I'm stressed the whole time.
Okay.
The whole time.
Yeah, I get stressed during combat and stressed during like certain social stuff.
Oh yeah.
But yeah.
Pretty much real life.
Yeah, whenever I'm fighting, I get stressed and then whenever I'm talking to people.
Both are 50-50.
Just a low hum of anxiety the whole time.
Speaking of low hum of anxiety, welcome to Queers on Dice, the queers podcast this side
of the Milky Way galaxy.
I am your GM.
It's always a perfect segue.
I park my perfect segue in the garage to ride it around all the time.
Oh, you're on a roll.
Yeah, you just lean and it goes.
My name is Heiress Throttle.
I sometimes say a pun and we're so queer that our preferred mode of transportation
is always like little Vespas, like country little pink Vespas everywhere.
That's all we ride.
All about it.
You should see it.
It's kind of incredible and we actually started a program, First of Its Kind, Vespas for Queers
and you just submit an application and we send you a Vespa.
We steal it from someone not in need and give it to you.
Queers on Dice is not responsible for stealing Vespas.
Immediately, we steal Vespas.
We are not responsible.
With me as always are the Intrepid Space tour guides of your dreams.
You've dreamed about it.
And I think the question for today is...
If you could be a pumpkin.
No.
There are so many different types.
Could you be a pumpkin?
Yes or no?
Are you a pumpkin or a gourd?
If you could be a...
Oh.
Yes, gourd.
Gourd.
Gorgeous.
Oh, what vegetable would you be?
Sure.
Yeah, that really gets to the deep internal...
It really does.
...like part of a character.
The worst first date question ever.
I know.
Wait, that's a bad first date question?
Oh, sweetie.
Is that why I'm single?
I'll go first.
No.
What's a good question?
Oh, I was ready to come in.
Where are we going?
Let's do it.
Oh, you had your vegetable on lock.
I mean, no.
But I can.
It's like Heisenberg.
Not Heisenberg.
Hindenburg?
No.
No, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Is it Heisenberg?
We are both Heisenberg.
We are totally aware of exactly what you are talking about.
Something's not true until you observe it, but in the act of observing it changes it.
Oh.
Yeah.
The cat in the box.
Schrodinger's cat.
Yeah, similar.
Schrodinger?
Schrodinger.
I love Schrodinger.
Hi, my name is Nick and I play Flandel, the Plasmoid Barbarian.
And if Flandel was a vegetable, he would be, the first thing that came to mind is an eggplant.
Nice rotund.
Cut him and let his bitter juices seep out.
That's right.
Yep.
Big drip energy.
Aubergine.
Oh, I forgot that's what they're called.
Hi, my name is Lisa Frankenstein.
I play Peek, the tiefling warlock.
And if Peek were a vegetable, I guess a shallot.
Oh.
That's good.
Yeah.
Because onions have layers.
So many layers.
Because, I mean, it's not very overpowering and it does change color kind of, and it goes
well with a lot of different meals.
And it melts into like, sometimes it disappears and just adds flavor.
I like shallots.
They're core to so many French sauces.
You only need a little bit to make a difference.
That's right.
Yeah.
So that's my answer.
Hi, I'm Major Hammy and I play Jen of Awe, a sweet, sexy dragonborn that will cut you
up.
And if Jen was a vegetable, she would be a fruit.
So she would be a tomato and confuse everyone.
What?
Wow.
That's a perfect answer.
Wow.
Tink, tink.
Little sparkles going off of Hammy right now.
Yeah.
If I were a vegetable, first to my mind, it's a potato.
It's just so versatile.
It's good to know yourself.
I'm calorie dense.
Starchy.
And I'm satisfying.
I satisfy hunger better than any other vegetable.
Yeah.
That's a fact.
So yeah, let's carbo load everybody.
Woo.
Nom nom.
To be fair, we're not cannibals.
No.
What do you mean?
Speak for yourself.
Well, we're all snacks.
Oh my God.
Or maybe the whole dang meal.
Oh, we're, yeah, we're attractive.
Last time on Queers on Dice, the team entered into the second round of Mortal Kombat, which
is trademarked, so I can't say that, of Olympic gambling syndicate combat and fought against
Van Grax of the End, a mind flayer that was next in line for the elder brain position,
which as we know is Kalor, who occupies all those little sphinx kitties that are running
around everywhere.
And although Serika was taken out pretty quickly, the rest of the team was able to subdue Van
Grax through a little bit of seduction and a lot of just good old hitting in the head
with some clutch mind flayer, anti mind flayer assaults that was poured into his head and
other clutch axe wounds.
They chopped his arm off and then right at the last second, the elder brain intervened
to make sure that one of the successors does not perish in combat and whisked him away
to have his arm medically reattached.
However, the gang was successful and is able to go to a banquet to meet with the elder
brain and possibly get eyes on where this brain of Andul is, which if we think back
for 15 episodes ago, that was the goal.
That's what they want.
They want that brain.
So if they can find the mind of Andul, then they will have the way to get home back to
hearth space.
However, in order to do this, they needed to go to Van Grax and figure out if this was
all a scam and that's why they went.
That's definitely why and we knew it the whole time.
And then discovered a little bit about the political machinations that are involved with
both the banquet and to the succession of the elder brain.
And so going into this banquet, they thought that the most dangerous thing was that they
could lose their brains, but the political winds of this mind flayer colony might actually
prove more dangerous and deadly.
It really fucked up that dangerous.
Don't worry about it.
It's unique.
The flayer.
It did.
Interesting.
Yeah.
I've got French on the mind.
And that brings us to right in the last moment when the mind flayer doctors enlisted the
help of tallowcake whiffle bottom, the wizard with red hair and the displacer beast purse.
That's there to just be like, yeah, I can do some basic healing magic.
Y'all are kind of incompetent.
And that's where we begin our story.
The gang crossing paths with this wizard.
What would everyone like to do?
I follow my lead.
You're really good at this.
And I like us quote unquote aside to Jen.
Oh my gosh.
Did you see that?
Is that, is that tallowcake the wizard?
Oh my gosh.
And do you see that displacer beast?
Oh, she is serving.
Yes.
Start doing like little snaps in the air.
Yes.
Look at you go.
Come on.
Yeah.
You better serve.
Are you going to go heal?
Oh my gosh.
Healing the world with that look, honey.
We're obsessed with you.
Look nice.
Oh, sir.
Do you want a performance check or persuasion check?
Let's see what we're better at.
Yeah.
Let's see.
I think I'm better at performance, but I'm better at persuasion.
So I'll do that.
I will not add.
Or do we all have to do that?
I'm not going to add.
I'm better at persuasion, so I'll do that.
I will not add.
Do we all have to do the same one?
I'm the same for both.
One of you do it at advantage.
At advantage?
Okay, I'll do it.
Oh, well.
Oh, Kafei.
Okay.
Never mind.
It just takes one roll to get a nat 20.
Okay, great.
All of this compliment.
tallow cake, who's a tall, big red hair wizard,
like with this chic cloak that kind of gives like cape
energy whilst she's like walking about
in a form fitting maxi dress and a big hat.
Turns around and is like, you notice my clutch?
How could we not?
It is just my favorite item.
It had a matching coat, but some things are lost to time
and others I will find and kill whoever took it.
But until then, it's still cute.
Absolutely.
You know, Daisy, why don't you go take care of the,
the severed arm, is that right?
And the mind flayer like,
so severed arm, it's really bad, it's really bad.
We don't know what to do.
And so calling Daisy a white snake slithers out of her hair
and down her arm.
My familiar can just cast healing magic through touch.
So just go.
The mind flayer brings the white snake into the room
and tallow cake goes, my friends call me tallow
if you prefer, but what I didn't realize there'd be other
so fashion forward individuals in this colony.
Most people just seem to be all about either the money
or the minds.
Genova here.
I am about money, minds, but first and foremost,
being the fabulous bitch I am.
Yes, I see.
Very, very chic.
It's very the height of the nineties supermodel era
of like, just like scantily clad, but like, yes, I see.
Very beautiful.
Sorry, the nineties is a subspace colony.
It's a few parsecs away.
It's charming.
I'm a dragon of the world, you know,
I take inspiration everywhere I go.
I find it, I snatch it, I use it to my advantage.
Stunning.
Thank you, I know.
Well, thank you for the compliments.
Of course.
Do you have any more?
Oh, honey, for you, absolutely.
You're an icon.
Don't get me started on that hair color.
Oh, riveting, vibrant.
You wanna see something cool?
Absolutely.
She snaps and it's green.
Peek, you do something like that too.
I do, but not as fast.
Show me, show me, show me.
All right, so Peek shakes her hands out
and touches the hair and it's like the craft
when she like puts her hands, it turns to blonde.
Oh my God, I wanna blow out.
Somebody do it to me, someone do it to me.
She's like, that's incredible.
I've never seen something like that before.
Oh, thank you, but it's definitely not as good as yours.
You just snap and it's done.
It's so sickening.
