The Adventure Zone: Amnesty - Episode 19/Transcript

Transcript by the lovely volunteers at TAZscripts.

Griffin: Previously, on the Adventure Zone…

Griffin: The vision that you see is… a meteor. And it is coming at you faster, and faster.



Griffin: And the Interpreter turns back to face you, and gives you a, a little bow, and she says:



Griffin: And the words you just heard did not match up to the mouth movements that she made.

This man laughs. And he points at Ned on a television screen, and he says:









Griffin: You can tell this is a cottonwood tree.



Griffin: This bough starts to split in half longwise. It is like it is tearing itself in half. It releases these spores. You hear a cracking sound. An old dead pine tree has snapped and is falling right towards you.

[Theme music (The Adventure Zone: Amnesty Theme by Griffin McElroy) plays]

Griffin: So I know we had a bit of a cliffhanger ending in the last episode, what with a tree falling over on Ned and Billy. But with your permission, Dad, I wanna jump in sort of in media res? To kind of that parlor room scene? You had a very successful roll and so it felt weird to be like “Yeah that's right, you investigated so good! Here's a fucking tree.”

[Clint laughs]

Griffin: Um, so we'll say there was— You and Billy saved each other. You both pushed each other out of the way, it was very very heroic. Um—

[Crosstalk]

Clint: What can we—

Travis: Now save e— wait. Saved each other like spiritually, Griffin? Do you think like they found each other, and like they made each other whole again?

Griffin: Yeah they knocked each other out of the way, and then as they were laying in the snow they were like “Do you… d’you take the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ into your—"

Clint: We have to act it out, we don't want one of those cheap cliffhanger resolutions.

Griffin: Alright. Let’s act it out.

Clint: Okay.

Griffin: [Doing sound effects of the tree falling] Crack, eerrrr…







Justin: Can I say, that was thrilling. I actually, I'm—

Griffin: I’m glad that we did that.

Clint: Yeah.

Travis: Put some foley in there and some…

Clint: Trust my dramatic senses.

Griffin: For sure. So the three of y—

Justin: Scott Foley in there.

[Laughter]

Griffin: Yeah. The three of you are sitting in the Pine Guard HQ with Barclay and Mama, all around a table in the center of your space down there. There are some maps and books sort of spread out across the table that Barclay has brought down from Mama’s office. And you are all reconvening after your investigation and, uh… Ned, you're probably still a little out of breath from escaping the forest, so I think this, like, just happened. And I wanna do like the— The Parlor Room scene of you all summarizing what you've learned and coming up with the plan of attack.

One order of business though, before we do that. Ned, after you escaped the woods and everybody got back together to sort of come up with a plan. What— Where’s Billy? What did you do with Billy?

Clint: Uhm, Billy is going to stay at the Cryptonomica.

Griffin: Okay.

Clint: It just felt right, I’ve given him like a little jumper. A custodian’s coveralls thing. And it’s got his name on it.

Griffin: Okay.





Griffin: Kirby was likely—



Griffin: Yeah, it's a pretty common name.

Justin: It’s a pretty common name, to be fair, Trav.

Travis: I mean, I guess.

Griffin: I imagine Kirby was very confused when you dropped off this Ryan Gosling at the store?

Clint: Yeah, but he's a huge Gosling fan, so it really worked out. I mean he—

Justin: It's as close as he's gonna get.

Travis: “Kirby, Ryan Gosling got hit on the head really hard and can only say “Pizza" and “Duck".”

[Griffin laughs]

Travis: “You're gonna need to take care of him. We're in a full blown Overboard situation.”

Griffin: Okay, uh, that’s fine. So, Mama is standing over the table, she’s still on crutches sort of recovering from the injuries sustained while she was exploring Sylvain, last arc. She’s also got a cold, it seems like? She’s doing a lot of hackin’ and sneezin’. But she’s trying to keep it together as you all sort of wrap up this hunt!

Griffin: And Mama says,













[Clint and Griffin laugh]

Griffin: It’s Ashton Kutcher's magnum opus.



Griffin: Yeah, you take a break to watch the whole movie, The Butterfly Effect. It is not as good as you remember, and you don’t remember it being great.



Griffin: You just leave the “Effects” letter off of it? [laughs]

















































Griffin: Um, this whole time— this whole time you’re saying this, Barclay is like standing behind Mama and making just a grim face and like shaking his head “no” like—



Griffin: And sure enough, Mama is sort of stunned, like literally mouth agape listening to what you’re saying, she says—

















Griffin: Oh she is not, she is not having any of of— She pounds her fucking fist on the table and she says:

















Griffin: She says, um…



Griffin: And as she’s talking there’s a knock at the cellar door and you hear Jake Coolice shouting from outside and he says—



Griffin: And, uh, he opens up the door and Mama kinda, like, sighs, and looks down for a bit and then follows Barclay up and up the stairs and out of the Pine Guard Haven. Do you all follow or…? I assume so. [Travis: Yeah.] This is my least favorite part of playing roleplaying games. Um, you—

Travis: No, you know what, we stay in the basement [Griffin: Yeah, exactly.] and let the action unfold outside.

Griffin: Um, you all emerge from the cellar and you see just an assembly of Amnesty Lodge residents standing on the porch. There’s Dani and Moira and Agent Stern. They are all just sort of observing the scene outside. The cottonwood snow that you sort of discovered, Ned, that has sort of fallen every time that there’s been one of these accidents, it is falling in sheets, and it is not just localized in your immediate vicinity either as it kinda has been whenever these accidents have happened. Through the trees lining the access road out to, like, the main drag of cliffside and then, you know, looking over the precipice of the cliff down into the heart of Kepler, this false snow is just everywhere. It is all over Kepler. And Mama says,





























Griffin: That is, um, that’s a very handy— I would say you have nail gun at the Cryptonomica. I don’t know that you have five nail guns for, uh…













Griffin: [Incredulously/Appalled] Having a nail fight? With your employee Kirby?

Travis: To pull back the curtain for everyone at home, I just gave an explanation of how we could rig it, but Dad was insistent that he wanted to give Kirby a butt wound.

Griffin: Yeah, with a nail fight he did. Okay.

































Griffin: Alright, regulators mount up. You swing by the Cryptonomica, you grab the nail gun, do you also grab Billy while you are there or are you leaving him in the safety of the Cryptonomica? Up to you.





Griffin: Okay, you all leave Billy behind. He looks at you actually as you swing by and [Clint: Aww.] kind of cocks his head as he sees you leaving without him and he goes—





Griffin: He nods solemnly in complete understanding.

Travis: Of course. I leave him a twenty in case he wants to order a pizza.

Justin: Can you even imagine that conversation? “Uh, hello, this is Dominos.” “Pizza!” “Okay, good. What kind of—” “Duck!” “You want duck pizza? That’s foul, no way, we don’t sell that.” “Pizza!”

Travis: That’s fowl! That’s fowl, he says.

Justin: Okay, great, good. [crosstalk]









Griffin: Kirby says,



{Music from 19:26-19:42}

Griffin: We’ve done a couple hunts now, and this is sort of a different approach, right? Because you all— this thing is not moving, it is a tree, you know where it is. It is not like you are trying to lure it somewhere and then get the drop on it so it can’t escape. It’s not going to escape, it’s a fucking tree. So I guess this is like a different kind of advantage for you all, like what is your approach as you all make your way into the forest? Ned, you have no problem following the tracks of the Sno-cat. What’s like your— what’s your strategy as you make your way into this sort of encounter?



Justin: Um, I think we’re taking it real careful. We know where it is, and I’m not saying we’re, like, crawling, but we’re not taking a lot of unnecessary risks getting to it.

