- "Johnny, we gotta do it, man.
"They're gonna get away!"
- I'd like to rip a sick U-turn.
- The car fully fishtails and flips.
- I stand dead center on the highway,
trying to like, watching
his motorcycle move.
- Johnny is over the handlebars,
Johnny Spells is dead.
- Write your motorcycle
in inventory, dude!
- Yes!
- You guys see that a little car pulls up.
"Do you guys need a ride into town?"
- Yeah, can we swing by
the ice cream place again?
- Master Drither, we will
conquer this world of mortals
and send their souls to hell.
- Yes, yes, in due time, Bike.
Now, to the ice cream shop.
- Hello and welcome back to Fantasy High.
My name is Brennan Lee Mulligan.
We're back with our
intrepid adventures here,
in the town of Elmville,
in the nation of Solace,
in the world of Spire.
Last we left our heroes,
they flipped a car
doing 85 on the highway.
- Oh, we were goin' faster.
I think we were goin' faster.
- And now we find ourselves
at Basrar's Soda Fountain,
a wonderful little white and
silver soda fountain shop.
Little ice cream.
There is a icy, windy djinn,
who has a little smokey
tornado below the waist,
who's behind the counter, making malts
and milkshakes, and stuff like that.
Big ol' handlebar mustache, icy blue skin.
Got a crisp white shirt, little
bow tie, a little paper hat.
There's a couple people
here enjoying a nice sundae,
a banana split, maybe some
kind of icy confection.
You guys are all seated in a corner booth.
Some of you are having your
second milkshake of the day.
You are all covered in insane road rash
and blood and other things like that,
but you're, you know, mostly okay.
- How did my Doreen's fishnets hold up?
- Perfect.
The fishnets are golden.
- Wow, hell yeah.
- You find yourself
coming out of the shock.
Looking at each other now,
you hold onto a couple
of objects that you
recovered at the very end
of the insane car chase with Johnny Spells
and his tiefling greasers.
You have his little black book.
Which once again,
I'll tell you what his
little black book has.
It has phone numbers of a bunch of people,
but the important names are
Sam Nightingale, very recent.
Penny Luckstone, Katya
Cleaver, Sam Nightingale,
I've already said, Danielle
Barkstock, and Antiope Jones.
Most of his little black book,
there's a planner section
of it, where it has
that last Friday of the month tea time.
Most of the planner is filled
up with various rehearsals.
So, we have dance rehearsals.
There's a jazz section.
There's a hip hop section.
- Is the word daddy-o in there?
- The word
daddy-o's in there a lot.
- Daddy-O, ah!
- His schedule's rigorous in there.
Also, you see that
there's a number of these
that are crossed out which are
new, unlabeled phone numbers
that have a PIN and an activation code.
So these new, crossed out numbers.
A lot of them are crossed out.
There is one on the last written page
that is not crossed out.
Additionally, you guys also
got this little switchblade,
which you still haven't opened.
Which your detect magic
highlighted as the source
of his infernal powers.
You also have a sealed
in plastic wrap crystal.
A fresh crystal, unopened and unactivated.
I'm trying to think if you
got anything else from him.
No, I believe that's it.
Oh, I am wrong.
You got the scratched
up, scuffed, palimpsest.
The big f*ck' thing.
You guys have a palimpsest
that has some kind
of spirit, soul, something
trapped inside of it.
- Can anybody detect what
is inside this thing?
- I can try.
- Somebody not Gorgug.
- Well, I, yesterday during the fight,
cast
identify on it.
And
essentially, this is a crystal whose
all of the identifying nature of it
has been scraped off in some way.
And then trapped inside it is a girl.
- What?
- I don't know.
It seems very odd.
I don't know how a person could
get trapped inside a crystal
- Could you talk to her?
- No, she just was
sad inside it.
- So, there's just a girl
pressed up against the edge
of this crystal?
- You're saying that as if we don't live
in a world where magic is possible.
- Okay, well, alright.
I've just never experienced putting people
inside of small ba*ls.
- You can put people inside
of all kinds of things.
I just have never seen this.
- I threw up in your backpack, yesterday.
Today, this morning.
- I mean that's not the same.
I feel like you're trying
to make that sound analogous
when it's really not.
- I'm a goblin.
- Basrar wends his way.
Torandoing, dust deviling
through the fountain shop.
Comes up with a whole bunch
of ice creams and things.
"Ah, my friends!
"Welcome, one and all.
"Here you go.
"Can I get you anything else?
"Simply say the words and
your wish is my command."
- I spike my milkshake.
- "That is not allowed in here."
- Could you not wait 30
seconds for him to go away?
- Fine, fine, I'll put it back.
I try to poor the milkshake back in.
- "Mmm, gross."
Okay.
- Also, doesn't that blouse
have friend spell cast on it?
- I keep almost dosing myself.
- "Alright, well, I hope
everything else is good.
"Let me know if I can
get you anything at all."
- Thank you, so much.
- Thank you Basrar!
- "Yes, and of course, yes?"
- Can I do a perception check on this guy?
- Sure.
- I don't like his attitude.
- 'Cause he told you not
to drink in his soda shop?
- Yeah, I don't know about him.
It's gonna be 14.
- I assume this is like
an insight check, right?
- Yeah, I wanna get a read on this guy.
- He has a deep sadness about him.
- Um, what's up with you man?
- "What?
"I am good, I am good."
- How's business?
- "Business is great.
"No overhead because, of course,
"I can make all the ice cream in the world
"with wishes, so."
- What about the family life?
How's that goin'?
- "It's good."
- Thank you so much for this ice cream.
- Thank you much.
Hey, if you wouldn't mind, I
am starting a prayer chain.
If you want to just fill out this card,
I'll add you to my prayer chain.
- Go ahead and make a
persuasion check for me.
- You're rolling a D12.
- Oh, thank you.
You saw that, too, but
you couldn't say anything.
Nat two.
- That's a two.
- And so he goes, "That is okay.
"I am a creature made of elements.
"The gods are meaningless to me.
"When I die, my soul will
turn into pure icy wind,
"and my consciousness will evaporate.
"And eventually my story
will be gone forever."
- Yo, that is so metal.
I tip him.
- Hold on, what was that last part?
- "Sorry?"
- I'm gonna pray for you,
for all of that stuff.
- "My story?"
- Story will be gone forever?
- "If you guys want any ice cream,
"you can come up to the counter!"
- Thank you, Basrar!
- "Very good, okay."
He heads back over.
- What's his story right?
- Yeah, right?
- But anyways, I don't know
anything about crystals
but maybe your A/V club
freaks will know something?
- Maybe.
- Can they hack these crystals?
- Kristen, can you see if
it's evil or something?
Or it that's a friend that's in there.
- Yeah, yeah!
I will cast.
I have detect magic
and I think I have—
- Can you detect evil?
- Detect good and evil.
- Cool, yeah, I'll cast
detect good and evil on this.
Wait, didn't we already do that?
- I did detect magic and that's how I saw
that the girl was trapped inside of it.
- I think we just wanna make
sure this isn't a demon person.
- Yeah, I would love to not
let a demon person escape
from a crystal unless it's.
- You go ahead cast detect
good and evil on it.
You detect neither alignment.
The creature trapped within
here, either is obscured
from your magic's vision
or it does not possess a powerful aura
of either celestial or infernal magic.
- Hmm, okay.
- So, it might just be a regular person.
Can I investigate it?
- Sure, go for it.
- Cool.
That is a 23.
- You investigate it.
It is a powerful piece of arcano-tech.
It's been really banged up.
Some powerful magic has occurred on this.
You see that part of the
scratching and fracturing
of the crystal is what's
keeping the soul inside here,
if that makes sense.
It's like a funhouse, right?
So deep within all the cracks
that have been created in the crystal,
it's created something has
almost more holding capacity.
It's like when someone jailbreaks a phone
or if somebody were to go in and like,
but a magical version of that.
Something's been done
to this that has f*cked
with the original mechanisms
that were supposed
to keep the thing safe.
- Yeah, we need that A/V club.
- So, we gotta get this person out.
This might be one of the missing girls.
- Sure, and if that's the case,
maybe we should, I don't
know, give this to the police.
Or someone more or better
suited to handle this.
We're going give the
possible soul of a girl
to a bunch of nerds?
- Why are you such a goody two-shoes?
- I'm not a goody two-shoes.
I don't wanna.
What are we doing?
I mean, we're all currently
in an ice cream shop,
covered in blood, with
the soul of a person.
- Yeah, and we're gonna save it.
- You guys see that Bud,
the dad of the halfling
family speaks up and says,
"Now, the problem with
going to cops, of course."
- Is he sitting at the table with us?
- You guys have forgotten
that they're here,
the whole halfling family,
that drove you here in the car.
They're called the Cubbys.
It's the Cubby family.
- Very cute!
- Bud Cubby speaks up and
says, "The problem, of course,
"that you go to cops is that
there's just no counting
"on them to do the right thing.
"There's some good cops, of course,
"but mostly police are
enforcing the status quo, right?
"And that's mostly gonna benefit
the people who are already
"in power."
- Have you had personal
experience with this?
- You see that his wife,
Daisy, speaks up and says,
"Oh yeah, for sure, for sure.
"Listen, ya know, people
get a real bad rep
"from those police officers.
"Ya know, halflings
don't get the worst of it
"'cause we have that model
minority thing goin' on
"but we certainly aren't.
"People say halflings have sticky fingers.
"We get looked at when
little trinkets go missin'
"and stuff like that, so, you know."
- Do you send your kids to school?
- "Oh, sure."
- Okay good, just checking.
- "The whole
family goes to Mumple.
"We're all Mumple people."
- Oh, cool.
- Great!
- What do you do?
What is your job?
- "What do I do?
"Oh, I work as a waitress over at Krom's."
- That's great.
- I live right near there.
I've been there a lot
whenever I'm fightin'
with my mom.
- b*tch.
- Not you.
- You see that they look
at you, and make a sad face
at each other and pat your arm.
You see Bud says, "And
I'm a postal worker.
"I work at the post office."
- Interesting.
- Well, thank you.
- Can I do an insight check just
to make sure they're not
secret demons or somethin'?
Oh, that's a what?
That's an eight.
- I wanna make an insight, too.
- Yeah, go for it.
Everyone go ahead and make it.
- Oh, I got a five.
- I got a 19, plus four.
- I got a nat one.
- You do not think that they are demons.
You see Bud says, "The
problem here is, of course,
if you go the cops, right,
and you get a real snake,
then all of a sudden he's
gonna get his buddies
on the inside.
They're gonna hold that
thin blue line there,
and you're gonna be in whole
heaping, helping of trouble."
- You guys are just so innocent
in everything you're saying.
It feels like if shouldn't
come out of your mouth.
- You see that Bud and Daisy
look at each other and say,
"Listen, we're law abiding citizens.
"We don't don't belong
to the thieves guild.
"We're not any kind of
nothin' to be worried about."
You see that Bud says,
"Now, what you could do is
you can make an anonymous call
"to the cops, right?
"You get one of them to show
up and you bag 'em, right?
"Throw a sack over his head real quick."
- I think it's cool that these halflings
are anarcho-socialists.
I think it's very cool.
- Yeah, that's what I'm
definitely sitting here thinking.
- Sorry, are you suggesting—
- "I'm not advocatin' that
you k*ll a cop, alright?
"I'm not advocatin'
that you put a pig down,
"I'm sayin', what you should do—"
- Okay!
- My mother is a cop, good sir!
