(The Unsleeping City theme
music is here, get ready)
- Hello one and all and welcome
to another exciting episode
of "The Unsleeping City".
I'm your humble dungeon
master, Brennan Lee Mulligan.
With me as always are our intrepid heroes.
Say hi, intrepid heroes.
- [All] Hi, intrepid heroes.
- Last we left off,
the champions of New York
City found themselves
in the sixth borough of
Nod, deep in the Dreaming,
having defeated a number
of animated suits of armor
and saving the unicorn,
one of the three spirits of New York,
as observed by the dumpster
druid Kugrash three years ago.
Our intrepid heroes went
their way to various places
throughout the sixth
borough, including JFK,
where Kingston and JJ had a
meeting with Alejandro Ortiz,
the celestial wizard and former head
of the Gramercy Occult Society,
with a very meaningful conversation
between Kingston and Alejandro there.
Sofie and Pete connected in the bathroom
over a pregnancy test
and an illusory box of Sour Patch Kids,
and Pete dumping thousands of dollars
worth of cocaine down a toilet
with eyeballs who was talking to him.
Our intrepid heroes made their way deeper
into the Metropolitan Museum of Memories,
where Ricky saw a connection
to Perry the pigeon,
Iga saw a connection
to this fantastical
Lisowski heirloom chest,
while Sofia and Pete connected
over the shared memories
of Mr. and Mrs. Simos, Tony
and his late wife Heather,
the immediate predecessor of Pete Conlan,
the former Vox Phantasma,
back during the 1980s.
So, having found that information,
you guys wended your way to Nod's bedside,
where Nod talked to you about
other monarchs of Dreaming,
including Nuria in the Bay of Slumber,
and an older entity,
one of the older ones,
a deep monarch of Dreaming
that Pete discovered,
or perhaps created, a name for
at the end of last session, called Null.
This entity broke through into dreaming,
grabbed Nod, removed them,
and began to tear the city asunder
before Stephen Sondheim
reconstituted himself
and opened a portal for
all of you to jump back
into the waking world, where
you find yourselves currently.
In addition, Cody is butt naked
because of doing a true reading
from Iga's actual magical
ancestral tarot deck,
and also had a little
time getting in touch
with some of the history
of medieval arms and armor
back at the MET, which was lovely as well.
Additionally, Kingston healed Nod
prior to their capture by Null,
and after the horrifying
confrontation with Null,
you're all screaming back
into the waking world.
Again, after having
discovered the similarity
between the magic of Iga's chest
and Kingston and Iga determining
that they would travel
into the castle at the
center of the chest together,
and also discovering the
relationship of Nod and Nuria
to Tony Simos and to the
Gladiator headquarters
in Silicon Valley.
Additionally, we discovered
that Ricky had a connection
to the three spirits of,
the sort of protector
spirits of New York City,
through his devotion to Kugrash's memory
and the fact that he
had left his former life
as a firefighter to help the homeless,
which gave him a connection
to Kugrash's original role in the city.
Our champions are flying
through time and space,
(slurps) JJ's with you,
you see around you in the sort of wormhole
little flashes of these
New York minutes around.
(mimics expl*si*n)
- Can I touch one?
- Yeah, go for it.
Give me a, oh, for the
true seeing as well,
and touching one of
these New York minutes,
give me two wild magic surges.
This first one is one through four.
- It's a nine.
- Now it's one through five, roll again.
- It's a 12.
- Pete is now on a one through
six on wild magic surges.
- Okay.
- Building up a head of steam, Mr. Conlan.
You grab, go ahead and
give me arcana check.
- Ooh, that is a 17.
- You sense - these things
are super f*cking cool.
You don't get a bad vibe off
of this natural substance
as you touch it.
What you get is the idea,
it feels like eagerness,
excitement, enthusiasm,
hustle, go, go, go, go, go.
You think of all the parts
of "Rhapsody in Blue"
that go like.
(Brennan hums "Rhapsody in Blue")
It's the hustle of the city made manifest
in a unit of impossibly fast time.
This is the part of New York City
that becomes intoxicating to
some, and to others means,
I got to get the hell out of here,
this is a pace of living
that I truly cannot stand!
But for Pete, it's very exciting.
This is like a part of the,
you realize that this is
a huge magical component
to the city, is the city's
relationship to time.
You get a sense that this raw element
is incredibly positive.
However, it is connected to time itself,
and you sense that if these
things are moved by raw umbra,
as they appear to be,
'cause there's sort of
a naturally occurring
Nod-based element in New York,
that someone might be able to
use it to flatten out time.
- Hmm.
- And maybe.
- Removes history.
- Hmm.
- You feel a connection.
Null attacked...you basically got away
with your first confrontation
with Null by rolling that nat 20.
This second time,
you did not die when they attacked
because you made that
charisma-saving throw check.
However, finding a name
for Null provoked it.
What I'm going to ask Pete now is,
as you are fleeing from Nod,
this entity is closer to you now.
Does Pete want to,
now that you are fleeing
back to the waking world,
Pete feels an opportunity
to extend a part of himself
to further define this
thing that draws its power
from being unnoticed and indefinable.
- Mm-hm. Yeah.
- Awesome.
- I think I hate that we're
running away from Nod,
who's in trouble, so I think
any info that I can get,
or any poking that I can do, I would do.
- Okay, I'm gonna say that as you can poke
and get more information,
anything you want to ask about Null
as you are retreating from the
sixth borough, I am going to,
Pete is going to have to make
that portion of himself vulnerable.
So if Pete wants to know
about this thing's past,
he has to make his past vulnerable.
If he wants to know
about this thing's, like,
identity and like what it truly is,
he will have to make that
part of himself vulnerable.
What does Pete reach out
to do, or to understand,
about this thing?
- What does it want?
- You reach out with your wants
and you see the image of that silhouette
(air whooshing)
against the indigo skies of Nod.
You watch that silhouette
convulse in agony and misery,
and as it stands, it doesn't
look that dissimilar,
but you could swear the
silhouette in the suit
looked a little bit more
like it had your proportions.
Almost every cosmology,
or the vast majority of the
understandings of the world,
is that the world began in darkness,
and most creation myths have
some version of emptiness
or void being at the beginning of things.
There was a time when Null was everything,
and what it wants is a
return to that state.
- Got it.
- The existence of its siblings and beyond
lessen it in terms of its
proportional share of the cosmos.
- Wow.
Okay.
- [Brennan] You all appear
back in the waking world.
You are on a busy street downtown,
you're like way downtown near Houston,
not too far away from like City Hall,
where the area would've been.
You see Stephen Sondheim
twirls the two broadswords,
vanishes them, goes.
(Brennan sighs)
That was close. A little bit too close.
Glad to see you again, friends,
and some new faces here as well.
I'm Stephen Sondheim.
You may be familiar with
my works on Broadway.
- Yes, you know what
I love? Is "Passions."
It's my favorite.
I feel like it's not
everybody's favorite, I love it.
- It's a deep cut.
- She's in her tower, he comes to visit,
it's so beautiful, the love story.
- Yes, it's always about love.
It's always about love, Iga Lisowski.
And he disappears.
- How he know my name?
- Oh, he's like really, really magical.
- Oh, I know.
- See if he had like an
undershirt or something, 'cause.
(laughs softly)
- Oh dude, you're still naked, dude!
- Cody, you see a couple of
construction workers whistle.
Hey, woo!
- All right, have some
respect, have some respect.
- Are there any of those-
- You know what, I'm going
to march over to those,
I'm going to march over to
those construction workers.
Excuse me, I'm assuming this
is not your normal clothing?
You probably change into work attire?
- Yeah, that's right, yeah, absolutely.
- Yeah, I'm gonna need one
of your pairs of clothing,
in exchange for that rude way
that you just treated my companion.
- You see the guy goes, "Okay,"
and takes his pants and shirt off.
He's like, "Does he need
the underwear too, or?"
- No, he doesn't.
He might need to chafe a little to learn.
- Cody, you get like a dirty white T-shirt
and some kind of like acid washed jeans.
- Oh my god.
- The guy looks and says,
"Hey lady, can I keep my shoes?
I'm not off the clock yet."
- Yeah, you can keep your shoes.
Again, I don't mind if he
steps on a couple nails.
- There's just a dude
with like a hard hat,
thick boots, and
tighty-whities who's like,
"All right, back to work, g*ng!"
Incredible.
- Hey, Pete, what was that?
- Oh yeah, I think I
tell everyone everything,
and how I found the name and what it wants
and that Nod is in trouble.
- But we can't, but you didn't feel us,
so we could fight it there.
- I don't know, it kind
of came out of nowhere
and took Nod by the neck,
and then everything was
getting ripped apart.
I don't know, Stephen Sondheim
really made the choice
to bring us back here and
I trust him implicitly, so.
I followed Stephen through the tear.
- Yeah, well, I mean,
I think that we've spoken
that there's work to be
done in the waking world.
- Yeah.
- Yeah, I mean, I, yeah.
- Pete, you feel that your
connection to the dream realm
has not weakened or severed in any way.
You still feel the magical
potential and power here,
and in fact are holding onto
like a lot of wild magic.
And you realize almost that
like Nod, wherever they are,
is sending power to you.
You feel almost like your
presence here in the waking world
right now is a life raft for
a lot of the remaining power
of the dream realm.
Like you know that Nod invested
a fraction of themselves
in you, so I don't think,
as much as I think Pete didn't want to
run away from a fight,
the fact that you are here right now
means that you still have,
that some big important portion
of the sixth borough got away.
- Yeah.
- But I think to that point
that Kingston just affirmed, and Sofia,
there's a lot of work to be
done in the waking world.
- Mm-hm.
- Well, I feel like I
need to try to track down
the rest of Kugrash's spirits.
I don't know,
what do people feel like
they need to do right now?
It feels like, yeah,
like there's a lot of work
to be done on this side.
- It feels like stuff,
like what you need to do,
I think will contribute to
like whatever greater thing
we're going to face,
so it feels like maybe
helping you track down
these two spirits and then,
once Iga gets a good night's
rest, us going into the box,
feel like the next two
bigger things that'll happen
before we confront, I don't know,
whatever this Null thing is.
- Yeah, I got to go to Brooklyn anyway,
that's where I live, so.
Hey, if you guys want to come over for-
- Hey, me too!
- It's the best borough.
No offense to any of the other boroughs.
- I live like in a clocktower.
- Wrong, but okay.
- We've been there.
- I live in a full house. I am very rich.
(soft laughter)
- Wow.
- That's pretty cool.
I had a house once.
- A regular family house in
Brooklyn means I am very rich.
- Well cool, I guess I'm gonna try to like
track down that pigeon coop village.
- Co-op?
- Co-op, yeah.
- Polyamorous animal house?
- Yeah.
- I think if we have the rest,
I would love to help
you if you want company
going into the box, I would love to help.
But it sounds like you need
a night's rest and stuff,
so if that's the case,
I have an appointment that I should go to.
- Okay.
- Okay.
- [Brennan] Awesome.
- And Pete, I don't know if your bookstore
is hiring or anything,
but I don't have, stuff.
- Yeah.
- So...
- We both need to make a
lot of money very quickly.
- I was actually gonna offer, Pete,
that I might reach out to some,
I've had some clients in the past,
best-paying job is usually
when like a real like
dark-haired brunette wants to go blonde,
and sometimes you talk
them out of it, right?
Because it just wouldn't look good.
But I was thinking that maybe
I would hit some of them up
and go through with it to try
and make some cash for you.
- Oh my god.
- I just realized a way to
make some money pretty quick.
- What's that?
- It's not New Year's Day yet, right?
- No.
- Yeah, I can't sell drugs though, man.
- No, I know.
But I think we might be
poised for a calendar.
(Emily laughs)
- Dude, would you really?
Wait, Sofia,
what if you told these women
that they could go blonde
and then be in the Mr. March calendar?
- I think they would pay extra.
- Okay, the craziest
80's saxophone comes on,
the montage starts.
