Critical Role - Generation Nord One-Shot

Episode Date: November 15, 2022

This episode is sponsored by Nord VPN. Get 4 months for free on a 2-year plan here: NordVPN.com/criticalrole  It's risk-free with Nord's 30-day money-back guarantee! Players Laura Bailey, Aimee Carrero, Christian Navarro, Liam O’Brien, and Lou Wilson, are led by game master and sponsorship legend… Sam Riegel on a journey through the information superhighway (aka the internet). PLUS we’ll unveil a special guest that you won’t want to miss! Character Art by Justyna Rerak: https://twitter.com/Justyna_Rerak  Overlay Art by Christian Brown: https://twitter.com/DeepOmega   Players/ Game MasterLaura Bailey: https://twitter.com/LauraBaileyVO  Aimee Carrero: https://twitter.com/aimeecarrero  Christian Navarro: https://www.instagram.com/christianleenavarro/  Liam O’Brien: https://twitter.com/VoiceOfOBrien  Lou Wilson: https://www.instagram.com/sweetlouzinho/  Sam Riegel: https://twitter.com/samriegel  Matthew Lillard: https://twitter.com/MatthewLillard

Oh, hi folks. It's me, Sam Riegel, and I'm here to welcome you to the wonderful world of Exandria. Although it might be called something like Critical Role, wherever you're streaming it on. If you would like to watch the stream as it airs, you can tune in on Thursdays at 7 p.m. Pacific at twitch.tv slash critical role or at youtube.com slash critical role. The video on demand versions are immediately available for our Twitch subscribers or on YouTube the following Mondays at 12 p.m. Pacific. Podcast episodes are right here on the Critical Role Podcast Network on Thursdays, one week after the initial broadcast. All right, the adventure awaits. Let's roll.

Bleep blop blork and welcome, lead haxers, and congratulatron. I set up a triple factor DOS smoke wall to encrypt tonight's broadcast so only the most compu-savvy web slingers could access it. If you're watching, black hats off to you. You passed the first techno test. Now, had the broadcast been protected by NordVPN, on the other hand, you would not have been so lucky.

NordVPN is, of course, the sponsor of tonight's show. With over 5,600 servers in 59 countries, NordVPN isn't only the fastest VPN out there, it's easy to use. You can connect up to six devices, and it's available on every major platform, including Windows, Android, iOS, and Linux. To receive a huge discount for a two-year plan plus four months for free,

go to nordvpn.com slash critical role and thank you again for sponsoring tonight's show. Now, my handle is blackwillow69 at aol.com. You may have heard of my e-exploits in our semi-regular NordVPN advertising skits on Critical Role. If not, all you need to know is that I am the leadest hacker in the known Nordverse, having gleamed the cube

and saved the worldwide world from international crypto syndicates, rogue DEFCON viruses, and even virtual insanity. Oh my god. Is tonight about me? In a way, isn't every night about me. But in every other way, tonight is about all of us. In my deep dives through the metadata of history,

I came across an archive about one of the earliest elite hacker groups to stroke the ones and twos, and how these cybernetic heroes reshaped the internet as we know it. I also discovered how I, BlackWillow69, was born. Yes, tonight's tale is based on a true story. Everything you're going to witness at this table

actually happened. So let's get into this special true story of generation nord the year 1995 a new phenomenon is reshaping the world it's called the internet five teenage hackers are assembled by a top secret government agency. Their techno mission? Save the information superhighway. Or die trying. They are... The Code Monkey.

The Hardware Whiz. The Gamer Geek. The Dark Web Robin Hood. And... The Dude with the car. If these computer whiz kids can hack the code without being sliced, they will become Generation Nord. Welcome back. The year is 1995. Bill Clinton is in office. Blue M&Ms were just introduced.

Cell phones? Nah. Beepers are all you need. Dial-up internet service providers are how 99% of users surf the net. The World Wide Web is a magical, wonderful place that folks are experiencing for the first time through sites like GeoCities, Netscape, SurfBandit, InfoSeek. One of those was fake. But the information superhighway is starting to form potholes, viruses, phishing scams, malware, the dark net. They've begun to corrupt user experiences,

and it's getting worse. Recently, a string of strange, dangerous international tragedies have rocked the world, just like Laura is rocking right now with her dancing. The Unabomber is on the loose. There's a Major League Baseball strike. Beloved painter Bob Ross just died. No!

Coincidence? Or is it all connected to a new super secret computer virus that's flooded the net called Ruination? The virus targets the most innocent people, not for money, but for lulz. Random people who connect through modems and access sites like CompuServe are being annoyed, mocked,

sliced for no reason. The fun of the internet is being ruined by ruination. They're logging off for good. The world is being menaced by the internet's first ever troll. But who can stop a troll? Well, maybe. Maybe five teenage hackers.

Oh, teenagers. Oh yeah, you're teenagers. I'm sorry, what? You're all teenagers. I shouldn't tell it to anybody. Wait, oh, I already ran my back the way. Five teenage hackers who have been summoned via electronic mail or e-mail and brought to a nondescript government building in Los Angeles, California, where our tale begins.

It is really not too late. I'm going to change the lights and that's it. a nondescript government building in Los Angeles, California, where our tale begins. It is really not too bad. I'm going to change the lights and that's it. Okay. I have notes for myself. The five of you are seated in a windowless conference room around a sterile table, beige parquet floors, a plastic fern, a large screen CRT television,

one of those curved CD racks, you know the ones. The only things on the table are a jar of sea monkeys that someone was playing with before, some bubble gum, a fountain pen. A middle-aged woman wearing a black and white uniform and large shoulder pads enters the room. Greetings, teens, and welcome to the NSAA. You've been selected for an important secret project

codenamed the Nord Initiative. By now, I'm sure you've all heard of Ruination, the evil virus. The organization I work for has been tasked with isolating the source of the virus and shutting it down. My name is Nobody. Agent Iris Nobody.

Agent Iris Nobody, it's a family name, don't worry about it. Before we go any further, I must confirm that I have the correct individuals. I have your files right here. Wrigley Rincon, aka WrigleMeThis89. Yeah. Please describe yourself for the audience.

Oh, well, yes. Well, I wear magenta. It's my favorite color. And this hoodie was given to me by my older brother. I'm 19, apparently. I'm 19, and I'm in a bit of an in-between stage. I work at the library. I may also live at the library.

And I like to, for fun, hack into Blockbuster accounts and clear late fees, because fuck late fees. Yes, it does say in your file that you are a bit of a code monkey. Yes, a bit. It also says that you are heavily in debt. Is that true?

I mean, is that integral to the conversation? Well, I'm just trying to verify your identity. Yes, I owe some money to some people, yes. But I invested in some quality stocks that might be paying off soon, so hopefully I won't be in debt much longer. Curious. Yes. Well, it also says that you're highly gifted

in numerology, numbers, mathematics. Yes, I flew in in 1337. I like the ones and the twos, and occasionally a zero. And numbers are my only friends. Excellent. Yeah. And your hacker name again was? WriggleMeThis89. WriggleMeThis89.

Yeah, 89 means nothing. Sure, no, it's a good year. Lucas Dankworth, aka NerfWorm Grimm 01011. Yeah, present. Describe your appearance. Uh, yeah. Sometimes people call me Dank, I guess.

Dank. And A. What's up? You know each other? Well, we work in the same place. The mall. The mall. The mall. The mall, yes. I will note that.

So yeah, I'm Dank. I got sort of a blonde mullet, and I work at GB Games across from Alex here. I am trying to, I'm in community college at the moment. I probably could have done better, but I got kicked out of school for selling cheat codes to Mortal Kombat 3 and Yoshi's Island.

So, you know, I'm feeling things out. Looking at my prospects. Yes, yes. It says that because of all of your hours and hours of gaming, your hand-eye coordination is off the charts. Oh yeah, my twitch reflexes are crazy. Yes, yes. Very good. There is a firewall I can't get past. It also says here that you have been

somewhat unsuccessful in online romance. Oh? I don't know what that has to do with... We're just trying to identify you. No, I mean, I'm not, you know, I'm just, I fly solo. Says that you've been engaging in several chats over the years with someone named Jinx. No?

Anyway, it's all there in the file. Check it out. Alex Peters, which one is, ah, yes, aka Wire Wizard. There's a misspelling here, it has two Zs. No, it's there on purpose, it makes me sound cooler. Oh, I understand. It says here that you work at Radio Shed.

Please describe yourself. Uh, I'm a chick. My name is Alex. I got glasses on, dark hair. I work at Radio Shed. Sure, sure, those are all things. Those are very easy to understand. It says here that you're very good at

electric things, hardware, making things. That's why my name's Wire Wizard. Oh, because you make things. Well, I alter things. Alter things. Yeah. People bring stuff in to get fixed. We have a lot of wires at Radio Shed. Sure.

So I use them and I do things with them. Says here that you've been spending a lot of time on medical websites for a feline that you own. Is that true? A cat? Dr. Crusher. Dr. Crusher. Oh, I'm sorry, do you need a tissue?

Are you crying? No, I'm all right. Is your cat okay? You know, she's having a tough time, so. Oh, that sucks. She has an illness of some sort? Yeah. Something that you've been requiring

an experimental blood treatment to treat? Yeah. One that's not on the market yet. Well, no, but I found it on the dark webs. On the dark webs. It's a fascinating read. Good luck with your pussy. Next up,

Lilith Ferreira, AKA Jinx. Yeah. Curious. Oh shit, dank! Hey, I haven't seen you online in a few months. Yeah, you said you were 18? You look older.

Yeah, I'm almost 20, actually. How old are you, Lilith? 18. Okay. Insight check. We can do that, sure. Roll. Oh, okay. Before you roll, let me just prep the audience and you. Tonight, we're going to be using a modified D20 RPG system.

We call it the 8-bit system because we exist in an 8-bit space in the Nordverse. So all D20 rolls will be made with a d8. It's a d8 system. Now, have I balanced this system or tested it at all? No. Marv! I don't know if it will work, but we're going to do it anyway.

We're also well beyond 16-bit in 1995. But let's do this. Go ahead and roll your d8. Maybe we roll two d8s. Nope, nope, it's just one d8. Oh, I rolled a one. Oh, that's a fail. You can't tell what her. Maybe we roll two d8s. Nope, nope, it's just one d8. Oh, I rolled a one. Oh, that's a fail. You can't tell what her age is. All right.

Sorry. But we're going to say it's legal, for sure, for anyone watching. She's definitely over 18. Yeah, for sure. Or whatever the state laws were in 1995. She looks younger than she is. Would you describe yourself, please, Jinx?

Well, how honest can I be? About your physical description? What are we seeing, looking at you right now? I mean, you're looking at me right now. Well, I have sort of a grunge appearance, and I like it that way, and I wear heavy eye makeup,

and I wear a fishnet undershirt. Oh, it's what you're wearing right now. Yes, it's what I'm wearing now. I'm cosplaying myself. Gotcha. What is that thing on your knee? Oh, well, I work at Doanne's Fabrics, and I was moving a box of paints, and I tripped. So you busted your knee?

I busted my knee at Doanne's. Can you walk? With a slight hop. If I hop, I can do it. All right, all right. It says here that you have extensive experience on the dark web. You've also hacked into several multinational companies,

including Netscape and the government of Belgium. Yeah, that's right. It says here that you have 18 warrants out for your arrest. Across the territory of Grom. Across four states and Guam. Sure, it would be nice to get that record expunged. Yeah. Would it not? It would be.

Fascinating. And last but not least, Fontaine Savoy. Yeah, that is me. AKA Compost Guru? Okay, so it's not supposed to be that. I got locked out of my other account. That's the account that I do have access to right now, but I'm working on getting my password recovered.

Can we just call me? Can everyone just call me Unseeing Oracle? That's the name I had before. The name that you logged in with recently was Compost Guru. Well, that's because I needed to get on, so I used my eighth grade account. I'm not.

You used a compost in eighth grade? Yeah. Wow. Well, the guy came to the school and gave a presentation, and I thought it was kind of cool. And that was the day I made my first account. Then a year later, I was like, I'm not a compost guru. But yeah, then I switched to something cool.

You got locked out of your own account? Yeah, well, I'm not. What are you doing here? I'm asking myself similar questions. Many of you have fantastic computer hacking skills. Yes. World-renowned. It says here that Mr. Compost Guru owns a car. Oh. Oh, shit!

Yeah, I inherited my uncle's Toyota Tricel hatchback. Yeah, it's pretty sick. And it says that that is your only skill. I mean, I'm also a certified EMT. Oh, that's interesting. I have skills, I have skills. Ancient compost. Okay, yes, I can still do that,

and yes, I still do. I also am an Unseeing Oracle in certain ways. The file goes into great detail about several incidents, unproven, of theft of medicines and drugs. Are you high or addicted to something? No, I'm not. I just, I have, I'm working on something, okay? You're working on something with medicine?

Yes, like, has anyone here seen the movie Flatliners? Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah, I love that movie. I have not seen that movie. It's such a good movie. So essentially, it's some names you're going to want to remember, all right? Kiefer Sutherland, incredible actor.

He's hot. Julia Roberts, incredible actor. Oh, she's so good. Oliver Platt. William Baldwin? Yep. Holy shit. Oh, wow. He's going to be a big star. Huge, he's going to be fucking huge. But anyway, the movie's about a bunch of medical students

who are constantly trying to have near-death experiences. And I, they fucked up, because they all keep fucking around with actually dying. But I think there's a way that you can unlock the brain's potential to unleash the psychoactive drug DMT, thus allowing you to experience the liminal space that exists between life and death. If I can get the right combination

of opioids and stimulants, I think I could get there without actually inducing cardiac arrest. It's so complicated. We don't have to get into it right now. It seems like we just have to try. Wait, have you tried it on anybody yet? Yeah, Comp historical, have you seen the other side?

We don't have time for your theories. We're here to do business, important business. Just watch Flatliners. I'm just trying to go Flatliners. I'm not going to watch it. Is there a book? I'll read a book. Is it based on a book? No, it's mostly a movie, I think.

It also says that you are collecting a series of pogs from the movie Troll 2. Yeah. There is a limited event. The movie, I'm not sure anyone has seen Troll 2. It's an incredibly awful movie, but it's so awful, it transcends awful and comes back around to good. But there was a series of pogs made

to try and stimulate VHS sales. Only three in existence, made by the director himself. And I have most of the Watts family, I have most of the Pleasant family. The only one I'm missing is the Sheriff Gene Freak Slammer. And if I get that, Sheriff Gene Freak. Make a note of that, of course, yes. So these are like ironic pogs.

All right. No, no, anything but. Well, apparently this is the group that we have brought together. The five of you may be qualified to join Zenord Initiative. If so, you will be working as a team. Do you have any follow-up questions for each other or for me, or shall we proceed?

So you want us to just munch some squares for you? There might be square munching involved. So if we help you, then all of our nefarious... That is not for me to say, but it will be discussed. Can we put this on a resume? Because my dream is to work at Sega of America, Redwood City Office's Sega test department someday. You cannot discuss this with anyone, ever.

This is super secret. Each other? Like when we leave here? Not even each other. Oh. That's fine. But I would love to give you more information. Let's get down to brass hacks. I have an electronic message, or e-message,

from the director of Project Nord, Agent Emmanuel Goldstein. Agent Nobody removes a CD from the curved CD rack and places it into a state of the art CD-ROM player attached to a massive 38-inch television. Holy shit. Yeah. 38-inch thick. The shit. Yeah. 38-inch thick. The screen flickers to life

and you see a video message play for you, which will play for you right now. Wow. Oh shit! Greetings, lead hacksaws. I am Agent Goldstein of the NSAA, the top secret agency, and inside of another top secret agency, have you heard of the NSA?

Well, those dudes are a bunch of asswipes. We are the NSA-A. We have another A. The NSA-A is for anonymous, which means we're even more secret than those total losers. We get the best tools, the best tech, the deadliest missions.

But apparently, every single one of our special agents is over the age of 24, ancient in the world of high tech. All of our top hackers have been sliced by ruination. Some have even gone missing. Now I don't like teenagers. No surprise there. Nobody does. Sweaty balls of hormones, every single one of you.

With Beanie Babies and Coolio songs and your pump-up high tops. Those are the dumbest shoes I've ever seen. Pop rocks. Kids die when they eat those things. But you also may be the internet's best hope. If you can defeat Ruan Nation, the NSA will see to it that your personal problems are...absolved. Your criminal records sponged. Your pussy life-saving medicine delivered right to your doorstep.

Your Pog collection. Really? Pog 2. Pog 2 sucked! Pog 1. Troll 2 sucked! Troll 1 was an absolute legendary film. Way better than Flatliners.

That's like what? Pog 2 is like what? A dollar? Stupid teen. Absolute legendary film. Way better than Flatliners. Oh! Oh my god. That's like what, Pog2 is like what, a dollar? Stupid teen, you could have asked for anything and you asked for Pog2. It's so dumb. The government will also reward you with up to $420 in cash each, and that is life-changing money for a teenager

in the current year of 1995. But before you pubescent punks go after the big dog, we have arranged a trial run, a test of your skills, if you will, to make sure that you are up for this. The question is, are you? Do you think you're... Are you ready? Are you guys ready? Yes or no? Do you think you're, are you ready? Are you guys ready? Yes or no?

Can you hear us? I hope you answered it. You're so stupid, you're teenagers. This is pre-taped. It's a pre-taped message. I can't hear you. I hope you said something stupid. Because you are just that.

Dumb, dumb teenagers. Agent Nobody is now passing out your mission binders. Godspeed, teens, and remember, 1-1-1-1-0-0-0-1-1-0-1-0-1-1. We all know that is binary for good luck, you idiot kids. He missed a one. The screen goes blank, the CD-ROM drive ejects. Agent Nobody passes you manila envelopes

and orders you to follow her. She leads you down a hall past locked steel doors, up a flight of stairs into the control room. It's a tall room, 40-foot high ceilings with bays of computers, chairs, a large power supply in the middle of the room, beautiful skylight above. Quite simply, it's the most beautiful computer bay

you've ever seen. Gleaming new machines with 33 megahertz processors, 500 meg hard drives, 15 inch color monitors. Color? Up to eight megabytes of RAM. Pretty choice. These machines don't exist yet. They're just too powerful.

Racks of hardware, tools, soldering sets, wires, other accessories lie in the room, all shiny and new. There's even a medical bag full of supplies and lots of weapons. Damn, weapons. Also lying around, you find a company directory for a company called JoCo, listing employee names, occupations,

phone numbers, et cetera. JoCo? JoCo, as well as links to the JoCo website, tech support page, photo gallery, and there's an encrypted telephone, or e-phone, if you need to make any e-calls. Your task is to hack into the security system of a company called JoCo.

Now, remember, this is just a simulation to see if you can work together as a team. The company is fake, but the stakes are real. The security system is protected by a series of passwords. You may crack them any way you wish. Brute force, random guesses, hardware bypass, sabotage, trickery. It's up to you.

Once you crack the codes, you'll have access to their master security computer, control over their cameras, elevators, door locks. If you encounter an antivirus worm, abort immediately. They're too unstable. But otherwise, this is your test. It's a timed trial. You will have eight minutes and 36 seconds.

If you cannot complete the task by then, I'm afraid we will have to terminate you all. We'll be like five. I'm just kidding. Oh, okay. Are you? Oh yes, sorry, before I start the timer. A word of advice to all of you.

I gave you a little of this before we started. Feel free to think outside the box. This is the Nordverse. This is not real life. You are hackers and unconventional computer knowledge can be bent, can be stretched. I will reward players who make up complex technical terms. I will reward the overuse of hacker jargon.

I will reward obscure 90s pop culture references. You can do anything you want to on a computer. You can make hardware. You can call anyone you wish. You can do combo moves. You can hack any technology to make it more useful to you, or at least you can certainly try. Nobody clicks their stopwatch and announces,

approach your consoles and begin. Okay, here we go. Okay, guys. Okay, this is it. What the hell is happening? I'm going to change music and stuff. Okay, you approach the consoles. The keys are shiny and new, but also familiar.

You feel most at home in front of a computer. Is the timer going right now as you're describing things? It's going. Don't worry, you'll be fine. You log in. The screens flash to life. The first thing you see is the JoCo logo and a field that says, please enter screens flash to life. The first thing you see is the JoCo logo

and a field that says, please enter admin password to continue. The trial has started. Roll for initiative. Oh no. Do we roll a? A d8, everything's a d8. Don't add anything.

Oh no, there is initiative on your sheet. Yeah, there is. We have initiative. Okay, who got above a five? Oh! Okay, what'd you get? I got an eight. Ooh!

Okay, eight for Lou, great. Who's next? Who got a four? I got a five. I got a five. Five for Laura. Rollies. Wait, no, is it? Rollies. Ooh, man.

Oh, you go first. Got an eight. Okay, Liam, and then Laura, and then who's four? Me. Guru. Amy got a four. Dank. And then Christian's last, whatever. Wire Wizard. Okay, okay. All right, the first prompt says,

please enter admin password to continue. That's all you get. Okay, well, first we got to open up the P-frame and see if there are any exploits. says, please enter admin password to continue. That's all you get. Okay. Well, first we got to open up the P-frame and see if there are any exploits. It's technically lose to first button. You guys can lurk together. This is not really just a combat.

I'm going to lead up from mine and go, hey, what do we do? He doesn't know anything about computers. Hey, I'm not the god. He's totally glorking himself right now. I think we got to run a zero-day attack. Okay, great. Yes, yes.

