Dice Shame - 2-187 | 'Second Guess'

Episode Date: March 26, 2026

Red and Tamiil speak about what happens after...______________________________________________________________________________________________________________Imagine your best game of D&D. The shocks, the twists and turns, the moments that can’t be caught because you just had to be there. That’s Dice Shame.Join our DM Jo, her husband Harlan, their brother Alex & their friends Nic & Timm as they experience those unmissable, gut-wrenching, heart-aching, joy-filled moments.This legendary AP releases a brand new episode every Thursday morning at 1:20 am!Content Warning: animal death, swearing, violence, claustrophobia Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Oh, they're hot. Maybe a long shaft, maybe a short shaft. No judgment. All right, then. We will have to shut this down somehow. Oh, they got torn up all right. I'll join Timil. My word, Doran. Good, good instinct.

I feel deeply uncertain. I don't want to point fingers. We'll go look this way. Full circle. He seemed awfully keen. I think you're right. Is there a way for us to include them in the larger decision? This thing could be the dawn of an entire war.

if we leave it in the hands of Witted. We are still a team. All of us. Welcome back to Dice Shame. This is Season 2, Episode 1,87, Second Guess. MVP this week is Obsidian Cat from the Discord who just decided to embark on the journey of listening to Dice Shame. It's going to be a while since you hear this, but you deserve it nonetheless. Congrats Subsidian Cat. You're this week's MVP.

All right. Should we play some D&D? Yeah, let's do it. Woo-hoo. Tim, you got here with a bunch of snow. Oh, my God. Oh, yeah. I was actually flying back yesterday, so it was very touch and go for a little while there.

Oh, no. But got to my class that I had today here in New York. It's mostly shuffled out and everything, so not too bad. Because, yeah. You're in Brooklyn, right? I'm in the Bronx now, but pretty much the whole route was shuffled out. Cool. Yeah.

All right. Rock on. Yeah. New York is cool. I know. I know words about New York. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

That's one of them for sure. LaGuardia. I was just at LaGuardia. The other. Greenwich Village. Famed. Neither in the Bronx, but yeah. Oh, I know.

I'm just naming New York thing. The melting pot. Spider-Man. Spider-Man. Spider-Man. The one thing I know from Bronx is. rumble in the Bronx. Wait, so sweet.

It's right there in the name. Spider-Man takes care of all of New York? Yeah. That's a lot of... Manhattan. Manhattan, right? Yeah. He's famously based out of Queens, but I think it's all the city.

Yeah. Queens. But then why does Daredevil only worry about Hell's Kitchen? He's fucking lazy. Lazy? Lazy, lazy. Well, he's also less mobile. Wow.

Wow. He's also blind, you know? But isn't like, just isn't like Hell's Kitchen like tiny isn't like just a neighborhood yeah yeah it is like that feels kind of unfair yeah he's very street level but that's just a branding excuse to keep it like tight

it's like four blocks or something per capita there could be like more bad guys there so he's like it is called hell's kitchen right there in the name it's kind of like when you have a mayor of a city but then like who sits on top of that

Wilson Fis super mayor who sits on top of the mayor the mayor's wife Oh, she's lucky. But then there's on top of the, you know, on top of the state of the province, there's like the country. I'm pretty sure it's called Super Mayor. Uber Mayor. They stack the villains in healthcare.

Superman is a different whole. Super Mayor. Yeah, different pantheon. That's DCU. You guys are going to go to a fantasy village and there's going to be a super mayor. Supermare. I just don't understand why I don't understand why Peter Parker is in charge of all of New York. I don't think he's in charge, baby.

He rules over here. Oh, he kind of took it upon himself. Also, aren't the Avengers based in New York? I feel like New York's got a lot of attention. Come on, though. Why is he in charge? You make it sound like it was bestowed upon him that he had to be in charge. Hey, with great power.

