(upbeat music)
(expl*si*n booming)
(water gurgling)
(g*ns clicking)
(phone ringing)
- Hello, one and all!
Welcome back to another thrilling
episode of "Dimension 20:
A Starstruck Odyssey".
I am your humble Dungeon
Master, Brennan Lee Mulligan.
With me as always, our Intrepid Heroes.
Say hi, Intrepid Heroes.
- Hi, Intrepid Heroes!
- Oh, you little creeps.
You're all doomed.
- That's what you think.
- Last we left off, our Intrepid Heroes
were on Myrmidon Station
in orbit over Onolo Dos,
having come here to
rendezvous with Auma Liu,
the original designer of Sundry Sidney.
We had just come from Mas Vegas, Lavada,
having won the Battle of the Brands
at the Kubla-Cola Gladiatorial Arena.
How about it?
1.2 million galactic credits.
- Unreal.
- An advance of 200.000 spending cash.
- And we're gonna get that
million any day, right?
- Honestly, a life highlight.
- [Siobhan] Yes, yes, truly.
- Yeah, Brennan, what are
the odds that you actually
thought we were gonna pull that off?
- I really, for people
that know off-camera,
I really kept mentioning
how good it would be
even if you lost.
I was like, 10.000 each is
not bad as a signing bonus.
Like, let's keep in
perspective that this is good
whether we win or lose.
- Never, no way.
- And we all said no.
- You going "This is the
hardest battle I've ever done"
made us so focused.
I've never seen this group
so single-minded.
- Yes, you really reined in
this group of idiots.
- I think you just happened to hit, like,
everyone here who has
ADHD, is hyper focused.
(everyone laughs)
You really did, we all just were like...
- Brennan, what happened after that?
- Well, I'll tell you.
It truly is so...
I feel like, in the
scene, we were all like,
this is the wacky, crazy season.
And I realized that by having
the galaxy be wacky and crazy,
all it's done is shift,
and all you guys are like,
get your f*cking head in the game.
It is us against the galaxy, all right?
There's no f*cking around
this season.
- It's true.
So true.
- It's honestly perfect.
Last we left off, this incredible battle.
You guys are getting brand new
Acme-Ashmun shields on The Wurst.
You've come to a Acme-Ashmun ship nursery,
where you've got a bunch of ship mechanics
working to install a ton
of new mods and equipment.
Since the last sh**t,
we know that we're getting
Mark Four thrusters,
Mark Two plating,
Atomo-Torch Particle Blasters
with the Kaleida-Connect Acme-Ashmun
telescoping targeting systems.
- Oh my God.
- A whole bunch of flare pods coming in.
We got a whole bunch of
dope stuff happening.
Not only that, but as we remember,
it's been a long adventure
here in the galaxy.
What started as a
mistreated rag tag group of
bottom of the barrel proldiers
has quickly become a force in the galaxy
under the business acumen
of Margaret 'Maggie' Encino
and the new piloting skills of Skip.
Our crew of gunners, Sundry
Sidney and Big Barry Syx,
our ship's mechanic, Gunthrie
'Gunnie' Miggles-Rashbax,
and comms officer, Riva,
have all come together to take, first,
a Smash 'n Grab job on Rec
97 for Hyacinth Khrome,
getting Aurora Nebbins,
followed by another Smash 'n Grab
that you actually kind of turncoated on
to k*ll Sheriff Warner Codge
in the town of Baustin, New Texas.
Getting a briefcase of Kublacaine
and selling it to Crunch Moon-Jones.
You've got a ship with
Barry's Big Win Casino
and your permanent gambler, Bambi LaRoux,
there with your Bar Buddy droid.
- Oh my God, that nat 20.
Unbelievable.
- Unbelievable.
- That's my highlight.
- Yeah.
- Yeah, that was insane.
- You also have the
highest it's ever been,
a Jib-Job space with 13 Jib-Jobbers,
overseen by your bud, Raymond Zam,
the facility managers here from Jib-Job.
And a stocked kitchen
with the Princeps Zortch
as your in-house kitchen staff.
- A prince chef.
- [Brennan] A princechef,
thank you, princechef.
Princhef.
- Princechef.
- Princhef Zortch
cooking incredible meals round the clock,
as well as a crew,
having joined U4F, a union ship,
now able to take union contracts
with a little bit of charity
work on the Skip's part
as, you know, managing facilities
for the Galactic Girl Guides troop
that you now find yourselves
also here with on the ship.
And also, the wonderful Royal
Blue Mastiff, Aurora Nebbins,
helping you with your big
horn tortoise problem.
And also, maybe
someone else on the ship.
Loose Duke...
- I swear, he's loose in the walls.
- He's in the walls!
- It's all right, guys, it's gonna be
an end of season twist
that it was Plug all along.
And we're all gonna kiss
and it's gonna be great.
- Plug is loose, too.
- We're all gonna kiss.
- I would absolutely kiss Plug.
- Plug is love, dude.
- Plug is love.
- Plug is love.
- One Plug.
- One Plug, one love.
⪠One Plug, one Plug âª
- That's right, we've made
friends all over this galaxy,
but we also in the Griivarr worlds
were cornered by the Guernican Art Squad,
who amongst all the
factions coming after us,
the Amercadian Space Brigade,
United Free Trade Planets,
Repo Reapers, Living Doll Cybernetics
and their Warfare Whitneys,
and now the Guernican Art Squad,
as well as the dreaded House of Frangus.
- f*ck.
- The cerebro-slug.
- Frangus.
- Monarchy, God, there's a
lot going on this season.
(Ally laughs)
But all of this revolving
around the discovery of Gnosis,
the super powerful
planetary super computer
embedded in a holofract,
passenger on your ship
that you awakened into
android consciousness.
Gnosis working on a plan to undo
the coming violence in Rubian V,
to save the people of Rubian V,
to somehow disperse itself
throughout the galaxy,
because as Gnosis said,
as long as Gnosis exists,
all of you will be in danger.
And you also arriving at Myrmidon Station
to meet up with Auma Liu,
you were instead ambushed
and surprised by Lucienne Rex, Barry Nyne.
- [Ally] I forgot.
- m*rder*r of the Barry Batallion,
and a squadron of UFTP shock troops,
which is where we return.
Auma Liu, the last piece of your puzzle
that you wanted to come and retrieve,
while Gnosis was concocting the plan
to return to Rubian V and
fix the coming crisis there.
As we know, billions of
pilgrims coming to the planet.
The Monarch of Rubian V,
the parent of Princeps, Princhef Zortch,
they're rattling sabers
and preparing for w*r
to break contract with UFTP.
Chaos coming on the horizon!
Very little time left.
All of you stare at Barry
Nyne and Lucienne Rex.
(doors whooshing)
Two doors open in the hall of
Myrmidon Station behind you,
and stepping into the path behind you
are two towering Vercadian
Protector droids.
(upbeat music)
- So it's Lucienne.
- Barry.
- Barry.
60 shock troopers, and behind you are-
- And 60 troopers?
Oh, okay, for sure.
- 60 troopers.
And behind you are two
Vercadian Protector droids.
- That are there to protect us?
- I hit shut on the door and
just, I fricking skedaddle.
- They're behind us, though.
- They're behind us, too.
- The Vercadian-
- How'd they get behind us?
God damn it.
- You're walking down a hallway.
You see Lucienne looks and says, Maggie,
it's really good to see you.
- Yeah.
You look great.
- Thank you.
You look great as well.
- Thank you.
- Okay, good.
Better say it back.
- You see that she looks
at you all and says,
should go without saying that
all of you are under arrest.
I want you to know everything's
gonna be taken care of.
In probably a couple of malton units,
you're gonna be let go.
You're not being charged with a crime,
there's nothing happening,
you're just being detained.
- So if we're...
I thought you said we're under arrest,
but we're not being charged with anything.
- [Brennan] Yeah.
- What is the reason for the detention?
'Cause perhaps it's a misunderstanding.
- Okay, so I see what's happening here.
There's sort of a conversation about
legality happening here.
You're on United Free
Trade Planets property.
Myrmidon Station is a UFTP outpost.
So, everyone is always
committing a crime here
because they are trespassing,
so we actually retain the right
to selectively arrest
anyone we want at any time.
- So it's the trespassing.
- [Brennan] Yes, you're trespassing.
- Oh, I see, I see.
- Obviously we have, you know,
thousands of visitors come to
Myrmidon Station every day,
so it's a selectively
enforced trespassing,
and we are selecting to enforce it now.
However, we'll talk.
Your ship, we've already
interfaced with Acme-Ashmun,
the modifications are
continuing on your ship.
You'll have your ship
and be able to leave
in a few malton units.
- I've been arrested a lot of times.
This is the nicest one.
- Really? Okay.
- This is probably
the sweetest one I've ever experienced.
- I think I turn to
Margaret, because like,
I mean, this is your friend, right?
Is there any chance that she could be
helping us out?
- What about Gnosis?
- They seem to not be
interested in the ship.
- Can I do an insight check
on Lucienne?
- Yeah, go for it.
Yeah, go for it.
- Oh, that's a nat 20, baby.
- Number one, you're
looking at a hologram.
- Ooh.
- Oh!
- And Barry Nyne as well, on a nat 20.
The troopers and Vercadian
droids are all incredibly real.
