The Adventure Zone - The Adventure Zone: Amnesty - Episode 14

Episode Date: August 24, 2018

A mysterious caller has warned the Pine Guard of a disaster that will befall Kepler's citizens in mere minutes. Will they be able to prevent this impending calamity? And just who was on the other end of the telephone line? Duck rushes in. Aubrey flames on. Ned discovers the awful truth. Happy MaxFunDrive! Right now is the best time to start a membership to support your favorite shows. Learn more and join at https://maximumfun.org/jointaz

Previously on the Adventure Zone, Aubrey, we see you and you're back in your childhood home several years ago. You are leaving it tomorrow. And then we see a car pull up just in front of your house with its lights off, with two figures silhouetted from within. A friend of mine, he died last night, and there wasn't any foul play or anything suspected. Looks like a bottle of Gatorade went behind the brake pedal.

And so this really does look like, An accident. You all see a figure on the side of the road wearing a brown robe. It's got these two large bags. There is a pay phone, and it starts to ring. Uh, go for dope. In three minutes, your friend Leo Turkician is going to die. He will be crushed to death, as will the two customers currently shopping in his store.

You might want to do something about that. The voice on the other end of the phone, hangs up, duck, and a stiff breeze blows down Kepler's main drag sending snow swirling around nearby buildings, the Pizza Hut, Dave's Dehumidifier Depot, and Leo's general store where he and his customers will apparently be crushed to death in a little under three minutes. What do you do? Uh, how far away is it from here to there? Uh, so you are speaking or you are you're currently holding the receiver of a pay phone on the side of the road you had just sort of passed the stretch with those those businesses that I had just mentioned

and I would say you're probably about 100 feet away not too far all right um y'all uh I I need help now I need uh Aubrey Ned I need your help what what do you mean I need you all to uh me clear Mr. Tarkesean store. I just got a weird call that they're about to get... Let's go. Crushed. All right. Good, good, good. All right. Come on. Okay. Jake says, do you need me on this, too? Or what's... What do you need? Hell yeah, Jake. Just try to stay out of the way, man. So I'm going to have Aubrey do like a blast of heat to try to clear the snow, right? Is there snow? Is it like a hazard to run there? Um, I mean, no. I wouldn't... It may, you know, get in the way a little bit, but I don't know

that it's like bad enough that you need to you you are i i want to paint the scene for you you're in the middle of the street and there's maybe not anybody immediately around but if you're going to fucking you know go go heat vision just to clear just to clear some snow in front of you you can do that if you want but it's it's it would be risky instead she's going to say go go magic powers and start running okay and uh so that's uh do one thing that is beyond human limitations and i'm What are you doing? What are you doing? I'm running like the wind, Griffin, using my wind powers to buffer to push me forward. I'm going to push back on that, because I think that this, we need to maybe narrowly define something beyond human limitations. Because if we say, like, you can get super speed whatever you want, that seems like a pretty drastic sort of.

Can I push, push duck forward? Sure. Yeah. If you want to launch duck forward, a blast of wind, I would, I would allow. that. Let's go with that. So I'm running. I think the visual is I'm running and he just blasts me from behind. Yeah. Okay. All right, go ahead and do it. So I roll the nine plus two. Okay. So that's 11. So if that was a used magic, then you achieve your desired effect. Describe this. So like, as, as Duck is running, I'm going to say like, imagine, you know, like a strong, strong wind. This is not like a light, Bree is as you described. This is like, whoa, and it's going to propel him forward at a faster rate. Guys, look, I've awakened some sort of latent ability. Okay, just go, Doc. Another one of my powers

has returned. I never knew, but I'm incredibly fast. Think happy thoughts, Duck. Think happy thoughts. I'm trying, Ned. I'm trying. I don't know what's making this work, but look at me go. Holy shit, man. Ned's going to read a bad situation. Um, okay. Uh, I like that. So I'm just trying to, because everything is kind of happening in real time and we do have a sort of very specific timetable we're working with here just to paint the scene duck is now flying full speed with the wind that is back towards the door am i off my feet um i don't know are you i didn't feel like i was it felt like i was just running really fast yeah it's i feel like for you it's like you're running down a hill really fast and you know how like that feeling of you're running down a hill and you're like oh shit

how do i stop like you get you have a lot of momentum but i don't think you're like you know peter pan flying and i rolled really good so yeah you're you're like you're You're doing good. So Aubrey is sort of between, Aubrey ran forward to, like, give you this extra push. And I think you and you and Jake Coolice are still back towards the car and you want to read a bad situation. Yeah.

And I rolled an eight plus sharp, so that's a 10. And I think net is not the fastest of the bunch. But I think we're just kind of charging into this situation and all duck nose is crushed. I'm going to look around to see if I can figure out what exactly is coming our way. Also, if this is a diehard 3 scenario, then they might be watching. You know, they might, the person who made the call might be spying on Duck McLean. What do I get for a 10?

