The Adventure Zone - The Adventure Zone: Hootenanny - Live in Nashville!

Episode Date: October 3, 2019

As we ready ourselves for the next season of Adventure Zone, we’ve got some special programming lined up for you! The first is this: Our live show from this past summer, live at the Ryman Theater in Nashville! It’s a country western space opera, or, if you will: A Space Opry. Enjoy! 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

Well, it's been about 90 years or so since Earth found its way up into the stars and earned a spot in the galactic assembly. And as you can imagine, the hundreds of interstellar civilizations that make up that assembly, they don't give two shits what new baby brother Earth has got to say. And yet, certain parts of our culture have become in vogue throughout the galaxy. Most of all, our music. This is the Adventure Zone. We got a lot to do tonight. Welcome everybody to the tentatively titled. No, it's permanent.

Not tentative. Say it. The Adventure Zone, colon, hoot-nanny. If you follow the naming convention of our show, you'll notice we skip G. Travis called dibs on G. So we'll get back to G. This is the Adventure Zone Hoot-Nanny, a new story. It's our first time, well, second time technically doing a live show, not set in balance.

We've been talking about doing this for a while, and are very excited to present to you, Hoot and Annie. It's great, because the more you say it, the more it reminds me if it sounds like a weird euphemism for like genitals. Yeah. Like, I'm really excited you get to see our hoot-nanny. And I want you to know,

more planning went into that than anything else that we've done, trying to decide which H-word to use. Hey, Dad, before we go any further, can you put your Diet Coke can on the floor because it's blocking one person's view of the goods. Oh. Hello. Oh, yeah.

Sorry. I see you. Right here. Sorry. Put it on the floor. Yeah. Yeah. If I put it on the floor, it's getting kicked over.

All right. We're just going to hop into it and explain the rules. We're playing a game called Lasers and Feelings. Oh, good. Which, by the way, I want to thank my friend Amy Dallon, was the person who suggested it to us. We're looking for a game. So thank you, Amy. Yes.

And John Harper, who created it. in a tribute to the double clicks, a fine organization of music if you're not familiar. Anyway, it's a super simple game. You'll be able to follow along very easy. There's basically just the one rule. So don't worry about following it along. And I mean, anything else that we need to... I'm going to try to stop winking, but the makeup makes me just want to move this one eye. Yes. Two other things. The idea for this whole sort of game and universe, came about when somebody said the words together. I forget which one of us it was.

Space Opry? You were like, that's good shit. This man. Space opera. Think about it. Also, lasers and feelings makes you roll to randomly generate what the story is going to be.

So if it seems weird, it is. Let's begin. Last week, the three of you received the letter that every performer of Earth music hopes to one day receive. Your invitation to the big show. The interstellar Opry Festival Station, a traveling superstructure that brings the biggest names in human music

to a new planet every week. Anyone lucky and talented enough to perform on the Opry finds themselves an overnight success in that sector of the galaxy. Nobody knows who owns and operates the festival, only that week in, week out, the show goes on without a hitch. To the delight of the various civilizations that make up the Galactic Assembly, you've received one such invitation,

but there's a catch. You're just the openers, so you have to pay for your own way out there. Oh. Before we go further, I thought we'd settle on the Grand New Opry. I thought we loved that joke, the Grand New Opry,

because it's in the future. Yeah, that's the colloquial name. That's what everybody calls. Okay, got it. You have set off to rendezvous with the Grand New Opry at the planet they're visiting this week, a far-flung outer-rimed destination called Shuckstack, which...

Sorry, one more? Shucks... Shuck... Shuck... Now, did the game randomly generate that name, or is that? It's actually the name of a beautiful mountain in the Smoky Mountain Range. Okay. A planet named Shuckstack, which before this letter you'd never heard of. It's a bit of a trek, and you're making it on a cruiser-class vessel you've chartered for the journey.

Its name, the Delta Dawn. It is. It's one of the more affordable ships you've chartered. during your career? The Southwest Airlines of space travel. It's a bit of a junker, but well-maintained. It's got a lightweight, nimble frame, some genuinely impressive state-of-the-art shield projectors

and stealth reflection plating, which are things that they decided on ahead of time. Though the technology on their bridge seems ancient and unreliable, as evidenced by the constant banging and yelling you hear from that bridge on your journey. Your pilot is one Captain Hargrave, an ex-military freelancer who has a man who has

gotten out of his way to make your trip especially comfortable. Now, the three of you have spent several... By the way, it has just occurred to me that we each took one of the descriptions of the ship, we each picked the thing that would make the ship better at running away. Like, there are options for, like, weapons, and we're like, no, shields, it can hide, and it can dodge.

Yeah. You spent several days soaring through an FTL slipstream. Who are your characters, and what have you been doing aboard the ship to pass the time? Let's begin with, let's begin with Dad. Well, my character is Benedict Eugene Eseret.

He goes by Benny Jean. Wait for it. So the name is Benny Jean Eseret? Keep going. Yeah, no. It's nerd shit, y'all. I don't get it. We told Dad, I said,

Dad, we're going to be doing a space. And he was like, I'm doing a do, thing. And we're like, okay, he's doing a doom thing. Benny Jean is from the planet Maracas? Because it's Iraqis and the... Okay. Okay. You don't have to explain all of them.

Well, I don't think anybody hears red dunes. What? Thank you. And the main export from the desert planet Maracas is a spice that enhances your sense of rhythm. And Benny Jean is from the royal family. And, you know,

You know, he's a big-time guy, but, you know, he just wants to be treated like everybody else. He doesn't want any special treatment. I love the idea of a superstar solo alternative percussionist. Your albums are just like, shik, shik, shik, shik, and people are like, oh, this is my champ. And they love me in New Branson. Okay, so. Travis, who are you playing? Oh, and what's he been doing on the ship?

Oh, what have you been doing on the ship? Let's see. Returning emails. Okay, fair. Was it invocative? Come, enter into my dad's world. No, it's amazing. When you actually answer emails

while you're in the FTL slipstream, they arrive before the email. That would work very well for me. Yes, it would. All right, Travis. My character's name, Shoots McCracken. Okay.

And Shoots McCracken is an android. Right. I figure. Who originally was an arcade quick draw machine. Right. That was like a robot that you drew against. Right. But he gained sentience because of his deep desire to play stand-up bass.

Right. As, you know, that old chestnut. Right. And so now he travels with the band. Just kind of a session musician or is he part of the... Yeah, listen. All right. He's happy for the work.

Sure. And do occasionally, quick draw against. people. Right. He is an android soldier. Right. And what are you doing aboard the Delta Dawn? Mostly monologuing into a mirror as he quick draws against himself. Sure, perfect.

And it's super cool. It's not dorky at all. Justin, let's do it. One of the last great balladeers. And I remain cryogenically frozen whenever America is unpopular.

and my particular flavor of patriotism is out of vogue. But, brother, she is burning up right now. America fever has swept the galaxy. People are wild about this great country. So I have been unfrozen. My name is Pepsi Liberty. You can see why I saved the name for last. Right.

As a co-host, I love it. As a younger brother, it makes me mad that you consistently create the best characters in the show. Also, deeply conservative. Sheds up. Now you feel bad for tearing. Yeah. Yeah. What are you doing on the ship, Pepsi?

Deep in prayer. Yeha! Oh, God, this is going to be good. All right. The Delta Dawn is nearing its destination, and Captain Hargrave has retired to his quarters for a spin in the turbo nap pod. He has established two rules for you, his passengers.

Stay off the bridge and do not interrupt him while he's in his turbo nap pod. You are occupying yourselves in various ways as you feel the Delta Dawn begin to decelerate and with a flash. You exit the slipstream and you see the planet Shuckstack down below. It is a peculiar-looking planet with a single enormous red landmass

floating in an expanse of light lavender oceans. You see a single cluster of lights gathered around what you assumed to be the metropolitan heart of Shuckstack, but you also see another ship about a stones throw away from your own orbiting the planet, and you've never seen one like it. It is a bizarre, diamond-shaped structure, with bright green like circuitry pulsating across its hull, and that circuitry flashes as the Delta Dawn approaches it,

and then you hear a hail incoming from the bridge. What do you do? Oh, this is, oh, we got to make character choices. Yeah, so this is still a role-playing game. Okay. Shoots is heading towards that bridge. Okay. Because he rushes in.

Oh, no, no, no. No, no. You promised. You promised. You said you'd wait 10 minutes. Yeah. Pepsi and Benny, what are you doing? Well, I think Benny would go look at the monitors.

Okay. And kind of see what's shaking. Okay. Bacon? Pepsi. I'm real deep in prayer. Okay. Dear space, Jesus.

Benny, since you're like reading the monitors to get a read on what this ship is, let's do our first role of the game. So in lasers and feelings, here's how it works. Each of them has chosen a number between two and five. They are going to roll six-sided dice based on one of two stats, lasers or feelings. Lasers, you would roll for anything that is sort of cold and calculated and scientific and also lasers.

