The Adventure Zone - The Adventure Zone: Amnesty - Episode 27

Episode Date: May 3, 2019

The Pine Guard is scattered, in more ways than one. Kepler’s long-held secrets are coming to light over the course of a single evening. Their foe is beginning to take shape, but how much farther will they fall before they can stop it? Duck pushes the panic button. Aubrey confronts her past. Ned holds onto what little he has left. 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. Duck, you are headed to the Green Bank Telescope, correct? Sands, Sands Leo. Yeah, I'm going to listen to that. You recognize this song as the song that you heard whenever Minerva would show up to talk to you. And from the security room, an alarm begins to sound. You actually are sent sailing backwards into a coffee table. You feel something sharp, a not insignificant,

splinter of wood in your leg. You haven't seen it in years, but it is right here you find the flame bright pendant. And then you see yourself on the television. Oh, shit. The monsters are real. Tonight, when the moonlight falls upon the gate, it will open. I will be there, armed, and ready to defend my home. Will you? I have nervous. I'm a little, I mean, I'm always nervous before. we get started because it could all, I don't think everybody realizes just how bad it could go every time that we do this. Like we could really float a stinker every time, but I'm more nervous this time for what is, what could happen. You know what I mean? Have faith. Have faith in us. I think I'm especially nervous because it just got out of endgame.

And when the Hulk exploded because he got too big. Oh, no, Chudda! Go! Gat, Griffin. Oh, he got too big and green exploded and green guts. No, no. Wait, he got too big and too green. Yeah, and he exploded. And so that got me nervous about, like, death and stuff, but then I said it out loud to you guys, and you haven't seen it yet. Yeah, and it's me, Justin. I'm also mad to give him me to joke about Avengers' End game.

Yeah. Justin, we're recording our bits separately. I'm doing you two together, and then I'm doing Justin separately because you, well, there are a lot of reasons, but mostly you chowderheads have managed to book back-to-back-to-back vacations and a point where none of us are going to be in the same room together for the next month, which is rad and radical. and cool and good.

And also, I had to go see Avengers during our usual record time. So everybody, I think, has a little bit of sin on their hands. An equal amount. But let's start with Ned. Yeah, I mean, gosh, Ned. Wow, where to start?

The memes for Ned have been pretty hot lately. There's a lot of people who would have protected and nurture Ned, and I can see why, because things are not great. You just saw yourself on television, sort of putting just everything on blast, just kind of putting the truth out there, as Mulder would say,

and you are in the hotel room, and what is Ned doing? What's Ned's first sort of instinct? First of all, he's really racking his brain trying to remember when he would have recorded something like that. I also, I plugged myself back in to the internet for the first time a long time, I saw a lot of time travel theories, which I thought was neat.

After a few seconds, he realizes that it had to have been the imposter. Now, is that enough seconds that he would be embarrassed to say that? But not enough seconds that he was worried about his own mental capacities. Well, he wouldn't say it on like a podcast where everybody could hear it. But I think just to himself, you know, Ned's been doing a lot of self-exploration lately. And I think that... Ew. No, not like...

that, well, maybe a little, but just mostly a spirals. Ew. So what's your second instinct? I think he needs the others. He misses, he needs duck and he needs Aubrey. He does, he has no idea what's going on. He thinks it's probably the imposter bomb bomb. And if so, the shit is really going to hit the fan now that all

The truth is all out there. Okay. As Malta would say. As who? There was this show, Dad, called the X-Files. Okay. Oh, with the Professor X and... No, oh, dad.

You, noob. Professor Files? Yes. He needs his... He needs his partners, man. Okay. He's out there. He fucked up.

He knows he fucked up. And he just needs to... He can't handle this stuff on his own. Ned is not a strong guy. Yeah, I mean, beg to differ. Where are you actually going? Like, where are you, obviously, you want to regroup, but I don't think you know. I mean, you, Ned hasn't seen them since he stole the shade tree and bailed, right?

So, like, how do you? Man, Ned's just really been going on a fucking spiral this, this arc, huh? A little bit. I think Amnesty Lodge. I think he's got to go back to the lodge. He needs information. He needs to rally. and he needs somebody telling him what to do.

He's obviously made some really piss poor choices on his own, and, you know, he needs backup. Okay. You race out of the hotel that I've forgotten the name of for, like, the fourth time in the last two episodes. Count Dukyu. The Count Duku Motel and Resort and Lodge. Gluie. Yeah, something like that.

You make your way out. and you, I assume you drove here, yes, probably. And the Crips by Monica van, yes. Okay. As you are like pulling out of the parking lot of this, of the hotel to head up the ramp sort of towards the top side, you see Danny and she is like racing towards like the exit from the parking lot and like kind of waving her arms in the air, like yelling at you to stop and roll down your window. Okay, he hits the brakes, he turns down the eight-track player and says, Yes, Danny, is everything all right? She says, oh, my God, I'm so glad that I caught you.

Oh, listen, Ned, there's been a break-in at the Cryptonomica. You've got to get over there real quick. There's been a break in, the alarms are growing up. Uh-huh. Um, okay. Um, that's awesome. Uh, Danny. Um, let me ask you something.

Um, when I left the, the, the lodge earlier, do you, do you remember me having something on me, uh, an item? Was I carrying anything? Are you talking about the statue that you took that you found in there? So yeah, kryptonomica. Sorry. Yeah, you should probably get over there. I think Kirby's in trouble too. Yeah, I'll head straight there.

So I'll see you. Okay, dokey. Yeah, I'll meet you there. How about that? Great. And he rolls up the window. He turns up the A-track player, and he knows that was not really Danny. What are you doing then now that the...

Getting the hell away from it. Okay. You kick the car into gear. Where are you going? Amnesty Lodge. Okay. That is in the opposite direction, right? You're going towards the ramp up towards top side,

and Cryptonomica, if you're looking at the map, is actually to the left. So when she sees you turn right, you see, like, a little smile across her face with, like, a little bit of blood dripping out of it. And then you see her start, like, Terminator walking towards your car as it's driving away. And then you see her kind of like hunch over a little bit clutching her chest.

And now she's like pretty far off in the distance. And she tucks through a portal and disappears. Let me interject something here. I would assume that Ned did not take his eyes off her, that he was watching her. Oh, sure. Yeah. I was telling me all that. Yeah.

And he saw that. Yes, you deduced correctly. So I'm not going to let. That was all things that Ned definitely saw. and I think that Danny saw you see you saw. Okay, good. As soon as Danny vanishes, he stops and turns around and heads for the kryptonomica. Huh.

Okay. Aubrey. Yes. Just found it. When last we left. Yeah, you have found the flame bright pendant and as well as like a bunch of other stuff. There's obviously the laptop is in here. Shade tree is in here, but I don't think you would know what that is.

alongside all of these other stolen goods and a bunch of fake IDs and just generally sort of the proof of Ned's former illicit activities. Ned, like, one thing I was confused about is that I was editing the last episode is like Ned has talked about his treasures and trophies before, right? Like, he's always bragging about the Nerf gun that he acquired from the Nerf founder. How, how, how did Aubrey feel about Ned before, like, she found this treasure trove? And I guess if Jews were here, we could ask Duck, too, but, like, Did you have a suspicion that he had some shady stuff in his past?