You can have anything off this show. Anything. Oh, I want the ball in the cup game. Oh, no, I'm sorry, you got to win twice to get the ball in the cup. You can have anything on this shelf between this one and this one, anything between these two. Okay, so on a readabout situation, you hold three, actually. You can ask, what's my best way in? What's my best way out?

Are there any dangers we haven't noticed? What's the biggest threat? What's most vulnerable to me? And what's the best way to protect the victims? Okay. Well, I'm going to get to that one for my third one. I figured. But are there any dangers we haven't noticed?

The danger here is you see Aubrey cast this disgusting. of wind that pushes duck forward towards Leo's general store. But you feel a wind too, and you're standing behind, Aubrey, you feel this wind that is getting stronger. It's mounting, and the snowstorm that you all just sort of drove through, this isn't that. There's just sort of a powerful gale that is starting to appear around you, and it's getting stronger. All right.

What's the biggest threat? This wind is getting sort of stronger, like freakishly fast, and you hear this sort of sickening, loud, metallic groaning noise. And it's coming from the distance sort of right in front of you in the direction of Leo's shop. And you see starting to sway in the wind in a kind of unnatural way, the gigantic Pizza Hut sign. The one that is designed to be seen from the nearby highway as drivers past Kepler, it's starting to sway in the wind a little bit like a like a reed, like a stalk of wheat. And this sign is enormous and it doesn't look like there's any way it should be doing this. That looks pretty dangerous to you.

The big, big pizza hut sign. And what's the best way to protect the victims? You notice that the pizza hut sign is starting. to bend a little bit towards its base, and the direction in which it's bending is in the direction of Leo's general store. So the best way to protect the victims is to make them not be there when this happens. In the store, yeah. Folks, the sign, look, the sign, that's what's going to be the crushing thing that's going to crush the people. Let's get back to Duck. Duck, you are, it's been about a minute, and you have, maybe a minute and a half, you have major ways.

to the door of the general store. You sidestep the crates that he has set up outside that he sort of displays the fresh produce in every morning and do a hop over this toppled over pile of bags of fertilizer as you make your way into the front door. Ah, shit. Everybody out. Clear the place. We're about to get squished by a Pizza Hut sign.

Nobody wants to go out like that. Come on. You barge in the door just already saying this. and you have definitely been in Leo's like a ton. I think it is sort of the place that most folks go to get their groceries and sundries. And you would kind of have to be familiar with it to like know where to find anything here. It's like a decent side store, but its aisles are like cramped and towering and they are stocked with just like everything you could ever need. What Leo has kind of invested in his inventory, though, he's kind of scrimped on maintenance.

There's like, it's got this rustic sort of alpine charm that a lot of the buildings in Kepler have. But there's like some bending beams sort of supporting the ceiling. There's some rusting metal supports for the air ducts kind of above. And knowing what you know, you just see disaster fucking all over this room. And as you run in sort of shouting for folks to get out, you see two people. You see Leo behind the counter, behind the register. And he is sort of talking idly with. Janice, the town mail carrier, she's got her mailbag and it's empty.

She has finished up her day's route. The call on the line said there were two customers in here. You do not see a second customer. And Leo, as you barge in and start shouting, says, hey, okay, hold up, hold up, calm down there. A second. Duck, what's... There's no time, man. Come on, get out of here.

Trust me. Duck, I don't... You got to tell me what's going on. You're freaking out a little bit. I pull out my badge My Forest Ranger badge Okay I'm an officer of the law in a sense

And I need you to get out of here now Everybody this place is about to get crushed We can talk about it outside, let's go Uh Janice says Oh okay doc you see mighty spooked I'll follow along Thank you Janice

She goes out the door Leo comes out from behind the counter and says like, okay, now you're scaring off my customers now, Doc. I don't know what you're playing at. Listen, man, do you want to remain three-dimensional? That would be ideal, yeah. Get the hell out of your store. It's about to be destroyed, okay? I can't explain how I know, but I know.

Let's get back to, let's go to Aubrey. So is this like a single pillar base of the sign? No, it's on one huge pole and now it is, it is, it looks like it could go at any second. Rather than try to stop it, I'm going to see if I can like melt one specific, like, so that it timbers in the right direction or at least. Oh, interesting. Yeah, so like, rather than try, is there an area that it could go the street? I mean, you could, you could, you could, dad was right, like the street direction is definitely, it would be safer. Yeah, I mean, you could probably angle it towards Dave's dehumidifier Depot, which is kind of on the other side of the Pizza Hut.

I would never. You can't guarantee that Dave's not in there, and you can't guarantee that, you know, dehumidifier shoppers, people in desperate need for less sort of moisture in the air aren't in there. And do they deserve to die more than the people in Leo's general store? I don't know. These are the kinds of hard moral decisions I want to put in front of you. What I'm going to do is just put a little English on it so that it hits, like, the back of the store. instead of the middle, right? So there's significantly less damage, so maybe it like clips the back instead of just like splitting lios in the middle.

