The Adventure Zone - The Adventure Zone: Steeplechase - Episode 25

Episode Date: May 4, 2023

The arcade employees barely have time for vice before they're swept up into another mystery – one that's close to home. Montrose gets waxed. Beef lays down for a minute. Emerich brings da ruckus. Opening monologue performed by Autumn Seavey Hicks: https://www.instagram.com/autumnseaveyhicks/?hl=en Additional music in this episode: A Mysterious Place" and "Charting My Course" by Kirk Osamayao: kirkosamayo.com; "Voyageur” by Monkey Warhol: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Monkey_Warhol/; "Back in the 80s" and "Coins" by Holizna: https://holiznaroyaltyfree.bandcamp.com/; and “Web Crawler Bass” by deadrobotmusic: https://deadrobotmusic.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

Dentonic explained the Hardlight Gaulspire was simply a way of masking construction of a new, better-than-ever version of the attraction. Dentonic said that the Hard Light Stand-in had been previously announced, but all the sites like ours just missed it somehow. We are so, so sorry. We are, of course, saddened that some overenthusiastic ephemera rogues decided to spoil the surprise, said CEO Evelyn Denton, but rest assured that once the new castle is completed next fiscal year, it will have been well worth the wait. As an added bonus, Dentonic announced that a new exclusive AR lens would insert the Gulffire into any family photos you take

before the new castle is completed. Holding out for the real thing, we hope you never know when to stop dreaming. What? What? They didn't hear. Hello, everybody, and welcome to the Adventure Zone Stevel Chase episode, 25. If you remember from our last episode Poppy's Pals, these three

rousedabouts before you. I prefer a near to well. Nareda Wells, okay. Stinkers. Stinkers and stinkers. Yeah, a little stinkers. How do you like. Buttholes? But holes. What? Asshole dickweed.

These asshole dickweeds just destroyed slash stole a castle that everybody was just wild about. I mean, Just absolutely. Well, I guess you could say, Justin, we liberated people's perceptions, man. Wow.

Because they were being fooled by the man, man. And we came in there and we showed them the truth, man. We opened their eyes. It was kind of performance art. It wasn't really a heist. It was performance art. Yeah, man. A protest, really against capitalism.

Yeah, protests against capitalism, essentially. But like a protest, right? Because we're all brothers in Christ. Like, we're still. doing cool shit like being cool about it. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So we won.

Welcome to the Adventure Sun Stebel Chase. You all just completed your last heist which means it's time to get what's coming to you. I guess that's true because we hadn't Shrug smuggled them out right, so we just got out clean. Yeah, I mean Shrug.

Yeah, that was our best work yet, I think. Except from, I did explode. my leg, which it's going to take some doing. Yeah. But, but my elbow got fixed accidentally in a chiropractic manner by beef. Great. So we're going to do. That's Dr. Beef now.

Dr. Beef, right. We are going to, we're going to do payoff here in just a little bit. Heat was smooth and quiet, low exposure. I don't think. God, do you believe that? I don't think it was that. I fired a bazooka at a big machine. Yeah, I mean, they

may not know that it was you, but they did know something's happening. Something weird happened to happen with the castle. Yeah, I would say it's a general heat. Is it four? Does a four feel? Well, wait a minute, let me ask you a question about this heat is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have a question.

It, if, isn't part of it, isn't a component of it, whether or not we will be actually blamed for it. Doesn't that determine here? Yeah, high exposure is one of the things for four heat. I don't think we exposed ourselves. No, we didn't. Okay, I mean, a big crime happened.

At the immediate, okay, but you, okay, but in the immediate moment, you may not have had eyewitnesses. Like, you weren't arrested on site, I will grant you that, right? But like, people could go around and be like, like, okay, if I'm a detective, my first stop is, let's say,

Dave Belista who sells rockets. Like now, has anybody weird or perverted, let's say, come in talking a lot about boners and blowing up castles? Listen to here, Justin, I've been watching a lot of procedures lately, and what you're talking about is circumstantial evidence. Yes, that's true. That's a lot of circumstantial evidence without putting us on the scene. Yeah, man, there's a lot of like, did we punch a guy named Justin who worked at a hotel?

Yeah. Did we ask a lot of questions about the stuff that happens? Sounds great. Yeah, okay. But we didn't. Cizagy Craig. Oh, yeah, that perfect. Everyone remembers that particular.

And everybody's, everybody's ephemera name that we all used aliases and one of us was wearing a mask. So four feels good. So four he feels good. It does. It does. Justin, now here's what I want to look in your heart, Justin. If we get four heel, we'll raise our one and level to two. Oh, man.

Okay. How about three? No, let's do four heat. Come on. Listen, I'm fine. I'm just letting you know. Okay. I mean, don't get caught.