Griffin: Uh, do you want to— why don’t you Read a Bad Situation, right? Like, that sounds like what you are describing here.

Justin: Okay, that’s fair. Uh, and that is a roll of… what rolls against Read a Bad Situation?

Griffin: Uh, Sharp?

Clint: Sharp.

Griffin: Nice, Jesus!

Travis: Damn.

Griffin: That is a twelve. You all are on a hot streak. I hope that it does not end when you are crossing swords with this big tree. Oh no, I spoiled the fact that they have so many swords. Okay, so on a ten-plus you hold three, holy shit. You get to ask three questions and every time you act on the answers you get plus one ongoing while in information is relevant. “What’s my best way in,” “What’s my best way out,” “Are there dangers we haven’t noticed,” “What’s the biggest threat,” “What’s most vulnerable to me,” and “What’s the best way to protect the victims.”

Justin: Well, let’s see which ones I can answer before— our in and out, I don’t know, dangers we haven’t noticed, I don’t know, biggest threat, the tree, I guess? What’s most vulnerable to me, the tree. What’s the best way to protect the victims? I don’t think there are victims. So I would say, what’s the best way in?

Griffin: As you approach the tree, you do sort of get a lay of the land. You see— first you see the injured goat man, the one that Aubrey sort of flung into a tree and just really messed him up, he is— and Ned, you saw this goat man sort of crawling around when you first found the tree. Right now he is laying among the roots of the tree. The tree is sort of growing out of this gnarled dome of roots. It seems like it is, like, semi-absorbed into the roots. Like, he has just been sort of sucked into them and he is not moving.

Justin: Who?

Travis: The goat person?

Griffin: The goat person, yes.

Justin: Okay.

Griffin: You also see— you would just see this, I don’t necessarily think that you need a question for this. You see another goat man. He is holding on with both hands to a chain and dragging something through the snow, and you see that what he is dragging through the snow is Indrid Cold. [Travis gasps] Uh, who is bound up in this chain, and the goat—

Travis: The Mothman!

Griffin: The mothman. And this goat man, shovel goat man, brings Indrid over, also to the root of the tree, sort of ties the chain around one of the roots and secures him. Indrid has got a black eye, his hair is matted a bit, you can see a little bit of blood there, but otherwise he is just kind of staring calmly into the middle distance. As you sort of get the lay of the land, right, you see these two other goat men— Duck, I think you get the line you can come at this clearing from where they’re not necessarily going to see you as you make your first approach. So that’s what I will give you for best way in.

Clint: Has Indrid got his glasses on?

Griffin: Uh, yes Indrid has his glasses on.

Clint: Well, I’m asking because I was wondering if he was in Mothman form.

Griffin: If he wasn’t he would be in Mothman— yeah he’s not, he’s got his glasses on.

Justin: Okay, um…











Justin: My next question is—

Travis: We don’t want it to become Point So-So, you know what I mean?

Justin: Yeah, yeah. How do I help the victims?

Griffin: You realize that the chain is not padlocked or anything like that. The best way for you to protect the victim would simply be to put yourself between him and the goat man. Both of the goat men’s instruments, the shovel and the shears, are still there. The best way to protect these— to protect Indrid is to, you know, release him and keep the attention off of him so that the goat men don’t go after him.

Justin: Okay. Lastly… What’s the biggest threat?

Griffin: This is a tough one.

Justin: That’s what I figured.

Griffin: Um, there— so this thing splits off its branches and every time it does so it shoots out these spores, and— again, it splits off in these symmetrical patterns and right now, you see— you see trees— you know— Duck knows a tree.

Justin: Thank you.

Griffin: This one—

Travis: Duck knows trees.

Griffin: There’s a lot of unusual things about this tree but like, by far the strangest thing about it is it has started to almost split in half entirely. It’s a very tall tree so there’s a good ten feet of trunk and then above that it seems like the rest of the trunk has started to just like peel away. Its two halves have just peeled away from each other, and in that gap just spores are shooting up like crazy. It looks like a snow machine. And as it has done so, the rest of the branches have fanned out completely, and it’s almost like it is forming like a perfect circle of branches and black leaves all around the tree. That is by far— you, Ned— I think you, Duck, in particular, you see that and know that it is extremely bad.



















Griffin: Okay. That’s—



Griffin: Point Ducktown.







[Laughter]

Griffin: Fair. Okay, who’s— are you doing these things simultaneously, or are you trying to get— what’s, what’s—



Griffin: Okay.

[Silence]



Griffin: [Laughing] Alright.



Griffin: Yeah, for sure. I think you can all get a stealthy approach. Ned, are you really hiding in the brush, and gonna try and take pot-shots at this thing with your copper nails, or was that a goof about how cowardly you are?

Clint: It is kinda how cowardly, but he realizes at some point he’s gonna have to emerge into the open and start shooting away at it.

Griffin: I like that. Ned, okay, you are— how close are you getting to this thing? Are you taking the stealth approach through this route that Duck discovered?

Clint: Well it’s not like it has eyes, right? So, assuming it can’t see me is not a good idea. I’m gonna—

Griffin: There are two goat men that could ostensibly see you.

Clint: Oh, right. Oh, what the hell. I’m gonna get within about ten feet of the trunk of the big trunk.

Griffin: Okay. Yeah. Then, Act Under Pressure.

Clint: Act Under Pressure, that would be Cool. And…

Justin: [crosstalk] It would be.

Travis: [crosstalk] That would be cool.

Justin: That would be cool.

Griffin: It would be cool if you got a good roll here.

Justin: It would be cool if you did it with a lot of— add a lot of preamble.

Griffin: Yowza.

Justin: Woah, hocha pocha!

Griffin: Ned got a six, however because you were on— you know, following this sneaky path that Duck pulled out for you and you have not been, sort of, discovered, you get a plus one on that, which brings it up to a seven.

Travis: So it is a mixed success!

Griffin: It is a mixed success. Uh, I will give you a… um… Price to Pay. You walk towards this thing and you start— you said you’re peppering it, you’re just, like, rapid firing some nails into the side of it?

Clint: Let’s see what one nail does— because Duck did say that one nail would do it— so let’s see what one nail does before I start just holding the trigger down.

Griffin: Okay. you fire a nail off and you are definitely close enough that it does not have a problem connecting with the tree. It— you see it sort of jam into the tree. The whole scene is sort of covered in moonlight, right? It’s always close to full moon whenever you guys are doing it. And you see the nail go into the tree. And as the nail sticks into the tree, you see it just instantly, sort of reflexively start shuddering. And—



Griffin: And as it does so, you hear this really loud and very unsettling rattling noise coming from the tree, uh, and—







Griffin: And you see the bark on the trunk sort of around where the nail went in, it just like starts to crack, and—



Griffin: —and fall apart and this huge chunk of bark just sort of sloughs off the side of the tree. And a fairly small branch just, like, snaps in half and as you pull the trigger this time, the nail gun is jammed.







Griffin: And now I think everybody kind of— the scene knows that you all are there, however you all established that these things are trying to kind of happen simultaneously, so. Aubrey or Duck, who wants to go next?





Travis: I am going to… Use Magic!

Griffin: Okay. To accomplish what?

Travis: Don’t know yet. I mean, I have a thing that’s “Trap a specific person, minion, or monster...”

Griffin: I would give you that.

Travis: Yeah?

Griffin: Yeah, for sure. I mean, this is part of the monster's effect.

Travis: Okay.

Griffin: This is like, it’s a tree, so it’s pretty fucking trapped already, so like, this is how it is affecting the world. I think that that would totally apply here.