But these two, knowing
how kind of unpredictable
you guys can be, proldiers can be,
were happy to hologram
in for this interaction.
- Okay.
- Margie, are you okay?
- Barry's just fully trying see the slug,
even though it's not possible.
- I have a hologram.
I have Hologram and I know
that it's a range of 60 feet.
Can I try and scan and see
who's casting this hologram?
- Yeah, give me a technology check.
- [Emily] Okay.
- [Ally] Can I give you the help action?
- [Brennan] Yeah, yeah, go for it.
- Okay, better, better. 21.
- It's being projected short
range from another room,
but you are in...
Myrmidon Station is a kind of classic,
drab corporate space station, right?
- Okay, so it's probably not them
who are projecting their own hologram.
- It's probably a technology
where they're somewhere else
in the station using
the station's natural,
or not natural, but using
the station's technology.
- Can we hack that to make it
say something different?
- Right now?
- I'm saying this psychically
to people, so this is not...
- As you begin to say
that, also say on that,
what were you looking for emotionally
on that nat 20 insight?
- Honestly, just how she
felt about Margaret, mostly.
- Oh, nat 20 insight?
- Yeah.
- There's a deep, complex stew of emotions
and feelings going on here,
that even registering
through projected images,
you're able to read that
there's a lot going on.
- It's like classic long term friendship.
- Great, no, it's definitely...
- Okay, like, what do you guys think?
Should we just go?
- I mean...
- We can't let 'em get
Gnosis, right?
- Yeah, I think
maybe ask for time so that we
can, like, lock up the ship.
Say that I have, like, personal diaries
that I don't want to fall
into the wrong hands.
- We all have diaries, yes.
- My diary's extremely personal.
- We're happy to go with you,
but we all, we each...
There are a number of
important personal items
that we need to go and take care of.
But then where should
we meet you after that?
- Oh, believe me, we're
happy to take care of that.
And in fact, we already are.
- Oh, okay.
- I'm gonna need you, Siobhan,
to make a constitution saving throw.
- (gasps) No!
That's bad!
(upbeat music)
That's a, God.
That's a solid two.
- Can I turn around to the
Vercadian Protector droid
behind us?
- Yeah, it's a three.
- Copy that.
You turn around to the Vercadian
behind you, absolutely.
- I wanna say,
you need to take out all of them for us.
And I just got Force of
Personality, so they roll a wisdom
saving throw.
- These guys are maxed out
on everything.
- May I, like,
help this by, do you
remember when I saw that
Vercadian Protector droid and he gave me,
like, this little mantra?
I wanna mind link with the
Vercadian Protector droid
and repeat that, like, mantra to them.
- As you do that, we're
gonna resolve this first.
'Cause what you guys see is alarming.
- Oh, man.
- You just see Riva's
psychodrone deactivate.
(power humming)
Power down.
Riva, you have a moment of
opening your eyes in your body,
in a glass bulb of water.
You can see that some drug
has been added to the water
that's, like, made you
drowsy and knocked you out.
And they are carting
you away from The Wurst.
There's already UFTP people
surrounding the ship-
- What?
- Oh, dear.
- That have, like,
drawn you out of the ship
and are carting you away,
and you go unconscious.
- Okay, I cast Buffer on myself.
- We've gotta just surrender.
- I think we faint, I think we faint.
- Let's all faint?
- No, like, you know, like-
- You turn around, so you turn around
and say that to the Vercadian droid.
And Emily, what action are you taking?
You're Buffering right now?
- I'm casting Buffer just
in case things get nasty.
- You see that Vercadian
burns through that legendary resistance
that you know these guys have.
(Emily whistles)
- Can I look and make a
perception check just real fast?
Looking for vents.
- Yeah, go for it.
- Oh.
- No, that was good.
- We know that there's
a system of air shafts.
- That would be an 11.
- As 11, you look around,
this hallway is perfectly sleek.
I mean, there's an air vent, you know,
a bunch, it'll be like 100 feet
on the other side of those Vercadians.
- I think Barry's put
his hands up to be like,
all right, if we're being polite,
maybe let's not take
people out on our ship.
Show us that Riva's okay, reunite us,
and we won't k*ll half of your troops.
(energy pulsing)
- Lucienne, in her own hologram,
shows you a hologram of
Riva being sort of suspended
in this bulb of water.
- Whoa!
- That's not how we wanna see Riva.
- I understand.
Riva's a very powerful psychic,
so that was a priority for us.
- Great.
Okay, well, I'm gonna
walk around and touch Sid,
Handy Annie, and Skip,
and be like, guys, I
think we should just go.
And I'm gonna cast
invisibility to cameras on them
and then start to walk forward.
- Incredible.
- So you guys are undetectable
to electronic sensors and cameras.
- Okay.
- Amazing.
- But you can still be seen
in regular people's vision.
- So the Vercadians and the
troops look at you guys.
Lucienne looks around and says,
where are they, where are they?
And you see that Barry, Barry Nyne says,
cyborg.
- Then can I cast Hologram to replace
Handy Annie-
- Yes.
- That I made.
- Cool.
You cast that, replace that,
and you see Barry Nyne goes,
thing's a piece of sh*t!
Then slams on something
in front of wherever he's really standing.
- Maybe you just don't know how to operate
what you're working with,
and I mean that in a way
beyond just the obvious thing
that we're talking about, Barry Slug.
- Barry Nyne's eyes go wide. He sees this.
I'm surprised at you, Barry Syx,
calling your brother a slug.
- I'm not calling my brother a slug,
I'm calling you a slug, Barry Slug.
- The only slug here is you, buddy.
- I don't have a problem with slugs.
One of my best friends is a slug.
Skip is a slug and I
think Skip is awesome.
- Shut up, shut the f*ck up.
- You shut the f*ck up.
- Shut the f*ck up.
- You shut the f*ck up.
- Shut the f*ck up.
- You don't know what the
f*ck you're talking about.
- You can't use Barry Nyne's comeback!
- Anyone else who wants to
give me an insight check?
- Nat one.
- Oh, but mine was good.
- Okay, wait, actually, I got a four.
- 25.
- 16.
- 25.
15, you look into the eyes of Barry Nyne.
On a 15, you're not
looking at your brother.
- Yeah.
- When this thing of
Barry Nyne being like,
shut the f*ck up about slugs,
shut the f*ck up about slugs,
starts happening, you catch the barest,
almost imperceptible
eye roll from Lucienne.
- [Emily] Ooh.
- I'm gonna start
walking forward.
- Cool.
- Yeah, I make the hologram of Skip,
Handy Annie, and Sid walk forward.
- So the holograms begin to walk forward,
you guys are surrounded by troops,
and you are all moved
through these places.
Move on to another segment, more troops.
And eventually, you are
brought to a prison area
within Myrmidon Station.
As you come in, one by one,
they begin to disarm you.
Take your equipment, take all your stuff.
Your data pad goes.
Obviously, they leave
your cybernetic stuff.
Your data pad goes, your
gadgeteer's harness goes.
- And what about the stuff
that's on Riva, since-
- Oh, the stuff that's on
Riva from the Psychodrone?
That they collect and take.
- [Lou] So the Psychodrone's not with us.
- Psychodrone goes with your equipment.
- I happily give them my g*ns
and my crystal dagger.
- Cool.
- And that's it.
- No, you're just a hologram.
You get to keep anything on you you want.
- We're people.
- The real people can save.
- There's real people
there and there's cameras.
- Oh, got it, got it, yeah.
- So there's a cool thing happening here.
However, the people on the
ground doing it can see.
- Got it, got it, I thought
they were all Vercadians.
- No, so equipment's being taken.
- [Lou] And the Vercadians can see us.
- The Vercadians can see you guys as well.
Do you open that channel
to the Vercadians,
by the way, to say it?
- Yeah, I wanted to do it,
and I don't recall precisely
what the words were
because you said them so beautifully
and I was rapt and didn't write them down.
- No worries.
- But I repeat what I learned.
- The mantra comes back to you
from those Vercadian Protector androids,
and you hear one of them
saying in your mind,
my apologies, sister.
We're here to collect a contract.
These matters will be resolved
between those of organic flesh.
We will let no harm come to you,
but we will not interfere in this matter.
- I appreciate that. What is the contract?
- We serve in the protection
of those interests
which our crafters,
our siblings in the Andromedicones,
have sent us here to this place.
Vercadians serve, we protect, and we wait.
The time has not yet come for us to act.
- What are you waiting for?
- Their eyes glow red a little bit.
- 'Cause if you're up to
something, I might get in on it.
- You see one sort of cracks a smile.
He goes,
keeper of souls,
there is more pressing
matters for you at hand.
- Okay, well,
I appreciate a little bit of camaraderie
before I go into imprisonment,
so thank you very much.
- While we're walking,
can I just be kind of
talking to everybody,
saying like, okay, I don't
know what this is gonna be,
but as long as we, like, keep the...
I don't know, I'm just giving sage advice.
- Cool.
- I'm really scrambled,
so it's not really making sense,
but I'm just kind of, like, nodding.
- Prisons can be good.
- This is kind of crazy, but I don't know,
they're holograms, I can just...
Do we think Lucienne's a slug as well?
Why is she rolling her
eyes? Or she's just annoyed.
- You know, she is a
slug or is tolerating it.
- Like of hearing about this thing?
- Yeah.