Don't get caught. My dream, my dream, okay, wanted level two is several months of incarceration. My, like, rip-cord did. It's like, worst comes to words to get a dry spell at the old imagination factory. You all are going down. Several months of jail time sounds like a perfect break for the J-Man to kind of rebuild or new. get you all in prison through the summer let me have a chill

a few months even Danny Ocean went away for a while and got out do we run the math on the other plus one heat for a high profile a well-connected target I mean yeah so you started at a three and then we just added

I already bumped it up okay good who has some downtime activities they'd like to pursue are we gonna do that before payoff? Yeah I'm gonna hold up off and pay off for a little bit. And then downtime activity or

vice, whatever. I mean, we can keep it loose. These are supposed to be loose sessions. We have gone back to Houston, Ben, so you know. That seemed to you, I know we didn't discuss this, but it seemed like a good place to sort of reset after such a big, big

caper. So unless you are opposed to that, I think it would be a good place to start from if that's all right by you all. I also wanted to return to some place we've spent some time before to try to tie some threads together. So I have placed the map of used to been before you. Downtown activities or vice, whatever anybody wants to pursue.

I'm here for you. Could I get Spoker to come down to... God, I hate it when you guys heal. I have to, every time, it's like a whole fresh nightmare. I got the rule right here. You got it? You got it? Okay. Yeah, I got it.

Yeah, I'm thinking... Like in the back room of Poppy's place, I send a wire up to Spoker asking for her services. Her medical service, her surgical services. Okay. This terrible character, I'm gonna kill Stoker. Spoker. You see?

You see, Griffin? Toker. Okay, hold on. I want some consistency. It's just Stoker is, Stoker slash the doctor. Okay. If this helps you, some people call her, the space cowboy.

That does not help me. Sure. Not a lot. Like three people. I got her now. Has not caught on. I got her. She's here.

Hey. Ooh. Yeah. Gross. What happened to you? Yeah. Here's your problem. Right here.

I have identified. Do not worry about the sort of analysis of the situation. I do not need a diagnosis. My leg exploded. Where are we doing this, by the way? Did she come to you at the doctor? At the darkade? Yes.

Okay. Yes. So I believe, if I'm feeling it outright, one, two. Oh, don't fail it. You'll get infection. Three different places has the bone become sundered. And so I do need you to do that thing you do. Oh, yeah.

All right. Hold on. I got my biting stick right here. I'm going to just go ahead and pop that in. Here are your leeches. Whenever are you already. Give me a second. And you see Stoker's putting just big balls of whack.

It is Spoke. It is Spoker. Stoker or Spoker. Both are good. So first name, Stoker. Last name. Stoker. It's like a Mario Mario Mario.

Stoker. Well, it's like Mario Garia. Yeah. Stoker. The Midnight Toker. Okay. Did you guys know that his full name is Wario Mario? and when he's in like it's like a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. High thing is he is both Mario and Wario

and I don't know why people don't talk about this more no yeah it's so weird Spoker I believe historically her quality I think is one you see her what you see stoker I keep meaning to mention this you see stoker put a huge lot of something into her mouth and start chewing what is that? Oh can what? It's corn? She takes it out. Oh. It's a wax.

It's wax. Why are you... Why are you chewing? I don't have all those fancy gear you all have. I make a lot of use of wax. Bees wax. I have access to it. We got some apiaries down here.

All right. So I use that for... Sorry, I got a little bit of my teeth. All right. That's the worst sound I've ever heard. Uh, Beef was also there and he was like, uh, listen,

I'm just winded, so I'm just going to lay down on the table. I just take, no, I'm just going to take a deep breath, uh, lay down here to heal that one up. I got to warn you,

this wax thing is the closest I've had to a character, so it's probably going to be a pretty big thing. Okay. I'm just like, yeah, no, I'm just going to, I'm just going to rest so that my,

I get unwinded. All right, I'm already. Let's go, baby. I think that's 1D6 for Spoker. Okay. Here comes that roll. You want me to do it?

No, or, yeah, probably you should do it. Five, thank Christ. Oh, good. Okay. On a five, clear, lesser harm, move moderate harm down one. So I'm going to, let's see. Let's take off a nasty scratch. I'm still recovering from surgery.

and we're going to move shattered leg down to a minor harm. So what is he's super recovering? Recovering from a different surgery. Recovering from a second surgery. Okay. Okay. So now I have two minor harms, which is I will need to do something about eventually. But that's a tomorrow problem.

That's a tomorrow problem. Okay, so. All right. That feels better. Ready. Well, I'm glad I could be of service. Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait. As long as you're here.

Yeah. And though it is absolutely terrifying to think of how you're going to use your wax to deal with this issue. But I received a rather severe shock. Hmm. And I have a level two and a level one. Is it possible you could... Uh-huh. Wax heal me?

Well, you sure? I got to go get some more wax. Hold on. Oh, God. I'm going to black out over here. If that's okay for it. If you need me, just go ahead and rouse me from. Hold on.

It's in my canteen. Calm down. Oh, I got to, I think. Once again, I'm just going to lay down. Do you all have any scupers? Hey. Oh, God. Do y'all have any scupers for getting the wax?

It's all right. I'll just use my fingers. I'm just going to lay down. I'm just going to become unconscious and you do what you need to do. Oh, poor. I don't need any wax. Don't do what you think you need to do. Come on over, Electro.

Let me look at this. Oh, I just think Pan is not ear wax. Oh. Thank Pan? Whoa. Oh, wait, man. Twist. Who saw this coming, fucking polytheistic?

Oh. Not as good. A three. Wait, why did Travis roll? Because I'm resting to cure my windedness. Clear lesser harm. Yeah, that's all I needed. All right.

