November 13, 2025 • 52 mins
In the aftermath of their mission against (?) the Brightwater Collective for (?) the Piper Lords, our scoundrels attempt to repair their reputation, heal their wounds, and get into some weird vices.
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✂️ This Episode's Outtakes & Extras ✂️
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This episode edited by the Larks and Wray Van Winkle.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
You guys, I just went to the most insane place on earth and
it's in Wisconsin. I was recently on.
Madison. No Milwaukee, no worse.
Green. Bay worse than any of those.
I mean, I don't know about worsethan any of those, but different
Menominee and it is a place called House on the Rock and.
(00:21):
It's religious. It's not.
It is the opposite of religious.If you can imagine that God is
dead there, they killed, they killed him, him and buried his
body beneath the house on the rock.
Yeah. So House on the Rock.
I forget the name of the architect who built it, but
architect is a. Generous term.
(00:41):
It's a very generous term because according to his
multiple autobiographies that hedid, he met with Frank Lloyd
Wright and showed him the plans.And Frank Lloyd Wright was like,
this is insane and bad and you're bad at architecture and
you should never, ever build this.
And he said, fuck you, Frank Lloyd Wright.
I'm going to build my house on abig rock.
However. Sounds religious.
This sounds like a parable. Right.
(01:02):
The thing is, though, that FrankLloyd Wright and him were not
contemporaries. They were not in Wisconsin at
the same time. This almost certainly never
happened. And this should set the tone for
everything else in this insane place.
This is a man who one of the things in is.
It a house. Sort of.
Yeah, it's, it's a complex. It's a it started as a house.
(01:24):
So you go in and it's like this man was in the 70s a weeaboo.
So he's a proto weeaboo with an insane amount of money.
So he's built this sort of like Japanese style house on this
rock. It is not structurally sound and
there's like so many, like you walk in and there's a
conversation pit and then there's like this big Japanese
(01:45):
like fireplace thing with giant pots in it.
There's a lot of carpeting. There's a Oh yeah, there's
carpet on the ceiling, carpet onthe floor, carpet on the wall.
The pictures you sent are all oflike circus.
Oh. We're going to go there.
So like you go through it is a house, but it's like this is a
house that was made for cocaine sex parties like 100.
(02:08):
And 10% made for that, no? He's got this.
This house has probably, I don'tknow, 8 or 9 different
conversation pits, some of which.
Are like made of conversation pits I would say.
Yeah. And getting through the house is
like going through a maze. There's no like straight line
from front to back. You are like winding around
various features. Indoor water features even
though everything is carpet. And then like, all around is
(02:30):
like this antique looking stuff.So like a lot of the light
fixtures are these like busty women holding torches.
And then there's like multiple big fireplaces full of enormous
pots. And they're like meant to look
like a Japanese hearth, but like, no fire certainly ever
burned there. What I'm getting from this is
that is the Wisconsin version ofthe Winchester House.
(02:52):
This guy was crazy. He was crazy with money in that
he had too much of it and nothing else to do.
So he started with this insane house.
But then you walk from the houseand you're like, I'm now going
into this little tunnel, where am I going?
And then you emerge into a recreation of a turn of the 20th
century little town that is inside.
(03:13):
Underground. Yeah, underground and has all
these Disneyland style like buildings where like you look
into to the shop window and it has like, oh, this is a
glassware shop and it has a collection of antique glassware.
And he do. This and this is a taxidermist
shop and it has a bunch of little frogs in the window
playing instruments. You know it's a tourist trap
like. It's a tourist.
(03:34):
Trap insane and gigantic and. But like, the wildest thing is,
it was not started as a tourist trap.
He did not start letting people into this place until he started
running out of money. And then he started selling
tickets so that he could keep building it.
That is crazy. Yeah, this is a man.
Man who just. Man, that's what I would do.
Had a lot of money to. Honestly say well so you you.
(03:54):
Want if it's underground, it's not on a fucking rock.
Oh yeah, it's actually not underground, though.
You think you're going underground?
What you're actually going into is a giant warehouse.
Building. It's a separate.
It's a separate building. Yeah, it's a separate building.
There's there's three buildings in this complex, the main house,
which I already described, and then two giant like airplane
hanger sized warehouses that areconnected to it via some like
(04:16):
cleverly disguised walkways. But it feels like you're going
underground when you go into theside.
And at the very end of this townis the first of what is featured
throughout this, which is a player orchestra.
So like you put a coin in and the instruments play themselves.
There are probably two dozen of these throughout the entire and.
(04:36):
A lot of them have like fake like marionette type people.
That they play. Yeah, that's amazing.
It's wild. So you get to the first one of
those and you're like, OK, can'tget any crazier than this.
What's the next theme? Ah, maritime.
OK, so you go into like the next.
But inside. Yes, so and you see like some
model ships and you're like coolmodel ships.
(04:57):
Oh, a cool model of a crack and a giant whale fighting.
And then you go into the next room and that model of the
Kraken and the giant whale fighting is 2 stories tall
inside the room. And then you go up like a
walkway and you go into like, I don't know, another insane
display. And the big like feature of the
place is this enormous carousel that you can't go on.
(05:19):
It has like mannequins riding the carousel.
Gary love that. I love it.
Yeah, later. Like once you get past the
carousel it gets even fucking weirder because.
You have to go through like a big demon mouth.
Yeah, you go through a big demonmouth into hell, and then
there's another smaller carousel, and this one is all
dolls. All, like, porcelain dolls.
(05:40):
Yeah. Yeah.
And that one is, like, smaller in width, but it's like, 2
stories tall with all these, like, porcelain dolls riding
carousel horses. And then at the top, there are
carved wooden figurines of womenwith animal heads playing
instruments. Now their name.
We have to publicly announce thesponsorship that we got from
House of the Rock. For this.
(06:00):
Or they don't. They can't afford to sponsor me.
I wish. I feel like we're driving
business there though, for sure.I hope you do because it needs
to stay open forever and it is the most insane place in the
world. I've been there twice.
Yeah, I've been. This is my second time going as
well and the first time that I was like 13 so I barely
remembered it when I. Was really little but I should
(06:21):
go back. Is this man still alive?
No. This man is quite dead.
He died of a lot of cocaine and hookers I presume.
Well, what a way to go. I know all of those sex pits in
the main house had to be used for something.
And I think part of it is it's sort of like, you know, he
creates A labyrinth so that all his party guests could never
leave. That's kind of like the
impression I get from it. They're.
Stuck there. They're stuck there forever,
(06:43):
partying and doing more and moreand more cocaine.
And Speaking of more cocaine, let's play Blades of the Dark.
(07:14):
Hi. My name is Kat and I am your
cocaine sex pit. Hi, my name is Noelle, I play
Pepper and I'm also on the rock.Hi, my name is Juniper, I play
Valerian and he's a slide and I am hunting you for sport through
(07:37):
the house on the rock every night and if I catch you I will
kill you. Yay Errol, take it away.
Hi, my name is Errol. I play Friedrich Weiss, a Leech,
and I am being haunted for sportin the House on the Rock.
OK, so last time you guys were given a subordinate Piper Lord
(08:01):
to help you out with your heist.His name is MO and he's a cow
herd. From there you robbed the Bright
Rooter Collective for the Piper Lords.
This was your test of loyalty. And just when all seemed lost,
you'd set off the alarm because you guys had some pretty bad
roles. Some pretty good roles, but also
some pretty bad rules. But you used a flashback to
(08:22):
reveal that this was your plan all along.
Your real plan was to work with the Brightwater Collective to
pretend to rob them so that theyhave a reason to go after the
Piper Lords who are their rivals.
So like I mentioned some pretty bad rules there as Valerian got
so badly beat up by a little dandelion person named Overlock
(08:45):
Hess, Pitt and Pepper rolled so extremely well.
She got the Daricetum, the drug that you were sent to steal.
She got that all by herself. Well, with some help from
Friedrich and the Piper Lords, they're now under suspicion as
is a Friedrich's uniform was seen at the scene and then
(09:06):
Friedrich in classic Friedrich fashion through a smoke bomb.
And you guys got out of there. So that is where we are now.
We are now in. Downtime.
So let's get into the downtime activities that we need to do.
Nice. So off mic, we did do some
leveling up. I think Pepper, you levelled up
an attribute. Yeah, so I got one in Skirmish,
(09:27):
so I'll be a little bit better at fighting from now on.
And then we also got a new crew ability which will give us
another dice on engagement rolls, which is what we do at
the beginning of a score when we're doing a sneaky plan, which
we'd like to do. Yep.
So that is good. So first thing we're going to
cover is pay off. You guys don't want to get paid
for this. You guys didn't get any fares
(09:49):
from this. Your only pay off is the sample
of the Daracetum and the goodwill of the Brightwater
Collective. Now do the Piper Lords not give
us anything for the sample of the Daracetum?
Well, I think that's going to belike kind of part of.
Heist Part 2. That's part of heist Part 2.
This was just you proving your loyalty to them.
OK, Yeah. Yeah, so they didn't pay you for
this, got it. So no pay off, but you do get
(10:10):
some Rep for this. You earn 2 Rep by default, the
target is a higher tier from you, so you get one Rep for
that, leveling up your reputation so that you can
eventually level up your tier. Next we're going to talk about
heat and notoriety. You guys didn't earn any heat
from this because heat is something we are tracking only
in the any ever only off the train.
However, you guys did get some notoriety.
(10:32):
So notoriety is your reputation within the train.
So the denizens have never nowhere respect a gang that
takes big swings and pulls them off, but are hesitant to work
with anyone who draws too much heat or disrupts the any ever
too much. If your notoriety gets too high,
other gangs may decide that you are too much of A liability and
attempt to contain or neutralizeyou.
(10:52):
But you also don't want to have no notoriety because otherwise
everyone's like who the fuck arethese guys?
I don't want to do with them. So we will go through the heat
questions and then that affects your notoriety.
So for heat, let's see, first wehave to ask how'd this go?
Was it smooth, quiet, low exposure?
Was it contained standard exposure, loud and chaotic, or
(11:15):
wild with devastating exposure? I mean, it was.
Definitely loud and chaotic. We kind of wanted.
It, but it was meant to. Be that way, yeah.
I would put it at contained personally because I think you
guys accomplished what you wanted to accomplish.
We. Wanted it to be crazy so that
we. Could so that we could, Yeah.
So it was. And I I think that wouldn't
bring down. So the way notoriety works is so
(11:37):
that would be two heat. We're not going to track the
heat because you're not in the any ever.
Instead you just gained 1 notoriety.
Right, OK. So 1 notoriety for a very public
target, which this was, you wereat a gang's party.
One notoriety if the target was pursued by another gang and
never nowhere or occurred on another gang's turf.