- "Alright, well, ya know."
- Thank you so much for these ice creams
and for picking us on
the side of the road.
- I kind of agree with you, though.
- You see, he
looks over and he says,
"Well, I hope you kiddos
enjoyed the ice cream.
"That's on us, of course.
"Yeah, I'm sorry,
"I gotta insist, alright?
"You guys flipped that car,
and I just want you to know
"That I'll be f*cking dead in the ground
before I say something
to anybody, alright?"
- We appreciate that.
- Can I do an insight
check on my ice cream
'cause right now I feel like they
might just a little
cyanide capsule in there.
- I think these guys are just ride or die.
- Yeah, I think they're
just ride or die, okay.
- If we ever need to go
to the post office, sir,
we will come to your window
- Yeah, actually, it's great to know
because perhaps someday
we might need someone
who's connected like you.
- "That's for sure. "Take
it down from the inside.
"All right, later guys!"
- Bye!
- Take it down from the inside?
- That was a wake-up call.
- Well, I feel like the A/V Club
is maybe still the best bet.
- Yeah, I think we wanna hang onto this
because we don't want it to
just get thrown in to evidence.
- Oh, Kristen, can you
do a detect good and evil
on this warlock switchblade that seems
to have a lot of terrible.
- It's definitely evil.
Here, I'll do a detect evil.
I grab it.
Yup, it's evil.
- Don't be such a b*tch about it.
- You're right, that was uncalled for.
I'm sorry, man.
- Did you do identify?
I think you only did identify on the—
- Oh, yes, I only did
it on the palimpsest.
- Gotcha, cool, cool, cool.
- I'll cast.
I will ritual cast identify
on the switchblade then.
- Cool, so you take 10
minutes to start examining
through
your little arcane runes.
- Don't steal my milkshake
while I'm doing this.
- I've already drank it.
- I leave to go to the
bathroom for a little while.
- You go to the bathroom.
You come back.
At the end of that 10 minutes,
you guys see that Adaine has
looked down at the device
and suddenly you hear, "Ahh,
yes, what we are looking
"at here is a switchblade comb!"
You see that instead
of a knife coming out,
a little comb pops out.
- Oh, that's so much lamer.
- "This is the phylactery
of Johnny Spells,
"also know as a pact boon.
"This magical item serves as a symbol
"of the promise made between Johnny Spells
"and his benefactor.
"The demonic prince who
granted him all of the power
"for his spell casting."
- Is there any way that we can destroy it
without releasing the
demonic powers within it?
- No, Adaine, ask who his benefactor is!
It might be my dad.
- Who's the benefactor?
Isn't your dad another tiefling?
- No, my dad's a demon.
- Oh, okay.
- We don't know how high
up the chain he goes.
- "The benefactor of this
particular warlock's pact,
"was Gorthalax the
Insatiable, a fallen angel.
"Originally, an angel of Sol, the sun god,
"who fell during the reign
and fall of Calvaxis,
"Emperor of the Red Waste."
- Oh, so it's one of yours.
- Whoa!
- I didn't tell you guys this,
but when I hid after the
giant corn monster fight,
some of the cops were
looking at the crime scene
and they were talking about
how it wasn't arcane magic,
that it was holy magic.
That it must have been
made by a fallen angel
or something like that.
So, this is all starting to add up.
- "However, there would have
certain taboos of behavior,
"as a part of the pact made
with Gorthalax the Insatiable,
"as well as a need to
fulfill certain obligations
"in order to maintain a hold
of the switchblade comb.
"This has been another use
of the identify spell."
- The identify spell is the lamest person.
- Did it just almost plug
its Instagram at the end?
It looks like a weird slug.
- Wait, what was it that needed fed in?
Can the identify tell
what had to be plugged
into the switch comb, in
order to keep it going?
- Well, he couldn't f*ck, right?
- Oh, he couldn't f*ck!
- Clearly, he couldn't f*ck.
Okay!
- So, he's just a no fap guy?
He's getting his power from no fap?
- He's getting his power from no fap,
but maybe it also has something to do
with the missing girls 'cause they're all
in his little black book.
- He might have to offer up.
- He offers up the women
that he wants to sleep with.
So he wants to sleep with
the women and then he can't,
'cause he has to offer
them as a sacrifice.
- That is so twisted.
- I'm also no fap.
- I really hope Gorthalax isn't my daddy.
- We assumed as much.
- Should we go?
- Yeah, I guess.
- I mean, it's the middle of the night.
Can we go?
It's the A/V Club.
- Let's go to bed?
- A/V Club tomorrow.
- Yeah, first thing tomorrow.
- I'll see you guys at the A/V Club.
- Cool, well, hey guys, like, look.
I know I don't wear my heart on my sleeve.
I know I'm hard to read.
I'm like a locked book or whatever.
- No, we get it.
You just have a lot of daddy issues
and do a lot of rebel stuff.
- You're very on the surface about it.
- I'm listening from halfway
the door is opening.
- One headphone on.
- I just wanna say like,
I thought you all fought really valiantly,
and like, I was honored
to drive down the
highway of life with you.
Okay, bye, that's enough.
I run away.
- From the soda fountain,
you run as fast as you can?
- Highway of life?
- I was gonna say thank
you and that I agreed
that I was glad we're friends but.
- She's tearing off down the street.
- There she goes, gone.
She's fast.
- You see Basrar comes over and says,
"So I hope that everything has
been wonderful this evening.
"We will be closing up soon.
"I noticed that your friend sprinted out
"of the ice cream shop.
"So I hope everything is okay."
- Can I ask you a magical question?
I don't want to impose.
- "Certainly!
"You can ask me anything.
"I will do my best.
"I want you to know, though,
that if you are going
"to ask for a wish, I can
grant any wish you want.
"It just has to be ice cream, okay?"
- Thank you, I've already
had a lot of ice cream today.
- "Okay.
"Some people get really upset
"when you can't do non ice cream things."
- What about if I wish
for ice cream later,
so that at a certain point—
- I wanna do that, too.
- I just get an ice cream?
- "If you'd like to
wish for ice cream later
"at an undetermined time,
"yes, I can do that."
- Then I would like to wish for us all
to get ice cream later
at an undetermined time.
- "You will all get ice cream later
"at an undetermined time."
- Make sure I'm in on that!
- I said all of us.
- Good, okay, I'm not here.
- You see that a little
of frosty magic comes
and circles around you
as you run down the street.
- What the f*ck?
Is this what friendship feels like?
- Here's my secret.
I was going to wish for ice cream anyway.
- "That's very nice.
"I hope that's true."
You see he
whisks behind the bar,
and you just hear deep sobs
from the kitchen of the soda fountain.
Cool.
You guys head out?
You guys head out.
The next day you guys
arrive back at school.
It's day three.
- Meeting at the A/V Club?
- I'm certainly going.
- Before we go in, I have
a present for Gorgug.
- Cool.
You're out on the steps.
People are arriving that morning.
- Hey, Gorgug, before we go in
because you know I can't
be seen with you.
- Oh, I didn't know that.
- No, remember.
'Cause I sold you out.
- I guess I didn't think it
meant you couldn't see me ever.
- Right, yeah.
Well, I just thought it
was really cool that you,
I feel like you look really scared.
Don't be scared.
- I'm not scared.
Okay, go for it.
- I just, you know, I liked
that you were trying to sing.
I think it's the right direction
that your family members want you to sing
to channel your rage.
But I was thinking maybe music is right,
but the medium is wrong.
So, I got you some drumsticks.
- Just drumsticks?
- Yeah!
- Just to sing songs?
- No, I thought you
could get into drumming.
- Oh,
okay,
I never tried it.
- There's no pressure.
- Awesome.
- I just wanted to give
it to you, that's all.
- Thank you.
- Maybe you should take
a class or something.
- All right, thank you.
I just keep walking like this
- You don't have to drum right now, man.
- You put 'em in your back
pocket and it looks cool.
- I'll sit on them and
I'll break 'em in half
but I do have them.
- Yeah.
Alright.
- You guys walk into the halls
of the Aguefort Adventuring
Academy, here day three.
You hear Vice Principal
Goldenhoard come over the PA,
"Welcome, welcome back to day three
"here at the Aguefort Adventuring Academy.
"Nobody died yesterday,
"so big plus, as far as we're concerned.
"Let's keep it going, g*ng.
"And everyone enjoy your classes."
- We did m*rder someone, though.
- And a bunch of his friends.
- I can't believe we didn't
get in trouble for that.
- Oh yeah.
- We just crashed a car.
- You guys walk through the halls.
Gorgug, you're going to your locker
and you see that there is a young woman
at the locker next to you.
You see that she got
sorta like hanged bangs
in front of her face, and
he's got a weird sweater
that's a little to big for
her, and she's got goat legs
and a little pair of horns that come up.
You that she opens a locker next to yours,
looks up at you and goes,
"Oh,
"cool drumsticks."
- Oh, um, thank you.
I'm pretty sure I'm gonna
learn to play sometime soon.
So, I have 'em.
- "Sick, that's cool.
"You're one of the six kids,
"who the freaky thing happened to, right?
"Rumor started that the six of you were
"in detention when that thing attacked."
- Can I make an insight?
- Yeah, go for it.
- 20!
- You have never
guessed correctly
when somebody likes you before,
and you have some reason
to believe that you might be
a thimble full cool
to this person on this occasion.
- I mean, yeah, I guess that was us.
Yeah, it was kinda crazy, I guess.
I start trying to do my
combination on my locker.
- Go ahead and give me
a sleight of hand check.
- Four plus one.
- As you are talking
about how cool you are,
you cannot get the combination
to your locker open.
- So yeah, pretty wild day
that was.
- "That's awesome.
"If you ever, I don't know, like.
"I am thinking about
trying the barbarian class
"at some point but it
seems, like, not for me,
"I don't know, or whatever."
- Yeah?
Well, okay.
I'm in a barbarian class.
I'm a barbarian class.
- "Really?
"Wow, that's awesome.
"I'm still figuring out
kinda what I'm gonna be."
- Totally.
- "Are you having trouble with the—"
- I'm just playing with it.
Can I make a bluff check?
- Yeah, go ahead and make a bluff check.
- What is that?
Which one would that one be?
- Deception.
- Deception.
Oh, just a seven.
- She looks at you and goes, "Oh, rad!
"I play with a lot of locks too."
- It's just like being funny.
- You hear a voice behind you
say, "You know what's funny?"
and your head gets
smashed into the locker.
- Oh, god!
Oh no!
- You take nine points of damage.
And you see that Rog Barcrok
is behind you and goes,
"That's what you get you f*ck' freak!
"This kid's a f*ck' freak!
"Hangs out in the f*ck' parking lot
"and steals backpacks, dude!
"What do you f*cking do?
"You jerk off in 'em, you
f*ck' jerk off freak?"
- I don't do that.
- "That's you, dude!
"That's what you're like."
- I'm really mad but that's okay
because this song is about
being mad and that being fine.
- You see that Rog trembles as he realizes
that you just tried to sing at him.
And all of his bully neurons are firing.
He's almost having a stroke
as he
realizes the opportunity
that is presented to him,
he looks at you and says,
"Did you just f*ck'
"sing at me dude?"
- I-
- "This kid f*ck'."
He grabs you.
Woo-hoo!
He grabs you and hurls
you across the hall.
- Sheesh!
- Into the other lockers.
"This guy f*ck' sings when
he gets his a*s kicked, dude!
"He's like a f*ck'
jack in the box, dude!