Point for me. I'd like to attempt a zero-day attack. Okay. And Amy, I'm sorry. Jinx will be assisting you. So why don't you roll with E-Vantage. E-Vantage. That's two d8s, and then add your computer knowledge, your computing check. So it's a 16-bit attack. It's a 16-Vantage. E-Vantage. That's two d8s, and then add your computer knowledge,

your computing check. So it's a 16-bit attack. It's a 16-bit roll. Yes, it's a 16-bit roll. Great, I have a minus two to compute it. Go for it. But that's an eight and a six for an eight. No, it's E-Vantage, so you just use the top one. Six. No, an eight.

No, an eight! Well, it's an eight minus two, because I have a minus one to compute it. Okay, six, six, six. No, an eight. No, an eight. Well, it's an eight minus two, because I have a minus one on my computer. Okay, six, six, six. Okay, okay, okay. Wait, is the music playing? No. This game system is so hard. I'm just going to switch it.

I don't know how this works. Okay, let's say, yes, six meets the DC of this particular check, and you're able to isolate. The code opens up. You see some stuff that you don't really understand, but Jinx, leaning over your shoulder, sees that there are eight,

there's eight characters in this password. So you know there's eight characters. You don't know what they are yet, though. Next up is Liam. All right, well, I'm going to frobnicate the password. Sure. Okay, and look for sploits. Okay, so we just have to deduce

how many of these are actually vowels and then we can go from there. Okay, so you're looking specifically for vowels. Go ahead and roll your d8 and add your computing skill check. Am I computing? It's down at the bottom of skills. There it is.

That's a total of nine. Oh, that definitely succeeds. You get the vowels. The second letter is A, and the sixth letter is O. And there's how many letters? Eight. Can you repeat that one?

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Sixth letter is O. The second letter is A. You get the vowels. Sixth letter is O. I don letter is A. You get the vowels. Sixth letter is O. I don't know, you guys, this thing feels pretty crufty. That's pretty good, that's pretty good. Leah, Laura, you're up.

Oh god, okay. I'm just going to Frobnicate a yo-yo system to figure out the rest of the consonants. Sure, going for consonants this time. Go ahead and roll and let's make this one. You know what? A pop-up window is blocking half the screen,

so let's say that this is going to be a navigation check to navigate around the pop-up. Come on, Wire Wizard, you can parse this. Oh fuck. I rolled a one. A one, oh no. Oh no. Do I add a one. A one, oh no. Oh no. Do I add anything?

You add your navigation. Okay, so it's a three total. Okay, a white box ASCII generator pops up and blocks the rest of the code. Yeah, the password, you can't see it. Are we allowed to make guesses? Yes, you can guess at any point. Should I just guess it?

I mean. I mean, you're pretty smart. I, if the second letter's A and the sixth letter is O, it might just be password. I mean. You, I mean, you're pretty smart. If the second letter's A and the sixth letter is O, it might just be password. You type that in. That is correct. Oh! That's really good, that's really good.

Good job, Compost. I do do the crossword. That's not computer-related at all. That was really good. I mean, I just assumed the Joko wouldn't. Two minutes have elapsed. You have six minutes left. The second prompt comes up on the screen.

You see a prompt that says, Joko is a leading maker of baking spray, anesthesia, and thermonuclear reactors. For records, click here. For payroll, click here. For building security, click here. What would you like to do, Laura? Building security.

Okay, you click on it. You're prompted with another prompt that says, please enter your security department six digit ID number. That's all you get. Amy, it's your turn. Of course it is! Okay, so what I'm going to do is I'm going to Frotz first, which is an interjection

of very mild disgust. Yes. And then I'm going to, I'm going to write a code that is going to. Okay, you're good at that. Yeah, I'm going to write a code that's going to be a brute force attack. A brute force attack, and because you used frots,

I'll give you advantage on this. Okay, here we go. Go ahead and roll. Go ahead and roll for a decipher code check. Decipher code check. Oh shit! Wait, I didn't get an advantage with my A. No, you didn't. Did I hit the key? That's a 10, because I have a plus four decipher code.

Definitely succeeds. Okay, your brute force attack weirdly does not get through their security system, however, it does highlight some text that was previously unreadable on the screen. It's a link to another tab that says Company Directory. The prompt still is flashing. Please enter your security department six-digit ID number.

And now there's also a tab that says Company Directory that you can click on. Christian, it's your turn. Oh, I can access the Company Directory? You can, go ahead. I would like to scan the Company Directory. Okay, you scan the Company Directory. You're just seeing names flying by. I'm going to take the top name. I'm going to pick the company directory. Okay, scan the company directory. You're just seeing names flying by.

I'm going to take the top name. I'm going to pick the first name. You flip randomly. You come across Martin, Emily, Records, Merchant, Frank, Accounting, Middlebrook, Kyle, Security. Kyle, Security. And you notice for the first time

that I'm only using my right hand to sort of hack in. And yet it's still so deft. The fingers are flashing across the keys. And what I'd like to do is open a separate box, a separate web browser. Window pop-up, sure. Another web browser, and I will go to the Blockbuster website. You're going to the Blockbuster website?

I will go to the Blockbuster website. Okay, okay. Go ahead and roll to hack into the Blockbuster. This is easy for you, you've done it before. They do keep resetting their password, though. So roll with E-Vantage and do a computing check. Yeah, but there are a bunch of Coke bottles over there, so I'm going to break it for sure. That's true.

And maybe not. That's a two. Is it plus anything? Computing is at the bottom of your skill. Seven. Oh, yeah! That's easily, easily you get in. You scroll through Blockbuster accounts, looking for Kyle Middlebrook.

Kyle Middlebrook does have a Blockbuster account and his name and phone number and date of birth are listed right there in Blockbuster. Phone number 310-555-3098. Date of birth 10-9-66. The prompt is still flashing. Please enter your six digit ID number. So at first, because it's just the force of habit,

I just want to make sure he doesn't have any late fees. He does have a late fee for the movie Showgirls. Okay, and I will clear that immediate. Showgirls, he can keep that late fee. I'm going to enter his date of birth. Date of birth, 10-9-66. Enter. That's only five.

It clears through to the next prompt. Yes, 10-0966 is six digits. You are through to the next prompt. The third prompt, you have 90 seconds left. The third prompt says, to access master security controls, type in your level three clearance word. With small text underneath, it says,

if you've forgotten your word, click here and IT will call you with your password reminder. We can spoof him. Yeah, spoof him. Lou, you're up. Yeah, spoof. Okay, let's spoof him. I'm going to call him.

You're going to call him. Or I'm going to click on the IT help for the password. Okay, if you click on that, it's going to call Kyle Middlebrook. Is that what we want? So we can spoof him? Yeah. But how are we going to? How are you going to spoof him?

We have to hack into Kyle's phone. Yeah, I want to intercept his e, I want to use our e-phone to intercept the line so that when they call Kyle, I'm going to redirect. I'm going to hardwire. You're a hardware expert. Okay, then you definitely get e-vantage on this. Hey!

Roll twice, and you know what? Use Laura's, what is it, knowledge of hardware skill check? Yeah, yeah. Okay, go for it. That is... Stick. So that's a total of 13. Holy shit, in a D8 system? You're OP.

You definitely, so what are you going to, how are you building this device? Like, what are you making it out of? There's all kinds of wires and stuff around. What does it look like? Yeah what are you going to, how are you building this device? Like, what are you making it out of? There's all kinds of wires and stuff around. What does it look like? Yeah, I'm going to break down some of the other pieces that I see and create a secondary box off of the e-phone. Sure. Just to, you know,

get in the signal. I'm going to build a wire out the top of it so it intercepts the satellite signal with the antenna and sends it into the earphone. Such a deft description of it. Yes, okay. I rip a wire off of the phone and just jam it into the center.

Matt, I- Well, that fucked it up. Oh, sorry, my bad. Okay, yeah, give it one time. Okay, yeah, sorry, my bad. Okay. All of a sudden, the earphone starts ringing. Ring, ring, ring, ring.

I pick it up. Hello, this is Jerry with security. You need a password reminder, huh? Yeah, this is Kyle, I'm drunk, I'm sorry. Oh, hey, Kyle! You see that dodging game last week? Woo, they hit the ball. Oh, they did!

Okay, roll a persuasion check, just to convince him that you hit the ball. Oh, they did! Okay, roll a persuasion check, just to convince him that you're the guy. I add plus one to this. Yeah. That's a four. Sure, that'll work. Yay! Hey, you sound like you got a cold, Kyle.

Well, I'll tell you, it's all the drinking I've been doing at the Dodger games. Kyle, come back in! We're watching the game, Kyle. I just got to get my password. Come on, Jerry. Hurry up. Sure, sure, sure.

You know, what's the name of your first kid? Man, I'm drunk. I told you. Throw me a bone. Your first kid? You don't remember your first kid? It's a boy, right? Of course it's a boy, yeah.

Damn right, and then it's a good Christian name, right? I mean, I'm Jewish myself, but I... Maybe it is, I mean, you named him, right? Yeah, I did. Can I check while he's on the phone if there's a secondary Blockbuster account for a child? For, sure, go ahead, yeah. Yeah, roll just a decipher code check.

That's an eight plus seven. Oh yeah, you get it. Underneath Kyle Middlebrook's name in the Blockbuster account, it says that Bambi was recently rented under the name Maxwell. Oh, we got a Bambi was recently rented under the name Maxwell. Oh, we got a Bambi and a Maxwell. Oh, it's Maxwell, right?

Yeah, of course it's Maxwell, good old Max! Oh, good old Max. Hey, Jerry, thank you so much, man. Oh, sure. Hey, are you going to come over to Angie's house later this weekend? Yeah, we're having pasta. Bye.

It's Maxwell. Okay. Oh, with only three seconds left, you enter it and the screen suddenly goes blank. Oh. Then blinks on again, and your consoles are filled with video feeds,

dozens of black and white cameras pointed all over an office building of some sort, somewhere in the world. You see people via security camera entering and exiting, snacking on Crystal Pepsi, eating Ring Pops. It was the 90s. That's all. That's all anyone is eating. They almost didn't make it.

You also see glimpses of highly sensitive areas with warning signs. It's all very grainy, but you've definitely accessed something. And there are controls. With keystrokes, you can view, control, or disable security cameras. You can lock or unlock doors.

You can view motion detector settings from the 12th floor all the way to sub-basement two. There's controls for the HVAC system, elevators, sprinkler, and more. Agent Nobody returns doing a slow clap. Well, well, well, we misjudged you. You might have entered this building as five wastoid Gen Xers, but now you are official members of Generation Nord.

Welcome to the Nord Initiative. Agent Nobody hands you badges on lanyards. Color coded, no less. Where's purple? This is a lot of pressure. Man, that was such a saga, you guys. Yeah, guys, that's the first time I've ever freaked a tell now.

How'd you know this was my favorite color? Mr. Unseen Oracle, you're quite skilled. Oh, I mean, it was mostly the wizard, and I'm glad you could pull up the kid's name, but you know. I'm glad to. It was great, though. Your acting skills are on point. Do you take classes? No, I just watch a lot of movies.

Yeah, father. I've got a whole rack of laser discs if you guys ever want to come through and watch any. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would love to. You're doing it right. Yeah. Yeah, that'd be fun. Very expertly done, all of you. These lanyards are blank

because our operation is so super secret. Much more secret than the NSA, but feel free to wear them if it makes you feel special. Is it secretly coded on the inside? Nope, they are just blank. Oh, okay, it's just nothing. All right. I've never been a part of it. We did not think that you were going to succeed so easily,

but in the event of success, Agent Goldstein prerecorded a video message for you. Are these prerecorded or is she? She hits play on a gigantic 20-inch TV VCR. Oh shit. You see the familiar face of Agent Gold. You see? I was right! Teenagers are useless, greasy, disgusting animals!

You should be ashamed of yourselves. Failing so spectacularly, you pieces of dog crap! Okay, so. Agent! Nobody quickly hits stop, pausing the tape. Video? Sorry about that. That was obviously the wrong video. That was, sorry. Yeah, you really underestimated us.

I will play the correct video, the one for success. He ejects it, she ejects it, and puts in a new video tape and hits play. Congratulations! You tights are so smart, smarter than agent nobody ever gave you credit for. See, nobody? I told you, these teenagers made it look easy.

Welcome aboard to Project Nord. That's pretty good, that rhymes. Do you see how I did that? Okay. Let's cut the shit. There's work to do. As you may have already deduced, the building that we had you hack,

it is not a sim. It's a real place. Our techies ran a mid-band beachcomber protocol, cross-referenced the Telenet IP address to that of Ruined Nation. The hill swapped it to a location in downtown Los Angeles, City of Angels. It's the Johnson Corp building, and that is where your mission will be. You will break into Johnson Corp headquarters, jack off into, jack, jack, Jack into, Jack into the mainframe,

isolate the Ruination Rootkit, and destroy it at all costs. I can see from your face you look scared. You realize the gravity of the situation, do you not? I don't see you, you dummies! I don't see you! It's a pre-recorded message, you horny dum-dums! God, teenagers are so lame. Agent Nobody, take it from here.

Sorry, yes. I'm gonna go try a brand new coffee drink that was just invented. It's called a Frappuccino. Apparently it's like a milkshake on steroids, makes you poop in less than 10 minutes. I feel like Jinx has a worried expression on her face, and she wants Agent Nobody,

she locks eyes and says, if we're going to do this, you should tell them what we're up against. I don't know what you mean, Jinx. Do you know something about? You do. And also, if I'm going to do this, then I need some assurances

that you're actually going to expunge my record. Not that you'll think about it or talk about it or discuss it. Hmm. A hard bargainer. Jinx over here is well known for scouring the deepest corners of the Darknet and finding out all sorts of dirt on people,

places, and companies. You know something about Johnson Corp, do you? Yeah. Like what? Well, they're an evil multinational conglomerate, and they got rich making pesticides. Pesticides? Pesticides that kill baby seals.

Intentionally? Yes. Holy shit. Why? Well, I don't know if it's intentional. Why would they do that? It's like the nonstick pan situation. Oh. It's like the runoff.

Oh. You know, kills the seals specifically. What? Anyway, they're really dangerous. Just the seals? Just the seals so far. Oddly specific. Yeah, cruel, evil.

Jinx does speak the truth. Johnson Corp is quite advanced, and they are also expanding their businesses into other realms. Dial-up internet. They are starting their own internet service provider called Johnson Online, aka J-O-L. It's like other online platforms,

except everything is Comic Sans. They just keep getting worse and worse. John Seco smells. The doomsday clock just keeps getting closer to midnight, you guys. We don't know much about who runs the company. I do. Oh? What have you learned?

Well, there are no pictures of him that exist, but his name is Don Johnson. Don? No relation. From Miami, boys. No relation. No relation. No photos of this man exist. He's been scrubbed from existence. Does he work there? Is he there?

He owns it. Everybody's got a record. Maybe we can find him on the security cameras. I mean, I've looked into the social security database, social security number card database. Not there. Doesn't have a social security number. How does he own a company if he doesn't?

I don't know. It's it. What about Dark Web? Oh, I've looked. What about the library? Oh, I haven't looked. Everybody reads. I'm going to go to the computer and I'm going to backtrace and ping pong

and zooby-wooby to the LA Public Library. Oh man, you speak Dewey? I speak Dewey. And 1337 and eight and nine. I will type in Don Johnson in the LA Public Library. Sure, you can do a... Let's do a... Endless TV guy.

The actor comes up. Variety Daily, am I in it? Let's do just a navigation search. This is navigating the internet. But I will cross-reference that search with Fortune 500 and security systems. Sure, I'll give you a plus one to this roll.

No, not advantage. And what am I rolling? Navigation check. Which is two. Roll your d8. That's a four. Four plus anything? No, two plus two. Okay. You don't get much.

Don Johnson really doesn't have very much listed. However, you do find some theories, some online theories that seem to tie the Ruination Virus to Johnson Corp. Some wild theories, some of them are bizarre. Some are talking about how Johnson Corp wanted to release this virus on the world, invented this new kind of virus called trollware,

which uses spam, pop-up ads, random acts of annoyance to annoy people on the internet, infecting totally reasonable online chat rooms with offensive replies. Whenever anyone replies to this troll, they just reply with things like, Why you mad, bro? Insidious.

It seems like this trollware is trying to ruin the internet for everyone. The theory is it's to drive everyone to the JOL service instead. There are no trolls on the JOL service because it's heavily regulated. It's very boring, very bland. It's all pictures of cute animals and babies.

It's pretty weak sauce. That's what you learn from your internet search, but nothing about Don Johnson. I convey that to the group, and a thought occurs to me. Guys, when everybody leaves a trace on the internet, I mean, you guys know that, and I'm thinking if we can get a hold of that troll

in a chat room, we might be able to backtrace the IPN address and find out exactly where it's coming from. And it might be coming from the Johnson headquarters, Johnson Corp headquarters. Good idea. Downtown. Have you tried spelling it D-O-H-N? D-O-H-N. Instead of just regular John?O-H-N.

How about Donald? Donald Johnson. Let's try that. I'll try all variations of Donald. But with an H in it. D-O-H-N-A-L-T. Donald Hunt. D-Hunt. D-Hunt. Or maybe D-A-W-N. I'll try all of those names.

All right, go ahead and roll. Donald. Roll another navigation check. While he's doing that, can I make a perception check to see if Iris was actually going to kill us if we fail? Sure, go ahead. This would be, yeah, an insight check, I think. That's an 11.

An 11. You can't read her. You don't know her well enough to read her, but you do notice a bulge in her waistband around the back of her. Is she... Grr? No, not below her waistband.

In her waistband. Like she's concealing something in her pocket. She's got a really high penis. She's got a really high penis. All the way. It's a belly button penis. She hesitated. Okay.

What did you roll, Rhaemal? You rolled me this 89? I rolled an eight. An eight. Six plus two. You look up all the other iterations of Don, Dahan, D'Honald Johnson, and while you do find some very spicy photos of a 53-year-old man

from upstate New York. That is all that you can find. It doesn't seem to be the right Don Johnson. It's just a random guy who's been posting pictures of him, naked pictures of himself on his bulletin board. What an interesting way to use the internet. Yeah, I will, without anyone noticing, just forward me those bridges.

You forward them to yourself? Maybe. Nice. Okay, great. Agent Nobody is still in the room and claps her hand. Finding the source of this virus will be dangerous. Johnson Corp is a powerful entity, and yes, we will give you assurances that everything that you require

will be rewarded to you upon successful completion of this mission. You will have the full backing of the NSA, including gadgets. Cool. Nobody ushers you over to the shelves of gear at the far side of the room. You look over a vast array of tools, weapons, equipment.

There are brass knuckles. There is a VHS copy of the movie Batman Forever. Oh, I love that. There is a wrist keyboard. There is a golden mouse. There is a box wrapped in brown paper. There's antivirus software across 15 floppy disks. There's desktops, there's glasses, there's a disguise kit. You will each receive a pack of equipment

tailored to your specialities. But here are some weapons that you can choose from. Go ahead and pass them out. I know I didn't throw them too far. For the audience at home, they have been offered a taser, a tonfa, which I'm told is like a baton sort of a thing. Awesome. Brass knuckles.

Ooh. A single shuriken. Got it right here. Dibs. Dibs. And pepper spray. Pepper spray. I'll take the tonfa. I'll take the brass knuckles. You notice underneath Alex's thin flannel shirt

are rippling muscles. Wow, you're like jacked. She is fucking buff. Oh, wow. You know, there's a lot of lifting the hardware and the computers of this time, they're big. At Radio Shed? Radio Shed, I do a lot of lifting. Yeah, keyboards, cables. Yes, you do notice that she has rippling, sinewy muscles,

but also her right arm is far more jacked than her left from all the mouse clicking. I put both the brass knuckles on one. Just the one. Oh, I'm more like a lover than a fighter, so I'll take the pepper spray. And this is the taser. I guess I'll take, what do you have?

I got the tomfa. The tomfa's two,. I guess I'll take, what do you have? I got the tonfa. The tonfa's two, right? It's like one, two. Two attacks? No, no, it's like two. Oh, two tonfas? Two tonfas or just the one? I think it's a single tonfa.

Does it say multi-attack or does it? Melee. I think it's just a single tonfa, a single attack. Plus, you need that other hand for hacking. I guess it'll do with my bum, knee, and everything. Oh, taser? No, I'm not going to. Do you want me to take a look at your knee? No, I like it'll do with my bum, knee, and everything. Aw, sorry. No, I'm good. Do you want me to take a look at your knee?

No, I like it this way. Oh, okay. No, respect. Maybe later. You will also be issued super stylish, skin-tight, color-coded jumpsuits in the style of the Power Rangers. Oh! Are these necessary?

Only time will tell. You each get boxes with color-coded, Are these necessary? Only time will tell. You each get boxes with color-coded, amazing Power Rangers-style jumpsuits that you put on. This is going to be the best ever, you guys. It's a little gay. Form-fitting bit. Are we putting it on?

Is everybody just putting it on right now? We'll say that, there's no changing rooms. You have to change right here. Oh, okay. Oh man, those muscles. I'm changing self-consciously, but sneaking glances at Mr. over here. Oh, okay.

He looks really strong, too. Jynx, is your leg okay? Yeah, it's fine. Okay, that was cool what you did back there with the flotsam. Thanks. Yeah. I like your accent. You can't really hear it over messenger.

No, I speak more poetically with my fingers. Yeah. Jynx just looks very uncomfortable. Any intrigue or just uncomfortable? Well, uncomfortable at what Wire Wizard did. Wire Wizard just did the lewd gesture. So intrigued at Nerf worm. Yes, very.