Okay, I think, I mean, I think this would be like an attack roll, right? I don't think that this would be, I don't think this fits anything that is in use magic. Yes, I agree. So this would be a kick some ass. Are you attacking the pole itself? Yes, I am, father, and I did not do a good job. Yeah, you did a bad job. I roll the three plus two is five.

How about if I help out? If you help out, you can get it to a six, which is still a hard fail. Okay. Go ahead and Mark experience there, Aubrey. Yep, yep, beep, beep, beep. What does it look like as you're trying to like ball of this? More like a ball of fire. Like, I'm just trying to, you know, aim, you know.

I think you're hyped up in this moment. I think you are, I think your nerves are getting the best of you. And because we've kind of touched on like that is where the power of the, the strength of your magic comes from, I think you are surprised when you cut clean through the pole. Whoops. And with that, the wind finally catches the Pizza Hut sign like a sail and it falls over into the store and. duck you you hear a horrible horrible noise duck and it's coming from directly in front of you suddenly the lights are just gone and you can sense i think with whatever whatever wherever your powers are coming from duck they tell you like uh-oh and you know that you need to get the

fuck out of the way uh what do you what do you do um I'm going to tackle Leo, so, like, and knock him to the ground, so I'm on top of him. Okay. Roll to act under pressure. Seven plus. That is cool. Cool. That's a nine.

Okay. On a seven or nine, I give you a worse outcome, hard choice, or price to pay. Could I help him out? You're pretty far away, right? I was just going to yell out. Now, you could make a very good argument that Ned is like... Timber. Yeah, exactly.

Okay, yeah, I think so. Go ahead and roll to help out. This is you sort of shouting to warn Duck and giving him a heads out. And that's a seven plus cool. Plus cool, so that's eight. Okay. Your help grants them plus one to their role, but you also expose yourself to trouble or danger. Okay, I'll have to think of a way that I can do that.

Look out for the big ass sign. And I think that's what inspires you to leap onto Leo and you do so. So that is now a 10. On a 10, you do what you set out to do. Here's what happens. You hear Ned's voice. You hear the groaning of metal outside and you leap forward and just tackle Leo. And then the Pizza Hut sign crashes into the room.

I think for a second the lights go out as the same. sign sort of severs whatever electrical hookups they had here in the store. And there's no light in the room. And then there is light in the room. There's like a soft red and a soft white and a soft yellow light. I think you see like Piz from the sign, Piz who from the sign and a little bit of that red hat. And the huge thick wood beams that are in the ceiling of this room, A few of them have just given out completely, right where it's sort of smashed in. It has given out completely. But a few of them kept.

A few of them stayed strong and caught the sign. But you hear things just falling apart in this room sort of in a horrible cascade. A few of the shelves have fallen over. One has fallen over at an angle and landed right above you, showering you with like the goods that were on it. You have some cans of soup and some canned vegetables. that sort of landed and pelted you as you landed on top of Leo, but it caught itself on another set of shelves and sort of saved you from some of the stuff that was falling from the ceiling.

And now here is where you are at and you get the impression that the rest of the building is not going to hold up for very long. Okay, I got to drag him out. Let's jump to, before we get to that, Aubrey, you have just pizza-hutted this store and seemingly probably killed D. and everybody inside. Just curious what you're doing right now. So I would say, as you said, like from her point of view, right? Like, she has just caused the building to collapse and kill Duck. Right.

The wind is knocked out of her for a second and not, like, in a magical way, but, like, something unlocked, something she hasn't thought about for a very long time, something that she has pushed away from the first. front of her mind and like I would say like she starts crying in that way that if someone pointed it out she probably wouldn't even notice and I'm just like uh and collapses unconscious yeah okay that usually I'm the one that knocks you guys unconscious but you're just making it easy I'm gonna say not not like unconscious but like yeah no she's in shock yes yes yes um okay uh cool I guess we'll unpack that In a bit. And I think let's get back to Duck.

I think we have to sort of keep the tension going here. You are under a shelf covered in cans on top of Leo. There is, you got Janus out. There's maybe somebody else in here. The building's about to collapse. What do you do? So basically, like, the building is, nobody's like... The sign is not done falling.

It got caught by a couple beams in the ceiling. It had these, like, thick beams, and it didn't quite... get through all of them, but whatever is holding the sign up is giving way quickly, and it's only a matter of time. And it's still partially out of my... It's still partially out of the building, like the top of the building? Yes. Ned, in the trunk!

What? Get the Flymaster! The rocket thing? The, yeah. Unless I missed my guess, the tags on that bad boy are fragile. fragile, volatile, and quick. So I feel like maybe you got one shot to rocketeer that motherfucking side off my dome, man.

Oh, shit. Are you sure? You don't want me to, like, bring it to you? No, I'm not fucking sure, but this is the best shot I got. Come on. All right. Okay. So he throws it on, he buckles it up in the front.

