like just this titan of pure strength. You guys saw that too, right?
SPEAKER_10Are we talking about Derek? Are we talking about uh the leather headbag look at goblin?
SPEAKER_04No, we're talking about D-Rack, my man.
SPEAKER_10Oh, I think so.
SPEAKER_04Again, I didn't trust him after that. He seems pretty strong. And like I'm not, so you know, I'll just listen to what he's do what he's doing.
SPEAKER_10I I feel you. He seems a little uh and I'm not trying to come off one way or the other, but uh uh a hushed tone a little bit. He seems kinda uh deranged, maybe, or maybe like enlightened to the point beyond a normal person's comprehension.
SPEAKER_02Dude, I think he got fucked up by all those goblins dying yesterday. And I'm gonna say it a little louder. I mean like he did I think that all those deaths messed him up a little bit, actually. What what do you think, Mama? You think all those goblin deaths really really messed up our friend Derek?
SPEAKER_07Yeah, I think that if I saw a bunch of goblins like die, especially if I was like the protector, then like maybe I would hover something deep inside of me that would sort of break in contact with that sort of trauma.
SPEAKER_10Are you guys saying like there's some sort of crushing guilt that's uh making him mentally snap? Already more so than he was before?
SPEAKER_04You know, I'd say that's a pretty pretty fair guess. It just feels like he's gonna mentally snap in a way that means he might cut in half one of our enemies. So I mean, not that we really have like enemies, you know, but like he's gonna cut somebody in half that probably isn't us.
SPEAKER_10Dude, yeah, and his gun. I hear you guys loud and clear. I think I'm gonna steal his gun. I think that's just the best way to go about this.
SPEAKER_06Hold on, hold on.
SPEAKER_05Let me I need to make I need to roll something real quick. Okay, let's not let's not get carried away here. Okay. Uh if Derek if Derek hears at all, uh it doesn't register because uh at that exact moment, um Derek uh uh let's say Arnold, uh you hear something that like uh instantaneously the chitters start to start in the back of your head. It's another clock, uh a clockwork bird somewhere.
SPEAKER_08Can I roll up perception check?
SPEAKER_12Yeah, please.
SPEAKER_09Move the pizza again. There's plenty of plenty of room here. Plenty of room here. Yeah. Oh, that's a little bit better. Uh 16 for the perception check.
SPEAKER_05Uh yeah, you uh you spot it you know pretty easily in the distance. Uh not just one, it looks like there are three that are uh making their way not to where you are, it's worth noting, but still to Neo Goblonia. And it looks like at least one of these has the same burning uh sort of uh radiance that uh Typhus, the one that you took the uh the incendiary charge from.
SPEAKER_11Now, I feel like we might have covered this last episode, but to clarify, is Neo Goblonia a place or a people?
SPEAKER_10Like is it heading to the building that was destroyed?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, so so uh goblonia is a conceptual place, uh a place in theory, if you will. Um New Goblonia is alluded to have been a place at some point, but Neo Goblonia was the name of that building in particular. Gotcha. Yes. There uh I I would say that there is a reason for it, but uh it is it would be it would be so incomprehensible as to to might as well not have one.
SPEAKER_12Fair enough. Fair enough. You guys see that?
SPEAKER_05Uh after a little bit of you know looking and peering, even Derek stops. Uh same thing. About there are three flying uh clockwork birds uh heading in the direction of Neo Gabonia. It looks like uh just the assault that happened there yesterday uh was not enough.
SPEAKER_10They're gonna turn it into a crater and freaking decimate it.
SPEAKER_04Do you think we can say we did our job then? Or you know, do you think they were expecting us to die in the explosions or whatever? So if they hear from us, they'll be quite crossed.
SPEAKER_02I think both can be true. I think the second we slept there and ate breakfast, that's when the firebombing started. So I I think our job is failed as far as evictions go. And uh let's get the hell out of here. Like, uh, you know, let's go to the ball crushing place. That place sounds fucking awesome. We gotta stop calling it the ball crushing place.
SPEAKER_10I know the ball is crushed there, but I I get nervous every time.
SPEAKER_02There's nothing to be scared of.
SPEAKER_04We're up against a lawyer here. I think we argue like a lawyer.
SPEAKER_02We got the mayor.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02She says it's fine to go to the ball crushing place. And to be honest, I I've been looking for strong leadership in this entire plane. I'm so happy to have somebody who who just, you know, is so in touch with the people. Um, you you lost that election, right?
SPEAKER_07Yeah, I love, I mean, but I do love touching people, and it's it's why I would make such a great man.
SPEAKER_10Are you sure that wasn't the scandal at all?
SPEAKER_07What saying that was uh what I told everyone is that I would love to touch all of my my voters.
SPEAKER_08Arnold shoots a look over at Blair to see if anything registering over there.
SPEAKER_02Guys, I don't hear anything wrong with this at all. Why don't we just keep it in first place?
SPEAKER_04I think we need someone in charge. Why not? Yes, all right.
SPEAKER_07Wait till my ex-wife hears about this.
SPEAKER_04That's two votes for that means you've won this election.
SPEAKER_07Yes.
SPEAKER_05The uh the we love democracy. I love uh the Emperor Palpatine meme. I love democracy. Y'all know that one.
SPEAKER_03Uh I love democracy.
SPEAKER_05Y'all uh travel for about three hours or so, uh, sparse conversations here and there. Um uh I feel like Marmalade, uh, you're the type of mayoral candidate that likes to not get to know uh the constituents, but get to know fun things about the constituents. So um at some point in time during this little three-hour trek to the outskirts of the city, uh you ask uh for three fun things from each of the party members. Um and and then and then also because uh a mayor is nothing if not fair, you know, a mayor lives in the place that they are the mayor of. Uh in many ways, the mayor is the constituent. That's you know, and you touch yourself so you can touch them. Like it all just kind of it makes sense, right?
SPEAKER_07It's all a big circle jerk.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah. So uh you're you're why don't you lead us off? What what are three fun facts that marmalade would tell about themselves?
SPEAKER_13Well my wife took my name in the the divorce.
SPEAKER_04So that was the first thing, and now I had to be stuck with the name Marmalade Oh, so like, oh okay, I see.
SPEAKER_07Second thing, I was a part-time circus animal.
SPEAKER_13Third thing.
SPEAKER_12I don't care for Weezer. Like at all. Just kind of never, never really jived with me.
SPEAKER_07You were a circus animal? Between campaigns, between specifically my high school campaign and then the mayor one. Uh they need they needed like like the lion was like out on sick, and I could also play the harmonica, so it's like I was doing two jobs at once, and you know.
SPEAKER_05Uh Derek kind of glanced over and is like, What were you paid for both of those jobs while you were doing them?
SPEAKER_07Oh, they promised exposure, and boy, was I exposed to a lot of people.
SPEAKER_05Uh, ain't that the damn way? Uh and and and telling their their fun facts.
SPEAKER_07Uh why don't the rest of you share so I can get to know you a bit better? Why don't we start with with uh the poor looking one?
SPEAKER_10Oh my god. Okay, damn it.
SPEAKER_07I mean it positively.
SPEAKER_02Fine, I'll go. Fine. I I know who I know who we were all talking about. I know who everyone thought. Um yeah, number one, I've never lived in a I've never I've never paid rent in a place, so whenever I stayed there, I think the legal term is squatting. So judge. And two, um, I'm I don't have any licenses. And I do things that require licenses all the time. You would not believe how many crimes I commit a day just because I would I don't have a damn license. And to be honest, whatever. And three, I am shellfish. So I know we had talks about going out to that really nice sushi restaurant. I can't eat a third of the things on the menu. I can still go. It's just it's less fun for me.
SPEAKER_07So when I'm mayor, we're gonna get rid of any licenses. It's not gonna be a problem anymore.
SPEAKER_02Oh yeah, you have to not take care of. I've never voted once. So if you've ever lost an election by one point, could have had this guy.
SPEAKER_12We'll change that.
SPEAKER_07Mr. Mr. Uh Arnold, the kitty cat. Is that offensive to say I don't, I don't yes, it is.
SPEAKER_04I have I have a bad campaign.
SPEAKER_07Wow.
SPEAKER_10I I gotta be honest. Marvel Lane, you told us a lot of different stuff about your backstory, but you in the past 35, 40 seconds, you've elaborated to me exactly how your campaign fell apart.
unknownThat's okay.
SPEAKER_10That's okay. You've got a new platform you're gonna stand on, and I'm looking forward to it. Um don't call me a kitty cat. I'm a grown, I understand. I understand cat features. Let's not get weird about it. I ain't that mouse, still alive in there. Yeah, he's kind of squirming. Uh doesn't want to be in there, I bet. No, it just seems kind of uncomfortable. But anyways. Oh, three fun facts about myself. Uh let's see. I'm uh my I was third best at Mortal Kombat in the apartment.
SPEAKER_13Out of how many people?
SPEAKER_12Five.