Travis: Okay, Aubrey whispers—



Travis: And like, casts.

Griffin: [Laughs] You hear a voice say, “That’s a weird one man, okay.”



Griffin: Uh… you don’t actually hear that. Okay, so—

Travis: Aw.

Griffin: I guess, roll plus— are you doing this— you have to tell me, like, what that actually looks like before we try to roll, and— like how are you trying to contain the spores?

Travis: Like, I’ve done wind before, and so I think I’m trying to like, create some kind of like, the wind is blowing them back to the tree?

Griffin: Uh… yeah, okay. You can— sort of creating a whirlwind that traps them around the tree—

Travis: Yeah.

Griffin: So it can’t escape?

Travis: Yeah—

Griffin: Okay, that’s cool.

Travis: —a swirl rather than it blowing out into the world.

Griffin: For sure, I like that. Okay.

Travis: And do I get one forward because of our sneaky plan?

Griffin: No, you get one forward because of Duck identifying that the spores are super dangerous.

Travis: Okay, great, well I’m just putting that into the roll, so I just want to be sure.

Griffin: Alright, that’s a nine. A nine is a mixed success, so it’s going to have a Glitch. Uh, “The effect is weakened,” “It’s of short duration,” “You take one harm ignore armor,” “It draws immediate unwelcome attention,” or “It has an problematic side effect.

Travis: Let’s go with problematic side effect.

Griffin: Um, okay. You create this whirlwind and the spores that were shooting out of the huge rift in the middle of the tree - and also the spores that have started to just sort of emanate out of it, as Ned shoots the nail at it - they do start to swirl around the tree. It’s like it’s creating a localized snow globe effect, right where you are. As a side effect, the tree is now going to be harder to attack at range. Just because it is, like, it is sort of shrouded in this seed-storm. Uh, which brings us to Duck.



Griffin: Uh, there is a goat man, like, right there with Indrid? I think that before you can—

Justin: Is he looking at Indrid, or what’s the deal?

Griffin: Yeah, he definitely has his back to you.

Justin: I am going to… pull out Beacon and attack the chain that’s binding Indrid.

Griffin: Uh, okay. And there is a goat man who is, like, right there, so if you do this, and don’t do anything with the goat man, the goat man is gonna- is gonna getcha.

Justin: Yeah, that’s fine.

Griffin: Okay.

Justin: I need one action’s worth of things to do.

Griffin: I feel you. Then this is going to be an Act Under Pressure, because there is pressure in the form of this uh, enemy goat.

Justin: Mmkay. So that is Cool. And am I act— ah, I’m gonna give myself plus one on this—

Griffin: Yes, because you identified how to save—

Justin: Because I’m acting on the information—

Griffin: Yes.

Justin: Oh God. It’s still just an eight.

Griffin: Uh, okay. This is a Hard Choice I’m gonna give you.

Justin: Okay.

Griffin: You get the drop on the goat man and as he’s watching over Indrid after having just sort of tied him up to the roots. All the goat man sees is your shadow as you lift Beacon up over your head. And as you are sort of frozen in this moment, you recall a memory.

{Music 34:04- 34:11}

Griffin: Duck, you are eighteen again. It’s been several months since Minerva first appeared to you that night, awakening you with this vision of a house fire and this apocalyptic firestorm outside. And since then you have rebuffed her offers of power and a heroic destiny. And in this memory it’s nighttime and you are in the abandoned closed down clothing retailer Altizer’s. Your friends have cleared the floor in the main showroom and set up an audience of beat up mannequins as you and your friends play field hockey in the store. Juno Devine, your current co-worker, is there, and she is playing goalie, defending a goal that’s sort of posted up in the Men’s Casual Wear department. And— is it like a fairly big group of friends? You described this scene in the last episode and I’m wondering how rowdy it got.

Justin: I mean we have close friends, but it’s more of like a hangout where a lot of people sort know that it’s there, you know what I mean?

Griffin: Okay.

Justin: It’s sort of like a defacto hang.

Griffin: A little Road House situation, [Justin: Thank you, yes.] but with drugs and hockey?

Justin: Yeah, exactly.

Griffin: Alright, I like that.

Justin: And by the way, Road House did have plenty of drugs and hockey, it was just behind the scenes.

Griffin: [laughs] That’s fair. Uh, okay, you are breaking away towards Juno and she is trying to defend your shot and she says—





Justin: And I slap the ball into the net. And it’s the most amazing shot.

[Travis and Griffin laugh]

Griffin: The mannequins come to life and applaud—

Travis: And one of those mannequins goes on to write Mighty Ducks and includes the slap shot in it based on what they saw that night.

Griffin: They’re all Kim Cattrall. Um, okay! Juno looks sort of disappointed, and then, like, takes her gloves off and pulls a cigarette out from behind her ear and lights it up because you’re all a bunch of, ya know, rowdy bad kids. [Justin: Yeah.] As you turn around to sort of like accept your accolades from the other players, Minerva is just like, right in your face. Just inches in front of you and—



Griffin: Juno just sort of exhales and says:





[Griffin laughs loudly]

Griffin: Minerva says,



Justin: [laughs] Uh… and I just nod.

[laughter]

Griffin: She says,





Clint: [laughs]

Justin: And I’ll go, I’ll go into the, where we always, where everybody takes a leak, and that’s in the former housewares department. And like, everybody takes leaks here.

[laughter]

Griffin: Jesus!

Justin: As I’m saying it— I realize as I’m saying it, it’s the worst!

Griffin: It’s the most horrible thing—

Justin: You know what, actually, there are probably bathrooms! [breaks out into laughter]

Travis: Yeah!

Griffin: No we can’t retcon it, you are just taking a leak, [crosstalk] on the floor.

Justin: [crosstalk] It’s a department store Griffin! Of course there are bathrooms!

Travis: Does the housewares department have like, display toilets for sale?

Justin: That’s the joke, but there probably are bathrooms there.

Griffin: You are bad kids, you are peeing on the floor like a bunch of dogs. You are doing that and Minerva says:



Griffin: As you just sort of are pissing on the floor like a house cat—

Justin: No I don’t need to actually piss! I was just trying to get away from them.

Travis: It was subterfuge!

Justin: Yeah, thank you!

Griffin: Ok, you are not pissing, but it’s everywhere, and Minerva says:









Griffin: She says,



Griffin: And outside of the store, I think everybody inside the shop freezes as headlights creep across the drawn blinds of the store, and you hear a vehicle come to a stop just outside of where you are. And you hear Juno shout from the other room, she’s like,



Griffin: And you hear a car door open and you hear footsteps coming out of the vehicle. And you hear this faint sort of like metallic crunching noise? And then you hear someone sort of exhale a deep sigh, and Minerva says:







Griffin: She’s like, so pumped. She’s like, so excited.



Griffin: As you step outside, you just see this car pull away. It’s a cab that is pulling off into the distance, it’s sort of getting off the main drag and onto the highway out of town.

Clint: Kepler’s one cab!

Griffin: [laughs] One cab. And several feet from the entrance to the store, there’s like this grassy little cut-out in the sidewalk where a tree is growing in the middle of the town, there’s a few of them sort of peppered across the main drag, sort of giving the downtown area of Kepler a bit of greenery. But in this little small patch of grass, you see a shape glistening in the moonlight. It is a sword. It is a long, straight, thin blade with a leatherbound hilt, and this intricately forged guard that appears to be in the shape of a mouth. And Minerva suddenly disappears and reappears right behind the blade and gestures towards it. And she says:









Justin: I pick it up.