I won't give you notoriety for that because you guys were
working with the Brightwater Collective for this.
(11:58):
OK. One notoriety if the target was
on the turf of the gang you are at war with.
Nope. And two, notoriety if it
resulted in a death. Nope.
So you got 1. So next we are going to roll for
your entanglements. Now your entanglements are based
off of your heat. Your heat is at 4 I think.
So 5. Five.
Okay, why don't you guys roll mea D?
(12:19):
6 please. 1. One OK.
Is that good? That's that's good, Brad.
So your actions have caused the head of a district other than
your own put out a general warning among the residents of
their district to pay too fair in a show of good faith.
You guys have no money so you can't do that.
Find another way to prove yourselves to the district head
(12:40):
or lose 1 status with all gangs in the district.
In what district is it that's? The dark lamp canal.
OK, because that's where the theheist was.
So who's the head of the Dark Lamp Canal District?
Great question. The head of the Dark Lamp Canal
is someone named Krista Kiros Down Frost.
She is the leader of the Green Company who is a gang.
(13:01):
You guys have not yet had any dealings?
With so, does that mean that gang is kind of the lead gang in
the Dark Lamp Canal District? Yes, much like the Piper Lords
are the lead gang in Moth Light.Got it.
So you guys have kind of two options here.
Either you can take -1 Rep with every gang in Dark Lamp, which
is not great, I'll say that's not great.
(13:23):
Or you guys can have a meeting with Krista Karos and you know,
just find a way for you guys to prove yourselves to her so that
she does not blackball you from her district.
OK, well Pepper would definitelywant to do that because she
needs to do that anyway, and this is where she lives.
Yeah. She lives here.
It does. I think that.
Sounds better than taking the hit to our Rep.
We might as well try. Yes, we certainly can't pay the
(13:45):
fare. So this is after you guys have
gotten back from this party. You guys are out in your room.
This is like half a day later, 6to 8 hours or whatever.
You've had a minute to lick yourwounds.
You guys are resting up in your room recovering from this job
that went, I would say, horriblywrong.
I mean it went pretty wrong for Valerian, but you guys otherwise
(14:07):
accomplished your goal. Yeah, Pepper and I feel great.
Yeah. Valerian's languishing on the
couch. Yeah, you are laid out on one of
the the couch and you've got like a an ice pack or something,
a bag of peas. Yeah, on your throat and
valerian. Because you are laid out like
that, you are the first one to notice.
You see a green ooze dripping through the vent is not dripping
(14:30):
down. It's just sort of like pulling
on the ceiling around the vent. I think because Valerian has a
sore throat right now and he's trying to take care of it.
He has a bell on the end table next to the couch, so he starts
ringing that. He starts ringing that madly.
Pepper ignores that because Valerian's been ringing that a
lot. Is Pepper in the room?
(14:52):
Yeah, she's like facing the other way.
She's. He throws it at her.
She's ignoring him. Oh, do you actually need help?
Sorry. Pepper jumps up.
Valerian points to the ceiling where the green ooze is coming
down, and then he claps his handtwo times.
Pepper looks at it and she kind of like, rubs her eyes and
blinks and like, looks at it again and then she is there like
(15:15):
furniture that I can like, climbup on into the vent.
Horse chairs, The legs of chairs.
Are OK. Our.
Ooves. All right.
I climb up onto the fucking horse chairs and I peer closer
at the ooze and I want to touch it.
(15:35):
As you reach out to touch it, the ooze reaches back and slaps
your finger right. Oh.
It's moving. It's moving a lot.
Hello Ooze. And she tries to touch it again.
It slaps her finger away again. As and as you're doing this,
more of the ooze is like puddling onto the ceiling, and
at a certain point it finally all drops down onto the floor
(15:57):
with a wet plop. After a moment, the puddle of
ooze on the floor forms up into a more sort of a a mound shape
and two eyes roll out of the ooze to blink at you, and then a
mouth sort of forms out of it. Oh Hilarion, I guess it's it's a
friend and she bangs on the doornext to her that I'm assuming is
(16:20):
Friedrich's door. I crack the door.
I say what? The devil is going on out there.
Come out, come out. There's something.
Come out. And I see the like sentient
slime BLOB thing and I say oh good Lord.
And I grab like a bandolier of Al chemicals and maybe like a
vial or two and I come out and I'm like keeping my distance
(16:41):
from this thing and. You're just holding the
chemicals, like defensively. Yeah.
And I look at Valerian and I say.
What have you done now? Valerian doesn't dignify you
with a response, but he does getup and he goes over to look at
the ooze and he waves at it. What rudeness?
Well, I wasn't trying to be rude.
(17:02):
Earned. Reputation, it seems.
Valerian frantically shakes his head and points at his throat to
gesture, but he cannot speak right now because he's really
taking care of it. Yeah, the ooze ignores you.
It doesn't actually care at all.He's so.
You guys, we have a reputation. Yes, reputationists.
(17:22):
Timeless, cowardly two timer. We.
We wouldn't. Not us, not us.
How did you even get in here? Valerian points to the vent.
Yes, through the vent it may be hard for others to travel, but
with my trim figure and the oozesort of jiggles.
(17:46):
As it says, nice. I can go where others cannot and
I can hide where I cannot be seen, such as, say, in the
Bright Water Collective's club. Yes, I was there during your
planned betrayal. That doesn't sound like us.
(18:09):
Friedrich is kind of palming through what he has with him and
he says and how. Do you respond to salt?
I enjoy it on my food, it has a pleasant zest.
Just checking. Yes.
Don't worry, most people check that first.
They think I'm a slug. I'm not.
I'm a slime mold. Oh.
(18:32):
On my world, we slime molds had quite the long standing
reputation of glory. Sadly, this is not a common
reputation for my kind among allthe world's that we visit
irregardless my. Lady Krista Krios.
(18:54):
Has asked that I pass along the message of summons, otherwise we
shall speak to the rest of the gangs in the Dark Left Canal
about your activities. Oh, Krista Krios.
Oh that's I'm. I'm supposed to meet with her.
Anyways, this works out great. Meet with her.
(19:15):
Who is this Krista Krios? Oh, I think she's like the boss
of the place where I live, the canal or something.
She's like the head artist. She's.
The head of the District of the Darkland Canal.
She told me not to busk. But you know, things happen when
you're really feeling it, so. Valerian gives you a little
(19:39):
smack on your arm because you'renot doing us favors.
Well, why don't you talk to? Oh, he gets.
He's furious. He turns around and he storms
back to the couch and the end table and he grabs a little
notebook that's full of things he's been saying and requesting
that I've all been ignored. And he comes back.
Yeah. Because they're all crazy.
(20:02):
And he writes in his notebook and it says do not give the
blackmail slime more blackmail and then shows it to you.
Pepper pass the side of her nose.
Yeah, I know that, he writes. I have to go to the nurse with a
frowny face, OK? Forget what I said, little
(20:22):
slime. My name is my little slime.
What's your name? I am.
Urge Burge. OK, forget what I said.
Burge. When should we meet?
When should you meet with her now?
Come with me. Through the fence.
(20:43):
No, and then Burge slithers under your door.
Pepper looks at a loss because she's like, I can't slip, I
can't go under the door. Valerian opens the door if ever
goes through. Friedrich says, Well, I don't
suppose. We have any choice.
(21:04):
And follows along. All right.
So you guys follow Burge throughthe streets and Burge primarily
does not travel on the ground. Burge rolls along walls and
ceilings and things. God damn wish I was Burge,
that's so cool. And it leads you to the dark
Lamp canal and pepper. You've seen the building that it
goes into a few times in passing.
(21:25):
It has a fart facade that looks like a grand and Opera House.
When you come in, there is a lobby carpeted in beautiful red
carpet, and there's a chandelierhanging from the ceiling.
And it has the two staircases that go down on either side from
the upper level. And as you come in, Burge slips
through a vent and leaves you all alone in the grand foyer for
(21:48):
a moment. Oh.
OK, bye. And then at the top of the
stairs, you see Burge reappear just ahead of the most
stunningly beautiful woman. She is 6 feet tall with another
probably 6 inches of hair on topof her head that's just like,
piled up in this, like, enormousmouffant.
(22:09):
And then, like, long tresses that trail down her back as
well. And she's wearing this
voluminous fur lined robe that'smade out of chiffon.
It's very like I killed my thirdhusband.
Yeah. Come to talk to me and I truly
have nothing to do with it. And she looks down at you and
she's like posing with one hand perched on the railing.
(22:31):
And she looks down upon you and says.
Ah, I see the rats have arrived.Welcome, welcome.
We actually only have one rat. Valerian bows at her when she
arrives because he recognizes the the etiquette.
And when you bow to her valerian, she gives a little
(22:53):
dissembling nod, very much like you would have done when a
courtier bowed to you. Yeah, of course, yes.
And she says, I've heard that you bowed to the Rat King, and
yet I also heard from my most faithful goose.
And she sort of reaches up and like tickles Burge as it like
(23:13):
drips down to meet. Her Oh, I.
Don't like that? That you are doing deals on the
side with the Brightwater Collective to double cross the
rat. King.
No, no, no, no, no. That doesn't.
No, we're not doing that. Quick question, are we alone
with her and the ooze? There's no one else in this
space. Yes, you are, to your knowledge,
(23:34):
alone in this foyer with her. What Valerian, he's going to
write first of all. He gestures to the enormous
bruise on his throat and then raises his notebook and then
writes. We have not formally double
crossed anyone as of this momentin time.
Krista Keros looks at the notepad and then looks between
(23:54):
Friedrich and Pepper and like waits for one of you to read it
because she's not coming down there to grab a notepad from
you. We haven't formally double
crossed. Any.
Could could we just go somewherewhere we can speak more
privately? Do you have some sort of
conference room? No, we will speak here.
(24:17):
I shall not let rats run amok inmy theater.
We're not rats. Listen, the Bright Water
Collective seemed to us a more reputable organization.
The Piper Lords forced us into their service and so we were
merely trying to make a more reasonable choice for our
prolonged survival on this train.
(24:37):
You're right, that is a more reasonable choice and I will
admit I have no love. For the rat.
King. He's a thorn in my side, always
has been, and I hope that he will not always be.
But it seems that we're at an impasse is well.
I have a great deal of power over you and I don't know that
(24:59):
you have anything to offer me. But should we be able to rectify
things, well, perhaps our position would be different and
we could be friends. Well, what do you want?
Information, my dear. The reason you see no one else
in this theatre is, of course, because the membership of my
(25:20):
organization is kept very secret.
