Legends of Avantris - Stardust Rhapsody: Overture | Ep. 7 | Junkyard Dog

Episode Date: August 9, 2024

The Rhapsody rendezvous with The Boss to deliver good and bad news...   Gain access to an exclusive campaign, Shroud Over Saltmarsh, over on Patreon: https://legendsofavantris.com/patreon The Crooked Moon, a folk horror supplement for 5e, is available for preorder! Get the Crooked Moon at: https://thecrookedmoon.com/ Watch more D&D adventures in the world of Avantris live on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/legendsofavantris Check out our merch store: https://shop.legendsofavantris.com  Join our community on Discord: https://legendsofavantris.com/discord Watch our many campaigns on YouTube: https://legendsofavantris.com/youtube  All other links: https://linktr.ee/legendsofavantris   Watch the full episode here: https://youtu.be/lhsN5mRVcZg?si=Eu5Hp1a0K-ENRh_V

Welcome to Legends of Adventress. The name's Rhett, and this is my buddy Hank. Park, Park. And you're listening to Star Dusts Rhapsody. Here's the rewind on what happened last time. The festival of blood. The boots get in there, trying to break a couple of bones. I feel like I could be good at the pumpkin coming.

And the first contest goes to the house of Hank. There are ghosts. Green goblin. And, uh, he used to, uh, and I guess, uh, he did a dance. Arvin pumpkins. I blow the pumpkin of smithereens. Modern art. Oh, yeah, modern art.

My popular demand, Pike is this contest's winner. Yeah. For the blood. Breaking. Drinking contest. The House of Hank wins. We are now king. Now we can tax them.

The House of Hank will have to tell one final story. You have to tell it to the Weaver. You came to tell a story. There is only one I want to hear. The Weaver descent. Oh, God, that's 16. I'm up to 40. I'm up to 40.

Now I can just start. Everyone is wrapped up in cocoons, and he walks over to the bush, and he lifts up the visor, and he reaches in. This section completely void to me, beyond even my powers. Then I will endeavor to seal it within... What the fuck are you? Something changed. Just a couple of days ago. The magics that protected this place were interrupted, and I'm afraid they're here.

The impossibly large form of an emperseably large form of an emerald. Empire class Planet Destroyer. The stink of discordant has been detected on this world. Mr. With Spider, I know he had our differences, but good luck and fuck up these bootleckers! You're now free to fly normally. How is it, X? He escaped. Alright, gang.

I think we just turn in the key and explain what happened. You get a positive for the agreed-upon meeting point. Red at the helm, Dandy plotting the course, chuckle, drinking... Bhrr... Making coffee. He never drinking coffee. Always being made.

I'm cleaning the toilet because I've discovered that Rex cloned it before we had to be able. He ever drink. Oh, son of a bitch! Space. If you listen close and open yourself up to it, you can hear Destiny itself itself reach beyond the stars and call you to adventure. However, when the group of the Rhapsody listens close, all they can hear is the fading cries of a dying world. The Rhapsody cuts a slow but purposeful path through space.

You remind yourselves of the mission that set you on this course in the first place. Rex Maxim, what he stole from the boss. You have the key. Will that be enough? I suppose we'll soon find out. You sail off into space after quickly leaving Nightenvale, watching and as the empire, dispensed its form of judgment. You plot your course to a meeting with the boss,

Rex having just escaped, you're still working out exactly if what you have will be what's needed to fulfill your bounty. What happens next is up to you. In space. In space. What space happens in space next? In space. In space, what happens to you?

Is in space. up to you. Just every other word just has to be space. Yeah. I space, think space, we space, should space. It's like, it's like, Latin, but so much more. That's right. So we're on the ship, right?

Yeah. I actually forgot to finish that sentence in my prep works. I was like, oh fuck. I'll just see what Derek says that way. They'll know it's transition to it. Has it been like days? Because I think it was going to take it like at least to get to?

At this point, it has certainly been at least several days. several days. I think you were still working out exactly you were heading to meet with the boss to turn in what you had from Rex but you were still working out exactly how that how you wanted that to look what were you gonna say what were you gonna do but it was at least a week journey. May I take a long risk? What's our what's our food and money situation look like over the course that week? It's looking grim with no W with no Silent W.

To help accommodate the rations, I'm wondering if it would be possible for me to make my way to the exterior of the ship, literally pull myself out onto the hull and what space rust may have accumulated on the surface of the ship. I give it a clean and nourish myself in this way. Is that something mechanically that I...

Err. Err. The answer can be no. Absolutely. Absolutely. That can be, that's outrageous, Derek. You can clip. That is outrageous, Derek.

And yes, I'll allow it. You may use your, you may sloop about the hall of the ship, the aft, I believe. That aft is squeaky clean by the time I'm finished with it. I lick the ass clean. It's 2023. We eat that now. Hey, hey, Rhett,

remind me to never let Chuckles order 400 credits worth of pizza ever again. That was too much pizza. You get disadvantaged. I mean, to be fair, I was piloted in the ship. Someone else could have reviewed his fucking order before he punched it. That's all I'm going to say.

We just kept feeling order. We get space lasagna pizza. It's crazy. What is that? Space lasagna pizza is my favorite. I just could only have one fly. You've got ten of them out together. Go to one space lasagna pizza.

He has always talking about how it goes right to his mind. Is the pizza still there? Oh, I think we just bagged it all up. Do you want to get some space pizza? I love the space. Oh, the space lasagna pizza. The shop called it the Garf Thulu. Oh, yeah.

Here we go, okay. Can you heat it up? Oh yeah, you have laser eyes. There you go. Pzz. I like the sizzling, cupy pepperoni. The cupy ones, nice. I love the cupy ones. I will have been waiting for LeBusch to come back in.

Sort of these last few days I've been giving him space to kind of deal with everything he's gone through, which has been a lot. And so I'm kind of waiting for a time to approach LeBusch so we can sort of debrief, see how he's doing, and then that sort of stuff. I'm kind of hanging around, waiting for a moment to chat with him. So we are going to the rendezvous spot currently, correct? I'll say. All right, Pike, you got the key, right?

Yeah. How are we going to message this? Well, you know, gang, what do we think? We should have a damn good fucking excuse as to why Rex escaped. Well, we were attacked by the Empire. could say that during the chaos, he managed to get away. We don't have to say he got out of the ship

because we forgot to check him for tools to use to get out. But we had him on the planet, we were on the way back to the ship. The empire shows up, Bob's your uncle, and that's it. We've lost him. I mean, I think that's exactly what we do. And then we add in if that's not like, you know, after we say Bob's your uncle and he's like,

What a minute. I don't, wait a minute, I don't have an uncle named Bob. We're like, well, how about Jeffrey? And he's like, no. Well, how about Gerald? And after we go through all of the names, then we say, hey, your buddies are the empire, and they came and fucked it all up. We had it under control until they blew up where we were. I mean, is that too aggressive?

Do we want to fucking accuse them and that to their face? I guess he is a murderous mobster. I mean, I doubt that, you know, even the people that work for him know that. And I feel like his, you know, paid goons wouldn't think too kindly about that. My proposal is that Kavir acts like nothing is wrong, and we have everything that he asked for and just see if we get away with that. Honestly. I will, I'll reach into my jacket pocket and pull out the key.

And as we're talking, I'm kind of like twirling the key between my fingers, just like watching it, like, dance over my fingers and I'll kind of like pause it to the group. Do you one of these? Yeah, I'll do the Derek trick as I'm spinning around my thumb, but then I'm like letting a dance between my fingers and I think I just say I pause it to the group, I say, yeah. You gotta wonder though, the boss wanted this feedback pretty badly. Makes me wonder what's actually in that safe.

Now I'm not suggesting that we do anything rash here, but you gotta think what's in the safe is worth more than what the bounty was being offered for, right? Can I ask a question out of character? Was it a key specifically that he asked us to get or just whatever Rex had? I don't think he told us what was stolen before we encounter at Rex. He did not. The bounty was specifically for Rex to be returned alive and for any stolen goods he had on his person.

What I'm concerned about is if we get there and the boss decides not to deliver on his bounty because we lost Rex. Well, we still have the key. We do? I think he's gonna take the key back either way. But you fucking hold on tight to that thing. Because we're gonna get paid even if it's fucking 10%. Well, or what happens if the safe just happens to walk out of the Bell boss's office? There's nothing saying that Rex didn't escape with what he had. I'm just giving an idea. Come on, you know, like I said, I don't want to be rash here.

Look, we don't do that anymore, okay? We're upstanding bounty hunters. It's all above board. It's all perfectly legal by the empire's fucking laws, all right? Sure, but we show up with half a bounty or no bounty. What's the big difference? Maybe we get what's in the safe after. That could be the key to all of this.

It could be the key to everything we've dealt with it so far. I'll give the key one more twirl and kind of catch it in my hand. And then just, I'm looking at Kavir and you can tell that I'm like kind of agreeing with you deep down. But I'll look to, uh, to Rhett and just say, all right, boss, man. Your stomach rumbles. Yeah, yeah, I took the key back on my jacket pocket and you audibly hear my stomach growl. And then I just kind of like scowl a little. Look, what I'm saying is, is that let's hear them out.

If he's gonna give us some kind of reward, let's hand it over and move on to the next fucking job, all right? And if he fucking gives us trouble, then maybe y'all can, you know, pull some mental gymnastics and convince me to, you know, commit to thievery. But until then, let's just fucking assume

we're gonna get paid and move on. This guy's a dangerous fella. Y'all understand that, right? Yes. What if we're given, go ahead. Yes, but what do you think is in the safe, the chest? Probably lots of fucking money, gems, gold, who knows what the fuck, DNA genomes?

I don't know. DNA genomes. Could be contracts, records, proof of all sorts of stuff. Well, it certainly could be. Gosh, you think that there's, along with genomes, he also has H-nomes in there. I have a phobia of those guys. What is an H-nome?

An H-nome? Oh. You don't want to know, Danny. Okay. They're the stuff of nightmares. It relates to Jackson, is that something we really want him to have? We've seen a lot of disturbing things happen recently, and we still don't know what's happened to the bush.

Maybe there's something in there that gives us a clue. Yeah. And maybe instead of try and steal the case, the chest, whatever it is, do we know what it is? It's a safe. It's just safe. Instead of trying to steal. the safe, what if we just open it and see what is in there and leave the safe there? Stealthy, you know?

See if it's worth it? Like chuckles. Squeak, squeak. Oh yes. Master of stealth. There's... It's certainly an option. If I know anything about the boss, though, it probably has some sort of security measures, which is the only reason I suggested it not being in his office before we open it. There's an option.

there. I'm as curious as the rest of you of what he could possibly be hiding. Think about how much he's paying for this. Whatever's in there's got to be worth ten times then, at least to him. That's true. Maybe it is not his safe?

Yeah. Do we know if this kind of key is for like a safe, like a lockboxed to see it like a train station and spy movies or like did we solve it? We see the safe like a locker bank of type of safe? You don't actually know what the key goes to. Oh, we're assuming.

Yes, we are. We're making a lot of essentials. You would also remember that you had specifically asked him to meet at a rendezvous point that was not the space station. So you do not intend on going back to the office, at least as of this point. Additionally, do we get the sense, because we had that experience when we were in the temple, Pyramid Operation. Ziggurat, space cigarette? Sure.

You recall we suddenly got, like, transported to the room and then, like, Do I feel that that's real, like we're gonna show up, he's gonna be like, yeah, you guys popped into existence. Is that gonna be something that we need to confront and talk about? Or does it just seem like that was a timey, whimy, spacey, wasting? Wasn't it like a few, that's job? A few seconds after we had left is technically when we like reappeared. Right, so it was like a time thing.

Right, so does that, do we suspect that happened? Is there a way to insight check that moment in our lives? You could roll a archaicons. Kana check. Oh. Plus zero. I was going to say. With the best rolling dice in history.

It's going to happen. Big money. This is the one in coming. This is the one we need. I cannot believe this. You cannot make this. Who else but Raboos? Who's the fuck with all the

bad life? That is fucked up, man. I just think to my see it? You just start drooling. The boots. Are you back from eating space? Well, I'll throw the quick.

You, show you... Oh, man. You think back on that moment in the space cigarette, in the basement, the experience you went through. Touching whatever you touched beyond the wall. Yeah, my mind goes to that place before I even think about that. And how it just almost in an atomic level dismantled you. Right? And that, from start to finish, kind of that whole experience.

and it is very hard to think back on anything in that moment and disassemble what was reality and what was construct, if either was either. Yeah. And then my mind would continue to dwell, go to the dark place, and start thinking about that experience. Lepoucha's been quiet for this week, you know?

Even though he's usually surly and jaded, it's always been about the cosmos and its peculiarities and his strangeness in that fish out of water style. This feels like he's dwelling. He's grump on it. Are you still like infected or visibly like have the like darkness in you?

So I don't think I visibly have any distinction. I still look like Labouche, but only since the weaver suppressed whatever's inside of me. He couldn't heal me. He couldn't take it out or draw it out. But instead, he can take it. sealed the nine tails in you. Yeah, yeah.

The word to remove whatever had affected Labouche, and he said something along the lines of that the corruption exceeds even his abilities. And so he couldn't separate the two, but he was able to contain it within him.

I was there for that? Yeah, you were standing up there. But it's... And I think it's a lot of people around that. And I think it's a... I think it's the lasagna. Most of the time. It's going through loop.

Typically when I have my armor on, you just see like the eyes and some of the neurons here, but they stretch out through my whole body for sensing and sensory. Do I have like a nodule or something on me that like I'm aware of or is it like completely invisible even to me? Like if I go searching for it, can I feel a suppress something?

Ooh. Like a worm? Roll it on a check. Just kidding. I have it. It's just a graph. It's like it is. skin tag, but it's black.

Oh, it's fucking missing. You're going to discover a side. I would have been rolling. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. I would say roll an arcana check in advantage. That's not going to help. He's under five.

Two and three. Two and three. From worst to first, baby. You had a 13. Awesome. Wow. Well, that's nice. Well done, brother.

Also, for frame of reference in any point for you, I need to know exactly what numbers you roll. 13. Flat? No, no mod, and 20 flat, no mod. So both a natural and a dirty 20. What's that mean? So over this period of week, when you search within yourself and you attempt to explore,

and you may have moved amongst your form before, you're very connected to every aspect that there is. and you've searched and searched to try and find something additional, but you don't find something additive. You do, however, find a space within you where you feel almost like something is missing. Oh, God. Like if you were to look at a picture, and otherwise it's perfect, except there's just one blank spot.

You can see it. That's a comparison. But just like one dead pixel. And an otherwise perfect picture. It's like the blind spot that we all technically have where our retinas are for each eye. And every time you try and look at it, it moves just out of the frame,

whatever you're trying to capture. I've got floaters. Every time you try to get this on it. It shifts just briefly. Okay. With a natural 20, that's as good as it's gonna fucking get. So I know all the things that I need to know now. Thank you.

Okay. Did you bring up anything regarding that to the group? Or is that just? No, you would have noticed, and I think you'd be especially attuned to my silence, the difference of the silence being what would normally be surly is now instead like pensive and maybe even fearful. Fearful.

Well, if we're all in agreement, then I guess we're gonna meet at the rendezvous point and just present what we have to the boss. I don't think there's any other way to go about it that doesn't risk us getting fucking blown to smithere needs. Yeah. Yeah, you're probably right. Damned if we do, damned if we don't.

Okay, just one more idea. I know I am not the smartest one in our family. I mean, my int is quite low. Uh huh. Maybe negative. Uh huh. But do you think it is possible that we blip into the casino room,

see what is in the safe or mysterious key thing, because if we tell Mr. Bossman that we're meeting him somewhere else and then instead we go to the casino first, he will not be there. And then we could look into the safe and get the plans for maybe Jackson so that nobody has them ever again, burn them, shred them. How does one blip into his office?

I do not know, we did that once, right? Yeah, but it wasn't really under our control, and we don't really know if it's real, and the Bushroll, the natural one. Trying to figure out what was going on. Although flipping through the galaxy, at least for the heart weave, the very imprecise in the way,

it may turn into a circus in there, figuratively and literally. Okay. Well, thank you for trying to follow your dumb robot friend. It's a good idea. I think it's a good idea. And I think that if it was on the way,

I was like, how far is it? I presume it like in the other direction of the day exits the other direction. There's also a chance that when we get to the rendezvous point, the boss isn't even there. He might just send his lackeys. Or the key might not even be what he's looking for. Can we make a fake key? Why are we trying to steal from this guy? I agree. I'm a little nervous.