Comes a lot of commuting. Crum's great responsibility. Say crumb. He put it on his own back. I'm just saying. So wait, you got the Avengers Tower in New York with Spider-Man. So clearly you got all the Avengers. The Black Widow and the Hulk.

Linky, all of them. Linky. Then you got Hell's Kitchen is like a subsect. So the Avengers not touch Hell's Kitchen. They're like, no, no, no, no, that's Daredevil. Too stinky. Too stinky. But then. They don't go down there.

One time Thanos went to Hell's Kitchen and it got real dicy. He got jacked up. He was like, all right, fine. Well, I mean, I suppose there's lower tier criminals. All right, everyone, move in. Street thugs and stuff, the Avengers aren't going to go after. That's true. I just mean to say, like, in terms of like,

Los Angeles, which is like, what, three, four million people. Harlem just Google Los Angeles. Yeah, no, I'm Googling the population. Okay, so yeah, fair enough. Listen, we have double the population in New York. There's like $8 million in New York, roughly, and $4 million in L.A. So they should at least still have half the Avengers. Superhero math.

Wait a second. How do we, that's population that lives in New York, right? There's a, what's the population of just like, because it swells during the day? Yeah. Oh, yeah. How many of these superheroes commute in from Jersey or? It's the Jersey commuting superhero. Some of them live in Hoboken and they come on in.

Some of them come all the way out from like Ridgeway. Some are coming in from Philly every morning. Okay, so a million workers commute to New York City. That's super commute though. So we're looking at nine million. But like, why are there no L.A.-based superheroes? There are though. Name one.

I can't. That doesn't mean they don't exist. Tim. This has been brought up, I think, the disproportionate per capita rate of superheroes in New York is like, there's a map that you can go to. And it's just absurd how many, how many we got here. You know what? Okay, I have a theory now. I have a theory.

Dr. Strange. Yeah, yeah. The, okay, so there's a post out there that floats around sometimes. I think it's like from Twitter or something that's like people from the West Coast. are nice but not kind. And people from the East Coast are kind, but not nice. And it's that thing of like, the example they give is like, if you had a flat tire or something from the West Coast,

you'd be like, oh my God, that sucks. I feel so bad. I'm so sorry. I hope things get better for soon. And people from the East Coast, you're like, you fucking idiot. Give me that Jack. Let me change the tire for you.

You know what I mean? Like, it's just so maybe that's, it's that vibe. I buy that. Well, and I think because like West Coast, obviously like Hollywood, it's much more vanilla. surface level kindness, rotten underneath.

I'm just talking about stereotypes. I'm not saying like, no shade. I'm going there, you know. You who live on the West Coast. Doesn't that mean, though, rotten underneath would imply the need for more superheroes?

That's where the villains, that's the villain farm. Oh. So all villains come from the West Coast. They grow up there and then they move to New York to make it like sun tanned villains. They got to make it as a super villain. Yeah.

I just can't. There's not one. There's not, like I'm Googling it, there's not one, there's West Coast based Avengers, which is like, but clearly that's still like, who were they? From the East Coast and moved to the West Coast. Probably like Aquaman. They abandoned it, apparently. It was in the 80s, but it was like Wonder Man, Green Lantern Corpse, something called outsiders, champions. I don't know any of these people.

Blue Devil, that's not a thing. Is Blue Devil like the opposite of Daredevil? He works in what? Angels Cookery in downtown L.A. I think I remember Blue Devil. The opposite of Hell's Kitchen. High Guard, Angels Cookery. What is the opposite of a kitchen?

I don't know. The bathroom. We're getting really into the difficult questions here, right? What is the opposite? Angels bathroom? Angels. Heaven's bathroom. Hell's kitchen and Heaven's Bathroom.

Oh, that's right. Heaven's bathroom, the new suburb in Los Angeles. I just mean to say I'm surprised, that's all. I feel like it would be obvious to be like, oh, and blank, blank is from the West Coast. But no, it seems to be very East Coast. Which is weird because I feel like a lot of movies, comic, et cetera, are made on the West Coast, right? It feels like it. Los Angeles?

