The Adventure Zone - The Adventure Zone: Steeplechase - Episode 14

Episode Date: February 2, 2023

Following their initial success in Passion's Cove, the arcade employees must now shift their focus to the real target. Emerich makes his move. Beef gets the B roll. Montrose hires a hand. Opening monologue performed by Autumn Seavey Hicks: https://www.instagram.com/autumnseaveyhicks/?hl=en Additional music in this episode: "When You See Me" by SOMM: http://alplus.io/spotify; "Welcome Home" by Kirk Osamayao: kirkosamayo.com; "Alone With You" by Land of Fire: https://alplus.io/alone-you; "Daisy (EDM Instrumental)" by Zight: https://www.instagram.com/zightmusic/; and "Little Yellow Room" by ROZKOL https://rozkol.bandcamp.com/. 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

Okay, Steepies, you know Crystal, I am not one to get off on a rant. But seriously, how on earth could Scott choose Omar Flatfanny for a trip to the grinding gazebo? Kip is right there! They're funny and they're so perfect for Scott. Remember when Johnny dumped the wine on Kip and Kip was all like, wow, nice tannins and everybody laughed and laughed? That is what Scott needs. Can you just imagine the couple names?

Scott, Kip? Kip Scott, or something else, whatever. There is still time for us, Kipsters, to get the ending we deserve, because we never know when to stop dreaming. It's gotten so quiet lately. In the nights, and in the mornings, and in cyber night, the time between the night and the mornings. Hello, everybody, and welcome to the Adventure Zone Steeplechase.

This is a world of my own creation that I let my brother just and my dad dabble in. We are, you, to bring everyone up to speed, because you forgot, Emmerich was just handed a gold musical note. He's going to get busy. He's going to get busy in the grinding gazebo. Hmm? Yep. Get ready to roll play it. Get ready to RP that scene.

Hey, everybody, this is Greg. Hey, everybody, that is, we're going to cut there. That was fantastic. Everyone, you got a little time to get yourselves straightened up for the evening. Amrik, you want to clean your gooch or anything, whatever you need to do to prepare yourself for Scott's Loved. That would be, that'll be just. Just fine. And we'll catch you all here in a little bit.

Got a little free time until then. Enjoy the crafty. Make sure you tank out a few brews. If that's your thing. I know some of you don't partake, but I kind of thought you guys would be walking away by now. But everybody's just kind of standing here staring at me. I don't really have much else to say. Greg, just checking in.

Johnny Shrimp toast here. Thank God. You feel good about what? what I'm kind of bringing so far. Yeah, not a huge impression yet, Johnny. Now, hold on, Justin. Johnny Shrimp Toast, locked a dude to the bathroom, put deli me in Shlbathany's purse,

and had a wine fight with, was it Kip? Yeah. Yeah, you can Kip had a wine fight. And I haven't made an impression yet. Oh, Johnny Shrimp Toast. Sorry, I was looking at the wrong clipboard. Yeah, you're a wild man, and we're loving it. Excellent.

Up here at the booth, you just keep that, that zaniness cranked up to 11. Kip, are you doing okay? Yeah, absolutely. It was a, it was a pretty good wine fight. I've got to say, pound it. Yeah, pound. All right, didn't leave Kip hanging. That's good.

You get five eventual points. I would never, never. Even after a heated and in many ways chilled, wine fight. Oh, thank God we didn't use mold wine. That would have been disastrous. Can you imagine? I want to pull Emrick and beef aside just to kind of have a quick chat before things get steamy. Be quick.

We got something else to do, so hurry up. Sure. Is there something else to do the rest of the episode? Mm-hmm. Okay. Emric, I am amazed at how well you handled that. You have a gift for, I would say, clumsy seduction, but it seems to have worked. So you definitely did say all the stuff about being obsessed.

That I do believe, Beef, we did advise him against that, yes? Yeah. If I remember correctly, we explicitly, Jedd. We explicitly predicted that that would, yes, but you know what? It all came out in the wash. Are you feeling ready? No. No.

Great. No. I don't know what a good. Gooches. It gooch with a hard C.H. But I... A grundle! Yes.

Right? The taint. Because there's so many wonderful names for this part of the body. You get it. Now, listen, you don't... I don't get it. You don't have to worry about it. Once you get into the grinding gazebo, there's no cameras in there, right?

So that's your chance to do some hard bite magic, whatever it is that you do. Now, here's what I'm thinking. Montres, if you can get the guitar, right, you spotted that. Sure, I've got that. I'll see if I can go into the trailer to do like, listen, I've got some big ideas about direction to take my villain arc or whatever and see if I can like turn off cameras and stuff so we can get, you know, and get out, make this a clean break. See if we can get this one to actually like end as smooth as it's begun for the first time in our criminal career. I love that. there is one loose string, and that is what is a member of the Dentonic Royal Family doing here?

I find it curious, and by curious, I mean horrifying, that apparently the Dentonic Corporation has the ability to create cyberclones of actual human beings. This technology, I do not think, is public knowledge. The fact that they are using it on a romantic television broadcast is shocking to me, but I have a feeling like this heist we are currently on is more than just a favor we are doing for a big cat man. And instead, it could be a chance to, I don't know, whistleblow. And by whistleblow, I do mean blackmail. Yeah. Okay, I just wanted to make sure that our heads were in the right, the same place here.

As long as we're listening off things that are kind of like freaking our bean, um, it also occurs to me, um, we're just kind of taking Stemson's word at this point. Yes. That he is the real Scott Boldflex and that this is a fake one and that this isn't, you know, a real kidnapping. Yes. I will, I will say though, mantras did check him. for if you'll remember

Montrose can tell when someone's lying to him an ability I still don't know how it's fair you know as somebody is the game master here but yeah but that was a you did say that Stimson

thought what he was saying yeah sure was the truth okay yeah it's true I just want to give the context have we Emerick have we confirmed like with your uh hard like Spidey sense have you like Check, Scott.

