The Adventure Zone - The Adventure Zone: Amnesty - Episode 19

Episode Date: December 6, 2018

With an apocalyptic calamity looming over Kepler, the Pine Guard make their final preparations, and march to battle against a stationary, reality-twisting foe. Aubrey speaks to oblivion. Ned gets a taste of his own medicine. Duck says goodbye. 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. The vision that you see is a meteor, and it is coming at you faster and faster. My planet, it too was connected to another place, far flung from our own world. Like your world, ours became tethered, and the interpreter turns back to face you and gives you a little bow, and she says, again, my sincere apologies, I wish she'd stop coming here. It's her world's fault that Sylvain's dying in the first place. And the words you just heard did not match up to the mouth movements that she made. This man laughs, and he points at Ned on a television screen, and he says,

I know that, bloke. Unfortunately, my time here has come to an end. Can you take this goat man with you? Take him far away from here and leave him somewhere where he's not going to do any more harm. You can tell this is a cottonwood tree. What can it do? This bow starts to split in half long while. It is like it is tearing itself in half.

It releases these spores. You hear a cracking sound. An old dead pine tree has snapped and is falling right towards you. So I know we had a bit of a cliffhanger ending in the last episode, what with a tree falling over on Ned and Billy, but with your permission, dad, I want to jump in sort of in media res to kind of that parlor room scene. You had a very successful role, and so it felt weird to be like, yeah, that's right.

You investigated so good. Here's a fucking tree. So we'll say there was you and Billy saved each other. You both pushed each other out of the way. It was very, very heroic. Well, can we know. Wait, saved each other like spiritually, Griffin. Do you think, like, they found each other and, like, they made each other whole again?

Yeah, they knocked each other out of the way. And then as they were laying in the snow, they were like, do you take the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, into your... We have to act it out. We don't want one of those cheap cliffhanger resolutions. All right, let's act it out. Crack. Okay. Look out, Billy.

Baby, sir. Yikes. Can I say that was thrilling? I'm glad that we did that. Put some folium there and some... Trust my dramatic senses. For sure. So the three...

Scott Foley in there. Yeah. The three of you are sitting in the Pine Guard H.Q. With Barclay and Mama. All around a table in the center of your space. down there. There are some maps and books sort of spread out across the table that Barclay has brought down from Mama's office. And you are all reconvening after your investigation. And Ned, you're probably still a little out of breath from escaping the forest. I think this

just happened. And I want to do like the parlor room scene of you all summarizing what you've learned and coming up with the plan of attack. One order of business though before we do that, Ned, after you escaped the woods and everybody got back together to sort of come up with a plan, where's Billy? What did you do with Billy? Billy is going to stay at the Cryptonomica. Okay. It just felt right. I've given him like a little jumper, a custodian's, you know, cover-all thing.

And it's got his name on it. Okay. How did you do that so quickly? It was used. I got it at the Goodwill. Kirby was likely... Wait, hold on. You found an embroidered jumpsuit from someone named Billy that had put their jumpsuit.

That's a pretty common name. It's a pretty common name. I mean, I guess. I imagine Kirby was very confused when you dropped off this Ryan Gosling at the store. But he's a huge Gosling fan. So it really worked out. I mean, he's as close as he's going to get. Kirby, Ryan Gosling got hit on the head really hard and can,

only say pizza and duck. You're going to need to take care of him. We're in a full-blown overboard situation. Okay, that's fine. So Mama is standing over the table. She's still on crutches, sort of recovering from the injuries that she sustained while she was exploring Sylvain last arc.

She's also got a cold, it seems like. She's doing a lot of hacking and sneeze, but she's trying to keep it together as you all sort of wrap up this hunt. And Mama says, all right, I, I admit I've been a little out of the loop on this one. So we got something's causing deadly accidents all around Kepler. What do we know?

It has to do with like, not just accidents, but like changing the future? I don't know how much you know about the multiverse, Mama. I know more than you would believe. Somebody get a whiteboard in here. Okay. So every decision we make, Spiderweb, Spiderweb, Spiderweb. Explanation, explanation, explanation, and that's what's going on. Let's just sit down, everybody sit down, watch this DVD of the butterfly effect.

It's Ashton Coucher's magnum opus. Are we doing that? Yeah, you take a break to watch the whole movie, the butterfly effect. It is not as good as you remember, and you don't remember it being great. All right, everybody. Now, listen, this isn't important, but if y'all do want to follow it up with Butterfly Effect 2 or B2, as we... You just leave the effect letter off of it?

What? No, B-E makes B. Oh, I got you. So it's B-E-2. Gotcha. So B-2. None of the returning sort of performers are in this one,

but... Oh, they couldn't even get Ethan Soply? He's still good. Here's a great thing. Here's the best thing about butterfly effect, too. It is better than butterfly effect three revelations. So you can... There's a third one.

Damn. That is a high, high praise. High praise. Okay, but do we know what this thing is? The movie? The thing that's changing, that's caused, I need everybody to sort of focus up. We are talking about a thing that has killed people.

There is a very large tree. And as it grows, it changes the future. Every time a branch shoots off from this tree, it's a different timeline. And I think it's using that to create all these. new timelines. You know, when we say it out loud, like, we fought a giant thing that had, like, incorporated a bunch of different animals into it and, like, a watered spirit that, like, could be anywhere there was water.

And this is a tree. Yeah, I mean, it's just a tree. Let's, why don't y'all go nip this in the, I mean, do we know, do we know where it is? Nip it in the bud, finish this in-smina. I saw where it was going, and I didn't want to, I want to kill this thing, and I knew if I went down that road would be another 15 minutes at tree jokes.

You shouldn't feel ashamed of that. All right. Well, do we know where it is, though? Yes. I have the location courtesy of my friend Billy. And I'm sure if we just followed the tracks of the snow cat

we'll be able to get back to it. Now, wait a minute. Who's Billy? Did you tell somebody else about what we do here? Ned? Ah, shit. God damn it, Ned.

Damn it. Sorry. God damn it. All right. Listen, well, this one's my fuck up. So I guess I'll just, let me own this one so that doesn't get any deeper. So I rescued, the plant has some goats that work for it, like professional goats and business goats. And I, I, uh, I saved one of their lives.

Um, and then it became very sort of spiritually indebted to me. and then Aubrey made it talk. Yeah, that one's on me. That one's on Aubrey for sure. She made it talk, sort of, but it's like, it's not a, it's like, it's chill. I guess it's not a, I guess it's not hard to get. On a scale of one to ten, I think we've established it's like an eight. Yeah, it's just like, it's really chill.

This whole time you're saying this, Barclay is like standing behind Mama and making just a grim face and like shaking his head, no, like, what you're doing? and sure enough, Mama is sort of stunned. Like literally mouth agape listening to what you're saying. She says, you save one of these things? You brought one of these things back to Amnesty Lodge? I knew you wouldn't understand. No, I understand real good, Duck. I understand what you've done.

You have violated the safety of this place that I've worked so hard to protect. you have befriended an abomination, Duck? No, I, Mama, if I may, I know how it sounds all kind of laid out like this, but it happened, like, in sequence, it was the kind of thing of, like, the thing was injured. Duck brought it back here to question it to find out what was going on, like, had it chained down.

We couldn't talk to it because it didn't understand English, and so, like, that's why I made it talk. And now your best buddies is going to come to your Christmas party? Is that what you're telling me? Well, he's hell. We wouldn't have found the tree without him. We wouldn't. Yeah.

He helped us fight off other bad creatures. So like. And you know what bad creatures? You know, Mama, you basically run a hostel for Sasquatches and vampires. Oh, she is not having any of it. She pounds her fucking fist on a table. She says, Ned, they are, the abominations aren't, they are different from the people who have found their way over here from Sylvain.

Do you get that? the abominations, I've been fighting them a lot longer than y'all. They don't just deal in claws and fangs and knives. They can get in your head. This thing is trying to worm its way into your inner circle so that when you're most vulnerable, he can take you out. This thing, they are capable of playing mental games too, and you all are just playing it fast and loose with it. He mostly just says pizza. Yeah, he only says pizza.

He only says pizza. And he has helped us quite a lot. bit. I'm not super worried about his mental acuity. Do you want to, hey, Mama, do you want to talk to him? Yeah, why don't you bring him around and I'll have myself a nice chat with your friend. Now, I understand that, listen, I'm, I'm no dunce. That's, you're going to kill him. I don't, I, nice try. Listen, he's safely stored somewhere. Can we focus on this mean tree and then move on from there? She says, we are going to need to deal.

And as she's talking, there's a knock at the cellar door. And you hear Jake Coolice shouting from outside. And he says, hey, mama, everyone, you're going to want to come see this. And he opens up the door. And Mama kind of like sighs and looks down for a bit and then follows Barclay up and up the stairs and out of the Pine Guard Haven. Do you all follow or I assume so? Yeah.

This is my least favorite part of playing role-playing games. You know what? We stay in the basement and let the action unfold outside. You all emerge from the cellar and you see just an assembly of Amnesty Lodge residents standing on the porch. There's Danny and Moira and Agent Stern. They are all just sort of observing the scene outside. the cottonwood snow that you sort of discovered, Ned, that has sort of fallen every time that there's been one of these accidents, it is falling in sheets.

And it is not just localized in your immediate vicinity either, as it kind of has been whenever these accidents have happened. Through the trees lining the access road out to like the main drag of cliffside and then, you know, looking over the precipice of the cliff down into. The heart of Kepler, this false snow is just everywhere. It is all over Kepler. And Mama says, if this is following the pattern, that means something big is about to happen. And we have no idea what it's going to be. Well, listen, let's get in the fucking truck and let's go kill this tree. Before it's got a chance to do anything.

I'm fully on board with that. I have a suspicion, I would say, from talking to Juno. I think that y'all ever heard, like, copper in a tree can kill it. Like, you in like a single copper nail in a tree can kill it. I didn't think that was actually true. Well, I didn't think Bigfoot existed, but here we are. It doesn't, now, in like our sort of understanding of things, Like in the, I mean, I'm a forest ranger, right?

