Episode 2 – A Blade in the Hand is Worth Two in the Dark

Pickaxe now the blades and the dart does anyone want to put the uh uh blades and uh bear watch knights theme on absolutely not I'm just gonna hit the I'm gonna hit play on the tape deck for the theme that we worked out click play gather around friends let me tell you a tale of free scoundrels grabby and small a hippie a dancer and a sweet talker who live in haspira mall you've seen them around they sell sweets by the pound their wares are famously taste so here I sing singing to you crimes involving gays so gather around friends and listen for the tales about I also think if we didn't have a theme song it would like upset our listener oh of course yeah no how would we start each episode too I mean it's like we just spend this like 20 minutes talking about theme songs yeah or just like cold open like a bunch of like fucking savages I I I I I I I I Cold open like a bunch of fucking savages.

Yeah, shivering so hard because the open's so cold. It's so cold and just… Just gaping coldness. It's like they shove it in without the lube. What? Welcome to… Gotta warm it up first. Welcome to Spoutmore. We're coming in from that cold, cold open. I'm your Game Master, Sean O'Hara. It was just exposition. It was just exposition. Raw dog in the intro. Is this the intro? Are we doing the intro now? Was that the intro for the show? Finish it. Welcome to Spoutmore Mall, brats.

We're continuing our campaign of Blades in the Dark, an RPG by John Harper. I'm your Game Master, Sean O'Hara. And to my left, playing Fenton Beasley, the slide, Abdulaziz. Hello. In front of me, playing Clover Ivy Fern, the leech, Jessica Tai. Hello. And to my right, playing Franklin Stein, the cutter, Paul Oppers. Hello. When last we left our heroes, we had pulled our very first heist. How did it go? It went well. Yeah, it was great. We had heat afterwards.

Yeah, because you had like an insane plan. No, the plan was good. We executed poorly. No, the plan was crazy. We executed great. Really shitty results. So I don't know what that means. It was mostly because the carny fell asleep at the wheel. Yeah, before that, your plan to hurdle off the side of a roller coaster as it ripped off the side of the wheel. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Above a very small opening inside of a fort was pretty flawless, I think.

So the job to recap was given to you by your mysterious shadowy patron. Oh, yeah. Who Charlie's Angel style presents you with jobs and tasks from the shadows. Oh, right. We stole a bunch of Smarty Root. Yeah. You were tasked with stealing a supply of Smarty Root from the Hot Meat Boys out of their storeroom in the Yesterland Amusement Park, which is, for the most part, pretty secure most of the time. But Clover ran into her. Her crush slash rival, Seamuson, the Hot Meat Boy.

Seamus Seamuson is his name. Oh, his last name is Seamuson. Because during the character creation, you say it's Seamuson. I think it's because I was drunk. And I messed up my words. I posit that it stays Seamuson. Fine. I like Seamus Seamuson. Yeah, I thought we've been saying Seamuson this whole time. You were saying Seamus. Yeah. So Seamuson. She's been saying first name. We've been saying last name. Oh, okay.

And after being distracted by her crush Seamus in her attempts to eat to get her pre-score corn dog. Oh, right. Yeah. That one before the score. Look, I didn't know. I wasn't 100% sure about the hurtling myself off a roller coaster. I just was like, we could have just tried to get in from the ground like a normal person. But instead you did not do that. And the job went sideways as you smashed through the roof of the fort. Quite literally sideways. Yeah. Off the edge of a railroad track.

Exactly. And then sideways and then upside down and front ways and back ways. What was the song that played? Well, as we heard all that, what'd you say? Oh, it was two. Yeah. Yeah. Which? Which if you imagine it as like a, like a, like a cartoon is insane to transition songs halfway through a disaster. It's like, who can say what the brain grows? And then it goes, what'd you say? It goes up. Like while it's going up, it's. I thought on the up it was the Lion King. And then.

And then as it's leveling up. As it plateaus. Who can say. And as it starts to dip back down. What'd you say? Absolutely blowing the entire first season's budget on licensing popular songs. Three songs. First episode. First 15 minutes. Man, what an ep. Go back and check it out if you haven't. Yeah. If you haven't, welcome to episode two. Don't know why you're here. Once you crash through the roof, you were accosted by. The famous and a handful of hot meat boys.

And Franklin Stein, the bruiser of the group led a skirmish, a melee, a fist, a fisticuffs. In which you beat their asses collectively. In a combat that I am almost certain was done so wrong from my side that I apologize to any patrons listening who enjoy the system of Blades in the Dark. We are learning together. Um, and that was. You also alerted high spear mall security and were only able to grab a small, small portion of the smarty Ruthie were sent to collect.

