(The Unsleeping City music is here, folks)
- Hello, one and all, and welcome back
to another exciting episode
of "The Unsleeping City."
I'm your humble dungeon
master, Brennan Lee Mulligan.
With me as always are our intrepid heroes.
Say hi, intrepid heroes.
- [Intrepid Heroes] Hi, intrepid heroes.
- Oh, we love it.
Last we left off our
champions of New York City,
they were scattered around the city
bearing down on the final
piece of the puzzle,
the mystery of how to defeat
Null and its physical presence
in the waking world, Gladiator Industries.
Indeed, the entity from
beyond the Sixth Borough
in the deep Dreaming has
manifested in the world
through the machinations of
this massive conglomo-corp.
We see that our allies, after consulting
with their dear infinite friend Kugrash
found out the true nature of Null,
Null's relationship to Gladiator
and the foibles, regrets,
and heroic acts of sacrifice
made by the previous
Dragon of Bleecker Street
and the fact that they were
fighting a w*r on two fronts,
a physical w*r against
Gladiator Industries
in the Waking World and needing
to bring a dragon of New York back.
Realizing that they had already gotten far
on their way to bringing a
dragon of New York City back,
our champions had gathered
the three spirits of New York
as brought into trinity by Kugrash himself
who were created by the original
Dragon of Bleecker Street.
After conferring with the Shen family,
friends of Kingston
Brown down in Chinatown
who know all about that
good, good dragon lore
and were able to talk all
about what dragons need
as they are born and
growing, and also what to do,
like the nature of dragons
relying on their hoard.
The incomplete hoard, seven objects
that Kugrash said Null had destroyed,
but maybe not fully destroyed
because Kugrash was still
able to remember them.
So even though they were gone,
they were not erased from
all parts of the cosmos.
Our champions got Willy reanimated
by Kingston's ally and
friend Rabbi Mike Salter.
We had a contact with one
hacker named Maddie Park
who is apparently a hacker
that paid off Pete's debt
although not really,
Pete's debt was paid off
from a lot of hair dying done by Sofia Lee
who managed to turn a
lot of brunettes blond
against her own better judgment.
It's serving the greater--
- Staten Island is very
blond now. (laughs)
- Oh no, serving the greater good, g*ng.
Additionally, Cody and
Rick dive into sword lore,
unmade Thirsting Blade Dark
Excalibur Mega-Genesis.
Cody hawked Mega-Genesis and
Dark Excalibur to pay rent
and now has the Questing Blade.
Ricky still has his magic axe.
And the Peasant Sword was
given to Nick Lisowski
who is choosing to become a warlock
to carry on a different,
more mindful version
of his mother's tradition.
Our heroes of New York City
are still gathering resources
and preparing for this
inevitable showdown.
Pete and Sofia have just gotten
in touch with Maddie Park.
Let me ask Pete, would you make plans
to see Maddie immediately
and go talk to her?
- I think so, yeah.
- Cool.
So Pete, you make plans to go see Maddie.
We're actually gonna start
though with Sofia Lee.
Sofia, you have been
writing letters to Dale.
You were using your first
week of downtime for--
- Not writing letters to Dale.
I was writing letters about Dale.
All this talk of forgetting
history, it was like,
I need to write down everything
I can remember about him
so that the kid can know.
- You write extensive letters about Dale.
As you do so, you also, where
does Sofia go to her meetings?
'Cause your mom goes to the nearby church
which is the closest place
that an AA meeting happens,
but I'm not sure...
- I think probably just
somewhere convenient
on Staten Island 'cause
it's not like, you know,
it's pretty inconvenient
to get anywhere else.
And any excuse to not go to a meeting
you would probably take.
- Right.
- So she needs the one
that's on Staten Island.
(Ally chuckles)
- So she goes to the local one.
You end up sort of walking up the stairs.
You see there's like, you know,
Staten Island neighborhood.
You can see the bay.
There's some construction
going on next to the church.
You look up the steps.
You see your mom coming
down the steps out of mass
as you're headed up for the
door down to the basement.
- (laughs) Hello, Mother.
- She says, "Sofia!
You're here early for afternoon mass."
- Oh, no, no, no, I'm
here for meetings, Mom.
Do you know how I go to those meetings?
- "Right."
- And they help keep me on track.
- "No, I remember.
I'm just glad you're going to church.
Basement, pews, I'm glad you're in church.
That's all I'm gonna say."
(laughing)
She looks at you and you see
a sort of mothering look in her eye.
She's gonna roll an insight check.
(dramatic instrumental music)
- Can I roll a deception?
- You can roll a deception, yeah.
(die tapping table)
14.
- She rolled a natural two.
(laughs)
She looks and she says,
"Well, you look wonderful, sweetie.
"You look like, I don't know, glowing."
- Thank you.
- "You look lovely."
- I've been exercising.
That's why I've been away so much.
- "I'm glad you're
taking care of your body
because, honey, you've
got a lot of years left.
You got tons and tons of years
ahead of you so you know,
I'm glad you're taking care
of yourself, that's all.
Sweetheart, have a good
time at your meeting, okay?
- I will, I will.
I got some sandwiches and
there's some in the fridge.
- She smiles and says,
"Oh, good, I'm starving.
I'll go help myself."
She gives you a kiss, goes
back off to the apartment.
You go to your meeting,
you know, it's good.
You're putting in the work.
As you are walking out,
go ahead and make a
perception check for me.
(die taps table)
- 19.
- Yeah, I think Sofia walks up.
It's holiday time, Christmas
lights are going up.
You're looking at the stained glass here
in this old Catholic church.
See a lot of angel iconography
and quickly kind of excuse
yourself off to the street.
You see La Gran Gata sort of appears
in a shimmer around your shoulders.
La Gran Gata looks very somber and sad
and nuzzles into your
leopard-print sweater and says-
- Why, what's wrong, hi.
- She looks at you and says,
"My champion, Sofia Lee.
You are, I have seen you
writing these letters,
and I know that you have questions
that need to be answered.
I feel like we should go for a walk,
you and I perhaps, and seek answers.
You know, you must
always be prowling around
to find the secrets."
- Okay.
- "They are always in dark
corners, hidden places."
- Yeah, you know, usually its dogs
that need to go for a walk.
But yeah, I could take
you for a walk, hon.
- (meows and mimics cat
licking hand) Smiles, says,
"By the way, I love this
new leopard-print sweater."
- Thank you.
Pete got it for me.
- "Pete, he has picked very well.
This is an old leopard-print
sweater, it's very magical."
- What?
- And you see La Gran Gata
dips into the sweater.
Pete got this sweater for you,
and unbeknownst even to Pete
in a bout of wild magic, this is actually
a magic sweater of spell
storing that is on your person.
You can check your character sheet
for the powers after we're done
running this scene for you.
- What?
- (laughs) Oh!
- I wasn't gonna let such a sweet,
when Pete does something
sweet and magical,
real magic happens.
- (laughs) Aw.
- Hell, yeah.
- Wow.
- You see, you head out to the street.
Snow is flurrying around.
It's like a snowy day in New York
which means that it's very pretty
but also gray, gray, gray clouds.
You start walking past
the construction site.
You hear a catcall whistle
(whistling noise)
from the construction
site as you're walking by.
- I kick out their knees,
put 'em in a headlock.
(Brennan pounds fists and laughs)
- Sofia, you turn around
to find the guy who did it
who's a little ways away.
You see that there's
sort of this thicker dude
who sort of whistled.
You see there's another
dude, like Carhartt jacket,
flannel, he's got the hat on.
You see see he's by a buzzsaw
cutting some two-by-fours.
Looks like a handsome
mid-thirties Middle Eastern guy
who looks over at this dude and is like,
"Dude, that's not you,
man, that's not you."
And you watch the guy who whistled at you
look so f*cking ashamed
and look at you and say,
"Ma'am, I'm very sorry."
No, honestly, the fact
that you called him out,
it means more than if I had called him out
so thank you for that.
- You see that the ashamed-faced
guy sort of walks away.
The other dude walks over to you and says,
"Hey, ma'am, I'm so sorry.
You're literally walking out of church.
He doesn't know what he's doing.
He's a confused guy.
He is better than that, I'm sorry."
- It's absolutely fine.
You know, I call it out
but I don't hold a grudge.
- "Well, in any case, happy holidays."
You see he looks at you
just sort of in this sweater
and he's like, "Are you not cold at all?"
- Oh, no, I run hot, yeah.
Are you cold?
Happy holidays to you as well, I'm sorry.
- "No, it's all right."
You see he looks and says,
"If you want this jacket,
I'm working hard over here,
I'm building up a sweat,
so if you want it you can have it."
- Can I do some kind of insight?
- Yeah, give me an insight check.
(soft instrumental music)
(die taps table)
- 19, is this like a magical jacket
or is this just a nice person being nice?
- I think you get a sense
that it's a nice person
being nice, but I also don't
think you would rule out magic.
There's some kind of Unsleeping
City vibe on this person.
- Do I get the sense that
it would make them feel good
if I took the jacket?
- Yeah, you do.
- Okay, actually, you know what,
I was putting on a brave face.
That would be amazing.
- "I thought so."
- Yeah.
- "I thought you looked kind of cold."
- Thank you so much.
- Takes this Carhartt
off, wraps it around you.
He goes, "Uh, got any
plans for Christmas?"
- Um, I uh, no, no.
I'm sure I'll do something with my mother
for as long as I have to.
I'll probably attend church with her
and then, I don't know, I'll probably see
if any of my friends are around,
although they all have families.
- "Gotcha, are you, so I take it
'cause you're gonna be with your mom
that you're single at the moment?"
- Okay. (chuckles)
This is incredibly flattering,
but I am not in a dating place.
- "Oh," he says--
- Thank you though.
You know, it's very flattering
to be seen in that way.
- "I don't want to give
you the impression.
Obviously, hey, whatever
guy would be lucky,
but I'm not looking to date
anybody right now either."
- Oh.
- "So I was just asking
because it's, you know, I
feel like we should all feel
like we're one big family
during the holidays."
- Yeah, I have a, yeah.
I mean, do you have people
to spend the holidays with, I hope?
- "I try to spend the holiday
with as many people as I can,
but you know, that gets hard sometimes.
But I don't know, it breaks my heart
that this can be a hard
time of year for people."
- No, I'm absolutely with you.
I agree, and if anything, you know,
you made my day a little
better so I'm gonna take that
and try and make someone
else's day a little better.
And hey, just in case you were
reaching out to me as like,
oh, you're looking to make
friends, here's my phone number.
But not in that way though
because I am a widow
who is comfortable being
that for the time being.
- He looks at you and goes,
"Oh my God, I'm so sorry for your loss.
(soft instrumental music)
What was your spouse's name?"
- My husband was Dale Lee.
- "I'm so, so sorry.
If I can ask, how many years
has it been since Dale passed?"
- It's been probably almost three.
- "Those wounds stay sharp and
painful for a long, long time
and especially around a
time of year like this.
That's gotta be really, really hard."
- Yeah, but I am not the
only person in the world
to deal with that so, you know,
I think if the wounds stay
open forever that's okay.
People learn to live with
lots of different wounds.
- He sort of opens his eyes and he's like,
"Yeah, no kidding, that's the truth.
Yeah, we all have our own cross to bear.
We all have our own pain in our own way,
but you have to forgive me, I mean."
You see he points to the church
next to him and just says,
"I know for a fact
that there is love coming to you from him.
I know there is.
I'm sorry if that's forward,
but sometimes we need
to remind each other that
that never goes away.
- Okay, yeah.
(peaceful instrumental music)
Thanks for checking in on me.
- "You got it."
- I wish I could check in on you, too.
- You see he smiles and says,
"I appreciate that, yeah.
Come and check in on me
sometime, I'll be around.
I got tons of stuff, I got
a bunch of carpentry stuff
I gotta handle, so you're all good."
- Cool.
- "Have a wonderful day.
And hey, it's Christmastime,
miracles can happen."
And he smiles and goes back to work.
And I think that's the end of that.
You can give me one last
perception check if you want.
- (sighs) 26.
- That's very good.
You're walking away for a moment.
You clock his hammer in his belt loop,
like a lot of professional
union carpenters
has his initials on the top.
You're like a block and a half away.
The initials on the hammer were J.C.
(players chortling)
- Jesus f*cking Christ.
(all laughing loudly)
Really?
Oh my f*cking God.
- Wild, wild.
- Oh, my mother would have
loved to have met you.
- Yeah, I think Sofia is
reasonably stunned in this moment.
You've met a lot of divine
beings before and a lot of,
but this was a wild one.
And I think you flash to Kingston
and think about a conversation
you've been putting off
having with Kingston for a while.
- Oh, Jesus. (groans)
Yeah, I guess I probably, it's been,
it's just, Kingston's really busy
and it feels more selfish and not direct
to everything that's going on.
So I guess I'll just text
Kingston and just say,
um, hey, would love to
grab coffee at some point.
- Yeah.
- When your schedule permits.
We're all really busy though.
Sorry, I'm super high
from all the chemicals
I've been putting in women's hair.
- Yeah, I think Kingston
texts back, okay, H-A-H-A-H-A.
(players laughing)
Would love to grab coffee.
Sorry, sorry, Gladiator's
got me all out of sorts.
But yeah, would be great to talk.
- As it should, yeah.
- Cool, Kingston, you are coming
back at a sort of odd time.
You've been running around
the city with this egg.
And you come back--
(laughing)
- Me and this egg, just
getting around town.
- Getting around--
- It's the buddy comedy of the year.
- Buddy comedy of the year, exactly.
- "Kingston and The Egg"
- It also does sound like
a shop in Williamsburg.
- Kingston and the egg.
- Hey, I'm going to Kingston
and the egg, they sell
really nice candles.
They're $800 each.
(laughing)
- Kingston, you arrive home
at a kind of strange time
with this dragon's egg.
As you arrive home with the egg
you open your apartment door.
Go ahead and make a
perception check for me.
- (chuckles) Happy to.
Oh, nat one.
(device powering down)
- Cool, you walk upstairs and
see a lot of forms and stuff
sort of around Liz's work area.
And I think Kingston,
on a one perception you
don't notice any noises
from anywhere else, but Liz
should be home right now
and you know that she's not.
- Well, I'll text Liz and
just be like, hey, rough day.
They got Willy.
He's okay now, but would love
to talk to you about him.
- You see Liz shows up not that long after
like she was downstairs
at your mom and dad's.
She comes back upstairs.
Give me an insight check.
- Oh, here we go again.
(die taps table)
Yeah, that'll be a 29.
- Liz quickly moves a lot
of papers off her desk
into a file cabinet in a way
that's just a little bit speedy to you
like she's just putting
something away really quickly.
And she says, "Kingston,
hi, what's going on."
Yeah, I just wanna,
it's just been so much.
Is everything all right
at work, everything good?