It does it. It's a legend, but like, yeah, okay. The legends, I mean, there's a lot of legends we found out in the past few months been true. So I think that this thing might buy by those rules. They had to come from somewhere, right? And if it didn't come from reality, where might it have come from? So just to, if I may extrapolate here, what you're saying, Duck, is that when, We need to take a hammer and a nail and just walk up to the tree and hammer a nail into it.

Uh, yeah. Now that you say it kind of with that a little bit of that tone, it does a little... Yeah, I understand what you're saying. But... Then again, I guess, you know, that I say it, what are we worried about? The tree running away while we try to do it? Like... Okay.

Maybe. I mean, I guess we try that. And I mean, like, I wish I had a bigger cause. or something. That's my dream is like a copper nail gun or, um, you know, I've got nail guns at the Cryptonomica from where we've been building all the sets for, you know, Saturday night dead. Okay. That is, that's a very handy. I would say you have nail gun at Cryptonovica. I don't know that you have five nail guns for, uh, well, that'll cover me. Good. Yeah. And when I say nail gun, I don't actually...

The problem with nail guns, y'all, is it's not like... It's not like Home Alone taught us. Nail guns don't really, like, pull a sugar and they fire a nail... Well... Across a room, right? Hold on. Actually, you know,

I did some high school theater. That should be surprising to no one. And, uh, there's some... There's some workarounds for that that you can do. Some mods? Yeah, it's not great. But, you know, as far as far as, as like danger goes, but you can, you can, uh, trick those safeties. Yeah. And, and,

and not only that, but I can, this one does do that because Kirby has, well, a rather unusual butt cheek wound that would probably come from us horsing around with the nail gun. Having a nail fight with your employee Kirby? To pull back the curtain for everyone at home, I just gave an explanation of how we could rig it. But dad was insistent. He wanted to give Kirby a butt wound. Yeah, with a nail fight he did. Okay. All right, here's the plan.

I picked a bunch of nails from when I went to visit Juno. We'll go grab the nail gun from Ned's place. We'll try the nail gun. I'm having a hard time imagining it working, but like let's give it a shot. Backup plan. I have a sword that I think would love to do a little Paul Bunyan action so we could give that to try if all else fails. And then Aubrey's got magic.

Got the fire. She's got the fire. Well, we're not going to be using any fire. Thanks very much. Wait, wait. Don't tie our hands. I can control it. I'll tie our hands. We're not going to be tossing around a bunch of fireballs in a fucking forest, guys. Sorry, they do revoke your license for that as a forest ranger if you bring a magic person to light trees on fire, guys. Okay.

Last resort, maybe. No, no, listen, that's no resort. Not applicable. I have to go to work tomorrow, all right? No way. Okay, we'll call it plan Z. There's plan, no, that's it, no. Z two.

Besides, there's other things that could kill trees, right? It doesn't have to be the one thing that also sets other cool-ass trees on fire. Got it. All right. Got it. I won't unless I absolutely have to. I'm done. I'm done.

I'm out. All right. regulators mount up. You swing by Cryptonomica, you grab the nail gun. Do you also grab Billy while you are there, or are you leaving him in the safety of the Cryptonomica? Up to you. On the one hand, I would appreciate the help, but on the other hand, this tree seems to have

some kind of sway over the goat people, and I don't want to have to fight Billy. Yeah. Yeah, I don't want to bring Billy. Okay. You all leave Billy behind. He looks at you actually as you swing by and kind of cocks his head as he sees you leaving without him and he goes, Doug. Pizza. We'll pizza right back. He nods solemnly in complete understanding. Of course. I leave him a 20 in case he wants to order some pizza. Can you imagine that conversation? Hello, this is Domino's. Pizza! Okay, good. What kind of duck? You're You want duck pizza?

That's foul. No way. We don't sell that. Pizza, I get it. That's foul. Fowl. He says. Great.

Kirby, show him a movie. Show him. Show him one of his own movies. We got B.E.2 all loaded up in there. Ready. Kirby says, oh, fuck yeah. B.E.2. That's my favorite.

It's way better than B.E3. We've done a couple of hunts now. And this is sort of a different, like, approach, right? because you all, this thing's not moving. It is a tree. You know where it is. It is not like you are trying to lure it somewhere and then like get the drop on it so it can't escape.

It's not going to escape. It's a fucking tree. So I guess like this is a different kind of advantage for you all. Like what is your, what is your approach as you all make your way into the forest? Ned, you have no problem following the tracks of the snow cat. What's like your, what's your strategy as you make your way into this sort of encounter? We need to come from upwind because. they can smell fear.

I think we're taking it real careful. We know where it is, and I'm not saying we're like crawling, but we're not taking a lot of unnecessary risks getting to it. Do you want to, why don't you read a bad situation, right? Like that sounds like what you are describing here. Okay, that's fair.

And that is a role of, What rolls against? A sharp. Nice, Jesus. Damn. That is a 12. You all are on a hot streak. I hope that it does not end

when you are crossing swords with this big tree. Oh no, I spoiled the fact that they have so many swords. Okay, so on a 10 plus, you hold three. Holy shit. You get to ask three questions,

and every time you act on the answers, you get plus one ongoing while the information is relevant. What's my best way in? What's my best way out? Are there 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? Well, let's see which ones I can answer for our in and out. I don't know. Dangerous we haven't noticed, I don't know. Biggest threat, the tree, I guess. What's most vulnerable to me? The tree? What's the best way to protect the victims?

I don't think they're victims. So I will say what's the best way in? As you approach the tree, you do sort of get a lay of the land. You see, first you see the injured goat man, the one that Aubrey sort of flung into a tree and just really messed him up. He is, and Ned, you saw this goat man sort of crawling around when you first found the tree. Right now, he is laying among the roots of the, of the tree. The tree is sort of growing out of this like gnarled dome of roots. It seems like it is like, semi-absorbed into the roots.

Like he has just been sort of sucked into them and he is not moving. Who? The goat person? The goat person, yes. Okay. You also see, you would just see this. I don't necessarily think that you need a question for this. You see another goat man.

He is holding on with both hands to a chain and dragging something through the snow. And you see that what he is dragging through the snow is injured. Cold, who is bound up in this chain. And the go... The mothman. The mothman. And this goat man, shovel goat man, brings Indrid over also to the roots of the tree, sort of ties the chain around one of the roots and secures him.

Indrid has got a black eye. His hair is matted a bit. You can see a little bit of blood there. But otherwise, like, he is just kind of staring calmly into the middle, this. as you sort of get the lay the land, right, you see these two other other goatmen. Duck, I think you get the line you can come at this clearing from where they're not necessarily going to see you as you make your first approach. So that's what I will give you for best way in. Has Indra got his glasses on?

Yes, Indrid has his glasses on. Okay, well, I'm asking because if he, I was wondering if he was in Mothman. If he was and he would be in Mothman. Yeah, he's not. He's got his glasses on. Okay. We have to save the Mothman. Yeah, that's a whole tourism ministry right there for Point Pleasant. I won't let go down the tubes. My next question is, we don't want it to become point so-so. You know what I mean?

Yeah. How do I help the victims? You realize, like, the chain is not, like, padlocked or anything like that. The best way for you to protect the victim would simply be to put yourself between him and the goat man. Both of the goat man's like instruments, the shovel and the shears are still there. The best way to protect these, to protect injured is to, you know, release him and keep the attention off of him so that the goatmen don't go after him. Okay. Lastly, what's the biggest threat?

This is a tough one. That's what I figured. So this thing like splits off its branches and every time it does. So it like shoots out these spores. And again, like it splits off in these like symmetrical patterns. And right now you see like you see trees, you know, duck knows a tree. This one. Thank you.

There's a lot of unusual things about this tree. But like by far the strangest thing about it is it has started to almost split in half entirely. It's a very tall tree. So there's, you know, like a good 10 feet of tree. trunk. And then above that, it seems like the rest of the trunk has started to just like peel away. It's two halves have just peeled away from each other. And in that gap, just spores are shooting up like crazy. It looks like a snow machine. And as it has done so, like the rest of the branches have fanned out completely. And it's almost like it is forming just like a perfect

circle of branches and black leaves all around the tree. That is by, you know, you know, I think you duck in particular. You see that and know that it is extremely bad. Oh, shit. All right. Listen, guys, I've had a lot of insights in the past no seconds. And I'm well prepared to dole out of plan. Here's what I'm thinking.

Ned, you take care of the tree. Get the nail gun. Blast it. Blaze it with the nails. Okay. Okay, fire. Good. From the cover of the brush, probably.

I think, yeah. I mean, if you think you're good enough shot there, Pekers really go for it. I think it's worth the risk, yeah. All right, Aubrey, I want you to take care of the spores, okay? Does that make sense? You think you can handle that? It seems like that would be a good thing,

something you'd be good at disrupted. Sure. Yeah. Okay. All right. I'm going to, I'm going to rescue the moth man. Okay. And maybe they'll rename Point Pleasant after me.

Pointeigh. Dufftown. Point... Point... It's pleasant and Doug. Probably Duckberg. Thank you. Fair.

Okay. Who's... Are you doing these, like, things simultaneously? Are you trying to, like, get the... No, we're going to do them as soon as I say, go. Okay. Go. All right.

And be quiet. So you can get a stealthy approach, if possible. Yeah, for sure. I think you can all get a stealthy approach. Ned, are you really hiding in the brush and I'm going to try and take pot shots at this thing with your copper nails? Or was that a goof about how cowardly you are? It is kind of how cowardly, but he realizes he's, at some point, he's going to have to emerge into the open and start shooting away at it.

I like that. Ned, okay, you are, how close you get into this thing? Are you taking the stealth approach through this, like, route that Duck discovered? Well, it's not like it has eyes, right? So, you know, assuming it can't see me is not a good idea. There are two go-in and that could essentially see you. Oh, right. Oh, what the hell? I'm going to get within about 10 feet of the trunk, of the big trunk. Okay. Yeah. Then act under pressure.

Act under pressure. That would be cool. And that would be cool. It would be cool if you got a good role here. It'd be cool if you did it with a lot of out, a lot of preamble. Oh, hacha, pacha. Ned got a 6. However, because you were on, you were, you know, following this sneaky path that Duck pulled out for you.

and you have not been sort of discovered, you get a plus one on that, which brings it up to a seven. So it is a mixed success. It is a mixed success. I will give you a price to pay. You walk towards this thing and you start, you said you were peppering it.

