The Adventure Zone - The Adventure Zone: Dust - Episode 3

Episode Date: March 19, 2018

The Graysons find an unexpected collaborator in their investigation of Jeremiah Blackwell's murder, but with slivers of sunrise shining down on the streets of Dry River, has their newfound luck come a moment too late? Gandy parts the veil. Augustus summons a snack. Errol meets the folks pulling the strings. 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. You see a pair of gloves on the table. They are workmen's gloves. At the tips of the fingers, they are kind of claws. If I tell you something, will you keep it to yourself? Me and Jeremiah got married. It sounds like the deal is beneficial for the people making it. You got to look bigger.

I'll make you a deal. Here we go. Take my place in the feeding. tonight, and I can tell you who would be against it. I have one very specific question, and I'm going to ask you. I'm going to want to know who the Banshee is. Sounds like y'all aren't giving me a whole heck of a lot of choice, so I'm... Oh, no, no, no, please.

Feel free to say no, but our employer will be very disappointed. The Banshee's really looking forward to talking to you. Move her clues first, or you want to just hop right into this shit? I think it's very useful. to do the clue recap. Dad, what clues do you have, dad? I'm going to start with dad. Give me a clue.

The first clue, the... A real quick question, are all the clue is going to take this long? Silver dust. On the twin scars across the abdomen, refined silver dust, which we have to assume is coming from the silver mine. Okay.

And the gloves, the gloves I found. The gloves with the two blades. I prefer order and method. Use your little gray cells. Use her little gray cells. The first clue, Jeremiah was confused and felt betrayed when he died. And didn't want Dylan to talk. Silver dust on Jeremiah's clothes and grew up with Dylan and Jeremiah.

Jeremiah's blood was on Dylan. Jeremiah was celebrating. He was drinking a lot. He was married to Anne. He was celebrating his marriage to Anne. I did these chronologically, so that's kind of, you kind of gave away. Whoa. Yeah.

And Liam has claw gloves with silver dust on them. Yes. This is all good. He was the murderer. Yeah. So Liam was the murderer. I kind of beefed it there because I could have just like, werewolf attacked him case closed, end of arc two episodes in, but I forgot, I guess.

And that's just bad detective work. But I've got a lot going on right now. So, um, yeah. And this, this, this, this, this is not Anna. Augustus's daughter, right? No. Okay. That would be fucking wild.

Another thing I got sort of accosted by two... Approached. I would say approached. Well, they were nice about it, but I was accosted by two tufts working for the Banshee, local sort of criminal ringleader in town, and Gandhi got feasted upon. Got fed on. Feasted makes it sound like there was like... Oh, let's go crazy.

You wanted a fucking hard arc, bro. You wanted, you wanted a fucking dark tone. Yes, but I also want appropriate word choice. Okay, that's fine. Words mean things, Griffin. And so that's where we left off. I also have two names for said Tufts. Ellis and Blackwood, named for listeners Lucy Ellis and Ethan Blackwood.

See, keep on tweeting, folks. Keep the dream alive. Anna's full name is Anna Cardium Cash. Sorry, not Cassius. Cachydian. Anna Cardium Parsons. All right. Where are we picking up, Travi? So, when last we left up, we'll say that the feeding has just completed. Owl. It was minor. Skipping the whole feeding? It's just like eating a sandwich. You know what I mean? This is straight to business. People always want to romanticize.

vampire feeding, but this is just like, I am hungry, I made a sandwich. Yeah, but it's, it's, it's not that much fun for the sandwich. Well, maybe. You know, maybe, you don't know, maybe the sandwich is like, yay, my purpose. I did it. I reached a culmination of all my dreams. I've done it. If you're a sandwich and you have dreams other than getting eaten, I bet your parents are like, oh, Jeffrey.

That would be what a wonderful world that would be. I would love for you to be a district attorney also. We should have never given you those participation medals. Oh, we encourage you too much, Jeremy, the sandwich. And also, Errol has been approached by Allison Blackwood. I would like to resolve that first. Yeah, sure. Are they carrying heat?

Are they packing heat? Let's say probably they're not like pointing guns at you or anything. They've so far been incredibly civil. They seem reasonable. It's kind of important. like for Aero in this situation to know if they're packing heat. I don't know if there's a role I can make. Do you have like a perception role you could do to see if maybe you like smell, you know, gunpowders? Figure someone out. Okay, yeah, go for that. This is embarrassing. I've been packing. I packed my dice up.

Oh, I thought you're going to say like Aero's been packing heat. He's packing. I mean, he is. Uh, that is a, uh, six plus mind, I believe. Yes. And my mind is zero. I failed. Okay. Um, you suspected that they are since they work for a crime boss, but you cannot pinpoint where that would be or if they are for sure. I say, all right, fellas, uh, I can tell that, uh, you mean business.

I've been meaning to have, I mean, I don't want to sort of make myself sound like a big brave boy. I have been hiding out from the Banshee for a while now, so I'm a bit confused as to how the two of you found me, but I'm going to have to have a talk with my wizard companion about sort of the services she's been providing. Look, I don't want any trouble, and I know what the Banshee's capable of. So I'll come with, I want to warn you, I have a weapon. I'm going to take it out and with just, thumb and forefinger, all right, on the hilt. And I'm just going to sort of toss it away. Is that okay? You can keep your weapon.

No, I know, but I don't want to roll up to the ringleader's house with a gun. That's my house right here. You are jumpy, Arrow. Is everything okay? Arrow, what's stressing you out? What's going on with Arrow? I'm just trying to, I'm not jumpy. I'm just pragmatic.

So I'm just going to take my weapon here and toss it away. And I reached down and... I should also clarify, Ellis is doing all the talking. Blackwood seems actually fairly uninterested in you, and it's just kind of looking up and down the street, you know, keeping an eye around. Oh, it's good.

