Trash Planet contains themes of desperation and poverty.
We portray a comedic, absurd, and violent world.
For a full list of content warnings, please see the episode description.
Broadcasting live from the podcast dungeon deep beneath the Earth's crust, we are Trash
Planet, the podcast that beats ass and eats trash.
I am your host, Rabbit Sullivan.
My pronouns are he, him, and she, her.
And with me today are four of Cincinnati's sick nastiest improvisers.
Please say your name, pronouns, and vibe today.
My vibe today is like a puddle of diesel gasoline with that rainbow sheen on top.
Pretty cool, kind of gross.
Devin, what's your vibe today?
What's your name also?
I'm Devin.
My pronouns are he, him, and my vibe today, I would say just a cozy little guy.
I'm feeling cozy today.
Devin is six inches tall for the viewers at home.
So there you go.
In my tiny little chair.
Incredible.
Yeah.
Hi, I'm Nehar, pronouns are he, him, and my vibe today is probably Mr. Freeze from
Batman.
You can't be cold right now, can you?
In our podcast dungeon so close to the Earth's core?
I mean, come on.
True.
Also rich Batman.
Yeah, which Mr. Freeze?
Oh boy.
Probably the animated series one, so it's a little bit tragic.
Not Arnold Schwarzenegger.
You chose wrong.
Okay.
I really like that movie actually.
I am a huge Batman fan and I think I'm a bit of a Joel Schumacher apologist.
Yes, we're going to discuss later.
Maddie.
Hi.
I'm Maddie.
I'm Maddie, Shidae, and my vibe today is some toxic green sludge.
Delicious.
Kind of glowing.
It's kind of pretty.
I'm going to touch it.
Incredible.
You shouldn't touch it.
Yes.
Amazing.
Hi, I'm Natalie, pronouns Shidae.
Today my vibe is there's really like winter village paintings in the Alps.
One of those paintings.
That's very serene.
You can't be cold, can you?
Can I repeat the same joke?
But we're so close to the Earth's core.
Like, come on.
All right.
Oh, that's great.
Thomas Kincaid is shaking his fist at the sky because yours is so much more beautiful.
Okay.
Well, today we are playing A-State, second edition, written by Morgan Davy, Malcolm Craig, and
Gregor Hutton.
This is a fortune the dark game.
It rules.
We are playing it in our homebrewed setting of the landfill at the end of the universe,
trash planets.
You don't know the rules.
That's fine.
We're going to tell each other a story and it's going to be cool.
All right.
Are we about ready?
Everyone say that famous catchphrase we all know and love.
We're ready.
All right.
So the screen is black.
We hear feet shuffling.
We hear objects clanking around.
Outside we hear howling wind and far away there's this deep thrumming rhythm.
It's something industrial.
It's a huge.
And then this camera blanks on and we see a pair of lips and they're so close to the
screen.
They're thin, nasty little lips.
These lips look like sunburns on sunburns, splashed with spray paint and then dehydrated.
And this close to the camera you can't see too much of this guy, but you somehow get
the sense that he's wearing a propeller hat.
So lips lean forward to speak into this insane Jerry Rigg microphone.
Breaker nine.
This is KLDX Tower Golf.
Good morning, trash planet.
It is the morning news with your boring manja mic.
Hello to my beautiful city of Fresco.
It's 5.18 in the morning.
Sorry I'm late.
My morning got a little fucked up with the blackouts.
Plus I had a break in.
Oh yeah, we got more rolling blackouts on deck, especially for Bugtown, Happyholler, and the
Farragut neighborhood.
You got a problem.
You are more than happy to bring it up the union hall.
I'm sure they would love to hear about it.
I mean, happy your news, we have a birthday boy sighting up by the canyon.
Everybody give it up for the birthday boy.
Fair warning, I did get out the telescope and I saw Dillie Capistrano out there planting
mines.
So if you're looking for our beloved local cryptid, walk fucking lightly.