"You f*ck' hit him and he pops out
"and sings a f*ck' song!
- Alright, I go into a real rage.
- You see that Rog fully
joins you and leaps.
You go ahead and make an
oppose athletics check.
- Nat 20.
- Ooh!
- Uh, you.
What do you want to do to,
what do you want to do to,
well you're in a rage, so
yeah, awesome, what do you want
to do to Rog as a result of that nat 20?
- Use everything on him.
- I'm just going to
cartoonishly spin him around
and throw him down the hallway.
- f*ck' pants him, dude.
- You f*ck'
he goes f*cking flying as a
bunch of students gather around.
He lands, a*s over tea
kettle, looks up, bloody nose,
and he goes, "This guy's a f*ck' freak.
"He f*ck' threw me down the hallway.
"This guys a f*ck' maniac."
- Are you cryin'?
- "Dude, this guy f*ck' sucks.
"f*ck you, dude!"
And he gets up, runs off down the hall.
You see that, um.
You look over.
Go ahead and make an
insight check for me again.
- Ooh, I got a 19.
- Zelda, not that you got her name yet,
but the satyr girl looks terrified
and kind of backed up against the lockers.
- Oh,
can I come out of my rage?
- Sure.
- Okay.
Woo.
I'm sorry.
I felt bad because he
was being mean to me.
I just kinda.
Sometimes that happens,
when you're in the barbarian class.
- Go ahead and make a
persuasion check for me.
- That is only,
oh, wait, nope.
- That's a zero.
- Zero, 11.
- 11.
You see that she goes, "Sure, I get it.
"Um, later."
And walks off down the hall
- Bye!
- Bye.
The rest of you guys,
what do you guys do with your day?
- You guys wanna go to the A/V Club?
- Sounds like a plan.
- Yeah, I'll come to the A/V Club.
- Sure.
- Can I join them after A/V Club?
- I feel like socially, I'm
in such a precarious position
that I don't know if I do
wanna do to the A/V Club,
but if the cool kids are going, I'll go.
- Don't worry.
I'm going to stand outside of the door,
take a little looksee.
I don't want to be seen
going into the A/V Club.
- It's pretty important that
guys are in with the cool kids,
so you two.
The rest of us are doomed.
Let's face it.
- Will you let me table top
you in front of some cool kids?
- Fine.
Why don't you both be
pretending to carry me
and push me into lockers
as we go the the A/V Club.
I'll pretend to be a nerd.
- Yes!
Can I spin The Ball on my hand.
- Go ahead and give me an
athletics roll to spin the ball.
- Eight.
- Eight.
You attempt to Harlem Globetrotters,
get all the way around.
And Riz immediately falls off
and face plants on the ground.
You guys basically just
shame and humiliate Riz
on your way to the A/V Club.
You all make you way there.
- It's important, it's important.
- Sorry, it's necessary.
- You get there basically
on your lunch break.
- Also, as we're walking,
I'm yanking on lockers
in case any of the locks are
undone, so I can open them.
- Go ahead and make an investigate check.
- That's gonna be a 19.
- A 19?
Damn!
You yank on a couple.
You actually yank on one and you see
that is Penelope Everpedal's locker.
- Oh sh*t.
- Yup.
We're gonna lock in there.
- Will you guys cover me
because if she comes, I
can't get into sh*t with her.
- Do you wanna just
throw me in her locker?
- Yes, I will pretend to be doing that.
- Go ahead and give me
an investigate check?
- Come on!
I rolled a g*dd*mn one.
- Well, here's the thing.
The place is pretty spotless.
Penelope's locker is
well groomed, organized.
What you do see, that even
a nat one will get you,
is that there are a lot
of pictures of her in here
with her like,
sort of like pastiched
or collage, with her
in a beautiful gown.
Her in a thing of roses and flowers.
Her with a crown on her head.
There's a thing of Dane
Blade's picture next to it
and she's kissing him.
You find one very old,
little, crystalline,
de garo type thing,
pressed up against the back of the locker,
which is a picture of her in braces,
which does not fit with how
stylish everything else is.
And she's got an arm
around Sam Nightingale,
who's also middle school
age in the picture.
They both look like
they're 10 or 11 years old.
- Can I see if there's
anybody else in the picture?
Like if something's
blocking it or anything,
like it's in a collage?
- You are looking through
to see if anything else
is being blocked by it.
You guys start hanging out in front of it.
You see Penelope starts
walking up to her locker.
- Okay, I just loudly say to Fabian,
sh*t, did you really see
Johnny Spells outside earlier?
- I did see Johnny Spells outside.
Penelope, Johnny Spells
is outside right now.
- Go ahead and give me a deception roll.
- 16.
- 11.
- Hold on.
I'm gonna take a picture of
what I just rolled, for later.
- Is it a 20?
- I hope it's one and not a
20. It's one or the other.
- I think a one is much more
worth taking a picture of.
- It's a classic 15.
- Oh my god, such an
interesting roll, a 15.
- It's right in between.
- You see that she looks at
you and says, "Oh my god!
"Johnny Spells is outside right now?"
- Yeah!
We don't really know him.
We saw some guy on a motorcycle.
- Yeah!
- "Oh my god, thank you
guys so much for telling me.
"I super appreciate it."
You see that see turns tail
and runs out the other hallway.
- Knock, knock.
Get out, get out, Riz.
- The ball.
- The ball.
- I try to if there's any false
walls or anything in there.
- You got nothing, baby.
That nat one.
You duck out.
I'ma need everyone here to
make a wisdom saving throw.
- Oh sh*t.
- sh*t, why?
- Am I there?
Are we all there?
- Ugh, three, uh, wait, plus two, five.
- 17!
- 10.
- Nine.
- 12.
- Five.
- 13.
- Dope, that's it.
We'll move on.
- sh*t!
- You guys head off down the
hall towards the A/V Club.
You guys arrive there.
Once again, arcano-tech,
little beakers going.
You guys see that
Shellford, Skrank, and Biz
are all here hangin' out.
- What's up, boys!
- You see that Shellford turns
and looks at you and goes,
"Pfft.
"Whatever."
You see that Biz says, "Guys, what's up!
"Welcome back!
"It's packed in here.
"That's nuts, dude.
"Oh, uh,
"Gorgug."
- Yeah, hi.
- "Riz, can I just, like,
level with you super quick?"
- Yeah, sure.
What's up man?
- "We kinda have, like,
a rep here at the school,
and if Gorgug's kinda hangin' around."
- What did we do?
- I'm excited to be here.
This is exactly what I
wanted to do, I think.
- "It's just kinda, like,
maybe don't super bring him
"around all the time."
- All this stuff is so cool.
- I feel like he's kinda,
I feel like, if anything,
he actually might fit in
real well with, like, us.
Do you know what I mean?
- "Ugh, yeah, maybe, maybe he would.
"But also, like, one of
the things is just like,
"A/V, of the clubs at school,
"we kinda have like a bad boy mystique
"that kinda feeds into us.
"'Cause it takes a lot of f*cking skill
"to, like, work these machines, and people
"kinda look at that and
they're like that's dope."
- Right.
- "And if Gorgug's here he's
kinda like a freaky weirdo
"who creeps on people
and steals their stuff."
- Oh my god.
- Here's the thing about Gorgug, though.
He's got something really f*cking cool
that only me, you, and Gorgug can look at.
- You see that he looks over and goes,
"Oh, okay, yeah, if he's got dope stuff,
"yeah, we'll take a look."
He says, "Can I show Shellford—"
- What is this?
Okay.
- "I think it should
probably just be us."
- I'm gonna chill at the front of the door
toward wherever they're hanging
out, almost like a bouncer.
So, if anyone else tries to come in,
they gotta get past me.
- I'm gonna go with you.
- Sweet.
- And I got a staff.
And I'm just gonna put the
staff sideways on the door.
- And I'm just gonna play with a lighter.
- Awesome.
So you see that you, Biz,
and Gorgug go into a corner.
Biz goes, "Hey dude!"
- Hey.
- "Cool, so, my man, Riz here, tells me
"that you got some cool stuff to look at."
- Yeah, totally.
Hold on,
I pull out the puh-lip-sis.
Puh-lip-sis?
- Palimpsest.
- He cannot help.
It is a palimpsest.
- The ellipses!
- I got a puh-lip-sis.
- It's a palimpsest.
- You see Biz looks at
it and goes, "Holy moly.
"That thing's been beat to hell.
"What happened?
"What'd you guys do?"
- I think there's something inside of it
and somebody's trying to
make it more difficult
for it to get out.
Can you you look at it
and tell us what it is?
- "What, like data or something?
"There's some information,
or memories, or dreams,
"or something put in there?"
- Gorgug thinks there's,
like, a person in there.
- "What do you mean?
"Like a, like,
"like a prank?
"Like you guys pranked on somebody?"
- Maybe it's like a prank.
- "Okay, why don't we
go over to the dark room
"and we'll just take a look."
- Let's look at it.
- I also get in there
because I understand why
this is happening to Gorgug,
but also this is all of
my work, that Gorgug,
for some reason is getting the credit for
And I worked really hard to
get all of this information.
- You see Biz looks up at you.
Biz has not really noticed
you up until this moment,
but as you try to muscle
into the darkroom,
he looks up and goes, "Oh, uh."
And you see that he flies
on little pixie wings
and gets a little trilby hat.
And puts it on his head and
he goes, "M'lady," and bows.
"I couldn't help but notice
from your accoutrement,
"that you bear the visage and
resemblance of a spell caster.
"Our birthright, you as a high elf,
"and myself as a pixie, would see us—"
- No.
- "What?"
- No.
- "Oh, no, no to?"
- No.
- No to what?
- Just no.
- I whisper in his ear.
I would really impress her
if you figured out what
was up with this crystal.
- "Dude, you are the number one wing man!
"You get it."
"Forgive me for being overly forward.
"As the poets say, the heart
wants what looks good."
- I just wanna cast so many
shitty spells on this dude,
and I'm not going to, because
I know he can help us,
but I'm so skeeved out.
- You just have ray of
sickness at your fingertip.
- Oh, I'm holding it in.
- So the three of you go in
to the darkroom with Biz.
You two are at the door,
which just leaves Fabian
with Skrank and Shellford.
- Can I just look over at Skrank?
So.
Do you eat worms?
Oh, god.
- "Uh, no.
"I mean, do you?"
- No, but you know.
- "What?
"Mostly, I wouldn't eat worms.
"I eat rabbits."
- Oh?
- "But also just, like, pizza.
"You know, just food."
- Wow, incredible.
- "I'm, like, a full person, dude!"
- Uh-huh.
- "So, do you play sports?"
- I do, yeah.
Well, I should be.
I could be.
But they didn't-
It's a sore subject.
- "I play crystal sports."
- I'm sorry?
- "I play, like crystal sports."
- I'm sorry—
- "I play crystal sports!"
- Is that like a ball game?
Do you throw a crystal around?
- "Yeah!
"Well, no, you don't
throw a crystal around.
"You throw a ball around in a crystal.
"So, it's all the strategy
and tactics of, like,
"a real game!
"You know, like a sports game
"but it's on a crystal."
- Uh-huh, that sounds delightful.
- Shellford look up and goes,
"Uh,
"don't mind Skrank.
"He
"f*ck'
"sucks."
- Oh, and you're what?
Cool?
- "Pfft, f*cking
"loser, dude."
- Who?
Me, you, the birdman?
Who are we talking about?
- We go back.
Great, we're good.
- We know what's going on here.
- We know what's going on here.