I reached down, thumb and forefinger, like I promised, and grab the, uh, grab the hilt of my... What's it called on a gun? Not a hilt, but like... Grip. Grip, grip, grip, grip, grip. Yeah, and I pull it out. of my holster, and I fling it to the side of the street and into the community watch alarm bell.

And I think when that happens, and this is not me just sort of retroactively trying to screw you over. There is a thing on my character sheet about my neighborhood, my territory, that says, people here work hard to keep the streets safe. And so this is how I'm sort of envisioning that sort of being realized in the world. And I think when the bell rings as my revolver collides with it, I think just, even though it's a late hour, I think porch doors or front front doors open up and porch lights come on. And then there's, you know, five or six people now probably weapons in hand looking at this scene. Errol, if you didn't want to go with us, you could have just said.

I gave you the option. I don't understand. Where is this? Where do, have we offended you in some way? Offended, it's not the right word. I, as strong-armed might be maybe a little bit more accurate. He looks offended. Oh, you know what?

I can, I can see that we are bothering you. I apologize for that. He offers you a business card. If you change your mind and you would like to speak with the Banshee, the Banshee has lots of answers. I was just looking to help. You can find us at this address. There's instructions on the back, and we will get out of your fur.

Blackwood, come along, and they head off. Bullshit, but cool. I guess false alarm, everybody. you can go back to the house. I know that I did the big sort of meeting last week about not, you know, ringing the alarm bell for funsy. And maybe I did that. Well, those guys seemed awful nice.

They didn't seem like they were threatening you at all. They had a threatening aura. Really? Because I came out here and they were just talking to you. Are we still having the potluck dinner? Are you sure you're as well liked as you think you are here? Arrow, was there some kind of issue that we weren't aware? because it seemed like it was just a pleasant conversation.

No, listen, I used sort of my keen wolf senses and detected that they might probably, could have possibly had guns. I think he was just trying to get out of an awkward conversation. Harold, do you not like small talk? I wish I could use the bell to bounce on talks I don't want to have with my mother-in-law. What'd you say?

Apparently, we're all just ringing the bell, higgled and biggledy when we don't want to talk to someone. When someone asks us to go to a movie, we've already seen. Apparently, we're just throwing guns at bells. Oh, was that it, Errol? Were they asking you if you would, like, house it for them or something and you didn't want to? You know, Errol, it is kind of funny.

You think about it. You are now being accused of the boy that cried wolf. Oh, Clemencius, another great joke from you. Thank you. You still doing stand-up at the knuckle-hound. All right. I'm jumping Mike Knight down to do. This is great.

Listen, dad's busy, so I got to get back to work. I'm sorry for ringing the old bell. I go pick up my revolver, kind of sheepishly. And, yeah, potluck is on for Thursday. Remember, somebody's going to need to bring some sort of gluten-free offering for Derek. Is it a brookie gluten-free? Maybe. So we'll just do your research on that and go back to bed.

Hey, it's me, Derek. And listen, like, if people forget to bring me gluten-free options, is that like a bell ringing worthy situation? Should I go ahead and read the bell for that, Derek? I'm said of free options. Yeah, I've said a real bad example here. All right, go back to bed, bye. And I holster my weapon and, okay, so where do you?

I'm actually up for the night, mate. You want to do something? That's your own thing. I'm a few, right? I would love to regroup real quick just so I can, I have the, what I believe, what Errol believes, I should say, is the murder weapon. I would love to get that to my companions. I know we talked about how that process was kind of automatically, like, info-sharing process,

but I think it's weird that there wasn't any blood on it, and so I'm wondering if there's something that... That's great, because I had concocted in my mind, like, this whole system of kind of, like, psychic paper, where, like, you could write down notes and they would get it on their notepad, but this is way better. We just have... You guys go talk to each other, let's say... Oh, yeah. I don't want a strong-arm Gandy into like spending a beat investigating these gloves or whatever, but like these are razor-sharp gloves with silver dust on them. It feels pretty, I don't know.

It would be good at least to rule out Liam. You are a werewolf with certain senses. I mean, blood is probably something you could detect. Yeah, but you told me that I didn't detect any blood on it, though, is that just by looking at it, if I went a little bit deeper. Okay. I guess I could roll Bloodhound on it. And I mean, even if you just wanted to go, like, basic level investigate,

and then I'd like check it out and look at it and just straight up roll if you don't want to do a corruption point. I mean, you could, you're not inept. You could do just kind of basic investigation. Yeah, Bloodhound doesn't get me corruption. Oh, excellent. I'll just go ahead and do that because I don't think that would take an hour. Well, Gandhi has tracking. She has a spell called tracking.

Yeah, that would be good if I think we need to figure out. Let me bloodhound it and see if there's actually blood on it. Because if there's not, like, that would be wild. So I'll roll bloodhound. That is a six and a four. That's a 10 plus blood is a 12. Great. So here's what you can tell from it.

There is no blood on it, but it was recently cleaned and oiled, and, you know, it's been, it's been thoroughly scrubbed and it's fairly recent. Now, whether that is because it had blood on it or because, you know, Liam just takes care of his tools is unclear, but it does seem like it has been scrubbed clean in the recent past. All right, I, what this power says is I pick up a scent from whatever I do, and I can follow that scent to the person. who has them. And I'm assuming I'm just kind of doing this in the street after putting Carrey and Street back to bed and all embarrassed like. And just so you know, Derek is still watching you sniff some gloves.

So just like, know that. No, I'm being, yeah, I'm very aware of that. Are those stink lines just lead me right back to Liam on the porch of the, I mean, these are Liam's gloves. You have no reason, especially since the stink lines, you have no reason to think that anyone else is interactive with these. All right. I think let's regroup.

Okay, so Errol heads to the town square. Now, Gandy and Gus, you do not know of Aral's regrouping plan. So I'll turn to you. The feeding has completed. It was brief, and what you found, Gandy is as it happened, and whether this was something on your end or something that happened during the feeding, it kind of just blanked out that time period as it happened. You try to recall the feeding and it just fuzzes out whenever you get close to it in your memories. Now, Gus, you were there to witness.

