The Adventure Zone - The Adventure Zone: Amnesty - Episode 30

Episode Date: June 27, 2019

As the town of Kepler recovers from an environmental disaster, the Pine Guard catch up with a long absent former member. A harrowing vision propels them into one final hunt; but can they bring potential allies together in time to stave off annihilation? 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

It's the middle of May, 1989. The wildflowers have just begun to bloom in generous patches throughout the Monongahela National Forest, attracting legions of locals and visiting hikers alike to the deepest untamed reaches of the woods. It is, without a doubt, the busiest time of year for Arlo Thacker, founder, president, and sole employee of Kepler Expeditions. He's an outdoorsman for hire, sometimes a Spalunker, sometimes a whitewater rougher, but in the spring he's nearly always a trail guide. We see Thacker wrapping up a wildflower tour of the Monongahela with a troop of students from

Pocahontas Middle School. Scores of children are lining up behind their respective teachers preparing to file back toward the buses. One teacher's count comes up short. A young girl from the sixth grade class isn't with the group, Thacker. This is bad for the sixth grade teacher at Pocahontas middle and very bad for KepX's brand optics. What does Arlo Thacker do? Well, he's going to have to go find the kid, obviously. What is this kid's name? This kid's name, the teacher tells you, is Juno Divine.

Okay. And she was with the group earlier, and they were exploring the woods, looking for patches of wildflowers. And she stopped to take notes, the teacher thinks, and they just moved on without her. It ought to be pretty easy. Just backtrack from where they are now, and he'll be able to find her pretty easily. I mean... Yeah, I think act under pressure. I think you're under pressure because if you don't find her, that would probably mean the end of KepX.

Yeah, well, we don't want that. That's an eight plus, let's see. What do I add to act under cool? Yeah. That's a seven. Oh, you have a minus one cool? Yep. Sure does.

It is a mixed success. You find her, but it takes a while. And the teachers and the students are all getting very, very antsy as you stumble upon her, as you sort of backtrack through the woods. It takes you, she was quite a ways back. And you see Juno, and she's sitting on a log overlooking a small creek that's flowing through the woods. and she's wearing nearly as much outdoors gear as you are,

and she's holding some kind of sketchbook, and you can see some drawings of birds and plants, and you can see those because she has it open, and she's trying to shake it because it's just sopping wet all the way through, and she has some tears in her eyes and doesn't notice your approach. Young lady, what in the world are you thinking? Why did you not stay with the group? we have already egressed from this location.

What's wrong? She wipes her nose and she says, I'm sorry, Mr. Thacker. I lost track of time. I thought I didn't want to be. My classmates have made it very clear that they don't favor my company. And so I thought I could just stay and take a couple more drawings. But I think that's out of the question, too.

And she, you know, keeps trying to ring out her ruined sketchbook. I understand. I'm not real crazy about people either. I'm not a big fan of human race. But you can't stay out here, especially in these conditions all by yourself. Believe it or not, even though it is spring, it gets cold out here at night. And, you know, you're kind of my responsibility. So can I?

Wait a minute. Let me see what you do. She hands you the sketchbook. Some of the pages closer to the front are a little bit drier. This thing was obviously thrown into the creek by some bully types. And it's not a very deep creek, so parts of it are unaffected. And you see just these gorgeous drawings of wildflowers and of trees. And you see a few birds.

And the birds have their scientific names written. under them, and you, you just see all of this very, very detailed sort of cataloging of the Monongahela's natural treasures. And you're telling me that your friends do this in the water, young lady, you have talent. This is, this is really nice stuff. This is really good. And how do you, how do you know the names? How do you know all the, the technical terms for these birds and fauna and such? She is, she is fully recovered. covered now. She's smiling actually now that you've complimented her work. And she says, well, some of my classmates are into, you know, watching basketball and some of my classmates

are into new kids on the block. But I'm, I just, I look around here in Kepler and I realize just how good we've got it. And I don't understand why everybody else doesn't know the names of these birds and these, these plants. They're, they're not ours, but they kind of are for the time being. You know what I mean? I'll absolutely listen to it I love it out here I spend more time out here than I do in that big city of Kepler that's that's for dang sure well listen let me tell you something if you if you would just pack up your stuff and come back with me I'll get you back to your group and you know what we'll I'll make a point to make sure that people know not to

bother you quite as much and I can't make any time you want to come out here you are more than welcome and and I'll give you the friends and family rate she laughs and packs up her bag and starts to walk back toward the buses and then she turns and she says Mr. Thacker if you don't mind how did you how did you get this job how did you get to do you know something like like this because it it honestly it seems like a dream job well it is kind of my my dream it's been kind of a rough dream lately um you know I just always loved it out here I love the I love the cave in I love the the water. I love white water. When I was a kid, my family brought me up here and we vacationed up here a lot and I just said, you know what, I'd like to be one with the land and give people a

chance to discover it the way I discovered it. So, you know, and listen, people think outer space it's, you know, wild and explored and they think the bottom of the sea is this great big mystery. I'm telling you, there's stuff in these woods and these mountains and stuff. That would boggle your mind. There is so much out here people don't even know. Some of it's wild and wonderful, as we say, but some of us wild and weird, that's for sure. She grins and she says, I'm going to find it. I'm going to find all of it.

Thank you, Mr. Thacker. And she turns and she walks back toward the buses. And you hear the fallen foliage crunching beneath her feet as she walks away. and then you hear that same sound behind you, and you turn, and your life changes. The entity standing before you is not human, it's not animal. Its body is lean, almost shriveled, and it's covered in these glistening, sharp scales,

and patches of filthy white fur, and its face is primal and gnarmed. gaunt and it's it's locked in this unearthly open grin and it takes a step toward you and also toward the children just beyond you just out of eyesight through the forest what do you do uh well thacker carries a machete axe a brush that he uses to to clear the brush 29 inches of pretty dangerous stuff so he uh he takes it loose off his off his belt takes it out of the sheath because he knows he'd cut his leg off, because in a way, he's a little bit like me, and she's it and says, hold on there, friend, Sport, you just kind of hold on you.