We go back into the dark room,
where Biz, Riz, Gorgug, and
Adaine are gathered around.
He takes a little brass clamp that goes
around his four little hook, talon things
that jam into the crystal.
He turns on a little,
weird centrifuge engine
and this crystalline blue
energy fills up the palimpsest.
And you see a spectral
form of Sam Nightingale,
deep, deep within the crystal,
reflected hundreds and
hundreds of times over.
Biz looks at it horrified and goes,
"Oh my god!
"How did you guys get this?
"What did you guys do?
"I don't want any—"
- What is it?
- You see he says, "Okay, look, there's."
He sort of like holds
his eyebrow and goes,
"So, okay, every crystal, right,
"is logged with the Council of Chose.
"There's a special bureau that's dedicated
"to arcano-tech safety, right?
"So, every crystal is unique, right?
"There's a way to scry on it
"or fie in it, if people do stuff right.
"So, this has been
turned into a palimpsest.
"All that stuffs been scrubbed out.
"So a normal dream crystal's only capable
"of holding certain amounts
of data or information.
"Like textual information or it's able
"to run certain cantrips,
or run certain spells
"that have certain applications, right.
"So, most of the companies
that buy and sell crystals,
"they have very limited use, right,
"but the dream crystal in
its natural state is capable
"of holding vastly more information
"than just sensory data,
light, sound, things like that.
"A crystal can hold
"kind of anything.
"And I've never seen it
fully developed or tested,
"but it appears that this
crystal is holding a soul."
- Well, so how do we get her out?
- "Well, I know how to get music
"off of your mobile crystal
onto your home crystal."
- So, you're useless?
Is that what you're telling us?
You're useless.
- "Sorry, uh, far from useless, m'lady.
"I could get her out.
"I could definitely get her out,
"if you, could, um."
- Definitely.
Just don't k*ll her, but
yeah, if you get her out.
- "Well, that's the
thing, is there's no, uh."
- What do you think you
could do to get her out?
- "I would need better equipment
than what the school has."
- What place has better equipment?
- Than a high school A/V Club?
- I mean my parents might have something.
- "If you, look, I won't lie to you.
"I
"think I can figure out
"how to do this
"but doing it here feels really dangerous.
"Also, whoever did this
is extremely dangerous.
"You guys are not the ones who did it?
- No, no, no, no.
- "Okay, do you mind
telling me if you're trying
"to enlist me in a covert operation?"
- Yes, you're our hacker.
- "Yes, dude!
"f*ck' did it, dude, yes!"
- Yeah!
- Just to be clear, you're
not in our adventuring party.
- "I'm a part of the team!"
- He's a hacker.
- "The seven of us versus the world!"
- All of us!
- "So, okay, so I'm like
the man in the van, right?
"Like, I'm in your guy
in the sky, kind of?
"Like I am in over here.
"We're like pow, pow,
pow, pow, pow, like."
- Yeah.
- "Dude, this so friggin' rules.
"This so friggin' rules, dude!"
- Right, okay.
So, hacker.
Where do you think we can get equipment
that would be better?
- "Uh, okay.
"I could get started with what I have.
"Although, I probably shouldn't
do it on school property
"'cause weird stuff's been
happening at the school, right?"
- Right.
- "So, I can get started with what I have.
"If you guys could talk
to Gorgug's parents
"to see if they have any
dream crystal equipment.
"I'm sure they do.
"They're tinkers right?"
- Yeah.
- "Basically, what I really
need is a power source.
"I need a machine because I
can do a lot of the processes
"but I don't have enough
juice on my crystal at home.
"So any kind of power
source you can get me
"is gonna be super helpful."
- What kind of a power source?
- "I don't know.
"Any kind of arcane power source,
"that is gonna be strong enough
"to let me run a lot of
very complex operations.
"I can daisy chain a
couple of crystal together,
"but at a certain point,
I'm gonna blow the breaker
"at my parent's house and
I'm gonna get in trouble."
- I mean, this might be too dangerous,
but I do have this warlock switch comb.
- "Well, well, well, m'lady."
- Don't.
If you call me m'lady one more time,
I will make you vomit
in front of the coolest girl in school.
- "Well, if you want to make me vomit
in front of yourself,
that's your prerogative."
- I would say go for it
at this point, right?
- You see he says,
"Yeah,
"that has enough juice in it
"that I could at least get started.
"I don't know if it will
mess with it or not.
"It's possible that."
He looks at it and says,
"Is that Johnny Spells' switch comb?"
- How do you know Johnny Spells?
- "He's been coming to this school
"and dating people for the the
whole time I've been here."
- That's so creepy.
- "Yeah, he's not great.
"He's, like, a bad guy."
- Yeah.
- "And it's always, like,
of course girls are gonna go
"for Johnny Spells 'cause
he has a motorcycle
"and is super in shape, but like,
"there's nice guys who,
honestly, have a lot to offer."
- I mean, oh, I hate that
I'm gonna even tell you this
but like I think that you feel
like you have a lot to offer,
and please take this the right way.
- "Sure."
- You don't.
- "Hard to see a great way to take that,
"if I'm being super honest."
- What are you doing to work on yourself
to make yourself more
interesting and attractive?
Are you thinking that women
should change themselves,
and lower their standards,
in order to date you?
I'm saying this to you now because like
I really think it will help you,
even though it's very hurtful.
- It's like Siobhan didn't
say vicious mockery,
but I think she's casting vicious mockery.
- You see he thinks for a second and goes,
"Okay, uh.
"Well, I'll get started on doing
this really dangerous thing
"for you guys.
"I guess I'll take the
switch comb and palimpsest,
"and you guys just.
"I'm sorry."
- I don't know if we can
just leave these with you.
I think there's dangerous
people who are maybe after this.
- "Okay, do you guys—"
- So maybe we should meet
up with you after school.
- "You guys hold on to it.
"Hand it off to me after
school and I'll get started."
- I'm sorry. I didn't
wanna hurt your feelings.
I just didn't also want
you to kid yourself.
- I think you would actually
get along really well with,
you have a sister, right?
- I do have an older sister.
She's very mean.
I'm the nice one.
I don't think he would
get along with my sister.
- "You're the nice one?"
- I'm the nice one.
- "Well, here's the thing, I won't lie.
"I have been cut down a peg or two
"in this social interlocution, however."
- See, here's the thing.
Saying interlocution instead
of saying conversation.
This is a part of the problem, dude.
- "Do you have anything else about me
"that you'd like to be different
"than how it is?"
- I'm not saying that
you need to be different.
I'm saying that is what you want.
A specific thing that.
You know what?
Thank you so much for
doing this thing for us.
- You're a hacker, man!
- "I'm a hacker, dude!"
- Never forget that.
At the end of the day, you're a hacker.
- Cool.
You guys out at the front,
you see that Vice Principal
Goldenhoard walks up
to you guys, as you're hanging out.
- Goldenrod!
- "Hm?
"Oh, Goldenhoard, Goldenhoard.
"Hello, you two, are
you in class right now?
"Or what's going on?"
- Nah, I'm cuttin' to get your attention.
- "Okay."
- What's going on here?
- "There's not a thing here!
"There's not a thing here, alright."
- I put my combat boot
way up, to tie my shoe,
but it's kind of erotically positioned.
- "I can't tell whether you're
trying to be inappropriate,
"or masquerading Doreen's
final gift to you on this Earth
"in front of me, but either
way, it's inappropriate."
- Dude, I'm tying my shoes.
Unless you're tryna take it there.
- What's going on here?
- "There's not.
"Bye, go to class!"
You see he scoots off down the hallway.
- I'm reading a cool,
Christian book this whole time.
It's saxophone, Kit Kats, and reflection.
- If you're looking, by the way,
at the books that you
guys got from the library
The People's History of Falonel
that you have been paging through.
The crusaders of the Church of Sol
committed countless atrocities
against different elves,
like wood elves that lived on
the outskirts of the forest.
The Nightmare King.
There were invasions of
Fallinel by soldiers of the sun.
It is blowing your mind as you read it.
- Yeah, cool, cool.
- Can I also have been using this time?
You know how we got detention
slips in Goldenhoarde's
Presumably, he wrote them, right?
- Yes.
- Can I be practicing his handwriting?
- Yeah, absolutely!
Go ahead and give me a
proficiency calligraphy check.
It'll be like a dexterity check.
- Dexterity, okay, dexterity.
Okay, only eight.
- It's hard because he
writes with a big claw hand.
So, it's taking time to get it.
- I'll keep at it.
- It's chill dude.
I have illusory script.
- I'm also proficient in calligraphy.
- Oh, you are?
- You guys leave the A/V Club that day.
End of school rolls around.
And outside.
You guys all hang around
to meet up with Biz after school?
- Yeah.
- Yeah, definitely.
- I mean, if we, so first
off, I wanna put it out there,
that that switchblade could
be a connection to my dad,
so I would prefer to go
where the switchblade goes.
I also think, in general,
maybe the switchblade should be with me.
Just putting it out there.
I would love that.
I'll leave it up to the group
because, I don't know
if I say this enough,
but I really respect you guys.
- Okay, just don't run away.
We respect you also.
Just stay, don't run.
- Cool, I stop running away.
But I would say that, if we're worried
about someone coming after Biz,
we could leave a couple
th*gs, myself included,
to sort of stand guard.
- I think we should go
with Biz, wherever he goes.
- You need to go to your parents, though,
to get the stuff.
- Or should we just
bring Biz to your house?
- Oh, yeah, maybe.
- Is this a power?
I was confused, is the power source the—
- The power source situation.
We can't go to my house!
- We could sneak around.
It'd be kinda fun.
- Wait, I thought that the
comb was a power source.
- You guys see that Biz walks
up with a little trench coat
and a different trilby
that looks sort of more—
- This is the guy you were talking about?
- We brought him into the fold?
- Riz is learning so much
about himself in this moment.
- I mean, look, we can go to my place
but you guys have to sneak in the back,
or up into a window.
- Do you have an extra
whole house or something?
I feel like—
- No, the house is just really big.
- "Well, well, well, well, well.
"Looks like our little
clandestine meeting has arrived.
"Enchante, mademoiselle."
- Enchante!
- I look through my cantrips
to see if there's anything
that will shut him up.
- I'm trying not to say
to do vicious mockery.
- "Do you have the parcel?"
- I think we're all gonna go together.
- "To my house?"
- Is that where we're doing it.
I thought you need a power source.
- "I do need a power source.
I hang out.
My mom lets me use the whole basement.
- Okay.
- Okay, should we go get a power source
and then met him at his house?
- Yeah, or we have it,
we have the switchblade.
- "This might take a couple days guys.
"Just as a heads up."
- Should we trade out shifts
so someone is always with you?
- My mom's gone all the time.
I can just sleep at his house.
- "Yeah, dude!
"Sleep over, dude!
"That's awesome, dude, yes!"
- I wanna protect the items, but,
and I say this out of earshot of him,
but I don't want to protect him.
- He's standing right there.
- Yeah, I don't know, man.
You're not my vibe,
I'm sure I'm not yours.
- "I understand.
"Listen in this game of shadows
"that us in the
intelligence community play,
"trust is at a premium.
"I understand that."
- I use message to cast
to the other girls,
"Do not leave me alone
with this dude, please."
- "So, very, very well."
- I have an auto reply back
that says, "Have a blessed day,"
with a bunch of verses.
- I have an auto reply back
that's some really emo lyrics.
- "If I need to earn your
trust, I understand that.