SPEAKER_13Middle of the road.
SPEAKER_10That's a bronze. It was not really tight race. It was tough. And I uh was I only played Scorpion. Anyways, that's my first fun fact. My second fun fact, I uh used to be a professional thief hired by uh Don Cappuccino uh stole his wife's PS5.
SPEAKER_12And then third fun fact, I think Weezer's okay.
SPEAKER_07You think sorry did you say Don Cappuccino?
SPEAKER_10Yeah, the the mafia uh the coffee mafia boss, Don Cappuccino?
SPEAKER_07The same one that circulated those photos of me at the circus.
SPEAKER_10I believe so, yeah.
SPEAKER_05Uh actually, Arnold, again, now that you think about it, no, you were definitely a part of that. You helped you helped do that.
SPEAKER_10I I I I remember something about a circus and being paid. And I remember telling Don Cappuccino, I said, Don, I'm not that good of a photographer. And he said, it doesn't matter. Arnold, just take the picture anyways. Doesn't matter if the picture's good or not.
SPEAKER_12Hmm. You know what? You know what? I have a fun part of the body.
SPEAKER_07So I'm going to forgive this. I'm you when I'm there, you get a full pardon. Full pardon. And you do not tell people that I've said anything, any sort of microaggressions, cat-related, tobax-related.
SPEAKER_10That is a bribe I will willingly accept. Was it like starting now?
SPEAKER_13Starting now. So then that would leave our friend Mr.
SPEAKER_07Blair and your Blair Jr. Is there anything from that I might learn from you, especially as a father?
SPEAKER_04Um, I got uh I got I got second place in the Mortal Kombat Tournament in the apartment. Kung Lao. Uh let's see, I'm in a codependent relationship with O Yuan Ti, who I haven't seen in several days, and it is having a terrible effect on me. And um, let's see. Um oh, that's right, I'm uh Cod Swallow.
SPEAKER_12Uh, beautiful of Codsington.
SPEAKER_13Cod swallow?
SPEAKER_12Yeah, usually that gets a bigger pop.
SPEAKER_04Never mind. Um let's see. Uh working on a play? Or five? Once I got a lot of fun facts. You just tell me when to stop. Um one time I put on a show and we accidentally killed like foo. Let's just say most of the audience, and that's not like metaphorical. That was that was a bad accident.
SPEAKER_02The greatest history of the city. Yeah, typhus? Yeah, it's the single largest death toll of any live theater performance in the history of the city. I know that.
SPEAKER_07Well, the second largest was that circus performance where the lion got sick, ended up eating a young kid with uh typhoid fever.
SPEAKER_12Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04So you're in a steam company, yeah. I've got a sword I can pull out of my bag, uh, but it doesn't come out of the bag, it just keeps pulling it. It's like a fucked-up magician's trick.
SPEAKER_13Well, let's see.
SPEAKER_04It came with the bag. Well, hold on. I'll just kind of shoulder off my backpack, rummage around in there to find a sword hilt. I pull it out. I mean it's easy.
SPEAKER_05I would like to I would like for you to name that magical artifact the sword of unnecessary length. Uh or but what about like uh indeterminable length? Can I can we just do long sword, but it's two words? Yes, perfect. I love that.
SPEAKER_08Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, that's brilliant.
SPEAKER_05Amazing. Uh and is that something you're attuned to, Blair, or is that just something you have?
SPEAKER_04Oh, it's just kinda I just kind of have it. I don't really know what this is. It was like I said, it was just in the bag when I took it from home. Well, but like home home, not the apartment, but like home, like Codsington.
SPEAKER_07This is uh an artifact of your homeland in Codsington.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Something I don't know. I'm not familiar with it. I just kind of know it's handied for opening boxes and letters and other things that need opening.
SPEAKER_13Epic.
SPEAKER_04Should I go for seven?
SPEAKER_07How do I win your vote? Is what I'm wondering.
SPEAKER_04Oh good question, yes. Uh control. Really, that's my big thing.
SPEAKER_07Uh no, it's very difficult. I've I've run a campaign on this, and a lot of people get very upset with you. If uh like a lot of very powerful people like get really mad.
SPEAKER_04I got a lot of roommates, man, and I got a goblin to care for now.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, and I got alimony payments, and and uh that's what you know. I'm I'm looking for a new place.
SPEAKER_02Well, I got a question for you, Marmalade. Why are you running for mayor?
SPEAKER_13I want to change things. I want to make well it all started when well, okay.
SPEAKER_07We only have a certain amount of time, I'm sure. But at the end of the day, you know, it seems like only a few very powerful people get to make all of the rules, and sometimes those people are my ex-wife and my high school bullies. And I think that sometimes maybe the little guy should uh have a more equitable situation, maybe.
SPEAKER_04I get what you're saying. I saw inside the Clean Club the other day, and I was suddenly filled with the murderous rage.
SPEAKER_10Yeah, Barbelaine. Uh I know you uh have some experience in politics and and you dabble in music. Have you ever done like contract killing, say, on like a particular public figure?
SPEAKER_07Have I ever done contract killing on a particular public figure?
SPEAKER_12Uh and would you? Pro bono? Pro bono?
SPEAKER_13Not one of the kids. Right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, pro bono. We're gonna ask you to kill Bono. Uh, I think it's Mr. Groyer. Oh, it's Mr. Groyer, I'm pretty sure. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04It's Mr. Groyer. We would just do a little joke.
SPEAKER_10Yeah, we're gonna I very funny.
SPEAKER_07Very funny. I would never do a political assassination. Is he in office?
SPEAKER_04No, I think he's just like a lawyer.
SPEAKER_05But like um You know, I think I think involved is a great word actually to describe Mr. Groyer's general role in the city thing. Because, like, you know, just how public can a figure really be? You know what I mean? What happens whenever somebody's the most public figure? Well, that's Mr. Groyer, right? That's he's basically the public at that point.
SPEAKER_07I've certainly gotten some letters uh regarding my rent control sort of aspirations. I couldn't read them, of course, but I imagined that. They were very threatening given the the sort of like bits of like ear and like you know kind of blood bits and you know the gross things that were also in the letters. So you could I think that there I was being threatened, maybe. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Uh it's around this point in time that uh you know Derek has been not necessarily making a beeline, you know, like generally trying to keep to back roads. Uh you guys see a lot of the sort of as the city goes to its outskirts, uh tumbling kind of like you know, uh boulders rolling off of a mountain. There are smaller little places, small like almost uh communities in their own regards, uh compounds, family compounds. Uh on the north side of the city, actually, uh Blair is where your family is from. Um in sort of one of those uh it's more like uh Vinland up there. Uh the cod swallows, of course, have their wonderful cod wine. Uh you love to swallow it, being the tagline for it. Um and uh, you know, so you're you you're you there's a sense of familiarity as you sort of look around these smaller sort of homesteads that people have made. Uh but uh at all times, anytime that there's a sign of an enforcer, a camera in sight that's like hosting a CCC TV, somebody on their data slab, Derek, you know, tries to give a little bit wider of a berth without being completely looking completely out of place. But eventually he gets to where uh it's sort of a sheer drop-off on this side of the city that leads out onto the Great Plains of the Crushing. And uh on the other side, where when y'all were heading out to the suburbs, it was a lot of like sort of tracky, jagged mesa. Uh on this side, it is uh basically completely flat. Uh not quite glassy, uh, but this is quite actually earth that has been scorched to the point of complete evenness as far as the eye can see. Uh and y'all sort of have a vantage point to look over this, extending in almost every direction that you can see, as Derek kind of um uh uh knocks on a door to what just appears to be a small shack, uh, and then knocks one more time. Uh and the door sort of shrieks open uh and Derek stops and turns around for a moment and says, uh, excuse me, uh, Arnold. Did you mention a Don Cappuccino earlier?
SPEAKER_10Uh begrudgingly, yes. It seems like it made the walk kind of awkward.
SPEAKER_05Uh but yeah. Well, uh, at least I won't have to introduce you. And Derek kind of like walks in, uh sort of being sure to duck down to make sure that the cage that is holding the uh goblin sage uh makes it in with plenty of uh sort of headroom, you know, not to so as not to panic the sage. Uh and sort of heads inside and uh Blair, you and Blair Jr.
SPEAKER_12kind of share a look. Uh yeah, I'm just ready to hand it over.
SPEAKER_02Amazing, yeah, yeah, I got it.
SPEAKER_08That's how you hold it when you're ready to hand it over.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's either that or this. So you come and grab it.
SPEAKER_05Uh I um yeah, uh leading in. This is a uh uh a shack that turns out is actually kind of connected via a sort of hastily constructed privacy kind of like hedge situation uh that lets you through into the much larger building uh that is behind it, um, which on the inside, uh milling about here and there, sure enough, Arnold, this looks exactly like Don Cappuccino's base of operations the last time that you ran for him. Uh looks like he picked up and moved uh basically everything. Including that really weird statue of the owl bear that always kind of gave you the jeeves. Uh it's like a bad taxidermy almost, but it's like rigid, like they tried to cast it into stone and it didn't quite capture everything right.
