The Adventure Zone - The Adventure Zone: Steeplechase - Episode 27

Episode Date: May 25, 2023

It becomes clearer and clearer that something is very wrong in Steeplechase as the arcade employees try to exonerate Gravel. Emerich checks the footage. Montrose takes it back. Beef offers guidance. Opening monologue performed by Autumn Seavey Hicks: https://www.instagram.com/autumnseaveyhicks/?hl=en Additional music in this episode: "Cool Vibes" by Kevin MacLeod: https://incompetech.com/; "Back in the 80s" by Holizna: https://holiznaroyaltyfree.bandcamp.com/; and "Shake It!" by Jahzzar http://www.betterwithmusic.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

And existing bookings to the two-night infinitum hypercrues experience will be honored, but its final journey is currently set for late September. I gotta say, steppies, this last story is a new one to me. Gutter City PI Darla Davis has been promoted with a gigantic pay bump, or so I hear, to lead investigator for the Dentonic Customer Satisfaction Team. I guess I always assumed that Darla was a character, but not only is she real, she got her master's in criminology and criminal justice from the University of Maryland. Who knew?

This promotion is great news for us law-abiding steepies, but if you're looking to get away with anything untoward under Dentonics roof, we hope you never know when to stop dreaming. Only one node per layer. I tried to maintain the whole bit of taxing. Too many noises. Hello, everybody, and welcome to the Adventure Zone. Steeplechase, an exciting adventure, a mystery. Ooh, a thriller.

You know how Carol really worries about the presentation of animals on TV shows that she's always worried they're going to die, and she's always worried something bad happens to them? Sure. So she won't watch a show. Well, she is worried to death. I have to go online every week to websites and look up to make sure. sure Shukles is okay.

Now, Dad, you're on the show. Why do you have to look it up? Oh, I don't have access to that information. You get the information before anyone else does. Well, no, I think that's referencing the Shookles ARG that Justin has been sort of spiraling on. And I don't know why we need a Shugles assault rifle gun, but like everybody in. So you guys done? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, sorry, Justin. Yeah, sorry. No, this is the NFL. No fun left. Okay. I want you guys to keep it between the navigational beacons. Okay.

Okay. All right. So at the end of the last episode, Darla Davis in modern attire. Like a pants suit? Yeah. And with a dentonic patch on the sleeve. Oh.

Is what you notice after she walks. walks into the room. You can't do better than a pants suit, Justin? It was your idea. Yeah, but he agreed to it so quickly. I was just trying to give like a starting point for him to give me something better. What? Oh, did you want her to be

in a dress? Okay, I guess. Okay, so Darla Davis is in a fancy ball gown? Like a cool pair. Travis likes Travis thinks women should be in fancy ballgown. No, but just like slacks. She's a fancy elegant ballgown. Maybe like a cool jacket. If you say slacks and jacket,

You are describing a pants suit, Travis. I'm gonna come through the fucking screen. They don't go together. Like, they're, they definitely. A mismatch pants. No, they compliment. I don't know anything about clothes. Everyone imagine the best clothes.

Okay? Okay. Okay? Wait a minute. It is prom season. No, everyone, everyone gets to imagine their own best clothes. Okay. The giant cat suit that Jared Leto wore to the Met Gallo.

Got it. Yeah, we're good. And I'm in Jared, I'm Jared Leto carrying the head of Jared Letto. Yeah, yeah, yeah, good, good, good. heavy as the Lotto. Next year he's going to dress his boss gags and tell everybody it's the Lotto shuffle. Everybody's going to be like, I don't get it.

He's like, think about it. He'll be like, this was it. Letto shuffle. Then he'll disappear because he's too far up his own ass. He'll just turn into singularity. All right, listen, I love making fun of Jared Lotto as much as the next guy, but let's adventure. First of all, Darla, that is an amazing

pants, suit, dress, suspenders, cat masks. Fashion overalls. Very fashionable. Thank you. That doesn't seem germane, but thank you. Second of all, this was your detective work? Hold on a second. Hold on a second.

Don't rush. Let me take a look at you. Oh, still as a fine as a baby's hair. Thank you. Fine as a baby's hair. What is that in reference? Beef blushes. The three of you just gorgeous.

I can't believe. Okay. Thank you. I am ready to begin this conversation. You had some second. Hey, wait, before we get into it, Darla, I'm really excited to see you. Like, I hope you're doing good. Like, I don't want to blow past the, like, excitement of, like, whoa, Darla's here.