Griffin: How does Duck feel about that?

Justin: He’s shocked, he drops it on the ground, like, what the fuck.



{Music: 41:30-41:48}

Griffin: This is the offer I have for you. You are going to be able to swing down with enough force to cut the chain and free Indrid, and you are going to be able to do it because you got the drop on this goatman, your movement is so swift you’re going to be able to do it. The price to pay is... Beacon will be damaged.

Justin: Um…

Griffin: Not broken! I won’t take that from you. But there will be some damage to the blade. You are swinging metal down onto hard metal. You can get through it, but the durability of Beacon will be worn down, a little bit.

Justin: Is this a choice I’m having to make? [Griffin: Yep!] Are you making me make this choice?

Griffin: I am making you make this choice.

Justin: I think it’s what I would have done. Yeah. That’s what I would do.

Griffin: You swing the blade down, and there is certainly some resistance as you chop the chain sort of against these hard roots, but you get through it. And the goatman sort of looks up at you in surprise, and you’re definitely going to have to deal with that soon. Indrid sort of-

Travis: (mimicking goat voice) Pizza?

Griffin: This one does not talk and say pizza. Indrid sort of instinctively tries to roll out of the way.

Justin: Okay, in that moment, I need one mo— I get one more acksh— I want-

Griffin: [laughs] Okay!

Justin: When the goatman turns around and looks at me, I rear back my fist, [Griffin: Mhmm.] and I punch Indrid in the face.

Griffin: Okay...? Yeah, I’m not going to make you roll for that—

Justin: To knock his glasses off.

Griffin: Oh, okay! You punch Indrid in the face and he says:



Griffin: And then, he becomes the mothman. And I think, seeing this- A lot of things just happen in front of this goatman very quickly, and he starts to crab walk backwards away, just for a moment, until he sort of composes himself. So now you have put some distance between you and the goatman.



Griffin: Indrid gets to his feet and he grabs you by the shoulders and he says:





Griffin: He nods, and flies away.



Clint: [laughs]

Griffin: He gives a thumbs up.



Travis: [laughs]

Griffin: As he flies away, you pull Beacon out of the roots where he’s kind of been embedded, and as you do so, you realize that where the chain sort of connected with the blade, there is a— a pretty good… there’s a pretty good like, divet in the side of the blade. It has been sort of dented inward and uh, looks kinda rough around that spot.



Griffin: Uh, Ned.

Clint: Ned is gonna to do something which will seem a little weird in the context, but I just think it’s information we need. Ned’s gonna Investigate a Mystery.

Griffin: Ok.

Clint: And…

Griffin: Roll plus Sharp. [Clint rolls] That’s very bad.

Clint: [quietly] Shit.

Travis: You did a bad job, Dad.

Griffin: Ned rolled a five. There is no recovering from that. I’m going to take a hard move here, the hard move is that the goatman that is embedded in the roots of the tree— I will call him “shears goatman”— starts to move. And he sort of wrestles with these roots that are all over him, and he pulls himself out of the roots and tree. As he emerges from the tree, you realize that he has merged with this white bark. It is growing out of him, now. It is forming around his spine like a brace. You get the impression that this thing probably broke its back when Aubrey flung him against a tree and now the tree has healed him in a way by giving him this external chitin made of this white bark, but it has like corrupted him in a way, it’s sticking out in this huge gnarled lump that extends just over his head, and his eyes are clear white. And he picks up his shears, and starts walking towards you, Ned. Uhhh… Aubrey!

Travis: Well, I’m going to… So we’ve got a goatman on Duck, a goatman on Ned, the—

Griffin: You’re easy, breezy, beautiful! You’ve got nothing!

Travis: Yeah, I’m feeling great. The nailgun is—

Griffin: Jammed.

Travis: Jammed.

Griffin: Yeah, this easy fight is going extremely good, it seems like.

Travis: Yeah. Has Ned dropped the nailgun? Ned, do you still have the nailgun?

Clint: [crosstalk] I still have the nailgun.

Griffin: [crosstalk] Yeah he still has it.

Travis: I’m going to… combat magic, blast, force… [Griffin: Okay!] the goatman approaching Ned.

Griffin: Okay. The uh, the half-wood...

Travis: Duck can take care of himself.

Griffin: Okay, cool! Yeah, Ned can-

Travis: You know what? I fucked up that goat before with this, and I’m gonna do it again!

Griffin: Alright, roll to Kick Some Ass. [Travis rolls] That is a ten. [Travis: Ten.] That is a big ten. On a ten plus, you get to choose an extra effect, you both deal damage to each other but you can also: gain the advantage, take plus one forward or give plus one forward to another hunter, inflict terrible harm, plus one harm, you suffer less harm, minus one harm, or you force them where you want them.

Travis: I’m going to force them where I want ‘em.

Griffin: ‘Kay.

Travis: Knock ‘em backwards. [Griffin: Okay.] And that is three harm total.

Griffin: Okay! You knock them backwards and this hard shell around its back sort of collides with the tree again, only this time he does not, you know, crumple instantly. He is definitely damaged, and you actually see just a split in his skin and this white sap just starts pouring out of him? And actually, as he hits the tree, you see more bark, and not just bark, but actual chunks of wood from the trunk start falling off around where the nail hit the tree. And as it does so, I think it loses a lot of branches. A lot of the branches where this nail went in just sort of fall to the ground harmlessly. And then he stands up, and he takes the shears and he snaps them in half. And now just has sort of two blades, and he flings one at you, Aubrey. [Travis: Okay] And you take… you take two harm as this thing cuts into you.

Travis: Well I ignore one, thanks to my cool vest.

Griffin: Yeah, it does not cut into you, the vest definitely protects you a bit, as it makes its way harmlessly over your shoulder, it sort of cuts across your neck a little bit, and you get a superficial one harm. Mark that.

Travis: And once he’s knocked out of the way, Aubrey says to Ned,



Griffin: Uhhh, Duck!

Justin: Yeah.

Griffin: What do ya do?

Justin: Uh…

Griffin: You are definitely still engaged with shovel goatman, he, seeing that the mothman flew off, has picked up his shovel and is a… he is a threat. There is still the half-wood goatman, who definitely looks like, bigger and nastier than shovel goatman does, he has just been knocked into the tree. Then you have the tree itself, which has continued to rot around where this nail has stabbed into it. And then you have this like flurry of like… spores, that are sort of swirling around the tree that Aubrey made.



Griffin: [laughs] Okay! Go ahead to roll and kick some ass.

Justin: Am I acting… on my Read a Bad Situation?

Griffin: I don’t think so. Not for this action, right?

Justin: Doesn’t seem like it.

Griffin: That is a fucking eleven. And you were just punching him with your fist?

Justin: Um, yeah, I really… oh man! I’d love to just use Beacon on these guys, I’m having a really hard time of it! I don’t know, it just doesn’t seem right to me that one of them would be chill… [Griffin: Sure.] and I’d be friends with, and the other one I’d bisect, like, it just feels weird.

Travis: I saw someone point out on Twitter, and like I love this, that basically the difference between the Pine Guard and the Bureau of Balance, is that when we were the Bureau of Balance it’s like, “We’ll murder everyone!” And this time it’s like, “Well this person is actively attacking us, but I don’t know…”

Griffin: I think it’s just one harm that you do, but you get to choose an extra effect, which is gain—

Clint: Doesn’t Beacon have a flat? Isn’t there a flat to the blade?

Griffin: I mean, there is now that he fucked it up on the chains. You get to gain the advantage, plus one forward, give one to another hunter, terrible harm, less harm, or force them where you want them.