- You see that she--
- You seem like you were going through it.
- "Yeah, I'm okay, you know.
It's a busy time.
But I don't want to stress
you out with anything.
I know you are doing-
- No, no, no, no, no, no.
What's going on, what's going on?
- "Oh..."
She doesn't attempt to lie to you.
She opens the desk and
takes the papers out.
She goes, "Um, I didn't
want to talk to you
because I was pretty sure the answer
was gonna be no and it was."
- No, hey, hey now, all right.
That's not how things
work in this house, right?
Nothing is certain until
you say it out loud
and we discuss it so please,
let me know what's going on, Liz.
- She defeatedly sort of
flops some papers over to you.
(gentle piano music)
And you see a number of
form letter responses
from three different adoption agencies
(Lou chuckles)
that basically de facto rule out
even sending someone to come
and look at your apartment.
Just like, two full-time professionals,
a legal professional and
a medical professional,
no prior child-raising experience,
both in their late 50s.
And Liz looks
and just sort of goes like, "I'm sorry.
I didn't even want to bring it up to you."
- No, no, no-
- "'Cause it's nothing.
This is nothing."
- Hey, hey.
I bring Liz in, just big hug,
big, intimate, quiet hug.
- "It's probably for the best,
we're busy and, you know,
what, are we gonna be 70 years
old with a kid in college?
And it's crazy, I just thought, you know,
there was like Thanksgiving
with your mother and father.
And I like, I just thought it was like,
you just get a wild idea
and you chase something
down a rabbit hole for a second."
- Yeah.
- "And you shouldn't get
your hopes up and I..."
- Mm-hmm, hey, it's all,
hey, I've been there.
You know, I've been there
quietly with myself 1.000 times
wondering what it would be
like to be a 70-year-old dad,
what, moving my kid into college.
I mean, it feels like that, but I mean,
it's an honest and it's a real feeling.
And I wish and I hope I didn't do anything
to make you think you
couldn't bring that to me.
'Cause I don't know,
it's a feeling I've had
and maybe should have brought to you.
But you know, this feels just kismet
in terms of a time to
mention something like this.
But I've been running around
town with this giant egg.
(all laughing)
I just produce the egg.
- "Oh."
- Yeah, so...
- (laughs) Oh.
- "Congrats on your egg, is it-
- It's congratulations
to you as well, possibly,
if you're interested 'cause
this is a dragon's egg.
And I, it's gonna hatch
and someone's gonna have to
take care of it and raise it.
I was down with the Shen family.
You know the Shen family
down in Chinatown.
- "Yeah."
- Got the big, it opens up
and it's like everyone flies there--
- "Sorry, hold on."
- Yeah, anyway, so I--
- "You said raise a dragon's egg?"
- Yeah, anyway, you know,
have you had green tea?
I'ma get some green tea for us.
I brought these green teas from China.
You have to have a green tea.
- "Is there a little floating
cloud in our kitchen?
What is that?"
- Yes, and it's filled with green tea.
But yeah, I did say raise this
dragon and I know it's not a-
- "What do you mean, raise a dragon?
Like a dungeon dragon like it's gonna-
- No, no, it's not.
It's more a spirit than a monster.
It's not so much like a gnashing teeth,
breathing fire sort of thing.
It's kind of like the dragon
that kind of brought me
into The Unsleeping City and
kind of took care of the city
and held on to its history and its past
and its culture and treasured that.
And I don't know if you're open to it.
I know that I am.
I don't know, some of the
other champions kinda suggested
the idea that we kind of raise
and foster this spirit of the city.
(Brennan and Ally snickering)
I'm wondering if you, it's not a child.
Like, we won't get to move
the dragon into college.
Like, that's not gonna happen at all.
But I mean, the dragon's also gonna live
for hundreds of years,
like, long past when we.
So I don't know, it's a lot, it's a lot.
I'm saying a lot of things
and I'm putting a lot on you right now.
And if you want to take some
space and think about it
and we could talk later.
But I really want this, I
really want this really badly.
And I care about this
egg so much so quickly.
I don't know.
But I love you and I want you.
And I feel like I've been
talking for two minutes straight
and I'm just gonna drink
green tea and you talk
and we'll just go from there.
We just go from there.
I'ma drink this, I'ma
put green tea in my body
and you just talk and you feel the space
that I'm feeling with my,
what is clearly anxiety over
(sighs) that you might not want
to raise this dragon with me
in which case I would have
to (sighs) I don't know.
I guess Iga could raise the dragon
if you don't want to raise the
dragon, that's perfectly fine
so if you say no there's options.
So there's room for you to say no.
I just want to say that.
Like, it's not gonna be like that if you,
oh, I was gonna drink some green tea.
All right, where's that green tea?
All right, and now you talk.
(Ally stifling giggles)
- She is massaging her temples and goes.
(Ally laughing)
- Okay, I can keep talking if you want me.
- "No."
- Okay.
- "No, no, no, no, no, no, that's enough."
- Okay, great, that's what it felt like.
It felt like that was enough.
(soft mystical music)
- "Do I have to hatch the egg?"
- No, absolutely not.
I don't think you biologically
have to do anything.
- "Okay."
- Other that, like,
it would just be like,
it would honestly be
like we get to skip that
part, like the nine month
and we get to skip that.
I mean, I do have to bring together a rat,
or excuse me, a c*ck,
a unicorn, and a pigeon
and that's, I guess, kind
of the birthing process.
But you don't have to be
there for any of that.
And I don't think it's
like a duck or anything
where like the first thing it
sees so you need to be there.
So I think like, you can 100% come in
later down the road on your timeline.
- "Huh, okay.
(Ally giggling)
Um..."
- You can say no.
I just want to make it clear.
Like, you don't have to be in.
- "I think, Kingston,
you're giving me anxiety
with your anxiety."
- Sorry, I'm sorry.
- "I'm trying to catch
up to where you've been
over a couple days, just
in like a minute or two."
- Yep, yeah, I know.
- "So this dragon, does it,
it looks like a dragon?"
- I don't know, they can shapeshift.
I learned that the other day.
I was hanging out with a dragon
that was just like a straight-up
kind of Eastern European
woman that became a dragon
then went back to being
an Eastern European woman
then went back to being a dragon
and has kind of been
in dragon state since,
but it seems like there's flexibility.
- "Okay.
So listen, a lot of conversations."
- Yes.
- "You know, I personally,
okay, I think the only hurdles
would be like a birth certificate.
Like, you have to get a
Social Security number.
You have to get...
Yes, yeah, yes, I'm in, I'm in.
I will raise a dragon with you."
- Okay. (exhales softly)
Okay, yeah.
We're gonna do it, we're
gonna raise a dragon
I think Kingston is maybe the happiest
he's ever been in his whole life
as he realizes he's going
to get to raise a dragon
with the love of his life.
(Brennan and Emily laughing)
- Incredible.
- Yeah, that's the best news.
That's the best news I've ever heard.
And I'm gonna kiss you right now.
I'ma kiss you right now right on the mouth
to show you how much I love you.
- [Brennan] You both-
- And then maybe we can lay together.
- You both kiss, go to bed that night.
- We lay together,
Brennan, we lay together.
- You lay together in the biblical sense.
You lay together in the biblical sense.
- Then maybe we could
lay together. (laughs)
- In the biblical sense you lay together.
- Wow.
- And that night,
and this is sort of the end
of that first week basically.
Pete, you have plans to meet
with Maddie the next day.
But in your dreams,
in your dreams you awaken
in the Sixth Borough again.
(stirring piano music)
But are hidden away
from the sort of cosmos
in some sort of rubble
and stuff like that.
And I think you feel something
glowing in your own heart.
(Brennan mimics heart beating)
- Okay, I kind of go inward
to see what maybe that feels like.
- You go inward as Vox Phantasma
and (mimics reverberations)
begin to travel through
your own consciousness
and go into the Sixth
Borough within yourself.
You walk through the
hallways of your own heart
and you can see the city pumping in time
to your own heartbeat, and there's a tiny,
little oil drum fire.
And standing on a milk crate
wearing their little gray dress is Nod.
Nod has a big black eye, is
missing a couple of teeth,
but in that sort of rascally,
like almost like a cartoon of an orphan.
Like, black eye, teeth,
little sort of cold compress
on their head, arm in a
sling and is by the fire
and waves over at you,
Pete, as you approach them.
- Nod, what happened?
- "Pete, Pete!"
- What happened to you?
- "Oh, I'm still mostly gone.
This is the tiny, little part of me
that I gave to you to
make you the Vox Phantasma
so this is the only part of me
that still exists, in your heart!"
- I grab them and I sprint to my spleen.
- (laughs) Cool.
- And I hide them there?
I don't know.
- Cool.
You hide them even deeper in your body.
- Heart is too obvious.
I'm just running through my organs.
- You see Nod goes, "Oh,
this is a good idea, Pete.
I'll hide even deeper
in here, that's great."
You go and hide Nod in
your f*cking spleen.
And as Nod looks up and
you and says, "Good.
I'm kind of like a hologram.
Like, if you cut a little piece of me off,
it's still the whole me,
it's just itty bitty.
Oh, I wanted to give you something.
Kingston is the first Vox Populi
that's ever healed
something in the dreaming
so I wanted to give you this."
And Nod takes a pure, golden dream.
It is a contradiction.
It is a dream made of the
magic of the waking world.
And goes and hands it to you and says,
"I should stay hidden, but if you want
to bring this to Kingston, you can."
- What does this look like?
What would he do with this?
- "It's his dream!"
- It's his dream, like,
that he already had?
- "Yes."
- Or it's a dream that he could have?
- "No, it's his dream that he already had
that I was holding onto."
- Okay.
- "But I think he should have
it now, I think it's ready."
- Okay.
(soft instrumental music)
Okay, thank you.
What, are you gone?
Like, did you get destroyed?
- "Mostly, if you die, then
I'm permanently destroyed,
but as long as you're alive I'm okay."
- Great, great.
- "When you pick a Vox Phantasma,
you get weaker because
a fraction of yourself
is in the Vox Phantasma,
but it's honestly a pretty good idea
because I'm still alive
because you're still alive
so clearly it's not a bad thing to do.
But yeah, it would be great
to get the rest of me back.
So if you could defeat Null,
that would be awesome!"
- (laughs) Yeah, definitely.
We're working on that right now.
Okay, okay.
Do you have any idea,
is there something that you want me to do
when I wake up tomorrow
in the real world or?
- You see they look at you and say,
"I think you've got it in the real world.
Because I'm not there in person,
I just can't bring this to
Kingston or to Liz myself
so I thought if you could do it
because I can't really run
the Sixth Borough right now,
that would be awesome."
- What is it?
What's in the dream, or is that like-
- Pete, you can look right
at it if you want to.
- I mean, that feels like
reading someone's diary.
(Brennan sputters)
(Lou laughing)
God damn it.
I want to look so bad.
Just know that, but I'm not going to.
- (laughs) Incredible.
- If he wants to share this
with me when I drop it off
we could watch it together like a movie.
I mean, I think that sounds pretty cute.
My popcorn recipe is
perfected at this point.
(Siobhan and Emily laughing)
- Pete, you perform your
role as the Vox Phantasma.
You shift through dreaming space
away from the vision of Null
where Null cannot see you.
And you find the apartment
of Kingston and Liz
and deposit the dream therein.
You've never seen Kingston dream before,
but you deposit this dream
direct from Nod there.
(warm piano music)
Though Kingston and Liz cannot see it,
asleep in their bed with
the dragon's egg beside them
a form from the dream realm manifests
within the dragon's egg of New York.
And it's a dream of the child
that Liz and Kingston would have.
And that form, the spirit of the egg,
the first thing it fully becomes
is that dream of Kingston and Liz.
And Kingston, you dream of
you and Liz and a human child.
- It's the best sleep I've gotten
in my entire time as the Vox Populi.
- Whoa.
- Amazing.
Ricky, we're gonna cut
over you to real quick.
It's the next day, it's getting in
to the early to mid-December.
You come back home after
working at Helping Hands
and see that Patricia
and Gabriela are here.
And they're helping around.
You see Patricia comes over and says,
"Oh, Ricky, so good to see you, darling."
- Good to see you.
How's everyone doing?
What's going on?
- Esther has some
Christmas decorations down.
She has her mom and
grandma over to decorate
for Christmas stuff and
you see that her grandma
is clearly hectoring
her and Esther's like,
"Fine, I accept, I accept.
Whatever you think is best."
And you see that Esther is wrapping up
her silver baseball bat
and putting in a box
to put up in the attic.
You see that she puts it down.
- Wrapping it up, like?
Oh, like not in a present, like it's like-
- Not in a present way, like
in a putting it away way.
Yeah, you see that
Esther puts the bat away,
looks over at you and says,
"Hon, can you help me out?
I'm having a, I'm just in a
spell that's being indecisive.
I feel like a staff, a
full staff is unwieldy,
but I don't want, like, a wand
just for aesthetic reasons.
A ring might be cool."
And you see Patricia says, "Not a ring.
It should be a staff,
a scepter, or a wand!"
- Wait, so what's wrong with the?
I thought the bat was kinda cool. (laughs)
- Gabriela looks over and says,
"Oh Ricky, you're so
sweet, the bat is fine."
And you see Esther says,
"The bat is cool and I love the bat."
Gabriela looks at you, Ricky, says,
"Esther was, while the
curse still existed,
going to become the Fury of Sorrow.
We are furies no more, however,
having the Staff of Sorrow
or the Scepter of Sorrow."
And you see Esther says,
"Or the ring of sorrow."
And you see she says, "Not a ring!"
Esther says, "Basically
my mom and my grandma
are super powerful witches.
They want to make me an
official staff or a scepter
that while nowhere near
as cool as my baseball bat
will have actual for real magic powers
and cool stuff associated with it, so."
- Oh.
- "And, you know,
the bat's very cool, but also,
you know, I'm the chairwoman.
Maybe something with a little
bit more pomp, I don't know."
And you see that Patricia
says, "Pomp is right.
You should command respect.
How can you command respect
with a baseball bat,
look like you're heading to practice."
(Lou and Zac laughing)
You see that Esther
sort of rolls her eyes.
She looks up at you and goes,
"How are things going
with the other champions,
Voxes, everybody, Sofia, things are good?"
- You know, there's
kind of a lot going on.
I think, you know, maybe we
could have a little chat,
you know, about that later.
I don't know if it's a whole, you know,
everyone's business or whatever.
Sorry, I didn't mean
that in any sort of...
- You see Gabriela raises an eyebrow
and looks at Patricia and says,
"Mom, I think we're being asked to leave."
- No, I didn't mean that in any way.
You can stay forever, I
want you to know that.
- Esther says, "No you can't,
no you cannot, no you can't."
- Okay, all right.
(Ally laughing)
- You see that-
- For what it's worth, I
think, I mean, of those options
I think a staff is kind of cool,
but I don't know, kind of a bat fan, yeah.
