(cool opening noir music)
- Y'all want to play a game? - [Everyone] Yeah!
- Hello, one and all!
Welcome back to another thrilling episode of
"Dimension 20: Mentopolis."
I'm your humble GM, Brennan Lee Mulligan.
With me, as always, are our Prefrontal PIs.
Say hi, Prefrontal PIs. - [Everyone] Hi, Prefrontal PIs.
- I really beefed that one. I did a bad job.
- Another one. Go again, go again. (swingin' jazz music)
- (carefully) Hi, Prefrontal PIs.
- It's not easy. - I did it, okay.
- (over-enunciating) Hi Prefrontal PIs.
- (over-over-enunciating) Hi Prefrontal PIs.
- The dragon will come when it hears the drum.
Last we left off,
(sighs) even trying to recap last episode
is sort of daunting to think about. (Siobhan laughing)
Last we left off, there was a convergence
of the vast majority of our group at Oblongata Station
with one Ivana Popov,
Mentopolis' long lost fight response at Oblongata.
After some smooth talking from one A. Tension,
Max ran off to get some vodka, some tea, and some champagne.
- Can we be very clear? It was room temperature vodka.
- Room temperature vodka. - Thank you.
- The keys of attention, impulse, and fight itself
were placed into the reflex board at Oblongata Station
and the big guy, one Elias Hodge,
fired the grappling gun up towards the
roof of Gobstopper Industries in the outside world.
However, gangsters from the Avaricci mob and shock troops
from the city police department converged on this space.
There was Dan Fucks' heroic stand.
- Yes. Yes! (players laughing)
Thank you, thank you for acknowledging
both the genius and the-
- [Brennan] The genius, the power. (players laughing)
- I was thinking about that moment this morning,
because I was thinking about it
within the context of what that meant for Elias,
because that meant that he was falling through the sky
and then some small part of him was like,
is this like sex? And then
the rest of his brain went, - Is this what sex is like?
- Absolutely not, shut the fuck up!
This is the stupidest idea you've ever had.
(players laughing) (Brennan slapping the table)
- Honestly, I get- relatable, relatable.
(screaming in terror) Wait a minute.
No. (resumes screaming in terror)
(players laughing)
- Could I like this? No, no, no.
- Am I into this?
When you have a very novel experience for the first time,
some part of your brain has to go,
do I like this in that way?
(players laughing)
So there was a splitting of the party here,
and we had Conrad, Anastasia, Imelda, and Ivana
all surrender themselves to the shock troops
in order to get out of this bad situation
after Anastasia successfully
used her press pass
to slow down the cops' roll in time for everyone
to finish saving the big guy and leaving the station,
and we found that those four got in the squad car
of one Officer Joie de Vivre and headed off into the city
while Hunch Curio took Dan Fucks' unconscious body
and ended up in the car with one Justin Fication,
Conrad's basset hound, all headed for Hunch's office.
All the way across town in Cortex City,
The Fix found himself face to face with a shadowy stranger
wielding a white key made out of alien frequencies
developed in the outside world of Gobstopper Industries
to alter the mind of one Elias Hodge. (grand tense music)
Indeed, what hath he created?
The Fix was fast enough to leap through the window,
mirroring the injury that we suddenly realize
was not inflicted on Elias, but rather,
Elias inflicted on himself, leaping to safety
knowing that between the rays of the psychometer
or the exterior of Gobstopper Industries,
one of them was solvable with the grappling gun on his belt.
Leaping to the ground below, The Fix broke his leg
and wandered to Las Vagus Casino,
initiating a huge reduction in pressure
all the way from the red back to the green
with a much needed reflexive releasing of the bowels.
Apologies to all those pedestrians below
on the sidewalk outside of Gobstopper Industries.
Reconverging at Hunch's, Hunch,
with a wide selection of ice cold steaks,
(players laughing) (dramatic string music)
restored and revivified Dan Fucks
and fixed the broken leg of The Fix.
Then for the rest of you, there was a shootout
between the gangsters and the fuzz on a highway,
and I would say you stole the squad car,
but truthfully, you were given the squad car
thanks to some sweet talking from Anastasia.
And all of you converged in Cortex City,
headed towards,
in the case of our- impulse, attention, and conscience,
you headed to the mayor's office,
where you discovered Leon Logic was not Leon Logic at all,
but rather a disguised Frank Freeze.
The brain's freeze response had been running the city
for who knows how long.
(silly-goofy) Oh, brother.
(players laughing)
But having kidnapped him, Frank did one last thing
before you sort of kidnapped the mayor,
which is, let's be frank, sort of what happened.
Frank turned the key and froze up
the legs, ankles, and feet of the big guy
to crash through the glass successfully, (glass shattering)
meaning wherever the big guy is,
he's not falling to his death
and he's not swinging on a grappling gun.
However, he is once again inside Gobstopper Industries.
Last episode was fucking packed.
- Yeah, a lot of stuff happening.
- The Fix, Hunch, and Dan Fucks all made their way to
the precinct of Mentopolis' finest,
where Dan was given up for arrest.
Dan went upstairs with Justin Fication,
the loyal hound still looking for his beloved boy,
and you met the chief of police
while The Fix and Hunch went downstairs
to discover the evidence of Norrell Ojiccle's murder,
where you discovered a copper gun,
much like the supplements related to the copper filaments
that Elias had said would inhibit the worst impact
of his psychometer from potentially altering thoughts.
A copper gun used at the crime scene,
but not the murder weapon, that crossed out,
and instead stated only as an exhibit.
Where we also saw The Fix meet one Pasha N.,
a forensic scientist buried in the basement of the precinct
working on filing evidence away, (light curious music)
and as they exchanged fun facts, we saw on her desk
a picture of her long lost brother, Ichabod Ice Skates.
Meanwhile, upstairs, Dan Fucks killed the chief of police.
(group laughing)
Completely inadvertently, but the more I thought about it,
the more I was like, oh, pleasure was literally restrained,
and in trying to break out of the restraints,
killed Tightass, so there you go.
- There you go. Hey, it works. - Pleasure unleashed. Bam!
(laughs) I guess if you shit while swinging through the sky,
- Things are going to get shifted around
a little bit. - Yeah things are going to get
shifted around in there.
All of you got back out to the street, converged,
jumped into the squad car and took off (car racing away)
towards Thalamus & Sons, the shop that sold
Norrell Ojiccle this strange weapon made of copper.
And with that, we begin our episode.
(Hank puffs out like a horse)
(players laughing)
- Are you sure we're not done?
(players laughing)
- I'm tired already.
- I know, that last episode was wild, how much happened.
The squad car
zips through the streets. (car skidding, police sirens)
Still, you see, there's some broken-
- Woo!
(group laughing)
- Go ahead and give me a sneak check real quick.
We'll call it a difficulty of eight
to make sure you get there uninhibited.
- We got a seven plus two plus three for driving.
That's a 12.
- 12. Woo!
Squad car goes through.
Having a vehicle that specifically can break traffic laws,
(players laughing)
you're getting around Mentopolis.
- Hey, you guys want me to turn the lights and sirens on?
- Turn the lights on! Turn the lights on!
- Conrad, if we get through this,
remind me to give you a job.
- All right!
- Pro child labor here in Mentopolis. Here we go.
(players laughing)
The squad car pulls up. (slow jazz music)
Now it's deep in the middle of the night at this point.
The rain falls down. You see this shop closed up.
It looks like a small little pawn shop,
so it's not necessarily that this place makes weaponry
but rather that just this weapon was pawned here,
got here some other way. (persistent heavy rainfall)
But you notice the shop has that like
collapsible iron grating
that goes in the front of it, and you look around and see
all these little discarded pieces of gadgetry in the window.
Seems like this is a kind of place of knickknacks
and other sorts of bric-a-brac that come through.
You see a small staircase going up.
You notice it's a little three-story brick building
that clearly has an entrance to an apartment
up in the back of the shop.
What do you all do as you arrive?
- The first thing I do is I turn to A. Tension
and I just sort of say, hey uh...
I keep forgetting I have this.
It feels more reasonable that
someone with a longer attention span should have it.
I give her the oculus.
Seems like someone who has a key
and can maybe remember they have it
should be looking at this thing, keeping tabs on the guy.
It was fun at first, but then it lost my interest, so
(players laughing)
- A. Tension goes and gives him a huge hug.
- Oh god! Ugh!
(players awwing)
- This long rivalry between curiosity and attention-
- Okay, don't be weird about it.
(players laughing)
- This moment of connection, I think,
is very sweet in this place.
Seeing this act of kindness from curiosity,
you realize how long the two of you have been at odds
for being such natural allies,
and how out of wack the big guy's life has been
that he has felt so compelled to,
and you think about your editor as well,
that he has felt so compelled to focus on things
that he was not truly curious about.
- (sighs) You know, I'm not going to make it weird.
- Thank you.
(Brennan laughing quietly)
- But we should've been best friends long ago.
(Trapp immediately fully sobbing)
(players laughing)
- Just starts weeping.
(players laughing)
- Hunch starts weeping.
The rest of you look and see the boarded up pawn shop.
You do notice, however, that up on the second story,
there is a very dim light coming through curtains,
almost like a small reading light
or something else like that.
What is it that you all do in this moment,
approaching this shop for clues?
- I just want to say, goddammit!
(players laughing)
And everybody looks at me, and I say,
I left the fucking ice skates in the DA's office.
- [Brennan and Danielle] Oh no! - I didn't realize,
'cause I was in a lot of pain for a while there,
but I just wanted you to know that,
the whole crew,
'cause I knew it. - Okay, what is with these ice skates?
- I don't know what they're good for,
but he wanted me to destroy 'em.
- I start climbing the stairs up to the landing.
- I'm just thinking about that.
(players laughing)
- It's okay, the ice skates are just, you know,
they're just an object, but now we can tell the story.
- We'll keep the ice skates
in ourselves, is what you're saying.
- Yeah. - I do like to eat whatever.
(players laughing)
- Yeah, so it's like if you ate them,
we also wouldn't be able to see them anymore,
but we'd have them with us. - It's just like that.
Thanks so much, Conrad. - No problem.
- I think I will also go up the stairs,
because maybe, you've been real lucky so far,
but maybe I should be doing the talking.
- What do you mean? I'm a great slick detective.
(Trapp laughing)
With no more Moxie left.
(players laughing)
- So you guys see that the shop in front of you,
the stairs are inside the shop.
- Oh, I thought it was like a fire escape.
- But there is actually a fire escape.
You just have to jump up and sort of grab it if you want to.
- Absolutely do that. (Brennan laughing)
- Go ahead and give me either a sneak or a sharp.
Call it a four.
- Do you need uppies? (Alex laughing)
- I will do it as a planned action with sneak.
- Cool, so you see Hunch leaps up to the fire escape.
Imelda, do you want to join Hunch (fire escape shifting)
climbing up the fire escape? - Just grab his ankles.
- Sneak? Sure, yeah. I'll also halve it with four.
- Great, so you see this femme fatale and private eye
just leap up and start scrambling up a fire escape.
You get to a window on the second floor
where you see there is a dim reading light
coming in through the window there.
- Do I see anyone inside?
- [Brennan] Uh, the curtains are drawn.
- Ah, I see.
- I knock delicately. (light knocking)
- [Hank] On the window? - [Brennan] On the window?
- The creepiest thing you can hear on an upper floor window.
(players laughing)
- Excuse me, Mr. Thalamus. (slow intriguing music)
- The curtains part, and you see an old man
in the full 1930s, not only the sleeping gown,
but the reading robe, the quilted robe over the gown
and a tiny little synaptic candle. (Freddie laughing)
He goes, well, hey there. What's the...
You two are on my fire escape.
- We're so sorry to disturb you at this late hour,
but we were wondering if you
had any more of these pretty copper guns.
- Oh, customers!
(Hank guffawing)
Go ahead and give me a slick check.
We'll call it a difficulty of seven.
- I'll just halve it.
- I don't want to do this, but I think it's so funny
to imagine climbing up someone's fire escape,
pulling out a gun, and being like,
(erratically) do you have any more of these guns?
(players laughing)
Don't freak out! Do you have any more of these guns?
- Okay, I'm going to ask for you to give me
a slick seven as well, and anything you get under that
is going to increase the roll that Siobhan has to do.
Go ahead and give me a slick roll real quick.
- My slick ain't good. All right.
- [Brennan] Here we go.
- That is a three.
- [Brennan] Okay, so now yours goes from 7 to 11.
- Great, I mean, I could still halve it,
but where's the fun in that?
Okay, that is a...
It's a 17, unless he knows who I am,
in which case it's a dirty 20.
- Damn! - Wow, incredible.
Some Moxie for our friend Mr. Curio. (ball sliding on a track x2)
- We're looking for more of these guns!
- Ah! Ah!
Ah! We're being murdered!
- Please don't worry about my friend. He's enthusiastic.
- Oh my goodness, are you Imelda Pulse?
- That's right, that's right.
- Well, I have to say, you know,
normally the store does close at six PM,
and it is three in the morning,
(players laughing)
but anything for the delightful Ms. Pulse!
I read all about you in the paper.
- And I'll be sure to recommend you to the press.
In fact, we have a journalist with us right here. Perhaps...
I wave down from the fire escape.
- You see he opens, looks down and says, hello?
- Hi!
- Perhaps she'd be interested
in writing a puff piece about your beautiful shop.
- I might be interested in writing
a puff piece about your beautiful shop.
- Do we have to call it a puff piece to me?
(players laughing)
I find it quite meaningful!
(players laughing)
- I start climbing in through his window.
I'm not even waiting for an answer.
- Sorry, no, I don't like or know you!
(players laughing)
He goes, this is my home.
You go back down the fire escape, (players laughing)
and I'll put on real clothes, go down, and open the store.
- Where'd you get that robe from? That looks nice.
- This robe? - [Trapp] Yeah.
- Well, you know, I collect odds and ends all over,
but this robe here, well, this is not for sale.
I own this. Again, I live in this part of the building.
And downstairs is where I work. - I turn to Imelda and go,
something tells me this is where he lives.
(Brennan laughing)
- You know, I really got the impression
that you were smarter than you are.
(players laughing)
- You see he closes the window, and sure enough,
you hear footsteps back down, and the light goes on,
and all of you watch the door open up.
You see he says, my, (door chimes)
what an entourage you have, Ms. Pulse.
Everyone come on inside. Welcome to Thalamus & Sons.
You're coming to buy something,
so you're not here to sell anything.
- No. - [Brennan] All right.
- I don't think so. Am I?
- I think we're looking, just if you could tell us
a little bit more about (slow, curious music)
this piece here.
I take out the copper gun and say,
we believe this was purchased
by a young fellow named Norrell Ojiccle.
Just wondering if you could tell us
anything about that sale, this object.
- Ah, Norrell! Norrell stops by all the time.
How's Norrell doing? How's he-
- He's been better,
I'm going to be honest. - How's his wife and kids?
He's like, (laughing) how's the wife and kids?
- I'm going to be honest, he's been better, for sure.
He's definitely been better.
- I'm sorry to hear that.
Well, he's a swell guy, you know.
You see he walks off, goes behind his little counter.
Anyone who's talking to Mr. Thalamus can feel free
to make any sort of slick checks you want,
but is there anything else anyone is doing
in the space here while you're sort of all together?
- Does anybody have a good snoop?
I'll snoop just so I can get some Moxie.
- Yeah, I was going to snoop too.
- [Freddie] I'm going to snoop around a little bit.
- Yeah, I'll snoop. - We'll call it a difficulty,
I'll say there is a lower difficulty eight snoop check
and then there is a more advanced 12 snoop check.
- I'll take my Moxie.
(ball sliding on a track)
- [Trapp] Did you take the treasure hunter ability?
