COIN Half-Point Recap

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Well, hello there, weary traveler.
Normally, this would be the moment
when I'd ask you what magic brought you here,
and then immediately ignore whatever answer
you were about to give in favor of telling you

(00:21):
about the criminals of Isla Nunes, a group of adventurers
that I deviously trapped in a world of my creation
and tasked with accumulating a million gold pieces
if they ever wanted to see the material plane again.
All for my, and I suppose your, entertainment.
Well, today is a bit different.

(00:41):
Today, we're going to forego all of that introduction
nonsense to take a casual stroll down memory lane
and recall all that the aforementioned criminals have
been up to before we dive any deeper into their plight.
So whether you're an avid listener to our tale
or you're jumping into the adventure from here,
this will be a great opportunity for all of us

(01:03):
to be reminded of where we've been and how we got
to where we are now.
So sit back and enjoy as I regale you
with the hilarious tale of a bunch of idiots trying
desperately to make some money.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Our story started in a boat floating down the streams

(01:27):
of the underdark back on the material plane.
I, and the soon to be criminals, just broke free of a drow
prison camp and managed to snag a ship
that we were piloting through the blackened waters.
One of these criminals, a fellow named Rorik,
was tossing some rocks out into the water.
And I, a connoisseur of the art of stakes and speculations,

(01:52):
offered him a wager, hit a particular stalactite hanging
off in the shadow distance, and I would give him a prize.
Miss, and he'd receive a punishment.
A simple wager for sure, but one that
would change the course of his and his friend's lives
in a pretty significant way.
For some reason, this dwarvish meathead

(02:14):
decided that he was done skipping rocks altogether
and decided to skip me instead.
I found my mortal form lifted high and hurled
into the brackish water where I was
swarmed by a mass of strange, mantle-like creatures,
the name of which is pretty much impossible to pronounce.
Unbeknownst to these monsters and that bastard back

(02:35):
on the boat who threw me out, I am actually a deity.
Some would call me a lesser god, a title I'm not particularly
fond of.
But I will admit, my strength and powers
are no match for many that call the divine play
in their home.
I am the god of gambling.
Judge him be my name.

(02:57):
And maybe I'm not the strongest of the gods,
but gosh darn it if I don't throw one hell of a casino
knight.
And the other gods love it.
Well, until they lose and have to pay the house, which,
of course, is me.
Massive numbers of souls, but anyways,
that's a bit outside of our story here.

(03:18):
So as I pulled my way out of the waters
and climbed back aboard into the boat,
I decided it was time to show this roric and the company he
keeps a bit of a lesson.
I've had this little pocket world, a pet project of mine.
I started a few hundred years ago.
I call it island numus.
It was originally meant to be sort of a prison.

(03:42):
But I've allowed it to continue running as an entire society
in my pocket.
Well, I figured maybe it was time to add a couple new souls
to this world of mine.
Interestingly enough, powerful as we gods are,
we do still have rules and terms that we must follow.
If I make a deal, even with a mortal,

(04:04):
I have to keep it, and vice versa.
Well, as far as the terms of our little wager,
Roric didn't hit that stalactite, even with me as the ammo.
So he had lost, and his punishment
was about to be dealt.
Unfortunately, it meant catching up his friends
inside of this punishment web as well.

(04:26):
I pulled myself, soaked in dripping back onto the boat,
and headed straight for his room, where he and his comrades
slept peacefully.
With a snap of my fingers, they disappeared.
And when they awoke, they'd find themselves
in a much different place than where they laid their heads.
Not to mention their heads would be quite different as well.

(04:46):
[LAUGHS]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
For a moment, you think you're in a dream,
but you reach down to pinch yourself,
and you're surprised by two things.
Firstly, you're not in a dream.
That surprises you.
And again, you jump back to the confusion of, where the heck am
I, and how did I get here?

(05:08):
But you're also surprised when you look down,
and you realize that you were not in the same body
that you were in before.
You are no longer a dwarf, or an elf, or a triton,
or-- what was Maki?
The human.
Human.
OK, I was like, I think he was human.
Or a human.
You are a series of kinkus, of kobalts, of goblins.

(05:32):
You look around, you see that you are also
sitting next to other kinkus in kobalts and goblins,
specifically four others, since there's five of you.
I mean, I'm not trying to spoil that little bit there,
but there's five of you total, and there's five of you
sitting around this tree.
And you're a little confused.
And you're confused for about a moment before a boy speaks out

(05:53):
to you, and he says, well, it looks like you finally awakened.
So that's the story about how their life got flipped and upside
down, and shape shifted into an entirely new species.
Yep, I gave them all some brand new bodies
and tasked them with accumulating one million gold

(06:16):
pieces within my world of island humus,
if they ever wanted to leave.
Needless to say, they weren't too happy about it,
but a deal is a deal.
Now, don't think I would throw them
into this new world with a quest too great for themselves
and then abandon them.
Who do you think I am, the god of abandonment?

(06:37):
Certainly not.
I gave them an incredibly powerful magic item
that would allow them to communicate with me.
Also, I'm going to gift you one, guys, with something.
And as you sit there, a strange stone
was sort of etched out lines, and it floats down
on like a beam of light before you land in the soft dirt.

(06:59):
He says, this right there, this is a divine talky walky.
And it allows you to communicate with me once per day.
I'm not always going to be-- I'll be watching all the time,
but I'm not going to talk to you and give you
all the answers, of course.
So you can communicate with me, ask me a yes or no question

(07:23):
once per day, and I will give you an honest yes or no answer
as best as I can.
Now, if I don't know the answer, then I can only do so much.
I will try to work with you as best as I can,
and we'll figure it out.
But yeah, anyways, there you go.
Use it wisely once per day.

(07:44):
And they promptly ignored my help.
Just out of curiosity, did anyone grab the talky walky?
It's just sitting there on the--
you know, to be fair, I didn't know how
that mechanic was going to get you, so OK.
It's just forgotten.
It's just forgotten.
Don't worry.

(08:04):
They came back forth later.
I assure you.
I figured I'd throw them another bone
and let them pick an individual that they wanted,
from Ilanumus, to be their guide through this new world
and even help them achieve their goal.
In return, that individual would have the option
to join them when they leave, becoming another soul
on the material plane.

(08:25):
Well, wouldn't you know it, these dummies basically
picked the first guy they ran into.
You do.
You do, in fact, hear somebody shouting from a distance.
Sauce!
You eat sauce here.
The sauce is sauce, company.
Sauce?
Sauce thing.
Let's get saucy.
Someone's shouting about their sauce.
It's coming from inside the more worn-down district.

(08:47):
Maki, when he hears the word sauce, thinks of--
Oh, yes.
He's off and on the sauce, and he will.
And he reaches for his wine skin that's usually on his hip,
realizing it's not there.
He recalls what Roark said earlier

(09:07):
and gives out a near perfect mimic of his--
No!
Uh-oh.
He lost his axe, too.
My sauce is gone.
Oh, his sauce is gone.

(09:27):
Shall I--
He's got sauce.
Come here.
Get your sauce here.
You see a small little sort of sales, almost like a booth,
I guess, probably more than anything.
It's not like a full-on store.
It's just kind of a side booth, right?
No, it's a nice little--
not like a straight-up store, but maybe like a--

(09:47):
A YouTube cart?
Like a concession stand.
OK, OK.
So it's a nice little concession stand.
What is-- do you have any signage on this concession stand?
Oh, yeah.
It says little sauce is sauce, company.
Little sauce is sauce, company.
That's what you see on the sign.
What is it?
Sauce code.
Oh, sorry.
It's sauce.
Cut-E-Knot.
Dot.
It's a mountain.
Exactly.
You don't want too big a mouse for one.

(10:08):
No, it's true.
Well, you do have the sauce.
Letters come out.
I got the sauce.
That's right.
You got to say where--
Taki hurriedly gets in line behind the person in front of him.
Yes, it's a fairly hulking bugbear.
He's kind of dressed in fairly drab clothes.
Looks like he's probably been working.
You can smell a pretty intense sweat smell off of his body,

(10:32):
maybe a little bit of an old sweat smell.
That's just a sauce.
It might be.
He's standing in front of you.
You get up right behind him, and he kind of just
looks behind him a little bit.
He grunts, and then he turns back, and he steps forward.
Whoever was in front of him leaves,
opening up his ability to buy some sauce.
He just, oh, take what sauce you got today, little sauce.

(10:59):
Today's sauce is a nice mixture of the normal sauce
that we always have.
Oh, I'll take two jars of little sauces today's sauce.
All right, two jars of today's little sauce of sauce
coming right up.
He drops a couple of coins down in front of you.

(11:19):
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
He handed him a couple jars of sauce,
and he heads off on his way.
Maki steps up and says, I'll take two jars of your sauce.
[LAUGHTER]
Whoa, little hostile there, buddy.
I don't recognize you from out here.
Gah.

(11:40):
Oh, yes.
His name's Maki.
OK, and you are?
It's the other way.
The whole group of you just kind of like follows him by.
He-- Roryck sticks his hand up to shake his hand.
He goes, my name's Roryck, Frostbeard.
Frostbeard, you don't look like--
That name doesn't really work anymore.

(12:02):
Now does it.
You see, I'm a dwarf.
Oh, what?
You don't look like a dwarf.
Don't look too close.
What's your name?
And he sticks his hands to a way for the inch.
I'll reach out.
You know what I'm changing?
OK.
I'm feather-micking.
All right, it's connect.
You get static-shocked.
Like, like--
No!

(12:22):
Not that.
It's like static electricity.
And Roryck pulls his hands away from me.
What?
Oh, sorry, sir.
Like, a little static electricity.
Yeah.
And he's like wiping the side of his pants.
He's like, oh, sorry.
So be it.
Anyways, my friend, that's Maki.
He can't really speak well.
He's, uh--
One of me.
Yeah, exactly.
How do you talk so well?

(12:42):
Oh, I've been around a lot of people in my day.
I've seen a lot of things.
You're using the same voice consistently
than one person just talk all the time around you?
You could say that.
Who's my best friend?
His name was--
Nick Riddle.
Nick me Nick.
That's amazing.
I like Nick Riddle.

(13:02):
It's just all Nick Riddle.
Nick Riddle and your Nick Craig are--
Nick Festive.
Nick Craig?
Nick Riddle and Nick Craig are--
That's the best of pals.
That's the first Nick that came to the top of my--
So you know who this store is named after?
Yes.
And I mimic my best friend who I lost to Fairchild.

(13:26):
To the sauce?
You can say he got lost in the sauce.
Oh, I know someone else like that, right, Maki?
And I go to, like, have Maki on the fat.
And another shock of fatty electricity comes out.
And he pulls his hands back and goes, ah, ah, sorry, Maki.
Anyway, the name's Feather McGregor,
but I go by little sauce.
Oh, well, Maki likes the sauce, too.

(13:47):
And he wants-- how many, Maki?
Two sauce.
He wants two sauce.
All right, all right.
You got a coin?
No, we're strapped.
Maki looks-- reaches around as person.
I was filthy rich, but a god took all my money.
A god took all your money?

(14:09):
Correct, yeah.
A gambling god, would you believe that?
I did not lose it on the slant side.
Wait a minute.
Wait a minute.
A gambling god.
Yeah.
I'm intrigued.
Continue.
That was the end of it, actually.
A gambling master took all our money.
This seems really unlikely.
I don't know.
I mean, I can't give you any of my little sauce of sauce.

(14:30):
What?
Free samples.
I do give out free samples.
OK, there you go.
I take out little.
And when I mean little, I'm talking like a dime--
a dime piece of bread, a little bit of sauce.
Oh, there you go.
That's good.
I hand it to each of you.
Oh, each of us.
Do you have any rats?

(14:51):
I find them to be the best vehicle for a good sauce.
Do you still eat rats?
No, to be fair, I'm actually really hungry for rats.
Little sauce of sauce goes with anything.
Originally, originally it was made for my buddy McGriddles
Burger restaurant, McGriddles Burgers.