And that was a semi successful job. You got paid. You got heat. You got some stuff happening to you. Do we get rep? What was the other thing? You got to rep. You always get to rep. And we kept it pretty basic just as like a tutorial mission, basically. Because I think considering the hot meat boys are a higher tier gang than you. You'd get more rep. I think you get maybe one more, two more depending on the tier of the gang.

And if you pull jobs against a lower tier gang, you actually get less rep. Okay. Which is pretty funny. Just like you just picking on scrubs. Like nobody cares about that. So you've got rep, you've got heat, you made a couple coin and you got a tiny little bottle of smarty route. Yeah. So the way that, uh, so after, at the end of this job, since it was so chaotic, you acquired four heat. Yeah.

And a thing that happens in Blades in the Dark as a little thing called entanglements, depending on the amount of heat that you acquire on a job, you set events in motion. Things happen because of the way that you pull jobs, the people that you affect on those jobs and the way you upset the fabric of the mall. So with four heat, I'm going to roll this one D six two means gang trouble or questioning. Oh, so we're going to get pulled in for questioning. So yeah, I think questioning.

Is probably more interesting. Yes. Yeah. It'd be fun. And how we're going to do that is, um, the day after the smarty route job batters up, uh, you are all leaving the chocolate factory to just, you know, go about your day. You got some errands you want to run. And, uh, as you're leaving, you hear, well, well, well, if it isn't the cool treat kids and you turn and standing, leaning against a pillar with a little notebook in his hands. A stock of. Like. Like wheat. A grass thing.

He's got a long piece of wheat sticking out of one, one side of his mouth is Corb green. What does he look like? He's really short. He's like two feet tall. He's a halfling. Sorry. Two and a half feet tall. Whoa. Tall halfling. Yeah. We're still taller than him as children though. Right? Oh yeah. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Human kids are very rarely two and a half feet tall. Right. Yeah. Extremely young. Yeah. And he's leaning there chewing his wheat, writing in a notebook. Yeah.

You can hear him narrating what he's writing down. It says Fenton Beasley, short, chubby, vulnerable. What the fuck? Clover, Ivy fern, lavender hair, unusual, skittish, Franklin Stein, trouble. Trouble. Underline. Underline. And he says, I heard the three of you were making quite a stir in the Yesterland amusement park the other day. Uh, who told you that? What? Like, I mean, we were there. Yeah. Yeah. Then we just went for like a fun ride and it broke. Yeah.

And then you were seen skittering through the park with your pockets full to burst into some illicit rage. I believe I was there. I believe I was there. I believe I was there. I believe I was there. I believe I was there. I believe I was there. I believe I was there. I believe I was there. I believe I was there. I believe I was there. I believe I was there. I believe I was there. I believe I was there. I believe I was there. I believe I was there. I believe I was there. I believe I was there.

I believe I was there. I believe I was there. I believe I was there. I believe I was there. I believe I was there. I believe I was there. I believe I was there. I believe I was there. I believe I was there. I believe I was there. And I'm like, I could not get it clean. I wiggle my butt. So, there. I do not believe in your case, Fenton Beasley, that shitting your pants and committing a crime are mutually exclusive activities.

If you were in Burrito Canyon at the approximate time of the crime, tell me what you were doing there besides the burrito thing. Now, don't take all day, kids. All day? We were there for like 20 minutes. Yeah, and then we just went back to our place. Mm-hmm. And what about the Smarty Root? What's Smarty Root? Smarty Root. If I knew anything about Smarty Root, I would have said, yeah, it's a good place. I would tell you. He like waddles up. He goes.

And he walks up and he touches Clover's wizard war jacket. Uh-huh. And there's a little oily sheen on it. And he tap, tap, tap on his tongue, goes, spits it on the ground. That's Smarty Root. No, it's not. It's Patchouli, you idiot. Yeah, she's covered in this stuff. Makes her hard to share a room with. All right. If that's not Smarty Root, then on to my next question, Clover Ivy Fern. What is your association with the hot meat boy associate known as Seamus Seamuson? What?

I barely know him at all. Does she start like blushing? Yeah. He makes a note and he writes down obvious liar underline. I'm not lying. I never talked to him and he never talks to me. And sometimes we… We talk, you know, if I have to go get a snack and he's there, like I try, I try to talk to someone else, but he's always the only one working. It's like, ugh, I don't want to talk to you right now. But like, we don't talk, you know. Now remind me, Miss Fern. What? What does Seamus look like?

I don't know. Like a guy, like a boy, like an idiot. Interesting. Interesting. Interesting. Franklin Stein. What? I had the… Some might say dubious privilege of questioning some hot meat boys that found themselves in a bit of a sticky situation. And they say that they were laying a beaten by someone matching your approximate description. He hides his bloody knuckles. Yeah. And he makes a note in his notebook. And he flips it closed, tucks it in his tiny little vest.