- Dan Fucks has treasure hunter.
- I do have treasure hunter, you're right.
I just did eight plus two, 10, and I'll spend a Moxie also
to find a mundane but useful item on top of my 10.
- What was the...
The first one was eight?
- [Brennan] First one was eight. - Halving it.
- Halving it, okay, so you get that snoop automatically.
- I got an eight. - [Brennan] You got an eight, cool.
So you both make that snoop.
- I got a nine.
- [Brennan] A nine for snoop here as well.
- And then I'll do slick. - [Brennan] Okay.
- That's a one, but I do add five to it.
- Okay. - Wow.
- So I think if you're just trying to keep Norrell
sort of on, like, he's just sort of gabbing
and talking and not saying anything necessarily that useful.
But as he's talking, he says, yeah, Norrell's a swell guy.
Well, that copper gun's a strange beast, right?
It came in not too long ago, but for a lady like yourself,
you're looking for some self-defense, I imagine.
You're looking for a purse pistol.
- Sure!
You know what? Genuinely, on that six. (beguiling twinkle)
- What a salesman!
- Well, while I'm here, I actually do want a purse pistol.
What've you got? Have you got a pearl handle?
- Oh, we got a pearl handle all right.
- Beautiful. - You see he says,
now we don't have any pure copper guns like that,
but we should still have some of the copper ammunition
that went with it.
- Oh yeah, right, yes. Yes, of course.
- He starts going around
and helping you out with this purchase.
You have wealth. I won't even make you spend a Moxie for it.
You have wealthy, he's just going to go get you the gun.
- As Hunch is in here,
he knows that he should be finding out more about
this gun and Norrell,
but also I think just being in this shop
filled with a million different odds and ends,
he's just sort of like, what's that?
What's that? What's the story behind that?
Can you tell me more about that? (curious music)
What's this about? Where did this come from?
It's like a kid in a candy shop.
He's just sort of losing his mind a little bit.
- Hyperfixation goes over to him and is sort of like,
now son, we've got to take it down a notch.
- Narrow down, narrow down. (modern-snooping music fusion)
Anyone that got that eight snoop finds the buckshot rounds.
- Okay. - And I think what you notice,
looking at these rounds that went with that pistol,
he takes the copper ones out of them,
and I think you all notice just how strangely sort of...
powerful these rounds are on that eight snoop.
It's a strange, they're not slugs.
It's almost like, Mentopolis is a totally urban environment.
There's not a lot of animals other than this one dog.
You're not going to go hunting, right?
So there's a strange thing going on here
having to do with what utility there would be
in this kind of ammunition.
- Right.
- And he's given us the rounds,
or we just see them? - I think on that
snoop check, all of you notice,
as he's helping Imelda with her purchase,
that he's basically stopped,
he's basically only focused in on Imelda, and,
who has totally gotten him to focus in,
and the rest of you are able to look
at what he's doing while he's doing it.
- What is this fur collar? Is this sable?
- [Brennan] Oh, absolutely. - Oh, it's beautiful!
- Yeah, oh, I'm sure.
Well, you know, the nice thing about this
is all this comes in from the imagination,
so we have any kind of animal you could want.
We have unicorn.
- Oh my god! Oh my god! - A unicorn coat?
- [Brennan] Oh yes, that's absolutely right. It's nice.
- That sort of removes
the most interesting part of the unicorn, doesn't it?
- It's just a horse.
- I mean, yeah, isn't that just horse hide
at that point if it's...
- (sassily) Well, Mr. Curio-
(players laughing)
- I'm just asking questions! I want to know!
- People who know, know that it's unicorn.
And that's what's important
about it to me. - I love the idea of,
there is an imagination, but there's still so many crooks
in Mentopolis that it's like,
(sleezily) yeah yeah, it's a unicorn fur.
(players laughing)
You'd be like, the horse is also
as imaginary as the unicorn!
(players laughing)
And by the way, Moxie costs, remember,
are doubled right now because we're at 80.
- I'll do it for you, and you can keep that one.
- Okay, so Dan, as you're looking around,
you notice that there's a small area of
papers that are put aside.
You're the one person here that's sort of a business owner,
so you're looking, and oh look,
some ledgers and stuff like that.
And you see there's a little crinkled piece of paper
that has a simple (shifting calm music)
crayon drawing of a snake on it.
You see that there's a little drawing of a snake
on a little mottled or greasy piece of paper.
- I'm going to try and look at that piece of paper
a little closer, anything else on it?
- It has the initials R.R.
- All right, interesting.
- It just strikes you as a very unusual thing to see here,
and it's also not in any of the cases.
- Runaway Rapscallion?
- I mean, that could be. For Flight, right?
- To be clear, this is a paper that's part of his ledgers,
or this is an object that is on sale?
- It's not in the sale area, so in other words,
there's a lot of invoices and books kept.
You're looking over a glass case at a counter
against the wall that only he would be able to walk and see,
and you just see amidst this business stuff
a very cute little childlike drawing of a snake
with the initials R.R. next to it.
(Alex gasps) - And these pearls,
if they get pulled off my neck,
will they bounce incredibly across the floor,
or will they stay on one string? (slow jazz music)
- Oh, these pearls,
they're going to zigzag all over the place!
These things are going to ricochet like you-
- You do good work. - Hey, you know, thank you.
Here at Thalamus & Sons, we pride ourselves
on anything that we imagine being needlessly overdramatic.
(players laughing)
- I can tell. He's just really uncomfortable.
There's so many distractions in here.
I want to get rid of all this stuff!
I want to murder it all!
- Burn this place to the ground.
- Can you guys focus on the fucking bullets?
'Cause that's what we're here for.
Why is he making all these fucking bullets?
- There's a huge poster on the wall of Elias Hodge
saying something to someone rude on the bus,
this massive collection of daydreams and stuff like that.
Yeah, I'd say something to him, too!
- Can Conrad walk over to Dan Fucks,
or is that beyond my roll?
- [Brennan] No, yeah, you can absolutely do that.
Yeah, go for it.
(Freddie yelps) - Dan, you just feel a little tug.
- Stop sneaking up on me! Thought it was a small animal.
In many ways, he is.
- (sadly) My footsteps don't make sounds.
(players laughing)
- It's so creepy! - I'll try harder.
- [Freddie] One of the many reasons I dislike you.
- What- What are you looking at there?
- It appears to be a small children's drawing
of a snake with two initials on it. - Ronnie.
Ronnie. - [Freddie] Who?
- Ronnie Reptile. - Huh?
- (quietly) Ronnie Reptile.
- [Freddie] I'm unfamiliar with Ronald Reptile.
- He was just my friend in a place I used to live.
- Oh, well, what's his drawing doing here?
- I don't know. - [Freddie] Hm.
- You all look over at Mr. Thalamus,
who's still engaged in conversation with Imelda.
I'm going to say that he goes ahead and gives you
a small box of the ammunition
and a lovely little pearl-handled,
it looks almost like orna- like it could be confused
with a decorative piece of hand jewelry,
but it has this massive,
these huge shotgun bullets have to go into it.
So it's a very short little machine
with a lovely pearl handle.
- Have everything else wrapped up and sent to my house.
Thank you so much.
- Absolutely, Ms. Pulse.
Absolutely. Would you like it gift wrapped?
- Yes!
- [Brennan] It's you buying it for yourself,
but I'd love to give it to you as a present.
- It's absolutely a gift, for me!
(players laughing)
- He takes out this beautiful, it's the nicest thing
in the place, is the wrapping paper, the ribbons.
Starts to go around and tie it up, and I think Imelda,
at this point you notice that Conrad and Dan
have noticed something over in the corner.
- Oh right, we're here for a reason.
(players laughing)
- Can I also see if I notice them talking about-
- I'm going to go ahead and say
that all of you can gravitate to the nexus
of attention and activity happening
with these two. - Right.
- Great.
What is it? What's-
- Conrad is justifying their existence.
He's found something, seen something. (curious techy music)
A children's drawing, of which he's certainly an expert,
being a child himself.
- (sweetly) That's the nicest thing you've ever said to me!
(players laughing)
- I don't mean it! You are still a scourge on this group.
- (dreamily) Wow!
(players laughing)
But yeah, we were just looking
at this picture that Dan found.
- What is it? A snake? - I have no idea.
- I don't know.
- Looks like a drawing made by my old friend Ronnie.
- The Fix just sort of gets big and turns to the shopkeeper.
What do you know about Ronnie Reptile?
- Sorry, what's that, sir?
- My friend thinks he's found a little drawing
from Ronnie Reptile from Madam Loathing's.
- He looks over and he goes,
that's awful odd.
What makes you notice
that out of all the things in this shop?
- (with suspicion) Our eyes, mostly.
(players laughing)
- Some pretty good rolls. (players laughing)
- You see he looks over and says, well,
I only mention how strange it is because, well,
you all came here looking for the same gun
that your pal and mine Norrell had.
I was hanging on that drawing to give it back to Norrell.
- Why did Norrell have the drawing?
- Well, he came into the shop.
He sort of had it on his person.
We were catching up, you know, he's a friendly guy,
but he'd come in looking to buy a piece.
You know, he needed a heater, and it was strange for me,
because he, you know, works at Cerebell Pacific.
So I said, what kind of trouble are you getting in?
I know he stopped by Sugah's every once in a while.
You know, a hard drinking fella wandering around Mentopolis
might want to have a heater for his own safety.
But point being, he came in and asked
for something very specific,
wanted that copper gun, wanted that ammunition.
He talked a little bit about that as well.
He said something when he got it about,
he asked a question about that buckshot,
because it's not a very popular sort of ammunition.
Better to have a slug if you're trying to stop
one of these crooks running around this part of town.
- Sure. - He said something.
When he asked about it, he said,
how strong is this shot here?
And I said, oh, plenty strong.
And he said, strong enough to tear through metal.
And I said, I suppose so.
What, are you planning on fighting
any palookas made out of steel?
And he said, no, no, not so much fighting palookas
as taking out an insurance policy
in case things go sideways.
- Oh boy, so did he destroy the keyhole
on purpose, do you think?
- You know, there was...
Our friend Norrell, who is still very much alive-
- Oh good!
(players laughing)
- You know, he was there the night of the explosion
when the machine was destroyed,
and at least as far as I know,
no one had been able to find what had actually destroyed it.
You had the gun, which originally said murder weapon,
and then the word murder was crossed out,
and it said exhibit A, correct? - Mm-hm. Mm-hm.
I think it must be.
- You were pretty close with Norrell?
He came in here a lot? You chat a lot?
- He was a good pal, that's for sure.
- [Trapp] You ever see him- - Is?
- [Brennan] Hm? - Is? Is.
You don't know he's dead. He is a good pal.
- What did I say?
- Was, sorry. - [Brennan] Was?
- I didn't mean to correct you. He is a good pal.
- Oh, I meant he was a good friend
in that in the past, he's been a good friend.
He also is a good friend. (players laughing)
- Can I do a snoop check to see...
(players laughing)
- [Brennan] Yeah.
- And I get a plus three to see if someone is lying to me.
- [Brennan] Yeah, go for it.
- Very spinny. That is a nine total.
- Okay, he seems to be telling the truth to you.
He looks and says, Norrell was a completely swell fellow.
Yeah, absolutely, and a good pal of mine.
Sorry, what was your question again, Mr. Curio?
- I just wanted to know if he had ever...
(stammering) (investigative music)
had he ever gotten mixed up in anything...
any sort of,
him buying a gun, is this unusual for him?
- Oh sure, not a violent man at all.
Well, you know, it's sort of a funny thing, he...
He seemed rattled the other day when he came in.
This was the day he walked in and he, sorta,
He was out of sorts. He looked a little bit concerned.
He asked about the gun.
He asked about the ammunition in particular.
It was sort of an interesting thing,
but in any case, he had that drawing on him.
I remember he found it and he said, what's this thing here?
He seemed as confused by it as any,
and he left it on the thing. He remarked on it.
He said, oh, that's kind of cute,
because there'd been a field trip to Cerebell Pacific,
and so there'd been some kids by way there,
and I think one of them might've just given it to him
as a present or a gift of some sort.
- Could we see the drawing? - Yeah, you hand it over,
and you see that there's a little coiled snake,
and it has a little sun over it, and you can see,
I think Fix, you notice that there are,
in the way that kids put details that are overemphasized
when it's something they remember,
you see there are a couple little indentations,
these big scales around the lips for detecting heat.
- Can I maybe do a savvy check on this piece of paper
to see if there's indentations on it from a previous...
- Give me, we'll call it savvy eight.
- Great.
I got a seven. Can somebody lend me a Moxie?
- I can give you two Moxie here. We're doubled, right?
- I can double one. - Oh, great. There we go.
- You look at the drawing of the snake here.
Gazing at it in terms of looking for a clue,
you see there's a little bit of grease on it,
and the edges of the paper are a little bit rounded,
and you realize you're holding a place mat.
(investigative music)
- Hunch, take a lick at this.
(players laughing)
- I taste the place mat to see if I can identify what...
- He's eaten everywhere in town.
(little lip-smacking sounds)
- Tastes like syrup.
(little gasps and oohs)
- Does it taste like syrup I've had before?
- It does taste like syrup you've had before.
- Yes, yes, quite. This is from Nostalgia's.
- I haven't been there in... 20 years.
- But was pretty good the last time we went, right?
I remember it being pretty good.
(players laughing)
- Yeah, he's like, Norrell didn't want to throw it out
because, you know, Norrell was a sweet fella.
You know, kid made a little drawing.
But I think, you know, he'd had it
stuffed in his pocket or something,
so he just sort of forgot it because he was preoccupied
with whatever he needed this gun for.
- I lean into Mr. Thalamus here and I say, okay.
I'm telling you- We weren't on the up and up before
because we weren't sure where you stand,
but you seem like a nice guy, I gotta be honest with you.
- Oh, thank you.
- Norrell is dead.
(music stops abruptly)
- (shocked) What?
- And we're trying to help-
(Brennan wailing in despair and grief)
- He starts crying. - Okay, listen, listen!
- This damned city! - It is extremely important,
if there's anything else you remember
about Norrell buying this gun, anything he left behind,
anything he said to you
that would help us find... - I have a question.
- [Trapp] Yeah.
Did you get a look at his eyes or anything?
Did they look the same as you always remember 'em?
- That would be something unusual, for instance,
that would help us. (players laughing)
If he had, for instance, glowing, dead eyes,
that would be good to know. - Guide us
in a specific direction, yeah.
- He thinks down here and he says,
eyes.
(serious, hollow music)
Memory's a strange thing.
The moment you say it,
it's like you put the thought in my head, right?
- I'm not trying to suggest anything.
- No, no no no, but I mean to say,
I know that you're trying to solve the murder of my good pal
and I want to be able to help you, I do.
So there's almost a part of me that wants to remember
that there was something strange about his eyes,
but I know there wasn't.
I was worried. The only thing strange about his eyes
is they looked bloodshot, he was tired.
I think he was nervous. But no, his eyes were fine.
- That's really helpful. Thank you.
- But...
He did mention something.
He said something. It's so funny.
There's too many coincidences here, I think,
you coming for that gun and finding that piece of paper.
How could you know that he was the one that brought it in?
And you mentioned this thing about eyes all of a sudden,
and he said something about eyes.
It wasn't even anything we talked about.
He was on his way out the door.
I remember the bell, the bell ringing, (bell chiming)
and him walking out, and he said something.
I said, well, good look with that heater.
Be careful around that.
I said, there's plenty of, you know,
ne'er-do-wells and villains
running around these rainy streets.
And he said, yeah. Have to keep an eye out.
You can always tell the crooked ones. It's in the eyes.
