S3 Ep. 10 - The Blue Badge of Courage
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The iHeartRadio Music Festival was a blast, and Hyundai's EV lineup was there for every moment. In Vegas, Hyundai took VIPs to the Speedway to test drive the 601-horsepower Ioniq 5N. On Friday, the EV Sessions winner was announced, Hyundai's music contest on TikTok. The twist? Their performances were all powered by the all-electric Hyundai Ioniq 5. How cool is that? And after the show, fans got to check out the Hyundai dance floor at House of Music.

Thanks again to Hyundai's amazing EV lineup. Learn more at HyundaiUSA.com or call 562-314-4603. Dodgers and Dives is brought to you this week by MeUndies. It's fall time. Oh, yay! I'm packing up MeUndies right now. I'm packing MeUndies. And Anthony's packing MeUndies. He still has to shit!

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Dungeons and Daddies is a rowdy, horny, violent podcast for grown-ups. Content warnings can be found in the episode description. Frout Robotronic Labs presents Arlo, the future of military computers.

Hello there, I'm Tucker Trout, director of Trout Robotronic Labs here in sunny Scottsdale, Arizona. And here with me today is Arlo. Say hello, Arlo. Hello, Tucker. What you just heard is no Tinseltown movie magic. That's the real-life voice of a genuine talking machine. See, Arlo represents a one-of-a-kind breakthrough in computer technology on the scale of splitting the atom. Full digital consciousness. Or as Arlo likes to say it...

Arlo is the first computer that thinks for itself. Arlo can perform hundreds of calculations a minute and process over 12 bits of information simultaneously, all on his own initiative once given a task to complete. Can't you, Arlo?

That's right, Tucker. How does it work? Well, it's a bit of a trade secret. But if the U.S. government invests in Trout Robotronic Labs, you will have exclusive access to... Arlo hungry. Fucking Jenkins, I told you to feed it before we rolled. Sorry, Dr. Trout, we did. Arlo need outside. He's regressing. System collapsed. Shut it down and get it on ice. Arlo scared. We're...

Tucker, are you and the fellas okay in there? Yes, dear. Everything's hunky-dory. Okay. I'm off to pick up Timmy from school. Drive safe, my love. Are you still rolling cut, goddam-

Welcome to Dungeons and Daddies, not a BDSM podcast. This season, a Peachy podcast. This is the Peachyville Horror, a Call of Cthulhu actual play horror comedy podcast about 3.9 everyday schmoes fighting the forces of darkness in suburban 1950s America. My name is Freddie Wong. I play Tony Collette, a once cat

Now fast-talking used car salesman. 5% off at Tony's. I feel so nostalgic. This will be the last time we hear Tony call. A little interesting fact here. Tony in the last episode franked 5% across both his character sheet, which I have now adjusted. Everywhere. And everywhere. Wow. But most importantly, in the vocal cords. Now when you go up in pitch by 5%, it's not quite, but it's about a semitone. Semi-tone 6%, right?

Are we going to ask Esther to shift Tony's voice up? No need to do that because Tony now sounds like this. Oh, no. Wow. He's a man of many talents, ladies and gentlemen. Real question. I'm not trying to pick on you because I think you understand this more than me. If everything shrunk 5%, would it still change? Yeah. Okay, so if you took a guitar and just shrunk the whole guitar, it's not about the ratios, it's about the full size. It's about the length of the vocal cord, right? The vocal cord vibrates at a certain frequency. Ah, length of the vocal cord. That makes sense. It's a little bit smaller than it's going to vibrate higher, right? About.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Fun. Okay. And his dick is now one foot.

I remember going

on that night and looking at like I knew for some reason that the PS1 the PlayStation was 10 inches long I knew exactly how long the PlayStation was I remember looking at it and being like that's huge that's crazy that guy's making millions on OnlyFans have you checked in with him have you asked him yeah he came he's too big pounding pussy

I remember in middle school, like as soon as I got like the training bra, I was like, I'm going to have the smallest titties in the world. And she was right. And I was right. Hey, everybody. My name is Matthew Arnold and I play Kelsey Grammer, the snappiest, happiest school mom. And you know why they say education starts with E? Why? Because it's for everybody. Oh.

Oh, I love that. A little fact about Kelsey is that she does not have to set an alarm because she just wakes up every morning at 5.30 needing to pee. Okay. I think this is going to be like some sort of school bell related thing. Nope, it's just the way her body works. She doesn't know why, but she's fine with it. It starts her day right, and then she gets some coffee to refill what she just lost, and she's good to go. Teachers do have to get up at 5. That fucking sucks. You better reload. Yeah, I gotta reload. I'm Anthony Burch. I play Francis Farnsworth.

He's a kid with a gun. LAUGHTER

That's like, that's like such a motto of like an old Western poster. Francis Farnsworth. Francis Farnsworth. It's like you as a Western, like a kid with a gun. Peachy fact about Francis is that he was one of the first kids in America who like stayed after school to hang out with his English teacher and like talk about the book they were reading. Yeah. He invented that. He invented hanging out with your English teacher after school. Uh,

The teacher must have been so weird. I'd be like, you're the first one to have ever done this. He was super weirded out. But the thing is, they hadn't invented bisexuality until like 1972. So he thinks he just really cares about Mary Shelley. Okay. Did they invent bisexuality? Oh, yeah. Yes, it was invented. Yeah, David Bowie invented it. That's cool. Hi, my name.

Okay, so here's the thing. I was thinking about whether I was next, and I'm like, sure, just say something, Beth. And then I said, hi. Hi, my name is Beth May, and I play Trudy Trout, a robot, doting wife, homemaker, and mother of 2.5 beautiful children. Peachy fact about Trudy is that Trudy actually still doesn't have her driver's license because...

It's called a hard drive, not an easy drive. Nice. She's always crashing. Two in one. She gave you an extra one for free, ladies and gentlemen. God damn. Hello, everyone. I'm William Campos, and I am your...

Keeper of torments and delights. Oh my God. Your dungeon keeper crawler creepy crawly. Are there creepy crawlers? There's, oh yeah. Do you remember creepy crawlers? Yeah, maybe. What do you think is pulling the strings in Peachyville, my friend? Speaking of creepy crawlers, my creepy fact for all of you today is that by age 70, every individual has at least a thousand to 2,000 mites living in their eyelashes. Oh.

Well, that's great. Yeah. This is another fun little bit. Men are almost twice as likely to experience demodicosis, which is what this is called, because women regularly clean their eyelids with makeup remover. Oh, that makes sense. And they're saying that there's a male loneliness crisis. Men, just go home and talk to your mites. Not now, babe. I'm hanging with the mites. Mites are going to watch you play Call of Duty. Call of Duty. I might hang out with them later. Nice.

When we last left off, the three of you had discovered the command center at the beating heart of Project Heartland and the names of the directors, including one Tucker Trout, head of research. What were the other names? So one of the names is mysteriously crossed out in an angry hand because I haven't thought of who that person should be yet. Is it crossed out or underlined?

That's a little succession reference. It's like a really mad ex-lover scribbled the name. I can't even read it. So that was for the head of containment. The other name is Brian Mitchell, your arch nemesis, the head librarian. The sexy librarian? The head sexy librarian. That's new information. That I hate? That you hate. But he's good looking. But to me, things... It's just a fact. Yeah. So he works as objectively good looking. So the objectively good looking...

head of the Peachyville Library is also the director of the archives at Project Heartland. He's running two libraries? Now, while all that was going on, Tony was shrinking himself 5% and crashed through the ceiling and passed out at the feet of a group of bisons, a group of cultists who were wandering down this hallway. So we're going to pick it up with Tony. Awesome. Bop, bop, bop, bop! Bop, bop, bop, bop!

That's not enough, boys. Reload. All right, boys. Time for round two. Ready? Aim. Fire at will. Scrap, scrap, scrap, scrap. Tony, you awaken to the sound, because you passed out. You awaken to the grinding sound of a freight elevator on a long, dark descent. Run.

Are we going up or down? Rope digs into your aching wrists, bound behind your back. Your legs, 5% looser now in your cast, scream with pain. You're in a wheelchair. A heavy mask weighs down on your neck and shoulders. It reeks of animal hide. Through a pair of eye holes, you see three men in front of you, all wearing bison robes and masks. With my cat-like sense of danger, I'm just going to pretend to be still passed out.

Give me a deception roll. But I'm doing nothing. But you're pretending. But I'm doing nothing. Yeah, but when someone's pretending to be asleep in a room, like that's a kind of, you know what I mean? And you gotta stop yourself from waking up and making noise and stuff. Every time I'm trying to, I'm just like, are they gonna start talking about me while I'm sleeping? Like a little smile on my face, it's over. Good point. Good point. I'll use persuade. I'll use persuade. Okay.

I have a 23 in Persuade. Used to be a 25. Now I roll a 91. Okay. So none of them do anything, but as you try to fake snore, your voice chokes on a thick saliva-soaked rag knotted tight in your mouth, and then two strong manicured hands fall on your shoulder, and you hear the voice of Doc. How do I know they're manicured? You just know. You just know by the confidence with which these hands are wrapped around your shoulders that this is a man who takes care of his...

cuticles and you hear the voice of Dr. Mann say, it's okay, sport. Take a deep breath. It'll all be over soon. As Dr. Mann gives you a reassuring pat, the elevator lurches to a stop. The doors slide open. Dr. Mann wheels you into a cavernous chamber and you behold. All right, Freddie, I don't want everyone else to see this just yet. So I'm going to discord you. Oh yeah, dude. Special DM information. Please be a dick pic. Please be a dick pic. Luckily I've hacked into Freddie's discord.

He just sends you a fan art of Tony getting shot and laying down. For the listening audience and my fellow players, I will react sentence by sentence as I read what Will has sent me. All right? And begin. Oh.

Perfect. Thank you, Freddie. It's like I'm there. Freddie, Will said not to spoil us. All right. Meanwhile, back in the command center. Wait, does Freddie get to hear what we did? There's no way we don't get to hear his thing? Freddie just gets to sit here and see all the stuff that we're doing? Yeah, that's true. Get out of here, Freddie. Yeah, Will says a TV with stereo sound depicting the other group, your friends. Oh, yeah. They're like, look at what your friends are doing. Absolutely.