Now, Ned is good with vehicles. Is there a helmet? Oh, that's right, yeah, vehicles. Uh, all right, how do I turn it on? Um, shit. That's actually a real good question. The dial on the front? Is there a dot?

Yeah, yeah, try that. Okay, and a radio comes on. Nah, nah, nah, but turn that off. That's annoying. No, um, oh, oh, reach to the sides. There's a little, like little handles there. See the tubes? Oh, yeah.

Oh, those are nice. Yeah, it's nice, right? And they're contoured. They fit my hand. Come on. And there's a red button on the... Describe to me. Okay. Okay. All right. Ned's now... Okay. Great. Ned's dead. Ned has died. So Dad's start working on another character. And Duck, we'll see if you need to start working on another... No. Okay. What do you... What's the plan here? You are... I need to know how well... I need to know what you're doing before we can decide how well it goes. All right. Well, I mean, the only thing that I can see, there's no way that we could get inside the building.

So the only thing I can do is he said jetpack into the motherfucking sign. So I'm going to jetpack into the motherfucking sign. All right. You're just trying to collide with it really hard? Or you're trying to like... Well, I think that if I move it, if I hit it hard enough, you know, maybe it'll flatten out and not come through the hole. Yeah. Or he catches it and pulls it away.

Yeah. I mean, if you just shoot into it with your human body, you're going to get extremely hurt. You know that, right? If you put on... I got to talk to you about it for a second, Daddy. that if you launch yourself with a jetpack into a sign and you hit it going really fast that your body dies. I have a large striped.

I have my park on. Uh-huh. That'll cushion it some. Let's just think with our human. Let's think about what our human bodies can do and what it can survive. To bring everybody inside the bit, I was planning on doing this before Aubrey tried to kill me with a Pizza Hut sign. And I was thinking about how it would work pretty good

because I'm so tough. And I kind of forgot about when I suggested that Ned uses flesh to... No, wait a minute. Wait a minute. If Ned zooms towards it, we're talking about a large, roughly rectangular-shaped sign, right? Yeah, I mean, it's in the shape of the pizza hot. Right, if we use leverage, if he zooms at it, hits the top part of it, and knocks it back, flattens it out, it's not going to come through the roof. because there's more area. Okay, I'm loving this, yes.

I'm loving this. This is good. This is good science. All right, go, I guess act under pressure. Okay. Literal air pressure in this case, eh? Act under pressure. What do I add to that?

Cool. Seven plus one, that's eight. Well, all right. Yeah, I mean, I'm going to give you a worse outcome, hard choice, or a price to pay. Price to pay. You don't get to pick. That's not how. Life works ever.

I thought of you were being Monty Hall for a minute. But you're not, like, it doesn't work in life. If you get hit by a car, God's out like, so what do you want? What way do you want to go with this, Clint? Yeah, I'm going to hurt you really bad. Okay. I can live with that. Listen, just for the moment of zooming along on a rocket pack is worth any price.

Okay. It's a fun choice of words to say I can live with that. Yeah, that remains to be seen. But you, boy, what's this look like? You tell me now. This is your last act on this earth. I want you to tell me how it looks. The rocket pack fires up when he hits the red button.

And while it would be really cool to envision him as, you know, sleek and aerodynamic, I think he's waving his arms and legs like crazy and just flailing around for the first couple of seconds. and then maybe stretches his arms out to act like wings and then stretches his legs out and tries to angle towards the upper part of the sign. Okay. You achieve that. And it is clumsy. It does not look very smooth.

It does not look very cool. I think that Janice, the mail carrier, sees you from her spot. She has just taken off running, especially as the sign fell in through the in through the building, and she just sees this sort of column of smoke do a curly cue in the air. And I think by the time, when you actually make contact with the sign, I think you've flipped around so that the jetpack itself catches the brunt of the damage. Because if you get the sense if your skull had been the recipient of it, you would just, you would die. You would have been dead very, very quickly.

Yeah. And instead, you die slowly. Yeah, it seems like I was slow death kind of thing. Instead, duck from you, you're looking up from your position and you see just sparks shoot into the air, shoot through the air, and Ned, you just, you are instantly unconscious. You are instantly unconscious from this huge amount of blunt force trauma you experience. Your body sails 20 feet past the sign and rolls to a stop sort of smoking in the snow. And the flymaster, I think it keeps on going. I think it comes unlatched from you and it skitters to a stop like 50 feet past you. It sort of dances across the snow, sort of flying past your unconscious form. And you take four harm. I'm sure we'll find that again later.

Ned, I need you to mark unstable on your harm tracker. If you do not get medical attention now, you are going to die. All right. stable. And I mark for harm? Yes. With that, though, the sign get teeters on the edge of the building and sort of slides off. You blast into this motherfucker so hard that you completely push it just off, off the building, and it slides harmlessly off the back. And with that, Duck, you, Leo is kind of, you know, he was screaming for a second as his store was destroyed, and he's calmed down.

and he says, okay, next time I will listen up. We got to get out of here. I don't, we got to get Denny from the bathroom. He was in the bathroom. We got to get him. We got to get it. Calm down. All right.