If you're shooting lasers, you would roll against lasers, and you would try to roll below your chosen number. So, for instance, shoots has a four. That's Travis's number. He would want to roll below a four as for lasers, and it would be a success. If you rolled feelings, which is anything just raw passion or intuition, Basically, the easiest way to break it down is Feelings is Kirk, lasers is Spock.

This is a very Star Trek-inspired game. If you're trying to do that, you want to roll above your number. Pepsi has a two, so all Pepsi needs to do is roll above a two when he rolls against feelings, and then it's a success. If you roll your exact number, then it's laser feelings, and we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

So, just to catch up, two, four, three. So you are rolling lasers, you want to roll below. low, your number, which is a three, you get one dice just for basics, and I don't think you would be skilled in this. So I think it's just the one. You've never looked at a monitor before in your life. Let me see if I understand. You want me to roll a low number. Correct. Yes, three or below? I love this game. Yeah. What a great game. All right, here we go. It's a five. All right. Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. That's great. That is a complete. That is a complete

You are, you've taken a little bit too long to answer this hail, so they ping you again. And you sense their annoyance because you also see a very small green light come flying out of the diamond, and then it plunks against the hall of the Delta Dawn. I've stumbled into the deck at this point. I've just remembered I'm supposed to be a dangerous explorer, so I want to get in there. Okay, you are, you are. You see the machine. It is getting another hail.

What do you do? Shoots. Shoot says, Hey, computer. Answer hail. Nothing. Is there a button? There's several.

Are we the only people on the bridge of the ship? Yes. Okay. Shoots tries to decide the right button to answer the hail. I say roll against lasers and you want to roll.

two dice I think because you have some experience with this. You are in Android. Oh, below, right? I got two threes. Yes, that is two successes. So you do what you're trying to do, and you do it well. Good job.

Nguyen, yin, ginn, ginn. You find the right button and press it, and the hollow projector on the bridge turns on answering the hail. You see just a big, empty, dark room with nobody there. And you hear a voice say, just a minute humans have any humans

oh yeah yeah that's great that's great that's great and then a man human man suddenly walks into view a little too close to the projector for comfort and his skin is gray and modeled just hanging off his bones and he looks at you with a blank expression

and says can help I you seems legit I need to nail down that character voice floating around. I think we decided on wild prospect of that search. Hi, partner.

Hey, partner. What's going on over there, bud? You're looking a little running. Got the, um, uh, jimbivitis? Oh, man. But everywhere, L over. Oh, man. Now listen here.

I might be an android what was once an arcade game that then gained sentience because of his. deep desire to play the stand-up baseball. I feel as old as time. Yep. I like how Travis assumes we've already forgotten his elaborate backstory. But I'm certain to suspect that maybe this might be a trick. There's no tricks here.

It's just me, your new friend, Richford, Rich, Rick, Richard. Rick. Hi, partner, let me ask one more time. What's going on over there? And I'd like to roll about it. Okay. I think your intuition is kicking in. You roll two dice, I would say.

I don't know that you're prepared necessarily. This is feelings. Yes. You just have to beat a two. A two, because I'm very good at feelings. And really bad at lasers. Really so bad at lasers. That's two sixes.

Yeah. So if we have two successes, I did it well. Yes. Good job. You know that something is wrong. You also see Rick turn his head to the side as if to talk to somebody. And you notice something.

You catch just a flash of it, just for a second. Hanging off the back of his head is this bright green bioluminesus slug, about the size of your forearm. And you see it wriggling and pulsating, and then Rick turns back towards you and says, yes, and shook stack his clothes for revivations. So got to go. I think between that and him seeming tense,

I think Schutz is going to prepare for battle. Okay. What are you doing over there, Benny? Well, you know, in my experience, you know, not that I've lived that special of life, nothing special about old Benny Jean, but I've seen this before. All right.

You have? Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is something. It happens all the time. It does? Well, now, in our, in our, our neck of the woods, in our neck of the galaxy, we have these people show up all the time. And they are, yeah, and my daddy, he was like the king of our planet.

I don't know if I mentioned that or not. Sure. A few times. Yeah. A few times. My daddy used to always say, son, and I always believed in what he said. He said, son, if you ever see somebody with a green worm hang out back of his head, you need to run like a called a dog.

Hey, that was, listen, partner, that was nothing, but I love the idea of getting out of here. Actually, sorry guys, we got your ship for contraband, so, we are contraband.

Yeah. That is the most historic thing that has ever happened on the Riven stage. That was the best delivery. All right. That one's for Minnie Pearl. Yeah, like I need a minute to think about that. That was so good. Rick says,

so go ahead and duck in here with us and that'll be good. That'll be good. You got it. And then shoots, punches it, drives away. Towards the planet. Towards the planet. Okay. Go ahead and make a lazy, well, yeah, I say lasers roll. You're operating a ship and you are prepared, as you said. So I would say you have three on this one. I'm not going to roll. That one? That's a weird dice. Okay, here we go. Got a beat of four, under a four. I have a four and a five and a three.

Okay, that's two successes. You do what you set out to do. You start flying towards... Now, I could call laser feelings there because I matched the four. Oh, yeah. So when you roll your exact number, it's called laser feelings. And you can basically spend that success dice

because it counts as a success to ask me a question about what's going on. Would you rather do that? No. I'll take the success. I'm pretty sure I've seen through your veil and I figured out what's going on. You start flying away towards the planet

and as you do so, these green tindrals of just like green light start like shooting out of this diamond-shaped ship at you but you definitely steer around them and the delta don is weaving in and out of these tindrills but you successfully get through them. However, the door behind you opens up and in Inter's Captain Hargrave,

who is a mantoid, a mantis, one of the mantis races, one of the like 17 mantis races in the Galactic Assembly. Is he one of the cool ones? Right now you can see on top of his head is perched a brain slug. So no, not one of the cool ones right now. And he charges in to attack. You are flying the ship, Pepsi. And Benny, what do you do?

in response to this oncoming mantis with a brain slug on its head. I'm going to stab the captain with the giant knife that I always have strapped to my hip. All right. Is this... Hey, if this knife makes you feel uncomfortable, that's your problem. It's my right to have this giant knife strapped to my hip.

Roll feelings, I'd say you have the knife because you're an explorer, so that's one dice and... Not feeling. That must be... It's not lasers? It's a fucking knife. I think Benny Jean is going to help. Okay.

How are you helping? Do you also have a knife? No, no. He's going to point at the... Because he has all this knowledge, he's going to point at the most vulnerable spot on the brain slug. Okay, yeah.

Right there. I'll say... Right there. No way, hold on. Dadd, what's the most vulnerable point of a slug? The thorax. All right. Roll three.

Roll three. Justin, you've helped out. When you help out, you give one D6 to the roll. So I'm just trying to get above a two. Above a two, yep. Above a two. That's four, four, two. Okay.

Yeah, that's an extreme success. Unless you want to spend it. Unless you want to spend that two to ask a question. Yeah, I will actually spend that too to ask one question. If you get three that succeed, it's like a critical success. And you get to decide what happens next. Of these three, you know what? With one of those, rather than get the cruel success,

I'm going to use my laser feelings. Yes. I got to exactly to ask, is it possible to remove the slug without killing this cat? No. If you kill the slug, you kill the captain. It is not just sort of chilling on his head. It's like, in there.

Can I, this is, uh, separate. Do we like her group? Yeah, how do we feel about? He had, what I, do you have a backstory for him yet? Has he been kind of a shit? Let's see. You know enough that you would have feel okay, killing him.

Your pilot is one Captain Hargrave, an ex-military freelancer who hasn't gone out of his way to make your trip especially comfortable. Yeah, kill him. Yeah, kill him. Yeah. Okay. Right there. Right there. What do you?

He tells you where to stab the man. Hey, hey, free ship. Yeah. Stab him in the slug. We got to get to this show, y'all. Come on. All right. What do you do?

I stab him in the head. Okay. It goes. right through the worm and then some. To be fair, our tray of cold cuts is getting warm. We've got to get down that. I told you, listen, I know that looks savage,

but you gotta know, I knew that there's no way of saving his life. Somehow, I knew it. So I just went for the gunshot. You must have used your laser feelings. I must have used him. Okay, yeah, you stab him real good, and his eyes roll back, and he falls over.