You see, we deal in unknowns. Oh, and if perhaps you could
bring me something that is unknown, perhaps something about
the Piper Lord's weakness of theirs that would be
exploitable, then I could forgetabout what we know of your
(25:45):
plans. Valerian starts smacking
Friedrich in the shoulder and then writes in his notebook.
Special rat man experimentation question mark, question mark,
question mark and then and then he writes the word.
Special rat man experimentation and.
Then he writes the word. Science Friedrich like looks at
your little paper and like pushes it away and rolls his
(26:06):
eyes in sighs and he says to Chris Decrios.
That shouldn't be a problem. In fact, that should align
rather well with our own goals. So if we're able to find some
weakness in their leadership, we'd be happy to report it back
to you. Very good.
And in exchange, you'll let me busk.
No, in exchange, dear, I will not release the compromising
(26:28):
information that I have upon your gang.
But. If you are.
Looking to busk in the dark lampcanal Burge, will you please
bring the sign up sheet? Darling and Burge disappears up
into a vent, and then you hear like some rattling through the
vents, and then in the vent nearyour feet, a pen and a piece of
paper shoot out. Well, no wonder I couldn't find
(26:51):
the sign up sheet. Pepper grabs the pen and
scribbles her name down. Very Good Burge will contact you
to let you know what your slot is and the time and place in
which you will perform. Should you prove to be a
competent musician. We may move you up to more
slots, more stages. If you are not a competent
(27:12):
musician, well, we'll see what happens then.
If I wasn't a competent musician, I'd be dead.
Yes. You put a point on it very
nicely. Now I have a performance to get
ready for, so please leave. OK, well, it was really nice to
meet you. She is already walking away.
(27:33):
We'll miss. You so.
That went better than I thought.Hello.
Welcome to the mid roll. It is 5:50 PM Central Time, and
(27:55):
it is pitch dark outside. Brothers it is.
It is so. Dark and it is so cold and I'm
so sleepy, but it's not even 6:00.
It's not even 6:00. And I want to go to bed.
Oh, why haven't we abolished daylight savings time yet?
Who wants this? OK.
(28:18):
I'm going to rally. I'm going to rally you guys.
We're going to do this. We're going to get through this
mid roll, and I hope that you'relistening to this podcast during
daylight hours when there's still light and good in the
world. But we're here in the dark and
we're just going to get through it.
We're going to get through it OK.
OK, first I want to say a big thank you to our latest Patreon.
That's right, Anxiety Ice Cream.Thank you so much for becoming a
(28:40):
patron on October 31st. Our spookiest Patreon patron
ever, I might say. So thank you so much, Anxiety
Ice cream. If you would like to become a
Patreon patron and support what we do and support this show in
this podcast and make sure that we can continue to do it
forever, make sure you go over there and subscribe.
(29:01):
We do really fun monthly live streams at some of the higher
tiers and at the lower tiers, there's tons of bonus goofs,
stuff that doesn't make it into the podcast.
That's at our lowest tier and there is probably at least over
100 hours of bonus content. It just in in very small chunks
that you'll be able to drip feedyourself or munch on like little
(29:22):
birds at a bird feeder and theirlittle podcast seeds.
So head on over to patreon.com/legend Lark if you
would like to eat from our podcast bird feeder that is
patreon.com/legend Lark. I'm just typing it into the URL
box just to make sure I have it right.
(29:43):
And I did. So we're good there.
Next, I would love to thank somebody and highlight a great
comment from our Spotify. If you would like us to
highlight a comment, comment on Spotify.
This one is from Cyberpunk dot Neverland, who says Chorp is my
romantic ideal, Not of a crane, just in general.
(30:03):
And brother, it is for all of us.
I didn't expect it to be. I was just delighted when I
wrote down in my little world building compendium.
I wrote down Chorp. Chorp is a crane.
From there it has grown into a beautiful, beautiful crane that
we all want to romance. So thank you so much Cyberpunk
Neverland next Oh I have an ad from our store that is something
(30:28):
you can buy from us. Our store you can buy a one time
ad read This one is for Adventurers Codecs.
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community funded project. The tool is free to use, so
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That's Adventurous codecs.com. Thank you so much Adventurous
Codecs for providing that excellent ad copy.
I appreciate it so much. It was good ad copy, so make
(31:31):
sure you check them out because they wrote us good ad copy and I
love that so much. Speaking of things that I love
so much, it is our social media and I love it when you follow us
on social media and make us morepopular there so that more
people find us and they find thecool things that we're doing.
So make sure you are following us at legend Larkpod on Tumblr
on blue sky Instagram, Reddit, Tiktok, YouTube, and if you are
(31:55):
a discord girly or or gorly or Guiley or whatever, Lee, make
sure you join our fan run discord.
It is extremely fun. There are good people over there
and you can scream about how much you also want to fuck the
bird because everyone else does too.
So check us out in all those places.
(32:15):
And finally, a message to Chantelle.
Chantelle, it's so dark and it'sso cold, and Father Winter has
come for us once again. So I hope you're staying safe
out there. Your target is a vital
importance to our continued survival, so I know you will not
(32:35):
fail Chantal. The code word is roll hard.
The sleeper agent is active. Go.
(32:57):
OK, let's do our downtime activities.
Let's do it. I mean Valerian, do you want to
go first since you have the mostobvious one?
Yeah, I'm going to go to nurse Debbie.
OK. I don't like it.
Is it like a? Level 2 harm or a level 1 harm?
The first one I have is that I got the wind knocked out of me
and then I have that I got my throat clopped, which is what's
affecting my voice. OK.
And so you have. Please don't say you got your
(33:18):
throat clock. That's what I have written down
and say I have that written downand.
It's what happened that down. You wrote.
That down of your own own free will, and I'm taking away your
free. Will and I.
Continue to say it of my own free will.
Anyways, those are both level 1 harm.
So I have, like, less effect. Yes.
Yeah. So I'm gonna go to Nurse Debbie.
And are you going to go all alone?
(33:39):
I mean, if you guys don't fucking come with me, I guess I
will. I'm just curious if you're going
to try to get us to come with you or if you're just going to
go. No, he would never ask for you
to come with. But he would like put on your
coat and like look. Back and I do.
Look at the door and then like Ijust do a little thing and then
like look. I do that and I write on my
notebook that I'm going to the nurse like 5 times and show it
(34:00):
to all of you in the span of like 30 minutes to be like I'm
going to the nurse Pepper wants you to.
Have an awesome time at the Nurse and Pepper.
Pepper keeps getting you like a big thumbs up and a big smile.
Every time you say that, Valerian just frowns at you and
he tries to look disappointed, but you can tell there's like a
hint of like, sadness, malice. Yeah, malice, sadness.
(34:24):
Like potential future revenge. Doesn't know and.
He doesn't even bother trying toget Friedrich to come because he
knows Friedrich might want to come and that actually could be
a problem. So I guess he goes alone.
Yeah, you make your way to nurseDebbie's office.
When you come in, she is helpingone of the Bluebirds.
(34:45):
He got a scraped knee, and she'sputting a little Band-Aid on it.
And she gives the Band-Aid a little kiss, and she gives him a
lollipop and sends him on his way.
And then she looks up at you andgoes, oh, you again.
What'd you do this time? Valerian cowers and points to
his throat. Oh, I can see that.
Oh, I feel like I know that footprint.
(35:05):
How'd you get on a fight with Overlock?
Valerian size and nods. Yeah, that little fucker can can
pack a punch or a kick. I see.
He writes in his notebook that little person has the weight of
10,000 men packed into its tiny little body.
Yeah, crazy how that works. Here's my piece of advice to you
(35:28):
Never get in a fight with a brass jaw.
Those guys will knock you. The fuck out.
Valerian writes that down in hisnotebook.
Brass jaw all. Right.
Well, let's see what we can do for you.
Have a seat. OK.
All right, go ahead and roll 2 dice and take the higher.
Take the higher. Yes, she is level 2.
OK pray for me you guys. Brother I got 2 fives.
(35:53):
Two fives? Hell yeah.
So you get to take out two segments of your healing clock.
Okay, and what does that mean again?
You have to get 4 segments. Yeah, to drop your level 1 harms
down to level 0 and take them off.
When you fill it up, it'll get rid of both of them okay.
Yep. I guess I'll use both of my
downtime activities for this because I do.
(36:14):
I need, I need that shit. So should I just roll again?
Roll again? Yeah, Hope for fours or?
Fives. Oh shit.
Or sixes or 6. I did get a six.
Yay, so that fills 3 segments ofthe clock, which should get you
there, and you drop your level 1harms.
OK, and that doesn't carry over next time.
(36:36):
Like I don't start. No, next time.
We're ugly. So fucked up.
No, no, it's fucked up. Harm, no harm, no harm.
Crazy amount of stress still. Crazy amount of stress, but
maybe I'll. Get trauma.
Yeah, fun and flirty that can be.
Fun trauma, yeah. OK.
All right, So yeah, Nurse Debbietakes a look at your throat and
(36:56):
she looks at you in the eyes andshe says, my Lord, you're being
a baby. And then she gives you a lozenge
and sends you on your way. A.
Lozenge was awesome. Valerian starts sucking on the
lozenge and suddenly, as soon asit touches his tongue, like a
(37:19):
miracle, he can talk. And it wasn't that he couldn't
talk before, it was just that hewasn't talking.
Right. Yeah.
What she gave you was basically the equivalent of a Ricola.
It was a Ricola, which I actually just had one.
Yeah, she just gave you a Ricolaand a few other Ricolas.
Like she gave you a little bag of Ricolas to take you on your
way. And to Valerian, that's a magic
pill right now that is a magic pill.
(37:41):
Your magic, Ricolas Ricola. Yes.
It says does it say Ricola on it?
Like is it? Literally.
Yeah, it does. It is genuinely A Ricola bag.
Yes, yes. What?
Flavor do you think they are? He has the one that I just had,
which is Honey Lemon and Echinacea.
All right, Yeah. So you got a bag of Ricolas and
are sent on your way and you're fully healed.
(38:01):
Wow. Hell yes, Miracle.
All right, Friedrich, what are you going to do with your two
downtime activities? Yes.
So the first downtime activity Iwant to do is reduce some
stress. So I'm going to indulge my vice.
For me, my vice is weird, which means I'm like experimenting
(38:22):
with my alchemicals. OK, so you will roll your
weakest quality, insight, prowess or resolve.
OK, so whichever you have the least in, that's what you roll.
I have the least in resolve. I have one like dot in resolve.
OK, then you get to roll one dice.
OK. And you want to make sure you
don't overindulge. Oh yeah, well that's not
(38:43):
possible because I have 6 stress.
OK. Nice.
OK, I rolled it too. Oh boy.
The work just ain't hidden right.