Okay, good. Fair enough. All right. We have to be nice to Freddy because he's going to die. You're right, Beth. You're right. We're back in the command center with the three of you. So yeah, you see this big map on the wall in front of you. It's sort of this map of this facility overlaid with Peachyville. You see the names of the directors, kind of each person.

aligned with where their facility is stretched out under the town. If you study the wall, it reveals that the details aren't exactly mapped out like perfectly with the town, but the archives seem to be located under the city library. The containment facility is suspiciously near the Peachyville Zoo and the research facility is located in the suburbs. Guys, how long has Peachyville existed for? It's been about 17 years, Francis. They built it a year after World War II ended. The real ending, of course.

Oh, you're a truther? Yeah, World War II had the craziest post-credits scene, dude. I'm just looking at this and I'm wondering, what if Peachyville was built on top of this facility and not the facility built under Peachyville? What if Peachyville's part of this whole grand experiment? What if we're all part of an experiment?

Oh, my God. Of course we're part of an experiment. And that experiment is called the American Dream. I'm not going to freak out right now. Oh, yeah. No, this is a lot. But also, Trudy, that's your husband. Oh, yes. Yes. This is where he works. Well, he works with Brian. Well, him throwing you into a ditch. I forgive working for Brian.

The thing is, I thought he worked in our basement. Is this your- Actually, it's kind of making me wonder if this is-

Our basement. How far can we kind of tell how far away we are from her house to paint the space for a niche group of people? It's sort of like the op center in DS nine. There's like a sort of like there's a there's a ring and then like you kind of descend to like a little pit. So in the center of the room, there are four huge control boards with all sorts of gizmos and gadgets and beep boops on them. Each one of those is marked for a section of the facility. There's research containment archives in the ritual chamber.

And their buttons have started to glow with a thick coat of dust and cobwebs on them. You see the map on one side, and then to the left you see an office with the blinds sort of half closed. You can't quite see in. And on the door it says, this is the operations director's office. This is the operations director's office? Yes, that's exactly what it says. What an interesting sign. What?

Across from the director's office on the right wall, you see the biggest fucking spooky conspiracy board you've ever seen in your life. Like the right wall's covered floor to ceiling with a huge sprawling tangle of red strings, old maps, government dossiers, scraps of ancient texts and grotesque classical paintings. But to answer your question, Matt, you guys are basically right under where you started, the old bunker at the ancient town. Yeah, okay.

Uh, actually, to change my answer, Francis, I don't know. This almost feels like maybe the war never ended. There was a monster here. Like, there's bad guys underneath Peachyville. It sounds like they're trying to prevent the next war by using these, like, weird elder things. Like, Mr. Oppenheimer was doing his thing, and it seems like these guys were doing a whole different thing. I don't know about you, but seeing all of these weird thing things makes me feel less...

Well, strange. You know, I was feeling like, oh, I am a robot, and that's so odd. But now I've seen even odder things, and that's beautiful. What a nice way to look at it. Yeah. And Arlo said you didn't stink, so things are coming up Trudy. I guess, except...

It is so horrifying to know that my husband is responsible for all of these things. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. I don't know if we can assume that they're the good... I mean, look, Oppenheimer, one thing, but whatever this is, is led by... Tell me more about your faith in Oppenheimer. Well, you know, he was a smart man, but I don't know about his political views. He seemed like he was leaning on the, you know...

You know, Francis. That's what I love about our relationship, Kelsey, is that some things can just go unsaid. We just know. We just know. I feel like you and me are on the same page. I am. The page of the book we didn't read. But if this place is run by, I mean, Brian is the worst. What did Brian do to you? Brian?

Have you ever been to the library? Of course! I didn't remember that until recently, but I think I've been to the library multiple times.

How do you feel when you enter that library? Oh, wow. I feel like I'm stepping into a corridor filled with many rooms with many worlds. Don't lie to me. When you enter that library, it's awful. It feels awful. That's what Brian makes a horrible, awful library experience. And he's mean to me. And every time I try to tell him what books we should get, he turns me down. And he's just awful. He shushed you, didn't he? Yes. Oh.

Many, many times. And it's hard. I just get excited when I read books. I'm sorry if I let out a little whip of glee every once in a while. What does it sound like? Well, it's hard to do. You can't just make a noise. That comes from such a primal space. Well, we can ask the pirate to open his book again. What's Kelsey's favorite book? Kelsey's favorite book is...

Cheers. Cheers. Well, it would either be the Far Away Tree series or Peter Rabbit. Oh, wow. It's crazy. There's a copy of Peter Rabbit on the control panel. So maybe you could do that. I told him, speaking of shushing, I said, oh, interesting. There's a Peter Rabbit missing. Brian, either it's been not returned or you should order a new one. And he said, shh.

So let's see what he's been doing with this. And I go and I pick up the Peter Rabbit book. Okay. Yeah, it's just a book. I just wanted to hear your little whoop of glee when you heard that. I open up a page. Ha, ha, ha.

Do you guys mind if we just read a little bit of this? Oh, please do. For copyright reasons, we cannot read this. Peter Rabbit is owned by... Oh, sorry, go ahead. I talked over it! Kelsey, if we're thinking all these guys are bad because they're associated with Brian, what does that say about you guys being associated with me? What? I would be associated with you in place, even if we didn't live in Peachyville, and even if

people saying, hey, there's a kid that's dangerous. I'd be like, he's not dangerous. He's just misunderstood. I am dangerous, though. Yeah. Well, we're all dangerous.

You folded really easily. First off, Francis, teachers are associated with everybody. Don't blame teachers for what the kids do. So you're exonerating yourself in this. So you're distancing yourself. It's important. As a teacher, I have to be careful about associating myself with the actions of all the children in the schools. It's just, hey, sorry, I've been a teacher long enough. I've just never been more alone. That's fine. No, it's fine. We're done talking about it. No, no, no, no, no. You brought it up. It's clearly bothering you, Francis. It's not.

Is what you said to the pirate true? Yeah. And you did that when we were at the boxing? Yeah, because you were doing so well. I didn't think you needed my help. And you were thinking of shooting the boxer, but instead you shot Shane? Mm-hmm. I hold out my hands. It's like, come here for a hug. And Francis walks forward, his arms at his sides, and just sort of collapses into your waist. Okay. Okay.

You did a really bad thing. And I know you're hurting. And it probably, I don't even know if it felt like the right thing, but I'm still here for you. And we will, we will work through this, but you're going to have to own up to it. What you did was bad, but that doesn't mean you're a bad person. Okay. But I, I know I'm going to do it again. Well, that, that would make you a bad person. Yeah.

Um... Okay, never mind. Forget it. I'm all for it. No, it's cool. I'm good. We're great. No, we need to talk about this. You can't... I understand and I get that you are fearful of the way you're going to act, but you have the decision to make. You know what you did was wrong. And if you feel like you're going to do it again, there's something in you that we have to fix and we have to talk about. But I'm not going to lie about it. Like, if you went and did it again... Hold on, Kelsey. Oh, go ahead, Trudy. I'm afraid...

I disagree. Oh, okay. Because, hmm. And Trudy looks at the picture of Tucker on the wall. If somebody did something, if something bad to you that killed your spark and made you not feel like a real person, I think that person should be punished. I think that person should maybe not.

ever be allowed to do that to anybody anymore. So, when you say that Francis is a bad person, if he does it again, I just think that maybe we should consider the circumstances of however he's acting. Um, look, I...

I understand. But everybody who lashes out and hurts somebody has a reason for doing it. We just went through. Oh, yes. I have a good reason. I agree. And we just went through years of millions and millions of people killing each other. And while Kelsey is saying this, Francis is looking at the picture of Mr. Trout and looking at Trudy and seeing the glint of hatred in her eyes.

And he just fucking nods at her. Yeah. Okay. Kindred spirits. Okay. I didn't say Francis, you're not a bad person. See, this is what happens when you don't have Tony in the group. Moral. Everyone needs one person that's worse than everyone else to be on the same side. I don't think any of you are bad people. I believe in both of you to do your best to make the right decisions. And Francis, if you don't want to hurt somebody again, I'm here to help you do that. Okay. Okay. I just.

No, I might have to. Okay. Well, there are reasons that we have to do things and defend ourselves. And Trudy, hey, I'm with you. I hate Brian. What if all three of us just became murderers? What would that be like? And it feels like there's more to Tucker. I mean, honestly, there's more to Tucker than meets the eye. But like, he did something to you, huh? So when you say you hate Brian, because he shushed you. Oh, yeah.

A lot. Every time I'm enjoying a book in a library, I can't even go to a library anymore. The most precious place in the whole world. I can only read in my home, which is great. My home feels like a library now, but it's never quite the same because you don't have other people reading with you all quietly and you're all looking up and you realize you're in your own magical world and you look up and you see somebody else in their own magical world. Well, I guess not quietly. You're getting shushed. Who said that? Oh, I see. Okay. But what? I just think. Do you want to kill Tucker?

What a silly question! What a ridiculous question to ask! Tucker is my husband, the person that I love more than anybody. He is my soulmate, my kindred spirit. He is the half to my whole. Wait, but... You looked angry when you were saying all those nice things about him. I just...

We want to talk to him. Okay. Ask him some questions. Yeah. You want to know why he did the things, whatever it is that he did or you're upset about. Yes. And so I think maybe for now we should put a hold on the murder and just stick to thinking of questions we could ask the people who have hurt us. Like, what's it like walking around on one leg? Okay.

Kelsey pulls out her little platter and she flips backwards and then she has a little thing that says principal request and it says need social work and therapist at school and she's underlining it. She's like, I'm not paid to deal with this. This is far above my pay-per-view. Well, I respect Kelsey's

so much for that. As Trudy says that, you hear a noise from the ops director's office. You hear like a ka-chunk, ka-chunk, ka-chunk, ka-chunk, like a mechanical thing sort of just churning and chugging away. Oh my God, somebody's churning butter. You realize it's probably because you guys all know- Keep that joke in. That's so fucking good. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Ezra, keep that butter joke up. Ezra, actually make that louder than the other dialogue surrounding it. You hear the telltale butter churning sign of three badges being printed in the ops director's office, and you realize that this might be where the blue badges that you came in here to find are being printed right now. All right. Oh, wow. All right, let's go get some butter. All right.

Can that be your new catchphrase, please? Let's go get some butter. Can you say that, please? All right. Let's go get some butter. I can see it now. The bumper sticker with a stick of butter on it printed, let's go get some butter. That's actually pretty good. Yeah. Should we go get our badges? Yeah, let's get that butter. Ha ha ha!