You know, I bet it's probably something real stupid. Like the people that like the authors, the writers of the comic books grew up in the Northeast or in the East Coast or when you wanted to get published, the best places to do it and start your career were in New York or in the Northeast somewhere. And so that's just kind of where they based it. I know what it is. More nerds. Comic book nerds are not in L.A. The comic book nerds are the like gangly, pasty people. You know, they don't know.

The people portraying comic book nerds are in L.A. I'm speaking as a gangly pasty. I was like, I like copy. I'm speaking from current experience. Does anybody here actually like comic books? Like, does anybody? I do. Yeah, of course.

Do you like own like, sorry. Have you ever held one in your human? I would imagine no one's offended. Name one comic book. Like, your girl. Name one comic book. No, I mean to say like, does anybody collect them? Like the way that or like.

Oh, not. Or buy them. Tim's nodding. regularly or I don't know I haven't the unique circumstance that I worked at a comic

book shop for like two or three years so I wasn't into comics at all I was like you guys get a lot of D&D people right and they're like kind I'm like they don't get that many like a lot of people ask me questions about Ninja Turtle comics and I don't know a lot of

information about any of this stuff but just pretend I kind of tried to be honest with people I'm like hey I'm really sorry. I don't. The people who work there gave me like crash course sheets and like people are going to be asking about this Batman comic a lot. Like when these come in people really need want to know.

So I had the basics down by the end but like Oh, that's interesting. It's hard to be around is what I will say. Comic books, especially as they're getting released on a weekly basis without kind of giving in, it's a little bit like you're being around these very addictable types of books.

And it's very much like, oh, cool. there was a level of like, oh, I really like this art or I really like this writing. And that's when I felt good about it. Sometimes it was like a, I think, I think this might be valuable someday. And there's a lot of comics coming out every week where they're like, maybe this is going to be valuable someday. A number one of this guy, are you kidding me right now? Nah, don't, they're trying to get you. That's funny.

What about you, Nick? What's your relationship with comics? You know, and now that I think about it, because I don't do the single issues, you know, and have like a bunch in the kind of like original like the the salapain rappers or anything. I think that the way that I consume them would probably be more accurate to describe as graphic novels. But like I love image, you know, I love like, what is it called? They're just, they're making like sex criminals, which is coming out. I'm just catching up now on Monstress.

Anyone heard of that? No. Tim, you know that one? Monstrous. Monchis is really good. Oh my God. It's very good. I'm not fully caught up on it, but it's, yeah.

Yeah, I just, I ordered, like, two volumes. They're up to, like, volume 10 now, and they're still releasing the individual. But anyway, so, yeah, I don't, I don't go to, like, cons and stuff and, you know, like, go to, like, the comic bag alleys, and I don't do that. But, yeah, I do like the form. You don't need to, like, check every box to be a fan. No, not at all. I was just curious, because, I guess, comics are so vast that it's, like, what form.

Because like, like, do you, so do you buy, like, the omnibuses or do you, like, do like a, like a digital PDF type version? Oh, no, I love the physical copies. Yeah. Cool. That's one area where it's like, I've tried using something like, I think it's called Comixology or something like that, whatever Amazon's, like, digital comic book thing was because I wanted access to everything. But I just, for some reason, I couldn't engage on the screen the same way. I totally, I totally get that. Yeah.

I mean, Alex and I, I won't speak. for you, Alex, entirely. But, like, we grew up with comic books a lot. I still have a whole briefcase of comics that I gave to Henry that we still look through together of, like, Spider-Man's. Do you have my Spider-Man Man Bat? Or the, sorry, the Batman Man Bat? Yeah, I think I do.