Justin: Uh, I’m gonna force them where I want them. I would like to use that advantage to, and tell me if this jives with your sort of… to disarm him.

Griffin: Um, I don’t think so, man. I feel like you are sort of… it feels like a lot to accomplish just with one thing, right, to just completely neutralize him just by punching him. Like you can—

Justin: I’ll just like knock him to the ground, and hopefully I can like knock him out on a tree stump or something.

Griffin: Yeah, I don’t know that that happens. What happens first is, because he sort of has range on you, if you are coming in with a fist and he’s got a shovel, um, this thing is done fucking around.

Justin: I’ve brought a fist to a shovel fight.

Griffin: You’ve brought a fist to a shovel fight.

Clint: [laughs]

Griffin: This thing is done messing around. It is, you know, big and very strong. It rears this shovel up and brings it right down on your skull, and you take three harm as this thing tries to just bash your fucking head in. And you sort of—

Travis: You ignore two.

Griffin: You— yes you do ignore two—

Justin: Still, it’s not none. [laughs]

Griffin: You sort of shake it off though, and punch him, and as you punch him, he does fall backwards and lands on the roots at the base of the tree. Uh, Ned!

Clint: Ned is going to Act Under Pressure to unjam the nail gun.

Griffin: Okay.

Justin: With his nail gun repairing experience.

Griffin: Yeah, I mean it is pressure… there is pressure here. You’ve got a big tree, you got two nasty goatmen, and you’re trying to do this in kind of a fake snow storm. Go ahead and roll plus Cool. [Clint rolls] Oh my god. That is— that’s a five.

Travis: Have you leveled up recently, Dad? Cause you just rolled a five.

Griffin: Yeah, mark experience for all of your failed rolls here.

Clint: I just— I just— wait a minute. I have something I wanna try.

Griffin and Justin: Okay.

Justin: Rerolling. Editing.

Travis: Is it going back in time?

[laughter]

Clint: No, Ned has a thing called “artifact”, where he quote unquote found a magical artifact, [Griffin: Oh, yeah.] and it’s a lucky charm for him… I want to use Luck.

Griffin: [surprised] Oh! Okay!

Justin: Fair.

Griffin: Okay, I know what happens here. This is great. You are picking nervously at the nailgun, just tinkering with it, your hands are shaking, they are cold, you are trying to make out the mechanisms of this nail gun in the middle of this maelstrom of the spores coming out of the tree. And through those spores, you look up as you hear the crunching of snow moving closer and closer to you. And you see a figure charging at you through the storm. And you look back down at the nail gun trying to fidget with it and then back up to the figure as it gets closer and closer...

Ned, you flash back to a pretty innocuous day several years ago, we haven’t really established what the timeline is, but it is after the day of the crash and sort of your escape, your whistle stop tour of east coast destinations moving southbound until you arrived in Kepler and met Victoria, the proprietor of the Cryptonomica, who basically gave you a job and gave you room and board. And you’ve been there for several months, and we haven’t really explored too much this time of your life, but how has life living in Cryptonomica and getting your feet below you in Kepler— what has that looked like? How have you been helping Victoria out around the museum?

Clint: Well, for Ned it’s been kind of… boring? Um… he’s kind of had this sedentary life, you know, doing little things around— as little as possible, to be honest with you. Dusting, you know, and he’s not really into this shit, it’s just not that interesting to him. [Griffin: Yeah.] He’s just kind of hiding out and he misses the thrills— not really realizing that by, you know, adapting to this life is what’s gonna keep him from ever getting back to that life, um…

Griffin: Can we explore— you mentioned that it is kind of boring here, and you have been living out of the Cryptonomica and working there. And it’s got to be different from the Cryptonomica as it is under the Ned Chicane brand, right? [Clint: Oh yeah!] It is definitely more sensational now than it was back then. Back then it was a fairly, you know, ‘authentic’ monster museum.

Clint: Well, and not even— so much of a monster museum as it was really— it was almost like a… very scientific approach, you know? It didn’t really claim that things were real, you know what I mean? It just was like more of an investigative— it was much more… believable. I mean, it was much more realistic, and it was “Here are the stories from this area.” Almost like a story telling— it wasn’t really so much of a sensational—

Griffin: But it was also, like, dead. Like, I think back then, because it was very straightforward, like, nobody was coming to it. And so what I really like is like, the nature of your relationship with Victoria— who just likes your company, she was super lonely, and she’s kind of outcast in this town so she just likes having a friend, likes having someone be around. I think there’s like this push and pull with you during the months that you lived there where you, maybe because of your, you know, inherent showmanship, tried to add a little bit—

Clint: Oh, comes up with ideas—

Griffin: Add some spice to it.



Griffin: That is what the scene is then, for sure. You and Victoria are in the Cryptonomica. You have hired somebody to paint this big portrait of Bigfoot. And he comes in the door, you hear the bell above the door ring, and it’s a kid named Kirby who comes in and sets his paints down in front of this big canvas that you have set up for him and walks over to the RC Cola vending machine, gets one out, cracks it open, starts drinking and starts painting as you and Victoria kind of just clean up around the store. I may have called her Mama earlier, which may have been a slip of the tongue, but— you all are just kind of cleaning up the store and watching Kirby do his work as she looks over sort of your projects and looks at the store and kind of takes stock of how much it’s changed, and she says,







Griffin: And he keeps at his work, and you all—



Griffin: And he says,



Griffin: And he reaches into his bag and pulls out a CD jewel case and sets his drink down on top of it. Uh, you go outside with Victoria. It’s like a nice fall day. The leaves have just started to change and are falling in droves which makes you realize you’re gonna have to rake very soon, but you try to put that unpleasant thought out of your mind as you and Victoria talk, and she says,





Griffin: She says,







Griffin: She laughs, and she says,











Griffin: And you can tell she looks kind of disappointed. She says,





Griffin: She says,







Griffin: She leans against the railing of the porch out in front of the Cryptonomica and just sort of looks out at the leaves as they’re changing and dancing around in the wind, and she says—



Griffin: And she starts coughing…really hard. And you’ve seen these fits a lot in the months that you’ve been living with Victoria and they are getting worse very quickly. This one’s a particularly difficult one and she kind of like, stumbles backwards and sits in a rocking chair out in front of the porch and tries to collect herself.



Griffin: She smiles and she says,



Griffin: She says,





Griffin: She looks up at you and smiles. And you can tell that she has tears welling in her eyes that she quickly tries to fight off. And she says,



{Music 1:07:19- 1:07:25}

Griffin: And then something super lucky happens. You hear something moving around in the brush, and you hear this noise like shhh[?] and it’s getting louder and louder and right when this goatman is about to collide with you, you see… the jetpack. You see the Flymaster that has been sort of blasting around Kepler for the last two days since you lost it following your stunt. It flies into the clearing and just collides with the goat man, knocking him off of his feet and out of this path of collision towards you, and finally gives up the ghost and just kind of lands at your feet, finally dormant as you get that nail slid out of the gun and get it functioning again.







Clint: Ned looks over at Aubrey and tosses the gun in her direction.













Griffin: Okay. Aubrey, you have the gun.

Travis: Okay.

Griffin: Again, there is this storm all around the tree that is whipping up a frenzy that makes it kind of hard to shoot at it at range. You can still do it, but you will be at a disadvantage.

Travis: I’m gonna get up close to it then.

Griffin: Like right up ons?

Travis: Yeah.

Griffin: Okay.

Travis: And— so you said the tree was kind of splitting, right? [crosstalk] To spray up the things?

Griffin: [crosstalk] Uh, yeah, for sure.