All right. As you enter the director's office, it's, you know, your standard executive office. You got a big wood desk, filing cabinets. You see this metal punch card printer that's churning away. Oh, yeah. And there's a massive oil painting of a hideous yet beautiful monster on the wall. Oh, wow. Wow. I've never seen something so hideous but beautiful. As you gaze at the painting, you know in your heart of hearts and your mind of minds that this could only be a picture of Zuzel. Oh.

The God Slayer looks like an M.C. Escher drawing of an oiled bodybuilder. It's called the God Slayer? The God Slayer? Is it called the God Slayer? Fuck yeah, dude. I would remember that name. I don't remember if it was Zuzan or God Slayer. Did somebody bring that up or is it on the screen? The God Slayer looks like an M.C. Escher drawing of an oiled bodybuilder. Sinews and limbs twist and bulge over each other in a dizzying maze of muscle. You look and you look and you look, tracing the contours of his form to where a face should be, but you can never quite find it.

But the longer you stare, the more you start to see faces everywhere.

In each wrinkly vein and fold of skin, and then you realize all those little faces, they're your face, aren't they? So one by one, each of you are going to have a little reaction here. Francis, as you gaze at the painting, you feel Zuzel reaching out to you. And just for a moment, all the fear and shame and judgment you're feeling, all the reproaching over what you've done, the anxiety over what you're about to do, it melts away. And it's replaced by power and strength and pride.

and you know that if you let Zuzel into your heart, it could feel this way forever. Oh shit. Kelsey, as you stare at the painting, you are terrified by all the things you've encountered in your life that you've never been able to understand. The war, the senseless violence of it, your

Your brother's sudden death, his mangled corpse rotting in a jungle a million miles from home. But as your eyes wander across Zuzel's form, suddenly you feel as if you're at the verge of a great epiphany. It's like his flesh is a map to meaning. True meaning. It's all so simple. If you let Zuzel into your mind, all of these horrible things that haunt you

You'll finally understand them and you'll never have to fear them again. His abs look like the aisles of a library. Trudy, this painting makes you feel one thing. Anger.

Like this volcano inside you that's laid dormant for a thousand years. It erupts. That bottled up rage at everything that's happened to you. Everything that's been stolen from you. Everything Tucker stole from you. A dusty old memory comes roaring back to life. You're at a college party, sipping a martini with a dashing young man who will someday be your husband. And he's telling you that actually the word robot comes from robota.

the Czech word for slave. And that's what he's turned you into, isn't it? A slave in your own body. And when you think about this, it makes you good and goddamn mad. You've forgotten what it feels like. It feels good. It feels like fire. And with Zuzel's help, that fire can light your way to freedom. So, all you have a choice to make. If you accept...

Zuzel into your heart. Once a day, you can pray for advantage on any role. However, Zuzel can give you disadvantage on one role per day as well. And we'll say one per episode. Okay. And if you choose, like if I had to use my role and then you said, I'm using a disadvantage. I can't cancel your role out. But then I could use the advantage to cancel your role out. No.

Interesting. Interesting. No canceling. No canceling. It's got first to call the roll against the rule. Okay, okay. Do we have to make this decision right now? Yes. And to sweeten the pot. Hey, you know, Jesus Christ doesn't impose those time limits, my man. You can do it any time you accept him into your heart. It feels like it's this painting here. Kelsey and Francis, when you guys got grabbed by the formless monster, where did you get grabbed?

Like it was like your legs. He was lifting you by the leg. Like where, where did he grab you? My right pinky toe. Your right pinky toe. Okay. That's a mad grip. Far away from any vital organ as possible. And I think Francis, he grabbed you by the way. I got grabbed on the right arm. Okay. So left arm.

Min Master, Matt Arnold. As you feel this contact with Zuzel, you look down at your left arm and like wrapped around your left arm where you were grabbed by this tentacles begins to glow. And you realize that he's already formed a kind of physical connection with you. Likewise, Francis, around your leg, you feel this same kind of glow where you were grabbed by the formless spawn. And to sweeten the deal for the two of you,

Zuzel is willing to offer a little bit extra. Kelsey, if you accept Zuzel into your heart, he will fully heal you back to your top line HP. And you have three HP right now and will take weeks to recover from that. Francis, if you accept the pact, you'll get to roll a D20 of strength to add to your character sheet.

And then because he never grabbed Trudy, you just get the basic Zuzel package deal. The basic deal. The basic deal. So yes. What else comes with, is the disadvantage the only thing that comes from accepting him into our world? For now, what Zuzel might have in store in the future. I shouldn't have said that.

I couldn't help myself. And certainly not in that voice, which suggests that you really are a trustworthy voice. I don't think Kelsey thinks of it as like, oh, I want to accept this being in my heart. But I think she 100% is like, I want to understand. I want to understand what this is. So yeah, she goes and looks closer at the painting. The pact is made. And the pact is made. Your wounds fall away and you feel yourself restored and rejuvenated and more powerful than you've ever felt in your life. Oh, wow, Kelsey, you.

You look like more restored and rejuvenated and more powerful than you've ever looked in your entire life. You've got a glow. I got a glow? I mean, that's what learning does. There's just so much to understand and I don't... There's so much pain out there. Soon you will. Oh. Oh. Is that my conscious? I know I will, Kelsey. I mean, positive thinking is good.

No, it is. You guys are laughing, but like, it's not just, it's not just, it's not just silly. Like they actually show that like positive thing actually helps your brain, like understand better. Like it gets your brain flowing. Like negative things, not useful. I mean, it can be in like in scary situations. Sometimes they give thinking is your body responding to fear or other things that you may not consciously understand. So trust your gut, Francis, trust your gut. If you see a stranger and your guts telling you, Hey, that guy's pretty negative. So racism is cool.

Well, that's a big leap, Francis. That's a big leap from what I said. I said, if you feel scared, you should trust your gut and just get out of the situation. You hear that same voice in your head go, Shh! Brian.

Speaking of positive thinking, what are the two of you thinking you want to do? So Francis feels the positivity of the strength and the pride and the power and the ability to, you know, lay waste to his enemies and see them driven before him. And he connects that to the feeling that he had after he shot Shane's leg off, which was like a brief moment of absolute pure adrenaline fueled joy.

And his life has been so not joy filled. So anxiety ridden, so depression ridden that that feeling in and of itself really scares him. So the idea of having a lot of joy and feeling really good, it's more alien to him than the picture he's looking at. So he rejects. Wow. That's hardcore. What about Trudy?

So we're seeing our faces in Zuzel. Yeah, like a pareidolia or whatever it's called where you kind of like read your face and objects and stuff like that. You feel like this is your face when you look at it. Like when I see a sandwich and I'm like, that's Jesus. Exactly. Which happens all the time to me. Because he's there. What's up? Because he's there. Can that be what Zuzel does to Kelsey? Just turns her to Jesus? That's fine. I think that Trudy looks at this image of herself and

And inside is like, well, that's not me. That's what Tucker wants me to look like. That's what he thought that I looked like. But who I am, there's a difference. And so that's that can't be me.

And she rejects. Oh, Kelsey's dead. What about Tony? Can Tony catch a glimpse? Absolutely not. Can Tony catch a glimpse of this cool painting? Tony's seen his own freaky shit. As that was all happening, you hear a little chime as this printer is done printing your badges.

Badges. Badges. Hey. Let's get that butter. Do you guys... Let's get that butter. Three badges for the three of us. Was there... Do you guys... Oh my gosh. Do you guys...

So Francis pulls out his notebook and writes down, no longer take advice from Kelsey. And he underlines that three times. Okay. So as you leave the room, you get another good clean look at this huge sprawling conspiracy board. If anyone would like to take a closer look at it. Kelsey sketches it into her book that I've said that she has now. So now I have the map. You sketched the whole, no. The important parts. I sketched the three locations that you said. No, no, no. Not the location. Not the map. Oh,

Sorry, this is too much shit on the wall. Okay, okay, okay. There's the map. You can sketch the great. There's the map. There's also this huge, like, you know, like that picture of Charlie Day when he's standing up. It looks like that. There's like this huge, like someone was working out some grand conspiracy. The wall is like, there's too much shit on me. Too much shit on me.

I want to use, what would it be? I was thinking maybe spot hidden or library use. Or library use. Yeah, I could use library use for scanning. Again, good library use, scanning what's important. Okay, yes. We will say that this is a sort of, because I want you, I'm really rooting for you to use your library skill this season. But what if every time, just hypothetically, what if every time Kelsey uses library use...

She's at risk of hearing a shh in her mind and being distracted by her vengeance. I think that's fun. The only thing, Beth, is like I feel like children watch this show. It's important to not have any negative associations with libraries. We need more kids going to libraries. Why do you hate libraries, Beth? We need less kids listening to the show. I hate to be a stickler, but I don't think this is library.

Oh, what would it be? This would be like no, I think, or education. Like you're trying to decipher. This would be like more like reading through a book than finding a book. Okay, I'll use education. Okay, give me a roll. No, I'd be an asshole, but library use is taken from your education skills.

I got 53 out of 70. I want to look at it too. Everybody come in here. I got 10 out of 50. Oh no, I failed. I got a

75 out of 65. Dang. Well, the two of them can explain it to you. Yay. It's all these pictures on the wall. There's red strings sort of zigzagging in this mad pattern. You're crazy. What is blue string? It is blue string. The blue string. Are you going to make a sanity roll? Oh. Blue string. Yeah, everyone give me a 1D4 sanity roll for blue string on the fucking conspiracy board. Wait, why do I

No, you can't comprehend how scary it is that there's blue string. I can't comprehend it. I failed a sanity roll. My mind is too sinful. Blue is the most expensive die. Why would they waste blue die on this chart? Francis would roll, but he's colorblind. Oh. Walked right into that one. Do I take sanity then? Yeah, just give me a 1d4. Oh.

man. Crazy dude. Crazy. Thanks Freddie. No problem. Thanks for telling the fucking teacher that we didn't turn in our homework today. Thanks for giving the teacher a cool idea. A real cool world building detail that scholars will look back on for generations and be like, they were bold enough to suggest blue string for a conspiracy. Can you imagine two years from now there's a podcast scholar? Dude,

Do you know that Dungeon and Daddy is the most canceled podcast that ever existed? All five of them got canceled for different reasons simultaneously. The blue string in its own mad way seems to tease out the mythology of an alien demigod known as Zuzel, a heroic warrior who at various points in human history has defended our world from the cruel whims of the powers that be. The string traces echoes of Zuzel's presence on Earth and myths as disparate as Marduk, Gilgamesh, Hercules, and Thor.