SPEAKER_10God.
SPEAKER_12Bad art.
SPEAKER_10Yeah, that's that's that is just straight up a mistake. I don't know why he leaves that up. That's hard to look at. Yo, Arnold, what's I like? Don Cappuccino is uh he's kind of scary, but he's actually a super chill guy. He's uh he's really nice and friendly. Um unless you like owe a buddy or you robbed him or something like that, but he's like he's kind of like like a little, he's like a gentle giant. He's like he's got a very sweet, sweet soul.
SPEAKER_02So he's an all-around great guy, unless one of us has like bad history with him.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_02That sounds perfect.
SPEAKER_04That sounds fine. I haven't done anything to him, Arnold. Do you owe him money?
SPEAKER_02I don't think so.
SPEAKER_04Well, it seems like we'll be fine then.
SPEAKER_14It sounds like another one.
SPEAKER_04That's everybody.
SPEAKER_10I mean, Marmalade, you your mayoral campaign was already ruined by the the photography.
SPEAKER_07So you know what else maybe that one vote would have changed everything.
SPEAKER_02Dude, Arnold, I'm pretty sure you ruined Marmalade's life. Like, I'm pretty sure the whole city would have been better off if you had never taken that time.
SPEAKER_07My wife would have stayed if she had never seen those pictures.
SPEAKER_04What were you doing at the circuit?
SPEAKER_07I told you I was getting a lot of exposure. I was not allowed to wear clothes.
SPEAKER_02Marmalade was naked in front of a bunch of people and it cost them the mayoral election. I think it could not be any clearer to me and everyone watching. Is nasty, is what it is.
SPEAKER_07I was just trying to do a service.
SPEAKER_10If it makes you feel any better, it catapulted my photography career for a little while. I did a lot of boudoir shoots. Is that what they're called?
SPEAKER_04That is what they're called.
SPEAKER_10Good job, but freelance a little.
SPEAKER_12Uh little.
SPEAKER_07Like if I said something, like you'd be like, yeah, Marble Aid, that what you did was wrong to him.
SPEAKER_12Um what kind of cowards? I'm also a coward.
SPEAKER_04Tavis has a gun, you know, anything can happen.
SPEAKER_02It's true, it's true. I've shot it for much less.
SPEAKER_05Uh the y'all have y'all make it to a little antechamber uh where uh y'all are motioned to just sort of hang out for a second while Derek goes a little bit further in. Um there is a uh uh rather burly looking dragonborn just kind of like leaning casually against the door that Derek sort of very carefully, you know, knocks, waits a uh respectable amount of time, and then sort of gently pushes it open. Uh he brings the uh full backpack with the Goblin Sage in as well behind him. And this dragonborn guard is just like looking at Typhus, like not like staring, not like really upset necessarily, but like just staring at just at Typhus with his gun in the air.
SPEAKER_14Oh, I'm sorry, but here you go.
SPEAKER_12He like looks at it and then is like no, thank you. You you keep that.
SPEAKER_02Uh you want my you don't want this?
SPEAKER_12So did you like build that yourself?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and actually, you know, when it's really cool, because actually the coolest part of it is actually that I actually put my initials in the inside of uh anyway, yeah. I it's a whole summer. I have a whole bunch of them actually, if you'd like to see more.
SPEAKER_12And is that and he sort of like leans in a little bit? That's that's like water pipe that you've that you have there for the the the the barrel. Yes, that's correct.
SPEAKER_05And is that that's just gorilla glue, I think, that's that's leaking out off the side there.
SPEAKER_02That is correct. The best part is the hammer is the it's the activator for a toaster. So when I fire, it goes.
SPEAKER_05Uh and the again, the dragonborn just like you can't tell if he's in awe or in disbelief. It but to certain degrees, they basically accomplish the same thing. Uh around that time, Derek comes back out into the lobby, or into this little ante-room rather that y'all are in. Uh, he sort of takes a breath in, he gathers himself, and he looks at everybody and says, if any of you have any identification on you, unfortunately, I am going to need to see it. Uh Don, the Don requires it to know who he's about to talk to, and uh, well, chances are we're not gonna need these identities much anymore. Uh at least not governmentally speaking.
SPEAKER_02You genuinely would not believe it, but the only place my name is written down is in the barrel of this gun. So you have to tell me the barrel of my gun.
unknownI'm so sorry.
SPEAKER_05Uh we're gonna we're gonna skip on on that specific part. Uh we'll I'll let him know that you are already off the grid. Okay.
SPEAKER_04I don't uh I didn't bring a fucking water bill, man. My bad.
SPEAKER_10Yeah, I left my wallet at home. I think my socials are on my phone, but Tucker, you know me. Right? Come on, right? You remember me? Arnold, man.
SPEAKER_05And then the the dragonborn is uh kind of glances over and is like, what happened to you, Arnold?
SPEAKER_10I kind of went home.
SPEAKER_05How have you fallen so far?
SPEAKER_10I really thought my uh you know thief career would pay as well as the boudoir shoots, so I kind of stopped taking jobs and I just did the shoots, but I realized I was really only good that one time. We don't need to talk about what had happened, and I ultimately uh yeah, kind of lost a lot of money, one bad heist. I think I stole this really important artifact, or I didn't steal it, and then I sold it to my cousin, and then I got like three brain injuries and lost half of my roommates. That's mostly it.
SPEAKER_12This is why you do not run from your family, Arnold.
SPEAKER_05Your uncle waits inside and uh sort of beckons into the room as Derek kind of you know shuffles back in. Uh, kind of has his hand out and is like, Really? Not none of y'all have any?
SPEAKER_07I mean, I I suppose that makes it easier, but but none of you have any, and then I have one image you may recognize, and he's gonna hold up the the image.
SPEAKER_05Uh just just for uh behind a heavy, heavy brass cast desk, uh an old tabaxi missing an ear and uh being bald on whiskers on one side of his face. Uh this is Cappuccino, uh, of course, known by his alias. Um let's see, what what's a good uh fingerless we'll call him? Uh this is Cappuccino uh Arnold.
SPEAKER_11What is your last name? Do you does your do you do you does your family do last names? My last name is McAfee.
SPEAKER_05McAfee. So this is Cappuccino McAfee, the dawn of uh the Thieves Guild in the city. Uh and hanging on the wall behind him in the biggest, most fuck off way possible is a gilded uh television which is displaying on it a rotating carousel of every picture that Arnold took of Marmalade, uh, every angle, even the ones that didn't go to publication. Um and uh Cappuccino, uh Don Cappuccino is sitting back in his chair and just with the the worst kind of do something about it look on his face as he sort of surveys over the party.
SPEAKER_02They're so tasteful.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I don't know. That one is really nice. I'd have kept it in the back.
SPEAKER_07I do agree that they're they're well taken and I've used a few for for headshots, but uh, why do you have this? You just look at this all day? It's not enough that you've ruined my career. You that you enjoy them?
SPEAKER_05No, Marmalade. It is not enough that I ruined your career. No, Marmalade, I wanted to see the look in your eyes when you were confronted with the power that I have always held over you. And thank you, of course, to my nephew for being ever the great photographer.
SPEAKER_10I just I love being artistic. You know what they say.
SPEAKER_07Yes, yes. I uh my life was uh in jambles, and I'm did I do something personally to you to to upset you? Did I not cover something in in uh some of my campaign promises? Did you not like when I went like from acoustic to electric when during my music career?
SPEAKER_05Like what is it that have you spent I I just want to know for my own personal joy, have you spent much time considering exactly why I would go through with something like this? Did it keep you up at night? Did you wonder if that's the reason your wife left? Uh something along those lines, uh how the city would be different, a better place if you didn't win. Uh all because of of what?
SPEAKER_12So there must be some meaning. Am I right there? Sound familiar? I mean it couldn't it uh it this isn't a proposition.
SPEAKER_07Right? This isn't a proposition.
SPEAKER_05So to answer your questions, uh since they will bring me such joy to answer, your wife left because I was sleeping with her. Two, uh, no, the city would not have changed if you had won, even by that slim margin. Uh, and three, I did it because I I just think you're really funny, and it was really funny to do that to you. That that's that's the honest to goodness truth there.
SPEAKER_04Oh shit.
SPEAKER_10Yeah, that's yeah, my uncle can take jokes kind of far sometimes, but you gotta laugh out of it, right?
SPEAKER_05What is it you always told me? Uh commit to the bit, right? Isn't that what you always told me? You gotta commit to the bitch.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Whoa, you gotta commit to my bitch. Oh my god.
SPEAKER_05Uh and tell me, uh, to all of you, from what I gather here, uh uh and just how committed are y'all right now in in terms of the law? Committed to uh crimes, committed to uh failed relationships, uh what how has it come that you are here on my doorstep following what might have been one of the greatest enforcers on the uh the the uh af in the aftermath of the crushing with the great commander Derek Stormfight walking into my doors after all these years.