- I would like to ask, though,
with my Vercadian camaraderie
just, like, kind of be like,
I just upgraded to a moderate lifestyle.
Can I keep my boa, my feather boa?
- They look at the feather
boa and they say...
(dice rolling)
One of them takes the feather boa and...
(machine whirring)
Wraps it up in a little thing
and puts a weird little
plastic egg around it
to, like, lock it up.
And it hands you the little locked up...
- Amazing, that's cool.
- All right, I'll take
what I can get.
Someday, this is gonna turn
into a beautiful feather boa.
(everyone laughs)
- So, your guys' equipment is taken away,
including spell casting focuses,
which I think only
impacts the tech casters.
- You wouldn't take an
old man's boots, right?
- You see, they look at the boots and say,
we absolutely would, we absolutely would.
- Are you sure, 'cause-
- Yeah, 100%.
- He's an old man.
- He's old.
- I'm an old man.
- Do you see how old he is?
- Give me your shoes.
Yeah, give me your shoes.
- Give me your shoes, dude.
- Hey, give me your shoes.
- I'll give you these shoes
if you give me regular shoes.
- I'll give you my shoes if
you don't take his shoes.
- They're orthopedic.
- So you guys are given
these truly bizarre
lime green onesie pajamas.
- Kinda like that.
- I don't mind.
- I like to match
with everyone, yeah, sure.
- Do we see where they're going to,
where they're bringing our equipment to?
- Yes, you see it is sort of
taken off down a long hallway.
You can track that movement
as it moves away from here.
- Could I possibly send
Handy Annie to follow?
- Give me a stealth check for Handy Annie.
- Do you know what's crazy?
I don't know that I have her statistics.
- I think it's just Familiar statistics,
so it's just going to
be, I think, a plus...
I think it's a plus six.
- Plus six, okay.
- And I'll just straight up let you know
that the number you're trying to beat,
to pass that perception,
you're trying to beat an 18.
So you're gonna need a 12 or higher.
- Easy.
- Oh, that's fine.
- Absolutely easy.
- Absolutely easy.
- It's a guarantee, y'all.
- Guaranteed nat 20.
- It's absolutely guaranteed.
- Can one of us give her the help action?
- Unfortunately, no,
'cause this is something
that Handy Annie has to do on her own.
- Oh my gosh.
- And she will.
- And she will, and she can.
- Character development.
- You know what? I'm saving this.
- Oh my God!
- I'm saving this!
We need this later. This is
not the moment to lose her.
- I dig it.
- I think that's fair.
My feet are cold.
- Myrmidon...
- Skip, are you all right?
- [Emily] They didn't give
you one of those sticky socks?
- [Ally] No, that was just Zac talking.
- Myrmidon Station (imitates whooshing)
turns in orbit over Onolo Dos.
(upbeat music)
You have been separated into a number of
different holding facilities
before you are moved to your final cell.
You have these sort of
power inhibitors on you,
and Margaret and Sid, you
are in one room together.
Skip and Barry are in another.
And then Gunnie, you
are in a room with Riva
sort of swimming in this glass bulb.
- Is Riva conscious again?
- Riva, you do come to
consciousness, but this,
there is this, like, hazy,
psychic-inhibiting drug
floating in the water here.
- Delicious.
- So you are definitely out of it.
Just feel, like, hazy, unfocused,
that you just don't have
the ability to, like,
bring solid attention or
pinpoint focus to anything.
- Okay. Can I still
communicate with people?
- Yes.
- Great.
- It's just me and,
like, kind of high Riva,
Just like, hanging out.
- Yeah. (laughs)
- This bulb makes your face look funny.
- Uh huh, yeah, okay.
(everyone laughs)
We are in danger, okay?
This is really bad, Riva.
- This is changing
the shape of your face when I do this.
- I have Academic Memory.
Would I know the layout of
this specific UFTP prison?
- Give me just a straight lore check.
(dice rolling)
- Okay.
What is lore? Oh, yeah, that is a 17.
- You don't know the layout of this one,
but you do know UFTP brigs in general.
Like, it's the same contractors
that work on all your
stations, so it's sort of like,
it would be the same thing as like,
knowing the architect even if
you don't know the building.
You also know that you are still within
a very short distance of the
hanger bay of your ship, right?
Like, these space stations are big,
but they're not like rec stations.
They're not made to be grand and palatial.
Everything is made with a sort of
ruthless corporate efficiency,
so there's not big, grand hallways.
Everything's pretty tight and compact
and close to everything else
'cause you're building a thing
to exist in space, right?
The more space you make,
the harder engineering gets,
the more you're having to
heat and oxygenate places,
so you would guess that
you're probably at the center
of a tight little coil of
cell blocks, guard stations.
You guys were maybe like a
three or four minute walk away
from the hanger bay of your ship,
but when you got sprung,
it wasn't like they let you
wander off before they
jumped on you, you know?
- Yeah.
- So that would be what
you get on that check.
So, Sid and Margaret, you
guys are in a room together.
They give you the sort of power
inhibitors, you know, both.
They don't even care to
check if you're psychic,
they just put one on you.
Tech focuses have been taken away.
As an android, you are
not wearing a onesie
because your clothes are a
part of your body, basically.
- But can I wear the onesie-
- The onesie's over them.
- Over them?
- You have shredded up the footsies
of your onesie with your roller skates.
It is just in tatters.
But your g*n hand, they
can't do anything about.
- Yeah, yeah.
- So there's just a big cork
in the top of your g*n hand.
(Emily laughs)
- I mean, when is there not
with the amount of champagne
that's happening here?
- Rattling around in there.
- There's like, always
a couple rattling around.
- The door opens, a
group of guards walk in,
and you see Lucienne Rex, not a hologram,
enters the room and sits
across from Margaret and Sid.
- Can I Minor Hologram-
- Tech inhibitor.
- Oh!
- [Ally] What was it gonna be?
- I was just gonna make Margaret
look as hot as possible.
- My onesie isn't zipped up all the way.
- Then at least I do like a-
- Deep V.
- It's a really deep V.
- Almost like a blow
dryer coming from my g*n,
so that it's like music.
- The cork hits me in the
face, I have a black eye.
(everyone laughs)
- Your bangs are just like this.
- I'm sorry, Miss Margaret, I tried.
- You see Lucienne sits down.
- Hi.
- Turns to the guards behind
her and says, you can leave.
The guards look at each other
and seem to think that's a strange order.
And then she says, now.
The guards leave the
room and close the door.
She very slyly hits something
on a little wrist transponder,
and you see the cameras in the room
flicker with some kind of
inner tech hologram of a conversation.
- I would like to secretly
start Handy Annie recording.
- Go ahead and give me a technology check.
You can do technology or sleight of hand,
whichever you prefer.
- Technology.
(dice rolling)
16.
- Little GoPro.
This whatever footage
you record is gonna have
a little Acme-Ashmun
logo in the lower right,
little watermark.
She looks and says,
glad you got off the Griivarr worlds.
- Yeah, me too, thank
you for the heads up.
What's going on?
- Well, I was hoping
you could tell me that.
Do you know why I'm here?
- No.
- She narrows her eyes
and looks at you and says-
- Oh, oh.
Are you trying to get people to sign up
and come to your girlfriend's art show?
Are you kinda out, like, kinda canvasing?
- Sid really stifles the
urge to be like, oh, sh*t!
- Lucienne says, my fiance
doesn't really do art.
- I agree.
(everyone laughs)
Did she laugh at that?
- She looks stunned and she goes,
did you...
Why are you bringing up art?
Did you sort of...
Did you see? Did you?
- Yes.
- Okay. So, she's alive.
- Yes. What's going on?
Why was she sick? What happened?
- She's not really sick.
I mean, she might be, I don't know.
I haven't seen her in,
like, a couple nargons.
So, okay. Cards on the table.
I...
Myself and Natalia
are not really engaged.
So, about a rigon ago,
I, you know, you know what I was doing,
I was working at UFTP, and I got this
message from Damien saying, hey,
there's a thing happening on Mirage.
Can you go sort of check
it out and sort of be,
you know, person on the spot
doing the day of coordination?
And I sort of showed up
and Natalia was there.
You know, I was surprised
that you weren't there,
but maybe you were out on your ship.
And she sort of took me
aside and she was like,
"Hey, I noticed that you're
really doing this great job
planning this thing", and I was like,
"Thank you so much, like, I'm a huge fan."
And she was like, "Would
you be willing to come
and just do some assistant
work for me this weekend?"
And I was like, "Well, I'm an executive."
- Yeah.
- But she's a Bajar, you know?
And so I said, "Hey, you know,
if we can call it a different job title,
I'd be happy to do it."
And we kind of went on this getaway
and there was a nudist colony
and there was sort of a dance cycle
and I think they burned someone
inside of a big wicker minotaur.
It was bad. It was really bad.
It was a horrifying, bad time.
- Wow.
- Basically, she drank
a bunch of this champagne,
had a bad time, a bunch
of sort of designer drugs,
that she just told me that
she was so tired of everything
and she wanted to reinvent herself
and that she had an in
with this art commune.
And she basically told me that
she was going to destroy herself
and that I needed to clean everything up
and then submit to getting memory wiped.
So she drove a speeder off of
this sort of beautiful cliff
that blew up, but ended up vanishing.
And I was supposed to
sort of turn myself in
to get memory wiped.