And dad? Okay. 1d6, dad. Another three. So, Dad, you can clear lesser harm, but you can't bring your moderate harm down one unless you spend a coin to. I think I'll spend a coin. So I can take the one out because I have a one.

Yes. Right, a one. So I could get rid of that. And spend a coin. Let me get rid of one of my coins. Okay. And roll again, right? No, you just bump up the level

So you can spend a coin to bump up the level of your Okay result Yes And would that get That would be a forward in right? That gets rid of one That gets rid of one lesser harm And moves your moderate harm down into basically

Yeah so when you spend a coin It doesn't increase the number of one It increases the level by one So you went from what I guess it makes success To a full success or whatever I believe stress relief is the only one That you actually roll again since it's like a straight path thing.

So I'm down to... Still haven't figured out what the effect of Shockd is except for the wild Anthony Geary from UHF hair. Cool. Good reference. It might come in at some point. Great. I kind of hijacked your session there, you know, sorry.

It's all good. I think we all needs to get healed. It's fine. Yeah, we were all kind of just resting up. Cool. So we all have one downtime activity now. Yep. Okay, well, someone else.

We need to do downtime activities together more. That was fun. That was good. That was nice, wasn't it? What are you, hey, hey, listen, this is a good idea. The three of you just got treated and Stoker's like, all right, well, y'all need anything else? Listen, here's the thing, with the beeswax, try to lay still for like a half hour, let it set. And don't pick at it, because it's gonna start to eat.

and you'll be extremely tempted, but let it set, all right? And then Stoger packs up her canteen full of wax and walks out. And the three of you are just laying here. You can't move. There's nothing to like do. So who breaks the silence? I think. Okay.

Well, so dad just said his own name. So I'm going to vote for Griffin here. Okay. Boys, I know that we all got our lumps, but I believe this is the start of a new day for our little outfit, which, according to the charter here says Poppy's pals, we've got to do better than that. Oh, yes. I think there's bad word of mouth from that name. The Knight Raven. Something sort of...

I don't know how that would encourage people to come hang out of. can't play games. You? Oh, okay. True, the true gamers. Real. Real.

Hashtag leap boys. This is getting worse by the minute. Poppy's pals is actually feeling better than everybody. But it doesn't, it kind of makes it sound like we like hanging out with Poppy. That's like a nine thing. And I fucking hate that old man, that old pervert shithead.

Yeah, but to have the sign repainted, that would come at some cost. We have a sign? All the materials. The letter. head, all that would cost. I mean, to change it. What about just,

then what if we just, we can maybe change it through a ratio and just make it like pee-pee-boys, and we just take off the arpies and the owls? I think that would attract the wrong kind of client. That's fair, yeah. It would be pee-pee-pows. Peep-pows. Peep-pows.

The pop-pout opposed pals. Maybe we take the letters and we mix them all around, like a Captain Underpants joke. Okay, polyps. Pop lace, poplase, poplase, populous, the populace. Populous? Populists, populace. Knock, knock.

It's poppy. Jesus Christ. Oh, oh. Come on you. And we're all laying down. That's really bad. I just wanted to see if y'all are doing okay. He's talking to the door.

I was kind of hoping y'all would talk in a serious fashion about how you're feeling and kind of connect a bit. Get it just be doing good. The fuck. Out. Just you're doing kind of improv run. I was hoping you'd talk, you know. Is there anything? Is there anything heavy?

I never know what's going on with y'all, so I have to eavesdrop. So I was hoping you'd talk about how you're feeling or how you feel about each other. If we talk about that, will you get the fuck out? Oh, we will talk about how we are feeling for 60 uninterrupted seconds. If you promise, you will not come back in this room for the rest of the week. All right. You got it. Close the door.

I'm feeling very excited. Wait a minute. Let's listen. You can be here for this. Steps, steps. Steps away. He trusts you. He's really gone.

We have to kill that old man. Yeah, for sure. I'm feeling loathing. That's what I'm feeling. Okay, listen. In all series, he says, we finished that job, but I never felt in control of what was happening the whole time. Like, it felt like it was just always like one,

hair's breath away from getting away from us. That's kind of our MO, isn't it? That's the MO of every great thief. It's not. It is, though. Listen, it's not about who can come up with the best plan. That is a falsehood that has been promoted by cinema for far too long. Being a good thief is about rolling with the changes or the punches, because sometimes the punching happens.

and I would say that is a skill that we possess in great quantities. I have been doing this for a long time, fellas, and I think that this little union we've got going on here is something very special. And you all should feel very proud of yourselves. If I may bring up a point, then, I would like to establish at some point that we're going to begin renovations on Poopie's Place or whatever we decide to Actually, that's worse, isn't it?

I have some ideas to start incorporating some of the technology that we have absconded with to. Love this. Start making the changes to our facility. And, you know, I've got a plan about, I have something I'm working on here in downtown. Can I bring it back? Sorry, boys. So you guys are happy with the way that that went. You wouldn't have done it any different?

Are we in jail or dead right now? No, but it seems like we're getting closer and closer to it, doesn't it? Right? Like, that was not a quiet job. That's the kind of job that they come looking for you after. Well, you are, you have become more cautious in our days together. Beef. I'm not saying that's good or bad, but you've become more cautious.

