It Could Happen Here - Pathfinder: Dawn of the Frogs, Part One

Episode Date: November 2, 2025

It's RPG time! Margaret and company are playing Pathfinder. This week, our heroes beging their journey.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. In the heat of battle, your squad relies on you. Don't let them down. Unlock elite gaming tech at Lenovo.com. Dominate every match with next level speed, seamless streaming, and performance that won't quit. Push your gameplay beyond performance with Intel Core Ultra processors. For the next era of gaming.

Upgrade to smooth, high-quality streaming with Intel Wi-Fi 6E and maximize game performance with enhanced overclocking. Win the tech search. Power up at Lenovo.com. Hello, America's sweetheart Johnny Knoxville here. I want to tell you about my new true crime podcast, Crimeless, Hillbilly Heist, from smartless media, campside media, and big money players. It's a wild tale about a gang of high-functioning nitwits who somehow pulled off America's

third largest cash heist. Kind of like Robin Hood, except for the part where he's still. Gills from the rich and gifts to the poor, I'm not that generous. It's a damn near inspiring true story for anyone out there who's ever shot for the moon, then just totally muffed up the landing. They stole $17 million that had not bought a ticket to help him escape. So we're saying like, oh God, what do we do? What do we do? That was dumb. People do not follow my example.

Listen to Crimless, Hillbilly Heist on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. I live below a cult leader and I fear I've angered her. Wait a minute, Sophia. How do you know she's a cult leader? Well, Dakota, luckily it's I'm not afraid of a scary story week on the OK Storytime podcast. So we'll find out soon. This person writes,

My neighbor has been blasting music every day and doing dirt rituals. And now my ceiling is collapsing. I try to report them, but things keep getting weirder. I think they might be part of a cult. Hold up. Real life cult? And what is a dirt ritual? No clue, Dakota.

Find out how it ends. Listen to the OK Storytime podcast on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Cal Penn. And on my new podcast, here we go again. We'll take today's trends and headlines and ask, why does history keep repeating itself? Each week, I'm calling up my friends like Bill Nye, Lily Singh, and Pete Buttigieg to talk about everything from the space race to movie remakes to psychedelics. the way, are you high? Look, the world can seem pretty scary

right now, but my goal here is for you to listen and feel a little better about the future. Listen and subscribe to here we go again with Cal Penn on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Quarzone Media. But club.

Club. What, book, club, club, club, club, play, what have I done. Hello, and welcome to Cool Zone Media Book Club, the only book club where actually it's a bunch of podcasters playing role playing games instead of reading books. It's not at all a book. That's right. We are trying out something new. Yeah, fuck that library shit. It's a lot of books. I have so many books on my table because we're playing a role-playing game.

This week, we are doing something new, and we're going to be doing it for more than just this week, because I don't know if you all have ever played a role-playing game, but it lasts longer than an hour. I'm your host, Margaret Kiljoy, but I'm not actually the game master of this game, because the game master is none other than Jason Bowman, who's the lead designer of one of the best things to happen to tabletop role-playing. Pathfinder. If you're not familiar with Pathfinder, Pathfinder, Pathfinder is like... but it's not

because instead I like it better than we're going to be playing fantasy characters running through a world full of I think frogs because the game is called Dawn of frogs. That's right. I don't know there's an exclamation mark because I don't have the book because I'm not the one running it but I like to believe

there's an exclamation mark after each and every word. There's definitely jazz hands. Oh yeah. Can we call them frog hands? Yes. We sure can. I have a frog hat. Why am I not wearing a frog hat? Why are you wearing the frog hat? You are wearing chain mail.

Well, it's on my character sheet. This is what I've been trying to explain to everyone the whole time when they're asking why I'm wearing chain mail. It's on my character sheet. I have chain mail. So this is in book club. We're going to call it the cool kids table or cool kids at the table. This is not actually agreed upon. I just threw this into the script.

But without further ado, I would like to introduce. Jason, Hazel, Iyo, and Robert, who are our players and game masters. Only one of them is the game master. Well, I guess that's my cue then. Hi there, everybody. I'm Jason Bowman. I'm the director of games at Paiso, and boy, a long time ago, I wrote a little game called Pathfinder.

These days, I'm the team lead for Pathfinder's second edition and all of our board games and card games and stuff. So, yeah, and I'm excited here today to be running Dawn of the Frogs. It's a new adventure that I wrote, actually. So I'm excited to run all. of you through it and I'm sure you'll all do just great I keep calling it rain of frogs

in my head but rain like R-E-I-G-H-N but that's because of rain of blood I just keep thinking there will be no dawn for the race of frogs like Gothmog and Return of the King but instead some guy poisoning frogs

yeah sure yeah that's probably what's going to happen hello my name is Hazel Acacia. I am mostly just an assistant on this podcast. I help pick out the stories every week and write little scripts and write hat transitions. But I'm excited to be in front of the mic today. Hey, I'm I.O. I have a CV. And wouldn't you like to know it? I love to play the game of life. And I'm a they, them. And over to you, Robert. I'm Robert. I sit on the internet and do

podcasts and sometimes like right now I play video games or not video games games via podcasts that's me there's my introduction we're actually just we should just live play video games I've been trying to sell Margaret on this for years no but without streaming Margaret I do want I don't know if there's a co-op option for cyberpunk 2077 but we could have some fun I think you like it I I tried to play it and I hate when the game tells you what to do but when the story's already in the game

it's not as fun to me. I like the game where you have the giant map and then everything is complicated and you run like 16 different economies and you can do evil things if you want to but I actually can't bring myself to ever. Yeah, you love like stock market simulator but in space

games. Yes, Stalaris. Oh yeah, Stalaris. There were three weeks of my life. I'm totally neurative. typical. But yeah, those are the players. What's the game, Jason? Well, today, everybody, we're going to be playing Donna the Frogs. And without further ado, I think I'm going to just get us going. The Dunmire is a gloomy and foreboding swamp. Yet beauty can be found within. In some

spots, the sun's light rarely reaches the water through the foliage above. While in others, brightly colored swamp flowers and insects seem almost to sparkle. The town of Bog Bottom isn't a big place, but it's one the locals have called home for generations. Yet now that some of the townsfolk have gone missing near an old mill deep in the swamp, someone needs to find out what happened to them. Spoilers, that someone is you. The journey to the crumbling landmark takes several hours, and while arduous, it's uneventful. Many predators lurk in the swamp, but there has been no sign of their presence, so far.