He says, you have all been very, very helpful. Perhaps more than you realize. That's what happens when you cross paths with Corb Green. What are you getting out of this, you little weirdo? A good day's pay for a good day's work. He flicks his wheat into the darkness. He says, don't let me catch you leaving town. And he disappears into the shadows. You hear his tiny little spurs. Clank. Clank. Clank. Clank. Clank. Wait. Why is he wearing… Spurs. There are no horses in the mall.

Why are you wearing spurs? He doesn't answer. He rides his sheep to work. Yeah. So you all have one more heat from the crew because you have been questioned by Corb Green halfling detective. Somebody roll a d6. So you, as a crew, you acquire one additional heat. So you're now at five heat. Yeah. So that's how it works. When you get heat from a job, sometimes bad shit happens. The pond gets rippled. Nice. Yeah. Cool. And now downtime activities.

During downtime, in between scores, everybody gets two downtime activities. The downtime activities are acquire an asset. There's long-term project, which is whatever the fuck you want it to be. That could be you want to research a new topic, like find out who your patron is. That could be a long-term project. Yeah. If Clover wanted to make a new alchemical candy, that would be a long-term project. And at the end of that, she would have permanent access to a new thing.

Then there is recover, which is a way of recovering harm, which you don't need to do because none of you have harm. Reduce heat, which is pretty useful. Train. When you spend time training, you mark one XP on an XP track for an attribute or playbook advancement. You just decide that's going to happen. You're like, I want to get one more experience point in this thing, so I'm going to train. And then indulge vice is a way of reducing the stress that you have because stress sticks around. Yeah.

So everybody gets two. Let's start with Fenton Beasley. Yeah. Yeah. Does anyone want to take the long-term project of finding out who the patron is? I mean, not right now. I was kind of attracted by that. I think that's kind of cool. Yeah. Take it. Yeah? It's yours. Well, I was either going to do that or build a paper mache moth. Okay. For what purpose? It's like moths. A big one? I love it. It is 100% a waste of every downtime activity you could possibly use it for.

At the end of like eight downtimes, I'm like, I think I did a pretty good job, guys. Six inches across. It doesn't look like a moth, but it's still pretty cool. It's like a perfect replica of a Southern prince. It's like a principality. Lunar moth. Lunar moth. Dope. And there it is. So is that what you want to do? You want to establish this long-term project? Give it to Clover. Do you want it? Thanks. And then I put it in the pile of other moths.

I kind of like the idea that Fenton's really into moths. And he's like, maybe Clover's into moths, too. Everybody's into moths. She is. That's the thing is she is into moths. Yeah. When you tell somebody that you like moose, and then they just buy you tons of moose things. You just one time mention that you like a moth. He makes you moths for the next two years. Yeah. Beautiful. So yeah, what do you… I think, yeah, my next down…

My last few downtime activities have been these paper mache moths. But now I'm like, who's our fucking patron? Yeah, maybe I should… Figure this out. Yeah. Yeah. Does this seem like something that you think would take a long time? Yeah. Okay. So I think it's going to be an eight-segment clock. Okay. So it's going to take eight ticks filled. And the most you can roll on a downtime activity, if you roll more than one six in a roll, is five segments. So it's going to take you a while. Okay.

So I roll five dice? No, no, no, no, no. Okay. You roll the action that you… Eight? All? All? All? All? You pick the action. Like, you tell me how Fenton is doing this. How's he going about trying to figure out who your patron is? I think he talks to the lunch lady. Okay. At shitty food? Yeah. Yeah. I forgot it was called shitty food. Yeah. So where is shitty food? Is it in a food court? Yeah, it's in the food court. In the main… In the main big food court? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, cool.

It just is the mall… Like, it's the municipally… Cafeteria. Yeah. Sanction. Like, there has to be a free food thing. Yeah. For people that are having a hard time. Yeah. Which is great. It's a cool kind of weird capitalist, but also socialist place. Everyone's taken care of, but also there is a bourgeoisie somehow. Totally. And as we talked about in the main game, when we were in the High Spir mall, the food court is like… Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And the upper tier, there's like shit hanging from the ceilings, like weird apartments everywhere. Yeah. And on the upper tiers, that's where the elite of the food court are. Ooh. Like, that's where the Burger King is. That's where Wolfgang Puck hangs out. Wolfgang Puck? Yeah. That's just a name of a real person. No, it's a gang. Oh, it's the Wolfgang Pucks. Yeah. Yeah. Let the Wolfgang Pucks… Oh, my God. Yeah. The Taco Bells. Yeah. Very cool. Very cool. Yeah.