Travis: She’s gonna shoot a line of nails following that line all the way down to the base of the tree.

Griffin: Uh, okay, I like that. If you’re doing that and you’re trying to do this sort of precise motion in the middle of the storm, I’m not gonna make you roll to kick some ass, because the tree has no direct way of hurting you-

Justin: The tree has no ass.

Travis: Uh-huh.

Griffin: But it is— tree doesn’t have ass also, thank you, Justin, so go ahead and Act Under Pressure.

Travis: Is that Cool?

Justin: See, I’m using Duck’s experience as a forest ranger there—

Griffin: [laughing] Yeah, sure.

Justin: — to tell you trees don’t have ass.

[Clint laughs]

Travis: Fuck!

Griffin: Aubrey got a six on your roll. You could— if somebody could help you out to give you a plus one to bring you up to a mixed success, or you could drop a Luck point to pull this off for sure.

Clint: Could you not say that Ned tossing her the gun was Helping Out?

Griffin: Yeah, I think you could say that. You do still need to roll for it, right?

Justin: We apparently burned all our good rolls on like, getting Ryan Gosling movies to appear on Netflix or whatever the fuck we were doing.

[laughter]

Griffin: Uh, yeah. Ned, roll to—

Travis: So we’ll say, like, Ned tosses the thing and then turns up the pressure on the compressor, and that’s Ned—

Griffin: Well, he does need to still roll, so it’s a possibility that he didn’t turn up the pressure, he turned it way down, and the nails just fall out impotently from the end of the gun which I love that visual, it’s not really gonna move the chains though.

[Travis makes a baby noise? “Bwee, bwee, bwee, bwee”]

Griffin: Uh, okay. Ned, roll to Help Out. That is plus Cool. This may be our first Help Out roll, which is very exciting. [Clint rolls] That’s an eight!

Clint: Eight!

Griffin: On a seven to nine your help grants them plus one to their roll, but you also expose yourself to trouble or danger. Okay. So, this brings it up to a seven for you, Aubrey, which makes it a mixed success. Describe this scene of you approaching the storm and trying to just empty a clip into this tree with almost zero visibility.

Travis: So I’m gonna say she gets real close, like, right up on it, you know? And then basically draws a line straight down, like Pat! Pat! Pat! Pat! Pat!

Griffin: Okay, I like the visual of you taking a deep breath and trying to really nail this one, no— [laughter] God, we gotta stop fucking saying that. You take a deep breath and try to center yourself and gain your composure in the middle of this just, like furious storm and you raise the gun, and…

{Music 1:11:05-1:11:11}

Griffin: Aubrey, you have this moment where you remember a very powerful memory, and it was the moment that you sort of first realized that you wanted to be a magician. And we haven’t really talked about that, and I’m curious, like, what inspired that to set up whatever this scene is going to be. I don’t really know what it’s going to be. What was sort of Aubrey’s inspiration for wanting to get into magic? Was there a certain magician that she idolized? Was there a show that she saw that changed the course of her life?

Travis: So, I mean, I guess it probably would mirror my own, but we’re not really the same age, so like… Timeline wise, this wouldn’t be the same thing. But there was a magic special that I remember watching as a kid that was filmed at the Magic Castle. And it had, like, Lance Burton and a bunch of people in it. But one of the scenes, it was… and I wish I could remember the name of the performer, but she is doing this magic act where she’s like dancing with a mannequin? And she is manipulating the mannequin’s arms and stuff to do tricks. And it’s both really fun and very impressive. And I think that that kind of, like, more of like a performance art, like character building kind of thing really appealed, you know, Aubrey is a theater kid—

Griffin: Yeah, sure.

Travis: —and I think more than just the, like, sleight of hand, “Watch me do a magic trick,” more of like, “I’m gonna build the scene and make the show the show and the magic facilitates that.” Very— I’m also gonna say, because this is true of me as well— Houdini is a big inspiration for that. It’s not just the trick, the trick isn’t the thing, the thing is the show.

Griffin: Okay. Then why don’t we do this? You saw that special, it really spoke to you as like this really cool new mode of performance, and so, you know, the usual stuff maybe, you buy the books, you watch— you get the special VHS videos that teach the tips of the masters and sort of start practicing your magic. Maybe the scene is just like you performing for your parents, like doing your first private magic show to show off what you have learned from these, like, books that they have bought you and given you as gifts and stuff like that. Is that cool with you?

Travis: Definitely.

Griffin: Okay, what’s this look like? You are performing for your parents. What kind of tricks are you, uh— what kind of basic stuff were you—

Travis: I’m probably, like ten years old.

Griffin: ’Kay

Travis: You know? Like the cup and ball, maybe, like, the big finale is like a, you know, a handcuff escape? Um, probably doing, you know, the like, “Oh, roll up some newspaper and I pour the water in, ooh, where’d the water go?” That kind of thing?

Griffin: Okay, um—

Travis: Not necessarily easy stuff, but like pretty basic magic, but she’s trying to do a lot of, like, stage craft with it too, so it’s like—

Griffin: Yeah, that’s always been her jam.



[Griffin laughs]

Travis: And that wasn’t 50 years ago, you know, she just doesn’t— she doesn’t know dates.

Griffin: Okay!

Travis: And like, she’s doing a lot of that like, [Aubrey: Oh these cups were salvaged from King Tut’s tomb,] and you know, [Aubrey: This pitcher of water once belonged to Julius Caesar!], and a lot of that like—

Griffin: — ”belonged to Julia Roberts.” Why don’t you—



Griffin: Because this is not like, magic magic, why don’t you roll to Act Under Pressure as you are— that’s right, I’m going to make you— you are pressured as your parents are watching you, scoring you, judging you.

Travis: Listen, we’ve all been there, God knows.

Clint: Hey!

Travis: When dad watches me do a podcast, [Griffin: Sure.] it’s terrifying.

Travis: I got an eight.

Griffin: Alright! Mixed success. We’ll say that you are— give me one of the tricks that you are doing.

Travis: May I make a suggestion?

Griffin: Sure.

Travis: I think that Mom is impressed, and Dad is not.

Griffin: I think so too but what is— Actually no, that seems mean, I don’t wanna characterize your— the dad like that. Obviously you guys had, like, beef in that one scene you were doing but it’s still like, a loving, supporting environment.

Travis: I think the mixed success is everything goes well but I can’t get the handcuff trick to work well.

Griffin: So the handcuff trick is like the big finale, and everything else has been going fairly well and—

Travis: And I have branded it as like, “These handcuffs belonged to Houdini himself!” even though they bought it for me at the store.

Griffin: Sure, and as you do the things that you have practiced so many times, like you were very excited to finally show of your skills, you pull your wrists apart, and they are still securely fastened inside the handcuffs. And you try and try again, but you are just trapped in them in the middle of your show.







Griffin: They sit there patiently but you can tell they are worried about you. And finally your dad comes over and is like,



Griffin: And he starts sort of tinkering with the handcuffs and gets them off of you. And your mom can kind of tell that you are disappointed, and she says,











Griffin: And then suddenly, like, the memory… shifts. And it’s not your mom in front of you anymore telling you these things— it’s Janelle. And you are in sort of Janelle’s office in Sylvain and she’s poured you and herself a cup of strong, hot tea. And she’s seated at a table with you, sipping a tea with you. And she’s more formally dressed than you’ve ever seen her, and she’s dressed in this black, nice ensemble, and she’s not wearing her usual colorful scarves. In fact she has one draped around your shoulders, something she put there to sort of warm you up and bring you comfort. And she says,





Griffin: She talks like right over you, like she can’t hear the words you’re saying. And she places a hand on your cheek, and you realize that you’ve been sobbing as she’s been talking to you, and she says,



Griffin: And that’s when you realize she is dressed the way that she is dressed because you just came from your father’s funeral, and then you realize, this is not your memory at all. This is the memory of Alexandra, the newly christened audience to divinity and interpreter of Sylvain.