The slug gives a little squeal of protest, the Captain Hargrave hits the ground. Hey, what the fuck? And I whisper in his here, I'm so sorry about this partner. Say how to space Jesus, thank you. As he falls, you get the sense that your knife in his brain

did something to his nerves and he pulls the trigger on the gun he was holding and a laser bounces around the bridge comically for like 30 seconds before it collides with the terminal that you were using to fly the ship. He falls over dead and the space slug

disintegrates. What do you do now that you're flying the ship with a mostly broken console? Hey, Rubet, Rubet, certainly you know how to pilot this thing, right? I mean, yeah, I was doing it, but now we've done boat up the steering wheel. Just plug into it. We're getting more and more comical with every second. Bye, cracky. Plug it. Just plug into it. plug into one of the holes of it

with your finger and make some beep bop boop boop boop boo hey you know what both of those things is offensive I'm sorry first of all hold on stop this plane

I don't say beep bop and I wouldn't stick my finger in without asking you crash into the surface of the planet jump jump on to the three of you like the three of you just standing in these red clay

badlands looking at the Delta Dawn just half submerged in this pit. I can't believe we survived. It's half submerged in this pit of soft red clay. You get the impression that the impressive shields on this ship absorb most of the blow, so it's not destroyed. It's not destroyed, but

it is not going anywhere soon unless you get some help pulling it out of the ground. So you make your way to Shuck Stack. We're going to move quick, because that was a long discussion about robot ethics. And you can tell that something has gone terribly wrong here in the major city. For starters, there's almost nobody here. It's a fairly rustic environment with large

homes made out of painted, hearted, and clay and weathered metal. And it would be charming, except for the really harsh environment that it has sprung up in. But you only see a few dozen folks of various assembly species just kind of shambling around. And you can see that all of them from the humans to the mantoids, to the shark people, they all have these iridescent brain slugs just hanging off the backs of their heads. What do you do? Oh, leave? I've only got the one now, fellas. Allow me to strike up a rape war with them. All right.

You're trying to talk to, you're just giving a speech to the crowd? Well, yeah. Okay, very good, very good, very good. Since I have a lot of diplomacy training. Yes, you are an alien envoy, so you definitely are prepared for this. That's two dice. Roll two dice. Roll two dice, Let's see what the fuck happens. So I'm just going to walk up to them and say... Wait, hold on, if I may. Yeah.

Make him give the speech first, and if it's good enough, give him above this ties. No, no, no, this is fine. Roll feelings, you want to roll above a three or above. Here we go. Four and a six. That's success. What do you say to the crowd? Hey, y'all.

Listen, I know you probably recognize me, you know, because I'm kind of a big deal. You know, my family, they've done pretty well for themselves and from that planet, you know. The crowd starts shambling towards you. Yeah, no, I'll sign later. After the show, I'll sign. They're all holding space slugs. Yeah, no, we ate on the ship.

Uh-huh. So, listen, if you all could just show us to where the hell we're going, we'll all, we'll give you some merch later. The grand new opera is not on this planet, correct? It is. It is. It is stationed on this planet. We're crushing it.

We're coming to rendezvous. Yeah, you're killing it. Cushing it. Since you rolled a success on that, here's what I will give you. A woman, an unduline woman, another one of the species as part of the assembly, just this, just gazelle-looking woman with horns and a brain slug walks up to the three of you. and you can see she has these like gear-shaped devices in her hand. And really quickly, she slaps them on the three of you, on the backs of your heads. And a hard-like projection of a space slug appears, a fake space.

And you realize she also has one. And she says, oh, don't worry, y'all. Got them? Slugged them. Real good. Totally cool. And the crowd dissipates. And she turns towards you and says, Who the hell are you guys?

Are you here from the assembly corps? I'm Shoots McCrack. My name's Pepsi Libby. And I think you know who I. Is that Benny Jean Ezaret? Damn. I can't go nowhere. I think I'm going to change my character voice.

I thought, I mean, I guess you're not from the assembly corps. That's Benny Jean Ezrit right there. I've been trying to hail them for days. What are you doing here? We're a band. I know what you're thinking. Don't these guys have a name for their band? And they thought they'd come up with it on stage.

Hmm. We're the river bottom nightmare band We're the Wiggles No Is that Well I was thinking of the slugs The new Wiggles

The New Wiggles The New Wiggles 2.0 I'm guessing y'all are here I really can't stop doing this damn boy It's so good I gotta put it It's something we gotta be able to put our merch We can't put Wiggles 2.0 on a t-shirt

Nobody would get it If y'all are We're shoots for cracking and the band. Okay. I'm guessing, because y'all are musicians, you're here for the Opry? Hell yeah. Well, I think you're going to have some trouble doing that right now. Wouldn't be much of a story if we didn't.

She says, yeah, I went to bed a couple nights ago. Everything's hunky-dory. Opry just landed, planet's side. Whole town's getting ready for the festival. Next morning, whole town has these slugs on their heads. Starts arming themselves to the teeth and heading out on hover skiffs over towards the Opry starts mountain attacks trying to breach the hall. Have you ever heard of such a thing?

How did you avoid getting converted? I'm a bit handy with some hollow projections and most other tools. I run the tow truck here in town. Well, it's more of a meck. But I run the tow meck here in town, and so I know my way around a doo-hicky gadget and what and have you. My name's Dolly, by the way, I got yours, because you won't stop saying it. So is that D-O-L-E?

No, it's with a Y. So, um... Well, again, I'm thinking merch. I'm thinking t-shirts. Yeah, I'm afraid y'all's big debut on the opera's got to get put on hold for a minute. Well, listen here. The space boys have got to go. What do you think?

No, I don't think so. No. We got to get to that opera and play. Space Hornie Boys? The Space Hornie Boys. S-H-B, baby. No. Listen, Hootie and the Nanny's got to get out with it.

Hootie and the Wiggles? I'm feeling pretty strong. We brought hoodie and the nannies. Yeah, sure. Dolly says, the only way we're going to get up there is, oh, wait, y'all are here. Y'all got a ship.

Well, that's a complex question. When you say ship, you mean one that lifts off the ground and zooms around and shit, right? Yeah, yeah. The opera's still hovering, so we would need a ship to get up to it. Hey, you got a Mac.

Yeah. What's, why, do you, did y'all fuck up your ship? Yes. You know what? In one sense, Space God did, because it was in his grand plan. But in another sense, I did stab the cap man in the head with my big knife. But you did it beautifully. It was part of the plan.

And we said, Space Jesus, take the wheel. And he crashed. What I'm saying is there's no bad guys here. So y'all got a ship or not? God that you murdered the guy. We got ourselves a ship, but we don't need your help towing it out of the clay. Oh, ain't that dang story, my life?

Jump cut. The submerged Delta Don. Dolly is in this just big, boxy mech suit with these two large, just metal clamps attached to these thick cables, which she shoots out towards the ship. And the cables are starting to retract, but it's a big ship, so she's getting pulled in.

So these hooks swing out of her mech legs and plants into the ground, giving her some support as she's trying to pull the Delta Don out of the clay and she says, dang y'all really got this wedged in here, huh? Do I have like some kind of robot super strength

that I can help? Do you have robot super strength that you can help? You are a Sintian arcade game. That would be a weird feature. I wrote a four and a one, but I'm going to use my four to ask do I have robot super strength.

Oh, that's great. Because all I have to do is answer it. No. Okay. I choose not to help. Yes. Do I have robot super strength? Apparently not.

You die. She said, no, it's just going to take me a few minutes. You'll stop trying to use your robot super strength. It's embarrassing. My tomec has robot super strength. That's what it was designed for. Isn't it just robot regular strength? Yeah, I guess so.

You hear a sickening, schlurping noise as Dolly tries to pull your ship out of the clay. And then you hear another noise. A rumbling from beneath. and then you feel it too. And then the clay, just off the side to the pit that your ship is stuck in, starts to bubble up, and Dolly looks over at it with alarm.

And then a 10-foot-tall, two-tailed scorpion-like beast. Quick draw. Bursts outward, shrieking at your party, sending acidic spittle flying in all directions. I'll say you're prepared for that. I quick-draw it. All right. Wait a minute, wait a minute.

There's the band name. Acidic spittle. All right, it's not bad. I feel like that gives a promise we can. can't deliver on. Yeah. Roll 2D6. 3D6,

because yes. Oh. Oh. Sorry about your gna. Sorry about your hoot-nanny, Dad. A five, a six, and a four. Yeah, that's three successes

or two successes. I'm going to go with three successes. All right, that's a critical success. Wait, wait, wait, why? I thought you had to roll below for lasers. No. Wait. Yes.

Yes. Yes. Below for lasers, you're right. That's three, that's one success. Or you can ask a little. question. I'll take that one success. Okay. It's a mixed success. How do you shoot this thing? What's that look like? Everybody,

by the way, lasers and feelings includes inventory. A uniform with built-in VACSuit for spacewalks. A super sweet space phone camera communicator scanner thing with Universal Translator. A variable beam phase pistol set to stun usually. Yeah, I'm going to say that with the mix

success. I hit it, but it's on stun. No, I'll decide what the mixed success is. I hit it. Then I quick draw from the I don't want to see my hand on my hip be at. Right. We can all agree. Where are you aiming for?

There's lots of aimable places. I mean, I'm aiming for the head. Okay. Yeah, you hit the head, and I think it just scorches off one of this thing's eyes. And it gets really pissed off when that happens, and it spits some spittle towards... Where's the success part of that mixed success? You blew his eyeball off. Okay.

Thank you. You're welcome. I just said it. Well, when you said scorches. off by that even like glances off. But now I realize that doesn't make any sense. Some spittle lands on your spacesuit and burns a hole in it. You can no longer use it in a zero-g vacuum.