Standing bounty on the birthday boy is up to 6K, courtesy of the Skimmers Trust.
So good luck everybody.
Happy hunting.
Fuck me, that's another molar.
God, that's bleeding a lot.
Alright, now for the weather.
As you may know, it's fucking hot hot hot, high 90s all week.
Tower Pony says there's a big cloud of glitter moving our way.
Could hit sometimes night or tomorrow, so keep those masks handy.
Or just stay indoors, that's what I'm doing.
Annie Hoodle, stay tuned for an exclusive interview with the guy whose leg I just broke.
You break into my house, I break your legs, that's how it works.
So who's this guy with his legs broke?
What's in his heart?
Just find out after our early morning rock block exclusive interview coming up.
This has been Monja Mike with your morning update.
Thanks for tuning in and remember, you get brave, you get strange.
Slunch your baby.
And he hits a button and the music starts rolling.
It kind of sounds like cool local punks, maybe from Ohio?
I don't know, it's cool.
And over the music we hear the distant sounds of scuffling.
And far away from the mic we hear Monja Mike going, sorrow, carry me about your childhood.
And the music is still rolling, just ducka, ducka, ducka, and the camera cuts.
We see this infinite rolling wasteland of trash, miles and miles of it, hideous and
tangled and dazzling.
We see downed spaceships and shattered buildings and dented industrial machinery and 3D printed
superstructures unspooling crazily in the heat.
In the low points of the wasteland we see trickles of this arcane liquid, it's neon
green, it's hissing and sputtering in the early morning light.
The rising above it all we see immense ceramic shards.
They are bright blues, like 30, 50 stories high.
They're gleaming in the sunrise.
They're truly just big ceramic splinters like a vengeful god just hucked a vase down to
earth and it shattered.
Which is kind of accurate because many years ago the chips fell here from orbit and they
nearly killed a lot of people.
But it's fine, we love the chips because the chips shelter our beloved city of fresco.
Bam, the camera cuts.
We're seeing a field of hard packed earth.
There's dust and ash in the air, there's a little bit of haze.
For a moment everything is quiet and still.
And then like thundering gazelles, a bunch of jackasses sprint past the camera at full
tilt.
And every cleat that hits the earth sends out a cloud of dust.
Through the haze we see bodies moving.
They're locked in combat, they're slamming into each other, howling.
Somebody's hollering through a megaphone.
Watch your stance Lou, keep those legs apart.
Jahadi, you can't stay on defense forever, make a move.
And above it all we hear this tinny little boom box playing Monge Mike's radio show.
This is morning practice for the city's premier tick ball team, the fresco fuzz.
Devin, you wanna tell me what tick ball is?
Yeah, tick ball is the main sport of trash planet.
It's kind of a cross between like rugby, bare knuckle boxing and like pro wrestling.
Incredible.
Yeah.
It also involves people who love substance abuse and doing flips.
So what you're seeing right now is the coolest shit ever.
We're seeing like writhing muscular bodies in the dust.
It's like meat and violence and sweat.
It's so cool.
It's slow motion.
The music is swelling.
And then the camera pulls back and we see two dipshits out behind the bleachers trying
to get a shirt out of a tree.
One of these figures is about seven feet tall and about the width of a pool noodle.
His name is Chops.
He's on the fresco fuzz practice team.
Because it's trash planet and the air was so toxic it'll turn your lungs into putty.
He's wearing a rebreather.
It's pretty normal looking, covers his nose and mouth, got big silver canisters on the
sides.
Chops is saying, damn, dude, it's really up there.
And beside him, staring up at the tree is a second guy, a more shirtless guy.
This guy's shirt is in the tree.
Devin, please describe your character.
Yeah.
This is Tank Bosman.
Tank is a big, I'd say like defensive end looking guy with a blonde flat top, just ripped
muscly.
He is obviously shirtless.
Yeah.
How's the bod looking?
Scarred up.
No, it's pristine.
His body is a temple.