Creeped out by Wire Wizard. Okay. Nobody also hands out schematics, very. Creeped out by Wire Wizard. Okay. Nobody also hands out schematics, blueprints of the Johnson Corp building. It shows the main entrances, the service entrance, elevators, lobby floor plan, duct system, electrical grid. Thanks to your trial run, you've already hacked into the building electronic security system,

or E-security system, that will give you access to cameras, controls to help navigate the building, all via this portable laptop. State of the art, she hands you a laptop computer that weighs 18 pounds and has 90 minutes of battery life and takes 35 hours to charge. It's so light.

It connects to the web via a 14K radio modem. Nobody also asks if you need anything else. Fabric for disguises, rope, wire, batteries, anything. Skateboards. I'll take a skateboard. You would like a skateboard? Yes, please. She goes to the shelf and pulls out a Tony Hawk skateboard

with the most customized stickers all over it. I proceed to try to do a kickflip and wipe out. Why don't you roll for it? skateboard with the most customized stickers all over it. I proceed to try and do a kickflip and wipe out. Why don't you roll for it? Oh, okay. We'll do a dexterity check. Come on, Nerf War. All right, that's a dexterity check? Yeah, just simple dexterity.

Oh, 10 total. Fuck yeah! Wow. Do you want to do it well? Yes! You do a kickflip and it is gnarly. And you nail it. Damn, Dan. Didn't know you could do that.

I had another life before this one. How old are you? Almost 20, you guys. What would you like, Jinx, and Wiggle Me This? I'm going to need a pair of roller skate sneakers and also a round of Ring Pops for my friends. Cool. Agent Nobody goes to the computer and looks.

Roller skate sneakers have not been invented yet, but we can. I think they have. Have they? I think so. Who cares? Rollies. Rollies. Let's rollies for it. Yeah. You roll a d8, I will. We'll see who wins. Contested roll.

Four. Just rolls. Just to see who rolls higher. The existence of the shoes. That's a six. I rolled a five. Yes, thanks. But it turns out there is an experimental set. Yes, from Stetchers.

Yes, from Stetchers. It's the S. We have it. I cannot guarantee that these will work. I need them for my knee. All right, she hands you over a pair of purple Stetchers roller skate sneakers. And what else did you need? A round of Ring Pops for my friends.

Those are easily provided. She has them in her pocket. They're kind of warm. Everyone has them here. Yes, Bar Wizard. Can I also get a Walkman? I hack better when I have music playing in my ears. Sure, what kind of music would you like to listen to?

We have CDs, Boyz II Men, we have Madonna, we have TLC, the new one just dropped. We have Blues Traveler, the new album just came out. It's very good. I'm kind of a vintage girl. Vintage, so like Bon Jovi, Bryan Adams. Like Wham. Like Wham. We have it.

We have it. She hands you over a Walkman, state-of-the-art, two AA batteries, and a Wham tape. Oh no, I want the high-tech, I want a CD Walkman. We don't have those. And wriggle me this 89, did you want something? I was curious, the payment, 400 and how much?

You are guaranteed $420, but your debt is considerably higher than that. I know, that's what I was wondering, if there's... If you can give me an amount, I can run it up the chain of command. Can I write it on a paper? I'm sorry, no. If we're going to be honest with each other,

we need trust. Okay. I'm sorry? 50,000. $50? $50,000. $50,000? $50,000. Yes. You bought $50,000 of a stock that you found

just because it had a cool commercial? It was an epic commercial. There was a sledgehammer and it broke the screen. It was great. And now that stock is garbage? Currently, yes. But it's $40,000 in stock and $10,000. I was designing something really cool

that didn't come into fruition, and I owe some loan sharks a little bit of money. Yes. But you know that already. I've heard of your arm contraption that you were trying to invent. It's a bit more complicated than that, but yes. You don't know how close you were to getting it right.

But yes, we will take care of your debt and pay off the loan sharks the interest should you succeed and survive. How close? The Nord Initiative will embark in one hour. You may familiarize yourself with your equipment, your jumpsuits, make any E calls you need to make to family members and loved ones.

Remember, if you are captured, we will disavow all knowledge. You will be left to fend for yourself. Oh wait, can I ask something real quick? It's just, I- She's walking out the door. Wait, oh, it's just the Trussell. What is it? The Trussell's on E,

so can I get seven bucks to fill up the tank? Seven bucks. Let it, of course. Let it, of course. Thank you, I'm sorry. She reaches in her wallet. I'll honestly probably be able to bring you change back, maybe a dollar or two.

She pulls out, she only has a 10. Yeah, you'll definitely get changed. You'll get checked on that for sure. And the receipts, please. You have to go back to the gas station. So after she walks out, I think Jinx is going to open up that very heavy laptop, and I'm going to write some code to install a keylogger,

which is, a keylogger records everything a user types, including passwords and credit card details. Like I don't know. I don't know. What does it do? Just in case someone in the company at the Johnson Corporation uses their password, and that way we don't have to keep guessing the passwords. Okay, okay, that's great.

Let's just roll to see if your programming works. Let's do a decipher code check. Okay. Ooh, that is an 11. Oh, you feel pretty confident that this logger is high quality. It's only on the laptop right now. You would have to somehow transfer it

or install it somehow into the Johnson Corp intranet. Yes, I'm going to send a phishing email to To their employees. To the whole employee list. Okay, so you'll write some sort of a script that, just any email address at johnsoncorp.net. Actually, I'm going to send a phishing email to whoever runs the commissary.

Okay. Because all we need is to get in, right? Sure, sure. We don't need any one specific person to let us in. You don't know what you need yet, yeah. No, I just need in, and then the keylogger is its own, and I'm putting it in some sort of virus

into the phishing. This is a pretty, I mean, Johnson Corp is on lock, so this is going to be a pretty hefty challenge. Yeah, that's why I'm going to go with the commissary person. So let's go for Persuasion, because you're is on lock, so this is going to be a pretty hefty challenge. Yeah, that's why I'm going to go with the commentary person. So let's go for persuasion, because you're going to try to persuade this person to open the email, respond, and give up their. They just got to click on the link.

Click on the link, exactly. So roll and add your persuasion. Okay. Ooh. I'll not die, I say. What was on? Oh, that's a 10. What did you roll on the 10? Eight. That's a crit. Oh, duh. Yeah, What was on? Oh, that's a 10. What did you roll on that? Eight. That's a crit. Oh, duh.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, right. In this system, Natural and fancy. It's a very forgiving system I'm learning. So I'm going to do this code and I'm going to do hot deals on Hot Pockets. Okay. But then when they click, whoever runs the food store or the lunch area

is going to click that link because they're going to want the food store or the lunch area is going to click that link because they're going to want the hot deals on the latest Hot Pocket flavor, which is pepperoni pizza. And when they click on that link, the Keylogger is going to install itself into the mainframe of the entire corporation. We'll say that you found that the lady

who runs the commissary is Janice, and she does have an email address at the company, and you've sent the email. There's no response yet. Don't know how often she checks. She's serving food all day. But you feel pretty confident that if she checks her email, if she clicks on this, you might get some piece

of information back later. Right. Can I look through the security cameras If she clicks on this, you might get some piece of information back later. Great. Can I look through the security cameras to see where the most heavily guarded areas are at Joko? At Joko, go ahead. Yes, let's roll just a perception check. That's a six.

Seven, eight. Six, okay. You spend some time looking at the... Joko. At the feeds. And it's a pretty big building, so there's a lot of cameras, there's a lot of elevators, there's the big, beautiful lobby, there's 12 stories of offices.

You do notice a bunch of guards at the front. They're also posted at the side and rear of the building. There's a side entrance, there's a rear entrance. You notice from the floor plan that most of the floors are the same. It's a lot of cubicles, it's a lot of computers, but the third and fourth floor, there's just not a lot of cubicles, it's a lot of computers, but the third and fourth floor, there's just not a lot of camera coverage there.

There seems to be some dead spaces. Maybe those cameras aren't working. Maybe those cameras don't exist because it's a sensitive area. You don't know, but the third and fourth floor both seem a little dim, dimmer than the rest. And then any, with that, is there any chance I notice if there are less guards at the front, side, or rear?

There are definitely less guards at the side and rear, but those are also, they're not as heavily trafficked. Those doors also seem to be locked. They require either a key card or a buzz to be let in, whereas the lobby, you can just walk in and talk to, sign in with whereas the lobby, you can just walk in and sign in with the security guard, et cetera. I'm over his shoulder,

and I'm trying to figure out those. Oh! Oh, sorry. Oh god. My bad. No, it's all right. You smell good. The security footage, those locked doors, do I see anyone using a key card or something to get in there? You can roll a perception check as well to see.

I think I have... Ooh, seven total. That's pretty good. You spend some time looking. The hour is almost up at this point, but you do see that, yes, they are using key cards to get in. Okay, so I would like to zoom in.

I'd like to freeze frame and zoom in. Enhance? Enhance. I would like to enhance. Enhancing in this game system is an auto success. All you have to do is say the word enhance and it just happens. You don't have to roll for it. The screen doubles in size and triples in size and you can definitely see the key card.

They have pictures of the person can definitely see the key card. They have pictures of the person who's wearing the key card. It seems to open by some sort of electronic connection. It's not inserted, it's sort of waved over a console and it opens. Can I see the name with the enhancement? Can I see the name on it? You're doing a deep enhance. Okay, okay.

For this to read a name, let's roll for this one. Go ahead and roll and see, this is a perception check. Nine. Okay, that's a pretty good roll. You do get the first name pretty clearly, it's Brick. And the second name is Ra, but his thumb is covering most of it. It's Brick is the first name

and the last name is R-O something. I would love to cross-reference Brick R-O against, I mean, we're in the system, right? So I'm going to look for any Brick R-O in an attempt to get a phone number so that I can call and say that there has been a problem with their key card and we need them to report to security. Sure.

You're going to, you've already got access to the security of the facility, cameras, controls, that sort of thing, elevators, whatnot. The company directory is password protected, and you will need to get a password to get through it. Come on, Janice, come through, click the link. Sure, sure. Are you going to try to guess the password,

or are you going to try to? Yeah, because I have a pretty high decipher code here. So I'm going to, I mean, it can't be that much different than a blockbuster security system, right? Or the public library, so I will try and hack it. Are you guessing or hacking? You're hacking. Yeah. Okay.

All right, let's have you hack for it. This is exciting stuff, guys. Let's do a computing check. Roll that d8, and this is a very high DC. Do I have a compute, or this is a DC? It's the bottom one, skills. Oh, oh. That's a six total.

Six total. You get through, but something happens in the code that you insert, and it seems to be hitting a wall of some sort. You're getting what you quickly identify as a ransomware bebop generator. Oh, there's a bebop. And it's giving you a code,

and then the code's changing, and then the code's changing again, and then the code's changing again. It's twiddling its own system. Yeah, it seems to be stuck in a loop and you're just not getting that password, unfortunately. Sorry, guys. Could have been worse, could have been rock steady.

Your mind, or anything else you guys would like to do? Because, yeah, I'm going to scooch in next to Jink at the computer. Do you mind if I take a look at the laptop? Sure, go ahead. Okay, I want to dive under the hood of this thing and see if I can suss out any spyware or daemons inside the computer they've given us.

I want to find if we're going to be patsies. Oh, great idea. Awesome, yeah. Why don't you do an investigation check or a computing check? Your choice. All right. Or computing.

It's all computer stuff. Computing, that's an 11. Okay, you find several different monitoring apps and software included on this laptop, all with the hallmarks of NSAA coding. It's sophisticated, and it seems to be hardwired into the system. You could attempt to disable or disconnect these systems.

There's one system that seems to be monitoring the audio. There's one system that seems to be monitoring your keystrokes. There's some sort of a homing beacon that's installed in this thing. They are definitely watching you. Let me try to cut the homing beacon that's installed in this thing. They are definitely watching you. Let me try to cut the homing beacon. Maybe I can help.

Also, I like your finger style. Cool. I have some experience with government agencies, so maybe I've seen this before. I don't know. You're a total wizard, yeah. So she puts her hands under his hands on the keyboard. Ooh, whoa. So she puts her hands under his hands on the keyboard.

Ooh. This place is hot. And starts to look. Straight up from Ghost. 1990. Also applicable. No pogs for that. Starts diddle-daddling, looking through to see if she recognizes the code, if she's seen this before maybe

in one of her other government hacking jobs. The code, like I said, is extremely sophisticated in this. So this is less of a coding type of a skill check and more of an acrobatics skill check to see if your fingers together, working in concert, are fast enough to navigate through the codes, to identify the binary, to find the C++.

Okay. Go ahead and roll with E-Vantage. Oh good. Man, this is trickier than Super Contra. Four. Four. So the thing that you feel most is some sort of a sparkle, a warmth.

Oh, my hip boner. Yeah. Yeah, it's real high. It's really high. Your fingers touching each other just feel so comforting and relaxing to you. It's like they're moving in a symphony together. It's like every time you reach for the enter, the carriage return button, his pinky also reaches,

and it's like you guys are moving as one, and it's very beautiful and fluid. It's like a ballet. However, the code eludes you, and the encryption is just too thick to decrypt. You cannot disconnect the homing beacon that's installed on this laptop. It was worth a shot.

But you guys, we've got to do this. DeHaan Johnson is going to corrupt the internet. And the internet's supposed to be a pure place. Yeah. We got to stop that from happening. I just can't believe ruination is local. In our own backyard. Thankfully, we've got a car.

And car you do. After an hour, Agent Nobody comes back and escorts you down to your vehicle. Can I check if Janice has responded to the email yet? Sure, you check. No. Are you taking the laptop with us? Yes, of course. Yeah, we've got to take it. There's no response yet.

Okay. But keep checking. As we descend to the car, I just want to see if she's got a real limp or not. If she's got a what? If she's really limping or not. If she's really what? Did you kick me in the knee? No, no, I just want to see. I want to pay attention as she walks. Yeah,. No, I just want to see, I want to pay attention as she walks. Yeah,.

No, I just want to see, is it a real knee? Roll an insight check. That's an eight. Are you limping? Yeah, man. I dropped a box of paint on my knee. I don't know, I'm just looking out for Lucas. I think her leg was a keyboard.

I'm using my wheels. I have a whole driving there challenge, which I'm skipping. As we're heading in the car, I'm going to just rip the sleeve off my Power Rangers outfit, so I'm sleeveless on one side. Amazing. Have you ever seen the Xena Warrior Princess?

Oh my god, it's one of my favorite shows. Your arms look like Gabrielle's. Is that the giant arm on that side? Yes, did you rip off the giant arm? Yeah. Cool. Hell yeah, hell yeah. Lu, sorry, Compost Guru is driving you all. You all squeeze into this Toyota Tercel.

Would you like to describe the vehicle? Yeah, it's a white Toyota Tercel. Absolutely, my uncle took zero care of it, and he lives upstate, so it rains a lot there, so the painting is fucked. Is the roof bowed? Oh, without a doubt. If any of you guys are tall,

you're going to just have to be like this. I'm just pushing up the roof. And it's... Also, I've got a full CPR dummy, so somebody's going to have to run, somebody has to get in the trunk. But there's a seatbelt back there. I wouldn't ask anyone to be unsafe.

That's a seatbelt. There's really room for all of us in there. Is somebody going to lap up? No, somebody has to, oh, I mean, I guess we could put the dummy in the back, but that's not hard. I guess we could lap up if two people need to sit on each other's laps.

I don't know. Feels like you and your arm need your space. I'll just take the trunk. That's fine. No, you should sit up front with me. I really, okay. Yeah, and then I guess. I'll take the trunk. Oh, okay. I'll take the trunk and I'll take the laptop with me

and see if I can check my email while we're driving. Sure. You try to get some service on the road. There's not a lot of great cell service out here in 1995, so still no response yet. Compost Guru, there's no GPS, and you were given an address, and you do have a Thomas Guide,

but you're going to have to navigate your way there, so I'm going to need a navigation check. I'll probably take the 101 downtown, but then we'll have to figure that stuff out. Are you good at reading? I'm really good at reading signs. You're starting around Marina del Rey. Oh, okay, shit, so we're going to have to get on the out. Are you good at reading? I'm really good at reading signs. You're starting around Marina del Rey. Oh, okay, shit, so we're going to have to get on 81.

That'll take us to the 110, and that'll get us to downtown, then we'll have to figure this shit out. Okay, go ahead and roll for navigation. That is an 11. Okay. Nice. Okay, you get there. I drive around the city in an ambulance all the time,

so I'm pretty... You do get there, however, right at the off ramp. You're a teenager. He's a teeny M.T. Well, yeah, it's a volunteer program. I don't get to touch anything. They honestly yell at me if I try to do stuff, but I watch, I watch.

By the way, among the things that were given to you, you do have some other items in your, that should already be under equipment in your character sheets. I've got two adrenaline shots and a bunch of mystery pills. Yeah, you do, because you steal drugs. Oh!

Did we ever get a look at that photo from the extra, ooh? The enhancement. The enhancement of Brick? Oh, a photo of what he looked like? Yeah. Oh, yes. He's, you can't tell his height from the photo, but he seems to have male pattern baldness

and wears glasses. He seems to be wearing, at least in the photo, a wide collared shirt, a tie, and a brown soup coat. Coincidentally, that seemed to be what he was wearing wide collared shirt, tie, and a brown suit coat. Coincidentally, that seemed to be what he was wearing in the video footage as well. Well, I work at Doanne's Fabrics. I know you do. And I have a craft supplies kit. So I'm going to look at my fellow teammates here

and find out who's willing to shave their head for male pattern baldness, because I have an idea. If I can make a disguise, you know what I mean? I can make you look pretty much like Brick. Maybe we can just go up to the guy, or the person, in the front lobby, and they can issue us a new key card. You've got to be similarly sized, though, right? Yeah. I am really good

with numbers, so I'm going to look at this image, and I'm going to try and figure out, based on how close he is to the door, and sort of objectively, I'm going to pull out my calculator, which I have, and start fucking running numbers with my one hand to figure out how tall this guy is. Go ahead and run a, I don't know what check this is, medicine check.

That's a six. That's a hell of a system. Total? Four plus two. I mean, that's like a 45-minute drive. I have some time. Yeah, totally. You guessed that he's between 5'6 and 5'10. Kind of hard to say. Ooh, that's a big okay.

Yeah, that's not a very good roll. You guessed that he's a pretty skinny guy. From that, you would figure probably that Nerf Wyrm over here is probably the best physical match for him. That's what I was thinking. You got to shave my mullet. Yeah. Just the top of it. All right.

Yeah, this is the quickest part to grow back. Wherever he's sitting, I jump over, Jynx jumps over with a razor. It's like, hold still, and shaves the top of his head. Are you rough with this, or are you okay? No, I mean, no, it's just efficient. But also also as she's doing it, she's sniffing his collar. What smells does she get off of your collar? CK1?

Patchouli. Patchouli, okay. Oh, patchouli's nice. Oh, this is going great, guys. So I'm giving him a male pattern baldness-ish situation, and I'm quickly putting together a brown suit. It's not great, you know, it's kind of a hack job. Because we are in the car and I only have 45 minutes, but. To make a suit?

To make a whole suit. Well, you have pants on. We're going to make a blazer and that's it. You can roll a Deception check or a Sleight of Hand check, whichever you would like to do. The stuff you get done if you're not watching movies like me. I mean, you can hack the Belgian government

in between sewing? You feel pretty confident about the haircut. The suit, you know, you don't really have the materials to make a fine suit, but it seems serviceable. What is it made out of, like car seat? No, no, I have a supplies kit. You know I work at Joanne's. Oh, so you work around. Bo-Anne's?

Bo-Anne's. It's Do-Anne's. Do-Anne's. It was Do-Anne's. Listen, I work at Do-Anne's. I get a discount on the surplus fabric, so I do have a lot of office-looking, cheap surplus fabrics in my backpack.

And there it is. Oh, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to hardwire, I'm going to take off part of my, yeah, I'm going to take off part of my earpiece and I'm going to hardwire another earpiece so that we can have a walkie-talkie system. Whoa. So that we can talk to each other when he's in the building.

That arm is so big. Just with you and Nerf Worm? Yeah, so that if can talk to each other when he's in the building. That arm is so big. Just with you and Nerf Worm? Yeah, so if he goes in, then we can talk to him in the car. Great, great, great, great. Are you trying to make this concealed in his ear or is it an over-ear Walkman-type earphone? I'm going to make it, okay, that's a good,

I'm going to take the Walkman and make it look like he has a Walkman, but it's actually wired to talk to us. Got it, got it, got it, got it, got it. Okay, go ahead and make a knowledge check. Not a hardware check? Or a hardware check, sorry, you're the hardware person.

A hardware check for sure. It's a big skill. Fuck yeah, 13. Ooh, the DC was 12, so you made it. Ew! Which I just made up on the spot. And you feel pretty confident. You tested in the car a couple of times. Check, check.

Scruff in the system. Wow. Crunchy crunch. Yeah, I grok you, loud and clear. Sweet. You can hear her pretty well. The messages back to you, Wire Wizard, are a little garbled, but you can still hear the gist of what he's saying.

Raja, fathom, gah! Glorked my own program. It's okay, it happens his best. Screech! You guys arrive at Johnson Corp Tower. It's a plain black and gray and glass office building, 12 stories tall, has an underground parking garage, big main entrance. You've seen a lot of this on the security cameras already.

There are guards posted, there are cameras everywhere. What would you like to do? What's the plan of attack here? Yeah, are you just going to go in the front door? Are the side, like, which entrance do we want to use? We could use maybe, I mean, you said the third and fourth floor is also low on security, right?

Well, that's supposedly where, that's like, yeah, the cameras aren't active there. Okay, so we're going to need to knock out some of the security cameras until we get up to the third floor. He's going to need one of these. And you have one. Yeah, it's blank.