- You see that Patricia goes,
"We love a young man with
sense, that's what we love."
And Esther says, "Fine,
Grandma, a staff is wonderful.
I will take a staff."
And you see Patricia and
Gabriela say goodbye.
They head out, Esther smiles,
gives you a hug and a kiss.
Says, "Yeah, things are going great.
We are planning the
retreat for the expedition,
still conning those monks, all's well.
Tony is such a dummy.
He's bought it hook, line, and sinker.
He's got like a detail
of wizards helping him
in the monastery that are looking
at all the scrolls that he's pulling.
Things are going wonderful.
How are you?"
- Great. (laughs)
- You see she says,
"How are things going
with you, sweetheart?
I notice you have a fireman's axe again."
- Yeah, oh yeah, we haven't
even talked since then?
Wow.
So yeah, I think Ricky just explains
the dreaming world fight and
how he didn't take the sword.
And you know, like, feels
like a longer story,
but you know, at the end of the day, like,
between like an insane sword
or just a tool I'm used to,
I kind of went with, I
decided to go with the axe.
But yeah, and, you know,
other stuff is going on
that I feel like maybe you
should just chat with Sofia.
I feel like it's, I don't know if Ricky
feels comfortable just
telling someone else that,
even if it's his partner
that she's pregnant
just because they're close
friends it feels like--
- Yeah, she says, "Yeah,
I'll go talk to Sofia.
That sounds wonderful."
- We also have a dragon
egg, there's a lot.
- "That's incredible."
- Yeah.
- She looks and goes,
"Yeah, that's incredible.
Yeah sweet pea, I know you're having a,
you know, you're like,
the legacy of Kugrash.
And I know that you're struggling with
that you don't want to be a rat druid,
and I don't think you have to be that."
- It would be cool,
but it's not, you know,
I would be lying if I said,
number one dream is a rat druid.
- She says, "I know you're
looking for something, sweetie.
You're gonna find it."
She kisses you, heads out.
I think Rick, give me a
perception check, Ricky.
- Ooh.
(die taps table)
Natural 20.
(players cheering)
- Rick, you head for a walk
and you are down by the water
and you spot a fire
truck kind of rolling by
and see the Johns, and the
Johns slow the fire truck down
and they go, "Oh, it's Ricky Matsui!"
- John, John, John.
- So many fires untended to.
- Big, big, big hugs all around.
You see one of them looks at you and goes,
"Whoa, dude, you got an axe?
Are you with another truck right now?"
- I'm uh, Ricky's realizing
it's a little crazy
to just walk around with an axe I guess.
You know what, I'm not
with a truck right now.
I happened to find this
bad boy somewhere weird
and thought I should hang on to it,
but you know what, I feel like
y'all should hang on to it.
- "Whoa, dude."
- I think it's like-
- "You just want to give
us an axe you found?"
- It's a pretty sick fireman's axe
and I think, well, I
can't be that guy, right?
I can't be the guy walking
around town with an axe.
You know, that feels intense.
- The Johns look, take
your magic firefighter axe
and head back out.
- Bye. (chuckles)
- And I think Ricky, on that
nat 20, you're looking around
and I think you had your sorrowful goodbye
with the Questing Blade.
I think Ricky does feel
free without the axe,
that that was the right
choice to get rid of that
and now you're at the
crossroad of all of crossroads.
You feel totally unencumbered
but are also like,
so much of your meaning
has come from things
that other people imparted to you.
Kugrash's legacy, his three
spirits, the Hall of Heroes,
being chosen by the Questing Blade.
I think on a nat 20 Ricky
is feeling a little bit
(soft instrumental music)
rootless and a little bit like, empty.
And I think you feel
something moving within you
with that feeling of directionlessness
that a lot of other people
in the city are feeling right now.
- Can I use Divine Sense?
I feel like, I'm scared this
is anti-Populi kind of territory.
- Yeah, I think that-
- I don't know if that's exactly right.
- You do Divine Sense
and you get back a little bit of static.
I think that it's not lethal,
but I think Ricky has this
moment of looking around
and being like, there go my old friends
with an axe that doesn't belong to me.
The Questing Blade is
in someone else's hands.
The most helpful thing that I've done
is uphold Kugrash's memory.
And I think you look
in your heart for like,
what is uniquely Ricky Matsui's
and you don't come up with an answer.
And that little hole feels not great.
And I think that it's a
moment of you recognize
you're feeling a fraction
of what you saw JJ feeling
that night that you spent time with him.
- Maybe he'll go to the Occult Society
and try to talk to JJ.
- Hell yeah.
You go to find JJ.
We're gonna cut from that over to,
I'm gonna say, 'cause Pete's
going to talk to Maddie.
Cody and Iga, at the
beginning of the next week
is there anything you
guys are gonna begin to do
for that next chunk of downtime?
Bearing in mind also that
there's still all this stuff
about these totems that are missing.
I know, Iga, you had begun to
make checks against Gladiator
but for Cody and Iga, what
are you guys up to that day?
This is like the first Monday in December.
- Well, first of all Saint Nicholas's Day
which is December 6th
is very big in Poland.
So I don't think that they do
like a full Saint Nicholas's Day
because the kids want to do
presents on Christmas Day
like they're American,
but it's definitely like,
they put their shoes out.
And you know, they're teenagers now,
but they put their shoes out.
She leaves them some little gifts there.
Like, that's an important thing for her.
As much of anything it's like,
a thing that was joyful from her childhood
that she likes to pass on.
- Yes.
You have a wonderful Saint Nicholas's Day.
Nick and Jess are getting along better
than you've ever seen
them get along before.
And I think Smoczmatka, one of the times
that you're in the chest remarks and says,
"Iga, you have done truly
well with these two.
You should be very, very proud."
Thank you, they're good kids, you know?
I mean, even though they're teenagers,
I mean, I haven't had any of
the problems of teenagers.
They're just good.
I like them pushing
against me a little bit.
It's cute, you know?
It just means they're growing up.
- Smoczmatka smiles and nods and says,
"Strong to stay that,
and it is true and good."
Your friendship with
the dragon in the chest
continues to blossom as
its magical realm expands.
- One of the things I also was
gonna pitch to Cody was like,
maybe weirdly we can
investigate them all together
'cause I have a lot of stuff that is about
getting into places that I
shouldn't be able to get into.
- I am awesome at that.
- Cody, you got all your new dope gear
from selling those magic swords.
- Yeah.
- Yeah, if you guys want to give me
a little investigation check
on the mall, go for it.
Unless there's other stuff
that Cody wanted to get up to.
- Yeah, I think just like
continuing to learn about stuff
so he's not just like a mindless consumer.
And then I think he's also
always kind of looking for a crusade.
So I think he's specifically
looking for local places
that are being taken over by Gladiator
so that he can throw Big Gulps at people
and like, just like still being a-
- Or no locally-produced Big Gulps.
You know, you're still
buying the Big Gulps and-
- Yeah, that's true, he's
like, f*ck, a Big Gulp!
He throws the Big Gulp in the 7-Eleven.
- Go to a local bodega, buy
a frozen drink from them.
Why are you going to a
7-Eleven buying them?
- Right.
- Oh my gosh.
- Iga and Cody, give me
investigation checks.
- Sweet.
- Great.
I'm gonna Disguise Self myself
as somebody who works for Gladiator.
- Hell yeah.
- Whoa.
- And I'm gonna use a luck
point to re-roll that seven.
- (sighs) Come on.
(die tapping table)
13.
- [Brennan] 13, cool.
- 16.
- 16.
You guys go to Gladiator.
With that 16, Iga, you don't.
First of all, Cody, you find an old piece
of the Fairyland Amusement
Park that used to be here.
It's like, the backhoes dug it up
from back when they built the mall.
And you just see a little chunk
of the sign that says Fairyland on that 13
of this old amusement
park that used to be here.
Iga, you find some equipment,
disguised as you as a Gladiator employee.
You also see here the mall-
- Oh, I can actually
disguise both of us as
Gladiator employees.
- Cool, cool.
- I forgot.
I have Seeming, so I can use Seeming.
- Cody just keeps punching
himself in the leg.
f*cking Gladiator employee. (grunts)
- Iga, first of all,
there's an entire floor here
of Sparties, those delivery drones.
And you find another piece of equipment.
It's on the back of the
truck, it's enormous.
You could potentially
break a piece off of it
or you could just take a picture of it
because it looks like
it has some familiarity
to the readout that JJ had.
- Okay.
- When you guys were at the
Metropolitan Museum of Memories.
- Great, I would like to
cast Remote Access on it.
- (mimics magical reverberations)
You see it starts moving.
You access it.
(suspenseful music)
New York Minutes are
going into this machine
as you turn it on and being flattened
and destroyed to compress time.
As you turn it on, it very
quickly f*ck up and breaks
because it's not perfectly made.
Like, you can tell from turning it on
and how poorly it works
when you turn it on
that this is a prototype.
It's like something they
built to do this scary thing
that they haven't built
a working version of yet.
(suspenseful instrumental music)
- Can I Remote Access
also one of these droids?
- Sure. (mimics device powering up)
"Hi, I'm Sparty.
I'm here to give you everything you need."
- Can I sort of use this spell
to do an investigation check
to see if there's anything
other than delivery
that it's programmed to do?
- Yeah, give me an investigation check.
- How good is this 45-year-old
woman at technology?
A 10.
Where does the button, Cody,
which is the button for the thing?
- Um, I only know how to break stuff,
if you want me to like
kick it or something
'cause this thing f*cking sucks.
- Yes, maybe. (laughs)
- You f*ck around with it.
You don't see like a
k*ll people switch on it.
It just looks like a
drone that walks around
and delivers packages, but
you do have the knowledge
of that scary-a*s machine.
- Okay.
- We're gonna move to-
- And I guess I'll also
take that Fairyland sign.
- Cool, yeah, go ahead and
throw that in your inventory.
- A little piece of it, great.
- A whole sign?
Oh, it's a piece of a sign.
- Yeah, it's a piece of a sign.
- It is a lovely morning
in a coffee shop in Harlem.
Kingston, you've just had
the best sleep of your life,
kissed Liz off on her way to
work, has this beautiful dream.
The egg when you woke up
feels now warm to the touch.
Life is good.
You are getting coffee with Sofia Lee.
Sofia, La Gran Gata again
appears around your shoulders,
smiling again, and you
walk by a bodega here.
La Gran Gata moves into it,
goes and helps Cosmo out
on Kingston's corner.
But yeah, you meet up
with Kingston for coffee.
- Hi, Kingston.
- Hey, what's up, Sofie?
- How are you?
- I'm good.
I think, uh-
- Yeah?
- Yeah, it's been, I don't
know, this Gladiator sh*t
is heavy, is heavy.
- I know, I know.
(chill instrumental music)
- But I don't know.
I really think we got this, I really do.
- I think we do, too.
- Yeah.
- I've been setting myself straight.
We're gonna knock this out of the park.
- Hell yes.
- I feel good about it.
How about you?
I mean, you've had a,
between the monastery
and congratulations again on the baby
and everything that's going on.
I mean, you're going through it right now.
I'm sorry if I haven't, you
know, I've been all over.
- No, as you should be.
- But you're important.
- As you should be.
You are so much to so many people.
And I'm honestly glad to see you
taking a little time for yourself.
- Thank you, I appreciate that.
But you wanted to talk about something.
- Yeah, after I say that
I'm immediately coming
to ask you for a favor.
- Right, that's what I do.
I mean, hey, if there's
something I can do to help you,
you let me know.
- Okay.
Okay, it's gonna be kinda hard
for me to talk about, okay?
- That's perfectly fine.
- Okay.
As you know, I'm with Dale's child.
- God, yes.
- And the thing is, I
haven't told him yet,
and I do have to tell him.
The thing I'm holding
out on is, I, you know.
(sighs) Dale really wanted a kid,
and I'm not trying to make his transition
into a new life any harder, you know?
And I just feel like if
I just went up and said,
hey, I'm pregnant, it would be kind of
like just another thing
he was missing out on.
- Yeah.
- So I was kinda wondering,
I guess I just, do you
know anything about,
you know, 'cause like,
did you know anything
about anyone who's able to like,
like in the monastery there's some texts
that refer to someone coming
back to their old body
after a really long time, you know?
- [Lou] Mm-hmm.
- And like, you know,
they don't really say
that much more about
it, but I was wondering
if there's any way for
a person to come back
after a really long time?
I know that's a crazy thing.
- It's not crazy.
- And you know-
- It's not crazy.
- It's just like a little dream
I've been trying to keep in my heart
without letting it turn into
a need, but at this point now
I feel like I need to at least
address it before I tell him
'cause if there's any opportunity
then I go to him and say,
I'm working on this, instead of just,
I'm having your baby and
you're not here for it.
- Yeah.
Hey, it's not crazy.
I mean, yeah, you're with his child.
I mean, of course your head goes here
and is asking these questions.
Hmm, I mean, the answer is
that is nearly impossible,
but it is not wholly impossible.
- Okay.
(soft instrumental music)
- There's a chance it could happen,
but I mean, you just,
I guess the one thing
I would want you to know is that like,
the weight of asking
for something like that.
'Cause you know my powers
come from the city, you know?
And so it would be me
putting on New York to,
if I were to do this, if it were on me
it would be me asking New
York to make this happen.
And that would be something
the city would decide.
And you know, the truth is,
if they said no it's no.
But I don't know, that's
just the way it will go.
Is it possible?
Maybe, but it's a huge ask.
But I mean, if that's something
you would be interested in.
And fully, the one thing
I ask is if you want,
if this is going to go here
that you really take into
account what we're asking for
'cause it really is heavy.
But I love you so if you
want me to ask, I will.
(soft instrumental music)
- I don't think this is a
decision I can make so...
- Of course.
- Maybe I'll just,
maybe I'll just talk to Dale.
- [Lou] Yeah.
- And maybe he can make the decision
because it's, you know, yeah.
(sobs softly) I appreciate your honesty.
- Of course.
And I hope you know that as busy as I am,
I'm always here if you need me.
- I know, it's just,
(sniffles softly), you know,
it's easier to be there for someone
than to ask someone to be there for you.
- I understand.
- Anyways, I mean, tell me
about everything going on in your life.
(Lou and Brennan laughing)
Honestly, it'd be a favor for me
if you talked about yourself
right now for a little bit.
(Brennan laughing)
- Yeah, I don't know.
I guess it's weird we're
both expecting parents now.
- I know.
- I guess me and this dragon,
I talked to Liz about it last night.
She's pro-dragon, she's on board.
- Wow.
- So I guess we're gonna-
- I mean, it's kind of fun to be expecting
at the same time, right?
- I mean, right?
Hey, we'll be able to exchange
tips and I mean maybe-
- Yeah, babysit for each other.