You know, I would say that it's like if you had like an uncle or something that told you all these stories about like the famous people he had met or like how he, you know, was a jockey in the Kentucky Derby or these things. And you like listen to it and you're like, okay, sure, sure. And then one day like as you were looking for something in the attic found that all those stories were true. Yeah. Like found pictures of him in like the winter circle of the Kentucky. Derby and like shaking hands with like John F. Kennedy and that kind of thing. And I think it's like that where like he had talked about stealing stuff, but like I didn't believe he stole Clooney's Oscar. I didn't believe that he broke it and sold the Nerf gun. But like here is the proof.

And I think more than that, I have to say like I've been thinking about this a lot since we last recorded of like would Aubrey immediately jump to like I it don't make so much sense Ned has been lying to us this whole time sure would she think like oh this is a setup where someone wants us to think it's that and I honestly once I thought about it enough I don't think she's thinking anything right now except one pendant to confuse three anger. Yeah, I think that those three make a lot of sense. I think it's more of just like she,

because I, Travis, the player, have had the benefit of like the time to process and like I have known this is coming since like, I think when we first set up the, the whole story arc. But like if I am really putting myself in Aubrey's shoes, I think she is just reaction right now. Okay.

Wait, I have a vested interest in this. So I just want to interject this. What is she angry about? Well, one, I think it's that it's here. And I think that whether it's logical or not, the thought that Ned would have this or know anything about it and she didn't know about it. Okay. So she's she's not mad at Ned for being overall dishonest because he's been telling everybody that he's been telling everybody that he stole stuff. Yeah, it's not that.

And Aubrey lies all the time. Like, Aubrey is, I would say, of the three. She's mad with Ned. Yeah. Okay, so that's, we've talked about her feelings a lot. You're standing in front of the pendant that your mother gave you the night that your house burned down. She wants to grab it and she's afraid to grab it. And yet she grabs it because she's got to touch that crystal.

You know how this is. You know how this story goes. Do you put it on? Yes. Okay. You put it on and it, first of all, it's, fits you, which when your mom gave it to you the night before you were going to leave, she was going to do some work. The chain was a little bit long. And now you can see that that work

was completed that night after you went to bed because the length of chain is now just the perfect length and it fits you perfectly. And you talked to Mama about this. Like months and months and months ago when she was asking you about like the origin of your powers, this like family heirloom that had been handed down, you know, through your family that had the name flame in it. And I think what strikes you right now is as you put it on, you obviously feel like this rush of the motions. This is like dredging up a lot of a lot of stuff. But you don't, you don't feel like more magical. You, you like decidedly don't feel like. Decidedly don't feel. like this has evolved your powers or unlocked something within you. It is a, it is, you know,

you feel about it, however you feel about it to have it back after all this time, which like, I don't know, you, you are the decision maker on that one. But like, in terms of like, it's magical capabilities, I am telling you that you don't feel, you don't really feel anything from this stone. I see. And then it explodes and you turn it now. There's no. There is, there's- Just like the Hulk! Just like the Hulk did when he got so big. Uh, so I'm gonna say that like once she has it on, right? Like, I think now she looks around and she registers like the laptop.

Um, I don't think she knows what Shade Tree is, so I don't know that that holds any specific- or anything else, but she does know that that's Mama's laptop and it's here with her necklace. Um, and she's still her. hurt, if I remember correctly, because she got a big old hunk of wood in her leg. Oh, yes. Yes. Did you forget? No, I didn't. Yeah, you are hurting quite badly. You are unstable, actually. So I'm going to keep that in mind during this episode, whatever you decide to do. So I think she's gonna call Mama. On like the Cryptonomica phone? Yeah, on the Cryptonomica landline. Okay. You dial up the number for Amnesty Lodge and,

You have to dial 13 first to get an outside line, just one to say. Okay, you remember Ned saying that to you. And it rings for a while. And right when you start to think that nobody's going to pick up, somebody does and you hear Jake, cool, I say, Emacy Lodge, where you're... Jake, it's... Shut up.

It's all right. I couldn't remember what she says. Holy shit. Did Ned just fucking... Did Ned just... I'm sorry to cuss, did Ned just put it all... Out there. It's okay to cuss, Jake.

In this, in the, wait, what are you talking about? Were you watching? Watching what? Ned just went on the local news and told everybody everything. The, the monsters, the archway, everything. Okay. See, I thought I was going to call with Ned bad news, but that might be worse. Is Mama around?

No, Mama took off as soon as the, the, the, she saw Ned on the, the, and you hear in the background? What about Barkley? In the background, you hear, like, rustling and shouting and, like, chairs scooting around, and you hear hurried pacing. And somebody kind of, like, mumbling and kind of, like, shouting under the breath. And he says, yeah, Barclay went with her. I think they're going to, I think they're headed to the archway. I think they're going to try and head off whoever's going to go down there.

We've already seen a dozen Hornets or so kind of go motor and pass. So I'm pretty sure that they're sort of arranging the ranks. But Aubrey, we need you up. here. Things are, things are... Okay, Jake, deep breath. I need you to come get me. I'm hurt. I'm at the Kriponomica. Come pick me up. I don't have a driver's license. Jake, I don't care. Find anybody. Okay. It's just me and Moira up here right now. Have you seen Danny today? No. Danny's not there? No, Danny took off too. I thought she was going to find you. Okay, Jake, I believe in you. You can do this. Get a car and come get me.

Okay. Jake says, okay, I'll be right there. I'll bring Moira to. Which one? Which one goes? Which is the go one and which is the stop one? That's the gas pedal. Don't make me think about it, Jake. Which side is it on? Which do it on? I can't remember unless I'm in the damn car, Jake. Okay, okay, fine. I'll figure it out on the fly. And he hangs up. Justin, just want to let you know. No, Travis and Dad already did their thing. And you weren't here for it, but it was very good acting. There was very good moments, important moments, and Tony award-winning stuff. What energy do I need to bring to this to balance the episode? Have you ever watched Frazier? I have watched Frazier.

The Dad. Dad, Frazier, Energy. So very sort of a hypersexual All right for some for some John Mal I was about to say His name is John Malaney I don't think that's right I think there's an extra syllable in there somewhere I'm searching I'm Googling Fraser Dad one word

Let's see what Okay Fraser Dad one word got me John Mahoney John Mahoney Sent me a letter Oh When I was trying to pick a college. And he

asked me if I wanted to go to a certain school. And at the time, I didn't know how these things worked. I guess it was St. Joseph's College. I didn't know how these things worked, and I thought that I was getting a letter from John Mahoney

asking me to go to this specific college. You've been chosen. Yeah, so we had to record our bits separately this episode, and I don't know where I'm going to cut this in. I hope it wasn't after a very dramatic moment. And then Justin and I talked about the Frazier Dad for two minutes. But let's get it going. You are at the Greenbank telescope in the small on-site observatory lab, which is where you were when you were

checking out a few sort of makeshift museum exhibits in here. And you found one that played a song called Interstellar Blues. And it had sort of a string of the celestial coordinates where where it was found and you heard it and it was the song that you always heard whenever you saw Minerva. And then immediately after hearing that, there is an alarm siren going off out in the security room, which is another sort of one of the other few rooms that are in this very small longhouse style building

within the perimeter of the Green Bank telescope. And immediately Dr. Drake, who is in here with you, She, like, whips her head up from the console where she was uploading some stuff to the satellite lab. And she, there's, like, a small window in here. And she's, like, trying to overlook the grounds. And she says, uh, this is, they may be doing a test or something. Um, you should just, uh, just, yeah, just chill. Just keep doing what you're doing.