I don't think it has a cover anymore, but I have it. We got a lot of weird ones. I would love to read it. Like, monster hunters, like one-offs here and there and stuff like that. But I would say maybe a few years ago, I was like, oh, what are some, like, cool graphic novels as well because I always loved it and we bought the locking key series which I loved those were so cool and then from there we I saw we sidestepped both of us into um Uzumaki what's his name Junji Ito yes Junji Ito thank you yeah Junji Ito

also like terrifying terrifying stuff um but yeah I like I would also say I'm even less so than you Nick because it sounds like you have like series that you follow like I do like the graphic novels. There's a few Alan Moore ones. There's one he did called Providence that I really liked. Yeah, yeah. Which is a Lovecraftian one. But, like, again, I kind of look every once in a while for one that stands out and then I'll buy like an omnibus and just sort of read it all in one.

That's wicked. Who are you, Alex? You still comic? No. No? I don't read. Is Liam any? Yes.

Yes, comics. I don't read. I just look at the pictures. So they're, it's really helpful. That's what comic. Yeah, yeah. I look at the pictures and make up all my own dialogue. Yeah.

No, I, um, yeah. Like, uh, like, like Harlan was saying, we were really into comics. Well, our dad had, was like a collector of comics for a while. Like he really was really, I shouldn't say collector. I shouldn't say like that. I didn't know that. When he was a kid, he really liked comics. Like, and then he passed his passion on, I feel like he would buy us comics often.

That's why we have all those comics. Yeah. I don't remember it. But the. Evidence is there, so it must have happened. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I don't remember physically him being like, here's a comic son, but like, we had all these comics around.

I didn't buy them. So like, it was sort of like, and then I'm kind of doing the same thing with my kids now. Every now and then we'll like be out and we're, oh, there's like a shop here where there's like, you know, toys and game stuff and comics. And they're like, I'm like, oh. And then you're like, what Tim was saying, it's very, very tempting. I look at the art in this. And then I'm like, reality sets and I'm like, I'm probably not going to read this.

I don't even just spend $50 on this like nice comic. It's going to sit on my shelf first. Unless. But see, here's what you do. Here's what you do. You put it by the toilet and you promise yourself not to bring your phone to the bathroom. And I promise you you you'll read through that thing. Well, I don't.

In a matter of minutes. No, we're on a different subject now. But I usually don't bring my phone to the bathroom anyways. I've gotten away from. What do you do? You got to concentrate. Wow. Someone's better than us over here.

He's got work to do. It's like, honestly, I don't have to concentrate that much. It's like a eighth of the time, a tenth of the time I used to spend in the washer. Wow. Going and gone. I'm back here. Oh, wow, that was fair. What did I used to do?

That's you time. Don't give up on that. Is it like a moment of peace? It's like a moment of like just to scare and clear my head. Dissociated. Oh, you're one of those. I get you. I get you.

No, in all serious. That's beautiful. That's beautiful. But last, I'm going to whack the question back over to Joe because she hasn't been asked with comic books. You know, you're gangly and tall and pale. Jesus, Alex. Must be into it. I am, those things.

Honestly, growing up, I fucking tore through Archie and Jughead, Lady and Veronica, double digest. Like a stack of them. And I remember we had like a couple other ones. I don't even really remember the name. because they were like bought for my brother sort of like more boy comics but for me because my parents really sort of leaned heavy into like traditional gender roles I got like the like fluffy ones so but I remember reading a ton of those um so I would read betty and Veronica any day yeah I bet you would we had a ton of them Henry has them and we have like weird spin-off

too like that boy Wilkins is like a weird archie spin-off I don't even know who he is, the Jughead ones. I mean, they did like Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and they did like the... But I mean the non-successful ones. Like, who sort of that boy Wilkins? Like, that's not a... He didn't take off.

What is it about that title? It feels so like... Google. Actually, it's that Wilkin boy, sorry. Yeah, it's that Wilkin boy. It was a series published by Archie about a teenage boy who lives in Midville next door to his girlfriend.