(15:11):
But yeah, he tragically died.
He got lost in the sauce.
More literally than you can imagine.
It's more literal than you can--
literal.
Is he-- did he get drowned in the sauce?
Literally?
So he is the sauce.
No, I'd rather not speak about McGriddles.

(15:34):
OK, that's fine to your story.
But maybe he only thinks he's dead.
He got lost in the sauce dimension.
He's in a pocket dimension.
I'm dead.
I'm right here.
He's right next to it.
No, he's very much dead.
[INTERPOSING VOICES]

(15:54):
[LAUGHTER]
I can-- yeah, he is dead.
Oh, he's dead.
He is dead.
Well, this is some sales bitch you're doing here.
What's in the sauce?
I'm holding up the freeze.
As I finish the free sample.
What did you guys think?
Did you like it?
Man, what did you think?
Des?
Is he naughty?
He does his naughty.

(16:15):
OK.
I'm going to take that you liked it.
They'll give him the rundown about me and the deal later.
But what's important to note here
is that this guy isn't just some sauce salesman slinging
condiments on the side of the street.
Actually, the whole sauce business is a cover.
Turns out this fellow is an undercover cop

(16:36):
for an organization known as Blank Space.
I walk over to the guard.
OK.
And we just have our conversation.
Yeah, what?
What do you got?
Yeah, I got some strange people I haven't seen in town before.
Yeah.
But not like this.
He comes out of asking about little sauce.

(16:56):
First of all, who hasn't heard about little sauce sauce?
You do get around little sauce.
I don't know if you're just coming over here
to get words of affirmation from me.
No, no, no.
So he sits there and he says, we're looking for jobs.
So I offered him a job.
He said, no.
Well, that also happens reasonably often.
Yeah, but then he says, how about a heist?

(17:18):
A little strange.
That is a bit strange, for sure.
Do you think we should take this to the higher ups?
How about you follow him?
Well, this guy over here to point to him over there.
Is he still just like looking at me?
Is he just like--
He's walking around.
He's giving you daggers.

(17:41):
This guy seems like, tell me to come follow him.
Now.
What a coincidence.
It's crazy how this world works.
It really is.
Get to it.
And don't forget to let us know if you notice anything.
All right, sounds good.
Little sauce out.
All right, little-- yeah.
So in an attempt to curb their villainous enthusiasm,
he decided to take them to a casino of all things,

(18:05):
believing he could make them some money there,
whom I, to stand in the way of some good-hearted gambling.
Unfortunately, what resulted was less than ideal.
With his static electricity--
Oh, sorry!
I'm so sorry.
Oh, I haven't felt that since they resuscitated me

(18:27):
with the defibrator.
Oh, I'm so sorry.
I didn't mean to do it.
Oh, what are you doing here, you dang goblin?
I thought it was the cow game.
I'm sorry.
Oh, God.
He's-- this dirty filthy goblin is--
--thirty on my hand.
He's going to like to look at his face.
She grabs a cane and she just turns--

(18:48):
--in a way for me.
You filthy goblin.
All right, so--
But no, he's definitely playing us up,
because she's going to crawl and lay on the ground
and grab her leg.
Oh, no.
No, please.
I need eyes.
Grab my leg.
He's going to get me on this.
It's easy.
Just easy.

(19:08):
I know the sign.
Nice face, right?
Just-- same hands away from my beautiful procedure.
And he's just going to slowly like set down his arms
on the ground and like drag himself, but very slow.
Oh, hey, and he's going--
I'm so sorry.
You filthy, filthy monster.

(19:31):
Get away from me.
I will-- I will kill you.
Oh, please.
Oh, my gosh.
I will rid our land of your filth.
He just crouches into the--
Is this a racist man?
He crouches into the needle position
and just starts crying next to her.

(19:52):
We should have wiped your kind out when we had the chance.
Anyway, if all is a time, can Nick roll a slight at hand?
Yes, absolutely.
Nick, I will give you--
I look around.
Can Fatty roll a slight?
Yeah, can Fatty roll--
Yes, Fatty can roll a slight at hand.
Oh, sorry.
Fatty Lumpkin--
I'll do that again.

(20:12):
While this is all happening, can Fatty or rather
Keto roll a slight at hand?
Yes, Fatty Lumpkins, if you could give me a slight hand,
I will give you advantage since you are being very obviously
helped by your friend.
Don't take that one.
I'll take the first one.
19.
19.
I was worried your slight hand was going to be like a nugget.

(20:33):
I'm like, oh, jeez.
I was like, I figured the fighter would have decent dexterity.
You shove your hand deep into--
you're feeling confident, having seen this incredible display
put on by your friend.
You feel confident enough to jam your hand deep into this cup
and withdraw eight gold coins from inside.
Even amidst that insanity, they did manage to walk away

(21:06):
with a decent amount of cash to kickstart
their future endeavors.
Oh, speaking of which, shortly thereafter,
they got approached by a local lowlife who offered them a job.
As you guys walk out, you see the bugbear kind of flip a coin
to the bartender chick.
And he comes walking up behind you guys, and he says, hey,

(21:27):
you guys are pretty funny back there in the bar.
I was just kind of over here and some of you
were talking over here and something about you
needed some work.
Hey, I might ask you if you're interested.
If not, yeah, it will be deal.
[INAUDIBLE]
I'm not really sure, guys.
I got my sauce business.

(21:48):
I'm just trying to help you guys out.
And you said you would help us out.
Let's hear what he's got to offer you.
It could be the job of a lifetime.
Oh, it is.
It's the start of late night.
I offered you guys the job of a lifetime making sauce.
We don't got years.
We got months.
I want my old body back.

(22:10):
Anyways--
Sarah, what do you want?
Well, wait, hold that thought, OK?
You shut up.
I'm just sitting here like, these guys are nuts.
Like, I just want to help them make some money.
And I'm kind of just with them to keep an eye on them
at this point, see what's going on with them.
Because they're clearly nuts.

(22:30):
It just keeps getting weirder and weirder.
I don't know what's going on.
That's true.
That's true.
They call me the slicer.
Yeah, that's not my real name, but that's
what I'm going to leave you with.
Anyways, everyone with a pretty tight name
up here in the city.
What I know what his name is, what I know this guy?
Just from around--
Roll a history check.

(22:51):
I don't even-- dude, I know your name.
Your name's like Brad or something.
[LAUGHTER]
16 plus 3, 19.
OK, yeah.
What's his name?
It's not that you know his name, but you recognize the name
the slicer.
Reputation.
He's a somewhat low tier criminal here in the city who

(23:12):
is known for kind of just general thuggery, larceny,
extortion.
Slicing.
A little bit of that.
Slicing.
Slicing ham.
Slicing his ham slicer.
Yeah.
Well, violent.
Yeah, a little violent.
Just violent, he's slicer.
Well, we're extorting people for things.
So he's an extortionist.

(23:33):
Yes.
He says that.
Did you say that?
You say--
Ah, slicer, the extortionist.
You didn't.
You literally saw his real title.
You've literally seen wanted posters for him
that said theft, larceny, extortion, and violence.
How much?
I just feel like--
I think Mr. Slicer, I think we're good.

(23:53):
Like, these guys are going to work in the side.
Oh, no, no.
That's me, Mr. Slicer.
These guys are going to work in the soft shop, sir.
We-- I've already claimed these employees.
I understand that, you know, the unemployment rate
isn't very high here.
You know, most people have jobs.
But I've got these ones in the back.
These ones are covered.
I don't know.
I feel like slicing ham is my superior to the sauce business.

(24:17):
So let's hear him out.
Well, the ham is all year round.
It is all year round.
I mean, I like ham like the next guy.
I don't really know what that has to do with anything.
So you like slicing ham?
Not exactly.
Look, like I said, I'm part of a little bit of a--
let's say a secret organization.
And we all kind of work with each other for our own profit.

(24:43):
And I got a bit of a job.
But here's the thing.
I kind of got to know that you guys are cool.
I got to know that you guys can run with the big dogs like me.
You came to us.
Yeah, yeah.
I feel like you've got the makings.
And yeah, I just need to see it to believe it.

(25:05):
Yeah, see, here's the thing.
It's actually something I need you to help me out with tonight.
I'll wait out this evening if you'd be able to.
Yeah, so there's a pretty nearby alleyway
that I need you guys to meet me in about 6.30 PM.

(25:26):
It's going to start just getting dark a little bit,
but not too much just yet.
That comes later when we get everything all ready.
But I'm going to need you guys there to help me get the prep
work done, essentially.
Once the job.
Well, essentially, I'm going to be meeting some guys in there.
They're going to do a little bit of a trade off with me
for something that I've got that they want.

(25:46):
But if we can do a little something, something,
make some things happen, we'd be able to walk out of there
with all the valuables.
I see a classic double cross.
Exactly, see, you get it.
That's why I knew you guys would be cool.
Their little job at the slicer took an interesting turn.

(26:13):
Yeah, I'm going to be meeting with somebody in a little bit.
And I need all of you to hide away.
And then once they get here, and I give you the secret word,
I want us all to jump out and take out
as gods, but don't take him out, all right?
Because he's got the goods.
What's the secret word?
Maki is going to try to climb up the side of the alley.

(26:36):
OK.
To the roof.
Oh, wow, OK.
Give me an-- yeah, give me an athletics check.
Seven.
He starts to try to climb up, but every time he just
slips down the rock, and his awkward, feathered hands

(27:00):
are just not letting him get up as well as he normally would.
And too weak.
Dump these noodle arms in this bird potty.
The slicer watches this and just shakes his head,
and he says, well, you were doing all right in the shadows.
I don't know where you were trying to go, but feather,
as for your question, my phrase--

(27:22):
it's a secret phrase.
And when you hear it, I need you all to jump out
and attack the gods, all right?
So I need you all listening, for when
I tell you what this secret phrase is, all right?
Are you all listening?
Does not.
Does not, OK.
Good.
Good.
He looks very intense eye contact.
Oh, good.
Because he's going to love this.
All right, the secret phrase.

(27:42):
He leans in.
He starts to whisper to each of you.
The secret phrase is, well, that's
quite a load you've got there.
A carriage, very ornate, very classy looking,
pulls up to the alleyway.
A man and three bodyguards, all burly dudes dressed in all black.

(28:03):
They've got dusters on, and they all
wear these kind of fedora-esque hats.
They all step out of this horse-drawn carriage.
And the very wealthy looking, well-dressed,
has a fur coat that comes off of his back.
He's got a nice purple cape that's coming off of that.

(28:24):
He's dressed in a few different nicely metal chains
of some kinds, like there's maybe one that's gold,
maybe a couple that are silver, et cetera.
He comes walking over.
You can see on his hands as he moves forward,
he kind of twiddles his fingers.
And he's got rings on his various fingers, all of which
really suggest wealth.

(28:44):
One thing that's key that you notice about him
is some of these items that I've described
feature horse insignias on them, whether it be a horse head
or sort of just like the silhouette of a horse head
or some variation of that, or a full horse, like a little symbol.
Whatever the case this dude definitely seems into horses.

(29:08):
Oh, a horse guy.
He's a horse guy.
That's scary.
He approaches and the slicer says, Lord Pendleton, I assume.
Yes, Viscount Cornelius Montague Pendleton
fits Gerald at your service.
Now, do you have the semen?

(29:29):
The slicer--
I knew it.
The slicer reaches into his cloak and withdraws a cylinder.
Does he hear snickering all across the saloon?
[LAUGHTER]
He's got a little Coney victory in his body.
Oh, no.

(29:52):
All right, for that, I'm going to need
to see some charisma saving to keep yourselves from chuckling
when you hear the word semen.
This isn't right.
Remember me.
Nice, right?
17.
Nice.
9.

(30:13):
12.
Wow.
There you go.
There are a couple of very soft snickers.
And slicer ever so slightly looks back
with a little bit of a glare.
But Lord Pendleton seems not to notice.
Just saying.
He's very focused.
He's got to warn people.
He's very focused on his--

(30:33):
I mean, that's on his own.
It was kind of a gibble.
That is true.
He looks intently at this cylinder.
And he says, oh, there it is.
Oh, that's going to be the stuff, isn't it?
The stuff that'll move my horse.
Stud farm.