That's fine, it still helps. It helps a little bit, but like
your experiments are not going well.
It takes the edge off. So Friedrich, you know, he's
doing a little tinkering and then this is going to roll into
what I want to do next, which isI want to start working on a
(39:06):
long term project. OK.
So I think what I'll do is I actually, I want to talk to
Pepper. Pepper is practicing for her big
performance. Yes, OK.
So Friedrich is going to kind oftimidly approach you and he is
going to say Miss Pepper. Do you have a moment?
(39:27):
Pepper gives you a big. Smile and says Miss Pepper was
my dad's name. You can just call me Pepper.
And Friedrich looks like really baffled for a minute, but then
he just kind of, you can see on his face, he's just like, I
can't got it. We can't unpack all that.
What do you need? Well, I've, I've come up with an
idea based on seeing your prowess on the field and I'd,
(39:51):
well, I think there's an opportunity, if you would permit
me, I'd like to find a way to understand the connection
between the feats that you perform with your music and the
effects you've been able to invoke.
But I'd like a sample of your blood.
You, I really thought you were going to say that you want me to
(40:13):
like play a song or like dude, like even like a dance or snail
my fingers or something, but youwant my blood.
Well, I mean those other things might might indeed come in handy
at at later points and I may call upon you.
I mean. I guess like, what am I doing
with it that's so important? Sure.
It won't be much, but as soon asit bears fruit, you'll be the
(40:36):
first to know. What do you mean by that?
What are you going to do with it?
Well, I'm not sure yet, but I'llkeep you posted.
I'm OK, Well, I already agreed, so I guess I can't say no now.
And she holds out her arm. And Friedrich looks a little
guilty and he says, well, I, I, I, I only meant I didn't want to
(40:57):
give you a hopes up in case I'm not exactly sure how things will
turn out, but I, I, it won't be of any harm to you.
I I guarantee that. OK, well, that sounds good.
I trust you. And Friedrich looks even
guiltier, but he does lead you into his, you know, little lab
set up in his room. I, I mean, really, it's his work
(41:18):
table that's covered in chemistry equipment.
And he does take a small blood sample from you.
Horrible. Pepper passes out, but then she.
Wakes up really fast. Oh my God, she just.
Oh my God, she just gets. Woozy when people take her
blood. It's OK, she's fine.
She woke up. Out.
Yeah, she like. Loses consciousness for just
like a second. She's like, oh.
My God, Friedrich like would like definitely freaking out if
(41:43):
that happens and he's he's like looking at you frantically and
like taking you by the shouldersand shaking you.
I'm good. I'm fine.
Sorry. Whoa.
I don't know what came over me. I'm good.
You struggle quite all right. Yeah.
Is that my blood? And then she her eyes like
rollback again. Oh my God, Friedrich like
(42:05):
fetches some like fucking smelling salts.
And Pepper smells them and she jumps right up and.
She's like, oh, I feel better, OK, see you later.
And she leaves. Nice.
All right, so Friedrich, what isyour ultimate goal with this
project? Cloning Pepper.
Yep, no. What I want to do is I want to
create a consumable alchemical that will make the drinker
(42:29):
immune to the harm effects of myvapor.
The nice thing is I didn't want to go too into it because I'm
not sure how much Friedrich understands of it yet, but the
vapor that I picked for him, Quicksilver, the harm it does is
like a level 2 harm zoned out. But the positive thing that it
does is it gives you like a bonus to a tune rolls if you're
(42:52):
a tuning to the ghost. Field.
So there, there's like somethingabout it.
I looked into like how the kind of long term projects work and I
was reading about specifically how they work when you are a
Leech and you're crafting like an alchemical.
Based on what I kind of read, I thought that an 8 segment clock
to make one invention of this alchemical would be reasonable.
(43:15):
And the way that I'll fill the clock is I have to use a
downtime activity to roll. So it will probably take me
several down times to complete this project.
That sounds good. So you've started your long term
project. Are you able to roll for it this
first time? Yes.
OK, so why don't you give them aroll?
Let's see how many segments of your eight part clock that you
fill. Oh yeah, and I get to roll an in
action, so. Yeah, I think tinker because
(43:37):
you're experimenting, you're tinkering.
OK, OK. I rolled a three, so that's just
one out of the 8 segments. All right.
Sounds good. You've just made a start.
You got slowed down by the fact that Pepper passed out twice.
Yeah, the blood was but the first step.
All right, so that is Friedrich's downtime.
(43:59):
Pepper, how do you spend your downtime here in this brief,
brief pause between heists? All right, So the first thing
that Pepper wants to do for sureis she wants to indulge her
vice. So her vice is obligation, Yes,
and she indulged it last time byupdating her coat, which has
(44:21):
like a scary memento style listson it.
However, she hasn't gotten a lotof new information from this
world that she's been in. So I think if you'll allow me,
Cat Pepper would want to go backoutside.
Oh yeah for sure. You can go back outside, just
(44:42):
Don your PPE. Yeah.
So she stops. Yeah, she stops by the costume
department, gets her hazmat suitonce again.
What do they look like? They're like big old radiation
suits. And she, she steps out and I
think she's looking for familiarsigns, signs that she looks for
in every dead world she comes across, really.
(45:04):
And she is humming and playing her lute as she does to try and
sense anything she can. OK, hey, my highest is 5.
Highest is A5. Okay, how much stress does that
clear with? The hell yeah that clears all my
stress exactly. Hey good, you didn't over enjoy.
(45:25):
That I didn't get a fix. Yeah, that's nice.
Okay, all right. Cool.
And cat. Do I find anything?
You find a sign that has the name of this town on it, and the
name of the town was Hold fast to ye loves, and turn thy eyes
to God. OK.
So I don't know if. I love that but she doesn't find
(45:46):
any signs of like what she's looking for.
I don't think she finds any signs.
That's the only intact sign she finds, and it's.
It's literally a sign it's. Literally a sign.
OK, what's she looking for? She's looking for something.
She's looking for something. Pepper, do you feel relieved
that you found no sign in this place?
Well, I mean, I wouldn't call itrelieved anyway.
(46:10):
And then when she goes back in the train, she updates her coat
with the name of this place and she can't really update anything
else. All right.
And then I think I'm going to train towards getting a new
ability, so I'm going to put that in my playbook.
OK, what does training look likefor you, Pepper?
I think Pepper would spend some time exploring the train.
(46:30):
She's gathering information. She's talking to people about
what other things might be useful in indulging her vice,
what other information she mightneed to start collecting, what
clues she might need to be looking for.
And she is also ingratiating herself with Nurse Debbie
because she really likes cough drops.
And so she keeps. Stopping by to get another one.
(46:53):
And Nurse Debbie because you arenice to Nurse Debbie.
Nurse Debbie loves you. Yeah, well, I mean, Nurse
Debbie's super nice and wonderful.
Yeah, she's nice to everybody. It's like not a problem to make
friends. She's literally.
Nice to. Valerian too, like I.
Thought that's. Why I moved to Valerian?
Friedrich is definitely, like, weird and nosy.
(47:13):
So Friedrich is like very worried about his future lab
space being taken from him. And so when you do come in, like
late at night, he hears the dooropening.
He's kept the little door to hisroom cracked and he, like, is
peeking through the door, like trying to see, you know who's
(47:34):
coming because he's worried thatit is someone there to, like,
cut all of our throats in the night.
Yeah, and Pepper is like, really, like, really, really,
really, really slowly, like getting the door closed, but
then it kind of gets. Stuck.
So she's like. Junk.
Oh my God. And then she like, looks around
and then she's like really, really slowly taking off her
loot, but then she kind of slipsand it goes.
(47:56):
And is it dark I assume in our room?
There's a horse night light. We have to go by like when
Valerian sleeps like that has to.
Be. Yeah.
Yeah, honestly that's all of ourall of our day night cycles
based on Valerian, so. Oh yeah, is with Valerian
sleeping in the main room. I guess he that's where he
because. That's it's Valerian's room,
Yeah. So we have to come in because
it's the closest to. Yeah, so I guess he would just
(48:19):
also probably he would be a light sleeper too, so he
probably would also be woken up by.
This, but Pepper doesn't think that you guys have been woken up
by this at all and she's like sneaking over to her room.
Well, Friedrich like flips on the light really quick and
already has like a grenade in hand and it's like stop.
Right there I'm. Sorry.
I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
(48:40):
I didn't mean to. What?
Pepper, Are we in a fight right now?
No, Valerian bolts upright when you do that, when you turn the
light on and you scream and he has a horse eyed sleeping mask
on. Yeah, it's got like, but the
eyes are like too far apart. They're like really far apart.
What a relief. And then she looks at Valerian
and she's like. Sorry, sorry.
(49:03):
I I thought you were, I thought you were somebody else or.
What is the commotion? What's happening?
I thought you were one of the Piper Lords coming here to cut
our. Throats like a paper.
Lord, I am one of the Piper Lords.
Not like that. Nobody laughed at my joke.
Everyone was talking over my joke, I said.
More like a paper Lord. Anyway, I just got here to go to
(49:28):
bed. Sorry I'm.
I'm sorry I'm getting home late.This is just like when I was a
kid, I assume. Where?
Were you? Are you all right?
Oh. Yeah, no, I'm fine.
I'm totally, I'm good. There's there's it's no problem.
I just was out outside you. You weren't trying to busk
(49:50):
again, were you? No, come on, I wouldn't do that.
Friedrich, you know you were only pretending to be her dad.
Hey, wait, Yeah, you can't tell me what to do, can you?
I. I don't.
I don't. I wasn't pretending to be your
dad. I just that that woman said that
you'd be in serious danger if you if you were to.
(50:11):
So I just was making sure. I'm not in danger, I've fussed
tons of time since they told me not to.
It's fine. Why would you do that?
The spirit of music was in my body, you know, I was feeling
it. Pepper, no one here relates to
your lived experiences. Nobody here understands that.
(50:35):
Least of all me. So I'm just going to go straight
to bed. OK.
As Pepper is trying to sneak offinto her room, you notice that
she has, like, a little baggie tucked into her belt that has,
like, the, like, biohazard symbol.
Yeah, like, basically the biohazard symbol on it.
And who knows where it came from?
(50:58):
And I look over at Valerian and I say.
You're not worried about this? What part of it should I be
worried about? I just look at Valerian and then
I like roll my eyes in disgust and I say never mind and I go
off to my room. Do you turn the light out when
you go back into your room? No, I leave it.
(51:21):
OK then. Valerian storms to your room and
knocks on your door. Do you open it back?
I'm going to sleep, what do you want?
Turn the fucking light out when you leave and then he turns the
light out himself. When she says that, Valerian has
(52:03):
surprised Pikachu face. Did you call this ooze a she?