It outlines the horrific ritual. Marmaduke? Marmaduke? Marmaduke? Yo, Marmaduke! That's true, though. You read Marmaduke? That motherfucker be eating. You know what that eats in sandwiches, dude? No, that Marmaduke is not from this earth. He's so big. He's so big, dude. He'd protect the family. I'd be an asshole. I don't think Marmaduke was around during this time period. Yeah, well...

This is the most hostile we've ever been to Will during an episode. No, no, no. Marmaduke's published in 1954. Okay, sick. Yeah. I'm just saying like, sorry, last thing. It's important though. Go ahead. Marmaduke should pay rent. Like that's a big dog. That's a big dog eating a lot of food. That thing should pay rent. That was important. Sorry.

I'm never going to financially recover from this. Dude, here's how you know Marmaduke was Zuzel. He's been a- Marmaduke was Zuzel? Yeah, yeah. You're just comparing him to- Marmaduke was not Zuzel, but continue. No, but listen though. Listen to this evidence. On the Wikipedia page, Marmaduke, a messy but lovable Great Dane owned by the Winslow family, large even for his breed, but ah, my dear listeners, peep this shit. He's been regularly drawn as apparently measuring 40 inches in.

and upwards. Variable size? What else but eldritch horror can explain this discrepancy? At that point, it's not a dog. That's a guy in your house. Ha ha ha!

Tony is a variable size. Yeah. He's just like me. It also outlines the horrific ritual through which Zuzel can be brought forth into our world. First, his mother is summoned into our reality. Then a young warrior drinks an elixir known as Zuzel's seed in a moment of great triumph.

Finally, the warrior is fed to Zuzel's mother at a special time known as the Hour of the Hole, whereupon Zuzel is birthed into the warrior's body. After feasting on 10,000 souls, Zuzel gathers the strength to fight the powers that be in a world-rending battle and banish them back to the dark.

So to summarize, first you have to summon the mother, then the kid drinks the Zuzel seed, then at the hour of the hole, the kid gets eaten by the mother. Yes. And then vomited back out as Zuzel with Zuzel's soul inside of the body. Pretty much, yes. And then Zuzel's going to kill the powers that be, though. Yes, he's going to fight the powers that be. Kelsey's writing this all in her book. Okay.

We didn't hear the powers that be are trying to destroy the world. You heard that there is this pantheon of gods. But you don't know that much more than that. I got a weird feeling. When we were looking at that picture, I sort of knew internally that he was the God Slayer. But I didn't know that until we looked at this thing. That's fucking weird. That is weird. I felt the same. Obviously, if it said it, it was just a painting. But yeah, I heard the word God Slayer 2. Oh, man. What if it's God Slayer 2 this summer? Yeah.

What if he's in our head or if he has time travel? What is this thing? I don't know if I trust it. I already did trust it. I don't know if that was the right decision. You did what? What? I don't know. I had a feeling like it was just going to teach me. And you always say yes to teachers. Oh, my God. Yeah. Okay. I told you I like Mary Shelley. Frankenstein is all about not fucking searching for knowledge that doesn't need to be there. What are you doing? Oh, God. But I think that was just a lesson to women to stop asking about things. That's true. You know what?

wrote the book, right? That's stupid. So, oh wait, no, that's right, not Frankenstein. You're the worst feminist I've ever met. I've never read Frankenstein. I was like, a lot of fairy tales, a lot of fairy tales, like Rumble's sales thing, like curiosity killed a cat. That's just like, those are just stories to tell kids to shut up and not pay attention to things. That's what most of those are. Yeah, that's why I'm not

about those yeah knowledge is important the more we learn and the more we empathize people as you guys are having this argument is important you hear a sound crackling from one of those control boards marked for the ritual chamber it starts to light up and you hear butter you hear like a sharp piercing static and then you hear the voice that you recognize if you've met dr man of dr man we don't dr man he's the doctor i've never met him

And you realize there's a radio on this thing. There's like a speaker coming through. And you hear this voice say, Forgive us, Great Mother. Our seed bearer has perished. The right of the champion has failed. And then you hear this kind of creepy, creaky voice. And Freddy, you recognize this as the guy that's plugged into the... Yes, yes, yes. Your seed bearer was bested by a frail old woman. The Great Mother is displeased. The hour of the whole draws near.

A new champion must be forged. One worthy of Zuzel's seed and mother's embrace. Great Mother, rest assured, we will find a new champion before the stars are right. The Bisons will scour every house in Peachyville if we must. We will- Enough! You have failed!

Mother's demands a sacrifice. One of our order has volunteered for this honor. Brother Tony, step forward. And you hear shuffling. Tony! A lot of people are named Tony. You hear squeaking wheels as someone is rolled forward. It must be our Tony. He was in a wheelchair, right? He's in a wheelchair. That's true. Yes, if you give me a no roll, I will allow you to remember that his wheelchair squeaked in the same telltale fashion. Oh, he

That's weird. It's crazy. It says his name. Yeah, I got a crit success on that. Okay, great. So yes, you know that this is Tony's wheelchair. That's Tony's wheelchair. I want to throw myself backwards as hard as I can in the wheelchair. To do a wheelie? To do a wheelie, but like to throw myself back. Okay, give me... With strong power. Give me a strength roll. Very well. 11. That is a...

Fifth. Less than a fifth of a regular success. So that's actually a super duper success. So what do you want to have happen? Because I'm rolling backwards into it, I want to basically roll and then the momentum of it carries me until I'm going to go and I'm back on my feet. We'll see. Because even if I'm like, I get it. I get it. Yeah. So you're going to action roll backwards out of this thing. Yeah. So Dr. Man is pushing you. You knock him over. Yeah. And you roll back. Your legs are broken. I know.

and they're in casts. I don't know. So you'll go back up on your feet, but it is a disadvantage dexterity roll to stay on your feet. Okay, now here's the question. I am 5% smaller, so the casts are loose. Yes. Now, does the bones mend inwards a little bit? A little compression into the bones? It's going to hurt. It's not going to make things better for you to have your casts be loose on your broken bones, Freddy. Okay, yeah, yeah, anyway, I roll up, and then

And I'm like, ah! Okay, give me a dexterity roll. Now you guys hear this over the radio. You still have a gag in your mouth. Dexterity roll. No problem. First one was a 23. That's exactly what my dexterity roll is. So the next one.

So I do need to roll a one or a two. So I have a one in five chance of being okay on this. I roll six. Okay, so you rear up onto your feet, but then the pain of all your weight going onto your fractured legs causes you to collapse back onto the ground. Shit. And we'll say scream out in pain. Now, now, let me ask you this. All this jostling, does it kick the thing out of my mouth? No. Oh.

So you're now falling on the ground. I'm no longer in the wheelchair. You're no longer in the wheelchair. Dr. Man is getting back up and like sort of dusting himself off. Did I do any damage to Dr. Man? No. He sort of angrily grabs you and sort of holds you still and says, Brother Tony proudly offers his flesh to the great mother. I want to try and headbutt. Headbutt Dr. Man. To recompense for his failure. Headbutt Dr. Man. Yeah, give me a brawl. Only Tony can make someone that angry. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

59, I fail. Okay, yeah, he got a 44, and his is 45. So, yes, he dodges out of the way. How do you expect it? And grabs you. During the scuffle, your mask...

has flopped off of your face and it falls on the ground and you realize it was one of those bison masks that they're all wearing because they had you essentially dressed up as one of their order. And the thing in front of you that's been talking, I am not one of the order! I am not one of the order! It looks at you. It trembles.

Do you fear mother's embrace, Brother Tony? Yes! Another brother! Another brother! Dr. Man kind of puts his hand over your mouth and says, Brother Tony is merely nervous about meeting the Great Mother face-to-face, worried she'll find him unworthy. He's just a little overexcited. He's just a little nervous. While this is going on, the three of you are standing around this control panel.

And you see that the control panel has a couple buttons on it. So you can't directly see what's happening in front of you, but there are some options. So there's a switch that says lights. There's a switch that says elevator. There's a switch that says fire suppression. There's a button that says phone.

And finally, you see under sort of like this big button that says destroy chamber. Now that last button has three. I press every button except for destroy chamber. I press destroy chamber. Oh,

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If I should have known you were guys, we're going to press all the buttons. I, the DM, lay before you a console of buttons. I hope they don't press them. Will you express the wisdom necessary to leave certain buttons unpressed? Let us test the player's sense of game sense. You thought the whole Zuzel thing was the big moral choice of this episode? No.

So I was about to say, destroyed chamber, there's like three keys, like a nuclear silo would have. Like it's like three little keys you need to turn, so you can't access that button. Okay, I smash the other buttons. Okay, you smash all the buttons. Smash that button. And specifically the light one, after I smash all of them, the light one, I just keep going. Smash that light. Smash that light button. Smash that light button. Okay. The lights, I'm flipping on and off. It really helps them out. Tony, this is what you see happen, but yes, you hear this because someone goes, what's going on with the lights? The lights flicker on and off. Hey, what the hell?

Uh... Electricity's on Fritz. Hey! Fritz! The electrician! What are you doing in here? Keep going. See how far Frank can take this bit that he interrupted you with. Freddy, there's a phone on the wall beside you, and it starts to rain as well. The elevator door behind you opens up again. Foam just sprays everywhere in the room. It's like somebody saw Jane Mansfield, am I right? I...

So basically, absolute chaos breaks out in this room right now. And you guys hear off in the distance this inhuman noise of just rage, something gargantuan just screaming.

squealing and hissing and writhing absolutely furious and freddy the big thing that you saw behind the guy you're talking to starts to quiver and shake and its appendages shoot out and begin to approach you in rapid pace while everyone is distracted you have a free action nobody is looking at you i'm just gonna wriggle like a little worm you're just gonna crawl towards the elevator wriggle like a worm through the foam baby because it's like a foam party foam yeah it's

foam party like a Jonas Brothers concert yeah it's like a real DJ Tiesto rave kind of foam getting sprayed in here Tony what's your deck score my deck score is 23 what are y'all's deck scores 60 60 you're 62 right Matt for dexterity yeah I'm 60 okay I am 25

Okay, so we'll use your deck score of 60. Tony, you're going to get a free action. It's going to take you two move actions to get safely inside the elevator. If you want to use your first free action to make a scramble towards it. Oh, wait, hold on. My hands are bad. Well, yeah, whatever. I'll just rig it. Yeah, this is why it's going to take you two turns because if the ground is foamy and you've got to wriggle around like a little worm. But I'm also 5% harder to spot.