"You're more than welcome
to come hang at my house.
"My mom always has snacks
"and we're pretty much good to go."
- Cool, another point of business.
We got a phone number that we can call.
Or a crystal number.
- Why don't we meet this guy later?
- We have a burner, too.
- Biz, why don't you get ready?
We'll be in your basement.
- "I'll get ready.
"Do you guys wanna hold on to the stuff
"or do you guys want me to get started?"
- You know what?
We'll hold onto the stuff
until we get to yours.
- "Okay, cool, dope, awesome."
- We could just go to my house
and try to find a power source.
- Which of your houses
would have it better,
gnomes or elves?
- I mean, I don't know of
any specific power source.
- Is there something I could
roll to see if I would know?
- Each of you guys roll an arcana check
to see if you have something
dope at your house.
- I got a three.
- I got a 13.
- Can I check for mine in case
I have a cool power source
for my amps, or something like that?
- Go for it.
- Also 13.
- Seven.
- I would assume my mom doesn't have.
- Nah, you guys probably
don't have anything.
You guys, you're not sure.
It's a weird question you
guys have never considered it.
It'd be like someone asking
a high school student
what's your fuse box
like, in your basement?
It's like, "I don't f*cking know."
- Do you guys just wanna
stop by both houses?
- I'll go to my house.
I know it'll be easy, at
least, to go to my house.
- Yeah, your house, at
least your parents will
probably help you.
My house, we'll have to sneak around.
- Do we wanna go by Gorgug's,
see what we can get,
and then go from there?
- Yeah, I think so.
En route, should we call
this mysterious number
from this burner crystal?
- Can you pretend to be Johnny Spells?
- Yeah.
- You open the casing of the phone.
Biz has already taken off.
You open the casing of the phone.
You turn the phone on.
The phone has not been activated yet.
- Okay, let's activate it.
- It asks you to input the
phone number and activation key.
- It's gotta be the one
that we haven't used.
So let's just do that 'cause
we might get messages on it.
- Oh, yeah, great.
- So, let's do that.
- You activate the phone
and immediately an unknown number
because there's no contacts
in the phone, obviously.
It goes.
The text reads: Page didn't work.
We need another one.
Can we organize a meetup?
- Page didn't work.
- Do we know a—
- Well, there was a page
in the corn monster.
- There was a page in the corn
monster. We need another one.
Okay, I'm gonna say yes.
Because I also stole a
bunch of his clothing.
I could straight up disguise
myself as Johnny Spells.
Be shrouded in shadow and
meet up with this person.
- Yes, when you're texting back,
make sure to use the word daddy-o, a lot.
- Yeah, I'm definitely going to.
I'm gonna say things like jive.
- Okay we need another
one, can we meet up?
- Emojis that are saxophones and stuff.
- No.
- The dancing man?
- Do we know the name of his motorcycle?
'Cause you have his motorcycle?
- I don't think it has,
it didn't have a name.
- Okay, I'm just gonna say
I think that we should text back like,
sure thing thing daddy-o!
What time jives for you?
- Great!
- Sounds just like him.
- Also, and then I'll text and be like.
Oh, no, no, I'm not
gonna say anything else.
- Don't do a double text.
- Yeah, that's too thirsty.
- Looks needy.
- Sure thing, daddy-o.
What time jives for you?
You get an immediate response back.
Dot dot dot, "Aren't you dead?"
- f*ck!
- I don't go anywhere near the keypad,
so there's no dot dot
dot to show I'm typing.
Just gonna take a second.
- Can we take pictures with this thing?
- Can we take pictures with the crystal?
- Yeah, you can take pictures with it.
- Yeah, let's make you
look like Johnny Spells.
- I don't think I should
disguise myself just yet.
I should save it for
if I meet up with them.
Well, do we wanna lie and say?
- Can we just say layin' low, for now?
- Yeah, things went awry,
layin' low, something like that.
- Things got weird,
layin' low,
for now.
- What if we take an audio clip
of you revving your new bike,
to show that you're still alive.
- That might be more obvious
that we stole his bike.
- Oh, really?
- Good try, Kristen.
- Why wouldn't you just talk?
- I don't know.
- Go ahead, if you'd be so kind,
and make a, this is so
weird to do over text,
make a deception roll for me.
- I should have f*cking leveled that up.
16.
- 16.
You get a response back that
says, "Okay" dot dot dot.
"So the person they buried at Cravencroft,
"that's not you?"
- Maybe I'll just say, like.
f*ck should we say, like.
I think we should just
say I can't go into it now
or something like that.
- Yeah or like, it takes more
than a few high schoolers
to defeat me or something.
- No, wait, wait, wait.
They might not know it was high schoolers.
That might give 'em a clue.
- Okay.
- But I think you're on the right path.
- I've crashed my bike before.
- Yeah, yeah.
- What if you just said, "Tell ya later"?
- Yeah!
- More ambiguous, yes.
- Daddy-o, this story is wild.
- Too much, we have a problem with Sam.
- Okay!
Daddy-o, too much for text.
We have a problem with Sam.
- Make a deception check with advantage,
if you'd be so kind.
- Thank god.
20.
- Yes, very cool!
The response you get back is, "No sh*t.
"Meetup at the pit instead of tea time."
- Oh, so we know it'll be a Friday.
- At ten.
- At the Black Pit.
- The pit instead of tea time.
- I forgot to do my nat 21.
- What's a good jive response?
- Just a saxophone.
- I send a saxophone emoji.
- You just send him a
pure saxophone emoji?
- We die because of this.
- 100%
The illusion traits are menial.
- But also say, like, sweet.
- "Sweet," cool.
Rad!
That exchange ends.
What do you guys do after that?
- This isn't tonight right?
- No, it's
gonna be a couple weeks.
- Oh, okay.
- We could go to my house.
- Yeah, let's go to your house.
Can we all pile on the back of your bike?
- How many people can fit on the bike?
- You have your mom's car as well, or no?
- I don't.
No, no.
- I definitely wanna go on the bike.
Although, it's really funny
when Riz goes on the bike
'cause the bike hates him.
- Also, it's a very recognizable bike.
So, riding it around town—
- You didn't ride it to school, did you?
- Of course, I rode it to school.
- What?
- It's a motorcycle that drives itself.
- Biz knew who Johnny Spells is!
- Okay.
- Biz knows who Johnny Spells is!
- I added a pair of crossbones
so it's very much my own.
- Cool, why don't you go
ahead and drive that home
and then meet us at Gorgug's.
- Hide it.
- I don't want to.
Fine.
- You drive your bike home.
As you drive it home,
you see that your dad
is having a bare knuckle boxing match
with one of his employees,
out in a little sand patio.
He looks over at you
riding up on the bike.
He looks over, got his shirt
off, his one eye patch.
He pops his tricorn on.
He's old as hell, but still buff and wiry.
He looks over and goes, "Right lad,
"What's that treasure you've
set yourself astride on?"
- Well, Papa, I bested a man
in combat and took it as spoils.
- "Be that then your first plunder?"
- 'Tis, Father!
- "Oh, my boy!"
He picks you up.
"My darling boy, h*!
"How'd you do it, how did you end the man?
"Whose things were yours all
along, but he never knew?"
- Papa, it was incredible.
One of the other members
of my party had tried
to do an insane maneuver in the car
that ended up in flipping.
But me, because I'm so
lithe and acrobatic,
I jumped, landed perfectly,
walked out into the center of the road.
And then I aimed my
crossbow right at his eyes
as he rode at me on this motorcycle.
And, ah, I heard your voice in my head.
And it was just, I missed
the first shot, completely.
But the second one, dead on!
- "It's a flair for the
dramatic, is what it is."
- Exactly!
"Oh, I love it but in my
day we called it a crew,
"and not a party.
"Things change. "I'm old
now, I don't get it, I'm old.
"I don't get it anymore.
"It's fine, it's your time.
"It's your time to shine
"and shine you will."
- Yes, Papa.
- "Brighter than the sun in the sky."
- Yes, Papa.
- "Everything in this word is yours, lad."
- Yes, Papa.
"My beautiful boy.
"Well, what do you think?
"What do you think of the aesthetic here?
"Do we want it different?
"What do you want here?"
- It actually would work out
best, seeing as right now,
it looks too much like
the bike of that man.
And I need to make it my own.
- "Oh, you need to fence it,
"you need to launder it, do ya?"
- But I was thinking, I'd put
a couple of crossbones on it.
I mean, it already has the skull,
maybe, change the color to red.
- "Do some crossbones?
"We can get that done,
we can get that done!"
- I was also thinking about
naming it after your ship.
- "You'd like to name
it after the Hangman?"
- Yes.
- What is the name of his ship?
- The Hangman.
- Oh!
- I was thinking either Hangman, Jr.
Or The Second Hangman.
- He says, "The Hangman is fine, lad.
"Ain't no confusin' a
motorcycle and a ship!
"Besides, The Hangman has
her sailin' days behind her."
- The Hang, nevermind.
- The Red Hymen.
- Hymen!
- "We'll get her done then,
lad. "We'll get her done.
"And we'll,
"you've done me proud, lad.
"What are we thinking,
colors and all that?
"You know what?
"I'll surprise ya, I'll surprise ya!"
- Oh, thank you, Papa!
- "Skull and crossbones, that's my boy.
"Now how does this thing,"
and you see that the
skull flares up and goes,
"Unhand me,
"I am my master's vessel."
You see that he goes, "Ahh, look at that!
"Seas be damned, boy.
"Oh, it's wonderful, it speaks!"
- Yes, it does.
It's possessed, Papa.
- "I'm possessed with pride for my son."
- Oh, Papa!
- "All right, I'll get
this fixed up in a jiff.
"We'll finish the boxing
match later, boys!
"Now, you come on back home
then by tomorrow morning
"it'll be all spic and span for ya.
"Neat as a shiny new pen."
- Thank you, Papa.
Actually, I need to go, I'm
going to meet my friends.
We're up to no good.
- "Aye, that's good.
"Now remember, friends are
good, a crew is better.
"There is no one in this
world more important than you.
"And if they ever cross
you, you cross them first.
"You hear me?"
- Yes, Papa.
- "All right my sweet boy,
"let's get this motorcycle fixed up."
He takes the motorcycle
and walks off with it.
He gets a car ordered for
you to go to Gorgug's.
- Your dad is gonna die.
This motorcycle's gonna k*ll him.
- Yeah.
- No, it's not, no it's not.
Let's not even talk about that, all right?
- You guys arrive at
the Thistlespring Tree
where you see Digby
and Wilma are tinkering
out in this little opened
worktable out in the yard.
You see they look up at you
guys approaching as you get out
of the car.
"Well, bud."
"Hey Mom, hey Dad."
"Well, what's going on pal?"
- Uh, well, I—
- "Did you get banged up?"
He says feelings the lump on your head.
- Yeah, I hit my head on a
locker 'cause a guy was, well,
a guy pushed my head into the locker.
- "Aw, bud, are these social
workers, or are they—"
- These are my friends.
- Uh, hello Mr. Thistlespring,
Mrs. Thistlespring.
My name is Adaine Abernant.
- You see that they look
at each other and they both
shake your hand with both
little gnome hands wrapped
around it.
"Well, golly, we gotta real elf!
"And look at that orb and that book!
"Are you a wizard, young lady?"
- I am.
- "Well, golly!
"How about it!"
- Your parents are so cute.
- I know.