And she's, uh, she's poking around looking through the window. What do you do? Uh, yeah, I'm going to kind of ease my way over the security room and see if I can hear something. Okay. Read that bad situation. Yeah, I think that's a good idea. Holy shit. Damn, duck.

That's an 11. That's an 11. A natural 11 plus sharp. Which is 1. So 12. Okay. Fantastic. Okay.

Yeah, with that, that's a super good role. You get to hold two. Oh, no, I'm sorry. Hold three and ask these here questions. Okay. I am going to ask, well, my best way in is probably the door to it. The security room is unlocked, right? Like you are, I don't think that that is a...

Best way out, presumably, same door. Yes, I think I'm going to start with, are there dangers I haven't noticed? Yes, and now that you have asked that, you notice it. There's like six monitors in here with some cameras overlooking the perimeter, and most of it is just kind of just grass because it is a huge sort of space that the, that surrounds the green.

Bank Telescope, but on one of the monitors, you see having smashed through the gate that you were let into just earlier before by the security guard waiting there. You see a shape that is crawling, I think, is probably the best verb you could use across the ground. And actually, right now Dr. Drake has like come into the room with you and now she sees it too. And she's like, Duck, is that your bear? But it is most certainly not a bear. And in fact, if it is the abomination that you've been hunting, you would not immediately know looking at it.

This shape that's crawling across the grounds toward the telescope is like, it's not human. It is just this riving beige and red mass that seems to be like forming human parts that emerge from it for a few moments before collapsing back inward. And it's generating dozens of these, like long, loosely composed arms in front of it and like grabbing onto the ground and pulling the shape forward to like absorb those arms back into the mass. And you also see like some faces

on the side of it that are trying to form, but they are not necessarily being successful. And it is, it's moving fairly slowly as it's like continuing its approach towards the telescope itself. But it also seems to be growing. So that is what you've noticed. And where, am I able to tell, like, where this camera is pointing? Like, where this is? It is pointing at the main entrance from the road that you drove in on. Although you do not have your car within the perimeter.

You had to park that outside because of electronics. Although I'm sure that is probably the security guard's, like, least concern right now. And where's the security guard? I think you'll need a question maybe to... Where? Okay. maybe what's the best way for me to protect the victims and see if he is listed among those victims? She was the Fargo.

She, she, she, sorry, yeah. She, it takes you a second to actually, like, see it. I think you're both probably pretty locked in on this thing. And right now, Dr. Drake is, like, holding the phone and then you see her, like, tap on the receiver a couple of times and then hang up and pick it back up. and she says, uh, phone's not working. Uh,

and she's, she's starting to get fairly worried. So, um, I mean, you're both probably potential victims at this moment. You also, you also see,

uh, the, the security guard and she is trying to fight her way out of this thing. She is half submerged in this thing. And with her hands, it's like she's trying to pull her way out of quicksand. Uh, and she,

is she's holding her own but the best way to protect her would be to obviously get her out of that situation the best way to i mean the best way to protect you and dr drake is probably just to stay in this in this building you got one more what's the most vulnerable to me ah man i'm gonna need a an interpretation of that it's a very odd question i mean it's certainly a question that is design for multiple enemy. Like, where's the weak point on this thing? But you definitely cannot see that. I think, okay, if you're looking for like a strategic sort of weak point of this thing,

it is, you can tell it is crawling with a fury. And honestly, like from the thing that I described, like a pained sort of process, it is desperately trying to get to the Green Bank telescope. So like the vulnerability here is, you know. what it's doing. You know where it is going. And like, it's not a huge advantage, but right now it's kind of the only thing you've got. It is still like a ways away from the telescope, but again, it is, it is kind of growing. It is kind of, for lack of a better term, Akiraing out as it approaches the center of the compound here. But it doesn't have visual line of sight to me, right?

Oh, it does not know. It does not know that you are, are. there unless it has some other way of sensing you. I mean, visual is kind of a weird word, because this thing has faces. It's trying to, like, form and it is failing to do so. It is trying to, like, make bodies and it is not doing it correctly. So you don't even know if visual is within this thing's, like, capabilities. All right. I got a plan. Okay. Dr. Drake now says, like, you want to tell me what the hell is going on, Doc? This is about to break pretty bad. I'd say a pre-high likelihood of it breaking bad. And you need to get

gone as best you can. I mean, I, you want me to go out there? You think that's the good idea? Fuck, no. Get under a table or something. Jesus. It's not an earthquake duck. It's a dude blob. Yeah, well, are you better protected against the dude blob standing

like gawking at it in the middle of the room? Are you better, like, just I don't know how dumb it is. Maybe put a wastebasket on your head and might think you're a lamp. I don't fucking know. Why is it want the telescope, duck? What's it doing here? I don't know, but I'm about to find out.

Ned, you pull up to the cryptonomica. It is obviously closed. It is the gate is over the front door. And it shouldn't be. You're not exactly sure where Kirby is or where Billy is for that sake. But it is shut down right now. Okay, I think, I don't think he would have gone to the confrontation with Boyd without the narf blaster.

Okay, yeah, for sure. I think you were probably strapped. So I think he's got the narf blaster. I think he pulls it out and has it ready. Okay. And you said there's like a big, a gate over the front door, like a big metal. Not like a heavy gate, but like, you know, that they would use at a, you know, a shot. Sure.

That they would want to board up. So, yes. Like one of those like scissors. Right. Yeah, yeah. We had to make GameStop to keep all the. the crooks out from skill my master chief. That worked well.

So I think he opens that great. And I think he's using extreme caution because I just think that he is spooked by this whole chain of events that emotion, most being dead and not being able to get the pendant back and seeing himself on TV. I think Ned is freaking the hell out. So I think he's on, you know, red alert the whole time. And so I think he's going to use all of his crook skills to try to open this gate and the door as quietly as possible. Okay.

Would this be a burglary role? Are you trying to read a bad situation? No, I think he would have keys, wouldn't he? Oh, yeah, sure. Okay, this would not be a burglary role. I just think he's trying to be cautious. I think I've said burglary a couple times. Burgering.

Okay. So are you reading a bad situation then? Or are you just being careful? Just being careful. Okay. Aubrey, what are you doing when this happens? Where is Aubrey? Finishing the phone call, back to the door.

Okay. You hang up the phone and as you do the shutter over the front door rolls open. And as it does, it's probably around like five o'clock or so. It's like perfect kind of golden hour. here like early early spring actually it would be i guess late winter and just the sort of last few orange slivers of daylight just come crashing into the room as the shutter slides open and you see silhouetted against it ned who walks into the shop Aubrey what what do you what are you doing here Aubrey. Ned, I'm going to give you, let's say, 30 seconds to explain just a whole fuck ton of stuff.

Your time starts now. Ned, you see Aubrey leaned up against the, like, the desk at the back of the room, and she is very clearly having a bad time. She's just been smashed through a coffee table. Not that you know that, but she has, you know, a shard of something sticking out of her leg that she has. is holding on to very tightly. Can he see the pendant around her neck? Aubrey, does he see the pendant around your neck? I'm going to say if the light is shining in from the door and it hits, I think she says that and the light glens off it. All right.

No bullshit, no games. I can explain everything. But right now we have more pressing concerns for- 20 seconds, Ned. That leg needs to be tended to. You need to take a look at that leg. 15, Ned. Let me help you.

Aubrey, listen to me, please. Ten seconds, Ned. Fine. Fine. What are you going to do? Take it. Do it. Kill me.