(30:54):
That was the word?
Yeah.
[LAUGHTER]
This would take my stud farm to the next level.
And this is, as promised, it's going to take some time,
obviously, for me to receive the results.
So I want to make sure I'm paying for what I asked for.
And slicer replies, yeah, it's the stuff you can trust me.
After all, you know I'm somebody that'll

(31:16):
get you what you want.
And he says, OK, well, just know that if you double cross me,
and this isn't the stuff that I was looking for,
I will send my men and emotions to his big, burly bodyguards,
who, of course, I'll do the very classic pop all their knuckles.
How many bodyguards are there?
There are three.
Great.
They will find you.

(31:37):
And they will get back my money.
And they will get back my time in your--
well, you understand.
And the slicer just kind of nods.
And he says, yeah, I'll understand.
Now let's see your end of the bargain.
And sure enough, Lord Pendleton looks over
to one of his bodyguards, who hands him
a large leather suitcase, which he holds out

(32:00):
towards the slicer.
He opens it up showing a large bag of jiggling gold pieces.
He says, yeah, of course I brought this stuff.
You know I'm good for it.
This means nothing to me compared to that vial of semen.
And the slicer says, peeks inside, sees the gold, says,

(32:21):
well, looks like we've got a deal well made.
And as they exchange goods, he hands the vial of semen
to Lord Pendleton.
And he says, well, that's quite a load you've got there.
Does Johnson--
And he throws one of his hand axes at the guard
that was handing the bag of gold coins.

(32:43):
OK.
All right.
And I'm going to pull out my bow.
And I'm going to just take a shot at one of the--
At Lord Pendleton.
At Lord Pendleton?
Sure.
All right.
Are you an advantage to these grapple?
Yeah, he's prone to it.
So yeah.
Do I get advantage to this range attack on the problem?

(33:05):
That's true.
Actually, I think it's disadvantage isn't it?
When prone?
That's only when three quarters covered.
But he's covered by a bugbear.
He's covered by a bugbear.
I might not want to shoot him.
So I tell you what, I will let you roll normally.
Normally.
But I get my sneak attack.
And then I'm going to roll a 50/50
to see which of the two you hit.
Oh.

(33:25):
Wait, you just rolled.
What did you get?
Oh, yeah, 8 plus 7.
It's going to go 50.
Yeah, that's higher.
Also, it's sneak attack.
I'm going to roll this d4.
If it's a one or two, you're hitting Pendleton.
If it's a three or four, you're hitting--
I wouldn't have it any other way.
One, two.
It's a two.
All right, you hit Pendleton.

(33:46):
What are your damage?
11.
He's dead.
You shoot him right in the side.
It stabs right through his rib cage and into his heart.
Slicer immediately looks-- what?
And then-- oh, wait, you didn't go in.
He goes inside.
Slicer immediately looks over at you and he's, what are you
doing?
What told you not to kill the target?

(34:07):
The slicer turns around.
He's not really focused on you guys.
He's more focused on the remaining target.
So he turns around, pulls out his morning star,
and he leaps forward, and he swings it in a hefty arc.
And he slams into the remaining guard,

(34:28):
slamming the morning star directly into his chest,
knocking the man straight to the ground
and killing him instantly.
He turns around to look at all of you, and he said,
I said, one thing, don't kill the target.
Now we got a dead lord on our hands.
This is going way over our heads.
Do you realize how powerful this man is?

(34:48):
He is one of the--
He says an exact number.
You know it's a bad number.
He's one of six.
You know what?
We kill the slicer, save the slicer, kill the lord,
and we bring the slicer's corpse and any CCTV video footage
proves with us.

(35:09):
End the scene.
End the scene.
We're keeping that.
That's evidence.
That's evidence.
You're the cop here.
Wait, well, now we know that.
You might be most--
Oh, see, we have a narc with us.
Oh, yeah.
We have a reputable eyewitness.
No reputable.
You guys just talking about this alley,
and I saw these guys, you know--
Taking down a criminal.

(35:30):
I saw some horsey-machines going on.
He was only focused on the jar.
He's little sauce after all.
I was wondering, remember what makes him good?
Oh, was that the secret?
Oh, no.
I've been found out.
He was one of six primary and incredibly wealthy leaders

(35:52):
within the community.
He's one of the members of the REG horse race,
and they're going to know that he's gone.
They're going to know this tomorrow, if even that long.
And they're going to know that you killed him.
I want to look at him before I do this and say,
slicer, no slicer.

(36:13):
And do four damage.
That was literally all he had left.
As he-- this fireball slams in--
I say fireball, sorry, fire bolt.
This fireball is a whole other thing.
This fire bolt slams into his chest.
You watch as the ice that you had previously caught--
put onto his body from your ice blast or whatever, ice bolt,

(36:35):
melt away.
But it turns into a horrific situation of red melting
from his face, like the guy from Indiana Jones
when he wins the Ark of the Covenant.
There we go.
Or the other dude that drinks from the Gala.
Either one.
His face just basically is melting.
And he falls forward.
His body's still aflame.

(36:55):
Now you have two smoldering dead carcasses
within this alleyway.
[MUSIC PLAYING]

(37:19):
With Lord Pendleton and the criminal formerly known
as the Slicer lying dead in a dark and dally way,
the criminals make matters worse by stealing
the wealthy noble's horse drawn cart
and directing the driver back to the mansion
from which it came.
Crimes of assault and murder unable to assesiate
their egregious greed, they decide to steal whatever they

(37:43):
could carry in what wasn't nailed down at the mansion.
In their various arms and wings and loading them back
onto the carriage and taking their ill-gotten goods back
to Little Sauce's house in Mediumville District.
Never fear, good listeners.
They'll sort of get their comeuppance later on.
Waking up the next morning, the group

(38:04):
discovers an interesting new opportunity
to procure some added funds and equipment
in the form of an annual event held in the local area.
The Minotaur Races.
All right, so, kick things off.
First of all, we got the barriers set up all the way around here

(38:26):
so you know which way to go.
As soon as we start the race, you will have a five-second
head start before we release those Minotaur's.
The five-second head start is, of course,
to make sure that all of you, the many of you
that have entered this race, can at least get spread out
just a little bit before we start letting the Minotaur's
run in and kill y'all.
I'm just kidding.
I don't know.

(38:46):
It happens.
Degress.
There are barriers that will help lead you down the path
when you get to the end.
That's when you'll get scored.
If you, by any means, or any way, pass over the barriers,
under the barriers, or through the barriers,
you will be disqualified from the race.
But please do so if it means saving your life.

(39:07):
We do not like collecting and picking up the bodies
afterwards, so the fewer there are, the better.
Of course, there are no weapons in this race,
so please do not bring them out.
If we are referees who are scattered throughout the event,
catch you with weapons who will be disqualified and removed.
And usually forcefully.
There will be no flying.

(39:28):
I don't care if you do it naturally because of your species
or if it's through magic.
There will be no flying.
If we catch you flying, we'll be disqualified
and removed from the race.
Push.
Oh, can we--
--shouting this out.
Yeah.
Can we--
Shout it out.
Can we fly?
No, tankies cannot fly.
There's-- everybody in the audience

(39:49):
just turns and gives you this angry look,
and he's like, it's fine, folks.
There's one every year.
[LAUGHTER]
In addition to flying, there will be no teleportation
magic or any other kind of transportation-related
contra-ation magic or otherwise that includes flying,
as I just said.
I don't know.
How many times will you say it?
They really doesn't want people to fly.

(40:10):
Participants must follow the predetermined route.
If you leave the route or course, you will be disqualified.
The barriers are there to establish that.
No climbing on the buildings, no using the rooftops.
That's leaving the course.
You'll be disqualified.
Participants, you were allowed to fight with each other,

(40:32):
but we appreciate you not killing each other.
People die in this race because of the minotaurs.
They should not be dying because of the other participants.
We appreciate you leaving other people alone, for the most part.
But we also understand that harassing and otherwise causing
others to fail is part of the whole race.

(40:52):
Kind of funny.
And it's funny.
Yes, exactly.
Thank you.
See this guy?
There's one of these every year, and I appreciate them.
Don't appreciate that guy.
Yeah, don't kill or leave me name anybody.
That kind of jumps back to no weapons.
But I know some of you--
You see the three super muscular ones, and they're like,
he's like, yeah, I know.
You don't need weapons to be a weapon.

(41:14):
Just please keep it at a minimum.
Anyways, you've agreed by participating
to the dangers and possible death that
can occur during this race.
We don't do waivers by stepping into this course.
That is basically the waiver.
The guards literally won't care if you die during this event

(41:35):
inside the course.
I mean, unless you were killed, you get it.
I already explained all this.
Anyways, let's get this going.
It turns, and there's like a big lever on top of this.
Before it goes, I'm going to go in front of the doors.
I'm going to start to just toss down my two flasks of oil.

(41:56):
OK, all right.
I'm just going to stand there and watch him wait for the lever.
I'm going to pull out my tinder box.
Oh, snap.
This is some Baldur's Gate strategy right here.
All right, sounds good.
So he reaches down.
He grabs this lever on the rooftop, and he says,
and we begin the race in three, two, one.

(42:19):
Run!
Dangerous as the race was, our intrepid criminals,
albeit through some questionable methods at the very end,
managed to take all three of the top spots,
winning them some nice gear and gold to boot.
After the race, Sos went and spoke

(42:41):
to the chief of blank space to inform him
he was quitting the force.
My goodness, how sad.
He wanted to dedicate his life to helping
his new friends achieve their seemingly impossible goal.
Although the chief wasn't too happy about the decision,
he did inform Little Sos that his old partner's father,

(43:01):
Gideon McGriddle, wanted to speak with him
about something urgent.
So while the rest of the gang went to get something to eat,
Sos headed out for the Atlantic Heights District
to find out what the problem was,
and what he discovered there was quite concerning.
Hey, Gideon, it's Feather.
Feather?

(43:22):
Is that you?
And sure enough, the man turns around.
He's got very kind of crazy white hair.
It looks like, like I said, either Doc Brown or Rick
from Rick and Morty.
He's got kind of this crazy hair.
He's got big old goggles on and a magnifying glass
that kind of comes off of.
It's got an arm that attaches to the goggles
and kind of comes down and fright.

(43:42):
So when he turns to you, you see this big giant eye
reflected in the goggle.
And he goes, Feather, it's been so long.
How are you, my boy?
I'm doing great.
I was told you wanted to see me by Captain Chief, Chief
Captain.
Yes, yes, of course.
I was talking to him the other day.
Sorry, it's a bit of a mess in here.

(44:03):
And he kind of just starts to move around.
He's kind of like picking things up and moving things around
to kind of like tidy up a little bit.
Oh, yes, it's just been--
it's been a heck of a time, you know,
trying to keep things clean and just so much work to do.
How have you been?
I've been well.
Things are definitely changing.
Oh, so?

(44:25):
It's a lot to explain.
How have you been?
Oh, well, I've--
it's been busy.
It's been busy for sure.
I've had some very, a very special project
I've been working on.
And I think I've found some success.
But I may need a little bit of guidance from somebody
with some police background.

(44:47):
That's why I wanted to get ahold of you.
What do you got?
Well, yeah, well--
And he kind of pauses for a moment.
And he turns around.
And he says, oh, please take a seat.
And he points towards a--
just a bench that's just sitting kind of in the back of the room.
All right, I'll go sit down.

(45:07):
And he takes a seat as well.
And he says, oh, out of curiosity, yeah.
Is it-- would you say--
and maybe this is a bit of a--
oh, how would you say this--
intellectual question, maybe metaphorical, whatnot--
is a man attached to the crimes of his creation?

(45:33):
It's a little bit above my head.
Let's see.
Maybe if I phrase it differently,
maybe it'll help get the idea across here.
So let's say somebody makes something.
And then that thing commits a crime.
Does that make the one who created it
responsible for the crime?
Not necessarily.