He's a client. He might have future pounties. You're right. You're the professional. Old habits die hard. All right, just, you know, cut me a break here. But we at least have to get to him, because otherwise he's probably going to hunt us down, and that's going to be a lot more painful, I imagine.

Exactly right. Let's just turn it over, let's talk to him, hold on to it, and then once we get fucking paid, you hand it over. Sounds like a plan. And if it still gets into a heated argument, We can always propose a trial in the way that the Motley-enettled disagreements, which is with a game of neon dystopian cybernetic street fighter 2. That does sound fun.

But it's been so long since you play. We're like riding a space bike, Kavir. It's like riding a space bike. Just put me in. Put me in one-on-one. I'll beat their best champion. All right, well, at least we have a backup. That's our backup.

Hey, bring her in, and I hit a button, and then space 70s and 80s rock starts playing with the intercom. And I turned it off really loud. So we're heading to the rendezvous. El boss. I'll walk up and start figuring out how to navigate to our rendezvous point.

And you do so, unless you wanted to take a moment you would have had time to connect with Yeah, and actually I'd take it. If we're all kind of sort of doing our own thing. Yeah, I would have found my way back to my room. I was like a lot of time there. And you can find me, as soon as you open, I'm like making sure that my armor is as pristine as possible.

Yeah. So, nah, be like, hey buddy. How you doing? Come here. I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine. Everything is okay. I know you say that, but I've known you long enough to know that something is not fine. Everything's at least not fine.

Well, I have this thing inside of me. It's like something is missing. I don't know what to do. Something as powerful as that creature that we met. It couldn't do a thing for me. And you saw how powerful that creature was. I am lost. The Weaver was powerful, but maybe it wasn't a power that he was intended to control. Maybe it's something that only you have a connection to.

That's something to consider. This may be bigger than all of us. This sounds like false hope. I touched, found something there in the ice. Not with the... There in the ice. And it is, I could change. I could put everyone on this ship in danger.

I could put you in danger. That is okay. It's possible that something found you instead. But I know hope hasn't always been your strong suit. I know everything is larger than us and your view is always a little bit skeptical. But it's pretty much more. possible that something found you and we're going to figure this out together.

I won't let anything happen to all of us, especially you. Regardless, we'll figure it out together. I wanted to explore space to find new worlds and instead I find. You don't have any way of turning back time on doing all of this, do you? Not that far and not without extreme consequences. I can't do that again. It figures. But time just going backwards doesn't help.

We have a lot of time going forward to make a difference, to make a change, to figure out what's going on. If I start to get worse, I need to show you how to stop me, how to do to me again what it did it do me, but not reassemble. You know, I won't do that unless it's absolutely called for it, but if that is the only way, then. I know I can trust you with this.

Of course. Thank you, my friend. You have always been here for me. I always will be. I'll turn my helmet, put on my gauntlets, sort of puff my chest up. Feel better. And my arm will stretch out and pull you across the room

into a big fucking bare hug. Thank you. Aww. There he is. Still here. When we talked about this, you can't squeeze too hard. Let's get into the cockpit. We have to go. Yes, let's go.

I'm like crying as I watched this, glowing a little pinkish red. And we'll head back. And I have more of spring in my step. Yeah, Tisha, you're good? Yes and, yes. You make your way to the rendezvous point with the boss, and as you pull in, you see a large, circular, almost like a saucer shaped, golden ship flying in space awaiting your arrival.

Looks like it could have just come off of the space station that it had been docked at, Space Sector 777, flown out itself to meet you in deep space. And you are invited to dock. You call in, you make the right connection. B-B-B-B-B-things extend, metallic handshakes are made, and you enter. You step forward.

The doors, whoosh open, as you walk into the ship of the boss, and you're here to make your rendezvous. You walk down a short hallway, once again with doors just at the very end, just a bit of a boarding plank, as the doors swoop open again, and you see a lavish lounge stretched out in front of you.

And on a couch far too large for him, lazily the boss, in the same outfit you had seen him in before, never not dressed to impress. Before we go any farther, You can't talk to any of the repair robots in the hangar. That's all I wanted to say. I'm like midway challenging one of the robots. Didn't he understand?

Tyrone and X-Pyter 2. I play a mean Giles. Oh, what? We'll talk later. We'll talk later. Cosmic, boom. Dang, and I was going to say that. I was going to say that. But I introduce us better at this than we are.

Oh, sure, sure, yes. Hello, Big Boss. It's us again, as you can see. We're back. Well, well, well, if this is my favorite bounty hunters. That's so nice to hear. Well, you're the only bounty hunters I know. It's not a long list, all right?

Well, top of the list is good. Still. Yeah. Do you ever I sent you out for? I only see one, two, three, four, five, six, seven of you. We ran into a little bit of a problem. We found Rex. And as we were taking him back to our ship,

unfortunately, the Empire had found us. Everyone roll a group perception check. Oh, fuck. Oh, I'm good at perception. Oh, I need my red dice here. Ha! We got 20 twists, so I'm gonna twist that. I'm gonna twist that.

Twisting two. Ooh, 24. 18. Shit. Three good ones, one shit. 13. 13. Half good, half bad.

Okay, so the half of you, you know who you are, would look at the boss and at the mention of running into trouble, or even just running into any kind of connection with the empire. with the Empire, immediately he sits up in the couch and he'll slick his ears back and look for just a moment visibly uncomfortable before he regains himself.

I take it, that's not good news for you. But unfortunately during all of the chaos that the Empire caused, we barely made it out and Rex escapes from us. What do you mean, escape? They get a hold of him? I don't know. They get a hold of any of you?

Any of you talk to him? No, we never interacted with the empire at all. We were able to make it away, but during all the chaos on the planet and the shooting and Freud-Laven-Gleven, they was running, and he made it out. He escaped from us. He got separated.

We barely made it out. Lavin-Gleven? Levin? Oh, and Mr. Boff, also, there's no way the empire would have gotten their hands on us, because I'm kill on fight. I would have been DOA. I'm alive still.

Solidly reassuring. Cool. Look, he got out before the Empire descended upon us. He was able to slip away in the chaos of their approach. He's not talking.

He's not incarcerated. He's free doing what fucking Rex Maxim does. Was it just ships they sent to the planet? There was a robot? A giant's suit of armor. Oh, you fuck.

Just one. I think a bunch of them flying around. It was a planet killer. Oh, they sent one of the knights. Did have a big act or something? At the mention of this night,

I will just reach it in my pocket, pull out a cigarette, and attempt to light up in his office or his room and see if I'm stopped. 80s, everyone's spousy. Yeah, you wouldn't stop here. It was like the 80s in here. Space 80s.

It's constantly the space aides. Can I get one of them? And you do so. You put the cigarette to your lip, I'd say even just like with your solar elf abilities, you can light easily the end of the tip and take a long draw. So we got away. Not held onto by the... By the Empire, you say. Yeah.

Do you perchance have an idea of where else he might be hiding? We could give it another shot. You're a fucking guy, Rex. No, I got no clue where he's at. That's who I sent you schmucks for. Anyway, you have anything on him? We did. Pull something off.

And I'll just sort of like motion to pike. I look to red. I take a long drag on my cigarette. I reach into my pocket. I produce the key. I let it dance between my fingers and I stick it back at my pocket. The second you make the key visible,

he'll raise his hand. And for a moment, you'll see the golden rings that he wears. shine, and as you're twirling it between your fingers, it'll zip from your fingers. Oh, wow. Wow. Good thing we didn't have to give your swallow. Huh. Wow.

You should have put it in need. Oh, so I assume that key is what you were looking for all this time. Well, just a little bit of good news, I guess. What in the fuck? Knowing the absolute devastation that those, this gauntlet-esque rings have, there's definitely a level of like nervousness that Pike would feel, but again, like trying to remain

as stoic and cold as ice as possible and just taking a long drag on a cigarette. I wouldn't make any motion to try to hold on to the key. I wouldn't do anything, you know. Like trying to make any furtive movements or anything. Yeah, I just, I let it go. Almost like you're expected. Is that what, uh,

You were looking for? Well, this is one of the things I was looking for. He stole the key, but what's more worrisome is, uh, what he knows? That's why I need him back. Well, if it's any consolation, I'm sure it's just a matter of time before we cross paths with him again. Well, I'll say this. For the key, 20,000 credits. I promised you 100 for Rex alive and what he had on him.

For this, you get 20. You bring me Rex, I'll give you the rest. 20%. 20%? Could an argument be made for 30? I wouldn't hate 30. It is technically one-third of what you wanted. We got ship repairs.

We didn't escape the empire totally unscathed. And hopefully we can, you know, running out of food, frankly. We ordered way too much pizza. I have to hear about this. Roll persuasion check and disadvantage. What's delicious that one? Okay, roll a show. Oh, no, Kavir.

Kibbrikaner. We only turn a disadvantage. That's standard. Uh, 19. Oh, fucking pizza. Let me tell you I'll never order food again. But, uh... And add the little pepheroni.

I've been trying to garfield. Too much pizza, but it was really good. It sounds like... Fine, you know what? You've been good earners from me. 30%. I give you 30,000 credits. And 70, when you bring me wrecks.

I even throw it in an additional 10. Who caught 80? That's very gracious of you. Thank you. No problem. And just to clarify, that we're all on the same page. All you need is Rex. You don't need anything else he's holding, anything else he's carrying,

no technology or knowledge or research or nothing. Just him. Just what he's got in his head. So he needs to be breathing. Ah, that was my second question. My first question you already answered. I think that was a little elaborate. Yes, Chuck.

Holy, rain. Okay, well, I think that's in our wheelhouse, as much as some of us may struggle to deliver on that part. I think we can overall. How did he know so much? That'll help us track him down. Yes. Good question, Tom.

Well, it's no mistake. He had that key on him, and that key gave him access to information that should never have been his. And so, I keep her tech something very dear to me. And he now knows what that is. And for that, I got to kill it myself. Oh, what are there, uh, interested parties might there be?

It might help us lead to Rex. Well, I'll tell you right now, the contract's exclusive, but if you can't close it out in the next couple days, there's going to be nothing but interested parties looking for them. Well, there are contracts. there are people that he has information that others would like, maybe under the table contracts, people that are looking for him but don't necessarily want others looking for him. Like other enemies?

Yes. Well, let me put a couple of my goons on it, see if I can't drum up some information for you. That could help us find him. Do you have any ideas where he might be going next, given what he knows? If he's acting on any of his knowledge, that's not going to help him. We'll figure it out. We're bounty hunters. We're used to it.

They don't necessarily need leads. But they help. They're nice to have. Yeah, they're very nice to have. That's a lot of time. Listen, I'll drum up what I can, okay? I'm not going to send you out there blind. I'll see what I can do within the networks to see if I can get any kind of inroad on him.

But as for right now, all I know is he'll have to plant it. fucking blasted by the Empire with yous. How the fuck am I supposed to know where he's at? I'll see if I can't track him down. You can't lead it to. Okay.

All right. I mean, geez, what am I paying you for? Well, you hire Thurner. What do you want? Right, right this guy. Come ask some gababoole. Yeah. That's as good start, I think, as we can hope for.

And listen. I had a big pizza breakfast. No, what? You fucking choke on the pizza, you dumb, son of a bitch. His rings don't glow. At the end of the day, a guy like Rex is not going to stay quiet for long. It's only a matter of time before he slips up and makes himself known. Or find someone that's willing to pay for the information.

Well, when you put it like that, The next big pot I know that's out there for grabs is the big raceway next week. One million credit Grand Prix to the winner. If he's any good, if he's any good with the ship, if he's quick, he might be looking into that. That sounds like it is. That is a lot of pizza. Imagine how much Garthulu we can eat. Can we stop saying the word pizza?

I've had pizza for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for three weeks. You're welcome. You do seem happier. Yeah. Great. There's no better meal to play neon dystopian cybernetic street fighter two. With classic, it's nostalgic, Rhett. Excuse me, Mr. the boss.

we were just going the Wraithway Actually we were letting you finish about the race Where is this Grand Prix? Grom Prix Well you know that's at the That's a

I don't know said the rainbow road But that's not it That's just how you get there The prismatic? Yeah Prismatic path The prismatic path raceway All the

the coordinates but like I said that's not for a week or two so you have to you have to kill some time some other way before you head on and over there I mean we can look around we're not just gonna sit on our hands so I mean it's a total shot in the dark whether he shows up for that race or not that's true if he's a regained reef car pilot did I miss this back story I mean you saw him on the speeder oh yeah he's pretty fast Pretty good. Are any of us very proficient in racing? Or like ship navigate, or flying ships? I would say that you would know. Hank?

Hank? But like in like a deaf. I'm a smuggler, but I don't know. You would know that out of the lot of you, the most deft you've seen in space combat so far has been Pike. Makes sense. I knew that answer when I asked. You see to confirm. But all of you are except for pilots. Yeah. This is not amazing. Well.

Yeah, now this is. I just jump in a bigger large suit. Just ramble around ships like a monkey. I don't know how to fly. You just jugger not through ships. Yeah. It's the embodiment of I'm going to put on this bigger suit so I can get close to you and beat the shit out.

Yeah. So I guess we now need to find a way to best use our time as either we head to this Prismatic Pathway race or finding Rex. Sounds like a plan. All right. Well, you'll transfer the credits in my Space Bank. In your Space Bank. Thank you, sir.

Not a problem. Let's get to work. And I'll just sort of nod. and I'll turn and I'll start heading back to the Rhapsody. When, as we're getting on the ship, I have a kind of a meta question for you and for Rett. How often would you say in the history of Rett and I being bounty hunters, would the outcome of the bounties be,

these people are jailed versus they are executed? I would say pretty off, like in your journey specifically? Yes, like how often do we know for the fact that these people that were turning over are mostly going to jail, but how often have we taken bounties where we know the outcome is that someone's going to be executed? I would say that pretty often,

you don't often accept a bounty. It would be the distinguishment between a bounty and a hit to determine like you're going with the express purpose to kill someone. Yeah. As opposed to you're going with the express, just this person comes back or like needs to be stopped. Yeah. Like the means are up to you.

I would say you've probably leaned more towards the jailing aspect. Yep. But through, you know, like classic means, you force a doctor to say something. He says he can't say, his neck explodes. Right, right, right. Everyone's been there, right? Of course, yeah. It's not, it's so many times.

That is what I, that is kind of what I assume, but I wanted to, you know, make sure. Okay, no, that's all I needed to know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, I'm headed back. All right, we're fine. Yeah, we're all right, we're following. And you turn, you make your way, and you're walking, you're heading down the hallway, you get door opens, you head down the pathway,

door opens once again, you make it back onto the Rhapsody, and you check your, you check your bank account to see the deposit, and you see 8,100,000. 25 credits have been deposited into your bank account. You get an itemized receipt. There! You get... Whoa! I'll check this.

Five minutes ago. One thousand... Sorry, 18,875 credit bill for a pre-order of a lifetime supply of space curing pods. And then 3,000 credit. order for an entry into the super neon galactic street fighter two tournament that it has shown up as a no show.

Chuckles? What? Dandy! Why would you get all of those coffee pods for a beautiful, convenient, delicious coffee machine? You were known for your love of coffee. Dandy, I'm so disappointed. money is very valuable as money, Dandy.

Listen, Chuckles, I did not buy coffee. I wanted to buy pizza. I am sorry, Rhett. I wanted to buy pizza again. I propose we killed Chuckles. I propose we killed, no. I would never. You're right, Dandy, you would never lie to Red.

Gullabooz! What? How could you enter, enter, enter the local tournament scene just doing no show. I'm carrying the crate of carrying pot. And all of them say

Space Spice on the line. They're decaps. No. What? What do you mean? Street fighter. I don't know what we're talking about. There's nobody watching him. Fucking, God damn it. Oh, I specifically told him

not to talk to anyone. which I realize now means nothing. I got to say that those robots really needed not take spoken word as legally binding and purchase it. Maybe we can get a refund. They ask every time. They say, do you confirm this purchase?

Twice. Well, like in the moment, you kind of want to, it feels real good to say, yeah, sure. Where did you order it from, beta prime? I don't even know. Space beta?