Far off, frogs chirp and croak, and flies buzz dreamily. The crumbling wooden mill stands amid the mist, half-sunked into the swamp. The front door has been rotted away, but the entrance is mostly blocked by thick vines. Someone could possibly squeeze through these vines, or perhaps try and cut them loose. perhaps a clue to the villagers' fate lies within. Now, the group of you have been in Bog Bottom for some time. You arrived there several days ago, having just fled from your most recent exploits, and when news came to you that these villagers were missing,

you saw an opportunity, perhaps to earn some small amount of redemption, or perhaps even more importantly, to earn some coin to fill your empty pockets. The four of you have been traveling for a few hours. This old crumbling mill is not too far away from the swampy community of Bog Bottom. And now you stand with the mill somewhere up in the distance. It's perhaps, you know, 100 feet away or so, looking at each other, sizing up the situation and preparing for adventure. But before we do that, I think we're going to throw it around the horn and let everybody introduce their characters. Maybe tell us a little bit about what you love.

look like and kind of what you're kidded out with? What do we see when we look upon you? Spite, why don't we start with you? Well, spite is my name. It's my given name. I've been named much like everyone else where I grew up. We get named after the virtues, you know? I probably talk about my sister malice a lot.

I really look up to her. Spite is probably all of 19 or 20 years old. She's not 100% certain and the crash doesn't keep really exact. dates. She's wearing chain mail. She has a helmet with a candle stuck to the top, you know, so she can see where she's going. I don't know why everyone thinks that's so strange. And she does a lot of things that she doesn't realize people realize are strange. All of her outfit is completely black and red, just like normal outfits should be. And she's wearing chain mail. she has a morning star

that she almost always has out because it's practically a fidget spinner. There's a couple javelins strapped to her pack and that's spite. She's human. Yeah, she's pretty sure. She doesn't actually know her birth parents are. That kind of stuff is a bourgeois

like keeping track of actual birth parents does not fly or spite is from. Squash, why don't you go next? Well, imagine a half-law. Great. You're doing it. Now imagine a dog. Not so fast. This dog stands like a man does, but with thumbs, the whole thing. He's a shuny, which are nasty little dogman. He's a sturdy trunk of a boy, three feet tall, and shaped like a friend. He has a canine face, but if you like smush down the snoot until the sinuses were kind of a dead end where the air would go in and spin around the brain and shoot right back out. Fans of phrenology listening may describe his skull shape as fucked up. He has piercing green eyes positioned somewhere between predator and prey, often facing the same direction.

His friendly face is positively littered with jowls and folds and tufts of unruly bad boy cowlicks that were you to see it in our world, you would think, ah, a monument to man's hubris, or maybe some sort of joke that God is playing on wolves. But in this crazy mixed-up world of Pathfinder, he's a New York 8. He has long, flowing hair that can only be described as bitchen, and he wears a military-style beret right on top of his damn head, a belly button so deep it touches his spine. He wears a half cape and a chain mail crop top with a Mediterranean chest hair situation trailing down to leather cut off breeches to cut a figure we can all agree is really. really sexy. He's got a big knife that's also a gun with the serial number filed off so it looks like the fucking buster sword taped to a derringer. He used to be a gentleman bank robber for the rev until he got caught because he kept shooting his name into the side of banks. But these fine adventurers all busted him out. What else? His pronouns? Any pronouns, despite exclusively referring to

himself as a he. Yeah, he's one of those kinds of guys, but don't let that fool you. This Guys, great. And podcast listeners across the nation agree. He's got a lot of heart, a lot of chutzpah, and what the French call a certain, I don't know what. His name is squash. Please don't wear it out. I'm so glad I'm not following you.

Murdy, I do not envy you, but you can follow up that. I didn't write myself a script for how to introduce my camera. So listeners, please bear with me. I am playing Sister Mirdrugan a bow, also known as Mertie. She uses she, her pronouns. I am a half-orch cleric for you nerds out there. Technically, I worship a rastel. However, I have found myself as part of an erstwhile soup cult to the god.

You know, we're all about taking care of the community. We hand out food. We give alms. You know, maybe like food, not bombs. maybe like a Catholic worker, who's to say? I would face Casmerty if I was making the HBO special as TNG era Denise Crosby. I've got light green, gray skin, and jet black straight hair. Got triangle bangs, you know the kind.

Slick back low bun, if you care about that kind of stuff. I'm wearing a black linen dress, which is A-line and sensibly swooshy. I got leather pouches and pockets on a belt around my waist. Sort of like a waitress apron, again, hitting with the soup nun theme. Got leather armor, so sort of like a cute, tight-fitting crop top out of leather. Just imagine it. Draw me some nice fan art. Yeah, I know I got one cool paldron, very important.

You can often see me wielding a soup ladle and a chef's knife. And I also have a cauldron full of a magical perpetual stew on a bindle for easy carrying. Mertie. We love Mertie. Soup none. Soup none. last but certainly not least trant introduce yourself well yeah so you know unlike the boss where i come from they didn't name us for our virtues so i got named for my dad and he was not a guy with a lot of virtues

alken stars a nice city for some people but not my family my dad and my dad's dad made gunpowder and they raised me not to make waves not to complain not to have an issue with the fact that you know my whole life was living in a fucking slum making gunpowder. The only thing they taught me that was of much use was how to make gunpowder. And I got too good at that. And then I did some things with it that made me have to leave town in a hurry, which is how I met up with this crew who had some ideas for how to use the stuff I knew how to make that I preferred to the things I was raised to do.

So that's what I do. I make bombs and allegedly other things that all have more or less the same goal, which is to cause problems for anyone in an area. that I don't really like what's going on there. Or I'm just kind of bored and I want something loud to happen. All of these things are acceptable. I'm about six foot, non-descript looking, which has been helpful in the past because it's really nice not to get recognized.

I try to wear a mask whenever I'm doing anything particularly interesting. I keep as many bombs on me as I feel like I can wear without exploding. And I usually avoid that, although not always, as you can tell from the scars on my hands and my neck and a couple other parts of my body that I don't generally. share with other members of the adventuring troupe because it's a bad idea to shit where you eat. I keep a couple of holdout pistols, one under each shoulder, and I keep a blender bus on my back in case, you know, I need faster solutions to problems, but I really prefer to solve things with the mix of gunpowder and alchemy. It's just easier that way. You don't have to be there.

You don't have to see what happens afterwards. You can just watch the pretty lights and then run like The reason we're in a backwater, like Bog Bottom, is because, as people might have guessed from what they heard, we blew up a jail and let everyone out. And we thought everyone in town would treat us like heroes. And shockingly, they did not. In my experience, they never do when you blow something up. Even when you give them soup. I really can't think you enough. So for the people of Bogbottom, they might see four fresh-faced adventurers.

But in reality, they have four dangerous malcontents in their midst. But there are villagers that need rescue. And as I mentioned before, your coin purses are very light right now. In fact, the sea captain that brought you to the Isle of Cortos dropped you off at the shore when he found out you didn't have enough money to make it all the way to Absalom. So you were just kind of left at the shore. You're lucky he didn't drop you off in the middle of the inner seat. I offered to pay him with a bomb, and he took that as some sort of threat.