- Does her family know?
Does her family think that she's dead?
- I kind of whipped up some holograms
for a proposal.
- I smile so big at her.
- She f*cked me, you know?
I was gonna be destroyed.
I was gonna go and have to turn myself in
and, like, explain all
this stuff to help her.
What I, you know, discovered
was her faking her own death,
but it was really unclear
in how she explained it.
Like, the plan seemed to change.
I was like, "Are you
faking your own death,
or are you really, is this the end?"
And she was like, "Today, Natalia Cicero
Connie Lee Carter Bajar dies."
- It's so long.
- It's a long name.
- It's so long.
- And she's like, "I die
today," and I was like,
"I've gotta know if this is a
metaphor or if this is real."
And she said, "Every metaphor
is real," and I really
checked out at that moment.
- Yeah, definitely.
- Yeah, she's like, it's really easy
to check out during one
of those conversations.
Can I ask, often someone
who's going through
something like this, ends up, like,
revealing a bunch of, like...
They're just like, f*ck
my family, I hate them.
Here's a bunch of secrets about them.
I mean, did she do a last divulge?
- There were a lot of divulgences.
None of them were important.
But there was important stuff attached
and gleaned to all of it.
- Yeah.
- So I was able to sort of
scrounge up as much as I could.
The important thing is this.
Please don't tell anyone
that Natalia is still alive
Arcadia Prime.
- And not married to you.
- And not engaged to me, yeah, absolutely.
- But the partner always takes the fall.
If she disappears, you're
gonna take the fall.
You're just gonna do holograms of her
for the rest of eternity?
- That's the plan.
- Okay, we can come up with
a much better plan for you.
You were never much of a big,
of a good planner.
- Oh, I'm not much
of a big planner?
- No, you're not.
- So what happened with
this complete meltdown,
where now you're k*lling
sheriffs on edge worlds?
- He was bad, though.
- But I'm saying you've
totally lost your mind.
- Okay, I get it.
No, I haven't, I'm actually...
Look, I'm more alive and
sharp than I've ever been.
What are you doing here? Are you trying...
What are you doing on Rubian V?
Does this have to do with Rubian V?
- Yeah, answer that in one second,
but I just want you to know,
I've been working for Miss Margaret.
She is the greatest boss I've ever had.
We have come into money, resources,
clout, we are powerful now,
and that is all due to the
direction of Miss Margaret.
So how dare you assume
that what she did is spiral
when what she did is spiral upward?
The ball is rolling up!
Okay, I'm gonna go stand in a corner
and let y'all have a private conversation.
- Yeah. Thank you.
- She looks over at you and says,
you wanna know how we picked you up?
You wanna know how much
the ball is not rolling up?
- Don't you dare say that.
- Don't you dare.
- Don't you dare use that phrase.
- That is honestly blasphemy.
- That's our phrase.
- You've gotta trademark that, guys.
- She takes a screen and clicks
it and turns it towards you,
and you see a weeping
Auma Liu on the screen.
- Okay.
(somber music)
- This is some security
cam footage of Auma,
who we made a very generous offer to,
which she accepted.
- To give us up?
- 150 million credits.
It's a lot of money.
Wipes her eyes.
Are you taking the time to consider it?
You see Auma goes,
I don't wanna be a sucker.
I don't wanna...
I don't wanna be dependent on anyone else.
I just, I can't.
Just, what's gonna happen to Sid?
And you see Lucienne's voice,
who you hear in the screen,
goes, there is no interest
in k*lling any member
of Sid's ship or crew.
They have an extremely
important piece of technology.
That's the only thing we're interested in.
Once we get that off their hands,
they are gonna be free to go.
And you see she says,
the only crew member that's going to have
sort of a permanent detention
is the Princeps Zortch,
But that is related to Monarchy,
and I think, Miss Liu, if
you want to extend yourself
on behalf of the Princeps,
you're welcome to do so,
but you will be greatly
endangering the life
of the android you seem
to care so much about,
and you'll be foregoing
150 million credits.
Auma looks up.
It's a lot of money.
There's a lot you can
do with that much money.
You see Lucienne says,
yeah, that's correct.
Do we have a deal? We just wanna know.
We know that they contacted you
while they were in the neutral zone.
And you remember that
nat one on that check.
Okay.
I'll make the deal.
I'll tell you where they're gonna be.
You see Lucienne slides a data card
over to Auma Liu,
and you see Auma looks up as, all right.
You are being recorded,
so this verbal contract
is germane, legal, enforceable.
You can go ahead and get that information.
So you see she says, and then who knows?
With that kind of money,
maybe you'll be able to
do something to help Sid.
I know you're a big fan
of the android that can do everything.
And you see Auma whips
up and looks and says,
not everything, she can do anything.
And looks into the camera,
and you see this sort of
wild look come over her eyes
and go, she can do anything.
She takes the card.
If I'm lucky, I'll have a chance to...
If I'm lucky.
Lucienne sort of finally
appears in the camera
and goes, well,
I don't know how lucky
your stars are, Miss Liu,
but here's hoping, and the recording ends.
- I understand why she did what she did.
Now, I believe you two have
personal conversations,
so I'm gonna stand in the
corner and stare into it.
(Brennan laughs)
- Okay, so you work for
Crown and Scepter now.
Are you working with Frangus?
- What do you know about Frangus?
- I know everything about Frangus.
- How?
- I'm close with the Monarchy,
with the House of Frangus.
- She looks around here and she says,
okay, we need to talk.
We're gonna cut from
here to Skip and Barry.
Door opens, one figure walks in.
- I'm doing pushups.
(Ally laughs)
You see Barry Nyne walks in.
- All the way in?
- All the way in.
You guys here are, you know,
you're seated, manacled to the wall.
Barry Nyne steps in.
Well, well, well.
If it isn't my brother.
- I'm not your brother, bro.
You're my brother.
I'm talking to Barry Nyne, not you.
- And I'm talking to you.
And are you my brother?
- Yeah, I'm talking to you.
I think you know who I am, son.
- [Emily] I knew it. Oh, I love it.
- You've been away from
home for a long time.
(Brennan imitates growling)
Grabs your onesie, pulls you in.
(liquid gurgling)
And sticks his tongue in your eye.
(everyone laughs)
- Surely the worst part of this season,
having tongues come into eyes.
- And you hear in your brain, Valdrinor.
- Father.
(everyone laughs)
- You have been away
for a long, long time.
Drablian the Chamberlain spoke to you.
It seems an android blew
him up with a grenade.
- Yes.
- Did you not seek to mete out justice
from the House of Frangus?
- Maybe you and I have different
versions of what justice is.
- Justice, my boy,
is the continuation of
the line of Frangus,
the Mentaphagian Dynasty.
You have forgotten your place, your house!
You were raised in a noble tradition.
- No one asked me if I wanted to be
a part of this tradition.
I want nothing to do with this dynasty.
- You would forego eons
of tradition, duty, honor?
Eons has the House of Frangus moved behind
the powers of the galaxy.
- Barry, you're just seeing...
(everyone laughing)
- Skip, Skip, are you okay? Skip.
(Brennan gargles)
- [Zac] Father!
(everyone laughs)
- Why would you turn your back
on this greatest of responsibilities?
Don't you understand?
Don't you understand
the power of Mentaphage?
We are behind the movements of the stars.
Your little friend,
the human woman, Margaret Encino,
United Free Trade Planets
is not a front for Crown and Scepter.
Some pitiful house of bipeds,
made to be chariots to the
great cerebro-slug houses!
United Free Trade Planets is ours.
It has been ours for some time.
We have made the great egg.
The Emhatchening will commence.
Do you wish to know the great
vision of what is to come?
- If you must tell me,
I would hear it, but...
(air whooshing)
- Eggs throughout the galaxy.
And here you see thoughts
put into your mind
by your father, King Prilbus,
who begins to show, you
know, all of the breeding,
weird little hatchings of eggs
and how cerebro-slugs normally breed,
the corpses of the bodies,
they take over the base
of the sort of brain stem.
(liquid gurgling)
We are able to survive and reproduce,
hated by all of the lesser
beings of the galaxy,
who seem so offended that great powers
such as ourselves might
use their pitiful bodies
to bring about...
(Ally gurgles)
But we are small, our bodies fragile,
and while we travel from host to host
to find vessels to pilot
for greater purpose,
we are disgustingly at their mercy.
But what if we were not so small?
What if there were to be a great egg?
You see Rubian V.
Soon it will be hollow enough
that the shell of the great egg may crack,
and you see covered in pilgrims,
burrowing into the earth
and literally using the planet as its egg.
The center of gravity, a hollow world,
and you see he says,
a slug the size of a planet, to burrow.
And here you see the galaxy spinning.
Burrow into the mind
of Mother Void herself!
You see the planet crack in half,
and a vision of a slug the size of a moon,
traveling at faster than light speed,
to the black hole at the
center of the galaxy.
- What the f*ck?
- To eat the mind of Mother Void herself!
To rule the universe for a
thousand, thousand cycles!
- This is like a Red Bull commercial.
(everyone laughs)
Absolute god complex.
- A slug just going
1000 miles an hour.
- Father,
I hear your plan.
I just have to get real with you.
(everyone laughs)
What? Listen.
The House of Frangus,
the monarchy of King Prilbus
is very much yours and yours alone.