It is so refreshing to find someone of our, you know,
league here for once.
You know, everyone hears a little off the rocker.
Maybe it's the eating bread, I don't know.
I don't know what it is.
I don't mean to like flaunt or show off,
but I am a kindorey, so it's,
we probably aren't on the same like floors,
but I love the energy that you're bringing.
Jen flashes her card.
We are on the same level.
I love this so much.
I'm gonna absolutely ignore the fact
that you tried to pretend that we weren't,
but that's okay, mistakes happen.
It happens to the best of us.
Friendship is paved with pebbles and bricks
and what's a pebble in the face of a path
of new found friends.
Why don't you say we get out of this hospital
and go up to our rooms and hang out and have a drink?
You know, I do have a free evening
because that banquet got moved and-
Oh, that was our fault.
Oh, that's the whole army.
Yes. Yeah.
Very dramatic.
Oh, you fought in the arena.
We did and we won.
Oh my gosh, how plebeian, that's so fun.
Sometimes you get bored and you just have to, you know,
see how everyone else does it.
Oh, they banned me from the arena a long time ago.
I get it.
Of course they would, you're sickening.
It's fun.
All right, well, let's, yes, let's have a drink.
Should we go to the VIP lounge?
Should we-
Let's go to our room.
Let's go, would, I mean, would you like to come to our suite?
No, well, did you redecorate?
Yeah, Jen redecorated, absolutely.
No, I mean, did you bring your own stuff?
See, I have this pesky thing and she taps her eyes
and she's like, it's true sight.
The illusions don't work on me.
Oh, I see.
So it's just like, I would go,
I'd be walking into what's the equivalent of like,
you know when they do photo shoots and it's just all white?
Absolutely.
And then they're taking the like,
arcana lens and just flashing you.
And it's just glorious and you feel riveted,
but it's a blank space otherwise.
It would look like that to me.
Well, can we go to your room?
I'm really sick of the VIP.
I'm sick of all the, you know,
hustle and bustle of other people.
It's like, ew.
The demanding to do things like drink and things.
We'd rather just chill and not have any pressure.
It'd be nice to be somewhere that's private.
I do have a question though.
Oh, of course.
Will she be there?
And she looks at Serika.
No, oh, who are you?
I mean, she doesn't have to be there.
We don't have to bring her.
Is there a problem with Serika?
We have a term for those kinds of people
that we come from.
They're called looky-loos.
They just pry for information, very untoward.
And Serika's kind of just like,
I just asked what she did for a living.
I don't, sorry.
I can bounce.
Sorry.
I think you better.
Get out of here.
What?
A tear falls from Serika's eye.
Go.
Jen speaks to, like whispers to Serika in Draconic
and goes, girl, what the fuck?
I just go to the room, I'll fill you in later.
We don't have time to rope you into this.
And I'm so sorry.
I've rubbed off on Flandreau too much.
That's my bad.
Get out of here.
She gets, she just goes and she's like,
my bad, I'll go drink at the bar.
So sorry about that.
There's no accounting for taste.
Am I right?
Oh.
Shit, what have I done?
Give me a performance check with advantage.
Oh.
Is Flandreau performing?
That's a natural 20.
Okay.
I'm posing.
Okay, I just have to say this
because I've given advantage on both of these times.
So you might think, oh, they're getting natural 20s
because of advantage.
It's a nat 20 on the first roll every time.
The other one's an 18.
So.
Oh.
All right.
Damn.
Y'all are rolling hot.
I am rolling poorly.
And yes, I am making rolls for some reason wild.
She's like, yes, it's just,
I understand why you were hanging out with her
before she's fetching, but good taste
just can't be helped, you know?
That's true.
It's, I mean, you know, we go way back with her.
And so at this point we would feel bad
just looking her out.
You know, it's a loyalty thing at this point.
You know what I do to solve that problem?
What?
It's called stasis.
Oh.
And you can just freeze someone like that.
And she does it to a mind flayer that's walking by.
Oh my God.
They're just like frozen.
And whenever you're like over whatever tiff
you've had with them, you can just unfreeze them.
And then the mind flayer starts walking again.
Oh my God.
It feels almost like they were just like out,
but they just come back whenever.
So it's like, doesn't hurt them at all.
It's a hoop.
You are so brilliant.
I cannot stress this enough.
Thank you.
Technically I'm apostate, not for my brilliance,
but just cause I'm a little bit more
avant garde with my magic, if you will.
The medical of it all in here is really like getting
to my head and I don't need it to get into my bones.
I don't want to get sick.
Oh, great.
She takes out a pink razor flip phone
and dials it.
And you feel like pink electricity start to vibrate
underneath you.
And then suddenly it's a flash of pink
and you're in her VIP lounge.
She's like, the elevator is so slow.
Absolutely.
And that music.
Ugh.
And as you're teleported into what is her VIP lounge,
it is actually a very traditional old school,
kind of like wizards, large stone, arcano study
with like a very unassuming bed, but everything's pink.
Oh wow.
Yeah.
It's all pink and sparkly.
And she's just like, you know,
they really got it right the first time.
I just think the color scheme was off.
Totally.
Monochromatic is the way to go.
Serving.
Serving pink.
She brushes her hair again and it goes to pink.
And she's like, yeah.
So sick.
Love it.
Are there cats in here?
Those weird little cat things.
They're crawling all over our room.
Oh, you noticed.
Yeah.
They are, they try, but they're not allowed here.
And she like takes out a little like repellent spray
and it has like a cat on it and crossed out.
Anti-nip.
Yeah, exactly.
Cat nope.
Exactly.
It says cat nope underneath on the label.
Oh, thank goodness.
Because I only like animals with outfits on.
If they're not clothed, I feel weird about it.
Absolutely.
It's just a personal thing.
And Bimim's in a little tux like tie, a bow tie.
Cute.
Okay, so Dish, why are you here?
What brings you to this gambling syndicate?
It's a little bit out of the way for most people.
So you must have something really interesting going on.
I have a question actually.
You're so intriguing and lovely.
And you were down there to heal Van Grax.
Van Gogogo.
Van Grax.
Van Gogogo is fine.
And you are the most adept person in this entire casino.
I will tell you that.
What do you, do you work here?
Are you visiting?
Oh, I'm visiting.
I like to just, I'm what they call a good time gal.
Okay.
And this place can be a good time for a spell.
And they make sure to treat me right.
Cause well, I don't know how much you,
how history works where you're like from,
or like the evolution of civilization.
The mind players have been very funny because like,
they're following all the similar patterns of like others
where they're like,
they're now in their little agriculture stage.
It's so cute.
But they were so good at war and psionic fighting.
And they really just didn't think like,
hmm, what if we wanted to heal someone?
Because if you notice all these mind players
are a little bit more individual
than what it would have traditionally been.
Absolutely.
It's fascinating.
So love coming here, love learning a little bit of psionic stuff.
And then I give them a little bit of time,
a little bit of energy,
promise not to wipe them out.
And we have fun.
Wipe them out.
Wow.
We gotta get her to-
Wipe them out.
Yeah.
Or at least-
Or we can get her to do it for us.
Or at least do stasis on the elder brain.
She should be our distraction, huh?
Yeah, I think so.
But we just had to convince her to get us to do something.
I mean, she likes us.
Yeah, she does.
Now.
She seems a little wily.
Yeah, I feel like it's touching a little.
She's totally dangerous.
We're in danger.
Yeah.
So you love learning things from the mind flayers.
And I know that this is a fun place to do it at.
But I mean, are you really that connected with this place?
Oh, not at all.
Not at all.
No.
So how would you like to have some fun with us?
I'm listening.
So we have a mission here.
And the banquet was our key in,
but now that banquet isn't happening until tomorrow.
But we-
You want me to make it tomorrow right now?
Oh, no, no, no.
That would be sickening.
But we are here to, well,
and I put on my little cap, my little bucket hat.
Bucket hats are a little-
Oh, it's not fashion forward, I know.
Please excuse it.
It's for my own safety right now, not from you.
I know that you could just make me disappear
without a blink of an eye.
We're here to get the brain of Andul.
Oh.
You don't say.
I do.
And you seem like a good time.
I am a good time gal.
I did say that.
Well, that's so interesting.
It's been about 60 years since I was here last.
I'm not sure how integrated into the neural systems
that is anymore, but that's an interesting prospect.
What are you proposing exactly?
You just want to take it?
We need it.
What do you need it for?
Well, think of it as a little revenge.
You see, we were in the Coliseum
just having a good time battling like you do.
It was for funsies.
And then we were going to defeat Vangorgugur.
Vangorgugur, yes.
Vangorgugur.
And they stopped us.
And I'm like, okay, if you're gonna do
the whole Coliseum thing,
if you're gonna like give everybody a show,
you have to let us see it through.
It made me look bad.
Ah!
I know.
They set me up is what I'm convinced.
And she like never looks bad.
I never look bad.
I cannot.
It's almost impossible.
But they bamboozled me.
And so because of that, I said, you know what?