I don't know. As it turns out, boats don't really like bomb payments. Bonds ain't cheap. Not good for them. We're going to pay him later anyway. Possibly with a bomb. Oh, I'll pay him. Uh-huh.

That's sour puss. He's oppressing people. I'm a champion just by the... Yeah. He's oppressing people by demanding that you pay him. Uh-huh. Fucking fascists everywhere I look. So the four of you are currently standing outside of this old mill.

The base of this mill is made of fieldstone. The upper floors look like they're made of wood. The entire thing is tilting kind of dangerously to one side. This is a windmill and most of its blades are falling off. There's like the fragment of one and the skeleton of another still attached to the front of the building, although you can't imagine that the mill's inner workings are intact at all. In fact, you can see one of the kind of blades laying in the swamp muck next to you. Up ahead, you can see the darkened entrance that goes inside the mill's interior.

You're here primarily because the people who went missing were out in this area doing some swamp fishing, and they just never came back. So you've arrived at this kind of old crumbling mill. As I mentioned before, the way in looks kind of blocked. There's vines. You could maybe squeeze through it, or perhaps you could cut them away. There are, I'm sure, other options as well. This being a swamp, it is pretty damp and muddy around these parts.

The ground underneath you kind of makes a squelching noise with every step. But as you get closer to the mill itself, there is a bit more firmer ground. Does it look like anyone's been here? Like, does it look like, like, are the vines disturbed in any way? It definitely looks like the vines haven't fully grown over the opening, so it's quite possible that something's been going in or out. But if you want to know more about whether or not perhaps anybody's been coming this way recently, I would ask for one of you to make me a survival check to look for tracks.

Any of us any good at that? I got plus three. I'm decent at that. I've got plus four. All right. Go ahead and give me a survival check. We'll skill check them. First roll of the game.

That is it. 10 on the dice, so a total of 14. Looking around, you can tell that there are definitely some tracks in the muck, but it's a little hard for you to make out whether or not there are humanoid tracks or perhaps animal tracks. The ground here is just so soft that the recent rains and mists have kind of worn it into just kind of a morass. It's clear that there's been some traffic, though.

Hey Squash, every time I step, it sounds like your name. Squash, squash, squash. The swamp is alive with the sound of squash. Is this mill? This mill's pretty dilapidated, yeah? Yeah, it doesn't look like this mill has been in use for several years at least. Is there some, like, crumbling infrastructure? Maybe a cool dog could do a flip into, like big holes in the roof?

That's way too high up. I mean, the mill itself is probably about 40 feet tall. You don't know this dog, but point taken. Your acrobatic skills are truly legendary, but you're pretty sure you couldn't flip up that high. Your best bet is going to be to try to wiggle through the vines or cut them away or something. I take out a dagger and walk up and start cutting vines.

Okay. This is going to take forever, trance. You know, I could do that faster. Good point, good point. I step back. I'm going to grab. One of my, what are they called? Bombs.

No, no, I've got bombs. I don't want to use them. I've got a versatile flask. Can I use one of those to make a lesser alchemist's fire and try to burn the shit away? Yeah, you can give that a shot. All right. So you break out your versatile vial

and using some of the reagents that you have on you, kind of squirled away in the many pouches that you have. See, this is why I've been collecting and drying pee, everybody, by the way. Salt Peter doesn't just grow on trees. I thought you were just. we're composting it. Kind of. The issue isn't that I didn't believe you.

The issue is that I did believe you. So why don't you go ahead and throw a bomb? So go ahead and make an attack roll. Yes. Okay, okay. I got my D20. I'm standing back, by the way. I know I was up there with a knife a moment ago, but I leave.

That's a good move because that roll did not turn out great. That's a four and then let's see here. What am I plus? Plus five? So, nine. Well, it doesn't quite hit the mark. The bomb kind of hits the wall next to it. And while it does sear some of the vines a bit,

you're going to wager that they're so damp and kind of swollen with swamp muck that your bomb really probably isn't going to have too much of an effect unless you want to use a lot of them. You know, there are problems that Molotovs don't solve, I say. All right. I think I've got, I mean, we could try a reverse Molotov. I could freeze them. I thought the first Molotov was like drinking it or something.

That's called a good Thursday. Every time I throw a Molotov, there's one problem and you throw a Molotov and boom, right away, you got a different problem. Mm-hmm. Definitely stole that joke. Anyway, um... Yeah, teen, I'm going to cut it with my knife. Yeah, let's go back to sword. All right.

So this isn't going to be an attack roll. It's more like, uh, can you pry it open and use your blades and weapons to just, destroy it. So we're going to call it an athletics check. Anybody got athletics? You can try that. Oh, I'm good at that. Yeah. Why don't you give me an athletics check? In the crash, they make us, I mean, we choose to run every day

and do a lot of exercises for the revolution and the glory of God. I am too busy saying that to actually be paying attention to what I'm doing. So I rolled a two, and I got a total of nine. Awesome, a great start. Yeah. I have a plus seven at this goddamn thing. The

dice rolling here is just phenomenal. We're really screaming. This is actually a historically cursed dye, but it's the prettiest, so I always use it. Aesthetics will be the death of you. I can't fault you. So you begin working at these vines, but you're just not having much luck. No matter how you try, there seems to be just more vines. There's just more and more here.

Would someone else like to try, someone with less cursed dice? I think this is actually impossible, I say. There's no way they could have gone in here. I spit on both my hands and rub them together, and I say, like, see your god, try this, and I pull out my big goddamn sword and try and pry this bad boy open. I step back again. Wait, what am I rolling? An athletics check.

Oh, okay. That's a 14. So you continue to work away at these vines, and after a bit of struggle, you've managed to clear a wide enough way that you think everybody could possibly squeeze inside. That's right, baby. It might take a little bit of effort, but you're wagering that everybody could kind of wormed their way in there. I raised my arms and say squash, and I wriggle on inside.