Yeah, what is, what is, what is?Pronounced I'm sorry I gendered
the ooze, I'm sorry that I don't.
Gender my don't gender my ooze, you gender me at the ooze.
You gender me at the football. Sorry.
You guys, I just went to the most insane place on earth and
it's in Wisconsin. I was recently on.
Madison. No Milwaukee, no worse.
Green. Bay worse than any of those.
I mean, I don't know about worsethan any of those, but different
Menominee and it is a place called House on the Rock and.
(00:21):
It's religious. It's not.
It is the opposite of religious.If you can imagine that God is
dead there, they killed, they killed him, him and buried his
body beneath the house on the rock.
Yeah. So House on the Rock.
I forget the name of the architect who built it, but
architect is a. Generous term.
(00:41):
It's a very generous term because according to his
multiple autobiographies that hedid, he met with Frank Lloyd
Wright and showed him the plans.And Frank Lloyd Wright was like,
this is insane and bad and you're bad at architecture and
you should never, ever build this.
And he said, fuck you, Frank Lloyd Wright.
I'm going to build my house on abig rock.
However. Sounds religious.
This sounds like a parable. Right.
(01:02):
The thing is, though, that FrankLloyd Wright and him were not
contemporaries. They were not in Wisconsin at
the same time. This almost certainly never
happened. And this should set the tone for
everything else in this insane place.
This is a man who one of the things in is.
It a house. Sort of.
Yeah, it's, it's a complex. It's a it started as a house.
(01:24):
So you go in and it's like this man was in the 70s a weeaboo.
So he's a proto weeaboo with an insane amount of money.
So he's built this sort of like Japanese style house on this
rock. It is not structurally sound and
there's like so many, like you walk in and there's a
conversation pit and then there's like this big Japanese
(01:45):
like fireplace thing with giant pots in it.
There's a lot of carpeting. There's a Oh yeah, there's
carpet on the ceiling, carpet onthe floor, carpet on the wall.
The pictures you sent are all oflike circus.
Oh. We're going to go there.
So like you go through it is a house, but it's like this is a
house that was made for cocaine sex parties like 100.
(02:08):
And 10% made for that, no? He's got this.
This house has probably, I don'tknow, 8 or 9 different
conversation pits, some of which.
Are like made of conversation pits I would say.
Yeah. And getting through the house is
like going through a maze. There's no like straight line
from front to back. You are like winding around
various features. Indoor water features even
though everything is carpet. And then like, all around is
(02:30):
like this antique looking stuff.So like a lot of the light
fixtures are these like busty women holding torches.
And then there's like multiple big fireplaces full of enormous
pots. And they're like meant to look
like a Japanese hearth, but like, no fire certainly ever
burned there. What I'm getting from this is
that is the Wisconsin version ofthe Winchester House.
(02:52):
This guy was crazy. He was crazy with money in that
he had too much of it and nothing else to do.
So he started with this insane house.
But then you walk from the houseand you're like, I'm now going
into this little tunnel, where am I going?
And then you emerge into a recreation of a turn of the 20th
century little town that is inside.
(03:13):
Underground. Yeah, underground and has all
these Disneyland style like buildings where like you look
into to the shop window and it has like, oh, this is a
glassware shop and it has a collection of antique glassware.
And he do. This and this is a taxidermist
shop and it has a bunch of little frogs in the window
playing instruments. You know it's a tourist trap
like. It's a tourist.
(03:34):
Trap insane and gigantic and. But like, the wildest thing is,
it was not started as a tourist trap.
He did not start letting people into this place until he started
running out of money. And then he started selling
tickets so that he could keep building it.
That is crazy. Yeah, this is a man.
Man who just. Man, that's what I would do.
Had a lot of money to. Honestly say well so you you.
(03:54):
Want if it's underground, it's not on a fucking rock.
Oh yeah, it's actually not underground, though.
You think you're going underground?
What you're actually going into is a giant warehouse.
Building. It's a separate.
It's a separate building. Yeah, it's a separate building.
There's there's three buildings in this complex, the main house,
which I already described, and then two giant like airplane
hanger sized warehouses that areconnected to it via some like
(04:16):
cleverly disguised walkways. But it feels like you're going
underground when you go into theside.
And at the very end of this townis the first of what is featured
throughout this, which is a player orchestra.
So like you put a coin in and the instruments play themselves.
There are probably two dozen of these throughout the entire and.
(04:36):
A lot of them have like fake like marionette type people.
That they play. Yeah, that's amazing.
It's wild. So you get to the first one of
those and you're like, OK, can'tget any crazier than this.
What's the next theme? Ah, maritime.
OK, so you go into like the next.
But inside. Yes, so and you see like some
model ships and you're like coolmodel ships.
(04:57):
Oh, a cool model of a crack and a giant whale fighting.
And then you go into the next room and that model of the
Kraken and the giant whale fighting is 2 stories tall
inside the room. And then you go up like a
walkway and you go into like, I don't know, another insane
display. And the big like feature of the
place is this enormous carousel that you can't go on.
(05:19):
It has like mannequins riding the carousel.
Gary love that. I love it.
Yeah, later. Like once you get past the
carousel it gets even fucking weirder because.
You have to go through like a big demon mouth.
Yeah, you go through a big demonmouth into hell, and then
there's another smaller carousel, and this one is all
dolls. All, like, porcelain dolls.
(05:40):
Yeah. Yeah.
And that one is, like, smaller in width, but it's like, 2
stories tall with all these, like, porcelain dolls riding
carousel horses. And then at the top, there are
carved wooden figurines of womenwith animal heads playing
instruments. Now their name.
We have to publicly announce thesponsorship that we got from
House of the Rock. For this.
(06:00):
Or they don't. They can't afford to sponsor me.
I wish. I feel like we're driving
business there though, for sure.I hope you do because it needs
to stay open forever and it is the most insane place in the
world. I've been there twice.
Yeah, I've been. This is my second time going as
well and the first time that I was like 13 so I barely
remembered it when I. Was really little but I should
(06:21):
go back. Is this man still alive?
No. This man is quite dead.
He died of a lot of cocaine and hookers I presume.
Well, what a way to go. I know all of those sex pits in
the main house had to be used for something.
And I think part of it is it's sort of like, you know, he
creates A labyrinth so that all his party guests could never
leave. That's kind of like the
impression I get from it. They're.
Stuck there. They're stuck there forever,
(06:43):
partying and doing more and moreand more cocaine.
And Speaking of more cocaine, let's play Blades of the Dark.
(07:14):
Hi. My name is Kat and I am your
cocaine sex pit. Hi, my name is Noelle, I play
Pepper and I'm also on the rock.Hi, my name is Juniper, I play
Valerian and he's a slide and I am hunting you for sport through
(07:37):
the house on the rock every night and if I catch you I will
kill you. Yay Errol, take it away.
Hi, my name is Errol. I play Friedrich Weiss, a Leech,
and I am being haunted for sportin the House on the Rock.
OK, so last time you guys were given a subordinate Piper Lord
(08:01):
to help you out with your heist.His name is MO and he's a cow
herd. From there you robbed the Bright
Rooter Collective for the Piper Lords.
This was your test of loyalty. And just when all seemed lost,
you'd set off the alarm because you guys had some pretty bad
roles. Some pretty good roles, but also
some pretty bad rules. But you used a flashback to
(08:22):
reveal that this was your plan all along.
Your real plan was to work with the Brightwater Collective to
pretend to rob them so that theyhave a reason to go after the
Piper Lords who are their rivals.
So like I mentioned some pretty bad rules there as Valerian got
so badly beat up by a little dandelion person named Overlock
(08:45):
Hess, Pitt and Pepper rolled so extremely well.
She got the Daricetum, the drug that you were sent to steal.
She got that all by herself. Well, with some help from
Friedrich and the Piper Lords, they're now under suspicion as
is a Friedrich's uniform was seen at the scene and then
(09:06):
Friedrich in classic Friedrich fashion through a smoke bomb.
And you guys got out of there. So that is where we are now.
We are now in. Downtime.
So let's get into the downtime activities that we need to do.
Nice. So off mic, we did do some
leveling up. I think Pepper, you levelled up
an attribute. Yeah, so I got one in Skirmish,
(09:27):
so I'll be a little bit better at fighting from now on.
And then we also got a new crew ability which will give us
another dice on engagement rolls, which is what we do at
the beginning of a score when we're doing a sneaky plan, which
we'd like to do. Yep.
So that is good. So first thing we're going to
cover is pay off. You guys don't want to get paid
for this. You guys didn't get any fares
(09:49):
from this. Your only pay off is the sample
of the Daracetum and the goodwill of the Brightwater
Collective. Now do the Piper Lords not give
us anything for the sample of the Daracetum?
Well, I think that's going to belike kind of part of.
Heist Part 2. That's part of heist Part 2.
This was just you proving your loyalty to them.
OK, Yeah. Yeah, so they didn't pay you for
this, got it. So no pay off, but you do get
(10:10):
some Rep for this. You earn 2 Rep by default, the
target is a higher tier from you, so you get one Rep for
that, leveling up your reputation so that you can
eventually level up your tier. Next we're going to talk about
heat and notoriety. You guys didn't earn any heat
from this because heat is something we are tracking only
in the any ever only off the train.
However, you guys did get some notoriety.
(10:32):
So notoriety is your reputation within the train.
So the denizens have never nowhere respect a gang that
takes big swings and pulls them off, but are hesitant to work
with anyone who draws too much heat or disrupts the any ever
too much. If your notoriety gets too high,
other gangs may decide that you are too much of A liability and
attempt to contain or neutralizeyou.
(10:52):
But you also don't want to have no notoriety because otherwise
everyone's like who the fuck arethese guys?
I don't want to do with them. So we will go through the heat
questions and then that affects your notoriety.
So for heat, let's see, first wehave to ask how'd this go?
Was it smooth, quiet, low exposure?
Was it contained standard exposure, loud and chaotic, or
(11:15):
wild with devastating exposure? I mean, it was.
Definitely loud and chaotic. We kind of wanted.
It, but it was meant to. Be that way, yeah.
I would put it at contained personally because I think you
guys accomplished what you wanted to accomplish.
We. Wanted it to be crazy so that
we. Could so that we could, Yeah.
So it was. And I I think that wouldn't
bring down. So the way notoriety works is so
(11:37):
that would be two heat. We're not going to track the
heat because you're not in the any ever.
Instead you just gained 1 notoriety.
Right, OK. So 1 notoriety for a very public
target, which this was, you wereat a gang's party.
One notoriety if the target was pursued by another gang and
never nowhere or occurred on another gang's turf.
I won't give you notoriety for that because you guys were
working with the Brightwater Collective for this.