A dragon and an angel.
- Oh, 100%.
- I mean, that's adorable best friends.
- I mean, best friends,
(laughs) a match made in Heaven.
Your angel child, my dragon child.
(group laughing)
- As Sofia and Kingston laugh together
about the bizarre unfoldings
of The Unsleeping City,
Pete, you meet up at
Neptune Diner in Astoria.
Waiting for you in a booth is,
you walk in and immediately see
one of the most beautiful people
you've ever seen in your life.
- Great. (laughs)
- She has vibrant
multicolored hair, piercings,
tight leather jacket over
a hoodie, a couple pins.
Yeah, loaded up with piercings and tats.
- Hi.
(spacey new age music)
(Emily laughing)
Hey, hi, (laughs) sorry.
- Beautiful, young Korean-American woman
with again, patches all over.
And you see that she has
like a little flash card
dropping off this thing.
She has sort of like
rubber halves of a keyboard
tied into the sleeves of her thing.
Like, she could unzip her
sleeve and pull a keyboard out.
- (laughs) Oh, okay.
- That's like made of something flexible
that's like a cloth she can wear.
She looks up and says, "Hi."
- Hi.
- "Hey."
- Hi!
- "Hi, nice to meet you, I'm Maddie, hey."
- I go for a hug even if it's not,
if she's sitting down I'm standing up.
- Go ahead and roll a
persuasion disadvantage for me.
(Emily laughing)
- God f*cking damn it.
Oh, Jesus Christ, hold on.
Okay.
(dice tapping table)
That's, oh, not too bad.
Persuasion I have pretty good, right?
I don't have that pulled up right now.
- Yes, but with disadvantage for sure.
- Oh, that's okay, okay.
It's a 14.
Does that mean I catch
myself during it and go, oh!
Sorry, maybe that's a little too forward.
- I'm gonna make something for her.
She hits a nat five and a beat
after you've started bailing
on the hug she clocks the hug
and goes for the hug herself.
- (laughs) Oh, ah, I...
- "Oh, oh, oops.
(laughs) Oh God, sorry,
thanks for the dance."
(group chuckling)
You see she says, "Yeah, hi, take a seat."
- Totally.
- "Thanks for meeting up in person."
Let me-
- Oh, actually, you know what?
I have to pee.
Can I go to the bathroom
and just do like a breathing exercise
and try to f*cking calm the f*ck down?
(laughing)
This is just a person, this
is just another person.
This is two skeletons
hanging out in a booth, Pete, all right?
- All of Maddie's features
that are not skeletal
come back to you in a very
real way in that moment.
- (sighs) She's more
than a skeleton. (laughs)
- (laughs) But you breathe.
- She's so much more than a skeleton.
- You breathe, walk back out.
- Yo. (chuckles)
- "Hey, are you, we don't
have to do this if you are,
if this is weird for you.
I just need to say in person again,
I have so much guilt around
what happened and I'm so sorry.
Like, I can't...
Yeah, I'm so...
There's no-
- Yeah.
- I wrote that email and my
words are like failing me now,
but I'm really sorry and yeah.
- It's okay.
It was f*cked up, for sure.
But my parents are actually,
the parents that you gave my
info to were awful people.
But since then they're a lot better.
And I never wanna be like,
oh, that traumatic thing,
I never wanna like baptize a
traumatic incident and be like,
it was worth it 'cause
this good thing happened.
The trauma was still bad,
but it is better now.
- You see she says, "Right, yeah.
Bad things happen and they're bad
and good things happen and they're good.
And sometimes one leads to the other
but it doesn't justify the other."
- You know, it's the work that I did.
It's not the bad thing.
Anyway, yeah, I go to therapy now.
- She laughs and smiles a little bit.
She's like, "No, I get it."
Pete, you look and see on Maddie's jacket
amongst a multiplicity of other things
that she's got a Trans
Pride Flag on her jacket.
- Cool.
- She goes, "Yeah, I really get it.
And I was in a super f*cked up place.
I did that job,
figured out what was going on
after I had already delivered
and it's just unacceptable.
It's just really unacceptable."
- Yeah, it's...
I really appreciated your apology.
It was really well-written and yeah.
So you're a hacker.
- "Uh, yeah.
(players laughing)
Yeah, like to a degree, yeah.
I do some black hat work."
- Sick, that's really f*cking sick!
That's so sick.
- "Oh, sh*t, yeah, it's cool.
I mean, like, it's a lot of hours
of grueling computer
programming that's like very..."
- Totally.
- "Like, it's way less sexy
in person than it sounds
when someone calls you a hacker,
which of course sounds very sexy
but is not reflective of the truth."
- Totally.
- "Of like me,
deep in an office chair
for many hours at a time
doing extremely tedious work so...
(laughing)
Are you into computer stuff as well?
I mean, I know what you used to do."
- Yeah, no, yeah, I'm kind
of turning over a new leaf,
so to speak, so I just work,
right now I'm working at a bookstore
and trying to deal with the pay decrease
from being a, you know,
major plug to rich people.
- "Yeah, no, I hear that.
Yeah, money is f*cked.
And the amount of reward you
get for doing the wrong thing
a lot of the times is really
challenging to the soul so-
- Yeah, that's crazy that
you say that actually.
So you did ask if there was anything else
that you could help me
with, and I'm wondering
if you would just have any interest in,
my friends and I are,
honestly, we're trying
to take down Gladiator.
- "I'm in."
- They're kind of taking over the city.
Yes, okay, well, I have
some crazy info for you.
And I hand her a copy of the drive
that I've just moved all of
the most important stuff into.
Do you want to take a
look at this and see?
- She unzips her sleeves,
(Ally laughs)
slaps this keyboard on the diner computer,
sucks down half of a mint
chocolate chip milkshake,
and just. (mimics rapid
typing on keyboard)
- f*cking dream girl. (chuckles)
- It's tapped.
You see the screen is reflected.
She takes some glasses out
and projects a little screen
up in front of her on some
next-level techno sh*t.
She goes, "Ooh, this is
extremely f*cked up and bad
in a huge, major way."
- Uh-huh.
- "Yeah, okay."
- Can I see if she's magical at all?
- Yeah, I was just gonna say,
you detect that she is not magical,
and the Umbral Arcana is kind of like...
(Ally groans softly)
But you see that she pulls up, I'm gonna,
she's gonna make a little
hacking check right now.
- Hacking check.
- She pulls something up and
goes, "Okay, interesting."
- Hm.
- "This is blocked off.
This is top secret.
I would need more time
to get into this, okay."
She says, "It looks like Gladiator
is about to make like a major
acquisition in the city,
but I'm not-
- Whoa, of what?
- "I can't find out just yet.
I should go back to my home machine
which is a little bit more powerful."
- Which area do you live in?
I was actually gonna go into
the city if you wanna...
- She says, "Oh, I live in LIC,
I live in Long Island City."
Which Pete, you would know
is just down the train
from you in Astoria.
You see she says-
- Cool.
- "But I can head back to my home machine
and look at this stuff.
Do you know anyone named Joe Jacobs?"
(suspenseful instrumental music)
- Yeah, I maybe have
come across him before.
Why, what's up?
- "He, this is wild.
There's like,
his, why would an internship application
have gone off of a normal server?
They're like-
- You can see that
they've removed his
internship application?
- "Yeah, there's just a weird thing."
And you see she dives
further into it and is like,
"Yeah, there's like something.
There's an internship application
for this guy named Joe Jacobs."
And you see that she says,
"Yeah, I'm just noticing
like a bunch of stuff
behind this firewall.
I obviously can't open
it, but it's very weird
to see an internship application
being hidden in a deep-security cybervault
like behind a million
levels of firewalls."
- Whoa.
- "If you know this person, Joe Jacobs,
you should go talk to him pretty soon."
- I send out a text to
the group and be like,
can someone get in touch with JJ?
And then I kinda explain that.
- Iga and Cody, you've
just made the discoveries
that you've made here.
- [Siobhan] Mm-hmm.
- When you get that message from Pete.
- And that machine seems like something
that's connected to JJ's research.
- Yeah, absolutely.
- [Siobhan] Great.
- Was I going to JJ at
any, like I wasn't sure.
- Yeah, you wanted to go hang with,
I think you're on your way to
the Gramercy Occult Society.
- Oh, great.
- So you're actually,
you're hanging with JJ
who's working on some stuff
at Gramercy when these texts
start showing up on your phone.
- Okay.
But we've kinda, generally know
what they're talking about,
like that it has to do with the magic.
- Yeah.
- Yeah, with New York
Minutes, specifically.
- Yeah, okay.
I'm with JJ.
I'm slightly unclear on if
there's actually new information
other than that Gladiator knows.
- There's also the stuff at the mall.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- We would be texting you about
that they've actively taken JJ's...
- Research.
- Right, gotcha.
- Discovery and put it into a robot.
- I follow up and I say, maybe JJ
would know how to destroy this prototype.
- Whoa, yeah.
- If you guys send the prototype to Ricky,
like the pictures you guys took.
Ricky, do you want to show that to JJ?
- I mean, yeah.
- Hell yeah.
- JJ, this is kinda
what's going on over here.
- His eyes go wide and he goes,
"Um, you should get everybody here
right now as fast as possible."
- Okay.
Hey, let's link up at the
Gramercy Occult Society.
JJ wants to talk to us.
- Cody and Iga, you guys head in.
Sofia and Kingston, you guys head in.
Pete, Maddie looks at you and says,
"Hey, so I'm gonna head
back to my home machine."
- Super cool.
- "And I'm gonna try to crack
whatever Gladiators purchase was
or what their acquisition was."
- Super cool.
- "I'm gonna hit you up
with that as soon as I can."
- Yeah, let me put you in my phone.
Let's see, Maddie, what's your number?
Oh here, you can put in your number.
Also, yeah, just put in like,
I just have a weird way of filtering names
so like, what's your sign
'cause I'm just gonna put that.
(laughing)
I'm just, I'm weird.
I'm super crazy, but yeah,
what's your sign though?
- She looks at you, raises
an eyebrow and says,
"I think technically I'm an Ophiuchus,
which is a 13th sign of the Zodiac."
- What?
- "I don't know, maybe look it up."
And she types in Maddie.
- Did someone just out astrology me?
(group laughing)
- Ally, you should go ahead and
Google what an Ophiuchus is.
- Does anyone even believe in astrology?
- I might be mispronouncing it.
But she leaves herself as Maddie Park
and also fills in a contact with,
you see she snaps a
little selfie of herself
to put a contact photo
of her in your phone.
She goes, "Is it forward if I text myself
so I have you number, too?
I'm just gonna do it,"
and she texts herself.
- You're the serpent-bearer.
- "That's me."
(Ally snickers)
- This is f*cking nuts.
- The 13th Zodiac sign?
- Okay, now I need to look this up.
- Okay, all right.
- So she smiles, heads on the train.
You head in to the city.
- Wow, cool, f*cking cool.
So cool to meet someone cool. (chuckles)
(Lou and Brennan laughing)
- I like to think
that Pete's mind has never been more blown
than a 13th Zodiac sign.
- Yeah, yeah, I'm just like.
- Incredible.
- But what's your rising?
I'm like two hours too late.
I'm just on the train.
What's your moon?
- Also, Pete should look
up what time it is now
versus when Ophiuchus is as a sign
'cause Maddie's birthday
is coming up very soon.
- Good f*cking God.
- But you guys all get to Gramercy.
JJ comes out as you guys arrive
at the Gramercy Occult Society.
He looks at you and goes,
"What you guys found
at the Millennium
Gladiator Campus is f*cked.
It's completely f*cked.
This is the opposite of my research.
It's like the inverse
of what a New York
Minute is supposed to do.
They're destroying them.
So time and space are relative, right,
and what that basically means is
when time is going faster,
space is going slower.
But when you're moving
faster through space
you're moving slower through time, right?
So there's sort of an
inverse relationship there.
If you compress time and
slow it down to the point
where it stops in a single moment,
you have the potential to
expand space infinitely
in which every atom of
creation is as far apart
from every other atom as possible.
Ultimate isolation.
That is the physical
definition of nothingness.
Every single thing broken
down to its finest atoms
separated by endless
void, completely alone.
If you can flatten time,
you can create nothingness.
(Ally exhales softly)
But it looks like it broke, right?
The machine didn't work?
Okay.
- It broke big time.
- Don't they have a different
plant in Connecticut
and a plant in New Jersey?
I gotta wonder if there are
other prototypes of this
and if there's other
versions of this technology.
- Yes, does this have to be in New York?
Is there a New Jersey Minute
or Connecticut Minute?
- He says, "I think it
would work the best here.
Like if you were gonna try to
destroy the universe it would-
- The Catacombs.
- He looks and says,
"Something like that."
He says-
- JJ.
- "Yeah."
- Is there, so,
at the fire station we had a Shop-Vac
and it could really suck stuff up.
But you could flip the switch
and it could really blow stuff out.
You usually don't use that
so much with the Shop-Vac
because you don't want stuff
everywhere, but is there a way,
since they reversed your thing,
could you just reverse it somehow?
- "Wait right here, wait right here."
He runs off into another room
and you see he fiddles around
for about like 10 minutes and
you start to hear a laughing
from the other room going,
(laughs) "Get in here!
Get in here, get in here!"
(dramatic instrumental music)
- I head off.
- You guys rush in.
In this laboratory of the
Gramercy Occult Society
you see that there is a poster
of lunch atop a skyscraper,
that photograph of the New
York construction worker
sitting on an I-beam over the city.
JJ in black and white is in
the photograph on the I-beam
with the other dudes
moving around waving at you
and he goes like, "It f*cking
works, you can reverse it!
"Ricky, you can reverse it!"
- How is this reversing it, what is this?
- He hits a watch on his
arm, leaps out and goes,
"So it's not science, it's magic science.
It's magiscience, right?
New York Minutes are
connected to the past,
but they're connected to the
stories of the past, right?
So the more powerfully something
represents a true memory
of the past, you can
reverse what they're doing
and not flatten time, you can expand it.
And if there's something that's
really attached to a moment
in history and it has that
f*cking dragon magic,"
and he points at Iga's chest, he says,
"you can go back into the past.
Not the past past, but
like a memory of the past."
And you see he goes and runs
over and starts fiddling,
doing magic with a bunch of watches
and hands these watches out to all of you.
He says, "I've been working
on these for a little while.
Okay, so this is like a New York,
it's like a Gotham Timepiece, right?
So it's a Gotham Timepiece and-
- Oh my God, f*cking rules.
(Brennan laughs)
Holy sh*t, go on.
- You see he goes,
"If something is powerfully
connected to the past,
you can, it's a very
limited form of time travel.
We can only do it here because
of all of the Umbral Arcana
coming out of the Umbral Engine.
So in a place with a lot of
Umbral Arcana or raw Umbra in it
you can flip the switch, use the timepiece
to summon New York Minutes
and can potentially move
into the past, right."