I do not...
Do you need me for this or are you sure?
- Son, I do need you for this.
Make a perception check here.
Or actually, make a piloting check for me.
(dice rolling)
- Barry's just fully
sat down at this point.
- I think they're fighting.
Just like, kick his a*s, Skip.
- 16. I can add Defiant
if that feels like...
- Add Defiant if you want to, yeah.
- Oh!
- 20.
- Ooh.
- Hell yeah.
I'm gonna say Barry, as you're watching,
you see a sudden movement
as Skip shoves his tongue into Barry.
(liquid gurgling)
They're like, weirdly
gripping each other's heads.
- 69 each other's faces.
- I can't reach them, right?
- You can kind of, you can reach
them probably a little bit.
- Can I help Skip?
Essentially, like, grab
this dude's mouth, I guess?
- Yeah, you can try to
get Barry Nyne's tongue.
- Oh!
- As you do, so you pull-
- Ew!
- As you get your tongue
into Barry Nyne's eye,
you see a part of the
vision, the giant slug,
the House of Frangus moving through space
to consume the galaxy.
All of the cerebro-slugs
will melt down their bodies,
but you see a satellite
in orbit over Rubian V
that appears to be made out of, like,
ancient cerebro-slug technology.
You are, like, pulling these memories
out of your father's mind.
You hear, the fang of Frangus,
the Frangus fang in orbit over Rubian V.
The Great Emhatchening must be
coordinated at a perfect moment,
a perfect time to strike
all at once, all together.
For that kind of connection
to the great egg,
we would need one with
the ability to speak
in and to the great egg.
And you see Princeps Zortch.
And you see the Princeps in here.
- In the fang?
- In the fang,
in this, like, satellite,
with Barry Nyne behind the Princeps,
like, at gunpoint, forcing the Princeps.
You see all of the House
of Frangus on the planet,
burrowing into the planet in
some weird genetic fusion,
that their bodies, like, take up space,
journey to form some,
like, horrifying, psychic,
cellular mitosis, to
grow and grow and grow
from the core of the planet,
and eventually split the planet open.
But of course, a dilemma,
for we need royal DNA to create
the Great Emhatchening.
- I already know what this is.
- But there should remain one cerebro-slug
to direct this endeavor.
Son, you will give your life
to bring glory to the House of Frangus,
and I will be there to direct
this greatest of cerebro-slugs.
- Coward.
(Brennan yells)
- And you see, Barry,
you pull his tongue out.
- I love how Brennan was like, yeah,
sci-fi genre, except
my slugs, full fantasy.
(everyone laughs)
- A little bit.
You know, there's just
some "Dune" mixed in.
Yeah, exactly.
- Just a high collar.
- A high collar. The House of Frangus.
- Just a worm in a high collar.
- That's one of my favorite books,
"The Worm in the High Collar".
(everyone laughs)
- That was some crazy historical fantasy.
- As you call your father a
coward, Barry, you pull him off.
- You would ask this of everyone?
- In this moment, you realize
this is why Barry Nyne's
been hunting Zortch.
Zortch has a connection to the planet
through their connection to Gnosis.
And the Great Emhatchening needs to happen
all together, right?
- So does King Privis-
- Prilbus.
- Prilbus, yeah.
- Want to hop into Zortch's body?
- You see it looks like that
is part of the plan, right?
- Gross.
- Looks like that's part of the plan.
'Cause Zortch would have a connection
to whatever this thing is, exactly.
- Is your dad a good cook?
Because we actually do need a chef.
- We actually, yeah, how is we with-
- There's no way he's ever
cooked a thing in his life.
- You see Barry Nyne
looks at you and says,
very well.
Stolen a little secret from me.
You will submit to coming. You know why?
Because you're soft.
I'm gonna find Zortch,
and when I do, you're
gonna come to Rubian V.
Because if you don't,
my heroic, little son,
I'm gonna k*ll your friends
in front of you one by one.
Think on that.
- Wait, they don't have Zortch?
- That's news to you.
- Yeah.
- You see Barry Nyne turns
to look at you and says,
did you really wanna talk to him?
(suspenseful music)
- Yeah.
(liquid gurgling)
- Barry, I'm scared.
- We'll get you out.
- I've been having a
really bad dream, man.
Where's Barry? Where's Dr. Barry?
- Barry's right here
and Barry's right here.
Never forget, Barry's right here.
(liquid gurgling)
- When I leave this body,
I'll make sure to leave it somewhere cold,
where it dies slow.
- Barrys run hot.
(everyone laughs)
- We cut over to the holding chamber
with Gunnie and Riva in it.
- Riva's just inside the orb going,
I am the ball and I am rolling up,
and just doing little
backwards somersaults.
I am the ball and I'm rolling up!
Gunnie, look at me, I'm the
ball and I'm rolling up!
- Uh huh, yeah, 100%.
God, why did I say that?
Why did I say that?
- Riva, you get a powerful
psychic impression
of the moment in the next room over
when Skip seizes that secret vision,
the things that his father
was hiding from him.
And you see that thing of Zortch
within the Fang of Frangus,
within this sort of sinister-looking
alien satellite over Rubian V.
And you see this like,
it's almost an omen of the
future, it's like a portent.
This idea of, like, Zortch in this place
where they will be able to
trigger the Great Emhatchening
with these billions of pilgrims
on the surface of Rubian V,
which are secretly just people
from all over the galaxy
taken over by cerebro-slugs.
- Stop flipping.
- No, I'm flipping 'cause I'm flipping out
'cause this thing's
happening in the other room
that are just big parental revelations.
- Oh, wait, there's big stuff
going on in the other room?
Come on.
- Yeah, let me show you,
and I cast it over to Gunnie,
so Gunnie sees all of this stuff as well.
- As you cast it over,
give me an insight check.
Give it to me with disadvantage,
but give me an insight check.
- Come on.
- Oh, that was a nat 20,
but with disadvantage,
it's still very good, it's a 24.
- Ooh!
- Wow.
- I have 11 to insight.
- Even f*cked up.
- [Lou] Even f*cked up.
- You cast that out
and you feel Zortch's presence
somewhere in Myrmidon Station.
You can't get a beat on it
'cause you're too out of it,
but you sense Zortch loosely.
It's echoey, it's like,
you know when you hit two
rocks together underwater
and it sounds incredibly clear,
but everything else is so muffled?
There's this moment of connection
from that psychic vision
that's like rocks hitting,
and you get another ping off of Zortch,
that's clear, I know that Zortch is there,
and then immediately it's muffled again.
But you feel a connection to Zortch
as you connect with Gunnie as well.
- Is there any way for me to
psychically connect with them
to communicate to them what's going on?
- Yes, you can communicate
to Zortch.
- Ooh.
- Great. Hi, Zortch.
Ssh.
(Brennan imitates distortion)
Okay, the connection's pretty bad,
you're breaking up quite
badly there, that's not great.
Hello? Can you hear me?
- I can hear.
- Are you okay?
(Brennan imitates distortion)
Okay, well, we're in
jail and I'm on drugs.
(everyone laughs)
So there's not much we can
do, but I'm glad you're okay.
I don't know if you are
hearing any of this,
but I communicate all of the stuff
that I saw from Skip over to them.
- So you communicate all that to Zortch,
and as you do, Zortch,
you feel the panic of Zortch seeing like,
oh my God, this is why I'm wanted.
- Right.
- [Brennan] Like how
much of this is terrible,
et cetera, et cetera.
- So just so you know, just like, lay low.
Don't worry about it.
(Brennan imitates distortion)
It's all good, the ball is rolling uphill,
and I start flipping.
- You start flipping again.
Gunnie, as you are looking at Riva,
you're also, like, part of
this whole conversation.
- Great, okay.
- As you go over to, like,
listen into the other room,
you touch a sort of area of the wall,
and as your metal hand, you
have your cybernetic stuff,
you don't have your data pad here,
you don't have your gadgeteer's harness,
so there's no tech
powers available to you,
but you touch the wall.
You have a lot of vital stuff in your
cybernetic enhancements
in your cyborg body,
lot of sensors and things that constitute
the senses you, you know.
Things that constitute a sense of touch
or kinesthetic sense, right?
One of which is you have a little alert
for electromagnetism, 'cause of course,
that could totally shut your body down,
it's incredibly dangerous, right?
Little ion meter, as you touch the wall,
it starts to register, which happens a lot
if you touch walls with circuitry in them
and stuff like that.
But as you touch it, listening,
'cause you're there for a moment,
in that sensor, you hear,
beep, beep, beep,
beep, beep, beep, beep,
beep, beep, beep, beep,
beep, beep, beep, beep,
beep, beep, beep, beep,
in a bizarre rhythm
that starts to come
through in that sensor.
Does Gunnie have any reaction
to this as it occurs?
- So as I move my hands over the wall,
does it beep differently depending on
where I put my hand, or?
- There's sort of a,
you can tell that there's
some circuitry behind here
where it's strongest.
- Uh huh.
- Which to you would mean that
it feels like it's coming,
it's part of the circuitry of the station.
- Does Morse code exist in this world?
Is it some kind of like...
Can I try and read that
as a message of some kind?
- I'm gonna say, you said it
exactly, no roll necessary.
This is Morse code.
- I watched "Squid Game" this weekend.
(everybody laughs)
Spoilers for "Squid Game".