Burn me up. Shoot me. Don't even wait for an explanation. I fucked up, okay? I have fucked up over and over and over again. But I fucked up trying to make this situation better. And we don't have time for me to explain. it all to you. What happened was a horrible, horrible accident, a terrible accident. And I am so

damn, sorry, but Aubrey, we don't have time to do all this. If you're going to take action against me, take it because it's more important that we deal with this situation or else everybody is going to get killed. Wait. What accident, Ned? What did you do? Ned, it is that night and it is around 2 a.m. And you're sitting in the passenger seat of the Imperial Crown Coupe with Boyd in the driver's seat as you pull up in front of this fairly palatial estate.

The hit for tonight that Boyd has promised is going to be a big one. And Boyd looks at you and turns the engine off and he says, I'm telling you, the folks in this house, the intel's good, Ned. They are loaded for bare. We get in there, out of there in three minutes tops and we are set for life. That's fine. That's fine. Are you positive? They're not home.

Are you absolutely sure there is no one home? Yeah. Nobody's home, Ned. I'm pretty sure nobody's home. I've been assured that and I can pass on that assurance. How sure is pretty sure? As sure as it always is, isn't it? What I can promise is we, and he pulls out a cell phone and he says, we are going to be ghosts.

And you see him pull up like an app for a security company and he punches in some name as the login and punches in some password. And then you see this UI up here like with all of these little buttons with red locks and the word armed on it. And he just starts clicking them all off one by one by. one by one by one. And as he presses one of them, you see these floodlights that were turned on over the driveway. They click off. And he says, so they've got something like a showroom in there. Lots of old family heirlooms and museum pieces and jewelry and art and such. But honestly,

it's more valuable than any sane person would ever keep in their home. They're practically begging to be robbed. So get in, you know, still play it quietly. But this should be a family. easy one. That's fine. I'm sure they're insured, right? I mean, if they've got a security system like that, and, you know, I'm sure they can compensate, you know, through insurance means, right? Help me here, Boyd, I'm struggling. Usually I steal from, you know, famous people, and I steal bric-a-brac, and I, you know, I steal things that, you know, don't really have much market value, which is why I'm broke. But, you know, This is not my usual modus operandi. That's a law enforcement term.

You may not be familiar with. I'm familiar with it, Ned. I've had many brushes with Johnny Law. Listen, this is the kind of job that falls on your lap every once in a blue moon. And I'm not going to let you pass it up. And he pulls on his mask and steps out of the car and begins walking towards the now darkened house. Fine. Fine.

You can't get in without me anyway. All right. So Ned pulls on his mask and follows. I think you got a roll plus robbery here. I cannot think of a more literal, a more literal move, right? I don't want to steer this scene, right, but like certain things we have established have happened. You are robbing. This is robs. Okay. Is that a move? Robbing? Yeah. It's your, it is your crooked move. I will read it now for the benefit of the audience because it's been a while, burglar. When you break into a secure location, roll plus sharp on a 10 plus pick three on a

seven and nine pick two. You get in undetected, you get out undetected, you don't leave a mess, and you find what you were after. Okay. That's a seven plus sharp, which is two. That brings it up to a nine. That would be nine. It's going to have to be get in undetected and find what you were after. Yeah. They do leave a bit of a mess. Yeah. Maybe playing a very different game. it was any other choice. Everything goes great. I don't know what you consider a mess, but I'm pretty sure burning down a big portion of a house.

Yeah, it's not great. You... I use the time stone. Right. And the Hulk explodes. You slip in through the front door. You bypass whatever, you know, tangible physical locks that they had,

and you two just slip into the house. You are standing in the foyer of the house. Aubrey, you are, you know, also in this scene. but we established in an earlier episode that you and your family are all asleep right now. And Ned has just slipped in undetected. So like if we're doing this PVP rules, you are, I think you have no reason to be awake right now. Still asleep.

Okay. Ned, you're in the foyer. It is dark in here. You see a security panel like light up as the door opens, but then as you close it, it just like turns right back off again and you see the word disarmed written on it. what do you do um i think he would uh investigate a mystery uh this would almost certainly be read a bad situation over investigate yeah because this there's no monster here that you know of okay read a bad situation then okay go ahead and roll plus sharp that's uh three three and it doesn't make

any difference what the sharp is right because the sharp is step in a big bucket clang clang clang No. Two. It's five total. Okay. I am going to make a hard move at some point. But you do not detect any immediate dangers. There is a...

What you can see is that there is a foyer that you are standing in right now, and it has exits to... You can see, like, a little dining room kitchen. And in the kitchen, you can see, like, a bunch of unwashed dishes. Somebody is obviously, like, made a big meal here and didn't end up cleaning up after them quite yet. There's an office with a desk with a light still on, shining onto it, and you see some scraps of paper, like some balled up in a trash can next to the desk

and some scattered around it, but otherwise from your perspective, you don't see anything else in there. And yeah, there's a set of stairs heading upstairs. There's like a living room with a TV, but there's nobody in there that you can see. That is what you can see right now. Okay, so through a system of interest. at hand signals. Yeah.

He communicates with Boyd and in hand signalese says, what the hell? I don't see any display. He puts a finger up to his mouth and he points at you and then he points to the office and he points at himself and he points toward the living room and like puts his two index fingers together and then like separates them as if to say split up. Okay. My hand signals were better, but okay, that's fine. I'll go in the office.

He rolls his eyes and he walks away and you into the office. And it's dark in here. I don't know if you, what's your style? You roll with a flashlight or worry that that is too much suspicious. Like what's your burglary style? I think he's wearing one of those headband lights like you buy it lows. That way your hands are free. Okay.

You turn the office over. and you find a small safe that is underneath the desk that you just have no problem cracking open. And inside you find a gold watch that you pocket and some cash. You find a couple checkbooks that are inside of there and a passport. I don't know if you steal that.

That would be kind of a dick move. No, and I don't think he'd take the checkbook either. Okay. Fraud, not Ned's game. I can respect that. And as you stand up, you know, give the desk a once over. You don't see anything necessarily valuable there. All that paper, you see somebody was actually trying to write a letter that they were kind of like not having much success with and, you know, bawling up old drafts and tossing them.

And then your headlamp looks up and standing in the doorway that you just walked through is a man. And he is wearing a pair of glasses that the light glints off. And he is holding a baseball bat and he says, what the hell are you doing? And don't move. And he starts to reach over towards the alarm panel. Excuse me. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I want to tell you something.

Listen, I know that you're upset. There is a very dangerous man behind you. I am not a dangerous man. I am. You hear a thunk and then you see this man just collapsed to the ground. And then there is Boyd, and he's holding a fire poker that he has just clobbered this man in the back of the head with the blunt side of. And he looks at you, and he is furious. And he just sets the fire poker down.

You see him actually, like, lift his hand up, and you're worried that he's about to, you know, murder you after what you just said. And then he sets the fire poker down and starts to head upstairs, and halfway up, he just, towards you to follow him. I think he would, well, at the same time, he knows what a bad dude, Boyd Moshe is. If the dad's home, he's going to figure other people are home. And while Ned is not brave or courageous, the idea of somebody getting hurt on one of these jobs, and he wouldn't, he follows Boyd. He goes up after Boyd.