Space beta, I suppose probably, honestly. I didn't know that his mechanic bots was also like a kiosk. I think his name was SkyMall. Next time you're knocking him up in the brig. All right, Pike. I mean, this is really well last time. This is barely going to cover fuel.

To where? We don't even know where we're going yet. I would say in the same way, the ship has been refueled. You've been restocked with food, so you're not like totally. He threw all that in for free with the Karek. Yeah, with a bonus of 20,000 credits worth of a lifetime order of Kiraik, he gassed you up. Yeah. So you have, you're not in dire, dire straits.

But you know if you don't, like, you won't make it to the race if you don't come up with a couple extra bucks. Okay, yeah, Labush. Let's put them all next to our coffee machine. Oh, fuck. I forgot it was broken. No, it got fixed, right? This is all worthless. I grabbed one of the pods, and I give you just, like, the surliest fucking one. And I pull the cap off, and I just, like, drink the fucking, like,

you see all the, like, round. going straight and chewing like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I darken a little bit. You drink a little water and then you're squeezing out your arm, like a slow-ter. Yeah, yeah. There you go, I can French press it. That's funny.

Oh, literally. A French press. That's fantastic. You know, it's the solar, damn it. Golly. Gosh, that's good. At least it was not those fishes. Food.

Those walled fishes? Oh, the mini bass. Those wall, yes, the really bass. I'm nervously walked over and trying to delete the spirit December weed purchase. I'm like stepping in front of them. Like before I get to the console. Escape this hell.

Gosh, that's funny. Well, I mean, here's a thing. We can see what the boss comes up with in terms of Intel. In the meantime, we can look for another job. Needwork. And maybe call around to some folks we know to see if they know anything about where Rex might be. Didn't you take our van ship? Yeah, the fucking did.

What if we call around and ask if anyone has seen the ship? Is the tracker working? No, no, I couldn't afford the... couldn't afford the dragon device on it. Can we make it back to the casino? We could gamble. No. We could gamble.

We could gamble. We could gamble. We have 8,000 credits. That one lasted about 15 fucking seconds. But that was so fun, Rhett. It was so fun, Red. And do you know how, if we win big, we can turn those 18,000 into 118,000 credits?

8,000. 18,000 is what he spends. 8,000 into 800,000. Wait, what did you buy for 10,000 credits? Oh. Look, it's, gambling's all fun when you're gambling somebody else's money, all right? But as soon as it's the last 8,000 credits we have,

we're not gambling. Plus, you know as well as we all do that they cheat. It's not fair. Like that one time you played spaceball. That's exactly right. Well, I don't know about whatever dealers of space blackjack you were dealing with, Pike, but I know that Larry Lobster of Larry Lobster's Lobster Mania 2 would never cheat me. Anybody with a sharp eye can see that those dealers are crooked all the way through.

It's true. It's the only way that I can't use my tricks is because they're already using them. Oh, you're right. Well, I guess we'll just have to tighten our belt and not spend money. This is a real character developing moment for you, John, I guess so. All right.

Chuckles help us find reds and we will have 80,000 more crafts to spend. Oh. Think about how much pizza we could buy. Oh, I'm a little full. I'm gonna walk up to the couch. and just sort of collapse on it. And I'll grab the remote

and I'll turn on the space TV to a bounty hunter bananas. Chacho. Shucks how oldie, it's how it goes. It's time for speed. Big shots. Yeah.

We watch punching jitty, right? You do that, you do that. And I'm not going to roleplay that, so I'm just going to say. No. We demand an entire episode. Solo by you right now. Agreed. Seconded.

I'm gonna say that you turn on Shottie Bukaroos, the latest episode of Bounty Hunter's Bonanza. And it will automatically download a new bounty to your terminal, which is already in your inbox. Oh, it's already in my terminal. Fuck. Anyone watches this, gets the bounty? What is that viewership?

How many competitors are head up? I mean, that's just gratuitous fan service. I mean, she could wear her a little more. Wait, what? Hang on, I'm sitting cross-legged in front of the TV. Wait, huh? Well, that was a lot of options, but the one that I think is the best is that mad dog dairy fellow who's 4 or 6, weighs 200.

pounds capture difficulty rating of four out of ten. He's won a dead or alive. He's a mediocre pirate and a leader of a group of cutthroats, and he stands accused of murdering, thieving, and disturbing the peace by way of refusing to shower ever. It is critical that you return his latest plunder. No information on what exactly it is, but it stated to be at the core of his operation. His location is as follows. Danny take a look. What is his name? Another small fry. Mad Dog Deary. Is that chuckles? He said he refuses to ever shower, ever.

No, excuse me. Do you have a twin? I shower comically in a big plume of steam that never goes anywhere, three, two feet past my body to tastefully cover all of my naked bits, so you can't even tell if I actually have Fletcher not, every morning. Yeah, haven't you ever noticed that it's weird that he walks around in all of his clothing but just adds a towel around his room? Yeah, exactly right.

When he takes the towels off, it does the Sims pixel thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Even though he's clearly wearing pants. Yeah. You do not want to sleep. And I have my bubble baths with my space duck. Cavier, Mad Dog Dairy, as in milk?

I don't think so. Is he allergic to milk or made of milk? No, no, no. Dairy like a, you know, spooky space clowns scare me kind of dairy. Oh, me? What does that mean? Oh, no, not you. Because I would never be a spooky boy.

Probably two teeth of a deep guy. I would never be a spooky boy. I mean, maybe they'd rough to peevee. Derry like fairy with a D. No, not like the wing fairy, but like a ship fairy. But like a ship fairy. Oh, okay. I was going to say the other one.

Just Eddie. I are. No, no, no, like the name Terry with the D. The other Fannie. The D-E-R-R-Y. There you go, that's it. Thank you for teaching me how to spell Boboosh. This is name.

We're done. His name's Mad Dog Derry, all right. His name's Mad Dog Derry. He pays 8,000 credits and the bounty we turn into my old buddy Killivax. Okay, somebody if we can finally trust. Alive or dead? Trust.

I think it said... He's a dirty space pirate. Dead or alive, so we can't kill... Let's try to not fucking kill the guy. All right. We didn't really give the same luxury to the dino guy. I got ripped into a dark star. Well, they attacked us.

If this guy fucking gets the jump on us, we kill him. That's fair. And at least it's work. It's something that we need at this point, so... Wait, and then are we going to the race? The big race, the million credit race? Oh, period. What he said.

Red, are you done with the TV? I'm going to change the input, hold on. Change it to channel, too, and we'll play some Street Fighter. Yeah. Oh, yeah. One of the people. I'm going to play a CyberKineff. I pull out just a Super Nintendo.

It's not going to be the International Famicom style. Not a space Super Nintendo. You just take out the Shenzheny. I take the cartridge and I plug it in. You blow it. Oh, I got, oh, hold on, I got it. You spit all over it. Yeah, it gets worse.

I just glob the entire controller. Hold on, a couple of pendulves come up and work the actual D-pad and A and B. And I'm just like, I'm trying to navigate and put up the star map and like they keep on putting the screen of the Nintendo over it. They keep swapping. Yeah, I'm like, no.

Okay, let's go. Cosmic boom. Cosmic boom. How are you doing this? Cosmic boom. No. You're butt-matching with booze. I'm trying.

It's so cheap. All I can do is sweet kick. Cosmic boom. Come on. Cosmic boom. Can I? Oh, fuck. Better look next time.

Perfect game. This continues. Chequels is a bad dog dairy with all that cheese. But Chuckles, I am deliberately trying to cheer LeBusch up to kind of distract him the fact that he probably has some missing pixels and he's going out of curse. And so I'm like just trying to kind of have some light video game fun. It feels good to fight on the street.

Yeah. Even in the neon dystopian hypernetic street. I think now that they're distracted, it's our chance to make head. You also, so with the bounty you've received coordinates and a star chart that will allow you to navigate to where his location is. You also get a little classically spinning picture of what he looks like. And you'll see a small creature, a long snout whose nose ends in kind of like almost like a bulbous little red grape kind of motion, kind of spiky ears that go back with. with a shape and hardened, like red armadillo shell. What?

This is giving me one piece that fish person leader, if he had his name. I was thinking like crash man. Yeah, the grape fair me off. The grape fair me off. Plus Mighty or the Armadillo from Sonic. And you'll see the emblem of the his pirate crew, just his junkyard crew.

which I thought to include, but maybe I did not. And they're called the junkyard dogs. And the emblem is of a ferocious looking dog that is a chihuahua with like spiked ears. And it's just like the silhouette, but you can tell it's a chihuahua. That's amazing. That they wear on their sleeve. Very cool. Hang starts growing out.

No, no, it's just the computer. You want much scarier. and much cuter. And I give him a scratch. All right. Loaded up. Danny, let's go. No, I'm gonna navigate us.

Star Map us. How long do we anticipate it taking us getting to this location? 10 minutes. Yeah, he's right. He's right over there. That will never not be funny. It's just one.

What? The face is infinite. It's been a look. Holy shit, he's right over there! I just have like negative intelligence. It's hard sometimes. Honest mistake. You know, you're driven.

Don't like 10 minutes. Yeah. No, you think this is pretty quick, this is pretty quick, but you think probably, it's probably like a day's flight, maybe a day and a half to get to. I would quickly get bored of watching this neon dystopian cybernetic street fighting.

And when there's time, I would find Ret in the cockpit at the wheel and basically keep him company and want to try to talk to him at some point. But, you know, I would have sat there very briefly until I see Red basically take off to go drive the ship and then I would join him, you know, when it was convenient to keep him company

since I know that he's often in there alone. Yeah, yeah. They take out the literal Super Nintendo and put it, right, plug it all into the TV and chuggles, shuffles through all the cartridges. The railway. Searching, he blows out the cartridge, pops it in, powers it on,

only to find that he had forgotten he had sold his copy. And the only thing he has left is neon, super neon, dystopian, street fighter five. Oh no! The horrible balance, issues. There's lag. There's input lag. There's input lag.

There's frame hacking. Oh, at least this is the one where they added the girl with the bare feet, I guess. Oh, geez. Here we go. Jury is in it. You're trying to distract me from the horrors. You're trying to distract me from the horrors

of what happened to me over the last few weeks. And you do a fatality. Cosmic boon. and he reaches into the next character and Mortal Kombat style explodes me. Too soon. Well, I forgot that they were appealing, told all the edgy kids with this new one.

I hate this game! I forgot they put Galactus in this one. Oh, yeah. Gonna take you for a ride. But you do that. You watch that for a while as long as you can tolerate it, maybe through two or three cigarettes.

and then you make your way to the bridge and kick your feet up in one of the co-pilot chairs meaning to hang out with Redford a little. You'd be used to me not knocking and just like coming in as I'm smoking a cigarette and I sit down next to you. How's it going? I mean, it's going.

How's it going with you? You know, we're all right. I have something on my mind I've been meaning to talk to you about. Yeah. What's up? Look, you know why I got into bounty hunting. All right?

I know. This thing with Rex? Yeah, he's a jackass, and yeah, I want those credits, but I'm concerned what the boss is going to do to him. Yeah, me too. As much of a fucking jackass as he is, he doesn't deserve that fate. Old Pike wouldn't have had a problem with him. But... As you said, we don't do that anymore.

We don't. And the worst part is, I mean, I was the one that, and I'll kind of feel my jaw, thinking back to when I got basically like my jaw punched off in the vision. Who knows if it was real or not? It's more agony than you'd even think. I can't imagine.

Look, I mean, can we use some of that history? y'all have and I don't know try to help him because I feel like if we don't fucking turn him in somebody else will I think for a minute and I you know I take a long drag on my cigarette and then I I stand up and I give I give Rhett a kind of a rye smile and I say I don't know I think it's only a matter of time before he gets himself killed yeah you're right But you don't have to be the ones that fucking do it. I nod.

I think about what Rhett says. I turn to leave and I put my hand on his shoulder. I give him a couple of pats and I walk off the... I walk out of the bridge. As he leaves, I will... I'll look down at Hank in his seat. I'll just look up to me and I'll give him a little pet. And then I'm going to sort of... of, I'll sort of, kind of wince a little bit,

and I'm going to kind of reach down in a little kind of, like cabinet, and I'll hit a button, and there's sort of this glowing purple here, and I'll pull out this sort of, almost like a vial, maybe like a, not quite a syringe, full of this sort of glowing purple liquid, and I'll move my sort of mechanics shirt over and you'll see all the ports that my Ether Engine plugs into. And there's a nozzle that fits perfectly. And I'll stick it into one of those

ports, hit a button, and you'll see it. No one will see it, but this is what happens. Hank will see it. Hank will see it. Sort of inject into my body. It's gonna be okay, buddy. It's gonna be okay. And you do this, right? You punch the the syringe into your ports, right? And anybody who's flown with you or worked with you is, you know, you're red, you're stalwart, you're like a tank, you know, you feel impervious, right?

They look at you and they think power, imposing strength. And that's you, right? You have all that, but what they don't see is the scars that have lasted over time. They don't see what it takes to get up every day to get back and to do it again and how that there's always that pain there. And every day you, you do that. And sort of feeling more at ease and sort of, you know, I'm sort of used to sitting in silence just having hanged with me, but kind of enjoying the brief conversation and now that it's silent again, I'll sort of turn and I'll hit another button and I'm over the intercom. He is my space mom.

I'll just from the bottom of my head. Does it blasts out the whole ship? Yeah, we're like, oh, I love this one. Red must be sad again. Oh, I think the thought makes them happy. This one's called Space Dog. It's so good. And that happens as everyone does their thing, video games,

moving about, wherever you find yourselves. As the Rhapsody blasts off into space, jamming that song and you make your way you follow the the path until eventually Rhett you'll see a planet start to pull into view this one almost kind of entirely like brown from the outer shell the hints of gray dark as you as you kind of keep looking that you pull in closer and closer and as you begin to kind of things make shape they reveal themselves to you. You see all sorts of colorations like the color of rust, gun

metal, scrap, almost like trash, but just a total planet that looks like it's just covered in junk, like a just eternal junkyard. And you begin to pull down right to where this landing has as you and the Rhapsody kind of clears a space and all this metal and stuff as you land as the landing gear kicks out and you have settled onto this junkyard planet. Are we here? What does it look like, LeBouge?

Look at the goddamn window. My eyes finally come up from my suit. Yeah. Ah, yes, we are here. Any idea of what's around us? Well, it's a junk planet. So, keep an eye out for scrappers, junkers, salvagers, villagers, junk pirates, junk racers.

Scrap pirates? Scrap pirates. Scrap racers. Oh, now this is scrap rafing. What's about salvage pirates? Oh, those two. I think the list of what we should expect to be short- there. This has got big bubblegums from Benadry.

Every concatenation of all the words I just fucking said. Even pirate racers? No, they're not here. Especially pirate racers. Oh. Especially pirate racers. Excuse me. I'm not really a...

I'm new to bounty something. All right. I mean, these are... This guy's a pirate. But, you know, it's the fucking junkyard. dogs. This guy's a four out of ten. That's nothing for us. So, uh, I think we just, uh, step back. Are there like, are there any towns or village, or like cities or, yeah, it was like, it's like, you mantel from Chasasas,

um, swallie. I just imagine earth and wali. Yeah. As you, uh, as you land, there's a, you know, a collection of this is the, the biggest clearing that the Rhapsody could look to kind of touchdown in. Uh, but as, as you, uh, as you land, uh, you know, uh, a collection of, uh, but as you land, As you were pulling in, you'd see off in the distance. A very large, kind of like just junk kind of runs out in all directions. Think like a, not you use car a lot, but like a scrap heap. Like it's metal, you see cast it away. Tires, microwaves, space carrying machines, just sheet metal, you know, rebar here in

there, I mean, like, all sorts of just, like, iron, metal collections, uh, stretch out in all directions. But out in front of you, you see a large, a large, uh, like, pile of scrap all compiled together. Like, like, very, almost like a mountain of scrap. Oh, shit. But not like it's in a, it's in a, um, the shape of like a building or anything. Like, so, like, it just, it looks like a giant pile of, John. Let's say it's a giant mountain of scrap that has a printed Chihuahua emblem on it, if that helps.

I have a feeling that's where we need to go. Apparently we can Kiero Taco Bell. I was letting you have that one. It may be hovers to think outside the box. Oh, man, that's a good one. You guys, they're on fire. Gosh, who's his face clown? Safe clown, and me or you guys.