You're just like rapid firing some nails to the side of it. Let's see what one nail does, because Duck did say one nail would do it. So let's see what one nail does before I start just holding. the trigger down. Okay. You fire a nail off and you are definitely close enough that it does not have a problem connecting with the tree. You see it sort of jam into the tree. The whole scene is sort of covered in moonlight, right? It's always close to full moon whenever you guys are doing this.

And you see the nail go into the tree. And as the nail sticks into the tree, you see it just instantly sort of reflexively start shuddering. And it worked. I'll be damned. As it does so, you hear this really loud and very unsettling rattling noise coming from the tree. And now like this. Hell yeah, Ned, you nailed it, man. We win.

And you see the bark on the trunk sort of around where the nail went in. It just like starts to crack and fall apart. And it, uh, this, this huge chunk of bark, uh, just sort of sloths off the side of the tree. And a fairly small branch just like snaps in half. And as you pull the trigger this time, the nail gun is jammed. What? God. Dip.

And now I think everybody kind of, the scene knows that you all are there. However, you all establish that these things are trying to kind of happen simultaneously. So, Aubrey, your duck. Who wants to go next? Well, Duck has said, and I'm not allowed to use fire. Mm-hmm. I am going to use magic. Okay? To accomplish what?

Don't know yet. I mean, I have a thing that's trap a specific person, minion, or monster. I would give you that. Yeah? Yeah, for sure. I mean, this is part of the monster's effect. I think this is like, it's a tree, so it's pretty fucking trapped already. So, like, this is how it is affecting the world.

I think that that would totally apply here. Okay. Aubrey whispers, I would like to contain the spores and like, you hear a voice say, that's a weird one, man, okay. I know. Listen. I know. You don't actually hear that.

Okay, so I guess roll play. Are you doing this with, you have to tell me like what that actually looks like before we like try to roll and like how are you trying to contain the spores? Like I've done wind before. Sure. And so I think I'm trying to like create some kind of like the wind. blowing them back to the tree? Yeah, okay. You can, like, sort of creating a, like, whirlwind that traps them around the tree.

Yeah. Okay, that's cool. A swirl rather than it, like, blowing out into the world. For sure, I like that. Okay. And do I get one forward because of our sneaky plan? No, you get one forward because of duck identifying that the sports are super dangerous. I'm just putting that into the roll, so I just want you should know.

All right, that's a nine. Nine is a mixed success. It's going to have a glitch. The effect is weakened. It's of short duration. You take one harm, ignore armor. It draws immediate unwelcome attention, or it has a problematic side effect. Let's go with problematic side effects.

Okay. You create this whirlwind and the spores that were shooting out of the huge rift in the middle of the tree and also the spores that have started to like just sort of emanate out of it as Ned shoots the nail into it. they do start to swirl around the tree. It's like it's creating like a localized like snow globe effect, like right where you are. As a side effect, the tree is now going to be harder to attack at range just because it is like it is sort of shrouded in this seed storm. Which brings us to Duck. Hey, injured, are you with us?

There is a goat man like right there. with injured? I think before you can... Is he looking at injured or what's the deal? Yeah, he definitely has his back to you. I am going to pull out Beacon and attack the chain

that's binding injured. Okay, and there is a goat man who's like right there. So if you like do this and don't do anything with the goat man, the goat man is gonna get you. Yeah, that's fine. I... Okay. I need, I need one action's worth of things to do. I feel you, then this is going to be an act under pressure

because there is pressure in the form of this enemy goat. Okay, so that is cool. And am I act, I'm going to get myself a plus one on this. Yes, because you identified how to save. Yes. Oh, God. It's still just an eight. Okay.

This is a hard choice. I'm going to give you. Okay. You get the drop on the goat man and as he's watching over injured after having just sort of tied him up to the roots. All that the goat man sees is your shadow as you lift beacon up over your head. And as you are sort of frozen in this moment, you recall a memory. Duck, you are 18 again. It's been several months since Minerva first appeared to you that night, awakening you with

this vision of a house fire and this apocalyptic firestorm outside. And since then, you have rebuffed her offers of power and a heroic destiny. And in this memory, it's nighttime. And you are in the abandoned, closed-down clothing retailer altisers. Your friends have cleared the floor in the main showroom and set up like an audience of beat-up mannequins as you and your friends play field hockey in the store. Juno Devine, your current co-worker is there, and she is playing goalie, defending a goal that's sort of posted up in the men's casual wear department. And is it like a fairly big group of friends?

You described this scene in the last episode, and I'm wondering, like, how rowdy it got. I mean, we have close friends, but it's more of like a hangout where, like, a lot of people sort of know that it's there. You know what I mean? It's sort of like a de facto hang. A little roundhouse situation. but with drugs and hockey? Yeah, exactly. All right, I like that.

And by the way, Roundhouse did have plenty of drugs and hockey. It was just behind the scenes. That's fair. Okay, you are breaking away towards Juno, and she is trying to defend your shot, and she says, well, shit, duck, are you ever going to use that stick to take a shot, or you're just planning on doing the fox trot with it all night?

Well, Juno, I was planning on shoving it up your ass, but I guess if I have to make a choice, and I slap the ball into the net and it's the most amazing shot the mannequins come to life and applaud and one of those mannequins goes on to write Mighty Ducks and includes the slav shot in it based on what they saw that night.

They're all in control. Okay, Juno looks sort of disappointed and then like takes her gloves off and like pulls a cigarette out from behind her ear and lights it up because you're all a bunch of, you know, rowdy bad kids. Yeah. As you turn around to sort of like accept your accolades from, from the other players,

Minerva is just like right, right in your face, just inches in front of you. Jesus! Juno like sort of exhales and says, you're right there, Duck? Yeah, I was just thinking about how much I love the offspring and I got really excited. Minerva says Duck Newton Participating in a bit of competitive Recreation, I see This could serve you well, it could develop your agility

As you square off against your foe in a melee Um And I just nod She says duck Newton Please do not ignore me Tonight is an auspicious occasion I require your undivided attention Hey I'm gonna go take a leak y'all

I'll be right back. And I'll go into where we always, where everybody takes a leak. And that's in the former houseware's department. And like, everybody takes leaks here. Jesus. I realize this is I'm saying it. It's the worst.

It's the most horrible thing. Oh, you know what? Actually, there are probably bathrooms. Yeah. No, no, you can't recommend it. You're taking a link just like on. If in the course there are bathrooms. On the floor.

The housewheres department have like displayed toilets for sale to you guys. But they're probably our bathrooms. You're bad kids. You're peeing on the floor like a bunch of dogs. You are doing that. And Minerva says, oh, I will give you some privacy. As you are just sort of pissing on the floor like a house cat. I was just trying to get away from them.

It was subterfuge. Yeah, thank you. Okay, you're not pissing, but it's everywhere. and Minerva Minerva says, I'm sorry to interrupt. It seemed like you were having a jovial time.

Yeah, I'm just trying to like fucking chill. What's up? I told you, now I'm not interested. Move on. She says, I understand that,

but I have one last offer for you. And outside of the store, I think everybody inside the shop kind of freezes as headlights creep across the drawn blinds of the store. and you hear a vehicle come to a stop just outside of where you are.

And you hear Juno actually shout from the other room. She's like, oh, shit, it's the cops. Everybody get down. And you hear a car door open, and you hear footsteps coming out of the vehicle. And you hear this, like, faint sort of metallic crunching noise. And then you hear someone sort of exhale a deep sigh. And Minerva says, Duck Newton, it would behoove you to go outside before it. any of your friends are able to see what's happening out there.

Wow, what's happening? You'll see. She's, like, so, like, pumped. She's, like, so excited. God, damn it. All right. Fine. Fine.

As you step outside, you just see this car pull away. It's a cab that is pulling off into the distance. It's sort of getting off the main drag and onto the highway out of town. Kepler's one cab. And several feet from the entrance to the store, like this little grassy sort of cut out in the sidewalk where a tree is growing in the middle of the town. There's a few of them sort of peppered across the main drags, sort of giving the downtown area of Kepler a bit of greenery. But in this little small patch of grass,

you see a shape glistening in the moonlight. It is a, it is a sword. It is a long, straight, thin blade with a leatherbound hilt and this intricately forged guard that appears to be in the shape of a mouth. And Minervaic suddenly like disappears and reappears right behind the blade and gestures towards it. And she says, I know your hesitance, Duck Newton. You have voiced it clearly. And I would not deign to ignore it. But you have been chosen, Duck, and that is a decision that cannot be reversed. I would ask of you this, take up the blade. Take up your fated instrument. And if you do not feel the call to pursue your destiny, I shall take my leave until you have grown to accept the tasks appointed it to you.

Well, I am of course honored. I mean, I'll keep the sword. That seems pretty kick-ass, but I don't know what I'm supposed to... You want me to go kill the rest of the McLeod clan? Then I'll be the only one. Remember, like, there could only be one of us.

Have you seen that movie? There could be only one. I mean, you know I have not seen any of your earth. I haven't seen it either. It's like a sword. guy. I don't know. It seemed kind of dumb to me, but I'll keep the sword. Hell yeah. I pick it, I pick it up. Okay. Look at me. So, so, so, so. How does it feel? Pretty kick ass, yeah. I mean, I'm not going to go like, what, stab Dracula, whatever the

fuck, but it's all right. But you could. You have the power to stab. You said Dracula? Minerva, instruct this beef boy to unhand me, please. How does Duck feel about that? He's shocked, grabs, drops it on the ground. Like, what the fuck? Oh, excellent. Another skilled combatant. This is the offer I have for you.

You're going to be able to swing down with enough force to cut the chain and free, injured and you're going to be able to do it because you've got the drop on this goat man. Your movement is so swift, you're going to be able to do it. The price to pay is Beacon will be damaged. Not broken. I won't take that from you. But there will be some damage to the blade. You're swinging metal down onto hard metal. And you can get through it. but the durability of Beacon will be worn down a little bit. Is this a choice of having to make? Are you making me make this choice? I am making you make this choice.