(all laughing)
- Go back to my Brooklyn loft and.
- Yeah.
- I think Pete is just weeping (laughs).
- Esther, we're back! Real quick?
- Just such a good dude (laughs).
- Amazing, so all of these are
incredible leads to follow.
You guys let me know if
there's something you guys
want to get done that day or
like in the case of the chest,
the next day, we're gonna cover that next.
Otherwise, these sound like
a lot of downtime activities,
which we've been hurting
for for a while anyway.
- Okay, so-
- And a lot of people sound
like they want to do stuff
over a period of time.
- Yeah, so is that something
with the dyeing a bunch of,
turning a bunch of brunette women blonde,
is that something that I can do?
Like, I don't have to
do that today, right?
- No, you don't have to do that today.
- Okay.
And I think I'm gonna ask Pete-
- I have downtime stuff, but no-
- I'm gonna ask Pete, Pete,
can I get Dr. Lugash's number?
- Yeah, what's up?
- You are literally the only
one who knows what's up.
- Oh!
- I need a magical doctor.
- Yes, yes, definitely.
I actually need to see
Dr. Lugash really bad,
'cause just pretty much
everything I've done
would constitute a rebound and
that's why I have a sponsor.
- Yeah, I was gonna say maybe if Lugash,
because I'll be straight with you,
I had a actual trigger
during all the heaven stuff.
- Ooh.
- And I wouldn't mind, you know,
getting checked out physically,
and then maybe having a
mental conversation with him.
- Yeah, totally.
- To set me back straight.
- Yeah, he is also a licensed therapist.
It's really crazy,
I don't know how he had time
to get all this training,
but yeah, he's amazing.
He does a lot of EFT tapping.
- What's that? What's that?
- Oh, it's just you-
- When Sofia says that she had a trigger,
did you roll a nat one
on one of those dice?
- I rolled a one on my 10.
I just didn't say anything
'cause it just felt,
I didn't want to interrupt.
- So now both Sofia and Pete are at D8s.
- Yay!
- Yeah, but I want to use
this time to get, you know.
And I will use my downtime to boost it.
- Boost it. Cool.
- I think Ricky would go
to try to find the pigeon today.
- Cool, Ricky's gonna go
find the pigeon today.
Sofia and Pete are gonna
go find Dr. Lugash.
Kingston, Cody, Iga,
are you guys going with
Ricky to the pigeon, or?
- I'd go with Ricky, if
Ricky would have company.
- I think Cody's probably
gonna go back to the house
and just lay on the floor and
think about life for a minute.
- Oh, I'll give Cody my keys,
since he probably doesn't have
any right now, and be like,
help yourself to anything, dude.
Any of my clothes are yours, yeah.
- Cody, my son has sort
of outgrown his bed
and we were thinking about
getting him a full size,
so if you maybe want to take his twin bed.
- Thanks.
- It's maybe a little
short, but it's a bed.
- Yeah, I mean, yeah, that'd be-
- You'd have to get
somebody down to Greenpoint
to carry it up to Queens.
- I'm cool for now, I'm good.
I just probably need some clothes,
so much appreciated, Pete.
- For sure, man, yeah.
- Cool.
- Cody, you roll back
to your spot barefoot.
You walk in the door in jeans
and a dirty white T-shirt, lugging-
- What is it called now?
- Thirsting Blade,
it's Thirsting Blade Dark
Excalibur Mega Genesis.
- Mega Genesis, it's a big fork of swords.
- It's a giant fork.
You walk in, the house is
like partially, like, ruined.
The door is like blasted off its hinges,
and you see that there's
umbral arcana around.
You see that Nasir comes down and goes,
"Cody, we need to have a
serious house meeting, man.
Those movers you hired,"
and you see Nasir's eyes sort of flicker
because Nasir's not in
the Unsleeping City.
So he's like, "Those movers you hired
rushed in here without
knocking on the door,
grabbed all your stuff
and literally smashed
a bunch of the walls and
stuff and dragged it outside,
and I'm sorry, but that is your deposit.
That is gonna come out of your deposit."
- Yeah, no, that makes sense, that's fair.
(Emily laughs)
- Nasir looks shocked that
he's not getting pushback.
He goes, "Cool, okay, cool.
Glad you understand.
Lars and Brita left out
some, like, banana muffins,
if you want one, they're in the kitchen."
- That'd be awesome, thank you.
- All right, chill, man, okay, good.
- Cool, bye.
- Nasir walks away.
Your half of the room, a lot
of Josh's stuff is destroyed,
in whatever Iga's tarot did,
you're guessing your bed and all your sh*t
just slammed through the
sheet and smashed out the door
into the street and flew into the sky.
- I think I just take the
sheet down that, luckily,
it was probably technically Josh's sheets
that we used to separate the room,
and I just wrap myself in
it like a sleeping bag.
(all laughing)
- Cody, no!
- I try to hang my, like,
all I want to do is
hang this awesome sword,
but all of my like mounting stuff is gone,
and so I just put it up against the wall,
and then I just wrap myself in a cocoon.
(loud laughter)
- My bro!
- So, so funny.
- f*ck.
- In the clothing.
- Ricky, Iga and Kingston,
you all arrive at a rooftop with, like,
a little village of like
rooftop gardens and hutches,
there's like pigeons and rabbits up here,
there's a little thing of chickens,
this is like a sort of
lovely community co-op garden
up on the roof.
Kingston, you get like a very
positive vibe from this place.
This is like a community garden,
people coming up here, you
know, subsisting for themselves.
You see that these things get
shared with a lot of people,
the eggs from the chickens
get shared, and Ricky,
you sort of follow over
to the edge of this hutch,
that again, the umbral
arcana would make people
just see the animals here,
but you can see that the
animals here have actually
constructed, these are
all like speaking beasts,
for lack of a better word,
and they have all created
a lovely little village for themselves.
A little moss-covered balcony
has a small sort of like
breakfast nook, and you see,
you guys have also by the
way been up all night,
so you guys are like bleary-eyed,
it's been a long adventure,
but you see Perry the pigeon sitting
at his little tiny pigeon-sized table,
and pouring a cup of
tea is a little sort of
splotched brown and white
rabbit who pours the tea,
hands it to him, gives him a little kiss.
- Misiek, no! Misiek, no no, Misiek!
(Brennan squeaks)
- Misiek, no no, Misiek. They're friends.
- You see the rabbit looks over,
takes out a tiny little
air horn, and goes.
(air horn blows)
And Misiek goes into your bag.
- I'm sorry, he's a sweet boy.
- We're so sorry about the that.
Kingston, do you have any Cinnabon left?
- Yeah, I got some bites left (laughs).
Sir, Perry, I'm not sure you remember us.
- Perry looks up and goes, "Oh! Oh my god!
It's Ricky Matsui and Kingston Brown!
Wow, okay, well, to what
do we owe the pleasure?"
And you see that the
rabbit leans over and says,
"Honey, do you know these people?"
And you see Perry says,
"No, well, I knew them,
back when I was living in Central Park.
Everyone, this is my husband Warren.
Warren, this is Kingston Brown,
actually the Vox Populi of New York City.
This is Ricky Matsui, a great
chest to eat crumbs off of."
- I take some Cinnabon
and put it on my chest.
- Oh, do you mind?
- For whoever wants it.
- Bunch of pigeons come and be like,
"Thank you, very kind, appreciate it."
- This is one of the
calendar pictures right here.
That's it, we got it.
- A bunch of pigeons eye Kingston
from the time that he shooed
them all out of his apartment.
- Oh, Kingston's having
flashbacks to that time.
He like takes a full step back from Ricky,
and is just like, mm, I don't do,
I don't do large crowds of
pigeons anymore, I'm sorry.
- You don't have to,
but it's pretty awesome.
Feels kind of interesting.
- Yeah, yeah, I'm sure, I'm sure.
- You see that Warren looks up and says,
"Well, I didn't know that we were
going to be having company over.
It's a pleasure to meet all of you.
How do you all know Perry,
my darling husband?"
- We met Perry a couple years ago at,
can I make an insight check?
- Yeah, go for it.
- Okay, not too great, 11.
We met Perry at a wedding?
Going into a wedding?
- You see that Perry looks over and says,
"Hon, this was the big Confetti wedding.
Do you remember when Ronald, my cousin,
married Angela Confetti, that pixie,
whose dad was in the mob?"
And he says, "Oh, heavens, yes.
Oh, that was quite a to-do,
yes, I do remember that."
You see that Perry says,
"Yeah, in any case,
what brings you out to
a rooftop in Brooklyn?"
- I don't know that you
have always felt this way,
or if this is new for you,
but I have taken on sort of
Kugrash's mantle so to speak,
and I'm searching for the spicy pigeon.
Do you know what that means?
- There is a moment of intense silence.
I'm gonna need Ricky to roll
a persuasion check for me,
if you would be so kind.
- Can I give him the help action?
- Yes, you can give him the help action.
- Maybe it's better coming from Kingston.
- No, doubly.
- Natural 20.
(all cheering)
- You see that Perry looks
at you, his eyes go wide,
and he goes, "The spicy pigeon, that's,
yeah, I've been having some interesting,
dreams for a little while."
You see he looks down, he
flies back down to the balcony,
and Warren is there,
and you see Perry says,
"Hun, I, uh.
Would it be all right if
we, if I talked privately?"
And you see Warren goes like,
"I completely understand,
are you all right?
Do you want me to call Marty
and try to get him on the phone?"
And you see Perry says,
"No, no, I can reach out to Marty later.
But if you would like to."
And you see that Warren says,
"My darling, I completely understand,
I love you with all my heart,
I know that you had very
strong feelings for this man
a long time ago, and it
was a very painful loss."
You see he gives him a
little kiss on the cheek,
Warren goes inside.
Perry flies up and perches on
top of his own little hutch,
his house, and he goes,
"Yeah, I got into a really bad way
after Kugrash sort of ate
the bagel and disappeared.
It was just such a beautiful sacrifice,
and I know that Kugrash
didn't necessarily return the feelings,
I'm not like, you know, I'm
like a thinking, feeling person.
As an adult,
it's your responsibility
to manage rejection
and find a way to move
on, that's part of life.
But to know that he was
such a beautiful soul
and that the chance for anything just...
and also those feelings
are also always about
how you relate to
yourself in a lot of ways,
and I just wasn't in a healthy place.
But I got a lot of help from
Marty, and I got better,
and you know, in recovery right now,
and it works if you work it
and you're worth it, so."
- Seems like you're
doing really well here.
- Yeah!
- Hell yeah, Perry.
- Thank you, Warren has,
well, I got to be careful
because I, no one's ever saved,
it's always a process, but I'm happy.
Warren makes me really happy,
and it's a beautiful
life here on the roof.
- That's awesome.
Well, I can't pretend to
know everything about this,
but something has drawn
me here to you, Perry,
and I think you have been
chosen in this specific way.
Does that resonate with you at all?
- Perry looks down at
the side of his hutch,
and you see tiny little bags,
sort of look like little fairy bags,
tied up with like burlap
and old scraps of garbage and string,
that clearly Perry has tied,
and they're little bags of crumbs.
You see he goes,
"There's a lot of
neighborhoods in the city
where pigeons have been living
for a long time that are,
you know, when people
like move out of a place,
or there's not as many people
around as there used to be,
most of what we eat
is the stuff that people throw away,
and if there's no people
to throw anything away,
then there's no food
for the pigeons there.
So, I don't know."
- So you're feeding the pigeons
with these little lunches?
- I'm not a hero, it's
what anyone would do.
- Yeah, wow, that's awesome.
- What a sweet pigeon.
- Oh, you're awful nice.
- You're like the Ricky Matsui of pigeons.
- Whoa, hey, I'm not that
ripped, first of all (laughs).
- I don't know, I mean,
I've seen a lot of pigeons,
you seem pretty ripped for a pigeon.
- Oh, shucks!
- You look like you're in
really good shape, honestly.
- Thank you!
- Pigeon-wise yeah, top notch.