Circumstances were a little bit better, but tell me, what's your, what's your problem, boys? Um, well, we seem to find ourselves tied up in a, uh, a murder case. I say tied up We are not really materially invested in it More of a sort of Overly cautious Sort of bearing that we have about us But we are a little bit worried about

Paul Pantry's death Bringing to light certain Horrible secrets that he may have been Hiding and may in fact have been the Reason for his slaying and this relates to you three well that's a great point

Dahlah give me a moment while I think of how to respond to what you Maybe the three of you should have a little bit of a chat before we go ahead Let's all finish our sentences and then we'll move on to another sentence

I think the three of you all should have a chat before you dive in a deeper down this particular rabbit hole Sure sure one moment please Hey Montrose Yes Why did you decide there to just go with like Pretty much

Just laying out The entire thing Pretty openly Oh because I am not one to Waste time And Dala has proven That any attempts to misguide or misdirect her

Would be Foolhardy and pointless In nature Okay great but you're someone who like can tell when people are lying and everything right yes could we maybe try not lying

but not necessarily using words like you know horrible truths and like terrible things that people have done sure yeah maybe not yeah not coloring yes yeah let's do a rewind dollar if oh you wanted to do a conversational rewind

yeah do like a brittanyly mulligan in there and just Oh Yeah, we're going to do one of those I'm a big golfer We don't think this thing went down The way that everybody else seems to You know who you mean by everybody else So let's put the tiger on the table and yell at

We don't think this way It went down the way you seem to think it has gone down Darla Excellent Darla Has a faux leather binder That she unzips and unfolds there's a stand that holds it up.

And you see a digitized screen. And she says, okay, this is the part here. And you see the image of Paul Pantry strolling through.

He's got keys in his hands like he's about to go lock up. You see what very clearly appears to be gravel out of nowhere. Like there is no hesitation, no discussion,

no chatting. you see her just kind of dart past him, basically a blur. And then even in the grainy footage, you can start to see blood dripping out of Paul's throat. You see him drop to his knees and then kind of just fall backwards limp as he tries to hold his throat close. And then you see gravel just standing, just standing and watching until he doesn't move anymore. and that's when gravel escapes the frame. Tarleup, if I may, we, I want to be up front and recognize that we respect you very much in the work that we've done with you. It's always gone like you're solid, right?

So I ask this question. Oh, you can imagine my relief. I mean, I wasn't trying to flatter. That was sincere. But it's sometimes hard for me to sound sincere. I get that. This is a sincere question. preface. Is it possible when viewing security footage for security footage to either be doctored,

or is there a way to tell a difference between seeing like the real person versus somebody who's been programmed like hard light version of that person? Is there a way to tell the difference? Oh, I imagine if you were looking hard enough and you had enough time with the footage, I'm sure. And then she slams the binder closed. But, as a rather high up ranking security officer, the Dendonic Corporation, it is in my best interest, and by extension all of our best interest, for this to be a closed case. So I don't need the three of you poking around too much because I am trying to look good in my new job. Do you understand?

I do understand, but I also, I understand I understand wanting to look good in your new job, I also understand, are you really going to be comfortable just closing the case without knowing if you're right? Absolutely, yeah. I am paid very well to keep things moving. They thought that I could handle this job. Okay. And I am going to do it. And you'll still look good if someone else gets murdered, even after you arrested a quote-unquote culprit.

That sounds to me like. first, something of a flight of fancy, but second, quite a bit of job security. Now, boys, you understand this has been so nice for me. I do have a lot of guests to make happy and believe. Do you have access to the rest of the security footage that this clip was taken from? Oh, I'm sure I could request. to. You haven't watched it, though. You've only seen this one. I've watched the relevant

segment. Listen, boys, I know that you're not exactly what you appear to be. I may not know all the letters, but I have the basic idea of the script. And here's the thing. I don't

care. As long as you don't get in the way of having incredibly satisfied guests at every visit, then we have no problem. But if you are going to make this job difficult, if you're going to jeopardize something that I've worked very hard to achieve, then we are going to have a problem. And I'm going to start having to ask a lot of questions that I'm sure the three of you would rather I not hook around in, huh? I would like to pause it. A third option. Okay, let's phrase. Okay.