I'm an android. Yeah, you're probably okay there. It gets really pissed off after he does that and starts charging toward Dolly because in her mecksuit, she is the biggest sort of thing here with both of its tails dripping this bright red venom. Pepsi or Benny? I have an idea. Okay.

Great. Act on it. Music hath charms that soothe the savage breast. So. Okay, a few things. One, we're literally under attack in this moment. Are you monologuing? Are you my dad, Clint McElroy, who is talking to me?

I can't tell anymore. All right. He is going to play one of his solo album cuts. Right. to try to calm the beast and soothe him. I hope it's... Yeah. Oh, I got to roll.

I wanted to be... How many roll? How many do I roll? Negative one. Definitely, you get the one. You get the extra. If you're an expert, you're an expert in this. And another one, if you're prepared.

I think you're always prepared to bust out the tambo or the Morocco. So am I doing this to roll under three? You are trying to roll for feelings. You are trying to roll over three. Over three. Yes. That would be a one, a one, and a six. Yay.

Which one did you want to hear? Six-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-e-s--------------------. Okay. All right. A little flat. All right. Have you tuned that? Here's the mixed success.

It gets distracted by what you're doing because it's fucking wild. And in that moment, it's sort of... In that moment, it sort of slows its attack over on the towing mech, which has nearly pulled the delta don out of the quagmire. However, you have caught its attention, and it is now charging your band, your hints unnamed band. Hooty and the nannies. I feel like we know. I'm going to take a, I think Pets is going to take a flying leap at him with his knife, trying to bury it in his side. Okay.

Roll feelings. I don't know that you could argue that you're prepared. I don't think I'm ever prepared to fight a space. Scorpion. Scorpion with a knife. Roll 2D6. Okay. And I'm at, and you're saying that because the second one, this is because I'm an expert in fighting scorpions with my space knife.

You're an explorer. I think you have to shake some shit from the time of time. If I may, I would say I'm helping because I shot one of its eyes off. Yes, absolutely. 3D6. 3D6. Thank you, okay. I've really affected an act of the reception.

Above a two. I have two fours. So that's an unqualified success. Yes, you succeed. You stab this thing right in the side, and when you do that, one of its tails just, like, goes limp. You get a sense that you've got some nerve stuff in there, whatever it is. Hi, fellas, I think I hit some nerve stuff.

Whoa, whoa, slow down, Dr. Spot. It also skitters backwards. It's skinnards backwards. It's skinnards, skinnards backwards. Free bird! In a... It knocks a bird's nest loose. Reflectively.

It skitters backwards and buys you all some time. And you all hear this loud, still kind of gross pop from the clay pit as the Delta Dawn. Still having a decent amount of clay all over its hull is retrieved from the pit. And you see Dolly start just like charging towards the cargo bay door at the back to board. Let's get back to you, Schultz. What are you doing? You still have the scorpion? I say, are you?

If you all head for the ship, I'll cover you. And I shoot at the scorpion one more. Are you just trying to do like suppressing fire or? Well, I mean, I'd like to kill it. Okay. But if nothing else, distract it. I will say killing it will be harder than suppressing fire. If you want the trophy of this thing, that's fine.

No, no, no. I'm just trying to get them to the ship. Okay, go for it. Can I help again? Sure, if you tell me how? Right there. I'm joining him where to shoot it. I'll let you do that once, per year.

game. Okay, right there. Right, the other one. Roll 2D6 for me. I have tried. Two D6. A five and a two. That's one success. One success. Yeah. So I think I shoot its other eye. You have distracted it, right? And you have bought time for Pepsi and Benny to get to the ship, which by this point, Dolly has pried open the cargo bay door with her big mech and gotten inside. The two of you following suit, after you attempted to help out shoots? Has she pulled it out of the goo? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, I make it around for it. Okay, you two have boarded the ship. Shoots, you distracted it and managed to get it away from the ship a little bit, but it's one surviving tail. It jabs right into your left shoulder. You are an android. I'm an android.

You're an android, but it doesn't hurt, but your left arm is starting to lose. That ain't my shooting hand. Okay. Is it your bass playing hand? Oh, shit! We're going to need that. My name is dexterous. You still need two to play bass.

You gotta have two to play bass, my friend. It's a computer base. You, now Benny and Pepsi, you see your, well, not friend, but band, maybe friend. Hey, don't make that decision for them. Pinned down outside with a scorpion tail buried in his shoulder. Wait, hold on. so the Scorpion sings me, and then it just stays there

so we both look at each other. We're in bullet time, Travis. How all these guys have been together? You tell me. I mean, are they buds for life, or like, what are you, I'm just trying to gauge the, I don't know if they're, like, session music. Okay.

Is the... You know, as a leader of men, I don't think we should leave him behind. For one thing, the song we got playing, It's pretty heavy. We need that base. I'm the only one with a gun.

Dolly, you know some about ships, right? Activate the lasers on this son of a bitch. All right. Clip-ploc-clog-l-click-o. There's no lasers. There's a shield, a cloaking device, and it's nimble. Run into it. Yeah, blast it.

Yeah, run into it, make it roadkill. Slowly, in a way not to break the ship. This is asking a lot. I'm realizing that I'm saying. She yells, get close enough, and I'll grab one. She's got shields Oh yeah, that's a good point I'll turn on the shields run out of it

Yeah, activate the shields That's cool She flips on the shield And the scorpion is half inside of it When it turns on And you see it just cut in half And just Fall to the ground

It is mere inches away From Schutz's face When it turns on And she says Oh shit, oops shit, shit, shit She turns it off And the scorpion has been Cut in half

Yay, say it I solved my scorpion. I said shield. You helped, yes, definitely. The Delta Don, after a few sort of false starts as it tries to burst the clay out of its engines, finally gets airborne. Who's flying this thing?

Oh, it seems like dollies. I don't think she's like, she took a lucky guess there. I don't know that necessarily she... Shoots is using the backup terminal. to pilot the show. Okay, it's not quite as good, but yeah, go ahead and roll. Yeah, it's a backup terminal.

It's got left up and down, but not right. If you must... You've got to make a big circle if you miss it. Three left turn. Roll lasers. Roll 2D6 against lasers. You want to roll under a four, four or below. I roll the three.

Okay. Yeah, you get there. It takes you a while. That's the drawback. It takes you a bit. But it's time to recover. No. Does anybody have Android repair experience?

Hey, listen, I don't know a lot about repairing and droids, but I'm going to roll a dice on it anyway, see how it turns out. Yeah, roll lasers. It can only go bad. Roll one D6, and you have to roll a two or below. Maybe I can help by saying, So me up. All right, I pick up a wrench, and I'm just like poking into it.

And here's what happens. Oh, I roll a six. It's unimaginably just so bad. He jams a wrench. in there and you hear like a pop and then your arm just falls completely off. That is so a problem. So his arm is off.

Yes. Not so fun, is it? I mean, it's a collaborative game, Clint. I don't. You're holding the rudder or whatever when one of your arms falls off so you make a quick turn to the right and then correct. You now are flying the ship with just your one robot,

Still you're shooting arm, so it could be worse, as you approach the Opry. You see it. It's a few miles away from the main city here in Shuckstack, and it is just this massive construct. It is mostly just like this big saucer-shaped deck, just this one single, bright, metallic deck, with a large, transparent, retractable dome covering its top, through which you can see the enormous amphitheater where all the performances take place and there's this big long antenna just hanging off the bottom of it with engines scattered hither and yon keeping it up off the ground and the Delta dawn picks up a signal from the shuttle bay and you are relieved as

automated docking docking procedures commence the ship sails in sideways and comes to a sudden halt in a large chamber that through the bridge viewport you can see is devoid of life but is chock full of these hastily parked hover skiffs. And you see a handful of small rumba-shaped robots who quickly approach your vessel and begin scrubbing up the clay that you've just plopped everywhere when you land. That's nice. So nice.

And Dolly says, let's be careful out there. We don't know how many of them slugs made it up onto the station. Yeah, I agree. Hey, if we could just take a second, I'd love to put my arm back on. You going to do it yourself? Yeah. All right. Listen, only one of us is good at lasers.

It seems to be me. You as a former, again, Sinty and arcade machine, would you say you have experience attaching robot Android parts? I will say that I had self-diagnostics as a computer, Griffin. Okay, yeah. I want to help, too. I want to say, hey, listen, whatever you do, don't poke a wrench there. All right, roll a 3D6.

Can I help to? Can I help to? Because I want to, you know, ask Dolly. since this is her area of expertise, to just give him some guidance on how to reconnect his arm. Dolly says there's a big difference between mex and androids, man. I just want to say, neither one of you thought I'll hold the arm in place,

which would have been super hopeful. But let the record show no one's doing that. Okay, right. Yeah, roll 46 against lasers. Are you pinned my arm between a wall? Are you screwing it back on with your dick? I leaned against the table real hard. Wow.