- Pigeon-wise!
- I mean I've been feeling great.
Like after I got sober,
I've been feeling really
strong and really healthy and,
I don't know, I do feel
kind of powerful in a way,
I guess, but.
- Hm, can I use Divine Sense or something,
just to see if there's-
- Perry is radiating celestial light.
- Huh.
- You see he has like a
suite of paladin abilities.
Like he looks almost like
class levels in paladin,
that he has some sort of powers,
but you sense that this
spirit has descended in him,
but it's maybe a situation where he hasn't
tried to use any of them,
so he wouldn't know.
- Okay, I hold up my ax and I say,
Perry Pigeon, claim your
power as the spicy pigeon.
It is time and I just hold my ax aloft.
- Uh, I'm sorry, claim my power?
As the spicy pigeon!
(Brennan growls)
Ah! Ah!
You see Warren runs out, he goes,
"Oh my heavens, my darling!"
He puts a fire extinguisher on him.
(Brennan screams)
- Warren, good looking out.
(Emily laughs)
- And you see the original
aura of the spicy pigeon
feels just like in did back in the day
when Kugrash would summon it.
Perry descends onto the balcony and goes,
"Oh my god, oh my god, I
have like superpowers. Wow!"
- You're a paladi-geon.
- Paladi-geon.
- I'm gonna be very honest,
this lady has made an incredible
first impression on me.
I hope you don't take this the wrong way,
but there's just something about
very like world-wise woman of maturity
that just sets all pigeons at ease.
- Oh, there is so much
to learn from pigeons.
I love to go to the park.
I sit in Mccarren Park,
I take out my bread,
I sit among the birds.
It's one of my favorite
things to do in the city.
- I didn't want to guess, but I was like,
this woman feeds birds and you can tell.
- No, I absolutely feed birds.
- And I was all about it,
I'm really all about it.
Well shucks, listen,
I've been sort of out of
the loop for a little while,
but you know, reporting for duty!
Is there a juicy c*ck
and a unicorn out there too?
- There's a unicorn,
but I was gonna ask you if you
know any c*ck of note.
I'm assuming he understands
that that's like
the trifecta now.
We're dealing with some
forces that are beyond
what is normally happening here,
and we need that trifecta to be unified.
- Okay, well you know,
again, reporting for duty.
And what I would say is, well god,
I know who you you have to go talk to.
My sponsor, Marty.
- Marty, yeah.
- Yeah.
- I thought I recognized the name, yeah,
this is one of Kugrash's old friends.
- Yes, exactly!
- Yeah.
- He's been doing great,
he started a monastery.
It's The Monastery of the Sacred
Rat, it's up in the Bronx.
- What?
(Emily laughs)
- Yeah!
- Are they looking for a First Fist?
Because I know somebody who is available.
- Honestly, are you serious? Oh my god.
- I'm absolutely serious.
- Listen, well yeah, it's the
Monastery of the Sacred Rat.
Fred and Marty started
it a couple years ago.
They are a diligent monastery that protect
the insect folk of New
York from aggressors
in kind of the tiny world of New York,
from all sorts of threats.
They're incredibly powerful
monks because they've learned
to meditate and tap into
the power of Kugrash.
They draw their power from him.
- Sounds pretty juicy.
- Juicy is right! Wow!
Okay, but I think you'll have
a hard time getting there,
because of your size, frankly.
The monastery's in an old hot dog cart
that fell through a sewer
grate like 10 years ago.
- This is becoming like a Jim
Henson movie and I love it.
- This is so cute!
- I understand implicitly.
I understand all of this and
maybe we should head there.
It's pretty late now, right?
- It's morning, but you
guys have been up all night.
You guys absolutely need a long rest.
- Maybe we check it out
first thing tomorrow.
- Absolutely, but again,
I don't think you'll be able to get there
at your current size.
- You don't happen to have a way to, wait,
how did we get tiny last time?
- The gnomes, the gnomes
in the train station.
That's who made us.
- There are gnomes in the train station?
- I didn't love that, but.
- I should have been more
involved, I am kicking myself.
- No, no, no, hey.
- There's g*dd*mn tiny
gnomes in the train station?
- There's a lot.
Yeah, they had a big dragon, it's intense,
but I guess that's how
we got small last time,
if we have to do it again.
- Yeah, I think I have to, at least.
I mean, maybe not everyone has to, but.
- Okay, cool.
- I think that's the answer.
- Incredible. Perry gives
you a big hug, Ricky.
He says that he's gonna be reachable.
His building shares an
old iPhone that's built
into the floor on the
first floor of their coop,
so he gives you the number to text
to get the building's iPhone.
He says, "All right, take care!"
You all head out to go get
some various states of
rest and stuff like that.
Sofia and Pete.
Pete, you arrive at the
first place we ever saw Pete
in this campaign, a doctor's office
near the East River in
Greenpoint, by an old warehouse.
You walk in, Lugash looks at you and says,
"Oh, Peter, so good to see you, my friend.
How are you feeling, you doing okay?"
- No, that's kind of
why I wanted to come by
and talk to you.
Do have a minute, or are you?
- Sure, I have moment.
You see he looks at Sofia.
Hello, I am Dr. Primjitzski,
pleasure to meet you.
- Hi, I've heard wonderful things.
I'll give you both a moment,
I can talk to you later.
- Oh, very well, please.
- Do you have a waiting room, or?
- Yes, there is a waiting room outside,
one of the couch have a hole in it
from a knife fight that broke
out in the waiting room,
so just get it a little wet sometimes,
I would sit on the chair probably.
- Okay, I go sit on the wet couch.
- It'll be really quick.
I sh**t you a look that's
like, I am so sorry,
this will be fast.
- No, no, no, of course.
- Yeah, so I ended up just
kind of in a situation again,
where, you know, I just...
It's just so easy, old
habits die hard I would say,
and especially when it comes
to money and stuff like that,
there's just seemingly
a pull on me for life,
when it comes to drugs.
But yeah, so I got a bunch to sell,
and then I flushed it all down the toilet,
and now I'm in the hole $2.500.
- Lugash looks and says,
"Okay, well this is a
suboptimal situation.
What I would say to you,
Peter, is number one,
for your health, is we
often go back to our habits,
when we entering moments of stress.
Breaking routine...
These things we rely on for familiarity,
and especially in moments of stress,
we fall back on old habits
because these habits,
even when they are unhealthy,
the part of our brain that is answering
to short-term stress, panic,
it knows that even if it is bad,
it will work for the moment,
and when things work for the moment,
and you are panicked and stressed,
you cannot think about what
will work actual long-term
for your health.
To the best of your ability,
I would say to remove these
stress factors from your life,
but I understand that that is not always
a thing one can accomplish."
- Yeah.
- What I would ask is, please,
tomorrow, the next day,
come to meeting with me,
I think will be a good idea.
- I think so too, yeah.
- For the money situation, I
cannot answer this for you.
I do not know how-
- Yeah yeah yeah.
Actually my friends are
pitching in to help out,
which honestly just kind of feels worse.
You know, just kind of when
you're already in a shame spiral
and then people are good to you,
it almost stings a little bit worse, so.
But I took some deep breaths
and was ultimately like
thankful for my friends and, you know.
Hoo, yeah, great. One
day at a time (laughs).
- One day at a time is right, Peter.
Your friends are taking care of you
because they love you and
also because they know
you would take care of them too.
It is never a burden to
switch back and forth
who is carrying who.
- Mm-hm.
The word "burden".
- Yeah, you see he looks
and just says, like,
"You cannot let it sting
you that your friends
want to help you."
- Yeah, man.
- There is a big part of your heart
that always is telling
the story to yourself that
you are the only one who's
ever going to be on your side.
I see it.
You are very quick to be independent,
you are very quick to
say, I can solve this,
I don't check in with anybody,
I'm going to go out and
take care of this myself.
And Peter, the heartbreak
is, for a long time,
you had to be that.
You are not wrong to have those instincts.
- Yeah, that's incredibly true.
- It's just not true anymore,
and it will take time
to retrain those habits,
and you must be kind to
yourself while you retrain them.
It is a blessing for your friends
to have you in their life,
because you are someone
worth taking care of.
Everyone is worth taking care of.
You are going to be okay,
and you should know that what
to you feels like it stings
because your friends,
they want to help you,
think of this, Peter.
How do you feel when you
get to do something heroic
for your friends that help them?
Does it feel bad?
- No. It feels good.
- Let your friends feel good too.
Selfish not to let your friends help you.
- Yeah, true.
I follow a therapist on Instagram.
- I'm gonna tell you
right now, don't do that.
(all laugh)
- She just posted
something really profound.
- We already know that
I feel like Instagram
has become what used
to be Adderall for you.
I have said this already.
- Yeah, it's true.
- Yes, okay, good. I'm glad we make sure.
Let me go see the young
woman in the waiting room.
- Yeah.
- He gives you a big
hug, a kiss on the head.
You're going to be all right, Peter.
You're a good boy.
- Thank you.
- And he says, "Yes, Ms.
Lee, please to come in."
- Oh hi, yes, yeah,
this couch was very wet.
- Ugh, I said to sit, okay.
- You honestly undersold it, it's sopping.
- You see he says, "So
Ms. Lee, pleasure to come,
I am doctor for cash, my
name is Lugash Primjitzski.
What can I do for you?"
- I think I'm with, ah, child.
- Oh, okay, well this is-
- Sorry, I don't know, sometimes
when you talk to a doctor,
you say things that you
wouldn't say to your friend.
- No, I understand.
- I just kind of panicked.
- So someone in your situation
wants to see a doctor.
- Yeah.
- And I don't want to
make any presumption, but-
- I think it's, I have a
gynecologist, I love her,
but I think that she's not
part of The Unsleeping City,
and I think this baby
isn't part of the waking world, entirely.
- Okay, so we check it out.
I also don't want to broach this subject,
you have said you are with child,
and you refer to a baby even
though you are not showing.
So just because I am a doctor,
to make clear what you want me to do,
it is your intention to
take this pregnancy to term
and deliver a child, correct?
- Yeah.
- Congratulations, from
me to you. Beautiful.
- Thank you, I think it's a
really complicated situation,
and I'll get to the
place of congratulations,
but right now I have like a
lot of other thoughts going on,
and I'm just trying to
take a bird's eye view.
(Ally chuckles)
- Very well, that is all right.
How many weeks late are you right now?
- About two weeks.
- Okay, so, he says,
"So right now this will not
be a fully-formed fetus,
in all likelihood this
will be an embryo, yes?
So it's limited to what
we will be able to do.
- Yeah, I guess honestly
I should've just Googled
at what point you're supposed
to go to the doctor, I just-
- No, it's perfectly, for
what I can do, it very easy.
Again, I also want to say
thank you for coming to me.
Mostly I pull b*ll*ts out of gangsters.
(Emily laughs)
But I want to, you know,
it is nice to have an opportunity to prove
I am a friend to the heroes of New York.
Pete does me a great favor
by allowing me to perform
top surgery or, as he say,
I "shot his t*ts off."
- You just hear from the other room, "Ha!"
(all laugh)
- Between you and me,
Pete did me a really great favor today,
and I owe him big time.
- He's a good, good man, Peter.
- Yeah.
- And by the way, I did
not sh**t his t*ts off.
Surgery was-
- Really?
- I fired a g*n one time
because in the middle of surgery
there was a B and E,
and a guy broke into my doctor's office.
(Emily laughs)
- Full sterile, bang!
(all laughing)
- Yeah, I always pictured
it so differently,
the way that Pete described it.
- Peter, he have a way with
words, he like to exaggerate.
I did not sh**t his t*ts.
- Okay.
- I sh**t man who come
from a rival crime family,
vendetta, plug him real quick.
He looking for information,
and then, and honestly,
you know what I do right
after we administer anesthetic
and it needs a minute?
I go pull the b*llet out of
the gangster that I sh**t,
and I say don't come into my place again,
and I send him on his way.