- This is coming out in months.
- You'll always know
when we record, you know?
- We guarantee you that.
- We guarantee that.
So whatever is communicating to you
doesn't have access to a
communications technology,
but it's just charging,
it's pulling something
from a server that it knows
travels through this wall
to trigger a latent thing that it knows
is in your cybernetic
enhancements to warn about
powerful electrical presences nearby.
And you start to put it
together in your head and hear,
Gunnie, this is Gnosis.
Can you hear me?
- I'm gonna sh**t,
I'm gonna overcharge the
electricity in my fingers
against the wall, responding back
in the same pattern of just, like,
yeah, read you loud and clear.
Are you in the system?
- Barely.
I'm drawing on latent power
from a charging station nearby,
not registered to The Wurst,
but I'm not attached to
any kind of comm system.
I can't connect to the internet.
I'm suspended in my holofract right now.
- Got it.
Could you in some way maybe get us out?
And what would that take?
- Gnosis comes back to you and says,
it's possible, but something
is in control of me.
I'm not sure what.
I'm not...
I could get lucky and get moved to an area
where I could interface, but I'm not sure
how I would do that under my
own power in this instance.
I need to be connected in order
to be at my full strength,
and right now, I have barely enough power
to draw through a nearby
transponder charging station
to communicate this to you.
So Riva, you're doing backflips,
and you see Gunnie just like,
tapping on the wall, so focused.
- Click, click, click,
click, click, click,
click, click, click, click.
- Oh, he's hitting the
wall with his finger.
That's not a good sign.
- It's Gnosis.
- It's yeses.
- Gnosis is in the wall.
- Yeses.
- Are you still on The Wurst?
- Disconnected, I have
no sensory apparatus.
I can merely think.
It's my ability to
communicate with you here
is because I am broadcasting this signal.
I hoped that you would be
prescient enough to observe it,
but I truly don't know
where you are or where I am.
- Got it, okay.
Riva, your thing with
communicating with Zortch,
could you do that with anyone else?
Like, could you reach out to our people
and possibly touch base with them,
even if the connection was fuzzy?
- Yeah, I think so. Hang on a second.
And I concentrate really hard
and I imagine two rocks
in my hands and just...
(liquid gurgling)
- [Brennan] Give me
insight with disadvantage.
(dice rolling)
- Oh, yeah, that's a 25.
- Hell yeah. Who are you
trying to reach out to?
- Who am I trying to reach out to?
- Just see if you can touch
base with, I don't know, Barry.
- Oh, yeah, absolutely.
I can hear Barry. I can smell Barry.
- Okay, cool, cool.
- Barry, hi.
I've got a channel through here to Gunnie.
- Riva is coming through
very clear, but muffled.
- Okay.
- Awesome. Okay.
I am communicating with Gnosis
and I just wanted to make
sure that we can all be
on the same page if
there's the opportunity
to do something, you know.
- We're very interested in
doing something over here.
I look at Skip. Interested
in doing something?
- Yes.
- We're interested.
- Great, we're working on it.
I'm gonna keep trying to see, you know,
keep in touch with Gnosis.
- Gnosis says,
if you can get in touch with someone that
can see my holofract,
I do not know where
the Princeps is, but...
You see it says, I'm reaching out to you.
I can sense, I understand that
the situation for you has greatly worsened
since the last time we
were in communication.
I was reaching out to you to communicate
that my work is done.
- Oh, they got a plan.
- So the plan
is good for Rubian V,
or your dissemination?
- There is a possibility for
total disbursement and its people,
and perhaps even things yet unknown
depending on the amount of
power that we can locate.
I believe I understand the programming
behind dispersing myself and
potentially reconstituting
Rubian V in such a way
that it will no longer be
at threat of the designs that
United Free Trade Planets has on it.
In order to affect the
plan that I have determined
has the highest possible
likelihood of success,
I will need more than just
a reconnection to my
planetary supercomputer.
I would need
a ability to reconstitute to the planet
while also being in
perspective above and over it.
(upbeat music)
- Got it.
I think I saw an image
of a thing in the sky
over your planet that I
think we could make work.
- Does it have the possibility
for psychic connection
as well as telecommunications?
- I believe so.
- So as you're saying that,
you're very aware that
this is something that
Gnosis is saying it needs,
but this is also very much a thing
designed by the cerebro-slugs.
- Yeah.
- So, this is the thing
that Zortch has just been...
Basically, you just told Zortch, like,
here's the end of your life.
- Yes.
- And Gnosis is like, this
is exactly what I need.
Anything else that you
communicate to Gnosis
or Zortch in this moment?
- Hey, buddy, we're gonna make
that plan happen, all right?
We'll see you soon.
- Cool.
We're gonna cut back to Sid and Margaret.
So Lucienne looks at you and says,
what do you know about
the House of Frangus?
- I know a lot about the House of Frangus.
(Zac laughs)
I know all about King Prilbus.
And if you want the information,
I think we could work on this.
- Okay, look.
After I got the promotion, I
needed to keep plates spinning.
And you know, I knew that w*r
was breaking out in Rubian V.
I also knew that there was a ton of mining
happening on Rubian V.
Look, the higher ups,
I talked to the higher ups
about, you know, Rubian V.
They seemed fine with hollowing it out.
And listen, there's a scheme there, too.
UFTP is trying to f*ck the
galactic lithium trade.
They're trying to create
an artificial shortage
so they can take the brigade
and hold them over a barrel, right?
They don't want to sell,
they wanna hold a monopoly
and jack up the price.
And so I thought, okay, they're
gonna destroy this world,
that's nothing new for UFTP,
but I found out about Gnosis.
I reached out to the Princeps Zortch.
They reached out to me, I
thought, this is my shot.
This is how I start to
earn credit so that maybe
I can start to phase out
the Natalia thing, right?
When I brought Gnosis up
and tried to deliver it
up the chain of command,
people seemed uninterested.
Literally, I said,
I think there's a planetary supercomputer,
revolutionary technology,
XYZ, all this other stuff.
People sort of went, huh? Whatever.
We got our own plans for that planet.
If we can mine that lithium
out, we need to do that.
And I said, but you might be destroying
a unique piece of
revolutionary technology.
The only time they got
interested is when I said
that Griivarr was involved.
And they looked into
that, and then they said,
ah, that's no big deal either.
So I started to dig in.
The House of Frangus. Look.
King Prilbus.
- Prilbus.
- It is fun to say.
- Prilbus!
- So I started to look into it.
And at first I was like,
did these cerebro-slugs
hit our executive suite?
Did they take over the Bajars?
Are they in Crown and Scepter?
What the hell is going on?
I found out that UFTP is
hollowing out Rubian V
to do it all, not only
to f*ck over the brigade,
but also to create this, I don't know,
religious artifact or whatever
for the cerebro-slugs.
They wanna do some wacky
thing on the planet.
And that's when I found out.
I said, okay, this King
Prilbus has gotta, like,
have taken over a member
of the Bajar family
or someone at Crown and
Scepter or someone else.
We have security measures to
make sure people don't get
cerebro-slugged in our C-suite.
It's not that big of a threat.
UFTP signed a contract
with the House of Frangus
a couple of cycles ago to
do this work on Rubian V
to create this for them.
In exchange for hollowing out the moon,
which was their property,
they asked the House of Frangus
to deed over the holdings
of every single one of their hosts.
Right now, there's about 20 billion
cerebro-slug host bodies on Rubian V.
The hosts that UFTP asked them to target,
because to the slugs, a body's a body.
(upbeat music)
The combined holdings of
those pilgrims on Rubian V
who are gonna, I don't know,
do some weird, culty
cerebro-slug thing at some point,
when they bite the dust,
their holdings all get deeded
over to a trust owned by UFTP,
somewhere in the windfall
of five quintillion credits.
- Who are some of the...
I say this still looking
directly at the corner
and not looking at them.
Who are some of the, like,
the most wealthy people
who are part of this
pilgrimage that might have left
a family that then would say, what?
Like, if we were to leak
this information to them.
- I could pull up a ton of names for them
and send 'em to you.
I mean, we're talking
about billions of people,
the countless families
all over the galaxy.
You know, they're not all royalty,
but they were asked to
target people with holdings.
We're talking not only liquid capital,
we're talking properties and assets,
technologies, patents,
intellectual properties.
So the super computer
never mattered to them
because once this great
hatchening or whatever happens,
we're gonna be in a market
position to buy Griivarr,
to buy any of our competitors outright.
So, someone else takes Gnosis,
that's why they never gave a f*ck,
because all they need to
do is collect this windfall
and they'll just buy whoever
got their hands on Gnosis after the fact.
- Wow, Griivarr wouldn't like
to hear that, I don't imagine.
- No, I don't imagine they would.
- Nor would Amercadia.
- Yeah.
- Can I do an insight
check just to see if-
- Staring at the wall.
- I'm, like, looking at you,
being like, you're laying
it on a little thick.
(everybody laughs)
Yeah, they probably wouldn't.
Now we're gonna have to worry about that.
- Can I do an insight check
just on everything she's saying?
Just like, is she totally
putting her cards on the table?
- [Brennan] Give me an insight check.
- Okay, I have a plus one to that, so 12.
- You can't see her face
'cause you're looking at the corner.
(everybody laughs)
- But what do I get
with a 12 on the corner?