All we have is our reputation.
They fucked with my reputation.
I fuck with theirs.
Therefore, I take their precious brain
because they're all about the brains.
It's very weird fixation they have on it.
It's a little aggressive.
So I like a lot of what's going on.
I think it's very funny.
What I don't like is were you to do that,
I have a strong suspicion that like
Bungrax probably just reverts everything back to
like warring and uncontrollable expansion.
Over one brain?
Okay, over one brain.
Do you know about the Brain of Endul?
I do.
Do I know about the Brain of Endul?
I do not know about the Brain of Endul,
but with natural one, she knows of its existence
and knows that it's important,
but doesn't know what it does or why.
Doesn't, hasn't really cared.
Yeah.
Pretty sure it's like what gave them
that advancement of civilization to this point in time.
So I think it would revert them if they lost it.
Oh, would that be for the better?
I feel like they would have stolen other brains by now.
Other God brains?
Oh yeah. Why not?
Their mind flayer.
Where, how do you find them?
How do they find the first one?
I don't know.
Oh.
Well, the first one was a God of brains.
So they found that brain
because they like eating brains, I think.
Yeah.
Actions have consequences
and I'm not really concerned about the consequences on their end.
So I still think it's a grand idea.
They tried to murder us
and tried to humiliate us in the Colosseum.
They're way too powerful to be afraid of them too.
Even if they were.
Oh, I'm not afraid of them.
I'm just, I just care about the nature
and the balance of my fun places.
Like if they go back to a warring society,
then where does that put a gambling syndicate?
But if you were here that long ago,
I mean, how much longer is this place going to be hip
and fun to be at?
It's already losing some of its charm.
Absolutely.
Wouldn't you say?
I would not.
Oh.
Oh. Really?
I think it's a hoot here.
Go, go ahead.
All right. Tell me more.
What's your idea?
You just want to take the brain and be done with it?
Take the brain, leave them in rubbles.
Yes.
Essentially it.
I mean, Van Grak seemed up for it.
We didn't tell him what we were up to,
but he wants it to go back to the way things were.
And so you're okay with every worker
and every person here just becoming thralls
and turning into mind players?
We also plan on freeing all the workers.
What?
Oh.
See, that's interesting.
That's a revolution.
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
That could be another story added to my ballad.
Absolutely.
And you know, I have connections.
Tallow cake, freer of the people.
Go off on the train.
Tallow cake.
First of her name.
Tallow cake.
Mother of cakes.
Mother of the house of cakes.
Uh-oh.
Well.
Uh-oh.
How did?
Yeah, and then Phoebe murders me.
Fascinating.
Okay, what is it that you want from me?
We need a distraction.
We need a distraction,
but you're more powerful than just a distraction.
I feel like you could help us figure out where it is
and help us get there.
Let me be very clear.
My goal in this is going to maintain status.
So I would like the syndicate
and this gambling pyramid to remain,
because it's fun.
I like fun.
I rolled a nat 20 on liking fun, so I love fun.
Love fun.
I'm a good time gal.
Well.
Wait, what if we ensure that Van Graks cannot succeed
to the throne of Elder Brain?
Doesn't become the next Elder Brain?
Yeah.
I can't believe I'm suggesting this.
We chill him out.
We get him to chill out.
Wink.
Are you talking about murdering him?
I, no, I mean.
You're gonna have to speak plain, dear.
I just.
What if we just incapacitate him indefinitely?
Like Stasis.
Yes.
Now, so here's the thing.
I am down to help however I can,
but if I do anything too powerful,
they'll know it's me, little old me.
And then it just gets awkward.
Then I have to put everyone in Stasis
and then it's just a wild space in Stasis
and then balance of the astral sea will come in
and I'll have to eat the repercussions
and it's just, it always sucks every time.
So I'd like to avoid that.
I see.
Cosmic reinforcement of the balance.
So, you know, she changes her hair to black
and she's like, but I'm down to help.
Signe.
Great.
Thank you.
Also, we will definitely give you all the good glory.
We don't need to be involved in any of that.
Oh, that was, yes, of course.
That was unspoken.
Absolutely.
Also, we need an actual distraction.
I think I know someone that we can knock on their door
and see how they're doing.
Sure, yeah.
You know other people yet?
Well.
We know everyone we should know.
The who's who, if you will.
Yes.
Who?
His name is Gersey.
Oh.
Do you know who he is?
He's a cumulatively threikin.
Exactly.
That has poor taste in everything.
Oh, he's the worst, but he's great distraction
and he's smart.
How do you know him?
Because I bought his ship.
Oh, fascinating.
Yes.
Huh.
He faked his own death to trick his family out of his riches
and then disappeared.
That's funny.
Isn't that great?
No, he should lead with that story.
That's charming.
But he probably doesn't want to say that
because he doesn't want to get caught.
But I bought his ship and found all this out about him.
Fascinating.
Well, as soon as you figure out what you'd like me to do,
I am but a phone call away
and she gives you all like tiny little pink beepers.
Sick.
So I just press that button and it'll give me a little buzz
and I'll know where you are
and I can just appear once you figure that out.
But otherwise I'm going to,
sometimes I like to primp and preen the natural way
and not use the magic.
And also I do need to recharge
because the snake appears in her hair again.
I did expend a fair amount of energy to regenerate that arm.
She's like, so I could use a little nappy poo.
Okay, well we'll leave you alone.
We'll get out of your hair.
We'll be in touch.
Ta-ta.
Kiss, kiss.
Okay, ta-ta.
And she pushes a button on her pink razor
and you're teleported into your VIP suite.
Beautiful.
Well, we have one person to help.
Should I go, should we go?
Yeah.
Put your little bucket.
We don't need our bucket hats in here, you guys.
Yes, we do.
In here, yeah.
Aren't we in our room?
Yeah.
Crawling with cats.
Yeah, things that are watching us.
Yeah.
You established that.
We should have borrowed some of that catnope.
Yeah, really.
I'm very fucking confused.
Jen puts her bucket hat on.
Should we go and try and talk to Gersey?
Yeah, we can use all the help we can get.
Yes, it looks like we need somebody else
to do the dirty work.
Cause little miss prissy pants, fur fur,
clutch clutch is not about to be it.
Yeah.
Yeah, she wants to help from like a distance, you know.
She wants to take all the glory with, yeah.
She can teleport us there and definitely help us get there.
But then once we have the brain, I think we need a way out.
Yeah, well, we just don't know where the brain is too.
Right.
We know it's probably in the sanctum
of the elder brain itself, but we don't know exactly where.
And come to find out it is the brain that they're using.
Well, the banquet will get us to that place.
But so could Magenta, right?
Yeah.
With little flashy flashy.
I think so, but.
I mean, maybe we should go and talk to Magenta
and see what she means by freeing the thralls.
Because from the way that it sounds.
Our employees.
The quote unquote employees.
Cause from what it sounds from what Talo Cakes said
is that if we free the brain,
all of them will just turn into mind flares.
So talk to Magenta first and then talk to Gersey.
Yeah, see how she's going to plans on freeing
so that we can all do that at the same time.
Okay.
Well, she, I think she, she mentioned that we need
to distract the brain or incapacitate the elder brain
long enough for it to break its connection with the thrall.
Is that right?
Huh?
Okay.
Let's go talk to Magenta.
Okay.
Yes.
Where's Magenta?
Is she on the floor right now?
Should I roll for where is Magenta?
Yeah, sure.
Is she working right now or is she like on break?
Roll a luck check.
Okay.
You don't have any, there's no stats.
If you get high, 10 or higher and yep,
she is where you want her to be.
Can I use my inspiration?
Sure.
To 18.
She's working.
She's downstairs.
She's at the cards.
You get a feeling just like the winds of fate
are in your favor.
To the cards.
I think I'll have a pocket hat.
Yeah.
We don't get in trouble.
Music plays as you enter into the elevator once again.
But now you have little pink beepers.
Do any of you look at your beepers or like?
Yes.
Okay, great.
Wonderful.
There's two buttons.
One of the ones that you were told to touch
for calling to tallow cake.
And then there's another button.
What color is it?
Also pink.
It's pink.
Both of the buttons are pink?
Yeah.
Okay.
The elevator door.
I wanna press it.
Let's wait.
You can press it if you want.
Let's wait to call her.
I want to press it.
Do it.
Because it might bring her immediately
and we'd wanna let her rest.
Well, the immediate button's the right one
and the left one is just there.
Okay, well, she's resting right now.
We don't wanna piss her off
and just call her for no reason.
Okay, I'll press it later.
Yeah, we'll press it later.
We'll try it later.
I wanna know what that button does.
We could say this is an accident.
Accident, we butt dialed.
Butt dialed.
Butt beeped.
Wonderful.
So you go to the card table
and this time she is not working the green neff table.
She is.
She's having the time for her.
She is at the flapper hold'em table.
Flapper hold'em.
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
You've gotta know when to hold'em.
No.
Hold'em.
And she's like, well, hello again, valued guests.