SPEAKER_12How have you come to me? Oh, he asked.
SPEAKER_10We were just kind of following him.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, to be honest, we're actually we're actually pretty bad on follow-through. We were here on a different job, and it has to be said, Derek's past his prime. I don't know what's gotten in him over last day, but he saw a bunch of uh goblins die. So to be honest.
SPEAKER_05I covered Blair Jr. the years. Uh every time, typhus after around the second time that you've said it, uh Derek's eye twitches ever so like just barely perceptibly. Uh, but he makes no other indication that he's in any way responding to what you're saying. Oh, perfect. Uh yeah, just how you like it. Um the Don Cappuccino eyes uh you know sort of scans to the party uh and says, I hope you'll know what you're in for whenever you go out onto those great scoured planes. Uh death uh primarily, I think, is is usually uh what the cost is. Um but uh on the plus side, at least you're not in the city when you die, so uh funerals handled in in many ways.
SPEAKER_02Well, Mr. Don, what's waiting for us out in those planes?
SPEAKER_12Something something nice?
SPEAKER_10Did did you look it's all glass, it's all smooth, it's completely flat. It's ruined. Ah, yes.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, scoured the plains gone. What used to be their landscape, sea, mountain, grass, animals, people gone. Just like that. Two moons fallen out of orbit. No one really knows why anymore. Seems as though more than just the terrain was obliterated in it, but the city remains. And I remain here with the city. So I'm always curious whenever people want to leave it to wander forever and then die of exposure.
SPEAKER_12I suppose that's all.
SPEAKER_13You know what? Not everyone dies of exposure.
SPEAKER_07Sometimes you get exposed and you come back stronger.
SPEAKER_05Amen. Amen. Uh I think on that note, uh, I'm going to have that line be the button to take a quick five-minute break. Um, and we will return at uh age thirty-five for more of the final rules chaos.
SPEAKER_12Hi everybody. We are mostly back, but uh back enough to continue.
SPEAKER_05Um Don Cappuccino uh sort of looks through uh what he has available and just produces a handful of like pretty easy, like we'll get past 95% of people looking at just for general identification. Um it seems as though he has uh quite a bit of them, uh a rather large collection going for various uh uh ancestries, for various like jobs. Um each of you sort of just uh takes a peek uh at your like your documents. Uh you have um a uh an occupation listed uh for each and every one of you, as well as an alias. Um uh uh Arnold, what is your alias and uh what occupation uh is that alias working under?
SPEAKER_08The the occupation is professional freelance photographer, boudoir only.
SPEAKER_12Um it is under the alias uh loves Mick Cafe.
SPEAKER_05Amazing uh and is this uh is this an identity that you've used before while you've been working with uh yeah, okay, gotcha. Uh and Blair, what is your alias and what is the alias' occupation?
SPEAKER_12This is just my brother. Oh yeah?
SPEAKER_04This is just my brother.
SPEAKER_05This is my brother's ID. And what's your brother's uh occupation, just out of curiosity?
SPEAKER_04This is this is Flair Clock Codsualo. He's a he's a winemaker, he's a brewer. Amazing.
SPEAKER_05Uh a brewer. Uh that's phenomenal. Uh typhus, what is your alias and uh what is their occupation?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it says Pat Humongous, and uh he's a diplomat. Specializes in arbitration.
SPEAKER_05Amazing. Diplomatic in arbitration, huh? Yes. Uh and marmalade, uh, what is yours?
SPEAKER_07You've just handed me back the same photo, and then on the back wrote cuck.
SPEAKER_05Well, to be fair, I don't think that's uh anybody would be missing out on your identity, even if uh even if I did give you a fake one. Uh unfortunately, your mugs uh I guess some might say that. Yes, I I I find myself constantly wishing your life was awful. And why it is. So uh yes. Uh and then uh, you know, outlines a quick thing, which is like mostly these new identities and aliases are going to be to get you past uh any of the guards who might be like sort of patrolling on the outer edges of a city. Uh a city ordinances say, like, you aren't allowed to go out onto like the scoured planes just because of how dangerous they are, obviously. So most of the time the people uh who are the guards just like are generally checking if they if you don't have ID, usually they'll just uh you know call you know something that can identify you if you're like a vagrant or whatever, you get tossed in jail. The hell usual thing, right? Um y'all y'all make it to the uh the edge here, and and sure enough, there's a little uh a little checkpoint, you know. Uh handful of enforcers, let's say like maybe 15 to 20 of them spaced uh sporadically on sort of the border. Um a couple of them sort of nudge each other as the party walks up, and uh a uh a uh Azimar uh sort of glances over um and with eyes that are the color of a starless sky, sort of looks over everyone and just with a voice uh like a clear note being struck on an absolutely perfect timpany, just please, may I have your documents? As you know, not everyone is allowed out onto the plains if they do not understand the danger.
SPEAKER_12And uh sort of gly collects them all from everyone and uh sort of goes through.
SPEAKER_05Um so for each uh and distributes them uh sort of among the guards that are there. Uh the guards are going to just sort of look over all of them. Um and the Asimar uh glances at Typhus.
SPEAKER_12Uh uh and are you Mr. Humongous?
SPEAKER_14Yes, I am.
SPEAKER_05Uh and would you like to tell me what someone in your role will be doing out on the Stouard Plains?
SPEAKER_02Um Yeah, basically I uh if like I don't know, if two uh groups of adventurers or party people um get into a discussion or an alternation, as we call it, then actually what will happen is I'll step in and I will cease. So that's primarily what I would do if I were so exactly.
SPEAKER_05And then uh the Asmar sort of looks back over the papers that you gave and says, ah yes, arbitration. Ah yes. Uh and I will I'm going to have you make a uh uh let's give you a I don't know what whatever you would like. Uh any any uh thing that would make sense uh in the general charisma category for trying to deceive this Asimar. Uh and I will the their save is going to be with disadvantage.
SPEAKER_02With disadvantage. Alright. So alright.
SPEAKER_07Can I can I give uh typhus a big pat on the back and say, you've got this, and give him Bardic inspiration?
SPEAKER_05Yes, absolutely. Uh that's going to be an extra D4, I believe. Alright, yeah.
SPEAKER_12Uh maybe d6 for a bard. Let me double check that. Level two inspiration. D6, pardon. Okay.
SPEAKER_02So that's a natural four for the lower one. Uh actual two, because I have a minus two to charisma. Plus one. So that's a three.
SPEAKER_05Uh uh the Azimar just sort of like looks at you and then just hands the papers back uh and is going to move on to uh Blair. Uh and sort of uh, you know, gathers the document back. The the enforcer that the Asmar gets in from sort of nods at them, and the Azimar glances through and says, Oh, a member of the Cod Swallows. I find myself rather enjoying partaking of your delightful wares.
SPEAKER_04Yes, that's one of ours, of course. That was one of mine, surely the one you just said, obviously.
SPEAKER_05Oh, oh uh what was it really, Mr. Ah Ah yes, you are flair. I love how how how do you always describe the flavor of your wines? They're so they're so swallowable. Uh yes, tolerable, yes, absolutely swallowable. I love Yes, swallowable, yes. I'm sorry, I I get so overwhelmed whenever I think of the great things that you have provided. And your family.
SPEAKER_12It happens, it happens. Uh I I couldn't help I'm a huge fan of the vineyards and your brewery. Uh whatever happened to the youngest, may I ask?
SPEAKER_04Um I'm afraid we we haven't heard from him in quite some time. Oh!
SPEAKER_12Why is that? He said he wanted to be poor. Well why didn't you stop him? Why didn't anybody in your family uh convince him to stay?
SPEAKER_03Oh we had a sword, you know, it was it was it was like um it was a whole thing. He had a sword, and it was he was he was in one of those moods.
SPEAKER_05And nobody said anything. You uh I thought that you were so close to your younger brother. You didn't you didn't say anything to stop him? You you didn't want him to stay home and take over the family business like he always thought was his destiny.
SPEAKER_12No, I was just I was just like, hey, come on, champ. That really didn't that really didn't take. Oh. That's very sad.
SPEAKER_04That was the biggest emotional outburst in the cardswell of family like annals, so you know, just like some context there.
SPEAKER_05Uh and same thing. Uh I think that you can you can make whatever charisma roll you want, uh, and then the azimar is gonna be rolling with disadvantage as well. Alright, alright.
SPEAKER_12We're just gonna make a nice simple performance check here. Which of course is a 17. Amazing, perfect.
SPEAKER_05Uh and uh uh and Arnold, yeah, you know, same sort of thing. You get the up and down, uh and then also at the same time the Asimar's eyes sort of slide from you to uh Marmalade, and instantly all of the enforcers start laughing, like that was the oldest there. Do you remember the pictures? Yeah, the one from behind, I went like and again, just like really just uh tearing in, and uh Asmar sort of like wiping a tear uh from their obsidian eye, just like uh sort of glances back down and says, Oh, oh, uh uh, and you you must be uh Marmalade's personal photographer now. Um tell me, do you have any any more uh uh uh great pictures you can share of uh of marmalade's exposure?