Wow. I'm really rubbing off. Okay. We need to make sure, oh, it's alive or dead, so we don't need to have to worry about diplomacy. We should try alive and then see where we go from there. I know it's hard for you, but. Well.

Javier is right. We're not killing anybody unless it's necessary. We can just knock him out. None lethal is crazy. That's my price. reference. Let him face justice at the hands of a fucking lawnman. Well, then we don't have to do it. Yeah, I mean, honestly, after the adventure with the spooky boys,

maybe they're wreath and beef. Or whatever. You know, or whatever. This is going to be a walk in the park. Or pieces. Yeah, I'm ripping pepperoni with a little cup. You know. Sorry, I have pizza on the bottom.

I get the ricotta, but the great Vianne. What is the climate on this planet? Oh, good idea. Mm. Um, erred. Erid is a great way to describe it. Okay, not too cold, not too hot, just,

maybe a little hot. You don't feel too, like, distemperate, but dry. Windy, you get the sense that kind of like these, like, slight piles of junk and scrap are probably about just about twice as tall as you are. And this is cutting back some of the wind, but you can kind of here almost creates like an odd, almost eerie, like howl as it traverses through the metal.

Bad-hous. But yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's exactly. It is badass. Thanks.

That's what I was thinking, too. So I was going for it. It didn't really really attract to like Wally levels of Miles and Malice. Not quite trash, like all sorts of trash. As much as it is like, you know, it's very like, like, stuff. Like chainsaw engine, like scrap. Machine metal scrap.

So it's not like decomposing things. It's like, it's like, like, smelly. By this overwhelming, like, fetid, like scent. It's more like gas and rust and this like metallic, like, tasty. Yeah, yeah, almost like iron, and hangs in the air. It would have, uh, as you move out. I'm gonna be staring out the, are we leaving the plane or the ship?

Yeah, that's it. I'm, as I'm walking out, I'm just kind of thinking this to myself and I'm kind of like sadly looking out at all the trash on this world and I'm having this urge that reminds me of an urge that I had when I was on the ice plant that we were on to like, to change this planet and to bring life to this planet. And I'm kind of like questioning that in myself and being a little bit scared, but also like, it's very natural to think that.

And I don't say that to anybody, I'm just kind of like looking around. Do you endeavor to do anything? No. Okay, cool. Would it be unreasonable to assume that like, you know, we, or I might have like a pair of goggles that I could put on anticipating potentially

debris in the air and like, you know, cover up your face a little bit with something to be able to, like, you know, breathe. We're a burning man. I would say that, yeah. I would say that you've hunted bounties across all sorts of environments. So you have, like, right at the exit way to the gangplank, you have kind of, each one of you would have, like, a locker of sorts or, like, you know, a large space where you could grab any amount of clothing or different gear that you could adventure out.

into in kind of all types of environments. You might have a duster, goggles, a pole. I would definitely grab some sort of eye protection just in case and maybe like something to wrap my face up with in case it's like an after-to-breathing. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Should we change into something more appropriate

to parlay with these pirates? I only have my suit of armor. Can you have some spike to it? Some of my cool flame jet. These guys are junk pirates. You don't need to fucking make airs and look presentable for them. Or you're saying you're trying to fit in. Yeah, we just, they'll be more willing to talk to us

if we show up like tough junkers. I think they'll probably know what we're there for to secondly fucking show face. And I'm only wearing the goggles so I can still shoot straight. It could be a mess out there. I pull out of the closet, chuckles like fake mask. You know the ones with like the mustache and the big nose. Good bruntage.

Oh, yeah. And I ended up in disguise. Definitely not a disguise. Definitely not a disguise. We can make this work. Oh, I have a different math. Hold on. Oh, go go to change.

And I'll go to my room and I'll come back out. And I just basically look like sweet tooth from twisted metals. But in like heavy metal BDSM. Covered in, like, yeah, leather. Yeah, yeah. I'll go back into the ship. I've like attached a few, like, have to the, like, to the surface of my suit, and then I'll just quickly like,

shh. Oh, yeah, there we go, boots. I'll spray angry eyeballs in an angry mouth on the dome of my shoulder pads now, yeah. I'm just like area kind of almost desert-like. I'll probably be very comfortable in this type of mind. Yeah, I would say, I would say, You're certainly not, it doesn't surprise you at all,

like when you step out, you would easily be able to act on into it. And in Sweet Tooth fashion, I have a mask, and it's just my clown face, but it's on top of my thing. And for whatever reason, my eyes are just like super bloodshot and groaty. Now I really fit in. You gotta add a little bit of gravel if you've been living on a junk planet, your whole wife. I'm ready to go.

The boot is perfect. Babooosh, perfect. Mad Dog, can we trust him? You're talking to me? Yeah. Oh, I'm Mad Dog. No, are we killing Mad Dog? We're going to knock him out.

Mad Dog, Derry. I did the homework and I read the pre-reading material. It's dairy, but not like dairy, dairy, it's dairy. Yes, excellent. Okay. Let's just get this over with. I'm ready. As we continued to sort of walk towards the junk mountain.

I would want to keep an eye out for any equipment or machinery that might catch my eye to upgrade the Rhapsody in particular, any kind of ether dwarf tech. Probably odds are pretty low that they would just leave it junked here on the planet like this, but just in case anything catches in my eye and I'm like, oh, that's actually pretty valuable.

Or I could do something with that, even if it takes a lot of work. Parts to fix the cure. Yeah, exactly. Or curing parts, 100%. Dude, there's absolutely, like, there's no way, like, people just wouldn't even recognize it. You would take your eye to be able to fucking find it.

Roll a, roll an investigation check. Oh, baby. I love this. Well, I'm doing an advantage with your knowledge of, like, tech, and you would know what you're looking for. You would know, you know that it wrapped me intimately. You would know what parts, would benefit you in increasing up.

I'm twisting it. Twist up. We got like 20 twifts at the beginning of the. We keep track of those. This is somebody out. Richie's track. Yeah. 19.

Oh, well done. Okay. All right, we'll hang on to that. Yeah, just, you know, as we go along. Oh, it's right here. At the bottom of the game playing. Look at all this ether door. It's right here.

A whole pile of it. Oh, you look what I found. Guys. He just comes out from behind a higher in his own gun. Wow, there's a whole tank back here. What the foot? Landmaster. That's where this brawl fans will.

Yeah, so you start to make your way. And there's a pathway. You know kind of where this large junk mountain is. There's a pathway that stretches out in front of you. and you make your way down it and the winds exactly you continue

to hear these these almost like bestial howling as it rips through the corridor that you're in as the winds sweep through your goggles pulled tight your bandanas covering in your face there is some the wind's

cut back by everything that's stretched up around you but there's definitely some like the ground beneath you is just dust and it kicks it up on occasion it does make it kind of swirly around you it can be hard to breathe at times if you didn't have face coverings and you make your way down you see all this this metal that stretches out on either side and Rhett you would you would start to get a sense pretty early on of the level of technology you think you're dealing with here. And it's very much like that, that,

not junkyard punk style, but like not quite steam punk, but like kind of steam punk, like Apocalypse. Diesel punk. Diesel punk. It is definitely kind of that diesel punk-esque five. You're getting a lot of like, a lot of pistons, engines, a lot of like trains. The ghost train yard from Final Fantasy Seven

be mega diesel punk. Yeah, absolutely. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's a great problem. Really good. Exactly. It produces quite that vibe, except not quite as haunted.

Oh. And as you make your way, you would find a selection here and there, like, oh, I could use, I can use that, I can use this. And you start to grab sections of tools, parts, metals you think you could use to, either reinforce the hole, shore up, maybe even some of your targeting systems, some

of the upgrades you'd want it to do before, you just didn't have the raw materials. You can find a large selection of items here, but you know almost immediately upon looking at this, that a lot of this junk has come from this space, and anything kind of ether dwarf tech is well beyond that. their capabilities. You would be very surprised to find anything like that here, even lost away amongst their junk. I need everyone to roll a group perception check.

I'm avoiding. Oh. You'll be coming in. I got an 90-20. Yay! I got a 90-1. Oh my gosh. Classic.

What did you actually roll? Oh, you just rolled one. Yeah, okay. 23. I'm not paying attention. You don't need a plus to that? What's that? He's asking if you have plus to the one.

Oh, six. Oh, no, just what the dice was. Oh, just the die roll. 18. Oh, no, not for anybody else. Just him. Everybody else is what you actually got. Total 27.

There's something going on here. 18, yeah, you're turbo-fox. 20 for chuckle. I'm not looking forward to Labush's feet. Shockingly. You got that. Narciness. And you're going to turn into the bad guy,

and you guys are going to have to kill me and a mercy. No, that will talk about how to do all sit a little. Finally. Whatever. Whatever they're doing, I've grabbed, like, the rear view mirror, like the side mirror off of, like, one of the junker cars

that I'm imagining happens. It exists in one of these spaces. And then I am, like, sucking on it, like, a walling pocket. It's covered in rust. I, like, put it into my thing, and it's just, like, in my head that's, like, floating around. That's incredible. And you would absolutely see, like, lodged into one of these walls of junk,

kind of like, like a large ATV style, four-wheeler that had one mirror already snapped off the other, covered in a mix of like gas, oil, rust. You snap it off and begin to consume it, sloop around its outer sides. And what you all hear is you start to hear the, as you're moving closer to this junk mountain, you start to hear the thrum of engines as in the distance you can almost hear, you can hear the wind, the sound very faintly off in the direction of the mountain. You can hear the thrum of engines and the roar of what feels like vehicles driving. And they seem to be like in the classic movement of how sound functions, you can almost tell that they're circling.

It seems like you can hear it and then... They're circling us? Or they're just doing circles somewhere far away. You feel like it's in the distance, so it's not around you. It's in the distance, but you're getting the sense that it's this motion because you're just starting to catch the sound, but it'll get further away and then closer and then further away and then closer. Okay.

Guys, I'm just letting you know from behind that giant mountain scrap, a giant floating magnet that sentient with eyes starts moving towards us and a bunch of cars are going to think about being worthless in a meatlo-style song. I'm going to freak the fuck out. I am done. I'm running away. I'm going back to the ship. I cannot handle that if that happens. I'm just letting you know that would be a second time that happened.

That's too many times. Not a lot, but it'll be weird if it happens twice. Is there, we all hear this, you said? Yeah. Well, where did you go? Yeah, you go. Four. Yeah.

Is there somewhere, so these piles you said are about twice as tall as Pike? Yeah. Is there one that you would say is roughly 30 feet tall or less? Sure, there are like peaks and, like, it's not a smooth, top to the wall. It's a collection of a grouping of like small hills almost. Not like solid like maze walls that are keeping you in here. But this is just kind of the open path you're walking through. Yeah, you can find one that's probably about 30 feet tall. I'd like to cast Misty Step and teleport to this vantage point. So I guess first I'd like to look around and see

if there's one that I think would provide the best vantage point based on the sounds that we're hearing. Roll a specific investigation check for that? 14. Yeah, with a 14. You see one that's kind of like centrally in front of you just off to the side just a little bit. And then it's about 30 feet tall and you feel like would give you a good vantage

towards the mountain ahead of you. Okay. Yeah, so I'll look up and kind of tell you like these sounds, it sounds like something is coming or at least hunting us almost. I'm gonna see if maybe I can see something. And then I'm gonna sort of swirl the sands around and you'll see it like engulf me and then disappear.

And then I'll appear up on that. You summon the sands and as they swirl around you, you disappear into dust and a plume of just dispersed sand. As you reappear almost instantly at the top of this mound of junk and your form coalesces top to bottom, made as if a statue of sand. But what's actually happening is that he stops time and then climb up.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then when he gets up there, time starts again. Yeah, yeah. That's very funny. I'm so on a breath. I'm looking up. If you were to peek down at me, you could see the two giant eyebrows in my unhappy face.

Let that me know if you want me to climb up. And I'm gonna, in, I'll sort of, I don't want to draw too much attention to myself. And so I won't immediately respond, but I'll kind of give him a signal that he would recognize and say, like, okay, I've heard you. I've understood you kind of thing. And then, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I'm going to look around and see if I can pinpoint sort of at least, maybe not what is making the sound, but at least where it is and how far it may be. Make one more investigation check. Surely you would also be able to see a plume of dust,

and stuff from being kicked up by. Yeah. Yeah. You got a six. We're twisting it. Can't twist that? Yeah. It's de-blistes.

You got 17. There we go. Well done. Yeah, 21. Well, 21. You see out ahead of you and you see that the the junk mound's not too much further ahead.

You kind of see the pathway that you're walking and out kind of snakes. you see that in front, or actually around the junk mountain, what the sound that you're hearing, and you can in fact see sand dust getting kicked up. You see the same kind of junked ATV cars. You see a collection of them. Some of them just like sheet metal stapled onto the sides,

spikes coming off of them, the tires with almost like toothed, jagged, like cut blades of just scrap metal. not even like sharpened edges, are driving around the mountain and you see, you can't quite hear them, but you can kind of hear a collection of people just kind of like shouting gleefully as these cars are just like spinning around the mountain,

kicking up dust. You would see one other thing and that it's along the pathway that you're walking towards the mountain. There seems to be one creature that's pushing, a cart of scrap down the path towards you,

but still pretty far away. And it's only in your direction. And there's only one path to where we're going. From where you are. You would be able to see out like in all around you, kind of the junk spreads out around this thing.

And there's a clearing cut in a circle around this mountain of junk. And there are other pathway. Like beyond it, there's a pathway to the side, to the other side. Their pathway is kind of like leading from different directions, but in your approach, this is the pathway you have.

Okay. So I'll teleport back. And so it doesn't look like they notice us. He always looks so tired when you teleport. It's very exhausting. It's literally Prince of Heron. Yeah, it's like, you know, we need to all the stuff. We are on the right path, and we are heading to that mountain.

There are others here. I'm assuming members of this band of junkyard, pirate rat people. Dog dogs, yeah. Dog, dog people. Junkyard dogs. But they don't seem to notice that we're here yet. They're sort of doing their own thing,

but on our way, there is one beast of some kind. It's pushing junk. It doesn't look like it's, hunting for it, I think. It just looks like it's working. So maybe if we're careful, we can sneak by it. Was what he was pushing, like, or it was pushing, very large, like almost blocking,

couldn't see around it kind of thing. It was just moving. No, it looked kind of like a wheelbarrow. Like a wheelbarrow of junk, you know? Nothing like enormous. Yeah. It was also like a relatively similar size to the description of Mad Dog Dairy.

So kind of like a smallish creature. sure, and it just looked like he was kind of like shuffling junk out into the junkyard. Similar to Mad Dog Dairy, but I wouldn't have reason to believe that it is Mad Dog Dairy? No. Well, you would probably assume that the leader of this band would not be like off on his own, shuffling junk out into the junkyard. This is probably like an underling. Okay.

Yeah, it seems like there's somebody doing work, moving it towards us, but it's certainly in our way. You may have to deal with it. We may be able to find a way around it, but we're certainly going to the right. in the right direction. Well, the question is, do we try to fucking sneak in here, or do we just walk up? And if they're pirates, maybe we can parlay with them. Are we sure they didn't see our ship land on the planet?

They probably did. It doesn't look like they're making their way towards us. Honestly, it looks like they're having fun. I think we ambush that creature and kill it. What? Was it a floating magnifer magnet with like animatronic eyes? I will freak the fuck out, Rat. Don't joke about that.

Was it singing? It wasn't. There was no singing that I could hear. It was pulling. Pushing, pulling? Pushing, pushing. Pushing an apparatus similar to what one would think a wheelbarrow looks like in this universe.

Oh, a space wheelbush. Oh. Oh. An anti-grabb, anti-grabber. It was hovering, you know? What's hovering? A hoverbarbarrow. If you get through a good.

Gosh, let's put up seeds. It's just like a robot. Let's just take it out so what if it alert? What if it alerts the enemy? A sentry of Thorth. We need to be bad, hardened junker if we're going to survive on this tough world. I think we should be prepared, but like I said,

He's on our way, so we're going to have to deal with him one way or the other. I'm prepared. I'll reach into my hat and I'll pull out a flamethrower. Oh, I'm ready. Should we... I'll put it back in my hat. Should we keep going? Yeah, I think if we're not gonna try to, I don't know, stealth operation this,

which I don't think we can. I think they probably saw us land. Let's just fucking walk up to it. And if you want to ambush the thing, fine. whatever. I mean, if it's just a robot. And let stealth and see if it means of harm, and then we ambush it and disoamble it. I agree.