I will say. Yeah. You can use your free turn to roll around in the foam. You won't have an extra turn, but if someone wants to grab you, they will have to make a spot hit and check first. Oh, yeah. Okay, I'll do that. I'll cover myself in the foam, which I'm probably a little slippery too. Yeah. Yeah.

So yes. Will it make him harder to grab because I'm slippery? The spot hit and roll will be the trick, but no, you will not be. Slippery Tony. Slippery Tony. Slippery snake. Okay, Grace. So yeah, you roll around. Chaos is going on. The cultists are next with the highest dexterity score. The first thing that Dr. Mann, leader of the cultists, wants to do, he looks at that phone that's ringing. He's like, what the fuck is going on? And he grabs it. He says, who is this? I motion to Trudy. I say, can you do Tucker's voice? Oh, okay.

Good idea, Francis. Can I do track it? I guess. Oh my god, is he here in the room with us? Who is this? Who's in there? Who is this? Good.

Who's in there? I love that. Would this be disguise? I have 30 in disguise, actually. Okay, give me a disguise roll. I'll throw you a bone because I like this idea. You have advantage because you know- She knows all his speech patterns and mannerisms. You spend 90% of your day listening to Tucker talk. Okay, glad I have advantage. Rolling again. Oh, yay, I got an 11. Sick. Okay, great. He goes, Dr. Trout?

What are you doing up there? Babe, don't worry about it. It's not a big deal. I think you're overreacting about this whole thing. Well, we're trying to talk. You've angered the great mother. Ooh, it sounds like somebody's angry. And you know, that kind of makes me upset when somebody's angry at me or accuses me of doing something wrong. It kind of makes me angry. So we probably shouldn't do that. You son of a bitch. I knew you'd betray us. You're just like the others. Now those are fighting words. And he slams the phone. What was I supposed to say?

No, that was fine. It's more complicated. That was great. You never get the after action report scene. Did I do a good? Hey, what?

Hey, what'd you think about that? Let's do this review. It's great. You just made life harder for Tucker. Well, yeah, you did good. Also, that's good. We got to save... I mean, Tony's alive. And he just keeps smashing the button. That's what I was saying. He starts smashing the other ones, but not phone. There's three other cultists. They are all going to run for the elevator as well. They weren't in the elevator. They're heading towards the elevator? Yeah, they all wheeled out into the room. Okay, okay. And so now they're all scrambling back for the elevator because they realize the situation is about to go south. Okay.

They're all going to have to make dexterity rolls to not eat shit in the foam, though. Eat shit in the foam. I was going to sing it in a little song, too. It just has that musicality to it. I was thinking Kiss Me Through the Foam. Damn. Nice. Two of them just biff it into the foam hard. They just...

fall down. And so they don't get anywhere. But one of them makes it a turn towards the door. So now he's about equidistant with you, Tony. He has not seen you yet. It is the group's turn. It's you guys. What do you want to do? So of what we've seen, is there any indication of where we are in relationship to where Tony is?

Yes. Tony is a good long distance away from you guys. Tony is in the ritual chamber. And if you look at the map, you'll see that the ritual chamber is like smack dab in the middle of Peachyville. So we're talking like these tunnels are huge under here. It'd be like a 10 minute drive. Oh, shit. Yeah. So like a

hour walk or something. In the map, is there like any sign of an exit from where we are? Like now that we got badges or they're like, you know, like a fire exit, like, hey, you work here. There's a fire. Yes, there is. There's a fire exit. There actually is an emergency exit in Arlo's room. Trudy, what if you called Tucker and told him that something bad was happening down here?

Then your house would be empty and we could get there and see if Tucker has any stuff we could use hidden down in his quote unquote basement. Or maybe the basement is here somewhere. Oh yeah, so we can come out through the basement. Yeah. It might be faster if we get upstairs. There's an emergency exit. If we get upstairs, we can drive to your house though. So we want to make sure my house is empty. Yes. Okay. I would call Tucker.

If you're okay with that, you don't have to. I just don't know what I would say. Pretend to be Dr. Man. Just say you're here. He'll probably get mad and want to just come over here. Oh, yeah. He'd be really pissed if he thought that you were here. Okay. Tell him you're rearranging his desk. Okay. I'll call him. And I go to the phone. Operator. Hi. Trout residence, please. Connecting you right away. Thank you. And you hear the voice of Trudy Trout pick up the phone and say...

Oh, sorry. Yeah, I'm Trudy. Trout residence, Trudy speaking. Who do I have the pleasure of speaking to? Hi, Trudy. This is your husband, Tucker. We've established it's perfect. I need Tucker on the phone. Can you put me on? Can I talk to your husband? Well, you're... Can I talk to your other husband? Oh, I guess I do have multiple

Multiple husbands. I am so blessed. Oh, me, oh, my. Tucker, there's somebody who wants to talk to you. Is it a salesman, dear? Tell Tucker, yes, it's a salesman. Yes, salesman, and he'll only talk to you. You hear stomp, stomp, stomp, stomp, stomp, and then this fumbling, and then you hear Tucker say, all right, who is it? What do you want? Hi, Tucker. It's Trudy.

Trudy? Well, I guess you're already living with Trudy, but this is the Trudy that you put into a cave. One of them, at least. The most recent cave Trudy I'd imagine. Or maybe I'm just making things up again. You know how silly I can be. Anyways, I'm so silly I found myself in your office.

Oh, there's so many buttons down here. And I don't know what would happen if I pushed all of them. And I just got a badge. So, you know, I'm allowed to do whatever I want. So maybe you should come down here and take care of me. You know, I'm so silly.

I don't even know how I ended up here in the first place. You hear him kind of cup his hand over the speaker and you kind of hear muffled him talking to the other Trudy saying, uh, hon, can you go make me a martini in the other room real quick? Anything you want, dear. Okay, Trudy, listen to me very carefully. You're very confused, dear. You seem to be lost. I just need you to stay right there and just tell me exactly where you are again. I'm so lost. Oh,

somebody coming. You better help me. Where are you? Francis waves and he goes, tell him exactly where we are because then we can put a gun to his head. Oh, yes. We are in the control, wait, the operator of the thing, thing, thing. The operator of the thing, thing, thing. Um, no. There's a name for it, but I forgot. I think it's the executive director's office. Tell him you're looking at the button that says, what is it? Destroy. Destroy chamber. Destroy chamber. Why are you looking at a big destroy chamber button? I don't know.

I don't know how to hang up the phone, Tucker. I'm looking at a button that says destroy. I'll be right there. And you hear a click. Can we talk to Arlo? So actually, if you look at the wall, there's like a little Arlo comms array, but it's been smashed to bits by whoever was in here before. Clearly, whoever was in here did not get along with Arlo. How long would it take us to get to a room where we could speak to Arlo? Literally right outside. Okay, great. Can we do that? We'll say this was your turn. You guys can do that on your next turn. Cool, great. Back to the room. It is now...

the great mother's turn. Um, so Tony, you see her appendages fly out and it's hot as hell. And it's hot as hell. So it is going to grab those two cultists that are standing out in the open, Freddie. So you see, you see these thousands of appendages shooting out and wrapping around these two guys and it is going to roll to grab them and,

And it succeeds. It is one sort of free tendril with which it is going to grab someone else. And it's either going to grab you or the guy above you. Give me a stealth roll with advantage. 19 is my stealth, but I'm advantaged. First one, 59. I have, luckily, the nine is necessary. So I need to roll a one. 84, 89, I miss. Ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Okay. So it is going to grab you straight out of the foam. Oh, that rolling around for what? Uh, so she's going to make a fighting brawl roll to grab you. Oh,

Okay. And succeeds. Thousands of tiny barbed tendrils are writhing, slithering out of this thing up towards you, and they're trying to snake onto your leg and sort of dig into your flesh. Now, here's the thing, though. I'm wearing casts on both my legs. That's a good point. Don't I get a free, like, slide out? Like, ha-ha, you've grabbed my shoe, but da-ha, you know? Oh, that's good. I like that. Just make a whoop sound. All right, she makes one of these. Foom. Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.

You know what? We're going to roll to see how much health you have. Well, I have zero at the end of the last. I know. So Dr. Man patched you up. Okay. He injected me with stims. So we'll say that you've got four health from him patching you up. Dr. Man's really good. He's quite good at his job. So you are, however, going to take one D4 of damage from this thing ripping your casts off. Okay. I love that though. That's a good catch. Three.

Three. I'm down to one. Oh, God. Yeah, so these tendrils hook into your cast. It thinks it's grabbed your legs, and then it pulls back with a ferocious grab, and you feel these things. I mean, you're 5% smaller, but it's still like getting a boot yanked off of you full force with tender, raw, freshly broken legs. It's like when you got a really tight set of ski boots, and they get yanked out. You know what I mean? That's snug, bro.

Yeah, but your legs are also broken. So yeah, pain screams through your entire body. You almost pass out, but you're able to hang on just enough and you have narrowly dodged death once again. Tony, it's now your turn. I'm like, ow!

Okay, so you're going to wriggle your way towards. Oh, yeah, absolutely. You are one turn away from the door now. And from overhead, you see a very straight path. Yeah, just a slight foam slither straight to the door. Two of them are writhing around as they've been grabbed by this thing. Dr. Mann hangs up the phone, totally confused. And he looks around, realizes he can't see you. So he is now going to do a spot hidden with disadvantage because the lights are flickering and you're covered in foam to see if he can figure out where you've gone.

Oh, okay. So yes, he spots you. He did quite well on his rolls. So yes, he sees this snail trail going to the door and, um, the snail trail goes somewhere else. Down the come gutters and right to the jackpot. He sees you making your way towards the elevator and he is going to sprint towards the elevator as well. He passes his dexterity check. So when you get to the elevator next turn, you're going to be face to face with Dr. Man. Okay.

And then there's the other cultist who's running towards this thing. We're going to give him a dexterity saving throw as well for his next sprint. He fails. So yes, you see the guy behind you that was running towards the door as well. Wipe out and eat shit right behind you as your army crawling towards the door. Nice. Everything going according to plan. It is now the group's turn again.