And it seemed like he was remembering something,
kind of like you're remembering something right now.
- The crooked ones. So there's more than one of them?
- Seems like anything that key touches.
- I got one more question, sir.
- [Brennan] Yeah?
- And excuse my language, but what the heck is a palooka?
(group laughing)
- You see he smiles, and you see he says, well,
a palooka is, you know, a goon.
You know...
- A goomba.
- A goomba, a mook, a meathead, you know?
- Okay. - Is that helpful?
- That's helpful! - He says, you're a good egg,
so you don't have to worry about growing up
into a palooka one day.
You see he folds up the drawing of the snake
and hands it to you.
I guess Norrell's never coming back for it and,
you know Ronnie.
- Thank you.
- (chanting rhythmically) Madam Loathing's!
We gotta get to Madam Loathing's.
I know 'em there. She's real mean.
- As you're all getting ready to head out,
you see that Mr. Thalamus goes back behind the counter
and says, thanks for coming in.
(Brennan mimics phone ringing) (tense music)
And you see he says, that's odd,
and picks it up and says, hello, Thalamus & Sons?
- I thought the phone lines were down.
- Well, things have gotten better. - Changed.
(light buzzing) (players ahhing)
- Ah.
- And you all realize the phone lines are back up.
- I will say, I'm probably not the person
to actually use a gun.
- If there's one thing that you want,
it's impulse with a gun.
(players laughing)
- Yeah, and no sharp.
- No sharp whatsoever. - Literally none.
- Just in the car spinning it around. (gun barrel spinning)
- Check out these cool tricks!
- Look at this, I got my finger on the button!
- Don't call it a button! Don't call it a button!
Give me that back! - Clickity
clickity clickly.
- So you guys exit
Thalamus & Sons. (bell chiming)
As you do so, and get back into your squad car,
you see Ivana and Frank, long lost siblings,
are sort of catching up.
Justin jumps into the back with you,
and you see Frank looks up and says,
well, how'd it go in there?
- I forgot we didn't bring you along, buddy.
- Oh, you fully kidnapped me, you know, so I'm here.
I'm here to hel-
If you need any help or any advice, I'm happy to give it.
- Oh, is the advice going to be do nothing?
(Alex laughing softly)
- Look, (players laughing)
I'm here to point out- - Nice.
- How many things could go wrong
given any possible course of action!
- Yeah, we don't need that advice. Let's go.
(players laughing lightly)
- Suddenly, Anastasia, you hear,
boop boop. Boop boop. (device chiming)
And look down at the oculus beeping.
(players making sounds of piqued interest)
As it beeps, it opens up, (tense retrofuturistic music)
and you see...
- Uh-oh.
- Looking around, the big guy standing up,
looking at a desk, and you recognize
from the memories Imelda took, the big guy is standing
at his desk with the schematics from the packet
that started- - This man's a genius!
(players laughing)
- And he's got a drink.
- And he's got a stiff drink there.
- And a pair of scissors.
(players laughing)
- What a cool guy!
(players laughing)
- (impressed) Scissors!
- The oculus beeps, giving that the big guy
has made it literally into the office
where all of his schematics, the plans are.
You also, I think, see definitively,
looking at those schematics,
seeing how they've been changed and altered from the packet
from the memories that you had ingested from that,
you see the changes within the schematics
to turn the psychometer into a weapon.
Whatever Gobstopper wanted it for
was not a tool for discovery and health,
but rather a tool for mind control.
That is what it had been turned into.
- And is it the kind of thing
that you can shoot someone with?
- Yes, you see literally a ray gun style projectile,
a ray gun, and you go, the guy from projectiles
got put up on the research for the psychometer.
So all of this has basically confirmed
your worst suspicions, and looking at those schematics
on the table, you also fundamentally see...
the frequencies attached to those schematics and that gun
render the white key in your mind as citizens of Mentopolis.
You see basically confirmation
of what you had already posited,
that he got hit with that ray gun
and that's what put that white key into Mentopolis.
- So the big guy, we've got to make him
grab the schematics, right? (cool mid-tempo music)
- Damn, how close are we to the station? I mean, that's...
- He made it there on his own.
He might already be looking to do that.
- Well, I wouldn't be so sure.
There's no mayor anymore.
- Right, and the DA doesn't want him to quit his job.
- But the chief of police is still there!
- Well...
(Trapp laughing)
- The way you say that!
(players laughing)
- What happened with the big guy that tried to kill you?
- I don't know, he was at the DA's office.
I ran. I couldn't see where he went.
- What happened with the DA?
- Well, he's not the DA anymore.
He's been taken over somehow,
and there is a giant man with a key
who tried to turn me into the white-faced zombie
that the DA became.
- What's the order of succession in this city?
- [Hank] Yeah, how does it go next? (Freddie laughing)
- Well, it's funny you should ask.
I outlawed any changes in any form of government.
- [Trapp] Oh, okay. - So you are still the mayor,
even though you became mayor under a false name.
- Right, I'm the mayor.
Oh b'wait, I announced that I campaigned under a false name,
so probably, I'm legally barred from office.
But the good news is, no one else can do anything, either!
- All right, maybe- - Okay!
- I don't understand how that's good news.
- Well, think about all the terrible things
that could happen if someone did something!
- Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.
(players laughing)
I think we gotta shoot that
guy with our copper gun, the white- the,
I didn't want to say the white guy, but...
(group laughing)
- No no no, follow this!
You see Frank says,
you said the DA's been turned into
some sort of puppet by some figure with this white key?
- I believe that is the case.
He certainly seemed to be
entirely under the control of this man.
I have a question that I think you might know the answer to.
- [Brennan] Oh sure. - In this city,
where are the keyhole places where you can put a key in
and make this big guy do somethin'.
There's one at Cerebella, where-
- Cerebell Pacific. - Cerebell Pacific,
that's what it was.
And there's one at the station. Is there one in your office?
- There is one in my office,
but you know what's funny, Mr. The Fix,
is that you're not the first person to ask me that.
- Fuck.
- [Brennan] Mark Bition came into my office
after the murder at Cerebell Pacific.
- And did you freeze up in that moment
and decide to do nothing?
- That's exactly what I did. - Really?
- No, that's really what I did!
- That's fantastic news!
- See? Everyone has a lot of shit to say!
(players laughing)
Everyone's got a lot of shit to say
about freezing up and not doing anything, but occasionally,
when a really handsome DA comes in and steeples his fingers
and says, hey, do you know any other keyholes in the city?
The main one that all of us higher cognitive functions use
seems to have been destroyed in the murder last night.
What I said was, you know, that's an interesting question.
Let's game out everything that could happen
with various answers, and then he got really frustrated
and left before I could say anything useful!
- So you're saying he's handsome.
- He's a good looking guy. - Okay, that's good to know.
(players laughing)
- And I notice, once again,
you haven't told us where the other keyholes are.
- And that's exactly how...
You see Ivana just wails out and clocks him in the head.
Guh!
I'm actually going to ask
for a DC 15 slick check to get this guy-
- Oh, I've got this!
- Can I flick him on the forehead a couple of times
and say, you know,
(thumping sounds, ASMR lovers rejoice)
you can't hum while you're blocking your nose.
Give it a try.
(quick fun music)
(Brennan attempting to hum and failing)
- (quietly) Wow! Where.
Are. The. Key. Holes. (thumping in time with speaking)
I can roll sharp instead of- - [Brennan] Yes, absolutely.
(Brennan laughing)
Oh! Yeah, what is it?
- 15. - [Brennan] 15!
You see he looks and says-
- Exactly 15.
- Well, there's one in my office,
but that's not a true impulse switchboard.
That's just a PA for announcing things to the brain.
I- I can use that to freeze things up,
but it's only just good for my key.
There's- There's a couple.
There's the one at Cerebell Pacific.
- Mm-hm, which doesn't work.
- [Brennan] Unless... - You fix it?
- Unless the phone lines are working again.
- Oh! Oh!
- I thought it was well and truly shot out.
- Hey, I passed that big neuroplasticity bill
so, you know, things do get fixed around here!
You know, things come back, all right?
The government's not totally inept!
There's a lot of things
I can do autonomically! - That neuroplasticity bill
was really watered down.
(players laughing)
- And all you really did was sign it.
I think all of the real-
- (dumbfounded babbling) Well, hold on!
- That's been in place for a long time.
- Look, leadership is complex.
(players laughing)
- He says, the executive function branches
is at Cerebell Pacific.
Then there's the reflexive switchboard at Oblongata Station.
There's also the autonomic switch.
That's in the head of the auto worker's union in Motor City.
- Fuck.
(Alex chuckling)
- Well, I do believe that going back to Cerebellum Pacific
at this point would be a mistake.
I am guessing if they have just gotten all of the phones
and if everything's back online,
considering that it had already been destroyed-
- Seems like a trap. - There's probably going to be
a huge police presence,
and perhaps more goons.
- Palookas. - More palookas, I apologize.
I believe if we were to go back to the train station,
we would be,
we would be dealing with the same problem,
since the last time we were there-
- I don't think Max is going to be happy to see us
if we go back there.
(players laughing)
- I do believe that I have perhaps
ruined my relationship with them.
That will be something I will deal with later.
I'm sure Dan does not want to go back and get Fucksed up.
- No, no, no. - So I think we may have
no choice but to go to the auto workers.
- I've got a broader concern,
which is that there is a big man with a key
that he can put in any keyhole in this body,
and we do not know where he is,
and I think that Norrell might've shot out that hole
to prevent that from happening,
having saved all of our lives.
- I think The Fix is right.
I think we got a couple of things going on here.
We've got,
We want to make sure that the big guy's doing what we want.
At the same time, there's another guy in here
trying to make sure that the big guy does what he wants,
so we're in a race to keyholes,
but also trying to keep this other guy out of any keyhole.
The person who seemed to know the most
about this was Norrell Ojiccle.
He's gone, but we know that Ronnie Reptile
knows something about Norrell Ojiccle.
- I didn't know they get to go on field trips.
- Yeah, that's nice of Miss Loathing. (players laughing)
- I mean, it sounds boring
to go to a phone factory or whatever
it is that they do there - That sounds fucking awesome,
actually. (players laughing)
- So it sounds like we want maybe an offensive
to try to get to a switch, defensive to try to hunt down
the white guy, as Conrad named him,
(players laughing)
and maybe we see if Ronnie Reptile knows anything else
about this guy that would help us in our hunt.
That's the way I sees it, at least. (curious jazzy music)
- You see Frank speaks up and says,
oh boy, well, all of those three keyholes are unprotected,
and I can't say with certainty whether they, you know,
fixed the one at Cerebell Pacific,
but I know that that's one that Mark Bition knows about.
- Right, he doesn't maybe know about the Motor City one.
- Possibly. No, he...
I mean, the DA does the DA's job.
I made sure that the executive function branch
is heavily siloed.
The only thing that possibly could happen
is he could go to the courthouse and Judge Fusion,
if she were convinced, could potentially award
emergency powers, if M. Bition could prove
that there was an actual state of emergency.
But in the meantime, the big guy's standing at this desk
probably wondering what he should be doing.
- Well, I can go to Cerebell because I've been there before.
Seems like if there's the DA there,
maybe I can talk us out of some kind of trouble.
- People are looking for you now, though.
- (suavely) People are always looking for me.
(players laughing)
- I believe that one of us should definitely go
to the courthouse to make sure that doesn't happen.
I have the biggest in with the court,
being that I often cover the news of the day.
I strongly suggest that if someone does come with me,
it be someone who is packing.
- I don't think we should put both our guns in one place.
- Absolutely not. - [Siobhan] This is true.
- I'm the only one who knows anybody at Madam Loathing's.
But I'm also the one- - I know some.
- [Hank] Yeah, you do. - I'll come with you.
- Okay. I'm worried about all of you.
Please take care of yourselves.
(players laughing)
I can't give you Moxie if we're not together.
- I'm going to come with Fix and Conrad,
because I'm very curious about-
- [Brennan] So The Fix, Conrad, and Hunch
are headed to Madam Loathing's.
- Yes. - Justin goes, (barks)
And me, too! We're not getting split up again.
- Oh, is Fight still with us? Is Ivana?
- [Brennan] Ivana's still here with you
as well, yeah, for sure.
- Maybe Ivana should come with me.
- Ivana winks and says, that sound like a good idea.
- I was thinking maybe Dan Fucks
should go to the courthouse also,
because maybe there's a criminal element there.
- Oh yes, quite familiar with all of them.
They don't like me at the courthouse, though.
- This is true. - A place of law and order.
- We'll have to give you some kind of
a disguise. - Some sort of disguise, perhaps!
- I pull out fairy wings (light magical twinkle)
from my bag, (players laughing)
put them on Dan Fucks. (magical twinkling)
- So now I am like-
- You look completely different! A new man!
- Ooh, yes. - I take off my trilby.
It is immediately replaced by a fedora. (poof sound)
(players laughing)
I give you the trilby to top it off.
- Okay, so The Fix, Conrad, Justin, and Hunch
going to Madam Loathing's.
Anastasia and Dan are headed to...
- The courthouse. - Headed to the courthouse.
(whispering) There's so much. This is so cool.
Everyone's doing cool stuff. (players laughing)
And then Imelda and Ivana
are going to Cerebell Pacific?
- Yes. - [Brennan] Hell yeah.
- I would very much like a gun.
- Well, I would very much like a gun!
Actually, I think I might give my gun to Ivana.
(Brennan laughing)
- Okay, so you're going to give your gun to Ivana.
You have the other copper gun.
- Yeah. - [Brennan] Up to you.
- I also have my gun, and if you got the copper gun-
- I think the copper gun's only good against...
- Yeah. - But I do think-
- A copper gun could definitely do some damage to a normal-
- It's just like silver bullets hurt werewolves and people.
(players agreeing)
- I'm just saying if...
- [Hank] I don't expect to run into the key-
- At Madam Loathing's. - [Hank] At Madam Loathing's.
So I pass the copper gun over to A. Tension.
- Look at us! Pew, pew!
(saying pew back and forth, practicing zero gun safety)
My finger's on the button!
- Actually, maybe just try it once, (Alex laughing)
just to see what happens. - [Freddie] No, no, no!
- A. Tension just starts spinning- (gun barrel spinning)
- Spinning the little thingy? (Alex laughing)
- And then Frank says, great!
That sounds like an amazing plan!
Which team needs my help?
- I think that we need you to go
down to Motor City by yourself.
- Wait, no one's going to Motor City.
- Just call us when you get there
and tell us everything's okay, bye!
- I'll go to Motor City and give them all my best ideas!
(players laughing)
- Is there anything to keeping him close?
(players laughing)
- Actually, honestly, keeping everything in exact stasis
at Motor City is not the worst thing.
- Just don't move!
- Make sure no one does anything there,
and we'll get there as soon as we can.
- Get the big guy in a closet.
- You see he looks at you and takes a moment as Freeze.
He looks at all of you and says,
(inspiring patriotic music)
you know, this fair city of ours,
it is near and dear to my heart,
even if I haven't always been the most honest mayor.
Sometimes it's the right thing to freeze, but other times,
other times, you have to do what's right by other people,
even if it wouldn't be your first idea.
He smiles at Conrad.
So I'm going to go to Motor City,
and while you're saving this
rainy old, crummy old town (inspiring music keeps building)
from that figure with the white key,
and while you're trying to solve this mystery,
I'm going to go to Motor City and I'm going to tell them,
while we're waiting on you,
to change our shitty pants.
(big brass horn music) (players laughing)
- You're a hero.
- He fully weeps and salutes.
(loudly and proudly) We're going to do something!
We're going to get the shit out of our pants!