I think it's what I would have done. Yeah. Okay. You swing the blade down and there is certainly some resistance as you chop the chain sort of against these hard roots. But you get through it and the goat man sort of looks up at you in surprise and you're definitely going to have to deal with that soon. Indrid sort of instinctively, this one does not talk and say pizza.

Indrid sort of instinctively tries to roll out of the way. Okay, in that moment, I need one more. I get one more. Okay. When the goat man turns around to look at me, I rear back my fist and I punch injured in the face. Okay. Yeah, I'm not going to make you roll for this. that.

Why? Okay. To knock his glasses off. Oh, okay. You punch injured in the face and he says, Duck, what are you? And then he becomes the moth man. And I think seeing this, a lot of things just happen in front of this goat man very quickly.

And he starts to crab walk backwards away just for a moment until he sort of composes himself. So now you have put some distance between you and the goat man. Fly, Indrid, fly. Indrid gets to his feet. and he grabs you by the shoulders and he says duck duck i my visions there's a hole in the ground there's a a large hole in the ground in the middle of kepler and buildings have fallen into it i see cars i see twisted wreckage no listen we don't have a lot of time i've i've seen it too i know it sucks i saw it a dream and i thought it was just that anxiety dreams or whatever but i now i apparently

as a prophecy. I get it. This one I've seen too, and I swear to God injured, we're not going to let it happen. He nods and flies away. Also, I took care of Keith and you don't need to worry about it. I'll call you. He gives a thumbs up. Goodbye. I'm free. As he flies away, you pull beacon out of the roots where he's kind of been embedded. And as you do so, you realize that where the chain sort of connected with the blade, there is a pretty good, there's a pretty good like divot in the side of, of the blade. It has been sort of dented, dented inward and looks kind of rough around that spot. That's just wonderful, Doc. What a wonderful battle scar this is.

And using me to my true purpose, beacon breaker of chains, beacon the emancipator, as I have always been No. Wonderful. This is exactly how I would want to go, Doc. You know me so well. Ned. Ned is going to do something which we'll seem a little weird in the context, but I just think it's information we need. Ned's going to investigate a mystery. Okay. And... Roll plus sharp. That's very bad. You did a bad job, Dad. Ned rolled a five. Poor no. There is no... There is no...

covering from that. Oh, I get it, Justin. I'm going to take a hard move here. The hard move is that the goat man that is embedded in the roots of the tree, I will call him Shears Goat Man, starts to move. And he sort of wrestles with these roots that are all over him, and he pulls himself out of the roots in the tree. As he emerges from the tree, you realize that he has merged with this white bark. It is growing out of him. Now, it is almost, it is forming around his spine like a brace. You get the impression that this thing probably like broke its back when Aubrey flung him against a tree. And now the tree has healed him in a way by giving him this like external, uh, chitin made of this white bark. But it has like corrupted him in a way. It's sticking out in this like

huge gnarled lump that extends like just over his head. and his eyes are clear white. And he picks up his shears and starts walking towards you, Ned. Oprey. Well, I'm going to... So we've got a goat man on duck, a goat man on Ned. The... You're easy, breezy, beautiful.

You got nothing. Yeah, I'm feeling great. The nail gun is... Jammed? Jammed. Yeah, this easy fight is. going extremely good, it seems like. Yeah.

Has Ned dropped the nail gun? Ned, do you still have the nail gun? He still have the nail gun. He still has a gun. I'm going to combat magic blast force. Okay. The goat man approaching Ned. Okay.

The half wood. Duck can take care of himself. Okay, cool. Yeah. And you know what? I fucked up that goat before with this, and I'm going to do it. Hug in. All right.

Roll to kick some ass. That is a 10. That is a big 10. On a 10 plus, you get to choose an extra effect, and you both deal damage to each other, but you can also gain the advantage, take plus one forward or give plus one forward to another hunter, inflict terrible harm, plus one harm, you suffer less harm, minus one harm, or you force them where you want them. I'm going to force them where I want them. Okay.

Knock it backwards. Okay. And that is three harm total. Okay, you knock them backwards, and this hard shell around its back sort of collides with the tree again, only this time he does not, you know, crumple instantly. He is definitely damaged, and you actually see, like, just a split in his skin, and this white sap just kind of starts pouring out of him. And actually, as he hits the tree, you all see more bark, and not just bark, but, like, actual, like, chunks of wood. from the trunk, uh, start falling off around where the nail hit the tree. It is, and, and as it does so, I think it loses like a lot of branches. Uh, a lot of the branches where this nail went in just

sort of fall to the ground harmlessly. Uh, and then he stands up and he takes the shears and he snaps them in half and now just has sort of two blades and he flings one at you, Aubrey. Um, and you take, you take two harm as this thing cuts into you. Well, I ignore one thanks to my cool vest. Yeah, then it definitely does not like cut into you. The vest definitely protects you a bit, but it kind of as it makes its way harmlessly over your shoulder, I think it sort of cuts across your neck a little bit and you get a sort of superficial one harm. So go ahead and mark that.

And once, you know, he's knocked out of the way, Aubrey says to his net like, get the nail gun working. Yeah. Duck. Yeah. What do you do? You're definitely still engaged with shovel goat man. He, saying that the mothman flew off, has picked up his shovel and is a, he is a threat. There is still the half wood goat man who definitely looks like bigger and nastier than shovel goat man does.

He has just been knocked into the tree. And then you have the tree itself, which has started to continue to rot around where this nail has stabbed into it. And then you have this like flurry of like spores that are sort of swirling around the tree that Aubrey made. Hey, listen, partner, I have this sword. His name is beacon. And I could use him to chop your head off. But I'd really rather not do that because one of y'all is a pal of mine. And I'm having a hard time just sort of like ending you.

So it would be great if you would just put down your shovel. and go live a new life somewhere and get a job. As I'm saying, and I know it sounds ridiculous. I'm probably going to need to punch you in the face. Okay. You know what? Yeah, let me just punch you in the face. Okay.

Go ahead to roll and kick some ass. Am I acting on my read-a-bat situation? I don't think so. Not for this action, right? You don't really have anything on him. That is a fucking 11. You were just punching him with your fist? Yeah, I really, I, oh man, I'd love to just use beacon on these guys.

I'm having a really hard time of it. I don't like, I don't know. It just doesn't seem right to me that like one of them would be chill. Sure. And I'd be friends with it. I saw someone point. I bisect. Like, it just feels weird.

I saw someone point out on Twitter and like, I love this that like basically the difference between the Pond Guard and like the Bureau. balance. It's like when we were the Bureau of Balance, it's like, we'll murder everyone. Yeah, sure. And this time it's like, well, this person's actively attacking us, but I don't know. I think it's just one harm that you do, but you get to choose an extra effect, which is game. Doesn't Beacon have a flat? Isn't there a flat to the blade? I mean, there is now that he fucked it up on the chains. You get to gain the advantage plus one forward, give one to another hunter, and terrible harm, less harm, or force him where you want them. I'm going to force

them where I want them. I would like to use that advantage to, and tell me if this drives you're sort of to disarm him. I don't think so, man. I feel like you are sort of, it feels like a lot to accomplish just with one thing, right? To just completely neutralize him just by punching him. Like, you can...

You know what, I'll just like knock him to the ground. Okay. Hopefully I can like knock him out on a tree stump or something. Yeah, I don't know that that happens. What happens first is because he has sort of range on you, if you're coming in with a fist and he's got a shovel. this thing is done fucking around. I brought a fist to a shovel fight.

You brought a fist to a shovel fight. This thing is done messing around. It is, you know, big and very strong. It rears this shovel up and just brings it right down on your skull. And you take three harm as this thing tries to just bash your fucking head in. And you sort of... You ignore two. Yes, you do ignore two.

Oh, that's not none. You sort of shake it off, though, and punch him. and as you punch him, he does fall backwards and lands on the roots at the base of the tree. Ned. Ned's going to act under pressure to unjam the nail gun.

Okay. With his nail gun repairing experience. Yeah, I mean, it is pressure. There's pressure here. You got a big tree, you got two nasty goatmen, and you're trying to do this in kind of a fake snowstorm. So go ahead and roll plus cool. Oh, my God.

That's a five. Have you leveled up recently, because you just roll the five. Yeah, Mark experience for all your failed rolls here. I just, wait a minute, I have something I want to try. Okay. Okay. Are you rolling?

Is it going back in time? No. Ned has a thing called artifact where he quote unquote found a magical artifact and it's a lucky charm for him. I want to use luck. Oh, okay. Fair. Okay. I know what happens here.

This is great. You are picking nervously at the nail gun, just tinkering with it. Your hands are shaking. They are cold. You are trying to make out the mechanisms of this nail gun in the middle of this maelstrom of the spores coming out of the tree. And through those spores, you look up as you hear the crunching of snow moving closer and closer to you. And you see a figure charging at you through the storm. And you look back down at the nail gun, trying to fidget with it, and then back up the figure as it gets close.

and closer. Ned, you flash back to like a pretty innocuous day several years ago. We haven't really established what the timeline is. But it is after, you know, the day of the crash and sort of your escape, your whistlestop tour of East Coast destinations moving southbound until you arrived in Kepler and met Victoria, the proprietor of the kryptonomica, who basically gave you a job and give you room and board and you've been there for several months. And we haven't really explored too much this time of your life.

But like, how has life living in cryptonomica and, you know, getting your, you know, feet below you in Kepler? Like, what does that look like? How have you been, like, helping Victoria out around the museum? Well, for Ned, it's been kind of boring. Um, this, he's kind of had this sedentary life, you know, doing little things around as little as possible, to be honest with you. Dusting, you know, and he's not really into this shit. It's just not that interesting to him.

He's just kind of hiding out and, and he misses the, the thrills, not really realizing that by, you know, adapting to this life is what's going to keep him from ever getting back to that life. Can we explore, like, the, you mentioned that, like, it is kind of boring here. And you have been, like, living out of the cryptonomica and working there. And it's got to be different from the cryptonomica as it is under the Ned Chican brand, right? Like, it is definitely more sensational now than it was back then. back then it was a fairly, you know, authentic monster museum. Well, and not even so much of a monster museum as it was really, it was almost like a

very scientific approach. You know, it didn't really claim that things were real. You know what I mean? It just was like more of an investigative. It was much more believable. It was, I mean, it was much more realistic. And it was, here are the stories from this area. almost like a storytelling. It wasn't really so much of a sensationalist.