Listen, I got a plus two cool. So where I'm going to get you through this, all right? You get out. I'll get Denny off the can and then we'll, I don't know, we'll call the sheriff down here and start the insurance stuff. but get out now. I'll go get Denny. Don't worry. You can already hear sirens in the distance.

I think that this is, you know, happening on the main drag. And folks definitely saw a Pizza Hut sign, you know, teeter and fall into a business. I think that you definitely hear sirens in the way. I also don't think, like, I think the danger has passed. The sign is now off the building. It's not going to fall in and collapse. And I think Denny and Leo and you are. able to get out of the store without any danger. And you see Aubrey on the ground by the sign

where it fell. And I don't know if you see Ned. Aubrey? Hey, hey, Aubrey. I'd rush over to her first, I think. She's right there. Sure. Aubrey, did you knock over the sign? Aubrey. Killed Duck. No, what? killed Duck Oh no This is a ghost thing in it Hey Leo Can you see me

Yeah I can see you You look You look a little shaking up And you got some soup Alright everybody That's fine Hey Aubrey I'm not dead look

Look not again No No no no Aubrey Look look look look I'm not dead God hold on Duck probably travels Of the first aid kid Of some sort right

Like doesn't that Does that track for you Like a ranger It seems like You have like Some bear In his pack, I think he definitely, yeah, I mean, this is not your primary job, but, like, I think if you're on the, if you're on the trail doing your sort of forest tending and you come across somebody who's injured themselves, you definitely want to be prepared. So, so, yeah, I think in your sort of just, you're all day carry, you've got some supplies for. All right. I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll grab that up and, uh, get out the, uh, the space blanket that, that I keep in there. Okay. And, um, pull out. Because I can recognize, I think I probably recognize shock. All right. Yeah, you get that all wrapped around Aubrey. And I think at this point, an ambulance from St. Francis has pulled up, as have a couple of squad cars from the sheriff's station. You see Sheriff Seek, Zeke, and Deputy Dewee step out of those. And immediately some EMTs rush out of the ambulance and towards the building looking for anybody who has gotten injured. And they do a quick.

poke their head inside and they kind of get waved off by the sheriff who doesn't want them to you know doesn't want the building to collapse on them uh and one of the EMTs points off in the distance and duck you see you see two EMTs rush over with their supplies and start tending to ned who you now see uh face down in the snow all right I would rush over there next all right he looks very bad he has a I think whatever coat he was wearing now just has a big burn mark on the back of it uh and he is you don't see any like, you know, it's not gruesome. It's not like there's bones jutting out of Ned. But he, he looks bad.

And the EMTs are working on him. And one of them says, do you know what happened to him? Oh, boy. Do you want the truth or a more convincing lie? Um Nah, so Okay Right

So the Pizza Hut sign Started to fall Because of the weather And he ran up there On A fire escape And tried to Push it

With a bat Damn it Nah He just pushed it And it fell But then he fell Because he got shocked I bet

I didn't see I was it Ah shit Alright hey folks Hey guys rewind I Hey guys rewind a second Ah fuck

I was inside I didn't see Anything I don't know This man I do know this man His name Fuck All right

I net I'm here All right So This man His name is Ned And he's a friend of mine And I don't know

What the hell happened to him but you know this guy, he's always getting into something. I don't know, I was in the building. I almost got killed by pizza sign. I might be in shock. This is where we find out that Doc got his nickname because one time he tried to explain something to someone,

and it just kept auto-correcting fuck over and over again. Hey, everybody, this is Griffin McElroy, your dungeon master, your best friend, and your dirty little secret. I think I've done that one. Thanks for us into episode 14 of the Adventure Zone Amnesty. hope that you are enjoying it, getting a little bit hot and heavy in here. But sometimes, you know, sometimes the dice roll that way.

Got a couple gumbo trams here for you. The first one is four, Avi and Becca. It's from Isabel Cassidy, Sophie, Christina and Tara, who say, maybe Tara, who say, when you're hearing this, you're either about to be married or we're recently married or something terrible has happened. We just wanted to ask a hereby, unspecified number of mackle boys to tell you that we think you're sweet. We love you immensely. We love your love, and we absolutely cannot wait to see you.

Congrats, newlyweds. It looks like they got married at the end of June. I'd say they're still in that sweet newlywed phase. Everything is so fresh and exciting, and there's so much love to explore, so many little corners, some of little hidey holes in the love. There's a new hidey hole. We found it. What's in this one? It's new memories I'm going to make with my love. So congratulations. Here's a, here's one for Throck Morton, and it's from Topper, who says, Congratulations to Throck Morton on completing your environmental degree. You didn't want our son, Dark Jr., going to university before you,

and both he and our daughters, Anna Maiden, and Cream Puff Zero, could not be more proud of your achievement. Unfortunately, you don't like the Adventure Zone, so you'll probably never hear this. We love you. Then why did you? I'm not, all right, thank you for your support. And Throck Morton, if you do end up hearing this somehow, congratulations. I imagine environmental degree is a probably very frustrating degree to get in this day and age.