There's like a gnome that's on the far left side
of the table and he looks like he's been up
for like 72 hours straight just like,
hit me and she goes and she's like,
it's the wrong games again.
But green neff is right over there if you need him.
He's like, hit me again.
And I was like, okay.
Maybe you should call security to move him.
I'll tell you what I've had enough.
Yeah.
I don't mean the cards, honey.
He keeps tipping me so I just,
he can stay there, but he's losing his hand.
Yeah.
Well.
Would you all like to play?
Would love to.
That is why we're here.
Oh, okay.
Yep, let's play.
Great.
I assume you're not here for a game.
No, we're not here for a game.
We need to talk.
You said you wanted to free him.
Yes.
And if you can cause a distraction at the banquet,
that will probably weaken the hold.
At the banquet.
What if we did it before the banquet?
Oh.
Wouldn't work?
That's when the elder brain's most on guard
is like all the other times
and the banquet's when he's relaxing.
But maybe, I mean, I'm not, listen.
You know better than I do.
I'm just here trying to make it work.
We're just trying to help you free the things
while we do get what we want, because I would feel,
I think all of us would feel really awful
if everyone just became mind flayers and.
Well.
If we can avoid that.
Yeah.
I had the chance to leave once a long time ago.
Yeah.
And it was during a banquet.
And that was when his control lapsed a little bit.
There is a portal exit to a sub world
that they once colonized a long time ago
that's kind of just forgotten.
And if it's a long enough distraction that creates a lapse,
I would say maybe I need half an hour
to get everyone there.
And then the other difficult thing is making sure
that none of the mind flayers that are just out and about
in that area are around patrolling.
And if that happens, then I can get everyone out of there.
Mind flayers out of the area where the portal is.
Yeah.
The other option is you could kill all the leadership
and see what happens.
I feel like that wouldn't really work.
They would probably just pick new leaders.
Maybe.
Also, the elder brings like really powerful, but.
Sick.
How do you play this game?
Yeah.
Welcome to Flapper Houlum.
Is it like Blackjack?
It is.
It's all just Blackjack.
And then the gnome goes, hit me.
Yeah.
And I go, yeah, hit me.
No, this is a game where you're dealt a hand of two cards.
And you have to make the best hand of five with cards
that I reveal to the entire community.
It's like Texas Houlum.
Texas Houlum.
The river.
If you were from this planet called Earth,
and there were like people there.
Yes.
Texas Houlum.
But what is Texas?
No one can tell.
Hey, huh.
Yeah, it is fantasy Texas Houlum.
The sparkles.
And it's all purple.
All right.
Everyone got five crisps?
Well, y'all are rich.
Do you want to juice it up a little bit?
We'll start with five.
OK, that's fair.
10.
The way that you two played yesterday,
we're starting with five.
10.
20.
Jen.
30.
All right.
I got 10 and 30, and she instantly grabs.
Two of the worst.
Who's going to lose are 13,000 crisps.
The pit boss over to the side, like if Mindflayer could smile,
he'd be smiling right now because she
capitalized on the said numbers.
I don't know what's going on with me.
All right.
I'm going to roll your two influence.
Here's your two cards.
So each of you can roll a D12 twice.
This one.
And it's 30, 20, and?
Five.
Or 10, because that's the limit, right?
Five is the limit.
I'll just do five.
OK.
So this is how we find out what cards we have?
Mm-hmm.
OK.
You don't want to show me, Hammy?
No.
Don't look.
Do we know how do we find out whether it's
a heart or a diamond or a spade or?
There are no suits.
Oh, OK.
That's the word suits.
That's what I was looking for.
Yeah.
This is a simplified version.
And so what happens is you each have your D12s.
I am going to roll for the five numbers that are out.
But I'm just going to do them all at once,
because we're not doing rounds of betting, really.
It's just like you all versus the house.
So you're going to see if your hand after we
flip over those five numbers is better or worse
than the house's hand.
So you all have your two numbers.
Yes.
So you're going to make your highest you can out
of either a straight or a number of a multiple of a kind.
OK.
All righty.
Your five numbers are?
It's a nine.
Oh, it's a nine.
Three, four, 12, and 12.
Three of a kind beats a straight of four.
Does anyone have anything?
I mean, because there's two 12s, I have two pairs.
Oh, you rolled a pair?
Cool.
Anyone else have anything?
I got nothing.
Nope.
Well, she rolled a three and a four.
So we have the same.
You have the higher pair, though, so you win.
Holy shit.
Should have bet more.
And everyone else loses, so she takes 50 Chris for me.
What?
Wait, what?
You lost.
But I didn't bet 50 Chris.
You bet 30, and he bet 20.
It goes so quick.
But how much does the house?
So the house bets minimum, right?
So Pete could get that.
You would have gotten your money.
You get the five back.
I made us five.
That's good.
We lost.
I am.
I need to take you all to Vegas.
No.
Or like.
You don't need to take me to Vegas.
Or to just one of the little casinos that's around here.
I think that would be best.
Once you see it, it makes so much sense.
But if you don't play.
I mean, I've played Texas Hold'em before.
It's just like the betting isn't really something that I do.
Because I don't understand numbers like that.
Gotcha.
And that's why we play D&D.
Where the numbers are dice and the cards are dice too.
Math rocks.
Little math rocks.
Down with math.
Wonderful.
And so then after the hand, it's all going swimmingly.
And then you hear the she taps back in.
OK, so you're going to try and cause a distraction
during the banquet or before?
Now it feels like we should do it during the banquet.
Yeah, I feel like to help you out most,
we'll do it during the banquet.
Great.
There are also whisperings of a faction in the mind
flares that want to actually make,
like expand this idea of farming and agriculture.
But like drive it via consent.
Oh, beautiful.
To have the Arabella's of the world.
She kind of looks at Arabella off in the distance.
Getting like drinks and stuff.
So the Arabella's of the world can still be happy.
But then the people that don't want to be here,
that were kind of like grandfathered
in under a really gross system of servitude
can go on their merry way.
Do you know who we could talk to about this?
The leader of that faction is Altarian.
Are they the current advisor to the elder brain?
That's Dutley.
That's right.
He likes the meats.
Cold cuts.
Fresh cold cuts, baby.
I don't know what you're talking about.
Potato salad.
Yeah.
Macaroni.
This is a lot of people.
How do you know all the other names?
Bacon and sausage.
Are you able to get us into the brain space?
Like how do we get in and out of that area?
I don't know where that is.
That's not helpful.
I think we need to talk to Altarian.
I think he might know.
You could either blow it up and give us a chance to get out
or play politics.
I don't know.
We're not playing politics with the mind flayers.
We want to blow things up.
We just have to know where we are blowing up.
We need to know where this, where booty hole is.
We need to know where the booty hole is.
What?
Sorry, something we came up with.
Yeah, don't worry about it.
We need to know.
You need to know where the booty hole is.
Yeah.
We gotta get in that sphync.
And she's like, do you see that she's like processing
the math and it's like, I guess you don't have a booty hole.
And I guess this is a confusing topic for you.
Don't worry about it.
So Andal's brain.
We need to know where that brain is.
And we don't know yet.
Do you think I'll, I mean, one of the mind flayers
will know, right?
I would hope so.
Definitely the elder brain.
Well, yes.
Okay, so I guess we'll cause a distraction during the
banquet.
I feel like Altarian would help though,
if he's like looking to free all the people
that don't wanna be here against their will.
Yeah.
Correct.
Then he could help Magenta.
Well, I mean, he wants to make friends with the cattle.
Where's the portal room?
And so.
Another hand, please.
Yeah.
All right, who wants to bet?
The people who are working here, who bet what?
X-Nay on the conversation here.
For me.
Great.
I do, are we still playing with her?
Oh, you can go if you like.
I don't mean to keep you.
Oh, okay, I'll do.
That's all this playing.
All right, I'll put five in.
I guess I'll fucking play if everyone's playing.
All righty.
Play a game.
Here's the numbers.
Seven.
What?
Six.
Twelve.
I got four sevens.
Sick.
I got a one and a two,
and then I got a twelve separate from that.
So I feel like that's one and one,
and two and two,
and that's a pair.
And so I win.
What?
Three sevens for me.
What do you mean you got a one and a one
and a two and a two?
I got a seven.
Seven and a two and a two.
I got...
You didn't roll...
The housey wousey did a one and a two,
and I got a twelve,
which is technically just a one and a two
smashed together in combo.
So therefore I have two pairs.
Wait, did you roll a twelve?
Yes.
You have a full house.
You have three sevens and two twelves.
Did you roll a twelve?
I didn't say one and two, I said twelve.
I rolled a one and a two.
And those together
could be a twelve.
Jen.
Or...
Jen.
Or if you want to do it the other way,
you can take the twelve,
break it apart.
That's a one and a two.
I got a one and a two.
That's two pairs.
Jen, that's not how that works.
You know that.
That's kind of better for me now.
I'm getting creative.
Nope, that's not how casinos work.
You know what?