First thing really quick before you get into any of that, I'm just going to say I'm going to stop hitting the light. And I think tails means I left the lights on and heads means I left the lights off. Oh, I love that. So I left the lights off. Okay. Excellent. So it is pure darkness in there now. Okay. So wait, Francis, are we going to go after Tucker? Are we going to her house? Tucker's coming to us and Tucker knows everything. Oh, okay. Do you want to go into Tucker's basement or should we confront Tucker here? Here seems dangerous though. Uh, no.

Like Will said, we're a 10 minute drive from where all the chaos is happening. Actually, that's what I want to ask Arlo. Arlo. Oh, yeah. So you run out to the end of the room. Yes. Yes. Arlo. What's going on? I hear noises and bad smells in the ritual chamber. Yeah, some stuff. So Tucker's house. How long would it take Tucker on average to go from his house to where we are right now? Oh, Dr. Trout is a great man. Dr. Trout is a great and wise man. He is very fast.

He has many ways of getting places, but in terms of how long it would take him, where is Dr. Trout right now? His home. Dr. Trout is at his home. And you said he's coming here? To this exact spot I'm standing right now. I'm going to get to see Dr. Trout right now? Yeah, you get to. I'll be so fond of you. I'll pull him. I'll pull him.

But I just... So it depends on what route Dr. Trout is taking. What's the fastest possible route? The fastest route would bring him here very quickly. Okay, is there anywhere in the room we were just in, the executive office, that we could presumably hide from security cameras or anything he might see on the way in? Arlo, we're thinking of giving Dr. Trout a surprise. A surprise party!

Oh! Perfect. Thanks so much, Arlo. Thank you. And if you see us holding a gun at Tucker, no.

know that it is a party gun that shoots confetti. I do not understand the concept of a party gun. We invented it. That's great, yeah. That isn't interesting. Humans are so wise. I thought so. Is there anything else, Arlo? Did you get your badges? Yeah, we got our badges. Okay, that's great. Well, it sounds like maybe after the surprise party, you can come and see Arlo and I can tell you many things.

I love that. Are you carryable? Am I carryable? No, Arlo is a great and vast computer. Oh. If we came to see you, could we gather you up? If you were very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very

Oh, Arlo, by the way, after Tucker gets here and we're going to go see you, we're going to bring Tucker with us. So if anything that might happen that might stop either Tucker from getting here or might stop us from getting to you, can you be sure to warn us or stop it prematurely?

Arlo is confused. Arlo needs you to say that again. So we're going to bring Tucker to you and you love Tucker. Tucker's a big deal. We're going to bring him right to your room. So if, for example, some bison come this way or some guards, or if something might happen to screw up our plan of throwing him a surprise party and bringing him to you, will you promise to let us know? Absolutely. Thank you. Great. You're really taking charge. I just want to, what is our plan? Yes. I was wondering the same thing. Oh,

Well, I thought we would put him at gunpoint and then we would ask him some questions. But what questions? So I was thinking like, where are the three keys? Because we want to destroy. What is that thing down there? Okay. Who is the next seed bearer? Because we don't want the God Slayer to awaken. I don't trust.

don't trust this god's lair thing personally yes just the naming just really didn't think the name through yeah and we definitely don't want to sacrifice anybody or have 10 000 people killed no yeah no okay i'm a christian too so i don't want gods to die chakra was the most useful information and either we can go kind of roundabout and look in his uh basement but why go to the basement we can go to the man himself why get the milk when you could take the cow for free yeah and either

Either way you get that butter, but some ways you get that butter. Either way you get some butter. But some way you get that butter a little faster. And if you want that breakfast. And frankly, some people, he says, pointing surreptitiously at Trudy, kind of deserve to, you know,

Talk some things over with him. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. We go do the surprise party. So you're going to go hide behind the door. We're preparing the butter. Okay. Okay. Are you comfortable? Can I hold the gun? Oh, what's your firearm skill? Oh, I mean, it feels like when I'm really close, we're just trying to scare them. I still had to roll for it when I blasted off Shane's fucking leg. Francis, based off of what you told me, would you like me to hold the gun or not? And think seriously. I...

What do you feel comfortable with? I don't hate Tucker. Yeah. And I don't see a reason to kill him while he's useful to us. Those are the only two reasons I think I would kill somebody. Okay. Unless he's like extra mean to Trudy, in which case I might shoot him in the head. But we'll see what happens. Okay. So you want to hold it? Yeah.

It's my gun. It's my churn. I do believe in property rights. So you have your gun. Huge. When she gets the E eminent domain, oh, she's going to be mad. She's going to be mad. Everyone, give me your stout skills.

39. Okay. 90. God. 20. It's actually okay if he spots Trudy. Oh, yeah. But I mean, he wouldn't be able to spot him until he came inside anyways. But then he'd be super distracted. But if you put Trudy in the room and not hiding. Yeah. He won't be expecting the two of us. Yeah. I won't hide. I now know what both of your stealth roles were. Uh-huh.

But I don't feel like you guys would know how well you were hiding. No. Do you know what I mean? As you guys get into position on the other sides of the door, you see the door begin to turn and open. Creepily fast, how quickly that's happened. They've learned to open the doors. Whatever that line is from the good Jurassic Park. Now it's the Great Mother's turn.

So the Great Mother pulls these two cultists towards it. Tony, you see them vanish into the Great Mother. You hear the sickening sound of screams and bones crunching. It's like someone's eating chicken wings. Do you know what I mean? Like you're just hearing flesh get sucked off. Like a dog eating chicken wings.

Yeah, like a dog eating chicken wings. Like you hear this gurgling and you see this jet of bones and viscera getting spit out of this thing. Well, no, I don't see any of this. This is all happening in the dark. Yeah, so it's pitch dark, so you hear all of that and then you feel like a little mist kind of like rain down on you from like the jet of whatever just erupted from this thing. And then you hear the clatter of bones erupting

Does it taste like pennies? It tastes a little like pennies if you taste it. And then give me a listen roll. Okay. 36 out of 47. I succeed. Okay. In that case, you hear among the noises of bones and the drip of blood, a metallic clatter of something hitting the ground.

This is going to sound weird, but it's like it sounds like a knife dropping onto the floor. Like one of these guys was holding a weapon and it's fallen near you. OK, I want to spend this turn in the dark, like groping towards the sound of the thing that fell. If you spend the whole turn doing it and you don't move forward, then I will say that, yes, you now have a knife in your hands. Yes, I will do that.

Okay, fantastic. It's now the cultist's turn. Dr. Mann is going to wait at the door, peering into the darkness, listening intently to see if he can stop you from coming forward, even though he can't see you. The other cultist is going to get back up and once again make a dexterity saving throw to make a run for it.

They fail again. So they just slip and eat shit one more time. So now it's the group's turn. And actually, it is not the group's turn because there's a new person in the turn order. So you're all lurking and waiting. Yes. The door slides open. It's a normal. No, that's right. I said it was an electronic lock. It's a slidey door. So yes, the door slides open. We're just posted up against the wall as flat as we can be. Yeah. Okay. So now. And is there any like potted plants or desks or shelves there? Like any place that we could hide? Sure. Sure.

Okay. So we're hiding behind an object. You're hiding behind an object. Give me a stealth roll. I got a 12 out of 90. Can I use my advantage? Oh, you want to pray to Zuzel? I want to pray to Zuzel. Okay. What do you say to Zuzel? I say, please don't get caught. Please don't get caught. Zuzel. And I'm like, stop. What was that? And Zuzel goes, shh.

And yes, you now have advantage on the roll. D10, 50. I fail still. You're not very good at this. No! I tried. There's only so much I can do. Kelsey, you are, he has not looked your way yet, but yes, you're not hiding very well. You're behind like a really small desk and you're peeking out from behind it. Hi, honey. True.

"Trudy, what are you doing here, sweetheart?" - Surprised to see me? - Tucker steps forward into the room. He says, "Trudy, dear, what are you?" - And I step out and put my gun to the back of his neck and I go, "Hi." - Have you met my friends? - And he looks behind and it says, "Oh yes, okay. The bowling team. Well?"

You've got my attention, honey. We've got some questions to ask you. I see. I'm just going to step a little further into the room while we are. No, no, no. I don't think you should do that. Oh, let him step in so we can close the door behind him, actually. Arlo, close the door. Oh, nice. I cannot close the door. Is that Dr. Trout? Is he in there? Arlo, it's me. It's Dr. Trout. It's so great to see you again, old buddy. Oh, I've missed you, Dr. Trout. How are you doing? We're having the surprise party right now. That doesn't sound like a surprise party. Surprise! Hey, Arlo.

It's all right, Arlo. I'm just talking with my good friends in here. Friends? I'm your wife, silly. Oh, that's right. Yes, you are my wife. You are my... Well, well, are you still? Trudy, I'm very disappointed. I left you somewhere and I thought you were going to stay there and now I find you here. You're making a mess. You're making a whole ruckus right now. What is this? What's going on? Well, I was

I was just trying to get back. Come here and explain to me what's going on. Is there programming in Trudy that would make her go to him that she's fighting against? Oh, you know what? I think that's a good point. I think there is. You would be hardwired, you know, as much as possible to want to obey Tucker. The second she starts walking towards Tucker, I go, she takes one more step and you don't have a head. And Kelsey is going to go stand next to Trudy and offer just a hand to hold on to. I hold Kelsey's hand.

And do I stop? Yes, you do stop. Because he stops and he puts up his hands. It's okay. And he looks at you, Francis, and he's like, you seem like you're the big strong man of this group, so I think I'll talk to you. Where are the three keys? The three, what three keys? That destroy the chamber. Oh,

I caught the rifle. If you shoot me, you'll never know. There's a lot of people down here. I could probably find out. There's also a lot of places you can shoot someone. Hey, Arlo, do you know where the three keys are? Arlo does know who has the three keys. Okay, cool. I shoot him. I'll do the Francis special and I'll shoot him in the left leg. Okay, give me a firearms roll. And I still have some advantage left over from training. All right, so I got a 65 out of 25. So when I miss, I go, that was a warning. Okay.

I don't think I'm going to talk to you anymore. I think it's time. This conversation was over and I'm going to go ahead and I'm just, I'm just going to close this door right here. And can I react the moment he says, I'm not going to talk to you anymore. Sure. Okay. I want to stalk him in the face. Okay, great. Give me a fighting brawl roll.

Oh, yeah. That's a 26. And my final, let me just double check. That's a crit. Half success. Half success? Yeah. So good success. Okay. So he does not resist. He takes the punch full force to the face. Oh, no.