- With a 12 on the corner,
she's either really
processing what you said
or left the room.
(Ally laughs)
- I don't know if she's here anymore.
- How do you play into all of this?
- I've been Natalia
for the past rigon.
- Of course, okay.
And you're ditching that
and now you're doing UFTP.
Do you wanna stop any of this?
- No!
- Do you need our help
with any of this, or you're just-
- I need you to tell me
where the f*ck Gnosis is!
- Why do you also need Gnosis?
- Why?
Why do you need Gnosis?
- Because I think the bosses are wrong.
I think they're wrong. I
think this technology matters.
They're gonna k*ll a god to make money.
- What's your vision for a super computer?
What do you think that it
would change about the world,
and what's your ideal version of, like,
what we could do with it?
I'm just curious.
- I don't know. Something cool.
I know it's valuable.
And you know, they said, okay,
if Griivarr gets their hands on Gnosis,
then we'll just buy
Griivarr after the windfall.
And I was like, you might not be able to,
there might not be a
Gnosis after the windfall
if this thing destroys
the planet or whatever.
And so, you know.
- You seem...
(gentle music)
Like you're really involved in this
and it all just boils down to
weird, greedy people
grabbing at different things.
You're married to a weirdo that you're
Weekend at Bernie'sing,
propping up, like, a weird puppet.
Do I have anything that I could show her
our sizzle reel of Gunnie on?
- You could tell her to
put it on her phone, yeah.
(Emily laughs)
greatest ever-
- Greatest ever.
- Cyborg-
- Cyborg-
- Man.
- Man.
- Best of.
- Best of.
- Totally owned.
- [Brennan] Totally owned.
- A plane scape, the sun rises.
Since the dawn of time.
- This is my life now.
I live on a hotdog ship,
there's a casino on it.
You can do anything that you want.
- So what am I supposed to do?
- Uh, kiss me.
- What, like this?
And you see smack, she's just
rolling on the table with you.
- I'm still staring at the
corner, but I'm smiling.
- [Brennan] Okay, give
me another insight check.
- [Siobhan] Finally.
- Ooh, that's a dirty 20.
- Hey, that is a dirty 20.
(everybody laughs)
Incredible.
- I would do like a, yes.
- So yeah, you and Lucienne fully hook up.
- Cute. Wait.
- Cute?
- You stop at a certain point.
- I tie my-
- It's just a passionate,
like, kiss.
- A passionate kiss.
- I go, long over due.
Come on the hotdog ship.
- La, la, la, la, la.
- She looks at you and says,
I can't come on a hotdog ship with you.
Like, what happened? We had a plan.
The Platinum Cog, we were
gonna look out for each other.
- Exactly. The cog.
You cannot tell me that you
aspire to be a Platinum Cog.
It's still a cog.
You can hop out and then you can become...
- A rusty machine?
- A ball that's rolling up.
- What?
- No more cogs.
Instead, you're a ball,
and it's rolling up, baby.
- What is that a reference to?
- Snake eyes.
And I roll some dice.
(everybody laughs)
Season is over.
- As you roll, you say...
(everyone laughs)
Before you roll, you say, snake eyes.
During a social interaction, you say...
You are speaking to another person.
Has nothing to do with dice.
You say snake eyes
before the dice come up.
Dice had not even been rolled.
- Snake eyes.
- Margaret has presumably
not had dice at all so far.
- Yeah, you smuggled,
the one thing you chose
to smuggle into your cell
is a pair of dice.
- Okay, everybody, yeah.
- Snake eyes.
- They have the name
of our casino on them.
They're promotional dice.
- Promotional dice.
- Big Barry's Casino.
- That is a good point, though,
because Miss Margaret is
building an empire right now,
and if you don't jump on this opportunity,
you might be begging
to be an intern later.
- Yeah, you could be my intern.
- Go ahead and make a
persuasion check for me.
And I'll say with Sid that
you get the help action.
- I whispered to Gunnie,
there's some spicy things
going on in the girls' room.
- Gnosis, there's some
real spicy stuff going on.
- Persuasion?
- Persuasion.
- Spicy stuff going on-
- 27.
- [Lou] In the girls' room.
- She looks at you and says,
I read the reports, you almost died.
It was on the rec station news.
You tumbled out of a crow's nest
and a Vercadian Protector
droid in a corn costume
almost chopped you in half.
- Yeah. And I've never felt more alive.
- She kisses you again.
(Ally laughs)
And snake eyes.
- Snake eyes!
- Can I just, like,
power down so they can...
I go like this and they can
just absolutely go to town.
Just turn me back on when it's over.
(energy powering down)
- Okay.
- She looks at you and just goes,
how did you know that we were here?
How did you anticipate that we were gonna
grab you on the station?
- What do you mean?
- Do you want me to pull it out of you?
Obviously you hid Gnosis.
- Yeah, I mean...
- Give me deception.
- Oh, f*ck.
Yeah, we, okay.
- I'll tell you, what you've
gotta beat right now is a 28.
- Can I have Handy Annie
give the help action
by ramming into Margaret's back
so that her posture is really good?
- Yeah!
- This is what we wanna
use Handy Annie for?
- Yeah!
- It's 21.
- 21, cool.
- So you don't have Gnosis.
- And you don't have Gnosis.
- And you don't have the Princeps Zortch.
- Look, if you just give
us Gnosis, you get to go!
What's the harm, what's the problem?
Give us Gnosis. Give Zortch
to the cerebro-slugs.
- Definitely.
- And you get a ship.
You get to live your fun life!
- You're aware that Gnosis
is like her own person?
She's a fully walking woman.
She's kind of, like, pushing mid fifties,
and she's on our ship at all times,
and you can just talk to her, right?
- What?
- That's what Gnosis looks like.
- Gnosis, she'll say, gimme a smile.
- She's mostly gambling.
- Now, here's the deal. I'm
gonna ask for a deception roll.
So go ahead and give me a deception roll.
- With advantage, surely.
- Oh, no, no, no.
No, no, no, it's a
straight deception roll.
Go ahead and give me deception.
- Snake eyes.
- Snake eyes.
- Snake eyes. Oh, no!
- Snake eyes.
- That is a 16.
- Okay. This is a plus
11 to insight, right?
(everyone chattering)
- Snake eyes!
- Snake eyes!
- That's a 10. 21, okay.
So you see she says, the
super computer is an old woman
who's gonna tell me to give her a smile?
- Does that sound strange to you?
- You can stay here for
as long as you want.
And if you just...
Look, we have a lot to talk about.
I'm not in a great position in the company
until I get my hands on Gnosis.
I did a lot of things
without consulting people
and a lot of things behind people's back.
The Obfusion Arms?
That blew up in my f*ck' face, Margaret.
You put me in a bad position
by whatever the hell you pulled off there.
- Well, I mean, I need
to talk to everybody.
- Tell us where the super computer is
and give us the Princeps,
and you get your fun life back.
And here you see that she shows the screen
with Gunnie doing like a sick...
(Lou imitates g*nf*re)
- That was so sick. That was so sick.
I'm so f*cking proud of him.
- While this is happening,
what is this cell like?
Are we talking classic prison bars?
- No, not classic prison bars.
You're in like a steel
door sort of holding area.
It's all very white.
- I have an idea
that you're wearing on
your god damn shirt.
The hubris.
- I would like to reach out to
the Galactic Girl Guides psychically.
- [Brennan] Cool.
- It's a deception...
- Oh.
- [Siobhan] Is it insight
with disadvantage?
- Give me insight with disadvantage, yeah.
- Okay, that's a 17.
(Brennan mumbles)
Hello, little girl.
Small human child, are you there?
(Brennan mumbles)
You sound like you're underwater,
but I'm underwater, actually.
(Ally laughs)
(Brennan mumbles)
Oh, okay.
You know,
if you break us out,
we'll buy some cookies.
(Brennan mumbles)
- $1 million worth of
cookies, we'll buy 'em.
- No, don't drop us down.
- No, that's too many.
- We'll lie to 'em.
- No, we can't lie to children!
- Okay, fine.
- We'll give you 100.000
credits worth of cookies.
We'll buy 100.000
credits worth of cookies.
- Deal.
(everybody laughs)
- If you break us out, okay.
- Amazing.
- Do we think that
was a good plan?
- Well, I was going to
also, maybe...
I was gonna see if Handy
Annie could open this door
or if Handy Annie could...
Basically, I figured if Margaret,
and what's her name again?
And Lucienne could, like,
maybe start going at it,
that would be like, I could
maybe disarm the key, sneak out.
- I'm gonna say at this point-
- [Ally] Do we roll for going at it?
- Roll for going at it.
Lucienne just looks at you and says,
you got plenty of time to
think about it, Margaret.
We just want Gnosis and the Princeps,
and then it all goes back to
however you want it to be.
Give me an insight check.
- Okay.
(dice rolling)
That is 19.
- Lucienne's unhappy.
- Yeah.
- Scared.
Your perception check was
high enough to convince her
of the truth of your statement,
that she could be happier
living the life you are living
right here and now.
So whatever motivation
she had that was like,
Margaret's a fool and I'm living
a better life, that's gone.
What it did not get rid of
is the amount of danger Lucienne is in.
And you see that that is
what is motivating her
here in this place.
- So what do you need?
You just need Gnosis.
- I just need Gnosis.
- She's not an old woman.