What the hell are you? You hear panting, wild panting coming from inside this thing, and you hear almost just this, this musical breathing, just this, these dark, haunting tones coming from inside of it. And it opens its jaw, almost like it's unhinged it fully. And it takes another step toward you. And now you can feel its breath on you. He's going to take a tentative step back. But he's also kind of waving this machete axe around, you know, what he hopes is a menacing way.

He doesn't know if this is an animal. He doesn't know, you know, what the, hell it is, but he's hoping maybe he can intimidate it a little bit and maybe scare it off with a little fancy machete work. Okay, you are doing some sick machete stunts and trying to show this thing that you mean business and you hear this wet thunk and its eyes go wide and just this this this breathing just stops and it is standing perfectly still and then you hear a second thunk and then it just goes limp and it falls down into the creek and standing there behind this creature holding a woodsman's axe is madeline cobb and she says well thacker uh

Is there any chance I could convince you that that was a feral bore or something? Hmm. I don't think so, Madeline. I'm pretty sure I've never seen a bore that looked quite like that, like it had little mirrors all over it. I'm assuming this is something out of my area of expertise, but not out of your area of expertise. Yeah.

Thacker, let's talk. Now it's 2013, and you have just finished packing up your big hiking pack, your biggest hiking pack. I assume you have several large ones. This one is for when shit hits the fan. For the most ambitious expedition you've ever embarked on, the last few hunts have been costly. For the first time in your abomination fighting career, you and. Mama have felt the weight of your responsibility. And also for the first time, you've come to understand that weight is too much. And so you have packed your bag and you are leaving for

Sylvain in the morning. You will cross beyond the border of the capital city there and seek out the source of the monsters that are spilling into your world. How does Arlo Thacker prepare for this journey? Actually, I think what he what he has in the pack. I mean, he's got the machete that he brings. He's got this hiking staff, which he's done a few little improvements to. You know, he's not going to be a big tent, bedroll kind of guy. I mean, he loves outdoors.

I think he has brought along a journal. I don't know. Binoculars, just stuff for observing. You got some gorp? Got a big old bag of gorp. He makes his own gorp. He makes it out of pretzels. and peanut butter candy and pepperonies.

Got a little tiny. Oh my God. Yeah. Arlo. Doesn't that sound good? Little pepperonies? No, it sounds like a nightmare. I love that you live off the land except for your gorp, which is the most synthetic nightmare food.

Yeah, I don't think he's like a hunter kind of stuff. I think he'll just fend for himself off the land. I think if he's bringing anything in his pack, he's bringing a lot of water, you know, just in case. And a water purification kit. probably some binoculars. And, you know, maybe that's about it. You know, change of clothes, maybe. Sure.

I don't think that's ionish priority, so. Okay, you have all that packed up, and it's the night before. And where are you at? Does Keppax have like a building somewhere? Do you operate this out of... Where does Keppax operate out? Kevax has a bivouac. It's an old military, like a Quonset hut, you know, those big semi-permanent things.

You know, he has plans to build a permanent facility, but, you know, business hadn't been all that great. And especially business hasn't been all that great since he has been spending so much time with the mama and the Amnesty Lodge people doing all this hunting and stuff. Right. The business is kind of, I hadn't closed. down or anything, but it sure hasn't been thriving without his, you know, personal attention all the time. Right. Okay. It's the, it's the night before and you are in, in your bivouac and you've just finished packing and you hear the, I don't know, man, flap? Is there a flap? Is there a door? No, it'll be a door. Okay. You hear the door open. I guess I don't know what a bivouac is. You hear the door open.

I think, Quonset hut. You know what a quonset hut is? No, why do you think that I don't know what Bivouac is, but I would definitely know what wants to that is. I'm just going to assume it's a building. It's like if you cut a cylinder in half. Oh, sure. Oh, sure. It looks like a folks at home. It basically kind of looks like an airplane hangar. Yeah. But with the door on it. Okay, I'm with you. I got you now. Okay. You hear the door into Keppax open and close. You have the clothes to sign on the door, so you can only assume it's it's mama coming in.

She's the only one who would have this sort of familiarity with you to just like barge into your business while it's closed. And did you, did you tell Mama that you were doing this? No, I don't think so. Listen, he is not much of a joiner. I mean, he works with them. But it's almost like he's a lone wolf. He's very independent. And, you know, I think he checks in.

But since, you know, since he is kind of a self-appointed archivist, he feels it more important to keep track of all this information, but he's got to get out there and find the information. He doesn't want to waste time sitting around talking to a bunch of people about it. So I think he just kind of jumps in. Okay. Mama sees your packed up bag and she sighs. And then she looks at you and she says,

Yeah, I guess I guess someone's got to do it You sure you don't want to draw straws or something? I do not believe that the people we associate with have the expertise to be able to do what I'm about to do And you know that I'm the best one to find out about it Yeah, you make it a point to not let us forget that particular fact, Arlo. All right.