And I'm going below. A one, a three, a one, and a one. Yeah, you fucking... Wait, it's bigger than it was before. Yeah, that left arm is now... You don't know what the fuck you touched in there, but your left arm is now swall as hell. Which may still get in the way of your bass playing.

Mom, ma'am, ma'am, ma'am. Whoa! Yeah, you all exit the Delta Don. You're now in the shuttle bay with all of these skiffs parked hastily. You see this massive gateway leading into the enormous bazaar featuring these holographic storefronts for merch and food and drinks that have these large suction transit tubes up to the various seating sections overlooking the stage. Off to the side of this archway is a large steel shutter door. Have we seen anyone yet? No.

There is a small sign hanging next to this big shuttle door. that says, loading tunnel authorized personnel only. And it appears to be locked. What do you do? Shoot it. No need to roll for that one. It bounces off and shoots around the room. And knocks my arm off.

I'll pound the... Hi, let us in. We're a band. Poodie and the nannies? Roll. Hey, oh, hello, it is I. Wait a minute, who am I talking like now? What fuck was that? Yeah.

I'll say roll feelings, I guess. You're trying to convince somebody on the other end of the door to... Okay, how many? No, I'm talking to Pepsi, who is... One or two. Am I prepared for... Am I an expert in convincing people? I'm in a band?

You're in a band, so I'll say yes. I'll say that's two. And I'm trying to get... Feelings above a two. Yes, I got a five and a three. Okay. I think you got to do it musically, Jews. You, uh...

I'm in a band. Whoa, only someone in a band. band, good thing like that. You hear a voice come over a nearby loudspeaker, and that voice says, yeah, I wasn't born yesterday, I'll see them slugs hanging off the backs of y'all's heads. Yeah, and, yeah, not falling for that one. And also, because you've just yelled, you do see from the bazaar a horde of brain-slugged folks start marching out of the bazaar in your direction.

All right, I understand where the confusions come. You want to help us out? Yeah, watch this. Whoop, whoop, and just wave the hand through the sled. I mean, I don't know brain slug physiology. Okay, but you understand how matter works. Dolly's still with us, right? Yeah.

Hey, pull them off, Dolly. Let's show them we're legit. Oh, she says, oh, yeah. And they just shut off. The hollow projection shut off, and they are gone. He says, okay, so you ain't brain slugged. What are you doing aboard a board? The Opry.

We're hooty and the nannies. Do we not have a driver waiting for us? We should be on the list? All we had to do was get our asses here. Somebody should take us from there. And he checked the list? I never heard of hooty and the nannies. Hold on.

What? We just came up with it. You hear paper shuffling and he says, I have an untitled country Western band. That's it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Please open the goddamn door. Table for three.

Looks like you got four. Is she with you? She's roadie? Yeah. She's loading in. She got your amps and... Manager. She's your manager.

Yeah, I'm the manager. He says, all right, all right, all right. And the shutter door starts to open as the hoard begins pouring into the shuttle bay. And just as you slip through, it goes closed. And you hear him say, all right, follow the arrows. And all along the loading tunnel, there are these hollow projections leading you to different areas. One to the stage, one to the green room,

one to the back rooms of the shops, and one to the main office, which you all follow. Green room. Okay, you head to the green room. I want to see if they got my writer and there's a basket of microchips. Okay, sure.

The green room is on the way to the main. Wait, to eat or what? Okay, so robots eat microchips in this, okay. But don't let the name fool you. They're just tiny chips. Right. They are not electronic. at all.

It's just a fun name. It's just little lays. It's just little chips. You know that so many different flavors. You know so many times they're like, oh, we're supposed to get microchips. I'll just fucking smash them up. They don't know. I can tell the difference because of the edges.

Okay. Some of them are green. Are you hungry? No. I just want to make sure they got the right or right. Right, right. Okay, the green room's on the way to the main office. So you can definitely just pop to check in what's going on there.

Are, should I roll to see if there are my gochips? No, as you go to open the door to the green room, you hear that it is locked. I break down the door. Okay, this is a, I would say an impulsive action. You're going to be rolling feelings on this one. You're a soldier, so I'd say you're pretty meaty. I'll give you two dice. You guys want to know?

Pardon, do you? No, because I think you're making a mistake. I'd like to move on with the narrative, please. Is it below or above? Above, a four, four or above. For feelings? Yep. Rolling two.

Yeah, I rolled three and a five. That is a mixed success. Okay. You break the door open, but it's the wrong door. And somebody says, hey, I'm in here. No, okay, here's the mix success. You kick the door open, your strong robot. You use your one new swole arm to punch the door down,

and as you do so, you see some of the biggest names in country music inside. I'm talking about fucking Casey Musgraves the 14. and... Hank Williams, the 33rd? Hank Williams, the 33rd, and fucking Travis Tritt, Jr., who looks amazing. Little Big Planet. That's a...

That's actually a video game. We'll talk about that backstage. Is it really? Yeah. And they all look up with... Yeah, it's great. I'll tell you all about it. Yeah, you're on a little bit.

It's sick. Okay. You notice two things. One, your writer has not been filled. Two, they all... have brain slugs attached to them. They all turn and stand up, and you hear a voice over the intercom saying, what the fuck are you doing?

Get over here to the office. I locked him in there for a reason. I close it. It doesn't stay. You pick it up and close it, and it just falls right back in. Casey Musgraves the 14th looks at you like, fine, idiot. And what century is this? Yes.

It's 1800s. Yeah. Twist! Yeah. He says, just run! You all need to run right now. I'm running. Okay. I've already continued the narrative somewhere else.

You all run towards the main office, and the door slides open as you get near it, and slam shut as you approach, and you hear the banging of the fists of the country music stars of the 18th century as you make it in. Oh, no, Buck Owens is going to kill it. When was Buck Owens a lot? Doesn't matter. This room is a room that kind of stands apart from the rest of the station that you've seen so far. It's not this sleek metal modern design. there's like wood floors

and walls just papered with posters of old earth acts and they're like filing cabinets against the wall. There's no computer in here there's just like papers on a desk and like paper star charts on the walls and there is a door into an antechamber into this office that slides open

and this imposing figure comes crawling out it's a six-legged just like spider-like mechanical body topped with this large large, opaque, white glass sphere like a snow globe that looks like it's filled with swirling fog. And a voice comes from inside of it, and he says, So I've been a bit occupied with staying alive up here. Can you all brief me on what's going on?

Yes. Yeah, somebody lit all the slugheads out. And we come running down here. That was you. I was watching you on the gym. Yeah, it was mean. No, well, he's got a bug. He's got a virus.

He's got, because he's an android, and he's got corrupted files. Oh, once again, let me stop. That's offensive. Yeah. Well, maybe you ought to not kick doors in without talking to your band-man. A one of the chips! We're hooty and the nannies, and we're supposed to perform tonight? Right.

We covered that at the door a few minutes ago. That was you? Yeah, that was me. Oh, man, all right. Oh, you're doing that whole Wizard of Oz guy at the door. Yeah, yeah, you're right, you're right. There seems to be slugs. everywhere.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we figure we will, we ought to be the headliners now through a bad ass and sluggheads, right? Well, we'll talk about that. I'm sorry, I'm being rude. I should probably introduce myself. Give me a second.

And these vents on the meck body open up and this white fog comes pumping out of them, filling the room in seconds. And then these other vents in the ceiling kick on and start pulling the smoke out of the room. And the smell in here is fucking white. And as the last the smoke is drained away from the sphere, you can see a figure within. It's the top half of a human man.

And then everything clicks. The posters on the wall, the smell of this dank cush that has flooded the room. This man inside of the mech body says, I'm Willie. Willie Nelson. We'll be right back. Hey, this is Griffin McRoy. Right now, I'm just your best friend. No other job titles.

Really very excited about that. And thank you so much for listening to the Adventure Zone Hootnanny. I did this one quite a while ago now. I want to say like May or June. In case you're missing some context, we performed on the Riemann stage, which is where they did the Grand Ole Opry. Hence the whole Space Opry aesthetic. I can't remember if we actually said that in the show.

Anyway, got a couple sponsors, a couple programming notes. Let's get to it. That's if it's sponsors. Thank you so much to everybody who was so kind about the Amnesty finale. it has been a profoundly busy season for all of us. And being on the road and seeing all of your reactions to the finale was genuinely heartwarming. That story, it means a lot to all of us and to see it resonate with y'all. It was so great.

But now we're on to the next one. And I'm not going to announce what that is right now. I think Travis is going to want to announce what it is. So I'm not going to steal a sunshine. but just a quick programming note in two weeks we're going to be putting up another live show we are as of right now not quite certain which one it's going to be but we are leaning towards publishing our most recent live show which was the uh Travis's take on uh Taz Amnesty prequel colon uh the Ballad of Bigfoot so it was a lot of it was a wild wild show as anyone who was

there will tell you and I think that's going to go up next just for proximity for amnesty but we are hoping to get the new season up and running very, very soon. We're also planning on maybe doing an off week episode, The Adventure Zone Zone. So keep an eye out on our Twitter stuff when we call out for questions for that about Amnesty. And we're going to also probably talk about what comes next in that. So a lot of stuff's up in the air, basically, and we are going to be announcing very, very soon what the next season is and stay tuned.