He starts running off to Motor City. (players laughing)
- When we saw the eye open, I wasn't thinking of this man
looking at his desk with shit running down his legs.
- To be clear, it was like, Mr. Henry,
I don't think that what we're doing is right!
Goons? Oh no! (jumping in the air)
Mind control ray? (mimics brain scrambling)
(screams) (glass shattering)
Oh go- (mimics grappling gun firing)
(glass shattering) (fart sound) Shit!
Oh, my office!
(players laughing)
- This is all that's happened so far.
- Five episodes, that's all.
- Yes, exactly, in all these episodes,
that is the full extent of what we have covered.
We haven't found Flight, right?
- No. - No,
or Fawn. - [Danielle] Or Fawn.
- You know that Fanny Fawnsworth is at Avaricci's place.
- Flight could be in Motor City.
- True, that's where I'd be.
And look out for Flight while you're there!
- My sister? - [Hank] Yeah!
- All right, probably not going to find her.
She's really good at getting away.
(players laughing)
- Especially from you.
(players laughing)
- He's like, oh, I've never caught her a day in my life.
(players laughing)
Let's roll sneak across the board,
and we'll do highest rolls of the pairs.
- Five.
- Eight. - Three.
- [Trapp and Alex] Six.
- [Brennan] Six, okay. - One.
- [Brennan] One.
- [Danielle] Wait, no, that's a three.
- Okay, gotcha.
Cool cool cool.
We're actually going to start at Cerebell Pacific.
You see Ivana, this sort of old boxing trainer, says,
can I ask you a question
while we on way to this place over here?
(cool slow music)
Throw a punch in my hand. Let me see how you do.
- I slap the hand. (slapping sound)
(players laughing)
- She goes, okay, we got some work to do.
And runs off with you.
But she has that new gun in her hand.
The two of you end up arriving at Cerebell Pacific.
How do you approach Cerebell Pacific?
- So sneakily, oh my goodness.
There's a full dark shadow (whooshing sound)
waved across my face.
I know about a backdoor situation
since my family has this key, which is,
It's not exactly above board that we have these keys.
It's just like we've always had them.
- [Brennan] Yeah.
- But maybe we don't want to be taking
the regular person corridors, so I know the layout
of this place pretty well, I'm assuming.
- Yeah.
- And hopefully, I can take us through in a way
that's not bursting in the front door at three AM.
Excuse me, can you open your business?
I have nefarious things to do!
- Go ahead and give me either sneak or slick
or whatever skill you think you'd be using
as you approach Cerebell Pacific, trying to get in.
- I actually think I might use savvy.
Does that make sense? An intelligence-
- [Brennan] Go ahead and give me savvy eight.
- Great.
Bleh, that's a four.
- With a savvy four, thinking about a back way in,
it's hard because you, in your normal life,
are so used to just walking in through the front of places
and having doors open for you.
- Uh-huh. - You know, Ivana sort of-
- I get to the front door and I just wait
for somebody else to open it.
- Ivana goes, we want to kick the door down?
Fight our way through?
- Yeah, that sounds really great.
- She kicks the door open (door getting kicked in)
and starts blasting. (gun shots)
Let's go! (gun shots)
And you see it causes a huge distraction,
which is going to bring the difficulty down on a sneak check
for you as she rushes into Cerebell Pacific.
Call it six. (cool tense music)
- That's a nine! 10. - Hey, all right!
You sneak all the way
into the heart of Cerebell Pacific.
You arrive at the room.
You look at the Switchboard.
This is the place that you came before our story even began
where you started all of this
by grabbing those papers off the desk.
You look at the Switchboard,
and there is...
no keyhole there. (gasps)
You hear a voice in the shadows behind you.
Looking for something?
And you see the deputy chief of staff Lance walk out
holding this last piece of machinery
that gets set into the desk,
set into the Switchboard, and connected.
- Are you looking for something?
- Hey. And he takes out a gun.
I'm always looking for something.
- Well, I'm always looking to get into something.
- You're getting into something.
Is that something trouble, Ms. Pulse?
- Oh, I guess it depends on who's talking.
- Well, it's me.
Deputy Chief of Staff H.V. Lance.
- Yeah, well, you probably think
all kinds of things are trouble.
- That's right, I do!
Now, I know that somebody came in here last night
and murdered Mr. Norrell Ojiccle,
but something didn't add up, did it? Because...
- No, it didn't,
and I (players laughing)
have a lot of suspicions about that.
- You're suspici- So what do you got to
say about that, huh?
- Who are you suspicious of?
- Exactly! Who are you suspicious of?
- Give me a slick check. We'll call it a difficulty 11.
- I got it. (Brennan laughing)
- You see he goes, you're not suspicious of me, are you?
- I'm suspicious of everybody. (suspicious music)
Aren't you suspicious of everybody in this town?
- Not generally myself,
but now I'm wondering if I should be. (players laughing)
- Well, maybe think about it, huh?
(Brennan groaning in confused distress)
- You watch the brain's sense of hypervigilance
start to turn around on himself.
He goes, the DA told me to come down here
and protect this until- - The DA? The DA?
Don't you know these things always go
all the way to the top? - All the way to the top?!
You're saying the mayor's a traitor?
- Actually, the mayor was lying about who he was, but-
- (vindicated) I knew it!
- That guy was a red herring the whole time!
- A red herring?! - A red herring, I tell ya!
- Well, I want a normal colored herring!
- Well, you can't have one.
Not in this town, not in these days.
- Look, you can put an anchovy on toast all you want,
but we still got a fish to catch!
- We do? - What? What do you mean?
- I mean that there's a killer in this town,
and I'm out to get him, see?
Or her!
- That's right, and we know the killer, and it's you.
- No!
- You came here and turned the key to get the packet,
and Norrell tried to stop you, and that's when
you turned your gun on him like the one you...
don't have right now,
but I hear it shooting out in the hallway! You-
- I didn't kill anybody.
Yes, I used the key, and yes, that's my right.
Look here, mister. (pleasant light sound)
This is my key and none else's.
But I didn't kill nobody.
Norrell, he was just a kid doing a job.
- A kid doing a job? What do you mean, a kid doing a job.
He was sitting here and he got killed in cold blood
so that you could turn the key in that switchboard.
- I don't need to kill Norrell. We're old friends.
We go back. I'm of the Pulse family.
I can use the key whenever I want.
That doesn't make any sense. Listen to yourself.
(Hank giggling, enjoying the tropes)
- No, no no.
that's what that Mayor Logic always wants,
it to make sense, but sometimes if you wait
for things to make sense, it's too late!
- Well, there I agree with you, Mr. Lance!
There, I agree with you. Sometimes you gotta just act.
- He leans in for a kiss.
(players laughing)
- I fully dip him. (saucy music)
- Mwah!
(players laughing)
He goes, I've never felt more alive in my life!
- Isn't it great? Isn't it great?
This is definitely a thing.
Hypervigilance and impulse? Absolutely. (players laughing)
- Wow, wowie wow wow wow!
Geez Louise, okay, (panting) look.
I'm going to say, actually,
go ahead and give me slick, six.
- Yes, nine.
(beautiful romantic music) (pressure releasing)
(players cheering in relief)
- You see that the pressure comes down
as impulse is married to hypervigilance, and somewhere,
the big guy, changing his pants, goes,
(panting) okay!
Everything's a threat, but we have to act!
(players laughing)
As the two of you kiss
in the middle of the communications center of the brain.
So you see Lance looks at you and says-
- I slap him across the face.
- Guh! (slapping sound)
- How dare you, sir?
- (exhilarated and enthralled) Wow!
I'm in love!
(players laughing)
You see he goes, okay, look, the DA told me
to come here with this thing and not connect it.
The DA said he'd be along with a friend in not too long,
but he had to swing by the courthouse first, so-
- We gotta get out of here before it's too late!
We gotta get this big man
picking up these papers and out of this damn room!
- How are we going to get him to pick up the papers?
- Well, the keyhole is gone. What'd you do with it?
- No I got it right here! - Oh! Put it on there!
- You see he goes in, slams it into the Switchboard,
and you are once again standing at the switchboard
at the center of Cerebell Pacific,
and have your key in your hand.
You see Ivana comes in with the gun, slams the thing shut,
looks around and says, I think I've done a good job
of holding most of them off.
- Again, if you want a job after this.
- I'd just like my old job back.
- Oh, that's great. - [Brennan] For sure.
- I put the key in and I look at hypervigilance and say,
you want to go to Vagus and get married right after this?
(players laughing)
- Ma'am, it would be an honor.
(players laughing)
You see hypervigilance, as you say that,
you see he actually gets on one knee, takes a ring out.
(gemstone sparkling)
- You had this this whole time?
- You gotta be ready for everything!
(group laughing)
You see you turn the key, and you hear a hush
(light trilling)
as the microphone comes into your hand again,
and once again, impulse is at the helm.
You hear and feel, almost, the breathing,
(heavy breathing) slow,
things coming into focus and perspective.
You feel stepping into pant legs.
Elias, (players laughing)
- Yeah, the mayor got there!
- Elias, Elias so overworked that he has to keep
a change of clothes at the office, steps in.
You look down and see-
- Some shitty pants on the floor.
- Some shitty pants on the floor,
but see the oculus at Cerebell Pacific
open up and see all of the schematics on the desk.
- As I tell him what to do, I think of Conrad,
and hopefully imbue into him the feeling of,
this is the first time we've ever done a good thing.
- He says, this is the first time
we've ever done a good thing.
You see hands in that slow time of the outside world
begin to move, scoop up all of the packets, grab them again,
and begin to shove all of them quickly into a bag.
As you say that, that impulse of,
this is a sudden, correct thing to do,
you begin to see, lighting up on the Switchboard,
(little bulbs popping on)
little lights that have to do with rail signals.
(more little bulbs popping on)
But you also begin to hear shouting outside of the door,
and you see Lance says, that'll be the fuzz coming in.
They're mad as hell.
Someone killed the chief of police today.
- Oh boy. Well, let's get out of here. (players laughing)
- What do you do as you're getting ready to leave?
Your key is in this keyhole
here in the center of Cerebell Pacific.
- Can I take it out and
grab the gun
off of Ivana,
and give it back to Ivana (Freddie cackling)
because I realize that she's probably better at using it,
and have her shoot the Switchboard again.
- You see she says, you want me to shoot
the thing that lets you control big guy?
- Yeah.
- You are wild, lady.
(players laughing)
Bam! (gun shot)
Shoots it, and you see Lance says, we just got a new one!
- One guy in the back is putting his tools away.
He's like, ah!
- Come on, we just fixed that! Incredible.
- I'm going to be late coming home.
(players laughing)
- You should be lucky you have a job.
(players laughing)
- So as Ivana pulls the trigger,
you watch and see and can feel deep in your bones,
in your own sense of impulse, (fast tense music)
and know for a fact that what you had stated must be true,
that no one came here to murder Norrell Ojiccle.
Someone came here with a white key
to end Mentopolis as a city as we know it,
and instead met someone who had prepared just in time
to blow a hole through the keyhole and save the city.
As you and Ivana and Lance all begin to run out of here,
you see Lance looks behind, looks up at you and says,
well, I guess I'll confess, too.
I haven't always been strictly legal here, either.
I snuck some paperwork into an amendment
passing through the courthouse
to requisition a bunch of copper supplements.
And you see that he grabs your hand (smooth romantic music)
and begins to run.
- I am in love with you.
(group laughing)
- You head out. You rush on out of there.
Now, we are going to move to the courthouse.
We are deep in Cortex City, (dramatic music)
and you see the vast marble halls of a civic building.
You hear the bailiff announce, hear ye, hear ye!
All rise for the right honorable Judge Connie Fusion!
- The worst people in the positions of power.
No one's where they belong.
(Brennan laughing)
- And you see this older,
very stern-looking woman sit,
sort of the judge's frock,
and as the two of you walk in through the back door,
again, neither of you, I think, have really been...
Well, you killed the chief of police earlier today.
- Yeah. Yeah, yeah. (players laughing)
Let's not forget.
- Let's not forget.
As you both walk in, you see Mark Bition
standing at the prosecutor's desk saying,
your honor, we come here today
on behalf of City Hall and the mayor's office
requesting an emergency grant of powers.
Mayor Leon Logic has gone missing,
kidnapped by some miscreants that we believe
may also be responsible for the death of one Norrell Ojiccle
and various acts of vandalism throughout our fair city.
I ask that I be granted emergency power
so that the executive function branch
can still act in this time of crisis.
You see that the judge says, well, in the absence
of any counsel to the contrary, the bench has no other-
- Hi! - [Hank] (quietly) Nice.
- Hello, hi.
My name is A. Tension.
As you may know,
I am a representative of the Daily Observer.
Hi, hello. Hi, hello.
I've come here to observe today's daily proceedings,
and as well, offer counsel to you
on the proceedings that are proceeding,
because I also know law stuff.
- Hm, go ahead and give me a slick eight.
- Why would I do this?
(players laughing)
- I love that almost every NPC's response
to A. Tension has been, hm.
(players laughing)
I'm interested in hearing more.
- What was it? - Eight.
- Uh, that would be a 10. - Wow!
You see the judge says, hm. Highly irregular.
Now look here, Ms. Tension.
I've been on this bench for a long time,
and let me tell you, I have no idea
what the fuck is going on, all right?
So if you're telling me you're here representing
the Daily Observer, who are you representing?
- Me!
I object! (Brennan guffawing)
I hereby nominate myself!
You think that this man asked for this-
- Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry.
You nominate yourself to be represented by your attorney?
- And, and, to take over this body! (players laughing)
Emergency power should be granted to me!
- Okay, so wait, so Ms. Tension, you've come here
to represent your client, Mr. Daniel Fucks.
- Correct!
- You believe you, a speakeasy owner-
- Correct!
- [Brennan] Should be granted emergency powers?
- A speakeasy owner, yes, but also a man of the people.
(players laughing)
- Judge Fusion, when you think about the way
that this beautiful, wonderful city of ours operates,
who better to run the city than someone
who has their finger on the pulse of this beautiful city,
as well as someone who knows how to run an organization
and someone who could also be equally persuasive?
- You see, I'm a businessman.
Businessmen are going to be good at politics, because,
I don't know why, but I'm pretty sure that's, yeah.
- He's also rich, and rich people are fantastic!
Rich people are great at politics!
- You see that Mark says, objection, your honor!
This man might have his finger on the pulse,
but only accidentally,
because god knows where his finger's been!
- This is slander! I object to that!
Hearsay, slander!
- I object to that! This man is...
I said speakeasy owner! By definition a criminal!
(players laughing)
- I object to that!
He is not merely a criminal,
he is also a fine, upstanding citizen,
and as you may know,
there are plenty of people in this fine government
who have partaken of his services,
and maybe it's possible that if he were looking to find
a different way to change what happens in this city,
he could always use his knowledge of such things.
Or he could do it above board.
- The argument that you are more electable
because you are more corrupt than the other guy,
is like, this is good. I like this. (players laughing)
- I know all the illegal shit! So I know
how to avoid it! - So therefore,
I know how to avoid it!
- You see that M. Bition goes, objection, your hon-
You see the judge
hits the gavel and says, (gavel banging)
now look.
I can't make heads or tails of this, all right?
So I'm going to need it plain and simple.
We'll have opening statements from you both.
These opening statements
will also double as closing statements.
(players laughing)
We'll hear from the prosecution first. Mr. Bition.
You see that Mark Bition sneers at both of you and says,
(tense music)
your honor, it has been my privilege to serve
the fine city of Mentopolis and all of its inhabitants
for the past several years as your district attorney.
When Mayor Logic was elected,
I was happy to prosecute and promote
his vision of a stable and happy civilization.