(45:54):
Not if you didn't intend to create a crime.
Oh, just tell me what's going on.
Well, it's a bit complicated.
Like I said, I've been working on a particularly special project.
Made something-- something good, I think.
And maybe it had a little bit diverse results.
I wasn't expecting.

(46:15):
You know, maybe it's gotten a little bit out of control.
I'm not sure exactly if I need to go to somebody to get help.
Or maybe--
Just tell me what's going on.
I got to be somewhere in an hour.
Oh, oh, well, look if--
[LAUGHTER]
I'm sorry.

(46:36):
I've got something really important going on.
I just get to it so I can help you.
Well, it's just--
In my mind, I'm sitting-- I'm like,
I always hated how his dad rambles and rambles.
It's true.
It's true.
It's un-patured.
It doesn't get on with the point.
Well, look, if you've got somewhere to be,
I don't want to keep you from that.

(46:57):
It's a bit too complicated for me to just kind of quickly
blurt out.
It's going to take a little bit more time
to discuss the really fine details of this situation.
But I really, truly think it's something
that you, especially of all the people in this entire city,
will really appreciate.
Almost as much as myself, I have appreciated it.
But again, if you've got something else going on,

(47:20):
just come back another time.
I'm sure it'll be fine.
I'm sure there won't be any more problems.
Just tell me what's going on.
Again, it's just too complicated.
And it's so amazing.
I just feel like it's going to take more time than just
a couple of moments in a chair sitting across from you.
I can't explain it.
Hey, like, really, investigation or--

(47:41):
Well, what are you looking for?
He's got it.
He's made something.
And something has done something bad.
Kind of what I'm getting from this.
I'm just looking around for maybe clues around what
he's created.
OK.
Yeah.
Let it be investigation.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Nat 20.
Holy cow.
Are you serious?

(48:02):
Holy cow.
OK.
I tell you what.
You get his attention.
You get him to kind of shut up for a second, you know?
And ask him a question.
The idiot.
Yes.
I've got a lot going on.

(48:24):
But I want to help you.
I owe it to your son.
OK.
Tell me what's going on so I can help you.
OK.
All right.
I'll say it this way.
You don't have to owe it to my son anymore.
Because I think I might have found a way to bring him back.

(48:50):
That's a horrible idea.
OK.
So you say that, which is kind of why I brought you here.
There's a very possible chance--
I already did it.
And there's a very possible chance
that as I mentioned before, I got some results

(49:10):
that I was not expecting.
But it worked.
And I think that's the important takeaway here.
You never mess with the dead.
What have you done?
Where's he at?
What have you done?
Let me see.
That's kind of where things get complicated.
That's what I wanted to talk to you about, right?
He's not here right now.

(49:31):
Where is he?
I'm not sure, which is part of the problem.
He has a bit of a rambunctious spirit
that I feel like maybe he was missing before, which is great.
Maybe there was something that was a part of him
that needed to exist to complete him.

(49:52):
Whatever the case, he's taken off.
And I respect his independence.
He's an adult.
He's dead.
Not anymore, technically speaking.
I got his soul, and I put it in something of my own creation.

(50:15):
Which was?
Well, I mean, it was a puppet before, but now it's a real boy.
Oh, my god.
But not the creepy puppets you used to play with.
They're not creepy.
You thought they were creepy?
Yes, they scared me.
That's why you screamed every time I woke you up holding one

(50:36):
over your head when you stayed the night with McGriddle,
when you guys had your sleepovers.
I thought it was fun.
You were scared?
I was scared the whole time.
What?
Why?
It's just a doll.
It's wood.
It moves only when I move.
It's inanimate.

(50:56):
The new doll, the McGriddle doll, moves without my business.
Its anatomy is very, very detailed.
Well, I'll take that as a compliment.
Where did he run off to?
Where's he at first?
Well, if I knew that, I wouldn't have had to call you here.
I could have gotten him and told him, hey, you messed up.

(51:18):
You caused some trouble in the area.
That's not cool.
I need you to bring the kids back.
And then this wall blow over.
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
Oh, what?
Go back.
All right.
I would find him and I would say, you know, you messed up.
And you know, this wall blow over and that's fine.
You just need to bring the kids back.

(51:38):
Oh, you gotta stop.
Stop?
OK.
Like what, kids?
Oh, the kids.
Oh, yeah.
You didn't see the missing posters outside.
Oh, well, what have you done?
Well, I didn't do it.
I'm anything.
I made a boy out of wood and brought him to life with my son.
So you definitely get the idea that this guy has lost some

(52:02):
of his marbles and he does definitely own marbles.
I I should have definitely been checking in on you more often.
Oh, it's OK.
I know you're busy with blank space and all that.
Obviously business.
Obviously not OK.
Oh, I've been fine.
Like I said, knowing that my son is OK and he's back and you know,

(52:24):
it's just been very relieving.
How do we know what your son and not some evil?
I like to think that as well.
How did you get his soul back?
Well, there was this book that I found and it had a ritual in it
about how to bring back the souls of the dead, but it just needed
some sort of body to put it into.
So I followed the instructions.

(52:46):
I got all the necessary components and I said the words
and I did the weird little dance and the hand motions and bada bing,
bada boom.
There was my son's soul in the thing and it was a little bit
creepy at first.
I will admit.
You know what he's saying?
Well, he said, hey, dad.

(53:07):
And I said, son.
And then we had an emotional hug and it was a beautiful thing.
I'm tearing up a little bit just thinking about it.
And then, you know, we spent a few days together.
I made him pancakes.
He could not eat them.
I learned a lesson that day and that's OK.
I didn't need to cook for him, which honestly, great.

(53:30):
Again, double.
Like he's like so much easier to take care of, which I mean,
he's an adult.
So.
OK.
And then what happened?
He made him pancakes.
Yes, yes.
And he went out and yes, he would play with the kids outside
in the area.
And I thought, oh, that's a little strange.
But you know, it's just it's like a rebirth.

(53:52):
You know, feather, it's a rebirth.
His soul has been put into a new body.
He's got to kind of bring back the maturity of the adulthood
that he wants, you know, lived in.
I don't know what goes on in the afterlife.
You know, what he's been experiencing up until now.
Anyways.
And then he, you know, started not coming home.
And I wasn't sure where he was going.

(54:12):
And I tried to ask him when he did come home.
I'm like, where have you been?
And he didn't want to tell me.
He said he's got a secret hideout, which I thought, oh,
you know, kids, secret hideouts, whatever.
And then that's when the kids started going missing in the area.
And I said, I said, he came home.
And I said, now, McGriddle, why are kids in the area going

(54:33):
missing?
What do you know about this?
And he said, nothing, dad, leave me alone.
And I was like, OK, I respect your independence.
And then he kind of disappeared altogether.
And kids have continued to disappear.
And people in the neighborhood are getting upset.
And that's not good for business.
And yeah.
Where was he last seen?

(54:55):
I think I heard someone see.
They saw him in the square talking to one of the children.
I think he disguised himself, maybe.
He does look like a puppet, to be fair.
You know, when I said that I'm out of the maf to McGriddle,
it's not entirely true.
I added some fun paint and some other things

(55:16):
to kind of just like, I didn't think
it would work the first time.
I thought I'd just get a goofy puppet.
So I just had some fun with it.
And then it worked the first time.
And I was calling me surprised.
Oh, you put me in a tough spot.
Oh, I'm sure it's fine.
You were his best friend.
I'm sure he'd be excited to see you.
And you can bring him home and get the kids back.

(55:37):
And then you'd be the hero.
And you know, blank space would be really impressed.
You'd probably get promoted.
Yeah, this is not good.
We're going to have to--
I don't think it's that bad.
He's hurting your children.
Well, we don't know he's hurting them.
He's killing children.

(55:57):
That may be true.
I'm going to have-- if I find him,
I will have to kill him.
No, well, hold on now, son.
Hold on.
I don't think that's necessary if you bring him home.
I'm sure I can talk some sense into it.
You can help me talk some sense into it.
You know, we're bringing him back.
Feather, isn't that what we wanted?

(56:20):
No.
To have McGriddle back?
No.
No, you don't bring people back.
I've got a lot to think about.
I'm sorry.
I need to get going.
Will you be back?
I will be back.
And I'm going to have to bring some back up.
Now, I don't deal much with the undead.

(56:40):
But I do deal quite a bit in souls.
And I've been around a long time, long enough
to see mortals attempting to bring these souls back
in a variety of ways.
Long story short, it typically doesn't work out,
certainly not in the way that you might hope.
So the gang joined Soss and the hunt for his undead friend

(57:01):
and were able to get an interesting clue along the way
thanks to a local street urchin selling newspapers.
How is it that all the other kids are missing, but not you?
Would you do right that they all did wrong?
I don't know.
I'll just hang around.
You know what?
Honestly, it's kind of weird.
I haven't really talked to anybody about this,
because nobody listens to me anyways.

(57:22):
There's this new kid around here.
His name is Raku.
He wears all these crazy colorful clothes.
And he plays with kids.
Those are the same kids that go missing.
He just comes out to Trank and Square.
He just plays with the kids there.
You know, they're going to run around the buildings,
they're playing tag.
It's kind of a weird looking dude.
It's weird pointy.
When was the last time you saw him?
I think I saw him yesterday.

(57:43):
He was talking to Susie Lee.
And now she's missing, I think.
I'll be her parents.
I sit there right now just hoping for the best.
Maybe she snuck out last night.
Maybe she's coming back.
Parents are stupid.
That's why I ain't got none.
Wow.
I got rid of them all.
Yeah, I got rid of them all.
He just has.

(58:04):
Once they had an idea of how the alleged "migrittle"
compended the crimes, it was time to set a trap.
Thankfully, it seemed like the gang was all
on the same page for once.
We dressed him up as a child.
He had one?
Yeah.
Wow.
That's it.
Our minds were on the same pathway.
Because I already had a plan cooked up.

(58:24):
Rourke's going to open up his sack.
And he's going to pull out a costume he has.
It is a purple, fluffy outfit with a little hat with a feather.
Nice.
And it's frilly.
It's like frilly.
Rourke's skipping around.
I'm frilly.
I'm silly.
My name is Willie.
Play with me.

(58:45):
Play with me.
Play with me.
As you're sitting on the alleyway saying, you know,
I want to play.
I want to play.
Someone play with me.
You hear a voice speak out from the shadows.
It says, hey, I'll play with you.
A face peeks out from some of the darker shadows
of this alleyway.
Ah, I have a fun place that we could play.

(59:05):
We could play tag.
We could play hide and seek.
We could play marbles.
What do you want to play?
It seemed as though things were working out for once.
Rourke followed the Raku character back to the old clock
tower, leaving a trail for his comrades to follow until--
You knock on the door.

(59:27):
And all of a sudden, it just kind of slowly opens with a creak.
And it's just-- it's almost pitch black in there.
There's maybe a little bit of light
that just kind of comes in, obviously, from the sun.
The door creaks open ever so slowly.
And there's nobody there.
But all of a sudden, you hear--
In you go.
And you feel a sharp push from behind you.

(59:47):
And the next thing you know, you're
standing in essentially pitch black darkness
as the door slams behind you.
The rest of the gang followed the clues
left behind by their disguised friend
back to the old clock tower.
When they entered, they found Rourke and many
of the missing children wrapped up in string
and hanging from the support beams, like little cocoons.

(01:00:10):
As they broke their ally loose, they
were attacked by allied creatures
of the mysterious Raku.
Just as you do, you hear something kind of out
of the corner of your ear.
And you turn to see just these little dolls.
They just seem really just generic.
They just have regular--
a little bit bigger than Barbie size.
They're more fully built.