She's on the wrong side of the tracks. Mid. That Wilken boy. And it was like, it's funny because it's almost like a bizarro version of Archie comics. Like it's got the staple similar characters. It's got Woodrow Bingo Wilkin and Samantha Smyth and Uncle Herman and Samson Smyth. Occasionally, Jughead apparently would show up and that was it. Does she show that it was in universe?

But it took place in L.A. Oh, there we go. And we have come full circle. Full circle. So New York has the Avengers, but L.A. has that Wilken boy. That's why there are no superheroes in L.A. They have the Archie comic characters. And then we can segue that right into D&D.

Yeah, that's right. Should we do it? Yeah, let's play D&D. All right. In a vast chamber in the hips of the Von and Dodd, our heroes dispatched some magma sentinels and sent them to be crushed to pieces in the spinning gears below.

You think they're going to get crushed to pieces below? What do you mean in those spinning gears? Yeah. Or maybe they'll just fall to the, I guess, the feet of this thing, or I guess maybe the crotch. If this is the waist and do you think there's a penis down there? Maybe a long shaft, maybe a short shaft. No judgment.

No judgment. In contrast, Doran like turns around, sweaty and like wipes his brow and like there's this like, you know, slow motion. shot of steam rising and he says oh they got torn up all right torn to shreds fuck yeah doris like a really cool keeping the tension i like that dorin's so cool yeah yeah to reiterate about the room that we're in we're in a very very large rectangular room there are two long platforms that extend the length of the long sides of the rectangle and a catwalk runs through the center of the room, parallel to those platforms.

Walkways branch off to either side. On the two walls, several tall mechanical pillars extend from below the catwalk and reach up into the ceiling of the room. And then in the center of the catwalk, we have an identical orb to the one that you left Chaos Hammer with downstairs, and it's glowing blue light. At the far end of the room, you see that there are some mechanical contraptions, hard to make out from where you're standing,

but there's clearly this huge blue arcing crystal. There's like lightning and shit going on over there. And some like little hallways that lead off to the north and south. A quick glance into either this north or south hallways. Is it kind of obvious what's in there or would it need closer investigation? You see kind of smallish rooms that seem a little bit crowded with some, errata that you would need to investigate to learn more about, and then there are little hallways branching off of those rooms.

Tamil will go explore the southerly of those rooms, taking care before crossing any thresholds to look around for any, like, traps or any kind of security measures. Totally, totally. I think Red seeing Tamil head that way, sort of like, hey, I'll join Tamil. If you guys want, you can check out that one. Wimmy, can you keep me company?

Wim nods and follows you. Tamil, why don't you roll a perception check for me? I, 16. All right. Good to know. Witted and Doran, do you take the suggestion? Yeah, absolutely. Two of you are heading to the north.

That's Doran and Witted. And then the three of us are heading to the south, Temeel, Red, and Wim. Sorry, Witted is actually going to be just floating down a little bit to where the magma fell. He's not going far. He's not splitting off necessarily. it's just you mentioned the magma elementals like spilled below. Did you say that there were gears like parts of the Von and Dodd that had broken off? Or did you say Von and Dodd was pretty much impervious to the damage?

Totally impervious. In fact, it was kind of like impressive how they made such short work of these sentinels, despite the fact that they are made of like molten metal. The gears chewed through them and spat them out without any issue whatsoever. not even a clanking or slowing of these gears. That is perfect news. Witted would have wanted to double check just to be sure and watching like the bubbling lava slowing off the last bit

and seeing the impervious adamantine underneath. He almost just floats back up to follow the others, but knocks on the railing. Amazing girl. And just knocks on like this adamantine material floats and lands and starts like jogging off to link up with the others. It did seem like he was going to split off. If there had been, like, damage, you might have been like, oh, no, what are we doing even?