But it was also like dead. Like I think back then, if because it was very straightforward, like nobody was coming to it. And so what I really like is like the nature of your relationship with Victoria, who just like likes your company. She was super lonely. She's kind of outcast in this town. So she just, you know, likes having a friend, like likes having someone be around. I think there's like this push and pull with you during the months that you lived there where you maybe because of your, you know, inherent showmanship try to add a little bit of... Oh, it comes up with ideas. Add some spice to it.

You ought to really, yeah, how about what you need displays? How about things that look like a Sasquatch or, you know, models. All you've got are like printouts of stories. And yeah, the Bigfoot picture is good, but how cool would it be if you got an artist to draw like a fully blown you know fine portrait of

of Bigfoot and and and just things like that take some of this junk and jazz it up make it look like it's real stuff like maybe that really is a scale from the Loch Ness monster and it could be just a big salmon scale or something but that's what you need

you gotta get traffic you gotta get people in the door that is what the scene is then for sure you and Victoria are in the cryptonomica. You have hired somebody to paint this big portrait of Bigfoot. And he comes in the door. You hear the bell above the door ring. And it's a kid named Kirby who comes in and sets his paints down in front of this big canvas that you have set up for him. And walks over to the RC Cola vending machine, gets one out, cracks it open, starts drinking and starts painting.

as you and Victoria kind of just like clean up around the store. I may have called her mama earlier, which may have been a slip of the tongue, but you all are sort of just cleaning up the store and watching Kirby do his work as she looks over sort of your projects and looks at the store

and kind of like takes stock of how much it's changed. And she says, hey there, Ned, can I talk to you outside for a minute? Certainly, Victoria. Certainly, certainly. Carry on, young man. with your artistic endeavors. Well, thanks, sir.

I'll try not to let you down. And he keeps at his work. And you all... And how about a... How about a coaster under that RC? He says, oh, my God, I'm so sorry. And he reaches into his bag and pulls out like a cedey jewel case and sets his drink down on top of it.

You go outside with Victoria. It's like a nice fall day. The leaves have just started to change and, you know, are falling in droves, which makes you realize, like, you're going to have to rake very soon, but you try to put that unpleasant thought out of your mind as you and Victoria talk. And she says, Ned, I got to say, I know I was hesitant at first about some of the changes you suggested, but I think you've brought life into this store in a way I was, I was never able to. I just, I just wanted to say thank you. Oh, no, Vicky, I owe you this. You, you, you took me in. You gave me a place to, to live,

and you gave me your, your, your friendship. And no, I, I, The ledger is very much still in your favor. I owe you. I mean, yeah, it's been boring as shit. But, you know, I have appreciated your kindness. It came at a time when I really needed a friend, and I'm glad it was you. She says, yeah, I know life in Kepler ain't the most glamorous lifestyle to live.

It's probably certainly not as exciting as some of the people. your earlier days. It makes Hooterville look like Paris, to be honest with you. She laughs and she says, but I gotta say like, you know, I enjoy your company as insincere as your company seems sometimes. But listen, what I wanted to talk to you about, what we haven't really talked about much is, you know, what the, what the cryptonomica is all about. I'm just, I'm curious and I want the truth for once from you, Ned.

are you are you a believer no no not really Victoria I I think it's interesting and and everything but

I'm I am not a man of faith I don't really believe in too much except for myself I you know I'm I find it interesting.

I think it's fun to contemplate. It's fun to think about. But I have not convinced. Well, you put on a good act. And you can tell she looks kind of disappointed. She says, I don't blame you, though. You know, most... Well, don't get me wrong.

I believe in the cryptonomica. I believe that it serves a purpose. I think it's... I think it's fun. I think it's expansive to make people think outside, you know, the world that they know. I believe in the kryptonamica. I just don't believe in all the

crap we've got in it. She says, I guess that's something. It does serve a purpose, Nat. I'm glad you, I'm glad you get that. It's, it's a serious world we live in, Ned, full of serious problems, real, real problems. And, you know, folks are

just engineered to fight for solutions to those problems. And it's a fight worth fighting. I don't mean to minimize that, but it's just this world is so much bigger and so much more, more mystifying that most folks are, you know, willing to give it credit for. And that's why we have trouble growing our business here, Ned. That's why folks and Kepler don't really like the kryptonamica. That's why City Hall would be happy to shut us down.

We're a, you know, we're a thorn in their philosophical side. This place voices the inconvenient position that there's more to this. life than the troubles we conjure up for each other. And that's why this place is important. That's why I think it's important. I'm glad it sounds like we're on the same page about that. Well, don't take my demeaning manner as any implication that I don't believe it's important. I do believe it's important.

I think it's a wonderful place. And I think it does something good. But Victoria, you don't really believe in eight-foot hairy. big feet and men looking like moths. You really, I mean, you don't really believe in that stuff, do you? She leans against sort of the railing of the porch out in front of the cryptonomica and just kind of looks out at the leaves as they're changing and, you know, dancing around in the wind. And she says, I believe in strange things, Ned.

and she starts coughing and really hard. And you've seen these fits a lot in the months that you've been living with Victoria, and they are getting worse very quickly. This one is a particularly difficult one. And she kind of like stumbles backwards and sits in a rocking chair out in front of the porch and tries to, tries to collect herself. Did you ever go see Dr. Nanny about that cough? She smiles and she says,

Ned, I've been seeing doctors about this cough for longer than I've let on. She says, a wanted criminal breaks into a dying woman's home and she gives him room and board and hopes against hope that he'll turn out better than he was when he slipped in through the window. And she's the only one in town who'd give him. given that chance, and it just so happened that hers was the place that he burgled. I don't know how you don't believe in the strangeness of things knowing that. Victoria, I believe that there's things that happened in the world.

I don't know if it's luck or fortune or whatever, but I do believe that there was something involved in bringing me to you and bringing me to this place, I have no idea what that force is or why that happened, but I'll give you that much. I believe that there is such a thing as good fortune, because I am fortunate enough to be your friend. She looks up at you and smiles And you can tell that she has tears welling in her eyes

That she quickly tries to fight off And she says I think you were brought here for a reason too Ned And that's That is why I am Gonna leave the cryptonomica to you When I am gone I already made up my mind about that

Nothing you can do to change it And I won't be here You can do it what you like, but I would hope, I would ask that you just keep Kepler as curious as you can. And then something super lucky happens. You hear something moving around in the brush, and you hear like this noise like, and it's getting louder and louder. And right when this goat man's about to collide with you, you see the jetpack. You see the flymaster. That's the,

has been sort of blasting around Kepler for the last two days since you lost it following your stunt. It flies into the clearing and just collides with the goat man, knocking him off of his feet and out of this path of collision towards you. And finally gives up the ghost and just kind of lands at your feet finally, finally dormant as you get that nail slid out of the gun and get it functioning again. I'm proud of you, son. Good boy. Ned looks over at Aubrey and tosses the gun in her direction. Yes, gun. Give.

And listen, Aubrey, copper conducts heat. No, I promise duck. I'm not fire. I'm not saying fire. No, he's looking. I can't do it now, Ned. Come on. Okay, Aubrey, you have the gun.

Okay. Again, there is this like storm all around the tree that is whipping up a frenzy that makes it kind of hard to shoot out of that range. You can still do it, but you will be at a disadvantage. I'm going to get up close to it then. Like right up ons? Yeah. Okay.

And so you said the tree was kind of splitting, right? Yeah, for sure. Spray up the things. She's going to shoot a line of nails following that line all the way down to the base of the tree. Okay. I like that. If you're doing that and you're trying to like do this sort of precise motion in the

middle of the storm, I'm not going to make you roll to kick some ass, because the tree has no like direct way of hurting me. The tree has no ass. But it is, a tree doesn't have ass also. Thank you, Justin. So go ahead and act under pressure. Is that cool? See, I'm using Duck's experience as a forest ranger there.

Yeah, sure. Just don't have ass. Buck. Aubrey got a six on your role. You could, if somebody can help you out to give you a plus one to bring it up to a mix success or you can drop a luck point to pull this off for sure. Could you not say that Ned tossing her the gun was helping out?

Yeah, I think you could say that. You do still need to roll for it, right? We apparently burned all our good roles on, like, getting Ryan Gosling movies to appear on Netflix. Yeah, Ned, Ned, roll to... So we'll say, like, Ned tosses the thing and then, like, turns up the pressure on the compressor, and that's Ned.

Well, he doesn't still roll, so it's a possibility that he didn't turn up the pressure. He turned it way down. And the nails just fall out impotently from the end of the gun, which I love that visual. It's not really going to be. move the chains, though. Okay, Ned, roll to help out.

That is plus cool. It's maybe our first help out roll, which is very exciting. That's an eight. Eight. On a seven and nine, your help grants them plus one to their role, but you also expose yourself to trouble or danger. Okay. So this brings it up to a seven for you, Aubrey, which makes it a mix success.

Describe this scene of you, like, approaching the storm and trying to, like, just empty a clip into this tree with, like, almost zero visibility. So I'm going to say she gets like real close, like right up on it, you know, and like then just like basically draws a line straight down like pat, pat, pat, pat. I like the visual of you like taking a deep breath and trying to like really nail this one. No, God, we got to stop fucking saying that. You take a deep breath and try to center yourself and gain your composure in the middle of this just like furious storm and you raise the gun. Aubrey, you have this moment where you remember a very, very powerful memory. And it was the moment that you sort of first realized that you wanted to be a magician.

And we haven't really talked about that. And I'm curious, like, what inspired that to sort of set up whatever this scene is going to be. I don't really know what it's going to be. What was sort of Aubrey's inspiration for wanting to get into magic? Was there a certain magician that she idolized? Was there a show that she saw that changed the course of her life? So, I mean, I guess it probably would mirror my own, but we're not really the same age.