Travis: Oh shit.

[Music plays]

Griffin: And sure enough, you launch a line of nails following sort of the path of the main split in the center of the tree. And, as you do so, sure enough, the bark and wood all around all around this line, it just sort of, it doesn’t fall off like it did for Ned’s one nail, it just sort of explodes. And as it does so, the tree just completely splits in half. The two halfs just bend away from each other. As they do so, the force of this explosion and the chunks of wood coming off the tree, they launch into you, Aubrey, for two harm. Ned, one of the bows of the tree just falls and conks you on the head for two harm.

[Clint whistles like birds.]

Griffin: Oh one of the halves of the tree, as it falls, falls right on top of the goatman that Duck knocked to the roots, and just crushes it into the roots. And he lets out one last loud bleat, and gives up the ghost.

As the dust settles from this big explosion that happens, you all see something in the center of these two halves. Just still sticking out of the trunk, and it is tethered to the two halves of the tree that have been split apart. It is connected to it by these long strands of white sap. You see this humanoid form that appears to just be made out of this white sap. It is reaching upward, and it is holding on to these long strands and is trying to pull the tree back together, and doesn’t seem to be paying much mind to you all, it is just trying to sort of put together what you all have destroyed. Duck, you are up.



Justin: —and I’m gonna Kick Some Ass. Just, Kick— I— Now can I kick ass?

Griffin: [laughing] Yeah.

Travis: Now does this thing have an ass?

Griffin: Yeah. This thing for sure has an ass.

Justin: It has manifested an ass. I’m gonna kick that ass with Beacon.

Griffin: Alright.

Clint: Kick that sap ass!



Justin: Nine.

Clint: Aaand we’re back!

Griffin: That is a nine. Okay, you and the tree are going to deal harm to each other. Um, what that means for the tree, I’m going to leave a little bit abstract. What do you do to the tree with Beacon? How are you sort of dispatching it?

Justin: I— How big of a trunk are we talking?

Griffin: I mean the trunk has been split down to the ground. The humanoid creatures sticking out of it are about your size.

Justin: Okay so here’s what I do. So I’m worried about the edge of Beacon, being damaged, so I uncoil Beacon and I—

[music begins to play]

[metallic clang]

Justin: Oh— it just hit my mic— my mic stand.

Travis: Oh, I thought that was foley!

Clint: So cool!

Griffin: That was fucking awesome, dude!

Clint: Wow!

Justin: Alright, leave that in and pretend I did it on purpose. So I uncoil Beacon, and I whip it around the thing, and yank as hard as I can. Just trying to saw it— saw it in half.

Clint: [laughing] Oh god!

Griffin: It grabs onto your wrist as you wrap Beacon around it, and like, leans in close to you like, bringing its face right to yours. As you rip Beacon outwards and cut this thing in half at the torso, and its upper half just goes flying through the air and lands on the ground and disintegrates. And behind the form that you just cut in half, you see that half-wood goat charging at you, and right as you dispatch the sap being at the center of this tree, the whites of its eyes just go dark, and the sap that was pouring out of it just instantly comes to a stop and the goat just dies while running— it dies on its feet— and it falls over.

With that, there is just one sort of exhalation of spores, and they all fall down right on top of all of you as Aubrey’s whirlwind finally dies down. And the stump at your feet starts to rot in fast motion, leaking out sap that’s just evaporating right before your eyes. And as the stump disappears, there’s an object left sitting on the ground. It’s a seed, a large, opalescent pod with tufts of soft fibers reaching upward from its crown. And there’s a quiet for a moment as the wind dies down and the spores stop shooting out from this tree, and in that moment— this time you all see it, you all see these humanoid figures of white light, these four-armed beings that are just about your size.

One of them climbs out of the trunk of the tree as if he was just hiding in there the whole time, and another one climbs out of the half-wood goat’s corpse, and the other one sort of pries itself out from under the fallen tree from the corpse of the goat that has been crushed there. And as they all sort of stand up and look at each other, all three of those things, the trunk and the two goat men just start disintegrating into these black flakes that float up and into the air like embers from a campfire. And one by one these three humanoid beings made out of this light just look at all of you and just solemnly bow and very quickly after that they all disintegrate into just these little beads of white light that float up and off into the distance.

[Music 1:25:26]

{Ad break 1:25:42-1:31:52}

Griffin: Aubrey, you all have made your way out of the woods and you are looking over the cliffside outside of Amnesty Lodge with sort of the assembled Lodge crew. And from your position, you can see something strange. It’s what you all are kind of gawking at. Just below you— you have a great vantage point on it, looking down on Riverside from atop the cliff— there is a massive sinkhole just off Main Street. You can see it so well, it has consumed what looks like a parking garage, one that was— it appears empty, you don’t see any cars in it, it was, you know late when this happened. Just at a cursory glance it doesn’t seem like anything too horrible happened.

But, this sinkhole, it seemed like it was expanding and just kind of stopped a dozen or so feet away from St. Francis Medical Center. If it had continued to grow it would have been, you know, disastrous for the dozens of people inside that building at the time. And there are, you know, emergency response vehicles, you see, you know, flashing lights all around the sink hole as they— as rescue teams go through and just make sure everything is okay, but the scene seems pretty calm, so you assume things are okay. But, you see Agent Stern come running down the path from Amnesty Lodge. He has changed out of his pajamas and back into his suit and long peacoat and he’s still fastening his watch around his wrist as he approaches and he clears his throat and says,



Griffin: Uh, and he—



Griffin: He nods and bolts down the access road towards town. Um, and you all are just sort of standing there looking at this sinkhole out of town. I imagine you’ve already sort of debriefed with Mama and given her the good news. But everybody’s here, everybody’s looking down on this thing that has happened, and Dani, standing right next to you— she’s got Doctor Harris Bonkers sort of positioned on her shoulder parrot style— she looks at you and she says,





Griffin: She looks— I mean, she looks scared, and she—



Griffin: She gives like a faint smile but you can tell she— she’s— it did not bring her much relief, and she reaches over as you two are looking down over the devastation below and takes hold of you hand. And as she does so, Doctor Harris Bonkers kind of rouses and clambors over to your shoulder, kind of, you know, clumsily, and nuzzles into your hair, um—



Griffin: And just then, flakes start falling from the sky. And I think you have, like a moment— I think everybody has a moment of panic, but then as one lands on your nose you realize with relief it’s real snow. This gentle, quiet, windless snow has begun to fall in Kepler. This nice peaceful moment is interrupted as Mama joins the party overlooking the chaos below and she puts a hand on your not-rabbit occupied shoulder and she says,





Griffin: And you walk with her back towards Amnesty Lodge and towards the cellar door. She says,





Griffin: She says,









Griffin: She smiles, like the thought of her friend being, you know, exorcised in this way has never really crossed her mind as a possibility, and she smiles, and— it’s the first time you’ve seen her smile since you told her that you all brought an abomination into her home, and she says,



Griffin: And she reaches up to the railing of the porch and pulls down a plate that she had set up there with some food, and she says,





Travis: And Aubrey kind of touches her sunglasses,



Griffin: She nods, and opens up the cellar door for you. And you approach the panic room. I think, as we set up before, there’s not like a window inside, there’s just like a monitor? And as you step into the room, Thacker is not, like, in the position that you’ve kind of seen him, this kind of meditative, sitting on the floor, just kind of like staring intently down at the ground. He is standing up, and he is looking directly up and into the camera, and you see him on the monitor just like staring, just like he’s looking right at you from behind the door. What do you do?