I had a very brief encounter in which I began to calibrate, but I have not had the opportunity to spend some up-close and personal time with him. And now I am absolutely terrified that I am going to be spending some up-close and personal time with him. My friend, you do not have to do anything you are uncomfortable with, obviously. I'm not, no way. You don't have to do anything you're comfortable with. Just get in there. there's no cameras.

You don't have to do anything. But he will be there, correct? Yes. Yeah. Well, what do I do to fend him off while I am... You have a thing that shoots out lightning. Yeah, man, you collapse him into a little marble or whatever it is you do. Now, listen, okay, if you get freaked out in there, if things go south, just like, say,

pastrami, right? and that will be the code word that you need Montrose and I to like come crashing in, right? Well, here, a second choice. What if I say the word pastrami and then you jump on and tell me what to say? Just speak the words in my ear. You don't have to seduce. I can't stress this enough, Emmerich. Once you get inside, yeah, there's no cameras.

You don't have to continue the seduction in any way. way whatsoever. Once you get inside the room, there are no cameras. You do not have to keep this ruse up. And if I get in there and determine that he is not actually the hard light projection that I am interested in, what do I do? You leave, my man. You leave, dude.

This is not Prison Island. That is a different reality show. Oh, all right. All right. So if I get in trouble, just yell salami. And you guys strong me. I will tell you, Emric, if you yell salami, I'm probably going to come in there anyway. Yeah, frankly, if you yell any deli meat in a panicked way, frankly, we're listening.

So if you start to sound panic, well, more panic than normal. Yes. Okay. But try to hold off on that until it's actually a problem. Like if he says, hey, how's it going? Don't let that freak you out, okay? Oh, will he ask me that? Oh, my lord.

Okay, no. All right. Delemy. Deli meat, deli meat, deli, me. This is a very deli meat heavy episodes. Sure is. That's what happens when you hang out at Crafty a lot. All right.

I will do you proud. No, do him proud. And then you notice standing like six feet away, not close enough to listen to anything you're saying, just sort of staring at you, is Shlopethany. And she says, are you tired puppets coming or what? and then she walks like through you and just starts walking. Yeah.

I will follow you through hell five. Yeah, whatever you say, Besty. Wait, no. No, Emrick, you got this. Yeah, you've walked through us? No, like, yeah. Okay, she's not a ghost, Clinton. No, man.

No, like, she walked between us. Like, between you. That would be a fucking cool. There's three, right? So it's through. She wove her way around us. But she did it. She slollomed.

She slollomed. She slalomed through the three of us. Emmerich is on high alert, you guys. It sounds like Clint is on high alert. Yeah. Maybe. All right. So Bethany's walking.

Is everybody following? Does Emric need to get ready? Like, is he going straight there? Everybody should stick together, right? Okay. All right. Yeah. I just did a quick pity bath.

Yeah. Okay. I don't know if that's ever been said before. Okay. She's walking. She doesn't go very far, maybe 100 yards away. And there's a palm tree that's just sort of at the edge where the sand starts to meet the grass. And she walks over and she's like, okay, now it's around here.

She's like touching the edge of the tree. Hold on one sec. Fack. Okay. And then she lifts up one ug boot and kicks the, the tree square in the middle. And the tree just sort of leans back, but then about five feet of circular, you know, five foot circle underneath the tree also tilts back, revealing a ladder.

Um, Shlbethany, what's... Come on. Are you a mole person? And Shlbony, uh, starts climbing down the ladder. Well, I'm not gonna not follow, right? Yeah, we did say the thing about through hell fire, but this is, God, my curiosity will be the end of me. I am feeling reckless. Let's go.

I climb right in there. It's not, Emmerk. Yeah, you're coming to, right? Yes, good. Yes. It's not, you recognize it instantly. It's not the buttercream you've come to know, but it is the buttercream. Yeah, so my name's Shibox, and I do like crimes and stuff.

So I knew it I know you gotta do like You gotta chill so Here but you gotta make it fast okay And then she takes four She takes four sweets Uh represented by these sort of like chits You know plastic

Probably three by three And she just throws him at you guys That's the money Greg told me to give it to you There's a payback Nobody knows anything so he didn't get any heat So that's choice What? Entanglements, no, you're good.

Does anybody need to chill? Schlebeffany, I am so confused. What? What is happening right now? Okay. My name's shoebox. Did I say that? Yeah.

Right, so I'm like, you know, I hate the word, I hate saying it, but creamy, you know? Like, crime, crimes? Yeah. Right, so Gravel asked me to show you guys where the buttercream entrance was. so I did it

even though I have to talk to you fucking turd puppets for more than three seconds Why did you just hand us for? Sorry, I'm allergic one sec. Let her do her thing. Okay, what? Okay.

Why did you just hand us four sweets? Because that's your payoff for the score you just did. And what score was that? Where is the prize? Okay, Trivian, remember there's prize money attached to the person who won the Hold a note that Greg mentioned.

Oh, right, right, right. I remember that. I don't know why she is the way. Why are you the one distributed? Greg asked me to give it to you. Here. I wouldn't Greg just give it to us himself. Because Greg's busy.

And Greg loves me, and I asked him to, so I'd have an excuse to talk to you, idiots. But what's your angle here? What crime are you perpetrated? What are you doing? What are you doing? What asked me to show you where the entrance was, so I did it. What do you want? Uh, shoebox.

Just for like two seconds. Please, call me. Bethany, I'm in character. Okay, so Shlabethany. Yeah. Why are you here? Gravel told you, got it. That's why we're here right now in the second.

Why are you here at Passions Cove? Oh, I understand. Sorry, sometimes when your voice makes the sound, you know the sound it makes where it makes you want to scream? Is that when I'm talking? It's painful to hear when your voice makes that sound. Yeah. Sometimes I just can't listen anymore and I kind of space off.