You run a free mind tie.
It's just on its way,
lickety-split.
They're free anyways.
I'm sitting at the table.
I won.
Well,
the gnome's like, hit me.
Hits me too.
This is ridiculous.
Random person comes up and punches him.
He's like, thank you.
I would also like to be punched.
This is ridiculous.
Someone comes up and punches you.
No, wait.
I punch them back.
Okay, roll an attack.
Wait, wait.
Yeah, so I'm gonna roll an arm and strike on you.
So that one,
it glances off of you.
They're not allowed to actually hit the guest.
Right.
I got a coffee, bitch.
You got a nat 20, great.
Perfiscals through the face of the other.
Yeah, how do you,
how do you punch the living daylights
out of this halfling?
So I just, I stand on the table
and I take my shin,
or not my shin, what's the back part?
My calf?
And I just go whap, on their head.
Ow!
With the calf.
Great, roll damage.
Well.
Did you get anything, Flannel?
It's a one, wait, no.
One again?
We'll just take the one,
because let's not kill Bay, like random citizen.
Well, I got four sevens, so.
I don't think we should gamble anymore.
I've started fighting people,
that's never a good sign.
Yeah.
No, we gotta get you.
I won twice.
That's great.
For once.
All right, let's get out of here.
Can you give me an insight check?
Sure, just peek?
If you want.
I think 15.
It's not worth mentioning.
Oh no, Flannel.
That feels too high, 27.
I always forget how high my insight is.
Yeah, you see inside of everyone.
You have, I remember making your character sheet with you.
You have expertise.
Dragon eyes, see everything.
So you just noticed that Magenta seems like,
pretty happy with how this exchange went.
And then you see a sense of like deep pride
after Pico's like, I won twice.
Oh, that's cute.
Pressure loss.
Wonderful.
Flannel feels nothing.
Flannel's like focused on the loss.
Yeah, oh man.
Realizing that he should not gamble.
I'm going to go talk.
Oh, we didn't know, how do we find Abraham?
No, Altarian.
Altarian.
What's up?
You get the feeling that like access to mind flayers
aside from that hospital is not going to happen
until the banquet.
Got it.
So we have to do that convincing when we get there.
The banquet is the thing wherein we'll catch the king.
Hamlet reference.
Okay.
No, so we got to do everything.
We got to put all our eggs in the banquet basket.
Looks like it.
Sorry, Peek.
Let's go talk.
We're not talking about this because.
Nope.
We're vibing.
Oh my God, I'm drunk and I lost, that's crazy.
Let's go back to our room.
With my shin.
You could be having this conversation in your room
in your bucket hats.
Yeah, great.
We've established this.
Torrin and Serak are playing cards by themselves.
Should we talk to Gursi?
Yes.
We should probably offer him.
Well, actually he might be richer than us.
I don't know how much money he has.
He's probably loaded.
I'll let your natural 20 from 10 episodes ago.
He's definitely richer than you.
Yeah.
What could we offer him?
My, no.
Oh.
My you know?
Well, I mean.
That's an emergency.
I can't give him the ship back.
That's gone.
Break in case of emergency.
Shh.
Oh yeah, we have that thing.
We could just unleash it right now and let it rip.
Oh my God.
What thing?
I forgot the essence of gore.
We're not doing that here.
No.
That's not a good idea.
Just putting it out there.
All of our options and backup plan.
I think that might be.
That's not a good idea.
That's a distraction.
It's a distraction for sure.
It's a distraction, but mind flayers under that.
If you thought that what's his name was bad
and that little ship was bad,
imagine mind flayers under that rule.
Gandar, his name's Gandar.
I don't think that's a good idea
because if Gandar was that scary, imagine mind.
They have the power to control minds
and I don't think that's a good idea.
Yeah.
Okay, I won't use it.
Unless absolutely necessary.
No, I won't use it.
Jen just looks at Flandre and winks.
I saw that.
I have something in my eye.
Wink.
Okay.
All right.
Let's go talk to Gersey.
That reminds me of like the reptiles have like the
Oh yeah, the weird.
Special type of membrane on their eyes
to like get this out or something.
What could we offer Gersey though?
I'm just winking.
How could we get him to help us?
Well.
What's in it for him?
We don't know anything about him
other than he's got a bunch of,
he's sort of like the succession dad
and he's got a bunch of kids that want him to die
so that they can like succeed him and get all his money.
This is awful, but.
Oh my God.
Blackmail him.
No, what if I offered him the key and the jacket?
Oh, to tallow case.
I feel like we're meddling a lot.
Oh my God.
We pit them against each other.
We're just putting a lot of fires up everywhere
and leaving them and hoping they don't explode.
She doesn't really like him though, right?
It would be a distraction.
Oh my God.
Peek you chaotic little fart.
Would this be a productive distraction?
Okay, I have an idea.
Why don't we start with like just blackmailing him to say,
we'll share his location, his whereabouts.
We knew about the ship.
We knew about all that stuff.
We know where his family is.
We'll give them the 411.
Say, there's where your papa is.
Go get him and get your money, bitch.
It's not dead.
It's right here.
Okay.
And then backup, backup, backup plan.
We give him the jacket and the key.
Emotional explosion is fine,
but now explode the all about that.
And then what if here's something else.
Tallow cake seemed really into it.
What if he's also into it?
What if when you're super rich and powerful.
He's bored.
You're just bored.
And you just want it.
Some people just want to see the world burn.
They need to feel alive again.
And maybe this is- Why do you think I'm here?
Why do you think I got on pristine venture?
Same bullshit.
I mean-
I thought you did it for the love of,
you said you love natural spaces.
I love naturally being the best in the space.
And that just, yes.
It's starting to make sense now.
I love you.
We're family.
Okay.
Let's go.
All right.
So we go and we knock on Gersey's door.
Let's fight him out first.
That's all I'm saying.
Let's fight him out.
Fight him out.
Fight.
Oh, fight.
Fight him out.
Tush.
Is he in his room?
I mean, we're knocking on his door.
So we'll see.
He is unfortunately not in his room
and the door is locked.
Hmm.
But-
You all are sneaky.
I've never heard a locked door stop
in a party of adventurers for very long.
Wow, you are goading us.
I would, I've never goaded you all into-
Are you trying to get us to break into his room?
Never.
But you could.
But why would we do that?
I don't know.
If he's not in there, what's the point?
Well, we could get dirt on him.
We already have dirt on him.
I'm just, I'm a good time gal too.
I'm-
Yeah, so no, he is with a luck check of a natural one.
I really only roll in ones in twenties right now.
He is definitely not there.
Is there a keyhole?
Yeah.
How big is it?
Big enough to gloop your little eye sensor through
and take a look if you wanted.
I just gloop one little gloop in there.
It looks like a goth sci-fi experience in there.
Whoa.
I mean, remember what his ship looked like.
Oh shoot.
Yeah.
And there's like little techno gadgets
and all this other stuff in there.
Anything deeper, you can give me a perception check.
Guys, it looks really cool in here.
PQB, so into this.
21.
Great.
Yeah, there are schematics in here for a number of-
Schematics.
Of like different kinds of ships and things like-
Different ships and stuff like that.
Yeah.
You recognize that one of those ships is actually a ship
that you've seen in Hearth's face before.
It's a different member of the Pristine Ventures fleet.
Do I know which one?
No.
Great.
I've just seen a bunch of ships and like schematics
for ships in here and one that I know is part
of Pristine Ventures.
Shady.
That's weird.
Yeah.
He's such a shady-
Or you can give me a history check if you want.
Okay, that's, you know.
That's probably, 12.
Another name begins with a V or something like that.
Okay.
Miranda.
Vences.
Vance, yeah, Vantress?
Nope.
Nothing.
I got nothing.
Valkior.
Well, don't we have like all day before the banquet?
We could certainly go find him.
Oh.
He's probably like at the-
I would assume he was bedding at the Coliseum.
Or sports.
Sports might be-
We haven't checked any of that, yeah.
Go check out the sports area.
Okay.
Yeah?
Jen?
What?
I got bored.
We're gonna check out-
We're gonna check out the sports area.
How does that sound?
Go bald.
Let's go check out-
Or we could split up.
You can go to sport, I can go to sports.
You can go to-
Wherever you want.
Just don't-
Sure, let's split up.
He could be at the VIP lounge.
He could be at sports.
He could be at any one of the card places.
Yeah.
I want to go to the Don't Fret kitchens.
Well?
Okay.
No, it's okay, I won't do that.
No, you do whatever you want.
If you want to go to the Don't Fret kitchens-
Running into dead ends here, so I'm like, what else?
Not dead ends.
Yeah.
It's not dead ends, you just have options.
It's a lot of choices.
Are you all splitting up?
I guess.
No.
Do you want Serika and Torin to do something?
Yeah.
Yeah, send them on a fucking mission.
Serika, go check out the VIP lounge.
Torin, check out the card room.
See if you see a curmudgeonly old drakeen.
Name?
Just, sorry.
And Torin raises his hand.