We can make it look like anything we want. Right, and I have this, and I'll pull out a desktop computer. A desktop computer? In this car? And I think I have my own laptop, too. How are you going to plug these things in? We have two laptops and a desktop.

Well, I also have a rewritable disk drive that I'll pull apart and plug into the heating cigarette. Yeah, into my cigarette. With your help. You're plugging a full desktop computer into the car's house. This is how I remember the 90s. It's not a tower like fucking Chesterbite.

It's huge. We live in the Nordverse, cars. I remember the 90s. It's not a tower, like fucking Chesterbite. It's huge. We live in the Nordverse, Sam. Okay, I'm going to have you make a hardware check, and, Lu, Compost Guru, you're going to have to make a hardware check also to see if your car's battery can provide enough power for this move. I'm pulling out the two laptops like, hello.

We're good now. Alex, can you help me with this one? Yeah, sure, I'll come back up. I really need help. But the desktop is much more powerful and has the CD-ROM writable disk drive. I'm realizing that Wrigley is plugging in the cigarette lighter poorly,

and I'm going to try to hardwire some more of my cables in and... Go straight to the battery? Yeah. Bypass it? Bypass the cigarette. Okay, what did you roll? I tried to set up a DVD player in here last summer, so it's a nine. Okay, it's okay.

There's some sparks coming out of it. It doesn't look like it's going to hold very hard, but you're... Are DVD players in a 90-plus? So there's this brand new thing. It's called a DVD, okay? What is it meant for? Digital Video Disc, I think. Wow.

It's going to change the world. But I tried to... I don't understand what's it for. What does he do with it? Nothing's going to overtake Laserdisc. It was developed in 1995. It's brand new. It's crazy tech, dude. It hasn't come out yet.

He's right. You get a bonus point for that. But so I got one, and I didn't want to share it with anyone else in my family, so I tried to hook it up in my uncle's car. But yeah. It didn't work? Barely. The battery seems to be.

Oh shit. I'll give it some guessing. It's not going great, but you're going to try to hardwire the- Into the battery. He's already set up great, but you're going to try to hardwire the... Into the battery. He's already set up the DVD. I'm going to just. Do a hardware check, but at disadvantage,

because it's already not going great. You rolled a nine, though. It's not going great. Okay. My system is flawed. I have to make you lose sometimes. What is that? What are we trying to get here?

They're trying to make the battery work so that they can burn a key card. What are you trying to set up? I'm trying to access the security system so when he touches it, I can open it and it looks like he has access. All right, 13. 13, okay, the battery is holding for now.

Now it's up to you, Christian. Make your check to see if- Wrigley! Sorry. Wrigle me this. Wrigle me this 89. What did you roll for your check? I rolled a, and what was it?

What kind of check was it? It was, I think, a hardware check. I rolled a four. Okay, okay. The CD-writable drive, you manage to get that key card in there, into the drive, and the laser passes over it. It seems to be writing code.

It comes out. It looks pretty good. Looks pretty good. Looks like it worked. Looks pretty good. Okay. I think this'll work. Time is ticking. It's now approaching four o'clock in the afternoon.

Business is going to close at about five. Let's walk this plan through. So you're going to go in. You're going to try the key. Hopefully it works. If it doesn't work, plan B. You go to the security counter and you say your key card's not working.

Or you lost your key card because they're going to want it back. You know what I mean? You lost your key card. You're going to need them to issue another one. That's plan B. Well then, what if they ask for his ID? You don't have a car.

You take the bus to work. And he lost his wallet on the bus. And you lost a wallet on the bus. And if you need to stall, just ask them if they're going to Angela's. I think she's important, and everyone goes to Angela's here. Maybe they have pasta there.

I don't know, that's what Jerry said. What if we cause a diversion? Well, we are wearing these stupid outfits. Yeah. So it shouldn't be too hard. Okay, we try the card. If the card doesn't work, I go to security. I lost my wallet on the bus on the way to work today.

With the key card in it. Of course, of course, because that's where I keep my key cards, in my wallet. It's so dorky. And then you guys are in my ear, right? Yeah, and worst case, then some of us will go in, do a dance, while the other ones get up to the third floor and try to find what's on the third floor.

What if there's just a window to the third floor and we can just go in without? I got a bum knee, you can try it. I got to go in into the front door. Yeah. Can I just look up and see if there's any windows open? I mean, it's a glass building, but there are no openable windows.

Oh, okay, okay. It's an office. Nerf war. You got this. This is going to work. Oh wait, what's the code work if it's not working? Avalanche. Avalanche, that's good. For you to say, Avalanche. Avalanche. You's good. For you to say, avalanche. Avalanche. You'll hear it.

And if it goes south, I, from a remote location, will open all of the doors that I can and cause a panic. Okay, avalanche as if everything's gone foobar, got it. Great. Okay. All right. Okay, so from the parking lot, are you going to exit the vehicle, and where are you going to, Nirform?

In the front door. Front door. Yeah. Okay, you enter the front door. We saw it now, to recap, we saw the traffic pattern to get to the necessary door. Yeah, Brick was going through the front door. Brick was going through the back door. Okay, so we go. The back door.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, back door. You're going to go to the back door. My memory told me. He went in the back entrance and scanned this key card to get in. There are guards back there inside the door, but not outside the door. Wouldn't they recognize if you're Brick or not?

This is going to be great. No, we got this. We just shaved my head. Really hoping it pans out. Does he look, I mean, at first, does he look similar to the picture? You're teenagers. I mean, is he? We got grainy footage of the security.

It is my special ability. Yeah, the suit looks amazing. I'm good at it. And the haircut is fantastic. You're teenagers. Oh, we have special abilities? Okay. Let's just go. Let's run the play. I feel good. I feel good.

Well. Do you want a taser? Just in case someone comes up and you can just sort of That's a pretty good call. I'll trade you a taser for sure. Okay, and also as a backup, backup, backup, Jynx is pulling up on her laptop to check Janice one more time. Sure, yeah, check that email.

You do have a new email. It is from a hotel offering you a discount if you go to Boca Raton. Damn it. I would like to go to Boca Raton. Damn it. I would like to go to Boca Raton, but not now. Okay, so then what Jynx will do is then try to figure out a way to hack the electrical system.

If all goes to pot, we just shut it down. Okay. We shut down the electricity. And then we make our way up to the third floor because that's where it's got to fucking be, right at this point? According to what Lu had looked at earlier, sorry, compost guru, the third and fourth floors were both hard to decipher

from the security footage. And fourth floor. How many floors does it look like there are from the floor? 12 above and at least two below. What am I doing? Am I giving them a run outside? They're outside. They're outside. You're in the company parking lot. Not in the garage.

No, outside. Okay, cool. You find a window. Or a side door, something. Are you walking in? Are you walking up? You got this, dang! What's the weather like today? It's LA, baby.

It's 72 and sunny. Do you have any, Guru, do you have any oil or anything in the back of this car? I've got some shit on me, so I look like a mess. I've got Vaseline gel for burns and shit. Is that not what I was going for? Yeah, yeah, you do.

Oh, you're so shiny, dank. No. What you wanted? I was hoping to obscure my appearance, so it looked like maybe I got splashed with mud. Yeah, I'm going in! Okay. Jinx. All those months on the rock source chat

when we talked about our first date, I never imagined it like this. Me neither. But I'll take it. Good luck, Nerformgr Room Grimm 01011. You really get me. I do. 477-143.

Whew. What is 477? Okay. All right, you approach the rear entrance. Yeah. Not heavily trafficked. It's nondescript. You walk up to the door. There's no windows near it. It's just a metal door, and it's got a scannable key card reader next to it.

Okay, I keep my eyes on the ground and I take out Wee. You're using your fake card. My fake card, right. Yeah, your fake card. You're watching on the desktop. And she's in your ear. Yeah, I'm looking at the ground.

You got this, Dang? I'm pre-scowling. Look at you, you're so shiny. Like I lost my wallet already. You got this. See, you're covered in Vaseline. You know, worse, because they're like, if they try to grab you, just run.

You're so slippery. You know what that is? Nobody catches a grease tank! So you scan the key card, it buzzes, and then you hear, the lock does not open. And is there anybody around? Not at present.

Would you like to try it again? Nobody? From what you looked earlier, there are guards inside the door, but nobody outside. But is this a glass door or? It's a metal door. Okay, I take my backpack off and I pull out my Sega Saturn,

and I pull off the top, and I'm going to start wiring the Sega Saturn to the key fob where I wave the card and I pull out the controller and I start doing Game Genie codes to try to get through this thing. Okay, you're going to do Game Genie codes. So it takes you a hot second to start wiring this thing up. It's Sega Saturn into a Sega,

a hot-wired Sega Genesis cartridge. Don't challenge it, it works. I stick the Genesis card. Uh-huh. Are we watching the security cameras? Can we see the security cameras from inside? Yes, you can see the security cameras. He's going to start doing this.

Go ahead and roll a hardware check. You guys, if you want to look at the security cameras, make a perception check. Yeah, I'm going to see if anybody's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know this is going to work because Sega is a master console maker and it's going to last a thousand years in the business. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

What'd you get on perception? You, you, you, you, you, you. That's fine. You got one? What's my roll? Hardware. Hardware? Do I have any kind of, where the hell is it? Oh wait, you're a gamer. Do knowledge of gaming.

Knowledge of gaming. Computing. Three, so that's a total of 10. Yes, that's great. You definitely pop the scanner reader open. You attach a couple of wires. You're very deft at this and you get some sort of a connection.

It doesn't look like a video game, the data that's coming in through the machine. It's just a bunch of ones and zeros and ASCII text, but you're able to figure out which way you're going. that's coming in through the machine. It's just a bunch of ones and zeros and ASCII text, but you're able to figure out which way you're going. Make a skill check here, a decipher code check. Okay, decipher. Oh, and you guys are watching the security cameras.

The cameras that you guys are looking at, nobody seems to be on alert. But there are guards on the inside, right? There are guards, yeah. It's low, it's a four. Okay, four. The first attempt does not seem to work. The DC's going to get a little higher.

You can try it again if you'd like. Okay, one last time before I bail. What are you looking at? Yeah, maybe we can help. Okay, well, I've rigged this to look like a game of Daytona USA on Sega Saturn, and I just got to keep the car in the middle of the track and make it to the end in time.

And if I can last for 30 seconds, I should be in, but I keep hitting the edges. Oh god, I hope we last for more than 30 seconds. Go for it. That's good. Six plus what's the check? I said knowledge of game? Knowledge of gaming. That's a nine. Okay. You click your buttons, your AB,

your AB up, down, up, down, up, down. You think pretty confidently, and all of a sudden, click, click, the door opens. The Saturn goes, Daytona! The door opens because two guards have become aware that you're out there. You guys missed them on the security footage. They heard a whole bunch of shit going on outside the door.

And they've opened the door, and they look real surly and mean, and they're both holding metal batons. Uh-oh. This is busted as shit. I thought we were going to have all this tech overhaul in the last two weeks. What the hell is going on here? Roll a deception check with disadvantage.

Dis, that was so good, though! A deception, you say? Yes. Oh, it was an eight and a two for a one. Oh, three, that changes everything! They look at each other skeptically. The guy doesn't reach for his walkie-talkie, but he does approach you pretty aggressively

with his baton out and says, Listen, kid, what the, what the, what are you doing back here? I don't want to curse. Okay, look, this is easy to explain. All I got to do is. Holy shit! You're going to attack?

Okay, roll an attack. I think we can get out of the car. We just got out of the car. How does this system work? I don't know, it should say on the weapon what the roll is, maybe? Range, 1d4 and target make a con save. But you have to roll to attack first, right? Doesn't say what to roll.

Obviously, you're rolling a d8 to attack. I think you are beating a dc, it's a saving throw. Oh, it's a saving throw, okay. A con save of 15. 15?! Those numbers have not been adjusted properly. That's okay. I'm going to move that down to a 10. You should keep it!

It sounds reasonable. I'm going to move that down. Actually, I'm going to halve that. That can't possibly be right. I'm going to make that an eight that they have to beat. Okay, one guy rolled an eight. The other guy rolled a one. One guy saves, but one guy you definitely hit,

go ahead and roll damage. So it's a 1d4 electric damage. Uh-huh. That's a one. Okay, great. Okay, and then he's paralyzed for one round. Great. One guard is. You see the electrical current run through his body,

his teeth chatter, his eyes roll back in his head, and he hits the floor. He's incapacitated, but his buddy is pissed. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And wheels back. We get out of the car. You're sprinting from the car. I think we're all running from the car. I have my laptop with me.

Okay, great. And we're sprinting. I'll run with the other laptop. Yeah, because we got two of them, right? I'm staying in the car. It'll take at least a round or two to get there. How fast are you all? Well, I've got my skates. You've got your skates,

which I was told, by the way, on Slack, were not invented until 1999, but that's okay. Did Dank leave a skateboard? I have a prototype from Stetchers. Dank did leave his skateboard in the car. Wasn't part of the disguise. All right. Before we get to all of the hot skateboarding action.

Airborne. Let's roll, he's going to roll to see if he hits you. Okay. Oh, what, do you have an AC? How does this work? Defense. Okay, he rolled a 10 to hit. I juke out of the way!

You juke out of the way! It's because you're right in Vaseline! Yes! I'm right in Vaseline! The baton! Advantage! The baton hits you dead in the forehead, but just slides off with no damage.

He's looking at it all crazy. Astro guy! Let's see what it says with these guys. They only get one attack for a round, so that's the end of the round. The other guy is still knocked out, so it'll be back to your round, but soon. First, we're going to check in with your compatriots here. Let's roll to see, just roll a d8 and see what you get.

Let's say that this is an acrobatics check to see if these skates actually work. Fuck, that's a one. Okay. You take two big strides and the wheel just falls right off, sparks fly. You eat shit on the pavement. You hit right in your knee.

You take one point of damage. Oh no! Because you hit right in your knee. You're just running on foot, Wrigley? I am staying in the car. You're staying in the car? Yes, so if I'm looking at the screen, is the security guard on the, so there's the door and Lucas is on one side in the car. You're staying in the car. Yes, so if I'm looking at the screen, is the security guard on the,

so there's the door and Lucas is on one side of the door. Is the security on the other side of the door? Is the door dividing them? The door is open. Everyone's outside the door at this point. They exited the door. It's still propped open, but they exited the door to deal with this teen. Okay, I will try to access the system

to make sure that that door stays open and doesn't lock. Okay, you can go ahead and hack it. Use a hard, use a computing check to see if you can. Seven plus five. It seems like the door is still unlocked and it's being held in place for now. We'll see if that stays on the next round. Lou and Laura, sorry, compost and wire.

You're just running. I'm sprinting. Okay, what's your movement? 30. Okay, so you get to move 60 feet closer. You're still probably one round away. I'm mounted. Compost, you are mounted. So let's say that'll double your speed. Oh my god, I made it. If you can do an acrobatics check.

Okay, great. That's a plus one, I've got this. It's a high DC. I've been watching Tony Hawk videos. That's a four. A four total? Four total. Okay, you are on the skateboard and you are moving, but there's cars in the way.

Shit, I just keep getting off to move around the car, then I put it down. You're good at the, shit, another card. You can turn by leaning, but you're not good at the kick turns yet. Got it. So it's real slow turning. So your movement is not doubled,

it's just whatever your movement is. Okay, then we're right next to each other. Okay, cool, cool, cool. No, I know, it's faster, it's faster! Okay, you're still one more round away from getting there. Sorry, Nirfworm, it is your turn. What would you like to do? I reach down and grab the Sega Saturn,

and I say, rise from your grave! And I swing the Sega Saturn up into the guy's jaw and uppercut him with a game console. Go ahead and roll to attack. All right. This is the guy that you already shocked or the other guy? This is the one who's not shocked,

the one who tried to hit me. Just roll a d8 and add, I don't... Add something? I don't know, just roll a d8. It's a one. Okay. Oh, your melee is a negative two. Melee is negative two, so it's a negative one. Ooh! So the Sega Saturn goes,

with all the Vaseline, just goes, shoop! Right, hits the guy's head and rockets into the building. Oh no, and it smashes on the pavement. Oh, it's destroyed. You shan't be using it again. The guy just looks at you, puzzled.

It's the next round. The guard on the floor is recovering from the electric shock, but he can't do a move this turn. He's just snapping to it. He is reaching for his walkie-talkie, though, which he might use in the next round. The other guy is going to wheel back with his baton and take another swing at you.

This is a 11 to hit. How good are you? 13. Jesus! I don't think I can ever hit you. All the back lead. That's what you're looking at. Our defense. Oh!

Okay. Our defense. Great. He misses again, and that's his move. He's actually, you know what? With the rest of his movement, he's going to run back inside and see if he can get help. You do get an attack of opportunity.

You can try to do something to prevent him from going back inside. So the taser takes an action to recharge. I don't need that. I'm going to fucking run and slip and slide at him, at his legs, because I'm covered in Vaseline. Okay, he gets inside the room and starts to book it. You run and slide.

You are very greasy. And you slide and try to take out his legs. Do I get grease vantage? Roll, just roll an attack roll and add a dexterity modifier. Oh, that's 10. That's 10. You get him in the legs.

It doesn't cause any damage, but it does slow him down so he does not get to the big red corded telephone that he was reaching for. Take a bump and take a dive! That concludes those guys. How are you doing? Well, she's on the ground, but she's opened the laptop, and I think what Jinx is going to try to do is...

Checker-y man. No. Fuck Janice! What Jinx is going to do is try to set off an alarm, a fire alarm, on the other side of the building, just to get people away from our boy. Okay, this'll take a whole round. Go ahead and do a computing check,

and let's just see if it works. Okay, ooh. Doing some fast computing. Well, that's an eight. Total, okay. Total. You feel pretty good about it. It will take one round to do, but you send the command. And can I have a movement? Can I get up?

You can definitely get up and move half your movement. Okay, well, I'm going to get up and walk 10 feet. Great. Limp 10 feet. How far am I away from the action? I'm saying 110 feet away. Are you kidding me? Right, because you guys are going 60 per round, and I said two rounds.

Does Wrigle Me This still have the, did you leave the radio with Wrigle Me This? Yes, you have. The radio's with Wrigle Me This? Yeah, I left it. Going into my Walkman on my Vaseline head. Of course, I threw it at Wriggle as I ran out of the car. I never put it into battle mode. It was connected to the desktop.

Wriggle Me This, are you still in the car, is that right? Yes, and I see him slip and slide and take this guy out, and I notice the red phone, and a thought occurs, and I jump out of the car and I start scanning for what would be an electrical box or a telephone wire that looks like it runs directly to this building. Something that is electrically,

like the telephone wire. The master telephone? Yeah, something like that. A console? Right, or a tower or something that if I can potentially run this car into it, it would take out the car. Oh wow, okay. Destroy the car!

It would also take out the internet, because the internet is on telephone. That's true. With your vast knowledge of the internet, you know that they have a T1 connection and they're hardwired. You do see a telephone line going into the building, but unfortunately,

you know that among you, Compost Guru is the only one who has ever driven a car because you're all super nerds. So you can drive it, but it will be at disadvantage. I was riding shotgun and I'm pretty aware, so I was sort of paying attention. Okay, you're going to gas up the car and try to hit the telephone pole.

Yeah. It's a cross. Your uncle's Tercel. I can feel it. It's like, ah! What's happening? Okay. No! My car! So you gas up the Tercel, do a,

let's roll to see if it. My kit! Which is made of chaos. I know, we're a group of elite hackers, but we're Vaseline-flipping, sliding, and ramming cars into things. You can do an acrobatics check or a hardware check, because cars are hardware. Hardware, okay. Come on, baby. Batman Forever's the best fucking movie.

That's a seven plus two. That's really good. You start making your way across the parking lot. You're headed right towards it. It's going to take you a hot second to get there, but you're accelerating. The steering wheel is really hard to get. This is not power steering. So it's real janky.

It's all over the place. Is this a manual shift car? Of course. Yeah. So you're in first gear and there's a lot of gear grinding going on. It's not going very fast, but it's powerful and you're trying to keep it together as you're weaving around the parking lot.

You look like you're in a pretty good trajectory right now. You haven't hit yet, though. You two, compost and wire, what are you guys doing? Just running? Just running. Can we get to the guard? You can definitely get there on this turn. I think it'll take your dash to get there, though, so you won't be able to do it.

Can I make another acrobatics check? Yes, you certainly can to see if you can skate any better than you did. That's another four. Okay, yeah, you're just not really good at skateboarding. If only it was a car! That's a car! What's a car? Where's the wheel on this thing?

But you both do manage to get right up to the guard who has now come back to life and he's pulling his walkie-talkie up. No, no, no, no, no! And it is his turn. He's going to click on it and he's going to say, We got an emergency! We got an emergency at the back entrance!

That's his whole turn. That's his move. Okay. The next guard is going to get up from where you tackled him and he's going to run over to that phone. He's going to pick it up and start dialing a couple of numbers

and it's ringing. Now it's your turn. My turn right now? Yes. Do I see the Sega Saturn anywhere? It's in pieces all over the place. Pieces everywhere. I just had a really macabre thought, but I'm not going to do that.

Are you going to garrote for a second? Not appropriate. Oh jeez, oh jeez. I'm going to run forward and dive and grab, I'm going to grab the phone. You're going to grab the phone? Tackle the phone. Strength check.

Oh boy. Come on. This is a big, beefy guard. Come on, Nerf War. Former cop. Oh, it's not bad for me. Strength? I'll do a contested one. Negative two.