Montrose, you seem to become more reckless. That is the whole dichotomy that makes. makes this whole operation work. And I have no idea what I am. You're just a genius. Well, listen. Roll sway on that one. Not necessary.

Listen, Beef, I understand your hesitation. This was our first, I would say, big boy job. One that didn't involve trying to fuck a hologram. Or eating a metal pin. This was a, a real one and we are going to be noticed but not by the authorities we were far too slick for that job offers are gonna come just pounding down our door um we just i do agree that we should have a nicer door um i just sort of keep up here beef what are you thinking what is your your end game in this discussion do you

think we should plan more or bring in help or what what is you what do you want to achieve I mean, honestly, honestly, my thought process is, this has all been a bit of a slippery slope to get to this point. And is our end goal just to get the next job? Right? Is it just job to job?

Because, like, I don't know about you guys. I came here to, like, work and make money and try to, like, rebuild a bit of the, the Beef Punchley brand. And I would say quantifiably, the opposite of that has happened. And I am back to being

a bit on the run in a way that I was trying to avoid. And I just don't know what our end goal is. I mean, at this point, it just feels like, believe me when I say, guys,

I've had a bit of experience in the past. And the deeper you get into shit like this, the less options you end up having to get out of it. And you're right, Montrose is going to get attention, right, from people on this side of it. But that's not always going to be good because in this line of work, it also means when we start doing, as you call them, big boy jobs, we're going to appear to be competition for people who don't so much like competition. The buttercream is full of people who do this. And up until now, we've been doing goofball jobs like fucking holograms and swallowing pens.

And now we're on a level where we are taking jobs away from other people. Did you consider that? Hmm. Yes. He has a point. You do have a point. I guess I'm a bit confused because I did think that that is sort of. Your pillar in this family is sort of defense against anyone who would do us harm.

Beef, please do not take this as me being dismissive or rude. This is a purely opt-in arrangement. If you are uncomfortable with the amount of heat that we are bringing down on ourselves, if you do wish to, as you say, rebuild the Beef Punchley brand. I will not begrudge you if you wish to walk away. But I would ask you to think about what brought you here in the first place. And I mean the true answer. I don't think that you came to rot away in the back room of some arcade run by an old, weird asshole.

I think that you came here for something bigger. and if you can honestly look at the job that we just did, at the work that we just accomplished, which let me tell you, those competitors up in the buttercream, I can't think of too many that could swing what we just won. If that... Hey, hey!

Yes? I was listening through the door. It sounds like you guys are going to have an opening on the main team. It's Ben's Benson. What? Benson. Benson, yeah. Yeah, I've finished the work.

want to be to deal with your robots. And now I've just been staring at a wall. But if you got an opening, if he wants to quit, I'll be on your team. I hear that beef? See, it would be a smooth one-in-one out. No, no, no, no, it wouldn't. And cut. Okay, next.

That was good, guys. Good talking. Good role-playing, and I liked it. But now I have other things to do. Justin, is this how you direct children's theater when you do it? Do you just say like, all right, good? I like it. Next.

Yeah. I say good acting and then I tell them to leave. Yeah. Okay. What about when it's tough acting? Yeah. Okay. Come on.

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We got two more, we each got one more downtown activity. What are you all interested in? I mean, I imagine we all need to relieve some stress. I certainly do. I am pretty freaking stressed out. But I went first last time, so I can wait on that. Well, Emmerich has no stress. How is that fucking possible?

Well, the two things that he did. Remember, that's the thing about Foresight. Freebies with no stress. And he's done the he-in. I think I want Emmerich to finish his long-term project. The fighting game? Because that dovetails, yeah, the fighting game. I think that dovetails with what he was just expressing about.

Can we take some steps? What was it called? Remember that? Bring to Ruckus. Bring to Ruckus. Oh, really? Bring to Ruckus fighting game. I guess we didn't have a good name for.

for it. Okay. My mistake. My mistake. All right. Dad. Let's see here. We're going to work on a long-term project. I'm going to have you roll one of your actions.

Well, I would think it'd be Tinker, wouldn't you? Um, or sure. Okay. So roll Tinker. I got three in Tinker. Okay. That's just a straight roll. That's just a straight roll.

That's just a straight roll, whatever that means, yeah. And that would be controlled? It's just a, there's none of those factors. Okay. 2-4-1. You know, you're lucky, so-and-so, I think. Okay, with four, you get two segments. So that finishes.

Your machine is done. This machine that is called Bring Duracus is now a, part of the darkade. That's just what I call your arcade of experiences. I'm going to clear this off. Dad, what benefit do you think is, like, you've gotten this fighting game done? What's the benefit of this from your perspective in terms of this, this game we're doing? I think it would be good as an attraction in whatever it is because we were going to have this

arcade as whatever, as our main function. although I think it has become almost like a cover. But we haven't really taken any steps to reopening Poppy's place as whatever it is that we envisioned when we first started out. So this kind of leans toward that. But I would also think that a fighting game would aid beef in training. And maybe it would aid all three of us in training. I think we could probably set it up to where this becomes a,

a consistent benefit. Like this is part of your layer, right? So this is what I'm thinking about from like as we're advancing stuff like in along the layer map. Like this is stuff like if you wanted to add like, you know, we could do. We could take prowess training. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. If we do, if we, if any of us use our downtime activity to train prowess, we get two experience points instead of one. Would that be promised though?