I don't know why this message is going out to you if you're never going to hear this, but I don't know, man. It's like that movie frequency. You just shoot stuff out in the space and your dad hears it 30 years ago or something. I want to thank everybody who's been tweeting about the show using the Zonecast hashtag. If you do that, you might end up as a character on the show. And we just really appreciate you as sort of spreading the word. is how we have found most of our audience, and it means so much that you all are so enthusiastic about this show that we make, that you would share it with, with all of your friends.

I also want to thank Maximum Fun for having us on the network. You can go to Maximumfund.org and check out all the great shows there. They got shows like the Beef and Dairy Network, the greatest generation, friendly fire, story break, all kinds of shows, all at maximum fun.org. We have other stuff that you can hear at mackleroy shows.com. What else? One else? We've a graphic novel. Did you read it? I hope so. Um, it, a lot of you read it and it made it to the New York Times list and that was fucking rad. But you can find it at theadventryzonecom. If you, if you haven't read it, it's a, it's our first arc of our first story, balance. I hear there be gurblands and it's like a, it's full like cool cartoons. Um, I don't know what else. We got live shows, but they all sold out

because you all are fucking awesome. So I think I'm just going to let you get back to the rest of the episode. Yeah, thank you all so much for listening. The next one is going to be up on, next one's going to be up on September 6th, so we'll talk to you then. Bye. It's been, it's been a few hours since the accident. It was a few very stressful hours, maybe especially for you, Duck, because you were sort of the only one who was sort of fully, fully cognizant during all of this. You rode in the ambulance with Aubrey and Ned to the hospital. Leo came to he, uh, he, you know, just felt bad about abandoning you all after you went to, to such great links to help try and save his store and the people inside of it.

Uh, and it's been a few hours. You are now sort of in a recovery room with, um, with Aubrey. And I think Aubrey at this point, you have, have recovered from the state that you were in, right in the immediate aftermath of the sign falling over. Um, and Ned is there also. Uh, he is. in bed and he's, you know, hooked up to machines and an IV and I think you're in and out, Ned. I think you are doing better. They have definitely stabilized you and go ahead and remove one harm.

Get yourself just a three harm. Okay. That is for Ned, not for Duck. Oh, I'm just listening. Duck was left. Active listener. You all are in the room altogether. Leo is waiting out in the hallway. And Mama showed up a few minutes ago after she heard what happened. And that is the scene as you, Duck, and Aubrey and Mama are sort of debriefing about what just happened. And Mama's kind of, like, got her hand on Ned's, uh, on Ned's, like, knee, just like pass it a couple time, making sure he knows, like, hang in there, bud.

Um, and she says, um, all right. So walk me through all this again. You all saw some sort of hooded, hooved figure out in the snow, whipped up a snowstorm. Y'all couldn't see. Car stalled out. And then you got a heads up that the Pizza Hut sign was about to fall on Leo's general store. Yeah, that's correct. And they knew it was you who's going to answer the phone.

Right. What did they sound like? What did they, did you get any idea who? who it might have been? Was it somebody you knew? Was it a voice you recognize? Uh, it was a few weeks ago,

so I'm having trouble remembering if I recognize the voice. Let me think about it. Hold on. And I pray. Why? To Griffin. I read it Griffin to remind me

if I recognizes the voice or not. Um, you, you didn't. You definitely didn't. No, Mama. I didn't recognize the voice at all. Well, I don't, shit, man. I don't know.

Uh, I guess we can wait and see if they reach out again, did it seem like they were friend or foe? I mean, obviously they gave you a heads up, but who's to say they weren't the ones? Mama, there was magic. There was magic? Yeah, the

wind? The wind was not normal. Yeah, something strange was going on. It felt like a lot of stuff like it felt like we were jinxed. I got a thought.

It was a call into a pay phone, right? So maybe we could like track it, like find out who's called that payphone or something. I mean, if nobody else has called it or used that payphone since, we could star 69 it and see... Hell yeah. That's, one, that's hysterical. Secondly, that's a great idea. I mean, because one of two things, either it's the person who knew the sign was going to fall because they made it happen, or I a person who knew something was going to happen who might be able to help us stop more stuff in the future. Um, Mama says, all right.

Well, we got to chase any clue we can get. We got to get to that pay phone before somebody else, you know, can use it or receive a call. And, uh, Jake stands up from the corner of the room and he says, yeah, this is something Jake can do. And he, uh, he pulls out his board and just goes running out of the room. Now, Jake, wait. Can you remember the number? Yeah, it's the star-shaped button and the funny sex joke.