It's a five. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I rolled for him. I rolled for'll do a contestable. It's a negative two. It's a five. Oh, yeah, yeah. I rolled a seven minus five. What did you get? Seven minus two is five. He rolled a four. Oh! And he has a zero on his strength for some reason,

even though he's a beefy guard. You do wrestle the telephone out of his hand. That's your whole movement and action. That's your action. You can run if you want. You're holding a telephone now. I will. How long is the cord? Not that long. Oh, it's pretty long. You can run if you want. You're holding a telephone now. No, I will. How long is the cord?

Not that long. Oh, it's pretty long. It's one of those curly cords. Curly cords. It goes more like 20 feet. Yeah, I'm just going to put the phone up to my ear and will be backing away from him the whole time, waiting to hear whatever the hell I'm going to hear. Yeah, you do hear something right away. Phillips, front desk, what do you want?

Sorry, false alarm. False alarm? Save the poker game. All right, Angies. Where else do you want? Sorry, false alarm. False alarm? Save the poker game. All right, Angies? Where else do we play? Oh! Oh, okay, cool, I'll see you there. $20 value, okay, great.

Next round. You are just fucked up. Did it work? First of all, how far am I from the front entrance? What is going on? From the front entrance, about the same distance, about 80 to 100 feet from the front entrance. I'm going to fucking A,

try to make my way to the front entrance instead. I'm going to go into the front. You're limping? Sure, go for it. Limping in easy. And did my alarm work? Oh yes, so your alarm does go through, and yes, a fire alarm goes off on the other side of the building.

It's located on the sixth floor, and there's a ringing alarm that you can definitely hear. It's not the entire building, it's just localized to one area, but there is a fire alarm going off. You don't know how that's going to affect things, but yes, it is going off. Well, either, I'm assuming,

either everyone will leave the building or all of the security will go into the one area. So. Who knows? Who knows? Yep, who knows? Can the rocks tell us? Yes, we'll find out soon enough on the next round. But can I move my full movement? And yeah, absolutely.

And double it, because you're not really doing anything else other than just listening. Okay, so you're almost to the front door. Great. Okay, wriggle me this. You're driving at full speed towards the telephone toll. And I have the headset on. Oh, you do?

I'm watching the footage as this is going on, so this is not a pretty thing. I see Lucas all lubed up and fighting, and I don't think anyone can hear me, so I say, holy shit, he's hot. And I am making my way towards the telephone. You're just going to go for it, all right. I want to take a walk off.

Roll one more driving check. I don't know what I told you to drive last time. Either hardware or acrobatics. It was bad as shaved head. Covered in basil. Yeah, I'm like, god, that's hot. There's bits of Sega Saturn. That's so hot.

That's up to me. Hardware? And no hair. And no hair. The car careens into the telephone pole. But I mean, it just hits the telephone pole. But, I mean, it just hits the telephone pole. It looks like the car is pretty fucked up. Can I see it?

You hear a crash behind you when you turn to see the front end of your car bent in. It seems like it could still maybe start, but it is heavily damaged. The telephone pole is still standing. And yes, let's say that you take one point of damage. There are no airbags, so your head just cracks into the steering wheel.

A little bit of blood. Can I see my friend here? Yeah, he's across the parking lot and he's thrashing on a skateboard. Do you have jumper cables? No! No jumper cables? No! Okay. I'm sorry about your car.

Fuck you, dude! We don't even, I don't have AAA! I have to call my dad! I'm going to reverse and try and... No! Sure, you can start reversing. We'll say that you can try again on the next round. Oh my god.

Wire Wizard, Compost Guru, that's your turn next, Wire Wizard. You're there. Oh god. The guy has just made a call on his radio. I want to just like- You're standing right in front of him. I know, but I want to have used my movement to run up at the same time as I do this,

because I want to Superman Punch with my grass knuckles. Great, make an attack. So I want to use to run up at the same time as I do this, because I want a superman punch with my grass knuckles. Great, make an attack. So I want to use the run for momentum. Make an attack and add, Jesus, I don't know how this system works. My melee? Yes. Okay. I'll do that.

Oh, and you're using your super strong arm. Yeah. Okay, go ahead. So it's an 11. That definitely hits. Go ahead and roll for damage. Oh, and it critsits because I rolled a seven. Oh, snap! Does it say what damage is?

Yeah, a 1d4. Okay, and you'll double that dice. So four plus one is five damage. Doubled or no? Oh, but I, so technically what I was doing is I was trying to aim for his walkie-talkie. Trying to punch the walkie-talkie out of his hand. Can I get, oh, out of his hand.

Okay, I'm going to try and grab the walkie-talkie. Cool. But I have glasses and very poor vision from a distance, so I don't know if, as I'm running up, I won't know until I get really close whether or not I'm aiming correctly. Okay, you're aiming for something in his hand. Near his face, so I might just clock him in the jaw.

Okay, let's roll a perception check. Okay. One. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. You punch something hard. And you hear something clatter against the ground. And that's, I guess. Can I tell once I've gone up what I hit? You crit on this hit, though,

so I'm going to just roll and see what you hit. Okay. Something clatters across the ground. What do I see? Do I see it? You see the man's wallet. I don't know why he was holding his wallet, but it falls on the ground. Did I? Yes!

I want to take the wallet. He's holding a wallet in one of his hands. I don't know, guys. Okay, I'm going for the walkie-talkie. You're going for the walkie-talkie. I'm going for the walkie-talkie. I don't want the wallet, it might have his key card in it.

I don't even need to get it from, I just want to click it as well. Okay, go ahead and click it. And do my best impression of his voice and say, Whoa! The emergency is I forgot Angie's address! Roll a deception check. Okay.

While the guy's going, what the fuck? That's a two. The emergency at the side door is that I forgot Angie's address! Okay. Goddamn it. You don't hear any response. It just sort of crackles a little bit.

Then after a while, you just hear, What? I'll be right there. Oh shit. Okay. Can I get down on the ground and start trying to see what fell? I forgot that you're nearly blind, yes.

Yeah. Go ahead and start searching. Do an investigation check with disadvantage. Okay, investigation. Five? Okay, yeah, you find his wallet for sure. Oh, I'm going to open it up and start seeing if I can see a key card.

Yes, there is a key card, yes. Yeah! You get it right away. I'm going to run into the building. Okay, she's gone. Great. Top of the round. The guy who's heavily injured, he's the guy who had the walkie-talkie

and still has the walkie-talkie. He's going to try to pull it free from you. First, with a contested strength check, just roll an eight and give me your strength. That's a five. Okay, he rolled a seven. He pulls it from you. No!

And he says again into the walkie-talkie. Well, it's okay. Backdoor's compromised, backdoor's compromised. Get here quick! That's his turn. The other guy who had been kneecapped while trying to get to the phone is now. I've got the phone away from him.

You've got the phone, Jesus, and you're slippery like a pig. So he's going to try to grab you. And he's going to roll, I guess, do a save, do an acrobatics save here. I'm sorry, a dexterity save. You have to beat an eight. That's a 10. That's a 10.

You're just too wily. He spends his whole turn trying to grab you. Nothing happens. You're at the front door at this point, if you want to go in. Yeah. You're in. What do you want to do? I want to go in.

I want to go up to the lobby, sir. I love that we're empowering yourself. There is a middle-aged woman at the front desk. Oh, perfect. She says, oh, hi, can I help you? Hi, I'm Janice's daughter, and I just needed to tell, I'm on my way to a costume party,

and I forgot that I have a bunch of Hot Pockets in my car that I need to drop off to my mother because she's got to refill the Hot Pocket coffers for tomorrow's lunch rush. Okay, do a deception check. Hot coffers. Hot coffers. Where's deception? Okay.

Okay. I'm going to roll. That's a four. Okay, she rolled really good. She looks at you up and down, and just then she hears the fire alarm going off elsewhere in the building, and she is all of a sudden suspicious and says, Janice's daughter, huh?

Yeah. All right, let me make a call. I'll bring her up. And so she picks up a phone and starts dialing. And I have my tonfa. Yes. And I use it to hit the phone and I'm like,

she didn't tell you about me! And then goes into a performance of I can't believe that Janice didn't tell, she told me she was going to tell people. So you're not attacking her, you're just trying to flail about hysterically. Hysterically, it's a performance She told me she was going to tell people. So you're not attacking her, you're just trying to flail about hysterically. Hysterically, it's a performance,

and she goes into a sob story about how Janice promised that she was going to come clean about her daughter to her coworkers, and she's just tired of living a lie. Tired of living a lie. Janice has had problems with her daughter in the past. In the next round, we'll see if this deception works. In the meantime, wriggle next round, we'll see if this deception works. In the meantime,

Oh man, this sucks. wriggle me this, how you doing? Wriggle me this, how you doing? You're making it worse! You are making it worse. Yeah, well, I, again, just struck by how lithe and quick Lucas is, and it's really cool. Well, he's being successful.

I need to do something, and I will, it says fuck late fees. I will rip my sleeve off and I will stuff it into the cigarette holder to catch fire. Sure. And once it catches fire, I'm going to hop out and rip open the electrical box and light all the electricity.

Wow. Not on the car. You're not going to blow up my car. No, I'm not going to blow up your car. I'm blowing up the box. I'm just going to blow up my car. No, I'm not going to blow up your car. I'm blowing up the bot. I'm just going to set it on fire. Go ahead. Let's roll another hardware or computing.

Well, no, this isn't computer. This is hardware. So go for a hardware check. Mm-hmm. I'm going to use this one. Come on, come on. Okay, five, seven. Seven, okay.

You connect this crazy set of wires. And because it's already been damaged, it's pretty easy, actually. You jam it in there and a whole bunch of sparks fly out. You do take two points of damage from the electrical surge, but all of a sudden, sparks fly, an explosion happens at the electrical panel that you're at, and electrical power seems to jut up

and through and to the building, and all at once, there is a huge power surge in the building. The power doesn't go out, but it dims for a second and comes back on again. And when the power comes back on, all sorts of haywire is happening. There are multiple alarms now going on all over the building.

The radios seem to have reset and are restarting, so they are temporarily fuzzy with static. Everyone takes a moment to figure out what the hell's going on. Security guards at the front door are also confused. Security guards at the back are also very confused. It was a definite jolt to the building. The power's not out, but it was a big jolt.

Because of the shortage, are the doors unlocked? Are all of the locked doors unlocked? You can check on your computer. Let's say that, here, I'm going to say that an alarm is also going off on the entire building now, but it's not a localized alarm anymore. It's a general alert. And you notice that people are starting to mill about

in the building and people who are in the front lobby are starting to leave now. Ooh, look at this. In the commotion, does the front desk person have a key card lying around that I can look at? Have a key card? You see a key card around her neck, sure. But now she's very confused and distracted.

There's the general alarm. She says, I think we need to get out of here. There's some sort of an alarm going off in the whole. Do I see her? No, we're in a completely different area. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, let's get out of here. But first, may I hug you?

I just need some motherly affection, and you know Janice. I do know Janice. We really got to get out of this building. Sure, just give me a quick hug. And I'm going to try to unclip. Roll a sleight of hand check. Jesus.

That fucking was not fair. This is... Three. A true mix. I roll for her, yeah. She grabs you by the arm forcefully and says, young lady, we need to talk, but we need to get out of this building.

And she starts marching you to the front door. Okay. Okay. Boy, where was I? You guys, what are you doing? I'm going to see Wizard run in the building, know that this guy doesn't have a key, maybe know that this guy doesn't have a key card anymore,

and fuck the walkie-talkie. Clearly, it's not an emergency to not know Angie's, and I'm just going to close the door behind us. Great, easy enough. And follow Wizard wherever she's going. Okay, all of you were inside the doors, yes? Yeah. When you ran 20 feet, you're still inside.

I'm bobbing and weaving with this guy. Well, I guess, oh, I will run, I'm going to close the door behind me, run up and pepper spray the guy he's fighting. Great, roll to attack. Okay. Of course. That's an eight, a seven on the die.

Definitely hits. DC 15, halved to eight. Or be blinded for one. He rolled a two. Okay, so he is blinded for four rounds. Holy moly, this poor guy. Yeah! The pepper spray hits him directly in the face and nose. Tears stream down his face.

Oh, I'm part-time! Why would you do this to me? He's in pain. His face is instantly reddened. He can't see. He's walking around, trying to feel where he is. He's crying. He's out of it. I immediately grab him by the hands

and spin the red phone cord around his hands and down his legs, and I tie him like a hog. Totally incapacitate. There is the other guard, though. He's outside the door, though. He was outside the door and he's locked out. And he doesn't have access because they've got Oh, you got his card!

You guys are amazing! He can hear pounding on the door outside. Let me in! Let me in there at all! Hey, Buster, are you okay? I hear screaming and crying. Buster, my best friend for life, are you okay? Buster! All right, he's out of it.

I'm going to grab Dank's earpiece. You can't, I'm too slippery. No, then I'm going to just get up close to Dank's and yell into his ear. We got a card! We got a card! Wrigley, Wiggles, we got a card. I'm ready. Get in here. Get in here, we got a card! We got a card! Wrigley! Wrigles! We got a card! Get in here, get in here.

We got a card. Three of you are in the building and there doesn't seem to be anyone in between you and the hallway that leads to more building. Two of you are not in the building. No, I'm still in the building. Oh, you are, but you're being marched out.

Yes, but how many people are around? There's a lot of people. Now, dozens are flooding out of the building. Yeah. But you're being held very tightly by this very strong woman as she marches you out of the building. I don't know what you're doing over there,

wriggle me this. I'll tell you what I'm doing. Can I see the front entrance? Can I see? You can see the front entrance from where you are. And I can see her I'm doing. Can I see the front entrance? Can I see? You can see the front entrance from where you are. And I can see her starting to make her way out with the other woman? She's just reaching the front door at this point.

Okay, I'll say into the comms, I can see that you guys are in there. All that matters is the mission. Keep going. And I'll run towards them, and I will see this woman holding onto her, and I will toss the shuriken. What?

You're going to shuriken a guard in front. Okay. As I do it, I'm going to yell, I'm going to yell, go, go, go! And that's what I'm going to do. We got in during a part-time security guard with the worst thing we did today. All right.

We're in the front desk waiting like, what? I don't want to be here today. So there's a whole bunch of people leaving the building. One of them is holding young Jinx and you throw a throwing star at this middle-aged guard who's holding her. Go ahead and roll an attack and we'll see what happens. Okay, is it a melee? No, it's a ranged.

So it's, yeah. Does it say on the card what to do? It says ranged, 10 feet. So yeah, and it's just a ranged, so it's, yeah. Does it say on the card what to do? It says ranged, 10 feet, so yeah. And it's just to hit, right? Yeah, just roll and add your dexterity. That's a two. That's a two? Yeah. You guys can't get in this building.

The shuriken is deftly thrown, but just goes right over everybody's head. You guys are not athletic. The shuriken just, ting, ting, ting, ting, deeper in the lobby. Luckily, nobody heard it because there's alarms and there's all sorts of chaos going on, but you did not hit anybody.

Nobody noticed this happened. You're closer, but that's about it. Can I try to step on her foot? Go ahead, make an attack roll. Oh! It won't hurt for her because she's got the roller skate wheels on the bottom. That's right, and one of them's broken and janky.

Oh god. Well, it's the other foot that I'm using. Also, wait, what do I add? Nothing? Your melee? I add melee, sure. I don't know. Where's that? Middle right of the page, on the right.

That's a zero! Okay, six. Yeah, you stomp on her foot. We'll say she takes two points of damage, and for a second, she releases you from her grasp. I do a little dance, and I slip by. Uh-huh, and you're going back in against the wave of people. Against the wave, yeah, yeah.

You are very slow, and you have a double injured leg. I just got to get to my mom, Janice! God, you're so dangerous. Janice! It's really hard for you to move. Let's just roll a simple dexterity check. Just roll and add your dexterity to see how far away you get.

Okay, I put far. Oh, this is the wrong one, sorry. Please! What? Zero! Is it possible? You separate from her, but the wave of people exiting the building because of the emergency is keeping you

from getting any further in. You're trying to move around, but you just can't. You're stuck there. But for the moment, she does not have a grasp on you. She's also getting pushed out by the wave of people. Oh, good, good, good. She's getting further and further away from you. Woo!

Jesus! I guess we just sit here and watch this man scream and cry until our friends get here, I guess. I guess we just watch him. Do they maybe hear me yell, Janice? You're on the opposite side of the building, unfortunately. Okay, it's time for the other team here, the elves. Liam, Laura, Lou, what are you guys doing?

Can we pull out the key card? I'm going to run over to the elevator and see if I can access the elevator. Easily enough. It beeps, it opens. You have elevator access. Do we go up? Yes. Tell them where we're going. Hey, you guys, can you hear me?

We got access, we're in the back. I think there's only one guard on the back right there. If you want to try, I'm not sure what to do. If we should go up and you guys are, you know, like an eye in the sky or what? Do you copy? Eye in the sky.

No idea. Tell him to go to floor three. I'm not with you. Yeah, where are we? Sorry, I don't know. Where it is? What did you say? What was that? He said he's going up the elevator.

You did hear him. I did hear him. Yeah. Yeah, so I know that. Okay, great. You guys hit a button. Three. Three. They just hang out in the elevator. Going up the elevator.

You know what? Do you guys want to pop some random drugs? Oh god. I'm going to take a pill. You're going up the elevator. You know what? Do you guys want to pop some random drugs? Oh god! I'm going to take a pill. You're going to take a pill? Is this one that you know of? Well, it's I roll a d6. It's a mystery pill, so we'll see.

That's a six, so I fall prone and my movement is zero until next turn. Okay. Do you guys want to take some drugs? You take a quick slip. You take a quick sleep. You take a pill and it knocks you out for a bit. It was not what you were expecting. Yeah, it was a baby. Sleeping pill.

But it's a real small dosage. You'll only be out for a couple rounds. All right, let's go, Dookie Howser. Come on, and I drag him in. It's all right, my car got us here. Mess. I will hack the system and press three. Oh!

It works. The elevator is moving towards three. We have a card. It's a security card. Jinx, you are still caught in the wave of people. Wait, what? The security, yeah, you have a security key card. You have access to every floor. You're absolutely going up to the third floor.

I admit it, I was just pressing three. Okay. Jinx, you are still caught in the wave of floor. I admit it, I was just pressing. Okay. Jinx, you are still caught in the wave of people. It's starting to pull you out of the building. How far am I from the elevator? Please do something good. I guess I could take my Tomfa. Okay, yeah, great. And start poking people.

Poke away. You know, go out of the way. Roll and give me a melee attack. Good old Tom Johnson. A melee attack. Where's that? Oh, hey, it's me. Blackwillow69.

Six. Will our heroes ever make it to the server? So I'm starting to talk. You know, it's not dangerous, but it's just like mood is a feat of elimination. You're poking people away. Hey, what are you doing? It's a challenge. I'm trying to exit. I hear you. Oh, you're from the's a challenge. I'm trying to exit. I hear you.

Oh, you're from the gym? Yeah, I'm from the elevator. The best and leading VPN service in the world. All right, so they let you through. You're almost to the bank of elevators. Yes, yes. You're almost to the bank of elevators. Do I find, is there a friendly face

or someone that looks a little bit non-friendly around? Even when traveling abroad, there are several employees who are feeding in a hurry. Why should one use NordVPN? Because it keeps all your data safe behind a wall of next-generation encryption. He's just gotten off the elevator. The elevator door is still open.

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Okay, roll for deception with advantage. As our heroes blunder their way through the second half, wishing they had a tool. Deception, right? Like NordVPN. Yes. See you soon. Four. You get to roll twice. Oh, yes.

Oh, five. Okay. Who doesn't love a Ring Pop? He lets you right through and he says, I can't give you my key card, but I will. Yeah, swipe it, swipe it. I'll swipe it for you. Thank you so much. Swipes it. All right, have fun with Janice. She hits three. Okay, great.

You're on your way. Wriggle me this. What are you doing, bud? I'm going to, so where am I exactly? You are probably 20 feet away from any entrance that you would have wanted to go to. 20 feet. The back door or the front door?

Which way did you go? Where was the electrical box? It was probably in between both. So you could have gone either way. I'll go towards the front entrance. Front entrance, okay. There's a wave of people coming out of the building. Right.

I will... Dance. I know, this is so intense, this music. I will very confidently, I will remove my hoodie. I will very confidently. That you were wearing over your jump suit. Yes, that I was wearing over my power rangers jumpsuit.

And I will approach. Are there people helping everyone out of the building? Security is ushering everybody out of the building, yes. You see some people walking out, some people running out. You actually see there was two window washers on a window washer basket. They're actually lowering themselves down. How far down are they?

They're now on the second floor, moving down quickly, because they've got to get off of this thing, too. The devil tempts. I will stick with my plan. I will walk up to whoever it looks like they're in charge with my headset on, and I will stick with my plan. I will walk up to whoever looks like they're in charge with my headset on, and I will say, excuse me, I'm from security systems. This alarm, I'm here to fix it.

Can you lead me to the operating system, please? Okay, you happen to walk up straight to the woman who Amy was just talking to. She is confused, she's baffled, she's looking behind her. Where did that young woman go? Janice's sure. She is confused, she's baffled, she's looking behind her at where did that young woman go, Janice's daughter. She turns to you. I'm sorry, what?

I'm with security systems. I have to address this alarm system immediately. Can you please take me to the main operating system so I can address this situation? You seem so confident. Roll with advantage to see if you can deceive me. All security personnel wear hot pink Tower Rangers outfits.

Seven, but minus two, so five. Oh god. We're like the bad luck group. I'll roll for her. She got a one. I ate my one. From your uniform, I can tell that you are legitimate. Yes, special issue.