I use the mud to say your name. I'm just saying we could have used more bombs. It's making squishing noises, and then I follow you. Yeah, I head in. Yeah, I'm also following. You're right. We should have used more bombs, and everyone gets inside, and they see squash pissing freely into a empty soda can

and giving Trant a big thumbs up. So, you have. all managed to squeeze inside, the floor inside the old mill has rotted away, and the massive millstone has sunken halfway into the muck. A sagging staircase nearby leads up to the floor above. Suddenly, the mud stirs as a trio of dog-sized swamp beetles erupt up from the film. Oh, neat. Oh, brother. All right, everybody, we are about to go into our first combat. it's too late to already have my shield and morning star out yeah i'm afraid it is so it goes in the heat of battle your squad relies on you don't let them down unlock elite gaming tech

at lenovo dot com dominate every match with next level speed seamless streaming and performance that won't quit push your gameplay beyond performance with intel core ultra processors for the next era of Upgrade to smooth high-quality streaming with Intel Wi-Fi 6E and maximize game performance with enhanced overclocking. Win the tech search. Power up at Lenovo.com. Lenovo, Lenovo. Here we go. Hey, I'm Kelpen, and on my new podcast, Here We Go again, we'll take today's trends and headlines and ask,

why does history keep repeating itself? You may know me as the second hottest actor from the Harold and Kumar movies, but I'm also an author, a White House staffer, and as of like 15 seconds ago, a podcast host. Along the way, I've made some friends who are experts in science, politics, and pop culture. And each week, one of them will be joining me to answer my burning questions. Like, are we heading towards another financial crash, like in 08? Is non-monogamy back in style? And how come there's never a gate ready for your flight when it lands like two minutes or early. We've got guests like Pete Buttigieg, Stacey Abrams, Lily Singh, and Bill Nye.

When you start weaponizing outer space, things can potentially go really wrong. Look, the world can seem pretty scary right now, because it is. But my goal here is for you to listen and feel a little better about the future. Listen and subscribe to here we go again with Cal Penn on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I live below a cult leader, and I fear I've angered her. Well, wait a minute, Sophia. How'd you know she's a cult leader? Well, Dakota, luckily it's I'm not afraid of a scary story week on the OK Storytime podcast, so you'll find out soon.

This person writes, my neighbor's been blasting music every day and doing dirt rituals, and now my ceiling is collapsing. I try to report them, but things keep getting weirder. I think they may be part of a cult. Hold up, Sophia, a real-life cult? And what is a dirt ritual? No clue. But according to this person, contractors are tearing down the patio to find out what's going on with her ceiling and her neighbors are not happy. Well, she needs to report them ASAP. She did. And now they've been confronting her in really creepy ways all the time.

So do we find out if this person survives their neighborhood cult or not? To hear the explosive finale, listen to the OK Storytime podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A combat surgeon with secrets, a world built on power and privilege, and the most unexpected creative duo of the year. As an actor for so many years, I would always walk into other people stories. And I thought, well, why don't I give it a shot, you know, and try it right up my thought. This week, bookmarked by Reese's Book Club goes live from Apple Soho in New York City with Reese Witherspoon and Harlan Coben, the powerhouse team behind Gone Before Goodbye. now a New York Times bestseller. I think we both knew right away that this was going to happen.

It's a conversation about fear, ambition, and what happens when two master storytellers collide? I'd never seen a woman in kind of a James Bond world. Come for the chills and stay for the surprises. And find out why readers can't put it down. Listen to Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So we've got three of these massive swamp beetles.

Like I said, these things are about two and a half feet long, and they just come burrowing up out of the muck. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to ask each of you to roll initiative. And in Pathfinder, you can roll a lot of things for initiative, but for this first fight, we're going to have you roll perception. So go ahead and give me a perception check. Keep the number to yourself here just for a moment, and I will go around and collect it from you.

Great. Ooh, yeah. I don't think I'm going to go anywhere without my shield out in the future. That is certainly something we can note. All right, why don't I go around and collect everyone's initiative? Murdy, what did you get? I got a 15 on the dice, so that is 22. 22. All right. That's pretty good. Squash, what do you got?

Also 22. Which one of you would like to go first? It's your choice. I can give everybody, like, a pretty decent food. We want to take advantage of that. I love a boon. Sure. All right. We'll leave it like that. Trantz, what do you got? I got a 17. 17.

And, Spite, what did you get? Roll a 15 for a total of 19 Well, you all beat the initiative of my poor, poor beetles We did very poorly All right, everybody Here we are in the first round of combat So we've got three beetles that have come burrowing up out of the muck It looks like crawling up out of this swamp goo

Has really slowed them down Giving you all quite the edge At the top of the order Squash, you get to go first Squash trying to pull up his pants up after trying to make what was sure to be a beautiful bomb. One hand

shoots from the hip his big sword that's also a gun, his gun sword. Shoots whichever Beatles closest. So you're going to draw your weapon and you're going to fire. So that's two of your actions. Yeah, bang. Looking at where you're at, it looks like you're going to be firing at that first beetle over there on the left.

It's kind of crawling up around the millstone between the millstone and the ruin stairs. So go ahead and give me an attack roll. It's not what I want it to be. So I roll the six, plus seven, for a total of 13. The bullet from your pistol goes gliding right past the beetle, just barely missing it, impacting the muck right behind it.

Now, I believe you're going to have to reload that pistol, so you cannot fire it again for your third action, but you could reload. Ugh, ah, oof, I'm reloading. This guy's going to fucking get it next time. All right, so you take a shot with your pistol. It comes up a hair short, and then you take a moment to reload. That is the end of Squash's turn. Next up, Mertie.

We've got Beatles all around you. They are uninjured. Their mandibles are clicking menacingly. What do you do? Basically nasty. So I am going to raise my shield, and I'm going to cast less, which as a spell counts for two actions. And it's going to give myself and my allies a plus one status bonus to all attack rolls, as long as you stay within 15 feet of mean.

All right, so that is currently everybody, because you just clustered in after crawling through the vine, so everybody has that bonus on attack rolls. And after calling down the blessings of Arestil to the group, that is the end of Mertie's turn. Spite, we're turning it over to you. Will your namesake hold up? I'm going to use my defensive advance that is blessed upon me. I learned it in school when I worshipped Malani, the goddess that I worship.

So I'm going to raise my shield, stride confidently forward, right out of range of the blessed spell, right next to that beetle to my right. And also, oh, before I do this, I'm drawing my morning star. And then I'm using this two-action thing that lets me raise my shield, stride, and strike. All right. So that's what I'm doing. and when I mentioned that this dye does not roll particularly well, I would like to say that the total I got was an eight, but the number I rolled was a one.

So that would be a critical failure. You swing wildly around, your morning star flailing through the air, nearly hitting trench right in the face, because he's right next to you, and just within a hair's breadth of his nose, but you otherwise don't suffer any ill effects. The Beetle kind of looks at you like,

were you trying to hit me? Did I fuck up here, boss? I rolled max on my damage. I rolled max damage because I rolled at the same time. You nearly did max damage to your friend's face, but the beetle is unscathed. That's my turn. Well, Trent, we're down to you.

Next up the Beatles go. The rest of your cohort has bravely not damaged at any Beatles yet, so it's down to you. All right. Save me, Trent. Don't worry, boss. I got this. Fire in the hole!

And then I'm going to throw up an alchemist fire at the nearest beetle right in front of spite. Yeah. Now, I do happen to know that you were a bomber. And being a bomber means that you do have the option of having the splash damage from your bomb only hit the beetle. Because when you throw a bomb, it causes splash damage, so it damages the area around it.