(01:00:30):
It's not this tiny little pencil, whatever, creature.
It's just a small puppet.
I'm thinking kind of--
A marionette.
Kind of, yeah.
Or almost like Lilo and Stitch, how
she has that weird little thing that she makes.
A little voodoo-doo.
Yeah, the weird creepy-- yeah.
It kind of looks like that about that size.
It sounds like it's moving on a clockwork.
And it just kind of--
[MUSIC PLAYING]

(01:00:51):
Kind of comes walking out from the shadows.
And it starts to approach you.
Is that the puppet?
Yeah.
When I turn through the DM, that's the puppet.
It is not the puppet.
No, it is not the puppet.
It looked at rainbow on.
That-- I don't know what the heck that is.
Doesn't look friendly.
Dad smashes one with the Morning Star.

(01:01:12):
All right.
An epic battle against Raku and his minions ensued.
And it was revealed that their inklings
that this puppet wasn't Little Sauce's old friend,
McGriddle, reincarnated whatsoever,
and instead was a demonic entity intent
on siphoning the life force from the children he had
kidnapped to achieve his full power in this world away

(01:01:33):
from the hell where he came from.
See, I knew you weren't McGriddle.
Fine, I'm not McGriddle.
I am the demon Raku.
And I will be set free in this realm.
I prefer you work.
No.
My bad.
All right, see you.
I'll just go.
He jumps forward.

(01:01:54):
I'm going to say that you were probably in front of Raku.
So he aims for you.
That's definitely going to hit with his punch.
And that is an eight damage.
And as he slams into with his fist,
he leaps backwards and disappears once again.
We got a seven hour episode for you today, folks.

(01:02:15):
We jump over to Fatty Lumpkin's.
Your friend is uncrouched.
Uncrouched.
Uncrouched against-- there's a wall to the staircase, right?
Yeah.
So he's like on the stairs, crouched, leaning against the wall.
He's shakily holding his bow out.
And hyperventilating.
Yeah, hyperventilating.
And she's very much here.
Yes.
Unbeknownst to him, this wasn't the material realm

(01:02:37):
he was hoping to end up in and was instead just a little pocket
dimension inside of, well, my pocket.
It was a close battle and took every ounce of power and teamwork
they could muster to overcome the demon Raku.
But by the end, a lifeless puppet was all that remained.
Now, rescuing an entire neighborhood worth of children

(01:02:58):
is certainly a noble achievement for sure.
But unfortunately, our gang of criminals were just that.
And they left some loose ends behind in that fateful alleyway.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
As you guys approach Lil Sauce's house, something seems off.
Oh, no.

(01:03:19):
The area seems oddly quiet.
Doesn't seem a little off to you.
Well, maybe wouldn't, because you're not from here.
Yeah, that's true.
I should have specified that.
It seems off to you.
I mean, actually, honestly, I would
say that even these guys having spent the night in this area,
like just it feels eerie.
Like whatever passive perception you guys have
is enough to spark that something seems off here.

(01:03:40):
Something seems wrong.
Yeah.
Almost the entire SWAT team worth of guards
start flooding out from the various alleyways.
And one of them rushes over and grabs Feather McGregor
and starts to push you down onto the ground.
Whoa, whoa, whoa.

(01:04:01):
I got rights.
I got rights.
He says, Feather McGregor, you are under arrest.
You have the right to remain silent.
Anything you say can and will be used against you
in the court of law.
Little sauce, we are arresting you for five counts
of felony murder, one count of first degree armed robbery,
one count of first degree theft, and one count of trespassing.

(01:04:24):
Don't forget arson.
Well, nothing.
If you guys know what's good for you,
you better get out of here.
This is all misunderstanding.
As they load you into the police cart,
in the background, you can see them leading away
the horse and cart that you guys stole from the Pendleton
estate, which, as far as you guys had told me,

(01:04:45):
was parked at Feather McGregor's house.
Wait, why?
Oh, that's where we left it.
Oh, that's funny.
I'm just going to wave bye-bye and say,
better than us, right?
Yeah, they all-- they haul him in,
and then all of them start to head out to head back
to the precinct.
Guys, I think we're going to need
to find a new NPC companion.

(01:05:07):
Luckily for the rest of the gang,
only sauce had charges placed against him.
But being the nice bunch of murderers and thieves

(01:05:29):
that they are, they chose not to let their friend rot
in jail for the rest of his life,
and instead forged some fake lawyer licenses
and took it upon themselves to represent him
in the court of law.
Even I popped in to give my two cents
on how he could save himself.
All right, what have they got you for, McGregor?

(01:05:50):
Fine counts of murder.
That's it?
This case is going to be the easiest case yet in my career.
And if we happen to make complete fools of ourselves,
your bail is only 500 gold pieces.
Oh, that's it?
Just to clarify, but bail doesn't mean
you're just like Scott free.
No, that's 100% what it doesn't mean.
Yeah, I was going to say, because when you said that there,

(01:06:11):
you had me worried.
That's like, your bail is only 500 bucks.
We'll get you out of here no big deal.
And I'm like, wait, hold on.
Hey, you guys got the rock on you?
Here it is, right in my pocket.
All right, so I shake it.
Hello, Philip McGregor.
Are you about to ask me if banks in this world are insured?
No.
What's the best defense to use that will get me out of this?

(01:06:33):
Usually I say, deny, deny, deny.
What you know will get me out of this.
All right, here's the best defense.
When all else fails, plead the 28th.
Doing the crime is easy enough.
It's avoiding the time that requires hard work, fake evidence,

(01:06:54):
false witnesses, and whatever other underhanded tactics
one can muster.
These alleged criminal masterminds
started by spying on the prosecution.
OK, you learn three elements that the prosecutor is
planning on using against you.
As you hear the prosecution discussing with his assistant,

(01:07:17):
he says, all right, all right, all right,
we've got a few different directions
that I want to go with.
First of all, we're going to bring in the horses.
We're going to call the horses to the witness stand.
And I'm sure their testimony is going
to be brilliant for that.

(01:07:40):
So make sure you guys have them well fed, ready to go.
For the trial, we've got, I think, four different horses.
So make sure they're all taken care of.
Let's see.
The second thing that we want to use in this case
is obviously the carriage as evidence.

(01:08:04):
I think it's a pretty big one.
That's a pretty big one that we're
going to be able to slam him on.
I've got a spot.
A friend of mine runs Steamway Carriages, Inc.
headquarters over at their headquarters.
They said they'd make a space for the carriage,
keep it safe there.
So that shouldn't be any kind of a problem.
Let's see.
What else is on the docket for getting ready for this?

(01:08:25):
Oh, do you have everybody--
do we have record that everybody's still in the morgue
and their bodies are preserved and assistant nuns and confirms?
And he goes, perfect, perfect.
That's going to be important as well.
And that's what you guys hear before he dismisses the assistant

(01:08:46):
and starts just kind of scribbling and writing.
What was that last thing?
He asked if all the bodies were preserved at the morgue.
Got it.
So if we knew a couple magicians,
they could tamper with the climate controls in the morgue
and speed the decomposition process or just behead them.

(01:09:07):
One need to be a chemistry could just
slice off the head then they got nothing to identify.
If you slice off the head, you can't talk to them anymore.
They're dead?
They're dead.
I don't think that's--
I don't think that spell works anymore.
Oh, I didn't know that existed.
That clerics and wizards can cast.
I think they need to have their head still attached.
Or at least the head if we just take the heads

(01:09:29):
and just ditch them in some river or something.
Or feed them to a dog.
Feed them to the horses.
The group now knew the three primary areas to focus on.
One, stopping the horses from getting testimony.
Two, dealing with the stolen carriage that
was found at Little Sauce's house.
And three, finding some way to ensure

(01:09:51):
that the corpses they left behind in the alley couldn't speak.
But of course, knowledge only gets you so far.
Now they needed to act on their information.
Des went off to Steamway Carriages
to try to ruin the deceased Pendleton's wagon.
I'm going to walk up to the door to the nicer office area.

(01:10:13):
And I would like to step in and act like I'm waiting for help.
And then I'm going to reach into my bag of tricks.
And I'm going to roll one of the fluffy balls out
of the bag of tricks into the middle of the office.
Discreetly.
OK.
What are you rolling it?

(01:10:34):
It's a black bear.
Holy--
[LAUGHTER]
All right, you roll this bag in.
And then all of a sudden, you just hear [ROARING]
as heavy footsteps start to fall and make their way throughout.
And you hear someone shout, excuse me, is somebody here?
And then, oh, a pair.

(01:10:55):
Oh, dear.
And you hear a door slam.
All right, I will run to the garage.
And I will frantically--
I'm waving my hands up.
And then in front of you is a dwarven female.
OK.
And she's got coveralls on.
Yep.
And she's got a big old wrench in her hand.
And she's got some soot or some kind of grease on her face.

(01:11:17):
And she's like, I don't know what you're trying to say there,
Phillip.
If something's wrong, you got to tell us.
Because you look darn frantic.
I really wish I had a fire lantern.
Oh, I guess I had bullseye lanterns, don't I?
Is there oil on the floor of this garage type place?
Yeah, I'd say so.
I'm going to don a terrified face

(01:11:38):
and just point behind her.
OK, yeah, she looks back.
What do you mean something's back there?
Kind of out of my robe of useful items,
throw down a bullseye lantern just on the floor.
They are filled and lit is how it was described.
You throw this down and it immediately
ignites some of the fluids on the ground.
And at this point, the guy underneath the car

(01:11:58):
is freaking out.
He's like, why am I smelling fire?
Why am I smelling fire?
I smell fire.
What's going on out there?
Meanwhile, Maki, Keto, and Little Sauce
went to the morgue to see what they could do about the bodies.
As we are the lawyers, going to see the witnesses,
them being the dead corpses.
At least step one, sneak into the hospital

(01:12:21):
or just go into the hospital.
Step two, light the room on fire.
Find some hospital uniforms.
Ah, scrubs.
Yeah, we could be janitors, yeah.
Step three, wait for the morgue people to go to lunch.
Question mark, do they eat?

(01:12:41):
Question mark.
Step four, profit.
Now we sneak in there, unseen like, and take care of the bodies.
Yeah, I don't see any reason to over complicate this.
Just wait for our opening and then take it.
And if there is no opening, make it.

(01:13:02):
What do you got?
Let's just go.
All right.
Yeah, you go into the hospital.
There's like a front desk reception area.
Thanks to a little magical knowledge from Maki,
they knew just how to ensure the bodies couldn't talk.
Let's cut the heads off and throw them in the furnace
or the whole body.
Just make them disappear.
I do know that is a bit of a process to burn the body.
It's not like you just throw it in, you're like, boom, it's gone.

(01:13:24):
It has to burn for a while.
And then also the fact of getting it--
I mean, it's a whole body you got to drag over there.
Let's cut the drawers off.
Let's say there's five bodies on this half,
five bodies on the other half.
Oh, just take every jaw.
Just take every jaw from the entire--
It can't be that hard.
You just--
We'll do three at a time.
We all know who we're looking for.
OK, so you each run to a body.
Do just an attack roll.
23.
23.

(01:13:45):
Holy crap.
How much damage did you take to cut a head off?
It's just the jaw.
You guys keep saying cut the head off.
OK, that's what I'm saying.
If you say cut the head off, I mean, you need the heads here.
I'm going to have heads show up to the quarter.
We have gone through this 100 times.
If the mouth is not destroyed--
The mouth is not destroyed.
It's not what I meant.
OK.
I would get a big kick out of that.
Why, just like--
Bring the head.
The lawyer comes in.
He's like, I just want to apologize for their appearance,

(01:14:06):
but it is necessary for this trial.
Plops her head down.
And Rorik, my old friend, went off to the Penitent Stables
to find a way to keep the horses from being
able to give their testimony.
All things considered, the gang had a pretty good plan
in place when they arrived at the trial of Little Sauce.
Although the prosecution still had some tricks up their sleeve

(01:14:29):
as well.
Yo, I would like to use the cross examination Article 3.
Yes.
All right.
He turns to the back of the room where the doors are,
and he gives it a nod.
And one of the guards over there, he opens up the door,
in steps, and or--
And he's completely bald.
He hears kind of one of those swinging incense sensors.