You kept an eye. You made sure it didn't get out of hand, but it was brief. It just seemed like Slate took just enough to feed and move on. Are they still there? Yeah, so that's wrapping up. And, you know, they got the first information. about who would be interested and the question was asked, who is the Banshee? And now I shall answer that question from Marcus. We had an arrangement. We had a deal.

Yeah. So here's what I know about the Banshee. Banshee is, well, I, listen, if I had met the Banshee, I wouldn't tell you the Banshee's true identity, but here's what I can tell you. Banshee has thrived in this unincorporated territory. Business has been good for the Banshee, and I can't imagine the Banshee would want that to change.

Now that said, times are changing, and that affects everyone. So it's quite possible that this has been the work of the Banshee, but it sure don't seem like it. It seems awful sloppy and awful loud for someone like the Banshee to have done. Oh, great. I gave up, what, three points for that?

What, you want me to just be like, oh, yeah, it was Steve. Steve did it. Go get him. Like, Marcus is in a cage downstairs. He doesn't know shit about shit. Okay. What did you want to know?

I wanted to know if it was Steve. Listen, I can tell you right now. It was Steve. Let's get him. You get Steve. But you'll never find, Steve is a ghost. I ring the bell again. It was Steve.

Steve is Kaiser Soze. So what are you two going to do now? If you want to just say, like, as you're heading out of Slate's home, you see Aero in the street, save a little bit of trying to figure out why you go looking for Arrow, but I don't know, unless you guys want to do that. Yeah, let's have 10 minutes where we just wander down the streets of Dry River, just like, Gandy! Augustus! Oh, no, I know.

Augustus, do you have any cashews? I'm feeling really drained. He's a ghost. Well, no, I have ghost cashews. I actually don't know what would happen if you attempt to eat them. I will make them manifest, though. I will. I'll take the chance.

I'm starved. All right. Here's this. Here you go. Ooh. One packet of the finest spectral cashews this side of the Mississippi. Oh, salt and pepper. I love these.

I'm going to say that you are having an intimacy moment right now. So I would like you both to do what happens when you have an intimacy moment. Okay. So for the Spector, the intermassy moment. When you share a moment of intimacy, physical or emotional, with another person, you hold one. Whenever they get into trouble, you can spend your hold to be there. Cool. And right, with a wizard, with a wizard, when you share a moment of intimacy, physical or emotional with another person, decide whether you care about them or not.

If you don't, they go about their business as normal. If you do, they take negative one ongoing to escape until they get some intimacy somewhere else. So do you care about Gus? This is a big decision to be made after the ghost cashews. Hey, listen, you can't introduce the idea of ghost cashews and just like, and I, the GM, I'm like, I don't care about ghost cashews. Of course I care about ghost cashews. We're making a moment here.

And, you know, I think that that happens whenever someone has a delicious Parsons cashew. A moment is made. Of ghostly cashews that were murdered in a terrible passion. Augustus, you... Yes. you didn't have to keep an eye on me during the feeding. And I really appreciate the fact that you were there just in case something had gone wrong. And mostly because you knew how afraid I was of death and also because I think you got a little bit of a kick out of it.

But you know what? It was both. You're correct. Augustus Parsons. Fire and ice. I care about you. I care about you. I certainly feel like my ability to assess.

escape has become diminished somehow. That's love. Indeed. That is love in all of its forms of definitions. And you, Gandy, you have my marker. If you ever you should need me, I can assure you I will be there. Well, the cashews go a long way towards, you know, taking care of that. But I just want you to know.

Do you want to see something really cool, the really neat part? He digs in his pocket. Yes. More. See, there are more. I just, they're spectral cashews. So you will not receive any nutrition from them, but it is a repeatable trick of mine.

Amazing. So let's go over our clues. We did that already. So if we want to do like the propeller spin and that's where. Can we actually go over the earlier clues? My clues were just from the last episode. So if we have any like earlier stuff that we think might be germane, I mean, I think we got everything, actually.

Yeah, the silver dust and Dylan thing. that she wouldn't want him to talk. That's weak. Well, I have actually also been keeping track of what I know versus what you find out. Would it be worth, like, should we try to... Let me ask you this, Travis. Are we at a point now where we could have a conversation and try to piece together? Absolutely.

Okay. I think that would make for good radio. Yeah. Okay, so let's regroup now that everybody's all cashewed up. Is that how Errol sounds? No, that's how Griffin sounds. Okay. So who's cash-it-so-Gry-Manure-Roy,

Griffin-Mack-A-Roy, Andy, to his friends, is saying to me, Justin, that I'm cashew-ed out. Tyler to his friends. Yes, Tye-Tie baby. Yeah, so I'm imagining we're like around the Black Mariah at this point, sort of in the town square. So who, after reviewing all this information, who are our possible suspects?

I think Liam is an obvious choice. Yeah, I mean, these are Liam's gloves and I don't know they seem to fit the uh seem to fit the murder weapon description as we know it well with the razor sharp claws and the dust from the local silver mine seems likely uh i haven't really pressed put put the put the irons to leum yet for uh finding finding out whether or not he'd done it but uh might be worse circling back there and swears up and down that he's a good dude but i i don't know she might be a little too close to make a judgment call. Good dudes do terrible things all the time. That's fair. I think we need to

figure out motive. It seems like every time we start to establish a motive, it gets turned around. I mean, we had this idea about the deal coming together and how everybody will benefit from it, but we have yet to find somebody who wouldn't benefit from it. I think motive is very important. We need to figure out what the motive would be. be for someone to kill him. Obviously that there's unrest and keeping those minds separate is a huge one. There could also be jealousy of this new betrothal. I'm not sure who that would necessarily point the finger towards.