(11:58):
OK. One notoriety if the target was
on the turf of the gang you are at war with.
Nope. And two, notoriety if it
resulted in a death. Nope.
So you got 1. So next we are going to roll for
your entanglements. Now your entanglements are based
off of your heat. Your heat is at 4 I think.
So 5. Five.
Okay, why don't you guys roll mea D?
(12:19):
6 please. 1. One OK.
Is that good? That's that's good, Brad.
So your actions have caused the head of a district other than
your own put out a general warning among the residents of
their district to pay too fair in a show of good faith.
You guys have no money so you can't do that.
Find another way to prove yourselves to the district head
(12:40):
or lose 1 status with all gangs in the district.
In what district is it that's? The dark lamp canal.
OK, because that's where the theheist was.
So who's the head of the Dark Lamp Canal District?
Great question. The head of the Dark Lamp Canal
is someone named Krista Kiros Down Frost.
She is the leader of the Green Company who is a gang.
(13:01):
You guys have not yet had any dealings?
With so, does that mean that gang is kind of the lead gang in
the Dark Lamp Canal District? Yes, much like the Piper Lords
are the lead gang in Moth Light.Got it.
So you guys have kind of two options here.
Either you can take -1 Rep with every gang in Dark Lamp, which
is not great, I'll say that's not great.
(13:23):
Or you guys can have a meeting with Krista Karos and you know,
just find a way for you guys to prove yourselves to her so that
she does not blackball you from her district.
OK, well Pepper would definitelywant to do that because she
needs to do that anyway, and this is where she lives.
Yeah. She lives here.
It does. I think that.
Sounds better than taking the hit to our Rep.
We might as well try. Yes, we certainly can't pay the
(13:45):
fare. So this is after you guys have
gotten back from this party. You guys are out in your room.
This is like half a day later, 6to 8 hours or whatever.
You've had a minute to lick yourwounds.
You guys are resting up in your room recovering from this job
that went, I would say, horriblywrong.
I mean it went pretty wrong for Valerian, but you guys otherwise
(14:07):
accomplished your goal. Yeah, Pepper and I feel great.
Yeah. Valerian's languishing on the
couch. Yeah, you are laid out on one of
the the couch and you've got like a an ice pack or something,
a bag of peas. Yeah, on your throat and
valerian. Because you are laid out like
that, you are the first one to notice.
You see a green ooze dripping through the vent is not dripping
(14:30):
down. It's just sort of like pulling
on the ceiling around the vent. I think because Valerian has a
sore throat right now and he's trying to take care of it.
He has a bell on the end table next to the couch, so he starts
ringing that. He starts ringing that madly.
Pepper ignores that because Valerian's been ringing that a
lot. Is Pepper in the room?
(14:52):
Yeah, she's like facing the other way.
She's. He throws it at her.
She's ignoring him. Oh, do you actually need help?
Sorry. Pepper jumps up.
Valerian points to the ceiling where the green ooze is coming
down, and then he claps his handtwo times.
Pepper looks at it and she kind of like, rubs her eyes and
blinks and like, looks at it again and then she is there like
(15:15):
furniture that I can like, climbup on into the vent.
Horse chairs, The legs of chairs.
Are OK. Our.
Ooves. All right.
I climb up onto the fucking horse chairs and I peer closer
at the ooze and I want to touch it.
(15:35):
As you reach out to touch it, the ooze reaches back and slaps
your finger right. Oh.
It's moving. It's moving a lot.
Hello Ooze. And she tries to touch it again.
It slaps her finger away again. As and as you're doing this,
more of the ooze is like puddling onto the ceiling, and
at a certain point it finally all drops down onto the floor
(15:57):
with a wet plop. After a moment, the puddle of
ooze on the floor forms up into a more sort of a a mound shape
and two eyes roll out of the ooze to blink at you, and then a
mouth sort of forms out of it. Oh Hilarion, I guess it's it's a
friend and she bangs on the doornext to her that I'm assuming is
(16:20):
Friedrich's door. I crack the door.
I say what? The devil is going on out there.
Come out, come out. There's something.
Come out. And I see the like sentient
slime BLOB thing and I say oh good Lord.
And I grab like a bandolier of Al chemicals and maybe like a
vial or two and I come out and I'm like keeping my distance
(16:41):
from this thing and. You're just holding the
chemicals, like defensively. Yeah.
And I look at Valerian and I say.
What have you done now? Valerian doesn't dignify you
with a response, but he does getup and he goes over to look at
the ooze and he waves at it. What rudeness?
Well, I wasn't trying to be rude.
(17:02):
Earned. Reputation, it seems.
Valerian frantically shakes his head and points at his throat to
gesture, but he cannot speak right now because he's really
taking care of it. Yeah, the ooze ignores you.
It doesn't actually care at all.He's so.
You guys, we have a reputation. Yes, reputationists.
(17:22):
Timeless, cowardly two timer. We.
We wouldn't. Not us, not us.
How did you even get in here? Valerian points to the vent.
Yes, through the vent it may be hard for others to travel, but
with my trim figure and the oozesort of jiggles.
(17:46):
As it says, nice. I can go where others cannot and
I can hide where I cannot be seen, such as, say, in the
Bright Water Collective's club. Yes, I was there during your
planned betrayal. That doesn't sound like us.
(18:09):
Friedrich is kind of palming through what he has with him and
he says and how. Do you respond to salt?
I enjoy it on my food, it has a pleasant zest.
Just checking. Yes.
Don't worry, most people check that first.
They think I'm a slug. I'm not.
I'm a slime mold. Oh.
(18:32):
On my world, we slime molds had quite the long standing
reputation of glory. Sadly, this is not a common
reputation for my kind among allthe world's that we visit
irregardless my. Lady Krista Krios.
(18:54):
Has asked that I pass along the message of summons, otherwise we
shall speak to the rest of the gangs in the Dark Left Canal
about your activities. Oh, Krista Krios.
Oh that's I'm. I'm supposed to meet with her.
Anyways, this works out great. Meet with her.
(19:15):
Who is this Krista Krios? Oh, I think she's like the boss
of the place where I live, the canal or something.
She's like the head artist. She's.
The head of the District of the Darkland Canal.
She told me not to busk. But you know, things happen when
you're really feeling it, so. Valerian gives you a little
(19:39):
smack on your arm because you'renot doing us favors.
Well, why don't you talk to? Oh, he gets.
He's furious. He turns around and he storms
back to the couch and the end table and he grabs a little
notebook that's full of things he's been saying and requesting
that I've all been ignored. And he comes back.
Yeah. Because they're all crazy.
(20:02):
And he writes in his notebook and it says do not give the
blackmail slime more blackmail and then shows it to you.
Pepper pass the side of her nose.
Yeah, I know that, he writes. I have to go to the nurse with a
frowny face, OK? Forget what I said, little
(20:22):
slime. My name is my little slime.
What's your name? I am.
Urge Burge. OK, forget what I said.
Burge. When should we meet?
When should you meet with her now?
Come with me. Through the fence.
(20:43):
No, and then Burge slithers under your door.
Pepper looks at a loss because she's like, I can't slip, I
can't go under the door. Valerian opens the door if ever
goes through. Friedrich says, Well, I don't
suppose. We have any choice.
(21:04):
And follows along. All right.
So you guys follow Burge throughthe streets and Burge primarily
does not travel on the ground. Burge rolls along walls and
ceilings and things. God damn wish I was Burge,
that's so cool. And it leads you to the dark
Lamp canal and pepper. You've seen the building that it
goes into a few times in passing.
(21:25):
It has a fart facade that looks like a grand and Opera House.
When you come in, there is a lobby carpeted in beautiful red
carpet, and there's a chandelierhanging from the ceiling.
And it has the two staircases that go down on either side from
the upper level. And as you come in, Burge slips
through a vent and leaves you all alone in the grand foyer for
(21:48):
a moment. Oh.
OK, bye. And then at the top of the
stairs, you see Burge reappear just ahead of the most
stunningly beautiful woman. She is 6 feet tall with another
probably 6 inches of hair on topof her head that's just like,
piled up in this, like, enormousmouffant.
(22:09):
And then, like, long tresses that trail down her back as
well. And she's wearing this
voluminous fur lined robe that'smade out of chiffon.
It's very like I killed my thirdhusband.
Yeah. Come to talk to me and I truly
have nothing to do with it. And she looks down at you and
she's like posing with one hand perched on the railing.
(22:31):
And she looks down upon you and says.
Ah, I see the rats have arrived.Welcome, welcome.
We actually only have one rat. Valerian bows at her when she
arrives because he recognizes the the etiquette.
And when you bow to her valerian, she gives a little
(22:53):
dissembling nod, very much like you would have done when a
courtier bowed to you. Yeah, of course, yes.
And she says, I've heard that you bowed to the Rat King, and
yet I also heard from my most faithful goose.
And she sort of reaches up and like tickles Burge as it like
(23:13):
drips down to meet. Her Oh, I.
Don't like that? That you are doing deals on the
side with the Brightwater Collective to double cross the
rat. King.
No, no, no, no, no. That doesn't.
No, we're not doing that. Quick question, are we alone
with her and the ooze? There's no one else in this
space. Yes, you are, to your knowledge,
(23:34):
alone in this foyer with her. What Valerian, he's going to
write first of all. He gestures to the enormous
bruise on his throat and then raises his notebook and then
writes. We have not formally double
crossed anyone as of this momentin time.
Krista Keros looks at the notepad and then looks between
(23:54):
Friedrich and Pepper and like waits for one of you to read it
because she's not coming down there to grab a notepad from
you. We haven't formally double
crossed. Any.
Could could we just go somewherewhere we can speak more
privately? Do you have some sort of
conference room? No, we will speak here.
(24:17):
I shall not let rats run amok inmy theater.
We're not rats. Listen, the Bright Water
Collective seemed to us a more reputable organization.
The Piper Lords forced us into their service and so we were
merely trying to make a more reasonable choice for our
prolonged survival on this train.
(24:37):
You're right, that is a more reasonable choice and I will
admit I have no love. For the rat.
King. He's a thorn in my side, always
has been, and I hope that he will not always be.
But it seems that we're at an impasse is well.
I have a great deal of power over you and I don't know that
(24:59):
you have anything to offer me. But should we be able to rectify
things, well, perhaps our position would be different and
we could be friends. Well, what do you want?
Information, my dear. The reason you see no one else
in this theatre is, of course, because the membership of my
(25:20):
organization is kept very secret.
You see, we deal in unknowns. Oh, and if perhaps you could
bring me something that is unknown, perhaps something about
the Piper Lord's weakness of theirs that would be
exploitable, then I could forgetabout what we know of your
(25:45):
plans. Valerian starts smacking
Friedrich in the shoulder and then writes in his notebook.