So, like, timeline-wise, this wouldn't be the same thing. But there was a magic special that I remember watching as a kid that was, like, filmed at the Magic Castle. And it had, like, Lance Burton and a bunch of people in it. But one of the scenes, it was, and I wish I could remember, the name of the performer, but she is like doing this magic actor where she's like dancing with a mannequin and she is manipulating the mannequin's arms and stuff to do tricks. And it's like

both really fun and very impressive. And I think that that kind of like more of like a performance art like character building kind of thing really appealed. You know, Aubrey's a theater kid. Yeah, sure. And I think more than just the like, slide of hand, like, watch me do a magic trick, more of like, I'm going to build a scene and make the show the show and the magic facilitates that. Very, very, like, I'm also going to say, because this is true of me as well, Houdini is a big inspiration for that of like, it's not just the trick. The trick isn't the thing.

The thing is the show. Okay. Then why don't we do this? Like, you saw that special. It really spoke to you as like this really cool, you know, new mode of performance. And so, you know, the usual stuff maybe, like you buy the books, you watch some, you get the special VHS videos that teach you the tips of the masters and sort of start practicing your magic. Maybe the scene is just like you performing for your parents, like doing a, doing your first like private magic show to show off what you have learned from these like books that they have, you know, bought you and given you as gifts and stuff like that. Is that cool with you?

Definitely. Okay. What's this look like? You were performing for your parents. What kind of tricks are you, what kind of basic stuff were you doing? I'm probably like 10 years old. Okay. You know, like the cup and ball.

Maybe like the big finale is like a, you know, a handcuff escape. Probably doing, you know, the like, oh, roll up some newspaper and I pour the water in. Where'd the water go? That kind of thing. Okay. Not necessarily easy stuff, but pretty basic magic, but she's trying to do a lot of like stagecraft with it too. Yeah, that's always been in a jam. Yeah, this newspaper I've saved for 50 years.

This was the newspaper that came out. And remember, she's 10. When Kennedy was shot, and that wasn't 50 years ago, you know, she just doesn't, she doesn't know dates. Okay. And like, she's doing a lot of that, like, oh, these cups were salvaged from King Tutton. tomb and, you know, this picture of water once along to Julius Caesar, a lot of that kind of along to Julia Roberts. Why don't you- Julia Roberts over 50 years ago?

Because this is not like magic, magic, why don't you roll to act under pressure as you are, that's right, I'm going to make you, you are pressured as your parents are watching you, scoring you, judging you. Listen, we've all been there. God knows. When dad watches me do a podcast, it's terrifying. I got an eight. All right, mixed success.

We'll say that you are, give me one of the tricks. May I make a suggestion? Sure. I think mom is impressed and dad is not. I think so too, but what is, actually, no, that seems mean. I don't want to characterize the dad like that. Obviously, you guys had, like, beef in that one scene you're doing, but it's still, like, a loving supporting environment. The mixed success is, like, everything goes well, but I can't get the handcuffed trick to work.

So it's the handcuff trick is, like, the big finale, and everything else has been going fairly well. And I branded them as like these handcuffs belong to Houdini himself, even though they bought them for me at the store. Sure. And as you do the things that you have practiced so many times, like you were very excited to finally show off your skills, you pull your wrists apart and they are still securely fastened inside the handcuffs and you try and try again, but you are just trapped in them during the middle of your show. Uh, hold on Give me a sec. Hold on. Um, okay, time. And then to... Okay. Um, and... And... That is all part... All part of the show.

Oh, how will I... Um... Hold on. Hold on. Damn it. Do you need help? And don't cuss. No, I can... I can do... I've done... I know what I'm doing. Uh, they sit there patiently, but you can tell that they're like, worried about you. And finally, your dad comes over and is like, all right, let me just see what happened here. I don't want you to hurt yourself.

And he starts sort of tinkering with the handcuffs and gets them off of you. And your mom can kind of tell that you're disappointed. And she says, Aubrey, the show was wonderful. You'll get the handcuff trick down. Don't be upset. It didn't work. I know, but you haven't been doing this for very long. baby it's it's listen you you you don't need to be perfect at this people are going to love you

yeah but houdini was performing when he was like a little kid and and and he was people still had to practice houdini still had to practice obri listen people are going to love you when you're doing these shows no matter you know what you choose to do but magicians are responsible for delighting and surprising people and you you delight and surprise us every day no nobody expects you to be perfect at this abry right right from the start, you have time to learn. And then suddenly, like, the memory shifts. And it's not your mom in front of you anymore telling you these things. It's, it's Janelle. And you are in sort of Janelle's office in Sylvain, and she's poured you and herself a cup of strong hot tea.

And she's seated at a table with you, sipping this tea with you. And she's more formally dressed than you've ever seen her. She's in this like black, you know, nice ensemble. She's not using her, she's not wearing her usual, like, colorful scarves. In fact, she has one like draped around your shoulders, something she put there to sort of warm you up and bring you comfort. And she says, you'll have time to learn. I know this is difficult to believe, but you do. The surviving remnants of this world have unreasonable expectations for you. True. Sylvain will express her needs. when she is ready, and I trust you to listen intently for her. You have time to learn to listen, but you do not need to bear that weight today.

But you don't know that. You don't know how much time I have. No one does. I have to go out there and fight monsters and scary things. And not just that, there's real danger in the world. I mean, there's accidents and plane crashes and house fires. She talks like right over you, almost like she can't hear the words that you're saying. And she places a hand on your cheek.

And you realize that you've been, like, sobbing as she's been talking to you. And she says, today it is okay to take care of yourself and to allow others to take care of you and to mourn. And that's when you realize she is dressed the way that she's dressed because you just came from your father's funeral. and then you realize this is not your memory at all. This is the memory of Alexandra, the newly christened audience to divinity and interpreter of Sylvain. Oh, shit. And sure enough, you launch a line of nails

following sort of the path of the main split in the center of the tree. And as you do so, sure enough, the bark and wood all around this line, it just sort of, it doesn't sort of fall off like it did for Ned's one nail. It just sort of explodes. And as it does so, the tree just completely splits in half. The two halves just bend away from each other. As they do so, the force of this like explosion and the chunks of wood like coming off the tree, they launch into you, Aubrey, for two harm. Ned, one of the bowels of the tree just falls and conks you on the head for two harm.

arm. One of the halves of the tree as it falls, it falls right on top of the goat man that duck knocked to the roots and just crushes it into the roots. And he lets out one last loud bleat and gives up the ghost. As the like the dust settles from this, this big explosion that happens, you all see something in the center of these two halves, just still sticking it. out of the trunk and it is tethered to the two halves of the tree that have been split apart. It is connected to it by these long strands of this white sap. You see this humanoid form that appears to just be made out of this white sap. It is it is reaching upwards and like it is holding onto these long strands and trying to

like pull the tree back together and doesn't seem to be paying much mind to you all. is just trying to sort of put together what you all have destroyed. Duck, you are up. Yeah. Hey, y'all, I know it ain't copper, but I'm gonna give it a shot. And I'm gonna kick some ass.

Just kick, now can I kick ass? Yeah. Now does this thing have an ass? Yeah, this thing for sure has an ass. It has manifested an ass. I'm gonna kick that ass with beacon. All right. Kick that sap ass.

Yes, this is more like it. Excellent. Let's go. Nine. And we're back. That is a nine. Okay. You and the tree are going to deal harm to each other. What that means for the tree, I'm going to leave a little bit abstract. What do you do to the tree with Beacon? How are you sort of dispatching it? How big of a trunk are we talking? I mean, the trunk has been like split down to the ground. The like humanoid creatures.

you're sticking out of it. It's about, I mean, it's about your size. All right, so here's how I do. I'm worried about the edge of Beacon being damaged. So I uncoil Beacon and I, oh, it just hit my mic, my mic stand. All I thought that was a folling thing. That was fucking awesome, dude. All right, leave that in and pretend I did it on purpose. So I uncoil Beacon and I whip it around the thing and just yank as hard as I can. I'm just trying to like saw it, saw it in half. the human. Oh, God.

It grabs onto your wrist as you wrap beacon around it and like leans in close to you, like bringing its face right to yours as you rip beacon outwards and cut this thing in half at the torso. And its upper half just goes flying through the air and lands on the ground and disintegrates. And behind the form that you just cut in half,

you see that half wood goat charging at you. and right as you dispatch the sap being at the center of this tree, the whites of its eyes just go dark. And the sap that was pouring out of it just instantly comes to a stop. And the goat just dies while running. It dies on its feet and it falls over. And with that, there is one last sort of exhalation of spores. And then they all just fall down right on top of all of you as Aubrey's whirlwind finally dies down. And the stump at your feet starts to rot in fast motion, leaking out this sap that's

just evaporating before your eyes. And as the stump disappears, there's an object left sitting on the ground. It's a seed, a large opalescent pod with tufts of soft fibers reaching upward from its crown. And there's a quiet for a moment as, you know, the wind dies down and the spores stop shooting out of this tree. And in that moment, this time you all see it. You all. all see these humanoid figures of white light, these four-armed beings that are just about your size. One of them climbs out of the trunk of the tree as if he was just hiding in there the whole time. And another one climbs out of the half-wood goat's corpse and the other one sort of prides itself out from under the fallen tree from the corpse of the goat that has been

crushed there. And as they all sort of stand up and look at each other, all three of those things, the trees and the two goatmen just start just disintegrating into these just black flakes that float up and into the air like embers from a campfire. And one by one, these three humanoid beings made out of this light, just look at all of you and just solemnly bow and very, very, very quickly after that, they all disintegrate into these just little beads of white light that float up and off into the distance. Hey, everybody. This is Griffin Macquarie.