Great to hear.
Okay.
Fantastic.
So what's your mask look like?
Because you're probably wearing one, right?
Yeah.
So his mask is top of the line, probably about three years ago, but it's still more advanced
than probably anyone around him has.
Incredible.
Real sleek, you know, kind of the Apple School of Design type shit.
Nice.
Yeah.
Your silhouette is cool.
You look like a sleek Batman type.
And what you're looking up at is a tick tree.
It's covered in these crazy like three and six inch spikes and burrs.
They're like sharp and sticky as hell.
So tick trees grow the ticks you all use as the ball and tick ball.
So you're supposed to be a tough guy and just like climb up there and get your shirt or
whatever.
But it's 12 feet up there and that's going to suck.
And this is your one jersey.
Like somebody embroidered this for you.
Like losing this is a big deal.
So you got your buddy here and you got your whole team like right there.
So whatever happens right here, people might see it.
What are you going to do?
Oh, oh man.
I. Is there like a giant stick?
Can I poke it down?
No, no, they're not going to like that.
Wouldn't be really cool.
What it?
No, no.
What if what if I put you on my shoulders?
You're tall.
I'm tall.
Yeah.
I think it would work.
I could like throw you really far.
He's flexing.
He's flexing to himself quietly.
I mean, no offense, bro, but you're pretty real thin.
You sure you sure you can let me.
He turns against the camera and it's like an optical illusion.
Like a piece of paper flat against the camera is big and he turns to the side.
He just like completely disappears.
All right.
So this is the maneuver you're going to get on his shoulders or he's getting on yours.
Can you throw me?
I can throw you.
All right.
I trust you.
We're teammates.
I trust you.
He like bonks your forehead.
Like you're like forehead to forehead just slam, you know.
All right.
Please make some kind of role here for whatever you're trying to do.
Okay.
Let's see.
That is a four.
Oh, incredible.
Okay.
What does it look like?
You're going to get this hoodie or you're going to get the jersey, but you're going to
have a complication.
So what does it look like when you get it?
I get, I get the jersey and I get it down.
Like I launched through like a gap in the tree and now my shoe is stuck up there.
All right.
So two things happen.
I think that what we see is a moment of Looney Tunes-esque motion where chops is going to
try and throw you like a hammer toss.
He's going to try and just like, hook you sideways.
Both of you are screaming and it's not in a cool like tough guys doing stuff ways and
you're like, oh no, oh no.
And then you are hooked at the tree.
You successfully wrench it out of there.
Jerseys covered in spikes and as you're flying through smashing against branches, you're
getting, you know, a little bit cut up.
You hear a tear like your fabric tearing.
You're like, fuck.
So you hit the ground.
You've got your jersey back.
It's a little bit ripped up.
Yeah.
How you doing?
That.
That was awesome.
Yes.
The power of trust.
Yeah.
Okay.
So we're guessing at each other.
And yeah.
How's your jersey looking?
Where did it rip?
I would say it ripped just straight up.
Crop top now.
It's a crop top jersey.
Wow.
Incredible.
How did it happen that smoothly?
Incredible.
So you hold this up.
What's your number by the way?
Not that it's super matters.
44.
Okay.
Incredible.
A nice.
Big tough guy number.
Is it good?
All right.
So as you're like kind of hooting and hollering with your buddy, a figure walks up from the
team and this is Lou Danza and he is one of the big shots on the team and he looks like
a fucking oil painting come to life.
He looks like Arnold Schwarzenegger.
He looks like an Arnold Schwarzenegger aide and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
He looks crazy.
And he's covered in these huge colorful scars.
And these are juice burns.
This is what happens when you use the juice too much.
And so we'll talk about the juice later.
He walks up and you're like, hey, go to down, did ya?
Nice job, Squid.
Thank you.
Thank you, sir.
I teach you to look up top, right?
He punches you really hard in the back of the head.
Just full on.
Yeah, please roll a D6 to resist this.