Okay, we paused it. That's a joke. Oh, I see. You can still laugh. right? I would like to put forward a third option. Your worry, right? Is your saying, stay out of the way, right? Or that we'll make things difficult. But what if we could offer you that in the future, we make your job easier? We have certain connections through the work that we do, and I don't think we have to get any more specific than that, that if, say, there is a case that you're working on where you might need some insight, into some regular players that may be helpful, if questioned. We would be willing to help you with that from time to time. If you are willing to help us in this scenario by just letting us review the footage,

we don't want to get in your way. We just have, you know, some personal, you know, qualms that if we can just review the footage, You can even just make us a copy. Then that will help relieve our doubts. Beef, look at me. This is not 12 angry men. This is not law and order. You are not going to find the evidence that frees this woman.

You are in the sovereign state of steeple chase. My job is to find a palatable story that can keep this park open another day. I have found it. My job is done. Beef, do you ever graduate school? And then maybe you have a free day. And you go back to the school.

And you're in college and you're on the next level of your life. You're doing bigger things than you ever dreamed of. And then you go back to your school and your old classmates. Try to talk to you about drama. Try to talk to you about all the big changes in who's seeing who, and you stare at him and you listen to him talking, and you realize that no matter how hard you try, you cannot give. I don't know what made me think of that beef, but I do have to be gone.

And then Darla spins on her heel and walks out the door. Yeah. God dang, that was like the coolest sort of exit burn. Very on point. then the lights flip on and the doors swing open and the music that always

encompasses the prize pantry starts cranking and then the door flies open and there stands before you motherfucking Paul pantry case closed case closed it was a mistaken identity Paul it's so good to see you my friend We were so worried about you.

I don't know what you were worried about. I'm... Okay. Totally fine. All right. Okay. And then you see him start to crack his knuckles, and you notice that he's wearing gloves. And you look at his face, and that's when it occurs to you.

They recast Chad Touch as Paul Pantry. God, damn it. I would recognize that voice anywhere. What about these? sticky fingers. Not really a good Paul Pantry vibe, just like I don't want to give notes on another performance, but like,

listen, I am flailing, so I'll take whatever you can get. It's a little more whimsical. A little more... I'll be honest, I haven't done the briefing yet. What's the massage schedule for this sticky fingers, Paul Pantry? Is that part of the service, or...

You may be confusing the term sticky fingers. I think it may take on a different. Different connotation. Yeah, I don't think it was literal at all. First of all, I don't think his fingers are sticky. A little nastier. Yeah. You're being, no.

Hey, Chad, can I talk to you over here for a minute? And I just got to take one step to the right. Yeah. The Price Pantry is, for people of all ages, there will be children here. Oh, no. Yeah. I don't, I don't, I don't rub that way. You don't have to, hey, Chad, can't stress enough.

You don't have to rub. Anyway. It's a rub-free zone, actually. This is mostly just, yeah. You're a phone prizes. So I'm just, uh, just offering the kids up a few sweets. Yeah, I know. From a jar, you know, like a, with my fingers, I'll get a little bit of that.

And do you have a van with shag carpeting on the inside, too? Because that's really a stirby. Why, yes, I do. I call it, uh, my home. I live in a shagged van. Oh, this is repulsive. Oh. This is like when they redesign, like, classic, like, you know, you see, like, oh, we

He did a redesign of Tony the Tiger. And now he's like all svelts and stuff. And you're like, why? That's wrong. Why did you make him sexy? Okay, so that's just, that was just a joke. I mean, it's like real, that's what's really happening. But like, that's not like part of the story, really.

That's like important. You can't decide that. Oh, okay. Well, he's, he's staying silent and motionless and closes his eyes. Okay. We tip him over and he falls back into the crate that he came out of when we seal it up.

Um, cool. And the crate is labeled Famous and Dreams. Yeah. I don't want to let Darla, I'm going to ignore Chad because this creepy boy. I'm going to try to get her

one-on-one outside. Okay. You actually notice when you go out there that she is just sort of scoping out the place, um, uh,

probably filling out some sort of like, finalizing some reports, dotting some eyes, whatever. Checking for some, uh, you don't know what she's doing, but just by looking at her, but that's, she has that same tablet out. She's got a stylus and she's making some notes.

Okay, Darla, can I be straight with you? Just like, straightforward, honest. I don't give two shits about justice or freeing the client or anything like that, right? Like, I'm looking at a jigsaw puzzle where the pieces have just been slammed together and glued in place, and it's not matching up, and it's really bothering the fuck out of me. So at this point, I don't care about justice. I'm saying it doesn't add up and it bugs the fuck out of me and that's all I care about. I'm not some child who is trying to save the day and be a white night or whatever.