You're a real fun character. I'm here to steal shit. Oh. Like, expect the, there's a little. There's expensive stuff in the house and I just kind of came to steal it. Oh, okay. Well, we can, I'm glad you told us that. We can work together on this.

I'd rather not. Okay, that is fine as well. That's an option. Doing your downtime activities. But wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. What? You've been on Passions Cove longer than we have. Uh-huh.

Are you aware that Kenshal Denton is in attendance? Yeah, who wants to dry hump Kenshal Denton? They're filming it next door. Now hold on Are you asking us if we want to go dry hump Or is that the name of the show That was a very confusing sentence Right

That's the name of the show Who wants to dry hump Kenthal Denton But isn't Kinchel Denton Married? No His wedding fell apart Because you guys

ruined it That seems so petty Then we did him a favor Frankly It was No Some of us knew it wasn't going to work out You could tell

Look Look at this photo Hold on Wait Hold on, it's here. No, it's bad. Look at this with the two of them. That's Elizabeth and Kenshal.

You can tell, right? Oh, yeah, she's leaning away. Uh-huh. She's laying in the way. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so I'm gonna go. This is all I agree to do. I gotta go.

Bye. Wait, are we in the buttercream right now? Yeah, yes, yes. What? Yeah. Okay, cool. That's why I said that, You're in the butter.

Earlier when I said that... That we're in the buttercream. Okay, got it. Got it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The butter cream is not the one static because there's layers between all the layers, eh? Oh, okay. It's not your butter cream, by which I mean the buttercream that you've been in to this point, but it is the sort of like layer between layers.

Well, then it seems we have an extraction point, which is nice that we have that going for us. Are we really going to do downtime activities? Yeah, this is the, the reason Shlbethany was here was to have a quick excuse for you guys to do the downtime activities that follow a score. So Bethany was hurrying you through it as a sort of gift to me, her creator. So that you can keep her around more. Got it, got it, got it. Right. So there's no heat, you got your payoff, there's no entanglements, downtime activity.

We are still, though, on the job of. So do you remember in the last arc when there was like a sub-score? A sub score and then the main score. Okay. That's kind of, yeah. Got it. Beef, do you have any thoughts? I know that I kind of sprung this on you.

And I do want to keep this quick. So nuts and bolts, but that you, after a score, it is kind of imbalanced to not give you all a chance to recover stress. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or whatever you may want to do. My stress is still pretty low. I'm going to keep training and resolve, go through my exercises that Dale Carnegie's great, great-great-grand, center whatever gave me to add another point and resolve okay um and then or the other down to train indulge vice um yeah you know what as long as uh because i still have my boo-boob in my arm but

it's not really getting in the way so i can hold on to that and i don't really want to do a long-term project. So I guess I will. You know what? No. I don't know. Can I acquire an asset of Shlbethany? Hmm. Hmm. I think that she would probably not go with that

because she's already sort of working on her own thing right now. At a later point, I think you could definitely do that. But she's kind of on this job right now. Oh, please do. I love her. I will at a later project. Of course. of course we all love chle bethany i'm gonna indulge my vice then yeah yeah yeah um are there other people here in this uh flavor of buttercream yeah it's uh not unlike um the way i imagine the buttercream

and i guess everybody can imagine it differently but you know like when you see uh like on a space movie where the ship is like it's like it's not supposed to be glamorous, it's just to be like space miners or something. And like the walls between the bunks and stuff are really just sort of like sheeting from the ceiling. It's sort of like that. Like people have, or like

kind of the vibe of like a bizarre, you know, with like different stalls or whatever, so there's some of those, but it's all sort of like makeshift. But there's like, it's vibrant. You know what I mean? There's life here. There's people going about their business. Okay, great. Yeah, I'm gonna. A lot of reclaimed lighting too.

stuff that they've found, you know, an old-timey lamp post that got decommissioned here and some unused Christmas lights over here, that kind of deal. Sick. Yeah, that's cool. Hey, Justin, you're painting a beautiful word picture. Yeah, I think it really are. I can never remember what I've gotten out of my head. You know what I mean?

Sometimes I forget. It's hard to keep track of. Okay. But, hey, it's beautiful. I'm going to go to the local gamblers. kiosk and I'm going to put in a bet

on the outcome of this season of Pashets Cove Oh shit Interesting Yeah I'm going to put Listen I'm going to take the long odds Jehela Wilkes

Wow Wow Yeah but listen Big payoff if it works out You know what I mean The odds The Jahela Wilkes Married

If I remember Sextagenarian But I'm really pulling for her I think she's there for the right reasons Which is that she likes being on dating shows Is right a reason as you can It's not a bad reason I'll think so I'm gonna put some money down for her All right

I sure hope you don't get banned from dating shows for life Yeah that's true trap Why not? Well it happened to Pete Rose friend That's exactly analogous situation Yeah I don't okay Now, oh, okay, uh-huh. I do run the risk of over-indulgence.

Yeah, go ahead, no, risk it. Okay. So I roll a D6 and reduce by that much, right? When you recover, you're recovering or you're... No, no, no, you're reducing stress. Okay. The effect of your indulgence depends on your character. 's worst attribute rating.

Did you overindulge? No, no, no, not yet. So my worst attribute, I mean, is insight. Because I only have one point in that. Right? Yep. So roll one die. Oh, one.

Hey, you didn't overindulge. Didn't, yeah, that's for sure. That's true. No worries there. So clear one stress. And that's my. That's my downtime activities. Um, I would like to take a downtime activity.

Is that okay? Yeah, of course. Oh, and we need to add those four suites, don't we? Yeah. Should we just each take one and then put one in the team stash? Do we have room in the team stash? Oh, maybe. Maybe not.

Um, Team stash is currently holding four coins, so no. Okay, I have room to take two. Uh, okay, you take two. I trust you. I want to explore this new layer of the buttercream, and in doing so, sort of check out the familiar connective tissue between this layer and the one surrounding it to further my layer nav project.