- Wait, so-
- Maybe we go to Ellis Island?
- Those things we're looking
for, the seven things.
- Are in the past.
- All right, we go back.
- Are they specific things?
- Iga, as you say Ellis Island
Maddie texts you, Pete, and says,
"Looks like Gladiator
just finalized a purchase
of Ellis Island and the museum."
- I tell everyone and then I write back,
you didn't ask but I am an Aquarius
and we're extremely
compatible, just kidding
and then like a lot of GIFs
of people being embarrassed.
(group laughing)
- Dude, write LOL.
Write LOL, Pete!
- And then I write another LOL
after all the GIFs.
- Send a selfie send a selfie.
- Ooh, ooh!
- I send a selfie.
- I get the lighting just right. (laughs)
- Thank you.
- Incredible.
- Thanks guys, that was a great idea.
(laughing)
- I think as Maddie sends that,
Maddie also sends something unrelated
which was an article that
never mentioned Gladiator
but about a month or two ago,
Gladiator bought some of the
museum items from Ellis Island.
Bought museum items from Ellis
Island in a private exchange
for a private museum they were building.
Those items have not yet shown up.
Gladiator hasn't released any plans
to actually create a museum.
Objects were bought from Ellis Island,
but Maddie just sent this thing today
about them going back and
buying all of Ellis Island.
- Is there a list of what the items were?
- Or the number of items?
- Yes, any chance it was seven items?
- Maddie hits you back,
looks like seven artifacts
were bought from the museum.
- Let's go!
- Okay.
- Vroom, vroom, vroom, vroom, moped.
- You guys f*cking boogie.
- Can I get on the back
of your moped, Cody?
- Can I also get on the
back of your moped, Cody?
- Yeah.
- Hey dude, can I get on
the back of your moped?
- Sprinting with Ox.
- I'm actually really mobile.
I just want to be around someone.
- Pete, hop on my back.
- Oh, hell yeah.
I send that selfie.
(laughing)
We're not toxically
masculine, I'm riding him!
- I'm gonna need everyone
here to go into D&D Beyond
and add a Gotham Timepiece
to your inventory.
- Okay.
- Okay.
- Gotham Timepiece.
The Gotham Timepiece allows the wearer
to manipulate New York
Minutes in the following ways.
Number one, run on New
York City standard time,
reliably 10 minutes late,
but never more than
that to any appointment.
Time travel into objects
with a variable DC
based on the objects'
connection to the past
only the presence of heavy Umbral Arcana.
Accomplish more than
one task during downtime
by taking on a level of exhaustion.
Once per short rest you may
take an additional action
on your turn, taking a level of exhaustion
at the end of that turn.
And then last, features an Uptown Compass,
Uptown, Downtown, East Side, West Side.
Cannot become lost in the Five Boroughs
even by magical means.
- Hey.
- Whoa.
- Cool.
- You guys arrive at Ellis Island.
You've taken the ferry out.
It's closed up, obviously
it's in the process
of being sold to a private corporation
which is a dark day here in New York City.
- Nightmare.
- I actually think you guys,
there's probably not a ferry going here
so I think you guys arrive here, sorry,
there is a ferry waiting for Kingston
as you guys get here.
- Yeah don't mess around dude.
What're you talking about?
(Brennan slams fists)
What, today's the day it stops working?
No.
- It's the same bus driver.
She's qualified as a ferry driver.
- Yeah.
(laughing)
- You guys head off to Ellis Island.
It's you, your familiars.
As you arrive here, it
feels eerie and desolate.
There's no one here, it's been closed up.
You approach and see a pair of doors
shuttered with chains and locked up.
- Permission to just
freak out and break them.
(Brennan laughs)
- Is there a window?
- Yes.
- Can I peek in and see if
there's a dark spot in there,
like a spot of shadows?
- Yes, there is.
- Okay, I can also teleport in there.
- Do we want--
- But we all need
to get in there, I guess
for some reason I was like,
oh, maybe I can open it from the inside.
But maybe I could open it from the inside
in which case you can
walk under the chains.
- If we all get in the box,
you can teleport us all in.
(Emily laughs)
- Oh, that's fun.
- Incredible.
- That's great, everyone-
- Can I use Divine Sense?
- Yeah, can I make a perception check
through the window real quick?
- Yeah, Cody just has his
sword out walking towards it.
Yeah, that's cool, teleport
or just kick the door in, either way.
- You guys, yeah, it's all groovy.
Your Divine Sense does
not turn up anything.
- Okay, all right.
- Whoa.
- Cool.
- I mean, I can also do
recon and then come back out
and then grab you guys and
come back in 'cause I'm like,
I mean, I'll Pass Without Trace all of us.
Like, stealth is my thing.
- Could we like, f*cking, go back in time
to like when they were buying the things?
- Yeah, but we kinda need
to know the objects, though.
Didn't it say that we can use it-
- Right.
- Yeah.
- To go back in time with the object?
So if the objects are in there, we can use
our Gothic timepieces to
re-remember these objects.
- Cool.
- But is the Statue of
Liberty an object, too?
I don't know.
- I would think so.
- Okay.
- Yeah.
So I think the issue is you guys need-
- A candle?
- Candle, torch.
- Yeah, you guys-
- A scrap of paper.
- Could be the...
- So are you guys busting the door down
or are you guys getting in the
box and teleporting in there?
- I mean, whatever-
- I'm voting box.
- Box.
- The box and the teleporting
sounds cool, yeah.
- Cool.
- Okay, yeah, I mean, yeah.
- Yeah, Sofia, you see there's a little,
wooden box there on the ground.
- (chuckles) I will
cast Pass Without Trace
on all of us before they get into the box.
- I think I take a photo
of the chained up door
and send it to Maddie just
like, oh, came and looked at it.
sh*t's pretty f*cked up,
can you believe this?
- You get a text back being like,
"Are you physically at the
shuttered Ellis Island?
How did you get there?"
- Yeah, I had to see it for myself.
I just took a ferry,
I'm with some friends.
- You see there's ellipsis,
ellipsis, ellipsis
and then there's a text that says,
"Trying to think of a sweet way to say,
sober Pete seems equally as crazy."
- (laughs) I just send that swirl emoji
and that dumb smiley face that's like.
(group laughing)
- You, Sofia, you move through shadow,
appear in quiet Ellis Island.
The click of your Louboutins
on the stone floor.
Click, click, click, click, click.
You walk through a number of halls here.
There's a lot of wings to the
museum, a lot of exhibits.
You arrive in a room
that is like a Great Hall
and you see there's a small display
in the center of the room
with a number of empty cases.
Looks like the cases here are empty,
but there's a lot of photos
and art up on the wall.
And I'm gonna ask everybody
here to go to Roll20.
And you see all of those signs.
You see that this appears to be,
like everything in Ellis Island,
there's a lot of immigration stuff,
people moving to New York City.
You see there's an exhibit titled,
From New Amsterdam to New
York, Life in the New World.
There's another one titled
Famine and Diaspora,
Immigration and the Armed Services.
There's one that says,
Tenement and Family Life.
There's one that says,
The Great Migration
and Harlem Renaissance.
And you see there's another one
that says 20th Century Immigration.
You see these sort of empty cases.
Everybody here go ahead and
give me an investigation check
and tell me what you're looking for here.
- I would like, I got
a 22 on investigation.
- Cool, cool.
- I'm wondering, just because
it's the first thing that
(die taps table)
I feel like I connect with
in my own brain was like,
is there like, are people playing music
in the Harlem picture?
- Yeah, I had that thought.
- So each exhibit has tons
and tons of pictures on it.
Did anyone else crack a 20?
- I got a nat one so just
don't even talk to me.
- Yeah, I rolled a, I got a five.
- I got a four.
- Ricky, you look over-
- 19.
- At those empty cases.
You see the tags on them.
The largest one says,
Peter Stuyvesant's Leg.
And then there's another one.
There's some more of
these empty cases around.
There's at least one at
every one of these kiosks,
something that's been emptied,
and looks like it's
been empty for a while.
You're guessing these
are the things that
Gladiator destroyed, Ricky-
- Then let's read those captions.
- Ricky you see by the
Peter Stuyvesant's Leg one.
- Peter!
- You see a little sign
for kids that says,
do you want to play hide and seek?
You can find most of these
objects from the photographs
and pictures of the times they were taken.
And you look around and
see one of the cases
by the Harlem Renaissance one
where you were looking says,
a 1920s wedding bouquet.
And there's a little thing being like,
look, see if you can find
it in the photographs.
I'm gonna need everybody
here to roll initiative.
- sh*t.
- Ooh.
- What?
(Emily whistles)
- Ooh.
(dice tapping tables)
- Okay.
- f*ck.
God, I'm rolling so badly today.
- 17, I'm rolling really poorly, too.
- Yeah, me too, I need new dice.
- I pulled multiple nat ones, 17 though.
- Sofia got 17, what did Iga get?
- Six.
- What did Cody get?
- 10.
- What did Pete get?
- 17 as well.
- What did Ricky get?
- 12.
- What did Kingston get?
- The big one one.
- Okay.
All of your Gotham
Timepieces start to beep.
Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep,
beep, beep, beep, beep, beep.
(device beeping)
It's detecting a tremendous
influx of New York Minutes.
That only happens when raw
Umbra gets pushed through.
(dramatic instrumental music)
You all feel the nature
of this place has changed
just through it passing
into Gladiator's ownership.
You hear a whisper,
emptier and more hollow
than anything you have ever heard
repeat the words to itself mindlessly.
(inhales raspily) "What,
if anything, stays?"
I'm going to need everybody here
to give me an intelligence saving throw.
- Is anyone within 10 feet
of, if you're within 10 feet-
- I mean, yeah, we're all near each other.
- Sofia, did you actually
move to that spot?
- No, I just was in here.
- Cool.
- Yeah, I was assuming
that we're all hanging out.
- [Brennan] Cool.
- [Zac] Yeah, I was kind
of hoping a similar thing.
- That's gonna be, do I
get the buff from you guys?
- Plus four.
- What's the buff?
- Oh yeah, plus four.
- Plus four on all saving throws.
- God damn it, I got a one.
- So I got 16.
- Gonna be a 12 for me.
(Murph sighs)
- I'm gonna re-roll 'cause of luck.
- [Brennan] Cool.
- I got a 13.
- Okay, did anybody here
get an 18 or higher?
- We're dumb.
- I'm gonna re-roll with Tides of Chaos.
- Okay.
(die taps table)
- Yes, okay, hell yeah.
- Yeah, maybe I'll use a luck point.
- 21.
- Iga, this is the same day
that you blasted through
all your luck points
at JJ's machine over in Queens.
- Oh, didn't I just use one?
- Oh, did you?
I think you may have
used two, I'm not sure.
But I think this might be your last one.
I could be wrong, I trust you to remember,
but I feel like you used more than one.
- Okay, then this is my last one.
Okay, I make it, I get a 21.
- [Ally] Hey.
- Cool, no one else got an 18 or higher?
- Mm-mm.
- Cool.
- Pete and Iga.
- Oh wait, okay, so who's close
because I can use Bend Luck on someone.
- I wouldn't be able to, I only got 12.
- An 18?
- I got one.
- Yeah, what did you get, Zac?
- I got a 13, I'm not close.
- (groans) Okay.
- Okay.
(dramatic instrumental music softens)
Sofia, Ricky, Kingston,
and Cody who did not pass their saves.
- No, I did not.
- 14, 16, 20.
You each take 25 points of psychic damage.
- [Lou] Mm-hmm.
- You each take 25
points of psychic damage.
Iga and Pete do not take
either as Null appears
in the middle of the room.
(dramatic pounding resounds)
(Lou gasps)
- Either so that was
supposed to be two things?
- You guys, that's Null.
- You see a colorless
silhouette two-dimensionally
blotting out the color from behind it.
Oh, I'm gonna need saves
for Misiek, Luna, Ox,
and Cody's moped as well.
- Ox.
- Cody's moped. (laughs)
- Come on, Cody's moped.
- My moped!
- Come on.
- Come on-
- I rode that thing here, I suddenly-
- Oh, Misiek.
- Moped rolled a natural 19.
- Yeah, moped. (laughs)
- But does your moped have
plus two to intelligence?
It might.
- It's got-
- f*ck.
- No, it has minus four.
- Same.
- But it gets plus four being near me.
- No, but you get plus four.
- So my moped does pass.
- Incredible.
- Oh wait, 'cause it's 18.
- Misiek does not pass.
Misiek is out of the battle.
- Ox is down, too.
- No.
- Misiek is gone?
- 13.
- Ox rolled a 13,
but has negative four and
that doesn't, you know.
- Yeah, what was the DC, 18 did you say?
- 18, yeah.
- 18.
- Okay, yeah.
- That's so funny.
- Luna is toast.
- Luna's gone.
- Penalty to the moped.
- The moped passes.
(laughing)
- In this wave of psychic
energy, Luna, Ox, Misiek, gone.
As the barest tip of the
claw of this monstrosity
from beyond dreaming pushes its way
through a wave of Umbral Arcana,
through a wave of raw Umbra
into the waking world,
Ricky, Sofia, Kingston, and Cody,
in addition to the damage you take
I will also need a choice.
You may either, you have a choice.
This is either going to stun
you or I'm going to need you
to choose one of your six ability scores.
- And you're not gonna
tell us what happens to it.
- You can either protect
yourself by succumbing
to the stunned condition or
you can resist becoming stunned
by naming one of your six ability scores.
(ominous instrumental music)
- Take my
(Zac sighs)
dex! (laughs)
(players laughing)
- Cool.
- I think I'm gonna say my dex as well.
It hurts Ricky so much to lower
his physical prowess, but...
- Cool.
Cody and Ricky, you lose your
inner sense of initiative,
of reflex, deep emptiness fills you.
Your armor classes are reduced to one.
You no longer have the
desire to get out of the way
of incoming attacks, you are too empty.
And you may not make ability
checks that involve dexterity.
No stealth, no sleight of
hand, no anything like that.
You will also auto-fail
dexterity saving throws.
- Shoulda used another luck point, f*ck.
(players laughing)
- Sofia and Kingston.
- (laughs) Sofia, you got an idea?
- I uh...
- I choose strength.
- Kingston, you lose your strength.
You feel your age bearing down on you.
- Aw.
- You will auto-fail
strength saving throws.
You lose access to the athletics skill.
You do not have the physical
bravery within you right now
to grapple or launch a
melee attack of any kind.
Sofia.
- Do I get the sense that allowing myself
to succumb to this is like
letting it overtake me?
Like, is getting stunned
a sacrifice in itself
or is getting stunned being complicit?
- Neither is being complicit.
It basically has to do
with whether your response
is to throw your guard up
in which case you're stunned
or to flee and move,
leaving yourself vulnerable
for the nature of this thing
to hit you in a big way.