There's a lot of, well, I'm trying to figure out what to do. I'm trying to think like Ned, I mean, Ned's, Initial instinct would be to run, to lead, to take off. I think he would grab him and spin him around and just shake his head back and forth, like, no, no, no, no, no, and try to pull him. I mean, he's obviously, Boyd's much stronger. Try to pull him back and gesture to leave. He looks at you with just a murderous stare, and he shakes his head slowly, yes.

And then he puts one hand on this big, heavy looking door with a. a, there's like a black box at the very top of it connecting to the door frame that you assume as some sort of security like system that is inert. And he pushes the door open. And beyond it, you see a just a horde of treasures. You see a hoard of jewelry and art and just all of these like very valuable. It looks almost like a museum in here. And he looks in at the.

room and then he looks back at you with a big smile and jerks his hand free and pulls you inside. Aubrey, I think the sound of your unconscious father falling to the floor is definitely enough to make some sort of noise that would wake you up. What do you do? Oh, for sure. Okay. I think, so not knowing the layout of the house. You're on the second floor of the house.

Is the door they just went through between my room and my parents' room? No, I don't think so. I think first I'd look down the steps because that's where I heard the noise come from. I heard it come from downstairs. Okay. It's pretty dark. I'm going to say you don't necessarily see anything down the steps. I start kind of looking down the hallway.

I also say maybe I've grabbed like a tennis racket. Okay. So this is not a, I heard a weird sound. What's going on? This is a danger. Will Robinson? Well, I will say, I, Travis McRoy, would grab, I would just grab a tennis track. You know what I mean? Like, if I heard a weird noise, especially if I'm like 17, 18, yeah, okay. I'll grab a tennis track. I think probably read a bad situation if you are, if that is what

you're doing. Let's, let's toss a roll in here, see what happens. That's a five. That's a five plus sharp. My sharp is plus one, so it's only a six. I don't see shit. No, actually. You are halfway down the stairs holding this tennis racket and you see your dad and he is just crumpled to the floor

in the like entryway into his office and you see a little bit of blood in the moonlight, matted on the back of his head. And as you see that, my hard move is you drop the tennis racket and it goes clattering down the stairs. And back inside of the sort of the museum, I think Boyd has made, and you, have you been helping load shit up? I think that Ned would be a little bit more, you know, I'm sure Boyd's just grabbing and throwing stuff in bags.

And I think Ned would be a little bit more precise looking for things that maybe he would have an interest in. So who grabs the pendant that you see on like a small desk that is, it's like not under one of these display cases, it's on this small desk with like a velvet pad on top of it. You see like a magnifying glass mounted to a metal arm and a small pair of pliers. And you see the flame bright pendant and it's got this just enormous glowing orange red gym inside of it. and you see actually a few inches of like silver chain that have just been plucked from it and are like sitting on the on the pad nearby who grabs that god you know what my temptation to retrofit things yeah but i don't want to now ned would grab it okay i think it would he would mull it over for a minute or two and look at it and and then he

he'd stuff it in his bag. I gotta be true to Ned. It's when you do that that you hear this very loud clattering sound coming from outside of the door down the stairs that you just came up and you look at Boyd and Boyd looks at you

and puts a finger to his mouth and then points at you to go check it out. Aubrey, you've just dropped the tennis racket down the stairs. What are you doing? I would say that probably going to check on dad see if you know he's alive okay see if you can wake him up he is he's breathing he's at the bottom of the stairs that you were just at and um i think you try to shake him uh to attention and you see his eyes kind of like fluttering a little bit and he's he's trying to say something

um but otherwise he is not necessarily getting up uh ned you are what do you do um i think Ned goes, heads for the stairway because that's where they heard the sound. Okay. And I think my temptation is to have Ned pretend to be Santa Claus like the Grinch. There's no way that's appropriate for this. But I do not think that's appropriate for this. So I think he just heads down the stairs. And because he's pretty sure this is not going to be somebody he can just give a drink of water to and send him back to bed.

I think he starts heading down the stairs to check out the noise. You get a few steps and then you see Aubrey and Aubrey you see a large masked man carrying a bag of loot on the stairs above you. And Aubrey, what do you do? Screams and maybe runs for a phone. You scream and begin running for the phone. It's probably in the kitchen. Ned, you are like maybe caught off guard by this a little bit, and you see Boyd begin just like full-blown sprinting down the stairs,

and he says, there's still more stuff! And he goes just bounding by you, and he, like, throws a bag, like, at the front door where it lands ready to be absconded with, and he starts chasing after her, what do you do? Oh, no, no, no. I'm sorry, I don't care how bad he is. He's not going to let Moshe hurt somebody. I think he goes chasing after Boyd. I think he'd tackle it.

I think he'd hit Boyd with the bag of stuff. Okay. Roll to kick some ass. Four. Plus one, I think. Gee many Christmas. Okay. Then.

These kind of experience, though. Yeah, go ahead and mark experience. How many? That's three, right? Yeah, if you failed quite a bit. Well, that levels up. Well, congratulations, but it's not going to avoid the hard move I'm about the thing. I guess because it's a flashback.

Yeah. You swing the bag to try and hit your partner, and this is a bag that you have just filled with heavy, belongings and maybe you weren't used to the weight of it. But it slips out of your hand. And then Aubrey, you feel something just a sharp blow at the back of your neck. And then you are out like a light. Oh, geez. And Boyd looks up at you, Ned, and looks kind of impressed.

And then he charges back past you to go finish off the room. You see him already start loading up. some more stuff. Boyd, enough. Enough. If there's two people in this house, there's more. We've got two great bags. We've got a whole bunch of stuff. Let's get the hell out of here. Ned, you're looking back up the stairs, and you are now actively, like, shouting at Boyd, who, like, instantly is back in the doorway of the museum room, and he is looking at you furiously as you are sort of breaking burglary protocol 101. And your back is turned, but you don't see this young woman's body as it like levitates up to a

standing position. And her hair is, I think you turn around because you see Boyd just awestruck by something. And her hair is sort of just like waving as if caught in a sharp wind that doesn't exist in this room. and her eyes are just these bright orange lights. And then you see her point up at Boyd in the art room, and she grips her hand into a fist, and then there is a bright flash of light.

You are on the ground, and the house is on fire, and you get the impression that you just blacked out, and Boyd is grabbing you by the shoulders and trying to wake you up and get you on your feet and out of the building. He's still got all of the bags sort of thrown over his back. But he says, Ned, we've got to leave now, now. Yeah, of course.

Yes, go. Run, run, run, run, run. Aubrey, you are, let's leave it up to a roll. Roll to act under pressure because I literally don't know. Nope. Damn. That is a three. Aubrey is still unconscious alongside her dad on the floor.

Boyd is out the door. I think he's going to try to pull Aubrey out. I think he assumes the dad's dead. No, you definitely would be able to see him breathing. Because you went and checked on him, right? You checked on him earlier, so he is not. Are they close enough he would try to drag them both out? They are close enough.

I don't know if he would try and do it. Yeah, he would. I think he would try to drag two grown people out. You're a big guy, but I'm going to need you to act under pressure to pull that off. Yeah, I know. Seven plus cool? Yeah. Okay.

That would be an eight. Okay. You could use luck, Dad. You try to pull them both. They are too heavy. You can only pull one of them with the role that you got. Shnikey. Okay.