I, damn it. Arlo, I realize we're, you know, both getting up there in age, so maybe this is a kind of weird thing to say out loud, but you're my best friend, Arlo, and if you do not come back, I am coming in after you. You hear me? I'm having trouble believing that. I'm your best friend, seriously? She laughs too and she says, I guess that says more about me than it does about you, Thacker. I think it says a lot about both of us, Madeline. I do believe. Look, listen, I trust me, I'm in and at, I will insert myself in the situation and I'll be right back. And I'll tell, and I promise, I will tell you everything I see. Well, since you promised, and she turns and opens the door and then she stops,

and turns back to you one last time. She says, Arlo, there's one last thing. What's your password? She gestures to your old ass laptop sitting on your desk. It's been nearly six years now, and you have spent most of that time just desperately lost in the blighted lands beyond the city's walls. Your supplies lasted longer than you expected,

but after several months, you had to start foraging. You found yourself wildly unprepared to do so, given your lack of knowledge about Sylvain's edible flora and fauna. So instead you turned to the ruins of just these various cities and civilizations that you discovered during your trek. You found these small outposts and cozy villages. You even found a city that rivals the scope of the capital in size, all just completely desolate, long since abandoned once the quell took it over. And these places, they were the most dangerous that you visited on your expedition. You had to, you know, play it stealthy to avoid detection by the beings who were, you know, driven feral by the quell. But by far they were the most rewarding and you sort of subsisted on the supplies you found. And after the first week, you put some distance between you and the capital and those roaming herds of blighted sylvan's grew less and less frequent. So, I mean, you definitely still have. had to sneak around, but you were able to, you know, make shelter where you could catch your breath

unassailed for, you know, decent stretches of time. And you scoured the countryside, looking for any signs of the monsters that have been plaguing Kepler for so long. So has he been lost or has this quest just taken a hell of a lot longer than he thought I was going to take? You've been lost for a while. And unfortunately, after years of searching, you are no closer to finding the source of the abominations. What you have learned a great deal about, however, is the quell. So I want you to roll to investigate a mystery. And Arlo is, Thacker is a, we're using a new playbook for him.

He is a searcher. Right. The fine folks behind Monster of the Week are releasing an expansion for it. It's called... Tome of Mysteries. Yes. And there's some really cool shit. Yeah.

It's got four new hunter classes, some really cool stuff you can do with luck. And it really kind of focuses in on weird. Yes. And some abilities with weird. And so... It's got some X-Files flavor to it, which I'm also super into. And you are playing the searcher? Yeah, the searcher.

It's... I don't know how to... It's just somebody who... who's out there searching for these mysteries, searching for the cryptids, trying to learn what they can about them, kind of compiling knowledge on them. That just seemed kind of a natural.

It's perfect for Thacker, yeah. And there's also a sort of supernatural element to it, which is going to make sense for Thacker here in just a moment. So roll two, investigate a mystery for me. Okay, so he rolls an 11 plus two, because he's a plus two sharp, so that's a 13. That is amazing. I'm liking this way this guy rolls.

Yeah. Literally. You get to hold two questions. You hold two and you get to ask two questions from this list. I'm going to say because you got a 13 on that role, because we haven't really worked out like catching Thacker up on advancement with the other two characters. Go ahead and take a third question as well. And this will represent sort of the things that you have learned about the quill. Okay.

So of those questions, investigate a mystery. And where exactly is he? Tell me again. I think in answering these questions, we're going to bounce around. We're going to bounce around, you know, the time of your six-year expedition and the places that you have wondered and visited and seen. And I think we're just going to show like flashes of it to answer these questions. Those questions are, by the way, what happened here? What sort of creature is it?

What can it do? What can hurt it? Where did it go? What was it going to do? And what is being concealed here? Okay. I think I think to start off what happens. happened here? Sure. So from the surface, like if you were in an inhabitant of this world,

you would have seen the following. The quell just started to seep upward through these fissures in the ground several decades after the crystal in the capital city. The heart of Sylvain was shattered by those human invaders. And it looked like a storm. that was happening on the ground. And at first, it was a very, very weak phenomenon. It was, you know, it was something that was weird, and people would, you know, check it out. And it was a topic of conversation, but not necessarily a big threat. But it grew.

The fissures themselves started to grow. More fissures started to appear all around the planet. And this living storm continued to sort of just. you know, boil, boil over and grow out of it. And any Sylvan who came too close to these fissures who got, you know, caught up in this living storm, they would just lose their faculties completely and become just extremely aggressive. And it kept growing. And now the only place that is safe is the capital city where people can take shelter around

the crystal. remnants of Sylvain's light, which is keeping this storm at bay. That is what has happened here from sort of the surface perspective. What is being concealed here? What is being concealed here is the true nature of the quell. To put it in sort of simple terms, this stuff that is coming out and surrounding the city and is making people enraged, it is the symptom. It is not the sort of like disease itself. It is the effect that the quell is spreading, not necessarily what the quell is is. What is being concealed here is is what the quell is.

And I think you discover what that is from some books. You find a library in one of these abandoned cities, this great, just tremendous library. And you find a tone that you can read and it explains, what the quell is. It is what Sylvain is, essentially. It's an entity that is intrinsically linked with the planet that it dwells within. Although, you know, despite the devastation that it's kind of currently sowing across the planet, it was never like vilified in the texts that you discovered. It's just like a force of nature. It's just like gravity. Where Sylvain created life, the well was, you know, intropy itself. It was a, you know, a necessary balancing force.

Sylvain existed to nourish and protect the people who lived on the planet's surface. The quell existed to protect Sylvain. That is, that is what the thing is. That is what the quell is. Where did it go? The day that you find the answer to that question is the last day in Sylvain that you can remember. You were tired. You, you know, you've been more lost than you have been willing to admit to yourself, but after such a long time, you finally pick up on your old trail back to the Capitol and back to the Archway home. And your excitement clouds, you're usually razor sharp, you know, cautious hiking perception, and you lose your footing while you're navigating a particularly large fissure that you found not too far from the capital.

And you fall. And you've fallen before in your line of work. It's not so uncommon. And you know what kind of scrapes and bruises and... Yeah, I could always get up. Yeah. But you realize that you are falling much farther than you ever have before. And as fear grips you, you feel this cool, damp cloud over.

take you and you lose consciousness. And then you just have these glimpses of lucidity interwoven with profound, vivid dreams. You're experiencing memories and emotions that aren't your own. You feel first this intense, unwavering love for Sylvain, for the planet, for the entity, all of it. You remember being in her presence at the center of everything. You remember marveling at her works, so much so that you mourned your role in keeping those works in check. But she never harbored any spite for you.