- Wow, this sounds like this
was a really busy day for you.
- Honestly, pretty
normal day for my clinic.
For my practice, pretty normal.
But we gonna take a look at the embryo,
your concern again is that
there may be something
of the supernatural
occurring in this pregnancy.
- Yes, I just feel as
though I must be proactive,
because I do not know what's going on.
I mean, for all I know, it's
three years old in there.
- I'm gonna tell you right now,
if you were to have effectively
a toddler inside your body,
and to be the shape you are right now,
very unlikely, so just-
- I know, I know, I know, I know.
- No, of course.
- I also don't know if there's
any precedent for this,
or if it's dangerous to
anyone involved anyways.
- Well, I'm going to go up into
storage to get the stirrups.
You can imagine I'm not
performing a gynecological exam
super regularly, but I
do have the equipment.
You are ready for everything
in my line of work.
And we're going to do the checkup.
He gets a big box of stuff,
and the main thing he
gets is like ultrasound,
stuff like that.
And you see that he has some
sort of magical stuff here.
As he does, you see those
dragons tattooed on his arm,
on both arms,
kind of move a little bit
as he's scanning stuff,
sort of swim around on his skin.
- What's with the tattoos?
- This?
- I like 'em.
Yeah, but they move, I
don't see that every day.
- Oh, before I was doctor,
I was just full gangster,
extremely dangerous magic gangster.
I got these when I was living in Moscow,
and I don't live there anymore,
but I still have magic tattoo.
- Oh. I wouldn't mind a magic tattoo.
- Sounds cool to me, right?
So he looks, he's gonna
make a medicine check.
That is a 24.
You see he scans, and he says,
takes the stethoscope off,
"Well, Ms. Lee,
I am very happy to tell
you that it looks like
you have a perfectly normal
pregnancy which is advancing.
The embryo, from what we can tell,
is partially suffused with celestial,
divine, radiant energy.
I'm going to try to say this,
as a doctor I always try to
advise caution in these moments.
The embryo inside you is
composed of such a powerful
divine substance, even though
it is going through mitosis
in a perfectly normal way,
the cells are splitting and growing,
but the, how do I say this,
the embryo inside you is
completely invincible."
(Emily laughs)
- Okay, I was gonna kind of bring that up,
because once I had the inclination,
I was in a fight and there was a moment
where it crossed my mind,
do I keep fighting or do I,
you know, take a disengage as we call it,
and I went for the
disengage because of that.
- Ah yes, I understand.
You are a very danger-prone woman, yes.
- Yeah.
- I understand.
- In fact, I'm rewarded cosmically
by getting into dangerous situations.
- 100%, to be very clear,
if there were to be a
nuclear b*mb to go off
in New York City, all that would be left
would be the c*ck and your baby.
(Emily laughs)
- Okay!
- I get a number of
sort of sonogram tests,
we look for a certain amount of radiation.
This baby 100% invincible.
- (laughing) Okay.
- Honestly kind of crazy.
If anything, the baby is honestly,
not a baby, it's an embryo, but the embryo
honestly is making you
safer by being in there, so.
- Okay.
- But you know, so that's
what's going on at the moment.
Probably as a doctor I
recommend you stay out of danger
just for you and your own
safety, but, you know.
- Okay, all right, thank
you very much, doctor.
This has been very informative.
Is there anything I should
be eating or drinking
to support its brain development?
- Oh, absolutely, I give you
a list of prenatal vitamins.
You see Lugash goes
and starts getting medical stuff together.
- And then at what
point would I be certain
this was gonna happen to the point
where I might tell someone,
or other people knowing
that it was, you know.
- Definite yes.
Well, for normal embryo it's
a period of a couple months
after you're aware, to be safe.
Some people wait until around
the time that they are showing
to tell people.
Again, this embryo is so potently magical,
and again I don't use the
word invincible lightly,
truly I think if me and
embryo got into a fight,
embryo wins, is where I
am sort of at right now.
The way I feel is, I think
it is probably safe to,
when you feel most ready,
you can say to who you like.
But you know, I would maybe give yourself
some time to think about
what all this means, yes?
- Yeah, okay.
I guess one last thing, I
take my feet off the stirrups,
but I'm still in like
the (laughs) little plastic
thing they make you wear.
I just, can I have a hug?
- Oh, Ms. Lee, of course!
- Yeah, I just, it feels
like other people do this
with someone else, so I just
wanted you to be that person.
- He smiles.
You see he does the math of a
partially celestial pregnancy,
and gives you a big,
deep hug, and he says,
"I'm going to give you
my card, call me anytime,
we're going to take
care of this pregnancy.
Beautiful things in your future, okay?"
- Thank you.
- Beautiful things.
- I do have a fortune
teller, but thank you.
- He says, "Madame Anastasia?"
- Yeah, mm-hm.
- Oh, she's great.
- Very expensive, very worth it.
- Very expensive, very, very worth it.
Moves a tremendous amount of money
for a lot of the people
that I work with, so she's-
- Whoa, okay.
- She's great, she's great.
- Wow.
- Yes, 100%.
Lugash smiles, you and Pete take off.
- I put my arm around her,
and then while I was waiting,
I ran downstairs to a bodega
and bought you a leopard print sweater.
- A bodega sweater?
- That is covered in dust.
Absolutely covered in dust.
Hey, there you go!
- Pete, as you go to the bodega
and get a leopard print sweater,
you see that a sparkling, shimmering thing
surrounds the bodega, and the
sweater gleams with magic,
and La Gran Gata, on the
cash register of the bodega,
smiles at you and says,
"Tell my champion that her child
will walk always in the
steps of La Gran Gata
de la tienda de la esquina."
- I give you the sweater
and I tell you that.
- Thank you, Pete.
I don't know what I would've done
if you hadn't talked to me today.
- Same. Absolutely same, yeah.
- So much love! So much
love here in the space.
Incredible, so, everyone
heads back to their spots
to get some rest for the next day.
Pete, you go back to Astoria.
Does Sofie go back to
her spot with her mom?
- Yeah.
- You can stay with me
and Cody, if you want!
- Mm, maybe I will.
I think I'm going to.
- When we get to the door,
I go, give me five minutes.
And then I'm like, Cody,
we got to clean, now!
- Oh f*ck, all right!
Just look at my absolutely blank room.
All right, my room's done.
(Ally laughs)
- Peter, you come back down-
- Anyway, so, okay,
sorry, I just freaked out,
'cause like a real actual
adult person was coming in,
and I just felt, you know.
There were a lot of crumbs!
There were a lot of crumbs.
- Peter, I live in a studio apartment
with my mother in Staten
Island, my standards are low.
- Right, great.
So you, me and Cody are
all gonna split my bed.
(all laughing)
We just link arms.
- I'm just at the bottom like a dog.
- You insist on having
the sword in the bed, too.
- Yeah, just like trying to clutch it.
- Amazing.
- I mean it's a king-size bed.
You know, I had a lot of
money at one point, so.
- Pete and Sofie are snuggled
up, Cody's at the foot,
La Gran Gata gets into the
crook of your arm, Sofie,
to sleep with you that night.
And you can see sort of
like sniffs and whiskers
at your tummy, and a little bit of magic
(mystic bells chime)
covers over it,
and then settles down into
the crook of your arm.
- I make us all some like
incredible nighttime tea.
It's like peppermint,
it's got a little tulsi, it's chamomile.
- Do you put your tooth in it?
- Yeah, I put a little bit of
my peppermint tooth in there,
stir it around.
- Incredible, anybody else
do anything that night,
before the next day?
- I think I talk to
Jessica and tell her, like,
tomorrow you're not going to
school, you're coming with me.
- She goes, "Okay, you got it, mom."
- Okay?
- Okay.
- Okay.
- She goes, and you can see that she like,
the next time you walk by her room,
she's laid out like her best
pair of boots, a pair of jeans,
she's got like the next day's stuff
all like ready on a
little chair in her room.
- Cute.
- That night, Pete.
You're in dreams again.
The sixth borough is
cracked apart, but not gone.
It is shattered into
islands of the former city,
floating in void.
Manhattan's been cracked apart into like
a dozen or more floating things,
bits of debris float off into void.
You see a little spar of rock that is like
the last little bit of
Roosevelt Island crumbles.
You can see the Night
Owl sort of flying away
holding Pizza Rat.
Fly off and like hide somewhere
else in the city for safety.
You see there are a couple places left.
Faerie, there's still an
island that has Faerie on it.
JFK is still out there.
You hear a voice speaking.
(ominous whooshing)
What did you do to me?
- Is this Null that I'm talking to?
- Yeah.
- No, I say that to Null.
- How did you put that thing on me?
And Pete can tell that by thing,
Null is referring to the name Null.
- Oh, whoa.
What's...
Do you think I can ask
it another question?
- Pete, you think you can
do anything here right now.
You're safer now, because
you are the Vox Phantasma,
and you are walking here in dreams.
You've gotten a handle on this.
Your physical body is not here right now.
If this thing tried to attack you,
you feel like you might
be quicker on the draw
to just wake up.
- Okay.
I guess I ask,
what are you afraid of?
Are you afraid of me and my friends?
- You turn around and see Null,
which is just your silhouette and outline,
canceling out the color of
the starry sky behind it.
I'm not afraid of anything.
What are you afraid of?
- You.
- Null moves a little bit closer.
The silhouette gets a little bit bigger.
Okay.
You know that if I get you,
you won't have to be scared anymore.
Coming into me is the end of fear.
- I don't believe that.
I think coming into you is
just letting fear overtake me.
- You look down at the city,
and see in Times Square,
a couple more Gladiator signs
(mimics popping sound)
light up.
- Okay.
(ominous whooshing)
f*ck, man so you're just the
absence of love and wholeness,
and you're, what, you're nothingness?
But you want something?
I don't get your f*cking deal, man.
- You see Null moves a
little closer to you.
I don't want anything.
What you see, this is
me not wanting anything.
- Where's Nod?
Can I have a sense of where Nod might be,
and try to get there?
- You get static.
(static humming)
And Null goes,
"There's no such thing as Nod.
And soon there never will have
been such a thing as Nod."
- Can I somehow magically
teleport to Ellis Island?
- You attempt to go towards Ellis Island,
and fly in that direction.
Null goes to strike.
The thing from beyond space
and time moves to get you.
You're gonna have to wake up.
Give me one, you can either
give me an arcana check
if you want magical knowledge,
you can also give me a
perception or an investigation
if you want material knowledge.
- Oy vey.
I guess I want...
- And you can do both, too.
- Yeah, I will do both, I think.
Okay, so, investigation.
Wait, was it perception or investigation?
- Perception or investigation, yeah.
- Okay, that's a six.
Arcana, ooh baby, that's a 22.
- 22 for arcana.
You can't see any of the
real people in the world,
but you see a world
where people feel alone.
You see a world where people
have fewer and fewer connections
to the people around them,
they have fewer and fewer
connections to their own lives,
the stories of where they came from
and the ideas of where they're going next.
You see blank haze, gray
fluid moving throughout,
and you see people.
You see people that don't
look outwardly empty.
There's someone walking
through like an industrial park
to go work at an office job that has
the Gladiator logo over it.
You see other people moving around,
someone doing customer
support from their home,
some other stuff.
You see a person in a
corner office in Manhattan
looking over Central Park on a phone.
You see they laugh, go blank for a moment,
and their eyes blank out and are
a digital static for a moment,
so their eyes suddenly just
become television static.
So you don't know who any of
them are with that perception,
but on the arcana, you know
that Null has worshippers.
But because Null prefers to be nameless,
these worshippers don't know
that they are worshippers.
In other words-
- Are they worshippers
or are they prisoners?
- Pete probably thinks they're both.
But Pete sees that this
entity has a way of,
I think Pete sees into the
relationship between Gladiator
and this entity as being one of,
and this is a weird phrase to use,
but not a devil, but like an anti-god.
A god that gets stronger the
more you don't know its name
and don't think about it.
- Whoa.
Okay.