Yeah, because prowl, skirmish, wreck, and finesse are all in there. All of those could be considered elements of a fighting game. Yeah, I kind of like that, actually. So we'll have this as a thing. What I was going to say is if you at some point want to start to establish this as a source of income, I think we could definitely do that as like a, I think it would be a long-term project to set it up. But I think if you guys wanted to set up the, I think you have enough stuff here now that if you wanted to set up the arcade as like renewable income that's coming in regularly, regardless of what's going on with like missions and stuff, I think we could do that. I think it'd be interesting to do at some point if we wanted to, but just putting it in your head there so you can sort of like gamify this arcade aspect.

Yeah, and not just say we open the arcade. Yeah, it's got to be, you've got to build, because it's got to be undercover, right? So that's why I'm thinking long term is like spreading the word a little bit more covertly. And Griffin has the expertise that he'll need to get people. I was thinking about it, Griffin, with your knowledge, you will also be able to make it easier to get people in and out of this arcade without it causing as much commotion. You'll be able that this is maybe a bit more discreet of an entertainment. because you do have that knowledge of how to get people in and out a little bit slicker. And I think that Beave had a lot of input in helping design to bring to Ruckus fighting game

in the fact that I think that that Emrick used a lot of old footage, you know, of his matches and his fights to kind of... He's an arm wrestling. He's a professional arm wrestler. Arm wrestler, yeah. Right, right. But I mean, your last name is Punchley. That's true. I mean, you can't fold them on that, Trow.

I mean, I guess that's true. Beef Slambley would be pretty cool. Is it too late to change? Yeah, is it too late? No, you can change it whenever you want. If you feel like a beef slamming. But it's an alias. Sure, or not.

It's like whatever is up to you. Okay, Dad, you got your... Can you tell me what the machine looks like just so we can have it in our heads? Well, I think Well, it kind of hinges on our payoff. To Emmerich's way of thinking, we got away with all three of the soccer ball-sized prisms,

which are really effective at completing structures. So I would say when you activate, bring to ruckus fighting game, it's not just all of a sudden an opponent pops up, but it's like you're in some kind of arena with stands and fans all around. It creates a virtual reality kind of deal. And that's malleable. I mean, if you want to fight in, you know, the Coliseum,

you're fighting in the Coliseum and all that other stuff. And it, so it kind of creates an environment and an opponent and determines the, you know, what you're going to do? When you, Emrick, when you went to go work on that machine, you opened the,

the access panel of this ongoing project. And when you open it, there were just 12 suites in there. Like, just 12 suites within the machine, which you can only imagine is your payoff from Kenchell. Oh.

Okay. Let's divvy that up. Yeah. Fellows? Hell yes. Look. My assets are not very liquid right now, so this is excellent news for me. I have to remember how stash works.

Hold on. Can we, Justin, what can we use sweets to buy? Whatever. Whatever your mind conceives of. This is all pretend. Excellent. Wait, unless it's... Yeah, I'm looking.

Hold on. Like, what are you... What kind of thing are you thinking? I mean... Well, at this point... We already have a bazooka. No, no, no, no, no. You have a bazooka fighting game?

What I mean is that at this point, I have in my possession three coin and two in my stash. And our crew has four coin. And I'm wondering if we should attempt to spend that coin to grow our... We need to... we have to level up our rep in order to do that. Okay. I would also say that if you guys want to do something like that at some point, I think if you would talk, like figure out what that looks like away from the prying ears of our listeners.

So it's not to waste their time on things that are too mechanical. But I think we could definitely do that at some point. Okay. I'm going to, as I said, my pockets are quite full. So if we split this up three ways. Right? I'm going to put... Sorry, guys.

I'd hate to interrupt, but Joe Biden just texted me that he's running for president, if you could believe that. No way! Yeah, he texted me for... He wanted me to know first. Was there a question mark in there, Justin? Is he asking what you think he should do? Hey, he didn't fucking text me. Yeah, he said...

Oh, at the end, it says Telgras. Oh, no, he FaceTime me and I missed it. Fuck. He's going to be so, man. He's always so kind of, if I make a little bitchy whenever I miss his calls. Oh, boy. I'm going to fill up to four and then put three in my stash, which brings me up to five stash. Didn't we in the past put, do we have a mutual stash?

No. We called it a mutual fun. You have a mutual fun? We shortened it just to Moostash. Moustache? No. Oh, I have a moose. No, you have a.

So each player has a stash. that is their money to rely on when they retire, then our crew has the option to do vaults, but I believe a vault has to be purchased. Yeah. As part of like turf and special stuff. You can also pull money out of your stash at a rate of two to one. Okay.

I'm going to look and see how we... I just, I really, I think if we're in this for the long term, maybe we ought to think of investing. in a vault. And Emmerick, who has very few, you know, needs along those lines, I think would be happy to look into obtaining a vault for the crew. Well, we have to do crew upgrades to do that. Yeah, you got to advance her. I don't think we can just do it. Okay. I'm looking at the book. Oh, my gosh. Here he goes. I know. Can you believe it? Fort, 94.94. While Griff, do you have an idea about a downtime activity?