I think Ned feels so. strongly and probably more than a little guilty, he's going to try to save both of them. So I'm going to use a luck point here. Okay. Yes. That bunch of roll up. Pull them both out of the fire. Yeah. That is a 12 plus. You tap into that sort of superhuman strength that you get in moments of crisis and you manage to pull them both out into the front yard. And Boyd runs up to you as you are doing so and like grabs the bag of loot off of your back and throws it in the trunk and he hops in the driver's seat and kicks it kicks it into high gear and he says come on ned what if there's somebody else in the house ned now yeah that's all the courage ned's got i can't see

him running into a burning building fine so he checks one last time to make sure the the girl and the man are okay and he runs and jumps in the car Aubrey Um, okay. I stole that pendant from your house. Aubrey's hands cash on fire. Okay, hold on, hold on. I'm the one that took it. What happened to the house, what happened to your precious mother and your family was not intentional.

It was an accident. And I have hated myself ever since then. That was a turning point in my life. It was not on purpose. It was an accident that I will regret the rest of my life. You know, Ned, and our hands extinguish, accidents happen, Ned. When my mom died, I blamed myself for a long, long time.

and it took some pretty great therapy for me to realize that things happen and sometimes things aren't anybody's fault and it just plays out the way it plays out. And you know what, Nan, I don't hate you for that. I hate you because you knew and didn't tell me. I can forgive that you made a mistake back in the past. We all have those.

But what about yesterday, Ned? Why didn't you tell me yesterday? Or this morning or at lunch. You could have told me any time since we met. we have been working together and you knew. You knew, Ned, and you didn't tell me. You lied every time you looked at me and didn't say it. You lied, Ned.

So, I'm going to walk out that door. I'm going to tell Mama that I found her laptop here in your shop. And that you have been lying to all of them. of us. And I better not see your face again. The truck pulls up outside. You see Mama's truck through the window. It comes to, I would say, an irresponsibly fast stop. And you see Jake Coolice and Moira in her, you know, both in their human disguises. You know, one last thing. Before you run and hide and lie and whatever it is, you

do, you might try to clean up a little bit of the mess you've made. And she walks out the door. Hey, everybody. This is Griffin McRoy, your best friend, your dungeon master, and your best friend, and your music agent. And I'm telling you, you got a hit on your hands. Thanks for listening to the Adventure Zone Amnesty episode 27, I think. And it's a big scary episode for, well, all of us. And I hope you enjoy it. And it's not getting you too spooked out. And if it is, go make yourself some tea and call a friend and just kind of catch up,

because that does it for me most of the time. Thanks to the people who tweet about our show using the Zonecast hashtag. If you do that, you may end up as a character in our show like Dr. Sarah Drake. I picked the last name myself, but that's Storms are brewing, Sarah on Twitter. Thank you for tweeting about the show. And thank you to everybody who tweets about the show. It means a lot, and it's the main way that we have managed to get the audience that we have now. And so we sure do appreciate it.

We also appreciate Maximum Fun for having us on the network. Go to MaximumFund.org. Check out all the great shows there. You're going to find a lot of stuff you love. Personal recommendation this week. Check out Mission is X. If you like this show, actually, I think there's a lot of compatibility there, and it's a fun, improvised space opera, and you're going to have a great time.

But yeah, next one's a live show, and then so that'll be up in two weeks. And that day, specifically, is the one I'm going to tell you about, because it's my favorite day, which is May 16th. So we'll be back with our live show then. And two weeks later, new episode of Taz Amnesty. Talk to you then. Bye. Yeah, she sprints into the observatory lab, and you see her trying to contact the satellite lab on the computer.

I'm going to get its attention. I'm going to go to the door and get its attention. Okay. How do you do that? Describe it. I mean, where's the door? I mean, do I have a door that would get me visibility to this thing? Oh, yeah, for sure.

Oh, perfect. Okay, I kick open that door, and I just start yelling. Hey, dips shit, over here. It is still like forming these arms and like trying to pull its way towards the telescope. And now it's actually like it has gotten much closer. And then you see these arms like very, very slowly start to stop forming and there's fewer of them and fewer of them. And then all of a sudden you see these hands like reaching out towards you and digging into the ground and like hurling this thing. And in like a really grotesque fashion, it's like almost like jumping.

towards you and you see the security guard now. She's got her head above water and her shoulder and one arm out, but she has lost the use of one of them. All right, fine. I pull out Beacon. Ah, finally we are to do battle. He gets about halfway through the sentence, and I spin to my left and just shatter the computer next to me with Beacon.

Okay. All right, motherfucker. I don't know what the fuck you want. with this thing, but I can tell you what I need it for, and that's about Zilcho. I don't care what's up there. I could give a shit. Honestly, I'm not that interested. I'm more of forestry, you know, geoscience kind of dude. I don't give a shit, but I know you want it real bad. So you let her go right now, or I just start chopping. My sword here, it was real horny for machines. I'm betting, I don't know. I haven't cut up a lot of machines with him,

but put her down now. Is this a move? You tell me. I don't know. I didn't know if it was a mundane move because it's almost certainly a, you know, I'd convince someone, manipulate someone.

Let me see. Hold on a second. Let me see. Let me see if I can con my way into this being a mundane move. Yeah, because I don't think you can manipulate monsters traditionally, but I would bend the rule.

for actual like canonical reasons. I mean, I know that you can't manipulate a monster, but clearly there is some sort of intelligence at play here. Yes, because there is some intelligence at play, I think you can... It feels like an extremely credible threat to me. Yeah, sure. I mean, because I will break everything in here.

I did not fuck up the hall of whatever, by the way. I was mainly going for like a monitor. Like, I know what I'm doing. Sure. At least that much. Okay. Yeah, I think manipulate someone. I will give you that.

This thing is intelligent. We've established that this entire arc, so I'm not going to, like, deny that now. Okay. That's a four. No, I need it now. What? I need the luck. Oh, you're going to use a luck point?

Yeah, I need this to work. Okay. You see, so that bumps it up to a 12. Go ahead and mark your luck point off. Okay. Then they will do it for the reason you gave them. If you ask too much, they'll tell you the minimum it would take. for them to do it.

Here's the compromise, because this is a monster. The compromise is the, the monster does not slow its role. The monster, this fleshy mass does not like slow its approach as you threaten it. You do see it like take one huge leap and like form like, just like a multitude of arms that it just sort of rips itself towards you.

And as it does this maneuver, it kind of like loses its composition and the security guard, she like falls out of it, just like falls to the ground and is, you know, pretty grossed out at her current state, but she is definitely smart enough and agile enough to just sort of slurp herself clean and then just make a beeline back for the security station. This thing does not seem like it cares about the threat of you destroying this thing. however what it wants is to absolutely kill you and so it is charging in your direction um it's leveled up oh hey congrats i'm giving myself a you don't you don't you don't

you don't mark experience when you use a luck point no but um don't worry i'll check it out whenever you go off by yourself to check out somewhere uh scary mark experience it wasn't scary before but i am i did go bar myself as it turns out It was extremely scary. Definitely counts. It was extremely scary. Yes, okay. This is, I love that this thing is a, an ocean of flesh.

The tide is coming in about to splash into you. And we just got to take a quick second so that you can, you know, so you can boost your HP or whatever the fuck. Ah, there is an improvement. I'm going to take another move. Okay. From the mundane playbook. And it's called Panic Button. Okay.

When you need to escape, name the root you'll try and roll plus sharp. On a 10 plus, you're out of danger, no problem. On a 7 to 9, you can go or stay, but if you go, it's going to cost you. You leave something behind or something comes with you. On a miss, you are caught halfway out. Okay, are you going to use this in me? Is this why you are leveling up mid? Yes, I'm leveling up to mean.