The Orange Julius is up there. No, there is a guy. That is one person named Orange Julius. And he just sells citrus fruit. That's why he's so successful. Yeah, so it's bustling in here. And in one corner of this massive sprawling food court is shitty food. And they just give out… What are they giving out at shitty food today? Slop. Sloss. Sloss. Slops. Slops. Slops. Sloppy slops. Is that a swips? Yeah, fuck, swips. It's like Canada Dry's gross cousin.

So it's just a piece of dry bread with some dubious looking sloss meat slopped on top. Yeah. Handed it out on a tray. Yeah, and he's sliding his tray down. Yeah. And it's that thing where the thing is too tall for him. So he's like sliding it down his head. Until he gets to the lynch lady. Whose name is Doris. Doris. Yeah, and Doris is… Six foot two. Yeah. Okay. Huge. Gigantic. Yeah. Stocky? Yeah. You know, good old like Nordic Great North woman. Mm-hmm. The frozen north. Like beefy.

Thick bones. Yeah. Getting high on her own supply. Yeah. Yeah. She can fight and carry a cow. But she chooses not to. She chooses to feed the hungry. Yeah. She's kind of a pacifist. Mm-hmm. With a wicked temper. Yeah. Gray braids, maybe. Oh, yeah. Older, I guess. Yeah. I don't know. Maybe middle-aged, but she just went gray. Mm-hmm. She saw some shit. Does she have a like, Oh, hello. Yeah. Okay. I like to think she's retired and she's like, I want a mission for the rest of my life. Mm-hmm.

To feed the hungry. Like she was in a war, maybe? Yeah. Or maybe she was like, maybe she was the closest that we've seen so far to like a paladin. Oh, yeah. Like a holy warrior, like with a cause. Oh, yeah. And she's just handing out sandwiches. And she goes, Oh, hello, little Fenton. Good to see you again. Hi, Doris. How do you do, my boy? I'm good. How are you? I am so good. Every day is good in service to the hungry. Yeah. Do you want some shitty food? Yeah. Here you go.

I think shitty is a different word. Like it means something else in her language. The town that she's from. Yeah. She's from a place called shitty, and she never realized what it meant in common. This is the finest shitty food. Sick. My shitty mom used to make it for me all the shitty time. All of the shitty kids would gather around the table and eat the shitty food. The food for generations has been shitty for years and years. As long as shitty has existed, this food has been here.

Fenton is like laughing. Fenton is like laughing. The kids come here sometimes just to get a good laugh. Yeah. It's like, she just keeps saying it. It's so fucking funny. She always finds new ways. Yeah, there's like an old, there's an old man and a young kid on either side of you, and they're both like, and the whole conversation. Yeah. So how are things going with that girl you always talk about? They're good. She seems to be taken with another person. Another person.

And I've given her quite a lot of paper mache moths. Oh, your moths are so beautiful. I saw the lunar moth in process. Thank you. Yeah, I finished it. Oh, it must have been so shitty. Yeah, it was pretty shitty. I don't doubt that she thought it was pretty shitty. Oh, what if it was shitty? It's the quickest way to a woman's heart. Yeah. It's shitty art. Thanks. Anyway. You have such a shitty heart, Fenton. Someday someone will see how shitty you truly are. I mean, I think a lot of people know.

She just keeps handing them out. You're basically just, the line is moving around you. Yeah. As people get their schloppy schloss. And I like do that thing where kids try and act casual, and I'm like, so. And I grab the corners of your coat and flip it up while you're talking. Like over your shoulders? Oh, yeah. Turn back and forth. Yeah. So I like do that. Yeah. I take the coat, I flip it over. And so Fenton's coat, he wears the trench all the time.

Uh, but he has like sewn flaps into it so he can sew, like, it's like a long man's trench. But like he, he like rolls the sleeves back, like almost like pirate, like long pirate, like Mal Reynolds's coat. Totally. And then, and he has like compartments in the tail. So that he can make it shorter for him. Oh, okay. Nice. Yeah. And then like roll it out when he needs it. When he needs to be Mr. Gilbert. Mm-hmm. Or Toblerone Jones. Yeah.

He's got, he's got the headband tucked into one of his sleeves. It's his belt. His palette swap. Headband. Toblerone Jones. Yeah. So he takes the trench coat, he flips it up and over. So he's, and he's like waving back and forth. He's like, so, um, I was wondering if, um, if you knew what you were doing. If you knew anything about our patron. You know who that is? Or if you ever heard about him. Oh, uh, the shadowy figure who gives you your jobs. Yeah. Hmm. Yeah.

Well, I mean, roll the dice, I guess. So what is this? Six. But what did you, I guess, consort is what you're rolling? Yeah. She's my friend. Yeah. That's what I, that's what makes the most sense. So six means that you fill three segments on the clock. Oh, wow. So this would mean. That she basically gives you some information that. Gets me like a third of the way there. So she basically says, I don't know too much, but I do hear a lot while I hand out my shitty food. Hmm.