The big guy, Elias Hodge, got into the finest schools,
was hired straight out of college
at none other than Gobstopper Industries,
a man on his way to the top, getting paid top dollar.
Here, you hear him say top dollar.
He says, in order to do
what he most loves to do.
(passionately) Science!
Thanks to my actions as district attorney,
we were able to remove the criminal riffraff off the street
and keep our people working around the clock,
doing what Mayor Logic had us set out to do,
which is to do science
for one of the biggest companies in the outside world.
This achievement, this high honor and prestige
promises a type of reward
that dull, base pleasure could never understand.
A day is coming when this prohibition will end
on logical terms and legal terms,
and the pleasure we know then
won't be the crass, crude itchings
of a flophouse gin joint operator
like Daniel Fucks.
It'll be the knowledge that we achieved,
and achieved greatly, and in the absence of Mayor Logic,
I submit that one M. Bition
should be able to make the choices for this fair city.
And I'm going to roll in the Box of Doom.
- Ooh! - [Hank] Ooh Fuck.
- Mark Bition has a d20 in slick,
(Trapp chuckling lightly)
and I am going to say
that due to the institutional corruption in this place,
I am going to roll 2d20 and take the higher.
- (quietly) Motherfucker.
- We don't even have two d20s in front of us.
- That is a 14 and an 11.
The district attorney says, I rest my case. Takes a seat.
The judge says, we'll now have a statement
from Mr. Fucks and counsel.
- Just counsel. - Oh!
(players laughing)
- No, hold on, I had a whole thing I was writing down!
(players laughing)
Give me like 30 seconds at the end of yours.
- [Brennan] Incredible, incredible.
(players laughing)
- Another great pairing of Tension Fucks.
- Tension Fucks. Fucks and Tension.
So, Anastasia, you're trying to beat a four-
First of all, what does Anastasia say
as she stands up before the judge?
- First of all, I would like to thank you
for meeting with all of us today. (heroic courthouse music)
Judge Fusion, I understand that you are very, very busy,
and this is a huge ask by a huge man
who is known for his ambition and his ambition alone.
He is not interested in the goodwill of this city.
He is not interested in what is best for the big guy.
Man cannot live on ambition alone!
Yes, he has led us to our brilliant career as a scientist,
while neglecting those important urges
that every single man, woman, child-
Scratch that last one! (music stops abruptly)
Every single person has inside of them. (players laughing)
And while the big guy (heroic courthouse music)
might be achieving a lot at work,
the big guy is miserable.
The reason for our prohibition
is because the big guy is not allowed to be happy.
The big guy is not allowed (whispers through the court)
to be happy because M. Bition
has not allowed him to be happy.
He has not allowed any of us to be happy.
In fact, if there is anything that created a Daniel Fucks,
it was Mark and his ambition!
(Brennan gasping loudly)
- You look around at all this.
As this happens, I'm going to say go ahead
and you can give me a snoop check right in this moment
if you would like, difficulty of, call it a 10.
- 19.
(Hank grunts triumphantly)
- As you say that, you look
and see Mark sort of looking shocked.
In his briefcase on his desk,
you see the glimmer of a campaign contribution check
in his briefcase right in front of you.
- And I am not done yet, (dramatic string music)
because I would like to submit into evidence
a surprise submission of evidence.
- You see the judge goes, (players laughing)
ooh, surprise evidence?
(players mimic hubbub in the court)
The judge says, what would you like to submit, Ms. Tension?
- Well, I know that the rules state
that if you're going to submit evidence,
that means that the other party must be aware of it
and must have seen it, which will be easy for Mr. Bition,
because that evidence is in his very briefcase!
(Brennan gasps loudly)
(shocked hubbub in the court)
- You see Mark goes to close his briefcase,
and you see the bailiff jam a hand into the briefcase,
open it wide, and the check is right in front of you.
- Mr. Bition, will you please read for us
what is on this check in my hands?
- You see he starts to sweat and looks at it and says,
1.5 million ATP
to the reelection campaign for one M. Bition,
signed by one Donald Avaricci.
(all mimicking outraged court hubbub)
- I'm sorry, and by who...m do you mean,
(players laughing)
- Good grammar, good grammar, good grammar!
- Mr. Avaricci, as everyone in the gallery knows,
is one of the largest sources of corruption
in our fair city.
Sir, how dare you?
- Everyone within arm's reach of M. Bition
just slaps him in the face.
(successive face-slappings) (players laughing)
So, there's a DC 14 here.
The entire courthouse is with you. A ripple goes through.
However, you see Judge Fusion going,
I can't make heads or tails of this!
(players laughing)
So, I will say this.
We are going to mirror the boxing match
from before, but this time flipped.
You could almost never get to a 14.
What's your slick die again?
- Oh god, it is 10 plus 2, so 12.
- Oh, okay, so we are going to roll this here as well.
What I'm going to ask is this.
We are going to set a new number
for how many of the numbers on your slick die explode.
- (whispering) Yes, baby. - And I'm going to say
because you are advocating for Daniel,
Daniel, in this moment, is there anything you say
either to Anastasia or to anyone else in the courtroom?
- I think I stand up and say,
I think the answer is clear here. (heroic courthouse music)
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,
we have a very clear choice set before us.
- (whispering) There's no jury. - Oh, right.
- I think it's just me.
- I turn away from addressing the crowd.
Everyone's confused. Why is he talking to us?
Oh yes, yes. Judge, judge, yes yes yes.
We can see what ruinous road that ambition has led us upon.
It is chaos outside.
Roads exploding, it's been raining nonstop.
How many of us, turning back to the crowd, remember the sun.
(pensive hubbub in the court)
I will simply say this.
My counsel has represented me adequately,
if not a little bit...
But here,
before us,
are two marshmallows, you see.
We could have one marshmallow now.
- Nope. - That's me, pleasure.
That's what we get. - Nope.
- Or you could talk maybe two marshmallows later.
- Nope.
- But we've been waiting this whole time! This guy sucks!
A vote for me is a vote for a marshmallow immediately.
(Brennan laughing)
- You see someone stands up in the back
who even in the city is wearing farmer's clothes
and is like, that second marshmallow's never comin'!
(players laughing)
I'm going to ask for a slick check from you.
So go ahead and roll. Let me know the number that you roll.
- Four. - Four.
So Anastasia, with a four on the die,
you can pick four numbers on your d10
that explode. - Lucky numbers!
- So you can pick lucky numbers that explode on your d10.
They can't be 10 or 1,
because 10 already explodes and 1 is an automatic failure.
- Okay, I'm going to go with four, eight,
let's do seven, (tense Box of Doom music)
and let's do three, fuck it.
- [Brennan] Okay, I'm going to
put the Box of Doom over there.
- Why'd I say fuck it? It's just a number.
- Three. Okay, go ahead.
Here you go, and we're going to roll in there.
Three, four, seven, and eight all explode.
You're trying to get to 14.
- Seven. - Okay, seven explodes!
Go ahead and roll again.
- Nine. - Oh yeah, that's nine.
- Nine doesn't explode? - Nine doesn't explode.
- But hold on, so wait, what do you add to slick?
- Plus two. - Oh, plus two.
- So 11 plus 7, you roll an 18, beats a 14!
Hell yes!
You see, go ahead, I'll take the Box of Doom back.
- After that speech, if you let her fail-
- [Hank] I know! - I would've been so mad.
(players laughing)
- That's not how it works. - Not how it works.
You see, that,
You see Judge Connie Fusion looks down
at you holding the check, looks at M. Bition sweating there,
and you see she says...
I'll also point one thing out,
because now that we're back down in the green,
one more Moxie would put you
at five over.
The judge looks at you and says, now, I'll be honest.
I come into work every day
having no clue, (Siobhan giggling)
how this city functions.
But the raw, unfiltered, unmitigated,
beyond impressive moxie of this one reporter
who, if I'm not much mistaken, has no formal background
as a lawyer or attorney in this fair city.
(light hubbub in the court)
- She called laws rules!
(players laughing)
- Okay, well technically, there are rules of court.
I will not get into my paralegal shit.
(players laughing)
- Wait, you're a paralegal in real life?
- Yes.
(players laughing)
Before my day job when I was doing standup,
I was a paralegal. - Incredible.
You see that she looks at you and says,
this court rules unequivocally in favor of the defense!
- Ay. (gavel bangs)
Daniel Fucks is awarded emergency powers!
- (triumphant) Finally!
(players laughing)
- [Brennan] That's the client. That is the client.
- That's what I do. - We just put our pants on!
(group laughing)
- And with that stunning argument,
as well as that final push
to get all the way to an incredible 19, you see she says,
and due to this highly irregular behavior,
bailiff, please place the DA under arrest!
Bum bum buh! (gavel bangs)
And you watch the bailiff grab M. Bition, and he says,
(grunting and straining)
A. Tension, you'll never get away with this.
Not in this city!
- I just did.
(players laughing)
- And he is marched off. Anastasia, you have won the case.
- As he's being dragged off, I whisper to the judge,
I bet you he killed the chief of police.
(players laughing)
- Give me a DC 12 slick check.
- I'm just saying! - [Alex] Whisper
to a judge. - [Trapp] That makes sense.
He's rich.
- Six. - [Brennan] Six? (laughing)
(players laughing) (ball sliding on a track)
- Does that mean Daniel Fucks gets a key,
or just he has the ability to access keyholes.
What do the emergency powers mean?
- [Brennan] The conscious mind of
Elias Hodge doesn't need- - Oh no.
- There's two antagonists this time.
(players laughing)
- In other words, with no key, you would have to go
to City Hall and do the job of the mayor
and talk with people and pass legislation.
- So the real victory is keeping Mark Bition
from having emergency powers,
not necessarily the power that is now granted.
- Don't worry. - From your perspective.
(players laughing)
- For the rest of this, Elias has a little bit of a chub.
(players laughing)
- Raise to half-mast! - Elias gets through-
Well, I think it makes perfect sense,
because Imelda just went like,
you're doing the first good thing in your life!
And all of a sudden he's like,
(horny) yeah, this fucking rules!
(players laughing)
So as you both walk out of the courthouse,
what do you do as you see people filing out?
- Well, there's another key, or another keyhole
that's specifically just for the mayor to use
for the microphone in the mayor's office.
So,
Mayor Fucks.
- Oh, I like the ring of that.
- How would you feel about going back to your office.
And that way, we can protect that so that no one else
is obviously able to make any announcements, and if you...
Nope.
(Brennan laughing)
Nope.
Um, I will make the announcement, (Siobhan laughing)
I will make the announcement that we now have
a new mayor. - Ah, as my vice mayor!
- As the two of you begin walking through the halls
of the courthouse and get down towards the steps
headed back towards City Hall,
as you start making your plan,
you hear a voice behind you say,
oh, a lot of...
A lot of plans here, huh? (tense mafia music)
And you see yourself suddenly flanked by gangsters.
- (quietly) Palookas.
- [Brennan] Palookas.
- Two palookas, three goons.
(players laughing)
- Walking out of the shadows, you see one
Don Avaricci.
Well, it seems that you saw fit to air my dirty laundry
in front of the entire courthouse.
I can't say I find it very amusing.
Daniel Fucks, congratulations. - Oh, thank you.
- Congratulations on your emergency powers.
Before you head to City Hall,
I'd love to invite you to a conversation
at my estate outside of the Hypothalamuseum.
Chaáteaux Appetit has many amenities.
I suggest you come with me.
- You can get in contact with my assistant.
- He puts a hand on your shoulder and says,
why don't you come with me right now.
- This feels like the kind of thing
I don't necessarily have a choice in.
- Oh, have I finally got your attention.
Very good.
Get 'em in the car, boys!
(players laughing)
You see you are thrown into the back
of one of these black town cars
that's been pursuing you for so long.
- Just once in my life,
I want to be able to say that sentence.
Get them in the car, boys! Just on-!
I don't know how the scenario can get there, but like,
- You, follow that cab! - I know, right? That one too!
- [Brennan] Incredible. - I do love that these cars
have been following us since the very...
They're so slippery!
- The mileage logged that they're submitting.
- You see Charlie Hungry, there's a bunch of bullet holes
in the side of the car, and he's like,
what a day it has been.
(players laughing)
Mark Bition is in jail, but you did come
to one of the big, central civic places
where these gangsters have known to look for you.
You go into the back of the car and you see,
sitting across from you, those seats that face the back
almost limousine-style, the Don sits down and goes,
(jazzy horn music)
attention and pleasure.
The mayor is gone, and Mark Bition is in jail.
Feels like high time we talked about the direction
this fair city is headed in.
I understand your friend Imelda Pulse
has seen fit to get us to grab these papers again,
papers that our friend Mr. Bition
wanted to return to the muckety-mucks and higher-ups.
Well, Mr. Bition looks like he's going to the big house
for a while, but you know,
those schematics might be worth something.
(laughs sinisterly)
- Well, our current thought
was that we would take the schematics,
so perfect, we're on the same page.
- It seems we are.
Tell me, what do you know about Conrad Schintz.
- (in wonderment) Conrad Schintz.
(players laughing)
- Wait, give me a slick check.
(players laughing)
Yeah, give me a slick check.
Are you trying to be like you don't know Conrad?
- Yep.
(players laughing)
Ah dammit.
Why do I keep going for slick. - Difficulty of seven.
- Oh god.
Okay, well that's six plus two, so that is eight.
- You don't know about Conrad Schintz?
You're a reporter. I would assume-
- Who?
- Now, you're going to have to give me
a slick check here as well.
Oh, my die explodes.
Okay, 12.
- You've done nothing but scream about
how he's your mortal enemy. - Two!
- [Alex] Oh no.
(players laughing) (ball sliding on a track)
- You see he says, oh.
So you don't know the little kid
that puts a notice on your
door every - Oh, that piece of shit!
- [Brennan] Fucking day? - I hate that-
- You see he grabs your head and he says,
all right, soften him up, boys!
And the car peels out. (players laughing)
- Second time today!
(players laughing)
- You've gotten your ass kicked by every end
of the legal spectrum. - [Freddie] Just handed to me.
Okay, and we are going to move from there
back down to the sort of gothic spires
of Madam Loathing's Home for Wayward Interests.
- I bought a bunch of sweets on the way.
- Aw. (dour, dreary music)
- I also brought some, but I've eaten half of it.
(players laughing)
What's inside this one?
- Timing-wise, where are we
in terms of the other stuff happening.
- This is all sort of happening simultaneously.
- I was wondering if when Imulda Pul- Imelda Pulse
says this is the first thing we've ever done,
if something happens to Conrad.
- Yes, I believe it does, but that has not happened yet,
so we'll run the first part of this,
and then that will occur partway through.
So with some candy,
you arrive at Madam Loathing's Home for Wayward Interests.
(mimics thunder) Rain falling. (rain falling)
As you approach, you see Justin
sort of looks like a sad dog. (whimpers nervously)
- We haven't been back here in a while, huh, boy?
- I don't like this place at all.
- It's okay. We're a little different now.
- [Brennan] That's right, that's right.
And you begin to approach the door.
- I knock, but it's too hard. Like I didn't mean to.
- [Brennan] Yeah. (players laughing)
(Brennan mimics door pounding) (metal door being hit)
Open. - Jesus.
(players laughing)
- The door opens, (door creaking open)
and you see Madam Loathing (sneers softly)
Fix, what do you wan...
Oh.
Quite a few of you here, eh?
- Hello, Madam Loathing.
Again, I appreciate you taking care of these children
despite the fact that you hate it and them.
These are my friends. (players laughing)
You know Conrad, of course.
Justin, go ahead and give some of those kiddos
a lickin' there, that'd be real cute.
- I'll go find the kids and give them a lickin'!
You see Justin runs in. Hey, kids! (panting)
You see she looks up and says, (groan) damn dog!