We should stealth. Oh, that's good. To be fair, I don't know if it was a robot or not. It was something resembling dairy, but may or may not be... So maybe kill up, maybe not. All right. Yes, our usual plan.

Activate Logan. And I'll be sort of slay. shimmery. Is that a spell or is that just a bad-ass thing to do? Yeah, hang on. It's a representation for my cloak of Elvenkind from the Buddha. Oh, cool. I was going to say, like, I want to give you advantage on stealthy. Well, I'm normally disadvantaged given all my metal and that just makes me roll straight. Roll a group stealth check. I'm disadvantaged because of my racial bonus. Oh, I'm a fire. 26. Oh, 26. I'm a Viking. Oh.

Oh, Kite's, I'm gonna twist. Oh, Dex, you say. Six. Nice. Nice. Oh, stealth, you say? Stealth. Stealth.

15 is probably good enough. 26. Yeah, that's pretty good. I got the six. It's as high as I can roll. Is Hank with us? Oh, yeah. Oh, Hank probably needs to roll stealth, doesn't it?

Oh, yeah. 24. Wow. 24. 26, 24. Natural 20 for half. Oh, yeah. Got it.

At least 22 or 23. Goody-go-a-doo. He does a backward top and like instantly turns in the air. Just, oh. Oh. Oh. 20. Where'd you go?

Oh, you're right there, man. Quiet as a hank mouse. I can hear him breathing. Maybe they will like us because we have a dog. All right, so you make your way. You're all incredibly stealthy. You made your way down this pathway. why. As LeBusch walks, there you

that's a better sound. It kind of struggles to get over the big pieces of junk. As you make your way forward, the closer you get to this creature, you'll start to hear, you start to pick up on a couple things that you might hear. You'll realize pretty quickly that this is not a robot. This is a creature in Well, this is a creature, lugging on a space wheelbarrel, a degree of junk. And you want to just hear him say things like, oh, that dairy.

Oh, it's making me take that junk out. I hate him. Oh, I hate that guy. I hate coming out here all by myself. Ooh, ooh, nuts. I don't like him one bit. As I hear that, I'll lose him, I'll grab my hat. I'll pull out the blame door. Yeah. We're going to put the handle on the flame.

Not yet. Oh, that guy. I never get any of the booty from any of our stuff we rob people. Me and he's the worst. Who? Who are nuts. It sounds like we might be able to get him to help us. All right.

Jump out on free. Don't fire. Why don't we want to scare him? Screw the shit out. Oh, just throw this junk here. Oh, in this joke there. One, two, three. Ah!

I'll make it a massive leap. I get a joke over him. Oh, I hear it's awful. Hang on, hang on, hang on. We're not going to kill you. Oh, what gang are you a part of? I'm a clown with a flame throw, and I'm not afraid to you that. Oh, so the Howlin Holigans?

No. Oh, then the backyard. That's a pretty cool name, though. Then the backyard boys, it is. No. The back yardigans. The backyard against. I don't you very good at Junkball.

Oh, yeah. It sounds like you know a Derry? Well, you'll see as you jump out and you scare this creature half to death. He looks kind of like a hedgehog almost. wearing leather pants. He is pushing a space carton in the shovel. He's upended it and all the junk's falling off to the side. He's just kind of standing as well, please don't kill me. This might be the first time I've seen a creature like this. Do I get a sense that this is an older it or a younger it? Well, we'll say like mid to late 30s and you can take that as you

go for older or younger. Okay. So, Chris, though. I mean, listen. Just ask him questions. And you see, maybe a little younger than that. Okay. And you'll see, like, on his arm patch, you'll see the logo of the junkyard dogs,

the familiar Chihuahua as this. You successfully startled the hedgehog. If you would like to fire your flamethrower, you would do so at advantage in a surprise round. Surprise to him as well. for bounty hunters. Oh, I knew they would come for me. We don't give a fuck about you, no offense.

Wait, are you mad dog dairy? No. We don't give a fuck about you. Based on what we overheard, it sounds like you don't like your boss too much. Well, he's not very noise. I've always just wanted me on a wanted poster. but you sure you're not here for me, Augie? I never heard of you.

Maybe it's the next bounty, who knows? No, they said that words cut the deepest. That's true. They could knock him out, take him with us. Hold on, hold on. Hey, hold on. No harm will befall you if you can help us. Or pain? I don't like pain.

We can avoid hurting you, but if you don't help us, then there will be pain. Roll on intimidation check in advantage because you have a flamethrower appointed. Also my eyebrows are very angry. The eyebrows are very angry. You're an intimidating bunch. Uh, so, so skills. 16.

That's good. That's good. Oh, okay. Okay. What do you want? What are you doing here? We're looking to take your boss in. Derry.

Oh gosh. Well, that's gonna be quite the task. He's over in Junkyard Mountain. Which one? He's the one that looks like a mountain. Not Junkyard Hill or other Junkyard Hill. Not Junkyard Mound? Well, Junkyard Mound, but I wasn't talking about Junkyard Mound.

I was talking about Junkyard Mountain. I think it's where we're heading. So what you're saying is Junkyard Mountain. Mountain that looks like a junkyard. It's a mountain. With the spray-painted emblem of Dairy on it. No, you caught the... That was my idea.

You know, mark your territory. If the knife touch, I'll admit. I felt like it went with the junkyard dogs kind of. All right. Can I beat them up? No, no, no. Let's cut to the chase here. We like him.

You're saying that it's going to be difficult to get to the boss here, all right? Why? Is it hard to get into the, into Junkyard Mountain? Well, it's just surrounded by guards. And you know, you have the swirling degree of, You know diesel punk cars that are always driving around? But the night did it. Listen, you bring the junk out here, you dump it.

Do you ever bring junk back in with you? Well, sure. How big is this junk space barrel? You can get, if it about seven of you. Yep. All right, we're all getting in the barrel. Yeah, 100%. Yeah.

Tevier and I are on the same page here. We're getting in this lift thing. We're going to fill it with junk, and you're going to bring us inside of the junk mountain. Well, look, I'm no friend of him, so sure. But just remember. That would be easy. If you double-cross us, you get the flamethrower. No, no, I don't want the flame thrower.

And the grassland. But you mean actually, I can have it? No. Because that would be pretty cool. And that would just punch you in the face. Oh, no, no, I don't want that. And he's got magic fire-shoots. I don't like pain.

And he's got magic sandy time powers. And she's got laser eyes. Oh my God. I had no idea it had laser eyes. I don't establish for going to hurt them otherwise. You just punch people? Yeah, but like really, really, really hard. Here, watch.

And I'll go over to one of the junker, like, metal things. I'm not gonna punch him. No, he kills himself. I'm gonna work on it. I'm gonna walk up to like the most pristine door I can see and I'm gonna do like basically, as I've been like walking through this sandy environment, I've been getting hit with non-organic metals and sands.

And so I can like pull all of that actual rock matter into my fist and make more than just a club. I will punch as hard as I can to create an impression. You coalesce this like iron knuckle of magnetizing debris. It's like a herds rope. Into that. What it's just a I know.

I don't exactly what it is. It's literally a nurse. It's fucking bad. You pull this gummy clusters of iron and scrap metal to the ends of your fist. As you level a punch square at, even

like a 60s-looking old time refrigerator that you found in this section. I hope Indiana Jones is inside. Micro mandals. And you just punch into it and it just explodes in the scrap metal. It just dends it. It just explodes.

Yes, whatever your name is, all I do is punch. Oh, no, okay, okay. Listen, I'm no friend of Maddolew. He's not very nice, as you may imagine. Why do you join the gang? Well, it's kind of growing up here. You've got to join one of the gangs where you just get killed.

I can understand that. And, I mean, you know, Rough life. You got to eat. What are you going to do for work? There's not a lot here except piraten and, you know, junkin. What do you eat? Orges?

Some cashews. Face oranges and cashews. What a nightmare. This place sucks. Sometimes, if we're real good, they give us pickles. Oh, that's a quite as nice. You want any lasagna pizza? Hey, everybody.

Chuckled here. It's time for an ad read. This podcast is brought to you by our very own Patreon. Become a patron today at patreon.com slash Legends of Aventryance. and gain access to tons of exclusive perks, including a monthly movie night and a weekly Patreon exclusive campaign set on the high seed, shroud over saltmarsh.

You can also go to the crooked moon.com to pick up your own copy of our first published supplement, The Crooked Moon, a folk horror tome for Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition. And don't forget to snag all of the extra goodies like dice, miniatures, plushies, a tarot deck, and more. Thank you so much. I'll see you around. I thought we agreed that we're gonna get in your bucket or whatever. Yes, that's the plan. Everybody in, start piling junk on top of us, but not too much. And you wheel us into that junk mountain.

Yes, we called the junk mountain. I forgot we established that. I did that just so we could get to a break quickly. Well, there's just one guard at the door. but yes, I take junk out here often and then I have to get his back in, so you know, you can all hop in, we could pile some junk on top of these

and whatever you'd like. We don't have to RP this. Everybody get in. Okay. Oh, all right. I guess I should put my flame thrower away. We don't want any mithful fires. Oh, God. Whoa, that was a close one.

Okay. I'm in I walk up the side and I walk in Everyone gets into the large Space wheelbarrill barrel Space wheel barrel, thank you As I made the noise just while Biting time for you to tell me the word

You all pile in and Augie goes around He starts to get scraps of scrap To put on top of you here and there Slides in a couple things You might see something you like red and as he puts on top you and I'll take this You put it in you put it in your bag And eventually you get all covered up and I would say roll a group Performance check

Oh You cover yourselves in strap I finally had a bad roll-up Is it about the average because I'm gonna fucking favor of shit? Yes, you are Given my gooey nature if there wasn't room from the the normal humanoid version of myself. Could I like sloop into a barrel or something like that or perhaps shrink myself down

so it just looks like there's a pair of boots and a gauntlet but really I'm just like hiding in the chest plate. I'm looking for advantage. I'm fishing for something. I would say that you have the ability to shape change. You'd be able to like shloop your form down.

Your suit would still take up the space it's going to take but if you would like shaloop it down you'd be like you'd be like a spent earthworm gym. Yeah. Yeah. So, sure,

you can have it. Sure. I needed it because I got a one and a 20. Those guys are feast and famine. Oh. Whatever it takes, man. Whatever it takes.

I was greedy to pull a twist out for me. I had an 18 and I wanted this fish for more. I got a 28. Nice. Thank God. 18. 29, 29. 29.

You basically got a 21 and I got a 16. 18. 18? Okay. 23. No, I had an 8. 8? Yeah, not good.

4. Oh, okay. You be both both on your ear. Just like. Everyone kind of climbs into the thing and then, you know, red shovels on top. I don't make some room for me. Oh, look out. Look at out.

Your ether engine is kind of sticking out a little bit. But luckily, it just, just. Just kind of, yeah, your boot hangs out the other end. But luckily, due to how well the rest of your team is done here, you just kind of look like junk collected in the spacing. For a second, I completely forgot the voice. I can't wait until after this session where Mikey pulls me aside. And he's like, what the fuck?

Why would a steampunk hedgehog? in a diesel punk world. You know, this is your world, this is living in a hair. It's the Dr. Manhattan image of imploding and it says because I said it. Yeah, exactly. I made it up. Because trust me, bro.

Excuse me. Okay, everybody. Just be quiet. Just be quiet. I'm going to take you into Junkyard Mountain. But nobody make a sound, okay? We have to get past the guards. And then once we get right in the doors, It's pretty open spaces

And you all look like a very A mean lot So it'll be easy to move about The insides once we get there But on the outsides They'll see you coming They'll see you coming a mile away So just once we get on inside

You know, just Just shh Why don't you? Should you maybe No, what did I just say? I just said to shush, why don't you? Get out of it already! Okay, okay

Oh, shush, like the sound of a flamethrower? No, please. What Kavir was saying is we have a phrase or something you can say. Don't let us know when we are coming out. Oh, um. Oh, yeah. Can you a jabber like a space off a lot? Can that be the symbol?

Oh, is it like? That's exactly it. Space Oscelot out there? That's perfect. Oh, you're too kind. That's perfect. But inside, we didn't come out. All those two, oh, blah, lo, lo, lo,

do. I just hear a space oscelad. I really think, I think that was that. Oh, you're my favorite invaders we've ever had here. Perfect, I don't think anyone will think that's out of character. Oh, okay. So, here we are, and off we go. And he'll take the space,

wheelbarrow, thank you, and he'll start to push you back towards the junkyard mountain. And you make your way. And it is markedly heavier than when you push it out. There he doesn't really notice because it is a hoverer space wheelbarrow. But he starts to push and it rumbles a little bit and the junk shifts and you might feel a prod here and iron poke there. And as you move, you hear the sounds getting louder and louder. And you still don't, maybe even some of you might be wondering, like, can we really trust this guy? Like, what do we know about Augie?

Is he going to betray us just the second he gets back to his allies? Or is he a straight shooter? I'm not wondering that. He's being paid in orange. Some of them are. We're paid shoes. Sometimes it's fine. Okay.

He's always hungry. On the spot. You can never fill up. Rabbit starvation. Oh, I couldn't eat another orange or cashew. I couldn't eat another. It's not me, ladies and gentlemen, about making it snap decisions at the heat of them.

That's all they eat oranges and cashews. You know, the classic five, five, corner meal. Ooh, okay. We're coming up on it. And you'll hear the sounds off in the distance,

kind of as it's coming on up. And you'll feel the space whirlbarrel kind of like turn to the left just a little bit. You can kind of feel the force of the of it move to the side as you kind of shift. And you feel yourself climb

just a little bit. It says, oh, hey, hey, everybody. Oh, it looks like fun. Oh, maybe next go around. I could take a spin. Hey, Eric, fuck you, hugging. I knew what was coming. Oh, I guess maybe the one after that.

This poor bastard. You'll feel the wheelbarrow climb, climb a little bit, and then level out and kind of turn back to the side. as you come back around and write the way. And then you start moving forward again. As you come to another stop and you hear a loggy shout out. Oh, hey there. Yeah, just a junk delivery for the old mad dog.

Yeah, just dropping off junk, normal day. Nothing to worry about here. no invaders or anything, wouldn't that be crazy? My eyes inside of my gel is like all whisper. He the natural. No need to look even beyond

the surface level of this year Space wheelbarrowy. Damn it. Why acting so weird, you fucking weird hedgehog? God, I hate you. Oh, well, but I don't remember that as part of the

check in to get inside. Oh, that's... Oh, my God. This guy's pathetic. You know, I mean, I suppose you could look deeper if you wanted to. Ogie, you couldn't fucking plan an attack if you had

just scissors, and all that they said was cut your way out of a paper bag. You get locked up forever, you dumb bastard. Oh, well, I suppose maybe you're right, I wouldn't know what to do. You couldn't just walk right out of the opening of the bag.

Yes, but okay. Can I go in that? Well, you know we don't use that junk anymore for fueling since the last thing we picked up? Well, yeah, but, you know, I don't argue with Mad Dog. I mean, he says bring the junk and, I mean, you know, here I do. I'm bringing the junk in. Oh, you're fucking got a thing for yourself for once. I just kidding to think for Mad Dog, you dumb son of a bitch.

Get on in there. Well, thank you. We've been very kind once again. I don't care what happens with this session. We are making him the warlord. Yeah. He's going to be the leader by the time the end of the end. That's actually a little.

He's a kid. And to feel the space world real move forward again as he moved through the opening of the door. Space Osolot, oh, is it? Bo la, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Or was it more like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. No, that doesn't seem right either. Was it?

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Not yet. I think it sounds close. Not yet. No, it'll come to me, it will come to me. Everyone will panic, nobody panic. Nobody panic.

We'll all climb out. As we're like, you know, shaking, getting the rest of the junk off of us, I'll all climb out and look at it and I'll say, man, you really need to grow up. backbone. And all you have a big smile on his face, walking you guys out, very genuine character. Oh, I suppose I could use a little straightened him posture. I guess I could get started on that. No, he means confidence. Oh.