I just want to solve the puzzle in a satisfying way. I get that. All right, Trave, give me a sway roll. Let's see how much, to what extent she gets it. This is going to be risky and limited effect. Okay. I'm going to push myself. Are we there?

Did we go out with him? Yeah, I think you can if you wanted to. I think this is important. So I think Emric is going to use foresight. You can't. We're not on a job. You could just help.

Okay. I'll just help and take the stress. Emmerick is going to help by reminding beef that Darla did once give them two extra sweets out of the goodness of her heart. And because rewarding them for their honesty. So, you know, if he's... Oh, right, because she didn't tell us the whole deal with the drop.

Right. If he's honest, that will help him. So that's how... I've been on it, yeah. That's how... That's how Emmerich is going to help. Submit. And I'm pushing myself.

Submit. How'd I do? Oh, shit. Okay, Justin. Wait, you pushed an answer, and I'm extra advice? Yeah, I did, Dad. That's how I got three. That's how I got one, two, three.

I'm not in the room yet, Traff. Hold on. Yeah, I wasn't in the rolled swimming room, so I didn't see that role. That was a different game. I was, I'm playing Part cheesy with my friend Dave. Yeah. Which Dave? Do I know him?

He's rolling bones. Oh, there it is. One, two, three. No, no, no, no, that was a different one. That was Dave. That was Dave. That was Dave, man. Oh, there we go.

So it was a five, two. No I don't think so It was desperate right You told me to take a desperate one Come on Come on That was a risky one

Travel we can all see it They're in the thing Man Damn you roll 20 Okay Wait a minute Roll 20 was being honest So you should be rewarded

For that Oh right You should be no Okay I'm not gonna make you take anything I'm just gonna You're just gonna lose the opportunity Beef

She like Lures Like sort of Put your hand on your shoulder And walks you a little closer Or farther rather from the building So you're sort of like in an open area Where if there is a mic

Somewhere or something You don't know what it would be able to pick up Right Some voice a little more secluded Beef You gotta understand I'm not trying to play hardball here I could give you this footage.

I could let you look over it. I mean, I'm telling you it looked fine to me. But you are not. You could find fingerprints. You could find clues. You could find anything that says somebody else did this. It doesn't matter. You're not going to prove anything that's going to make them change their minds.

They want this over with. And this is their house. They take the ball and none of us get to play. Yeah. but like, I still want to know. Like, don't you want to know? Don't, like, curiosity wanting to know, like, if they said, you can keep working on this, but it's not going to change anything, right?

And, but you would actually figure it out instead of just, like, walking away from it. You wouldn't want to know? Honestly, beef, I'm just trying to get my legs in this gig. I'm sure there'll come a day when I'm really fixated. I'm making sure all the pieces fit to get. but right now I'm just trying to figure out what picture they're making. Well, sure. Yeah, that seems like a solid start. You'll definitely become more honest and more direct and more thorough in the future. I understand.

I look around to make sure we are, I am within range of some sort of security camera or microphone or something. Okay. I want to see that I'm, I want to make sure I'm, so maybe you two have been kind of like watching from the porch. Yeah. Okay. I shout. Give it up, beef. It's fine. We'll just go over what we found on his flash drive and see what leads we can go from there. So hearing that, I immediately drop it and like fall back, fall away.

All right, the three of you back inside. I'm glad you said that because nobody says that. Can I just say thank you to you for such a thoughtful interview? Oh my God. Yeah, I think you nailed it. Bullseye. interviews with creators you love and creators you need to know. Listen to the Bullseye podcast only from NPR and Maximum Fun. Hey, I'm Dan McCoy.

I'm Stuart Wellington. And I'm Elliot Kalin. Listen, you like podcasts, right? Sure you do. Don't try and lie to me. You're listening to one right now, so why not try a different one called R1, the Flop House? Uh-huh. And on the Flop House, we watch a movie and talk about it.

And then sometimes we also do other stuff. It's all meant to be funny and fun, and we think you'll have a good time. and just to be clear, the name of the podcast is not our one, the flop house. It's just called the flop house. I do a lot of correcting Dan. The flop house. A lot of correcting Dan. Darla leads you back into Paul Pantry's office.

Hey, hey, I'm still kind of getting my seed legs underneath me here. So, get out of the office. Chad. Get out. get you. I get you. Not good enough. I knew this was too good to last. No, you still have the job. Just get out for now. Chad, have you, have you met Poppy? Have you, do you know Poppy?