Oh, cool. I guess maybe now it's, now that I'm I know that there's more butter creams with different layers. Maybe it's like, maybe it's less about the scaling of walls Spider-Man style and more of like, if there's entrances to different butter creams all over the place, maybe it's just a question of like knowing where they are and how to get to them. Yeah. I mean, that certainly seems more, having the sort of knowledge that Shlbethany just shared with you,

you know, being able to get that artificial. could help you create an easier way of getting between. Okay, so yeah, I'm just climbing all over, clambering and climbing all over this layer of the buttercream looking for, looking for that connective tissue. It's interesting. As you're looking through, you notice that the buttercream, you don't know Pashions Cove super well, but you can see some of the areas where you can almost get a sense of the geography, right? Like in the lagoon, you know the approximate area because you're pretty close to it when you go down where the lagoon is. And that's just like a column of water, like almost like an aquarium below. So you can see into it. But like what you're realizing is it's sort of, you can sort of get a sense of where you're at because it matches the geography above you.

Okay. So is this finesse is I think what we did last time just for all the climate? Okay. Just a straight up and down finesse roll. 262, that's a six. Good job. That is wonderful. So that's...

What's that? Six? How many seconds are we to start clear? That's what I'm trying to figure out. Long-term project on a six. It's three ticks. Wow, good job, Griff. Almost there.

Oh, that's annoying that there's one tick left. I'm not, I'm just gonna spend a coin to enhance the result. Okay. A suite to enhance the result. Because I don't want to spend an action to fill one thing on the pie chart later. You know what I mean? Yeah. Okay.

Yeah, then I want to finish this Lairnav project. Okay. I will clear it. You mark your coin that you've spent? I have done so. So, a long-term project, based on the goal of the project, the GM can tell you the clocks in order to work on a project, et cetera, et cetera. et cetera.

Yeah, I guess there's nothing specific about, once that's accomplished, you can start a new project. No, okay. Yeah, so there's no like specific language on what this means sort of mechanically. I guess it's going to be mostly narrative, but now I think just like,

I know how to find the holes. Yeah, whatever Shilbethany was looking for, and, you know, it helped, I think that it really put you over the top, you know, seeing what Shilbethany did. Whatever she was looking for, I think you have learned how to look for. Okay.

I'm going to have to write a note about this on my character sheet, or I will forget it. Yeah, I understand. Anybody else? I still have one left, but Dad, if you want to do one. No, go ahead. Go ahead. Well, I'd like to try and reduce my stress, maybe.

I don't know what I want to do with my other action yet. You know, I do still have a level one harm. I am still recovering from pin swallowing surgery. What the fucking ripples off of that one action are really kind of wild. Gosh, I don't know. Dad, if you know anything, go ahead and do it. I wanted to ask Juice a question. Yeah.

Did Emmerich finish the second special project? Mm-hmm. Okay, so you did. You still have not told us what it is. Okay, so I don't have to worry about that. Okay, I think he's going to participate in fantasy bootfall, you know, to relieve some stress because he's got quite a bit. This is towards the end of the season, all that's left is DFS, which is demanded felony stealth. So he's going to try to do that first of all.

Roll dice equal to your lowest attribute rating. And that's between insight prowess and resolved. That's it. I got zero in insight. How could that be? Oh, no, no, no. No, no. I'm sorry.

Well, I... How could I have zero in insight when I have three dots in tinker? Okay, so what you're looking at is you're looking at, Is you're looking at the points earned towards the next level of that? Right. But if you add them all together, right? Oh, I see. Okay.

Oh, one, two. Okay, so that's five. The lowest would be in prowess because I only have one in that. So I would just roll one die, correct? Yeah. Okay. It's your weakest quality that is most enthralled to your vice. That's the narrative.

Ooh. I know. I'm not good. I just read that. Nice work, John Harper. Mr. Harper. Mr. Harper. You made a good game, Mr. Harper.

There's a telephone call at the front desk. Roll that beautiful bean footage, Dad. I'm doing it. I'm doing it. I'm trying to. Roll your beans. One click. Don't hold out on you now. Roll it, big beautiful boy. That mouse button gets heavy.

Oh my goodness. Wait, no, Dad, you just. Nope, you just rolled a six, apropos of nothing. I didn't know you could do that. Yeah. Dad just rolled. The number six. The number six.

Yeah, Dad, you can't. That's essentially typed six. That was my role. Did you roll a D6 or the number six? No, I think,

no. I typed in roll D6. No, you type rolling six. Everything says six equals six. Well, then, yay for me. No, Mac. You basically just typed six into the chat.

And then hit Scent. I can't even make what he did happen. You've gamed the system. Yeah, you just typed six then. I don't even know how you did it. You got inside of the matrix. Wait, wait, wait. I typed in forward slash roll D6.

I think you might have left out the D. No, I did not because I just typed in. I did the exact same thing. Watch the difference. Justin just did rolling D6. And I did. Roll six. Do you see the sort of syntactic difference?

Okay, but go up. Go up three where I rolled D6 again and it gave me two. Yes, yes, because that's a die. You wrote rolling six in the first chat, not rolling D6. And then I wrote roll two and I got a two. Do you see? And now roll. I just rolled a hundred thousand.

Okay, guys, we got other stuff to do. Roll. Okay. Travis. Let's see. Dad, try this. Oh, no, they didn't work. Click on the left side bar for Old 20.

You'll see at the bottom of that. I know. I know. You just click one, just click the D6. A two. A two. But that's good, Mac, that's good, because if you had gotten too much, you would have overindulge.

You would have overindulge. So two's not bad. So go ahead and take two points of stress off. Okay. And if I understand correctly, I have a full result. Oh, okay, yeah. You get to upgrade. You get to pick one of the four things underneath resolve to add a point in. Yeah, I'm going to add a point to a tune. Wow. Okay. Okay. I know what I want my second action to be. Yes. I think acquiring an asset's a good call because we're about to go into a very high paying, high risk job. Any advantage I can give us there? Oh, maybe, okay, so one of the assets I can acquire is a service.