(players laughing)
- This is Detective Hunch Curio. He's a real disaster.
- I also brought chocolates.
I ate all the ones I weren't sure what was inside,
but there's a smattering of coconut
(players laughing)
and some chocolate nougat.
- Everyone's favorites, detective.
- Another case well done.
(players laughing)
- You see that she says, well,
what is it you want, and why have you brought...
you see she says...
Conrad.
- Ma- Madam.
- Oh.
Have you come back to deposit this wayward interest?
- Oh, certainly not. Shut the fuck up.
(players laughing)
Look, if you're not going to be nice to me,
I'm not going to be nice to you.
This is how it's going to go. That's how it works.
- Where have you achieved this sudden sense of reciprocity.
- A lot- A lot's happened.
I don't really know who I work for anymore,
so I'm just sort of working for myself.
It's real weird. Uncomfortable, but kind of fun.
I would like to talk to two of your children.
First, Bastion Bass. I think he's like 14 years old.
He plays bass guitar all the time.
I'd like to just have him play music, maybe.
I've heard that low frequency noises can be relaxing.
- You see, that
over in the corner, you see there's a kid
who's like,
(like a pissed off teen) whatever, I'll play it.
(players laughing)
(Brennan does a funky bass lick)
He starts playing this big standup bass.
(Trapp snaps rhythmically)
(players laughing) (chill bass music)
Who else do you wish to speak to?
- I'd like to speak to Ronnie Reptile,
and then you can just listen to the bass guitar
and see if you can take it down a couple notches.
(players laughing)
- Very well.
She says, do you want me to show you to where Ronnie is?
- Where's Ronnie at? Oh, sorry, Conrad.
- I could probably show you guys there.
Conrad hasn't unclenched his fists since-
(players laughing)
We'll find our own way, if you don't mind, Madam.
- Very well, Conrad.
I'll stay here and enjoy the bass music.
That's what everyone loves,
is just a bass playing by itself.
(players laughing)
- I mean, if you listen to him,
I mean, he's got some chops here!
(Trapp snapping and scatting)
- Incredible, so she's like, Mr. Curio,
if you would like to stay with me?
(sounds of consideration)
- No.
(players laughing)
- I can't blame you. I don't want to stay with you either.
- I mean, the music's great.
I gotta know what Ronnie's going to say.
- The Fix, at least, I know, and you're just a stranger.
- Sure, yeah, this would probably be
an awkward conversation.
- Maybe you can snoop around a little, I say quietly.
(players laughing lightly)
- So the two of you head off, and as you do so,
you go up the staircase, you stay with Madam Loathing,
sort of paying attention to, there's a lot of stuff
down in this entryway and things like that.
- Yeah, I think as a general rule,
whenever Hunch enters a new place, he just starts,
the equivalent- just like opening cabinets,
just sort of lookin' through shit.
- You're snoopin' around.
You two go upstairs and quickly find Ronnie's room,
and you see Ronnie's got his little reptile head there.
You see he looks up and goes, Mr. Fix!
- Ronnie!
- He gives you a big hug and he says, did you know
that the black mamba has been observed at top speeds
of 12 1/2 miles per hour at its fastest slither,
and that at that speed, it would almost certainly catch
even some of the fastest humans on the planet?
- I did not know that.
- [Brennan] Mm-hm, mm-hm, mm-hm.
- I love new facts.
- Even faster people would probably not have the stamina,
because the resting or average speed is 7 1/2 miles per hour
which is faster than the human average of six,
and that's for healthy adults.
(Freddie laughing lightly)
- You know so much stuff.
- You see he gives you a big hug at this. Conrad!
- Hey, kid.
- [Brennan] It's good to see you again. How are you doing?
- [Alex] Good. How are you?
- [Brennan] I'm good. We miss you around the home.
- I miss you guys, too. How has it been over here?
- It's been okay. Honestly, it's been kind of nice.
Madam Loathing's sort of, you know,
been not as bad as always.
We kind of, you know, whenever she's sort of not around,
it's easier for us to not get, you know, bullied.
- Has Madam Loathing not been around much lately?
- Yeah, she's been away for a little while,
more often than usual, and we've been doing some stuff
that we didn't used to get to do.
Like we went on a fun field trip to Cerebell Pacific.
- Who took you to do that? - [Brennan] Madam Loathing did.
- Oh, okay.
- Well, Ronnie, do you know where she goes
when she's not around?
- I asked her one time,
and she sneered and raised up a big clawed hand,
and she kind of got bigger than she was a second before.
She said little boys who ask questions
have terrible fates befall them.
(Hank laughing)
- While this conversation is going on,
can I check Madam Loathing's eyes?
- As you are about to go check Madam Loathing's eyes,
you hear off in the corner,
bing, bang! (metal clanging)
Some big crashes, and you hear (barking)
and you hear a bunch of kids going, yay!
(stock audio of children cheering)
(players laughing)
And Madam Loathing goes, ugh!
(threateningly) Don't you snoop around.
And runs off to go to the noise
of the dog and the children playing.
Do you do anything in that moment?
- So Madam Loathing just left to go after the noise?
- Go after the noise, and you're out here
in the entryway with Bastion Bass playing bass off in the-
- That rules. Can I...
I mean, I'm snooping. I'm poking into everything.
Can I just do a sort of general-
- [Brennan] Yeah, give me snoop seven.
- Sure.
That is an...
a 12. - Ooh,
beat it by five.
You're looking around at different photographs,
these creepy, old, almost Victorian,
daguerreotype type of photos,
and you see a photo (tense music)
and recognize someone in the photo who is not a child,
someone you met for the first time earlier today.
You see Madam Loathing, what looks like her as much younger.
She's in a portrait that is very clearly a family portrait,
and she has her arm around a massive, hulking,
dangerous-looking man with giant, musclebound arms,
tons of tattoos, and a big, square jaw
that looks like it can take a lot of punches.
- Self Doubt? - [Brennan] Self Doubt.
- Okay. - Just the two of them?
- It looks like there are some parents there,
but it looks like those two are siblings.
- Got it. Okay.
- Bastion looks over and says,
something caught your eye over there?
- Yeah, just looking at the beautiful family.
- Beautiful family? (scoffs)
(dismissively) Whatever.
(more slick bass music) (players laughing)
You see he says, yeah. That's, like, her relative.
Her brother or whatever that's, like, by here sometimes.
Their family name is, like, their first name.
So it's like...
- Ahh. - Self Loathing and Self Doubt.
- [Brennan] Yeah. - Yeah.
- You had asked that question about Madam Loathing's eyes,
but you hear that it's gotten a little bit quieter.
You see some of the kids are running out of the hallway,
but Madam Loathing
has not come back. (children's footsteps)
- Got it. Can I go to Madam Loathing's room?
- [Brennan] Yeah. - Great.
- You go to walk to Madam Loathing's room.
For you two upstairs talking to Ronnie, (eerie static)
is there anything that you are doing up here?
- We, I assume, have that place mat.
- [Brennan] Yes, you do. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- Oh yeah, here.
- Yes, we heard that you went to Cerebell.
A friend of ours had this.
We thought it might be yours. (investigative music)
- You see Ronnie says, that was mine!
I made a drawing of a reticulated python,
which is actually the longest,
did you know it's the longest snake in the world?
It's not the biggest. The biggest is the anaconda.
But the longest is the reticulated python.
- Do you know what the longest animal in the world is?
- No! What is it? - It's the bootlace worm.
- Is that a reptile? - It's a worm!
It's not a reptile. It's still a cool fact.
- But that's close. That's a cool fact, that's pretty close.
(players laughing)
- Clearly not interested.
(players laughing)
- Honestly, interacting with kids,
whenever you're interacting with kids,
there needs to be one moment where you're like,
and here's something, too!
And the kid just glazes over and is like, whatever!
- Sorry! Wait, wait!
Sorry that's not a reptile.
- I actually want to make sure, I believe
the reticulated python (very focused typing)
is the longest snake in the world.
(players laughing lightly)
- Boy, if you get this wrong.
- I don't have that one in my head.
- Get in the comments! (Um, Actually music sting)
- Yeah, reticulated python!
Okay, we're good, we're good, we're good.
- Good. Always fact check. - Always fact check.
He says, yeah, that place mat I gave to the nice man
on the field trip. - That's awesome.
Did you see anything interesting while you were there?
- Yeah, we saw the Switchboard,
and Madam Loathing
was asking a bunch of questions on our behalf,
because she said our questions would be... stupid.
(players laughing lightly)
- That sounds like her.
- So Madam Loathing wanted to be at Cerebell Pacific.
- [Brennan] That's right.
- Do you go on many field trips?
- No, just one.
- You've been on one field trip.
- And Nostalgia's Diner.
- Oh yeah, the...
We didn't go to Nostalgia's Diner,
but the guy who works there at Nostalgia's comes by
and gives us paper to draw on as a donation to the home.
- Old place mats.
(players laughing)
I guess that's still nice.
- Do you remember his name, Ronnie?
- He didn't say.
But I know that he likes to talk
about the way things used to be,
and I guess all the kids at the home are things
that the big guy doesn't care about anymore.
- For now, buddy.
Did you know that there are some reptiles
that have a light-sensing organ on the top of their head
so they can sense shadows
that might be coming from something that's coming for them?
(Brennan gasps innocently)
It's like a third eye!
- As you say that,
you watch as that appears
(fwoom)
on Ronnie's head, and he goes, (Hank laughing)
(innocent gasp)
(sudden tense music)
(hauntingly) there's a shadow downstairs.
- Oh my god.
- That gave me fucking goosebumps.
- (laughing) Ronnie, you're terrifying.
(players laughing)
- Don't forget this boy has a reptile head.
- He's got a full snake head.
- I forgot, you do this to me all the time.
- [Brennan] We cut downstairs.
- (silly) Doopity doop doop do.
(players laughing)
Still listening to the music through the walls.
- I didn't bring my copper gun.
I don't know, if it doesn't matter, we'll find out.
(Alex and Hank laughing lightly)
- (gravely) You go into Madam Loathing's room
and see a towering figure of shadow.
- Wuh-oh.
(players laughing)
- With a blinding white key. (light thrumming)
(Hank rage-slamming his notebook and fists)
(players laughing)
- I thought we'd be safe here!
- [Siobhan] The one place that doesn't have a gun.
- The one place that doesn't have a copper gun.
- I instinctively reach for where I had the gun.
Agh, A. Tension!
(players laughing)
- With a blinding white key, it takes the key
as you open the door, reaches back,
and plunges the key right into the heart
of Justin the dog. (all screaming)
- [Hank] You said the dogs
don't get hurt! - You son of a bitch!
- I told ya.
(menacingly) I'm gonna kill that dog!
(players laughing)
The key plunges (painful wailing) and you see the dog shift,
change (grotesque wailing) (bones cracking)
and mold and change in shape (snarls)
into a snarling German Shepherd as Madam Loathing says,
I'm going to need you to find some reasons
for us to hate ourselves as much as we can.
(Brennan growls)
Justin prowls towards you and says,
it doesn't make any sense for us to be curious
about a world as bad as this one.
- Is there anything copper in the room?
Is there ornamentation?
This is an old, kind of gothic place.
- Give me a snoop check, difficulty 14.
- Okay.
I explode.
- [Alex] Ah! - [Hank] Ooh!
So that is a 12 plus 9, is 21.
- There is a copper pipe
right next to you,
(players cheering victoriously)
(laughing) in the wall.
- I reach it and I...
Am I within reach of the guy with the key?
- You see that that figure is fully Madam Loathing.
Madam Loathing, holding the key,
has transformed into this figure.
- Am I within reach of her? - Yes, you are.
- All right, I try to just- I,
hit her across the head with the copper pipe.
- Okay, I'm going to need a sharp check,
and she is going to resist it with a sturdy.
- Okay. - She only rolls a three.
However, Justin's going to jump in the way
and try to bite your arm. - Reasonable.
(Trapp laughing)
- And he only rolls a four. - Okay.
- So you're going to have to beat
a four and a three on two successive sharp checks.
- Am I with him? I'm not with-
- You're upstairs with Ronnie,
but you guys hear the commotion downstairs.
- So just being clear, the sharp check is...
- Getting past Justin. - [Trapp] Just getting passed-
okay, cool. - And then,
and then getting to Madam Loathing.
- Copy, okay, so two different rolls here?
- [Brennan] Two different rolls.
You've got to beat a four on the first one,
and a three on the next one.
- All right, here's the first one.
That is a three, but I'm going to use a Moxie,
and we're in the green, so only one will be needed.
That'll bring it up to four.
- All right, you bypass Justin.
- [Trapp] Sorry, no, I don't even need to.
That's plus two on my sharp roll.
- Okay, great. - So that's actually a five.
- [Brennan] Great. - Okay.
And now this is my swinging at Madam Loathing.
- [Brennan] Yeah.
- That is a four plus two for a six.
- Six, okay, so Hunch Curio, you are standing here
looking at the fucking face of evil and go,
(snaps) copper pipe!
What a curious thing to find here!
(tense string music)
Justin sails past you and you,
bam, connect, gah! (hitting) (bones crunching)
and you hear a crack of bone in Madam Loathing's forearm
as you deliver an injury to her.
And you hear her say in response to that,
looking at you, looking at the pipe,
she looks at Justin and screams, where!
Where is a keyhole! Where is a place to put the key!
- Justin, having been with you
for the rest of the conversation,
give me a sturdy check to see how scared Loathing is.
- Okay.
- You want high here. You want to get an 11 or higher.
- 11 or higher on a sturdy check, - [Brennan] Sturdy check.
- Okay.
That is a 15.
- All right, so she is terrified.
So you see Justin snarls,
and she says, where is a place for the keyhole!
And you see Justin goes, Oblongata Station, and...
And before he can say that there's another location,
she leaps to go for the window.
At this point, however,
we're going to resolve a couple different things.
- Right.
- So she's going to roll a sneak check, first and foremost.
She rolls an 11 on a sneak check.
All three of you can attempt to beat an 11 on a sneak check
to try to beat her to the punch
before she leaps through the window.
- With sneak? - [Brennan] With sneak, yes.
- Well, I explode on a four. - On a four, okay.
- Nope.
- That's just a seven. I can't get to 11 with that.
- Seven.
(ball sliding on a track x4)
- Okay, seven.
You see Loathing, on that sneak check,
has that white key, hears Oblongata Station,
sneers at you and says, catch me if you can!
And goes through the window. (bursting through glass)
As she does that, does everyone remember what they rolled?
- Just now for the sneak? - [Brennan] Just now for the sneak.
- Seven. - Seven.
- [Brennan] Seven and seven here. - I rolled a five.
- Rolled a five. Okay, gotcha.
Fix and Hunch, you're going to go first.
I'm going to say that you two have just arrived down here,
running down the stairs towards the noise.
Conrad, you see Justin turn to look at you and say,
this mind is a terrible place.
So weak! Why couldn't we do the right thing? Ever?!
There's no reason to like any part about this city!
(sad, tense music)
- Conrad doesn't say anything back.
- Fix and Hunch.
- I am going to...
I'm going to take the copper pipe
and try to basically bridle Justin with it,
get it in his mouth and sort of keep him...
- I see him doing that, and I try and hold the body
while he heads for the head.
And I say, you're- you're not you. He's not him.
- I can roll for this if I have to, and then
I want to whisper into his ear, who's your best friend.
- Aww.
A combination of copper and sentiment.
(players laughing)
- Yes, amazing, so you whisper that.
I'm going to say right now, determine between yourselves,
we need a sharp check to restrain the dog,
and I think we also need a...
We do need a slick check
for trying to convince Justin to turn.
- Sure.