The magenta color is very flattering on you. It hugs your hips nicely. Thank you very much. Yeah, of course. Go through this alarm. It's super annoying. Please go turn it off. But before I leave, I'll say, oh, thank you very much, but I love your haircut, and I'll walk away.

Why, thank you. You're welcome. What a nice young man. She walks off with a little spring in her step. She's going to have a great rest of her day. I'm in, I'm in, I'm in, I'm in! Okay, you're in. You're in the lobby. Everyone is in the building, and it seems like nobody else is, at least at the moment.

The alarm, for the love of god, stops. Did she point me towards the security, like the room? No, she knows that you know where it is. Oh fuck. Okay. But you let him know, so he knows. Yeah, so we don't get in. We have talk, you have walkie-talkies.

You guys are in the building. This is a big deal. I don't know how to turn off the alarm. Maybe it's going to just happen. I hope it's going to happen. And for the sake of brevity, you all make it to the third floor without fail. The alarm, for the love of God, does go off eventually.

You make it to the third floor. You make it to a room that is labeled Johnson Corp Mainframe. It is a sparkling room with incredible amounts of computing power. Hold on, let me find where I am here. It's got large screens, ports to jack in, giant banks of storage disks.

You look across the room and estimate the raw hard drive space in this room to be up to two gigabytes, an unimaginable amount of space. This is the hungest amount of giga. There is a constant hum and a subtle vibration everywhere, like machinery is working hard.

As you enter this room, your laptop, we'll say you're all together again, your laptop rings and you are greeted by the face of Agent Goldstein once more, the gentleman who has been pre-recorded messages to you all night. We'll ask what he says on this video-recorded message. It's me again, pimple poppers.

If you're hearing this message, you've made it to the laser maze, finally getting through the entrance to the building, which was painful at times, I'm sure. Could thwart even the greatest agent. But I guess you think you're hot shit. Well, guess what? When you feel that way, you're going to feel that way, obviously,

until you get real responsibilities in the world. You pay your mortgage when you've got to do your own taxes, when you're married to a woman who hates you, and you wake yourself up every night with your own farts. You think you're grand now, but it doesn't last. Eventually, you get wrinkles, and you get sadness deep in your heart. I hate you, I hate all your stupid faces, but good job, proud of ya. Yeah. Anyway, back to the electronic maze, or the e-maze.

You'll find a bunch of mirrors in your gear. Use those to circumvent the lasers and cross this room, but do not make a mistake, or very bad things will happen to you. Get to that mainframe and jack off in it. Jack, get to, jack into, jack into the mainframe and jack off on, get on the mainframe and jack in hard as you can.

That is where the virus is stored. You guys look across this large room at where the mainframe is across the room, and yes, you can see there is a level four parse wave laser array, which will sound even more alarms if tripped. The laser cannot be turned off except from some sort of remote location. The only way through is to redirect the lasers

in a way that you can pass through them without tripping them. And we will get to that challenge after we take a quick break. Woo! Boy, that took a long time to get you guys in the building. You underestimated how stupid we were. I did, I did.

But we will, ooh, look, lasers, guys, lasers. Oh! I've seen this movie with Catherine Tate and Joe. Hell yeah! Yes. We're going to look so hot. Yeah, with my boobs. We're going to take a quick break while our team gets ready for lasering.

And when we come back, there's going to be more hot computing action when NordVPN Presents Generation Nord returns. Why, hello there. This is Critical Role's resident art dad, also known as Liam O'Brien. We are continuously amazed at the artwork this community creates.

That's why each Thursday at 8 a.m. Pacific, we share a curated gallery of submitted fan art over on CritRoll.com. If you'd like to submit your art for consideration, visit CritRoll.com slash submit. And thank you to all of the incredible artists who share their talents with us week after week. Welcome back to Generation Nord brought to you by NordVPN. Lasers. You are in a room filled with lasers. You cannot trip on these lasers or bad things will happen. You are also in the room that is adjacent to the mainframe. You see the mainframe in front of you, the consoles just across the floor, 20, 30 feet away from you. Being this close to the mainframe,

the awesome computing power of the Johnson Corp mainframe, something happens to those suits that you were wearing before. They transform, enacting unheard of powers. You feel slightly more powerful than before your suits have become embiggened. With the computational power of the mainframe,

your sense is heightened, your intuition firing on all parsecs. Is my knee healed? Your knee is totally healed. Whoa! Can I see? You cannot see. No, yes, yes, you can see. Let's say that you, before you were

2,200 vision, now you're 2,100 vision. Oh, I see. I can't see. I see. Much better. You hear a squawk in your new headsets that manifest themselves on your head. It's Agent Nobody saying, the jumpsuits we outfitted you earlier with

were just in case you made it this far. You'll see that each of you have one new piece of gear that only manifests in this digital environment. This technology. We're digital? We're almost, we're digital adjacent. This technology is untested, unproven, but it might be exactly what you need.

Wrigley, wriggle me this 89. What do you have? Well, this is, how did you get my schematics? This is what I was working on. We are also hackers. Oh! It's a shiny metallic,like armor, but very flexible. It's a cybernetic arm that fits over your actual arm.

It allows me, with a pool of a couple of thugs here, I can hack and jack into any system. Hack and jack. Yes. You get a little bonus to strength. Nerf Worm, or whatever your name is. What do you have? It's similar, but different. Well, despite my obsession with Sega, I have an all-purpose console power glove

that will help me game with power. I forgot that's what you said. I was like, what, vibration? As you know, power gloves can project telekinetic force across the room with the power of gaming. So you can cast telekinesis at a 25-foot range. What? Damn. The power to move.

Jynx, what do you have? You know, I don't know, actually. I will tell you what you have. You have a headband with a third eye, although I only see two up there, but there's a third. There are two, so that means I have four. It really makes your hair look great, but also it has a glowing essence,

like a third invisible eye. When used, it instantly searches the worldwide database for insight about one question or topic. Basically, you get one answer that you need. Love it. You get a strength boost, Christian. Thank you. Alex, sorry, your real name is Wire Wizard. What do you have? Do you know what you have?

I can tell you. I think I have this thing and this thing. Yes, you have headphones with a visor. Yeah. They're big, wired, over-ear headphones that are attached to your Walkman device. When used, it will play a top 100 song from 1995 for inspiration,

and you will get a plus two to all ability checks while the song is playing. Whoa! Yes. Compost Guru. I have this Iron Man, you know, will inspire Jon Favreau in the years to come for the design.

Yeah, a vest with this kind of electronic heart. Agent Nobody says, I will be honest with you, Compost Guru. We have no idea what this vest does. A what? It's foreign tech, and our people haven't cracked it yet. Wait, what?

It seems to have a one-time battery charge, which means whatever it does, you'll only be able to use it once. We recommend against it, because we don't know what it does. I'll make sure it counts that one time I use it. Further, you guys realize that with this awesome power, everything just seems a little bit heightened and more higher resolution.

All rolls will now be made with two d8s because we are in a 16-bit environment. Wow! Shit, shouldn't have said all those. No, it's great, it's great. But you are in front of a maze of lasers and you must defeat this laser maze, which we will represent with this laser maze, which we will represent

with this laser maze. Oh! This is a game called Laser Maze. Wait, what? We've got a legitimate laser maze. So this thing right here, this red thing, shoots out a laser, and you can use these various mirrors to bounce the laser around and do things. Does it really? It does. It's hard to see, but we're going to work with it.

The red square is the laser beam. Oh, cool! The things that have little red dots on top, those are the targets. I will be giving you cards. Cards that show you what orientation, how to organize this. This is a child's game.

You should be able to figure this out. While I'm confused over it. I know. You're going to organize those things. No a child's game. You should be able to figure this out. While I'm confused on that. I know. You're going to organize those things. No, you can move it all. You're going to have to move it all. You're going to have to organize these things in a pattern to follow these cards here.

And if you can do the pattern, that means you've made it through the laser maze. Okay. Okay. I'm sure we'll understand it as soon as we actually start. You will have to. Can we fight our way through? Okay. I'm sure we'll understand as soon as we actually start. You will have to. Can we fight our way through? As you say that, two gigantic troll robots

show up in the room. Not what? Trollbots? Trollbots? They seem impervious to the lasers and they are making their way towards you. Make their way. I will arrange you guys. This is very well thought out. You have your own pogs.

What? Everyone's got a pog. Representing where you are in the room, I'm going to randomly scatter you around unless you'd like to be anywhere. Actually, everyone make an intelligence check. We'll do a group intelligence check. 16-bit? 16-bit.

Oh shit. I rolled double eight. Amazing, success. Whoa. Seven, five, plus seven. 16 for me. 16, amazing. 14. 14, these are huge.

11. Moving so fast. 15. Those are great, okay. As a group, you all seem to understand that it would be wisest, strategically, if a couple of you worked on the laser maze while the rest fought off these troll robots.

I leave it to you guys to decide who's going to be doing what. I'll fight the trolls. Now listen here. Amy wants to fight the trolls. You might do both. I don't think Jinx would do it, but I don't know how the fuck to play this game.

So... Can I use my All-Seeing Eye to figure out how to play the game? You can. No, no. I'm not going to waste it. Yes, you absolutely can. Absolutely you can. Okay.

How many times do you get that All-Seeing Eye? If you need to. Yeah, how many times do I get the All-Seeing Eye? Yeah, how many times can I play my top 100s on? These are all pretty much single-use items. Oh no! So use them wisely. Not doing it.

Well, this thing's just sort of connected. Yeah, that just works always. Oh, that's nice. In 1995, you could play the power of a Google search. Right. One Google search. Ask Jeeves. Why don't we go ahead and roll for initiative?

Initiative. Is that 2d8? That's 2d6s. I'll roll for the trolls. Sixes? So me and Reed. I'm sorry, 2d8s, sorry. 2d8s. 2d8s. Nine.

And we have initiative. All right, who is 16 and higher? Who is 10 to 16? 10. 11. Also 11. Okay. Or at least. 12, I lied, 12. Okay, Wire goes first.

Compost goes second. What's your name? Riggle goes third. Who's five to 10? Six. Nine. Okay, Jynx goes fourth. Nice. And Nerf goes fifth, and the bad guys are in there somewhere. Okay.

All right. Wire Wizard, you are up first. Would you like to work on the laser maze, or would you like to fend off these trolls? They are making their way towards you right now. I feel like being the buff and not wisest one of the group, I'm going to put my hands

to better use fighting the trolls. Okay, great. These nasty robots with sharp claws and dim yellow eyes, these are processor-generated troll bots that comb Johnson Corp and erase any invasive software or hardware. They are moving towards you right now. Do I see any panels on them that I can open up?

Panels that you can open up. They are robots, they do have panels, but they seem pretty well made. There's panels on the front, there's panels on the side, there's panels all over the place. Are you looking for something specific? I want a panel either on the back, something that accesses the mainframe of their systems.

Okay, cool. I guess make a perception check or a hardware check, since you're such a hardware ace. Sweet. 14. With this power of 16 bits, you get the sense that there is one panel right around their heart

that seems to be bigger than the rest. That's all you can tell about it. All right. And it's got hex bolts that are keeping it shut. Great, that's good, because I've got my electrician's tools. Okay, so you're going to just go and pop onto it? Yeah, I'm going to run up and try to swing around

and with my strong arm, hold onto the neck while I jab in the electrician's tools and open up the panel. Make either a strength check or a hardware check, depending on how would you like to do this. 12. 12, okay. Here, let me roll for the creature, see if it can shake you off.

It also rolled a 12. You get around it and jam your tool into it. It makes purchase. You start to twist and turn and the screw does start to turn, but it doesn't pop open on this round. Right, right, right, right, right. Pretty good move.

While I'm holding it, I'm just going to lean forward and suck on my ring pop for a minute. That definitely helps. Okay, it is now the troll's turn. The one who you are on is going to roll an attack against you. What's your defense? 12.

It rolled a 13. Shit. It will hit you with a... It makes a claw attack against you and it's going to score... Yeah, where is it? I don't have, there it is. It's going to score three points of damage against you. Jeez. Is that, okay, okay. I don't know how this game works. We don't have a lot of damage against you. Jeez.

Is that, okay, okay. I don't know how this game works. We don't have a lot of HP. We're teenagers. Which one are you? We're teens! I'm blue. So he's on you. This one's going after Greenie. That's you, Laimi.

He's going to attack. You're hard to hit. I have mail pattern baldness. He rolled a 12 to hit. Suck it, I've got digital Vaseline all over me! God, you're so fast! Digital Vaseline. He whiffs by you. He does, no, that's good.

That's his attack. He will stay and hover around you because he thinks that you're pretty badass. Okay, next up is Compost Guru. Would you like to work on the laser maze or attack the trolls? I think I'm going to work on the laser maze. Okay, then please roll a,

boy, you are bad at computing. Yep. Roll a computing check. Oh no. But hey, we're 16-bit, baby. That's a seven minus two for a five. Okay, unfortunately, that means that you get one of the harder cards. Oh, shit!

Now the red corners bounce, and the green ones, it's like a pass through or something. They just looked so confident when they fist bumped and said that we were going to deal with the turrets. Do not look at the back of this card. Okay. Okay. So, see this red thing here? That's where you of this card. Okay. Okay. So see this red thing here? That's where you put the laser.

Okay. The laser has to pass through all of these things in whatever direction you'd like it to go through. You can also add three more purples anywhere you'd like. Got it. But here's the goal. Can I move this over here? Yes, take it closer to you.

Okay. So this has to go here. This starts here. It has to move through all of these things, and it has to hit a target, just a single target. Yellow is the target. Yellow the target? No, yellow is what it has,

that's like a pass-through bridge. It has to go through that thing. What target does it need to hit? One of those two things? It's going to have to point this way to start. It has to go through these things. It has to go through that. Do I put one here?

You definitely can put that there, but it can swivel any way you'd like. Okay, and that's there, and then I have three extra. And I can also swivel any way you'd like. The greens are a pass-through, right? The yellow's a pass-through, and this goes right here to start. And where's it have to go to?

It has to hit one of these. Okay. But it has to hit it on this side. Oh, on the red. That's the target side. So to bounce it around there, I'll give you 30 seconds, and then I'm going to move to the next person.

And you can't just, oh, okay, okay, okay. Gripping television! I seriously don't understand. I know, it's really hard to get. There it goes. There it goes. Okay, okay. And then this goes. I'm going to fight the troll.

Okay. There. Nice. You did it! You did it? I did. Wait, is it hitting a target? Is it going through everything? It's hitting this one. Does it need to hit? This can go any way? Did it go through that one? Yeah, It's hitting this one. Does it need to hit?

This can go any way. Yeah, it's hitting all of them. Passing the yellow and laying right over there. This guy is a genius. Brilliant! It's compote! One third of the lasers go down, turn off. The room is much more open.

You can move around much more freely. He also gets Password, by the way. He knew Password. Who knows? Maybe I'm more than just a guy with a car. Jynx. Well, you don't have a car. Jynx, you are up. What would you like to do? There is a troll and there are more lasers. Oh, I can't do the lasers.

I'm going to go for the trolls. You're going for the trolls. Yeah. Delete these freakers. Delete these. You run up to this troll closest to you? Yeah. Okay. And they're pretty tall.

What are they? They are tall robots. They are eight and a half feet tall. I'm hanging on its back right now. The same one? Yes. Okay. Sword.

And you're trying to get into his... I'm like a piggyback ride on him right now and I'm trying to open up the front chest panel. Can I assist her? Go ahead, yes. You can make a strength. What did I say, strength? No, hardware check with advantage. Go ahead, yes. You can make a strength, what did I say, strength? No, hardware check with eVantage.

eVantage, honey. eVantage. Okay, so. Okay. With, so hardware, 11, 12. 12. I'm going to roll against. You did better because you're helping. Two screws, no, three screws are loose.

You just need one more screw and you will pop open the panel. Great. Anything else to do on your turn? Are you good to move? Do I have a movement? You can move more if you'd like. No, I guess I'll just stand here at the ready.

Nerf Gobbler. Nerf Worm Grim 01011. I'm going to, Nerf Worm's going to do lasers. Lasers, all right, take that laser game. What do the greens do? What do the greens do? The greens? They're like pieces that'll be in the...

The laser goes through that, but also it splits into two. Oh, cool. In two directions? Yes, it will split the laser into two directions. So it will allow it to pass through, but it will also turn half of the laser the other direction. Oh boy.

Okay, roll a Computing check to see if you can figure out how hard this laser maze is. I like how quickly your visor came off as soon as it hit the wall. I'm about to do a puzzle. Nine, I got a nine. A nine is not great. Nope.

Okay, you're going to get another hard one. Why? Sorry. Do not look at the back of this card. Okay. So you need to hit three targets. Oh jeez. This is the initial pattern. You can turn them any way you'd like.

And you can add those three at the top. Two greens and one purple. I can add two greens and one purple and then these three are what? They have to be there. Those have to go there, but they don't have to be in that orientation. But they are purples, they're all purples. These lasers are hard, guys.

So it's two greens and a purple. Get these out of here so they don't. But you have to have something here. And you have to add those two greens and a purple. Okay. Okay. But what is that? I don't know what it does. That just shoots the laser

and it has to be pointing the way that it says. I know a laser comes out of it, I just don't know. So look, if you hit the laser. That part I know, I know the corners. No, I'm saying if you hit the laser. We need some of Compost's Adderall. See, and it goes through the ink and it lights. We just don't know what we're going to get.

It's mostly Adderall. If you don't want to do this, there are other options out there, too. You have special powers. We have the target. The target is, there is no target. It says you have to hit three targets. I have to hit, so I have to bounce this through three things.

You have to bounce it all around so that it hits three of these things. Okay. At the same time. Yes. Three. I feel like this one is. At the same time. Yes. Three. I feel like this one is harder than the other one. It is. To hit these reds? To hit the red stuff? By the way, guys,

you're a team, help each other out. Oh, we can help them? Yes! So, and I can put, okay, so I could do a purple there. Me too, I'm just thinking. But I will stop you after 10 more seconds, and that will be your turn for this one. I can't tell what's going on. One, two.

So this goes this way. Nope. One, two. I'm just going to polish my hands. Okay, that's it for your turn. We're going to keep going. You can keep thinking about it, but we're going to move on to Wire Wizard.

You can either help him with the, spend your turn helping him with that, or you can attack this troll. No way, I'm going to use my proficient Oh, I'm so sorry! It's okay. Wait. Oh! How did that happen? Sorry, Riggle. You flipped. Sorry, Riggle. Yeah, you can fire it.

Go ahead, take your turn, please. Well, as I see Nerf World Jim, that's it, right? Nerf Wyrm. Nerf Wyrm Jim trying to figure this out, I will put my goggles on and I will say, you stay away from my boy. Oh! And I'm running fist first,

and I'm going to try and grab, these are ridiculous. I'm going to try and grab the panel. I'm going to try and grab the panel. You're going to rip the panel off. And just rip the panel off. Amazing. With that thing, I think you get a huge bonus to strength,

but roll for it anyway. Okay, so it's 2d8, right? Seven, eight. Plus your strength, plus the bonus of the gloves. So it's eight, nine, and I don't know what the bonus is. Oh, the bonus for the gloves is another four. So 13. Okay, so yes, the third screw easily rips off

with the power of the glove, not the power glove, just the cybernetic arm. The panel rips open and you can see a glowing microchip in the middle of it. It seems to be a power supply or a control unit of some sort. That's your action. You can call this out to your friends.

You can try to use a bonus action if you wanted to throw something on it. What about bonus action interact with objects? Sure, go for it. Jack in. You're jacking in to his chest. Finally a jack. Okay, he's jacking in, up, off.

Jack it. You're jacking in. I'm going to try and hijack. Your cybernetic glove instantly jacks in and you can feel what the troll is feeling. You can see through its eyes. You can hear what it's hearing, which is nothing. It doesn't have ears. No.

What's it thinking? But you can control it a little bit. Not on this turn, but you feel like on the next turn, you will be able to control it now. Next up, now that we skipped back, is Wire Wizard. Ah, so wait, we can control the troll? He can. Okay. I'm jacked in.

You're jacked into that troll, then I'm going to jump off this one and run over to the other one and try to do the same shit. Okay. You can control it, but it does have its own control as well. And so it's going to take a swipe at you as you go.

It rolled a eight to hit. What's your defense? Fuck this troll. Oh, nothing? Yeah. It takes a swipe at you, but it swings too high. You duck down and you scramble over to the other troll. I'm going to slide through the other troll's legs and hop up and try to punch.

Dick punch it? Yeah. Cool. I go ahead and take a roll. How do I look it? I might, wait, yeah, I'm going to use my brass knuckles and punch it. Oh, nice. Go ahead and roll for a hit. 13.

Yeah, that hits, yes. Great, great, great. Roll for damage? What does it say? I don't know. Yeah! Oh god, that's terrible. Two bludgeoning damage. Okay.

Yes, your brass knuckles go clang. Wait, no. A seven or a eight or a 15 or 16. Clang against its groin area. It doesn't seem to be hurt because it's a robot, but it definitely makes a big old dent. Now that's a concave area of its body. Okay.

All right, it's their turn. He's going to go ahead and attack you right away. I wanted to jump up and jab, but I still didn't, but. Rolling a 11 to hit. I don't think that hits you. No! It misses. Jock.

The other troll is going to attack you, Riggle. Come on, loser. I tailed the customers all day you, Riggle. Come on, loser, I tell you they have good customers all day. This ain't nothing. It rolls very badly. An 11, does it hit you? It does hit you, okay. It's going to strike you with?

Riggle! No, Riggle! Three points of damage. Not looking good. How many points of damage? One left. Ooh! Oh, we need some healing up in here. Run!