- But it is coming after you,
so you might need to wake up.
- Yeah.
Ah!
I think I'm about to wake
up, but right before I do,
I think I look in its face
slash non-face and I'm like,
my friends and I will prevail,
and the love and history and
positivity of New York City
will step you out like a flame, goodbye.
And then I wake up.
(Emily laughs)
- f*cking love it.
Pete radiates with phantasmagoric light
in that confrontation as you say that.
The same roar that went
out from Kingston's voice
in the waking world
roars out from your voice
in the dreaming.
(mimics roar)
And a bunch of sleeping New Yorkers feel
the power of their dreams
return to them as you wake up.
- Cool.
- Ooh.
(Brennan laughs)
- f*ck!
- Whoa!
- The team is on it, baby.
You guys wake up the next day,
and I guess have have the message
to all meet up at Grand
Central Station, right?
- Yeah, I text everyone,
hey, can we all go get tiny?
- I don't know what that means, but sure.
- What's up?
- I'm just hoping we can
all go get tiny again,
because I think I found
where the juicy c*ck is.
- For sure.
- I tell Sofia, I think it's
gonna be a cool thing for you.
- Uh, okay.
- [Brennan] Incredible.
- I wonder why Ricky
associates me with a c*ck.
(loud laughter)
- Are we gonna do this and
then investigate the box?
Is that our plan?
I just want to know if
I'm bringing Jessica
with me to this or not.
- That works for me.
- Okay, cool.
- Yeah, whatever order makes sense.
If you wanted to do that first,
that makes sense to me, or.
- No, I think my daughter should
come and get tiny with us.
I think that she would
really get a kick out of it.
- I'm wondering what's gonna
happen when we get tiny,
is what I mean.
- Are we gonna have to
get to the Bronx tiny?
- Well there's that train.
- Oh yeah, they got trains.
- They got that tiny train, right?
- Yeah, they got that tiny train.
- Oh my god, they got a tiny train?
I got to bring both my kids.
I'm sorry, they got to
see this tiny train.
Nicholas, you're not going to school.
- What's that, mom?
- We're going on a field trip.
- Woo!
- For cultural reasons.
(Brennan laughs)
- Cody, emotionally, do you think
you're going to be able to
handle it, getting tiny?
- I'm absolutely devastated,
but I think it's good for me to do things
and not just wallow in what my life,
I was gonna say has become,
but honestly always has been.
- Damn, Cody.
- Lou may be the blurriest
I've ever seen him.
- Sorry, I was just so
shook by the depth of Cody.
- Just doing a lot of thinking.
Yeah, cool, yeah, let's go get tiny.
(Emily laughs)
- [Brennan] You guys go to
meet up at Grand Central.
Bazathrax talks to from
within your chest, Cody,
and is like, "Dude, where's
your cool-a*s coat?"
- Shut the f*ck up, Bazathrax.
Shut up, my coat's gone.
You were f*cking there, dude.
You f*cking live in my chest.
Just stop f*cking sleeping
all the time, dude. Goddammit.
Help me carry this g*dd*mn
sword, it's too heavy.
- Dude, I can't help you
with that f*cking sword, bro.
You're gonna have to get
me the f*ck out of here.
- Are you kidding me?
Where are you here, then?
Why the f*ck are you here, dude?
- "You were there" is so funny.
- You were f*cking there, Bazathrax.
- He took my coat, you were there.
- We f*cking lost everything.
You were there when my coat was gone, man.
- Dude.
- It's been a day!
- [Brennan] Hey listen, dude,
I'm your f*cking dark infernal benefactor.
Here's what I'm thinking, dude.
I think your mistake last time was,
you didn't draw enough cards, dude.
You got to go back and do another reading
and get like five or seven
or eight of those bad boys.
- The last card I took,
if I took two I would
be f*cking fine, dude.
- Dude, think about it!
- But I took three!
- Half the cards are good,
and half the cards are bad.
So if you draw all the
cards, you are guaranteed-
- This is nothing! That's
just nothing, Bazathrax!
- No, dude, f*cking shut up! I know math!
f*cking listen to me!
- You shut up! f*ck you, dude!
- Shut the f*ck up!
Cody is screaming f*ck you at his chest
in the middle of Grand Central.
- I think at this point
it's pretty normal.
We're used to Cody having
one-sided conversations.
- Yeah, I think we just
like keep on strolling.
- Jess and Nicholas are
a little put off by it,
but you guys get to
the Whispering Gallery.
- [Ally] Oh, I just fill
everyone in on the weird dream.
Any new info about this.
It feels like we're just,
like, up to our neck in clues,
but I don't, like the mechanics
haven't quite snapped in,
where I really know what
to do or like, yeah.
- I mean honestly,
it sounds like you f*cking
wrecked that creature's day.
- f*cking Null and his f*cking nothing.
- Hey.
- I'm valid. I'm full.
- You threw a metaphorical
f*cking Big Gulp
right in its face.
- That's f*cking right,
dude! I wish you were there!
- Yeah, would've been awesome.
- I give you the help action
to make your sword a little bit lighter.
- It's still so f*cking heavy, Pete.
- It's like 260 now.
- There's no way for me to help. It's 260!
- Even with both of us,
we're doing an overhead press
of like 130 pounds each.
- [Brennan] Incredible.
You see, yeah, in your head as well, Cody,
you hear the Questing Blade being like,
"Sire, I'm so exhausted.
What have you done to me?"
- I don't know, do you have the, ugh.
You're so sick is the thing.
It's all I've ever wanted.
If I asked you to just be f*cking normal,
would you just be normal, or
do I have to undo something?
- I feel like I'm two
other swords as well.
- Yes, you're Thirsting Blade,
Dark Excalibur, Mega Genesis.
- I'm what? What the f*ck am I?
- I don't f*cking know, dude!
Do I have to talk to the
other f*cking guys too?
Are there other guys in the other swords?
- Hello, I am Dark Excalibur.
- Okay, you need to go, dude.
- Oh god, I think I'm gonna sh*t. Why?
I'm a sword! It hurts in here!
- You have to sh*t?
- What's up, it's Mega Genesis.
- You're so f*cking rad.
- I'm the bad boy of the triple sword.
- Wait, so Dark Excalibur
is not the bad boy?
- They're all bad, Ricky!
Mega Genesis, you sound so sick.
You need to just get me out of this.
You need to f*cking k*ll Bazathrax.
- You know if you k*ll-
- And buy me a f*cking shirt!
Just buy me a black shirt, man! Please!
These pants are so big.
I'm a size 28 waist.
- You all get to the Whispering Gallery.
You guys remember the trick
of the Whispering Gallery,
which is just to go into the corners
and ask for one of the
clock gnomes to come.
The last time that you were here,
Misty was the one to do
it, but who here walks up?
- I'll give it a shot.
- Yeah, does anyone remember...
- Cool, Sofia, you walk up.
- What did she say again?
- I don't know if you remember,
it's been three years.
- You just got to call a name.
- I got to call a name?
- Yeah.
- Okay, I'll go, Rowan Berry?
- Give me a persuasion check.
- Dude!
- Oh wait, that would be bad!
I don't say that, I don't say that.
- It's okay, I need to apologize.
- No, no, no, I say-
- Can I make a history check?
Oh, go ahead.
- Oh yeah, make a history check.
- History's 21.
- You remember the name of the clock gnome
that got you the first time was Bilbry.
- Push me out of the way, Kingston,
push me out of the way and say it.
- I don't push, but I think
I do see Pete with that,
and I'm like, maybe, uh, not-
- No, I absolutely, as soon as I said it
I realized it was a f*cking
mistake, please take my place.
- It's all good. All good.
Hey, Bilbry? Bilbry?
- You guys see in the center of the floor,
a little grate, a little smoke.
(Brennan mimics mechanical sounds)
And a tiny little old prospector gnome
with a four-wheeled quadcycle
where the wheels have
little feet on the end of them pops out.
Well, hello there! If it isn't
a fine group of adventurers!
Mr. Kingston Brown, it's
good to see you again.
- Hello, Bilbry, it's been a while.
- Well, it certainly has, that's for sure.
Well hello and pleasure.
We've been busy, busy, busy,
it's been a little while
since the last time you all were here.
What can the clock gnomes
of Grand Central Station
do for you?
- We're trying to get to the Bronx,
we're trying to go meet a
specific juicy c*ck there.
- Oh, get up to the Bronx?
Well, you don't need the
clock gnomes for that,
you can grab the Metro North-
- We need to get tiny,
we need to get tiny.
- We need to get tiny, yeah.
- We need to get so tiny.
- You need to get tiny, huh?
Well, we can see about that!
(Brennan cackles)
You see he puts a bunch of weird
runic staves on the ground,
makes like a dodecahedron, helix of light.
All right, next stop, itty bitty-ville!
And all of you are shrunk
down to be about one inch tall
as a little hot air balloon descends
made out of newspaper with the
basket being a box of matches
with none of the matches in it.
He goes, "All aboard!
Next stop, the clock gnome
workshop! Toot toot!"
You see that Nick and
Jessica are each just going,
(screams loudly)
They've been to a magical chest,
but they've never been shrunk down before.
And you guys pile into
the matchbox and sail off,
once again seeing the
little helixing whirl
of biplanes and dirigibles
and hot air balloons
swirling around the clock
kiosk of Grand Central Station,
and heading up towards the constellations
on top of the giant arched roof.
- How big is Dark Excalibur-
- I was just gonna ask!
- I think I assume as we get tiny,
Kingston immediately looks over
just to see if the sword
is more manageable.
- The sword is
proportionally 100% the same,
and Cody is really struggling.
- Still super heavy, Kingston.
- Damn, hey, I was hoping for you.
- I don't even have a cool duster anymore,
so what does it even matter?
- I conjure my mage hand to help him lift
five pounds' worth of the sword.
- Thanks, I think we need
three or four people.
- I also have mage hand, but I think that
my body will help it better.
- Ricky's on like the exact opposite end
of the hot air balloon.
(Emily laughs)
- As is his right.
- As is his right.
You guys fly through here,
you remember the last time
you came through here,
Pete leapt off of here onto a
giant oyster in the food court
and shot a dog with a g*n
but didn't hurt the dog
'cause the dog was the
size of a f*cking building.
- Yeah, definitely, yeah, for sure.
- And then a dirty eagle
came and rescued you.
- This was one of the last
times I had a cheat day.
- The last, three years ago?
- Yeah.
- You know-
- You're due for another!
- People at meetings call
this a spiral moment.
You know, a lot of
people think of spirals-
- A cheat day?
- No!
No, just when you encounter
a place that you were
in a very different place
and you get to see your
growth side by side.
People think spirals go
down, but some spirals go up,
and you get to look at a past.
- A virtuous cycle, a virtuous cycle.
- I have a lot of strange memories
from the Staten Island Ferry, so.
- Yeah, some spirals hit more often.
- All of you head towards-
- I jump out of the air balloon.
- You see that the aircraft heads towards
a sudden roiling tempest that coagulates
in the roof of the arch.
Let me get a dexterity
saving throw from everybody.
- I automatically get disadvantaged
because of the Thirsting Blade,
Dark Excalibur, Mega Genesis.
I don't auto-fail, do I?
I think I just have disadvantage.
- You have disadvantage.
- Does anyone have any auras that help us?
- If it's a saving throw,
you get a plus four within two feet of me.
- Sweet, I get 19.
- Cool.
- 15.
- 18.
- Nine.
- I rolled an 11 and a
12, so I still got a 17.
- 19.
- 18, what did Iga get?
- 18.
- And what did Pete get?
- Nine.
- Even with the bonus?
- Yeah.
- Incredible.
Pete, as you make the joke,
you fall out of the aircraft again.
- Wait, would mage hand,
would mage hand, though,
still work with five pounds.
- Oh yeah, five pounds!
- Can I do mage hand, but like-
- I'm gonna say yeah, you
reach out and mage hand Pete
back up into the air.
- What if I jumped out? Ah!