SPEAKER_10Uh no, not entirely. That's why we're heading out to the uh to the plains. We're gonna get some uh ri the real glossy finish of the uh glassy plains. We're gonna do some tasteful things, stuff pushed up against the the ground. So nothing yet, but perhaps catch us on the way back.
SPEAKER_04I'll be grabbing the stuff that we were pushing up against on the ground, and I'll be taking it and I'll be putting it in my pocket, and I'll put it in a barrel later, and then the barrel will become drinkable.
SPEAKER_13Yes, that will all happen.
SPEAKER_05That's the unit.
SPEAKER_12And I'll be there.
SPEAKER_05Uh and the Asamar like is handing as uh handing back like the the papers, uh an enforcer runs up and produces um a uh a physical copy. It looks like a trading card, actually, Marmalade, of of your least favorite out of that entire uh like set that uh Don Cappuccino ordered against you. Uh and and is oh my god, oh my god, I never thought that I would have this opportunity. I thought that you had uh you know done the whole um didn't want to be around anymore thing. I would have. I would have been so embarrassed. Would you mind signing this for me, actually?
SPEAKER_07Just as so I can prove to people that you this one isn't even in focus, first of all. Second of all, okay. And turning to Arnold, when you took these, you gotta get the ISO correct, or else it just it like all of my taint is like just completely overshadowed.
SPEAKER_10That's gotta be a collector's edition. That's definitely I was testing the shutter speed, had to be uh out of focus.
SPEAKER_07Let me ask you this. Uh does this uh photograph, does this paint the picture of uh someone that you would trust to make decisions about the way that you live your life?
SPEAKER_05Uh uh look, I just I just really wanted a signature. It's not that big of a deal.
SPEAKER_07I mean, I don't think anyone would really believe me anyway, but I this I can I can you promise me if uh you ever saw me on a ballot, perhaps, that uh you might check that little box that says marmalade, and maybe it can become sort of a policy of mine that I can get better produced images.
SPEAKER_05See, uh uh I didn't the first time, and uh so I feel like it would just be a little awkward if you know it's really fine. I I really shouldn't have bothered you. Like it it's a little bit rude, I guess. But um, I'm just gonna tell everybody that you did off yourself, and and everyone will be happy. So I'm sorry about that. And then the officer's gonna like sort of scamper off.
SPEAKER_13No, wait, wait.
SPEAKER_05And then the officer like very hesitantly like looks over his shoulder.
SPEAKER_13Come here.
SPEAKER_05Who am I making it out to? Look, look, uh, and he's like, uh just why don't you just write something like I'm still here?
SPEAKER_07Uh and he hands back complete gibberish because he doesn't know how to read.
SPEAKER_05You know, I didn't really want this anymore, anyway. And then turns to the Asmar, just why don't you let him on through? And the Asmar like looks back and says, Please know that there is nothing out there, no resources for you to subsist on. Only flat, endless eternity awaits. May you find what you're looking for and return. And if not, oh well.
SPEAKER_12And the guards all sort of just like motion out and sp out onto the planes. The first thing that strikes you all is the sound of walking on these planes.
SPEAKER_05Uh every step uh it it it's not an echo because there's nothing to bounce off of. It's more like uh a hopping of sound across uh this great plane, like like as if every step was a pebble that was kicked into a canyon, almost immediately lost to sight, sound, and existence. And after what appears to be from everyone's accounting, about two hours worth of walking, you turn and it looks like you haven't moved nearly at all.
SPEAKER_12I hate this. I don't think we've moved at all.
SPEAKER_04I don't I don't I'm not supposed to walk this much. I'm supposed to sit down a lot. It's better to turn around, it's better to keep going.
SPEAKER_02I think it's better to keep going. I think we gotta keep, you know, get dead ahead. That's what I said.
SPEAKER_05Derek. Uh yeah, Derek is just sort of soldiering on. It looks like he's almost sort of entered uh into uh like a like a meditation uh like the the way that like the reason you march in rhythm is so that you can march for a really long time because you're focusing on the rhythm and not on the fact that you're walking, you know. Uh and Derek is sort of like in back in that mindset. He is just trekking out amongst the planes. Uh he stops on occasion whenever he notices people lagging, but otherwise, once everyone is rested up and sparse water uh you know is sort of taken from everybody, and Derek just continues forward.
SPEAKER_10Uh yeah, I'd have to do that in the morning though.
SPEAKER_02Oh, okay. If you want me to tinker, it's gotta happen at the in the a.m. I'm done tinkering once 10 o'clock rolls around. 10 a.m. That's not long. That's not long at all. Don't stick to my schedule. I'm not gonna tinker for anyone. I'm I'm tired of tinkering, honestly. Virgil made me tinker all the damn time. Uh oh, make an alarm clock, make a make free pool floaties. I I have I have needs, I have wants.
SPEAKER_10Was Virgil making you do that stuff, or was he challenging you to do that stuff?
SPEAKER_02Challenge making? Who knows? Who I you know what? I don't have to. I'm a diplomat. I don't have to take I don't have to take this.
SPEAKER_07What rank did you get in the mortal combat competition?
SPEAKER_02Oh, very funny. I did not live with them. I was unhoused my entire life. I do not know these.
SPEAKER_04No, no, he's not one of our roommates. The rest of the roommates, sorry.
SPEAKER_02I've got access to mortal combat. I've mortally combated many people. I got tons of access. All right.
SPEAKER_12So what?
SPEAKER_02If you're all pointing fingers, what's up with the spreading that you were doing on in like half of those photos? Who are you spreading for? What the hell is going on with that? And you know what, Arnold? We're taking you to the doctor as soon as we're as soon as we get back. You've definitely got brain damage. I asked you about Don Cappuccino and what he was like. You didn't mention he was your uncle. We all found out as we were walking in.
SPEAKER_04It's true.
SPEAKER_10I feel like the thing that I bit down on yesterday made me forget a lot about who I am. Which is weird that I remember specifically all of the photography stuff because it's vivid and like muscle memory almost. The Mortal Kombat stuff, too, for sure. Yeah. Well, it's hard to forget the accolade.
SPEAKER_05There's also the fact that you have the biggest family, I think, known to Tobacco. Like litters upon litters upon litters with not no runs, like everyone made it. So like you have a you have a big family. It kind of is easy to escape your mind.
SPEAKER_10It's hard to keep track. There's a lot of cousins.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_07Isn't there a Mrs. Cappuccino?
SPEAKER_10It stole his P store PS5. I thought it was your wife. It was my aunt, and I stole her PS5. But I feel like they might have got a divorce after you started sleeping with your wife? Ex-wife? I don't know.
SPEAKER_07But do we situation is anymore? I'm just sort of curious. I'm just trying to get a lay of the land.
SPEAKER_10I feel like my uncle might be more interested in you than your than your ex-wife at this point. Didn't seem to like my pictures quite a bit enough to have a little rotary of them. Well, I'll play devil's advocate. Those pictures I took were beautiful and tasteful, and that is about the closest thing to, you know, masterpieces as uh the photography media could allow, I think. I can't argue with that.
SPEAKER_12We'll have to get those photos on the way back.
SPEAKER_05Maybe the uh the sun uh eventually sort of uh begins to cast long scarlet fingers across uh the uh scoured planes as they stretch out in front of you, reflecting off of uh the immaculately smooth surface in ways that not even uh the the purest of reflecting surfaces that you've ever seen could. Uh it it almost in moments appears as though there are two suns simultaneously setting into each other on the horizon. Um and as the last bits of light uh sort of stop, uh I really it it's almost beautiful because the way that the sun's setting on the horizon and the way that the sun is sort of creeping across the plains to meet each other, there's a moment where it just appears as though there's one sun halfway above the horizon and halfway embedded into the horizon as a sheer reflection, one-to-one. Uh, and it's around that time that Derek sort of stops everybody and uh, you know, for the first time, unhooks the goblin sage from the top of his rucksack, sets it down, and begins to lay out a rudimentary camp. Uh, and uh he he begins to hump. While he does. And for uh something in the way that he's moving uh sort of belies an internal struggle right now. This is something that he has done before, but uh it's almost as if his hands hesitate every time that he goes to do uh a familiar uh, you know, like as he goes to like fold up, uh fold out his tent or like unroll his sleeping bag, something happens like in the moment right before he chooses to do something where it almost feels like he has to make an extra decision that yes, this is what he is doing again, and yes, it is probably going to suck more than the last time that it happened because that one sucked more than the time before, and maybe even the time before that. Uh, but Derek eventually gets the fire lit. Uh, everyone in your various bedrolls, tents, uh you know, he does his best, sets up a decent enough meal, and everyone is sitting around the fire by the time that the stars begin to emerge.