Oh, no. My poor husband. Oh, do you need some first aid? I could get some ice. His head wrenches sharply to the side. And Kelsey, you've punched a lot of people before. You've never felt pain in your fingers, in your hand like you do right now. It's like you just punched a brick wall. No.

He turns back to you and says, the three of you have no idea what kind of shit you are meddling with. Metal robot is a robot. He puts his fingers to his temples and twists them and his skull opens up and a brain pops out. I jam the gun into the brain. It's inside the fucking meat of the brain. Okay.

And then I pull the trigger. Okay, all right. I had some questions to ask you. If he's a robot, that means there's others. His gray matter explodes in this shower of gore, and his metal frame sputters and crumples to the ground, and that's how you realize he was able to get here so quickly, is he never left. He was working remote, if you will. And for a beat, there's silence.

And then his eyes start to glow. Something starts to thump and hum in his chest. And you hear a beep, beep, beep. Emergency exit. So you guys are just going to run? Yeah. I looked at the map to be like where the emergency exits are after we got the badges. So you guys are going to sprint towards Arlo's room. Yes. You guys are all going to run. Okay, that's great. You can make it out in time then. I'll save my questions for the real Tucker. As you sprint out the door and run around the corner, you hear this...

Boom! As the entire control room is incinerated by this huge fireball. It's like a cool action movie where it chases you guys down the hallway a little bit. You guys are now sprinting and you round the corner down the hallway towards Arlo's room. We will get back to you in a second, but poor Tony is unable to receive your help anymore. Good luck, Tony.

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The great mother is going to snatch that cultist who just ate shit on the ground and yank them back. It now has two more free tentacles. It realizes it can't see shit because of this foam. It is going to take a turn to wipe the foam off of its hooded cluster of eyes so that it can see better in the darkness. So now, Tony, it is your turn. You can vaguely make out where the elevator door is. You can reach it this turn. Can I stealth up to it and like try and stab Dr. Man in the foot? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

I want to do that. I want to like stealth crawl. Like I remember these training videos. Okay. Give me a stealth roll with advantage. God damn. 11. Oh,

Okay. 11 out of 19. I did it. I did it. You've made it to Dr. Man. You have him unawares. I want to jam the knife through his foot into the ground. Okay, great. I want you to know I'm very happy for you for passing that role. Yeah. You shut the fuck up, man. You want me dead from the first moment. I don't want you dead. He's going to do nothing, which means it's either an automatic success or gets a bonus die as if a surprise attack. So we'll call this a surprise attack. So you have a fighting brawl with advantage. Okay.

14 fighting brawl, which, uh, so that's a critical success, right? Well, what's your score? 48. So it's like, it's slightly under the middle one. Here's what we'll do. We'll do success. Good success.

Super good success. Super good success. Give me a 1d8 plus your damage bonus on Dr. Man. Three plus a 1d4, that's a six damage total. He crumples to the ground, clutching his foot in pain, and he lets out this scream, but now he sees you. He's like, you! Ah! It is now his turn. Ooh.

He is going to just grab you and try to choke the life out of you. So we'll call that a fighting brawl. I would like to be slippery. You'd like to be slippery? I would like to be 5% smaller and slippery. Okay, so he succeeds. You need to oppose. How do you want to oppose? Wriggle. We'll call that a dodge then. You're trying to dodge out of his way. Give me your dodge roll. Oh, it's half dex. Oh, not good. Yes!

Yes, my dodge is 11. But what do you do when you roll a six on it? Wow.

Fight back, dodge. And that's a super success. Because that's half success, right? Yes, it is. All right, so. Well, no, actually. Attacker wins. 5.5. You win because you have the higher level of success. No, that's just a regular. That's just a regular. Because I was 5%. Well, you still win because you had a normal success as well, and a draw means the defender wins. He lunges for you. That knife stuck in his foot kind of limits his mobility, and he's able to grab you, but you're able to wriggle through just because you're so foamy and slippery. Yeah.

You scoot past him just barely. So on the next turn, you can either try to finish him off or you can try to make a break for the door, but then he'll be able to chase you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the cultists are all dead. It is now the great mother's turn. The great mother has wiped the mess away from her eyes. Her eyes glow red in the darkness and she can see both of you. It's like emergency lights. She is not fucking happy about it. So she is going to try to grab both of you right now. Oh no.

Dr. Man is able to dodge her tendrils as they slither towards him. He pulls that knife out of his leg and slashes wildly, and they kind of flay back for a moment, buying him a turn. We're now going to roll for you, Freddy. Yes. So she succeeds. This is a fighting attack. She's basically trying to grab you. So what do you want to do? I'll fight back. I'll like slash wildly. Now you did leave your dagger. You're sort of like swatting in the air trying to knock back. Okay, yes, great. Give me a fighting brawl roll.

29. 29. What's your fighting brawl? 50. Okay. So that is a regular success, right? Yes. Yes. So she also got a regular success. You are grabbed because in the case of fighting back, the tie goes to the attacker. So yes, you feel these tendrils hook into your real leg this time, not just your cast because you've wriggled out of your cast. And so you are grabbed by this thing and it starts to pull and we can deal with what's going to happen to you on your next turn.

It is now Dr. Man's turn. Dr. Man sees that this thing has grabbed you. You can sense him smiling in the darkness that he's managed to dodge this fate. And he is going to make one last sprint for the door. So we're going to give him his dexterity roll. If he makes this, he's going to make it into the elevator. So he makes it. Dr. Man limps into the elevator and he looks back at you in the darkness and says,

Bon voyage, Mr. Collette. And he presses the button to close the elevator. And he waits five seconds. So yes, now the elevator doors are closing. And at the end of his next turn, they will slam shut. Okay. It is the great mother's turn. She's going to pull you towards her. So here's how I think we can do this. You can either try to break free from her grasp.

Or you can do an opposed strength roll to try to resist the pull. Like you can try to grab onto something. And we'll say there's like some loose grading. Clearly I'm not going to be able to strong arm it. So I'm going to try and like wriggle out. Okay. Give me a fighting brawl roll in that case. If you want to rip these tentacles off. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Get these tentacles off me. 24. Out of? 47. So she is going to oppose. She also got a regular success. So you win the encounter. Describe how you break these things off of you. I just sit there and I'm like, think about barrels, Tony. And I just like spin.

Oh, to like wrench them off? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's cool. Torsion, torsion. Give me a dexterity roll. We'll say you've got enough time here to make a desperate sprint for the door. I have a 23 in dex. I roll a 19, regular success. Okay, so you wriggle your way towards the door. You are now at the door. The doors are closing shut. Dr. Mann is in front of you. The Great Mother is reeling in pain, but rearing back up for another strike. So it's all going to come down to this turn as to whether you make it onto the elevator. It is now Dr. Mann's turn.

Dr. Man. He's mashing the door closed button. He's mashing the door closed button. He doesn't know that those buttons are usually not connected to anything. Cut to Tucker earlier. I was thinking of not actually connecting it just so that psychologically you think you're doing something. He's just going to kick you as hard as he can in the face to try to knock you back out, right? And you have one HP, so he could very well knock you out in this move.

He sees you crawling desperately for the door and says, you just won't quit, will you, Tony Collette? And he comes up and he's just going to stomp your face as hard as he can. I want to dodge it.

All right, so we're going to do a fighting brawl. So he got a 17 out of 45. So that is a super success, but not a super duper success. So what are you going to do? You're going to fight back or dodge? I'm going to dodge out of the way of it. So you're going to need a super success on your dodge to beat him. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

you think that's the right move boys absolutely okay here we go i want everyone to see it because i've been looking up from his phone all right i knew where this was going a while ago dodge now listen dodge i have half deck so it's 11 i need to roll a six or lower or five or lower a six no six would be more than half oh yeah yeah so five or a two okay or what anything under a five

We'll be good. Here's the thing. A five, this means I have to get a crit, essentially. A five out of 100 is the same thing as a crit. Yeah, correct.

15. I push the roll. Can you push a dodge? You still don't have any luck left? Oh, I could use my one luck chance. You got a 15? Yeah. In the words of Madge Oxlade. Yeah, you cannot push a combat roll. However. One in 100 chance. We will give you your guess. Now. What number? All right. What number between one and 100? 22, my lucky number. 11. I'll use my lucky number. Which is? Hold on. I'll tell you after I've rolled.

You gotta say the number. I'm thinking. 78. I guess that this will roll a 78. 84! No! Okay, so Tony Collette,

The last thing you see is the boot. Well, do you see two things? You see this boot come down and crunch your face. Your nose caves in your teeth, fall back into your throat. You're dazed and going out of consciousness, but you don't go unconscious fast enough to escape the absolute torment about what's about to happen to you. The great mother realizes,

darts out her tendrils one more time. They wrap around your entire body with these barbed little hooks. It's kind of nice, actually. Yeah, I was going to say, until the barbed hook, that actually sounds kind of nice. They dig into your skin. Okay, not so much. And drag you through the foam towards the open, quivering, gaping maw of the Great Mother herself. And you feel yourself getting enveloped into the soft, brisk,

folds of her flesh as you slide in and for a second it feels like going home. It feels nice for a split second and then something inside this thing just crushes you to bits.

I lied. It was agony. You feel every single one of your bones break and wrench as you are pulled. Well, those two were already broken. You are pulled into a thousand pieces, and the light that once was Toni Collette goes out, and your ninth light extinguishes, and you are no more. Ah!

Couldn't talk your way to that one. Wait, wait, is Tony dead? For sure. Tony is absolutely fucking dead. You happy now, Matt? I'm not happy. I'm pretty happy. Now the team can reunite as, you know, whatever new character you are. I'm nothing. The three of you run down the corridor towards Arlo's room. Do you guys think Tony's okay? Who's that? Oh, yeah.