And then one day, Sylvain answered her inhabitants call and she retreated to the surface and you never saw her again. And you waited for so long and she never returned. and once you learned what happened, once you learned who had taken her, your hesitation to destroy her works vanished. And so you began carrying out the grim task of eradicating life from the surface of the planet, making way for something new. And then, once that is finished, you're going to find the ones who took her from you and eradicate them too.

And then you, Thacker, you are. are conscious again and you are weightless, you're floating in this enormous spherical chamber, deep, deep, deep underground. And you are being whipped around the room. You're caught in just this whirlwind storm emanating from the center of the room. And right there at the center, you see a bright red sphere and it's standing perfectly still, perfectly static. And you feel the quell's anger just becomes stronger and stronger until it completely overtakes you. And then a large furry paw scoops you out from the storm and pulls you through the earth. And that's the last thing you remember.

Hey, everybody. This is Griffin McRoy, your dungeon master, your best friend and your pilot for this evening. Please keep your arms and hands and legs inside the airplane. I shouldn't need to tell you that. Thank you for listening to Episode 30 of the Adventure Zone Amnesty. We have just begun our final arc. Very, very excited to get to it. The rest of the episode is not just a Clint and Griffin affair, but we needed to sort of do some backstory stuff on old Arlo Thacker. So, yeah, we're getting to the end of it. We're very, very excited to see where the story ends up. I really have no idea. And to, you know, talk about what we're planning on doing next. So, yeah, I think that's it for this pre-roll. Let's talk about the sponsors. Thank you to

everybody who's been tweeting about the show using the Zonecast hashtag. We're in the endgame now, as the Avengers might say, and so I doubt that we'll have any new characters added to the show until we move on to whatever's next. Who knows? But thank you so much for spreading the word anyway. People have been very, very supportive of us, especially now as we sort of enter the midnight hour here with Amnesty.

And gosh, we sure do appreciate you. We also appreciate Maximum Fun for having us on the network. Go to MaximumFund.com. Check out all the great stuff there. shows like Can I Pet Your Dog and Beef and Dairy Network and stop podcasting yourself and a bunch more at maximum fun.org. We've got other stuff at mackleroy.com. Family. And that's it. I'm going to let you get back to the rest of the episode now. Thank you so much for listening. Next one's going to be up in two weeks. That's going to be on, oh no, it's next month, which means I have to look at Google

calendar because I can't do the math like that in my head. But it is going to be July 11th. So we'll talk to you then. Bye. I mean, go ahead and drag me because I know it's going to happen. I know that we won't be able to do any more role playing until you drag me for my map. Okay, cool. Thank you. Drag me for my map, and then we can move on with the story that everybody's so excited to get to. Okay, but here's the thing.

The map, so in the House of the days of commitment, we used to mock dad for his absolutely, and rightly so, let me say, I'm not, I'm not sure to rewrite history here. They were Buck Wild maps that he would create with strange clip art iconography. The ramblings of a madman. Yeah, Doud's maps looked like the map equivalent of when a detective finds like a serial killer's layer. Yes. And there's just clippings everywhere. An evidence dungeon.

Yeah. What Griffin has done here. I took the good map. It was a good map. It was a good map. A good map. And I guess because of the unfortunate mountain incident, the, I'm a, He just put a, what looks to be a big turd.

Yeah. A big bloody turd. Just a large turd onto the map. It looks like he let his son Henry play in paint while, oh, oops, I had the map JPEG open. Yeah, but then I accidentally saved it. If you look down the very bottom corner of it, that almost looks like a demonic face. So I think maybe we might be glossed over just a little bit too much. No.

is absolutely mind-bogglingly poorly constructed. It looks like a buster sword-shaped smear of raspberry jam across the whole landscape. I appreciate your effort, Griffin. Griffin, how long did it take you to do this? About 11 seconds. Oh, wait. He's updating it, as I can see. I'll make it in real time.

I'll make a different color if you guys hate it so much. I didn't get a screen cap of it though. I loved it. Well, now you can, now you never will. So eat my fucking shorts. Leave it like that. Leave it like that. It looks like fire.

No, now it looks like bacon. It does look like bacon. It looks like a big bacon. Okay, I got a screen cap. You can do whatever you want now. It's not going to change anything. Okay, whatever. This is bacon.

This is the trail of destruction that the, that the mountain top of Mount Kepler created as it sort of fell down through, through Kepler. you can see it has destroyed the road that connects the riverside and top side. And now tramway is the finicular train is the only way to get up there reliably. Although I suppose you could also just go for a very, very long hike through the Monongahela Forest because, you know, there's a back of the town as well. So let's do, I mean, we got some housekeeping other than my bad map that we should probably get to. We've been sort of just like rolling with it for a while and

haven't sort of talked about game shit for a bit. We talked about Thacker and his the, oh, what is Monster of the Week? Call them Playbook. The playbook he uses. Searcher. Searcher. He's the searcher. Justin, Travis,

this is a new playbook from the expansion for the game where he is basically like a detective but he has supernatural powers which come from the his sort of possession. What's the name of the expansion? We owe them the plug.

Yes. It's called Tomb of Mysteries. And let me read you as quote. There's still so much to be discovered and explained even now. Perhaps only one event in a thousand is true weirdness. But I'll investigate them all to find it. And I will tell you something about Thacker. Fun fact that you guys don't know.

He rolls a hell of a lot better. Holy shit. He's got the fucking hot hand. So we got that. He's a searcher. he has some supernatural, you know, sniffing out weird stuff. Psychic. I think psychic is better.

Psychic is not necessarily supernatural. I would argue that psychic abilities are such. It's not exactly natural, but to each they're out. Duck, you obviously, you've got some juice back, right? From being now, like having this actual, you know, tangible closeness with Minerva, We didn't really talk about what that means for your playbook. You were mundane after losing your powers. What do you want?