Yes.
She Captain gives orders.
Right, sorry.
And then he Captain-
You're not even technically-
Is he okay?
Hello?
Literally who?
Now we have opinions.
You're not even a part of the crew technically.
What are you worried about?
You're an auto-maby.
Yeah, well then I guess you can't give me orders, can you?
Well.
Okay, if you don't want to help us anymore,
you can stay here.
I just think Flandreau's gotten,
something about this gambling syndicate has changed him.
I'm just pointing that out.
He's gotten a lot more comfy with a little bit of lying.
He has confidence now.
It's called skill building.
That's not a bad thing.
I'm working on myself.
Okay, sorry.
She Captain here says, listen to Flandreau.
And I also say whatever Flandreau said to do,
plus you're also going to look for somebody,
if you happen to run into anyone named Altarian,
or you know, or you hear any rumorings about a revolution,
a group of people trying to, right?
That's what they are, the revolution.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Children of the revolution.
Yeah, correct.
Got it.
Anything about that, report back, please, and thank you.
All right, I'll do the cards.
Serika does the VIP lounge.
We're on it.
Got it.
I'm back with a better attitude.
My attitude's fine.
So who wants to go to sports and betting?
Let's all go.
I don't like this face and tone of voice
when we talk about splitting up.
It scares me.
We'll all go to sports.
It's just scary.
Lovely.
Wonderful, so you're all going to the sports betting area.
You kind of figure that someone that is that wealthy
and that kind of just doing whatever, hiding out,
is probably going and betting on sports.
And so instead of going to the fifth floor
with all the cards and everything,
you're going to the sixth floor.
And as you go to the sixth floor,
you see that the music is playing, of course,
as per usual in the elevator.
And as it opens, it's almost just like this bright light
everywhere and you realize that there's just floating glass,
magically projecting images of all these different types
of sporting events of things that you didn't even realize
could be sports.
There's hippocamp racing, which hippocamps are water horses
just kind of going across waves.
And you see that there's a group of Thraikin
that are really excited about that.
There are some gifts that are betting on
what just looks like a war, like an actual battle,
like in some far off place of like little ants
just going at it.
They have guns.
And you also see just the softest game of badminton
you've ever seen played by teeny, teeny, tiny rabbits.
And you see they're so fluffy that they jump for it
and they land so softly, like it's just a little powder.
They try and get the little shuttlecock
and launch it over.
That's adorable.
And a number of other games are being played as well.
I know that it's a really soft game,
but when they win, do they scream?
Ah!
Yes, it's a war cry.
Ah!
Oh my god.
Yeah, it's piercing.
Jen just runs up to the rabbits and goes, ooh,
and picks one up.
Yeah, that one's local.
All the others are screens, but that one's right there.
That's right.
I want it in my hand.
It's there, yeah.
OK, and then she.
I'm chaotic.
It's a fluffy bunny.
She takes out a little beanbeam outfit
and puts it on the bunny.
Ma'am, I'm so sorry.
OK, this point is a lot.
Ma'am, you can't handle the players.
His name is Fluffy, and he's mine now.
I'm Darryl.
Hi, Darryl.
I'm Jen.
He's like, can you please put me down?
I was.
Oh, you're the bunny.
Hi, I'm Darryl.
That was actually the match point.
My entire career is riding on this game.
What?
I love you.
That's very sweet.
Thank you.
I am married with 120 kids.
Drop, Darryl.
All right, have a nice day, ma'am.
No, you have a nice day.
Peek, I think that Jen is losing it.
You don't say.
I think that something is going on.
She seems desperate for love, and yet she
does not want it at the same time.
She seems aggressive.
I think we need to get Beam Beam a friend.
Beam Beam looks a little jealous.
Yeah.
Oh.
Oh, my god.
We need to get Beam Beam a friend.
OK, all right.
I stride over to where most of the Thriakines
are watching the hippocampus races,
and I'm looking around.
Can I roll to see if I see him?
What?
Can I roll to see if I see?
See Gersey, yes.
You can give me your perception check.
But you, who is predinaturally aware and.
Do I get advantage on the roll?
No.
Because you said, if I see him anywhere,
I will recognize him immediately.
You will.
Yeah.
Let's see if you see him.
Maybe it's like a really low DC for you.
It's 11, no idea.
With an 11, you don't see anything.
But you kind of hear a voice that's a little bit louder
than the others.
And one that you think.
So number one, it is clearly Thriakeen.
You've interacted with a lot of Thriakeen.
And so you know that it's like part mental, part
like insectoid type of speaking.
It's like telekinetic, but it's fun.
Telepathic.
I keep seeing them.
Don't worry about it.
Everybody says it.
What is pathos and kinesis anyway?
One's mental and one is moving things with your brain.
I know.
I've watched the X-Men.
I've made that mistake when I first played a warlock.
Got made fun of a lot.
I can do it all.
And so as you follow this sound, this preternatural instinct
that you have, you do, in fact, come across the back
of a slightly older, averagely-heighted Thriakeen man.
And you just hear that.
I win again.
Y'all really suck at this.
What is he saying?
Is he just betting on the sports stuff on the screen?
Yeah.
And so the screen that he is looking at,
they're betting on the weather patterns of a far off planet
to see where a hurricane can strike.
And it's actually like the planet
is playing in rapid time.
So these things are evolving or not.
And it's like, all right, the next monsoon
cycle is coming up.
Let's go.
That's wild.
I'm so good at this.
Oh my gosh.
I come up behind him.
I go, Curzy, you are good at this.
This is so impressive.
No one knows my name.
Who are you?
Oh, I'm Peek.
I've never met you.
Ever met you?
Do I know you?
Oh.
Why do you know me?
Because you're so famous.
Because you're doing great at this.
I'm not famous.
Oh.
Literally try to hide from everything and everyone
around me because I want to just like, you know, fuck off.
Right.
How do you know me?
Mm-hmm.
Security.
OK.
Security.
Hold on.
All right.
My god.
You are doing really well here.
And I'm sorry.
I didn't mean to interrupt your game.
You're freaking me out.
I don't mean to freak you out.
I mean you no harm.
Mm, that's good.
Obviously.
I like you more now.
OK, great.
Well, obviously, I'm not going to hurt you in this casino
because, like you said, security will just
come over right away.
All right.
OK.
That was a nat 20.
Right.
After you're done with your betting,
I'd like to have a chat with you.
I'd like to have a coffee with you.
You seem like a really interesting character.
All right.
I don't drink coffee.
It goes right to my head.
You just, too many ideas.
Anything you want.
It doesn't have to be coffee.
All right.
Well, let's do it now.
This planet's old news anyways.
And like throws it away and everyone else that was betting
was like, hey!
Oh!
What is that?
What the hell?
Whoa.
That monsoon was just about to hit.
I was betting on thunder.
All right.
What's up?
And it's like points to a bar.
And this one looks to be, it looks,
what is the architectural style of a Cheesecake Factory
close?
Oh, my god.
The Eye of Sauron forever watching,
which could be just the cat sitting there.
Cheesecake Factory.
You don't know what I'm talking about?
A Cheesecake Factory in between all the booths above them.
They have these glass things that are in between these two
points on everything.
And it looks like there are Eyes of Sauron everywhere
in the Cheesecake Factory.
Yeah.
Wicker everywhere.
Yep.
For some reason.
Yeah.
Weird pillars and gentle, warm stone.
Stone-esque.
They said Lord of the Rings, Italian, and Atlantis.
Let's do this.
Let's do it.
I'm really sussed out about Cheesecake Factory
and I'm really thinking of it.
It's weird.
It's a weird place.
And then they said, why not Wicker?
Why not Wicker?
Tie it all together.
That's the bar.
A menu?
Give them a binder.
I love this place.
Of course you do.
Get whatever you want.
I'll pay.
This is a weird conversation, so that's fun.
Oh, thanks.
How much fun are you having here at this casino?
It's always fun to visit.
I usually come here for like 10-year stints at the time.
OK, so you've been here for a minute.
It's year seven.
Year seven.
So things are starting to wear down, yeah?
I'm doing good.
You're doing great, but I don't know.
I feel like if you win after a while,
things just kind of become predictable
and it's too easy to win.
Nothing's unpredictable.
If you run the right calculation and plug in the right formulas,
you can predict anything.
That's what I mean.
It gives me comfort to be able to predict things.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
I mean, it was quite a chance you took building the Sky Reaver
and faking your death.
Who told you about that?
Nobody told me.
Make a Dexterity Saving throw.
Gersey shot first.
DC you want to beat is 16.
It's an eight.
He trips you and one of his inner arms.
I thought we were sitting.
He trips you onto the ground from the side,
knocks your chair over, and has one of his side arms
right at your throat and a burning hot knife
has extended from his elbow.
Can I cast Hellish Rebuke?
Whoa!
As a reaction, yeah.
We are just fighting everybody in this motherfucking world.
He needs to make a Dexterity Saving throw.
Oh, the floor of Dexterity Saving throw.