- Okay, I mean, if it's
breaking down to that
I feel really bad being
the only one to say this,
but I think Sofia's reaction
would be to throw her guard up.
- Cool, you go stunned.
You are in the stuned condition
and will lose your turn,
but can make a save against
the stunned condition
at the end of your next turn.
- Okay.
- Oh, that sounds like a
better choice. (laughs)
(Brennan and Emily laughing)
- I felt like I was like, scared
that I was like, wait, am I
missing the message of this?
- No, no, no, no, not at all.
Pete, that is going to be you.
- Okay, can I do an insight check to see
if there's anything it, like,
I can tell Ricky and Cody
look extra bad, right?
- Ricky and Cody look bad.
Kingston doesn't look great, either.
And Sofia looks okay
but is visibly stunned,
in the stunned condition.
- Okay, can I do a roll
to see if there's anything
I can do to help Ricky and Cody
or if they're in a lot
of trouble right now?
- I don't need you to make a roll.
All of you are in a lot
of trouble right now.
And this is Null.
Null bought this today.
Gladiator bought this today.
This is a horrifying entity.
- Yeah.
- But also, if you guys
run away, this is it.
This is the lost artifacts
of the dragon's hoard.
- We have to get the stuff back right now.
- This is it.
- So can I use the timepiece?
- Gotham.
- And just start looking
for these artifacts?
- You absolutely can, Pete.
You can take a move action to get,
tell me which one, if any.
- Gotcha, yeah.
- If there's a particular
one you're running towards,
and you're gonna need to
give me a history check
to try and recognize something.
You're like, running towards it
trying to look for the
history as best you can.
- Okay, um...
- You can go more into
the center of the room.
If you go to the center of the room
and give me a DC, like,
10 perception check
I can give you information
about the different ones,
but you gotta run into the
center of the room to do it.
- Can I do something
like this where I like,
go behind a thing like this.
- Yes, you can, absolutely.
- Okay, I would like to do that and then-
- [Brennan] Cool.
- Let me give you that roll.
This is a, what is this, investigation?
- Perception.
- Perception.
- So you can give me a perception first.
- Great.
(dramatic instrumental music)
Perception, that's only gonna be an eight.
- All right so this next roll's
not gonna be with advantage.
This is your history check
to try and use your Gotham Timepiece
to find one of the things
you're looking for.
We're gonna need a DC,
cool, didn't happen.
- Doesn't matter, it's a four.
- You-
- Uh, okay.
- Cool, you've moved,
you still have an action.
You didn't find anything here.
You could try to move, and the
history checks are for free.
You don't spot anything in that one.
You can try to move down the line
or move to another one or you
still have an action left.
- Yeah.
- You've used how much movement now?
- Okay.
- You've used like 30?
- 30, that was 30, yeah.
- Cool, yep.
If you want to use a dash action, you can.
- Yeah, I think I'm gonna have to do that.
- Cool.
- Okay, so we're gonna dash
♪ A little bit longer now ♪
Okay.
- Cool.
- Can I go here and do another history?
That's not super far, but...
- Yes, and I'm gonna say because
this is your second check
this one's gonna be with disadvantage.
You're just trying to hit a
DC 15, go ahead and roll it.
- History?
- Yep.
- Man.
(die taps table)
No, six.
- Pete, you run.
At the end of your turn...
- Can I yell while I'm
hiding and tell everyone,
this is Null, it's Null!
And then also...
- Got it.
- I f*cking love you guys!
(Emily laughs)
You mean the world to me!
I'm so happy that we're the Dream Team.
And then yeah, I'm hiding
behind this pillar.
- Okay, I'm gonna need saves
from Ricky, Sofia, Iga,
Kingston, and Cody again.
These are intelligence
saving throws, DC 18.
- Can I make a, is it a spell?
- It is not a spell.
- Okay.
(Siobhan groans)
What was the DC again?
- DC is 18.
- Nat 20!
- It's intelligence
so I don't automatically fail.
(Zac groans painfully)
(die tapping table)
I fail again.
- Cool.
- Ooh, I almost-
- How close to failing are you?
- I literally rolled the same exact thing
so I'm at 12 again.
- I got a 16.
That would be helpful for me.
- Yeah, I got you.
- Thank you.
- Wait, what was the DC?
- 18.
- 18.
- Oh yeah.
- I got a. (sighs)
- All right.
- No, I got a, that's a,
I did my math wrong, I failed.
I'm gonna use another luck point.
- Cool.
- So even worse, nevermind.
- Okay, so this is for Cody.
- So bad, oh God.
- All right, Cody.
(die tapping table)
- Four!
- Yes! (claps hands)
- Hell yes.
- Yeah!
- Four, four, four.
- Okay, so does my
moped also have to roll?
- Moped also has to roll.
- You're the smartest
f*cking moped I've ever met.
Come on. (gasps)
- Pete, how many times can you bend luck?
- A lot, do you need it, what do you need?
- I'm also at 16.
- Okay, I got you.
I will use sorcery points.
- Can you do, no, I think
Bend Luck is a reaction.
I don't think you can use Bend Luck again.
- It's all good.
- I think it's just a reaction.
- Wait, oh, oh, I can't use it
like on two different people
by burning that number of sorcery points?
- I think it's a reaction.
Let me double check on your sheet.
- Yeah, it's definitely a reaction.
- Yeah, so it's only once.
- Nuts, man.
- Just the once.
- It's all good.
- My moped tried its damn
best, it is a scholarly moped,
but it only got a 16.
- Cool.
- It's a miracle that it
survived the first round.
- Honestly it's a...
- (whistles dejectedly)
f*ck, Kingston, sorry.
- To me it felt like-
- Moped's actually super f*cking smart.
- Cody needed it.
- 16, 24.
Moped is gone.
- [Murph] No!
- God, we haven't had any,
I haven't had a turn yet.
- Yep, who failed?
Ricky, Kingston, Sofia?
- Oh wait, I didn't.
- I did.
- Cool.
- Sofia failed again.
- Each of you takes 29
points of psychic damage.
- Good God.
- Same choice to make.
I will say, Sofia...
- I'm already stunned.
- Yeah, and I'm gonna
just double check here.
- Can I just keep being stunned?
- You're probably in the same position
to just go stunned again.
- Okay.
- Kingston and Ricky, what
is the choice you are making?
(laughing)
- I'm going to say I'm gonna,
(suspenseful music)
I feel like we just need to not be stunned
and so I'm gonna say wisdom.
- Nice, dude.
- Ricky, everything goes gray.
You do not lose your memories,
but you lose your ability to
perceive, to gain insight.
You have no understanding
left of other people.
You maintain a focus of specific memories.
You know what you're supposed to do next.
You don't remember any of
your relationships to people.
You've become like just a,
you're like some kind of
single-purpose, like a rescue dog
running through the night
completely single track.
- Very different from how
Ricky used to be. (laughs)
- Yeah.
- Oh.
- Kingston.
- Yep, yeah.
- And you still take
the damage, by the way,
but you ignore the stunned condition.
- Can I start a really small
popcorn chant where I go dream?
- Team.
- Popcorn?
Oh.
(players laughing)
- We just start kind of
chanting, like, dream.
- What?
- Team.
- Team.
- Dream Team.
- I can speak falteringly, so
I kind of mumble along, team.
- I will take charisma.
- Kingston, you lose your sense of self.
You lose your desire or ability
to interact with others.
You don't have an ego that
you can project anymore.
You are able to perceive others.
You are able to remember,
but you no longer
have a sense of who Kingston Brown is
to make an impression
on the world around you.
Auto fail charisma saves,
may not make persuasion,
deception, intimidation checks.
(Zac sighs deeply)
That is going to be, so
Pete, that was your turn.
Null took its legendary actions.
Sofia, at the end of
your turn you may make
another intelligence
saving throw to come out
of the stunned condition.
- Okay.
(dramatic instrumental music)
- [Brennan] Remember, you get the bonus
from Ricky being nearby.
- Yeah, yeah.
(die taps table)
16, wait, I got 16.
- You do not come out of
the stunned condition.
Iga, on your nat 20 saving throw.
- [Siobhan] Mm-hmm.
- You feel yourself,
the chest in your bag throbs with energy.
This thing's ability on
a nat 20 saving throw
will not work on you again.
Your magic was made to
fight things like this
as you stare into the emptiness.
Ricky, that's gonna be your turn.
- Oh, f*ck.
Okay, I'm next to the one.
I saw a bouquet on the thing
that I am at right now, right?
- [Brennan] Yes, you did.
- Bouquet! (laughs)
That's how single-mind.
- Cool.
- And I'm hitting the watch-
- The Gotham.
- Trying to go back in f*cking time.
- Hell yeah, go ahead.
I'm gonna say you have advantage
'cause you hit a 22 on your perception.
You're trying to clear
just a DC 15 history check.
(die clacking)
- Come on.
History?
- Yep.
- I got an 11, I have a zero to history.
(Brennan sighs)
I'm, (sighs)
I'm gonna use my last luck point.
- Yes.
- Cool, go for it.
(die taps table)
- 17.
- Hell yes.
- Yeah!
- Ricky you rush up stumbling.
- Good news!
- Ricky, you cannot see anymore.
Your body is falling apart
as you go hollow inside.
You hit the watch on your wrist.
(mimics magical reverberations)
Scintillating light, pure time.
(Brennan vocalizing big band music)
Pure New York hustle throws you
into a photograph on the wall.
Ricky disappears into a photograph.
You no longer feel Null's presence.
You have still given up
those two ability scores.
You still have a sense of
self, but your wisdom is gone.
- Do I still have a
turn or is that my turn?
- You will still have an action now.
You appear in the photograph on the wall.
- Whoa!
- Oh.
- Oh, sh*t.
- Cool.
- [Brennan] Look at that,
yeah, Ricky's in the photo.
- [Zac] Oh, whoa.
- [Lou] Amazing.
- Incredible, it's so incredible.
You hear jazz playing.
(peaceful jazz music)
You hear laughter and music.
(guests laughing)
A band is playing and you
hear a bunch of people gasp
(crowd gasps)
as you appear.
You are again-
- Naked like Terminator?
(group laughing)
- Just covered in goo.
- So ripped and so naked.
- Ricky, you are standing
in your modern garb
in a wedding in a beautiful venue
right off of 125th Street in the 1920s.
You see a bunch of people gasp.
What do you say as you look out?
You see there's some piano players.
You can see here in the photograph
the people here in this family.
The cake has just been cut
and people look to behold
you as you appear here.
- Okay everyone. (laughs)
(Brennan laughs)
I'm struggling to maintain.
So I don't feel the effects,
but I still, like, I'm still-
- You still have lost your
dexterity and your wisdom,
but you still have your
charisma, so persuasion.
- Okay.
- You still have a sense of self.
What you have a hard time,
if you think about it,
you've lost access to
insight and perception.
- Okay.
- So you don't know
what's going on with these people.
It's more like you're confused,
but you can still talk.
You still have that part of you.
- I'm going to use, like, I
don't have an actual spell
for this, but my civic authority
that I've used in the past
to just let everyone
know, everything's calm.
Everything's fine, this is-
- Everything's-
- Everything's calm, so pretty to be here.
(all laughing)
- You see a man walks up to you.
The groom actually walks
up to you and says,
"Sir, can I help you?"
- Listen, you are a man
who's been married today
and it feels like it must be
good for you to feel that way
and so for the day to be
continued to be blessed
I would love to borrow
a bouquet of flowers.
- He looks at you.
- I'm smiling
in the nicest smile I can smile.
- Amazing, he says, "Just
any bouquet will do?
- I think it's a specific bouquet.
But can I make any sort of check to,
can I Locate Object or is that?
God, I don't know if I want to burn that.
- Yes, you can cast.
- Yeah.
- On your turn you cast Locate Object.
It is the bride's bouquet.
- Okay.
- You need the bride's bouquet.
- Of course it is, of course.
- Wow.
- That's a tough sell,
that's a tough sell.
- Yeah!
- I'm pretty sure
this is not going to be the
happy thing you want to hear,
but I need to borrow the bride's bouquet.
It is a matter of saving New York.
- Ricky, you look over and
see next to you on the table
even through your confusion, a guestbook
for the wedding of
Arthur and Marian Brown.
We're gonna cut from Zac,
it's someone else's turn.
You cast Locate Object.
You know what it is you do.
Kingston, that is your turn.
- So I have no sense
that I am Kingston Brown.
I'm just a vessel on a mission?
- [Brennan] You are a vessel on a mission.
- Okay.
Then driven by my mission,
okay, let's do this.
I'm gonna cast Enhance
Abilities at a one, two, three,
at a fourth level.
- Cool.
- And touch Cody and Iga.
- Okay.
- Cool, thank you.
- And look at them and just say,
this will help us do what we came to do.
And then myself as well,
and then I will slowly walk over to
From New Amsterdam to New York.
- From New Amsterdam
to New York, yep, cool.
You cast that.
Go ahead and give me a history check.
- Great.
(die taps table)
Okay, that's gonna be a 17.
(tense instrumental music)
- Oh, baby, Kingston.
(Siobhan rubbing hands)
Here is what you see.
- (laughs) I made it off
the board, thank you God.
Oh, okay, great.
- Oh, all right.
Maypole time.
- Kingston, you are standing
in brand-new New York.
Peter Stuyvesant has surrendered
to the British a couple weeks ago.
You are standing around
this maypole dance.
You see a woman holding a wooden leg.
- Great, I cannot make any sort of check
with regard to persuasion so
I'm just gonna ready myself
to cast Command on my next turn
and force her to give me that leg.
(players chuckling)
- Incredible, Siobhan.
- Yes.
- Is it okay
if I throw a curve ball at you?
- Oh my goodness, I would be honored.
- Siobhan, you are dancing
around a maypole having a great time.
You've played a practical
joke on that f*cking stooge,
Peter Stuyvesant.
- Tra-la-la.
(laughing)
- And a man appears.
Kingston, you are like rendered
in the wood etching style
of this drawing here.
You see a man approaching
preparing to cast a spell.
And Kingston, you feel as
if you remember this person.
- I mean, I guess there's the idea that I,
like, I don't know.
This new Kingston is intense
so it's like I remember them
but I know I'm not connected
to the part that knows them.
- It's like you're full dissociated.
- Yeah.
- You're not experiencing
your own life anymore.
You're just a series of actions.
But you do know that this person
looks up at you with recognition.
- I need the leg.
(peaceful instrumental music)
- I'm sorry, hello, what?
- Hello, I need the leg.
- I mean, I'll give it to you.
I think it's very funny to give this leg
that I stole to a stranger.
What, who are you, what's going on?
- I'm called Kingston Brown.
- You see someone in the
distance calls out and goes like,
"Oh right, that's, over
there in the corner.
She stole Peter Stuyvesant's wooden leg!