SPEAKER_07Eric, I never asked you for a fun fact.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, you know, I was uh I was actually thinking about it while y'all were talking, uh trying to decide what my fun fact would be.
SPEAKER_12I would say my fun fact is I've seen a dragon. Bullshit. Those aren't real. No, no, no. I swear to you, I've seen one. It's uh not the kind of thing a man forgets.
SPEAKER_13Like those pictures. Are you sure you didn't take anything? You saw this completely sober?
SPEAKER_05Perhaps in many ways the most sober I've ever been. But that is my fun fact. Uh asked for and answered to the best of my ability.
SPEAKER_12Uh and no, I've never seen that dragon again. And yes, I have wondered if it was real.
SPEAKER_14Yeah. Imagine that.
SPEAKER_07Imagine Imagine dragons?
SPEAKER_09Oh.
SPEAKER_05Oh, come on.
SPEAKER_04Uh do you want to like elaborate on that at all?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, oh, oh yeah. I um long story short, a bunch of people had died that day, and um uh as I sat uh wondering what the reason for life was in the in the first place, uh amidst all this pain and suffering, and for what? Uh I looked out uh above the smoldering remains of of the people that I called my uh my mates, and um well, unfortunately, there in the distance I saw what appeared to be a dragon, but damned this thing.
SPEAKER_12I swear that dragon was orange.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, again, I uh I have wondered whether or not it was real, but you gotta trust what you experience after a certain point, I guess.
SPEAKER_12I suppose.
SPEAKER_02Guys, uh and I might be wrong here. Was Mr. Fucking Grier orange?
SPEAKER_04Oh, for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But like, you know. There's like orange guys, you look for him, you see.
SPEAKER_02Sometimes people are orange.
SPEAKER_04Sometimes people are orange.
SPEAKER_02We saw him, was he orange? Like, I don't remember.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah, he was orange.
SPEAKER_02Oh my god. Okay, I'm just I don't know. I that I can make napalm too. I learned how to make napalm. I'm just throwing that out there too.
SPEAKER_05Um That's nice.
SPEAKER_07You're throwing out napalm?
SPEAKER_05Derek sort of like nods, uh completely uh choosing choosing to ignore as he has up to this point, Typhus talking about the explosives that he makes. Uh the Derek actually, though, uh is is is considering, I think, Typhus, what you've said, where he says, Hmm, well, if there ever was a man I would believe to be a dragon, it would be Mr.
SPEAKER_12Groyer, that greedy, selfish holy shit.
SPEAKER_02Sitting on a mountain of the ball.
SPEAKER_12I'd say nothing more than I've already said on the battery.
SPEAKER_04We kind of think he's the devil.
SPEAKER_10Yeah.
SPEAKER_04That's what we're workshopping over here.
SPEAKER_10I guess dragon, devil, it's they're similar, you know. Well, that's uh let's just look at the Blair here.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, you know, I've got horns. Am I a dragon or a devil? No.
SPEAKER_10No, I'm because you're sweet and you're not a bad guy.
SPEAKER_04No, come on.
SPEAKER_10No, I mean that, Blair.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, Blair, come on.
SPEAKER_02You got the long sword out of any of us.
SPEAKER_04You know, I really don't know what that thing is.
SPEAKER_02Dude, yeah, you gotta you gotta take that into an expert. That's not normal.
SPEAKER_04No, I don't think it is. It seems maybe like something I should have cared about more, kind of in hindsight.
SPEAKER_02Somebody's definitely fixing that in your hometown. We should definitely pick it up when we go back there.
SPEAKER_10Also, what's the cod's wine made out of? Don't what is what's in the grapes?
SPEAKER_04What do you mean?
SPEAKER_02You say that, but there's a lot of pictures on those bottles that don't make a lot of sense. There's a lot of other body parts on those bottles, and I'm just saying.
SPEAKER_10I was worried it was like fish wide. That's what I was I was worried it was gonna be, which is I say, I forget that I have my tabaxi taste buds, and that does sound kind of nice, but out loud it sounds kind of yucky cod wide.
SPEAKER_04Look. Like almost all of them are made from grapes, some of it's made from like rice, some of it, some of it's made from potato. Um it's mostly like normal stuff, except for like this limited run special ones that that they do. But I look, I don't want to talk about my family business.
SPEAKER_10That's fair.
SPEAKER_04Why does the bottle look like guernica? It's just all body parts. It's sensual, it's profound. I don't want to explain my family's fucking brand book to you right now, man.
SPEAKER_07If you had swallowed it, you'd you'd have already gotten it.
SPEAKER_04It's swallowable. Whatever the hell they say. It's good to swallow. It's fucking it's there was the fish one like one time. I think they brought it back for the 10-year anniversary. So it's like two times.
SPEAKER_10I think I remember that one.
SPEAKER_12There was the liver wine. It's horrible. There was the rock wine, it was just I don't want to Shit Crocus.
SPEAKER_02What are we gonna eat out here? There's like nothing. That's a good question.
SPEAKER_05He's doing that. The mouse actually Arnold, you're probably the least hungry out of everyone leading into uh sort of supper, but Derek did provide provide uh a sort of basic like chicken stock vegetable stew.
SPEAKER_12Soup, if you will.
SPEAKER_05Uh uh and and Blair Blair Jr., you know, is sort of beginning to sort of he you you lose sight of him for a moment as you're you know chatting around the campfire uh with your party. Um and uh you know catch sight of Blair Jr. uh sort of having uh created a small nest in uh the in uh Derek's sleeping uh role next to where the goblin sage currently is sitting uncovered since it is rather dark outside and uh you know the the goblins like to know what time it is to varying degrees. Mostly the the shade cloth is just there to keep it from making uh any unfortunate goblin noises.
SPEAKER_12You gonna you gonna you gonna tuck in over there, Blair Jr.?
SPEAKER_04That's okay. We we both gotta protect this guy, huh? Good job, good job. You have a little chin scratchy. You want a chin scratchy?
SPEAKER_05And for the first time, Blair Jr. lets you, it's just a moment, but you touch one of the scales on Blair Jr.'s like the the cheek, and then from there a ripple extends across all of the other scales, and the goblin goes a deep, deep, melancholy blue.
SPEAKER_12Uh and it's it! Swallow and it looks at you, stares deep into your eyes. Clare swallows you're missing a syllable in there, but you're getting really close, buddy. And uh the goblin looks at you and looks back to the sage and says, Flare! Why? Why why what by what, Blair Jr.?
SPEAKER_05Why? And again, sort of glances around at the stars as they reflect off of the planes of the uh the the scoured planes across their surface, again, making almost even the the very surface that y'all are sitting at a single fire amidst an infinity of stars above and below. And the goblin looks out and looks back at you, Blair, and sort of locks on and why I I don't know.
SPEAKER_12I don't know right now, but I think we might find out. I think we might find out soon.
SPEAKER_05And then the the goblin sort of you know nests a bit further down and begins to hum along to uh the tune that that uh Derek has been humming on and off. Uh just sort of settling in. Um and splair, you make your way back to the campfire where everyone still is uh at this point, uh Arnold, I think that the the conversation has come up about other work uh that you've done. Um do you have like a portfolio of any kind?
SPEAKER_11It would be online.
SPEAKER_08Um and it it would be quite short because I think after the marmalade shoot, there might have been two or three other times where he tried it professionally and it didn't pan out.
SPEAKER_05So he never quite captured the same magic kind of thing.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, it just was it wasn't the same. There, I think it was the fact that he like he deep down he thinks it's probably because the person knew they were being photographed and there was some sort of weird kinky voyeurism about the first shoot.
SPEAKER_05No, no, no, we we you it's an ephemerality. There was an ephemerality to the first shoot. There was it was the fact that uh it was candid, right?
SPEAKER_08Right. Uh but it would it would be it would be online, but uh but but but not uh extensive.
SPEAKER_05Sure. Do you have your data slab on you? I yeah, I do. Uh Blair, you you have yours, right? You took it from Neo Gabalonia. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I brought it with me. Uh Typhus, do you have a data slab?
SPEAKER_02I uh never got one.
SPEAKER_05Gotcha. And what about you, Marmalade? Data slabs, of course, being this uh sort of the analog to modern-day cell phones, right? That way that you can access information at almost any time and communicate with others.
SPEAKER_07Yes, I I have it, and uh he is constantly refreshing his ex-wife's Facebook page.
SPEAKER_05Amazing. So the actually, because of the way that these slabs work, uh what you are uh you're actually experiencing something similar to Blair when the last time that he looked at it, which is uh the data slab taps into your psyche to show you the thing, like the image, the information that you design want the most at that moment. So you're just staring, like you pull out your uh Arnold's like pulls out his and is sort of like you know, uh conjuring up the images and like a showing it to people. Uh you, however, every time that you look at your and every time that you look at Arnold's, you see the original image, but it always changes into an image of your ex-wife.