Stand up for yourself, man. Oh, well, I mean, no. Everybody's making fun of you. Oh, I don't think that they were. They were laughing at you. They'll never let you ride the bikes. Well, first of all, those are ATVs. They won't let you ride the ATVs. I don't blame you. I mean, you were stuck away beneath all that junk,

so, you know, how could you have seen? Like, just like ATVs? Like Kevin would ride down in North Carolina? You know Kevin? Yeah, I do. Good old Kevin scrapper. Oh, Kevin. You really need a backbone here,

and it'll have any full human spine. Spine, spinal column. All he'll take it and kind of like snap it onto his back and kind of like fit it around his cage and he'll straighten his posture and I'll say, ooh, thank you. Nobody's ever given me a gift before. Aw.

It looks kind of a badass, frankly. Oh, really starting to look like a real junker. Well, you should probably come up with a cool name to that. Well, you know, it's just a part of, just suppose the, you know, the game that I'm a part of, This is the junkyard dog, so you don't get too much say in it, I suppose. You need a badass name if you're going to take over the joint. Oh, what? Take over the joint.

What do you mean take over the joint? We should be the one who leads these people. Oh no, no, we're not getting any kind of political argument. And they can call you Augie Ogbourne. Oh, that's not the junkyard dog, oggy. You think they'd call me backbone banana-eaten oggy? I hope not. Let's just scrap the whole Augie thing.

You know, you're a... Well, it's just my normal name. I keep it. I was just my regular name. Junk-Joggy. You can't scrap the oggy for it. That's my name. No, I'm saying, just forget your name.

Come up with a cool title, you know? Like the junk collector. Oh. Yeah. That's pretty cool. I mean, it just doesn't what it says on the tin. Literally what he's done. Yeah.

But it sounds kind of... It sounds kind of cool. Now, everyone knows. I mean, gruff mechanics' voice, oh, it sounds really cool. Well, on the whole vein of, like, the mad dog, the junkyard dog,

when you're naming Augie, the Jet, Augie Doggy. But I think the thugs from the gang, the Warner Brothers, and Hannah and Barbera, they'd probably come after you pretty quick. Oh, yes, those are the other two gangs in the...

Yeah, no, you don't want to... You don't want to fuck with that. The massive superpowers, the only reason they don't just take over entirely is just because they mine the ruin in the other hemisphere. Oh, yeah, that's about right. Yeah, though.

I like the junk collector. The Hannah Barbarians. Oh! The Hannah Barbarian will come beat the shit out of you. No one survives their nasty on the slot. Or you can stick with the bone motif and be like the bone collector, but you need a lot more bones

than just one human spine. Oh, I got more. And you just cue bone him. Fever, I barely know her. Oh, alas, poor Yorik, I hardly knew ye. There we go. Oh, here's the funny bone. I do various bone-related jokes.

Yeah. For as long as you'll sit there and hand your birds. It's my own. This little piggy went to market. This little piggy went to date home. Should we maybe start heading towards Mad Dog, where we can find him? Do you know where we can find him? Well, I suppose he's probably in the motor bay.

Which would be... Well, it's down about that way, I suppose,ish. It's in that direction. I mean, I could take you there. What did you come to do to him? Nothing in particular. We just want to speak with him. Yes.

No, no, we want to either capture him and turn him in and they'll go to prison for a long time or kill him. Yeah, either way, we're taking him with us. Oh, well, that's good news. That's why there's going to be a vacuum of power. You can assume. The junk collector. Exactly right. Collects another title.

Well, why are we getting involved in the local politics of junk world? I just want to see if he can do it. No, that Chuckles is right. I mean, whether there's a vacuum or not, we're not sticking around to find out what happens. I don't care, I'm just planting seeds. All right. That's dandy thing.

Hey, that is my job. I'm sorry. That is my only job. A dandy thing is the seeds. All right, you pump him up. King Oggy. Please take us to Mad Dog so we may murder him. Well, that's pretty good.

I really do like the junk collector. so I suppose we'll just move on here. Oh. Oh. Yeah, okay. Were you guys looking for anything in particular? We're just killing him or capture him, I suppose. Mad Dog himself, but if there's anything of interest on the way.

Well, now that you mentioned, I'm a little curious. When we overheard you talking to the guard, they mentioned that y'all aren't fueled by junk anymore because you found some. Oh, yes. Oh, well, we did. You may have noticed we're in a bit of a junkyard. What?

You keep saying that. I can't remember. After my learning experience with grim, I'm trying to be a little bit more accepting of strange comical critters that frustrate us. But my patient is. It's really wearing fit talent. I'm trying. That could be helpful to us. It might be worth taking a look at if you know anything about it.

Oh, sure. Well, let's just take a quick look. And he'll start you down the hallway and kind of explain certain things about the area, kind of how there's a bit of a triad of junkyard bandit wars. And you're, you sit in like the heart. of the power center of the junkyard dogs. And he called them out earlier. But the Howland hooligans and the backyard boys

are also two other prominent junkyard. Two other prominent junkyard, like bandit groups. I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have looked at Mikey. It was my critical mistake. No, I can't see him. Two other bandit groupings out in the junkyard. He kind of explains a little bit of the power struggle,

the power dynamic, how there's always been kind of a rotating controller. They've been at odds. But recently, on a pirating mission, the junkyard dogs upon the space travel. travel and, you know, general mischievery, had come across a defunct ship and had gotten something that had changed the course of the power struggle in the junkyard

and they were working to assume total control. He goes on to explain this as we move down the hallway, but doesn't quite go into detail yet. It doesn't even know himself. exactly. It wasn't on that particular mission as he doesn't go on any missions. But he goes on.

And he, you walk down the hallway and you come across a room. Oh, look it here. We'll take you into this room first. We can check see if there's anything of interest to you in here. But this will show you a little bit of what we've been working with. And see if anything in here

is maybe what you were looking for. But this is how we power, you know, our weapon. this is like a bit of an armory of sorts. So if this is something you might be looking for, then the door, let's take a peek. All right. He'll walk up and you'll turn the door handle and push the door open.

Yeah, he'll just walk up and the door will open like it's a space adventure and not like in a situation. Oh, yeah. So mechanical. Years and rattling chains. and steal. Yeah. He pulls a chain and the doors kind of like beetle wing out as they raise and split open.

We need those on the rocks. We just steal doors. They ain't using these, aren't. And you walk into this room and you see it's kind of like a grated floor. It's very warm in this room. in this room. It's very, very warm. And as you walk in, you'll see a couple of things strewn about. On one section, it's a large room, and on one section, and you see, he'll even still have the wheelbarrel. And as he moves in with it, kind of just like out of habit,

he'll shuffle some of the scrap into a section of the room with a large collected pile of scrap. Well, so this is about where we're. We make the ammo for the weapons here and you can see a couple of nail guns here on the wall, but they shoot hot scrap metal. And that's what we're doing right here in the center. We're just kind of melting it down. It just goes down this conveyor belt. I don't really know why we have it designed in such a U-shaped format.

You think they just run it straight at it. But I guess that's why I'm no engineer. I'm just the junk collector. So anywho, and then you just put the... you can stop talking, I'll figure it out. And I just like walk up and I'll just take a look. I want to basically sort of investigate and get a sense of like what they're doing

and how it works. And if I can try to figure like, you know, watch the How It's Made episode on this junk conveyor bell. So good. For taking maps. The workers approaches the conveyor belt. What was it?

20. With it 20. you look at this and not only can you immediately into it kind of like what the game plan is here but there's also like a 50s black and white TV that has one of those rapture breakdowns of exactly what the injection does and it like you know with the stick figures

and this room is exactly the type of weaponry mechanics the things you would expect to find of what you've kind of like naturally come to know of this area, this culture so far. And you see kind of lined on the wall a series of weapons that look, so what they're doing is they're collecting the junk from the junkyard.

They're collecting like slightly more high quality scrap of a specific type of metal. They're moving it into a central like melting pot and they're making hot molten scrap that they can put into these, they can load into these weapons and like use as hot molten bullets that will fire out at people. And that's how the worker goes from garbage can't to garbage can.

That's all right. Exactly correct. All right, some kind of, they're using bolters and melting down scrap. And you're saying this is the old tech. Oh yeah, this is what we used to use in the junkyard wars.

But, oh well, this is still kind of what we arm ourselves with, but the boss has been working on something. They flew out, and this was some time ago now, but they flew out and it's it. I mean, they just tell stories around the old water cooler. I don't drink too much water, but sometimes I'm hanging around just around the corner, and I listen in. But, yeah, they tell stories about the raid they went on. They say it was an empire ship. And something had taken it clean apart.

They never seen damage quite like it. I don't know. Nothing was around. Nothing had salvaged it. It still had everything on it. That was one of the best halls they'd ever gotten out in space. But something had blown clean through it. And, I mean, that's an empire ship.

You know, and there's not many powers out there. there can match them. Not even the Sorrians, if you believe it. I mean, you know, they're just about toe to toe, but not to just blow them clean apart and leave them without picking them dry. And so, you know, but there they were. They came across just the carcass of this empire ship,

and they boarded it, and they said they found something strange, and the mad dog was saying that he was going to change the course of the junkie. Hold on, hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Okay. Do you have to say that whenever you say Mad Dog, that part of your gang initiation? Well, it's part of his name, as part of how he introduces himself, you know?

So kind of out of respect, when we say mad dog, we say the, you know, because he's kind of a mad dog and there's a bit of a rumor. I'm not one for spreading rumors, but there's a bit of a rumor going around the Junkyard Mountain. And you didn't hear this from me, okay? He may have the rabies. Space rabies, I'm sorry. Space rabies.

Oh, space rabies. Space rabies. It's a serious condition. But not if you're an armadillo creature, you know. It's just a normal condition. That means he's going to die soon. So mad in a more literal sense. Well, it's kind of, yeah.

I mean, he's also quite an angry fella. Well, I think, on account of the fact that I haven't listened to anything, just said. I think that you're dismissed. You've been very useful getting us here, but I think you can let the professional take it

from here. You still need him to lead us to Mad Dog. This is just I feel like we can figure it out. I feel like Redd, you know, and Pike can like, you know, pick up the trail. What I'm trying to remember is wasn't that also a show from the

early space 2000s. What? The Junkyard Wars. Oh, yeah. I've used every episode hundreds of times. I don't know what you're talking about. It's incredibly interesting how they took all those normal people who claim to be engineers and whatnot, threw them in a junkyard. They built like trebushes out of a wall washing, space washing machine. Yeah, I think it's a little suspicious and, you know, I feel like it's probably all fake. But entertaining nonetheless.

Oh, my goodness. Dandy, is that an actual easy bake oven? Is it? What is an easy bake oven? Oh, Danny, all you have to do is just that water. We're gonna fix this bad boy up. Hold on. Is there water on this planet? Oh.

Well, we'll have to wait until we get back to the Rhapsody. So... That sounds fun. I mean, I'm not as well versed in this as you are, you are, but this all seems pretty low-tech compared to what they could find on empire ships, right? No, I mean, it's, you know, no surprise they just abandon all this

the second they find something legitimate. So, I'm curious to see what they found. So if you want to take us there, I mean, that could be more valuable than fucking bounty on this crazy rabies guy. Why not both? By green.

Do we want to take any of these molten trash shooter guns? I mean, I don't need it when I tap my can you need one of these? Oh, I mean normally they don't let me touch the weapons just in a case of- Go on and take one. I suppose I could.

And now the worker is ready to take out the trash. Derek, you're a sharp guy, man. He just never seeks to amaze me. Yeah, the part of he sets himself up. She really does. That's all I'm ever doing. Let's be honest. It's just a long winding solo comedy show for Derek.

Oh, man. Boom! Oh, and see, as he'll accidentally fire off one of the nail guns, and he'd ever make a deck saving throw? Do I see this happen or am I surprised? You might. I mean, it depends on if you're making . No, it's not a matter of a matter of a deck saving throw.

of the joke, it's a matter of my ability. Yeah, you would see it. A dirty 20. Oh, 13. 23? 19. 23. Yeah, we're pretty good.

It's gonna be a 17. And when did you actually roll? 14. I do not like this. 14 and 10. I got a 9. I had a 13, but I actually rolled the 9. Oh, 70.

No. Oh. All right. So anybody who is it over a 15 or over, we'll just dodge. Any of you. Okay. 15, we'll get hit by a ricocheting part of molten scrap and it'll hit you and then we'll say it ricochet the next person. And you'll take five points on hot molten damage as it.

Oh, I'm so sorry. Oh, I don't handle it normally because no. He trusts me to handle it responsibly. I can see why. Stop putting your finger on the trigger. Oh, I don't know anything about Trigger's teeth. Hold it on like this. Oh, like this?

You got it. No, that's way that's cool. You stick your finger in the thing and you hold it flat. You leave it around it, everybody. Point it. And that's how you get everyone's respect. Point it down.

Point it down. There we go. Yeah, now you're a real junkyard dog. Let me hear your war cry. That's horse shit That space horse shit Let me hear your war cry again for real Okay

Okay, we're gonna try from role play I am mad dog I have looked at you And I have taken your Weekly ration of orange and cashew And I've thrown it in the junk pile And stepped on it or whatever Oh, he doesn't even eat it

And no, I didn't even eat it Oh, he just steps on us Yeah, exactly right And so now you look at him, you stand up and you say, I just go with the bread. You all have left and like, I just light up a cigarette and I follow it. I'm just looking if I see anything interesting in the room that we're in, like any kind of remotely interesting tech that would be kind of unique to me.

I would like at least look at it or grab it. We'll keep your investigation check. You roll around. I mean, you look around. You don't know all around. You know, all around. You know, do, do, do, do, do, do, do.

You search the room, we'll say. Very clearly, this is their, like, ammunition's building, like, weaponry section. You'll see a collection of junk, certain other styles of weapons. Chains hang around, some working tools.

But as far as you can tell, this is all relatively rudely. rudimentary and you don't see anything that would stand out to you beyond what you would expect them to use in this area I look down and I see like this box covered by another box and I like brush off some of the junk

and pick it up curing repair kit I still looking around make you know what he saw me and I threw it in the forge yeah just a lot of you know and you find that yeah Are you testing how they make the ammo? No, I'm just, I wanted to see what happened if I threw something in the fire.

It's fine. Oh, it is quite fun. Oh, anyway, if you'd like, we can kill you on, and I think we might be able to find the mad dog in the... in the motor garage workshop space, if you like. Leave the way. Okay. Is that where the weapon might be? Well, I don't quite know.

They haven't told me anything about it, but I know that he spent a lot of time in the garage working on something. And his inner circle has been in there with him, working on something big, as it were. While all this has been happening, I've just been listening. Taking it all in. At this point, as we're, as he's about to lead us further in, I'd like to discern whether or not I believe that he's telling the truth.

You may roll an inside check. Oh, yeah, we never roll inside checks. 21. 21. I've just been watching him, listening, soaking it all in, and trying to get a feel for what this creature is talking about. you experiencing everything that you've been through even in just probably like the last 30 minutes like how it feels genuinely is that his like gangmates treat him what he's been exposed to you get a definite genuine vibe from him where he seems almost like kind of out of place in this kind of setting and interested in helping you And it certainly does not seem to be any friend of theirs.

And you get no sense that he harbors any kind of like ill will towards you or has any malintempt. This guy's a criminal mastermind. It's the, it was the C's a guy. He's a guy. Darth Charger Banks was going to happen. This guy's the BBEG. Okay. Yeah, we continue to follow him.

No, you've met the BBEG. It's not on this guy. I was gonna think Pike they're nothing to worry about we already We had the exact same plot point that you're trying to niff out Laugh that show We can't do this twice in a row Patience was wearing thin

We're trying to remain open to Small annoying creatures We're fine Oh Excuse me We've got a bit of a cough there Just had a bit of a cough Can we Star Wars it where we about

leave the room, but then we hear a bunch of footsteps. And we jump back inside and then they run past, and then we stick our head back out and continue on. Yeah, yeah, that happens. That happens. Yeah, you move to the door and you hear. Do they look mad doggy when we see them past? Yeah.

What it looked like? Oh. Well, so they do look like a collection of, kind of, we'll say like kind of animal folk, but very much in a hyena, bad ass, vol, but not quite as cute. All their hedgehog, mole people. And like armadillo creatures, not quite as...

Real salt of the earth animals. Yeah, mere cats. Like, earthy... Groundhogs. Yeah, groundhogs. Yeah, yeah. What are the ones that are immune to rabies? The possums.