But, uh, members of the food court, it said, are in high contention. Mm-hmm. The operations of a one orange Julius are butting up against the Burger King himself. And it said that proxies are being employed. Perhaps a member closer to the food court could tell you a little bit more. Okay. You think he's one of these proxies, maybe? Perhaps. Or do I have to talk to one of these proxies? That is all, unfortunately, that Dorison knows about this topic. So I asked you about my patron. Mm-hmm.

And you said there's tension between Orange, Julius, and Burger King, and they're employing proxies. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Something that they don't want their rivals to know. Perhaps plausible deniability would be the name of the game. Oh, so they're giving out, like, secret jobs. That could be it. They're working through… Oh, we could be the proxies. I don't know. Oh, man. Crazy. And perhaps you won't know for sure until that clock is afield. Okay. Sweet. Sweet. Thanks, Doris. No problem.

Sweet Fenton. Such a shitty boy. I gotta go. Bye. And he fucking moves backwards through the line instead of going forward. Excuse me. And he's, like, still got the trench coat up over his shoulders. He's like, I gotta get out of here. Go, go, go. Move. He's only, like, ten paces away. Oh, God. I gotta work on my cardio. All right. All right. All right. And so that was, like, a thing that you did one day. And you get another downtime activity, which we will not be acting out the entirety of.

Okay. Yeah. I just train. Okay. Great. Yeah. Oh, I should do resolve because that's… Because, yeah, I'm gonna do the… Because that gets me double, right? Yeah. Yeah. So how does… Just a quick snapshot of how Fenton trains in resolve. What's resolve? Sort and sway? And command and attune. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's all personality-based. So, yeah.

So, like, he's trying to fill out his consort track, and he's just like, how do I, like, make friends? And he goes to the bookstore, and he, like, gets a book, and it's the game. Oh, my God. Boo. Boo. Boo. He just starts, like, flipping through it. He's gonna anti-learn. There's a lot of misogynist rhetoric in here, but there's some good stuff. Oh, my God. And that's what he spends a significant amount of time doing. Yeah. Yeah. So, you're two steps further down the track to learning a new…

Or increasing inability of some kind. So we will go to Clover Ivy Fern. Hey. Hey, what do you think Clover is going to want to take care of in between jobs? One of them is a project. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Clover's trying to come up with a new tinkerer. Mm. But it's really hard because it's way above her skill level and she doesn't even know if it's possible. Yeah? Yeah, she's like, I wonder if there's a way to get into past the mind, past the physical mind and into spirit world mind, you know? Mm.

Candy that'll connect you with the spirit world? In a way. Yeah. Not like the way that Ving did. Yeah. Hubba Buddha. What's Hubba Buddha? Hubba Buddha. Oh, right. It's a gum. You chew. It's a gum. And you slowly gain enlightenment? Sure. Something like, she hasn't named it or branded it yet. As you blow the bubble, your mind expands that much. Oh my God, yes. And then it pops and it wraps your head. Wow, guys. Pops and you come back into the physical realm. Whoa.

While you're blowing the bubble, you're meditating. That's great. So, yeah, that sounds like a big thing. So, I don't know. What do you think? Eight ticks as well? To figure it out? Yeah. Yeah, for sure, at least. All right. Does Clover go to Greg to maybe ask questions about ingredients? Yeah, she's going to Greg anyway. She's got her second batch of forget-me-pops. She's going to go see Greg, see how he's doing. Sweet. So, Greg lives down in the steam tunnels. Yeah. In the utility corridors.

So, Clover goes down and it's this dank, dark dripping. You hear like the bloop. Mm-hmm. Bloop. Bloop. Bloop. Bloop. Bloop. Bloop. Bloop. Bloop. Bloop. Bloop. Bloop. Bloop. Bloop. Bloop. Bloop. Bloop. Bloop. Bloop. Bloop. Bloop. Bloop. Steam coming out of stuff. All right. And you find Greg in his special zone behind a particularly old and ancient boiler. Rough dark metal. It's been there forever.

It doesn't even really work, but he doesn't let anybody know that because that's where he likes to hide. It is. Yeah. He's in an old recliner. Mm-hmm. Well, an old Chesterfield that has those recliner bits with a little table in the middle. Yeah, totally. Yeah. And he's got like a nice kind of, he hand built like this little chimney thingy, this fireplace. Whoa. So it's like cozy kind of back here. Mm-hmm. Nice. Like a chimney. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Nice.

And he's poking at a like shelves of fungus that are growing up the side of the old iron boiler. He's just like poking at them with a stick to, I don't know, facilitate growth, move their spores around. Something. Yeah. Hard to tell with Greg. Yeah. And he sees you come around the corner. He goes, well, if it isn't Clover Ivy Fern. Did you actually mess up my name? Hey, I've been messing up people's names longer than you've been alive, little girl. And I'll mess them up long after you're dead.