(01:14:51):
Like how they use it at churches,
with incense stuff.
Exactly.
Yep.
And he makes his way down the aisle,
and he approaches the stand.
This is Orko the Oracle.
He serves at the Temple of Light, and he is occasionally
called in for court trials when necessary.
Sir Orko, yes, yes.
Please, prosecution, please at least explain what Mr. Orko

(01:15:14):
here is.
Yes.
Yes.
Orko, if you would be so kind as to cast
a zone of truth over the witness's sand here.
[GUNSHOT]
No, Soss, on the other hand, had a very interesting defense
to this.
The cart, the jars of semen, and some of the various items

(01:15:36):
stolen from Lord Pendleton's house
were found at your property, correct?
And that is correct, yes.
Could you explain to the jury why those items
were in your house?
You know, I can't 100% say for fact or certain,
but I do have speculation.
I know it's speculation.
Your Honor, he's about to give speculation.
He just admitted to it.

(01:15:56):
Oh, yeah, I would like to--
[GUNSHOT]
Well, I didn't do it then.
I guess I just won't tell you what I think.
I didn't do it.
I mean, that's pretty much it.
I didn't do it.
Were you at any point at the Pendleton estate?
No.
Interesting.
I would like to put into evidence these feathers
from the crashed carriage.
And he slides a bag of feathers.

(01:16:19):
In fact, we can test these right here and now.
Argo, would you please cast the Locate Object spell
to find the origination of these feathers?
By this time, all the evidence had been presented,
and the jury had reached a verdict.
I'll admit, even I, from the outside of this pocket
dimension, dropped everything I was doing

(01:16:40):
to see what was in store for our feathery friend.
I shall now read the findings of the jury.
On the first count of feathery murder, not guilty,
second count, not guilty, third count, not guilty,
fourth count, not guilty, and fifth count, also not guilty.

(01:17:06):
On the first count of first degree of robbery, not guilty,
on the first count of first degree theft, guilty.
Watch.
[LAUGHTER]
I'm putting the handle on his shoulder.
[LAUGHTER]
And on the count of trespassing, you have been found guilty.

(01:17:28):
Yeah, that's fair.
[LAUGHTER]
Now, sir, while you have not been found guilty of any
of the feathery murders, obviously,
the count's punishments is out of the question.
Sorry, Bruce.
You see, on--
The judge wiped a tear from his eye.
Like, if he left, also it's really bummed out.
So however, you must still be sentenced for first degree theft

(01:17:49):
and trespassing.
So for the first degree trespassing,
yet, there is a sentence of three days community service.
And for first count, first degree theft of horse semen,
which need I remind you, I need not remind you,
takes high praise in this community.
That is seven years in the county jail.
[LAUGHTER]
Seven years in the state jail.

(01:18:11):
No.
Well.
So three days community service in seven years--
Oh.
Man, I can't believe you got community service.
[LAUGHTER]
Oh, seven years.
That was going to put a significant stint in the game's goal
of one million gold.
And their guide to this world wasn't really transferable.

(01:18:34):
I was chuckling to myself, thinking about how they may have
just received the final nail in their coffin.
When Sauce did something that surprised even me.
Well, have I got a surprise for you?
What is the surprise?
I-- a little sauce, a feather, a McGregor.
Pleads a 28.

(01:18:55):
[GASP]
Do you understand the ramifications of bleeding 28, Mr. Sauce?
Everyone in the room was just absolutely astounded and shot.
Uh, no.
But I'm going to do it anyways.
Can you explain it to me?
Well, uh, very well, uh, the 28th is trial by combats.

(01:19:17):
[LAUGHTER]
Well, it's nice to see him taking my advice after all.
Now it was just a matter of seeing if he could survive the incoming
fight he was going to have to be put up against.
He did have a little bit of safety net, though.
You see, they hadn't spent much of their gold that they'd
earned up until this point through their various endeavors,

(01:19:38):
such as the theft of the Pendleton State and so on and so forth.
And they still had a unique opportunity I gave them to help
them grow a bit stronger, something I referred to as my level up arcade.
Oh, you would like to level up?
Yeah.
Oh, and then--
[EXPLOSION]
All of a sudden, everything around you just suddenly disappears,

(01:20:01):
and you find yourself suddenly surrounded by bright flashing
lights in every direction.
Are we all here?
Yeah, all of you.
Like the Matrix.
It's like not like the Matrix at all.
It's exactly like the Matrix.
That's what the Matrix would say.
[LAUGHTER]
It's like the training room in the Matrix, which is a blank white room.

(01:20:22):
No, it's not like that at all.
It is--
Yeah, the blank room that SpongeBob and Patrick take
when they break the time machine.
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
No, it's not like that at all.
Oh, no.
No, instead.
Wait, can we keep naming things that's not?
No, that's exhausting.
Your characters obviously wouldn't be able to understand this description,

(01:20:43):
but all of you understand this description.
It is like standing in the dead center of a massive arcade.
Welcome, welcome to George M. Zipp's level up arcade.
Here, you can buy tokens, which can be used to play one of the various popular arcade games

(01:21:04):
and leads you to a specific direction in the leveling up.
You can get either large or small tokens.
They correlate to the various prizes you can receive as far as leveling up goes.
So if you want something really cool, like class abilities--
This is a little bit meta, but it is what it is.

(01:21:25):
Then you might want to get a large token,
but if you are more interested in skill proficiencies, language,
capable of speaking of languages, etc.,
you can just get a small token,
but you can still play any of the same games with either of these tokens.
It's just what prize you're hoping to gain.
It's like big prizes or regular prizes.

(01:21:49):
Gambling takes many forms, trust me, I should know.
And although the Divine Casino is one of my most popular attractions among the other gods,
I wanted to create something a little more accessible for the mortals.
So with a bit of boost in power,
Sos was ready to take on his punishment.
But not before a familiar voice called out from him from amidst the crowd,

(01:22:11):
as he was led to the Colosseum.
And amidst the crowd, little Sos, you do recognize one particular figure
who seems to be waving and trying to get your attention.
And it is the Chief from Blank Space.
And he's kind of pushing his way through the crowd to get up close to the front.
You've got reporters in your face that are sticking these sort of like magical wand sticks up to you

(01:22:36):
that have recording capabilities.
These are all things that you're aware of.
They're trying to ask you questions.
Sir, sir, did you successfully get away with murdering an individual today?
No.
No, you didn't get away with it?
Yes.
Yes, you did it?

(01:22:57):
No.
Sir, how many of the five murder charges were you successfully able to commit
and therefore get away with today?
No.
Questions like this are obviously flooding in.
You're confused until eventually the Chief manages to push his way to the front
and he says, "A feather! A feather!
I've got to talk to your feather!"

(01:23:20):
It's important.
I know you're in a bit of a situation right now,
but I need to speak with you at your earliest convenience.
Well, here it is right now. It's the earliest.
No, I can't tell you in front of all these people.
I need you to come to my office as quickly as possible.
I'm probably going to die, so...
You'll be fine. I'm sure you'll be fine.
I really want out of this life.

(01:23:43):
Okay, D.B. takes pause at this one.
What?
I just want out of this life. I've been in new life.
What life? What are you talking about, feather?
I've just got a new path on life and I just...
After this is over, if I survive, I just want out. I just want out.
Look, feather, I don't know how else to say this,

(01:24:07):
but this is way bigger than anything.
In fact, it might affect this entire world.
I need to speak with you. Look, everything is connected.
That's all I can say. Everything is connected.
Just promise me. Promise me.
When you make it out of this fight, just stop by my office.

(01:24:28):
Just for a quick chat.
Do something to help me in this fight and I'll come stop by.
All right, I can do that.
Okay, deal.
All right.
A strange plea indeed from Sars's former boss.
But I promise you, it's going to be important later on.
For now, let's follow Sars into the Colosseum and see what happens.

(01:24:50):
As the gate across from you is pulled up,
you hear a loud...
As if something kind of exhaled outwards.
The gate starts to rise.
The ground starts to shake as two massive legs
step out from amidst the gate and the head pops out,

(01:25:14):
covered in scales as the announcer shouts out,
"The Allosaurus!"
And all the people start to cheer and scream.
The Allosaurus starts to lift its head and it lets out a huge roar.
And again, the crowd starts to go nuts.

(01:25:36):
They're so excited for this fight.
But before it can happen, I need you to roll initiative.
Nat 20.
Now, while Sars is desperately fighting for his life,
avoiding the jaws of the Allosaurus,
his comrades are placing bets and enjoying food and drink from the stands.

(01:25:57):
Amidst all of their fun though,
Keto takes the opportunity to seek out an item he's had on his wish list for quite some time.
Keto turns to his comrades and says, "I've seen enough."
And he leaves and goes to the main concourse.
"You just leave me!"
"I can't watch this thing. I can't watch this thing."
"Alright, you start to..."
"Yeah, you start..."

(01:26:18):
"No one's gonna stab you from leaving."
But while they're, he's then going to turn his attention to the crowd
of those shuffling around to the gift shops
and those, and he's gonna see if he can find someone with a big, dark cloak.
"Oh, interesting."
"Okay, I'm thinking Jedi, though."
"Just a very concealing cloak. Does he see anyone?"
"You see a person wearing a big, dark cloak."

(01:26:41):
"There you go."
"Yeah, okay. I've bet it's a look approachable."
"Uh, they are..."
"Sending?"
"It is a group of people."
"Well, you don't know."
"It's a big... whoever it is is wearing a big, dark cloak."
"And they are leaned up against the... just kind of a wall, kind of nearby the concession stand."
"Just based on..."

(01:27:03):
"Just chilling."
"I want to hate myself for using this word."
"Wait a minute."
"Just based on the vibes."
"Wait a minute, wait a minute. Out there."
"Mmm. Fact check, vibe check."
"Yes, I know."
"What do we roll for Vine?"
"They seem like they are somewhat threatening."
"This sounds like an insight check. I think that's why a vibe check is an insight check."
"It's true."
"It's an insight check."

(01:27:24):
"I feel like Fatty just really wanted to roll a dice."
"I don't care what I do, just as long as it makes me roll a dice."
"Oh man, I have great insight apparently."
"24."
"24? The person seems really chill."
"Actually, no. The person seems a little bit skittish."
"You see maybe like a hand or something that's peeking out from the cloak."

(01:27:46):
"And it's kind of like jittering a little bit, like almost like a nervous habit."
"That kind of gives off the idea that the person kind of has..."
"Maybe their nerves are a little bit on edge and they're not watching the fight."
"Which means their nerves are not on edge because of whatever's happening there."
"So based on that..."
"And it's just one person, there's nothing to get onto Rush?"
"No, this person seems real solo."
"Like the other people that are around are explicitly there for concessions."

(01:28:09):
"Okay."
"Kido is gonna go up to this guy and introduce himself."
"Okay, give me some of that."
"Uh, sir, I couldn't help but notice that you have a dark cloak and I'm looking to remain relatively nondescript."
"I would like to blend in with the crowd and that looks to be a very good tool to doing so."

(01:28:31):
"Would you be willing to part with that?"
"The person kind of like turns their head towards you and you see not a man, but a young woman with red hair."
"And she says, 'What? What? What do you want?'"
"You want my cloak?"
"I'm sorry, it's a very odd question, but I just don't feel like sticking out in this crowd."

(01:28:53):
"She pauses for a moment and she kind of stares at you for a second, a little bit."
"It goes from being confused to almost, you can literally see the spark kind of ignite as an idea kind of comes to her mind."
"And she says, 'Um, by chance, would you have any clothing you'd be willing to trade?'"

(01:29:14):
"Undergarment, straight, you're undergarment."
"Doesn't mean she's offering you a rigor. Like here, I'll give you my underwear for your cloak."
"Yes, yes, a deal."
"Panty trade."
"I'm not offering, uh, is there a specific article of clothing you're looking for?"
"As long as it fits me."
"She's a human woman."
"Um, she's maybe just a little bit taller than you are."