The prairie dogs from Rango is what I'm imagining. Oh, that's perfect. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, before we go, hold on. I wanna like, seeing that he has this big scrap shotgun, I wanna take a big chain with a hook off the wall and hand it to him. You might need this too, you know, might be a good.

You can whip people in and then shoot him in the face. Oh my gosh. I'm turning very quickly. You just said standard NPC to fucking a rudehog girl. A rude hedgehog girl, see. Oh, there it is. You're the rudehog. You're the roadhog.

Oh no. Monster girl. Oh. He'll take the chain with the hook at the end and kind of like wrap it around and tie it around, like diagonally across his torso. And say, ooh, he will. Why don't we go on ahead? We'll see if we can make our way to the,

to the, ye old garage. To clarify, all of those creatures that you described that we've seen that are not our boy, Augie, are they much more, like, vicious and rough? Since you said that he kind of sticks out and he seems more mellow or,

I'm imagining them as like these just, really gruff, rough edge. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Mean looking bastards. They're definitely like snarly, bigger, like visibly like kind of musseling enlarger.

Yeah, he's kind of like a run to the litter kind of style, like much smaller. If you've seen Puss and Boots the Last Wish, he's very much like the Chihuahua. Yeah. No, I'm picturing all of them as like, they're animal forms, but they're like, B-Bop and Rocksteady.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's perfect. Yeah. 100% awesome. They're definitely like beefed out, carrying weapons. Like probably at least like a foot, foot and a half taller than him.

Tait tops. Yeah. Real black headless tank tops for miles. Yeah, yeah. Like leather wrap. Bannuers. Yeah, yeah. 100%.

Just grenades. Cigars. Yeah. Yeah. Boots with no laces in all. Oh yeah. Cigars are just made of orange peels. Oh, that's delightful.

Somehow, like, it smells like citrus as they walk down the hall. Oh, that's nice. It's a gar. This is real bad customers. Yeah, just a couple of bad eggs, yeah. And you can see, he's dressed in very similar garb, but like, not at all imposing, like, almost like a kind, kind of, like, baby face. A little even messed up. This guy's not gonna make it.

Looks a little roughy. Death flags all over. You know, yeah. And he's got similar boots on, but they're just like a size too big. Like they weren't ever made for him. It was just off the last guy. And yeah.

Those are the distinguishes. Awesome. This is literally just the adventure time episode where Finn goes into the tree. It's the animal gang. With this regular non-flying squirrel. And they all make fun of the squirrel. He's like the dumping one.

What are you doing? That's literally the best episode of Adventure Time. I'll fight you. Anyway. Yeah, it's incredible. I'm going to walk up to Augie. As we're walking, he's leading us, right? Mm-hmm.

Sure. I'm going to walk up to Augie and kind of ask him gently, like, are you from here? Are you from this world? Oh, yeah. I mean, time of the morning. Whoa, yeah. That's just the same.

You're them. Like you were born here? Well, I don't remember it, but I think so. Were all the other mad dogs born here? Yeah, I mean, no one's really supplanted. We wouldn't really like, you know, you wouldn't have too much vacation here in Junkyard World. Interesting.

There's not quite too much to see outside of all the junk. Have you seen an orange? The oranges are good, though. If you like a good orange. Have you seen an orange? No. They just hand us the oranges. I assume they come from orange trees, but I don't get to see the groove. Interesting. That is all. Let us go and murder. Okay. Well, I suppose. That's the right thinking, Dandy.

He'll be fine. He's gonna make it. He's cut out for this kind of world. Okay. It's survival of the fittets, and he's very fit. I just do not understand why they get their oranges. oranges. I was using on a hyper-realistic look. We are gonna get to the bottom of these fucking oranges. They sloths for the games. My guess is that they pirate them.

There's probably a trade route of fruits that happens to go by this world that regularly get commandeered. Junk- Mountain oranges are people. are people. So you do not think the oranges are from here. Well, no.

Unless they're oranges and cashews, he actually made me, he made no idea what an orange is. And he's not a very good chance that it could be the spleen of their enemies is what they call oranges. And cashews are their little teeth.

I mean, it's very possible that this guy has no idea with a fucking orange is. Look at them. Do you have an orange? I don't know it that way. I'm gonna, okay. He pulls out a fucking kidney.

Turns out he didn't know what it was either. Oh, it's a fruit gift basket that I swiped from that twinkie hotel we have the job in. I'll pick the orange out of it. Is this what you eat to Augie? What is that? This is, this is an orange? This is an orange? Oh, no, no, no.

That's not an orange. What does an orange look like? Oh, yeah. It's hard to describe, but it's kind of, it's about that size. But it's more red. It is a little cute, gamey. Yeah, those gamey orange is real classic. Okay.

Oh, hold on, hold on, hold on. Okay, we have another hotel where I pilfer the mini fridge. A little plastic bag of cashews. This is all that I'll be turning into a nightmare. I'm trying to open this for me. It just effortlessly. Are these cashews? Those are the cashews.

Can I have one? Yeah, of course. Eat the whole bag. Ooh, the food bag. When was the last time you ate? When was the last time you ate? I feel bad. Derek is so concerned.

In my bed, I just flashed back for like 20 years ago. And they're like, here, eat this meat. What's this cold? Origin. Rage is human. you ate. He's missing pixel statics about when was the last time you ate. I'm worried. I'm worried about odd. I'm concerned. The genuine concern in Derek's voice. Oh my God. We're getting it with us. Yeah. Oh, not too long. It's about, I don't know, five, six days rules. Here, eat this orange.

Oh, I don't know. That doesn't look appetizing. It's very good, I promise. Right. And he takes it and just like whole mallets it. Riding the... Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Dicious. He's clearly spit it on.

Oh, this is very kind of you. Well, I can't wait to see the orange orchard. Sure, sure, yes. I also can't wait to see Mad Dogg. You know what they're doing. Oh, yeah. It's probably in the big special spaceship room. So why don't you take us there right away with no further delay?

I suppose I couldn't take you to the garage. We've just been walking out of figure eight this entire time. We're just standing in the middle of the hallway. I think that's it. Yeah, eating oranges and circling. Okay, I suppose we could. I was just enjoying my time with my new friends. But we could go to the garage.

Uh, many hoods along this way. And he'll carry on down the hallway. And you'll walk quietly for a couple moments. As you approach the end of the hallway, there looks to be a like T shape, like a right turn, a left turn. And as you go, you start to hear voices in conversation that sound like it's coming off to the left. And turn right, ooh, it sounds like, ooh, it looks like maybe there are some guards. side of the gear rush. They're not normally stationed there.

I don't know. I don't know quite what to do. Does he still have the Braum? I would say he probably left in the scrap room unless you really won't know. No, yeah, he left in the scrap room. He does, however, have a scrap shotgun and a hook and a chain with a hook.

So we send him in. The pawns go first. Did he mention or are we under the impression that that's where Matt Dog is behind those doors? He mentioned that he was taking you to the garage. He mentioned that Mad Dog has been spending quite a bit of his time in the garage since whatever this interplanetary excursion was that gained them something along the lines of Empire Tech. So not 100%, but we've got a pretty good idea.

All right. I think this is our moment. I think we just take out the guards. We go in, guns ablaze, and so to speak, and we bring this guy in. What do you think? No more stealth. I'm with you. I am with you, too.

Again, let's try not to kill anybody if we don't have to. Or Kavir and I can do a little bit of convincing and talk our way out of it. Through the fucking guards? You know that I have reality-warping powers. I can turn us into growth-animal folk pretty easily. And I guess if there are anything like him, it seems like anew. Who?

Is there behind us? You think you can pretend to be one of these groundhog? There's something, I don't know. I think I've got a few tricks on my sleep. Yeah, pick anything from phonic, you know, comic adventure, you know. I look at Red and I say, normally I would never go along with this, but this is going to be really awesome.

And, uh, 100% kidding. I look at Chuckles and I say, uh, are you sure that you can get the rest of us in? That's the important part. What I'll do is, I think the plan is we just say, oh, we're here to take over your shift. And then they just go and they enjoy whatever kind of cavalcade of casual experience they won. And then we just slip in effortlessly. Uh, one hand in my, in my pocket, I'll kind of lean over to Chuckles and I'll say, uh, awesome. And I'll give you like a little like, and, and I'll, and I'll, and I'll just slip in effortlessly. Uh, one hand in my, I'll just,

And I'll start to like walk around the corner and like let you do your thing and kind of give you good luck. You got it. Just tell them they got a new shipment of meat oranges. We'll be on that way. So then I would try to find like either something like around the corner or maybe like, you know, boxes or something that we kind of hunker down around to give them the opportunity to do their thing and see how this unfolds. Well, an investigation check. I feel like I should help Brett. I'm with dandy on that intelligence stage.

What's that buck? What do you need? Investigation check. What's that? I got a natural 20. It gives me a hot 21. Hey! The dice I've decided.

So long this is not like totally clean like it means like a clean uninterrupted like area, right? The ground of what you walk on is actually like kind of like cut open uh graded flooring and I would say from here you would decide that you have probably two options in the hallway around there are uh like piles of scrap if you wanted to move some aside you could the lot of you could kind

of find spaces in between and kind of cover yourselves and hide especially if two of you're going to go uh do this or looking at the you would realize that each section of this flooring is cut in probably about eight-foot sheathes, and you'd be able to lift open a section of the ground flooring and probably step into it and go under the ground. You wouldn't be completely obscured from view, but if you endeavor to be stealthy, you'd be very, you would disappear into the ground flooring, but it is graded. I would quickly present those options to my friends who are undoubtedly more intelligent than I am.

She said they could move through the... So we could basically hide underneath. It looks like we could lift it up and hide underneath if we're feeling stealthy. We're not completely hidden, but if we're quiet enough, they might miss us. Or we could find the different piles of junk and try to move some things around and hide behind that.

And I would explain that quickly to my friends, especially ones that are smarter than I. I mean, hey, how? How long you think, are you guys left already? No, no, we're gonna, we're gonna. Yeah, we're, I'm letting them know the plans as well before they go off and do that. How long is this gonna take?

Oh. I've been trying to take too long. We're very convincing. You'll probably find out pretty quickly if it doesn't work. Oh, that's a good point. If we're underneath and we need to quickly spring into action, that might slow us down.

I'm thinking if they're gonna be quick, we'll just hide behind some junk. Yes. Then we can spring into action if they get into trouble. Done. That's what we decided to do? All right, Hank. I don't know what's out of you. Okay. Group stealth check.

Well, the four there's stealthing, so not you two, but rep by Mandy Labouche. Stealth check. Well, they're taking care of that. I turned to Augie and asked him, Augie, is there someone normally in charge of guard routes or scheduling maybe,

who would normally tell them where to be, when to be? when to be? Oh, well, just mad dog. But he's kind of in charge of anything and everything, as it were. We just don't really disseminate power in any other way. You know, it's just, we kind of do what we want, when we want, or when he tells us. And is there any secret handshake, a signal, something that we may need to know when we're talking with these associates of yours? Oh, just the classic, when you say mad dog, you gotta do that. Sure, sure, sure.

That's how we knew that you're really a mid-dug. And then you gotta wear the arm patch of the most ferocious animal anyone's ever met. That's the mad dog. Oh yeah, for sure. The mad dog patch. Okay, how do you feel, Chuckles? I feel good.

Should I, should I boot both of us? Are you good? You said booed both of us? Yeah, we're going to turn into these junkyard folks. Yeah, yeah, I think that's the best thing. I think our backstory is that we should be brothers who grew up together and it's through the power of our camaraderie

and our brotherhood is how we survive on the tough planet as well as being willing to do anything including commit murder. That sounds reasonable. Okay, Wonder Shrew powers activate. I am going to reach into my hat. I'm going to pull out two shrew masks, and I'll throw one at Kavir. I'll put one on myself as I use a twinned disguised self. Excellent. I need to roll for wild magic.

Oh, thank God. The whole way of looks into an elephous portal. So we will both turn into ratty-looking shrews with long, like fluffy noses with a, you know, a big bulbous His nose goes right, mine goes left. Yeah, exactly. Brother's. Mad dog, er. Mad dog, er.

Okay. You gotta shut out. Stay back. Oh, fuck it off. Yeah. Shut up. You're staying with us. Oh, kids.

You guys were afraid. Oh. Oh. Your name is Augie. Augie. Oh, be choggy and he'll be called. Coggy and he'll be coggy. Oh, we'll walk out.

Hey, hey. And you'll walk out and you'll see, we'll say, two hyena folk guarding the door. Same imposing leathers, big, muscular. They have this molten rivet gun strapped to their back. As you see them standing there guarding the garage, and you're shrew

outfits are flawless. You've manufactured, you've seen kind of that, you know, you've been exposed to the stylizations now of this space. You have, you know exactly kind of what to look for, what you're looking to accomplish. You've been able to replicate it pretty well and they'll say, oh, hey, what are you two doing here? Oh, we're here to relieve you of your guard. You can take your break now. No worries. We're here to stand vigil. I mean, watch. They just say visual?

I think he did say vigil. I don't know the meaning of the word. Oh, what really doesn't. I think you're gas-sliding out. I spit on the ground. They spit it as well. Oh, are you saying work times over? That's right.

Right. Cash Rue and Shrugles here. Toggy and Koggy. well Castro Cagggy and Shruchel Chaggy

Those are our names and our identification The most complicated New Yorker Well That's because we're the famous Choggy and Coggy brothers And we like to

We like to relieve guards And conspicuously It's kind of our thing. Your disadvantage is going to be so hard that he's just going to keep you rolling until you get a one. He's just quadruple disadvantage. Cat-grimates-cruples.

That's us. That's us. What we were told by Mad Dog. Yeah, Mad Dog, who says, it says time to stand down, soldiers. Roll a persuasion check. Straight. Wow.

the most generous. Well, I was gonna give you advantage, but. Not after that. Who's rolling it? Can we decide who's rolling it? If you, I don't feel like, well, you took point. Probably should be caviard.

If you were provision, I got a plus five. Oh, I have plus six, okay. You can twist it. I'll twist it. I'll twist. Okay, well, hold on. 15. That's not terrible.

15. Okay. Yeah. Well, I guess it's time we got out of here then. Nobody gets in. That's January hot. Oh, yeah, and nobody will get in, but in case the boss needs to get in. Can you remind this to the pass code?

There's no pass code. You just press the button on the red. Oh, yeah. It just opens. We were testing you. That's the past code. That's the pass code. One much one.

and cash you are always keeping you high-ishers. Oh, man, I see Mad Dogg, send his back. Yeah, all he's, man. Sharp as a tag this toolbox. Yeah. Okay. We're the anti-hackers squad.

Good for us. We're gonna go outside in the Derby and just roll around in the dirt. Great, come join us after we own you a drink. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. The ATVs and rolling and all that. Yeah, roll time. Roll time.

What's happened. That's right. What the? All right. Like-minded heroes, digging the door I see. Oh, okay, okay. And they shuffle off miraculously. And they walk down the hallway.

You'll all hear as they start to move past. You'll hear them approach with the heavy footfalls as they move. on this, a space Alabama. You know, it's so funny you said a whole time, because I was gonna say that they were, instead I was going to a different direction, I was gonna say they're all wearing tap out

and affliction to you. That's really funny. And they started kind of, they moved down the hallway and they bump into each other accidentally and they start, hey, fuck you, but I don't fuck you. They start kind of showing each other back and forth as they make a way, back down, where you all came from.

And then they started making out with each other. It's ironic. It's ironic. I'm making it. Just joking, of course. Um, um. I'm like,

who could have seen that kind of thing? I think the hyenas are like licking each other as as well. I got to kill ill. As soon as they are out of sight, I would be looking for the gay, the two of them to be like, you know. But we're so in.

You're just standing there. We're just standing there. Come on, come on, come on. Oh, we took care of the backyard, boy. You've been waiting and said that a long time. Oh, Fesion. No. You know what?

Oh, Fesians. Oh, yeah. I will, you know, hustle in. Yeah, we make our way over. Come on, Aki, let's go. I suppose I could. I've never been in the garage, the garage before. This would be so exciting for me.

You've never been in the garage before? When was the last time you ate? What? Who was about five or six days ago? Anywho? Is it you feeling all right, LeBoon? Short-term memory laws. Oh, hold on a second.

You've reached cash through and shrewko. No one gets in says the boss. Oh, no, this is... Shut up, Bagi, you big dumb idiot. Oh, nice roleplay, Kavir. Yeah. Oh, gosh. You lose your...