But you don't have to use that ability. The question I have for you is whether or not you are. Yeah, yeah, it's the boss. All right. Unless I miss. Unless there's a mistake. Yeah. Oh, I rolled a natural 20.

Well, that's definitely going to work. Can we switch dice? The beetle who is entirely missed by the previous attack is kind of just looking around and kind of disoriented. And you, from just right over Spite's shoulder, toss this Alchemist's fire directly into its little beetle face. So go ahead and roll damage. D8. For the Alchemist Fire, just roll once.

It snatches it out of the air with its mouth reflexively. As if trying to play fetch. Seven. Seven points of damage, which is entirely doubled, plus the splash damage. You immolate this beetle. The Alchemist Fire lands on the beetle, shattering across its carapace

and cooking it thoroughly in one moment the beetle has been destroyed. That'll teach you to be an animal I just met. Oh, we are in its house. I hadn't thought of the moral complications

of this before. Oh, gosh. Foss, if you're God one of that beetle alive, I wouldn't have hit it so hard. That's a good point. So that was only your or first action because you have quick bomber.

Uh-huh. So you do still have two more actions. Can I throw another bomb? You can, but remember, in Pathfinder, each attack you make in one turn after the first takes a penalty. That penalty is usually five. Okay. I mean, but if you keep rolling 20s, it doesn't.

Yeah, I think I'm going to throw it at the one most directly in front of me. I guess I can step up in front of Margaret and then take a throw. Yeah, you could move forward. A hare if you want, yeah, no problem. Then I'm going to hurl another bomb. One of the Beatles is crawling up over the half-sunken millstone, and you just lob the bomb directly at it. So go ahead.

I brought a house-warman present, and I did not. That's going to be an eight. For a total of... I guess it's minus five plus... Plus your bonus. Plus my bonus, which with these is five, so just an eight. That just cancels out. Well, that's convenient.

So this bomb goes soaring over the beetle, landing just behind it. Now, because it's a bomb and you missed, you didn't critically miss, it still, like, explodes right next to the beetle and does the splash damage to it. So it is still going to take one point of fire damage. There you go. I got him started. So the beetle has been slightly singed, and that is the end of your turn. My moms did always say they hated the Beatles.

this must be what they meant. Clearly. The Beatles, having seen one of their ill burned down to the exoskeleton, are clicking with furious anger as the first one comes marching up to squash. It's mandibles clicking wildly, and it is going to come up to squash and attempt to bite you with its mandibles. Good luck. So I'm going to get a grand total of eight,

which is not going to be enough to hit you. I can't imagine. Your Izzy is undoubtedly better than an eight. Absolutely it is. So that is not going to do it. And with its final action, it's going to attempt to bite you again, even though it has a remote chance of hitting.

No, that's definitely not going to do it either. So that beetle comes up and furiously attempts to catch you with its mandibles, but frankly, you're able to dance away from its bite without too much trouble. The other beetle, this one, was lightly scorched by the Alchemist fire, is going to crawl up to the front of this millstone right next to Trant.

It's beetle legs clicking across the stone surface. And as it makes its way up to you, Trant is going to attempt to bite you with its mandibles. Do you have an armor class of 16 or less? Nope, 17, baby. Better Beatles than you have tried. Beetle desperately tries to get a hold of you, even getting so close as to get its mandibles around your overcoat, but it does not manage to connect and you pull away safely.

You got to learn how to move fast when you make bombs. With its final action, it's going to attempt to attack you once again. Terrible does a terrible job. Its mandibles close around nothing but air with a roll, a grand toll of a four. First level fights, baby. Yeah, you know, hey, you live by the die, you die by the die. In this case, the Beatles are not looking too good. All right, we're back to the top of the order squash.

It's back to you. What do you do? I'm going to draw my glave, and I'm going to run this little bastard through. All right, so you draw your glave. That's your first action, and for your second action, you're going to go ahead and make an attack. So why don't you go ahead and give me an attack roll? Hmm. Well, it is one is the thing.

Okay. I roll the one plus... It is a complete miss then. So you bring the huge glave down, attempted to crush the beetle, but the glave is so long, you actually miss the beetle entirely and hit the muck behind it, you can make another attack, but that had no effect. It's better than nothing. And you are still close to me, so you're taking plus one less.

So a total of a plus three, I think. Great. All right. One more again. I roll the 14 for a total of 17. All right. This one is going to connect. Your glave does manage to catch.

The Beatles carapace, go ahead and roll damage. That's a five, and I get a plus two on my glave, so seven damage. Your glave catches the beetle in the back of its carapace, and it splits open, spilling a sickly white goo into the swamp. The beetle is dead. Yes, and I get right up close to its ear, and I say, it's been a harsh day's night, and I've been working like a dog. But do you know what else kills?

I mean, the real Ringo, who killed, you know, or was killed by the fake Ringo, I guess. So the fake Ringo, the current Ringo killed the real Ringo. Sorry. Who also, I believe it's one of the Ringoes that sponsors our show. Is that not correct? It's the dead Ringo. The dead Ringo sponsors our show.

It was the only thing in his will. Yeah. And I think some other ads, too, but the most important thing is that dead Ringo. and sponsor this show. In the heat of battle, your squad relies on you. Don't let them down. Unlock elite gaming tech at Lenovo.com. Dominate every match with next level speed,

seamless streaming, and performance that won't quit. Push your gameplay beyond performance with Intel Core Ultra processors for the next era of gaming. Upgrade to smooth high-quality streaming with Intel Wi-Fi 6E and maximize game performance with enhanced overclocking. Win the tech search. Power up at Lenovo. Thank you.com.

Landovo. Yeah, novo. Here we go. Hey, I'm Cal Penn, and on my new podcast, Here We Go Again, we'll take today's trends and headlines and ask, why does history keep repeating itself? You may know me as the second hottest actor from the Harold and Kumar movies, but I'm also an author, a White House staffer, and as of like 15 seconds ago, a podcast host. Along the way, I've made some friends who are experts in science, politics, and pop culture.

And each week, one of them will be joining me to answer my burning questions. Like, are we heading towards another financial crash, like in 08? Is non-monogamy back in style? And how come there's never a gate ready for your flight when it lands like two minutes early? We've got guests like Pete Buttigieg, Stacey Abrams, Lili Singh, and Bill Nye. When you start weaponizing outer space, things can potentially, go really wrong. Look, the world can seem pretty scary right now

because it is. But my goal here is for you to listen and feel a little better about the future. Listen and subscribe to here we go again with Cal Penn on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I live below a cult leader and I fear

I've angered her. Well, wait a minute, Sophia. How do you know she's a cult leader? Well, Dakota, luckily it's I'm not afraid of a scary story week on the OK Storytime podcast, so you'll find out soon. This person writes, my neighbor's been blasting music every day and doing dirt rituals, and now my ceiling is collapsing. I try to report them, but things keep getting weirder. I think they may be part of a cult. Hold up, Sophia. A real-life cult? And what is a dirt ritual? No clue.