I'll leave this up to you, right? Like, I want you to play whatever playbook you want to play. If you want to play a, you know, strong mundane or a somewhat mundane chosen. No, I feel like he's back. He's back. He's got his abilities, his skills. Okay. His combat skills.

I, but in leveling up, I think I will take, if you're cool, that I think I will take a, a move from the mundane character sheet rather than... Oh, that's great. Yeah. From the chosen character sheet. You can do that. That's a rule in the game.

He's not just fudging it. That's cool. Yeah, because we've never fudged it before. God forbid that we break any of the rules. I'm going to go... I'm going to keep Panic button, I think. You need to escape. Name the route you'll try and roll plus sharp.

Just making escaping. He remembers what it's like. to be mortal again and that is stuck with him. Sure. The fear is not completely subsided. Okay, cool. And for the record, I love the mundane playbook. Oh, it's so great. It's so great. Honestly, like, you know, now that we're nearing the end game here, we, we didn't, because we were doing these mini arcs, right, and we wanted to, like, get through it. There's so much cool shit in Monster the Week that we just never even will get

to. The other playbooks are cool. You can be a fucking angel if you want to. Not like angel from angel, but, you know, a celestial winged. You could probably be angel from angel if you rolled it right. Almost certainly, yeah. I mean, you can be a vampire. You could be, before we found this playbook, actually for Dad, the searcher, there is a, monstrous playbook where you can be like, you know, part ghost or part werewolf or whatever. You kind of create your own.

Aren't we all part ghosts when you think about it? Okay, thank you. Oh, that's beautiful, Traff. Hey, by the way, Trav, one of the new, one of the new playbooks in this tomb of mysteries is the Gumshoe. Oh, that's cool. Kind of like a magic detective. Yeah.

Okay. And Aubrey, just a reminder. I mean, you've put, I don't know if you have any leveling up to do. If you've got any hot new, hot new stuff. We've kind of been doing that stuff on the fly now as we go. Yeah, no, I think I just leveled up near the end of that where I picked up lightning. So I think I'm okay. Just a reminder, you still have a minus one penalty ongoing to all of your weird, weird magic roles.

Well, I think we should. establish the most important thing, which is now that we have lost access to Amnesty Lodge, I think Aubrey has been sleeping on Duck's couch. I mean, that's up to y'all. That's the question, right? Like, things have changed. We know some things about the world. We talked about some of them in our, you know, little skits that we did in the Ratt of the Roundup episode. Here are just like some truths about the world now post-colle. which I think is the shorthand for what happened to Mount Kepler. And then I want to know like how you all have been spending,

how you all have been reacting to that for the last two months. Two months have passed since the collapse. So the mountain fell. You can see the path of destruction. Shortly after that happened, the Department of Unexplained Ph.B. has arrived in town. And basically,

topside has been cordoned off from all residents. There are also roadblocks on the highway out of Kepler. to the west and the east of town that is keeping all non-residents out of town just entirely. Another thing, Mama was taken into custody shortly after the FBI arrived and she has not returned since. Amnesty Lodge was evacuated lightning fast before the FBI could investigate it. All your gear as well as the residents of the lodge have been moved elsewhere. And now the residents, because you remember, they kind of sustain themselves with the waters of the hot spring. Now they get that stuff from H2W.

That was fun. You all are constantly running, you know, smuggling them up to this water park to get them topped off and then bringing them back into town. Aubrey and Janelle worked together to purge Thacker of the Quel's influence. And, yeah, it's been two months since the last abomination arrived and something even. is coming. So those are sort of some facts about Kepler post collapse. What's been going on for y'all in the last two months? I don't know necessarily that we will have as much to talk about with Arlo because he sort of just snapped out of

it. But Aubrey and Duck, have you been spending this time? I like the idea that she would be crashing with Duck because Minerva is also crashing with Duck. So it's like, it's a pretty... Take a knock on our floor. I know, right? It's like gotten to be a very, very crowded apartment. I think, I think, let's just set it up at the whole apartment complex. Like, Leo is your neighbor. He's not just going to leave everybody out on, you know, leave everybody hanging, hanging out to drive. So I think that Jake and Danny and Moira are living with, living with him.

And it is also a similarly sitcom-y, crowded situation. Let's also say that Barclay is living with, oh, God, what was her name? I wrote it down just in case it. Mrs. Pearson, who is also one of your neighbors. You dropped that name in, like, episode four, and I wrote it down. Yeah, she didn't get to be a well-constructed Learkees-style character. Not yet. Yes, she took in Barclay, who is in the same way that he helped out, you know,

mama around Amnesty Lodge is sort of acting as a sort of assisted living. I think you said Mrs. Pearson is up there in years. And so Barclay is an older lady. Barclay is living with her and helping. So you all, you know, the entire. He's having some Tuesdays with Ms. Pearson. Exactly. So the Amnesty Lodge sort of situation has moved entirely into the complex, the apartment

complex that you and Leo live in. Yeah, we talked about this a little bit beforehand. I think that without amnesty there and just the way that it's been going. I think that there's probably a shared kind of like between the Hornets Nest, uh, Ducks apartment complex and the Cryptonomica. It's probably now like those are probably kind of the three HQs, I would say. Because one of the things you talked about is like how,

how have things been going, you know, for like as far as with the Hornets and the emergency lodge people and just the regular residents. I'm okay. I'm okay with those conversations having not. I'm okay with the, you know, the great skits that we did in the last episode being in the middle of this finale arc, if that makes sense. Because I think we need to, I would love to hear you all, you know, assembling the troops or making pieces, however you want to describe it, right? I think that we would be doing ourselves a disservice to just leap right over that. Also worth

noting, hey, look at the map. Y'all made fun of me. What's missing? The Hornets Nest was completely destroyed by the mountain top. It was directly in the path of it. Nobody, was, you know, all the hornets were out and about looking for monsters and shit. So, sorry, I meant Dave's who made a fire depot. Also worth noting the hornet nest, you know, is gone. The mountaintop landed right in the Greenbrier River and has created basically a new, a new fork in the river. Looking at the map, also, it occurs to me, I wanted to mention, I was listening to the recap episode before we started, the great shame that we never revisited. the Daryl's bait and Crossfit,

the combination bait store and CrossFit gym. Put it on the map. Yeah, put it on the map. Okay, where's it at, Juice? Tell me where. It's next to City Hall. Of course. There it is.