SPEAKER_07But then it changes to uh uh Don Cappuccino.
SPEAKER_05With your wife, yes. Um at that point the mainframe is is edging, unfortunately, a little bit too close to home there. Uh and actually, uh now that you look at it, it's it's moving again from Don Cappuccino to uh well shit, that looks like Mr. Groyer. And uh Arnold, the suddenly the subject of your last photo shoot, uh, what was supposed to be the your favorite one of it, suddenly morphs into an image of Mr. Groyer. Blair, sure as shit. You pull out your phone just to check, and his orange orcish face, you know, looms large in the stream.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, new promo, new show. It's like his fourth one on the air or something.
SPEAKER_10Up at the air with Gruyer, late night talk show. What the fuck is this?
SPEAKER_12I see you. This feels like a more targeted ad than usual.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_05Uh suddenly the Mr. Groyer, his image settles as uh uh a figure in the midst of a dark abyss in the portals, uh, and every time he goes to speak uh it it it it sounds as though it's coming from inside your own head. I see you, and I know that you did not do what I asked you to do.
SPEAKER_12Ah oh these days you just cannot find good work, I tell ya.
SPEAKER_05Uh Derek has at this point um stopped and is uh going over to examine the goblin sage. Something has drawn him away um in in regards to the goblins over there. Uh and but everyone, y'all are engrossed in the image of Mr. Groyer, uh, in a way demanding attention in a way that never quite got you with the data slabs. I mean, Blair, you talked about before how you never really got much from it, you never really used it, and now suddenly you're enraptured. Uh you two, Marmalade. Typhus looking over uh sort of at Arnold's as well. Mr. Groyer, you have no doubt in your mind, is speaking to each and every one of you. I hope you don't mind me exercising my legal rights in order to uh obtain the permission to be making a broadcast like this, and and I'm making sure that uh you three and uh sorry, uh you four, I suppose, are are witness to something that I don't get to show everyone because we are very close to something great today. And you three and maybe even those others that you called friends and compatriots before, and even you, uh almost Mayor Marmalade, are about to see something you will never forget.
SPEAKER_12I see you.
SPEAKER_05And then for a moment uh Mr Groyer's image seems to fade for uh just just mere uh just mere moments phase into what appears to be some live image of of Sylvia and and Virgil and uh and and Michael and some uh a shorter uh dwarf that you don't recognize, and they are in a strange place where all of the angles seem a little bit too perfect, and and they are being gloomed over by a large demon in a well too pressed suit as he extends a dark orb towards the dwarf. Mr. Groyer's voice comes back in. I want to show you what I've been working on in my spare time. Uh not just me, but my compatriots too.
SPEAKER_12Uh and I just I'll let you see.
SPEAKER_05And the dark orb suddenly seeps into the dwarf, and without something as petty as a command word, the dwarf is dominated and gone. Whatever, whoever that person was in front of Sylvia's eyes, to an aghast Virgil, to an incredulous Michael, ceases to be. And Mr. Groyer suddenly scrubs that video that fade back, and you see it again, the exact moment where that orb touches the dwarf's chest, and you can see the soul being destroyed, and there's no other way to describe it. You just watched someone, their very being get annihilated.
SPEAKER_12And Sylvia, with tears beginning to form, just looks up at the devil, and then it plays again.
SPEAKER_05The dark orb touching this time, each and every one of you almost feels what McClavin felt when he ceased to be, and then again, and then again, and then again, and then again, and you realize that Mr. Groyer has trapped each of you into this existence where looking around anymore is even impossible. Your eyes are locked in, you are locked into your slabs, and you hardly notice as they begin to lift out of your hands. You are too enraptured in seeing Sylvia suddenly face down what it would mean to not believe that there's a soul. You see that get destroyed in front of her eyes as the dwarf is destroyed. Typhus, you see Virgil, who always seemed to walk with his own beat, suddenly dead, stone silent. And Arnold, you see Michael, who has saved you more times than you can count, and you realize that he is suddenly so, so very far away, and so very beyond help. And Marmalade, the weights of what you're seeing, and the fact that you just can't look away, it almost doesn't matter that you don't know who any of these people are.
SPEAKER_12They are in real danger, and this is something far beyond any of you.
SPEAKER_05The data slabs begin to lift from your palms and an unseen tether tying them back into something as a force, the same one that holds you all so much in its thrall begins to pull all of the screens together. Derek, uh, somewhere as an afterthought, your your consciousness, your experience still pulling in the stimuli from the real world. You realize that Derek is yelling something. Derek is is trying to shake you. Derek is is looking up at the data slabs and looking around at the barren plains and muttering something that almost sounds like a whisper. This isn't right. This this was supposed to be safe. How did he how did any of him? And then suddenly every Everyone snaps back to Derek shaking typhus, everyone else staring dumbfounded at these screens as they sort of begin to circle against the dark sky, really only being noticeable as small rectangles that blot out the stars in a repeating circular motion. Derek is very quickly trying to pull everyone together. He is smothering the fire with the remnants of his water. He is covering the goblin sage back up, but keeps seeming to peer back in there. And every single time he does, his face becomes more and more pallid until he s suddenly looks around, almost apparently in a frenzy and just Brayner!
SPEAKER_09Brainer, come down here right now.
SPEAKER_12Don't dare do this to me without even making an effort to show your face to me.
SPEAKER_05And there is no response, just the endless twirling of these data slabs in the sky, as Derek frantically looks around, trying hard, fingers fumbling at clasps and zippers, muttering reassurances to himself and to Blair Jr. that things are going to be okay. And those data slabs continue to spin until Mr. Groyer's voice comes in one more time. I want to show y'all something.
SPEAKER_12Something that ain't none of you are gonna forget. Feel free to come back into the city anytime.
SPEAKER_05It's not like there's anything you could ever have done in the first place. And all of the data slabs converge into one solid, inky, black, almost reflective surface pulsing with a strange, embitter, arcane energy. A portal to an entire plane that is made up of information, a dimension that is just information, somehow connected by these strange tethers to each of these data slabs. As eyes look upon them, it never occurred to anyone, well, maybe some, but eyes were staring back, looking now at all of these data slabs as they converge. You feel as though you are being in the truest sense of the word beheld.
SPEAKER_12The information plane through this arcane lens beholds you.
SPEAKER_05Derek bellows a challenge to the sky and giving up on the backpack, giving up on his bedroll, trying to do anything to cover the fact that y'all are here, he instead undoes his two large canisters and pulls from each of them what appears to be long metal rods, crudely it seems machined at the end. But when Derek grabs both of them and strikes them together, there is a peal of thunder as lightning cracks down, and he again challenges not even in the direction of the combined slabs, not even to Mr. Groyer, but it seems as though a challenge to something. And he uh he roars and it quiets, and he bellows again, striking his spears together again until he is surrounded in a corona of static, his hair beginning to float on all parts of his body, his all too clear eyes suddenly being tinged with bolts of plasma as he summons forth the lightning from the storm.
SPEAKER_12And he states I am Derek Stormfighter, and I am the defender of Goblonia.
SPEAKER_05And then the data slabs move unseen by a hand with no malice, with no empathy, with no consideration for life beyond what it could call it, what it could categorize it as, how it could assort order into the chaos that seemingly is this strange material plane. This invisible force guides the lens it uses, this eye into this material plane, directly into Derek's head, as if his skull was never there. Phase right in, encompassing you, it seems, sort of like how Mr. Bree, uh just outside of the clean club, had his orbital socket partially obscured, but this is an orb of darkness, just like the one that captured McClavin and caused him to cease to be. And as Derek lowers his lances, and as all of his hair falls, that remains, even the wispy bits connected to just the remnants of the crown of his scalp falling listlessly over this dark orb as what appears to be a massive red eye that opens and stares back at each and every one of you.
SPEAKER_12And you hear I see you. I hold you. Yeah. Yeah, I kick him.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, you kick him real good. Like a like a pushing kick, you know? Just like a no fuck that.
SPEAKER_05Uh in fact, uh give me give me an at give me an attack roll. How well do you kick? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let me see, make sure I got my numbers here. Plus two to strength. Okay, Blair. Let's work out.
SPEAKER_05That's a seven. Uh yeah, you kick and like you like Derek, or I guess at this point, who used to be Derek, what used to be Derek, you kick and you solidly meet Shin. Hell, you feel some amount of the bone give, but the body of Derek doesn't move, doesn't acknowledge that anything struck, and uh almost listlessly, uh he just with what remains of his upper lip and his jaw smiles, a cruel and wicked smile. And then everyone receives a vision that all things perfectly order with the bureaucracy of a devil, with a being's insatiable greed almost like a dragon, and with this thing capable of having so many eyes staring at so many people, witnessing the world through these portals.
SPEAKER_12And the thing that stands out most, I think, to any of you is in this vision of perfect order. It's perfectly silent.