I want to hire a saboteur. Ooh. I want to hire somebody who can, like, knock out the power to Passions Cove or something along the... Or cut the camera feeds or do something. Okay. And I assume that that would not be impossible here. No, I mean, we have a house full of people. It doesn't even have to be somebody in the house, right?

It could be some operator inside of the butter cream. I mean, there's also plenty of PAs and grips around, and there's no way they're getting paid what they're worth. Yeah, what do you want to do, Griff? It's your, it's your asset, so. I want to find, uh, shit. I want to find the sort of grungy-looking grip, the best boy key grip of this production and try to commission.

Okay. Try to commiserate with them. Okay. You leave the buttercream because we can be done there. Yeah. You leave the butter cream and you find, you see a guy with like a bald on top, but he's got the mullet, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That classic look and he's got a black polo and black jeans and a black mustache. And turns down, this is. Hey, how can I be on Douglasman's Eddie? Well, hey there, Douglas. Shouldn't you be on the show? Oh, we're on break. Apparently, Scott had to take a 10-3. I don't even know what that means.

I assume jerking it, but, yeah, you know how it is. I try not to speculate. You've been working in this field long? Yeah, I used to be on Prisons Cove for years. This is a tough kick, though. Tough ones. He's some real tough birds there. You know, I've been on some other shoots around home hunters

where the people hunt other people in their home. Yes. Oh, I'm familiar. That one is beyond the pale, in my opinion. I'm still talking to somebody about online. Well, that's good, yes. It's hard to find locally. It's hard.

Yes, and I assume you have certain sort of protections via the union. The grip union. No? No, I mean, yeah, I do okay. Listen, this isn't about me. You got a lot of, you got a show to get ready for. I'm sorry to keep genuine. Oh, it's fine.

I just wanted to compliment your work. I've been casting quite a few of these things now, and you run a tight ship. Oh, great. Yeah. Thanks, thanks a lot. I was wondering. Yeah.

Can I bribe you? Oh, yeah, for sure. Okay, that's good to hear. I thought that you might be a man who would cut through the bullshit. Yeah, I, you know, one might wonder why the tormentor ends of bullshit leading up to this part. But yeah, I, sure. Okay, well, I'm going to tell you a time, and then if you can just sort of like, I don't know, yank out the main... Listen, listen, I don't need, okay?

You are a professional. Okay, this is exquisite. All right. I don't, I don't. Yes. I don't come to your TV show until you're going to squeeze people's buttcheeks or whatever you all are doing over there. I'll not pay that close in attention. It is largely that, yes.

Okay, I want to roll to acquire his services. All right. What is your Cruz tier? I mean, I'm a big fan of his movies. No. I don't want a tier ranking of Tom Cruise movies. I need to know the share of your crew. What a hilarious misunderstanding.

What? We won. You won't get this, huh? What? No, that's a zero. I thought you were one. I did too. I'm looking at this.

I've got one marked. What are you looking at, Griff? I'm looking at Poppy's Pals. That can't be the name of our crew sheet. Yeah, that is the name of it. And then we have good rep. We got, it looks like strong hold, but we have no tier. Yeah, because our rep hasn't filled up.

Has it leveled up yet. Okay, right. Okay, tier zero. Which means... You're going to roll two and take the worst result. Fuck. Go. Hey, hey, hey, I'll take that six and a four.

Yeah. All right. Douglas Van Zetti has been nodding to you and giving you a thumbs up for the past 30 seconds. And it's just now that you're able to discern that, yeah, he does actually know what he's talking about. Yeah, for sure. So, yeah, Douglas Manzetti will do what you want him to do at the time you want him to do it. Okay. And he'll be just basic quality, essentially.

Yeah, it'll be a pretty good set. Okay. Cool. Do I pay him? I don't actually have to pay him. No. Money. No, because you used your action to do it.

It's just like Travis with his gambling. Yeah. Got it. You're paying him money, but it's not spending money. Yeah. What was his name? What was his name? Douglas Manzetti. Okay.

Fantastic. I don't think we're going to ever steal anything from a television production again on the show, but you never know. It's nice to have friends. Man, I wish I could travel back in time and show myself this character sheet with such notes on it as can find holes to the buttercrete. Show that to anybody who hasn't listened to this season yet. I bet you that'll get them on board. They can be anywhere. your office, in your car, and they are wrong.

My mom says that the Greyhouse didn't exist, but she's wrong. He just doesn't wrong. Someone in your life is wrong about something. Something small, something weird, something vitally important. Only one person has the courage to tell them just how wrong they are. You know what you did was wrong, but your daughter is a liar who eats garbage. They call me Judge John Hodgman. Listen to me on the Judge John.

Lodgeman podcast. If someone in your life is doing you wrong, don't just take it. Take it to court. Submit your case at maximum fun.org slash JJHO. Hi, I'm Alex Schmidt. And I'm Katie Golden. And we make secretly incredibly fascinating. A podcast about why seemingly ordinary stuff is actually the title of the podcast. Using tons of research, we take a joyful look at history and science and stories and jokes. About the ordinary stuff in your life. because that's what makes those things amazing. Also jokes.

So get excited about paper clips. Get thrilled about pigeons. Get all psyched up and running around the room about the imperial system of weights and measurements. For real, there's whole episodes about this stuff. Hear them anytime and hear new episodes Mondays at maximum fun.org. Does Dad have one more action? No, do you, dad? No, I relieve stress and I did resolve.

I thought your resolve you were already full. That wasn't an action. action. That was just leveling up. That was just taking the point. Yeah. Yeah, you still have one action. Hmm. Okay. Don't have to do anything. I mean, you do whatever you want. Um, I think he'll start a new long-term project. Okay. What is it? Are you going to tell us what this one is, or is it also going to be a sneaky secret? Or a sneak-grit, as you might call it. I think dad should only be allowed to have one secret. Okay, agreed. I feel like all dads should only be allowed to have one secret.