- One of you give me sharp, one of you give me slick.
- Those are my two weakest attributes.
- Sharp is my most powerful, slick is d8.
- [Trapp] Okay.
- So I'm going to say probably sharp here and slick here.
- [Trapp] Okay.
- Because you're the one who said it.
- What's your- - My slick's my d4.
- [Hank] Your slick is your d4.
- Yeah. I got a bit of Moxie, though.
And easier to explode on a d4
than any other die, right guys?
(players laughing nervously)
- Justin is going to roll to resist being captured.
He's going to roll a d20.
I'll roll it in front of the board.
Eight.
- Ooh, six.
I guess I'll burn two Moxie.
- Okay. - And I'll do my slick check.
- [Brennan] The DC here is going to be a 13.
- Okay, here we go. We're hoping for a bunch of explosions.
That is a one.
I don't think that's even worth burning the Moxie on there.
But I'll take those. (ball sliding on a track x2)
- You just watch as you get down on top of Justin,
and Hunch, you say, remember your best friend.
You see Justin snarling, frothing at the mouth
with these blinding white eyes,
just going, a best friend would've helped you.
A best friend would've made things right.
How could I have a best friend if my life is like this?
- Conrad can't look away, but has just shut down.
- So since we did restrain him, can we-
- [Brennan] Yes, you can- - Get the pipe in his mouth?
Is there an amount of, we can get this dog in a situation
where we don't have to worry about it anymore?
- Potentially. Potentially you could.
But you know that Justin's also a powerful...
- [Hank] Dog.
- I look over to Conrad. I think it's going to mean more
coming from you than from me!
I told him he was my best friend already earlier today,
and he, he kind of shot me down.
I think it's gotta come from you. (players laughing)
- Even the old Justin didn't think I was his best friend.
- Justin! Justin! (Brennan growls)
I don't care what they did to you. You're my best friend.
You're my best friend!
Conrad grabs Justin with both arms.
- Gonna ask for a roll here.
- (quietly) Yeah, I thought so.
(players laughing)
- Behind my back, can I be signaling to Hunch
to give me the copper pipe.
(players laughing)
- [Hank] Oh no. - I'm going to say you reach.
Give me a sneak check as you start reaching.
- Okay.
13 plus 2, 15.
- You start to reach with your hand open,
and on a 15,
very high roll,
you think about all the hidden places in Mentopolis
that you have hidden things before.
All the things you stole and hid away
from a mind that wanted to forget them,
and you and you alone as a kid
felt the responsibility to take these things that mattered
so that they wouldn't always be forgotten.
Reaching back in this place,
what is Conrad reaching for.
Maybe not even specifically, but what is Conrad reaching for
and what is he hoping for in this moment.
(tense music slowly building)
- Conrad's just reaching for something
that'll remind Justin and maybe the big guy who he is.
- You reach and feel
a piece of metal in your hand.
You feel it. You have what you're looking for.
And you look and see Justin turn and go (snarls)
and you see his blinding white eyes,
and then there in the center of his chest
is a little white hole, a little slit,
like you saw in Mark Bition's chest. (static thrumming)
(snarling)
- I take whatever metal is in my hand,
and I just plunge it into the white hole.
- Everything becomes
blinding light,
and you look up and see the piece of metal
that you assumed was the copper, but Hunch,
you're still holding the copper in your hand.
Both of you watched Conrad's hand
disappear into shadow behind him,
the deep, dark shadows all over Mentopolis,
Conrad, an urchin who's been hiding for so, so long,
seeing his dog, he's your best friend,
and even when he's like this, there's a part of you
deep down that knows that you still love him.
Even when he's hurting, even when he's angry,
and even when he's angry because he's really scared,
you still love him, and you tap into that thing
that maybe is the center of your heart,
the love you have for this dog, your best friend,
the center of whatever this conscience is.
You take the metal, plunge it
into Justin's chest, (static sizzling)
and the room fills with light.
(Brennan makes the sound of light surging out)
All of you watch (light humming)
as a ice skate
in Conrad's hand
surges forward,
the point (wails) jabs,
the metal glows bright, (pleasant light sound)
the ice skate breaks and falls apart, (simple shattering)
and the metal in your hand
(magical movement, materialization)
turns into a brilliant, silvery key.
Justin, (choking) the froth leaves. (whines)
You can feel in that lock,
locking something safe away.
This dog will never be uncertain
about how much you love him.
(Brennan whimpers)
The floppy jowls and long ears of a basset hound return.
(pained whining)
- Justin! - I'm so sorry!
- Justin, no, don't apologize. You're my best friend!
(saying "you're my best friend" emotionally back and forth)
(Brennan slurping) (players laughing)
- That was fucking weird, right?
(players laughing)
- The Fix jumps out of the window. (glass shattering)
(players laughing)
- Stop doing that!
- Everything seems to be good here! I gotta get that bitch.
(players laughing)
- Yeah, The Fix, Madam Loathing's charging down the street.
- Okay, let's take the car. - Okay!
(players laughing)
- Incredible, and you do see, yeah,
so the ice skate is broken,
and one of the metal things has become this key.
You see, even, a small, silvery lanyard.
You're looking at a key.
You have a key. You can tell this is your key.
And as you begin to charge out of there, Hunch,
you do see the rest of the ice skates as that memory
still sitting on the ground there in front of you.
- I take the ice skates with me, and also the copper pipe.
- You grab the copper pipe, and I'll say,
as you're running with the ice skates that have now broken,
you see them, kind of in the shadow,
meld and morph and change. (light coruscating)
This memory that was kept as this object that Conrad found
turns back,
and you suddenly see, (magic shimmer)
you're holding a book in your hand.
It is the oldest, chopped up, dog-eared old book,
and you see it says, please return to the memory bank,
and it lists a date that's like 13 years ago, essentially.
- There's going to be some late fees on this one.
(players laughing)
- Incredible. You rush out.
Cutting from there to (sick retrofuturistic music)
Imelda, Ivana, and Lance
running from Cerebell Pacific, having given the order
to pick up the papers and blown that new switch,
where do you think Imelda is heading now.
Also with the understanding that yes,
you did blow up the keyhole,
but the phones are actually working again.
- Okay, great. - Where do you think
Imelda would head off to with Ivana.
- Weren't we talking about going to the station?
- [Brennan] Maybe you're just heading right to the station?
- Yeah, I think so. - Cool, so you guys get there.
You're heading right to Oblongata Station,
and then you're following Madam Loathing,
and then Conrad, Justin, and Hunch,
you're all getting in the car
to kind of do the same thing, correct?
- I think we're also chasing after Madam Loathing, but-
- Unless there'll be a faster way.
If you see me, pick me up. That would be great.
- The Fix running in the street. Fix, get in!
(Trapp chuckling)
- We don't even brake, we just scoop,
- It seems like my ploy to have a bass player
calm the big guy down hasn't worked,
unless you'd like me to roll for something.
- No, I, well okay-
Actually, you give me a sneak check here
as you're pursuing Madam Loathing.
- I'm not very sneaky. - Then I'll get a snoop
from the two of you to try to find The Fix.
- A six. - [Brennan] Okay, six.
- What are we trying to beat? Just six?
- [Brennan] You're trying to beat a six, yeah.
- I got a six. Actually, I got an eight.
- Got an eight? Okay.
So you see, (ball sliding on a track)
some Moxie for The Fix,
and Madam Loathing vanishes into the dark.
However, you know she's on foot and you have a car,
so as Conrad wheels back around, Justin goes, (barks)
Fix, get in!
- All right! Love to hear your voice, buddy.
That one, not the other one.
- I'm sorry. I'm going to have to unpack that experience.
I mean I know that it was very bad for you,
but in a whole other different sort of way,
it was quite bad for me as well.
- Conrad locks eyes and just goes,
take as much time as you need, buddy.
(players laughing)
(Brennan whimpering appreciatively)
- And you peel off. (tires screeching)
You see Justin just wrestling with, boy,
it's really good I ended up with conscience,
because any other concept
with justification at its side could get so bad.
(players laughing)
Yeah, his alternate life as a war dog is very frightening.
(players laughing)
We are actually going to cut now,
'cause we have Ivana, Imelda, and Lance
racing from Cerebell Pacific towards Oblongata Station.
From Madam Loathing's Home for Wayward Interests,
The Fix, Justin, Hunch, and Conrad
are all barreling there as well.
And behind the Hypothalamuseum
is the Chaáteaux Appetit,
a place of finery and riches
where we see drinks being served,
and Dan and Anastasia,
you are marched in here
and seated in these very comfortable chairs,
but still surrounded by goons.
You've had the shit kicked out of you
a little bit in the seat on the way here.
(vaguely threatening but good mob music)
- Bleeding all over the leather.
- Yeah, you see he tosses you a little silk handkerchief.
Clean yourself up, Fucks.
- That's Mayor Fucks to you.
- Well, well, well, I seem to recall
something about emergency powers being granted,
and I'm not sure how much of an emergency we're really in.
At this moment, I will say, though,
with Madam Loathing on her way, pressure does build back up.
- [Alex] No. - That's the opposite of what
I was trying to do.
(sound of something ramping up)
- All the way to 90.
And I will say, too, at this moment,
racing on your way there,
Conrad,
you feel a... (slight humming of light)
pulse,
and you can hear reverberating in your key,
almost like a frequency, (light ringing slowly)
you hear Imelda's voice saying...
- [Siobhan] (echoing) This is the first time
we've ever done a good thing.
- And I'll leave it to you. What happens with Conrad.
What does Conrad feel in that moment?
- Conrad feels like he might be an inch or two taller,
and I'll leave it up to you if that's just a feeling or not.
- I don't think it is.
I think as you hear Imelda's voice in the key,
both of you watch as Conrad- - Head rising.
- I think Conrad, you have to kick the bricks
off the gas pedal because your legs
grow a little bit longer.
- Weird. I don't brake, but I'm like, gotta adjust this.
- The mirrors all change. (players laughing)
- Hell yeah, hell yeah.
- Hunch is in the backseat and just watches
Conrad's head just slowly
rise above the seat rest. (neck cracking and stretching)
What the fuck?
(players laughing)
- Just an inch or two.
- Just an inch or two. Just a little bit.
Back at Avaricci's, you see he looks and says,
emergency powers only qualify in an emergency,
and sooner or later, the big guy's going to get out of here.
He already grappled his way to safety.
Now we have some decisions to make,
so Mr. Fucks, I've got to tell you somethin'.
I love the idea of working with you.
Does that sound like something we could maybe do together?
Go into business?
- What do you mean? I am generally a lone operator.
Sole proprietorship, as it were.
- You're a lone operator because...
a businessman like myself
has to make due with the situation as it is,
and Mr. Bition, the district attorney,
was happy to turn his eye the other way.
You know, the big guy's making money.
Bition stays off my tail.
All's well.
But given that we just almost got murdered,
it seems like the flow of money
in old Elias Hodge's bank account
might come to a sudden stop, you understand what I'm saying?
So we need to reevaluate,
'cause Mark Bition's going away for a while.
So,
what if we were greedy for other things?
You know, Elias could grab those schematics,
sell them to Gobstopper's competitor,
and pay for a lot of good times, Mr. Fucks.
You see here, he says,
I understand you run Sugah's establishment.
How'd you like to see Sugah's in lights,
not hidden behind a vault door.
I could make you a very prosperous man.
Theaters, burlesques, Vaudeville, cathouses.
All sorts of pleasures and amenities.
The big guy could be eating the best meals,
drinking the finest wines.
You just gotta put him in a position to do that.
I think you as mayor
could be a very good thing for Mentopolis.
You see he reaches in, pulls out a checkbook and says,
have you considered forming a campaign committee?
(pen clicks)
(Freddie laughing softly)
- [Danielle] Excuse me!
- And if so, please share what your slogan would be
if you, Daniel Fucks, were running for mayor.
(players laughing)
- I think the campaign slogan would 100% be
let the good times roll.
- Mr. Avaricci, may I please have a sidebar with my client?
- Yes, courtroom rules. - You see he says,
anything you need to say can be said here in our company.
Fanny! (snapping)
You see that a woman walks over in a cocktail dress.
She's got the full sort of hourglass,
sort of like Betty Boop hair,
and she comes over and goes, hey there, sailor!
Nice to see ya!
- It's like every time you think there wouldn't be
another one, there's a new one and it's just as tasty!
- She says, ooh, meeting a new person for the first time.
I hope you like me, 'cause that'll keep me safe.
(Alex and Freddie laughing)
He says, please,
Ms. Fawnsworth. (jazzy horn music)
- Ahh.
So I think that the voice that Conrad hears
of realizing that us grabbing this for the first time,
that we're doing the right thing for the first time,
has like,
I feel like it has reverberated also,
not as sort of in the forefront,
but somewhere in the back of Dan Fucks' mind
is this sort of feeling of, wait, hold on.
Doing the right thing in a moralistic society
has its own rewards, too!
Like he sort of has this like,
It's not quite as good as being hugged,
but it's also... not bad!
The idea of, you know, there's morals,
and we have this plan.
Not quite sure what the plan is yet,
but we have this plan for the papers that we picked up.
So I think for the first time, he's like, wait a minute.
Maybe...
Maybe there are greater pleasures in life
than just the sort of base first marshmallow,
so to speak, desires.
However, I think also in his mind is the idea
of the feeling of, you know what also, though, feels good.
Is getting one over on the bad guys, too.
So he says, oh, so you're willing
to make a campaign contribution, then.
- I'm very happy to see the future of our fine city-
- I would like to see a lot of commerce.
I can see it now. We could run the city together!
He kind of gives a wink over to A Tension.
- What's wrong with your eye?
- A light twitch. It's very dusty in here.
- It is very dusty.
- There's blood all over the leather. This place sucks.
Should take a page out of my interior decoration book.
- I think that the Don can see your...
- Duplicity? - Can see your duplicity here.
So he says, come with me for a moment, if you'd be so kind.
Fanny, take a look after Ms. Tension.
And you see Fanny says, ooh! Hello there, sister.
You're looking so fine and fresh. Who does your hair?
(laughs casually)
- It's two wigs sewn into one.
(players laughing)
- Double wigs for a triple good time.
(abruptly) You want to fuck?
(players laughing)
- Sure, but first, I have to know.
What's wrong with your eye?
- My eye? This one? - Mm-hm.
- It's fake!
- (with grotesque intrigue) Oh.
(players laughing)
Oh, I love that.
- Is it really noticeable? I didn't want that to-
- It was mostly the way it was twitching. I was curious.
You know, I would be very interested
in going into a private back room with you.
- Ooh la la. Want to buy a girl dinner first?
- No.
(players laughing)
- (nervously) You're not mad at me, are you?
Are you mad at me?
- I could tell you what would make me less mad at you.
(quietly) Oh, gross.
(players laughing)
I could tell you what would make me less mad at you.
Lead me to where you usually lead
all of your... special friends.
- Mm, all right.
Let's go and change into something a little more fuckable.
(players laughing)
- How does she find the double entendre.
(players laughing)
Something mysteriously erotic about this.
(players laughing)
- So charged, all the conversations.
- She takes you by the hand and begins to lead you
down a hallway towards another room,
opens the door to her room,
and you see there's a small key on her bedside table.
She says, want me to make you a stiff drink?
- Yes. I would love a room temperature vodka, please.
(players laughing)
- Ooh la la! (smooth jazz lounge music)
I like my drinks like I like my women. Room temperature.
(players laughing)
- Oh no. - She walks away.
You see that she kind of stops and thinks.
That can't be right!
(players laughing)
Walks out of there.
- You know, you promised
you would change into something more comfortable.
I would love to do that for you.
- You want to change into something
more comfortable yourself?