Yes, panic button. Okay. You need to describe. I think name the route you'll try first. The route I'm going to, well, okay, what are my exits? I mean, I'm looking out the main entrance. I see this fucking thing in front of me. Yeah, I mean, you are standing at the exit to this building.

You are in the middle of an enormous compound that is surrounded by a tall barbed wire fence. The only, like, exit is the way you came in, as far as you can tell. Or, you know, getting through the fence somehow. Oh, yeah. Okay. Here's my route, okay? I've got to, here's my escape route. Okay.

There's a monster in front of me, right? Right. And at a different angle from that monster is my car. Right. And I'm going to run at that angle until I hit the fence and then I'm going to hit the fence with my magic fucking sword and I'm going to get the fuck out of here. That's my escape route. All right. And I'm going to, I'm going to tell Dr. Jake to follow me.

Okay. I can't leave her that she'll die Yeah But I gotta get the fuck out of here We both do Give me that sharp roll Oh god I can't spend another luck point right now y'all

Ah ha ha ha ha Nine plus one ten All right Thank you Jesus Uh Jesus by the way Does care about how you do in role playing games A lot of people

Debate me on that But he definitely does care Okay The reason Savior cares how I do in role playing games Absolutely I'm saying He's literally like Just this fucking official of duck

Running I think he has his eyes shut He's just running With Beacon in front of him Like he had one moment of fleeting courage And then I think he His mortality just came flooding back to him Yeah

And he is now running And and yelling at Dr. Drake To keep up Okay You see Dr. Drake and you like grab her and pull her like out of the building. And as like you do so, you get just out of the way as this, this mass collides with the door that you were just standing in front of. And it like buckles the door inward. It was this big heavy metal door.

And like it oozes kind of into the building that you just managed to get away from. And as you are sprinting away, it is like trying to reform and pursuing you. But now you've got a pretty good lead on it. and you are charging toward the fence and you get out beacon and I guess you don't need to roll for this, right? This is the route that you have described. Yes. Yeah, beacon effortlessly slices through the fence. This massive flesh like chases you always and seems like it's like gaining ground. Like it's actually figuring out how to move in this form. And then about like halfway there, it stops, and then it just turns around and starts moving back towards the telescope.

And Dr. Drake, as you're running, is like, we can't just leave it. It's going to, it's going to, it's going to do something. It's going to tear the whole thing apart. I don't know what that thing is. Is it an alien? Yeah, I guess. That is my suspicion currently. I'm glad we're on the same. See, people made fun of me for that, but you're a scientist. And if you're on that wavelength, I'm starting to think there's real legs on this theory. I knew I fucking I knew it yeah I knew it I knew you'd appreciate it uh you slice the fence open and the two of you sort of make your way through the gap that you create and as you're sort of wiggling through this gap uh you hear a sound coming from just actually not too far away

uh in the distance you hear the roaring of an engine it's it's like starting to get actually kind of dark and so all you see are the headlights and then the vehicle is just like kind of bearing down on you. It's still like on the main road. And as it passes by you, you realize that it's a delivery truck. And then it takes you a second to realize that you've seen this delivery truck before.

And just for a moment as he passes, you see Leo and his teeth are gridded and he is bracing himself against the steering wheel as he drives at full speed and rams into this massive flag. Ned, you watch Aubrey and Jake and Moira drive off in the truck, and now you are alone in the cryptonomica. I think, okay. I think, I think Ned starts packing up his shit.

Everything in the back room? I think Ned's going to just start putting stuff. in boxes. And I think he takes the actions that one would take if one were going to do exactly what she said and run. I think it takes a while. And I think as it's happening, you are watching the sun slowly start setting outside. And like from where the Cryptonomica is, like through the windows of the shop and through the glass door of the shop, you can see cars. You can see like a lot of activity and like abnormal amount of activity on the streets that you would normally see at this time of, of the early evening. And you see cars actually heading east up to up to top side. You're assuming

up towards where you earlier today on TV told everybody where to go. And then just as you're kind of like wrapping up, you hear the bell over the door ring. We're not open or closed for renovations. I'm sorry. This figure that you see the silhouette of takes a few steps forward. And then you hear a rasping, horrible cough. And then your eyes focus and you see Danny again. Only something is horribly, horribly wrong with her.

parts of her are just missing and through where like the gaps are and I don't mean like in a necessarily like things have been you know cut off of her there are just parts that should be there that just aren't and you can actually see faint traces of light kind of shining through those gaps um and danny says I know that you've been taking things from people lately, and I got to know. What did you take from me? Ned whips up the narf blaster and points it at Danny. All right.

Listen to me, asshole. I haven't taken anything from you, but you have taken everything from me. my belongings, my friend, my real friend, and I got nothing left to lose. So how about if I take something else from you? How about if I like, I don't know, take your life? Danny is just kind of looking at you and now you can see that like part of her jaw is, it looks like it's hanging off, not necessarily in a grizzly, way, but in a

I mean, it's grisly, but not necessarily in a gory way. Again, there's just like something missing there. And then Danny reaches back and throws something forward onto the floor of the Cryptonomica, and you see that bag, that bag, that body bag-sized thing with all of those

glass orbs hanging off of it, except for the one that you took. And she points at it with an incomplete hand and says, Ned, I am breaking protocol a little bit here, but what did you take from me, Ned? You mean the Christmas tree ornament, the ball, the glass ball? Do you have it? Yes, I have it.

It looks like you need it pretty darn badly. She takes a step closer to you. Hold it. Wait, wait, wait, hold on. No, no, no, no, no, no. No closer. No closer. I'm about ready to blow you away. Why would I give you something that's going to help you? I don't need the help anymore, Ned. I'm, I'm, I'm more or less wrapping up here. I just, this is a professional curiosity more than anything.

Are you, are you having trouble trusting me, your old pal, Danny? Would it help if, uh, I was, um, maybe somebody else? and she transforms just in the blink of an eye and then is Boyd, but is a decomposing Boyd, and he takes a step forward. Okay, it's a cool trick, I admit it, and you've used it quite a bit to screw up everything and to doom this town and all the people that live there and the people on the other side. Yay, hooray for you. You're a quick change artist. I do not care.

Why do you want this ball so bad? Oh, I don't want the ball, Ned. I just, uh, I very rarely have the opportunity to actually speak to one of my, my targets. You've caused me some amount of trouble, but obviously nothing I could not surmount. And you're being modest, Ned. It's not my actions entirely that led to this town being whipped up into a tizzy. I must say that before I even got here, you set the stage. very nicely. And he takes another step forward.

Okay, fine. No ball for you. No ball for you. And I'm going to shoot your ass. That's not necessary, he says. And he actually takes a step backward. I'm not here to fight, Ned. I just, I was just curious. I guess I'll leave you to it. Good luck with everything. No spoilers, but you're going to probably need it. One last thing. Where's the partition? Where have you hidden him? The, um, the, what was he? The goat man. Where did he end up? I, I, I, I, I figured out everything else in this town, but that was the one thing that alluded

me. Why? What, why do you need? Oh, God, Ned, you're just as difficult as you were back in the hotel. I don't know why I expected anything different. Can you at least tell me why you're doing all this? Why would you stir up a fight that's, that's, that's going to destroy so many lives? You said I was a target?

Take me out then. Just take me out, but taking out the entire town and all these people, that doesn't make any sense. Not to you, obviously. It doesn't make sense to the spider when you step on it, but some spiders need to be stepped on. I'm going to go now, Ned. This is really, if certain bodies found out what I was doing here, I would get in no short amount of trouble. I will. Oh, God.