You guys would get along so good? You would get along famously. Oh yeah, I've, I've listened. Poppy has stopped by if you know what I mean. Poppy has, oh, come on. Here, look, we're all friends. Let me give you this in goddess. You know what I mean. There are 10 free ski ball tickets? Oh, my. Take these back to Poppy's place.

Okay. Two-person ski ball with Poppy. So the way your ski ball table works is there's tickets, and there's a ticket taker that's like admit one to play ski ball. Oh, this is an elite prestige experience. Yes, this is very, it's VR. It's VR ski ball. Whoa. We call it very real ski ball.

We call it. Oh, excellent. We call it B-ball. It's, it's, it's, hey, you can stop selling. The chat is in. All right. And Darla looks around and doesn't immediately notice any sort of recording devices or anything. All right.

Let's lay it out on the table. What is it you boys want? What is your problem? What is the issue with this person going up the river? she's not even on the the crew sheets we don't know what these people are capable of montrose is now the time to be completely honest or yeah i've been trying to again it's been 20 minutes that we could have spent eating pizza uh doing some online shopping you know what i mean do you have the drive like the determination that you're

The power. Go get it. The Vim, the vigor. No, we don't have the flash drive. Whoever killed Paul Pantry did abscond with that. But if my suspicions are correct, then someone thinks we have the flash drive now that I have shouted that outside, which makes us prime targets for the next slay. So I figured that might put a little bit of fuel on the fire for trying to figure out who actually did this dang thing.

because, well, I like to think we've endeared ourselves to you at least a little bit, Dala. So where is the, where was the drive? Oh, stuck up underneath his desk. There's like a Velcro patch right here. Or it was a pack of, God. We don't have Velcro. So I didn't even think to look there. How would it be on the underside of something?

Yeah. We don't have, oh, in Gutter City? It's taken me a while to catch up to all these modern conveniences. We also call it hook and loop, to be fair. Whoa! Two names? Well, Velcro is like a brand name, but it became so synonymous with it, but it became its name. Like Xerox, you know how Xerox and Kleenex.

Some people call it the devil's felt. Yeah. Which reminds me with Poppy, too, but let's not even... Some people call it grippy strips. Grippy strips, anything. Stop Stalin. Oh, okay. Yeah, so also it should be noted that on that flash drive, there was...

stuff that would incriminate us. So we're invested in that way as well. This was my assumption. Uh-huh. Okay. So here's the thing. I wasn't lying. I mean, I...

I have to put on a lot of the hard-bitten, harder gold stuff when I was, you know, in Gutter City. But I am an employee of the Dentonic Corporation. This is my livelihood now. And I, Kenchell Denton himself came to me and recruited me. Me. Darla Davis took me out of the slums of Gutter City and brought me into the inner fold. And I can't fuck that up.

Hey, Darlet, take it from me, from my own personal experience. When someone wants to be in control of you, one of the easiest ways to do that is to elevate you. and make you feel beholden to them. And it's the quickest way to compromise a lot of your morals because you feel like you only got to be where you are because of what they gave you, not because of your own hard work and the things that you can do on your own. I've been there and it ruined my life.

I'm not a martyr. I'm not going to throw myself on a fire just to prove that I'm willing to do it. you boys need to tell me what I can do that will actually be worth a damn here. That won't mean me losing my job, but also will have some impact because I swear, boys, as far as they're concerned, this is over. I have a request. You have already let us have a very brief peek at the footage of the security footage. if you would extend that, you've already done that, you've crossed that rubicon already,

if you would just give me a somewhat longer opportunity to study that footage, I don't see how you would be violating any kind of moral code or order coming down from on high. You've already shown it to us briefly. Let me study that video so we can at least, perhaps have a chance of figuring out whether or not there were hard lights involved in the in the scene. I can't do that.

I'm sorry. And she sets the notepad down on the table. I'm sorry, but I can't. All right, dad, make a sway roll. Okay. I'm going to push it too. All right. So, desperate?

It feels kind of desperate. No, it's risky. Yeah, okay, desperate. Yeah, it's desperate. Desperate and standard. One extra bonus die. All right. Here we go.

Six three one. Six. Love it. Three one. Six. Three one. I'm sorry. I cannot help you.

I need to go finish my interview. and by the time I get back in this office you all better be gone and then Darla stands up and walks out leaving the pad Oh you forgot your pad I'll watch the door You do what you need to do

Yes of course, yes Okay dad Study the video Study the video Okay And I'm Anybody want to help? I will help

Because I want to try and see if I can clock that knife. I got a glimpse of it. Yeah, I'll watch the door because I'm already eating up my stress. Yeah. Yes. One of us is door-sized.