Whenever City Hall is being renovated, then Daryl's Bay and CrossFit is used as temporary offices. Spell D-A-R-R-R-R-R-R-R. Y L L L. 3L. The second L. Derrille.

Darryl. My name is Derreel. I'm from Indiana. Is he the mayor? Is that way? He's the mayor. Derreel from Indiana. Dariel from Indiana.

His bait and crossfit story built it right next to city hall so the commute would be good. Uh, okay. And of course, he lives in his place of business because that's how everybody lives in Kepler. we've established. It just makes sense. It just makes sense. Okay.

Why wouldn't you live there? You already own it. Right. Dummy? It's a building. Why no more people do that? Okay. So, is there anything else that we need to set up?

I mean, you haven't heard from Mama. She is, as far as you know, under FBI custody. But we know where she went. You know where she is, right. Some of you were probably there when she was. arrested. Almost all of you have certainly been questioned at some point and not, you know, permanently detained in the way that Mama was. What else has happened? You were also there when Pigeon was detained. She was arrested sort of on the spot by, after things calmed down a little bit by

the sheriff who. And why was she arrested? For shooting, for shooting Nets Chikin? Oh, wait. So that's a legal now? came because that's illegal now to shoot a fictional character. Yeah, that's not good. And so she is in, you know, she's being held at the sheriff station. And the way that the FBI has sort of locked the town down, she has not been, you know, extradited to the, you know, Pocahontas County prison. Because as far as they are concerned, as far as the FBI are concerned, she was there when shit popped off. And so they don't want her going too far.

So she's been having an extended statement. at the sheriff's station. So when the episode we are recording now begins. Yes, it is two months. How long has it been? Two months from the collapse. And Thacker is just now, I think like, I think where we are hopping in is Thacker has just been resuscitated and has, I think, probably done some light briefing on, he was gone

for six years. He probably has a lot to say, but has done some catching up of the, the Pined Guard crew. Has he also gone to the restroom? Yes, he did. Thank you, Travis. Before we get to sort of the ramifications of that, Duck, I need you to roll

to see your destiny. Now, before you do it, have you ever rolled anything good? No, it has never happened. It has always been a very, very bad vision that has spelled disaster for the world. These are some of the most important roles you make. Each one's been a complete fucking beafer.

So let's see. how this final yeah that's a six plus weird plus weird uh minus one it's five use your luck point use your luck point oh my god Justin

I was ready to give I will use a lot I'm gonna give I you know what we've only got one more arc of this I got three luck points left this is the last one of these you're gonna make yes I'm just gonna use a lot point

I just have one fucking rosy dream You have a terrible fucking dream, and then you have a second dream after it. And I wake up and I'm like, I got a piss. And then I go fall back asleep and have a better dream. The first one, teeth falling out. Oh, no. The second one. Unnerving, not supernatural, just unnerving.

Okay. You naturally get a 12, which I think is an 11 because of your special proclivities. Or no, it's just automatically like a great. Great success. And so you have a dream. I think the night after, maybe even the night of Thacker's resurrection, you have a dream. And you are an old hand at this and you know instantly that there is something special about this dream. It is one of your visions.

And Duck, you see the top side of town as it stands right now. You have this bird's eye view of it. and you actually see in detail how the FBI have occupied it. You see, you know, you see where guards are stationed. You see the fence perimeter. You see some sensors scattered around Amnesty Lodge. And then you see this rigid, brightly lit canvas structure that they have built up around the archway in the woods. And then you're inside of that structure.

And you see a bunch of agents, you see a bunch of folks in lab coats and, you know, biohazard suits. And you see these machines that are all positioned around the archway and monitoring activity around it. And you see, you see through a window, you see Agent Stern, and he's arguing with another agent in this adjacent room. And then you sort of zoom in on him and you see Stern's watch. and it is 9.35 p.m. And then you're back outside, and this makeshift canvas installation just explodes. It just pops like a balloon as this raging storm springs out of it in every direction. And this storm is pouring in a thick column out of the archway, and it's just covering topside,

and then it spills down the cliff under riverside, and it blankets the whole town in seconds, and then it spreads down the river and around the forest and then the state. And then you hear a scream and these red, vein-like things shoot out of the archway and they split and multiply and they follow the path of the storm just annihilating everything that they touch. And then it's gone and you see your own watch and it's 9-31. And you're nervous just for a moment until you see your friends standing at your side and they're ready to be. for action. And from your position, you're on top side. You see these big groups of folks down below, and they are all ready for action too. And then Minerva nods, and she holds her blade aloft. And then a small rift opens in front of you, and then others all around town open, and the

storm slowly emerge from them. And then you see the brilliant red heart of the quell. and you draw beacon. And then you wake up. Or did you? Your teeth fall out. Wait. And you stopped to pee. I thought I was eating the ding-dang marshmallow.

When you wake up, seconds later, Minerva is in your room. And, you know, a minute after that, Leo is knocking on your door. And she says, Duck Newton? Was it the same for you? I had a teeth dream. than a separate dream. Yeah, I had the same thing. It was unnerving because it's like, I need to eat, right?

But at the same time, there was a freedom to it because I love milkshakes. Yes, I'm more concerned about the vision of Kepler and the earth being destroyed. Oh, yeah, I'm just so used to having bad dreams. I assume the first one was the real one, and the second one was a fanciful firing of my neurosinapses. Yeah, I'll brie. Can I have the last waffle? They're not vegan. I'm not, duck, I'm not a vegan.