I don't have a good suggestion there, but. Could it be that, so that would be a concern of the heart, right? Perhaps, yes. Here's what I'm stumped about. I think we can rule out the fact that Dylan just killed Jeremiah because he didn't like him. I think what we know now, Dylan probably didn't do it, at least not for the reasons that we assumed at first glance. Problem is if this was a business thing, someone needed to know where Dylan was going to be and where Jeremiah was going to be in order to stage this thing the way they wanted it to. I don't see how this was done by anybody, but somebody who was familiar with them, somebody who would know how to set this framing up the way that it turned out.

So that's why I'm torn between. I think the business thing is probably the most likely answer for this, but it would need to be somebody who also knew the two of them pretty well. And speaking of business, our job here is to find out and to prove that Dylan didn't do it. The only way we were going to do that is to find out who did it. We have no evidence to submit at all to get Dylan off the hook. And that's what we were hired to do. Yeah, we ain't close. I think at this point two things probably worth doing.

I think it's probably worth talking to the Banshee. And speaking of, and I unclasp a pendant that I have around my neck and hand it to Gandy. And I say, this didn't work. Didn't really keep me hid from the band. in the way that you said it would. So that is, as you might imagine, pretty disappointing to me. But, um, well, if, if you remember the warranty, you know, it's, it wasn't 100%. And if I may, Griffin, so that it doesn't seem like Gandy is a shitty wizard.

Just because you couldn't be located magically doesn't mean that there isn't other, like, that's a thing, um, that people often take for. granted in this world with magic and wizards and location spells and everything. It's like, private eyes can just find you. Yeah, that's fair. I still give it back to her and say, like, so I think we're probably square on that sort of, that sort of facet of our arrangement. Sorry, it didn't help.

That's fine. It's fine. It's not your fault. I'll give it to Uncle O'Ne. He can run through the specs and see. What about this glove thing? Would it be worth our time to have Uncle Oney take a look at it? I still have a couple of more questions I can ask him.

I mean, I snorted up it stink pretty good, and there's nothing on it, no blood or nothing. It's being clean, but the only traces I'm picking up on it is Liam. I don't know if your magic doll can figure out if it was used for a murder recently, but I think... I don't know how they could clean the blood and not the silver dust. Yeah, it's a bit confusing, but let's not... Let's not dive too deep into that. It might upset the apple cart. I think it's worth talking to the Banshee.

And now that we do know, Jeremiah and Ann were hitched, it's probably worth going to talk to Dylan again, don't you think? Yes, I think that that might be worth pursuing. Y'all want to split up? I suppose. I mean, I miss y'all. I feel like we, you know, haven't had our us time. I'm not in favor of splitting up.

All right. Yeah, here's the thing. I certainly don't want to go up against the Banshee without our full sort of capabilities as a of course crime fighting unit as it were. So why don't we go talk to Dillon? Let him know what we know and then head on up to Banshee H.Q. I got a business card here. I guess it's got an address on it. Just to clarify when you, the instructions on the back of the card, do you explicitly say, to come alone. Yeah, fuck off. No way. I mean, cool. Thank you, business card, but eat my shorts. Let's go talk to old Dylan first and see we can get out of them and then go figure out a plan to take on the Banshee.

Hey, everybody, this is Griffin McElroy, your old-timey detective and your best friend, and thank you so much for listening to Episode 3 of the Adventure Zone Dust. We hope that you're enjoying it because we are, and I'm going to cuss here, we are enjoying the hell out of making it. And man, I actually, I feel bad about that cuss. That was unnecessary. Thank you so much for tweeting about the show using the Zonecast hashtag. If you do that, you might end up as a character in this arc or whatever we end up doing in the future. We're starting to put some plans together there, which is very exciting. And yeah, we just appreciate you spreading the word about the show. We are, you know, we're pretty, I feel like we're making ourselves real

raw and vulnerable out here on the bleeding edge of, I don't know. nerd storytelling or whatever. But yeah, we appreciate you spreading the word, and that's the only way that we get new listeners, because we don't pay to advertise the show at all. So thank you so much and keep it up. And yeah, I got a couple jumbo-trons to read here. But before I get to him, sorry for being late with this episode. We were doing something very strange last week that we had to travel for, and the travel got kind of goofed up. And we apologize for that. You will be able to hear the results of what we did last week, probably sometime in the next, like, month or so. But yeah, apologies for being late. So we have an episode up today on Monday, and then we are

planning on having another episode up on Thursday. So we will keep you in the loop about that. And with that behind us, let's get to these Jumbotrons. I want to tell you all about pipe dream design. Fans of the Adventure Zone podcast are invited to try their comprehensive range of design and print services and save 20%. Pip Dream Design. is a full-service design and print company run by a dedicated TAS listener and D&D nerd. Whether it's a custom t-shirt for a cosplay, a map for your new campaign, a unique gift for a loved one, or a logo and a website for your new business, PipeDream Design can help bring all your fantasies to life. Probably not all of them.

That's gross. That was me, not them. Anyway, we're a great choice for small businesses and individuals because we design, print, and ship straight to your door. Go to pipe dreamdesign.c.ca. slash adventure to get a 20% discount off your first order. That's pipedreamdesign.com. I also want to tell you about a new book titled Age of Heroes, the Witch Hunter's Gauntlet, which is by Brett Schult, which you can find right now on Amazon.

If you enjoy comedy in your adventures, check out Age of Heroes, the Witch Hunter's Gauntlet, available in ebook and print on Amazon. 14-year-old Samantha Hathaway is framed for a crime that could start a war between science and magic. Now she must team up with a monster hunter, a video game champion, an inventor, and a wannabe world emperor to stop an evil sorcerer in a book that has been compared to Buffy and Harry Potter. That long title, again, and that's not me editorial, Isaac. That's actually in here. That long title, again, is Age of Heroes, the Witch Hunter's Gauntlet. And again, you can find that on Amazon right now.