We need Compost. Wriggle Me This is bloody and bludgeoned. The huge- But still jacked in? You're still jacked, yeah. Let's say that you are still jacked. Compost Guru, what would you like to do? I see Wriggle on the ground,

but I know I have adrenaline, so if he goes down, I can bring him back up. I want to assist Nerf Wyrm Grimm, one, zero, zero, one, zero, one, one, in finishing, in completing our second set of lasers. Go for it. You got this, man! Okay. Do I? You have one, I'll give you 30 seconds.

This is an extra. To make a move. And there's a green and a purple that can go on here still. I have no idea if I put anything in the right place. Where's it go right now? We got one going through that's hitting a target here. Okay. And it's splitting and going to here.

Okay. Which has to be on the board. It's hitting that one there. It's hitting this one, and I've got it going to here. I don't know if that takes it any further, though. I can't see it hitting. Yeah, I can't even see where the laser is. It does get a little dim, for sure. If you need a spicier laser,

you can use this if you needed to, but. I don't think we can get that down flush. No, I don't think so either. That's definitely hitting a target. Oh, sorry. It is not hitting. It is hitting this. And it's hitting this corner one, too, I thought. Oh, sorry. It is not hitting. It is hitting this. And it's hitting this corner one, too, I thought. Oh yeah, you're right.

I can see it, yeah, it goes through here. So it's hitting, but we're only hitting one target right now. It needs to hit the red side, right? It also needs to hit the red side. Well, that's it. I'm going to do this, and we do this. I mean, I don't know.

That feels great. That's not hitting. That's your time for this round. Because you failed two rounds, you see a door open on the other side. More bad guys may be incoming soon, unless you can crack this thing. Next up is, that was compost.

Wriggle me this. Okay, so I'm really, I'm badly hurt, but I'm still jacked in here, so I'm really badly hurt, but I'm still jacked in here. What I'm going to try and do is I'm going to try and speak its language. Oh, okay, a computing language. I'm going to try and reprogram it.

Okay, great. To attack its kin. Okay, go ahead and roll either a knowledge or a decipher code check, whatever you'd like. Decipher code. Decipher code. You're a master of numbers. I am.

It's this one, bounces, bounces, and then it hits us. That's a seven and a four plus seven, so that's 10, 11, 18. Gigantic. You guys all watch all of a sudden as Wriggle Me This starts speaking, but not in English or any known language. He's speaking in binary. Oh, it's 011, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 011.

And the robot seems to understand this intensely quick programming language. What would you like to tell the robot to do? I will, in numeric language, I will say, attack your own, protect us at all costs. It nods slowly and it turns to its kin and it seems to be ill-tempered toward it. Jynx, you're up, what do you want to do?

Okay, so where am I in relation to the mainframe and what are the lasers looking like? The mainframe is over here. Okay. There's lasers protecting this whole area, though, that you'd have to cross over. You could try to go through the lasers, like Catherine Zeta-Jones, if you'd like.

But then what happens if they go off, security comes in? Bad things. Okay. Now, would this use up my action to check my email to see if Janice did us a solid? It certainly would take your action to do, but you're more than welcome to. No, the problem is, who needs assistance here?

I'm about to die. You're about to die, but I don't think I have anything to help you. That's the issue. You can, Mr. Lu, you don't just have those. I have pills and adrenaline shots. I think you also have some aspirin and gauze in your pack. Oh, do I?

Yeah, which can be health-related. Great. I mean, would aspirin even help him at this point? I do have a headache because I crashed the car. He's pretty hurt. Dude, I did crash the car. I guess Compost Guru has that, but wait. You're red, you're purple, you're close.

Yeah, I could be like, pass me this. So you could use your movement to go pick something up and go over there. Okay, I think I'd like to do that. All right, what are you going to pick up? Aspen, gauze, something else? I'll throw some gauze your way. Extra tight, even though it'll hurt a little bit,

but it's supposed to. Just the gauze? He's bleeding heavily. Okay, give me gauze, give me, well, aspen will make the bleeding worse, but it's okay, give me the fucking gauze. You don't want to thin the blood out. All right, give it. So I take the gauze, I go over there,

and I bandage him up real good, and... Can you roll a medicine check just to see how good a job of bandaging you do? Okay, where's medicine? Okay, that is 11 plus a 12. That's great. Roll a d4 and that'll be the healing on it. D4 plus one will be the healing.

Four plus one is five! Five points of healing. The gauze is, it just seems to be perfectly placed right over the deepest of gashes. The bleeding stops immediately. You feel better already. Great job. Thank you. Your hands are a little bloody.

That's okay. But you know. I have a diva cup. Amazing. Nerf Wyrm, you're up. What would you like to do? I would like to say that we have solved the puzzle. Okay, let's see. It's hitting multiple, it's hitting three targets.

One, two, and three. Three targets being hit. I'm going to say yes. Another third of the lasers go off and you are almost to the mainframe. There is one more laser check to do. It is now Wire Wizard's turn. I'm going to take my tools and jab them into the front

and open up the panel. It's already open and he's already being controlled. Are you talking about the other guy? I ran under the other guy. Oh, great. Okay, go for a strength check then. Or a hardware check. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. I'm feeling this music, too.

Is this mine? Where's my thing? I don't know, I can't see. Where's my sheet? What did I roll? Did I roll those two or these two? You rolled these two. Okay. 16. Amazing, the panel pops open.

You see a glowing microchip inside of it, a power source of some sort. You just jam it with your hand? No, with my hardware tools. I know this shit. Okay. You do. Roll now just to strength if you're just trying to break it, right? Yeah. Okay. You do. Roll now just to strength

if you're just trying to break it, right? Yeah. Okay, roll strength. See if you can just break it. Yeah. 13. 13. 16 bits. It rolled really well.

Not that it needs to roll. Let's say it takes a big jolt and it's looking rough, but it is still hanging on by a thread. Hooray. That's true, because I did two things anyway. Yeah, it's fine. It's okay. No, you jam your screwdriver into it and it starts to spark,

but it doesn't seem to have taken total damage yet, but soon. It is its turn right now and it's going to attack. Boy, you're pretty tough. It's going to attack you and it's going to do its one-time use only multi-attack. No! Rolling once with an 11.

Nope, ducked out of the way. Nice! And again, even worse, a six. It misses again! Can't be beat. Jesus. I'm glitching out. It's rolling so badly. It swings again! Can't be beat. Jesus. It's rolling so badly. It swings at you, it swings at you, but you're right on its chest.

It can't seem to find a good angle to hit you. I just start dancing with it. Compost Guru, you are up. What would you like to do? There's one more laser maze to solve. What are you at? I'm good. I'm good. I'm at six and I was,

I started at seven. What's up? My new thing is that I'm good. I'm good. I'm at six and he's gone. I started at seven. What's up? My new thing is that I'm good with computers, baby! I'm going to go do the last one. Okay. Yeah, roll to see how difficult this is. Come on, man. Okay, that's a nine minus two for a seven.

Oh, Jesus. Why am I? This was a red herring. This wasn't used at all. That's all. That's why I was trying to make every single thing work. All right, here's your card. You have to hit two targets

and you use all of those extra things. Oh jeez. I will give you a minute to start. I need these. I need him. And this guy goes. This is gripping. This goes down here. What's this thing?

Oh, this one has to be like this. Yes. And then this one, or excuse me, this one has to be like this. But you figured out the name. And this one can flip. Fuckin' 20 seconds. 20 seconds.

And then you hit both these targets. And you can add all of these, three purples and one green. This thing's going down, right? Oh my god, he's so good at this. I'm just giving him a cyber massage, I think. You're giving him a cyber massage? Okay.

You'll get an extra 10 seconds because of that. Oh, cool! What's it? Oh my god. If this ends in just a giant hacker orgy. If you guys all have sex with each other, the lasers turn off. I've seen Lawn Mower Man.

I know how it ends. Time is ticking. You have 15 seconds left. I don't get hit. You have 10 seconds. Scalp massage, scalp massage. Okay, so that one purple is the target. Hands down, I'm sorry, another troll has entered.

Oh, wow. No! That's an ugly one. It's huge! That's all right, that's all right. Wriggle me this, you're up. Did he attack his friend? Oh no, you're right.

It's their turn, and he is definitely going to attack his friend, because you commanded him to. Oh, that's great, and the other one's super weak already. Now he rolls great. He rolls a 12, which beats his defense, and he gives four points of damage. I'm seeing Oracle put the puzzle card over on the side.

With the damage that Wire Wizard gave, yes, with a claw strike, this Firewall Bot knocks the head off of the other Firewall Bot, knocking him down. He is out of commission. Yes. One down. Woo woo! Now, Wriggle Me, you're up,

and you're still controlling that guy. Yeah, and I'm relatively close to him, right? Yes, you should be right on him. This is you, right? Yes. How far away is the other troll from you? You can move towards it, but you wouldn't be able to get there in one turn. With my strength, could I toss

this robit at the other robit? Well, that's a huge strength check, but you can try. His head fell off. I had a huge strength check, but you can try. His head fell off. I got a big boost so I could throw his head. That's two. Excellent. I scoop up his head and I do 95. I do my best, I don't know, who was throwing hard? Roger Clemens impression and beam it at the control head.

Just roll an attack, roll a 2d6 attack. You have to take off your cybernetic arm to roll. That's a five and a three is an eight plus, do I get the increase on my strength? Yeah, you add your strength bonus, which was plus four from the glove, I think. Right, so plus, so five, three, eight, nine, four, 13 again.

Okay, you needed 11, you got it. So you're throwing the dead troll's head at the living troll. The robot troll's head. That's amazing. Okay, the head. Aiming for its, well, its robot. Its toothy maw. Its toothy maw.

The head flings across, just clearing the lasers, not hitting them, and smashes this other troll in the face, causing five points of damage. Very nice. He's up, but he's dazed. I'll use the rest of whatever I have left to turn to it with my arm and give it a finger and go at it. Come to me. Ooh, nice.

Come to me. It's pissed off. It's such a cool conjecture. It is. Jinx, what do you want to do? You got one more laser maze to solve, or you can go trolling, or you can do something else. I'm going to stick to trolling, what do you want to do? You got one more laser maze to solve or you can go trolling or you can do something else. I'm going to stick to trolling, what I'm good at. So I'm over here, sort of in between Wriggle Me This and the new troll.

Now, can I get to the new troll or no? You can get close, but you don't want to go past this because that's where there'll be lasers. Yeah, there will be lasers. But you can wait until it comes to you. Yeah, I think I'm going to wait until it comes to me or I can try throwing my handy dandy turk. Shuriken?

No, tonfa. Go for it. Yeah, why not? Fuck it, we're here. What's the, what do I do? Just roll 2d8 and add your dexterity. Are you sure? Melee in the middle of the right. Start the page. Or melee.

So that, no, I have, oh, okay, yeah. I will, I will add no melee because it's zero. So that is eight, nine, 10. You need an 11. Oh, for fuck's sake! The tonfa clangs off of the back wall. Ineffective, I'm so sorry. Nerf, goblin, worm, grim, whatever your name is.

That's me, dank. I run over to Unseen Oracle and I start helping him weave the lasers and we've already moved stuff around and figured it out. All three of us, this side of the table. That's great, that's teamwork. Thank god for this side of the table. You press the laser, it works?

Okay, yes, with your awesome computing power, you are able to use the mirrors in your field pack to jettison and redirect the lasers all around, making a clear path for you to get all the way through. You do not need to worry about the lasers anymore. They are useless. That's it for your turn. We're still in combat with this a-hole.

There's an entrance to the... Right here is a bank. This is the mainframe. You need to jack into this over here. I'm going to use my movement to start running towards it. Okay, Nerf. You are this guy. Yeah.

Dig, dig, dig, dig. Get about there. Great. Next up is Wire Wizard. All right. I'm going to... I mean, we got to take care of this troll. I'm going to run towards the troll.

Okay. Try to hold him up while everybody jacks into the system. Sure, sure. What are you going to use to hold it up with? I'm going to take off my headphones and I'm going to hit the button. Yeah. And I'm just going to start playing the music

and turn it into a dance party. What song are you going to play? My top 100? Yeah, it could be any song from 1995. There's Gangsta's Paradise. Yes. Gangsta's Paradise? By Coolio, RIP.

Yes. Roll with Coolie Vantage. Okay. Coolie Vantage. Is that four? Yes. Okay. Ooh, thank god.

And what am I adding to it? Yes. Yes. Okay. Ooh, Clifford, thank god. And what am I adding to it? Let's say your persuasion. You're trying to make him rock to the beat, I guess. Oh god, 10. Even my mom is like, 10? Oh no. I will try to resist it.

Yeah, he rolled an 11, so. Oh, but wait, wait, wait! But I add two because I'm playing with music. You definitely do. Nice. So it's 12, so I beat him. Yes. He. Thank God. I don't know. He gets lost in the music.

The music seems to energize him at a particular rhythm that shakes his very joints and the metallic connections of his body. He starts rocking out to this classic jam that's based on another classic jam. Coolio, we miss you. We miss you. I wish all five of us shows up in leather jackets.

Yes, he's been spending most of his life in a mainframe paradise. And now he seems to be confused and distracted by the music. And it is his turn, and now he's, he seems to be confused and distracted by the music, and he doesn't, it is his turn, and on his turn, he will just rock out to the music. He's not going to move any closer, he's not going to take his turn.

Compost Guru, you're up. I'm going to run in and follow Nerf Wyrmgrim and go jack in right before, pop some drugs, though. Just to see. Just to see. This is just popping a pill? It's 1d8, five, which is 1d8 temp hit points. Ooh! Nice!

Which is five hit points. So you took, what kind of medicine was this, do you imagine? Oh, I imagine this is some kind of upper, you know. It's like a caffeine pill of some sort? Oh, for sure, this is like a straight-up trucker caffeine pill. I guess. This is the stuff. Fen of some sort? This is like a straight up trucker caffeine pill. I guess.

This is the stuff. Fen-Phen? Exactly. Great, awesome. That's a good move. Okay, wriggle me this, you're up. Wait, that's you, yes. Yes. I'm still controlling this guy, right?

Yes, you are. I will just command him in 01001001 to go and attack his friend. Speaking in an amazingly fast binary language, he's going to run over using his full movement to get to this guy, and he will attack. He rolls pretty well. He strikes with another five points of damage.

Ooh, this guy's looking super rough. Yes. That was a great hit. Jinx, what you got? I am going to use my third eye blind to find out what it is that we need to do in this mainframe to shut it down. Okay.

And that's the one answer I need. You use your third eye, activating the power of this incredible contraption on your head. And all of a sudden, it's like you are in the archives of the World Wide Web. You know things that you didn't know. You see things that you didn't see.

It's an amazing otherworldly experience. And amid all of the files and folders and apps that you see before you, one of them is your own email system. And bing! You've just gotten mail. It is a Keylogger program that you had entered earlier. And Janice had, at some point, logged in. It is a keylogger program that you had entered earlier.

Janice had, at some point, logged in, and at this point, all you got from the keystrokes was one word, swordfish. Damn. Wait, you don't know? Could be the password. No, yeah, it is. It is. I thought it was just Janice

looking up what to make for tomorrow's dinner. Could be. Okay, great. I love that. And so can I use my movement to get to the mainframe? Yes, you will get to the mainframe. On the next round, many of you will be jacking in. Nerf Herder, you're up.

They're already there at the door. There's a bank of machines right here, so you can also run up and be with them. Yeah, I will. Are you going to jack in? I am absolutely jacking. How do you jack in? I actually don't run up.

I hold up my power glove and use the telekinetic ability within it, and it just pulls me towards it, and the fingers go. Amazing. You do start jacking in and as your glove touches the console, weirdly, as it gets pulled towards the mainframe, the mainframe also gets pulled towards you.

Wires shoot out and start twisting around into your glove and injecting themselves into your glove. It's like you are becoming one with the mainframe as you jack in. That completes your turn. Hold onto your bit buckets, Script Kitties! Ooh, that's a good one, you get a bonus. Wire Wizard, what's up?

What are you doing? I'm going to help out Wrigley and I'm going to run over and I'm going to grab the last roll by the head and try to yank it sideways. Oh great, you're breaking its neck. Yeah. Awesome. Roll for an attack. Got to beat an 11.

Yeah, that definitely beats that. Rolled 11 plus four, so 15. He only has one hit point left. So yes, how do you want to unscrew this? Yeah! I go to try to break his neck, but it just turned, so yeah, I just keep turning it to unscrew the...

Okay. It takes a while because first you unscrew it the wrong way and then you go back the other way. Lefty, loosey, lefty, loosey. And eventually, yes, the head spins all the way off and falls to the ground, completely useless, but his body is still dancing to Coolio. Aw. Thanks, Coolio.

That's right. He's dead. This one is under your control, so you don't have to worry about him. The lasers are essentially off. You guys can all make your way to the console and jack in. I'll just ask the rest of you who haven't jacked in yet, how do you jack in?

What motion, what words, how do you jack into the mainframe? Well, we've got a password. I also think another, and I'm just talking spitballing with the team here, another thing we could do is fuzz, which is when hackers input lots of random data or it fuzzed in an attempt to make a system crash,

used by hackers to look for vulnerabilities in code. I'm not saying we're doing it. I'm just saying throwing it out there. Okay. We don't have to do it. That could be last, you know. We got to do that once we're in the system. It's on the table.

We got to jack off in it first. Yeah. Oh, I got a load ready to go. I'm going to jack off into Lucas's system here. I'm going to run up next to him and seeing that the mainframe has extended itself, I'm going to just ram mine into his bit. Great.

And let the wire do the work. I see what you're saying. We literally physically have to? The wires now start enveloping your cybernetic arm and creeping and crawling up your arm. You are now jacking in. Would the rest of you like to jack in or are you going to watch this happen?

I'm going to watch it, and then I'm going to jack in. How? What part of your body? What are you doing to? Ooh. Well, I've yanked off the sleeve of part of my Power Ranger outfit. So I'm going to pull out some of my Radio Shed wires

and fucking jam them into my arm. Straight into my bloodstream veins, then I'm going to. Amazing. The wire goes into your artery and then connects with the mainframe console. You had just the right kind of connector wire. But yes, as you do, you can see that your blood

starts to flow into it, and somehow there's another fluid that starts to creep back through the wire into your own arm. Your arm starts to turn a different shade into grays and greens and starts becoming part of the mainframe. You are now jacked. Anyone else need to jack in? You guys? I'm going to reach and look for a knob that I'm going to turn just like a key and just give it some juice. I don't want to flood it. I don't want to flood it. Yes. But I want to, we're going to get the motor cranked up. Sure, sure.

There is, quickly you discover there are lots of knobs and there's one that looks like it can spin around and around and you try it and you feel a few clicks, it feels like it's too rough, so you back off a little bit and then all of a sudden, . It's the sound computers should make, right? With the purr of a hot new 1983 Toyota Tercel,

it sputters to life. The thing that you touched, the switch that you touched shoots out little diodes that insert under your fingernails and combine with your fingers, drawing you closer. You, again, your hand goes into the machine. You become one with it. The only person left out right now is Jinx.

All right, I take my laptop out, my own personal laptop, and I balance it on my knee that was once a fucked up knee, but now is better. Yes. And I take one of the wires, I just grab one of the wires and plug it into my laptop. Amazing. And then now I can control, now I can do my little thing.

I'm the queen of the dark web. Yes, you do. Here I am. You're looking at your laptop screen and it springs to life with energy and lights and all kinds of matrix-like images and text and all kinds of matrix-like images and text and all kinds of craziness. As it does, your eyes start to bug out and be hypnotized by the power of the brightness

of your laptop. Weirdly, wires shoot out of your laptop and jam into your eyes. Visual sensors strapped to your irises. It's very painful and invasive, but now you can see everything through your laptop into the mainframe. You guys all realize at once

that you are now in the internet somehow. You are in a glowing, pulsing, liminal space. Green HTML code streams by in an endless string of programming languages. Shapes appear in the code, personal homepages, rapid-fire bitmap images, chat rooms, high-quality MP2 audio. We're surfing, you guys.

You are inside the internet. Somehow your bodies have bonded with the mainframe. They shimmer with a strange translucence, like microchips, wires. And you realize that you are in the World Wide Web. Is there anything you'd like to do to get acquainted with your surroundings? You feel like in this digital space,

you don't necessarily have to walk or move. You can just imagine where you will go and you will be there. Nice. I'm going to imagine I have a surfboard. And a surfboard appears beneath you. It is a short board. It has awesome stickers all over it,

and it's just been freshly waxed and it's made out of code. Would you like to surf? Fuck yeah. All right, yes. You write a wave of ASCII text and you rip the curl. I'm going to imagine I have a magic carpet. That's it?

That's my habit. Yep, a totally cool rug appears beneath you. It looks a little worn, but it seems to keep you aloft and you can move about as you see fit. This place is amazing. I see Wire Wizard pulling ahead and I look down at my arm

and I grab out into the air and grab code and tug on it like a rope, and then realize that I can swing on this son of a bitch. Oh, yes. I just sway towards her. Yes. Using it like a man. Just like a jungle vine. You're using lines of code as vines to swing around and move without fail, without hindrance at all.

Nerf Warms suddenly morphs into full 32-bit video game character model. 32-bit? 32-bit. What? No limits here. Impossible. And little digital flowers and moons appear all around me. I say, Jinx, it's everything we've ever dreamed of! Oh, good and poppy for you! I say, Jinx, it's everything we've ever dreamed of!