What's the difference again? I'm gonna eat the waffle, okay? All right. So we should probably, you know, rendezvous with the troops. Did you, have you tried the waffle? Yes. Did you try, have you tried waffles yet since you've been over? No, I have not.

Tell me, are they the diveted breads? Yeah, they're like a diveted bread that gives you lots of nooks and crannies for syrup. Did you all just have that vision about the teeth and then the explosion? Leo, I hope you're not here for waffles because Aubrey's cough in the last one. I could split it. Leo, do you want to split it? Yeah, I guess better than nothing. Leo, they're not vegan.

Oh, damn it. You know me, I don't like to sup of the ovum of my friend friendly creatures. No more game. No more adventure. It's just this. It's just this. Okay. Where do you all, when you have sort of, you know,

Pine Guard business, like, where does that take place? Is it just like right here in the apartment? Or, I mean, I imagine it's pretty tight quarters. You've got the four Chosenes. And I imagine the amnesty residents have a vested interest in this. So they are probably in, in, they are probably present also. I like the idea of it being at the necrtonoma. I really like that.

Oh, the cryptonomical. Okay, no. Okay, no. Yeah, so you will be. I think the cryptonica makes sense because, like, we could have everything set up there and have, like, all, like, a table and shit and, like, real HQ stuff and have our equipment and stuff there. I also like the idea that, um, Ned's little buddy, what's his name?

Kirby. Kirby, like, had big ideas for how he was gonna make it super, profitable and he is just like at a standstill because it is constantly occupied with adventure heroes. I think, yeah, I think that also because no human beings can come into Kepler. So his tourism diversion has been, you know, struggling. And the people that are there, I think, have probably lost their appetite for the weird. Yeah, absolutely.

Cool. Ooh, so spooky. I think also we have the Craves by Monica truck, so maybe somebody's using that. I don't know who. Maybe that's somebody's mobile unit. I think you have access to that. I don't see any reason why it would be like in impound or something like that. And that's probably what you've been using to run people back and forth from H2O.

Oh, that's a good idea. Okay. Okay. Yeah, you all, the next morning, show up to the cryptonomica. and Kirby opens the shutter and he lets you in. And he just looks so tired. He has not been doing great since Ned's passing. And he lets you all in.

He says, does he know? Have you told him about everything? I think, I mean, he knows what he knows just from being a resident of Kepler. Everybody here knows that generally speaking, shit's pretty weird. But have you told him, have you filled him in on, like, the specifics?

I would think we'd have to if we're meeting there. Otherwise, we'd have to, like, kick him out every time we met or, like, talking code or whatever, and that just seems exhausting.

Yeah. Okay. Then he lets you in, and he says, well, if you're all here, this can't be great news. What's going on? You know, honestly?

Same. Like, we have a, a dream to discuss. Apparently, we need to do some dream interpretation. Need to see if we can figure out a way to get back through the gate, do some recon. Let's see what else. Mama's still not here. That's just kind of neutral news, I would say. All right, I'll put a, I'll put a pod on, he says, and he walks over to the RC Cola machine and just starts just pounding quarters into it to get everybody. some nice refreshing RC coales as you all gather around and discuss things. So I think you all definitely have talked about what Thacker saw and what Thacker has told

you. And I think the dream, since you all basically live together now, has been shared. Yeah, I think Thacker is definitely there at the... Dad is just texted me. Thacker is definitely there, right? Aubrey and Janelle, who is also there, you know, revived you? I don't see any reason why they would keep you out of the loop now. You possess information on this thing that, you know, they desperately wanted to know.

And now they know it. All right. So here's what I'm thinking. I think that I'm going to start and let Duck try to sum up where we're at if that makes sense. Sure. Oh, boy. Does that make sense? I'd love to hear this.

And you can correct me if I'm getting some wrong. Okay. All right. So here's how I understand it. the there's a planet called sylvain and inside that planet there was a something called sylvain and it's kind of like good vibes and like life and creation right the spark of creation you guys see children of Eden anyway oh see i was gonna say like in like captain planet yeah that's good too anyway so uh and also in there was the quell was like bad vibes and death but like the two um yeah that's good too anyway so uh and also in there was the quell was like bad vibes and death

but like the two of them like, you know, kept each other balanced, I guess. And then they each had their own kind of home bases, right? So Sylvain had the crystal and the quail had something else. And the crystal shattered and sent, sent Sylvain out, I guess, out into the world. Janelle, do we, we don't know where she went, right? We don't know if she is even still alive, if such a thing can, You would call such a thing, you know, alive in the first place. It's possible that her spark, her energy has dissipated entirely.

But then I wouldn't be able to do magic, right? Who's that? That's Janelle. We've met a couple times now, Duck Newton. You keep calling me Dumbledore, and it took me a while to figure out why. I thought, Travis said, do we know where Janelle is? And then, and, but he was referencing Sylvain. Right.

Okay, not Janelle. We got a lot of characters in the, room. Yes, it's a big... And Griffin only has the three voices. So we got it. Okay. So, all right.

So anyway, the quell's been kind of running roughshod without Sylvain to keep it in check. Is that fair? Yes. That would describe the current devastated state of my planet. Yes. But, hey, sorry about the brevity, by the way. I'm sure that it's lacking some gravitas from your perspective. But like, so.

So Thacker saw sort of the heart of the quell, I guess. Is that fair? Does that seem right to everybody? That is apparently what I saw. And so we got, I guess, there's two basic options that I can see to keep everything from going sideways. First being, we get Sylvain back in the crystal and then reassemble the crystal that shattered into a bajillion pieces. that seems unlikely. The second is we find a way to get to the heart of the quail and fuck it up but good.