Oh, no, I don't agree with that. Doesn't matter how big it is? Doesn't matter how big. Just the one, though. What if that one big secret, the one that nobody can know? What if that's tied to a lot of other little secrets? What if it's a big umbrella? It's sort of the jingle block holding the whole and so on together.

That's okay, right? Yeah, I guess that's fine. Okay, well then. Because sometimes you have to keep a lot of little secrets to keep that big. We're going and that's cool, right? Those are five. That's five. Okay, so how do I do the thing about training to raise one of these attributes?

You mark one XP in your playbook. So, yeah, one of those attributes. Or two, if you train a tune, command, consort, or sway, or rather, if you train Resolve, you will get two points instead of one. Because we are. Our crew is, I explained this last time. Our crew is experienced and training resolved. So, yeah, Dad, you just mark one of those three attributes. You pick one and mark an experience point in it.

Okay. So between insight, prowess, and resolve, correct? Okay. I'm going to put one in insight. Okay. We have a five-second scene where Emrick is staring at a colorful arrangement of dots. and then someone walks up behind and passes me on the shoulder and says, Oh, no, I'm going to use my, I'm going to use my joke that I didn't use two weeks ago.

Oh, okay. Oh, okay, yeah. Everybody brace your asses. You're going to fucking lose your fucking minds. I had a bit that I was building up to, so I hope that dad is. No, no, no, no, no. Dad, you can introduce this canned and ready joke. I've done a lot of different jokes with my brothers.

If you ask them right now, they know with 100% certainty, I will never. It will never come out. I will never back down for this. to his grave. Okay. He watches videos. Yeah. On Steeple Chase book.

Uh-huh. And of Crystal with a K. Yeah. Talking about Steeple Chase. Uh-huh. And it gives him a lot of insight into the world in which we live here. Okay. Now, lay down that joke.

So here comes that joke. That was the joke. Oh. Steeple Chase book. Oh. Facebook. Oh, Jesus Christ. That was Chasebook.

And I think about, I think about sort of the sliding doors of history. Even the computer that lives in my watch was like, I'm not sure I understand that. See, Chasebook is like, no, no, I get that. And there's a steel book. They have steel book, so I kind of put. But just think about. Juice was yours going to be, oh, man. It was good, though.

The 90s kids would have loved it. Oh, fuck. I'm one of those. Damn it. You are. I know you are. But what am I? Okay, everybody.

Let's huddle up here. Let's move it up. Scott, if I can have you up here on the dais. You've made your way over to the grinding gazebo. And the grazibo is kind of a misnomer. It's four or five. times larger than your standard gazebo, which we don't know is usually about 16 by 14. Obviously.

Right. This is big. It's laid out like a bedroom with a large, you know, bed in the middle, lots of flowers. Is it a gazebo for real where the sides are open? Yes, it is. Oh, beans. That's bad for, oh, that's bad for us. Yeah.

We're just going to start a, we're going to start a, uh, uh, the show here. Everybody comfortable, everybody cool, everybody having a good time. Yes, yes. Great time. Good, good, good. Having a great time.

Wee. Emrick, you ready to shine? You seem a little, you'll seem a little intense. This is me. I am intense, but that's when I shine. I love that. It's so authentically you.

That's awesome. Awesome. All right. Scott, you ready, baby? Yeah, nice. sound like this. Yeah. Me too. It was rough.

Now, Jamie, yeah. It has been established that there are no cameras in the grinding gazebo. Everyone knows that.

That's fact at this point. Yeah. But with open sides, are their cameras pointed at the grinding gazebo? I mean, currently, yeah.

Oh, beans. Okay. Hey, Greg. Just to check in, usually in my experience during these kinds of scenes where there's a one-on-one with a contestant and the primo hunk, then you usually have like a bee thing going on of all the other contestants talking or doing a challenge or just kind of like playing in the pool or something. Do you want us to stage like a, let's do like an arm wrestling challenge or we're going to have a golden eye tournament or something? I'm sorry. So what are you asking?

Do you want something that you can cut back and forth to? B-roll. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, we'll have stuff going on in the house for sure. I think we got some cool board games for you guys to check out. You got Catan? Chris Catan? Do you have settlers?

I'm Chris Catan. I try to build the longest, Corky Romano. That's stupid. Hi, everybody. I'm Crystal Howl, and welcome back to Passion's Cove. We're so excited for our Primo Hunk, Scott Boldflex, to finally get a little quality time with his current man crush, Emric Dreadwick.

No, not Emmerc Dreadway. Fucking, what's your dumb... Omar Flatfanny. Omar Flatfanny. With his main crush, Omar Flatfanny. Scott, are you ready to shine? Yeah, I've been... I wailed on my...

for like an hour, so it's gonna be a pretty choice sish. And my calluses are warmed up too, and he cracks his knuckles. Gross. And, uh, uh, Omar, how are you feeling? You ready for the big night? Yes. Bring on the ribaldry. All right.

And then, uh, Scott who was, uh, there's a gate going to the, the, the end of the gazebo, uh, that Scott is standing. behind. It looks wrought iron, but you could tell it's probably foam. And there is a keyhole there that is shape, that you could tell is kind of shaped to accommodate your musical note. Amrik takes the musical note and inserts it into that space. You solved his puzzle. Yes, very good, Mac. No, when you do the gate pops of open, you've got easy access to Scott Boldflex, who... Yeah, he does.

What? Yeah. And he says, okay, hold on. I think you need a little privacy. And he pushes a button on one of the supports, and what appears to be some sort of thick canvas sheeting comes down, automatically lowered from the holders above the openings in the gazebo, and basically covers the entirety of the... the gazebo in this thick

canvas. It's going to get really hot in there. You bet it is. So Scott leads you, Scott kind of flounces himself onto the bed. It says, so you're ready? Hop aboard. Wait, may I

just, listen, take all this in? May I look at you? Yeah, but just hot, you gotta hop on. You know how this works. we're going to hop on the bed Scott's already on the bed he's patting like Come on this is what you've worked so hard for

very well and he sits down on the bed one one cheek you hear a click as soon as it happens and the bed and the bed and the large what you thought was a

red yarn rug that the bed was sitting on begin to descend into the floor. Just hold on a sec. Just give it one sec. The cameras can still get the audio one second.