But he's very happy with that result. Yeah, Doren, Doreen catches you. It says, here, you and I will come, we'll go look this way. Oh, any points to this room? All right, then. Would it is happy to go along this way, 100%. We'll cover twice as bitch grab this way. Absolutely.

Luckily, for me, the DM, each of these rooms north and south heading off of this main. chamber are very, very similar, almost identical. So I'm going to go ahead and describe them and you can sort of substitute like left and right for up and down for... If we have to. Copy paste your own work, eh? Well, listen. Control C, control V this conversation.

His nose starts bleeding. What do I see? Yeah, these rooms that are adjacent to the long rectangular chamber are crowded. though you can see past the obstacles and move past them if you sort of like shimmy, that there's a narrow exit in the back wall that leads farther in. As far as the room's chief features, on the left and right wall, there are several tanks of fluid with pipes running through them. On the right side, or I suppose toward the entrance that you guys came through,

the tanks also contain some kind of moving parts that are swooshing the liquid around. And then on the side, that's, we'll say, toward this gigantic gem that's arcing the lightnings toward like the front, I suppose. The tanks have no swooshing parts, but they are boiling hot. So you see like bubbles rising from the fluid inside. In the center of the room, there are tall black metal pillars floor to ceiling. And on these pillars, there are four clear fist-sized chambers. on the sides. The tanks, are they clear or are they opaque?

They are clear. And the liquid inside, does it look like the hydraulic liquid or the kind of lubricating liquid that we saw spilling out on the first floor or in the feet? It looks a little different. It's hard to tell because that fluid was not like in a big vat. Yeah, yeah. But based on like the fluid dynamics of it moving around, it doesn't look like it's the same consistency.

More viscous, less viscous. Less viscous. Okay. Thank you. I think Doran turns to Witted. And he, maybe, Doran's going to put his hand on one of these tanks. Just gently to touch, because it looks hot.

Like, yeah, you put your hand on the hot tank? Just touch with his fingertips just to test to see. Yeah, it's super, super hot. You, you're like almost taking fire damage, but you dry your hand away. Yeah. Like a second before that happens. And you're like, ooh, if I do that for any longer,

the DM will probably have to roll some dice better. I, yeah, that's kind of, you know, same with when you touch a hot pen. You know it's hot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You have a second before, you're like, oh, that's hot. I'm not going to do that again. I mean, you might, but it's your choice. And as we sort of enter this room and says, what do you, what do you suppose these, these tanks of, oh, they're hot, are four?

He turds, puts his own finger on the, of the suit. And he can leave it there for probably two or three seconds before he has to pull it back, because he has fire resistance through the suit? He goes, oh, sure are. Oh, wow. I honestly can't imagine. Again, liquids,

not a lot of them running through my suit. This is all some very interesting engineering feats. It could be coolant for all we know in some circumspect sort of way. Oh, yeah. Or maybe some sort of high boiling point oil. And Doran's sort of like saying this. thinking about his own blacksmithing experience and cooling metals in hot oil.

Doran, roll an intelligence check for me, please. Okay. Oh, that's a 20. Oh, wow. Hell yeah. All right. Get it. Based on your experience with your blacksmith forging ways, it occurs to you,

there's no obvious source of heat here. This boiling fruit. fluid is being heated elsewhere and piped here. Right. So perhaps it is coolant, like the fluid is being heated somewhere else and then brought down here to cool off. Who knows? But it's usually you would see boiling fluid on top of a, you know, a flame source or

whatever. I mean, you're not a magic boy, so you can't really figure out more than that. But like, that's what occurs to you. Sorry. No magic boy. I think you're right with it. I think this is a cooling tank of some kind. There's hot fluid coming from somewhere else,

and he sort of dodges his eyes up towards a scene. When he hears Doren say that, he stops and looks around, yes, you're right, you're right. And the physics of these tags, it would be perfect for distilling and dispersing heat potential. My word, Doread, good instinct. And he's looking around nodding with respect at like Doren. critical hit. Thanks.