Yeah, he means Dexterity Saving throw.
7 plus 7, 14.
Minus 15.
He fails?
Yeah.
How much damage does he take?
Oh, no.
I don't want to damage him.
Can you just give him a good talking to?
A little love tap of Infernal Fire.
He takes 2 die 10 of fire, so that is, oh, no.
Maximum damage.
Jesus Christ.
16.
Yowza!
Sorry.
I'm sorry.
It's a reaction.
Are you OK?
You surprised me.
I didn't mean to surprise you.
I'm tracking his HP.
Right.
I didn't mean to surprise you.
Oh, my god.
Are you OK?
Can we go to one of our rooms and talk about this?
You are an assassin sent to kill me.
I am not an assassin.
You know about the Sky Reaver.
Oh, my god.
I bought it from a shipment thing.
My bum ass fucking kids hired you.
No, they didn't.
They're really shitty private investigators.
And you found me.
He flips the table.
And now I'm singed.
I got to go.
Do we know what's happening?
Can we see them?
Yeah, you're right there.
Oh, OK, great.
Jen goes, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
I am not a private investigator.
Well, I guess that's clear.
I bought your ship from a thing.
And I saw your picture on the wall.
And I got your note out of your coffin.
Yes, it was bizarre.
Bizarre, bizarre.
Yeah.
It's a bizarre.
They pawned my ship?
They did.
And I got it.
And I don't have it anymore.
Oh, sorry.
I really did leave.
It was a dedicated ship.
It was sickening.
I pulled out this axe.
We found this incredible axe.
Trudy.
Oh my god.
But we're not.
I'm not.
I'm not here to tell you.
I don't even know who your sons or cousins or whatever
the hell they are.
I know about you because your pictures
are plastered all over that ship.
And we're fans of a sort.
I mean, yeah, your ship was sickening.
If somebody wanted to get you, this is a terrible place.
Jersey sees Trudy.
And Trudy is the battle axe.
And he reaches for it and pushes a button right at the bottom.
And the blade of it sparkles.
And then it kind of starts displaying
all these stats and information and stuff like that.
And he's like, oh, you've been good to her.
And then he pushes the button again, and it turns off.
And he hands it back.
Oh, yeah, thanks.
OK, well, you bought my ship.
You used Trudy.
I also have this.
And it's the stone that I got from it, the Stone of Return.
Oh, my god.
Deep cut.
Yeah.
I mean, I found your throwing rock.
Skippy?
Yes, I guess so.
It's not useful unless it's named.
Well, it's a good thing it has a name.
Exactly.
So yes, as you can see.
What are your names?
I'm Peek.
Beatrice.
I don't know why I don't want him to know my name.
Brandle.
Brandle, Beatrice, and Peep.
You know, you really should have a bee name.
And he looks at Peep.
It's actually Beak.
You miss her.
Pretty loud in here.
All right, group deception check.
Oh, no.
I did not try to deceive my name.
Yeah, that's fair.
I didn't lie about my name.
It's actually Beak.
15.
11.
You guys are bad liars.
Yeah, they are.
My name's Peek.
I respect it, though.
OK.
Sorry.
My name's Flandle.
Flandle.
Peek.
Yeah.
Beatrice.
And I will not be giving another name
until I reveal I can trust you.
OK, I feel like the, like, happiest corpus of it all,
I should be the one that, like, gets the trust from you
about what you're, like, now you're putting me
in a position where I feel like I have to get your,
I don't understand why.
Confusion is a great weapon, young one.
It's working.
Listen, Gersey.
I'm in pain.
I was wondering if we could, you know,
kandori to kandori.
I was wondering if we could chat privately.
You smell a little bit of the char of his burning flesh.
And he's like, oh, I need to repair this anyways.
Smells like barbecue.
Mm.
Ah.
No.
Oh, god.
All right, let's go.
You can come to my room.
And careful, I'm at my most powerful there.
So don't try anything funny.
No more burning, scary flame things.
I told you it was a reaction, and I'm sorry.
OK.
You stay chill.
We stay chill.
You made the first move.
Remember that.
I didn't attack you.
You did freak me out, though.
And I'm sorry.
OK.
We're all sorry, except for me.
Right.
I feel great.
I'm sure you do.
But I'm dying.
All right, let's go to your room.
Oh, my god.
Weirdo.
I'm being dramatic.
This will heal.
OK.
So you all go back to the elevator, music plays,
and you see that he's like, oh, I fucking hate that.
And he pushes a button, and it changes to heavy metal rock
while he's in there.
Hell, yeah.
Wait a minute.
We could have been doing that the whole time.
I hacked the Arcano networks here, so.
Sick.
Yeah.
You're a bit of a engineer.
Artificer is what I prefer.
But yeah, engineer's fine.
Whatever you want to call it.
Did you build that ship, the Sky Reaver?
That one?
No, it's an heirloom.
Oh, OK.
And so the elevator opens up, and he takes you all to his room,
and he's like, don't touch anything.
Got it.
Can I sit?
Yeah, you can touch the chairs.
OK.
I put my.
But not that chair.
And as he opens the door, there's
one that's just covered in spikes.
He's like, just don't touch that one.
Seems logical.
Thank you.
Perfect.
Is that your massage chair?
Acupuncture, yeah.
Yeah.
Nice.
And he sits in that one specifically, and he's like,
and you see he's like, it's healing him somehow.
Right.
Mm.
I put my.
Not during acupuncture time.
Got it.
We should put our bucket hats on.
Yeah.
OK.
I'm better now.
And you see that the charred, fleshy part just falls off,
and it's like a carapace, and there's new exoskeleton
right underneath it.
Sick.
Pork.
You hungry?
No.
I'm kidding.
Are you?
I'm kidding.
Can I eat that?
Or?
Yummy.
Nasty.
I didn't get my cheesecake.
Can we get a cheesecake?
Oh, from the cheesecake factory.
Oh my god.
Can we speak privately in here?
And then you see a little shimmer of lattice hologram
appears around saying, yep, dead zone.
OK.
How would you like to help us do something kind of crazy or wild?
I prefer predictability.
How would you like to help us do something
and make it become predictable?
Otherwise, you won't know what's happening.
You guys are trying to do something crazy.
Yeah, but we'd like to add a little bit of predictability
into the mix.
We would like to win, so to speak.
Yeah.
I love loaded dice.
What do you got?
We want to do a few things.
So we won at the Coliseum.
He's tinkering on the side right now.
And you see he finishes and he makes a little metallic frog
that's just like a cogwork, just leaps a little bit.
And then he crushes it and starts building something else.
Great.
So we won at the Coliseum yesterday,
which means we are going to the banquet tomorrow.
Oh, twins.
Me too.
I say twins when it's like we're the same.
It's fun.
Brilliant.
So we're going to the, we, all of us apparently,
are going to the banquet.
I'm a special guest.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, like they allow, basically all arena champions
are allowed to go back there.
Oh, you're an arena champion?
Oh, they banned me like decades ago.
Yeah.
From like winning a lot, right?
Why do people keep getting banned?
Yeah, if it's been 20 years.
I got banned 20 years ago.
Yeah.
A lot of people die.
Yes.
Wait.
So they actually die because we were under the impression
that they don't.
They implemented a bit more humane rules
in the past like five years or so.
Altarians had a little bit of influence.
It's like maybe we shouldn't kill the people that
are like guests here that are trying to like, you know,
we're trying to feed off of their latent mental energy.
It was like, oh, he made sense.
And so, yeah, sounds like a winning strategy.
Altarians, that guy's got a lot of good ideas, huh?
Meh.
OK.
Yeah.
So we are trying to pull a heist of sorts.
Oh, interesting.
What are you trying to steal?
Well, we're trying to steal something,
and we are also trying to feel free.
Oh, don't be coy with curzies.
We'll get there.
OK.
Not being coy.
Oh, you've got showmanship.
So all of the people that are being held here
against their will because they're trapped,
we want to free them.
And at the same time.
They love it.
It's predictable.
Day in, day out, they know exactly what they're doing.
You love it.
They're thrilled.
Can you read minds?
No.
OK, then stop.
Oh, he's yeah.
And we also want to take back the brain of Vanduul.
Approximately how many people don't like this set up here?
50-50?
I think enough to want to escape.
Yeah, but if we were to give a percentage.
60-40.
That's a good one.
Those are great numbers.
And if we have a distraction for long enough
while that banquet is happening, the ones that want to escape
will escape and the ones that want to stay will just stay.
Interesting.
There's something beautiful about that.
What happens after they escape?
Oh, wait.
He runs to a little arcano circuit
that has all these different.
It looks like a fancy abacus.
And he just starts going like this on it and doing stuff.
And he's like, it's an uncertain outcome.
What happens when 40% of the forest leaves?
Oh, no.
Is it 60-40 the other way?
60% of the workforce leaves?
No, probably like 40 leave.
OK, well, let's just let's hedge our bets here.
He's like grinning through it.
He's like, oh, this could descend into chaos.