But according to this person, contractors are tearing down the patio to find out what's going on with their ceiling and her neighbors are not happy. Well, she needs to report them ASAP. She did. And now they've been confronting her in really creepy ways all the time. So do we find out if this person survives their neighborhood cult or not? To hear the explosive finale, listen to the OK Storytime podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A combat surgeon with secrets, a world built on power and privilege, and the most unexpected creative duo of the year.

As an actor for so many years, I would always walk into other people stories. And I thought, well, why don't I give it a shot, you know, and try it right up my thought. This week, bookmarked by Reese's Book Club goes live from Apple Soho in New York City with Reese Witherspoon and Harlan Coben, the powerhouse team behind Gone Before Goodbye. Now a New York Times bestseller. I think we both knew right away that this was going to happen. It's a conversation about fear, ambition, and what happens when two master storytellers collide? I'd never seen a woman in kind of a James Bond world. Come for the chills and stay for the surprises.

And find out why readers can't put it down. Listen to Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. Yeah, a quick correction. It was actually Pete Best that sponsored the show. Sorry, apologies. We make mistakes all the time.

Unfortunately, there's no way to go back and edit, so... Just like the Beatles when they replaced Pete Best with Ringo, anyway. Or when they recorded those songs. Yeah. I actually have nothing against the Beatles. I don't actually care one way or the other about this. These swamp Beatles beg to differ. Speaking of which, we are back in the middle of combat.

Two of the three Beatles are now dead, and all that remains is one perched atop the millstone, slightly singed by a bomb. Murdy, it is your turn. All right. I am paying very close attention to my bless spell to keep it up. I am going to run right up to the beetle next to Trant. Let's see if I can get this thing to move on Rule 20. And that should be within my 25 moves.

Absolutely. And then because the Beatles like up on the millstone, I want to take my soup ladle and like try to deck it and get it to fall off the thing. I'm just going to roll my club. I rolled a 17 on the die, plus my three bonus, is 20. 20 connects right with its little beetle face. Okay, and I did two damage. Two damage.

Not enough to drive it from the millstone, but plenty enough to irritate it. The beetle looks at you menacingly, its mandibles snapping. You still have one action left. Yeah, I'm doing the eye point thing. I've got two, I don't know how to describe this. Real podcast is one. You're matching its gaze with your fingers. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's like a peace sign, but for violence. All peace signs are for violence. That's how we get peace. Spite, you are up next. Ready for some more peaceful violence. I'm going to pacify this beetle. I'm going to use defensive advance. I'm going to step up to the left of Mertie.

All right. And I am going to raise my shield stride forward confidently. and this time remember how to hold the Morning Star and get a 17 on the die for a total of 24. Oh, 25, 25. Is that a crit? 25 is a critical hit. You bring the Morning Star down, cracking it right in the middle of its carapace. Go ahead and roll damage and double it for me.

All right, so I got 3 plus 4 is 7 times 2 is 14 damage. There is now a gooey, smear where there was at one point in time a beetle. Oh, that's kind of gross, I say. Ew, yuck! Do you think we could eat this? Does any of this like edible, like a lobster?

Well, so there's one thing I need to resolve real quickly when you smash this beetle. This beetle spatters when it dies, and it splashes all three of you. That would be all three of you that are right up next to it. That is spite, Murdy, and Trant. All three of you get. It's spattered with this caustic beetle goo.

All of you take one point of acid damage as the beetles innards scorch and burn your skin. You calling that acid, I've taken worse acid damage from me. It is really more of a love singe at this point. I have a big handful of goo that I like shake off my hand. It's just like, oh, no, no goo for a squint. today. Yeah, you're lucky because technically squash, I forgot they had that ability. You should have taken a point of damage as well when you killed the beetle next to you. What are you going to do? I forgot, so I guess you're immune. You heard it everyone. That's canon forever. No.

I'm going to a rat of that right now. I have so many rags in all of my pack and my cookware for wiping down surfaces. We can get this taken care of. No big deal. I just, like, hold out my arms and hand for you to clean off. Fortunately, the acid, the moment it's exposed to air, it apparently neutralizes pretty quick. It's just that initial exposure that burns for a moment. But, yeah, the three Beatles have now been defeated. The last of the Beatles lies dead on the floor, leaving this area open for exploration. Although the ground floor of the old mill is now quiet and still, somewhere above, on another floor,

two creatures are having a conversation. The only way up appears to be a rickety staircase that sags off the nearby wall, looking like it might collapse at any moment. So now that combat's done and you're inside the mill, you can, there's a lot of things you could do, right? You could take a look around, see if there is anything to be discovered down here on the ground floor of the mill. You could perhaps listen in on these voices and see what there is to hear. You could take a look at the stairs. You could even start trying to climb the stairs.

but there doesn't seem to be any active threats down here on the ground floor. I'm going to prep another couple of alchemist fires from my quick stashes while we're searching around. You're going to get your versatile wiles back because you're down at least one of those. Yeah, I'm down one and, yeah, another. Well, two more, actually, so yeah. Does anybody care to be healed for a single healing point? Oh, I'm okay. It just stings a little. I kind of like it. Can I listen into what the conversation is, or is it just two faints? You can attempt to give me a perception check.

I'm going to do this also. All right. I would also like to try to listen. It's a 10 plus 5 for a total of 15. All right. I have 8 plus 7, which is also 15. I have a 19 plus 4 for a total of 23. So Murdy, Squash, the two of you kind of listen in,

but between you're kind of squelching in the muck below and just the, general sounds of the swamp you don't make out much but spite your hearing is just a hair cleaner and although you can't make out what is being said you can make out what sounds to be like a low rumbling kind of

guttural sound it almost sounds like croaking when you say croaking am I able to be like that sounds like a giant frog or is this like more of a I don't think those are people

talking, I think that there's a bunch of frogs upstairs. They probably got trapped here by the Beatles because if they came down, the Beatles would have killed them. And so we were saving the innocent frogs by killing those Beatles. We liberated those frogs upstairs. Yes, great works, fight. Yeah, whatever you say, boss. Sure. That's what happened. So Trantz still needs some time to finish making his vials. So while that's happening, the rest of the of you can look around the area, take a look at the stairs. If there's anything else you want to do, you have a few moments to do it. Trans vials takes 10 minutes to make.

I'm making one of them, one of them's acid. I'm just scooping up some beetle goop for it. If it's a 10 minute thing, then I might heal myself with lay on hands and then refocus. Sure. That could be what you do. Yeah, that's easy. And so I, I reached down and I touched my hand and I whisper, Malani, I got burned, but I was doing good.

and then Malani magically heals my hand and then I sit down and I take off my helmet and I light the candle and I pray over my helmet for about 10 minutes silently, staring at everyone who gets too close.