I think there's a bit of pride there. Doran's like, wow, I'm being congratulated by the smart one. The smart boy thinks I'm smart. Smart boys. I'm smart. With Red and Temeel alone for a second, Red sort of turns to Tameel as they're walking

down the Southern Hall. He just says, look, what's our plan here? You know, we spoke back by the tower about making sure this thing doesn't fall into to the hands of, well, anybody. And, you know, I don't want to point fingers, but it seems like we all got caught up

in the excitement of taking control of this thing. But we don't want to do that, do we? If Duke Zolto has a way to remotely control this, we at least need to disable that. And failing, just severing that connection, we will have to shut this down somehow to prevent him from executing his plan. Right.

I guess I just mean to say with Widdard being so excited about this, you know, at what point do you and I... Look, let's say we get to the end of this, and we have to take it back from Duke Zolto, okay, and we all take one of those orbs and we control this thing. And, hell, maybe we even use it for a brief second should we arrive at Silvery Moon to defend. Then what? You know, are we going to turn to Wididd and take the toy out of his hands? I guess what I'm saying is, as we're moving through this thing, should you and I be looking at ways to perhaps, you know, disable it without having to confront WIDIDIDD directly? WIMSigns, if Witted does want to keep it, what's the worst that could happen? In a perfect world, if I knew with no doubt whatsoever that Witted and only Witted would hold on to the keys of this thing and control,

it forevermore, then maybe, maybe I would be open to hearing the idea of, of, you know, him holding onto it. I, you know, I'm not a monster, but the reality is, a tool this powerful brought back into existence is only going to be sought after by people with more nefarious needs and wants than with it. Hell, this thing could be the dawn of an entire war if we leave it in the hands of Witted. Not because of him, but because of its power. And I don't know what Chaos Hammer is thinking. He seemed awfully keen to hang off and wait by that power.

and I don't know, I caught a little look between Doran and Witted and him, and I don't want to think anything, but I am worried that they don't see the damage that could be brought. There is a part of me that does not blame them for conspiring as functionally that is what we are doing as well. Of course not. Perhaps calling it out would be a good, good, good. way to counteract any sly shenanigans, but to your larger point,

I think that there is nothing wrong with increasing our number of options, understanding ways that we could disable it, or at least disable weapon systems, or critical systems. There is a part of me, I must admit, that seeing Witted move through here and the

childlike wonder that he hands at this place and the things that he doesn't yet understand about it. There is a part of me that wants to give him a chance to study the mechanics of it, but not by allowing him free control and unsupervised, as you said, because I agree the long-term consequences of someone else getting their hands on this could include replication of it, which would be beyond disastrous. I'm right there with you. I'm I can say confidently that I love that little guy.

I see his elation in walking through this, and I can feel it myself. It is really genuinely a work of art. Red sort of puts his hand on the wall in a genuine understanding of the power this thing holds and the immense, impressive nature of it. And that's why it is so much harder to think this way. because I feel like if you and I don't take this opportunity to find a way to stop him, then the repercussions in the future could be disastrous. And I wouldn't be able to live with myself if 20 years down the road I had wished I had done something now.

Is there a way for us to do something, but not keep it from him or from daughter? in, is there a way for us to include them in the larger decision? I mean, I know we have fundamental differences in our goals, but I don't know. It seems odd to split this way. No, and I don't want to. And I think what I'm really saying is, is when it gets to that moment, when it gets to that moment that that Witted is given the power of this thing. And like I said, we very may want to use this to help the folks of Silvery Moon.

And that may be a realistic choice that we have to make. If it's between their deaths or saving them and turning this thing against the giant, I am willing to make that call. But what I am saying is when it comes down to what to do with it after, I am motivated and excited to make our case. But if we get to that moment and nothing we can say will turn Doran or widded or perhaps chaos hammer against their goal, then we need to be prepared to shut this thing down without them. And it is a last resort.