You got it, Jake. I'm real proud of you. Go get him, partner. He flicks, he gives you a big thumbs up and a finger gun and he runs out of the room. Not 420, Jake! God damn, he's gonna- You're gonna wanna do 420. You're gonna wanna do 420, Jake. So, I would say at this point, like, Aubrey looks over and like, Ned's eyes are closed, and she says, like,

Hey, Doc, could you go get me a coffee from the vending machine at the end of the room? I don't care if it's gross vending machine coffee. I love it. Do you want any cream? No. Any sugars? Nope. Just black, please.

What if it has like a mocha? You want a mocha kind of thing? Just, duck, just black coffee. You want a small or a medium or a large? There's tons of options. Grande? Get a grande. Ned.

you're a slick, Ned? Okay, hold on. Oh, thank God. Oh, Ned's okay, y'all. He's talking normal and he's all fine. He sounds like Clint McElroyd, beloved DJ. Oh, he's back up. The biggest they got, Duck, just the biggest, cheapest, blackest coffee they got. Yeah, make that too, Duck, if you don't mind. Oh, okay, Mama, do you want cream or? No, I'm getting, just literally the same exact order. Why don't you get? I think Aubrey's trying to have a delicate conversation. Or is, or? It's going to be a delicate conversation, Duck, why don't you, what you get? I just want to make sure you're taking care of. They got those little six-ounce shastings, too.

Mama walks and opens the door up. Oh, I get it. All right, then. Sorry about that. Yeah, I'll be, yeah. Yeah. Damn it. Duck is out of the room, and now it is just an unconscious, Ned, and Mama and you. Should I take my headphones off?

No, because we got stuff. You can know this shit. I don't know. it's kind of fun. Because I want you the player to know so we can get back to it and we're all right. Got it. We're trying to tell a story together. Got it.

But would Ned know? Because he's kind of semi-conscious. Maybe he will and you'll see if that comes up. Maybe that's why you're into fucking room, Clinton. We're playing this together. It's all happening in real time. It's fucking just right. It's like everybody just forgot.

It's like everybody just fucking forgot. I'm really into character. Right. No fucking story with me. We are New York Times best selling. Okay. All right. Mama is here alone with you, Aubrey. She says, all right, Aubrey, what's going on? You seem really shaking up. Obviously, it was a tough night, but did something happen? Mama, do you remember when we met at the magic show and you saw me do magic and I told you it was the first time? Yeah, you're talking about actual magic, right?

Yeah. I don't think it was the first time. What do you mean? What did you, did you remember something? What, what else, what other time has there been, Aubrey? When I was 18, I was, the night I was going to, I was leaving home, we, someone broke into our house, these two men. I don't know. I was running to see what the sound was.

I tripped and I hit my head on the banister of the stairs. And when I woke up, the house was on fire. And I think that was my fault. Shit, Aubrey. I mean, do you know that for, do you know that for sure, Aubrey? Are you just, is this just the guilt maybe of a fire started on the second floor where I was and they were breaking in downstairs. And I've never really thought about that before now. It's like I can almost remember it.

I mean, that might be relevant. If that's true, Aubrey, then that means that your magical abilities don't have anything to do with you being in Kepler, or close to the gate or close to Sylvain. A lot of sort of our theories about that are shot. But I'm sorry about your house burning down. That must have been hard.

my mom died in the fire? Dad got out, but part when my mom was in collapsed. I don't think she knows how to respond to that. She just stands her kind of mouth open for a bit and wraps you back up in that blanket and I think she doesn't know what to do because she brought you here

and then she disappeared for a couple months and then she showed back up. And I don't know what your relationship. has been like since then, but I think she takes a beat and then she leans down and she just wraps the blanket around you and gives you a little kiss on the top of the head. And she says, I'm going to go see what's taking ducks so long with that coffee. Okay, before we do anything else, I have a super, super, super, super important question for Ned. And that question's going to determine some stuff based on what the answer is. But how, um, how, how, how, how,

How conscious, how aware, how much of that did Ned actually hear? I think he heard, I think he heard all of it. I think he's not exactly in a coma, but I think he's out of it enough that he's, and he's not feigning unconsciousness, but I think he heard the whole, I think he heard the whole story. Then I think Ned has just had. had a pretty horrible... Extremely horrible.

Realization. Yeah. Then I think in this sort of like in and out of consciousness state that you're in, you hear all of this and you are taken back to that night. And I think you just see little bits and pieces of it in this state. I think you probably bonked your noggin something fierce when you did your jetpack stunt. And so it's not coming to you in one. sort of linear thread, but you remember pulling up to the house and you remember doing a quick

lap around it to find the best entrance to check for security. You remember going inside. You remember carefully taking things. You remember getting caught and you remember the car crash with your partner during your speedy escape. As Aubrey speaks from what seems like miles away, and you realize it was her house that you robbed that night. Hey, Duck, you're out in the hallway, right? You were getting coffee? I think you see Leo out there. Leo looks pretty, pretty shaking up as you come back with the two cups of Joe. He's sitting there, and he's kind of got his head in his hands. Hey, Leah, how's it going? You're all right? He looks up, he kind of wipes his nose. He says,