- Yeah, you were like leaning
over the side being like,
oh, right, ah!
- Suddenly you guys
appear in the workshop.
You see the large dragon
trains as they stretch off
in all directions.
Iga, did Misiek come with you as well?
- For sure, yeah, Misiek
is always with me.
- So you go around, you
start walking through
and see these polished,
incredible, beautiful,
old-school trains and
at the heads of them,
these like shaped metal sort of like
lion-like dragon heads with horns.
And again, these aren't enormous,
but they're enormous to you right now,
and you realize these are probably
just the size of like model trains.
They're itty bitty.
Bilbry says, "Well welcome back,
happy to help you get tiny.
If you're looking for a ride north,
you can hop into one of
the dragon trains as well."
Iga, you see that the dragon trains,
as you get towards the
heads, sniff the air,
rear up and perform this
elaborate bow to you.
(slurps loudly)
- Oh, I do an awkward curtsy.
- A bunch of gnomes come out
of this giant cuckoo clock,
tick-tocking sort of temple.
You see lots of other
clockwork gear and springs.
It's like a little steampunk
model train village
in the rafters of Grand Central Station,
and all these little spring-loaded
and otherwise gear-encrusted
gnomes come out.
High Priestess Hib-Hob comes out and goes,
"Oh, my my my. Well, hello one and all.
Oh, the dragon trains."
And everyone looks at Iga
being bowed to by these trains.
- Iga, have you met these trains before?
- No, is this not normal?
They're not bowing to people normally?
- I think they're not bowing to any of us.
- No.
- Okay, hello trains.
How are you?
- Go ahead and give me a
persuasion check with advantage,
if you'd be so kind.
- 18.
- The trains come up and
begin to sort of snuffle
at your bag and at your clothes,
and again, they're huge,
they're like enormous trains,
but they are sort of like crowding
and a long metallic
tongue kind of flicks out,
forked like a snake's.
- What are you looking for?
What are you trying to, get out of my bag!
What are you doing?
- They sort of move back.
- I pet them like a really big dog.
- They go.
(Brennan pants)
And the trains sort of back
up back onto the tracks.
Yeah, these little trains would
be about the size of Misiek,
if you guys were normal size.
But you do see that your
chest sort of gleams
as these dragons approach.
- Can I pull the chest out?
- You see all of the trains
look at the chest wide eyed,
and as into you as they were,
they look a little bit scared
of the chest and back up.
- Can I ask them why they're afraid?
- Go ahead, if you're
using magic or a gift
let me know, otherwise-
- I actually speak Draconic now.
- Hell yes.
Iga, you speak to them in
what you think is Polish,
because I don't think, Iga doesn't know-
- Yes, I don't think that
she know that, but she does.
- Jess and all these people look up.
People that are,
you guys might think she's
still speaking Polish,
but anyone that has an
ear for languages is like,
that's not the same.
And the main thing is,
you see Jess and Nick
both look up at their mom,
and you see that the gnomes all
kind of gasp as you do this,
because they built these.
These are not true dragons,
much like Misiek is not a true dragon.
There's lots of little dragon-like species
that are associated with them
that are part of the same larger family.
These are also built,
they're sort of like magical constructs,
but they do speak Draconic,
and it's clear from the gnomes' expression
that they didn't know they could do that.
They were handling them just like animals.
Centifax, the main dragon
train that you guys met
three years ago, looks up and says,
"Smell, good smell on you. Dragon friend."
- Yes, Misiek is my little friend.
- Dragon friend. True dragon friend.
- Oh, um. Mm.
I don't know anything about that.
- They look at each other.
You can see that they
have this gift of speech,
but are kind of playful,
bestial constructs.
As wild as it is for them to
be both artificial and feral
at the same time, that's
kind of what they're like.
You see that they go,
"Dragon friend, blessed by dragon.
Special, magic.
Box. Scary box."
- The box can be scary, yes.
It's dangerous, it's powerful.
- Centifax leans forward
and scooches back and goes,
"Dragon trap."
- A dragon trap?
(Brennan snorts)
The box is a dragon trap?
- You see that another train says,
"True dragon trap. Powerful.
True dragon wise, magic, ancient.
Speak from the past, long ago spirits."
Another dragon says,
"True dragons cast
spells, wear many forms.
Palaces of gold and silver.
Magic things they collect."
You see another one says,
"True dragons wise and cunning."
- Oh dear.
Have we had a dragon trapped
in a box for hundreds of years?
- Jess puts her hand over her
mouth and Nick goes, "What?"
- He's probably pretty mad at us, right?
Do you think he will be convinced
that I just didn't know?
- The dragon trains
have no answer for you.
But you do see that your daughter is here
and Kingston is here as well.
- So, we're tiny, right?
We're going to c*ck!
- Oh, okay.
What did the trains say?
- It didn't sound like Polish.
- Oh, okay, it wasn't Polish?
I thought maybe the trains spoke Polish.
- No, for sure it was, why
would it not be Polish?
I speak English, I speak Polish.
- You see Jess looks at you and says,
"Mom, you weren't speaking Polish."
- What are you talking about?
You speak Polish, I speak Polish.
- She takes a video she
took of you on her phone
that starts midway through
you talking to these dragons.
- Okay, you're always
taking the videos of me
for the Tik Tok and it's
very, what the hell?
- You see a little picture
of Jessica dancing,
and it says, TFW when your Polish mom,
and like little things
are popping up around.
- The latest challenge.
(all laugh)
- Yeah, you see a video of you
speaking some ancient,
primordial language.
Ricky, you vibe off that,
when you remember reading that
divine sense off the chest,
that there's something in
there that is not divine,
infernal, fae, undead, but
something ancient and primal,
you know what that is now.
- It's draconic?
- Draconic.
- Awesome.
- There was a plan for
Iga and Kingston to go
into the box with Jess,
which is why Jess is here,
'cause Jess wasn't gonna come with you
to the juicy c*ck,
so Jess is like ready,
looking at you, Iga.
- Are you going to be mad at
me if the legacy that we have,
it changes before it gets to you?
- She looks and says,
"Maybe that's kind of like
everyone's challenge, mom.
The world changes,
but you also have to hold
onto the past, right?"
- Okay, so you're smart. Okay, good.
- The legacy changing Tik Tok challenge.
- Also don't put that
video online, please.
Don't put me on the internet,
it's not funny for me.
- Okay, I won't, I won't.
So Iga.
- Mm-hm.
- What is it you are going to do?
- I mean I do think that it feels weird
to go and do another thing
before dealing with this thing.
- Okay.
- For me.
- You're saying Iga would rather go
deal with the juicy
c*ck and then do this?
- No, I think for Iga, I
think that the time has come.
- Cool, hell yeah.
- But she's also just got shrunk,
I don't know if we're gonna go into-
- Your box is also shrunk, it's
an extra-dimensional space,
I think you think you'll be okay.
- Okay, cool.
Okay, I got to go. I'm so sorry,
I got to go deal with this right now.
If anybody wants to come
with, you can come with.
If not, you can just be
carrying the box, I trust you,
as you're going to the c*ck.
Whatever you feel like you want to do.
- I'd like to come, yeah.
- Cool, I think Iga,
you take Jess and Kingston into the chest.
Nick asks you, he says,
"Mom, do you want me to,
like, leave the box with them,
or should I take it home?
Or I can take the chest with these guys
to go see the juicy c*ck."
- Why don't you do that?
That Cody boy, he's not
a good influence on you.
Ricky, now he's a good
boy, you follow him around,
you can maybe learn something from him.
Cody, not a good boy.
- He looks over at Cody, he says,
"Yeah, he seems to be really
struggling with that."
- Bazathrax, why aren't you helping me?
You're a devil, you can't
just help me lift weight?
It's a sword! It's three swords!
- Let me out of the f*cking
tattoo and I'll help, okay?
- I'm not letting you out of
sh*t, you don't do anything.
- You guys, Iga, Kingston
and Jess disappear,
you guys get onto the train,
the dragon train races north.
You are on a train track on a pipe
running through the subway system,
so you're on a tiny train
watching the giant trains
sh**t past you in the real subway
as you head north towards the Bronx.
Kingston, you appear
next to Iga on a balcony
in a fairytale castle,
and while you understand that it is
an extra-dimensional space
within New York City,
what's Kingston feeling in this moment?
- Oh, pure shock.
We're in like a straight-up castle
and there's just miles of forest?
- A lot of forest, that's right.
- Yeah, I think there was an excitement
around possibly seeing the dragon again,
but I think it's now just
like an overwhelming sense of,
what is this thing that
was just in New York
this whole time?
I think there's just a lot of awe.
- Yes, I mean, whatever this is,
I don't think it can be the same dragon.
Like I've been thinking about it,
and sure I came here
about the time that
your dragon disappeared,
but this power has been in
this box for hundreds of years.
I mean, unless there's
two dragons in here,
but that seems crazy to me.
- That's all right, let's not get-
- Let's not think too much about it.
- Multiple dragons in one box? I mean.
- Multiple dragons.
- It's a box of dragon.
I don't know dragon math,
but I'm assuming it can't be
more than one dragon per box.
- You want some tea,
maybe something stronger?
- Yeah, yeah, yeah, why not.
- I've got some vodka
and some peach schnapps.
Put a little drop of the
peach schnapps in the tea.
- I mean, not too much, 'cause, you know,
it is still a work day,
and I guess at some point our friends
are outside of this, dealing with-
- No, just for strength.
- Yes, for strength, for
strength, I like that.
- You grab the schnapps.
Jess goes to look in the
fridge, and you hear her going,
"Where are the borscht bites?"
She goes, "Oh, there they are,"
and takes a plate of borscht bites out
and pops one in her mouth.
- See, you like them.
You like them when you're alone.
- Yeah.
- Just not when you're
with your tiny friends.
- I don't know, my-
- You're Sophies and your other Jessicas.
- Look, Jessica F and Jessica
K are my friends, okay?
There's a lot of Jessicas
at the school, and I'm not-
- Yes, because we're all
immigrants, and we come here,
we'll say, like, what
will make my child fit in?
Oh, the name Jessica,
fantastic, it will work.
- She smiles, pops another borscht bite.
You have a drink.
You are suddenly surrounded
by ghostly images of all these women.
- Can I see them?
- Yes, Kingston can see them as well.
- Oh boy.
- You see an ancient medieval
Polish woman looks at you,
Iga, and says, "Iga Lisowski,
you have come here with
your daughter to the castle
and you have here a man who
speaks for a city not in Poland
but somewhere across a crazy ocean."
- There are more Polish
people in this city
than are in a lot of cities in Poland,
so don't give me this.
This is a Polish city.
- You see that a lot of them (gasps) gasp,
and a few of them like
pop out of existence,
and you see your mom goes like,
"Iga, please, I know what is in your mind.
You should think very carefully
before you go down into
the bottom of the castle."
- What am I thinking carefully about, eh?
Tell me what I'm thinking about.
That my family trapped a being
in here hundreds of years ago
and just like, were fine with it?
- You see they look around,
the oldest witch looks away,
and you see in her eyes
the story of a time,
medieval period, one of
the many times that Poland
was like ransacked by Visigoths
or something like that,
and you see a shape like appearing,
and this ancient witch taking this chest,
saying an old like charm,
and capturing this massive thing in a box.
That even that beast,
long, long ago in legend,
was brought here by some
Visigoths, who they got it from,
who knows where and who
knows what, and she went,
"Maybe I could have been more honest
about what was in the box."
- Oh, so you did know what was in the box!
- There was a dragon!
- You said oh, I'm never
going to investigate it,
because you already knew!
You already knew what was in the box!
- These things work better
when everyone is extremely mean
and never talk about how they are feeling.
- You're not supposed to say
the extremely mean part out loud!
- Well, I did! And she vanishes.
Just your mom is left, and she goes,
"Iga, I hope you know
what it is you are doing,
because it will be a big
mistake if is a mistake at all."
- Yes, sure, okay, it's a
big mistake or it's nothing.