Squash is looking at this and it's just like, damn, maybe I should get into God or something. Maybe I should find religion. That seems pretty bitching. I turned to Mertie and I say, you worship, what is it? Arrasco?

I'm a bit of a rascal myself. What's it? What's this guy's deal? What's Arasel's deal or what's Malani's? I don't know shit about Melani. And honestly, I don't even know that much about Arastel. I'm just kind of here for the soup. That's my kind of guy.

Show up for the prayers about family and home and heart. Stay for the soup. All right. So it sounds like Spite and Trent are busy. That leaves Murdy and Squash. You've had a bit of a discussion about religion. Do you want to take a look around? Do you want to take a look at the stairs?

There's anything you want to do before we just kind of move forward. Yeah, do we want to try to climb the stairs? I have a climbing kit on me, and I could try to rig something to make it safer to climb the stairs. That's smart. I'm in the middle of being like, what do you think about like God? Like, I've been here about God too, the sequel to God. Oh, you're getting out. Okay, yeah, no, let's let's go up the stairs.

But let's be really, let's be stealthy about it. Yeah, the God that I'm into doing things and not so much into thinking specific thoughts. I mean, if you're looking for something to believe in more powerful than yourself, I can suggest bombs. I glare at everyone for talking so loudly. They're very trustworthy. Now, do you have some pamphlets about this because this I can get into? I absolutely have some pamphlets. Now, if you get caught with one of these pamphlets, you will get in a lot of trouble.

But yes. I do have zines in my inventory, and I will hand one to squash about how to make soup for 300. I have a similar pamphlet about bombs I'm unzipping my backpack and taking a bunch of a bunch of jeans on taking out lumbus bread and stuff now this is how to make bombs for 300 pamphlets so you just got to divide the amount of

fertilizer by 300 to make a one person bomb don't fuck that part up okay taking notes are we going to make the food and bombs joke now why can't be both that depends on how much chili you can make Mertie, can you give me a perception check as you're taking a look at these stairs?

I sure can. That was a 13 on the dive plus 7. It's 20. So you take a look at the stairs and you notice that one section in particular looks kind of dangerous. The rest of it looks safe and you can just climb it.

I mean, it's stairs. You don't have to make a check to go up a set of stairs. But there is one part of it that looks frankly kind of rotten and rickety, and you're going to wager folks could either jump over that or they could just kind of risk going across it quickly. Now, I'll say this. You have a climbers kit, you said? I sure do, Jason. So if you wanted to break out some of the pieces of your climbers kit and make

me, let's say, an athletics check to kind of scale through the area and put in some petons, I'll give everyone that comes behind you a bonus. Jason, could I talk you into letting me do a crafting check instead? No. Damn good trying, Bernie. I'm going to go and start whittling out some new stairs. You know, that's not a crafting check. I'm going to

need you to make an athletics check. I disagree, but all right. Yeah, get them. I'm going to think really hard about my time in the equivalent of Boy Scouts, but for a rastal. But I'm going to cast guidance, which gives me a plus one.

Good idea. which because I don't have any acrobatics at all as a clerk um we're rolling my nice tie listeners that was a six on the die I have rolled a seven I'm looking and trying so hard not to get distracted because I'm like I could do that better but no I'm busy

so you're trying to make your way up these stairs and play some pitons but you end up standing on one of them that's pretty rotten and broken and it starts to give way can you give me a reflex saving throw. I'm still thinking back about Boy Scouts for the Aristotle. Yeah, I'm taking plus one on this too. That was a 14 plus 3, plus 1 is 18.

Well, you didn't need to think about your days back in the Boy Scouts at all because you made it. So you managed to kind of skip across, you haven't really helped anybody, but you have made it across yourself. You did kind of stumble across and make your way over. Now that you're there,

you could at least toss a rope back so that anybody trying to make their way across would have at least a little guidance. I'm following close behind. Okay. Has it been 10 minutes? Where are we at? We're getting close to that point.

The two of you will be able to come and help them after we find out what happens to squash. So squash, you can either just attempt to walk across the stairs and make a reflex save, or you can make an athletics check to try and kind of jump across. the rotten section. Could I talk you into an acrobatics check where I do a fun flip over there?

Sure. Yeah, that's right. It's not like you're trying to craft your way across. I'm sorry, is tying knots not crafting? I've climbed trees before. That's all knots. I'm not really using my body. I look at Murty and I say, watch this shit.

I roll? Oh, thank God it worked out. That's a 16 plus 7, 23. Yeah, you vault to cross easily. Tadda. So just as this kind of wraps up, the two of you down below have finished making your versatile vial and praying to your deity.

So the two of you are now free to attempt to join the others. You're kind of left with the same situation. You either have to jump across with an athletics check or just attempt a reflex save to avoid kind of falling. And there is a rope that's been tossed? There is a rope that's going to give you a bonus. I'm just going to take that off the difficulty, though, so don't worry about it. Okay.

I mean, boss, I could set up some explosives behind us, and then the detonation of that will propel us upwards onto the ledge. I appreciate your willingness to think outside the box, but I think that actually what we need to do is just jump over these couple stairs. Is this one of those things they trained you to do in God's school? Oh, jumping around. It's very important. We do jumping jacks every morning.

All right, all right. I don't understand your faith, but, you know, you haven't let us wrong often. It's so that we can be ready to kill the oppressors. Yeah, or whoever. And the bourgeoisie. I don't know how to spell that one. I speak two languages and I don't know how to spell that one. But the important thing is we can just jump across. And then I jump across, roll a 10 for a total of 17. So you easily are able to clear the distance and make your way to the other side. Trent, that leaves only you. I'm a little sad. We're not going to get to see the explosion behind you. I'm assuming you've got at least a handful of like doves inside your jacket

to release at the same time that you jump. I got a total of seven with my athletics. Not great. All right. So Trant attempts to jump across, but instead misses the jump entirely and falls through the stairs into the muck below. Take four points of damage.

Okay. I grabbed spite by the little pales. Why don't you talk about it? The bombs. A single tear rolls down my cheek As I see my friend hurt I set the bindle down and start stirring the soup Making sure it's still going

Very important key thing about perpetual stew Is it does need to be kept in even 165 I think that's true in real life too It's definitely true about magic soup I'm gonna jump back over And go down and lay on hands Well I'm assuming Trent can get up and make his way back Can I? Yeah

I will attempt to do that. Okay. So if you didn't want to jump down, you can wait and see if Trant can make it across. Oh, no. My character would absolutely jump back down. In that case, give me another athletics check. If my friends are jumping off a cliff, spite is jumping off a cliff for a total of a 13. Well, you joined Trant faster than you had hoped.