Special rat man experimentation question mark, question mark,
question mark and then and then he writes the word.
Special rat man experimentation and.
Then he writes the word. Science Friedrich like looks at
your little paper and like pushes it away and rolls his
(26:06):
eyes in sighs and he says to Chris Decrios.
That shouldn't be a problem. In fact, that should align
rather well with our own goals. So if we're able to find some
weakness in their leadership, we'd be happy to report it back
to you. Very good.
And in exchange, you'll let me busk.
No, in exchange, dear, I will not release the compromising
(26:28):
information that I have upon your gang.
But. If you are.
Looking to busk in the dark lampcanal Burge, will you please
bring the sign up sheet? Darling and Burge disappears up
into a vent, and then you hear like some rattling through the
vents, and then in the vent nearyour feet, a pen and a piece of
paper shoot out. Well, no wonder I couldn't find
(26:51):
the sign up sheet. Pepper grabs the pen and
scribbles her name down. Very Good Burge will contact you
to let you know what your slot is and the time and place in
which you will perform. Should you prove to be a
competent musician. We may move you up to more
slots, more stages. If you are not a competent
(27:12):
musician, well, we'll see what happens then.
If I wasn't a competent musician, I'd be dead.
Yes. You put a point on it very
nicely. Now I have a performance to get
ready for, so please leave. OK, well, it was really nice to
meet you. She is already walking away.
(27:33):
We'll miss. You so.
That went better than I thought.Hello.
Welcome to the mid roll. It is 5:50 PM Central Time, and
(27:55):
it is pitch dark outside. Brothers it is.
It is so. Dark and it is so cold and I'm
so sleepy, but it's not even 6:00.
It's not even 6:00. And I want to go to bed.
Oh, why haven't we abolished daylight savings time yet?
Who wants this? OK.
(28:18):
I'm going to rally. I'm going to rally you guys.
We're going to do this. We're going to get through this
mid roll, and I hope that you'relistening to this podcast during
daylight hours when there's still light and good in the
world. But we're here in the dark and
we're just going to get through it.
We're going to get through it OK.
OK, first I want to say a big thank you to our latest Patreon.
That's right, Anxiety Ice Cream.Thank you so much for becoming a
(28:40):
patron on October 31st. Our spookiest Patreon patron
ever, I might say. So thank you so much, Anxiety
Ice cream. If you would like to become a
Patreon patron and support what we do and support this show in
this podcast and make sure that we can continue to do it
forever, make sure you go over there and subscribe.
(29:01):
We do really fun monthly live streams at some of the higher
tiers and at the lower tiers, there's tons of bonus goofs,
stuff that doesn't make it into the podcast.
That's at our lowest tier and there is probably at least over
100 hours of bonus content. It just in in very small chunks
that you'll be able to drip feedyourself or munch on like little
(29:22):
birds at a bird feeder and theirlittle podcast seeds.
So head on over to patreon.com/legend Lark if you
would like to eat from our podcast bird feeder that is
patreon.com/legend Lark. I'm just typing it into the URL
box just to make sure I have it right.
(29:43):
And I did. So we're good there.
Next, I would love to thank somebody and highlight a great
comment from our Spotify. If you would like us to
highlight a comment, comment on Spotify.
This one is from Cyberpunk dot Neverland, who says Chorp is my
romantic ideal, Not of a crane, just in general.
(30:03):
And brother, it is for all of us.
I didn't expect it to be. I was just delighted when I
wrote down in my little world building compendium.
I wrote down Chorp. Chorp is a crane.
From there it has grown into a beautiful, beautiful crane that
we all want to romance. So thank you so much Cyberpunk
Neverland next Oh I have an ad from our store that is something
(30:28):
you can buy from us. Our store you can buy a one time
ad read This one is for Adventurers Codecs.
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(30:49):
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community funded project. The tool is free to use, so
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That's Adventurous codecs.com. Thank you so much Adventurous
Codecs for providing that excellent ad copy.
I appreciate it so much. It was good ad copy, so make
(31:31):
sure you check them out because they wrote us good ad copy and I
love that so much. Speaking of things that I love
so much, it is our social media and I love it when you follow us
on social media and make us morepopular there so that more
people find us and they find thecool things that we're doing.
So make sure you are following us at legend Larkpod on Tumblr
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(31:55):
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It is extremely fun. There are good people over there
and you can scream about how much you also want to fuck the
bird because everyone else does too.
So check us out in all those places.
(32:15):
And finally, a message to Chantelle.
Chantelle, it's so dark and it'sso cold, and Father Winter has
come for us once again. So I hope you're staying safe
out there. Your target is a vital
importance to our continued survival, so I know you will not
(32:35):
fail Chantal. The code word is roll hard.
The sleeper agent is active. Go.
(32:57):
OK, let's do our downtime activities.
Let's do it. I mean Valerian, do you want to
go first since you have the mostobvious one?
Yeah, I'm going to go to nurse Debbie.
OK. I don't like it.
Is it like a? Level 2 harm or a level 1 harm?
The first one I have is that I got the wind knocked out of me
and then I have that I got my throat clopped, which is what's
affecting my voice. OK.
And so you have. Please don't say you got your
(33:18):
throat clock. That's what I have written down
and say I have that written downand.
It's what happened that down. You wrote.
That down of your own own free will, and I'm taking away your
free. Will and I.
Continue to say it of my own free will.
Anyways, those are both level 1 harm.
So I have, like, less effect. Yes.
Yeah. So I'm gonna go to Nurse Debbie.
And are you going to go all alone?
(33:39):
I mean, if you guys don't fucking come with me, I guess I
will. I'm just curious if you're going
to try to get us to come with you or if you're just going to
go. No, he would never ask for you
to come with. But he would like put on your
coat and like look. Back and I do.
Look at the door and then like Ijust do a little thing and then
like look. I do that and I write on my
notebook that I'm going to the nurse like 5 times and show it
(34:00):
to all of you in the span of like 30 minutes to be like I'm
going to the nurse Pepper wants you to.
Have an awesome time at the Nurse and Pepper.
Pepper keeps getting you like a big thumbs up and a big smile.
Every time you say that, Valerian just frowns at you and
he tries to look disappointed, but you can tell there's like a
hint of like, sadness, malice. Yeah, malice, sadness.
(34:24):
Like potential future revenge. Doesn't know and.
He doesn't even bother trying toget Friedrich to come because he
knows Friedrich might want to come and that actually could be
a problem. So I guess he goes alone.
Yeah, you make your way to nurseDebbie's office.
When you come in, she is helpingone of the Bluebirds.
(34:45):
He got a scraped knee, and she'sputting a little Band-Aid on it.
And she gives the Band-Aid a little kiss, and she gives him a
lollipop and sends him on his way.
And then she looks up at you andgoes, oh, you again.
What'd you do this time? Valerian cowers and points to
his throat. Oh, I can see that.
Oh, I feel like I know that footprint.
(35:05):
How'd you get on a fight with Overlock?
Valerian size and nods. Yeah, that little fucker can can
pack a punch or a kick. I see.
He writes in his notebook that little person has the weight of
10,000 men packed into its tiny little body.
Yeah, crazy how that works. Here's my piece of advice to you
(35:28):
Never get in a fight with a brass jaw.
Those guys will knock you. The fuck out.
Valerian writes that down in hisnotebook.
Brass jaw all. Right.
Well, let's see what we can do for you.
Have a seat. OK.
All right, go ahead and roll 2 dice and take the higher.
Take the higher. Yes, she is level 2.
OK pray for me you guys. Brother I got 2 fives.
(35:53):
Two fives? Hell yeah.
So you get to take out two segments of your healing clock.
Okay, and what does that mean again?
You have to get 4 segments. Yeah, to drop your level 1 harms
down to level 0 and take them off.
When you fill it up, it'll get rid of both of them okay.
Yep. I guess I'll use both of my
downtime activities for this because I do.
(36:14):
I need, I need that shit. So should I just roll again?
Roll again? Yeah, Hope for fours or?
Fives. Oh shit.
Or sixes or 6. I did get a six.
Yay, so that fills 3 segments ofthe clock, which should get you
there, and you drop your level 1harms.
OK, and that doesn't carry over next time.
(36:36):
Like I don't start. No, next time.
We're ugly. So fucked up.
No, no, it's fucked up. Harm, no harm, no harm.
Crazy amount of stress still. Crazy amount of stress, but
maybe I'll. Get trauma.
Yeah, fun and flirty that can be.
Fun trauma, yeah. OK.
All right, So yeah, Nurse Debbietakes a look at your throat and
(36:56):
she looks at you in the eyes andshe says, my Lord, you're being
a baby. And then she gives you a lozenge
and sends you on your way. A.
Lozenge was awesome. Valerian starts sucking on the
lozenge and suddenly, as soon asit touches his tongue, like a
(37:19):
miracle, he can talk. And it wasn't that he couldn't
talk before, it was just that hewasn't talking.
Right. Yeah.
What she gave you was basically the equivalent of a Ricola.
It was a Ricola, which I actually just had one.
Yeah, she just gave you a Ricolaand a few other Ricolas.
Like she gave you a little bag of Ricolas to take you on your
way. And to Valerian, that's a magic
pill right now that is a magic pill.
(37:41):
Your magic, Ricolas Ricola. Yes.
It says does it say Ricola on it?
Like is it? Literally.
Yeah, it does. It is genuinely A Ricola bag.
Yes, yes. What?
Flavor do you think they are? He has the one that I just had,
which is Honey Lemon and Echinacea.
All right, Yeah. So you got a bag of Ricolas and
are sent on your way and you're fully healed.
(38:01):
Wow. Hell yes, Miracle.
All right, Friedrich, what are you going to do with your two
downtime activities? Yes.
So the first downtime activity Iwant to do is reduce some
stress. So I'm going to indulge my vice.
For me, my vice is weird, which means I'm like experimenting
(38:22):
with my alchemicals. OK, so you will roll your
weakest quality, insight, prowess or resolve.
OK, so whichever you have the least in, that's what you roll.
I have the least in resolve. I have one like dot in resolve.
OK, then you get to roll one dice.
OK. And you want to make sure you
don't overindulge. Oh yeah, well that's not
(38:43):
possible because I have 6 stress.
OK. Nice.
OK, I rolled it too. Oh boy.
The work just ain't hidden right.
That's fine, it still helps. It helps a little bit, but like
your experiments are not going well.
It takes the edge off. So Friedrich, you know, he's
doing a little tinkering and then this is going to roll into
what I want to do next, which isI want to start working on a
(39:06):
long term project. OK.