Your Dungeonmaster, your big boy and your best friend. Thank you so much for listening to episode 19 of the Adventure Zone Amnesty. Sorry that it is late. There are a couple reasons for that. One, we recorded for like two and a half hours and then immediately went on tour. So I just didn't have the time required to make this episode what we want. wanted it to be. The reason, one of the reasons that we were so busy and I couldn't really finish post-production on it is because we were working on a new website. It's the macroyd.companley,

or macroy dot family, if you want to type in less letters. And this is kind of like our new, our new hub for all of our shit. We are not leaving maximum fun. In fact, nothing is really like moving from where it lives now. We're just sort of all collecting it on this website. We have been sort of branching out and doing more and more stuff and lots of different stuff that was kind of scattered hither and yon. So we decided this would be the best place to do it. We teamed up with Vox, who helped us set up the website using their chorus platform. It looks so good. We are so happy with how it looks. And hopefully it will be a more sort of cohesive way to find the stuff that we do moving forward. Again, it is the mackleroy.com family. And so that's going to be the best place

to find any of the stuff that we do moving forward. If you could, please think, about tweeting about the show using the Zonecast hashtag. We really do appreciate you spreading the word about the show. We are going to do a new lunar interlude and some, you know, a new arc coming up soon. So that's a good time for us to like introduce new characters. And also just like you spreading the word about the show really helps us out a ton. I should announce, I believe this is the last episode of the Adventure Zone that we are going to be doing Jumbotrons on. If you listen to My Brother and My, you already heard us talk about it there.

but basically demand had so wildly outstripped supply that the process of, you know, doling out the jumbo-trons and making sure that people got spots on the show who one of them had turned into a real pain point for a pain point. Listen to me. I've had a website for like fucking 12 hours and now I'm a big businessman. But yeah, it sucked. It sucked for everybody involved. It was more disappointing than it was delightful. And so we are going to stop doing jumbo-trons. you know, added benefit, it'll keep the ad spot a little bit shorter. But yeah, it's been like a cool way to, you know, connect with the audience and help people, you know, get some footing on the show. But we have lots of ways to get in touch with y'all now.

And so no more jumbotrons. Except for these two last jumbotrons. This one's for Maisie. And it's from Chris, who says, Chris, it's been almost four years since you got me to listen to The Adventure Zone. You were so scared I judge you for listening to a D&D podcast. Luckily for you, I was already a huge RPG nerd. Thanks for introducing me to these wonderful brothers and for sharing our lives together ever since.

I love you, sweet pee. There's a good message in that message. And it is that, you know, tell your friends about the show because you never know who is secretly really into, you know, orcs and swords and axes and sorcerers. Got another message here, and it's for Lil NOM and everyone else Tinder. And it's from Sarah, who says, happy Valentine's Day. Yauza! We couldn't want up the hoodies, so we're letting these boys affectionately call you out.

Your perceptiveness and thoughtfulness shines through in all aspects of life from your academics to your friendships. We're both honored to have you as our friend, occasional DM, and overall our good omen, tenderly, Lily and Sarah. What an appropriate final jumbo-chod for the Adventure Zone, one that is 10 months late, 10 months late as the crow flies. Holy shit. So thank you to Lulnom and everyone else, Tinder and Sarah for helping us just wrap things up in a very sort of tonally appropriate way. Some quick programming notes. Obviously, we were a week late for this episode, so the next episode will be out in one week. And the next episode that's going to come out will be our live candle nights spectacular that we recorded here in Austin, Texas.

I do not want to talk a big game, but it might be my favorite episode we've ever done long. It was an absolute delight. We all walked off stage just like beaming at the wild shit that we got up to in this episode. I'm very, very excited for you to hear it. It's a very great thing to just gather around the Yule log with the fam and listen to. So that is going to be up next Thursday. And then the week of Christmas, we will be taking off. So next week we'll have a new episode.

It will be our live candle nights episode. And then we will be back in January with new episodes of Amnesty. So yeah, that's about it. Again, our stuff is at mackleroy. Family. If you want to listen to the podcast that we have on Maximum Fun, who has been a kind supporter of ours and beloved partner of ours for a long time now,

you can go to MaximumFund.org. They got lots of great shows there, like Stop Podcasting yourself. Oh, and the JV Club with Janet Varney. Just got added to Maximum Fun. It is a fucking great show, and I'm so excited that we have Janet Varney's like amazing podcast that I love on our network. Again, that is at maximum fun.org. And we have other stuff

at mackleroy.com. Family. We have a mailing list that's at bit.ly slash mackleroy mail if you want to get directly to your inbox, all the updates and stuff. And I think that's it. We'll be back next Thursday with the Candleinites Live Show and then more episodes in January. So we will talk to you then. Bye. Aubrey, you all have made your way out of the woods. And you are, looking over the cliffside outside of Amnesty Lodge with sort of the assembled lodge crew. And from your position, you can see something strange. It's what you all are kind of gawking at. Just below you, you have a great vantage point on it, looking down on Riverside from atop the cliff.

There is a massive sinkhole just off Main Street. You can see it so well. It has consumed what looks like a parking garage, one that was, it appears empty. You don't see any cars in it. It was late when this happened. Just at a cursory glance, it doesn't seem like anything too horrible happened. But this sinkhole, it seemed like it was expanding and just kind of stopped a dozen or so feet away from St. Francis Medical Center. If it had continued to grow, it would have been, you know, disaster.

for the dozens of people inside that building at the time. And there are, you know, emergency response vehicles. You see, you know, flashing lights all around the sinkhole as they, as rescue teams go through and just make sure that everything is okay. But the scene seems pretty calm, so you assume that things are okay. But you see Agent Stern come like running down the path from Amnesty Lodge. He has changed out of his pajamas and back into his suit and long Peacote and he, he's, like, still fastening his watch around his wrist as he approaches and he clears his throat and says, I'm going to head down and see if there's anything I can do to help. I will, I'll be back late if you wouldn't mind leaving the lobby unlocked for me. And he... We'll leave a light on for you. He nods and bolts down the access road towards town. And you all are just sort of standing there looking at this sinkhole out of town. I imagine you've already sort of debriefed with Mama and, you know, given her the good, you know, news.

But everybody's here. Everybody's sort of looking down on this thing that has happened. And Danny standing right next to you, she's got Dr. Harris Bonker sort of positioned on her shoulder parrot style. She looks at you and she says, the abominations, they're getting stronger, aren't they? Yeah. This one was different. She looks.

I mean, she looks scared. And she... Hey, but, but I mean, look at it this way. We're getting stronger, too. I mean, like, I'm getting better at magic and, like, Duck actually, like, chose to kill something. And, like, Ned is at least 5% less of a coward. So, like, huh?

She gives, like, a faint smile, but you can tell she is... It did not bring her much relief. And she reaches over as you two are like looking down over the devastation below and takes hold of your hand. And as she does so, Dr. Harris Bonkers kind of rouses and clambers over to your shoulder kind of clumsily and nuzzles into your hair. Hey, buddy. And just then flakes start falling from the sky. And I think you have like a moment. I think everybody has a moment of like panic.

But then as one lands on your nose, you realize with relief, it's really. it's real snow. This gentle, quiet, windless snow has begun to fall in Kepler. This nice, peaceful moment is interrupted as Mama joins the party overlooking the chaos below. And she puts a hand on your not rabbit occupied shoulder. And she says, can I have a word with you? Yeah. Yeah.

And you walk with her back towards Amnesty Lodge and towards the cellar door. She says, we still need to have a talk about the abomination that you all have adopted and its whereabouts. But before all that, you want to tell me what Thacker's doing locked in the panic room? Oh, God, it's a whole thing, Mama. Like, you know, the tree makes bad things happen, released, made a pin drop, the net dropped or whatever. He got out and we tricked him into the panic room. We have a lot to talk about. She says, yeah, I admit I was not the most plugged in this hunt.

But listen, tomorrow you and the gang are going to need to try and get him sealed up in the kitchen again. He needs to eat, Aubrey. He's still a, you know, a person under all that stuff. Well, speaking of, I've been doing a lot of research. You know, studying and doing the books and everything and talking with Janelle. And I'd like to try to help him. how do you mean? Well, I wouldn't say I'm mastering it, but I'm getting a better grip on magic.

And I think if we can figure out like the right way to ask and like, I don't know, this might be bigger than the kind of thing I've done before, but I was able to like heal Keith. That's a whole thing I'll tell you about too. If we can do some kind of like big psychological healing maybe, Maybe we could bring him back. She smiles, like the thought of her friend being, you know, exercised in this way, has never really crossed her mind as a possibility. And she smiles. And it's the first time you've seen her smile since, like, you told her that you all brought an abomination into her home.

And she says, I would be thrilled to help you out with that in any way I can. For right now, though, and she reaches up to the. the railing of the porch and pulls down a plate that she had set up there with some food. And she says, if you could get this to him somehow, maybe just open up the door, slide it in real quick and get out. If he sees me, he's going to freak out. And I just want to make sure he doesn't, you know, starve to death before we can apparently rescue him. Yeah, you, sure, why not? And Mama, when that's done, and Aubrey kind of touches her sunglasses. There's something else I need to talk to you about, okay?

She nods and opens up the cellar door for you. And you approach the panic room. I think as we set up before, there's not like a window inside. There's just like a monitor. And as you step into the room, Thacker is not like in the position that you've kind of seen in this like meditative, sitting on the floor just kind of like staring intently down at the ground. He is standing up and he is looking directly up and into the. the camera and you see him on the monitor just like staring just like he's like looking right at

you from behind the door what do you do is there any way to talk like into the room is there like a calm system yeah i think so there's a we'll say there's like a speaker on the door like a two-way speaker so she pushes the button and she's like hey um i've got some food here but you need to be chill like a nine on a scale of one to ten of chill and then you can have some food and then i'm going to close the door back and it would be super cool if you didn't like jump at me or anything like that you release the button after saying this and he doesn't move you see him still standing staring into the camera and then you hear a voice and it doesn't seem like it's coming from the speaker You just hear it.

And this voice says, Why am I kept here? Hmm? Why am I being kept here? Thacker? Thacker is the name of this one? He is an unintentional host. Who are you then?

At this moment, we seem to be Thacker. But that is not who we are supposed to be. What have we done wrong? Oh man, where to start? Um, are you from Sylvain? Sylvain can no longer sustain the life that transper surface. We are the counterweight that aims to bring the planet back into balance. Will you release us?

Ooh boy, you know, I think that that I don't have clearance to make that decision, you know? I'm just going to put this sandwich in there real quick. and then I'm gonna get to work on your request. Um, you help me help you. And please don't attack me when I open this door. Are you opening the door? You know what? No, I'm not.