Oh, good and poppy for you! So supportive. I feel like Jinx, all she wants in the world is a place to call her own, and so she imagines an apartment that's just hers. Maybe she'll have Nerf over for dinner one night. I don't know. But just knows what it's like to just have her own place. And in the center of the apartment,

on the lovely couch that you make with your mind, there's a very beautiful purring and healthy cat. Oh wait, that's you. You stole my fucking cat? I'm sorry! Yes, yes. How about a dog? No, yeah, you got a little dog, whatever. Yeah.

But no, it's a cute little apartment. It looks just weirdly like the apartment from the TV show Friends, which is currently on the air. Perfect. It's really large for a New York apartment for some reason. Totally rent-controlled. That is the dream.

Yes. And then all of a sudden, Jillian Anderson, as Agent Scully walks in and says, I'm home, and that's the end of my dream. It's gorgeous, It's wonderful. As you guys are just enjoying the internet, there's a stirring in the distance. Amid the sea of terminal hash codes

and server PPN feeds is a shining white door. As you approach it, you recognize it as the mother node of this mainframe. This is where all the root kits of every piece of proprietary Johnson Corp software is stored. The baseline for the entire company. Past this door could be the source code for ruination and the way to kill it for good.

But first, you must enter a password to get in. Swordfish! It's always swordfish. It's got to be swordfish. Yeah, swordfish. a password to get in. Swordfish! It's always swordfish. It's got to be swordfish. Yeah, swordfish. Do it. Do it. You're going to enter the password, swordfish.

That's correct. The password's always swordfish, guys. That's how it works. Thanks, Janice. Janice came through. The password opens the door very easily, and you are now in a new space. Where is it?

Boop, boop. It's a simple room with wooden floors, a couch, a water cooler, some posters are on the wall. Johnny Mnemonic, the net, a poster for Waterworld, a jar of peanuts, a pipe. It's as if someone lives here, but there is no ceiling. Only the flying toasters of the popular screensaver dance above you.

It's a very cozy space. Wow. Awesome. But then, from amid the toasters, you see him in a white coat, a severe collar, incredible pair of sunglasses, and absolutely the handsomest man you've ever seen. But wait, this is not the first time you've seen him. It looks like someone else you've seen a lot of tonight.

Oh. Agent. The video screen flickers to life and you are now face to face with Ruination himself. It's the guy. and you are now face to face with Ruination himself. It's the guy! Welcome! To the Mother Node. Oh god.

It is me, Agent Goldstein, or should I say, Rumination. Rumination? Yeah, sure. It's working on that. My real name is Dwaun Johnson. No relation, of course. Owner of Johnson Corp. Uncle to Ashley Johnson, a queen who walks amongst us.

The best there ever shall be. I am the single greatest virus ever to be programmed. Goldstein never existed, and now I don't either. I've erased my human body from existence and have uploaded my consciousness onto this hard drive. So now I can rule the internet at blazing 56k BPS speeds. Psst, psst, psst. Amazing 56k BPS speeds. SAM and LAURA laugh. Amazing. As he finishes this speech, you are just in awe of the power.

Every time he moves his hand, the code around him seems to shift. The reality that you are in seems to move and bend with his will. Look at him go. He's really dancing it up. Do we have to kill him? It's part of our detour. So great!

That is up to you. He's really working it, guys. I'm saying we can try the fuzzing. Contain it. Rumination. Oh yeah. Rumination. You can never contain me. What is going on? Oh no! Is this why?

It is not a recorded message! I am here with you! Oh. Oh, this is too much. This is too much. You may speak to Ruination. Oh, I'm going to black out here. Ruination, why did you choose us?

I mean, you could have picked anyone. I'm just a guy with a car. You had a car. I had a car. I have been seeking an opponent worthy of my skills. I have been seeking the best of the best. Unfortunately, it brought me you. You have let me down at every turn. Every single turn.

You are an embarrassment. And now it is time for me to destroy you and be on my way. No. Yes. I'm shell shocked. Yeah. No, I'm going to FROBNIT the system. Oh, oh, oh, you are?

Let's try a... There is no try. There is only do. Do. While they're distracting him, I'm going to make my way as sneakily as I can to that giant water cooler. Okay, go ahead. And I'm going to start I can to that giant water cooler. Okay, go ahead. And I'm going to start to try and lift the water cooler.

Lift the whole thing? Well, just the watery bit. All right, you lift the watery bit. Sure, what would you like to do with it? I am going to either dump it on him or throw it on him. Go ahead. As he starts to do that, I wave my hand. And the water bit starts to fly up in his face

and I whisk it into the abyss. The water cooler turns into a series of ones and zeros that sort of just dissipate into the ether around you. Can I still grab onto the cooler? You can try, but this is his realm and he decides what goes. His computational power is much stronger than any of your individual powers,

but maybe there's a way. Go through your resources. Think. Use your powers. Use your weapons. What do you have? What do you do? I'm going to turn on my Walkman. Okay. To play. What song? Dunker chasing waterfalls.

That's a bop. That's a bop. That's a bop! Okay, go ahead and roll an intelligence check, but you get e-vantage on it. Oh, great. In this room, is there a disk drive anywhere? There's nothing computer in this room. Well, I do have my laptop.

Yeah, I mean, there's the stuff that you brought with you. What is this, an intelligence check? Just an intelligence check. Okay, that is 13 plus two is 15. 15's pretty good. You do notice that the code that he seems to be made out of is an integrated log synapse code. It's not code that is unfamiliar to you, but you do know that sometimes these codes

are built with failsafe mechanisms somewhere in the code. You just have to find it. Okay. Anyone else want to try anything? Can I use my third eye? Go for it. Okay, I'd like to use my third eye

to find this code situation. Sure. You've used your third eye once, so this is going to be a very hard roll. Go ahead and roll. Okay, let's try it. And this is just an intelligence check. Here we go. Don't go, Jason! Okay, that's nine plus, hold on, hold on, hold on.

You said, what did you say? Intelligence. Oh, oh, 15. 15's pretty damn good. You get the sense that there is a self-destruct line of code buried deep within Ruination. But the only way to get to it is if you guys somehow work together, somehow form a cohesive unit

to sort of get to him. I don't know quite how, but maybe, maybe there's a way to combine your powers. I jam my fist into the ground. Sure. And plug in, and I look at everyone and say, plug into me. Wait.

I actually, I kneel down next to him and I jam my shoulder into his shoulder so that they merge, and now we've got a two-person wide being with a hand on each side. I climb on top of their shoulders and balance my hands on their heads, so now we've got two bottom things

and now a middle part. You're the torso? I'm the torso. You're the best! I'm the best. You're the best! I have a headset, so I'm ears. So then I guess I'll climb up over compost. Wait, whose legs? Your legs, your legs!

You have the legs and arms. And I'll just land. Your legs! Your legs! I'll stick my face. We're going to do a reverse-versus thing. You don't need legs in this space. You can fly anywhere you want. Whatever you want.

So I'll do the eyes. She's got eyes and I've got ears, so I'm going to go up and I'm going to get my head right next to her. Your ears? She's eyes. As we do that, I slam on the central thing. As you do, the five of you together,

bonded with the power of the internet, out of your vest, which no one has ever known what this thing does, as you hit the activation button, the whole thing whirs with it. God, Lillard's just putting in the work right now. I want you to know, as they make this beanie, I turn into a hat and I sit perched right on top of you, like Ollie.

From, yeah. So I make a little tiny hat on the top of you. Out of Voltron, you guys all form this singular shape together that's powered with a 486 processor. It's quite amazing. And as you do, there's a cube that forms around you.

It's a gleaming cube of energy that spins and forms with immense power and pushes. You just gleamed the cube this whole time. You just gleamed the cube together and it pushes all the code back. There's one more test for you all to pass. Oh no. And this might be the hardest of them all.

Are you sure? Getting through a door is pretty fucking tough for us. This is wild. Guys, it's the sound of Lillard's fabric that does it for me. You guys have entered the door not on camera anymore. Oh boy, guys. What is happening?

Oh shit. What? This is a thing. Oh no. All right. The whole world turns into a video game space. Okay. What? It turns into any video game that seems to be imagined from Liam's head, Nerf Worm's head.

It's a video game of his choice. Oh boy. And the one that, I'm going to just choose it for you. The one that you choose is called Snakebite. It's a game that you grew up playing, but you're going to have to play it for keeps this time. Here, pull all those cords towards you, okay? The white one is going to be Liam.

Oh my god. He is, I'm sorry? Oh, take off your gloves, all of you. All gloves. Like, really take off? This is a shared test. Oh boy, guys. This is the moment Nerf War Grimm

has been waiting for his whole life, the chance to save the world with video games. So this is, you are the controls of a video game. Liam will be controlling you. Liam, you don't have to press that. Okay. Sorry, Nerf War. You're going to be pressing the hands and body parts of your friends.

I recommend each of you hold one of these with a hand and put that hand close in. So we're not using the A-B button, just directional. You are, it's just directional. Amy is up, Christian is left, Laura is down, Lou is right, and you press their hands with your hand and it will control the video game that our audience will be seeing on the screen.

You are forming an antivirus worm. It will writhe and slither its way into the pure code of the virus, collecting pieces of code and assembling them to activate the self-destruct command. The game will start now. Holy shit, I hope this works. I asked the universe, if I break them up, The game will start now. Holy shit, I hope this works.

I ask the universe, if I break them up, do I get advantage on checks? You absolutely do. Go ahead and try to break them up. Ah, yes. Compost Guru, I ask you a question. I feel I'm having a heart attack. I am dying.

Or am I choking? Will you save me? Come on, post! I can't. You're a troll. Save me! You're a troll and the internet's no place for trolls. You're violating the Hippocratic Oath. What is that? He pulled it off.

I don't know what's happening. Do you mean troll two? No! Oh, he's got your two? No! Oh, is this? No! He's got your pog! No! Look away!

Don't look at it! You're not going to get that pog if you do this. Compost, come to me. Come to me! Come to me. Look at me, Compost. I will give this to you. Look at me, Compost. It's just your pog.

Compost! Roll onto the bit stream! You can tell whatever lies you want to hear, D'Han Johnson. D'Han Johnson calls you. I make a check. Start the game. Give me a check! Give me a check, universe!

Do a check. Do you have anything to roll with? I'll roll for you. Roll for me, oh great one! Game over! You rolled a nine. Roll against it, Lou. Are you going to be fighting yourself?

No idea. Compost Guru, be with me. I would just, anything. Just that. That's five. That's five, okay. Compost Guru starts to resist. He starts to let go, but he hasn't let go yet.

Come with me, Guru. Come with me, Guru. You will be playing the game by pressing each other's hands right now. Go. Oh! This is so fucking cool! Oh no! That is the pattern you need to get. Nerf one!

What's the pattern? Fight me! There's a duck! You're doing a great job distracting them, sir. Now that the pattern's changed, you need one, zero, zero, zero. What? What? Get the one, get the one. Boom! Oh my god, this, zero. What? What? Get the one, get the one. Boom!

Oh my god, this is intense. Missed the one! Oh, yeah! Failed again! Restart, restart! I shall win! I shall never lose! The pattern changes. I shall win forever!

Okay, one, one, zero, zero. Okay, we'll go up. This is the moment you've been waiting for. One, one, one, go. Okay, we'll go up. Liam, this is the moment you've been waiting for. One, one, one, go up, go up, go up. Wire. I challenge you to an arm wrestle. Yes, you got one. One, you need another one.

I challenge you to arm wrestle, you collection of Care Bears. Nice. Arm wrestle, be sure. He's doing it! Zero, give us zero, zero! You cannot do it! No!

No, no, he got a one at the end. He needed a zero. I end, he needed a zero! I missed, it was like that close. Universe, universe, how many times do I have to win? I'm asking, mother universe! How many times? I'm menacing you guys, you probably only have one or two more tries before this is over.

What do you mean, one or two? One, one, zero, zero. One or two? One, one, zero, zero, One or two! One, one, zero, zero. One, one, zero, zero. Universe! It's so fun. One, one, zero, zero. Come on! Come on! Yeah!

No! No! I give you Yes! $150,000. Oh my god! Are you hearing this, Wrigleby? He's offering you money. $150,000. He offered you hearing this, Wrigleby? He's offering you money. $50,000.

He offered you $150,000. He's offering you. $150,000, you're even. You can take your invention and go to the world. That's a lot of money. Okay. Oh, that's a lot. I think Cuddy, this is out. Come in, come in.

Give me your hands. Zero, zero. Give me your hands! I look into Lucas's eyes and it's the only thing keeping me here. Come! Universe! Yes, I'm listening. I'm listening.

I literally, I turn into a bird and I sit on your shoulder and I say to you, what does it take to win? I don't know anymore, Lysa. I have won. I have won so many times! I just quit! As you are watching Ruination grow in size and spread,

I think you really only have one more try before he's going to let loose on the rest of the world. Universe, I give them an option. If they take it now, I will zap them back to their normal lives. Okay. Do they take it or not?

Are you taking ruminations? Are you taking ruminations? Ruminations gives you the offer to go back to your normal life. I don't want it. Then you shall perish now. Own universe. Come on.

Ruminations has to win! Friendship! Oh god! Oh my god. Jump in, anybody. It's harder than you think it is. I take the pog. It is harder than you think it is. I take the pog and I change into the pog.

You're becoming the pog? I become the Trolls 2 pog. What, are you going to resist this? I barely can. I walk up to Compost Guru. Pulling away. I walk up to Compost Guru. Here it comes, here it comes.

Okay, this is it, this is it. This is it. What, it's already, I've already won! Yeah, I know you've already won. Mother universe! I know, you've already won. You've already won, this is a Pyrrhic victory. Oh, one! Yes!

Zero! Ah! Zero! Oh! Troll two. Oh god. I think zero! Ah! Oh my god! Fuck! Oh my god, it's so terrible!

This is painful! Very hard. It's so hard! It's so hard. I literally, I literally, I create behind me an oasis. And on that oasis, I create the longest, deepest hammock you've ever seen. The sky is blue, and you can see the moon just rising over the horizon.

The water is like turquoise. I love that description. Slowly back and forth with the breeze. Because I know the game is over. Don! All right. Computer systems are shutting down across the world together.

Get your finger, yeah. Okay, switch. So it's like a controller. You're still doing it. No, you're a controller. I'm just making a better controller for you. Okay. This is it. This better be it.

This has got to be it. How many its does it have to be? Lady Universe. One. No, you've already won, Lillard. You've already won, But they can keep trying, because I really want to see them do this. Come on, Voltron.

Do not fix this in the edit, Mother Universe. This will not be edited out. This time is over. Everything's moved around. I sip coconut from a fresh, I crack, I literally take my finger and I dig a hole in the top of the coconut. I evaporate the coconut.

And I create the longest, most elaborate, crazy straw you could ever dream of. And at the corner of my mouth, I gently sip the coldest, most delicious coconut milk ever. For I have won. I need a zero or a one? No, you need another zero. Well.

I cannot. That concludes our game. It's so hard! Maybe we can appeal to his better senses. That's a TPK. Do we lose? We lie. Listen, heroes don't always win. May I make an appeal to DJ? To DJ?

The DJ. To Huan Johnson. Oh, Don Johnson, oh, okay. To Huan! To Huan Johnson. What would your appeal like to be? To Juan Johnson, I know what it feels like to be alone. I know what you really want, family. Oh. Maybe instead of secluding yourself here,

you can come back with us. You're loved, toahan Johnson, and respected. That is, without a doubt, the sweetest, most insipid thing a man has ever said to me. You guys couldn't do it. For in this moment, I consider it, and I want you to know, if only Ashley Johnson, my long lost niece, the one

true queen that walks amongst us, if she were to ask me, maybe, but until then, I snap my fingers. Lady Universe, I snap my fingers. I take, wiggle me this, and I put him in a pauper's jail. Like in Les Mis. I snap my fingers and he goes to a pauper's jail. And like, at last we see each other.

He's singing in the corner. Yes, exactly. And he's stolen, He's stolen another piece of silver from the priest. And thus begins that journey. And I go to Compost Guru. Wait, Don, can I give up? Can I join you? Is it too late?

I'll take the pawn. Let me in. Your time is drunk with power. He's drunk with power. I think... I was going to banish them all. Go ahead. He's drunk with power. I think, I think. Oh, I was going to banish them all. Go ahead, go ahead, do your thing, man.

No, lady universe, you are about the universe. I am just an acolyte. Showing true grit and true heart, you all tried your best. Oh no! I think we should try one more time. Should we? I don't know what to do. What if we don't I think we should try one more time. Should we? I don't know what to do.

What if we don't get it and we try one more time? I don't know what this is supposed to mean. Lady Universe! I won! I have won! You know what? Allow me to vanish with them. Go ahead and try one more time.

For everything? For all the marbles. This is it. Who's going to be in control? I think Liam. I think he's new. I mean, a nerf worm. I'm in the nerf worm. This is it. Who's going to be in control? I think Liam. I think he's new. I mean, a nerf worm. I'm in this game. Nerf worm, it's yours. It's your game.

Okay. It's always been your game. One day before. Can we make a deal? Lady Universe. Yes, I'm listening. Can we make a deal? Yes, I'm listening. Each one of them takes a chance to lead it. Each one of them takes a chance to lead it? Yes, and then if they fail, they're banished.

Each time they fail, they get banished. Banished. Okay, sure. Each one gets a try at the controls. Gets one chance. And if you fail. If somebody wins, then they all come back. But if they don't, they're in my prison forever! All right, here we go.

Wait, we don't have the right side yet. Get everything in place. Okay, you put us where you want us. That there, that there. Okay. Okay, we'll see. You feel good? No, let's go.

This is everything. It all comes down to this. Zero, zero, what's the fucking code? Zero, zero, zero, one. Who's leading? Zero. Right now, Nerf Worm is leading. Nerf Worm. Yes! May you fail miserably.

That is one down. We're not going to count that one. That is my first damage. It's okay, it doesn't hurt. I hate getting hit. It doesn't hurt more than. Lady Universe, you are being a real jerk. The thing is, all ones.

All ones. Four ones. Okay. Where are the ones? Where's your hand? Where the fuck are the ones, man? Where are the ones gone? Top of the screen on the right. Wait, wait, wait. Top of the screen on the right.

This isn't working. This isn't working. I don't know what you're hit anymore. Oh my god. Stay there. One, one. There are four ones. That should not be hard. No! Oh my god, stay there. One, one! There are four ones. That should not be hard. Then hands don't want you to react, they don't respond! Lady universe, two down. Are you touching the metal part? Yes! Two down.

Why'd you make me wear this fun, cool outfit? I thought I was going to save the internet. Last time. Now Donald Trump, we wasn outfit? I thought I was going to save the internet. Woo! Last time. Now Donald Trump, we lose it! Last time, and then we deserve to die. With the power of NordVPN behind you, you all summon all energy, and this time, all you need to do is get one number right.

I've already done that seven times! But this time is the one that counts. Just one number and you've got it. Here it goes. Come on, guys. You got this. I'm going to say, make it one hand, Amy. Make it one hand.

One hand? Oh my god. Just one number. It has to be a zero. You didn't get a zero! This is crazy! There is no way! It's so not us! Oh god! It's so not us!

You should try it. Tell me. If you can do it. I am presenting the game. It's on our bus! Oh god! It's on our bus! You should try it. Tell me, if you can do it. I have presented the game. If you can do it, though, you really, really have to. I have presented the game. I've lost the throne. If you had only the hat, it would've worked.

All right. Lady Universe. I understand. I feel like I have won multiple times. All right. Lady Universe. I understand. I feel like I have won multiple times. You have. Glory be to Lady Universe. I vanquish them all in oblivion. I will wrap it up like this. Somehow.

Wait, no. Though the five of the Nord Initiative seemed like they failed, their heart somehow convinced Ruination to turn over a new leaf. Instead of focusing his code on viruses, I'm making this up as I go. Really?

He decided that maybe he should do some good in the world. And so, maybe? Yes. I do, yes. Along with his new partners, Compost Guru, Wire Wizard, Nerf Warhammer, Wriggle Me This and Jinx, he decided to form a new venture,

giving up the evil of Johnson Corp and forming a new organization, one called NordVPN. Wow. That was dedicated to preventing trolls like him ever come back in the future with their high security interface and their excellent cybersecurity.

The team actually was pretty good together. They got their pogs, they got their cat medicine. It feels like a funeral. They found love. And out of the digital ashes of this second act disaster, they even found love, and two of them eventually were married. Is that me in Rumination?

Yeah, I know exactly just who. It was you two, and they adopted a small baby, who was me. Why did you not live until today? Blackwillow69 at AOL.com. That being said, the internet isn't perfect, guys. It's still full of trolls and bad actors who make the experience not so great sometimes. But with pure hearts and friendship and good intentions,

we can all band together and do what these six people did, try to weave a better web for everyone. And with that, I'll thank NordVPN for sponsoring tonight's show. And be sure to visit nordvortonVPN.com slash Critical Role to receive a huge discount for a two-year plan, plus four months for free.

The end. I have notes. I have notes. Thank you guys so much for doing this. The ending was interesting. We didn't stick the landing. One of my all-time TTRPG experiences, without a doubt. Without a doubt.

You guys looked great. Lillard, thank you for joining us. Oh my god. I really felt like, I was like, wow, that flat lighters thing. I guess we just, we really synced up on that. And then just, wow. Wow!

Thank you all, Amy, Christian, Matt, Liam, Laura, Lou. And thank you viewers for watching this bit insane venture into the Internet. I hope you all remember to love each other. And is it Thursday yet? Woo-hoo! Thank you for listening

to Critical Role. We hope you enjoyed that exciting adventure and want to come back for more. If you did, well then please leave a rating and review wherever you stream

the Critical Role Podcast Network. Word of mouth is the best form of advertising, and maybe your experience will encourage another listener our way. Well, see you next time.