That's life, I don't
know what to tell you.
- Jess looks-
- That's what you told me about Oskar,
and we're still together!
It's happy, we're happy!
- Well, there is still
time for it to go wrong!
- Okay.
- Jess looks up and is like,
has this pride in her eyes.
She has never seen you interact
with these spirits before.
She's like, "Way to go, mom."
- I'm sorry you had to
see that, I'm sorry.
- No, your mom was like a trip.
- Yes, no, I mean, she,
you're a product of your time.
She survived a lot of stuff.
- Jess nods, and you
can see her reevaluating
the things about you that bug her
in comparison to this
ancient, primordial woman
that was like talking
down to you a moment ago.
- Well I guess, do you want
to go handle that thing
all those ghost women
were yelling at you about?
- Let's do it, and I add
an extra shot of schnapps
into our tea, and I give Jessica a little.
Don't tell anybody,
in this country they don't
like the children drinking.
So just don't tell.
- Hoo!
- You're old enough, it's
fine. 12 is old enough.
- Damn, okay, okay, let's go.
All right, all right.
We are not in New York, we
are in a weird castle, yeah.
- It's medicinal.
- Medicinal.
- You head down into this castle.
I would like you guys to
make either investigation
or arcana checks.
(whimsical music)
- Hm, I'm gonna use a luck point.
- That's gonna be a 17 investigation.
- Still not great. A 12 arcana.
- Jessica got a 23.
- She's smart. She's a smart kid.
- She casts a cantrip
that Esther taught her,
where she is going around
touching books in these libraries
as you pass through them,
and you can see her touching them (slurps)
and instantly having read
them as she touches them.
- Wow, that's a cantrip? Impressive.
- It's called Scholar's Touch.
- Whoa.
- Reads these books, and then Kingston,
with that investigation, you
see that these libraries,
as you get deeper into the sort of
bottom floors of the castle,
have all of this ancient
fairytale iconography.
There's lots of fae stuff
here: woods, knights,
medieval things, and as you
get deeper, there are dragons.
Prow of a a viking ship,
hanging over a hull,
clawed feet on the tables.
You see a tapestry of like a young,
almost like Merlin figure,
but you see that as you're
looking at this tapestry,
there's a beautiful thing of
this like young boy walking,
that has an image of
like fire in his heart,
and you see Jessica being like,
"Wow, all of these are
books about dragons,
but they're powerful.
This is like palaces, divine,
almost like demigods or something.
They're not like big scaly
monsters, they're like spirits."
And she starts sort of
going around touching them,
she's like, "We should be really careful,
because it says that they
can wear other forms,
they can look like other things."
And she touches another
book out on the table
by the tapestry you're looking
at, Kingston, and says,
"Yeah, there's even like
legends of dragons like
changing forms, like, in
the egg, or like as babies,
and growing up not knowing
that they were dragons."
And you see a pair of giant double doors
leading to a staircase going down.
- I chug my tea.
- Yeah, feels like-
- Smash the glass.
(glass cracking)
- Okay! I smash my glass.
It seems to be custom.
- It's absolutely not at all.
I mage hand it into a little pile.
- Okay, I'm sorry, I cast mending on mine.
- I'm sorry, I just, I needed
a moment of release, you know?
Sometimes you just need to smash a thing.
- Hell yeah, it's a big day.
- You ready?
- Let's do it.
- You walk down the steps into
the dungeons of the castle.
Kingston, you feel a connection
to something down here.
None of this has felt like New York,
but something down there
feels like New York to you.
As you move down, you see an iron grate,
like a prison gate, and through it,
glittering mountains of gold.
Swords, halberds, lances,
banners, even stone towers from,
like, ancient Polish castles,
and you see on top of one of the mounds,
there is a throne, and
seated on the throne,
dressed all in green with
long flowing red hair,
is an incredibly beautiful queen.
You see that her crown is
made of, like, holly wreaths,
and she has long pointed ears,
and these poison green
glittering eyes, ruby red lips,
an enchanting looking woman
on top of this pile of gold.
And Kingston, you feel behind
her, maybe underneath her,
buried in the gold, a connection
to that New York thing.
- I, like, lean over to Iga
before we get too close,
I'm just like, I think, I don't know,
there's something in here I think is tied
to what we're after, but I'm
not sure this person is it.
- Can I activate my ghostly gaze
to see what is underneath the gold?
- Yeah, as you do that divination,
underneath the gold is a clutch of eggs,
massive eggs, about this big.
I'm gonna describe a crazy,
I forgot you had this power,
so we're gonna skip to
the end of this encounter.
- Oh no, I'm so sorry.
- No no no, this is fun.
The eggs are, like
everything here, Kingston,
this is the vibe that was on
the Dragon of Bleecker Street.
The hoard is beautiful, magical,
memories, legends, myths,
all the riches of magic itself, and Iga,
you see a clutch of eggs,
some studded with rubies and
they're bright red and fiery,
some that are green and
everything else like that.
The largest of these eggs,
and the one that you could
swear is almost like moving,
you can sense that there's
like something in there.
This is not an unfertilized
egg, in other words.
You sense a powerful spiritual presence.
That egg is not covered in rubies,
and it doesn't look old at all.
That egg is beautiful deep, like,
granite and marble and
brick that is covered
in flecks of gold like the sun
setting between the streets
with colors all over
it that you could swear
look like beautiful graffiti.
There is art, like spray paint art,
all over it of music and laughing,
people dancing in the streets,
and you feel a powerful magical presence
coming from that egg.
- Can I bow to the woman?
- So you move through the
door into the corridor space.
- Yes, and can I message the egg?
- Yeah, you can message the egg.
- Can I say, are you the
Dragon of Bleecker Street?
- You only get an emotion back.
You think whatever's in
there is like a baby,
and also it feels like it is, right now,
it feels like the thing in
there is just potential.
Like it's almost like,
because dragons are spirits,
the thing in there right now
does not have a flesh body yet,
and it won't until it hatches.
It's pure spirit, it is just
a golden, gleaming soul.
Kingston, as you follow Iga in here,
you feel a connection to a
powerful soul in this room,
and you see the woman on
top of the throne goes,
"Iga Lisowski."
- Hello, I did not know
you were down here,
and that is 100% on me.
I'm sorry.
- But Iga Lisowski, I am down here,
and I have been for some time.
Jessica leans over to you and
points at a word in Polish
in one of the books from upstairs,
and the word she points to
is Smoczamatka and she says,
"That's her."
And it's a little bit ancient and garbled,
but phonetically, this
is like dragon mother.
You see the woman stands up and moves.
As she moves, you see gold
in piles far away from her
slip and slide as though a form, like,
you see she turns into a small bird
(mimics bird fluttering)
flies over to another perch,
and is now seated a little bit closer
on a different sort of
pile of golden shields,
and is back in her form as a woman,
smiles again, says,
"What are we going to do
about this, Iga Lisowski?"
- I do not know.
I do not not know.
I feel that there is a
lot of context, honestly,
that I am missing, and again,
these are questions that I
should have asked earlier
but I'd spent my entire
life being warned not to.
So I am sorry I was not here earlier,
but I am here now.
- Smoczamatka walks towards you.
She looks at you, Kingston, and says,
"And who are your guests
here in the castle
that long I have been trapped in?"
- I'm Kingston Brown. I'm from Harlem.
It's in New York. I'm a friend of Iga.
- As you say Harlem and New York,
the top of the gold pile rumbles
and you see that egg for
the first time, Kingston.
A beautiful gold-flecked sidewalk pavement
spray-painted awesome-looking, beautiful.
It's like a graffiti Easter egg,
(Brennan rumbles)
pops out and rolls down the mountain,
and you see Smoczamatka
goes, "No, not you again!"
(Brennan snarls)
And a towering dragon, this
one bright red and venom green.
This one is powerfully built,
like a thick-shouldered,
almost like a hyena,
like one of those powerful
shoulder predators (snarls).
Opens its wings and takes
its nose and nudges the egg
back up the mound, and says,
"Something is wrong with this one! Why?"
And turns around and says,
"Listen, we can help
each other, Iga Lisowski.
I could have k*lled you
the moment you walked into this room.
I have k*lled many that have
tread these passageways before.
But you are the first to reach out to me
and ask rather than take."
- I'm sorry that I am
the first, and again,
I am sorry that it took me so long.
- Go ahead and make a
persuasion check with advantage.
- 23.
- Smoczamatka lies down,
crosses her enormous claws,
and goes, "Well then,
what are we going to do?"
- If I release you from this,
are you going to hurt people?
- I cannot see the outside of this chest,
but I will tell you this.
I did not build this castle.
This was built by the chest.
Your mothers and mothers
going back a long time
built this to keep me here.
- And they took you from somebody else
who also was keeping you somewhere?
What happened to you? Where are you from?
- (sighs) Deep within-
- What is your story?
- On that 23 persuasion,
you see Smoczamatka begins to cry,
and shares a story of being
a like primeval dragon.
You see visions of the Białowieża Forest,
this like ancient
primeval forest in Poland
from long, long ago.
This creature was
captured by like Visigoths
and chained up and used for like battle
and then captured eventually
by one of your ancestors,
who only had seen it as
being this dangerous threat,
this like wild monster,
but the monster had been like
captured by this evil king,
and this horrifying fairytale of - yes,
the dragon being dangerous and terrifying
and your ancestors being like,
if I can get this thing in a magic chest
so it stops burning our
villages I'm gonna do that,
and then this thing being a thing
that should have never been
captured in the first place.
- So you were just a baby?
You were just a baby and
they put you in chains?
- She weeps, "I did not think
a human could understand
or care about a dragon.
I did not know where the chest was.
I did not know what we were doing or why
but I long for the
forest, I long to return.
- There aren't that many
forests in New York.
But there's a couple of parks, maybe.
- She smiles and says, "I understand."
She says, "Perhaps I could
live my life happily in a park,
but I also know I am a
creature of the ancient world.
I feel like I have missed so much."
You see Jessica steps forward and says,
"Smoczamatka, in the outside world,
I think many dragons
have died, or changed,
or I don't know how safe it would be,
but I think whatever."
She just looks up at you and says,
"Mom, you do whatever you think is right."
She taps this book and says,
"I want to study this
castle as long as I can,
but I'm not worried about
how I'm gonna get magic.
I know I'll be able to get
it for myself if I need to."
- Okay, here is my plan for now.
Out there, there is no forest.
But in here, there is forest,
and you should at least be allowed,
this is still a cage for you
and I don't feel good about this,
but there is a forest here.
Would you like to be in the forest?
You should not be in this strange cellar.
- Iga, you look out and see
the solid wall of the dungeon,
and you look, this castle
is your family's legacy.
You think you could command
the castle if you wanted to?
- I guess I will open the door
and widen the stairs wide enough.
- You open the stairs
(mimics boom)
and mainly break the curse
and the wards keeping this dragon here.
This ancient fairytale
dragon turns into her form,
turns (bells chiming) into
a bird briefly, flies up,
sees the stairs widen,
turns back into this dragon,
(slurps) moves back up,
looks out and, again,
weeps openly looking over
and you see that the dragon takes wing,
and as the dragon flies,
the forest extends,
farther, farther, farther,
everywhere it goes.
You see it gets to a place
where a mountain rises up
and it flies over a town suddenly,
with people in it.
You see a sh**ting star in the sky.
You've let this thing out,
and this magical realm
that's been inside this
chest expands forever.
It goes and goes and goes.
A magic that was being bottled
so as to contain it is released,
and suddenly this realm is coming to life.
(uplifting music)
- Oh my god, I just,
I didn't even know that I could do this.
I feel so bad.
- Jess puts a hand on you.
- How were you supposed to know?
I mean, you've been told
one thing your whole life,
and all we know is-
- Oh, you're told things your
whole life, your whole life
that you find out are wrong.
- Yeah, but family's special.
I mean, when it comes from your community,
it's that much deeper.
- Yeah, you got to unlearn
some things, I guess.
- Yeah.