- "Let's get some tea,
"there's lemonade, we have pink
lemonade, we have regular—"
- Uh, we actually, um, I
don't know if we can hang out
for super long, but,
Dad, I was gonna ask you,
do you, would you—
- "Ants, on a log!"
And you see they both run into the tree.
- Oh sh*t, I love that sh*t, yes.
- Ants on a log, do you know
what's ants on a log? Okay.
- I actually brought some
cornbread for everyone
if you want some.
- You brought cornbread?
- Mhm.
- I don't wanna be near corn.
- Really?
- Anymore.
- Yeah, we're actually good
without corn.
- Why do you bake your god?
- It's more of just
like a form of worship.
- Hey Dad.
- Hm, okay.
- Uh, Dad?
- "Yeah, bud?"
So they come out with a
bunch of ants on a log,
they have lemonades.
"You guys all take a seat,
sit, sit, sit, sit, sit."
- Okay.
- Thank you so much.
- "Now this is so exciting.
"Now you're all Gorgug's friends,
"now you all go to Aguefort?"
- Yeah.
- Yup.
- "Wow!"
- We all met, you know.
- I'm trying to start a band with Gorgug.
- She gave me drumsticks.
- "A band?
"Let me see 'em."
- I thought it was super
chill that you guys taught
him to sing.
- "Well you know what,
I play the gnomish horn,
"and then I also play the ukulele."
And you see they go get their
instruments from inside.
There's a bunch of instruments, they say,
"We should, I'm gonna
say it, because I think
"we're all thinking it.
"We should jam."
- I wholeheartedly agree,
and without my bass guitar—
- Hey Dad, I gotta, I
gotta unfortunately, we're
looking for something
that's like a power source.
Do you have any kind of power sources?
- "I'll tell ya about a power source.
"This little kiddo,
when he was growing up,
"growth spurt after growth
spurt, he was popping
"up all over the place, his
limbs going everywhere."
"We have pictures!"
And you see they rush inside.
- Dad!
- So cute, I've never anybody
as cute as your parents.
- I love them.
- Don't call my parents cute.
- They're so cute.
- They rush out with a
huge album, of just like
gnomish leaves in a little
binder, and it's just pictures
of Gorgug and them, he's
like a baby, and he's as big
as the two of them, and
they've got their little arms
around the giant half-orc baby.
"This is Gorgug, when we
first found him, all right?
"Now he was, I'll tell ya, he was hungry,
"he was a hungry guy.
"I had never seen a baby eat
raw meat, and he ate it up
"by the handful."
- It's good, I still like raw meat.
- Fabian Seacaster, son of Bill Seacaster.
- "Fabian, nice to meet ya!"
- We actually have a group
project that we need to be
working on for school—
- "Ah, look at this one,
but we're getting in the way
"of academics."
You see he says, "Look at us,
well, you're not gonna fail
"on our account, I'll tell ya that.
"What could we do to help?"
- We need a power source.
Do you have any sort of bigger power,
like something that's—
- Like a magical power source.
- You watch both of these
gnomes change from exuberant
that their son has friends
into project-focused gnomes,
and you see that the dad
says, "Okay, power source,
"talk to me, what are we
talkin' about here, we're
"talking about some project?
"What are you trying to run,
what kinda power source?
"For a spell, like a spell engine?
"You're talking about
some kind of helix matrix,
"what are we talk—"
You see that they both start
changing into curly pointed
toed shoes that are like
work curly pointed shoes.
- We're all taking a rogue
elective class that's about
breaking into people's phones.
- "Okay."
- So we just need a power
source that can, like,
help us break into phones.
- "Power source."
- Yeah, Adaine was gonna
put me inside a phone,
and then she had to get me out.
- Break him out, yeah.
- After I was trapped.
- It's sort of a magical rogue situation.
- Defensive magic type situation.
- Yeah.
- "Done, done, done, done, done.
"We got it!"
You see they both rush inside, they—
- Your parents are so
nice, I'm so jealous.
- I love them, and I'm—
- My parents are so mean.
- It's really hard for me to lie.
- We gotta stop by Gilear's, anyways.
- Then just be quiet.
- Eat these ants on a log.
- I'm gonna be just praying, okay.
- Just fill your mouth with cornbread.
- Are those actual insects?
- No, it's raisins
and peanut butter on celery.
- Oh okay, raisins—
- You don't know what, you're
so rich, you don't know
what ants on a log are?
- Like, this whole time I
was like, are these people
eating insects?
I was like, God.
- No, no, no, it's like
an hors d'oeuvres—
- What do you snack on?
- You're a ridiculous person.
- What do you snack on?
- Kippers.
- What are kippers?
- Kippers, what are kippers?
- It's like a caper?
- No, no, no, no, kipper.
- It's a smoked fish.
- It's a small fish, small
fish, very expensive.
- You get home and you
have some fish and milk?
- Peanut butter is way
less gross than fish.
- I'm sorry, what's a raisin?
- Raisin, it's like a grape
that got old.
- That got tired.
- Why would you eat something like that?
- A tired old grape?
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- That sounds disgusting.
- Like a grandma grape,
it's like a grandma grape.
- Why are you making
them sound so disgusting?
They're good, just taste it.
- Power source.
- Why are you being such a—
- Do you have that power source?
- These gnomes rush out
with like a bandolier
of tiny crystals, they push
a huge crystal in a big
brass orrery, there's an
astrolabe with a bunch
of crystals in it, one of
them walks out, and you see
that there is this screaming
fire elemental inside
of a gilded orb, like, cage thing.
- Oh, so you guys—
Sorry, you guys did this?
- They have like an elemental
engine that you have over
here, this would be from more
like a dream crystal thing.
- Oh the dream crystal thing.
- "Okay, great, dream crystal we'll put."
You see they sorta kick
the orb with the screaming
elemental in it, so it
rolls away a little bit.
- Is that okay, is he okay?
- He's fine, I play with him all the time.
- "Oh yeah, he's fine, he's in there.
"All right, so, now, what we got here is,"
you see they pick up big
thing, this just huge spinning
crystal, you see that
it's in multiple stages,
like cylindrical stage that
are spinning in different
directions, and hovering
in the middle of a runed
silver disk, and you see that
Wilma puts her little finger
up under the point as it's
hovering, and lifts it,
the whole giant thing up
as it floats, and lifts it
over to you, Adaine.
"There we go.
"Now, it doesn't take much
to move that thing around.
"I recommend, if you attach
things to it, try to move
"that around with a mage hand
rather than using your finger.
- So you guys know how to
put people in crystals,
so you could just help us.
- "What?"
- They, we don't want to—
- I'm gonna, okay—
- It's probably for, because
it's for school, I don't think
we should.
- Oh, you're right.
- Yeah, that would be cheating.
- "We're not gonna get you
guys in trouble by helping
"you out with this, are we?"
- No, no, no.
- We gotta take this to
our friend's house though.
We're doing the project
at a friend's house.
- "Okay, well, glad to be of help,
"if you guys want to come back
here, we got sleeping bags
"out, we can get some popcorn,
we can get some other snacks
"and stuff."
- Also rain check on that jam session.
- I'm like so sad inside
because I'm just realizing
that other people's parents
are like really nice to them.
- I'm mortified.
I stand up too fast and I hit
this like, I knock a light
off the ceiling.
- Bam, clang, light comes
down, it puts like a
Rube Goldberg machine
into effect, and some eggs
start cooking.
"Oh, looks like it's early breakfast!
"But that's okay, you
guys want some eggs?"
- I would love to.
- Yeah.
- We gotta go.
- Oh, you're right.
- Yeah, I think we need to go.
- "Okay, okay."
You guys head away from
the Thistlespring tree.
- I hold their shoulder
and go, "I'm sorry."
- "You didn't do anything
wrong, sweetheart.
"Okay, you guys come
back," and you see that
as you guys are getting back
into this little ordered car,
you see they both look
at you, Gorgug, and go,
"Good job, kiddo, they're
great, your friends are great.
"Good job, bud!"
- Thank you.
- And you guys take off in the car,
you guys arrive at Biz's
house, very cookie-cutter,
little ticky tacky house, suburban house.
You see that it is crazy on
the inside though, because
pixies have moved into a
human-sized house, so the furniture
is all like multiple level,
there's like double decker,
the living room is like a
loft, which is like a separate
balcony living room above
the main living room.
So it's just this insane,
'cause Biz is again, about
a foot and a half, two feet tall.
So the house looks insane.
- I forgot that was like, that
the guy who was harassing you
was—
- So are all these guys
gonna have to like, crawl?
- Yeah, you guys get there,
you ring the doorbell,
you see that Biz's mom
answers, you see she goes,
"Uh, hello?
"Can I help you guys?"
- Uh, I'm Riz, I believe your
son Biz is expecting us?"
- "Oh my gosh, okay, Biz!
"Biz!
"Biz!"
- I just think that
we don't always have to lie to them.
- "He's downstairs, one
second, I am Bubble."
- Hi, Bubble!
- Oh, it's so nice to meet you.
- Bubble?
- "No shoes, okay, no
shoes, okay, no shoes."
- You're not gonna steal them, are you?
- "Beg your pardon?"
- Oh, God.
- You're not gonna steal
my shoes?
- What are you doing?
- I just take the shoes
off, I do steal his shoes.
Can I steal his shoes?
- Yeah, you can.
- What?
- One.
What am I doing?
- Exactly.
- You step right on his
hand as he's doing—
- The f*ck are you doing The Ball—
- Just take your shoes off.
- I'll take my shoes off,
but I don't want them stealing them.
- Biz comes up, sees—
- Can I just untie my shoelaces?
- Yes.
- Okay.
- Biz comes up, sees the huge
crystal you guys are carrying,
goes, "Oh boy, that'll
do it, that'll do it.
"You wanna bring that
'round to the backyard,
"and I'll hook it in
through the basement?"
- We should go around back?
- "Yeah, you just wanna
scoot around, because I don't
"think you can super fit.
"Do you wanna like hunker down?
"I don't want, if anyone
drives by, I don't necessarily
"want them to see that you're here."
- Can I sorta case the joint?
- Why are you so mean to our friend?
- What, he's not being mean,
he just doesn't want people—
- He is being really mean.
- While this is happening,
can I sorta case the joint?
I want to make sure no one's
spying on us, following us,
or anything like that.
- Make a perception check.
- Okay,
12.
But, like a really full 12.
- A full 12!
- Yeah, you don't notice
anything out of the ordinary.
He says, "I'm sorry, all right?
"But if you want to move
that around out back,
"I'll plug it in through,
and I'll take a look at it."
- But like, you know this is
what I'm talking about, right?
Like, you think that you're
a nice guy, but you've been
so consistently really mean to my friend?
- Wait, are you being mean to me?
- Yeah, he's being really.
You're cute.
- "Wait a minute,
"that's not true, I've only
been mean to people that I could
"be mean to and not catch sh*t for it."
- Yeah, you hear what
you're saying, right?
- "That didn't sound great
as I said it, I heard it
"as I said it, and realized
that that was bad."
- Like, people are dunking
on you, and so you're dunking
on the people below you?
- Just, no dunking, just overall.
- No dunk zone.
- Within this room.
- No dunk zone, we
have like a no dunk policy.
- "I'm sorry dude, I dunked
on you, I slam dunked you."
- You slam dunked on me?
- "I slam dunked on ya."
- I had no idea.
- It's okay, man.
- Okay.
- "Okay, you go around
that side, I'll hook it in.
"Riz, if you wanna come in,
you're good, everyone else,
"you're free to come in, it's
like you might break some
"stuff, so if you don't want
to come in, you don't have to.