Oh my God. You say this every time I come over. I just want you to remember that mortality is around the corner at every possible opportunity. I know. I know. The circle of life continues. Yes. And it's coming for us all. I know. The circle of life could strike at any time. Okay. Should I go or can I stay? I have some forget me pops. You can stay. Okay. Come here. Join me on my Chesterfield. Yeah. And he reaches over the table in the middle and pats it. Do you have any oat milk?

Clover, how can you even ask me such a question? Of course I have oat milk. Okay. Thank you. I've been brewing this batch for weeks. Oh, it looks so nice and thick. It is. It's rich. It's foaming with flavor. Oh, and it's fermented too. Wow. And he pours you a nice disgusting cup of his fermented oat water. So what brings you into the tunnels today, Clover? Well, I just wanted to ask you about, is there some sort of like way that you could potentially like leave your body and mind to like…

Get closer to the spirit world? Oh, like, like transmit your brain's energy into an alternate state of being? Yeah. Like if you were like, I'm going to go have a nap and then… I'm following you. Yeah. And then, and then you have a really good dream. You're like, wow, I don't want to like wake up from this dream. I'm following you. Right? Um, but that dream is the spirit world. And so you can like do whatever you want there. And then once you're done, you're like, I'm going to wake up now.

And then, and then you're back. So what attribute are you using to make this role? I guess consort. Yeah. It could be consort if you think that it's just getting information out of him. Or is this like a study where you're trying to learn information? Yeah. It's study. You know what I mean? Like you're trying to… He's basically just being a book for you right now. Yeah. He's my mentor. Yeah, exactly. So you would roll a study. Okay. I have two of them. So I roll two? Yeah.

You roll two and you take the highest number. Which is three. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Not very good. Three. Okay. So with a three, you mark one segment. So Greg thinks, is there a plant in nature or science that allows one to use their brain to contact the spiritual realm? I can't say for certain, but what I can tell you, Clover, is that I'm going to eat every single fungus that I find in these tunnels until I can tell you for sure. I knew I could count.

I give you the invisible pill, I give you the invisible pill, I give you the invisible pill, I give you the invisible pill, I give you the invisible pill, I give you the invisible pill, I give you the invisible pill, I give you the invisible pill, I give you the invisible pill, I give you the invisible pill, I give you the invisible pill, I give you the invisible pill, I give you the invisible pill, I give you the invisible pill, I give you the invisible pill, I give you the invisible pill, I give you the invisible pill, I give you the invisible I'll do my best.

Thanks, Greg. I'll tell you more later. High five. High five, Clover. Namaste. He falls asleep. He pops it in his mouth. High five, Clover. Flap. You just slap him on the top of the head because he falls asleep halfway through. Yeah, and I bank the fire so it doesn't burn his mushrooms down. And then I tuck him in with his ratty blanket and I'm like, goodnight, Greg. And you leave this weird old man in his dank little mushroom cavern. Moldy old Greg. Moldy Greg. Great.

So yeah, you mark one segment on that clock and you get one more downtime activity. Oh, shit. Okay. Reduce heat. Yeah, it's the same thing. You tell me how you're reducing heat and then you roll a die and depending on what you roll, you reduce a number of heat for the crew. Yeah. On my way from Greg's back to the workshop, I'm rummaging around in my pockets and I have some choco nub knives. Uh-huh. Nice. And they're just good. There's nothing really weird with them. Kind of calming, actually.

And I'm eating a few and I see a security guard who's not the worst one. Yeah. Okay. What's the name of this not the worst one security guard? Mildred. Mildred. All right. Mildred is… Mildred is a university student. Okay. She's interning. Yeah, she's interning and she's like really… Really nervous about this job. Yeah. Great. So she's just standing outside a shoe store. Yeah. Like writing notes and looking at everybody. Hey, Mildred. Hi. Sorry. No, sorry. It's okay. I'm just…

I'm on patrol. Oh, sorry. No, no problem. Are you hungry? You know what? I am kind of hungry. I have some choco nubs if you want some. I just had extra. And I don't want them to melt in my pocket. Clover, that's very sweet, but you're associated with a criminal organization. Yeah, but these aren't criminal chocos. Just normal chocos. You don't have to have them. I just thought you know, I just want to spread the cheer around. Okay. And you looked kind of hungry.

And I know that you don't get a lot of breaks. Okay. So what attribute are you rolling for this? Consort. Consort. How many points do you have in consort? One. Just the one? Six. Six? Okay. So she goes… Okay. Thanks. Thanks, Clover. Thank you. No problem. I won't tell anyone. Okay. I love your scrunchie. Oh. Where'd you get it? I actually made it. You made it? I did. Wow. Shut up. It's actually just the top of an old sock and I snipped it right off. Oh my god. I should do the same thing.