But hell, if we don't plan for it now, we may not get a chance to. Like these vats, red sort of gestures, you know, maybe dropping something in them. Again, at the last minute, sending off, you know, Steve in or, hell, getting whimmy to slip off and drop something, and freeze these gears up and seize the whole machine, you know, just think. thinking that way as a last-ditch effort. I don't think there is any harm in investigating ways to do what you are saying. Although, Wim, what do you think? Whim signs, it's hard for me to think about a future 20 years down the road.

And we're at war now. I understand that it's frightening to think. about what this machine might do in the hands of the wrong people. But maybe we are the right people. Red, something you've just said has shifted my mind a bit. If we get to Silvery Moon and we can use this to our advantage against the giants for that one battle, for that one good reason. But isn't that what Whedidid's argument is as well, that he has,

at least one good reason to use this outside of the context of what we're doing now. Maybe 10 good reasons. It is... What is the line? Is it... Use it or don't? Or use it only as far as is good and then destroy it? Or...

I feel deeply uncertain and... I think I'd like to punch some things a little bit more, so perhaps we should... find more of those magma men. But she puts her hand on Red's shoulder. But Redd, I am with you.

And in whatever little bit of confusion I am in right now, I will still be looking for ways to dismantle or disable the Vonendod and any of its systems. More options is better. Fair enough. Yeah, no, you make a good point. Maybe it is something

that just kicked down the road a little bit. And you could tell even just from knowing Red that that last thing he said to you was a bit of a lie. Like you can kind of tell that he sees you wavering a little bit and it almost made him more resolute. Like not in just because he's not necessarily trying to hide it. Like you sort of get the vibe straight up of like him being like, okay, fair enough. You know, like kind of like, if I have to do this alone, I'll do it alone type vibe. But again, he's not trying to hide it from you because he thinks you know deep down the same thing. I wish there are a way for us to come together on this.

Even if it doesn't mean full agreement on what is right and what is wrong, you know, now I'm wavering, you have this idea, but we are still going to be working together. We are still a team, all of us. I don't want anything to jeopardize that. Of course Of course I have you back I have everyone's back

Always Same Now Meanwhile There's literally nothing They can say to us To make us change Your mind

Yeah yeah So we're resolute right So we're decided Take control of the one and none Nothing anybody can do You know, I can't help but feel like reading the names of the Patreon supporters is becoming longer than the episodes themselves. So I'm gonna try something a little different here and use some magic.

We would like to thank our Patreon supporters. Lita J. Christopher, Colin Berkhardt, Merlin, Adam Frey, Lys, Liz, Merrick's Moon, Ruthan Reed, Trin, Lerley, Feltman, Scotty, Paley, Kass, Nicky, Brooke, Bendinelli, Nerd Fairy, Luna de Maria, Sray 96, Moon, Shannon Robinson, PAN, MISRA, Abby May Birken, Wandererfell, Annalena, Gareth Bradshaw, Absolute Ocelli, Manderpans, Manderpans, Malinda, A-Krashpanda, A-K-Korchance, A-Korah, A-Korah-Kee-T-T-E-T-E-L-E-E-Roy-E-T-Ear-E-T-Ear-E-E-Roe-T-Ear-E-E-ROTE-E-E-E-ROTE, Marimo, Knox the Nightshark, True E. Cedress, Stab, Sunny, Keely Hill, Caspian, Heather Newman,

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librarian, Connor Deville, Taylor Kiefer, Xenon Hexa, Jules, Robin, Tony, Joel Liff, Benny, Burger Valentine's, Dan Melsheimer, Aura, Indiana, Lunarca, possibly Eden. Oh my goodness. I don't know if I could have done it much faster than that, so I'm going to go lie down. We'll see you the next episode.

Bye-bye. I love it. God, we're so smart. We're so smart. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Hi, everybody.

Hi, bye. Bye.