Hey, we have a new storefront with a bunch of new merch and some old merch and a bunch of really cool stuff on it. We partnered up with DFTBA for this new store, and we have a bunch of stuff that you should go check out. You can find it at mackleroymerch.com. We got a Bureau of Balance zip-up hoodie. We got a Pine Guard patch up on there, some cool decals and pins and all kinds of really neat stuff. There's a neat poster for Taz Amnesty you can find up there also. Again, it's all at mackleroymerch.com. Go check it out.

We think you're going to like what you see on there. And thank you to Maximum Fun for having us on the network. You can go to MaximumFund.org and check out all the great programs there, stuff that you're just going to love, stuff like Lady to Lady and One Bad Mother and Switchblade sisters and story break and so many others, all at MaximumFun.org. And that's going to do it for this ad break. It was a quick one. We're going to get you right back to the rest of the mystery.

Maybe meet some bad folks and do draw a partner. I need to save this energy for the show. So we'll be back here in just a few days, actually, this Thursday on March 22nd. So I'll talk to you then. Bye. So you head in to the sheriff's office. Connors is there, of course, sitting at the desk, you know, kind of feet up on the desk, but still very much awake. Just kind of keeping an eye on everything.

Do you want to check in with him or just head on over to Dylan? I feel like it might be worth, if we have time, like, is it worth see if he's discovered anything? Because they were working on it too, right? Yeah, we catch the sheriff up on everything we've learned so far. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do we want to tell him about the marriage? I don't see any reason to keep that secret.

I think the more that we can use him with his prescient powers unknown if people are lying Or not. To what extent that did they, I mean, he's dead, right? I mean, what is it? I think it's okay. How much did he, did she want you to keep it a secret? She didn't seem eager to tell me, but she didn't tell me explicitly not to tell anybody. I think it. I think it's fine. Oh, no, she did. She said keep it a secret. All right, well, then don't mention it. I mean, it's kind of your, it's your information to do with what you want. I wouldn't, but it's up to you. Okay. Yeah. All right. We don't tell them about that part, but we tell them about everything else. Okay. Well, uh. You know, I didn't think, if I'm being honest, I didn't think it was Dylan. Didn't seem like him. Didn't seem like he'd do it. If he got any leaves as to who you think might have done it? Well, we're going to go talk to the Banshee, and that's going to go probably about as well as you might expect.

Jesus. Yeah, no. Yeah, this one got a little bucklock. Apparently, yep. Oh, I don't know if I do that, but it's your job. You do what you want. Uh, we, we ain't being able to uncover much more than you. Um, we talked with Silver. He said that, you know, he couldn't be sure, but he, when he walked up, Dylan didn't, you know,

he saw Dylan from a distance and couldn't tell if he had any blood on him or not. Um, I mean, that just goes to support the theory that it weren't Dylan. Um, and then, you know, he saw Dylan over the body kind of pick it up and as he got closer Dylan definitely had blood on him at that point but I once again can't be sure he'd been drinking and so it's not a super reliable witness but it do it goes into the the column of support for where Dylan didn't do it so that's good uh but unless I mean here's the thing let me tell you about the people in town here if we don't have somebody to give them that did do it the word of silver ain't going to cover it you know what i mean

it's a good start i don't mean to knock it it's a good start you're doing good work um if there's anything i can do to help you let me know thanks dad um yeah we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna keep pounding the pavement on this i think you know i feel like it's close oh do i feel like it's real close right there on the tip okay who are the possible suspects who do we have who do we know leum leum leum leum Any other name? Any, any, okay, let's, let's rule out by, by class. Any, any, any, any, any, any, any, any, any, any, any, any, any, I mean, that might be able to benefit.

The only thing would be Knox, right? He's, he's, he's, he's, the black whales kind of second, but he is the most loyal. I, I don't even think it's worth looking into, but he's the only, like, other powerful, you know, respective fank, but not, trust me, wouldn't hurt Jerry, he's Jeremiah's godfather. Sure, I got to, yeah, I got to tell you, pretty much everybody in this town has somebody who's going to vouch for them

and talk about what a righteous dude they are. So we can't really take that into account because somebody in this town is not a righteous person. I'm sorry, I'm taking out my spectral notebook and I'm putting a little star next to Tommy Knox. And I'm sorry, do not take this personally against your work. sir. Listen, fine. We just got limited time here, but

it's up to you. All right, first. What time is it? I think at this point you're in like the three to five period. Okay. Okay. Furs. Well, you got, we can't take Dylan off the table. Yeah, I mean, we can take

Johnny Mathis off the list because he's deceased. Indeed. He's deceased. Any other furs that might have something to gain here. And just, I mean, Just to clarify, because that was our first motion. Johnny Mathers was Abigail's husband. Right. I don't think we had said it out loud on the show yet.

I'll let everyone know at home. We've already met Jonathan. The ghost. Really? Yeah. That was the ghost. That was who that... Yep.

He seemed awfully cavalier about his son being framed for murder. He didn't know anything about it. Remember? He said he didn't know. All he knew was that the spirit had come through and felt surprised and hurt. Interesting. Okay. I completely missed that.

All right, we can sit here in list names for, you know, until the sun comes up and then we have failed. So let's just let's just get back to it. We do have an eyewitness that we really haven't gotten anything out of. Dylan? Yes, I believe it's time to question young Mathis again. Okay. So you head over to the cell where he is still faced away from the cell. what do you do?

First off, I say, Sheriff, I know this is a bit strange, but would you mind giving us some privacy? I don't think he's going to want to talk if you're looming over. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you got it. I'll be out on the porch. You just come get me when you're done.

And don't do anything that I'd have to, like, come in and shoot you for or arrest you for, nothing like that, okay? Yeah. I don't want you, like, trying to break him out or any of that shit. No, like, yeah, for sure. Never even, damn it. He leaves.

Dylan, we know about... Leave me alone. Dylan. Anne told us about the wedding. Tell me what she told you. That she married Jeremiah in secret and that you were there. And the three of you have been friends since. since you were just pups.

Said you were best wolf at the wedding. Yeah. I can understand why you want to keep that a secret, and I can appreciate you not wanting to talk to us earlier, but you got to... I'm starting to see slivers of sunrise outside. You have not much time on this earth, my friend, and you got to tell us something.