Okay. And the bed comes to a stop and you're in what looks to be a regular living room, sort of a plaid couch and a large TV and an armchair and some in tables.

And the only sort of odd part is that the walls are just sort of barren concrete. Okay. So awesome. Congratulations. This is, you know, you did it. Your room is over there.

And he points to a doorway leading out to one of the side rooms connected to this main living area. And I'm over here. Congratulations, I guess. Let me know if you want to hit the gift shop. There is an exclusive gift shop just for, you know, winners. So that's pretty cool. But otherwise, I'm just going to chill in my room if that's cool by you. Wait, wait.

What is going on? You won. You did it. What did I win? Yeah, I mean, what? I mean, you won the note and then we came down here in the grinding gazebo and that's it. What happened to the grinding? And where are we?

Okay. You didn't think, okay. This is weird because most people do a lot of research. You know, they know what the deal is. I mean, even with the no-canemarist thing, people talk. But this is, I mean, the point is that you won, right? And then you get to hang out here tonight. I don't just, I mean, did you just think we would hump?

I. That's wild. You know that's wild. Scott is it Scott Scott right yeah it's Scott Scott I am extremely confused okay what part is confusing

you're on the show Passion's Cove the whole show is that right you're competing oh well you win his affections and you did I was gonna say good but I think I meant to say weird but you did win which is cool and that worked on me but like that's it

that's the whole experience is which it's only a 48 hour thing so um you know not everybody gets to win though that's pretty cool it's like a one out of i don't know nine chance so that's cool um but like this is pretty much that just it we kind of wait down here tonight i see um do you want to see around do you want me to show you around no no um would it be all right with you if i um um um recorded this for my uh uh There's no, no audit, no recording at all. That they're like super, that is one thing they're super strict about. I see.

All right. Emmerich is going to use his ghost mind to determine if this is indeed a hard light construct. If Scott is indeed a hard light construct. You don't need to do the ghost mind to do that. that I think into is that not well I mean you can just

that's what ghost mind is that's what goes yeah it means intuitively yeah okay right no no you're right I was thinking

give a ghost so he really turns his gaze on Scott to determine if he really is a hard light projection this is so like

I appreciate that you were like leaning into the role but we this isn't gonna happen um you know it's not going to happen um like um it's it's not all there you know what i mean because i'm this isn't going to happen okay i'm going to take a gamble here he is a hard light

construct all right and were you implying there justin that when they built this hard light construct they did not include scott's genitalia um i don't know Travis i i guess uh I guess authorship is really shared between writer and reader. Okay. In the margins is where the real story is. In the margins is where you find the genitalia that said the genitalia is between the margins. I want to take a step away from Scott and Omar to check in on beef and montrose. You see the shutters go up, and that's really the last thing you see.

you probably hear some of the mechanisms of the bed lowering down, but you have no idea what is happening there. What are you all doing after this? Because obviously there's some downtime for you. What are you doing? I would say, especially knowing now that we have this palm tree exit hatch thing, and I know where I know where Emrick and Scott are and we know where the guitar is. So I think Beef is probably setting himself up to be interference between like where

all the production people are in like the trailer and in that area and that escape patch. So kind of closer between them and the gazebo to run interference should, an alarm or such be raised. Are they filming right now? Like, are we on camera again? It's a good question. I don't know what there would be to, I mean, I hadn't planned on that,

but if you want to. No, that's fine. No, I'm glad. I mean, I think we could. I feel like it's towards the end of a long shooting day, so probably we wouldn't have another scene. The people are around, right? Like, you can talk somebody if you want to, but I wouldn't think it's like, you know, it's not actively a scene. I'm going to. lean on my newfound reckless nature here. I think that Montrose has been curious about Kenshal Denton's presence here since Emmerich first spotted his trailer.

And knowing that he is currently shooting another show at the moment makes me think that, makes Montrose think that there is an opportunity here to do some snooping, some future crime perhaps. Um, so I would like to start making my way over toward Kenchell Denton's trailer. Okay. Cool. Okay. Um, let's cut back down to you, uh, Omar, Emrick.

What are you, what do you want to do? Um, talk. Talk to Scott. Hmm. He's still in the room, right? Yeah. He's watching TV, but he doesn't seem to be, like, focused on any one thing, if that makes sense? The TV's on, but he's just sort of looking at it, but he doesn't seem to be watching it.

Okay. I struggle with how much stuff like that to say as a DM when you're worried that anything people will think is a clue or something? Yeah, sure. You know what I mean? Of course. I want to put color in the world, but I don't want it to be like, maybe he just has, you know, a key-shaped butthole, and I'm just saying that. You know what I mean?

It's not like the place you should put the key of the bottle. He has a key-shaped butthole. Got it. And I know it's canon now. Yeah. Pardon me. Scott. I'm...

I... I just, um, could we converse for just a moment? Yeah, for sure. What's up? Um, and I think that he, uh, Emmerch's going to try to attune. Hmm. To Scott.

with these words. Dad, just to give you a hint, I think if you're trying to find it, I think amber is probably the color of his energy. Definitely, definitely, definitely. Okay, amber. Energy. Okay, so,

Emmerch's going to try to attune. And because his ultimate goal is to find the prism. Yeah. Of Scots. The wonderful prism of Scots. Scott. Here he is. He's just not sure how self-aware Scott is.