That's Miss Holly Branch!"
This is Misty, this is 1700s Misty Moore.
(Emily laughing)
- AKA Holly Branch.
- Holly Branch.
- Holly Branch.
- Siobhan, what does
Holly do in this moment
as this strange man asks for
Peter Stuyvesant's wooden leg?
- I think
what I do is...
Because I am somewhat
of an agent of chaos,
I give him the leg and I say,
"Nay, 'twas this man, he took the leg!"
(all laughing)
- Incredible, you smile and laugh.
Kingston, you are holding the wooden leg.
The townsfolk begin to laugh and cheer.
Cody Night Angel Walsh, that is your turn.
- Sweet, Cody is not dexterous right now,
does not have a moped.
- If you hold I can move us.
- Ooh.
- That would be very cool.
Sweet, can I use my action now
but wait to use my movement
on Iga's turn, Brennan?
- Sorry, can you hold your action?
- Yeah, I want to cast
bless on a bunch of us
to give us d4s
- Oh, I could use that
especially 'cause all
my paladins are gone.
- Yeah, I would probably...
- Oh, gosh, sorry.
- Yeah, man, do what you're gonna do.
- Sweet, I will go ahead
and with the fires of
Hell bless my friends.
It's within 30 feet.
If I can see Kingston in the
picture would that count?
Could I give Kingston a d4, too?
- Yeah, I'll let you give Kingston a d4.
- I think the only person-
- [Brennan] You are just out
of Counterspell range, my man.
- Let me see if I'm
close enough to get Pete.
I think unfortunately
there's no possible way
I can get to Ricky.
Okay, I think I'll move
forward a little bit.
Iga, were you going to like
Thunder Step us or like move us?
- Yeah.
- Okay.
So I could still use my movement
and you can Thunder Step.
- Yes.
- Just so I can make sure I get Pete, too.
So I will use my movement.
- Cool.
- To run forward, so I'll
go kind of get in the middle
so I can hit everyone, I'll
go 25 feet, get in the middle.
And then I will summon the powers of hell
to bless everybody.
(Ally and Emily laughing)
At a third level I can hit everybody
except for Ricky, unfortunately.
- [Brennan] Cool.
- Is that a d4?
- Yes.
- [Emily] Yeah.
- You hear Bazathrax in your chest go,
"Hell yeah, dude, let's do it!
What the f*ck's going
on out there anyway?"
- (laughs) You haven't
f*cking talked to me for like,
what are you doing in there, dude?
You've just been in there.
- "Dude, we gotta f*cking
crazy L section on here
and a monster bong, dude."
(players laughing)
- Who's, oh, right, The
Jersey Devil's in there.
I was just mindlessly consuming devils.
Get the f*ck out!
(group members laughing)
Get the f*ck out!
- "This f*cking dude is a monster, dude!"
All right, incredible, you cast Bless.
- Oh, and then can I do,
I guess can I do a history check
on the one that Pete failed on?
- Yes, there's also, you're right next to,
those middle plinths are also-
- [Murph] Oh, okay.
- [Siobhan] 20th Century-
- [Brennan] Yeah.
- [Murph] Yeah, I'll just do
whatever one I was closest to.
- Hell yeah, go for it.
Go ahead and give me
an intelligence check.
- Great.
- Advantaged.
(die taps table)
- Oh yeah, ooh, baby.
- Ooh, yeah, his-
- Okay, yeah, with advantage
21.
- 21.
- Hell yeah.
- Hell yeah, baby.
- Oh, even more 'cause now I
have proficiency in history.
Yeah, like 23.
- Dope as hell.
- Maybe I'll Thunder Step Sofia.
- Watch what happens now.
- I am kind of worthless, so
you should Thunder Step someone
who can actually do something.
Well, everybody's-
- [Emily] I have plus two to intelligence.
- You're the only person in my range.
- Okay, I'm probably just gonna
stay stunned this entire time. (laughs)
- Cody, you appear in the 20th
Century Immigration, 1970s.
(Brennan mimics magical reverberations)
(players laughing)
- Incredible.
- The sword is still too big.
- [Brennan] Amazing, truly amazing.
- Oh my God, oh my God.
Absolutely unreal, the
screenshot of a lifetime.
- You're standing in a family home.
You see there is a
happy, beautiful family,
two Chinese immigrant parents
and their first-gen kids.
You see there's a little kid
with a Mets cap holding a baseball.
- Oh!
- The kids, the people here look at you
and you see the dad says,
"Who the hell are you?"
And the kid looks at you and says like,
"Hey Dad, who's this guy?"
Cody, you've used your action
so you get to say something,
but you're out of actions for this turn.
- Uh hey, my name's Cody uh...
(laughing)
- [Brennan] Iga, that is going to be you.
- (sighs) Okay, so its
magic won't work against me.
Do I get the impression that
my magic will work against it?
- You get the impression that your magic
will work against it, yes.
- Okay, in which case
what I want to actually do
instead of doing Thunder
Step, is this a humanoid?
- No, this is not a humanoid.
- Damn, damn!
- Damn.
- Um, hmm.
Then I would like to see
if I can cast Suggestion on Null.
(warm tone resounds)
- Cool, awesome, go for it.
- And I would like to suggest
that it leave this place.
It's a DC 17 wisdom check.
- Iga, you attempt to abjure this thing.
The magic of this dragon
sorcery hits this dream being.
(discordant chime resounds)
And you feel it is completely
immune to charm effects.
(sighs)
It, (inhales sharply) "You
would attempt to sway me?
I cannot be swayed."
Any movement from Iga on her turn?
- Yes, I'll move towards
these suitcases up here.
- [Brennan] Those ones up, yeah.
- Am I close enough here to
be able to see the photograph?
- Sorry, that series
of photographs actually
does not have one of the cases by it,
the one by the suitcases.
You can go for one of the other ones,
but you'll be rolling with disadvantage.
- Well, I have advantage from Kingston
so I would just be rolling flat.
- [Brennan] Cool.
- Sofia, do you have advantage
in darkness on checks
or anything like that?
- I have, no.
I can see in total darkness.
I have the Devil's Sight but-
- Right.
- But no.
- Okay, well, I'll roll
on Tenements and Family Life.
- Hell yeah, go for it.
Just a straight roll.
- Oh, I make it.
I rolled a 17, plus bless plus two.
- [Brennan] Cool. (mimics
magic energy sh**ting)
You see an image appear before you
of a sort of 1800s tenement
family seamstress like tailors
celebrating Hanukkah together.
Go ahead and make a
perception check for me.
(festive instrumental music)
- 18.
- A shape smiles in through
the window made of brick
back through the window behind
you, silhouetted in the sky.
You've used your action.
Now Null is going to go.
(spooky instrumental music)
On a natural 19.
- Oh, I don't like this one bit.
I like nothing about this.
- Null joins Iga in the photograph.
- What, come on, dude!
(electronic buzzing reverberates)
- Chasing the person with
the nat 20 on the save
that has the Dragon Chest.
I'm gonna roll in front of the board
to see if Null recharges its Mind Blast.
On a five or six on a d6 it recharges.
(die taps screen)
Two, it does not recharge.
- Okay, yes, yes!
- Oh, God damn. (laughs)
- Gonna roll some attacks.
(dice tapping table)
Both of those hit Iga.
(haunting instrumental music)
Iga, you take one, two, three.
Sorry, hold on, I gotta just
count these dice up real quick.
- Oh, Jesus.
- Eight, seven is 15, 20, 23.
You take 29 psychic damage.
(meter buzzes and pitches down)
Seven, nine.
- Damn.
- Nine, 15, 17.
And then 23 psychic damage.
- (chuckles) What?
What are you at, Iga?
- 44.
- You guys have so much HP, it's crazy.
- I'm gonna need Iga to make
two charisma saving throws.
- Okay.
- You are blessed.
- I'm blessed.
- Charisma's gotta be good for a warlock.
- And saving throws I have
a plus nine to charisma so.
- Amazing.
- Mm, still not great.
14 on the first one.
(sighs) 13 on the next one.
- With bless?
- With bless, yeah.
I rolled really badly.
- Your hit point max
drops by that same amount of damage.
- So now my max is 44?
- Oh.
- Yes, your max is 44 as you feel Null
(inhales raspily) trying
to hollow out your soul.
That is now going to be, Pete, that's you.
- Huh.
- Okay.
I am. (inhales and exhales softly)
Okay, I'm going to use sorcery points
to cast Haste on myself as a bonus action.
- Mm-hmm.
- And then I'm going to roll for this,
like a history check for
the one in front of me.
- [Brennan] Cool.
- We got that watch, remember,
that is good with directions.
- Yeah, that's a 16 plus, what's...
- I'm gonna say this, Pete, too.
Because you already failed that one,
you might want to move farther along
to move to one of the other ones
that you didn't fail
on if that makes sense.
Like, rather than go-
- Does the DC get harder?
- The DC gets harder when
you've already failed on them.
- Oh, I got you.
Let's see, it's a history check, right?
- Correct, yes.
- So do you think a 17
wouldn't work on this one?
- I don't think a 17
would work on this one,
but it would work on the next one down.
- That's great.
Okay, so I'm gonna move here.
- [Brennan] Hell yeah.
- And I'm actually doing it on this one.
- Dope as hell.
Pete, you appear in a
massive crowd of people
disembarking from a ship.
You see that there is a
family of Irish immigrants
coming off of a steam ship
and a huge crowd of people.
It's like 1847.
You see that a bunch
of them look up at you.
And you've used a bonus
action to cast Haste
so you still have your action left.
You see that there is a woman
who turns to look at you
and looks at you with
a look of recognition.
- Hi.
- Go ahead and with your remaining action,
go ahead and roll persuasion
for me if you'd be so kind.
- Okay, yeah, hell yeah, 19.
- Ooh.
- 20.
- You see a man, a woman, and
a little kid walk up to you.
The woman walks up and says,
"Young lad, are you, do we know you?"
- Yes, and I need your help.
- Instead of having to
look for this, Pete,
you look at this woman who
looks at you, meets your eyes
and looks at you and
says, "You're the one.
You're the one that the folk
under the hills told us would come.
'A child would be born in this new world
to the daughter of your
daughter's son,' said they.
Charmed and cursed alike shall he be,
fair of face and quick of tongue,
a shapeshifter and friend of the wind.
He will walk between all ways,
and his name will be known to him
before it is known to any other.
He will be a voice to the unspoken
and in a city without
sleep he will awaken."
The little boy reaches into a pocket,
takes out a gold Faerie coin
and places it into your hand
and it becomes a penny in your hand.
- Thank you.
You guys don't know what you've done.
And then I get the f*ck
out of the painting.
- (laughs) At the end of Pete's turn,
Null's gonna take a legendary-
- Oh honey, that's not the end of my turn.
I cast haste on myself, that's one action.
I'm moving on to the next one.
- Hell yeah, go for it.
You can either give me
a DC 20 history check
to dip straight into another photo
or you can dip back out
into the common room.
- Can I dip out back into the room
and move up to another photo?
- Yes, you can.
- Okay, yeah, I'm gonna do that.
I'm gonna dip back out and
then move to this next photo.
- [Brennan] Cool.
- [Ally] Immigration
and the Armed Services.
- Hell yeah.
Boom, you got your coin.
Go ahead and make your history check.
- Okay.
(tense instrumental music)
Hell yeah!
Okay, that is a 16.
- 16, cool.
Pete, you're looking at this wall
looking for photos everywhere.
As you are looking for photos
you know you have the coin,
Kingston has the leg,
Ricky's working on getting the bouquet.
Is there a particular thing
that you're looking for?
Does Pete remember the other items
that you guys were looking for?
- Yeah, I'm either looking
for a scrap of paper
or a candle or a cymbal.
- I think the candle would be with Iga.
- Yeah, it's Hanukkah
- Probably, cool.
So it's gotta be scrap of paper or candle,
or I mean, or cymbal.
- Pete, you see...
- [Siobhan] Oh, brass band.
- Yeah, that's what I was
thinking, armed services.
- Nice!
- You see a ticker tape parade with paper.
- Amazing.
- Oh.
- Oh, scrap of paper.
- It is a ticker tape parade.
You fly in.
You see a young husband and wife.
The husband has just come back
from fighting the German Army,
fighting the Nazis in World w*r II.
They both look at you.
You see that they are a
young couple of immigrants.
They are two young Colombian immigrants.
The young man in his 20s
looks up at you and goes,
"Peter?"
- Oh.
- "Peter, is that you?"
- Alejandro!
- His eye flashes golden and you see
peeking out of his messenger
bag is a book of spells for him
fighting a bunch of occult
Nazis during World w*r II.
- Incredible.
- As a wizard.
He looks at you and says,
"Peter, how do I know you?
What is it that you need, my friend?"
- I need a piece of paper.
- He reaches up, grabs a piece of paper,
puts it in Pete's hand.
What a f*cking turn from Pete, baby.
- Uh, we're not done.
I'm gonna use the timepiece
and get one more turn.
(Murph gasps excitedly)
- And get a level of exhaustion?
- Yeah.
- Hell yeah, go for it, dude.
- Okay, honey, we're
popping back outta here.
I'm like, "Thank you for
your service, Alejandro."
And then I pop back out. (laughs)
And I go do the next one.
- Nice.
- Amazing.
- So if that's bonus action
was casting Haste which gave me two turns
then I'm doing this, this
will, yeah, a third turn.
- Hell yeah, go ahead
and give me another history check, homie.
- Okay.
- And are you going in
to one of other occupied-
- Yes!
- What was that?
- I rolled a 17 so it's
an 18 history check.
And cutie, you know I'm
looking for that cymbal.
- Hell yeah, Pete, you rush
out, boom, appear here.
Sorry, wait a minute,
the DC for this went up.
This is now a DC 20 so you do not get-
- Bless.
- Did you use bless?
Did you use bless?
- Oh, I have bless.
I have bless.
- Gotta hit a two on that d4.
- Stupid.
- Come on.
- I'll roll it in front of the board.
- Go for it.
- Just not a one.
- Here we go.
(Siobhan groans nervously)
(dramatic instrumental music)
(die taps table)
- Two!
- Yes!
(players cheering excitedly)
Bare minimum, we love to see it.
- f*ck yeah.
- Pete, using his dream sorcerer sh*t
to tear through these other realms.
- Damn, can I just say,
Kendra f*cking k*lled it on this one.
- Isn't this beautiful?
Aren't these photos-
- Everybody's been doing a
great job this whole time.
- Oh yeah, incredible.
- But these pictures are so good.
- Absolutely incredible, they're so sick.
- Pete, you appear in a photo
from like turn of the century like 1900.
(Ally laughs)
You see there's like a
family, a well-to-do family
and there is a father
and daughter that look
like this is around a huge
wave of Italian immigration
coming into the city.
And you see there's a man
playing an organ grinder.