You've got to give us something, Dylan. You were there, and we don't think you did it. I swear to God, we just need to know who did if we're going to save your skin. I loved Jeremiah Blackwell, and he loved Anne. And when they got married, do you, Mr. Ryehouse, do you know, have you ever in a moment been the most happy and saddest you've ever been? in your whole life. No,

Dylan, I can't say I've had something as horrible as that happened to me. I'm sorry that you did. I was at the bar drinking and Jeremiah had said he wanted to celebrate and I told him I couldn't.

I just needed to be by myself for a while. and if I'd been with him, maybe I could have saved him. Maybe it would... I could have saved him and he'd still be alive and I deserve to be in here, Mr. Ryehouse. Oh, bud, listen, whoever wanted to kill Jeremiah Blackwell was going to find a way to do it no matter what. I know that's tough to hear, but there's folks. in this town who are exceptionally good

at doing the kind of stuff what happened to Jeremiah so you can't take that one on the chin you're with him at the bar they kill both of you and I'd be dead to you and I wouldn't have to feel like this anymore Mr. Ryehouse it's hard this is the work

do you know what makes us laugh there isn't a lot once you come over to my side we don't have a lot of jollularity over here. Probably won't come as much of a surprise.

The thing that we find funny over here, one of the things, I mean, we have some prop comedy, what have you, but one of the main things that we find funny over here is when human beings on the mortal coil

believe they have the time to punish themselves for things that are not, their fault. And you don't. Trust me, I've been over here a while and I've seen enough of the mortal world and the spectral world to know that your time is fleeting. And your time, in fact, may be more fleeting than most. You do not have the moments to continue to flagellate yourself for this crime that you are not the perpetrator of. Now,

What is the antidote to despair? Well, my friend, it is... It's action. And that is what we are trying to take on your behalf and the behalf of those you care about. So, we'll ask you one last time, Dylan, who killed Jeremiah Blackwell? That was fucking great.

It was. If he knew about the mayor, William, he loved my sister, and he hated Jeremiah. We can go talk to Liam. We can sniff him out. I got to ask, you think this was because of the marriage? Because this whole time, we've been assuming that it has something to do with the business arrangement that your folks and the Blackwells folks were trying to whip up.

I don't know. I it's hard for me to think of it as being about anything but the marriage you know what I mean I guess it could be about the business but I don't know who would have issue with that I haven't would Liam benefit would Liam stand to benefit from a fusion of the the fangs and the first of the minding of course he's the head of the other workers he's been negotiating on behalf of them and you know because he's both a worker and one of us he's kind of had an end there it's made it a little bit easier to work with and yeah i mean i don't see why he'd be against you know better conditions for the workers and better pay and everything that's been negotiated so dylan does this

dylan help me figure out the timetable so you didn't see it happen you but you found him you saw him in this terrible condition. I... Correct? I found him bleeding out. And held him as he died. Jesus. All right.

I think we have everything that we're going to be able to withdraw here from the scenario. Mr. Mathis, thank you for sharing that with us. Yeah, we're going to go we're going to go finish putting this thing together, but

I just decided while we were talking to you that no matter what happens, you ain't going to die tomorrow. So I don't know what that means yet. I guess we'll have to figure it out when the sun comes up. But you get some rest. Let's just hope there's a bell nearby wherever. Oh, come on. Hanging is going to happen, and then you'll be able to. And it's got to be within arm's reach of him throwing the gun.

Within flings reach. Yeah, flings reach. It's an inside joke, Dylan. We will catch you up tomorrow. It's not really that inside, really, Dylan, if you were down on carry-man. Okay, let's go. All right, so what's the plan? Going to the Banshee, right?

Yeah, I think going to the banshee is the next thing, right? Because after we go to the banshee, I feel like we're going to know, if not everything, enough to know who to go for. Cool. And so we could go talk to Liam now, but like, why not go rule out this other thing first and then we can make a call? And I'm going to be seen and heard, but not felt. I was going to do the Invis thing, but with the name like the Banshee, I'm pretty sure that he's going to be able to know sort of my whole thing.

Sort of my bag of tricks. I mean, he told me to come solo, so I think the best thing is for me to appear to come solo and have the two of them in sort of ready. ready to launch a fucking rescue mission, as will probably be required. Gandy, I don't know what you are capable of in that department. I don't know if you have, like, uh, stealth capabilities. I have a, she has a spell called veil. Okay. You spend one hold to make yourself invisible from a site, but it's just for a few moments.

So I don't know if that's going to be, uh, so, very helpful. I mean, that could give me the advantage if you wanted to come in and, like, scope out before revealing vice-elf. Well, like everything else, it's tied to one of her artifacts. So I would love to try to do that. Yes. And work undercover.

Okay, so as you head out the door towards, you pass Connors on the porch, hey, were you able to get much out of them? Do you say more to you than he would say to me? I mean, we got, yeah, we got a lot. Listen, you're not going to hang him in the morning. I know you've got responsibilities and stuff, but it ain't meet how many times

do I have to tell you I'm not saying I ain't putting the blame on you I know you've got a job to do and I know this town Scott needs I'm just saying that it's it can't happen so I'll we bring him safe sheriff we're we are not of the law like you are we're just kind of hired guns we come in and we do our job but you are responsible for justice and If that young man dies, that's not justice at all. So keep him safe.

I will. And we head to the Banshee. So you approach a house. I assume you follow the instructions. It's what appears to be an abandoned home, all boarded up. The roof is caved in. And the instructions lead you around the back of the home to the storm cellar door. the lock is rusted,

but when you try the door, you find that the actual arm that the lock is on isn't attached to the door. It opens cleanly, and as you head down, you find a well-lit kind of foyer where Alice and Blackwood are waiting for you, and I assume,

well, I should, tell me the prep. Yeah, I've got a channel to do the spell. So that is a, 9 plus 2 for mind. That's 11. What's that give you? Okay. All right.