(01:29:39):
"Which is kind of saying something, she's fairly short for a human woman because of the fact that she's not that much taller than you are."
"Because you're a cobalt, which is pretty short."
"I apparently have common clothes. Do I have an extra tunic?"
"Oh."
"Or do I have a lion-eared of tunic that I'm willing to part with one layer for the cloak?"
"I'd say that your common clothes would come with some sort of a cloak of some kind."

(01:30:04):
"Or like a vest."
"The vest over the tunic."
"Sure."
"I'm willing to part with the vest."
"Okay."
"Um, as she agrees, she's like, 'Yeah, that'll work.'
"As she agrees, she takes off the cloak, she hands it to you, and as she does her hair moves, and you notice like a subtle point to her ears."
"Not a full point like you see in a full elf, but you assume maybe she's a half elf based on how little the point kind of comes up."

(01:30:30):
"It's more than a normal human sometimes has, just from ear variation, but it's definitely not as much as a full elf."
"Just a detail that you notice as she, because you rolled really high on insight, which technically isn't perception, but I digress."
"She hands you the cloak, and then you hand her this vest, and she puts that on, she has like a backpack, and she reaches in it, she pulls out just a pointed hat, and she puts that over her head."

(01:30:53):
"Kiddlebein, content with this transaction is very content to just turn around and walk away."
"Yeah."
"Kiddlebein, you will not leave without saying 'thank you' and then that's all the more."
"Do you turn and then turn back to say 'thank you'? "Yes."
"She's gone."
"Okay."
"She disappeared amidst the crowd, or at least you assume, but you have a dark cloak now."

(01:31:17):
"Yes, and he then dawns said dark cloak, and tightens it up, and dawns the hood, and he then walks back to his spot."
"Okay, sounds good."
"I know this is an odd detail to highlight, but once again, I assure you, there's a good reason I'm mentioning it."
[Music]

(01:31:46):
Let's jump back to the fight though. Sauce is on the brink of death, and the Allosaurus is still standing.
It's starting to look like the battle might be too close for comfort when Rorik makes a dangerous decision.
"Can I just take a shot at the dinosaur at this distance with an arrow?"
"Yeah, you can try if you want to."

(01:32:08):
"Because I saw arrows could go through, right?"
"Okay, where'd you roll?"
"18, 18, cool."
"You roll with disadvantage because it's probably out of range for a short bow and wrestling."
"18, 18, okay."
"You shoot an arrow forth, which flies out, and sure enough manages to hit big owl."
"Roll the damage."
"Is he adjacent to Quinn?"

(01:32:30):
"The big owl?"
"Yeah."
"Yeah."
"The now security's off the drink, all four of these meats, myself."
"10 damage."
"All right, the arrow slams into big owl, it hits him right in the neck, and big owl kind of stumbles a little bit from this arrow that hit him just like in just the right spot."

(01:32:51):
"With that you hear a whole bunch of the crowd gasp, and then they start to boo, and you see your friend turn and look at you and he goes, 'No, won't you have to go and do that?'"
"And with that a number of guards start to flood from multiple different spots around and start rushing towards you."

(01:33:12):
"Keto's going to distance himself from them."
"And then we go over to, well we go to Machi, cheering, or we jump over to the Allosaur, which is, it shakes off this impact from the arrow and then goes to bite towards little sauce again."
"That's a 13 total, which misses once again on your blur, which puts us back to Keto, who is cheering, and then jump back over to little sauce. You see the dinosaurs severely weakened at this point."

(01:33:43):
"A magic missile again."
"Okay, what'd you get?"
"A-8."
"You pull back, you hurl for three more bolts of force energy."
"First one slams into the dinosaur, it steps once back, the second one slams into it again, it takes another step back, and the third one comes, as it's still finishing that second step, slams into it, knocking it off balance and pushing it backwards like in the air as its whole body comes and slams down on the ground behind you and lets out one last...

(01:34:20):
[slurping]
...before it dies.
"Hey!"
"But no one in the crowd is doing anything, as a group of guards comes and grabs Rorak and hauls him on."
"Wonderful, now Rorak is about to go to jail, we're back where we started all once again."

(01:34:41):
"Or are we?"
"As the goblin gets dragged off to the Colosseum Lockup, something truly unexpected happens."
"I'm getting arrested?"
"Yeah, as you're getting taken away by the guards, all of a sudden the rest of you watching, a huge explosion erupts from the side of the Colosseum, shaking the entire area."

(01:35:05):
"Everybody in the stands is panicking, freaking out, the people that were over in that section, who knows, they could be dead, you don't know, a bunch of rubble and who knows what kind of came flying out."
"From a midst that, you also see what looks like a couple of, a handful of different creatures that were being stored in the back areas of the Colosseum."
"Go flying out, running out, whatever the case, the magical, you actually see like a glimmer sort of fade away as the magical barrier that was keeping anybody from casting any kind of magic into the fight dissipates."

(01:35:38):
"And some of these creatures actually run out of the Colosseum area, up the side and out into the city."
Now, remember how I said that strange elf lady that Kido swapped outfits with earlier during the fight was an important detail that we'd see later on?
"Well, once the panic of the explosion died down and the group went to the cells of the Colosseum where Rorak was being held, the owner of the facility revealed she very well might be the one who planted the bombs in the first place."

(01:36:09):
"Outside the cell, there's a man with a big mustache and a bit of a top hat and he's also standing there and his face is beat red to the point where you almost wonder if he is a tiefling he's so red."
"Absolutely furious."
"Sir, we brought you the guy that, remember how I was saying that I saw somebody in a dark cloak screwing around in the behind the scenes areas that I was pretty sure might have planted the explosives, sir?"

(01:36:38):
"That's right, is that him?"
"Yep, this is the cloak I saw."
"You must not know who I am. I'm Hal Hippodrome, owner of the island new miss Hippodrome and you, sir, are a suspicious character who may not have only cost me money in the bets, but we are reasoning to believe you just blew a dang hole in the dang Hippodrome."

(01:37:02):
"So our intrepid adventurers, these strangers in a strange land, now find themselves working for a new client, Hal Hippodrome of the island new miss Hippodrome who demands recompense for Rorick's interference in the fight which costs him thousands of gold.
To repay this debt, the team will need to hunt down three major monsters that managed to escape during the explosion. The Shadow Hag, a terrifying witch-like creature capable of taming the magic hidden within the darkness. You know, thinking back, I may have been responsible for trapping her in island new miss in the first place.

(01:37:38):
The Mitocisaurus, which was a strange magical experiment gone horribly wrong. And finally, King Fortunus, the product of a drug known as "Burst" and more commonly referred to in these days and times as "spinach" by the local miscreants and questionable characters residing within the underbelly of my creation.

(01:38:01):
This "king" as he refers to himself, nearly took the title to the max about a decade back when he went on an unstoppable rampage through the Atlantic Heights district. If it were me, I'd have put him down on the spot.
But old Hell Hippodrome's deep pockets ensured Fortunus was captured alive instead and stored in an incredibly sturdy cell so he could bring him out during fights. And that's where this arachakra has been ever since.

(01:38:32):
Until the recent explosions blasted the door right off his prison and set him free to return to his gang of musclebound beasts hidden away in their headquarters known as the Gridiron.
Now, the chief of the blank space, Sos's ex-boss, remember we heard from him earlier, he upkept his end of the deal and he made sure that Sos didn't die during the fight against the Allosaurus.

(01:38:54):
So Sos decided to do the right thing and returned to the precinct office to see what the chief was so on about. This is a point where the party gets split up a little bit so you'll be hearing two different sides of the story moving forward.
With that being said, nothing could probably have prepared any of us for what Lil Sos found when he arrived at what would soon be the ex-base of blank space.

(01:39:21):
Lil Sos, you head over to where you know blank space headquarters is located at and as you approach the door that you normally would go through, which looks like just a typical store entrance, right? It's just a normal place.
It's meant to look, you know, just like your average spot. It's like in spy movies where they have to go through the dry cleaners but it's secretly, you know, the entrance to their base, they have to like walk into a weird specific rack of clothing.

(01:39:48):
It's kind of like that, right? The thing that throws you off though is the fact that normally, and we established this last time that you went there, but there was that guy that wore like a poncho and a sombrero basically and he sits outside of the store and he's a member of blank space, right?
He's like a guard basically. He's there to make sure that people who go in are people that are supposed to go in and people that don't belong there are not part of blank space.

(01:40:15):
They still go in there or at least they don't see the headquarters, right? You see he's not there. And in fact, the chair that he normally sits on, he kind of leaned up against the building and stuff like that.
It looks like he's just napping all the time is falling over on the ground sideways.
That's against protocol.
That is against protocol.
That's actually really bad. So I'm going to proceed in with cause.

(01:40:37):
OK, you walk inside and you carefully peek your head in. And what you see before you is a mess.
The whole place has been turned over. Chairs have been flipped. Papers are scattered all over the room. And worse yet, individuals that you knew from blank space are scattered across the floor.

(01:41:02):
In pieces?
Some in pieces.
That's not good.
Some with just blood oozing out of them. All of them are dead. And that's like the opposite of good.
That is the opposite of good. What do you do?
I'm going to proceed. I'm going to check to make sure if see if there's anybody alive still. They're all dead.

(01:41:23):
Yeah. In fact, you check some of the bodies and you can tell that they've been alive or sorry, dead for about the last maybe 10 minutes or so.
Yeah, I'm just going to proceed cautiously.
Kind of roll perception.
Yeah, absolutely.
19.
19? Oh, cow.
So yeah, you see everything in front of you. You see papers scattered everywhere.

(01:41:44):
But what you notice most of all is that these papers aren't just scattered. They're torn up. They're burned.
A lot of stuff is burned. In fact, you notice a lot of burn spots throughout.
You also notice chunks of space that have a burn like remainder on them, but it almost looks like things had been exploded outwards from that spot.

(01:42:05):
And you see a number of those situations kind of scattered all over. You see bits of like the chair that was over here.
You see bits of it have been thrown like all the way across the room or blown all the way across the room or whatever the case to suggest that somebody brought some kind of like high explosives in here or something like that.
You see various bolts like from a crossbow or something along those lines shot into the wall.

(01:42:30):
And then of course, a number of the people that are dead on the ground also have bolts inside of them as well.
And then the last thing that you notice is the chief's office all the way at the far end of the room.
The walls have been ripped off or blown off. It's got burn spots all across wherever the wall and wherever whatever's left of the wall still remains attached.

(01:42:53):
And you can see behind the thrown over desk, you can see the chief.
And as you're looking, you see that he's still moving ever so slightly.
But he's he's like laid up against a wall. There's a lot of red coming off of the shirt.
But you can see just the slightest amount of movement as if he's still maybe breathing a little bit.

(01:43:15):
Now I'm going to go to a chief. What happened, boss?
And he he looks over at you and he's got he's got blood pouring out of his mouth and he costs.
Oh, thank God, it's your life.
Feather, you gotta you gotta do something about this. You don't understand. It's it's so much bigger. It's bigger than Plague Space.

(01:43:38):
It might even be bigger than Isla Numus. It's bad, Feather. It's bad.
What's bad? What's bad? Tell me. You got to tell me before you die.
It's all connected. Feather, you got it. You got to put all the pieces together.
I don't have enough time to give you the full rundown, but give me some names. Give me some numbers.

(01:43:59):
It's all all connected. The the grave robbers, euphoria and the allegionnaires and so many more.
They're all they're all connected. Look, Feather, you got to watch out for the allegionnaires.
They're they're the most powerful of all, or at least as far as I got. I only got so far, Feather.

(01:44:20):
I tried to put it all together and they found out. But start with start with the grave robbers.
And he cost to grave robbers. Legionnaires, euphoria. What does this mean? Where are they? Who are they?
You find out for that. You'll find out. And I know you you do good. Because you you're just like McGriddle.

(01:44:45):
You you know what's right and you'll keep this city safe.
And with that, he lets out one more breath and he closes his eyes.
And he dies.
Oof, poor Sass. Now everyone he was close to is dead, leaving him trapped in his world with a bunch of crazy criminals.