If it doesn't... Oh, God, you're right. Okay. I'm sorry, Ned. This really was unnecessary. It was hubris and... Please accept my sincere apologies. And he whips on his heels.

He pulls a trigger on the narf blaster. Roll to kick some ass. Oh, shit. That is a nine. Plus tough. Plus tough, which I think is a one. That is a ten. Ten.

You deal damage and choose... one extra effect. You gain the advantage, take plus one forward. You inflict terrible harm. You inflict less harm or you force them where you want them. Terrible harm. Okay. I got chills when you said that. You shoot the beam and just, just, again, it's, I think we've described it as Ghostbusters-esque, the beam that comes out of the proton pack. Out of the proton pack. Yeah. As the beam is like leaving the tip of the narf blaster, we see it sort of like weave around this horrible, like fleshy, like razor sharp appendage that just comes

whipping out of this fake boyd's arm. And it whips across you for two harm just as your beam catches him for three harm. And it whips across him. And as it does, you see just flesh go flying upward and actually like splatter against the ceiling, not necessarily blood, but just sort of these beige particles. And for a second, you see Boyd's face, half-decomposed, look up at you with shock. And you hear this horrible digitized scream. And then from the wound that you just carved into him, you see new flesh start to sprout. You see, you see, um, you see, um, you see, one small arm, like, punch its way through and try to pull its way out of Boyd's chest before collapsing back into the mass. And then he starts to sort of like collapse like a dying star as

more arms, like try to pull their way out of him and just like muscles and veins are bulging out of him. And he's losing like his shape and slowly starting to grow. And the whole time you're hearing this horrible scream. And as that happens, one final large. large arm plunges out of the top of just this heap of flesh and pulls itself backwards through a rift. Duck, Leo's delivery truck is laying on its side. It's tipped over onto the driver's side and it is smoking. And the mass of flesh, it's not moving at all.

Nearly like half of it was just torn apart as Leo crashed into it and just like splattered against the ground and that that stuff that was just ripped off of it is slowly turning to ash and just kind of drifting away uh what do you do i rush to check on leo okay you sprint towards this vehicle as uh the smoke sort of starts to uh get stronger and stronger and how are you checking on on leo the car has uh fallen onto its left side so he does not really have a good way out what about the windshield uh yeah you can definitely see him through the windshield he is conscious uh he is uh he's bleeding from the head and he is trying to get out of the um get out of the seatbelt that he is in he seems to be stuck in something uh and he is also trying to you know hold his head

and and manage the wound there okay i'm gonna um i guess smash the windshield with the held of Beacon. Okay. Yeah, I don't think you need to roll for that. I think that's a pretty easy thing to do. You smash the windshield and he says, Hey, Duck. How's it going?

You dumb piece of shit. What did I tell you? The whole thing with the vision and stuff. Duck, I... Damn it. I add another... Can you get me out of here first? Say you're sorry, first.

I'm sorry, Poole. I got a head wound, duck. I'm very deeply sorry. About to have a head wound. Dumpies. I think you have a head wound come out of here, dumpies. All right, I will untether him from what other has tethered him to the car. I don't think it's that easy. I think he is stuck on something, and it is dark, and there is smoke. And so I think if you are going to try and get him out of this mess, it is going to take some effort. So why don't you act under pressure probably. Okay. Holy shit.

Whoops, the daisy. That's a two. That's a two. That's a big snake eyes. Yeah. Okay. Something. I'm going to take a hard move here, but I don't think I'm going to do the obvious one. It is, it is getting harder to see out here because of the smoke. And so I think it just takes you a long time to get him out of the car. And I think it's awkward and not necessarily heroic. But you do manage to pull him from the vehicle. And just as he like clears it and gets to his knees, you can tell he's like kind of wounded, but it's not, it's definitely not a mortal wound. He's not just like sacrificed himself in what he did. And he says, the vision changed, Doc, it changed for me. And I saw it during the day, which is weird. That's never happened before. And I don't know if you

saw the same thing, but I saw, I saw, I saw you, I saw you duck. I saw you on the ground in front of the, the thing here, the dish here, and you were dying by yourself. And so I, I said, no, that's not going to work. And I hopped in the, oh, I can't appreciate the effort. This is, this is my only truck. I got to, I, I'm supposed to do a round. I guess that's tomorrow's problem. And then a hand, grabs him from behind around the throat and it is a hand that is made out of just just this tangible dazzling white light and it is attached to a form that has pulled itself out of the the ruined sort of husk of the thing that you faced earlier without you noticing while you were pulling him out of the car it is this four-armed bright just being, humanoid being, a bit taller than you are, made out of just hard light.

And it's the same thing that you've seen after you've vanquished to the other abominations. And sure enough, like, in the way that you have seen these things sort of perish after defeating their abominations, you see some puffs of light start, like, drifting away from this one as well as it's, like, disintegrating. and this figure just effortlessly throws Leo just 10 feet through the air and he lands with a crash some distance away. And he like balls his hands into fists and lowers its head and you hear this ear splitting like electronic sound. And then that dissolving just stops. And then it stands back up and it surveys its form not falling apart.

And then it starts to sprint in your direction. And then just beyond the perimeter fence around the Green Bank telescope, we see Dr. Sarah Drake watching all of these events unfold. And she is caught up with emotion at seeing this being not from our world for the first time. And then she feels this terrible pain in her head, just this splitting headache that just lasts for like a flash. But it's enough to just reel her over. She falls to one knee and hangs onto the fence to regain her balance and pick herself back up. And as she picks herself back up, her face is illuminated with this soft blue light. And then we hear a voice speaking to her.

Hello, Earth Scientist. I need to borrow your corporeal hands for a minute. Maximumfund.org. Comedy and culture. Artist owned. Listener supported. Thanks so much to the over $28,000 members who joined or upgraded during the 2019 Max Fund Drive and to all of our monthly members. To celebrate hitting our goal this year, we're putting the 2019 Max Fund Drive pins on sale for all $10 and up monthly members. As in past years, you'll be able to get some pins and support a great cause at the same time.

The proceeds from this year's sale will support the National Court-appointed Special Advocates Association. National CASA does amazing work for children and youth through a national network of 950 member programs. We are proud to be able to support them. The PIN sale will run from April 29th until May 10th. And if you're a $10 and up monthly member, your personalized code is waiting in your inbox right now. For more details, you can head over to maximum fun.org slash pins.

And once again, thank you. Listen, we already know that you love genre movies, film craft, and female filmmakers. So, if you love all those things, then by transitive property, you love my podcast. Switchblade Sisters. Hi, I'm film critic April Wool. Every week, I have a conversation with a different female filmmaker about their favorite genre film.

Each episode covers the filmmaking process, working in the film industry, and just like general geeking out about awesome movies. I've had such great guests like The Big Sick Writer, Emily Gordon. To me, indie movies, as of late, have come to be a catch-all term for a movie that kind of defies genre. Billy Madison and half-fake director, Tamara Davis. When a comedian comes and enters onto my set, they're just there to be funny, and we're all ready and waiting for them to be funny. Horror industry veteran and actor Barbara Crampton.

That's where real drama lies for me. What's between you and I speaking right now? Where are we meeting? And what's the energy that we create between us? And so many others. So check out Switchblade Sisters every Thursday on Maximumfund.org or wherever you get your podcasts.