Maybe Travis can read up on that while... Yeah, I'm going to swing by the future as you. Okay. Is the future as you at a point where, like, people are coming to it? Because we've invested a lot of time and kind of, like... Well, that's been your... So that's kind of your choice, I think, that it could definitely be, I think, you know, it's all yours. So if you'd like to relocate it to, I mean, we didn't set it up in the arcade.

I don't think, right? It's just somewhere. No, I mean, I was sort of thinking about it as a secondary location. Sure, like a hangout in the buttercream. That's totally fun. But that is what its function has been, as I understood it. If you want to shift that function to something else or whatever, like, I mean, again, whatever you all want to do, we can do it. but it could, you know, it's definitely at that point.

Right now I think of it as sort of like in that rockfire explosion documentary, the one dude that has the animatronic band that is the rockfire explosion, just like set up in a room in his house. You know what I mean? It's like Christine, but it's like quite an indulgence to this film. Well, how about this? I think it has attracted some, like, hardcore, like, Steeplechase

historians. Okay. Like super, super fans. So maybe when I show up this time, I am not alone. Okay. I leave that to you to decide who that is. Oh, you're just going to voice that on me. Hold on. Give me a second.

Okay. Okay, this will be fun. Sure, why not? Okay, you walk in to the future is you and you see the dad Amatronic look up Well hey sport What brings you in? I was just talking to your

your brothers here And you see saxophone And paper towel Two great Two great characters Who kind of nod at you They were just telling me about this game Knockers

Is it that they play? fascinating stuff. We've come a long way since Jacks when I was a young man. Yeah, sorry, Papa. One second. Can I help the two of you with something? Yeah, it's just a quiet place to play knockers.

That was saxophone. Obviously, are you sure? It's a quiet place to play knockers away from Brianey's. Does this game require secrecy? No, I like the... I like to see the robot watch. Okay, well, this is sort of a...

A private establishment. This is the... No, I mean, that's sort of antithetical to the spirit of futures, you, I suppose. Pass five. That was him talking to paper towel. Paper towel knocks on the table twice. Okay.

Oh, I just got the text from Joe Biden. Okay. Okay. So there was a slight delay. A little bottle. Weird that the telecoms would get hung up on the three blocks from his El Ciro's. Weird. Okay.

I guess mine should be coming any minute now. In a second now. Okay. And dad got a text for Ralph Nader. What? Oh, no. Holy shit. I mean, I guess the door is always open at the future as you.

Just, you know, maybe don't. Spread word around to all of your lousy friends that this is a cool hang spot for games with unfortunate names. Beef comes backing through the door. All right, guys, pizza rolls are ready. Did you deal me in? I'm in, right? Oh, yeah. Hey.

And then he, you see a saxophone handed empty glass to you, Montrose. I'm also, you are out of diet chester. Oh, my apologies. That'll be one sweet, please. Okay. Griffin, do you want to try to relieve your vice while you're here? Do you feel like you need to get them out before you can do your dark slap? Relieve your stress, I mean, by indulging in your vice. Can you still do that with him here? Yeah, sure.

Oh, no, is it making better? Weirdo. God, Griff. Hey, we don't vice shame here. We don't vice shame here on this show. I say, well, I'm just going to keep tidying up. You all, don't let me interrupt your good time. And I walk over to the kitchen where, I guess, the top half of Mama is sort of working. Hey, Mama, I got pretty banged up this time.

I know you said to take care of myself, but, well, it was an unfortunate, workplace mishap. Oh, you poor baby. Let me get the maturedrome. Oh, no, it stings my boo-boos so bad, Mama. Oh, maybe a sweet moot from Mama will help. Yeah, that sounds nice. I guess I hoist my leg up.

Here's my little soldier. Right here, Mama. All right, I'm going to roll. Uh, lowest stat, is that it? You can just click indulge, thanks, Griffin. The fact that she wanted her voice to sound like this is the most important fact in the entire narrative, and you guys are missing it. It's so, it's right there, all the clues right in front of you. It's so narratively important that she sound like a mama is shrewd.

Mama, why does your voice sound like that? No, mama, okay, there's just different, I want to make this really clear to all the conspiracy theorists. Mama and Deep Dark are not in any way connected. That's what he would say. No, no, no. Deep Dark is true. I do want to say, though, a little bit disappointed that I create, I managed to find a character that was half Shrek and half Batman. And the, it should have been, no, but I feel like the whole podcast should have shifted to be about that. It will, but juice, it has to be organic.

That's true. That's true. Yeah. I got a six. So, and I had seven stress, so I'm going to stop there. Perfect. Very relaxing. I am, I am all done.

So it wasn't just a fun goof. Beef has rolled in to play knockers with the two fellows to clear his vice. Nice. As well, a little gambling. A little gambling. It's good for the soul. Now I only have five stress, so there is a risk here. And you're playing for pizza rolls.

And we're playing for pizza rolls, as is the buttercream standard. Ah, okay. Four. Okay. That's not bad. We'll clear down. You only have five stress, try. That's amazing. I know, that's what I'm saying. Ah, four. Ah, that was my pleased ah. Yes. That was meant to be a good ah.