There's you. Yeah, so I will help. I'll take this. Guys, can I tell you something that's a little bit embarrassing? Yeah. But just to light the mood a bit of it. I'm out of coffee. And I had this moment. Just then

I had the thought, well, I'll go refill my coffee while they watch this video. Oh, Justin. I really just. It's not like, I'll let them, we can do that, like a hungover middle school teacher. Go get your coffee, man.

We'll take it. I'll let them peruse the footage. Oh, wow. Oh, he put on Mr. Holland's opens for us so he could go. God, it's embarrassing. Okay. So this is probably not risky, right? This is probably controlled.

Is this controlled? And. Take one bonus from me. Okay, so is that standard? or effect yeah standard effect he went and got so much go get coffee yeah yeah no i didn't go get coffee no i can't the it's in my mind's eye yeah okay um coffee's in your eye standard okay standard and take a bonus die girlfriend you got shit i'm gonna push myself too again a lot of stress for this not job i know but i think it's important we'll take a nap

later. We will have some way of relieving the stress. It doesn't seem fair to make you go right and do it. Holy shit. Six. What is that mean? It's the devil. It's the sign of the bees. Six, six, six, six. Oh, God, I've called up. Oh, God. Oh, God.

Okay. It was good. It happened. Okay. So, Dad got a double six. Triple six. Triple six. Triple six. Okay. He solves it. The murderer walks into the room. It was me. Put me away. I feel so bad about this dudes. Also, you can travel through time now and save Paul Pantry's life. Yeah, the portal opens up. And here's a sandwich. Double sixes. Triple sixes. Triple sixes is not a thing. Like, you can't have. Yeah, but I mean like

I do have a triple six. It feels like a thing, though, doesn't it just it? It may be worse. It may come back around. No, uh-uh. No, it won't. New. Like if I rolled it out. I take my stand here. Okay, hold on. You two fight. Emric, you are reviewing this footage and like, something like is off.

Something is bothering you about this. And you know computers. So you start like, you pull up the file that they have on gravel. It's not much. But they do have some photos of gravel that they've captured. There's one that you get a kick out of kind of. It's the picture

of gravel hanging upside down from the roof, from the ceiling of Eustabin, right before she met you all. And there's something. It's in the back of your head. This is good work. But then you pull up the

photos next to each other. And it is gravel. I mean, it's gravel in the security footage. It's gravel except her eyes are the wrong. Do I see the knife in the footage as I am looking over his shoulder? What knife? The knife that was used to kill Paul Pantry that I clocked through the crack in the door

and saw that there was something familiar about it. Now that I have more of an uninterrupted look at it. It is a close facsimile of one of the knives gravel carries, but you can tell even from a cursor glance, it's not exactly right. and Mac, you, you, by look at, let's see, with a double six, you, uh, take a look and realize that this, this footage, uh, is, is mainly on the level. Um, but something has been edited. And you can tell by some of the code fragments that are left over that it's been edited on a dentonic workstation. most people would not get like this is that is buried but you you've been around um for a while and you and you are able to unearth that with a double sex um fellows this this is this is bogus this is this is beyond bogus this is this is this footage has been doctored by someone um in dentonic

This is... This is phoned up. This is a frame job. Can we copy this video somehow? Hmm. Wow. That'd be a tinker roll, wouldn't it? I'll tell you what, Dad.

You can do it, you can do, you can do a tinker roll. Okay. But... Okay. If you fail, it's gonna be bad. Well, we've kind of established that if Emmerick fails at a tinker roll, something explodes. Something bad, yeah. That would be fucking hysterical if Emric was like, yeah, let me just control C, control.

Oh, shit. Okay, I'm going to try it. I'm going to do a tinker roll. Okay. Anybody want to help? Nope. So is this? Yeah, sure.

I'm hanging, I'm leaning over your shoulder. Is this risky? Like. Desperate? This is desperate and standard, but it is desperate. I'll make sure that you

is your hard drive formatted because that's important. It's got to be X-FAT sort of 32-bit. Please, please, please, Montrose. Let me do it. Oh, God. Okay. Control all.

And he holds up his his wristband activates the give a ghost projector no no no no it's just you're just copying a file

you don't need to project some sort of just put it into the cloud what are you doing just put it in the cloud here it goes here we go what no

one three six one one three six one baby unbelievable unbelievable I love the image of like both mantras and be like

no no no no no and then it works Yeah You can see it's like getting hot Like as he's typing You can see that Why is it getting hot?