So I think what I'll do is I actually, I want to talk to
Pepper. Pepper is practicing for her big
performance. Yes, OK.
So Friedrich is going to kind oftimidly approach you and he is
going to say Miss Pepper. Do you have a moment?
(39:27):
Pepper gives you a big. Smile and says Miss Pepper was
my dad's name. You can just call me Pepper.
And Friedrich looks like really baffled for a minute, but then
he just kind of, you can see on his face, he's just like, I
can't got it. We can't unpack all that.
What do you need? Well, I've, I've come up with an
idea based on seeing your prowess on the field and I'd,
(39:51):
well, I think there's an opportunity, if you would permit
me, I'd like to find a way to understand the connection
between the feats that you perform with your music and the
effects you've been able to invoke.
But I'd like a sample of your blood.
You, I really thought you were going to say that you want me to
(40:13):
like play a song or like dude, like even like a dance or snail
my fingers or something, but youwant my blood.
Well, I mean those other things might might indeed come in handy
at at later points and I may call upon you.
I mean. I guess like, what am I doing
with it that's so important? Sure.
It won't be much, but as soon asit bears fruit, you'll be the
(40:36):
first to know. What do you mean by that?
What are you going to do with it?
Well, I'm not sure yet, but I'llkeep you posted.
I'm OK, Well, I already agreed, so I guess I can't say no now.
And she holds out her arm. And Friedrich looks a little
guilty and he says, well, I, I, I, I only meant I didn't want to
(40:57):
give you a hopes up in case I'm not exactly sure how things will
turn out, but I, I, it won't be of any harm to you.
I I guarantee that. OK, well, that sounds good.
I trust you. And Friedrich looks even
guiltier, but he does lead you into his, you know, little lab
set up in his room. I, I mean, really, it's his work
(41:18):
table that's covered in chemistry equipment.
And he does take a small blood sample from you.
Horrible. Pepper passes out, but then she.
Wakes up really fast. Oh my God, she just.
Oh my God, she just gets. Woozy when people take her
blood. It's OK, she's fine.
She woke up. Out.
Yeah, she like. Loses consciousness for just
like a second. She's like, oh.
My God, Friedrich like would like definitely freaking out if
(41:43):
that happens and he's he's like looking at you frantically and
like taking you by the shouldersand shaking you.
I'm good. I'm fine.
Sorry. Whoa.
I don't know what came over me. I'm good.
You struggle quite all right. Yeah.
Is that my blood? And then she her eyes like
rollback again. Oh my God, Friedrich like
(42:05):
fetches some like fucking smelling salts.
And Pepper smells them and she jumps right up and.
She's like, oh, I feel better, OK, see you later.
And she leaves. Nice.
All right, so Friedrich, what isyour ultimate goal with this
project? Cloning Pepper.
Yep, no. What I want to do is I want to
create a consumable alchemical that will make the drinker
(42:29):
immune to the harm effects of myvapor.
The nice thing is I didn't want to go too into it because I'm
not sure how much Friedrich understands of it yet, but the
vapor that I picked for him, Quicksilver, the harm it does is
like a level 2 harm zoned out. But the positive thing that it
does is it gives you like a bonus to a tune rolls if you're
(42:52):
a tuning to the ghost. Field.
So there, there's like somethingabout it.
I looked into like how the kind of long term projects work and I
was reading about specifically how they work when you are a
Leech and you're crafting like an alchemical.
Based on what I kind of read, I thought that an 8 segment clock
to make one invention of this alchemical would be reasonable.
(43:15):
And the way that I'll fill the clock is I have to use a
downtime activity to roll. So it will probably take me
several down times to complete this project.
That sounds good. So you've started your long term
project. Are you able to roll for it this
first time? Yes.
OK, so why don't you give them aroll?
Let's see how many segments of your eight part clock that you
fill. Oh yeah, and I get to roll an in
action, so. Yeah, I think tinker because
(43:37):
you're experimenting, you're tinkering.
OK, OK. I rolled a three, so that's just
one out of the 8 segments. All right.
Sounds good. You've just made a start.
You got slowed down by the fact that Pepper passed out twice.
Yeah, the blood was but the first step.
All right, so that is Friedrich's downtime.
(43:59):
Pepper, how do you spend your downtime here in this brief,
brief pause between heists? All right, So the first thing
that Pepper wants to do for sureis she wants to indulge her
vice. So her vice is obligation, Yes,
and she indulged it last time byupdating her coat, which has
(44:21):
like a scary memento style listson it.
However, she hasn't gotten a lotof new information from this
world that she's been in. So I think if you'll allow me,
Cat Pepper would want to go backoutside.
Oh yeah for sure. You can go back outside, just
(44:42):
Don your PPE. Yeah.
So she stops. Yeah, she stops by the costume
department, gets her hazmat suitonce again.
What do they look like? They're like big old radiation
suits. And she, she steps out and I
think she's looking for familiarsigns, signs that she looks for
in every dead world she comes across, really.
(45:04):
And she is humming and playing her lute as she does to try and
sense anything she can. OK, hey, my highest is 5.
Highest is A5. Okay, how much stress does that
clear with? The hell yeah that clears all my
stress exactly. Hey good, you didn't over enjoy.
(45:25):
That I didn't get a fix. Yeah, that's nice.
Okay, all right. Cool.
And cat. Do I find anything?
You find a sign that has the name of this town on it, and the
name of the town was Hold fast to ye loves, and turn thy eyes
to God. OK.
So I don't know if. I love that but she doesn't find
(45:46):
any signs of like what she's looking for.
I don't think she finds any signs.
That's the only intact sign she finds, and it's.
It's literally a sign it's. Literally a sign.
OK, what's she looking for? She's looking for something.
She's looking for something. Pepper, do you feel relieved
that you found no sign in this place?
Well, I mean, I wouldn't call itrelieved anyway.
(46:10):
And then when she goes back in the train, she updates her coat
with the name of this place and she can't really update anything
else. All right.
And then I think I'm going to train towards getting a new
ability, so I'm going to put that in my playbook.
OK, what does training look likefor you, Pepper?
I think Pepper would spend some time exploring the train.
(46:30):
She's gathering information. She's talking to people about
what other things might be useful in indulging her vice,
what other information she mightneed to start collecting, what
clues she might need to be looking for.
And she is also ingratiating herself with Nurse Debbie
because she really likes cough drops.
And so she keeps. Stopping by to get another one.
(46:53):
And Nurse Debbie because you arenice to Nurse Debbie.
Nurse Debbie loves you. Yeah, well, I mean, Nurse
Debbie's super nice and wonderful.
Yeah, she's nice to everybody. It's like not a problem to make
friends. She's literally.
Nice to. Valerian too, like I.
Thought that's. Why I moved to Valerian?
Friedrich is definitely, like, weird and nosy.
(47:13):
So Friedrich is like very worried about his future lab
space being taken from him. And so when you do come in, like
late at night, he hears the dooropening.
He's kept the little door to hisroom cracked and he, like, is
peeking through the door, like trying to see, you know who's
(47:34):
coming because he's worried thatit is someone there to, like,
cut all of our throats in the night.
Yeah, and Pepper is like, really, like, really, really,
really, really slowly, like getting the door closed, but
then it kind of gets. Stuck.
So she's like. Junk.
Oh my God. And then she like, looks around
and then she's like really, really slowly taking off her
loot, but then she kind of slipsand it goes.
(47:56):
And is it dark I assume in our room?
There's a horse night light. We have to go by like when
Valerian sleeps like that has to.
Be. Yeah.
Yeah, honestly that's all of ourall of our day night cycles
based on Valerian, so. Oh yeah, is with Valerian
sleeping in the main room. I guess he that's where he
because. That's it's Valerian's room,
Yeah. So we have to come in because
it's the closest to. Yeah, so I guess he would just
(48:19):
also probably he would be a light sleeper too, so he
probably would also be woken up by.
This, but Pepper doesn't think that you guys have been woken up
by this at all and she's like sneaking over to her room.
Well, Friedrich like flips on the light really quick and
already has like a grenade in hand and it's like stop.
Right there I'm. Sorry.
I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
(48:40):
I didn't mean to. What?
Pepper, Are we in a fight right now?
No, Valerian bolts upright when you do that, when you turn the
light on and you scream and he has a horse eyed sleeping mask
on. Yeah, it's got like, but the
eyes are like too far apart. They're like really far apart.
What a relief. And then she looks at Valerian
and she's like. Sorry, sorry.
(49:03):
I I thought you were, I thought you were somebody else or.
What is the commotion? What's happening?
I thought you were one of the Piper Lords coming here to cut
our. Throats like a paper.
Lord, I am one of the Piper Lords.
Not like that. Nobody laughed at my joke.
Everyone was talking over my joke, I said.
More like a paper Lord. Anyway, I just got here to go to
(49:28):
bed. Sorry I'm.
I'm sorry I'm getting home late.This is just like when I was a
kid, I assume. Where?
Were you? Are you all right?
Oh. Yeah, no, I'm fine.
I'm totally, I'm good. There's there's it's no problem.
I just was out outside you. You weren't trying to busk
(49:50):
again, were you? No, come on, I wouldn't do that.
Friedrich, you know you were only pretending to be her dad.
Hey, wait, Yeah, you can't tell me what to do, can you?
I. I don't.
I don't. I wasn't pretending to be your
dad. I just that that woman said that
you'd be in serious danger if you if you were to.
(50:11):
So I just was making sure. I'm not in danger, I've fussed
tons of time since they told me not to.
It's fine. Why would you do that?
The spirit of music was in my body, you know, I was feeling
it. Pepper, no one here relates to
your lived experiences. Nobody here understands that.
(50:35):
Least of all me. So I'm just going to go straight
to bed. OK.
As Pepper is trying to sneak offinto her room, you notice that
she has, like, a little baggie tucked into her belt that has,
like, the, like, biohazard symbol.
Yeah, like, basically the biohazard symbol on it.
And who knows where it came from?
(50:58):
And I look over at Valerian and I say.
You're not worried about this? What part of it should I be
worried about? I just look at Valerian and then
I like roll my eyes in disgust and I say never mind and I go
off to my room. Do you turn the light out when
you go back into your room? No, I leave it.
(51:21):
OK then. Valerian storms to your room and
knocks on your door. Do you open it back?
I'm going to sleep, what do you want?
Turn the fucking light out when you leave and then he turns the
light out himself. When she says that, Valerian has
(52:03):
surprised Pikachu face. Did you call this ooze a she?
Yeah, what is, what is, what is?Pronounced I'm sorry I gendered
the ooze, I'm sorry that I don't.
Gender my don't gender my ooze, you gender me at the ooze.
You gender me at the football. Sorry.
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