So also, I looked it up. Crew advancement, I believe happens now. So we will look at the marking the XP. At the end of each session, Mark XP, did we execute a successful smuggling or acquire new clients or contraband sources. I would say yes. We did a successful smuggling. We contend with challenges above your current station.

Does feel like we did that, didn't it? Wait, what are we doing right now? The crew advancement crew XP. Oh, I want to, can I take a second before we get into that? Sure. I want to take another action by. spending a suite. Oh.

I think looking at these dudes playing games in the future as you, yeah, I feel like that sort of enterprising entrepreneurial spirit that Montrose is endowed with sees an opportunity to actually make this a thing, make this a sort of under-es, sort of under- Ground Gambling Hall for gaming. And so I would like to start a long-term project. Maybe it's just a sort of street team. How about this? I say, okay, belay my last order.

I want you to tell all of your stinky friends that the future is you is a chill place to come, hang, and roll. Lay knockers. Roll some bones. Of course, I will expect a certain amount of compensation, maybe a house cut. We can talk about that afterwards. But I think this is, I think the future can be whatever we want it to be. The future is used to Ben. No.

I like what he said. I don't like Dad trying to use my voice. I got to stop doing that. Sorry. I think the future is lucrative is what it is and y'all can be on the ground floor. How many clock pieces? Eight. Eight.

Yeah, I mean, if dad's one thing, one machine was four, I think that, yeah, it's going to be eight. Okay. Well, you think consort is the skill here? That makes sense, yes. Um, Justin, I would like to posit that I think I should be able to give Griffin a bonus dice Because I have a yeah, I have a plus one reputation with the gamblers. Oh, that's, I mean, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I like it. Oh, good one, Trabb. Good. Um, okay. I mean, for an eight clock All right, risky. I mean, it's, this doesn't matter. No, just roll it out. Just roll it. I would like to pretend before you do.

that Emmerich is going to help by staying out of it and not fucking in it up. Okay, that's great. Yeah, absolutely, dad. All right, here we go. Granted. Six. I have a three and a three. But the six is the important thing.

Okay, beautiful. That means that with a six, we're going to clear three of those segments. Good job, Griff. Great. Nice. No, let me adjust the layer. Dad, do you still have a downtime activity to do, or did you do yours? The only thing I have left to do is playbook advancement.

I do want to do crew advancement together because I think it requires some agreement on Justin's part. Yeah, yes, I agree. So we executed a successful smuggling. So that's one tick. Now, is there a sheet we should be clicked on to look at? I'm handling it on that crew mode character sheet. Justin, would you say that this job was a challenge above our current station? Sure, absolutely.

We bolstered. You added two ticks for the successful smuggling, right? Because we smuggled what and what? No, no, you earn two rep per score by default. Oh, yeah, you should have gotten two reps just for being yourselves. Okay, great. If the target of the score is higher tier, then you take plus one rep per tier higher. Okay, we did that.

What do you think, Jeece? They're probably plus two. Ephemer is old and well-connected. Okay, and we're tier one, so we get one extra rep. Okay, did that. Three rep. Did we bolster our crew's reputation or develop a newman? I would say no, right?

On that one thing, probably not, right? I would say that would be the opposite of whatever heat is, don't you think? Yeah, but you got, I mean, if you guys are going to take heat for that, I don't think you should, I mean, do you feel like you bolster your crew's reputation? I mean, arguable. If you take heat, you would bolster your reputation.

I'm not seeing your bolster your crew's reputation. I'm looking at the crew sheet. Mm-hmm. And where it says mark XP. Clue. Crew advancement. Oh, you're doing XP, Trow. XP and rep are different things.

Yes, I'm doing the XP. Then you don't mark plus two. Yeah. I fixed it. I'd only raised it one more for the part two. So we're at the right number. Okay. Okay.

Have you touched rep? No, I have not touched rep. Okay, I'm going to add three rep then. Okay, yes. Cool. We only need four more to advance ourselves. To get more turf. So the only last one, if we didn't raise the reputation, then it's expressed the goals, drives inner conflict, or essential nature of the crew.

I would... We need to be doing that after every session, by the way. It's not after each heist. I would argue that Griffin using a rocket launcher. does express a lot of inner conflict between his recklessness and my softness, but I'll leave that out to Justin. What specifically? What says express the goals drives inner conflict or essential nature of the crew in crew in XP?

Yeah, I think that that's fair. Yes, yes, the essential nature of the crew. Absolutely. Okay, great. Because it did work out of, like, me trying to clear the place before it exploded in mantra is not seemingly to be especially worried about that. Okay, great. So that's done. Griffin, you did the rep? Yep. Okay, cool. Entanglements, I believe, is next. Were you going to do the vault or is, are we not at a point? Well, we, yeah, we didn't level up.

We have to, uh, crew advancement has to fill up before we can do the vaults. And where are we adding crew? We need two more XP, but we can figure that out, as Griffin pointed out. We do that at the end of session. Sure. You, uh, finish rapping about this and finish talking through what you, what you, what you guys. It's good rap sash. Good rap sash. And you hear a scream from the direction of the prize pantry. What kind of scream?

Can you do it? It's one person screaming, like, they're terrified, and then they're joined by other voices as you listen. I'm going to cautiously look. Yeah. Well, it's not next to you. Like, it's... No, like, I'm going to... I'll make my way over, cautiously.