It's pretty handy. If you just have a sock, you're not going to use any more snip snip. You got a scrunchie. I'm totally doing that. I've been thinking about selling them in the mall. You should. It's just… You would do so well. Do you… Yeah. Do you want one? Really? I have an extra one. You would? I would. Here you go. I'll take it. Wow. Thanks. And she gives you just like… It's the ugliest teal. Oh, it's… I love this color. And it clashes… It clashes so bad with your hair.

I put my hair up. Yeah. It's just like lavender and then teal. Like, wow. It's crazy how heavy my hair felt before. It looks so cute. Thank you. Thank you for the nubs. No problem. I, like, you know, the rest of the security guards, I don't really give them any snacks for free because they're kind of, like, really strict and boring. But you're, like, super nice. And I don't know if you've heard, but, like, we… Me and my friends, we kind of got in some trouble. I heard. With the roller coaster.

I know, right? Yeah. Yeah. But, like… But we just, like, happened to be there at the wrong time. Like, I swear, we were just playing and… And then we were just there and they were like, it's your fault. And I'm like, what? And it's not even… It wasn't even us. It was, like, Seamus, like, he kind of started it, so you should tell them that it wasn't us. It was, like, if… If they have a problem, they should talk to Seamus. Seamus. Because he's the one who starts everything.

You know, I knew it couldn't have been you, Clover. I know. You're so… I know. Just, like, Nat Seamus. Oh, my God. I know. What a… What a scoundrel. Yeah, he's the worst. I agree. Yeah. Okay. Okay, I'll spread the word. Cool. I'll try and smooth some things out. Just let people know that there's no way. Thank you. Thanks, Mildred. No problem, Clover. Okay. Have a good shift. I will. I'll see you around. Bye. It's just working towards lowering our heat. We didn't lower any heat.

No, you lowered three heat. Holy shit! Yeah. Together? Yeah, all together for the whole crew, you took three heat off, so I think you went from five to two. So, that, like, Clover manipulating security guards really went a long way towards, like, getting attention off of the Cool Treat kids. Awesome. Good job. And you look cool. Woo! I love my scrunchie. Yeah. Purple and teal? Yeah. Clover loves it. Like, legit, she wasn't even being a bitch.

Okay, so, Franklin, what sort of, what downtime activities is Franklin looking to take care of? Um, I had a couple ideas, but one was, maybe he's trying to find his birth parents. Whoa! Yeah, that's the one. Okay. No, I'm just saying, that's great. That's, like, heavy. Yeah. I mean, Abdul's was moth, or Yeah. Patron. Uh-huh. And the patron, yeah, because I'm just, I'm just, because I think that's great narratively. It's a big secret. Mm-hmm.

So, how is he going about finding this information in the mall? Maybe he'll start with his close friend, Dr. William Hook. His ex-social worker. Okay, yeah. So, you go to… Doctor. Yeah. So, you go to Dr. Hook's medical zone, medicine show, or whatever it's called, and he's, like, a street doctor, right? He's not a great… Yeah, oh, I'm not a doctor. Yeah. It says doctor on my door, but I didn't make the door. I don't know what to tell you. Blames the door. Yeah, sorry. Door says doctor.

I came in through the window. I've never touched that door. I've never touched that door. I'm not allowed to touch that door, but I'll chop your arm off if that's what you want. So, you're sitting there. It's, um, it looks like it used to be a pet store. Like, there's still cages built into the walls, which gives it a very strange, almost sinister vibe. Little skeletons and all of them. What? Why? What do you mean? Little skeletons of animals? No, I know that, but what happened to the pets?

They died in there? Yeah, the store ran out of business. Oh, my God. That's so sad. And they just left the pets and then Dr. Hook moved in and was like, well, I'm not cleaning out those cages. I'm not touching bones. Disgusting. So, yeah, he just sits in the back. Might be a weirdo, but I'm not a janitor. He's just sitting in this, he sits in this back room full of animal skeletons, sewing people up for food and money. And that's what he's doing. And you're talking to Dr. Hook? Yeah. Franklin?

Yeah. Good to see you. Good to see you. What do you need? Broken nose set? Bones? I came out pretty unscathed. I'm not unscathed. You do more often? More often than not, my boy. You do more often than not. Cracks his knuckles. He moves a chair over to sit near his, it's a dentist chair that he has. And he's like, it was here when I got here for some reason. So it was like a dentist shop that was turned into a pet store and is now a medical center. He hops up like, I don't know.