Does that seem to meet everyone's criteria of our current situation? Is that everyone's understanding? Let me pose a question to you there, Sport. What if getting rid of the quail makes things even worse the other way? I mean, they kind of balance each other out. Yeah, I mean, I hear you, Arlo, I do. I feel like, though, unless we can get Sylvain back and we don't really have any leads on that front, hell, if Janelle doesn't know, then what hope do we have of pulling that off? I feel like messing up the quills are our only real out here.

I agree. Enthusiastically. I mean, there is a third option, right? Like, just because Sylvain's not in the crystal, maybe Sylvan's just somewhere else. We maybe we don't need to put back together the crystal. We just need to find Sylvain. I mean, if you could give me just, I mean, a dimension. Oh, no, that's all I've got.

Yeah. Yeah, right. So let's just keep moving. I love that. Don't get me wrong, man. If we could find Sylvain and have them just like back inside the planet or whatever, that would go down real smooth by me. I don't hold out a lot of hope.

So assuming we are going to just beat the shit out of the quell's home base, Arlo, what's the best you got on a on a location for that? Well, I tell you what, dear Prince, I can, I can get you the quail. It's more like a feeling. I'm kind of hooked up to them like to like a mental tether, I guess you could say. but we're going to have to travel, you know, through the gate and go the other side of Sylvain and eventually I can find them. I can't put it down on a map for you or anything like that.

It's just going to have to be something, you know, mentalize. Janelle speaks up and she says, I must warn you at this point, the quell has almost certainly completely taken over Sylvain. If you know where it is and you can lead us to it, that is great. but the amount of resistance we will face from the quell as we seek out its heart will be tremendous. And I don't know if y'all are up for it or not. I mean, I just met you.

You may be very capable. But boy, it will not be easy. I mean, it took me six years. And I ended up in like flying around in this room and a storm. And it's confusing as shit. Point of order. It kind of sound like from the way you described y'all's dream, the quail's going to come to us. Janelle says, if that occurrence arrives, then it will already be too late.

Your world is not prepared to house the quill in the way that ours is. It would spell immeasurable devastation for your planet. And Leo pipes up and Leo says, I mean, I know y'all are worried about this sentient storm or whatever. It sounds bad. Sounds real, real bad. Not going to undersell that. Let's not forget about the, you know, well-outfitted government agency that is also standing between us and the archway. We got our work cut out for us. It's not just going to be like we can stroll right through that gate in the first place.

That's going to be up to somebody else. Once you get through the gate, I'll get you there. We'll take like a group of, we'll do a fellowship, a fellowship of the quail. But, you know, getting past them people, that's, you, you fellow are going to have to handle that. Well, it seems to me that what we would need then is a distraction. And what we have is a pretty big gang that does like stunts and shit. That seems like a pretty significant distraction. If we can get, you know, that government agency on their tail, like, you know, like that one part.

Any E.T? when they're all chasing the kids on the bikes and the bikes go flying through the air? Like that? Oh, man. That John Williams music? Can we get that, like, recorded or something and play that back while we're doing it? Because that would be really cool. Yeah, I'll try to contact John Williams people and see if we can get the rights to it, Arlo. But I think maybe if we can get to distract, the thing is, it's going to be like a one-shot deal. We won't be able to, like, come in and out of the gate like we used to. so it seems like we'd need to be ready whenever that happens.

It seems like it might be a one-way trip. Oh, yeah. I guarantee you. You don't have to worry about the return trip because odds are we ain't going to be making one. Well, a regular ray of sunshine there. You know, it sucks. The thing I keep thinking about is getting past a group of government agents, you know. There is one person.

and who would have been perfect for that. Yeah, I guess we could talk to the Hornets and see if they can come up with something. Do you think it's worth talking to the sheriff and see if we can get him to play along? Man, he's been so heads down, just going after, you know, parking tickets and shit ever since things went all weird.

I think he hasn't had much appetite for grand affairs of the supernatural. They're stern. Yeah, I don't know whose side he's on, honestly, at this point. I think you haven't seen Hyde nor hair of him since the FBI moved in town. Yeah, but would it be safe to assume that, like, there is no reason to think he would have any... Yeah. It's not like we formed a lot of bonds with Stern, right?

Like, there's no... He's a believer, right? But there's no reason to think that he... I think that Aubrey certainly formed a camaraderie with him because they lived together for nearly a year. But also I think when the FBI rolled up into town, it was instantly like, get the fuck out of here. This is locked down, you know, government shit. And I think Agent Stern was the only one sort of trying to soften the blow a little bit, trying to. Has he made any effort to contact us in the two months since?

And to add to that, he probably is not real happy about having the whole case taken away from him either. Absolutely not, yes. So yeah, you are not entirely sure. Janelle speaks up again and she says, I must warn you, when you open up that gate, you can cross through, but I have every expectation that the quell or pieces of it are going to make their way across as well.

And if we can control it, if we can defend Kepler from it while you all accomplish your mission on the other side, then perhaps we can stave off the planet's destruction. But if you open a door, it opens both ways. I believe having the sheriff, I believe having as many people on our side as we possibly can get is a necessary precaution.

All right. So let me see if everybody's on board with this. Seems like first up, we got to get the Hornets on our side. And then we got to get them distracted the FBI. so we maybe can get Agent Stearns back on our side so he can help us get Mama back on our side. And then we go over to the other side. This got away from me, but basically we need about a million things to go exactly right before we even get a chance to go to the nether realm and die. Does everybody feel pretty good about this summation of our current situation?

You hear a voice come from the direction of the entrance of the cryptonomica, and it says, Yes, and it's a fine plan, folks. And then a sketchbook flies into the center of the circle of people gathering here, and it lands at your feet. And you see depicted within all of these images of Kepler destroyed and your party being overcome by this living storm. and each one more terrifying than the last. And you look up at where the voice and the book came from and you see in the doorway his Winnebago parked outside behind him,

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