All right. Vail. Spend one hold to make yourself invisible from a site for a few moments. Okay. You've done that. And so when I channel, if I roll 10 plus, I get three holds. There we go. Okay.

Okay. So you are valid. Yeah, so you can just keep veiling yourself. Okay. And is Augustus, are you invisible? Uh, you know, I wasn't done. to be, but if you're going to be, it seems weird for me to not be. Okay.

I fucking love that scene of the two. You're just like, poop, poof, what's up? Yeah. I make as much noise coming down the stairs as I possibly can to hide the fact that my two companions who can definitely still be heard creaking the floorboards are coming down also. So I'm coming down like, hey, it's me, Errol, I'm coming down. Don't shoot, okay? I'm just coming down the stairs right now.

This is a pretty nice little setup you got here. and I'm excited, and I reach the bottom of the staircase and everybody else just doing. Mr. Ryan. Looks great. Yep. I'm so glad you decided to come. Also, before I lead you in to meet the Manchi, I just want to say, no hard feelings. I forgive you for not trusting me.

It's something that I have been working on. I've been talking with Blackwood about it. I was very upset at first. but I know how we can come across. And I just want to say in Blackwood kind of lays a hand on Ellis's shoulder. Thank you. I forgive you. I forgive you.

Yeah, I think so. I was really concerned about that. So, yeah, I just, I'm here to talk to the Banshee. Of course. Of course. Yeah, right this way. And he pulls back a curtain. and you enter a room, and there is a well-polished table, richly decorated room,

smells nice, you know, little floral, but not sickly sweet, just enough that you can tell someone took the care, you know, to kind of spruce up the place a little bit, and sitting at the table is a little old woman, about 65, I would say, and she gestures for you to sit at the I'm sitting under the table. Uh, I, I do, ensuring that I make a lot of noise as I, like, scoot the chair, but I'm very concerned that somebody's going to hear my friends. So it's just like, as I scoot it back and I, I sit down and, uh, Mr. Ryehouse.

Oh, I am so glad to finally meet you. Yeah, I bet. So, uh, yeah, nice to meet you to, uh, Banshee. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, listen, I'm excited to me. I'm not going to give you my name. Listen, at this point, I identify as Banshee more than my birth name anyway, so this is fine. Would you prefer Aerole or Mr. Ryehouse or what should I call you?

I mean, you can call me Dave if you can help me figure out in the case I'm working on right now. Dave, that is funny. Funny. Yeah, you like that one. Before we go any further, can I actually roll face to a name? Absolutely. That is a one, uh-oh, and a six. So that's a seven, and I add my...

What faction are they? Well, Specter, right? Well, we don't know that. It doesn't seem like it. They are night. Night. Okay. Okay, so that is a... That's not.

You rolled a one and a six, so that would be a seven. Yeah, so it's a seven plus one is an eight. Okay, so here's what you know about the Banshee. Daria Cross was the wizard who tried to transform me, and she was a part of the Banshee's, like, team or whatever, and was kind of excommunicated after doing this spell to try to try to revert me back to a human, permanent human state, and because of that, I have been hiding Darya in Caryon Street, and that is what I remember to be sort of our main point of content.

I don't know anything about like their operation here. Right. So the Banshee is kind of a fingers and a lot of pies criminal boss. And I will say that the reason to flesh out the backstory between you and the Banshee with what you've just given me, I will say that maybe the Banshee was trying to leverage the fact that they knew you were a werewolf and wanted to be a politician to try to maybe get you in their pocket a little bit. bit, and that's why when this spell happened to cure you of that and kind of robbed them. Oh, that's good, Travis. Hey, thank you very much. So it's not, it's not a, it's not a like, they were upset that one of their team members did a job outside of the purview of the banshee,

but rather that because of what Darya did, they lost a, a foothold. That's fucking great. Hey, thank you very much. Um, and so the, the thing about the banshee is, nobody knows much about them. And everybody knows of the Banshee. Everybody knows the kind of crime, you know, the network and web. But as far as personal information goes, nobody seems to know anything about the Banshee as an individual. But yeah, other than that, you don't know much about the Banshee.

No, but I imagine that, like, criminal ringleader complicating things in town, not my fucking favorite person here. Like, I want to explain because they have been so congenial towards me, but like, I fucking know what they do here. I know what they, I know what their stuff is. Well, uh, Mr. Ryehouse, I know that you are a busy man and I don't want to keep your time. Um, is it, uh, is it safe to assume, uh, that Augustus, This is somewhere nearby, maybe in the room, if we're being honest. No, you told me to come alone.

Aero. What? Aerole. I'm not, I ain't lying. I am lying. I'd like to roll to deceive. Okay. There's a move called mislead, distract or trick.

Your rolls have been shitty lately, too. Yeah. That is a. five and a two another seven i have zero mind uh on a seven to nine pick two you create an opportunity you expose a weakness of flaw you confuse them for some time or you avoid further engagement um i want to say maybe create an opportunity and confuse them for some time maybe okay uh what opportunity would you like to create is the opportunity for my friends to remain concealed. Sure. Yeah, we'll go with that. On the table?

Yeah. Uh, yeah, I, uh, listen, we're in the middle of kind of a big job right now. Oh, I know. Yes. I know. So we're trying to split up, cover more ground. Yes. Makes sense. You probably know, you probably know what, uh, what it's like on the other side. What we, we're trying to do, trying to solve this crime. So I think they're over at Silver's place right now. Um, so I'm, I'm here to talk to you alone. I figure whatever you got, I could probably handle. Okay. Well, listen, let's get down to business. I want to help you in this. I want to help you solve this.

I want the deal between the furs and the fangs and the workers. I want it to go through. Now, okay, is this like a big fish in a small pond looking for the pond to get bigger kind of thing? Oh, well, that might be part of it, but here's the thing. I welcome structure, Mr. Ryehouse. Chaos thrives against structure. Do you understand? If everything's chaos, no one seeks me out.