This place will revert.
The gambling syndicate would be no more.
I don't know.
Sounds risky.
What do you want to steal?
Oh, shoot.
We want to steal the brain of Andul.
We want to take it back.
I don't know what that is, but OK.
Great.
Do you want to help us?
Does it sound enticing?
It sounds awful.
Yeah.
Because you're going to do something
and then ruin this place.
And this is my decades-long vacation every once in a while.
You're so rich you don't know other places.
Not in places I like as much as this place.
Oh my god.
Shadow Space was pretty cool.
Shadow Space was incredible.
Really.
Party.
They're really judgy.
The Bazaar.
And you're not?
I do like the Bazaar.
So fun.
And the best part about the Bazaar, so many Bazaar people.
But I used to take my kids there,
and that's probably how they knew how to take the ship there
and pawn it off in the first place.
So I don't want to go back to the old haunts.
Makes sense.
I just end my old age.
I'm a little scared to change.
It's just hard.
Makes sense.
It's hard to start over.
I've already done it four times.
It's a fifth time.
Just sounds so scary.
That's why we need your help, Gersey.
You can help take this, what could
be a potentially chaotic situation,
and help us make it into the future that we want to see.
Also, it sounds like you're on a journey.
That sounds appealing to me.
Great.
Am I on a journey?
Yes.
Great.
Sounds like you're on a journey.
I like predictability.
We have to do more convincing than we need to.
I know, that's true.
We need your help to, OK, we can ensure
that Altarian claims control of the colony,
making sure that only people who want to be here
are the people who are here.
There's something beautiful about a system
where everybody's buying in, right?
Yeah, OK.
And we'll take care of Fangrax, who is against that,
preventing the mind flayers from reverting to their evil ways.
And we get what we want.
Interesting.
Like playing his little mental, his little abacus predictor
thing, and he's like, I've got a better chance of working.
Who's it just us for?
There's another player yet to be determined.
Well, I got to ask, because, well, I didn't get this far,
by just looking out for the little guy.
What's in it for me, besides predictability?
Got any new fun technology, anything that's from a world
that I've never seen before, anything cool?
Oh, any leads on fun plans to go to,
preferably ones that are not super agrarian,
because that's so boring.
Do you know who Baba Yaga is?
No.
Oh my god, you and Baba Yaga would get along so.
You should meet her.
Let me see.
No.
Oh, that planet is a fun time.
It's like a one-on-one special life experience.
It's quite a gamble, but if you can figure out how to predict,
that would be the ultimate solve.
Uh-oh.
I'm intrigued, but scared.
Perfect.
There's also our good friend Theselonious, lives in a world.
Is that a nerd?
Yes.
No.
OK.
Other nerds, they always want to have a pissing contest,
and they just want to see who pisses more,
and it's always me, so whatever.
All right, got it.
I could send you a gift basket with four terms.
Can you give me a persuasion check for a gift basket?
And 20.
I'm just going to have one of those Pepperidge Farms sausage logs.
If you want.
Don't they all come with that?
The good ones do.
Hell yeah, they do.
All right, you got it for a gift basket.
Perfect.
Wow.
Really is easier than you think.
All right, how do we get back in contact with you?
He starts to pull out a silver beeper that looks very similar
to the pink ones.
But then he looks down and sees your pink ones.
He's like, whiffle bottom.
We need all the help we can get.
Listen.
What's she going to do with us?
I don't know.
She's just got lots of power, lots of oomph,
and we'll probably need it, unfortunately.
Unpredictable.
What's that mean?
She's like the epitome of whimsy, just
does whatever she feels like.
She's got a couple goals.
Grow the ballad, be a good time gal.
Grow the ballad?
Oh yeah, she mentioned that ballad.
What's that ballad all about?
It's a never-ending song that she keeps workshopping,
and no living bard can memorize everything in it
because she's been going at this bullshit for longer
than I've been alive.
Is it a spell or just a singy song?
It's a singy song.
Waste.
I agree.
Well, anyways, just careful, I guess.
But here, if you, and he had you all little silver beepers,
they only have one button on them.
Do you know what this other button does on this pink one?
She likes to make sure that people don't get bored,
so it starts a game.
Ooh.
Oh my god.
Don't worry, I'll hold back.
I'll press it later.
The hand hovers over the button.
Great.
All right.
Thanks, Gersey.
And so Gersey's thinking through, and he's like, OK,
we'll bring this hiring to power.
I'll think about this tonight, and I'll
send you some information in the morning
after I figure out where I think I can maybe help out of it
there.
But yeah, as long as I can keep partying here, that's fine.
I have to work.
OK.
One last job.
That sounds like a reference.
Yeah, one last job.
All right.
And with that, he kind of starts shooing you all out.
He's like, I need to think.
I need to think.
Get out.
Before he shooes us out, can I just
take a closer look at the ship schematic
that I recognize from Heart Space?
Does it have a name?
Give me a perception with a disadvantage,
because you're getting shooed out.
OK.
17.
Disadvantage?
Yeah, I got 13.
Look at you.
13 and a natural 20.
I love that.
The name of the ship is the Vertigris.
The Vertigris.
Seem fixated on your Vertigris.
Pfft.
And you all are feeling pretty exhausted by this point.
You've been in morsel combat with the next
in line for the elder brain.
You've went to a hospital, and you've never really
seen a hospital look quite like that before.
You didn't even know the word hospital before today.
And you negotiated with a very powerful wizard,
as well as a curmudgeonly artificer.
And so as you prepare for a long rest,
such all can sleepy and heely, including Torrin,
who desperately needs it, you all
settle in into your individual rooms,
or do you all go into the giant circle bed and sleep there?
I thought that was my bed.
It is just Jen's bed.
Yeah.
I go into my own little thing.
I guess I go into my own little room, too.
Wonderful.
It's actually Beam Beam's bed.
And what are our departing thoughts
as we drift into dreamland here?
Jen is starting to feel the effects of being in this place
for a very long time.
She feels like her usual senses of danger
and feeling like she's pretty apt at navigating
difficult situations has gone poof.
And the up and down to all the floors
is just really like she's dizzy.
I think she's been drunk all day, technically.
A little bit, yeah.
So yeah, just very confused.
Keeps forgetting what the point of everything is,
like why we're here, because we keep
running into all these people and telling them each
a different story to convince them.
Different names.
We'll see.
She's trying to mentally take note of all the lies
to make sure she can keep up with them tomorrow
slash remember them.
Yeah.
You hear that, listener.
Lying can get you ahead as long as you keep your story straight.
Life lesson.
Or keep your story gay.
Steal Vespas, everyone.
Steal Vespas.
Flandle is looking at himself in the mirror,
and he's thinking about Torrin confronting him earlier
and being like, this place has changed him.
And he's like, has it changed me?
And then he reaches into his face,
and he takes out the black rimmed glasses,
and he holds them in his hand.
And then he tucks them into a pocket in his utility vest,
and then unzips the utility vest,
and then unbuttons his white collared shirt.
Whoa.
And he kind of muscles it up a little bit,
and he's like, OK.
In that moment, you inexplicably think of Jack
and his popped collar and unbuttoned shirt,
and you're realizing the fuck boy,
maybe there's something to that.
Maybe there's something to that.
Pops the collar.
No.
Oh my god.
Put it down, one step at a time.
Baby steps.
Wonderful.
I guess Pique just gets into her room and sits down,
and ruffles her hair back to normal out of the blonde,
and just sits there, and brings out the book of Hadar,
and just puts it down somewhere safe,
and then just lays down, and just is just so tired
and so exhausted from running around and everything,
and really realizing that she really
doesn't like this place at all, and can't
wait to burn it all down.
And doesn't like that it's changing her friends,
and the monotony of gambling over and over, and fighting.
She just wants to get that brain and get out.
And also thinking about Magenta, and it's like,
was she a friend of my mom, or was she just like,
I mean, we can obviously trust her.
She's got it good, but I don't know.
As you fade to sleep with your new found friend,
and family friend, so to speak, on your mind,
that image is there, and you're thinking on it,
and then suddenly collapse to black.
And then a pale green light starts
to come from a pinprick point in your mind's eye,
as you are deep in slumber, and a voice
starts to ring through across the cosmos for the first time
directly in such a long time.
You recall the very first time that you opened that book
and formed a link with Hadar himself.
And you hear a voice that says, destroy your brain.
Oh boy, having an elder god tell you to murder a giant brain
just sounds like a lot, doesn't it?
Speaking of a lot, we want to thank you
a lot for listening to this episode of Queers on Dice.
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Until then.
Virtually
Hadouli?
Hadouliana?
Sorry, wrong number.
And that's it.
Whoa!
All these dreams and visions.
These dreams and visions.
And that's it.
Whoa!
All these dreams and visions.
And that's it.
Whoa!
All these dreams and visions.
And that's it.
All these dreams and visions.
These dreams.
These dreams make me close my eyes.
Oh yeah, oh yeah.
Oh, you're so funny.
So many understand.