- How about we start with me changing you
into something more comfortable.
- Ooh! Well, you know what I always say.
She walks her fingers up your arm and says,
I'll change myself for absolutely anybody.
(players laughing lightly)
- (quietly) In for a fucking penny.
(players laughing)
Anastasia kind of runs her hands across her cheek
and does the same spider walk kind of at the-
What kind of shirt is she wearing?
- I think a halter top. - A halter top?
(rising tone) A halter top
or like a (falling tone) halter top.
- Oh. (laughs)
The latter.
- Kind of walks her fingers down,
and then, (quietly) in for a penny!
And then, (laughs)
and then goes down to the stomach, starts lifting up
the halter top, lifts it up, lifts it up, lifts it up.
Can you move your arm?
I just need you to move your arm. Just move your arm.
- I love a lady with a plan.
- Okay and then I, then I, I st- (players laughing)
move it up, and it gets stuck right here.
(players laughing)
(Danielle grunts in effort) - [Trapp] Ooh la la.
- Am I doing something you don't like?
(players laughing)
- Can you bend? Just stick it through-
Just put it in the hole.
- I want you to know that I think you're great.
(players laughing lightly)
- Fantastic! And then finally, just a little bit of a tug.
(final grunt of effort)
The shirt comes off. - Ooh!
- And Anastasia... - [Brennan] Sees the F.
- And traces her finger around an F on her chest.
- Say, the family tattoo. You know it.
- I do. I do know it.
I happen to be great friends
with your brother and one of your sisters.
- Oh, you don't say?
Those old so-and-sos are still snooping around town?
- They are.
You know, your sister really needs to get
her anger in check, but she's doing great,
and you would know that your brother was the mayor
then abdicated the mayor throne,
and then we had to go to court and-
It's a whole big mess.
You'll read about it on the newspaper,
probably tomorrow or the day after.
But I see that you have one of your family keys.
- I sure do.
- What would it take for you to let me borrow that key?
- I'll do anything for you!
Absolutely anything! Have it right now!
- Fantastic. Thank you so much.
- And you're going to leave this interaction liking me?
- Who could ever hate you? - Oh!
Wow, you sure know how to make a reflex feel special.
(players laughing lightly)
- Go ahead and take a seat, sugar.
- I'll do it, and I will keep doing it
until someone tells me to do something different.
(players laughing)
- Take a seat for about 10 minutes, sugar,
and then get back to work.
- Ooh la la!
- [Danielle] Put your shirt on first.
- Okay!
(players laughing)
- And then Anastasia puts the key,
god, I guess in her titties.
(players laughing)
I don't imagine, I mean look,
if dresses don't have pockets now,
- You're sort of walking out near the entrance,
preparing to put that key away,
and you bump into somebody. (slapping sound)
There's a young woman who bumps into you and goes, oh!
I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry. (slick music)
Didn't mean to bump into you. I'm just on my way out.
And turns to head out of here.
- Excuse me, miss? Excuse me, miss!
I believe that you may have dropped something.
- Oh, did I? No, I don't think I did.
- No, I believe that you did.
- Oh. - I think you may have
dropped something.
It looks like, I don't know, a key?
- You see that she looks at you and says, oh.
I'm walking away with one key more than I had.
And she holds your key up (pleasant light sound)
in her hand and begins to bolt down the hallway.
- Cool, I pull out my gun.
(group laughing)
- Go ahead and give me a sharp check.
- Okay.
- [Brennan] DC eight.
- What have I become? - [Brennan] What have I become?
- Oh no.
'Kay, that is a two.
- That's a two. That's all right. (ball sliding on a track)
Bang! She is so fucking fast. (fast paced music)
She actually has the key of attention, your family key.
You still have Fanny's, and she has yours,
and she is sprinting away from you.
You fire. Bang, zing! (gunshot)
She whips around a corner.
You hear yells from Avaricci's men as you fire.
What do you do in this moment?
- The first thing I do is I turn to Avaricci's men.
Back off!
And then I take off my fedora,
a trilby appears in its place,
and I throw it behind me to get her to slip and fall.
(players laughing)
- Okay. - Boomerang around the corner.
- I'll say this, she's around the corner,
so you're going to have to pursue her
to get to the place where you can throw the hat.
- Okay, then I'm going to do that cool thing
that people do in movies that never works
where I run backwards with the gun.
And no one move, and no one follow me!
- You see they all go, hey, hey, take it easy, all right?
Listen, nobody wants any trouble,
until you are around the corner,
in which case we will be pursuing you. (players laughing)
- I will take that chance!
I keep kind of backing away until finally
I can turn around the corner, and then I throw.
- Give me a sneak seven.
- I was so close to being able to halve that.
- Slippery hats. - Slippery hats.
Okay, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby.
It's a five.
(ball sliding on a track)
- You rush around the corner and see
a big pair of these beautiful windows
in the manor house of Don Avaricci,
and you see that this woman, (slow tense music)
who is wearing almost a servant's attire,
she's almost dressed like a waiter,
has your key,
has lept from a window, (glass shattering)
and is scrambling up the sort of rainy,
shingled roofs, (rain falling)
the slanted roofs of the manor here.
That's where she is.
If you want to get your key back,
you're going to have to pursue her.
- What. Is with. Us. And windows?
(players laughing)
Yeah, so I start pursuing her.
I look up to figure out,
because she went up to the roof, right?
- [Brennan] Yeah.
- So is there a fire escape that I can go up
and then follow her-
- Ooh, if you don't want to...
You feel like her sneak might be better than yours,
but you can give me a savvy or a snoop
to try to find a faster-
- Snoop! - [Brennan] Let's do it.
Call it difficulty of...
We'll call it difficulty 10.
- Half!
(players laughing)
- Snap decision.
- Nerves of steel!
(players laughing)
- Bam! You just fucking tear off. (panting)
As you're running, you're like, I gotta beat her to there!
Because you can see that the top of Avaricci's manor house
goes to a highway overpass, one of the crumbled overpasses,
and there is a car with the lights on up there
that she's running to, so you run through the house
to get to the staircase before her.
We cut back to Dan with Avaricci.
You walk into a chamber with him,
and you see there are a bunch of people here
who are printing and putting up posters and stuff,
and you begin to see... (swanky horn music)
the slogans are Fucks for Mayor.
(players laughing)
He says, now with your friend in front of you,
I obviously think that
there would be a lot, you know,
you would want to save face, but here,
two urges can speak honestly to one another.
So what I want to ask you, Mr. Fucks, is,
would you do me a favor of imagining
what this city would be like
with you in charge.
I don't want you to make any promises to me,
but we got a lot of great guys working
here at the Avaricci household, and they're really good
at coming up with what our life could be like.
You see there are a couple people there,
scribes and little artists and stuff like that.
You see there's one woman here
who looks like a sort of in-house artist.
She's got one of those little green accountant visors on.
You see she looks up, sort of looks tired.
You see that there's a little plaque
on her desk that says E. Muse.
- I think for once we would be,
just sort of spitballing here, sort of blue sky,
you know, we would be united in purpose.
We wouldn't be every which way,
motor functions going this way and that,
mental functions worried about schooling
and education and these sort of larger ideas.
We wouldn't be distracted by those.
We would be united in a single purpose, towards goals.
There would be unity. It would be fantastic.
- Yeah, unity.
I want to know what would feel good to you.
- Oh.
- And you see here he says,
I might be a man of some status,
but we're here in a private chamber,
just you, me, and these 20 paid workers.
(players laughing)
You see he steps closer
and sort of runs a finger along your chin and says,
I want to know what would make you feel good Mr. Fucks.
(Freddie breathlessly laughing)
- (primally) Yes.
(players laughing)
- Well, if I were to pull into my compendium
of forbidden delights, the stranger, the more esoteric.
- Give me the weird stuff, yeah.
- The big guy, you see, he got this haircut recently,
and there was something about, mm, the sound,
the feeling of the whispering shears
on the sort of back part.
- You see he points to someone and says,
put it up on the board.
We get a haircut once a week
from that old barber with a quiet voice.
- Really quiet, whispery one. Yes, yes.
- And a bristly mustache that just touches-
- Very lightly!
- [Brennan] The outer edge of the ear.
- Yes, that one part right there.
- [Brennan] Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
- Yes, yes yes yes yes yes.
- Mr. Fucks.
- Oh, that made me think of another one!
(players laughing)
- Yeah. I think you get going.
- You know when you're on one side of the pillow, you see.
A pillow has four sides! Let me tell you.
If you think about it, just want to make this clear,
this is sort of me speaking here, not, yes.
There's four sides to a pillow,
because your head only kind of takes the bottom half,
so actually if you flip it,
you're accessing another cold part.
But if you 180 it, that's another cold part!
Then you can flip it again, and by that point,
you can start the process anew!
There are, in fact, four cold-
- Mr. Fucks, you gotta dream big.
Hey fellas, fellas. (Freddie laughing)
How much is one of those big iceboxes?
If we had a house, could we get another in the basement
and leave the pillows in it
while we were busy about our day?
- Oh my goodness. - [Brennan] Come home
to a couple ice cold pillows at night.
(players laughing)
- [Freddie] You're giving me ideas.
- Everyone's putting the weirdest shit
in their freezers in this town.
(players laughing)
- He looks at you and goes,
I don't know about you, Mr. Fucks,
but my balls are hard as diamonds.
(players laughing)
And he puts a warm hand on your back.
You see this man is powerful.
He could make these dreams come true.
The only thing that's stopping us,
now that M. Bition is out of the way and Logic's gone,
the only thing that's really stopping us...
is the kid.
- Yes, yes, the child.
- Do you like that child? You a fan of that child?
- Absolutely not!
- Great.
Then we gotta do what we gotta do.
He turns around, and you see he starts talking
to some of his friends and he says,
all right fellas, we know the kid trusts Mr. Fucks.
We gotta find the kid, put Fucks out in front,
and then someone's going to take the shot.
Conrad Schintz dies, tonight.
(tense music)
He turns to you and says,
with Schintz out of the way,
it's a long golden age with Mayor Fucks in charge.
- I do like the sound of that, to be totally honest.
Sounds great.
I'd like for you to redo my picture, though.
It's a little bit, you know what I mean?
I want you to sort of focus on the chest-al area,
the sort of thing I've got going on there.
I think this is a good selling point.
The people need to see it, right? Get the artists on this.
- As he starts to move, I'm going to ask
if Daniel is telling the truth in this moment,
or is trying to deceive, uh,
- Ooh, I think it's a little bit conflicted,
because he's trying to keep his options open, right?
Because he's thinking about it in terms of, okay,
well, I'm in this situation.
I should see this as far as this goes.
But I think in the very, very back of his head,
there's the thought of, you know,
maybe there's another way of doing this.
But I think in this moment right here,
he's kind of going along more so with that.
- So you see that he says,
where do you think Conrad Schintz is headed?
Where is he going to be?
- I have no idea what that idiot child gets up to.
- You got no- - Literally none.
I don't care at all.
I don't even think about that little shit.
- Well, he's a huge impediment to all your plans,
so I would think about him.
(players laughing)
- Usually hanging out posting signs
on the outside of my club.
- All right, well, let's go try to track him down.
You ride with me,
and when we find him,
all you gotta do is get him to step out
so that one of my guys on the roof can take him out.
- Very well, very well.
- Incredible, you see Don takes you
and is going to make you fucking mayor,
and takes you to,
takes you out with him to his car to go hunt down Conrad.
We're going to cut back real quick to Anastasia.
You got that awesome snoop check.
You burst out onto the roof just in time
to see this woman coming over the side of the thing.
Either give me... (fast paced music)
What do you do as you see her crawling over the banister.
- Okay, so she's crawling over the banister,
and she is headed towards the car.
- Yeah, you get to the top of the staircase,
open out into the rain.
You're at the little circular balcony
on a steepled tower of the manor house,
and she's climbing over the edge of the banister.
You see her in a very vulnerable position as you-
- Great, I throw my shoe at her.
Both shoes. They're heels.
- [Brennan] Great, go ahead and give me sneak.
- (quietly) Okay.
- [Brennan] We'll call it difficulty,
she's in a very vulnerable place, so difficulty six.
- Halve it. - (laughs) Snap decision.
- Can't, not enough Moxie. - Cool, okay.
- Okay.
10! Oh, 12.
- There you go. You throw the shoe. Bang!
Hits her hand, and she falls and grabs the bottom of a thing
and is dangling in the storm. (nervous panicking)
She goes, help! Help!
Get me out of here!
- Now shoeless, goddammit,
(players laughing)
I run over
and I take off my trench coat,
my trusty trench coat.
I'm now on kind of the area she's on.
I assu- there's something for me, like a pipe or something.
- [Brennan] Yeah.
- So I tie part of my trench coat onto the pipe.
- [Brennan] Yes. - And then
hand her the other part,
and then I'm like, it's all on you, girl!
Because if I hold this, you're going to let me fall with you
or you're going to do something tricksy,
so it is completely on you
if you would like to climb up this trench coat.
- Great, and you see that she has your key
in her other hand as well.
You see she says, you're really going to try to help me?
- Yes, I am trying to help you.
I've always been trying to help you.
- Give me snoop six.
- Is this a snap?
- [Brennan] Actually no, this is planned.
- Oh, I'm halving it. - Okay. You look at her.
Her face. You recognize her face.
(tense music)
You recognize this woman's face. It's so...
At first, you're sort of like, oh,
she's very plain looking but also somewhat cute.
And then you're like, no, her face is vague.
You look down at her.
Okay! She grabs it.
You begin to pull her up, and she goes, all right!
Thank you for saving me!
As she comes up, you look down.
The rain, her white shirt, her servant's shirt,
goes a little bit translucent with the water,
and you see an F on her chest.
She pulls up with you.
(grunts in relief)
Oh god! Thank you so much for saving me.
Here's your key. It's fine, I have one of my own.
(dramatic intriguing music)
- Is there any way that I could borrow that key?
- Borrow it? No, no, I need it to get the fuck out of here.
You see, again, that F tattoo on her chest.
She says, but if you're smart, you'll come with me.
We gotta get to the rail station
and get the hell out of dodge right now.
- The rail station?
- Yeah, we gotta get out of here!
- Okay, you know,
I think that we should go to the rail station,
and it seems like you're fast enough to get us there.
- I'm pretty fast. That's my car up there.
What's your name?
- My name is A. Tension.
- Fakename, Stacy Fakename.
(players laughing)
- Nice to meet you, Ms. Fakename.
(players laughing)
I was so close.
(players laughing)
- You see the real Stacy Fakename,
AKA Flight, gets you up onto the highway.
All right, you're going to want to buckle up.
(mimics engine revving) and tears off.
And that's all for this episode of Dimension 20: Mentopolis.
Tune in next week,
as we converge on Oblongata Station.
Come back for the thrilling finale
of Dimension 20: Mentopolis.
See you there!
(players applaud)
- It's all coming together.
- (echoing) There's our special guy.
Where are you going in such a hurry?
- Everybody just like, hold on one second.
I need to make an important phone call.
- This is a pretty urgent
situation, Fucks. - Yes, yes, yes, yes,
but I have some things- - Hold onto what?
- You hear the ka-chick of a door opening.
The big guy is walking out of his office.
- Okay.
Go!
- You're not elected government officials,
and I'm very much the station-
- Screw elected government officials. I'm old money.
- This is my cake now! (slurps)
Fuck all of you!
- Mr. Fix? - Yes'm?
- Duck! (Brennan laughing)
- Fucks, you're willing to give away everything to save me?
- No, absolutely not,
you dolt! - Oh, okay. Sorry.
- I plan on getting all of that!
- Should his pressure meter get all the way to 240,
he's going to faint and pass out.
(haunting jazz music)