No one needs vice. If everything's chaos, they seek structure. That's why in times of upset, and fraught tension. That's why people turn to the church and turn to leadership and seek out structure. But when everything is rigid, that's when people seek out vice. That's when my business thrives. I want this to go.

I want the territory to be incorporated. Then I'll have more opportunity for vice. Do you understand? I know the way of things probably better than you assume that I do. We create worlds and then folks like you find opportunities inside of them. And then it's back up to folks like us to try to squash you before you can do any real irreparable harm. Oh, it's funny. No, sorry.

Go on. I assume that something like this wasn't really your M.O. Slicing a guy down in the middle of the streets. I would never. So obvious. I mean, you definitely would, but you would do a better job of it. Yes, thank you. I do take some pride in my work.

Yeah, you've got to understand. This situation's mighty uncomfortable for me. I'm not a fan of the stuff you do here. Listen, I understand. I this is what we have here is kind of a mutual opportunity this is I listen you you are an agent of order and law and I don't agree with your methods and we don't see I die on that I understand but I this is mutually beneficial for us I will give you information to help your investigation, and in turn, I, the structure, uh, will continue to grow in this area.

And so my chaos will thrive. The hairs on Errol's neck this whole time are fucking standing on end. Uh, like I, I, I, this, I want to sort of wave away any sort of narrative dissonance here because air roll's whole shit is like trying to stop folks like this from hurting the the people who they who they kind of prey upon but at this point like he's so desperate to keep Dylan alive that I think he's probably willing to like bend the rules well let me make it a little easier for you you know what mr. Ryehouse this is important to me so I'll sweeten the pot you agree to accept my help and in return I will owe you a small favor small do you

you understand it will be up to me to determine that favor if you ever requested but I will be in your debt we're trying to solve one murder and we're doing it to try to clear the name of a of a good guy who found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. It occurs to me now sitting here across from you that you have done many murders, not you yourself. I get that it's not your, not your style. Heck, I don't know if you've ever actually killed anybody before. Your, yourself, but what I'm doing now is trying to weigh sort of the cost, benefit, sort of analysis of what dealing with you loses me.

Mr. Rehouse, I can tell you're a little hesitant. So let me, I will make you an offer. We will work together on this for but a moment. I will give you the information you need and then we needn't talk again. Or I could, let's see. I know that there's the black Mariah sitting in town square. unguarded currently, if I'm not mistaken. I could maybe buy up all of Carion Street and foreclose it, or I could take ownership of that little cashew company your friend owns and close its doors.

So those are your options. One, we help each other. Two, I destroy the things you and your friends care about. I think as Aero continues to struggle with this decision Augustus materializes. Oh, uh-oh. Mr. Parsons. Pleasure to meet you as well. I was goofing earlier, sorry. I, listen. If I'm being honest, I'm not surprised.

How does this surprise you? Gandy visualizes, materializes. This dancer. On the other side. What a twist, huh? All three of you here, how could I ever have anticipated? Anyways, what were you saying? Well, I, you of course know the fortunes of the Augustus Parsons cashier company have gone south under the leadership of Mr. Garrett Altizer, who has compromised the company. I understand you're threatening to buy the company. and at that point, if you were to do that, I would have no chance of reassuming control,

which I'm still fully capable of doing, even in my spectral form, of the company. And I would love to take you up on your offer. Let us be partners in this. You seem a decent business person, much as myself. and I would be honored to work with someone of your caliber and gravitas. Excellent. She's not going to buy Carian Street. That ain't happening.

No, listen, I just wanted someone to say yes. And she slides an envelope across to you. And as soon as it reaches the front of you, the spirit that has been occupying the body in front of you leaves it, leaving behind the corpse of the old woman it was using to speak with you. And the Banshee is gone from the room. Nice disguise. I say,

shit. I'm sorry, guys, I blew that one. That was, I knew we came here for information. That was the closest I ever got to close in a chapter on my life that I let it get to me. and I'm sorry. Are the other two folks still there?

I mean, you can look. I look. Are they still there? They're gone. I let it get to me and I let it distract me and I screwed the pooch on that one. Errol, we were all, I was pissed. Okay. She threatened my black Mariah.

She threatened Uncle O'Ne. No, that will not stand. All right, I guess let's see what we got out of this and I open up the envelope. So you open the envelope, a key falls out, a house key. you pull out the piece of paper that's in there and on one side is written an address. A local address, you can tell it's here and Dry River not far from where you are now. And when you turn it over, it simply says, don't trust Connors. Maximumfund.org.

Comedy and culture. Artists owned. Listener supported. Hi, I'm Ali Gertz. And I'm Julia Prescott. And we're the host of Everything's Coming Up Simpsons. We are a Simpsons podcast brand new to the Maximum Fun Network, and every episode we cover a different episode of The Simpsons that is a favorite of our special guests.

We've had guests that are showrunners and writers and voice actors like Nancy Cartwright, all people that have worked on The Simpsons, and we've also had guests like Weird Al, and people that are on the Max Fun Network already, and each week we will talk to a very cool guest about their favorite episode, and it is so much fun, so if you like The Simpsons, come listen to Everything's Coming Up Simpsons. All right, smell you later.

Hey, my name's Jonah Ray. You might have seen me on the latest season of Mystery Science Theater 3,000, or heard me on the Nerdus podcast. Well, I got a new podcast that's about five years old, but we're moving it over to Max Fun, along with my friend Cash Hartzell. Hey, everybody. And my other friend, Neil. Hi. So it's a music podcast where a lot of people just kind of hang out and talk about music, but so much more. We also take submissions.

And so you could hear your band or our music or both or both of it. You could do, you could listen to your band, play your music. Yeah. So tune in. Why don't you? You could find out about some new bands and maybe just hear us embarrass ourselves as we drink too much. Well, it's all perspective, isn't it? Sure is.

Listen to Jonah Radio on maxfund.org.