(01:45:14):
Who in Ila Numis could possibly have had the power to take down the entire blank space corporation?
Sass was certainly on the way to find out. And he was going to start with these grave robbers that the chief had mentioned with his dying breath.
Using an underworld connection, he was able to get the first clues on his med at Mystery.

(01:45:37):
I've thrown a little bonus since you got me an extra sausage roll. And I love these things.
But there's a guy that's been going around hiring up all of as many scroungers as willing to take the job to go dig up bones in any and all graveyards.
That's all I know. And so Twitch and Bungus, they heard about this. They need the money.
Yeah, that's uh, I mean, yeah, that's that's what I know. Twitch and Bungus tonight, North and Escarty and Cemetery.

(01:46:03):
They know more, obviously, because they're directly involved in it. I'm not going to go out digging. Look at these, look at these arms.
I can't dig with these arms, okay? That's not what I'm, that's not what I do.
No, I know, I know. I appreciate your time. You've been a real, you know, I dare say friend.
Wow, you okay? I don't know why I care, but this is weird.

(01:46:28):
Oh, you got two, I mean, that's two sausage rolls, Bill's trust man.
While Little Sauce followed his lead to find the Grey Robbers and who was financing them, the rest of the gang discovered the mitosis horrors in the Blood Ball Stadium, fought it and captured it.
You'd think they'd take it back to the Coliseum and mark one monster off Rorick's list so that he could become one step closer to freedom.

(01:46:50):
Instead, they found what they believed to be a more fiscally responsible choice.
Selling it to an old friend they had met back before the Minotaur races.
All of a sudden you hear a voice next to you and he says, "Well, I don't know about that, but I'd pay you if you could kill it and let me have it."

(01:47:11):
And you look next to you and stand-
Dennis Quaid!
No, standing next to you is a familiar face to you specifically.
It is a tiefling in a long black trench coat and you recognize him from the cafe that you went and got coffee at before you guys did the Minotaur race.

(01:47:38):
And he asked you about who was I with when I did that.
I want to say...
It was us two. Yeah, it was Dennis. Yes, yes.
So you two recognize him?
Oh yeah, because I talked to him the whole time and Dennis just stared at him.
Yeah, it does. It's a good thing.
But he was asking you about, I don't know, you had a book about horses.
Yes, yes, I remember this guy now. Yes.

(01:48:00):
I wish people would stop being ableist towards this.
Just because he's a view.
I can't believe you're talking to me again and not my friend.
And Dennis gives him the finger, like the two fingers and then points at his eyes like, "Stare me in my eyes!"
He looks you in your eyes with a saucy gaze and we kiss.
Roll for intimacy.

(01:48:22):
You know, I'm just kidding.
Spice alert!
Yeah, give it how much?
I'll give you 1,800 gold pieces for it.
I want more. 20. Final offer.
20,000? Wait, did you say 18? I don't know math.
Does that could all count her offer desk?
It has nods and then gives him like an up finger.

(01:48:48):
So hard, got it. 20k.
Well, I guess I'll have to find somebody else.
Wait, it's 1,800, like 1,800 and 3 zeros or 2 zeros?
Dennis gives you like a one second finger.
He just writes down on his slate and his slate says, "Ask for a million."

(01:49:09):
Final offer. One million. Wait, you can't read.
I can read now. We found out I can read in this robotic.
I actually know if you upped his intelligence.
But at the same time, I upped my intelligence and also learned like six new languages.
I became extremely smart for slum race.

(01:49:33):
He just looks at you and he says, "Okay, I misunderstood. 2,000 gold."
Roll a brace with waving?
Sure, yeah. 17.
He says, "All right, I could do 2,000."
But you keep the body.
Can we keep one of the heads as proof?

(01:49:56):
Do you know anything about a mitosisaurus?
Side sword toes? Nope.
Yeah, you could keep one of the heads.
Cool. Hey, do you know how we kill one of these suckers?
Oh, I'd rather sit and watch.
And he just walks up to one of the seats and the stands and just sits down.
He's like, "How about it?

(01:50:18):
Rorik, as you are working the tightest thing up."
Yes, you are. The dude suddenly appears next to you.
Out of the corner of your eye, you catch just like a little bit of a black,
wispy, sort of shadowy material that sort of vaporizes as he appears next to you.
And he says, "Well done. Are we on for a deal?"

(01:50:40):
Double, we got it alive.
Wait, real spare.
Roll another persuasion.
22.
I'll give you an extra 500.
I'm gonna go to a smaller one to try to tie its mouth shut.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay.
Des holds up three fingers to you, Rorik.

(01:51:03):
Three million.
Three million.
Insight, I rolled a ten.
Do you want me to counter that insight?
Sure, because I'm about to say 300.
Final hover.
[laughter]
I did a 17, so you can...

(01:51:25):
What do you mean by three?
Just triple is the idea is to go for triple.
That's not what Rorik thought.
What did he think that you thought?
Three thousand.
Yes.
Okay.
Three thousand.
All right, deal.
You drive a hard bargain, goblin, but I pay a fair price.

(01:51:47):
Wait, three thousand altogether or two thousand plus three thousand?
I don't know what we just agreed to.
Just three thousand.
Oh, okay, deal.
As I was tying up the rest of the story.
He says, "Oh, you don't have to waste any more rope. I can take it from here."
How?
Well, if you would let your friends know to take a step back.
Everyone take a step back.

(01:52:08):
This cool guy's about to do some cool guy stuff.
I'll take a step back.
Why not?
Can I get the gold first?
He hands you a sack of gold.
Oh, geez, that's heavy.
And then right into the magic bag of hold and it goes whoop.
He looks over to where the centrist snake is sitting and he starts to swirl his hands around.

(01:52:30):
And as he does, there's sort of a swirling of black sort of shadowy energy.
Leave one of the hats.
Oh, it's like the energy bunny from Avatar, Korra.
Oh, yeah. I was like, oh, yeah, yeah.
And it starts to form underneath the centrist snake.
It starts to grow and it grows and grows.
And as it does, you see the centrist snake from the middle, or sorry, not the centrist snake, the mitosisaurus.

(01:52:55):
From its center, it starts to kind of fall underneath as if it's falling through the ground.
And then it starts to pull the heads with it until it all disappears into this swirling portal.
And he says, you still want the heads, right?
Just one.
For proof.
All right.
And he sort of pushes, he looks like he's really straining, but he pushes this spiraling shadowy vortex a little way so that it grabs one of them and it slides into it as well.

(01:53:24):
And then he sort of just pulls his hands together and as he does this giant portal shrinks until he completely caps it off, essentially.
Once that was taken care of, they decided to forego the shadow hag in preference for heading to King Fortunus' old workout spot, the Great Iron, in hopes of taking him out next.

(01:53:47):
Things were going pretty well for our team of criminals.
Meanwhile, Lilsos was still on the hunt for these grave robbers.
He followed up with his earlier lead and staked out the Atlantic Heights graveyard for where they were supposed to be.
Sure enough, two scroungers drifted in from the late night air and got to work trying to break into an ornate mausoleum.

(01:54:10):
Disguising his voice, he was able to get a little bit of information out of them.
And who are you taking the bones to this time?
We mean this time it's always the same.
It's Rad-- it's Radicus.
Radicus?
Yeah, Radicus.
What's he paying you to do this?
Oh man.
He's giving us a--
He-- he-- he-- he-- he--
I had a crew.

(01:54:31):
He's like, you know, I took a-- cut, you know, if I'm out here, I-- it's urgent.
You know this, it was my condition.
But I had a couple guys that hired to do the job a couple weeks ago.
They paid me-- paid me 10 gold to do the job.
They gave you 10 gold?
They find the magic ones?
The magic bones?
That's what we're looking for, right?

(01:54:52):
Well, I mean, look, Radicus said he'd pay for any bones, but he said he preferred magic bones.
That's where the money's at, right?
So, I looked into this guy, right?
That's Barry of the Mausoleum here, this Benny guy.
He's magic.
He was a magic man.
When he was alive, he was some kind of wizard or something.
I don't know.

(01:55:13):
How much is he paying you for these bones?
I could pay you more.
What?
Well--
The program is trying to maybe, you know, take over some of the business here.
Why do you want the bones?
He won't even tell us why he wants the bones.
Well, if you think about it, if I had the stockpile of magic bones, I could be the middle man and mark them up.

(01:55:34):
Was we interested in that?
Roll--
I'm just trying to get as much info as--
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
--asking all these dumb questions.
No, I'll get you.
Roll the deception check.
11.
11.
He says--
Wait, why would we--
I don't think that he's debating the prices.
I don't think you're going to be able to talk him up.
Look, Radicus is a dangerous dude, okay?

(01:55:56):
He doesn't kill people because they brought him bones he didn't like.
So I don't want to mess around with this one, Bert.
He gave you a direction to come and grab these ones specifically?
Well, no, he just told us to bring back bones.
Told if he'd bring back bones, he don't like.
Well, I think between you and me, I think they was fake bones.
I think they got some clay or something, and then they just painted them white and made them look like bones.

(01:56:20):
Or something like that.
I don't know.
Maybe they were just sticks.
12.
And to close things out for our little glimpse to the past, Lil Sauce managed to save these
boneheads from a ghostly figure they accidentally dug up.
As means of thanks, they paid him in information, giving him the final clue he needed to get to the boss of their operation.

(01:56:43):
So, tell me more about this Radicus.
Okay, well, he works over at the docks.
I think he's a dock security over in Atlantic Heights.
Okay, I guess he runs the night shift at the docks and he's converted his office into kind of his own little private off headquarters.

(01:57:07):
He's running this whole operation out of it.
Hiring scroungers to go get bones from across the city, you know, the various cemeteries, graveyards.
Hell, you want to kill somebody?
And get their bones out.
I mean, that's a nasty job, but I've heard some guys are doing it.
How much is it to pay you for bones?
Well, he gives you like three gold pieces of just regular bones, but if you can get magic bones, that's where the money's at.

(01:57:35):
What are you doing with the ball?
I don't know.
He takes them into another room.
I don't know.
That's all I see.
Puts them in a bag, takes them in a room.
Bone's gone.
Well, that's about some things up for our little story so far.
The criminals are like an intense cage match with King Fortunus, possibly the strongest fighter Island Numus has ever seen.

(01:58:00):
Lil Sausters on the hunt for whoever decimated his entire secret police organization,
and little old me just sitting here in the sky watching it all unfold.
It's kind of like a movie or some sort of audio drama.
Anyways, stay tuned for the next chapter in our saga later this week,
and don't forget to follow or subscribe to our show wherever you stream your podcast.

(01:58:29):
What in the world does all of this mean?
Where's my agent?
I'm going back to my trailer.
Thank you so much for listening to Criminals of Island Numus, a Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition actual play podcast set in a homebrew world created by me, Skyler Gorsett.
If you've been enjoying our show so far, be sure to like, follow, and subscribe wherever it is that you're streaming from,

(01:58:54):
whether that be Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or anywhere else the podcast can be streamed.
Or just check us out on our website, SessionZeroHeroes.com.
Additionally, if you enjoy coin, you might enjoy some of SessionZeroHeroes other shows such as our benders and brews and Avatar Legends actual play,
where we jump into the world of Avatar the Last Airbender and Legend of Korra using the Avatar Legends system created by Magpie Games.

(01:59:18):
Or one of our various one shots, which we are currently coming out with,
where we use a variety of games and TTRBG systems to tell a variety of fun, exciting, emotional, and hilarious stories within our group.
We have all sorts of other content that we highly recommend checking out within the SZH channel, and more to come in the future.
To find out more about what we do at SessionZeroHeroes, and to keep up with a lot of the other content we produce,

(01:59:41):
and be made aware of future projects, shows, and content, be sure to follow us on social media, on Facebook, X, Instagram, and Discord.
These are all great ways to get in contact with our team, as well as to keep up to date with everything that we're creating and working on.
We'd love to see you there.
In the meantime, thank you so much for listening, and don't forget to stay curious, stay heroic, until we roll again.

(02:00:05):
[Music]
[BLANK_AUDIO]

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