Okay, so you're going to go outside and go look. You see sort of oppressive people heading towards the prize palace, and there seems to be some sort of commotion over there. This is weird because at this time that this conversation was happening, this would have been after the prize palace was shut down. But you see what looked to be like, rather than the themed lighting that you would normally see at Prize Palace, you see like big, bright work lights switched on.

So is this after hours? Yeah. Is there still, okay. But you do see people, with the commotion there, you see people heading over to see what's happening. Yeah, I'm going to head over that way too. Okay. What about you? Let's just say you're all three.

Like, you were just talking, right? Yeah. Right. As you walk up, the crowd seems to be heading back a little bit. And you notice that the front door is actually low. They're not able to get in. The lights are on, but the front door is locked. Are there windows we can look in?

Yes, the windows, but because of the work lighting that's switched on outside, you're not able to get a great look inside. There does seem to be some commotion within there. So we can hear the commotion inside. The door is locked. Yeah. And you hear a couple people yell help. Okay, I'm going to throw my shoulder into the door

Okay, give me a What's what do you call this? Wreck? That'd be wreck. Wreck, you think? Yeah. Wreck. Risky?

Controlled. Controlled. Standard. Is this our entanglement, by the way? That's a six, baby. Oh, six. Six. That's beautiful.

Okay. Trabb, you smash open the door which sends a flood of light onto this scene. There's two people that are clearly like sanitation workers that had been straightening up, cleaning up within the prize pantry. And as you open the door, the light from outside spills into the room. The first thing you notice is the blood. There's so much blood.

When you follow the trail with your eyes, you notice that the outside. lights are now falling onto the lifeless eyes of sticky fingers, Paul Pantry. Holy shit. CPR. Does anyone know CPR? I hold Montrose back. Someone scoop all the blood back into him. That is not how it works. And listen, I have read enough mystery books. Do not contaminate the scene. Call Stokaspokea. Tell her to use her wax to to gummy up all his wounds. He's dead. Montrose.

Is he dead? He's dead. He's dead. He's dead. We've established that. I mean, I said his eyes were lifeless. You can go chunk him out if you want to. Nope. This is unfortunate, but we need to not entangle ourselves in this particular.

Okay. Well, you did just smash open the door. So I'm just going to be here. Are the sanitation workers inside here? Yes, they were the one, they were cleaning. That front door was locked. They were cleaning. This is what you are able to pick up from when they start babbling about.

They were cleaning when they found the body there, sort of like the middle of the show floor. You are, just as soon as you see the body, though, that you are cleared out from the building. You're removed forcibly by the customer experience team who seems to be. wanting to put the lid on this very quickly. So they shuffle you back towards the arcade. Before that happens, do we have any time to do survey roles? Like while you're there?

Like at the scene? Yeah. Sure, yeah. I would like us to all three do survey rules. Yeah, I won't let you do that. Yeah, there's bad things happen if you fuck up roles in this game. Whichever one of us is best at it then.

I have one. I have zero. I have two in study. No, I think this is a survey, right? Because we're just like taking a look. We don't have time to like investigate fully. Okay. Yeah, I got zero.

All right, I'll do it. Here we go. What's our, what's the position here? This is, I want to say it's risky because you really only have the one shot, but it is standard. Do any of you guys want to help? Yes, I do. I'm going to shine a flashlight, pop out a flashlight. and point it in there so you can get a better look.

Okay. Can I use Foresight to help him? I don't know. Would that count against the next mission? No, this isn't a score. I can't use Foresight. Okay, yeah. So I'll pop it out and I'll take some stress.

Okay. Here I go. Three and a four. Four. Mix success. All right. So with a mixed success, you are not able to discern much. There's not much time.

the thing you do notice griff or mantras if you prefer is the knife buried into the chest of sticking fingers small pantry it tickles something in your memory but you're not sure what so you're cleared away um and uh things are on lockdown pretty quickly you see uh security sort of, and you know that they are security. They are dressed like old-timey Pinkertons, and they're keeping people in their rooms. And the next morning, you get an alert that all staff are to report to whittle around for an impromptu meeting. I guess that is us, because we work here. Yes, that's correct.

By the strictest definition of the law. We are employees of steeplechings. You all get to whittle around, and you are among the later ones to arrive. You've had a rough few days, so you were a little bit late to this, but you see a large crowd of people, and you manage to push up a little bit closer to the front, and there, at the front of the crowd, you see Kinchelden. Listen, guys, I'm not. not going to waste a bunch of your time. I know we have to kick this day off.

And I know that that is going to be difficult for a lot of you. And this is fucked up. We can all agree on this, right? And this is a first here. And I think it's maybe I'm really sorry that this happened. It should never, this should never be allowed to take place in a place like this. So I'm sorry on behalf of. The management, I guess, you know, there have been some errors on that side of things.

Let's just leave it at that. But I want you all to know that we have apprehended after reviewing the footage. We have apprehended the murderer. We haven't figured out what the motive is yet. But it is, you know, I want you all to know that you will be. safe. And it is that point that you look over and see two security guards not attempting to be themed at all. These are bad boys. And they, by the shoulders, are holding a woman who looks up and you realize for the first time that it's gravel.

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