So, yeah, I think he's going to talk to Scott and in an attempt to try to attune to him. Scott, do you feel like you're a good entity? Fred and Betty both feel like you are. good that you are. That's so cool. Yeah, that's choice. I mean,

that's the rents for you though, right? Right. Right. Yeah. But do you feel like you are? Are you? Yeah. I mean,

I do a great job. I don't know if you saw how horny. Everybody was in there, but they're getting pretty worked up. And that is my M.O. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And to get people sort of horny and worked up.

So I feel like in that sense, I'm very, very good. And you feel like you are... Did you know that stands for Modus operandi? I read it in Reader's Digest last week. Oh, yes. Such a cool toilet mag if you're into that. Well, you know, laughter is the best medicine.

Wow. Yeah, absolutely. You ever check out humor in uniform? I don't really get any of those. Expand your word power? Yeah, oh, boy. That's where I learned about molyfluous. I shouldn't have brought this up with an old man. I'm feeling like I'm going to talk about it too much now.

No, no, no. Pretend I never said anything. Okay, we'll change the subject. Do you feel you are one of a kind? You are original that, you know, that there's nobody quite like you? I mean, I'm a copy of the last dude they had doing this. So I'm like a copy of him. Oh.

So, I mean, I'm probably a lot like him. I kind of put my own flavor on it, I like to think, my own spin. Sure. But yeah, I mean, it's obviously, you know. And you don't have any, you don't have any problem with that. You don't feel like that's kind of an infringement on him and his personality and who he is? Hold on. Let me think.

No. And I think that he must have been a pretty, like, he must have been pretty chill with it because I'm pretty chill with it. So he probably wasn't super, you know. bothered about AI rights if that's even a thing. Yeah, he's not super chill with it. Well, not now.

Yeah, not now. He's like, they got rid of him. Put me in there. Nice. Yeah, but he still lives. He's not... I mean, he's not dead. He's still alive. Is he one of the contestants here? No. Which one?

is he? He's not. Okay, well, then what's the, I don't know, what do you want for me, man? He feels like you are unfair to him. He feels like your existence is cashing in on what he originally created and was, and he's very, very unhappy. that in a way

he's actually more of a father to you than even Fred and Betty are parents to you let me ask you dad you said you wanted to attune with this but attuning for you is going to require like that's not just something you can do with words right you have gear that you would need to specifically use

if you want to attune in a technical sense if you're just talking you can also like sway a hard light projection, but if this is like you using your technical know-how, you're going to have to use some tools, I think, which I'm mentioning only not to break up the flow of the conversation, but I just don't want you to think that there's going to be a point that through your conversation,

Scott's going to like, or break down. Okay, then I'm going to use the give a ghost projector to a tune to him. What's that? This? Yeah. This is a kind of an interesting device that kind of... Oh, you want to check my Thetons. Yeah, I know about that, but I don't think it would work on me.

I mean, I'm open to it. I like to think of myself as kind of a wanderer. I mean, I live here only and never leave, but like I'm kind of a wanderer. So I'm like open to it. But it's not really my thing. Okay, well, but I'm going to use this to, in, inspect your Thetons. All right.

Yeah, I mean, I'll try it. Whatever, yeah. Sure. Why not? All right. So I am going to do a tune. Go for it, man. Let me start you off.

Bub, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba. I get it. You know, you're going to do a tune. It's good. You know what I mean? A tune. Oh, that's good. Controlled.

Be real careful by how you react to bad jokes, Mac. You wouldn't want to set a bad precedent, would you? No, I just think to be a nice, uh, yeah. We want it to be a nice, well, Alchemy environment for duds, don't we, Mac? Well, I just, it sounds so familiar to me. It's like, I can hear myself speaking back to me. Whose fault is that?

You and your genetics. It's your genetics, pal. You started it. You started it. You had these stupid genes first. Controlled, standard. Yeah. And this is very important.

So I'm going to push. it. Fresh. So that'll be all in all, four die will be rolling. Wow. Okay. Please. Six four, six five.

Wow. That's a crit. Nice. That's a crit, dad. That's a crit. Scott, you see something sort of change in his eyes and you think you can see

rings of light spinning behind him in a way that almost looks like the boot up light on a on a PC, you can see him looking at you. And he's stopped talking. He's just sort of sitting there. Silent. Scott.

What's up? Hey. Yeah. What's up? Where is your generating prism? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right here in this area. He points to like his, right in the middle of his sternum.

beneath it at the bottom of his rib cage, sort of central. Yeah, it's right here. Scott, would you allow me to take a look at it? And you can look at it. It's pretty much all you can see. It's like just me.

I mean, you can't see it. It's inside me. Yes. I'm sorry about that, by the way, man. If I could show you, I absolutely would. Scott, I need you to go somewhere with me. Where? There's only these rooms, man. No, no, no, no, Scott.

There's a whole world out there that you could be impressing with your Scottness, with your presence. And I think I have a way to introduce you to so much more. of the world, where you can interact with people on a regular basis. And I'm talking a lot of people, Scott, that you can come in contact with, that you can grow from the experience that you can learn from. Whoa. Not just a handful of people on an island of strangers, practically, who don't care anything about you, just care about winning a person. prize. You're right.

Instead, you can meet people and have contact with them. Yes. Yes. Yes. I love that. What do you need? I need you to give me your prism. Oh.

Yeah. Okay. And he puts a finger to the middle of his chest and sort of slides it down about an inch. And you see this like, piercing static light and the what has happened is his flesh has pulled apart a little bit

and you can see the prism inside of him. It doesn't seem to be causing him any pain. He's kind of showing you. What do you do? I'm amazed at it. Are you? Okay. I'm going to reach for it. Okay. Yeah, man, go for it.

So at that moment Get him Get him Justin Fuck him up Justin Come on melt him At that moment There's a deafening clatter Behind you

Embrick you're so dialed into it You don't see it coming But when you turn You see an animatronic judge In a raggedy robe Holding two silver hammers And he sings The law

Of the crown is that Emerald Redway must die. Maximumfund.org. Comedy and culture. Artist-owned. Audience supported.