"But—"
- I'll be on bouncer duty again.
I'm just gonna pace.
- Yeah, I'll watch the crystal.
- I'm gonna pace around the
house like a German Shepherd
and just scare anyone away.
- I'd like to come inside.
- "Okay, you come on in.
"You guys come inside—"
- But I'm like full infernal mode.
- Biz takes it downstairs,
hooks the crystal up to this
little brass wire, he
goes, "Great, do you have
"the palimpsest?"
- I shout down from the
window, I have the palimpsest.
- "Well, mademoiselle, if I may,
"can I please have the—"
- Do you think mademoiselle
is better than m'lady?
It's not.
- "I'm sorry, I—"
- Wow, she's really trying to fix him.
Everything's a project with her.
- He takes the palimpsest, snaps it in.
Gonna make some rolls real quick.
- Oof, these faces.
- As he starts doing the
crystal, you guys see a little
and a little smoke pops
out of the palimpsest,
and he goes, "Uh, okay.
"Okay.
"I need to be a lot more careful—"
- Well then do so!
- What happened?
- What happened?
- "I messed something up a little bit.
"It's fine."
- Can we do an insight
check to see if he's—
- Yeah, how bad is it?
- Yeah, do an insight check.
- Nine.
- 14.
- I got a 15.
- I got a 20.
- 20?
He is mortified.
There's a real threat to Sam
if he f*ck something up.
- His next roll, can I give him my 16?
- Sure.
- And my portent?
- Mm-hm.
If you give him the 16, he
goes in, looks like he fixes
something and says—
- Can we give him help?
- Yeah, you
guys can help him, yeah.
- Yeah.
- How can I help you, Biz?
- He looks at it and
says, "Here is the deal.
"Looking at this, there's a
lot of danger here for Sam.
"I can, I think I can get her out.
"It's just going to take a while.
"If I do it fast, there's
a chance it could go wrong.
"If I take my time,
it's a certainty, right?
"Everything that is a
potential for disaster,
"is me trying to rush it.
"Does that make sense?"
- Yeah.
- We have some
passes, right, from, uh—
- Oh, bardic inspiration?
- Or no, like the hall passes.
- I can write us a hall pass.
- Can we just like get
you out of school tomorrow
and work on this like non-stop?
- "Yeah, awesome."
- Can I also just, I'm just
gonna come in from outside,
I'm gonna head back out
there and continue pacing
like a German Shepherd, but
real quick, bardic inspiration.
- You see he says, "Thank you so much."
- Okay, it's nothing, it's nothing.
- Why did you wink though?
- She also winked at me, you see.
I was like, oh wow.
- I thought the same thing.
- I'm gonna go ahead, guys,
and we're going to move
through a little period of downtime.
You guys effectively
get Biz set up, you guys
forge some hall passes, he
leaves school pretty much
every day or every other day
to the point so he doesn't
fail, to go home and work
on getting Sam out of the
palimpsest, but events happen,
you guys get to third level,
where you're taking classes,
you're learning stuff
at the school, weeks pass,
it's pretty uneventful.
Aguefort Adventuring
Academy starts working,
you guys start taking some more classes,
you're learning your skills and things
like that, you take your
trip that first Saturday
with your mom to Cravencroft
Cemetery to see your dad.
- When you're there, you
should look for Johnny Spells'
grave and see if there's
any sh*t on there.
- Cool, can I?
- Do a little investigate check.
- Oh boy.
- Yeah.
- Not been rolling well
today. Two nat ones.
And a 14?
14.
- You see that there are,
other than the footprints
that were originally around
Johnny Spells, you see
that there's some fresh
graves of him and the greaser
that got buried here,
there are some fresh tracks
that look like they
visited a couple of times.
You do a sketch of the
make and model of the shoe.
You go ahead and put
that in your inventory.
They're like big chunky combat
boots, are the shoe print,
but it looks like hardly
any, like they hadn't made
that much of an imprint,
if that makes sense.
- Interesting.
Would I be able to tell
if they were tiefling, or,
do they seem?
- Not on that investigate
check, but you know that
it was a big boot that
didn't make a big impression.
- Got it.
- Dope.
It gets to be the last
Friday of the month.
It's tea time, g*ng.
- Ooh.
- You guys arrive at the Black Pit.
Brick walls, you guys hear the
thumping music from inside.
This is downtown, this is in
the seedy, across the river
area, there's a lot going on down here.
You see that there's huge
a bouncer, this big human,
kinda barbarian-looking dude,
thick beard, kinda rugged,
he's got a short sword and a long sword.
He's hanging at the door,
there's a line behind
a ratty velvet rope.
The Black Pit is a music
venue with multiple stages,
there's multiple rooms going
on, different bands play here.
The Black Pit is a
divey, nasty, scary kinda place.
- I'm very, very scared but
I don't want to show it,
but I am showing it.
- It is pretty scary
in there, but my church
actually comes here a lot
'cause this is a major hub
for sex trafficking, so—
- Sex trafficking?
- Yeah, a couple of the
other kids in the youth group
normally come here to talk to people.
- I've come here to so many
concerts, I can't believe
that there's sex trafficking.
- Oh really?
Oh yeah, it's actually all
over, it's an epidemic.
So we just come here and we
wear a block dot on our hands
and then people know
that they can talk to us.
I've actually saved like a lot of lives.
My church does a lot of good
things, we're pretty plugged in
with things that are wrong with society.
- Yeah, of course.
- Wow.
- If you guys wanna
join the prayer chain—
- Stop!
- I think, so here's my thought.
I think that it would be
awesome if we could all get in
there somehow, but I think
that we should, rather than me
disguising myself as Johnny
Spells and being in there,
that's gonna attract too much attention.
I think we should go in
there, text them and say,
"Hey, I'm almost at
the Pit, are you here?"
And then we can potentially
listen for the text
to be received, and then be
like, "Cool, since everyone
"thinks I'm dead, I can't go in.
"Do you want to meet me out back?"
And then we'll meet him out back.
- Nice.
- Then we can control the lighting.
- Yes, great.
- Yeah, that's true, we
can control the lighting,
and my disguise will be
a little less obvious.
- Do we wanna case the joint real quick?
Like do a quick wrap around?
- Yeah, let's survey.
- Can I do a little sneak-sneak?
- Cool, go ahead and make a
stealth and investigation,
if you'd like.
- Okay.
That's a 23 on stealth.
- Dope.
- And a
11 on investigation.
- Did you reroll your daily things.
- Yeah, I did.
- 11 on investigation, cool.
So investigation proves the
Black Pit is in a huge row
of what were once warehouses
and things like that,
so the Black Pit doesn't
have alleyways to either side
and it's a huge long harbor
yard block before there's
another intersection and
then it goes all the way out.
And there is no courtyard or backdoor.
In other words, it's part of
just a huge concrete block.
The Black Pit might only
have the one front entrance
from what you're investigating.
It seems like one of those fire
hazard f*cked up no license
places that's just—
- Got it.
- Does it have a roof?
- So there's no alleys?
- No alleys that you guys can see.
- Let's just check out what
inside looks like and come back
outside in a couple of minutes.
- Yeah.
- Great.
- Yeah, let's.
- You guys get in line.
- No, no, no, can we approach the bouncer?
- You're gonna get us thrown out.
- You approach the bouncer,
big bearded guy that's got
red tawny beard,
got this stuff over
sort of black leather duster,
he's got this enormous f*cking wolf dog
thing chewing on a bone,
he's scratching its head.
"Hey brother, how's it
going man, how you doin'?"
- I'm well, Fabian Seacaster,
son of Bill Seacaster.
- "Okay, man."
And he starts checking the list.
- We're probably not on there.
How much for me and my
friends to go inside?
- Go ahead and make a persuasion
check, if you'd be so kind.
- Seven.
- "How much for you and
your friends to go inside?"
He says, "I don't know,
dude, how much for you to eat
"my crusty hairy as*h*le
out, here, in the middle
"of the f*cking street?
"You rich mother f*ck
come down here, f*ck'.
"How old are you?"
- Does it matter?
- "Yeah, legally."
- 23.
- "You're 23 years old?"
- Yes, I'm 23 years old.
- "You're 23 years old?"
- Yes, I'm 23 years old.
- Make a deception check
- 18.
- You see he goes, "Jesus,
you look like a f*ck' baby.
"Dude, you need some living
done, you know what I mean?
"You need to go out there and
get some living done, dude."
- That's what we're trying to do tonight.
- Yeah, exactly.
- "Well, okay, get in the
f*ck' line, all right?
"You wanna go in, you
get in the f*ck' line."
- Dude, we're just, honestly, honestly,
he's got a lot of, f*ck,
I'm friends with him,
he's a rich idiot, and I'm
trying to get you a little
something to keep your pocket warm.
- Go ahead and
make a persuasion check.
- 19.
- "Look, I appreciate it, all right.
"Look, and these guys,
I don't get paid d*ck."
- I know, I'm a bouncer too.
- Make a deception
check for me, please!
- What?
- I got a 24!
- You see he looks up at you
and goes, he goes, "Oh sh*t,
"you're a bouncer too?
"Wait, you don't bounce here, do you?"
- Nah, I bounce at, or bounce with,
this isn't happening in real time.
I bounce,
I bounce at, uh,
uh, the Doom Fort.
- "Oh, you're here from the Doom Fort?
"Oh, you guys are just visiting!"
- Yeah, that's why.
- "Oh sh*t, I'm sorry, I
didn't mean to give you
"a f*ck' hard time dude."
- Oh, okay, thanks.
- "Dude, Elmville, things
work a little differently,
"do you understand what I'm saying?"
- Oh okay, thank you.
- "Ah, you get it."
- I bounce at a metal bar.
- "Rad, you know f*ck' Pete?"
- No, I don't know him.
- "You don't know Pete?"
- Did Pete say that he works there?
- "Yeah, Pete told me
that he worked there."
- Dude, I don't, Pete does not work there.
- "Dude, he's f*ck' full of sh*t, dude."
- That's f*ck' humiliating.
- I'm here to look for
people who are caught
in sex trafficking.
- "All right, you guys head on in.
"You guys all head on in."
"You guys just head on in."
- Does anybody else?
- No, I'm good, I'm good.
- You have to go to the depths
of the depths to find them—
- "Hey, brother, help
me out on your way in,
"what do you say?"
- 75?
- "Yeah, that'll do it."
- That's an insane amount of money.
- You would just give, you
don't even like that guy.
- That would like, pay
my rent for so long.
Can you just buy my apartment?
- Is that your money?
- Yeah.
- You see that this
guy looks up, and you see—
- See, I was trying to—
- He looks down at his big, he says,
"Sister, you just saved my f*ck' a*s.
"Let me tell ya something."
- You know what, one bouncer to another.
- You see he goes, "Rover,
Rover, we're taking you
"to the vet, buddy!"
- Aww!
- Why are we aww-ing?
I paid for that dog to go to
the vet, it's a good thing.
- Yeah, we were aww-ing, it's a good aww.
- Can I give one of my bardic
inspirations to the dog?
- No, no!
This is how we were
before the corn episode,
and the corn babies kicked our a*s.
- If he has an episode, I
need to know that he's got
an extra D six.
- Remember Adaine used all
her spells before we got
into combat—
- That was worth it and I don't regret it.
- I will not regret this.
- Worth it?
- Two people died.
- You guys move through
the Black Pit, you come in,
there's a little merch table,
you see that all the merch
up at the merch table right as
you come in through the door
is for "DJ Brainzz!"