As you fall through the stairs as well and also take four points of damage. All right. This doesn't seem to be going well. Well, now we can go back up together. Murdy always looks tired, but Murdy has never looked more tired than this moment. I furiously stirring the soup. I can't wait for the other two of you to join them down there making the same mistake.

I'm just excited for it. Oh, I love you. Can I toss? How strong am I? I am very strong. Can I toss? I would let you kind of give him an assist. Like, you know, as he's about to jump, you kind of.

push him to give him a bonus Okay I'm going to try and toss him All right Or assist him Spike can you give me an athletics check on the assist

Yeah 14 plus 721 That is an assist Cool All right I'm going to roll Yep I got a five this time Plus anything

Plus my strength So eight And then whatever the assist is Okay Well So you end up back down in the mud again. Look, I didn't go to climbing school. I didn't go to any kind of school.

Can you just toss us a rope, I say? I did go to climbing school. I went to scouts. I got one option here, and it's blow things up. That is not climbing inclusive. I drop a rope down. So the other way that you could do this, now that you have two people across,

and quite conceivably Spike could get across as well, is that you could just tie a rope around Trent and pull Trant up. Yeah, I think that that's the plan. I'm pulling up, Trent. I have pulleys. We can't rigs at like a four to one pulley. I mean, make me a craft check. Thank you.

Yeah, oh, my God. Yeah. Oh, finally. All right, that was a nine plus four. It's 13. Sure. Spike, can you give me an athletics check to jump back across? Yeah.

19 plus 7 is 26. No problem. Can I like kind of jump back and forth like three times, but with the one check? Just to be like, eh, ha, ha. Yeah, bouncing back and forth. And then the three of you haul Trant up to the top. It's not the most glamorous way to reach the second floor of the tower, but it does get the job done. Hey, there's my guy and I pat trance on the back.

But then I sneak up. the stairs. I lay on hands on Trant to heal six points of damage. Thanks, boss. Or do you want to heal instead, Murdy? I have four slots of heel. That's up to you about which films you want to. I get mine back if I hang out for 10 minutes.

This is the wake-up call I needed. I'm working on some sort of climbing bomb next. There are, in fact, you have heard of mutagens that make you better at, like, athletics and climbing. They make you more animalistic allowing you to kind of make some of the these checks easier. Is there some explosive delivery system for these mutagens? I mean, you kind of drink them, but... I'll have to get creative.

Yeah, we'll have to do some experimentation. So I am going at half speed to have my morning star and shield at the ready. Right. At this point in time, considering the dangers of this place, I'm assuming everybody has their weapons drawn and shields out. I have a handout ready to shake in friendship. So you continue making your way up the stairs up to the second floor of the old crumbling mill. A wooden shaft once pierced this chamber connecting the machinery above with the millstone below. But now it lays ruined on the floor.

On the other side of the room, a ladder goes up to what must be the top floor. But in front of that ladder, there is a dark shape. slumbering in the gloom. But before you can find out what that is, I think we're going to break this episode, and you will have to tune in next time to learn what is slumbering at the foot of the ladder. Oh, no.

All of us have to wait a week. Yes, that's how we're going to do it. Yes, absolutely. It's going to be a whole week. Can't wait that long to find out it's a tootero or something. It's probably a Totoro. I don't... I think it's a Totero.

Totero guys. I might use on Big Beetle that snores somehow. Snoring Beetle. There were four, I don't know how many beetles there are. You say Big Beetle, I'm now imagining like a Beetle CEO of some sort, like a beetle industrial complex that we're going to take down,

which makes me feel better about the fact that we just killed all those guys. I heard you say Big Beetle and thought you were going like 20 foot tall John Lennon, but I'd blow him up too. Fuck it. Good David Chapman on his ass. Well, that's it for episode one of whatever we're going to call this.

I'm still calling it Cool Kids at the Table because there's a joke there about how actually it wasn't cool to play these games when I was younger. But it's cool now. And if you listen next week, we're going to wake up the Totoro Giant Beetle and blow up John Lennon. But in the meantime, does everyone want to plug anything here at the end of the first episode? I don't. You all listen to me every week. it's okay to break into people's houses and kill them as long as they're not humans. Ah, yes, the message of Pathfinder comes to it.

I believe that's probably legally true, unfortunately. Second that, I'm on the internet at Bumlung in some places. It's probably it. I'm not on the internet. Don't try to find me, but you can find my zee about how to self-vanage an abortion at tangled wilderness. dot org. It's called How to Do It Anyway. Print it out. Give it to your friends. And I'm Jason Bullman. I'm the director of Games at Pye. So you can find me all across the internet, usually at Jason Bullman. That's B-U-L-M-A-H-N. That H likes to wander on me.

So I'll get it right. Yeah, that's all I got right now. Thanks for listening, everybody. All right. Bye, everyone. See you next week. Bye. For more podcasts from CoolZone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for it could happen here updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com slash sources.

Thanks for listening. In the heat of battle, your squad relies on you. Don't let them down. Unlock elite gaming tech at Lenovo.com. Dominate every match with next level speed, seamless streaming, and performance that won't quit. Push your gameplay beyond performance with Intel Core ultra-processors for the next era of gaming.

Upgrade to smooth high-quality streaming with Intel Wi-Fi 6E and maximize game performance with enhanced overclocking. Win the tech search. Power up at Lenovo.com. Lenovo, Lenovo. Johnny Knoxville here. Check out Crimeless, Hillbilly Heist, my new true crime podcast from smartless media,

campside media, and big money players. It's the true story of the almost perfect crime and the Nimrods, who, almost pulled it off. It was kind of like the perfect storm in a sewer. That was dumb. Do not follow my example. Listen to Crimeless Hillbilly Heist on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. I live below a cult leader and I fear I've angered her. Wait a minute, Sophia. How do you know she's a cult leader? Well, Dakota, luckily it's I'm not afraid of a scary story week on the OK Storytime podcast. So we'll find out soon. This person writes,

neighbor has been blasting music every day and doing dirt rituals. And now my ceiling is collapsing. I try to report them, but things keep getting weirder. I think they might be part of a cult. Hold up. A real life cult? And what is a dirt ritual? No clue, Dakota. Find out how it ends. Listen to the OK Storytime podcast on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Cal Penn. And on my new podcast, here we go again, we'll take today's trends and headlines and ask, why does history keep repeating itself? Each week, I'm calling up my friends, like Bill Nye, Lily Singh, and Pete Buttigieg, to talk about everything from the space race to movie remakes to psychedelics.

Put another way, are you high? Look, the world can seem pretty scary right now. But my goal here is for you to listen and feel a little better about the future. Listen and subscribe to Here We Go Again with Cal Penn on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an I-Heart podcast.