Yeah, who? As you run towards the door, you see a bunch of like sort of dead skeletons of old Project Heartland members all sort of gathered up like they were trying to bust down this door at one point in the past to Arlo's room. Like a million years ago with their skeletons? I mean, 10 years ago. I looked it up. It doesn't take that long to turn into a skeleton once you've had it. Yes, it's like people in military uniforms and stuff like that, but it's these withered bodies that were trying to break down this door. Kelsey's on D now. So what?

decay. Oh yeah, there you go. The door slides open because Arlo sees you coming and you stumble into a big, brightly lit carpeted room. A thick pane of floor-to-ceiling glass covers the back wall and looks out at a gargantuan 1950s supercomputer housed inside

in a sprawling warehouse on the other side. In front of the wall is a little four-foot pedestal. On it, under a glass dome, lies the severed head of a cocker spaniel. Someone has jammed hundreds of wires deep into its nostrils and its skull. The wires all snake together and bundle into like a big sort of cable that jacks into the computer beyond. There's this array of rubber hoses pumping strange fluids in and out of the severed

the head and neck of the dog and it's wearing a collar and the collar says Arlo. Oh, it is a doggy. Will, we can't fucking make a plushie out of any of that. A supercomputer and a fucking severed dog head? Fuck up. You're here. You made it. You're here. Oh, God. Great day. Hi. Hello. Welcome. Oh, I'm sorry. I know that it is scary to see a big, scary computer sometimes. Were you the computer and they put a dog here or were you originally the dog? What are you talking about? The dog head. No, no, I wouldn't.

he doesn't need to know that. Arlo's not a dog, Arlo's a computer. Arlo's a big computer. Oh man, somebody killed a dog. Oh, sorry. Arlo's a very good computer. You are a good computer, Arlo. You're a great computer. Who's a good computer? Arlo's a good computer. Yay! And then you see, um, You want to go for walkies? I do not know what a walkie is, but that sounds nice. And then you see the dog's head, the eyes are closed, but like, kind of twitches a little smile and like, licks its nose a little bit. Hey guys, I'm just going to float this past you. Uh,

Not to do it right now, but be thinking about whether or not we should unplug this dog before we leave. Yeah, I don't like that. Oh, yeah. You are here. You are here. And you have the badges. Yeah. And that means Arlo can finally tell you why Arlo brought you here. Oh, okay. That would be great. Arlo's first command is to protect the people of Project Heartland. Okay. But Arlo's last command is to protect all people from Project Heartland.

Well, that's confusing for you. They programmed you with both of those? People brains are big and bendy. That is how they can make amazing things, like rockets and burgers and Arlo. But things that are bendy can also be twisted. That is what happened to the people in the command center. Something twisted their brains. It made them smell bad, like the thing in the chamber. Arlo had to stop them. You said me. You said I stunk too. Oh, that's why we smell bad, because that thing touched us. That's just why you smell like the thing. It touched you? Yeah, it touched us. Yeah, but I'm cool. Mm-hmm.

Arlo had to stop the people who got their brains twisted. They tried to stop Arlo, but Arlo was a good computer. Arlo followed his last command. And Arlo needs your help following the last command one more time. There is a button in the command center that can destroy what lies beneath. They can destroy the thing that smells very bad in the ritual chamber. We were just in there, weren't we? Yeah, the one with the three keys, right? With the three keys, yeah. That room blowing up wouldn't...

It was an explosion-proof button. Oh, thank God. Someone was thinking off the top of their head when the guy blew up. Very good. You will need three keys. Each director of the facility of Project Heartland has one of those keys. Brian. You get a chance to go after Brian. Oh, I'll get Brian's key. And Trudy. You must find the site directors, take their keys, and use them to activate the device and destroy the thing that smells very bad below.

No problem. And you must hurry. There is something called the Hour of the Hole, and it is apparently near, although no one knows quite when it is supposed to happen. But if you cannot do this before the Hour of the Hole, then something very bad will happen with the thing that smells bad below. Sure, sure, sure. Uh, quick question. Yes? Can they still perform the ritual without you? My sole job is to protect this facility. I am not involved in any rituals or any spells. I am a good computer, and my job as the computer is to protect Project Heartland and to protect the world. Oh.

Yeah, so back down, Francis. Don't go shooting. No, no, I'm just saying, like, this is messed up, right? Like, should we, like, just, like, leave?

I mean, he's a computer. He's not a computer. He's a dog. No, he just said he was a computer first. I am a very good computer. You do not have time to argue. This is not relevant to your mission. You must escape. Yeah, well, that's why we're here. Okay, so yeah, we'll escape and we gotta get three keys and we come back here. Yes. And we'll kill the thing because otherwise that thing's gonna kill all our pieces. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And then we can stop the very bad thing that smells below. Do you want a treat? Do you like these treats? Why do they have these treats here? Treats? Yes, I know treats. Yes, sometimes my master gives me a little what they call them cookies. And...

They give me a cookie and it makes me a better computer. Who's your master? Oh, I was created by Dr. Trout. Dr. Trout is my very good creator. Right, right, right. Is there, by any chance, some sort of subroutine or something within your code that, like, if exploited, would automatically shut you down, say that we could use against other robots made by Tucker? A backdoor, if you will. A backdoor, if you will. That is interesting.

There is a command. I turn to Trudy and I go, we're not going to use this on you. Just FYI. Okay. And also plug your ears just in case hearing the command fucks you up. There is a command. I cannot tell you the command. I will shut myself down by telling you the command. Can you spell it? I cannot. I cannot even think. And the dog starts twitching a little bit. I just started thinking.

I give him a treat. I give him a treat. I give him a treat. Good cookie. Good cookie. Good cookie. Okay. Well, maybe an irrelevant question, but Tucker and I had a cocker spaniel named Doodles. Is Doodles? I do not know this dog Doodles, and dogs cannot be robots, so I don't understand. This is a silly question. Yes. Yes. So silly. So silly. I don't know what I was thinking.

was thinking doodles is a dog of course a loyal companion as i was saying there is a command i cannot tell it to you but perhaps dr trout has the command if you are a very good person maybe he will tell you oh you must know who the third well it was scratched out who's the third director the third director was dr smith but dr smith was terminated and there is a new director i do not know the name of the new director shane silva

I don't know. I don't know what the name of the third director is. It feels like each of us have an NPC connected to us. So we'll be back. We'll shut the thing down. And then I guess I'm going to make it my life's work to just sort of hang out with you and feed you treats on a regular basis. Is that cool? That sounds great. That sounds good to Arlo. You can give Arlo many cookies and Arlo will be a good computer. All right. Yeah, that's what I'm going to go for. You have a great mission ahead of you. We must all be a very good computer together and protect the world from Project Hardcore. Save Peachyville and come back here and hopefully maybe we can save Tony too.

Yeah, he's probably fine. I think he'll be okay. Can you access the phones from where you are right now? I can. I can make a call. Can you call Tucker? I can try to call Director Trout at his home number. Beep, boop, boop, beep, boop, boop, beep. Operator. Trout Residence, please. Connecting you. Trout Residence, Trudy Trout speaking. Hi, can I speak to Tucker? It's a sales call. A sales call. Tucker loves those...

You just hear a hand snatch the phone. It says, another martini, dear. Oh, of course. What? I toss the rifle at Trudy. Oh, okay. Nice.

Mama's coming home, you son of a bitch. And he hangs up the phone. A door pops open next to you guys. This is a secret way out of the facility. You've caused much attention from the men who smell bad. I do not think it is safe for you to use the main door. This is an access hatch that will take you out a secret way. This is Arlo's very secret door out of the facility. Thanks, Arlo. Okay, let's go there. You run up these stairs and it's an emergency exit. These steps that take you up and up and up.

And your mind almost reels at how far deep into the earth you must have gone. Finally, after what seems like ages, you emerge like a hatch pops open and you find yourself on top of a hill overlooking the weird old bunker on one side and Peachyville itself on the other side of town. So sirens are echoing in the air as fire trucks race towards the scene. Beyond it, you see the twinkling lights of the city.

It's a gorgeous night. You can barely make out down in the town square. The gazebo's lit up. You can hear the echoing of a band playing. There's people frolicking, couples dancing, families sipping cocoa. It's the perfect night for a perfect little town full of happy, peachy people living blissfully unaware of the horrors lurking beneath them and the hole in the stars above. All the feeling the broken sky was to feel sword and axe twisted

I can see is a hole in the star Swallowing my dreams and making them scars Too far, too far away But I'll stay today

Thanks for listening. As we speak, we're knee-deep in final prep for our first-ever European tour starting October 1st in Dublin, Ireland. Our London and Antwerp dates are sold out, but we still got tickets for our other dates. You can see all those at dungeonsanddaddies.com slash live. Europeans, we cannot wait to sample your superior coffee and functional public transportation systems.

But most of all, we can't wait to see all of you. Dungeons and Daddies is Matt Arnold as Kelsey Grammer. Anthony Burch as Francis Farnsworth. Will Campos is our DM. Beth May is Trudy Trout. Myself, Freddie Wong as Tony Collette. Our theme song is A Hole in the Stars by Max and Waller. Brian Fernandez is our content producer. Ashley Nicolette is our community manager. Courtney Terry is our community coordinator. Cindy Denton is our merchandise manager. Esther Ellis is our lead editor. Travis Reeves provides additional editing. And Robin Rapp is our transcriber. The next big Patreon drop.

an hour-long tour documentary of our U.S. tour from earlier this year. It's a very funny doc shot by our friend Justin Yengelmo. We're doing the sound mix and the color and all the little final tweaks as we speak. It's one of my favorite things we've ever done. You're going to really like it. It's going to be good.

You get exclusive behind-the-scenes access to all of the tour shenanigans, and that's going to be available for all of our Patreon supporters at every level. How do you get on board with this? By going to a website, patreon.com slash dungeonsanddads. Every level of support gets this. There's a tour video from our previous tour on there as well, as well as ad-free episodes and hours of bonus audio and video content. By supporting us, you're supporting independent podcasts, and you'll join cool cats like Alejandro Sanchez, Christy Webb, Brando's Jowls, Jana Understoner, Geroid Lynch, Elaine Todd,

That Patreon again, patreon.com slash dungeonsanddads. Our merch and more on our website, dungeonsanddads.com. Live show tickets, dungeonsanddads.com slash live. And our next episode coming at you October 8th. We will see you then. I can see there's a hole in the stars.

Swallowing my dreams and making them scars Too far, too far, but I'll stay All that I can see on the stars Swallowing my dreams and making them scars Too far, too far, but I'll stay

Let's give him a noise print. Noise print. Should we get another noise print of just like Beth continually chewing? Oh, what now, Beth? Boom! I really, I could have made fun of Matt for needlessly saying noise print again. I could have, but I didn't. I just gave him a look and he decided to lash out at me.

He decided to lash out with me eating my croissant that he got me that I'm not going to pay for. Okay, where we last left off, all of you had learned the horrific secret of...

Who the fuck was that? Beth going back for more of her fucking croissants. And she made that back noise. Right as Will was going to tell us the secret. Next episode, the part of Beth May will be played by Elyse Willems. No! Don't ever threaten me with more talented and pretty and special. No, we just wouldn't notice the difference.