I can smell it from the door Blow blow blow Blow on it Everybody blow Everybody blow Clomp Clomp from the hallway Clomp

Clomp clomp And the door Flies open And as it's revealing you You slide a A duplicate USB stick That you Always keep in the

Give a Ghost projector You slide that USB stick I either can the laptop, close it, and are just standing. So you boys have just been standing here in silence. You all don't have hobbies. Gave us a lot to think about. I felt a sneeze coming on, and then I was trying to, like, chase it, and I couldn't get it.

Maybe you better go. Yeah. That's the best ad you have. Should be going. Yes. let's let's let's let's let's regroup at the at the at the at poppies maybe let's do the cut where you guys have had the footage out you've been going over it and we like you've been sort of like chatting about it where is that conversation let's let's pick up that conversation in the

arcade yeah I also want to say uh I I like have called James my best friend slash techno wizard to be like what are your thoughts on this and I've gotten some feedback from him too because I would feel so guilty not including my Techno Wizard best friends in this fucking about. Let me let me, I'm just searching the reference document to see times that we've talked about. Okay, James DeBarge. Yes.

Everyone, remember James DeBarge. My best friend. You have to say his last name. Like, you have to say his last name. So James Debarge you are sharing the fact that you have stolen murder investigation evidence. As I see texting James DeBorge, can I say,

oh, let's not endanger the This is my best friend, guys. Yes, yes, yes, beef is typing James to perch and muncher just walks over and slaps the foot at this hand. He's my best friend. Maybe let's have our own sort of conversation before we expand the circle of trust any further.

I will say this. You guys, that got a triple six. You're not getting any more information of this video. Sure, sure. As we walk into Poppy's place, I want, I'm like looking at, at the corners. I am eyeing the,

I would assume sort of primitive security measures that exist inside of this building because I am now going to be at sort of like as paranoid as my reckless nature will kind of allow me to to have.

That's good. We're entering into a phase of this where you guys need to, we're not always going to need to say that, but you do need to start thinking about it. Yeah. Because you have, you have touched some dangerous things.

Yeah. So, now that we're in a safe spot, maybe. But let me grant you this, because you do need these sorts of, of refuges, right? This place is safe.

Okay. You guys are smart enough. You know, between Emric and Montrose, I think the two of you, like any sort of like deception or whatever tracking, that nothing is getting through into here.

Okay. And honestly, nobody really cares. Right. Ow. You know what I mean? You know what I mean? Yeah. Right. What do we know? Well, look here.

Eyes are a different color on this representation of gravel. The knife looks like one of gravel's knives, but I have been able with my demonic three-sixes to determine that it is. a facsimile of one of gravel's knives. And the fact... And it's been edited. I can... I guarantee you. This has been edited by someone with access to a dentonic editing portal or station or whatever.

This has been changed. And I don't know why gravel is just naturally accepting that. Did either of you happen to notice when we saw gravel... being taken away the color of Gravel's eye. I did not notice. Okay, I said that you had gotten all the information out of this video that you could have. And I thought that I made something like, I sort of hinted towards something, but I, you, there is one more sort of element of the video that you have not apparently discerned.

Let's watch it again. Yeah. I guess. Okay. I don't know where You decide There's something You asked that question with the eyes

Emrick There's something about it that is bothering you Okay And you watch the video again And that's when you notice That when Gravel Quote unquote Gravel

Is standing there Waiting for Paul Pancheer to die You notice that her face Is completely implacable There is no emotion she's not even really watching she's just kind of standing there

waiting so what do you fellows take of that what do you what do you think dad you're you yes okay so what do you think might be happening here um perhaps this is a heart light

representation of gravel it is yes you were able to discern that normally you would tell, but since it's a video and not great quality, you'd know right away. But after watching it many times, you are certain of it. And the ads, oh my God, did we have to sit through a lot of ads? Yeah, why do you know there's ads in this security footage?

I feel like you guys are very frustrating. To be fair, though. Refuses to pay for ad-free. Yeah, it's a Disney affiliate. There might be like a crawl on the bottom of Disney security feed. I don't know. You know, someone who sells the cents of steeplechase and candles. Yeah.