So the next episode is going to go up in two weeks. So that is going to be on the 17th of October. And yeah, we'll talk to you then. Bye. Hey, actually, it's Griffin again. I forgot to mention. At the end of this episode, we sing a song, and we did it, and we practiced it for about 25 minutes before we performed it live on stage at

Grand Al-Lopry because Hubris is our sin. The song itself is great. It's by Future Folk, who are kind enough to let us use it, even though Dad forgot to credit them while we were on stage. So the song is by Future Folk, great band, made an incredible movie, the history of Future Folk. Real good tunes. And yeah, check them out. And, yeah, that's it. Okay, now I'm going to let you get back to the episode.

You have been warned. Macho man to the top rope. The Flying Albo, the cover. We've got a new champion. We're here with Macho Man Randy Savage after his big win to become the new world champion. What are you going to do now, Match? I'm going to go listen to the newest episode of the Tights and Fights Podcast. Oh yeah.

Tell us more about this podcast. It's the podcast of power, too sweet to be sour, funky like a monkey, woke discussions, man, and jokes about wrestler's fashion choices, myself excluded, yeah. I can't wait to listen. Neither can I. You can find it Thursday. stays on maximum fun. Oh, yeah, dig it.

Holy shit, Willie Nelson. Yeah, that's right. Well, technically... Wait, hold on. The Willie Nelson? Technically half of Willie Nelson, but it's the good half. Well, Nell. You could just say Willie, is also half the name, but...

I suppose that's Android humor, but yeah, it's me, Willie Nelson with a robo spider-meck legs. So, uh, it seems, if I'm not mistaken, and we're looking at your usual brain slug infestation situation, yeah? Yep, that old chestnut. I wish I could say it's my first time, but, uh, ho, boy. For me, it was brain snails back in 62. 21, 62.

Yeah, thank you. What's your name, partner? Is that Benny Jean, Ezra? Yes. Oh, man. That never gets old. So, hooty and the... What is it?

Hootie and the nannies. So it's such a bad name for a band, but I hear your music's good, so I booked you. So when do we go on and then leave? Well, I don't know that you could call this a receptive audience, since they either want to kill you or turn you into some sort of brood spawn. So I think the concert may be canceled, fellow. Oh, no, no, no, no.

No, we got to do it. If we don't perform, we can't claim this on our space taxes. Stupid. It's a stupid thing to say. Do I need to roll for lasers from space taxes? Roll for losers. Here, let me roll for you. He says, well, we make most of our money on merch and, you know, beverage sales,

and I don't think that they need beverages. So I don't have the money to give you, unfortunately, unless we can find some way to put a stop to this brain slug. Well, how did you solve this one in 62, Willie? Salt, but, uh... Salt. Yeah. But I tried that already.

That's it. Space salt. Oh, that's just salt, Fran. It's in ACL. You can't fix it. Guy, all right. Dolly says, my question is, like, why Chuck Stack? It's pretty out of the way. Like, what do they want from us?

Maybe they love music? Maybe they love music. Didn't think about that. Thanks, Pepsi. There's only one thing I love more than music. Did you guess Jesus? I guess Jesus, yeah. Space Jesus or just regular Jesus?

Space Jesus. I have to ask you this. He beat the last Jesus. In Jesus' end game. No, in... He beat him in space basketball, and then he gets to be... Oh, yeah. And that's the way...

The great... Space Jam? That's the great space jam. All right. Well, it's not blaspheme. Come on and slam and welcome to the new dawn of our risen saver space Jesus. Sorry if my conservative views are welcome here. I love my celestial lord.

Mecca Willie says, here's what I'm thinking. Here's my institutional knowledge about space snails. Again, it's a different genus or whatever, but they all seem to be following order. You all seem to be moving all coordinated, like make me think that the order givers somewhere up on that weird diamond-shaped mothership. If we can make it up there, bust them up. Maybe we'll be able to turn everyone back.

Maybe not. Maybe they'll all suddenly die. But either way, I can't really take the opera nowhere until we get this situation sorted. So y'all four are the only non-brainslugged people in shouting distance. So I think it falls to us to figure this out. So here's the thing, Willie. Our ship, which we could fly up there, fight out there,

uh, and bring some diamond, it doesn't have any weapons, because we made poor choices backstage. Look at this sheet. Yeah. No weapons. So do you have any kind of weapons we might affix

to the Delta Dawn? Um, I mean, I am kind of a weapon. I don't mean to brag. So can we fuse you? Weaponize Willie Nelson. Some kind of smoke screen house. Possibly.

I tried to make an escape attempt here on the Opry, and that thing's got these weird green tendrils whipped me right out of the sky, so I don't know that any, my humble mecca body is going to be much of a threat against this thing. We don't have to blow it up. We could, you know, get it from the inside out

if we could find a way on board. Like the power of music. That seems to be where most musicians go just from the start, and I've got to just let you down gently here. Music's not going to solve all your problems, son. Take it from me, the real Willie Nelson. How about we fly up there and see, what's what?

What could it hurt? Yeah, we've got a cloaking device. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Because we didn't go with any weapons. So we could cloak our way on up there. Y'all've had a fucking cloaking device this entire time, and I'm just now finding out about it. All right, yeah.

Sorry. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah, you're sorry. Sorry. Can you get us out of here, Willie? I mean, I could have before you kicked open the green room. Oh, no.

I'll kill Casey Musgraves the 14. Don't you dare. She's a national treasure. I Griffin got upset about that, so don't fucking even... We got to, I mean, we can either just try and, you know, flying V through the lot of them or... Oh, wait. Let's take the back door.

that there he is Roll Wait a minute now Do we Do we know Whose ship it is Do we know anything about the big green Diamond ship

No, you know that a man named Either Rick Pchard or Rick Tried to intercept your hail But you have not Wait wait wait What was the first pronunciation Rig Pacherd No it doesn't seem quite right

Yeah, I guess roll 1 D6 against lasers as you're trying to inspect for some sort of way out. What do I want? I roll the three. I'm talking to Travis. You wanted to roll below, so yeah, that is a partial success. Ah, shit. He says, shit.

I don't think you should be able to roll the bin fate around you, right? That doesn't seem right. You have found a event that will be able to get the four of you, including Dolly, out, but Mecco Willie Nelson will not be small enough to get through the vent. You will have to leave Mecho Willie Nelson behind. The audience has turned against you so quickly. We'll come back for him. You know, whoa!

I bet we could stay in touch with him on our fancy schman fancy communicator scanner, super sweet space phone camera. I got a Nokia, man. It's not going to work with that. Well, if it's super sweet, that way we can still have the character involved and wouldn't have to take him.

It's up to y'all if you want the audience to stay on your side or not. All right, he's fine. Yeah, he's fine. We'll just leave him a phone. Okay. All right. We're not committed to these characters with no merch,

then you can hate them all you want. Although it could be. I'll run comms for you. I got powerful satellites built into my thing so I can try and scan the ship, give you some intel on the gut. Built into my fucking, you know, my legs. My legs got radar dishes and shit.

I don't know, man. That was great planning on my heart. I'll be real honest with y'all for right now and I'm not going to bullshit you because we're in a whole heap of trouble. I'm mighty high right now. This is not a good. good time for me.

Ever since I've enclosed my torso arms and head inside of a big glass ball, I've been able to hotbox it real powerful. But listen, you got a Willie Nelson guarantee I'll do my best. Okay. And I go out the vents. All right?

Yeah, I follow. All right, you all make your way out the vent. Hey, y'all made it out the vents yet? Yeah, yep. Yep, we're out of the vents. We done did it. Y'all on the ship? Yep, yep.

Made it safe. All right. Ooh, the door is looking mighty, weak and fragile. I hope they don't bust in here and tear old Willie Lim from Loom. Okay. I would like to roll, to distract them by blasting our, like, speaker system that I assume as musicians we have on the ship. Okay. So try to distract down to, like, the hangar bay.

Sure. Roll, this is a, you know, a scientific solution for this. I would say roll two laser. below a four or below? I roll a four and a sex. Okay, that's a partial success. I will take one success. Okay, here is the mixed success.

You do so. And these brain slugs, they are not like the sharpest slugs in the drawer. You know how you keep slugs in the drawer? And you organize them from sharpest to dollars. And so the crowd starts marching towards you, and that gives Willie the opportunity he needs. to come through the door, and you see him climbing on the ceiling of the loading tunnel, and he makes it to you.

But just as he gets into the cargo hold of the ship, he says, I thought y'all will leave me behind. What a weird reversal of fortune. You see some of the people, like, diving at the ship, and you have some hangers on as you take off. I stab them in their fucking heads. Okay. This I can do.

Roll feelings, plus, are you prepared for this? to stab spaceworms that are stuck to our... Roll two dice then and trying to beat a two. Six, partial success. Okay. You go on a stabbing party. There's like six of them, and you stab and you go into one of your many... You know, your stabbing rampages.