SPEAKER_05And there's something about that silence that makes every single bit of each of you rebel and scream against it. And then still holding on to both of the lances, Derek scrolls over to where the goblin sage sits in his cage, and without so much of a thought, plunges the spear in. And a bolt of lightning strikes the cage, and bolts of lightning grip and tear at Derek's flesh as he begins to convulse in spasms of electricity. And even then the grin remains, even as all of the hairs begin to fry across his entire body, and he is left as nothing but irradiated plasma recreating and searing and recreating and cauterizing scar tissue over scar tissue until all that remains of Derek Stormfighter is a dark portal and a wicked grin.
SPEAKER_12Lipless with teeth that are blackened and charred. Derek looks one more time over the party. And you see Mr. Groyer inside of the portal that occupies his skull. And Mr. Groyer laughs.
SPEAKER_08While he's still there, yeah, I Arnold's gonna take a note from Blair and and show some some some disrespect. Can I can I try and jam like uh a rapier or Derek's double barrel shotgun into in into the into the orb and trigger?
SPEAKER_05I would love for you to pull out the double barrel shotgun.
SPEAKER_08I I would also like that.
SPEAKER_05Uh yeah, you because you kept such close tabs on it whenever Derek was moving it around in his bag, and because you it's fully intended on taking it anyway, you uh bring out the double barrel shotgun. It feels pretty well balanced in your hands. It's uh is short but not too short. Uh it has it looks like some a stock that's meant to help absorb recoil, and you can see engraved on the side from what appears to be the pocket knife, perhaps, of some lonely enforcer on a battlefield, the name Stormbringer on the side.
SPEAKER_12Uh scratch that. Thunderbringer.
SPEAKER_05So uh you may add, if you would like, um the Stormbreaker shotgun. It'll have the stats of a heavy crossbow. Um and uh will likely uh have some things maybe in the future. Uh but you level it at the orb and you fire. Will you give me uh please a ranged uh attack with advantage? Because uh Derek is not trying to do anything to stop you in this regard.
SPEAKER_02I I will. Neo Goblonia Rifle Association.
SPEAKER_09Oh, it looked so good, but it's it's it's not it's only gonna be okay. Oh, which advantage? With advantage, what are we doing? That's better.
SPEAKER_12That's an 17.
SPEAKER_05Seventeen, you shoot, and the uh the roar of Thunderbringer erupts into the night, sounding as its namesake would imply, and Derek's head shoots in the opposite direction from the impact, and you hear the vertebrae in his neck snap. And Derek keeps walking.
SPEAKER_12The sickening frunch echoing as much as the thunder created by the shotgun. Greyere laughs still.
SPEAKER_04I've never swung a sword before, but if you hurt Sylvia before our show opens, I swear to god I will smite you.
SPEAKER_03I'm gonna throw my backpack at marmalade and say catch while I reach inside and grab the sword hilt.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Okay, you have the long sword hilt, and what do you do? Marmalade charge!
SPEAKER_04You're just going, we're gonna have it. It's basically just a long line sword between us, and we're just gonna run at him.
SPEAKER_01Alright.
SPEAKER_11Uh yep, you both run.
SPEAKER_05Uh you're both finding him with a sword. Where are you aiming like body-wise, like on the body? Center mass. Center mass, okay. Uh the long sword, uh, just like what happened to uh your cousin uh f Frederico, um, who wanted to come into the family business. Uh uh, just like the accident that happened with him, uh Derek is bisected, but he doesn't topple. And though blood pours from the wound and pools around his feet, and steps of crimson floating in the abyss of the stars beneath him, he keeps walking. And the laugh fades as Derek Stormfighter disappears into the horizon, somewhere close back to the city.
SPEAKER_12And it's quiet on the scouring plains.
SPEAKER_05Uh not like Blair Jr. has seemingly hot hid somewhere amidst the bedrolls of Derek's, the uh the cloak curtain over the goblin sage's cage having fallen now.
SPEAKER_12And speaking for adventurers stuck out here. Not even a fire to keep them warm. Fuck, we should have asked him where we were going. Oh, I didn't even think about that. Guys, I hate to say it, but I'm gonna lock in.
unknownOh?
SPEAKER_14It's time. Uh fuck yeah.
SPEAKER_02I don't think we can fuck, I don't think we can put up with this anymore. I think uh I think it's becoming increasingly clear to me that I don't know if this is the most immediate step, but we gotta plant a bomb in that guy Greer's house and blow him up while he's sleeping.
SPEAKER_10Hell yeah. Hell yeah. We've been talking about it for days now. Yeah like two days. And it's time to it's time to execute on this.
SPEAKER_04He took our he took our spot. I don't even know if he can spy on us anymore.
SPEAKER_07He's a great one that I need on a council as well. And when I get up there, we're gonna bomb every single one of those bastards.
SPEAKER_04Okay, okay, okay. I'm feeling the fire. I'm feeling the fire. Let's check on that goblin stage. Yeah, but he's alright. I think he's I think he's royally dead. Lift up the curtain.
SPEAKER_05Uh you see Yeah, no, not a good sight, but at least a clean kill. Uh uh a mercy, maybe, uh, from the mainframe and the final moments for this Goblin Sage, or perhaps just mere efficiency to rid itself of a threat of some kind. The Goblin Sage lies in a pool of its blood. It's being speared directly right into its heart, dead before it even knew it. And yet with the scale still glowing fainter now and almost imperceptibly in its pulsing. Uh less of a taste of root beer and more the idea of a drink you had long ago when things were a little bit sweeter in your life. And yeah, exact exactly, exactly. Uh and glare, you sort of notice that the glowing says slows down and gets dimmer and dimmer.
SPEAKER_12I turned the scale.
SPEAKER_05You feel a slight shock as suddenly that brushing against your consciousness snaps into a solid bond, and instantly you feel a sense of overwhelming fear of of massive responsibility, of of being adrift in a sea when all you have is a plank, and being told to find an island coming from just behind you, tussled up in those bed sheets.
SPEAKER_12Blair Jr.
SPEAKER_05You lift up one of the sheets, and sure enough, Blair Jr. is there, eyes shut hard as tightly as possible, as a single scale begins to glow with a stronger and stronger pulsing light on Blair Jr.'s forehead.
SPEAKER_12And are you like Blair Why? I I could tell you I don't know, Blair Jr.
SPEAKER_04But I have an idea. The same reason everything else happens.
SPEAKER_12Everything that's cruel violence and unbecoming selfishness, greed, a desire for control I don't know if you know what these words mean.
SPEAKER_04But I hope you'll understand this. I've I've never been a particularly violent man, Blair Jr., but I think I'm going to kill them all.
SPEAKER_12I think.
SPEAKER_14Claire, I've got a plan, but I don't know if we're all like it. It's called Operation Go for the Eyes.
SPEAKER_12I like the sound of it.
SPEAKER_10That's an awesome name.
SPEAKER_12That's all I got. It's a good name.
SPEAKER_10All you have is the names of our eyes.
SPEAKER_02We come up with it as we go, I think.
SPEAKER_12We need to be able to do that. And how do you have Secretary of Defense? I think I think our first order of business is find a mailbox.
SPEAKER_05Okay, and we're gonna use that as the button to call uh an end to this session of the Final Rules Chaos. Uh wonderful storytelling, everyone. Uh I I think that uh I'm I I'm glad to hear that you have a fire blair uh and typist that you're locking in. Um and uh Marmalade that you know the city still might have somebody willing to run for things that matter uh or things that matter to that matter enough. Let's let's just let's just call it things that matter enough, right? Um but uh we are going to sign off for the night. Uh one last thing though before we do. Um Hollis, uh, thank you so much for coming on as a very special guest. Uh I speak for myself as a creative whenever I say that uh Marmalade was an uh an absolute treat, and getting to see uh the side of city mayol runs is something I'm going to make sure I keep in mind as we continue to sort of work in this framework.
SPEAKER_07Um I love giving DMs more world-building work.
SPEAKER_05Whenever I tell you that all the work I do for this is on social media and then like showing up to do these, I mean it, and it's great. Uh however, I do want to make sure that you have yet another opportunity. Tell people out there where they can find you, the work that you do. Um, I want to give you this opportunity to promote yourself as a creative because uh that is what we have to offer to the world, right?
SPEAKER_07Yeah, I I agree. Uh again, I'm I'm Skeletor on Instagram, uh, YouTube, uh, and Patreon, and I'm Skeletorg Draws on Twitch.
SPEAKER_05So all right, thank you very much. Uh and everyone else, I hope that you will join me in saying goodnight to everyone watching from home. This has been the Final Rules Chaos. Tune in on the uh third for the next episode of the Final Rules Order. Um, I have been let in on a little bit of information about how that session is going to start, just at a very technical level. And we I think that we're gonna be in for many doozies of sessions here moving forward uh for the next couple of months. But all that to say, uh, thank you so much for watching. Stay tuned. Um tell people about this show if you find enjoying this.