Your orange rice is right. Oh, so it's happened, guys. They were supposed to scare the gordon's leave, but instead, they're even meaner gorps here. We can never get past... It's just Chuckles and Kavir! All we're all leaving down and go, Then we'll hot-bye them.

And then we'll open, I'll just press the button and we'll open the door. We'll walk ahead sort of in front. Yeah, yeah. And we'll leave. We have an outward. As the doors once again kind of beetle wing open, as they spread out and up, the chains pulling them

from top and the bottom simultaneously. you walk in and what spreads out in front of you is a massive garage of sorts around all edges of it you can see similar style the cars that what you saw spinning and riding outside ATV slightly larger one size of like dune buggies like you know kind of like warthog style cars like from Halo, not like Warthaus you're driving them, but like Warthog-style cars, slightly bigger than that. A lot of collections

that same kind of like machinery, diesel punk style in vehicles. You once again get that familiar kind of like wheel, heat,

iron smell hangs in the air, but there's something present in this room that's not exactly. existed anywhere else so far in the junkyard. And it's a very mild pressure on you. Very mild.

Like gravity type of thing? Like kind of just like, yeah, like it's a very similar kind of sense almost to the force you encountered beneath the ice. Oh, just gonna answer that. Boy, they. Like when we were in the blackness? Without the impending sense of dread.

Oh. That's nice. I feel home. You would look, and you would see that in the center of this room, so their vehicle is lined all around, there's a giant bay door at one end that looks like it would go up. It's absolutely massive. It's four or five stories tall.

And you can see, not too far in front of you, you're kind of in a doorway off the side, like a little bit shrouded in the shadows to the back, there's a ladder that takes you up to a series of gangplanks that walk around a central metal construction. And it looks almost just like a, once again, like a mound of scrap, a mound of metal, as you look out there. And you see that if you were to walk up these gangways, take you around to different sections of this structure. And it looks like, like, if you've seen any gunnum show ever, you know, you walk a gangway. like to them towards like work on the mechanics.

And it looks like that might hold true here. Like scaffolding at certain tiers. And it's about, it looks to be about four separate tiers. Each with their own central platform? Yeah, like central platform. I'm sorry, two separate elevated tiers, but four prominent gangways that stretch out. Two of the central section.

And then they each spread out on either side of this large. metal construct. Feeling this pressure and hearing Rhett make a comment about it, I will take one last drag on my cigarette, let it drop to the ground and put it out with the heel of my shoe and just kind of look at him with a concerned look and acknowledge that I've heard him. Do you feel that too? This sensation of pressure? Yeah. Feels like the temple. I noticed that too. And I want to look up and around and see,

is there anything mechanical that these scaffolds are like next to? Or is it sort of like empty? Meaning like, oh, if it's like where the Gundams would stand, is there anything Gundam that's standing there? The scaffolds run parallel to this giant hunk of metal in the stand. So every like opening in the scaffold looks like a space you would stand. and potentially gain access to the giant like mound of metal

that's in the center. Oh, they all run parallel to the same structure. I feel contractually obligated to walk up and hold onto the railing, you look at the scaffolded machine, whatever it is, and go, metal gear. I know that was a joke, but as you look upward, you'll notice from the top of the,

from the very, top, one may even think you'd have to climb the ladder all the way, but from the very top of this mound, you see the faintest blue glow. I'm too stupid. I'm a boosh. I can't suggest the stuff that I want to suggest. Speaking of that, that's a real tall ladder. Something's up there, shall we? Are you gonna do it? Yeah, that's it up. Oh, I see what you're doing. I see what you're doing. I'm not gonna do it. I'm not gonna do it, you can do it.

We all, I don't know, you don't proceed, I thought we're gonna, you don't wanna- We're all the round. Do we all see this blue glow? Let's say if you would look up, it's not incredibly noticeable, but if you were to look up, you would cat, like, if you were to even like give it more than just a passing glance, you would catch it.

Would I get the sense with my, experience being like a combat engineer and like repairing giant like tank vehicles and stuff like that. Like this scaffolding being around this hunk of metal, would it feel like this is all set up to work or to gain access to whatever the hell this hunk of metal is? Yep. What the hell is this? Roll a history check. I don't say like roll a mechanics check. I don't know. Roll a intelligence type plus modifier. Like a tool check, like a tool check? Oh.

Yeah, roll it. I don't know, you got that? Roll a tool check. Well, it's, you can choose like a, like if it's related to, it's related to like engineering equipment. Yeah, okay. So that would be in the

efficiency. Yeah, I was gonna say, if it's relevant, it's relevant. Yeah, it's gonna be in plus proficiency at least. Did I twist it? What'd you get? Yeah. We want to find out what the fuck this says.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. So, but because it's a tool thing, I double my proficiency because I'm an artifister. Oh, that's cool. 20. Wow. You look up at this mound of metal. You look towards the top, and you see there's scaffolding that runs to it, and you would think potentially something, that's clearly some space on this structure that they would want access to, they would want work on. Now you've collected parts from this area.

You've been in their weapon room. You've seen how they work on things. You've seen the energy source that they use. You've seen the type of steam diesel engines they bring to bear. It is incredibly odd that the power source they would be using here, if that's what you're presuming it is, would give off a blue glow. You would expect it to be molten, orange, red, in that kind of like a, like a, the glow of heated metal.

That glow. What the fuck did they find? Have we seen blue glows in a recent past? The gigantic planet killing beam, I think, was blue. I just thought I'd asked. Oh, wasn't it? Maybe the robot dude that fought the Weaver. The knight, what you've asked about him?

What about him? Is that true? Does that stand a reason? Um, they shot, what you saw from them was when they, so they were dropping out a series of like planet exploratory warships that were battling across the planet. And then what you saw was a blue beam dropping out of the air,

but it was to summon the night. And so he made planet fall through that blue beam dropping onto the ground. And then when he battled the Weaver, when you had left in the space whale, disguising the Rhapsody, you then saw them shoot basically a Star Fox B missile into the planet. And it was like a hard missile into an open core that didn't see that.

I know. That's pretty cool. I mean, I've seen a lot of blue energy in my day from various places. But for them to have access to it, whatever the fuck they found is probably beyond their comprehension. This is really scratching at you. Something about this is so eerie to you. It makes it feel so out of place. It feels extremely familiar,

but you can't place it. Feels like I know it. We got to take a look. All right, Hank, hold on. I'm going to pick Hank up and pass him to the arms on my ether engine, and Hank will just be like floating, being held by the arms. It's just the arms just holding it under the chin.

I would even say. Hank has an attachment that allows him to like zip onto you. Yeah, absolutely. The paws will actually snap in, like, there's snaps that are like, like, yeah, like, yeah, like, right, like, like, snap into place on your back, you know, even mounted on your shoulder. The only way up's ladders? Like these ladders built up?

What was that? The only way up are these ladders along the room that runs up. But the only way up are these ladders that go up the gangplanks. You'd also not, I didn't mention this, but you'd also know at this stage, no one is in this room currently, though it's, So it seems, no one is actually in here. Yeah. Well, you can look at, they give the game plays

in the same way, they're like, the floors aren't like solid metal. They're graded, so you can look up, you have a pretty good grasp of this room in its totality. And it looks pretty, pretty open. As we look up, I'll be holding my flamethrower and I'll look at Kavir and nudge him and I'll say,

Cashew, bro, do you feel that? Shur-Doo Chuggie? No, Shookles now. I thought it was very cool. Man, we've lived on this planet their whole lives and I've never seen any blue glow like that before. That's because it's only been an hour? Yeah, you're right.

We should probably take a look. Figure out what boss is up to. Agreed. I'll follow. But I'm just gonna step. I'll just be rattling like the shrew guy, but just on the side of the. I don't even think I would care if anyone was coming with me.

I would like the second that I felt that kind of like a gnawing, I would start going up to walk up. And that's a great way to describe it. Something is gnawing at you, something you can't quite do. What is this? You have a really eerie, unsettling feeling, almost that it's giving you a swoose bumps.

It's making your skin crawl. It's, I hate swoose bumps. It's something is just standing out. Something is not quite right about this, but not once again, that impending dread kind of way. Not like in a cosmic horror kind of. Not a cosmic horror way in the slightest. Justin, like this is a very odd, reminiscent pressure

that seems very familiar. And who's right behind, Red? I wouldn't let him go by himself. The second I see, I can tell he's very concerned, and I'd be, I'd have his back. And what is your intelligence? Plus one? But do you want the actual number?

It's like, probably 11. No, that's fine. It's 12 or 13. It is 12. So you all start to ascend, right? You go rung after run, after run. My brain going to explode? What's that?

As you go up, you're climbing the gangplank. You pass that first section. You can see a little bit more clearly now that the gangplank that runs out in all directions, kind of as you continue to ascend, moves to either sides of this large heap of metal. And you start to get a sense at this level in particular, that this isn't like just a mound of a collection of junk.

These are large smooth panels of hardened metal. That's concerning. This is definitely a large construct. And you can see kind of on either side here, what looks to be cutouts, almost in a rectangular form. They're covered currently, but they look like bays of some sort. Something can either be input or potentially extends out and that's what you would see on this level you would continue to

move up and up and up until you get to the top level and you can see now that this is like layers of sheet metal that are woven together that all kind of interweave and interlock as they extend it back from maybe what you would consider the front of this section and move backwards towards yourselves, you can see at this stage that there is that faint blue glow but is currently just cut off by one of the sheet metal sections. And you might think that if you were to move along the gangway to one of those spots and you're an endeavor to try and open it, you would be able to try that. I do so.

Do you really think that's a good idea? Does I see him kind of walking towards it? How, like, what am I feeling right now in like seeing this? Like, would it spark creativity or not, or not creativity, but like curiosity? Or would it be more of like a... Obsession. I don't know, what do you think?

I would say at this point, you would be, you would be, you would feel sure that you know. what it is. Oh, fuck. You would be extremely invested in confirming it. If for any reason you would need help, like, prying this thing open, I wouldn't even hesitate. It's very much in my nature to fuck with shit that I don't understand, especially if he, like, needs help. I would just, you know, however it would, however I could aid him in

figuring out what it is, I wouldn't even hesitate. Even if it's the stupidest thing. thing I've ever done. I would, is it like a, like a, like a, yeah, yeah,

they're like, they're like, overlapped, right, almost sheets of large panel of metal. Like, okay. Yeah,

like you like, like a weave. Yeah. You know, almost like a giant, uh, I don't know what Omnostar is, but like that kind of,

you know, like a shell, it kind of like, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh,

like a Nautilus. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. I'm gonna walk up. I know what this is. and I'll be muttering to myself, not really telling anybody.

And then I'm going to walk up and I wouldn't stop Pike if he was right behind me, but I would get to the seam. I would take both of my hands and then the two of the robotic hands would grab in. And together we would all pull. So you run up to the top of this structure. And there are sections of it

that have kind of been covered in cloth, maybe just keeping it, you know, free of, like, the elements getting at it. Though it's a pretty sealed garage, but you imagine if the door would a swing open, anything like that. You know, like the air, the dust could blow in and kind of wouldn't match very well with the metal. Roll in athletics check with the help of Pike. Oh. Oh, thank, buddy. Hold on.

It's probably plus zero if I had to guess. Plus six. Oh, still, bitch. Oh, is that a proficiency pain? They stab it's right and it does what it says on the tin. I'm a soldier, after all. Oh, that's a great, hell. I actually stupidly, just for thematics,

went with a good bit of strength. That's pretty fucking awesome, well done. Well, fuck, what happened to it. It was plus six, so it's, I'm gonna twist it. Do you have advantage? You finished? Yeah, yeah, no. Place helping.

That's one better, hold on. Wolf. I'm twisting. That's fine. Yeah. Okay, one better again. It's fate, man. It's fate.

14. That's not bad. With a 14, with Pike's help, and you're trying, and this is hardened steel. This isn't just like shitty scrap iron that you found. This is a thick layer. You start to get your hands around this. This is like a chunky piece of metal that you're trying to separate. But between your metallic robotic arms come down and you start to pull,

and Pike runs up on the other side. and it starts to pull back and you are able between the two of you to rip this section of metal open and separate a little bit of the opening and it's immediately then that you see it and you fall back in shock you let your hands go instantly and what you're looking down at is what looks incredibly like your graviton ether engine but 10 times the size and where yours is in a perfect spherical almost artistic uh encapsulation of a perfect, like, dying star, this is chaotic and crackling and has warbling sections and energy is kind of like crackling off in different directions. As this is open, does the pressure increase on us, the feeling of pressure?

I would say as you got to this level of the gangplanks, it increased, the set as you moved ever closer to it, but you now realize that it is just the gravitational pull coming off of this energy core. I like fall back. How the fuck, there's no way. This is bad.

This is real bad. Does it being blue versus Rhett's purple give any indication? Is that something that would alarm you? One more engineering check. Okay, I like this check. I wasn't trying to ask for... No, I think that's fair.

There we go, natural 20. Oh, yeah. 31, something's insane. 31, yeah. Jesus. Even with how shocking... This would be, right? No one can wield ether dwarf technology

aside from an ether dwarf. No one. It's proprietary tech. They keep a very strong hold on it. You would think two things, very quickly. This seems choppy. If an ether dwarf had made it,

it would be perfect. It would hold its form without issue. And it was found aboard, or you would draw the assumption that it was found aboard an empire ship scavenged from them. And you would think in this moment that it was not unwise to draw a conclusion

This is a very sloppy attempt at recreating Etherdwarven technology in a poor format, possibly containing a quarter of the energy that your ether engine manifests at 10 times the size. So is it safe to assume that it's not actually powered by ether, but they have some other energy source that they're running through like the engine or do they do you would you would assume that this itself is like the energy core that they're using to power this

structure I see but it is like yeah you would it is definitely clear that it is an attempt at reproducing etherdwarven technology to use ether to build it but not anywhere near the expertise that that an ether dwarf not applied to it. All right. Tell me this thing is stable or something. It's anything but

what it is? They're trying to recreate Etherdwarf tech. They're not even fucking close. The things that they're playing with. And I'll sort of point to the swirling like dark matter black hole that's in my engine being powered by the sort of tanks of ether.

my uh in my engine on my back. It's proprietary. I couldn't even give away the secrets if I wanted to. Why not? Because I'd die. Oh. And so I don't know if the empire, they're trying to fucking recreate it and somehow the empire lost track of whatever the fuck that is.

I mean, this thing could fucking, it doesn't look very stable and does it look like it could blow it any second? Or is it like, it's maintaining its shape somehow, right? Yes, it does look like it's maintaining its shape. I mean, I'd say the 31, you, like, you would be able to understand this very, it's almost like looking at like a crate of dynamite where you're like, well, it's not going to just blow on its own,

but it's not necessarily, I wouldn't just like chuck it at a wall. That's a great difficult. Until the diamonds are sweating. Yeah, until the time I start sweating. Like you could move it, you could take it into a mine, you could light it, but you're damn sure you want to be 100 yards away.

If this thing does go, what are we talking? Like a mile radius or like a thousand miles? Or the whole planet? It's hard to say. I mean, I've never seen, I've never seen Empire Tech even fucking close to this, similar to what I know. I mean, I can have to get a closer look, but I mean, it's dangerous.

It looks like it's holding its shape, like it's not gonna explode on its own, but they have no fucking idea the powers they're dealing with. So it's more dangerous to leave here with them? I think, given enough time, and if mad dogs are fucking mad as they say he is, It's only gonna end and fire. Mad Dog has space rabies.

He's mad. And it's as you say this, that the doors downstairs swing open. You hear the familiar pull over the chain as the doors swing open. And you see clad in leathers a impose, big for an armadillo. I mean, it's four, six.

200 pounds. Oh, wow. But he walks in. Rose for UC Davis. It was for UC Davis. Something got flipped in there. And you hear him call out.

Oh, well, it's time to get the Armoredillo up and running. And he pulls a rope towards the bottom and the The shroud that's been covering this shape falls off to the wayside. And you see a massive stained steel, giant armored Dillo machination

with a graviton energy core at its center as the cascades fall away. And the old junkyard town will be ours. And that's where we're on the side. Oh, man. That's not good. Well done. Or it's great.

Does he notice us? No. We'll find out. He's crazy. We're all up on you know. You're very high up in the area. We have to kill the top of it. Ah, nice job, Mace.

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