(exhales loudly)
- You see the dragon returns,
Smoczamatka returns to the castle,
and looks out and says, "This
place is a place for me."
It looks at you and says,
"Iga, I am angry, yes,
at the years that I lost.
But also, I do not mind to live in stories
and though your mother's
mothers were cruel to me."
You see Smoczamatka shakes
her head and just goes,
"I think we should speak to them,"
and snaps her fingers and all
the ghosts appear in here.
You see the dragon proclaims,
"I have been freed by your
daughter, Iga Lisowski."
- And don't even give me it!
I don't want to hear it, okay?
- You see the dragon looks and says,
"Long ago, I was sealed
in here with magic.
You sealed me in here to
draw your power from me.
It is not right that Iga
should be without this legacy,
because this is the history
of your family, Iga.
But she has also made right
what your family did wrong.
So I will be free in this realm here
but Iga should not go without magic."
You see that Smoczamatka
looks at you, Iga, and says,
"I offer you power as my champion.
If you wish to take it,
it is yours completely
or," she looks and says, "maybe
you'll work something out
with these ghosts but it is up to you."
- I would be honored to be your champion.
I feel like my debt is not
in any way paid to you,
and I will do what I can for you.
It seems to me that your love stories
and I think there are many
stories that have been told
since you were trapped in here,
I'm thinking maybe that is
something that you would like?
- She looks and says,
"I would love to hear stories
as he does you guys
feel the chest arriving
at the destination
outside of the chest, Iga,
and you hear another rumble
and you see that egg,
the one egg from downstairs,
bounce up the staircase,
trying to roll out of the castle.
And you see that the dragon,
goes Smoczamatka says,
"No, what is with this one egg."
And stops it.
- I think maybe the egg
wants to go on a journey.
And sometimes the story comes to you
and sometimes you go to the
story, you know what I mean?
You see it that Smoczamatka says,
"No, this egg has been
a real troublemaker,
I can tell it has been
doing stuff to the chest."
And you realize that this is the thing
that has been changing
the outside of the chest.
- Ah, he's got artistic aspirations.
He just wants to be an artist.
He's got an artistic spirit.
I take home with me, come
take the egg for a journey.
- You take the egg and again, Kingston,
you feel this profound connection
to this New York City egg.
And Jess looks at you talking
about this different child
and gets a little misty-eyed herself
and you see Smoczamatka
looks at you and says,
"Yes, the eggs should go on a
journey, that egg is trouble."
And dragons, we are spirits.
I love my family,
but whoever heard of two
dragons in the same place?
No, dragons need their space."
She smiles changes back
into the form of that
(bells chiming) sort of Woodland Empress,
gives you a kiss on both cheeks and says,
"To understand the
past, to reckon with it,
and what has been done wrong,
but also to know where you came from,
these both go hand in hand,
thank you for releasing me."
- I know a nice young man
who works at the bookshop,
and I think I'm maybe going to
give him a lot of commission.
(Brennan laughs)
Smoczamatka smiles and
takes off into the forest.
Your moms all look and you see
your ancient most mom looks and says,
"Well, I guess I was wrong
about the dragon being unreasonable"
- Seems very reasonable
considering she's been locked up
for 800 years.
(Brennan laughs)
1200, I don't know. You're old.
(laughs loudly)
I love you.
- Iga, Jess and Kingston,
exit from the chest.
- Exit.
- I thought the same thing, exit.
- Exit.
- Nice, nice.
- We're not happy about it,
we're not happy about it, all right.
All exit from the chest
and you guys are in a tiny
little like subway station
on a pipe, all one inch tall. Iga,
as you walk out, you now
have the egg in your hand
but in front of you is the chest.
The chest is covered in trees
and ancient castles once more,
and you see vibrating and
humming with magical energy,
because even though this egg
is no longer protecting it,
the carving of a fearsome
free dragon on the top is.
- Incredible, Iga, Kingston, Jess,
as you guys exit the chest,
is there any other conversation left.
- I think Kingston turns to Iga
and it's like I don't know
all your plans for this egg
but I'll tell you once that
dragon needs a place to stay.
I know a pretty good one
down near Bleecker Street.
- That's good to know.
That's good to know.
Do you want to hold the egg?
Do you want to hold it?
(Emily laughs softly)
- Like a little bit?
(all laughing)
- Be careful with it.
- Can I just?
Yeah, yeah, I take it.
- Kingston, you hold this egg.
Feels warm, man, warm to the touch
and it's crazy because you've been living
the wildest life imaginable
for almost 30 years now.
You've been in The Unsleeping City
and the fact that you're holding
a powerfully magical egg,
that has a being of pure spirit
that will one day become a dragon,
but is now just pure potential,
but you hold it and you're also
like, this is a like a baby.
This is like, he needs
someone to look out for it.
It's just in the little egg,
and it's already been
fighting to save the city
and it's just in a little egg.
- It's going to do great things.
This one's going to do great things.
(laughs softly)
- Kingston would you like
to look after the egg?
(loud laughter)
- I don't want to put the pressure on you.
It's a lot of work, I think.
I mean, I don't know. I've
never raised a dragon before.
I don't know.
- I mean, I don't,
maybe, we maybe it's like
well, let's save New York
and then we can talk
about co-parent situation.
You seem to have a little bit more-
- Honestly, I should
have asked more questions
of the mother,
she's maybe like I don't
know heatmap situation.
- I just want to make sure
everyone's comfortable
before we make any lofty
things but between me and you-
- I have two children,
that's enough children.
- I mean, exactly.
I'm not going to raise a
new kid, but a dragon kid
or we can make that work.
Let's figure this out.
- We'll figure it out.
(soft laughing)
- You guys head out,
all you see this interaction.
It looks like things
worked out in the chest.
- Awesome.
- Awesome.
- Oh, I think you looked
great in the chest, y'all.
- Oh, cool, yeah, we do so.
- What you said, Silence.
(soft laughter)
- Iga was off like thousands
of years of tension
between humans and dragons.
It was really something.
- I almost talked to
Cody, but then I didn't.
(loud laughter)
- You guys-
- Just kicking the wall.
(soft laughter)
- You guys approach, Jess and
Nick, get back on the train.
Jess looks up at you Iga and goes,
"I'm super proud of you, mom.
That was so cool, that was so cool.
- I'm so proud of you and honestly,
I could not have done it without
you really opened my
eyes up to some stuff.
- She gets a little misty,
wipes a tear and goes,
"You opened my eyes up to everything.
You're the best mom in the world."
Gives you a big hug.
- Thank you, thank you.
I know and I try, I love you so much.
I love you both so much, you're so good.
(soft laughter)
- They give their mom a big, big hug.
Jess gets back on the train, smiles, waves
and you look and see the richness here
of these things that you
thought were fighting
when your chest was turning
from this ancient thing
to this New York thing
and now you see Kingston with
this beautiful New York egg,
your beautiful old family heirloom
that is even stronger than it was before
because you understand it
and your awesome kid who has this book
of New York City magic
and loves borscht bites.
And it's the best of all possible worlds.
And they take off on the train,
you guys approach through
the dark, dank sewers
and arrive on a pipe that leads down
and scale up to the top of a hot dog cart.
The corner of which has
a beautiful monastery
made of popsicle sticks
and crumpled old cans
and lights and everything like that.
And as you approach the monastery you see,
wielding a little toothpick staff,
a c*ck comes out and says,
"Welcome to the Monastery
of The Sacred Rat,
who so approaches?"
- Sofia, you know how we didn't
talk at all in the train?
(soft laughter)
- Yeah, sorry.
- You were asking me repeatedly
about what where are we going?
What are we doing?
- Yeah, yeah. It was a
really quiet train ride.
- And then for some reason,
I just never answered.
In my head, I was building suspense.
What, I wanted to show you was,
this is the monastery at The Sacred Rat.
I don't know, I thought you might like it.
- The c*ck who is now
still a little bit smaller than
you, Sofia, looks and says,
"Holy crap, you're that lady
that had plastic bag shoes
back when we saw those horses
with big f*cking tumors
in their heads."
- I mean, I upgraded,
I would gesture to my Louboutins,
but yeah, no, I've worn
plastic bags for shoes
on more than one occasion.
- Yeah, you were asleep in the trash.
- Yeah, I've slept in trash.
Hey Pete, remember when you
we're talking about a spiral?
- Yeah, for sure, yeah.
- I actually take off my Beats headphones.
What? Are we talking again?
Oh, cool, I pause my podcast.
(Emily laughing)
- I want to go to the c*ck
and bow to him say,
I don't know if you're
aware of any of this
but we are trying to
find the juicy c*ck
and believe you are it, the
juiciest of all c*ck.
- Ah, get the f*ck out of here.
- I will not get the f*ck out of here.
You're a juicy c*ck.
- You're telling me I'm a juicy c*ck.
(rumbling loudly)
A bunch of other, you see
leaping from the open doors
are a bunch of toothpick
wielding c*ck monks,
who are, "Hey, you're
attacking the master!
You're attacking the
headmaster of the monastery."
Holy sh*t, you see Marty
descends gleaming with light.
He goes, "Holy sh*t, the
third of three spirits.
We've been in this monastery communing
with Kugrash for so long."
You see all the monks sort of bow and say,
"All is one and one is all.
Everything is connected
in one universal truth
which is that there's a specific rat man,
who's a part of everything."
- Rat? Is it rat Jesus?
- All of them go (exhales)
and say in unison,
"We love you, rat Jesus."
(all laughing)
- Can you actually can contact Kugrash?
- Yeah, I'm curious.
- A junior c*ck monk says,
"Only the best of us
can, Marty can do it."
He says, "When I meditate very deeply.
I can feel his whiskers,
I can feel the presence.
He ate the bagel of all things
and he knows everything.
And even when he knew everything,
he still chose love the universe."
- You all are incredibly profound.
- He really is rat Jesus.
(loud laughter)
I would love to come meditate here
and feel rat Jesus'
whiskers one more time.
And maybe give him one more perm.
- Then you see all them go,
"You know how to do the sacred hairdo?"
(loud laughter)
- What's the sacred hairdo?
- You see they say,
"Behold, rat Jesus in the
aspect of the Chinchilla."
(all laughing)
And you see that all of them
look around and they say,
"Give respect to these,
the apostles of rat Jesus."
And all of them start to do Hairy Baby,
the little dance.
(all laughing)
- You see they said-
- The apostles, are they 12?
- Then he says,
"Come in to the courtyard,
we got to talk to you,
this is incredible."
Marty goes, "Oh sh*t,
yeah, it's incredible.
Rat Jesus or sometimes
if we want to save time,
we call him Cheesus,
'cause he's a rat and
he wants the cheese."
- Oh, I like, it's the puns, yeah.
- Funny.
- It's funny.
- But have you found also is
a spicy pigeon and unicorn?
- You are the last one, we found...
- Holy moly, you can
really contact Kugrash!
Well, we have not much time to lose.
Fellow the monks of the
Monastery of The Sacred Rat.
A day has come for..."
In the distance you hear
(imitates trumpet blaring)
The monks all turn to look and they go,
"Oh no, they're here,
we've been discovered."
- Who's here, what?
- You see they say,
"The thing every insect has
to watch out for the most:
Ants! You don't want to get ants!"
- What?
- Wait, c*ck are scared of ants?
You're so superior to ants.
- Oh, stop.
- Can I use divine sense to see
if I can detect anything from the ants?
- You see (*stomping
noise*) coming over here
to the hot dog cart behind you,
rank and file legions of ants.
You see Marty says,
"Oh, these guys had it
out for us since day one."
- And you see that one of the ants says,
"Forward brethren to the monastery.
Destroy them in the name
of our glorious queen."
Everybody roll initiative.
(all laughing)
- Wild.
- Oh my God, that's all for this episode
of The Unsleeping City.
Tune in next week, as we have our showdown
at the monastery of The Sacred Rat.
We love you rat Jesus.
(ominous music)
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08x11 - Let's Get Tiny
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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.