He's got a capuchin monkey
with the two little
cymbals doing the thing.
Looks up in the middle of
his performance, smiling.
He goes, "Oh, buongiorno, hello!
You appear from nowhere."
(cheerful carnival music)
- Do I know this person,
can I do an insight check?
Or is this a full stranger?
- Give me an insight check.
- You know the monkey.
(players chuckling)
- That's who you know.
- The monkey is Marcel from "Friends."
- That's only an eight.
- You have no idea who
the f*ck this dude is.
This is gonna be some
serious persuasion stuff.
- I'm gonna try to intimidate him.
- Okay, go ahead and give
me an intimidate check.
- Give me that f*cking cymbal. (laughs)
(Lou laughing)
- Oh baby, that's a 27.
- Pete, you like, the photograph roils
and you see the guy goes,
"Okay, okay, it is all right.
Listen, you can have the, here."
You see that he claps his hand.
The money jumps to his shoulder.
He takes one of the
cymbals, looks over at you.
You look behind him, see
his sweet little daughter
and also see a bicycle behind him.
- Oh no, oh no, cool.
- Oh no! (laughs)
- What?
Wait, what?
Um..
- They're related to me.
They're related to me.
(Brennan clapping)
- I take the cymbal, I have
no idea who these people are,
and I say, "Thank you for
your service," and I get out.
(cast laughing)
- And Pete is f*cking gone.
Okay, that's Pete's turn.
- Oh, okay.
- Okay, at the end of Pete's turn
Null is going to attack Iga
with a legendary action.
That's a hit.
(soft instrumental music)
Iga, you take 12, 14-
- k*lling me man, k*lling me.
- 18, 25 points of damage.
Give me a charisma saving throw.
(static buzzing)
- God damn, I'm rolling so badly.
It's a 15.
- Your hit point max is
reduced by that amount.
- God, so now my hit point max is 19.
- Yes.
- f*ck.
- That's gonna be Sofia.
- Okay, I'm gonna try to
get out of being stunned.
That's gonna be, do I get add Ricky's?
I think it doesn't even matter if I do.
Even I added Ricky's stuff
I'm just still stunned.
- Oh no.
- f*ck.
- I'm so sorry.
- (laughs) You know what?
- Yeah.
- I have been doing great
ever since I found out I was pregnant.
(cast laughing)
(Brennan clapping)
- Yeah, you remain stunned.
- Will you let me have used the timepiece
even though I'm stunned
to get an extra chance
to try to break out of this?
- If you want to take
the level of exhaustion,
I'll give you another save right now.
- Okay, oh, but then it will still
just be the end of my turn.
- You know what?
- [Emily] So I couldn't-
- If you're gonna use that power,
I'll do beginning of your turn.
Go for beginning of your turn.
- Okay.
(die taps table)
f*ck me!
- Oh my God.
- No!
- Two plus nine is 11
plus two is 13 plus four.
- (sighs) Stunned is really, really rough.
- You know, I just thought
someone should try it.
- Amen.
- I hear you.
Ricky, that is gonna be your turn.
- I think Ricky's in
this painting, confused.
He's gonna look at the...
There's two ways to do
this in Ricky's mind.
- Yeah.
- He's noticed
that he's still very strong
and maybe can just grab it
and just do something that way.
- Mm-hmm, yeah.
- Or is the little girl Kingston's mom?
- No, this is the 1920s so
these are Winston's parents.
Winston has not yet been born.
- Gotcha.
- Winston has not yet been born.
- Oh, okay.
In that case, Ricky's just gonna go,
"I'm the leprechaun of good luck!"
And rip his shirt off and say,
"The Brown family will prosper forever!"
And grab the bouquet and run away.
- Go ahead and give me an
opposed athletics check.
- Oh my God.
- As you grab Kingston's
grandma's bouquet.
- Oh, Ricky, we're gonna
have words about this.
- Oh my God.
- Opposed athletics check?
- Athletics.
- God, I hope this works.
- She got a 17.
- I rolled a three, I add nine to that.
I got a 12 and it's just an athletics?
- Good God.
- Ricky, you go to grab the bouquet.
(player gasps)
The freshly-married Marian Brown
pops you right in the eye and says,
"Get your hands off my
bouquet, this is my wedding!"
- I hit the watch again,
we're doing it again.
- Oh my God.
- We're doing it again.
- I'm sorry, this is good
luck, this is good luck!
- She got a six this time.
- Me and Ricky are thrust
into these insanely awkward situations.
- Rolled a 19.
- Ricky, you see the pianist runs up,
the guy who's playing the
piano runs up, grabs you
and helps you get the bouquet.
You pull it out.
You see this dude, you see his drummer,
he's the band leader on the piano
and on the drum it says
Sebastian Sinclair.
And you see he looks at you and goes,
"Take care of her for me, Ricky."
And is referring to his
great-granddaughter.
- Oh, Esther's, wait?
- This is Esther's great-grandpa.
- Oh.
- Not related
to the Brown family, but playing
the piano at their wedding.
- I will!
And I jump out of the picture.
- Ricky, you grab the
bouquet, you are outta here.
- Okay, can I move to Sofia
and try to give, gosh. (sighs)
- I'm a lost cause.
He's just gonna keep doing
it and I'll keep failing it,
anyways, you should invest-
- Okay.
- I also have plus one to history
so I can't even help with
history checks or anything.
- Ricky, you can at least jump out
and give your bonus to
Sofia on the saving throw.
- Okay, I'll jump out and then I wonder
if I have any f*cking
thing I can spell-wise do.
I don't really have
anything, I don't think.
I guess I'll cast sanctuary on,
I don't think that matters, right?
They're like AoE kind of things, right?
- Yeah, yeah.
- Never mind.
Yeah, that's the end of my turn.
- At the end of Ricky's turn
this is the final attack.
This possibly will do
enough damage to drop Iga.
Null hits Iga-
- Oh!
Can I go through the
paintings like Pete did?
- Oh, to go on to Iga's.
- Yeah, if you want to try to jump
to Iga's painting you absolutely can.
- Wait, I don't even, I can't,
yeah, I can do that, I'll do that.
- Okay, you gotta hit
a DC 20 history check
to jump from painting to painting.
- What is that, a nat 20?
Let me see.
- What do you have to history?
- Zero.
(Murph sighs)
- Okay.
- No
- Aw.
- sh**t.
- But Ricky, you-
- The level will know that that is.
- You can still exit the painting.
- Okay, I'm just gonna come back over here
and be within 10 feet, (sighs) yeah.
- Null hits Iga on a three or higher.
- God damn.
- I'm gonna roll in front of the board.
(dramatic instrumental music)
- [Emily] Do you have shield or anything?
- [Siobhan] Nothing.
(Murph groans)
I have counterspells,
is it casting spells?
It's just hitting me, right?
- It's not casting a
spell, just hitting you.
- I'm down, I mean.
- Ricky, as you leap
back out into the room,
(tense instrumental music)
you look and see the
photograph up on the other side
and see Iga in that
photograph (snaps fingers)
vanish from the photograph.
- Doesn't she get a
charisma save to make it not
be reducing hit point maximum?
- Oh, that's true.
That is true, so go ahead and
roll in front of the board.
Iga, to succeed on this saving throw
you need a 12 or higher
in front of the board.
(dramatic instrumental music)
(dice tapping table)
- Hey.
- 16.
- Oh, God.
- Ooh!
- Holy sh*t, that-
- Yes!
- If her hit point maximum was
reduced to zero, full dead?
- Then she would be dead.
- Full dead.
- f*ck this game, dude, holy sh*t.
- Let me tell guys right now-
- I'm so sweaty.
- Very happy, very happy
to celebrate that moment.
You guys are not out of the woods,
and Iga is really not out of the woods.
We're gonna move right
along in initiative.
That was Null's last legendary action.
Kingston, that is your turn.
- All right, f*ck this.
Can I jump, so I have the leg.
- [Brennan] Mm-hmm.
- Jump to Iga.
- Yeah, yeah, I look down
at Misty and I'm like,
this was kind of you.
You have done good, I must go.
- I hope to meet you again,
you're very handsome.
- You are very kind to say that.
I'm gonna go and I'm going to, yeah,
let me jump to Tenements and Family Life.
- Go ahead, I'm gonna need
a DC 20 history check.
- Okay.
(die taps table)
First one won't do it.
(exhales softly) God, I hate this so much.
Second one will 100% do
it on a 19 plus six, 25.
- Kingston, you flash across the room
face to face with this entity.
As you do so, it turns to regard you
(stirring instrumental music)
Kingston, you move, you
still have your action.
- Great, revivify on-
- On?
- Or no, you're not full dead,
right, you're just at zero?
- I'm not full dead.
- Just at zero.
- Oh yeah.
- Okay, great.
- And don't use a higher level spell on me
'cause my hit point max is 19.
- Great.
Can I just, oh, I have no strength.
I can't pick Iga up, okay.
- If I get out of it,
there's stuff I can do.
- Kingston, you see Null's presence
is freezing this family in shape.
As you appear, the family turns to you
and outside you see Willy look
and say, "Kingston Brown."
You see the young girl
reach down, grab a candle
off the table and hand it to you
as you appear in the photograph.
- I silently take it, put it in my pocket,
look at Willy and nod.
(tender instrumental music)
And I'm gonna cast like a,
yeah, I'll cast a first-level
Cure Wounds on Iga.
- [Brennan] Mm-hmm.
- 'Cause it won't do much.
(dice rattling)
That's gonna be nine, Iga.
- Great, thank you.
(choir chanting majestically)
- Okay, you're back up.
I'm then gonna, can I,
is it another action
to jump photos again?
- It is another action, yeah.
You can leave for free with movement.
- Okay, if use the Gotham Timepiece
can I jump to another
photo and use another,
or I've already used one spell,
no more spells this turn?
Could I jump to another
photo and use an action?
- Honestly, if you're gonna
use the Gotham Timepiece,
yes, you can do that.
- Okay, great.
Then I would like to jump
to the Great Migration
and the Harlem Renaissance.
- Cool.
(warm instrumental music)
- DC 20 still?
- DC 20.
- Okay, that'll do it.
That's 19 plus one equals exactly 20.
I look at my family.
I don't feel like I'm Kingston
Brown so I do nothing.
I'm gonna hop out of the
photo, run over to Sofia
and throw the Holy Grail Detergent on her.
- Kingston-
- What's that mean?
- Before you exit the photo
you feel a hand on your back.
Your charisma and strength return to you
as your grandfather Arthur
Brown looks at you and says,
"Young man, that's a nice
coat," and regards the coat
that he will buy three
years from this day.
- I smile real wide, say,
"It does a lot of good," and hop on out.
- You hop out of the photo and hit Sofia.
Sofia, you are out of stunned condition.
- Oh, you didn't have
to do that, Kingston.
I think I don't have much to
add to this battle, anyways.
- Hey, we're a long way
from being out of the woods.
- Okay.
- So no soldiers, you know,
not working right now.
- Okay.
- Snap to it.
- All right.
- Incredible, Kingston is-
- Also, I saw Misty.
At the time I didn't really
realize what was happening.
I saw Misty, she stole the leg!
God, I miss her.
- She would, classic Misty.
- She would, she would.
Honestly, when this is over
I'm gonna jump right
back in that painting.
(players laughing)
- Sofia is free.
Kingston, you have jumped out.
Ricky has the bouquet.
Kingston has the leg and the candle,
Pete has the cymbal, the coin,
scrap of the ticker tape,
but I will say now, Pete
and Kingston and Sofia
all have one level of exhaustion.
Disadvantage on ability checks.
- Yep.
- Cody, it is your turn.
- Oh boy, so Murph knows
that this is Jackson, right?
- Yeah, Cody's got no
idea who the f*ck this is.
- So Cody has no, I can't
even do a check, right?
Like, Cody has no f*cking clue.
- You can do a check,
it's just a high DC check.
- You've hung out with Sofia.
- Yeah, I know,
but he's a little kid.
- Yeah, I know, I know.
(die taps table)
- What kind of check is it?
- Persuasion.
- Oh, persuasion. (laughs)
Just me bumbling and saying, "I'm Cody"?
I got a 19, oh wait, I have bless, 21.
(laughing)
- 21?
- Yeah.
- What does Cody say
to this kid looking at him?
You see a young Jackson
Wei with his first Mets cap
holding a baseball looks
up and you and goes,
"Who the heck are you?"
- Um, I love sports and
I'm a huge baseball fan.
Throw one right down the middle, champ.
(Lou clapping)
(Emily laughing)
And Cody has fully never
played any sport in his life.
- Oh, for sure.
- And like goes
like he's catching a football.
- You see Jackson looks,
smiles, winds up, pitches.
Baseball, bam, hits you, you grab it
and blast out of the photo.
- Phew.
- Iga, starting your turn
within 30 feet of Null
there is an Annihilating Aura.
- No.
- Do I still have an
action, Brennan, 'cause I...
- You still have an action, yeah.
- You haven't used your timepiece yet.
- I still got the ball.
I guess can I try to jump
paintings and get to Iga's?
- Yeah, go ahead and
give me a history check.
- Okay.
- So funny that Cody has one
of the best history scores of-
- I know.
- Yes.
- Yeah.
(die taps table)
- He did the work.
- Oh, for a day.
Oh my God, I did so good.
(players laughing)
I got a, Jesus Christ,
I got a 27.
- Hell yeah.
- Cody, you leap into
the painting with Iga.
- Der Nachtengel!
(players laughing)
- And then I guess I'll just,
oh boy, what can I even do here?
I can't really heal you, right?
- You could push her out of the aura.
- Yeah, can I just get, can I just like-
- There's no pushing.
The extra-dimensional space
here doesn't work like that.
There's not enough space
to push her out of.
Besides, even the idea of
shoving someone 30 feet in a row
would be a lot of athletics checks.
- Maybe just grab her out.
- I will cast Warding Bond
on Iga.
- Hell yeah.
- Ooh, yeah!
- On your tarot-
- Wait, the thing from the-
- I knew!
- From the cards!
- Yes!
- Yes, it's from the tarot!
- [Siobhan] (laughs) Okay.
- [Brennan] From the tarot.
- From the tarot cards!
- Oh my God.
- You cast Warding Bond.
Iga, you are going to make
the saving throw of your life.
- Oh, God.
(epic instrumental music)
- At the beginning of your next turn.
And the beginning of your next turn
is gonna come next week
on the next episode
of "The Unsleeping City."
(Zac sighs)
(Lou cheers)
Tune in and join us then, g*ng.
We'll see you later.
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08x14 - History Checks and Lost Dex
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A tabletop role-playing game show produced by and broadcast on Dropout and created and generally hosted by Brennan Lee Mulligan as the show's regular Dungeon Master.
A tabletop role-playing game show produced by and broadcast on Dropout and created and generally hosted by Brennan Lee Mulligan as the show's regular Dungeon Master.