And you see that there's
this weird undead f*ck' DJ,
there's a bunch of mix
tapes and T-shirts and swag
all over the f*ck' merch table.
- I just start ranting about
how no one makes music anymore.
- There's also
a band here called the Screwie Lewey's
that are playing in what
they call the Moon Room.
You see that you walk
past a coat check area.
Through there, there's
like a little pool room,
with there's people playing
pool, there's a whisky bar.
You guys are very aware
that there are adults here.
They are drinking, and it's scary.
You go on to the next room
and you see a bunch of humans
and half-elves and half-orcs,
and there's a band,
the Screwie Lewey band,
with mohawk and crazy hair,
just.
Just like scary, and they're
just hurling into each other
and hitting each other
in this crazy mosh pit.
- I can't help it, I go mosh.
- No Fig!
- You jump in, go ahead and
give me an athletics check.
- Oh sh*t.
11.
- You take three points of damage.
As you do it, though, you
see that this big dude
with a leather jacket
with a ton of patches
and it's torn up, gotta big
red mohawk, looks like this
sort of half-elf dude.
He's the one who slugs you
for three points of damage,
and as he looks over at you, he goes,
"Oh hell yeah, I haven't seen
you before, what's your deal?"
- "I just punched you."
- I'm a bouncer from...
- Doom Fort.
- I'm a bouncer from Doom Fort,
and you just f*ck' punched me.
- "Ah right."
- You better have
some kind of healing on you.
- You see he says, "You know what,
"they have great healing here.
"Hey let's get this chick a drink, huh,
"you and your friends?"
- Yeah, please.
- Oh yeah, can I have one
drink that looks alcoholic
but isn't?
- You guys go into the next
room where he—
It gets like a little bit more
trance-y in the next room.
You get away from the punk
vibe and there's more of this.
- So this place is huge.
- Huge, multiple rooms, venues, stages.
- Got it.
- And there's a big long
bar, like U-shaped bar.
There's weird mood lighting,
you see people making out
at booths or at side tables nearby.
- Ew.
- You see that there are,
there's a huge picture
of what looks like a very
dark sangria that someone's
pouring something into.
You order your drink, you see
that the guy who slugged you
comes with another person,
goes, "Hey, the name's Marrow.
"How's it going?"
- It's good.
- He says, "Sorry for slugging you there.
"Here," and you see that he
puts the drink in front of you
and raises up a little shot glass himself.
- I don't usually accept
drinks from strangers.
Can I do like a perception
check or something?
- Yeah, sure, go for it.
- 15?
- The bartender poured
it right in front of you.
- Mm, this seems like a bad idea.
Is it a shot?
- It's a shot, yeah.
- Okay, I try, I do a thing
where I look like I'm,
I turn, I'm like, "Thanks so
much, dude," and then I throw
it over my shoulder.
- It hits me in the face.
- Or I throw the thing over
so it looks like I chugged it.
- Give me a slight of hand.
- Oh!
That's gonna be 22!
- It's gone, so he goes, "Ooh, yeah!
"That's the good sh*t, all right.
"Yeah, you're a little
bad a*s, aren't ya?"
- Uh.
- You see he says, "All right.
"I'm gonna get back in there."
The bartender serving you
says, "What would you like?"
- I would like a, uh, can
you do something that has
a lime in it so it looks
like I'm not judging anyone,
but I'm not drinking.
- You see that the bartender says, "Okay."
You hear a voice right
behind you say, "Cute."
You turn around, there is a young woman,
very strong-looking,
broad shoulder, she's got
hiking jean shorts and
a shredded up T-shirt
with the sleeves cut off
that has a three wolf moon
shirt on it, and a little
bit of hair in the middle
of her eyebrows.
She's got the side shave
and a short flop of hair
to one side.
- It's Cameron Esposito.
- But very muscular and
hikey kinda looking.
You see that she looks
over at you and says,
"No alcohol?"
- Oh, no, I've known a lot
of alcoholics, I do a lot
of outreach, so, I just don't drink.
- "Yeah, I can see it, you
got your bible shirt on
"at a bar."
- Yeah.
Ah, never mind.
- You see that she looks over and says,
"Listen, I don't like to get
into it when I'm out drinking,
"but I f*ck' hate this
band, and my friends are all
"f*ck' dancing to it,
so, you know that like,
"that book is like, full
of contradictions, right?"
- Oh my God.
- Yeah, yeah, I mean, yeah, you know what?
I'll be the first to say it,
as a believer, I embrace
the contradictions
and I'm reading a lot about
the atrocities that my people
committed, it's been a nightmare.
I actually met God and he sucked.
- You see she looks at you
and, make an insight check.
- Ooh, nat one, baby!
- You have no idea what's
going on with this person.
She looks at you and goes,
"That's incredible.
"What do you mean you met God?"
- I died. I was able to meet
God, I asked him why there was
suffering in the world
that he supposedly created,
and he said, "Catch ya later,"
and uh,
it sucked.
But you know what?
I'm gonna stick with this one
until I find the next one.
You don't let go of a vine
until you're holding on
to another one, especially when
it's this important to you.
- You see she says,
"That's the exact question
I asked that made my parents
"throw me out."
- What?
- "I asked, something really
terrible happened to me,
"and, at least I thought it
was terrible at the time,
"but it ended up being
like one of the best things
"that ever happened to
me, and I asked my parents
"why Sol would let that
happen, and they kicked me
"out of the house."
- Oh my God.
What happened?
You don't have to share with me.
By the way, I'm Kristen Applebees.
- You see she takes your hand, kisses it,
and goes, "I'm Tracker."
- Oh, hi Tracker, you have
some marker on your lips now.
This wasn't a permanent marker,
all I had was dry-erase.
- You see she looks at you
and says, "Um, this is crazy,
"do you want to like, grab a drink here?
"It doesn't have to be
alcoholic, and like, go just
"like talk somewhere?"
- Of course, I'm always
down to talk to a new person
about God.
- She says, "We could talk
about God, or like, each other."
- Oh cool, yeah, God is in us all.
- She walks away with you,
goes, "What do the rest
"of you guys do?"
You see there's one final
room you guys have not gone
into past the bar—
- I do want to quick ask the
bartender what was that drink
that he gave me?
- You see, uh—
- I say, hey, what
gender is the bartender?
- A woman.
- Hey, that guy just bought
me a drink, I didn't trust it,
I did the old throw-it-over-my-shoulder
instead of drinking
it, what was it that he
bought me? Was it safe?
- You see she looks at you
and says, "Yeah, I'm pretty
"certain you're safe."
- What did he get me?
- I think he got you sangria and whisky.
- Okay.
Thanks.
- Yeah, no worries.
- I'm just being buffeted
by everybody, and I'm just
kinda standing there,
overwhelmed by everything.
- Should we see if
there's somewhere that—
- I would just like to find
somewhere that's quieter?
- Should we investigate
and see if there's a room
that they would meet?
- Yeah, great.
- Can we kinda case the
joint from the inside?
- Give me an investigate check.
- Cool.
I have a plus six, and I
haven't beaten a nine today.
And it's not gonna be now.
11.
- I also got an 11.
- I got a 19.
- 19?
You guys spread out and
start investigating.
Where do you guys think
you are investigating?
Do you guys, like who's near
the front, who's in the middle
two rooms, and who goes
into that final backroom?
- I want to go into that backroom.
- Backroom.
- I'll go with you.
- Backroom, cool, Gorgug and
Riz go into the backroom.
- I'm just trying to honestly
find somewhere quiet.
Like I'm looking for people
who seem shady, but everybody
here seems shady to me.
- Cool, I think you might go
near the front or something.
The room farthest from where
the bands playing are really
the quietest.
- Great.
- And then.
- I guess I'll go
with them, to that backroom.
- Cool, um—
- Front.
- Front?
Cool, two in the front, and
then you're in the middle
talking to Tracker.
- Yeah, on a nat one,
exactly how I was when I was religious.
- Tracker, by the way,
immediately puts a hand on your knee—
- Oh yeah, for sure, and
again, nat one, just like,
god, they must really want to know.
- All about God.
You three go to the
backroom, you guys see a huge
dance floor with another
bar over in the corner,
some are VIP, big stage
where DJ Brainzz is up there,
who's like this rail-thin
guy that's up there,
and go ahead, the three of
you who are in the backroom,
make a perception check for me.
- Okay, let's roll something okay.
- I got an eight.
- 11.
- A five.
- 11.
- 11, what'd you get?
- I got an eight.
- Eight. You guys look around,
you're gonna have to go
deeper into the room to notice something.
- Let's, can I be sneaky?
- Yeah, go ahead and throw.
- Hey!
- Nat 20.
- You are invisible, baby!
You are invisible.
- So many cool people dancing.
- I'm gonna say you get all
the way up to the other bar,
nearer to the stage, you
look out into the dance floor
and see Zayn Darkshadow,
who was the kid who knocked
the book out of your hand
on day one, this like
goth elf kid who has a
little rat on his shoulder
and has created a light
cantrip and is just like
rave moving around, dancing,
he's just getting way into it,
you see that on his feet are
a pair of giant combat boots.
- Okay.
Can I, can I see him?
Can I see him?
This guy?
- Yes, you can.
- I would like to turn
the crystal on silent,
and then text
"OMW" and see if anyone
looks at their phone.
- You text that, I'm going
to need everyone here
to make a perception check for me.
Only those in the background.
- 18.
- 11.
- Nine.
- 18, you look through the
dance floor, and as you send it,
Zayn's pocket lights up.
- Okay.
I mean, I just, I think
I just look at you guys
and I go.
- Should we, okay, I want
to sneak back and join them.
- As you are about to
sneak back and join them,
you guys see that the
DJ switches the track.
And you hear one of
those old dubstep things
where it goes like (makes
swooshing bass sound),
"Well, everybody, now that
we're all up and about,
"it's time to rage!"
Cut over to the middle room,
Tracker is talking to you,
and she says, "There's just like a lot
"that I feel like losing
faith shakes up in you,
"but it also has so much to
offer you, and you can see
"things that you didn't see
before, and you can feel
"things that maybe you didn't
let yourself feel before."
- Woah, yeah, that's so interesting.
I feel like, you know,
sometimes I take a break from
praying for four hours
every night, and that's like
every Tuesday, and with those
four hours, I just end up
doing great work.
- She leans forward and
kisses you on the mouth.
- Ah! Oh!
Actually, I don't kiss, um.
- You see that she suddenly
goes, she goes to you and says,
"I-I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry—"
- No, I'm sorry!
- "No, I freaked out and—"
Looking throughout the bar, you see
all over, people hit the deck,
their clothes rend as their
bodies start to change, you
see that one of the people
making out in the corner goes
as two fangs come out of their
head, and I'm going to need
everybody here to roll initiative.
- We gotta take out that DJ,
we gotta take out that DJ.
- The beat drops, all of
you draw weapons, and we'll
start this battle next
time on Fantasy High!
- Rage!
This room is filled with people
hulking out into werewolves.
"Sasha, Lord of Whispers,
calls for the Bloodhounds!"
The DJ has a rotting necrotic
face, covered by a paltry
illusion.
- How breakable does that glass look?
- Honestly, dude?
Pretty breakable.
- A nat one!
- This is insane.
- The DC for contracting
lycanthropy is 12.
I can tell you that right off
the bat. The lower means—
- I'm a werewolf?
- Go ahead and roll in the box of doom.
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01x05 - The Pixie and the Palimpsest
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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.