But fellows, I am. convinced this is not gravel. This is some kind of hard light representation of gravel. Okay. So if we're talking about someone who has access, right, to the hard light technology needed to program a fully, like, formed, like, person, right, that acts in this way. And then also can edit the video on a dintonic, like, console, right? This isn't just like some person, right? This is somebody with access, somebody with the Adobe Suite membership, which is not cheap, not cheap. And, and fellows, I think there's something you need to understand that perhaps you don't understand about hard light technology. The fact that this person has programmed a hard light to do a person physical harm, that that is, that is, that is,

That is extremely sophisticated. Because the law, the laws of hard light optics is the fact that first they cannot, they can do no. The rule, the first rule of hard optics. The first rule of hard optics is that they may not kill a human. The second rule of hard optics is suns out, guns out. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah.

So whoever has done this has weaponized hard light. Did Hank do this? I mean, Hank isn't the only person capable of whipping up something like this, right? Well, there aren't many, but he would definitely be, I would say he would be one of the possibilities. I would be the other. I don't think I did this. Is that something that, I mean, is that a, I said that. And dad said that.

Is that the truth? Like, is there, is this? Oh, no, hold on a second. Wait, Griffin. I have to put some limits on your, you can't have people make declarative statements and to be able to tell the future from that. No, this work is, I mean, it's not perfect.

You know what I mean? Like, so it is not necessarily, it wouldn't necessarily, have to be Hank or dad, but it, it, I mean, uh, whoever made this video and, and made the hard light projection, like, they know what they're doing. But I would say also, dad, you're smart enough to know, it probably ain't the same person, right? Who would, who would, who would be able to make some changes to the video and, uh, and also be able to to make a, uh, hard light program like this. And I also, may I assume one more thing that since we actually,

saw the physical I mean we saw gravel being taken away that Emrick would know that the person who was taken away was not a hard light projection. Would that be safe to say? Yes, correct. That was real ass gravel. Okay. Ask gravel.

I Listen, and I'm not saying this is going to be easy or smart, frankly, but man, I'm itching to really corner Kenshal on this one. I really want to talk to him about this. I know.

Montrose, may I add something to the equation? Wait, can I hear Montrose? Yeah, go ahead. His counterpoint. Oh, it just, he's an incredibly powerful man who could, I mean, he could come in here and stab us to death on video and probably be okay with it. So let's be careful talking about cornering Kinchelden. I mean, yes, obviously, but like, oh, I think we should.

And here's why. Montrose, you have a life debt to gravel. Gravel saved your life on the buttercream sled. Oh. If it hadn't been for gravel, you would have died. You owe it to gravel to clear her. Let's take a beat, boys. Give me the beat boys.

I turn the, let's free my soul. I turn my chair around, like, cool teacher style. Oh, yeah. Oh, are we going to have a rap? Let's have a rap session. Do we have to roll to resist that charm, or how's that word? It's not charm. This is business time.

I do not know at what point I have sort of carried myself in front of you as a sort of virtuous man. But I owe gravel no such debt. That was a job and it went kind of silly and Gravel saved me and I sure do appreciate that. But my concern here is not for Gravel's well-being. She is a criminal like the rest of us and sometimes you get pinched. My concern is that forces so much bigger and so much stronger than us, they probably have us dead to rights for one of our many capers. Whoever killed Paul Pantry was very much in the same boat that we were.

And in some ways, maybe we, maybe we owe them. Maybe they have done us a great favor by ridding the earth of, what I can only describe as a chronic blackmailer. But I don't think it's that clean and simple for us. We need to find out who did this, not so we can exonerate, Gravel. Even if we were to solve this crime, they could just keep gravel locked up for whatever fucking reason that they wanted to.

We need to get to the bottom of this because if our lives weren't in danger before we started poking our nose into this, they certainly are now. Beef? Yeah, you know what? I know that I've been hesitant, resistant, and all day I've been thinking about it and talking to Darla and trying to get the attention of Kenchal

and trying to get something done and you know what? I finally clicked for me what was bothering me. I think it's when do we get to make the decisions and be in control? We've put work in. Used to been he's ours. And somebody came in and killed someone here, framed someone,

stole something. And like, no, we, there's nothing we can do about it in our, in our layer, in our, in Eustabin. This is our home.

And someone came into our home. And I'm not saying we're the biggest shit, you know, on, on Fog Mountain or whatever, but used to been is ours. We've earned it. And, I'm ready to kind of plant a flag a little bit harder than we've been doing. Fuck yes.

I concur! You're sitting there in silence. And then from the How to Win Friends and Influence People game, you hear a static crackle. Everyone freezes and pivot towards the game and you hear. That's where we'll stop. Maximumfunn.org. Comedy and culture.

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