A stabbing fugue, yes. You stabbing fugue, stay. And the door shuts, and nobody got inside, and you're pretty sure you got all that. the brain slugs. Oh no. That means I didn't. But you all take off

on the Delta Dawn. Are you flying again there, shoots? I think you have enough experience now. I'm not going to make your role for it. Then yes, I am. Cool. You all manage to take off

and fly away from the Opry and the hole of Shuckstack, leaving it in your rearview mirror as you approach the mothership. I turn on the cloaking device. Well done. It's engage.

No, I turn it on. No. As a robot, I seduce the cloaking device. Hey. Now, it says specifically on the sheet that that is a feelings role. Seduction. Well, okay.

Shit. I'll give you, listen, you're a robot. I'll give you plus one for that. I think you... And I'm going to help. I don't want you to help. I don't want you to help. I don't either.

I've heard you talk dirty to plants. I'd rather take the failure. Roll 2D6, 4 or above. I got a above? Yeah. I got a 5. Okay, partial success. The voice is like...

You can see half a ship. No, we look like a bird. You look like a... You look like a seagull. And so just like the people on this mother's ship are like, what the fuck? That's pretty... high up for a bird, right?

Can birds fly in, probably not? Whatever, man. It's a dedicated bird. Birds breathe, right? I don't know either. I'm a slug man. Okay. I guess birds breathe. As the Delta Dawn approaches the slug mothership,

it remains dormant as you fly near, mostly unaware of your proximity. Massive exhaust port on the side of the ship opens and closes in a rhythmic pattern and you easily make it through and land your ship inside. The five of you pop into view as you disembark the Delta Dawn and now you're standing... Did we just like five people coming out of a bird? Yeah. It lays one big holographic egg that hatches with the five of you inside.

And now you're all standing on this hard light bridge spanning the length of just this enormous hollow, just exhaust chamber that comprises almost the entirety of the inside of this huge diamond-shaped ship. And you cross this bridge toward the center of the chamber where this large cylindrical main deck is hanging in the sky. A door dissipates as you approach and you slip through into an enormous circular pitch-black chamber. You hear the constant whirring of some sort of loud machinery and see the occasional like floating small light in the distance moving here and there. And you can also tell there's some kind of elevator shaft in the middle of the room, just this standalone elevator. Calm down. Yeah. It's kind of faintly illuminated, but

not really enough to like brighten up the room so you can tell what's going on and get your bearings in here in this big, dark room. What do you do? I turn on my android eyes. Why? Okay, stop for one second. Why does the arcade game need to be able to see in the dark? If you can give me a reason why fucking Mad Dog McCree has night vision.

Because it's a black light arcades. 2D6, I'll give you 2D6. Yeah. This is lasers, you want to roll a four or below. I roll the three. Okay, partial success. Yes, here's the partial success. You turn on your eyes, your black-light eyes,

and you can see the room's tremendous scope and its purpose. Thousands upon thousands of these slimy, semi-translucent eggs are all attached to this rotating turntable floor. That's about 100 yards in diameter. It's enormous. and there are these undulating organic-looking tubes that are pulsating and plopping more and more eggs by the second down onto this turntable.

You also see three hovering refrigerator-sized robots with these huge metal arms that are tending to the eggs, incubating them, moving different place to place, and depositing the hatching eggs into a large hole in the ground near the back of the room. And you do see that elevator in the center of the room. However, when your eyes clicked on, so did the theme song of the video game that you portray,

which sounds like what? Time to shoot with shoots, McCracken. Who's going to shoot the best? Who better than the rest is down to shoot with shoots, McCracken? Good. It took me two weeks to write that. You can now see this whole, room. However, the eggs have started to

just sort of wiggle a little bit. I'm running for the elevator. Oh, okay. Roll feelings for me. My feeling is that I made it to the elevator. I don't know that you can... Because you are a dangerous explorer, this is such a foolhardy move. I will

give you expertise on it. Roll 2D6. And you want to beat two or above. Please snake eyes. No, it's a 4 and a 6. That's a success. Okay. Yeah, you make it to the elevator. Hey! It's... Hey guys, come on over.

The water's fine. Okay, I'm going to say shoots. Right. Starts firing the clear path through the eggs to get the elevator. You're shooting the eggs? I'm pushing buttons then, man. Yeah. Yeah.

You ever do any World of Warcraft rating? No, no, no, no. No, no, no. Wait, wait. Now, you said that. You've already done that. What's the ceiling look like? It's so high up.

It just looks like a ceiling. It's like. I'm going to jump. Okay, it's probably 50 good yards. I mean I'm going to like hopscotch around the eggs and try to avoid them. Okay. I can see no way in which this is lasers. Unless your robot.

My nimbleness? My robot nimbleness? Feelings, baby. If it was feelings for me to run through and avoid them. It's got to be feelings, yeah. This is not your smartest plan. So it's your feelings. But it is better than your shoot the eggs plan.

No, shoot the eggs. If that's where your gut leads you, your fucking shoots my cracking. Shoot these fucking eggs. I'm going to shoot the fucking eggs. Okay. Yeah. Because here's my justification.

Here's my logic that Griffin will have to argue with to prove me wrong. If I saw a chicken egg hatching and I shot it with a gun. Yeah, it's done. What then the chicken attack me. You're good. Go ahead and roll 2D6 trying to get a 4 or below. I roll the three and a six. Okay.

Yeah, you start blasting eggs. Like, it's no big deal. You massacre hundreds of these slug babies, so that's cool. How does Pepsi- Yeah, Pepsi's fine with her. Hey, I'm a conservative, and I'm not going to apologize for it. I was raised about my granddad and my granddad before him to believe that all people have a right to choose. That's where I'm at with my conservative belief.

And I believe, I'm sorry, I'm not gonna apologize, I believe that marriage is between a man and a woman, or a man and a man, or a woman and a woman, or a man and a non-binary person, or any combination, all the gender special. I wish I could get a love side of your conservative beliefs, but I just can't. I'm sorry, my conservative beliefs tell me,

or a man and a man and another woman, any combination of consenting adults that want to get married, or, they want to make the choice to not get married. That's fine, too. That's my belief. I'm not going to apologize. No, your conservative beliefs are offensive to me.

No, I'm sorry, I'm not going to apologize to you loony liberals that would have me... Well, now, as a space alien, I take offense at your remarks. Now, is this the first time we've introduced the fact that Dad's character is an alien? Well, he's from Maracas. Okay. Okay, you blast a path, a beautiful, slimy path towards the center of the room. I also kick one, but really hard. You make it there. The eggs are still not fully hatched. They are still like the same level of undulating. However,

the three incubator robots are very upset at what you're doing and they start making their way towards the center of the room towards the elevator shaft. Seeing that, Dolly is like, I'm going to go. And she starts making her way very quickly through the slimy path. You've created Benny. Benny decides he is calling upon his years of experience. They used to have these exact same egg handling units. I mean, listen. Wait, hold on. The exact same one.

Exactly same. Like those three used to work for you. Space eBay. And everybody gets them there. So he is going to, he realizes that they have an override. And he's going to. He's going to shut down the three floating robots. Very good.

I just realized that by doing a one-shot game, we've removed accountability from Dad, which is maybe the one tethering force we had, keeping him here on Earth. That dad can say, my character does this, and we're like, I don't think he did, but I don't know. So we don't have hours and hours of proof against this. You get the one default dice.

You clearly have experience in this. You roll 2D6. You're trying to go at three or below. This should be great. Abject failure. So a two or below. It's two threes. That's either a complete success or a partial success with a question.

Wait, wait, wait, wait. What about the laser feeling? That's literally what I just said out loud with my mouth. Would you say it again? It's a complete success or a mixed success and you get to ask a question. Mm. Mm. Complete success.

Okay. Attention. Is it a verbal command to shut it down? Yeah. That's a huge security flaw, it seems like. You said complete success. You gotta know the code. Hey, y'all.

Is that the code? Override code. Stop. Yeah, that does it. They all fall to the ground, dormant, gushing a few eggs. as they go. Solve your refrigerator-sized

floating robot puzzle. Sure. You all make it to the elevator and head on up. In record time. No problem. The elevator shoots upwards as you all ride it to the top, nearly sending you crashing to the floor, but it slows as it approaches.

It's terminus where the walls disappear to place you in what you assumed to be the bridge of this ship. It's another large circular chamber. lining the walls are dozens of these pods, like your standard turbo nap pod, but not quite. And they are all filled with some sort of green goo and suspended inside of them.

You see different brain slug-wearing species from across the galactic assembly. In one of them, you see a human who you recognize as richard from before, who you assume has been here a while. And at the command station for the ship, here on the bridge, you see this enormous hulking slug being. It's not exactly like the brain slugs that you've seen so far.