That's an old woman that
gambles on our ship.
I just need to be honest
with you, starting now.
- Her name is Bambi LaRoux.
- Her name is Bambi LaRoux, not Gnosis.
- So please leave her alone.
- You can return Miss LaRoux to the...
(everybody laughs)
- [Lou] Thank God, thank God.
- Can I ask you, where did Auma go?
It seemed like from the video
that you just offered her
the money and presumably freedom, right?
- The last time Auma stuck
her neck out for someone,
I think it was you,
she got fired and her life
got sucked down the drain.
I think it's pretty reasonable that
she wouldn't make that same mistake again.
To my knowledge, she...
And here you see she...
She opens a transponder and looks at it.
Oh. Weird, okay.
It looks like she's made a
bunch of investments with it.
- What did she invest in?
I see a droid, kind of like
their makers, like their mommy.
- She says, HAC.
- What's that?
- Handy Andi Corporation.
And you see that-
- She knows, 'cause we
didn't we tell her about
the fact that she owns the trademark?
So she's investing in them.
- Before she takes it over.
- Before she does it.
Is she still on this planet, though?
- I believe so, I think she's still on...
Yeah, she should be.
- Okay.
But she's safe here.
- She gave you up and you
wanna know if she's safe?
(gentle music)
- She didn't give me up.
I mean, she ensured my
safety like any mommy would.
- I can't be around androids.
- Okay, listen, Lucienne,
we can work on this, but we all,
I have to talk to everybody else.
It seems like we have to
compare notes or something.
- Fine, think about it. You'll have time.
She gets up, leaves.
You guys are moved to
now individual cells.
You are in a bulb off
in a corner of the room.
The rest of you guys
are in individual cells.
You still have the dampener-
- Is there a way to press, like,
stop on the recording I did
of everything she just said,
and like, essentially, like, send it to...
What is it, IQ, AQ?
- The cloud?
- What's the name of it?
- Oh, to like,
upload everything?
Or SQ, the ship's computer.
- Yeah, yeah, to almost, like, mail it.
- I'm gonna say give me
a DC 15 technology check.
- Oh, I got a 16 plus eight, 24.
- As you are walking, Handy
Annie begins to upload.
- Cool.
- And uploads that to the ship's computer.
So, you guys are here in the cell block.
Dampeners on different
powers, no equipment.
What you see is...
The only sort of interactions you have
as you guys are sort of spending time here
are you're not let out of the cells,
a tray of weird, gooey food is slid in
to like, a little sort of, like, drop box.
They close the other
side and then remotely,
sort of like an airlock, right?
So like, tray goes in, comes out, you eat.
It's very high security,
but they're not here to t*rture you guys.
When you're done with the meal,
you slide the tray back
into the little airlock area
and someone picks it up and takes it away.
- Can I actually not finish my meal
and shove Handy Annie inside
of it as I pass it out?
- Oh, I need to check something,
though. Hold on a second.
(gentle music)
That is a two, which is so incredibly low,
one of the guards does not
recognize that you are an android
and slides a meal
through the slot for you.
(Ally and Emily laugh)
- So then yeah, I kind of wanna be like,
oh, actually, I'm a droid, I don't eat.
Thank you so much, though.
And then, like, hide Handy Annie under it.
- Cool.
- So that she can
essentially be out.
- Can I do an insight check
and make friends with the guards?
So I just keep like getting connected
with them psychically.
- Sure.
Yeah, make a psychic connection
with the guards, yeah.
- 19.
- So yeah, you see this guy coming along.
He's just sort of in the
raspberry purple UFTP colors.
- Hi.
- How's it going?
- What's your name?
- My name's Phil.
- Phil. That's a great color on you, Phil.
- Oh, thank you, I appreciate that.
- I'm assuming it's some aspect of red.
I can't see it fully, but from my
perspective, very nice.
- Oh, that's so-
- You like it here?
- Yeah, I like it.
- It's a good job?
- It's a good job.
I like it.
- Are they treating you well?
- Yeah.
- I just learned about
a new thing recently,
and it's called a union.
Do you know about that?
- Heck yeah.
- That's great.
Well...
- We have a couple
different kinds of flakes.
We have a chipotle.
We have, this is sriracha with flakes.
- Very spicy.
- They're all spicy, yeah.
- I'll take all of them,
but if you could turn off
the thing that can make me
do psychic things, 'cause it
was actually quite painful.
- Okay.
- You know,
just sentient being to sentient being.
- Here's my whole deal.
They told me I'm allowed
to chat and pour flakes,
and anything other than
that, I'm not allowed to do.
- Well, that's exact, that's exact.
- Yep.
- So good for you.
- How many guards are in this room?
Well, there is a highly populated
guard station you walked past.
There is not a guard present
in this room at all times.
Like, this guy, Phil, comes in with,
like, meal trays to,
like, put them in and out.
- Oh, great.
Phil, I can make you
watch a movie if you like.
And I start casting my memory
of "Fast and the Furious 200".
- He stands there passively taking in
all of the "Fast and the Furious".
- Would you say he's incapacitated?
(Siobhan laughs)
- No, I would not say he's incapacitated.
- They don't seem that smart.
- No, I know, I just have to
incapacitate him before I try.
- Oh, I see, okay.
Then I guess, like...
So Handy Annie's kind
of getting brought out,
and I'm wondering if she can, like,
'cause I can kind of see through her.
I kind of just wanna see
if she's seeing the area
that we're, you know, that our ship is.
- May I ask for a stealth
check for Handy Annie
to get out on the tray?
- Does she have advantage because
she's underneath a sandwich?
- [Brennan] Yes. Plus six.
- 17.
- 17, okay.
She gets by Phil on a
17. So he takes the tray.
- I think maybe when she gets set down,
like, I'm assuming she
gets set down at some point
and then they walk away,
and so I think she would
use that to maybe then
scuttle back down and try
to start picking locks.
- So you wait for the tray to be put down?
- I think so, yeah.
- Cool.
Phil walks for a while with your tray.
- Okay, well, when she's
about to be 100 feet away,
then she will have to jump out.
- Cool, give me stealth with disadvantage.
- Can I scream?
- Sure, yeah, just give
me straight stealth.
(Zac screams)
- Okay. 14.
- Cool. So you just are
100 feet away and jump off?
- Yeah, just 'cause if she
gets 100 feet away from me,
then I can't see through
her eyes anymore anyway,
so she would have to jump off.
- Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha.
You're not too far
outside of the cell block.
There's no one out here right now,
but Handy Annie is loose
and Phil keeps walking down with the tray.
- Great.
So whoever's cell block is the closest,
she's gonna try to pick that.
- Incredible.
Handy Annie scuttles
back into the cell block.
As she does, you look
and see these areas here.
These are not physically
locked from within this room.
There's a control station at
a guard station somewhere.
It's remote.
- Okay.
I guess, like, with
tracker droid interface,
I wouldn't be able to see through her,
but can I send her to try to turn it off?
I think she can still
exist 100 feet from me,
I just can't compute.
- So you're gonna have to give
her an instruction to follow
'cause she's going to leave
your communication range.
- Can I? Okay.
If she came over to me
and I spit my little
slug body out of my nose
and grab Handy Annie.
- The slug in hand?
- And we go to the guard station,
maybe I could find a
sleeping guard to take out.
- I love this.
- Also, I realized I have two abilities
that have very similar names.
And so when I was doing Consume
Mind, the roll 3d6 thing,
that was only to stun a target.
Body Thief is a contested intelligence-
- Oh, sh*t.
- Contest
with an incapacitated target.
- Okay, so then I'm-
- And I have a much better
chance of doing that.
- I am absolutely
going to send Handy Annie to wait outside
of Skip's cell to carry the brain slug.
- Do I have a sense of
how long that would take?
Am I better at doing that now?
- I think you are, yeah, absolutely.
You confronted your father, King Prilbus,
for the first time in cycles,
and you see Sundry
Sidney's little Handy Annie
(imitates skittering) skitter
over to the other side
of this tray lock.
(liquid gurgling)
Skip, you eject from your body craft
(yells) and hit the ground,
inch along the ground until you feel
a familiar android's hand pick you up.
- Oh, you're so small!
- As Norman Takamori comes to.
- I didn't do it!
(everyone laughs)
Their heads exploded!
(everyone laughs)
- As Norman Takamori comes to,
Skip, our friend, riding
an android's hand.
- As Handy Annie leaves my, like, frame,
or like my radius of communication, I say,
be careful, Annie, that's precious cargo.
- And that's all for this
episode of "Dimension 20"!
Tune in next week for
a slug riding a hand.
- There has been a breach in the air lock!
Get the hell outta here
or you're gonna die with the rest of 'em!
Riva, can you link me with Skip?
- The real Skip.
- Yes, the real Skip.
- Yes, I can, but he's not gonna be happy.
He's gonna be so mean to me.
- It's just that idiot, Gunnie.
- Yeah, I know.
- Hey, there's been a big,
old breach in the airlock.
Get outta here.
It's our fault. It's 100% our fault.
- You idiots.
- Yeah, I know.
- Everyone is out to get me.
- These prisoners engaged
a hacking protocol
within the prison, and
that prison is suspect.
- I was the man who hacked him.
- What we have to do is get
all of them to a better prison.
- Let me go!
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13x15 - Face to Face
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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.