No, Doc, I'm not doing good, very good at all. Thanks, uh, thanks for asking. I'm sorry, I shouldn't yell. I'm sorry, that was mean of me. I just, that was my fucking store, Duck, and it's gone. Now, I mean, there's parts of it still standing and maybe there's a few, you know, boxes of cereal that didn't get smushed, but, uh, that was my, that was my life. Duck, when I, when I came to Kepler, I moved down here from New York and, uh, I didn't, I didn't have anything. And, and, uh, I didn't, I didn't have anything. And, and, I had just gotten out of like sort of a long-term gig and then I didn't have nothing and that was hard for me and I didn't know what my purpose was and I found that store and that was my purpose and it was a good purpose but uh fuck duck man it's just it just sucks yeah yeah I just no argument about that I guess I'm still around to maybe rebuild and I guess that's entirely thanks to you so I know that people are going to be good neighbors here in Kepler duck, but I didn't expect that kind of, that kind of treatment. So I don't know what to say, man. I don't know how I can repay you. Well, you know, it's the least I could do. I'm sorry, you know, about the store.

What about, I see people like, what about kickstarting? Is that a thing? Can you kickstart it? Like a motorcycle? What do you, like, no, you like, I think, I don't actually know. I just see sometimes when there's a fire or whatever. or like some people kickstart it. I don't know how you get it on there

or if you just ask them or what. He says, I guess I'll go to the library and see what I can find out. You know what? I'm going to do, I'm going to get a lawyer and I don't know nothing about law stuff. It seems like I might be able to get a little bit of money out of the Pizza Hut, right?

Yeah, I mean pizza that's got, hey, do you not have insurance? I do, yeah, I do, but it's going to take a little bit for that to come through In the meantime, maybe I could get a few free personal pan zaz out of it. Yeah. And that's what I can do for you.

I'll split you some of the zoss. Yeah. You're being, I'll be honestly, you're being kind of despondent for a guy who maybe just has to wait a little while and get a check to fix up his story, you know? You're seeming out here in the hallway a little bit like doom and gloom. And really, what you got is a kind of an unplanned vacation, you know? Get up and running again. Just let the gears of... State farm start turning.

I mean, you got a point there, Duck. It's just, it's been my experience that when you find your calling in this life, it doesn't make any sense to put off doing it. Do you know what I mean? I'm going to head out. I'm going to head back to the shop. I better take stock of what's still standing. But you take care of yourself, Duck.

I don't know what Kepler do without you. All right, fair enough. So now you have a bond with Leo Targesian. Can't wait to summon him. You get his summon, crystal. You throw it to the ground and shatters. I take it to the fairy godmother and she... And I think as he walks by, he brushes past Jake.

Comes running back in. He's got a lot of snow up on his pants. He's got his board that he's got slung over his back. And he runs up to you, Doc, and he says, Oh, God. You okay? Oh, my God. Yeah, I just, I ran really fast, and I, I snowboarded, I, snowboarded some of the way.

But I got to the pay phone. Well, what's the number? I had the phone book, so I ran the number in there. And I found out. You ran the number. What? Yeah, I went through all the numbers one by one, and I found the phone number. Wait, what?

The wonder, he's tired. That would have taken days. Is that weird? I just went through it really fast. Oh, God. a beholder. So I just, oh my God. Can I, he takes one of the cups of coffee and just like slams it.

Yeah, go for it, man. Shit. That hurt my mouth really bad. But the number that called you, it was from the Eastwood Campground and RV Park. That was the, I'm going to fucking die, man. The, where? Eastwood Campground and our RV Park. That's what the phone number said.

Is that where we first met Pigeon? No. Duck, I think you would know this is more of sort of a long-term RV park, not quite like a trailer park, but for folks who maybe want to like walk part of the trail, like the Appalachian Trail and leave their their Winnebago or what have you in a secure spot. This is sort of more of a more of a long-term rental place. All right. And as he tells you the source of the telephone call, you hear the phone ring inside of Ned's room. Aubrey answers it? Okay.

Yeah. Hello? Aubrey, you hear that voice that you heard earlier this evening on the pay phone, and this voice says, Well done. I have to say, as someone who's tried to defy the whims of fate myself, a fair number of times, I didn't think you'd actually pull it off. Listen, um, hi. Thank you for your help.

Who are you? That is a complicated question, Aubrey. One that will make a lot more sense when we meet tomorrow afternoon at my home. Once Ned is back up and on his feet again. My name is Indrid Cold. That was the name I was born with in Sylvain. It's a nice name. I've always thought, perhaps a bit on the nose, a bit, you know, supernatural sounding,

but there's nothing I can do about that, can I? But I think you're asking a different question. I'm known as something different to the folks of this area. It's a nickname I picked up when I was younger and a bit more careless about my public persona. I don't prefer this title myself, but, well, I'm the moth man. Tomorrow. Maximumfund.org. Comedy and culture.

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