Travis: Is there any way to talk, like, into the room? Is there like a coms system?

Griffin: Yeah I think so. There’s a— we’ll say there’s like a speaker on the door, like a two way speaker.

Travis: So—

Clint: There is.

Travis: She pushes the button and she’s like,



Griffin: You release the button after saying this and he doesn’t move. You see him still standing staring into the camera. And then you hear a voice. And it doesn’t seem like it’s coming from the speaker. You just hear it. And this voice says,





















[Clint laughs]



Griffin: Are you opening the door?

Travis: You know what, no. I’m not.

Griffin: [laughing] Okay. Alright.

Travis: I’m gonna go fucking get Mama.

Griffin: Okay. You turn to walk away and you hear this voice say,





Griffin: With that, I think realizing that you’re just not gonna release it, you see Thacker on the camera take a big step backwards and sit down on the ground and slowly angle his head back downwards to stare at the floor.

Ned, you have had an eventful few days, I think. I think the hunt has been particularly taxing for you, yes?

Clint: Three harm…

Griffin: Yeah, you lost your car, you ended up in the hospital at one point, you unintentionally antagonized the sheriff, things were challenging, your adrenaline was going, but now things have like, slowed down. I have one question: How does Ned feel about what he realized about what he realized about Aubrey? That is was her home that he robbed that night— the night of the crash.

Clint: I think from the moment that he was in the unconscious state and heard what Aubrey had to say, and kind of figure out what was going on, I think he has felt very uncomfortable around Aubrey. [Griffin: Okay.] I think he has- there was a lot of guilt involved with that night anyway, [Griffin: Sure.] but Ned, whether he’s fooling himself or not, puts a lot of the blame on Boyd Mosch— his partner— that night. [Griffin: Sure.] In his long career, Ned never hurt anybody in the jobs he’d pulled— not physically harmed anybody—

Griffin: Yeah, I’ll buy that.

Clint: He took a lot of pride in that. And I think he fancied himself as a… almost like a Robin Hood— that’s how he saw himself. And I think the violence that came about that night, and the unfortunate things- the death, and the fire, and everything else— I think he really lays at Boyd’s feet. But the guilt has really come crashing back at him quite a bit.

Griffin: I’m just curious about how you feel about doing anything about this guilt or sort of you know, and maybe this is appropriate for your character— this is not a slam— but this is how he’s been developed, like, is Ned just not going to confront it?

Clint: No, I think he— I think he has to. I think if everytime he and Duck and Aubrey go out, I think they have become closer, I think they have become closer, they have become more of a unit. I think he realizes that in order for that to continue, he’s gotta open up, he’s gotta tell her about it. [Griffin: Okay.] And I think he decided that his life is better cooperating with and working with Aubrey— and Duck— [Griffin: Sure.] than a life on his own. And I think that was one of the things that Victoria brought to him too, not just the Cryptonomica, but to show that he could have people in his life that he could count on.

Griffin: Then… here’s the scene. You are returning to the Cryptonomica, you are in the snowcat. You pull it into the fairly small, humble parking lot of the Cryptonomica, and as you do so, you actually see that the wreckage of your Lincoln Continental has finally been separated from the funicular and towed back in front of your place of business. You see it illuminated by the headlights of your snow cat. The store is, you know, dark, it has closed up shop hours ago. And you get out, and approach the museum, and go to open the door. And as you place your hand on the handle and start to put the keys inside, I think you, because of who you are and the past that you have, you notice something off. The doorframe around the deadbolt is cracked and splintered. And through the gap that has been made there, you can see that the deadbolt is already unlocked. What do you do?

Clint: Very cautiously, I think he calls upon his burglar instincts, his sneaky instincts, and opens the door just wide enough to slip through.

Griffin: Okay!

Clint: Because there are no lights outside, ‘cause he turned the headlights off, so it’s not like he would be illuminated in the door, and he steps into the Cryptonomica, very surreptitiously, and really strains his ears to try to hear and try to look. There’s a small— a little bit of light from some of the, you know, displays and stuff but not very much.

Griffin: Okay, you slip into the main room of the Cryptonomica, and you find… that it looks fine! It looks, you know, exactly how Kirby usually leaves it when he wraps up one of his night shifts. It looks nice and dusted and mopped and cleaned. You actually see behind the front counter of the museum, you see Billy back there, and he is sleeping in a cot, almost like Kirby tucked him in back there, [Clint: Aww.] and he is fast asleep and just ripping the gnarliest snores you’ve ever heard, because he is still a goat. And, yeah, everything looks fine, except on the counter, towards the back of the room, where there are sort of displays full of pamphlets. Sitting on that counter are three padlocks that are all popped open. And as you get closer to them and carefully creep over and look at them, you can tell that they are the locks that were threaded through the latches onto the door of the inner sanctum.

Clint: He goes sprinting back to the inner sanctum.

Griffin: You open up the door, and, it… was a clean job, Ned. By which I mean like, the room itself, is clean. It looks like it did probably the day it was built. There are no signs of intrusion, no debris scattered all across the ground. The room has just simply been emptied. Everything in here, your trophies of your burglaries, your passports and documents, the small safe containing Aubrey's necklace, among other things, it is all just gone.

Clint: Clooney’s Oscar?

Griffin: All gone.

Clint: Ahh! Fuck me runnin’.

Griffin: And there is a light bulb hanging overhead that is illuminating this room and it is shining down on the only item still remaining in this room. It is a note, written on the back of a Cryptonomica postcard, that is sort of folded up and laying on the floor. And as this light is swinging over it, you see that it reads:

“For my cut, plus interest, not quite even yet. I’ll be in touch. B.”

[Music 1:47:40- 1:48:33]

Griffin: Duck, you’re back in your apartment, and you had just sort of started to peel off your thick layers of winter wear, and sheathe Beacon wherever you keep him, sort of now having time to survey the damage done to him, and you’re sort of decompressing like that when Minerva appears in front of you. And she says,













Justin: I go to the underwear drawer to get Beacon out.

Griffin: Uh, she surveys the damage to the blade and she sighs and says,





Griffin: She gestures towards like one of the chairs in your living room.

Justin: I take a seat.

Griffin: She says,



Griffin: And as she says that you see her silhouette kind of like deflate a bit, almost as if she’s like… relieved? From finally saying what she said. And she says,







[a pause]







[Clint laughs]

Griffin: She says,

















Griffin: She looks to the side and like cranes her neck upward like she’s looking out a window, and she says,





Griffin: She crosses one of her arms across her chest and gives you a bow, a deep bow, and then she stands up and takes one last look at you and pivots to the side one more time and says,





Griffin: And she turns back to you and she says,



Griffin: And she disappears. [a pause as Minerva’s music fades out] And then there’s a knock at the door to your apartment.

Justin: I… go to the door and open it.

Griffin: You see framed in the snow that is blanketing Kepler as twilight approaches, a figure standing at your doorstep. You see that he’s wearing a peacoat and some beat up, fingerless, wool gloves, one of which is wrapped around the hilt of a long broadsword that he’s leaning against as you open up the door. And your eyes adjust to the light more, and you see the face of the person holding this blade: Leo Tarkesian, your neighbor and friendly local grocer clears his throat and says,

[a beat]



[Theme music (The Adventure Zone: Amnesty Theme by Griffin McElroy) plays]