It's got these four huge arms coming out of this big slimy torso, which is connected to those egg transporting tubes that you saw down below, and they're just pumping them out of its body and down through the floor. And it's reading a huge magazine, which it looks up from and says... What's the magazine? It's a billboard. And the big slug says,

oh, dang, what are you all doing here? We came to put a stop your shenan so we can do a concert, which now that I say it out loud, sounds a little wild. Yeah, we've come to murder you? Murder you, I guess, or ask you...

So we can play music? I'm going to ask you politely to have head on out so we can do our show. Wait, you know what? Let me try again more forcefully. I'm going to ask you to head on out so we can do our show. Ah, dang, I said the same thing twice.

Try saying it angry, though. Say dude at the end. Hey, dude. I'm going to ask you to head on out so we can do our show, dude. And shoots lets his hand where he's hip be at. Okay. The slug being

says, uh, it's a tempting, is that Willie Nelson? Holy shit. Holy shit, I'm a huge fan, dude. Why don't you have a conversation with him? A long, a long conversation where you rectify this whole situation. Oh, man, I'd be too nervous. Fucking highway, man, fuck you, dude. No, no, he's just people.

Stars, they're just like us. I appreciate the offer, but no can. do, are going to need to control the Opry, so... Quint draw. What, why's... Wait, hold on. Let's your... Leave your hand at your head. Yeah, to be fair. He just said out loud

the word, quick draw. His hand did not move. Hey, don't just say shit like that, man. What's your... What's your angle, partner? What's the plan? Have you seen my fucking shit, man? It's a big glowing green diamond thing. I show up to a plane. It's this

big nightmare diamond in the sky. No one says it's just screens. I'm here to conquer your plan. All right. If I had the opera, I could trojan my horse and my brood onto any world I wanted, not just these backwater shit holes.

I love the idea, listen, and concept, I love it. Why don't you let us do our thing, and then let us get paid, and then do it. I mean, I'm just saying, it doesn't sound like there's a time limit on your tape.

Just wait like 30 minutes. And what are you doing with these planets once you conquer them? Who gives the shit? Like, honestly. There's a lot of planets. No, hold on. Go ahead.

Yeah, all right, answer his question. Wait, you just rule them or what? Yeah, my aunt's my brood. It's my kids. It's my slug kids. I want them to have a good life, good future. And that means having them sort of take over the entire galaxy. So, I don't know if y'all are parents, but when you got kids, you're life changers.

Man, you're really making it hard to argue against. Because here's the thing, when you watch them in nature documentaries, you don't want the zebra to get at. Thank you. But also, you don't want the lions to die. Exactly, and y'all are a bunch of delicious zebras, including you, Willie Nelson, who I'm still a big fan of. Highway Man, fuck yeah.

What if, what if we make a deal with you where you only brain slug and take over shitty people? there's lots of shitty people in the universe. They're not contributing nothing. There's lots of nice people that can just keep living their own dang lives. Hey, we're hurtling towards eugenics here, so I'm going to pump the brakes. As an android, I didn't consider this.

We've all had a lot of fun here, but... I mean, I like a clean resolution, new narrative, especially the next fellow. I don't think the eugenics is the answer normally. In my neck of the woods. Did you guys have finished the show? Oh, no. We broke Griffin.

Hey, partner, can I pray with you about this for a second? This is on my, no, I want to let you get back to your thing, but this is on my heart. Can I pray with you for a second, brother? Space Jesus is telling me, he's kind of my Jesus, and he's telling me that I prayed on you it's on my heart. If I could just... Roll plus feelings. I'd say this is a 2D6.

Okay. And I'm trying to get... Two or above. Two or above. I got a 6 and a 6. Yep. That's a success. He says, I've got to close my eyes and stuff.

Yeah, please. We're just going to go to Lord and pray real quick. He says, uh, all right, but no funny business. Yeah, you got it. And I'll put my hand on you. your shoulder. This is just so we can hear. That's right. Dear Lord Jesus. Quick draw.

Dear Lord Jesus, what was your name again, partner? Scrooch! Dear Lord Jesus up in heaven, in all the heavens, in all the space, we ask you to just look down here on my brother Scooch. And we

hope that you will grant him the wisdom to see the problem with his plan and please, Lord, we just ask for your blessing and his healing from the knife wound that has been inflicted into his stomach.

Amen. Amen. That's 2D6 plus prepared because of your action. 3D6 feelings. Two or above. That's a six and a five. It's a success. That's a success. All right.

You stab him but good. He says, I almost have me. converted their partner, Dane. Well, he woke up the tiger, and all the pods around the room snap open. And now several dozen

brain slugged folks of different assembly species start marching towards you and this very injured slug with a knife in his gut. We all know what you're going to do. Let's hear it. Quick draw. Yeah. You've been prepared

for this. I'll give you a 3D6. And I'm trying to get under. That's two threes. Four or below, correct. That's a success. How are you shooting where? What's up? I'm shooting his head.

Good. Which one? No, you got it. Yeah, you blast him, and now this thing is looking pretty pathetic. As you shoot him, actually, a few of the zombies around the room sort of fall to the ground

and the worms disintegrate off their heads. What about you? Benny Jean. How come I don't have a weapon? You do. Everybody has a blaster pistol. Look inside, look to your right, on your hip, look down. I call somebody for hell. Yeah.

No, no, no, no, you have a gun. We all had guns the entire time. We've all got guns. We've all established early on that we had guns. So if you, you can just shoot them with a gun. I don't know. How much time we got left? Or you could use your feelings.

Shoot them with your feelings. I am going to shoot them with. with my feelings. What's that look like? I am going, I am going to talk them out of attacking and killing. We shot and stab the dude.

I didn't say it's going to be easy. If it's easy, everybody could do it. Just tell me what the hell to roll. This slug monster's laying on the ground and says, That Ben and Gene, is it? My friend, you're in a bad way.

And you know what? If you hang on, it's just going to be embarrassed. Wait, are you going to talk him into dying? Yes. Benny. You know, you could still, you could still, you know, and you know what we'll do? I'll tell you what I'll do. You know, I'll come from a pretty well-known family and a lot of, you know, we will take care of all your offspring as wards of the, is he dead yet?

Yeah, I didn't even have to roll. You talk to him so long, he just dies. And instantly, the slugs slip off the heads of everybody in the room, and they all stand up, and they look around, and they snap out of it, and they get their bearings, and they all start cheering in celebration, and then flash forward, and it's later, and you all hear cheering from behind the curtain. And you are standing backstage, and you see Dolly, and she's in her mech suit,

she's hastily like stacking up amps and getting some stuff ready. And she's like, I'm doing my best. So it's a one-moment show over here. But, uh... We appreciate you, darling. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I will always love you. Ooh.

Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh. Yeah, get it. Okay, all right. She bounds off and, uh, robo Willie comes over to y'all. And he says, uh, well, it sounds like they're ready for you. So all my talent is currently sleeping off a powerful psychic slug hangover. So y'all have just been bumped up to Headliners. He says, you all ready for this?

Bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum. It's a great tune, but no. I mean, where's ready's wherever going to be? I don't tell you're nervous. I'll tell you what I told Waylon back on his year. Before he left for his European tour back in 83, I told him, Wailing, you love these songs, and they'll love them too. And then he ate a big fistful of cocaine. He punched me right in the throat.

Which is why he sounds the way he does on... You know what? Words like that has inspired me. And I eat a fistful of cocaine. Space cocaine. Sure, sure, sure. Spice, essentially. That's right. The melange, the sweet rhythm, malange. And it helps you with your rhythm.

Sure. His mech suit walks off to the side and he says, break a leg, boys, and the curtain parts. Let's do this thing. All right. We've got to tune our guitar. Hold on a minute. I am doing what's called space vamping.

It is indeed an honor for we hear of the Hootie and the Nannies to be performing for you. Now don't forget our bootleg CDs. are available out in the lobby. Fans don't sell their own bootleg CDs. Well, no, no, we have boots on our legs. So they're bootleg

CDs. It is indeed an honor to be the only surviving band here at the Opry. I'd like to perform an old hondo ballad by one of the groundbreaking

acts of classical country music made famous on older prime pre-desolation, ladies and gentlemen, we proudly present to you our version of space worms. Just a little jug, jug. Give us a little jug, jug. Thanks to Paul from the Earth band Paulin's store. How y'all doing?

All right. It's a pleasure to be here at the Grand New Opera is that. Grand New Space Opera. We're going to do this. We're going to do chorus two times. We're going to do one time kind of quiet like. They're going to do it louder. Y'all can clap along the whole time.

but let me please introduce you to the two and the four one two three oh well i grew up on my planted park the space words space words can always be back and discern there just ain't no maximum fun dot org comedy and culture artist owned listener supported the greatest generation is a star trek podcast that destigmatizes the very idea

of having a Star Trek podcast. We're Ben and Adam, the hosts of the greatest generation, and the technology we've developed is that nobody knows what you're playing in your earbuds. You know, with legalization, it's easier than ever to find out what's in your buds. But we suggest that you legally find the greatest generation wherever you download your podcasts. We'll send it to you in a discreet, unmarked package. And nobody has to know but us. That's the greatest generation.

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