Okay. I'm gonna go fucking get mama. Uh, okay, you turn to walk away and you hear this voice say, please release us. Sylvain has become all those. living on her surface would seek to shatter her body entirely in pursuit of their own survival. Please release us by impeding us you hasten the arrival of Sylvain's end. Wait, Sylvain's end? Does this have to do with the crystal and the magic and stuff?

With that, I think realizing that you're just not going to release it, you see Thacker on the camera take a big step backwards and sit down on the ground and slowly angle, his head back downwards to stare at the floor. Ned, you have had an eventful few days, I think. I think the hunt has been, like, particularly taxing for you. Yes? You lost your car. Three harm.

Yeah, you lost your car. You ended up in the hospital at one point. You, you know, unintentionally antagonized the sheriff. Things were challenging. Your adrenaline was going, but now things have, like, slowed down. And I have a question. How does Ned feel... about what he realized about Aubrey, that it was her home that he robbed that night,

the night of the crash. I think from the moment that he was in the unconscious state and heard what Aubrey had to say and kind of figure out what was going on, I think he has felt very uncomfortable around Aubrey. I think he has, there was a lot of guilt involved with that night anyway. sure but ned whether he's fooling himself or not puts a lot of the blame on boyd moch his partner okay because i mean in his long career ned never hurt anybody in the jobs he pulled not physically harmed anybody and took by that took a lot of pride in that and i think he fancied himself as a almost like a robin hood that that's how he saw himself

And I think the violence that came about that night and the unfortunate things, the death and the fire and everything else, I think he really lays at Boyd's feet. But the guilt has really come crashing back on him quite a bit. I'm just curious how you feel about like doing anything about this guilt or are you going to sort of, you know, maybe it's appropriate for character. And this is not a slam. It's just like how he has been developed. Like is Ned just not going to confront it? No, I think he has to. I think if every time he and Duck and Aubrey go out, I think they have become closer.

I think they've become more of a unit. He realizes that in order for that to continue, he's got to open up. He's got to tell her about it. And I think he decided his life is better cooperating with and working with Aubrey and Duck. than, you know, the life on his own. And that was one of the, I think that was one of the things that Victoria brought to him, too, not just the Cryptonomicum, but to show that he could have people in his life that he could count on. Then here's the scene.

You are returning to the Cryptonomica. You're in the snow cat. You pull it into, you know, the fairly small, humble parking lot of the Cryptonomica. And as you do so, you actually see that the wreckage of, your Lincoln Continental has finally been like separated from the finicular and towed back in front of your place of business. You, you, you see it illuminated by the headlights of your snow cat. The store is, you know, dark. It is closed up shop hours ago. And you get out and approach the museum and go to open the door. And as you place your hand, you know, on the handle and start to put the keys

inside. I think you, because of who you are in the past that you have, you notice something off. The door frame around the dead bolt is cracked and splintered. And through the gap that has been made there, you can see that the dead bolt is already unlocked. What do you do? Very cautiously, I think he calls upon his burglar instincts, his sneaky instincts. and opens the door just wide enough to slip through. Okay. Because there's no lights outside because he turned the headlights off. So it's not like he would be illuminated in the door.

And he steps into the kryptonomica very surreptitiously and just really strains his ears to try to hear and try to look. There's a small, a little bit of light from some of the, you know, displays and stuff, but not very much. Okay. you slip into like the main room of the kryptonomica and you find that it looks fine it looks you know exactly how kirby usually leaves it when he wraps up one of his night shifts uh it looks looks nice and dusted and mopped and cleaned uh you actually see behind like the front counter

of the museum uh you see billy back there uh and he's sleeping in a cot almost like kirby like tucked him in back there and he is he is fast asleep and just ripping the gnarliest snores you've ever like heard because he is he is still a goat and yeah everything looks fine but except on the counter towards the the back of the room where there are sort of like these displays full of pamphlets sitting on that counter are three padlocks that are all popped open uh and as you get closer to them and you know care creep over and look at them, you can tell that they are the locks that were threaded through the latches on the door into the inner sanctum. He goes sprinting back to the inner sanctum.

You open up the door and it was a clean job, Ned, by which I mean like the room itself is clean. It looks like it did probably the day it was built. There are no signs of intrusion, no debris scattered all across the ground. The room has just simply been emptied. Everything in here, your trophies of your burglaries, your passports and documents, the small safe containing Aubrey's necklace, among other things, it is all just gone. Cluny's Oscar? All gone.

Fuck me running. And there is a light bulb hanging overhead that is illuminating this room, and it is shining down on the only item still remaining in this room. It is a note written on the back of a Cryptonomica postcard that is sort of folded up and laying on the floor. And as this light is sort of like swinging over it, you see that it reads, For My Cut, Plus Interest, Not Quite Even Yet. I'll be in touch. Duck, you're back in your apartment,

and you had just sort of started to peel off your, your thick layers of winter wear and sheathed beacon wherever you keep in, so sort of now having time to survey the damage done to them, and you're sort of decompressing like that when Minerva appears in front of you. And she says, another successful hunt, I take it. Congratulations.

Oh, thanks, Benny. I appreciate it. I don't love that name, but you have you have exceeded my my lofty expectations for you. Yeah, I did, I fucked up kind of fucked up Beacon a little bit. I feel kind of lousy about it. May I see? Yeah, sure. I go to the underwear drawer and get Beacon out.

She surveys the damage to the blade and she sighs and says, well, I suppose it can't be helped. I'm sure he will still serve you well. It seems like he still has some lethal capabilities. Duck Newton, I know you are tired, but I have something I need to say to you, and it cannot wait a moment longer. All right. She gestures towards one of the chairs in your living room. Take a seat. She says, Duck Newton, I am a murderer.

And as she says that, you see her silhouette kind of like deflate a bit, almost as if she's like relieved from finally saying what she's. she said, and she says, I told you earlier that my world, like yours, was tethered to an alien planet, besieged by abominations from the other side. This was only part of the truth. I was the war counselor for my people. I pushed us into a conflict with that alien world. Our steel and fighting prowess crashed against their insectoid chitin and hive-mind coordination, and there were losses, incalculable losses on both sides, but ultimately our world lost the war. They left us with just a handful of survivors. And so I forced the last great minds of our civilization to create a weapon that could defeat our foe for good, a disease. Lethal to our enemy, innocuous to ourselves,

I delivered the payload myself, Doc Newton, and I watched as, every living being on that planet I'm the only survivor of both worlds now and so I sought out the reason for our shared fate and in doing so found Earth and Sylvain

and you like other chosen before you were selected to keep your people safe that is just part of your destiny duck your true destiny is to not follow in my footsteps damn and it's a lot to dump on a guy. I've had kind of a full day already without

starting to process your genocide. Um there's more. I have to tell you, unfortunately. Damn, more than genocide, Minerva? Shit. She says, I told you this now because my concerns about losing your trust of damaging our relationship.

In a few moments It's not going to matter anymore. Your power, Duck Newton, it stems from your connection with me and my world. That includes your power of foresight. Surely you saw it, Duck, what you saw in your vision, the meteor. Yeah, yeah. It was never coming to Earth. It was coming for me.

My world was prepared once for this contingency. I will go to ground and try as I always have to serve. survive, but the mechanism through which I am able to speak with you, it will be annihilated. This will be our last conversation, Duck Newton. I beg of you. Remember my word. Now, hold on. There's got to be something. Um. Keep your world safe. Keep Sylvain safe. Continue your training. It will be harder after our link is severed, but you, you mustn't lose faith. Minerva, why now? Like, why would I finally decide to do something about the? Destiny and the powers and all this garbage.

Now, now I'm going to lose it all. Now I'm going to just be some dip shit with a sword? A fucked up sword? She looks to the side and like cranes her neck upward. Like she's looking out a window and she says, I'm sorry, Doc Newton. God, now, you know, fuck me. I'm sorry.

I'm being really self-interested right now. You got a meteor headed towards your house. Let's just get safe and take care of yourself and try to be okay. All right? I'll be fine here. I'll buy a gun or something. Jesus. She crosses one of her arms across your chest and gives you a bow, a deep bow.

And then she stands up and takes one last look at you and pivots to the side one more time. And she says, it's time to stop hiding. You need to finish what I started. Go to him. Go to who? And she turns back to you and she says, Duck Newton. my pupil, my friend, I was not talking to you,

and she disappears. And then there's a knock at the door to your apartment. I go to the door and open it. You see framed in the snow that is blanketing Kepler as Twilight approaches a figure standing at your doorstep. You see that he's wearing a peacoat and some beat-up fingerless wool gloves, one of which is wrapped around the hilt of a long brawl. sword that he's leaning against as you open up the door.

And your eyes adjust to the light more and you see the face of the person holding this blade. Leo Turkijian, your neighbor and friendly local grocer, clears his throat and says, So, uh, we should probably talk. Maximumfund.org. Comedy and culture. Artist owned. Listener supported. Hey, it's Jana Varney. of the JV Club podcast and I am so excited to be joining Maximum Fun.

If you're not yet familiar with a JV Club, it's a podcast with me and some of my favorite women and in the summer, men, as we explore the highs and lows of our terrible teenage years into our adult lessons. For example, hear about Alison Bree's humiliating moment at a gymnastics competition. Experience the shame of a knocked out tooth with Jamila Jamil, or drop in as John Hamm imagines what would happen if Bambi met Godzilla. So join me and all my once awkward, often still awkward friends every Thursday by subscribing to the JV Club on maximum fun.org. Hi, this is Rachel McElroy.

Hello, this is Griffin McElroy. And this is wonderful. It's a podcast that we do as we are married. And how's the ad going so far? Because I think it's going very good. We talk about things we like every week on Wednesdays. One time Rachel talked about pumper nickel bread. It was so tight.

You cannot afford to miss her talking about this sweet brown bread. We also talk about music and poems and, you know, weather. There was one, weather. One time Rachel talked about baby beluga this song for like 14 minutes, and it just really blew my hair back. So check us out on maximum fun.org. It's a cool podcast with chill vibes. Amber is the color of our energy,

is what all the iTunes reviews say. They will now.