I just been thinking about, you know, like, you're the first guardian. That I can remember. And I just, do you know anything about my parents? Before I tell you if he does, what skill are you rolling? I'll fight you if you don't tell this shit. Do you have any social skills? Because that's the thing is you kind of need to do it. Command a tune? No. What if Dr. Hook does like, leads him, leads him through like a hypnosis. That's a tune. There it is. There it is. Yeah. I found it, everybody. Okay.

So yeah, give me a tune roll. Three. Okay. So that is one segment. Yeah. So this isn't going to be super useful. So he says, all right, I thought that this day would come. I knew that you would want to know more. Kid like you, they always do. Eventually, sooner or later, about when they get to your age, they start asking questions. Who are my parents? Yeah. And I want to help you. But I honestly don't know anything. Anything? Your case was just passed to me like all the other ones are.

Our network, as you know, is an informal one. Kids come to me when they need help. And eventually, I pass them on to someone else. But you know what? What? I think you might have a little something up in here. He taps your head. A lot of thoughts and memories get locked in a young mind. You might have memories of your parents that you don't even remember. You think? I got a little technique I've been working on. What do you say? I mean, I'm willing to try anything, I guess. Okay.

And he starts going over and twists a knob. And all the lights in the room go out. And then he gets a lantern. And he lights it in one side. And it's full of all these weird little like mirror panels. And it's on a twisty bit that he holds in front of your face. And he goes, okay, close your eyes. Okay. And he starts, you hear, reek, reek. And the lights start. And it's spinning and flashing in your eyes. And these like weird repeating patterns. That looks really cool. Strange shapes.

And he's like, okay, think back, Franklin. Think back as far as you can. Okay. Let yourself go. It's hard. I can remember the academy. And we see a quick flash of a younger Franklin Stein, freshly shaved head, getting pummeled in a sparring match. Whoa. And then he loses his temper and headbutts him. And then. I can see being a little kid. I see red everywhere. Big red billowing fabric, maybe velvet. And the lights spin faster and faster. That's it. That's all you can get. I can't. I'm crying.

And he starts like, I don't like it. The lights start slowing down. I'm scared. Okay. Okay. It's all right. It's okay. It's okay, Franklin. It's okay. And the lights, the lights turn off. He turns the thing in the lights slowly rise back up in the lanterns in the room. In the gas lamps. And he's like, I'm scared. I'm scared. I'm scared. I'm scared. I'm scared. I'm scared. I'm scared. You did great. What was that? Those were memories. Those were real memories. We can try this again.

I want you to think on what you saw. If you want to take further steps down this path, I'm here to help you. I've always been here to help you. Okay. Okay. Okay. If you get hurt, you come on by. Thank you. You don't tell anyone about these casks of alcohol you see bit in the back of this room. Okay. What casks? Okay. You have a good day, Franklin. I'll see you next time. You too. Bye now. Bye now. Cool. All right. And you get one more downtime activity. I should learn a thing.

You're going to train? I'm going to train. All right. What do you want to train? Are you going to train in the playbook experience so you can get closer to getting a move? Okay. So you want to do an attribute one? Yeah. So yeah, you get one point in the insight track. I command. Sorry. Command? Yeah. So you get two points because that's part of resolve. Okay. Part of resolve. So you get two XP points in the resolve, which means four more and you get a point to spend. And an attribute in resolve.

Great. And how does Franklin train his resolve? He bosses Fenton around. He's just trying to get better at bossing Fenton around. So you're in the lair. Yeah. How is he bossing Fenton around? Fenton, get down and give me 20. Like 20 coins? I don't have that much money. Stand up. Give me five bucks. What? I don't have that much money. We have like four coin total. Jump it, Jax. Let's go. Let's see him. And then I like just jump and I go, Jack, Jack, Jack, Jack. Jack.

Four, five, six, seven, eight. Jack. Oh, God. I'm bad at this. But you feel yourself getting a little better. And yeah, that's the end of the downtime activities. Good job, everybody. How did the first downtime feel? It was an hour and 23 minutes. Wow. Jesus. Well, it's almost like I said that it could happen quickly, but then you all decided as a group to act them out. We just wanted to try it out. We wanted to try it out. And I love that. I loved it.

I actually liked it a lot because it's more in line with how we play games anyways. I've been your game master, Sean O'Hara, playing Fenton Beasley, The Slide, Abdul Aziz. So long. Playing Clover, Ivy Fern, The Leech, Jessica Tai. Good night. Playing Franklin Stein, The Cutter, Paul Oppers. See you later. Thanks to our patrons for listening and for supporting. And we'll see you next time. And so ends the tale of the Cool Treat Kids. Always up to no good.

So tiny and greedy And angsty they be As they navigate crime and puberty And though our journey may belie a conclusion We will not leave you without a resolution Return next week to the chocolate store As the Cool Treat Kids plan their next score And for you I'll gladly spout more I'll gladly spout more I'll gladly spout more I'll gladly spout more