That is another four.
Okay.
So you successfully don't take damage from it.
But what happens is that you are just fully bashed into the tick tree and you just like
smack into like the burrs and the spines and it's just like cutting up your face.
You're like, holy shit.
No, it's cosmetic damage, but it doesn't feel great, right?
And this dude's just like grinning at you.
He's got long hair.
His mask looks shiny.
He's hot as hell.
You hate this guy.
Oh.
Well, you think I'm ready?
Ready for what?
You know, like, my shot.
Oh, you want to show it to you?
He kind of like, like rears his arm back like, hey, you want to go for it?
You want to come on?
And at this moment, your pager goes off.
It's like high trill, huge, clunky pager.
It's like a nineties pager and you glance down and it's code 111.
It's from your friend Connie.
And you know what that means.
That means he wants to meet up right now and it's urgent.
What do you do?
I'm going to take the shot.
Well, Sam, in what context?
Well, didn't you like, weren't you going to hit me?
I'm going to fight you, man.
You want to go for it or what?
I can't back down now.
All right, roll for me.
Roll something.
That is a four.
My man is using weighted dice.
He's rolling all fours.
Okay.
What does it look like?
You get one good shot on Ludonza.
I'm going to do the thing where, you know, you kind of wind up over and over again.
And then as a distraction, just like a quick left jab.
Incredible.
When you hit him, it feels like striking steel.
Like you're like, fuck.
Oh, I think I broke my hand.
Ludonza looks at you and his eyes are empty, he says, you man, be seeing you.
And we cut away in the midst of this and we see ramshackle buildings made of tin and plastic
and concrete, leaned together, welded together, edges packed with barbed wire and cut up plastic
and mud.
We see wires and cables draping overhead.
We see black iridescent beetles underfoot.
The ground is hard packed earth and the stink is incomprehensible.
It is a beautiful morning in the Bugtown neighborhood.
We see a lady walking down the street.
This is a normal style lady.
How does she look?
She looks normal.
She's thinking normal thoughts.
Her thoughts are so normal, in fact, that as she's walking along, she fails to notice
a loop of wire cabling on the ground and her boot falls right in the loop and then, whoop,
she is hoisted upside down in midair.
And she has a normal reaction, which is to go, ah.
So she jerks to a stop.
She is upside down.
She's fallen out of her pockets.
She's swinging back and forth as she struggles.
We see that she's leaning, she's hanging from a haphazard radio antenna, which is creaking
and bending under her weight.
And the camera pulls back and back and we see that she's swinging in front of, back and
forth in front of a huge complex mural.
And we realize this woman has not just been caught in a trap.
This woman has been caught in an art experience.
And grinning down on this lady, we see a certain figure.
Maddie, please describe your character.
So standing at about five feet tall with a mess of curly hair piled on top of her head,
even with her medium skin tone, you can kind of see clusters of freckles across the bridge
of her nose.
Her ears are studded with metal and with one long earring made of glass and she has a scar
on the left side of her mouth.
So, yeah.
Yeah, what are her clothes like?
What's her, does she have a mask on?
No, Inla does not wear a mask.
She was raised with the rovens who are nomads in the up country.
So she's used to being out in this environment.
That's sick and that's crazy.
Almost nobody doesn't wear a mask.
That's cool.
And yeah, so you're grinning down on this lady.
She has been caught in your art trap.
What would you say to her?
What's the vibe?
Do you like it?
Oh my God!
What is happening?
What?
Well, I mean, do you like my art?
I created this for you to experience what it's like for people to sweep you off your
feet and basically ruin your life.
This represents capitalism.
This piece represents capitalism.
Can you tell us what does the mural look like?
Sure.
The mural is basically of a robot attacking another robot, another smaller, rusted robot.
Wow.
You've got to be honest.
Is it good?
No, it's terrible.
No, it's not great.
No, it's big, but it's not great.
So this lady is sort of not getting a good look for a couple reasons, not the least of
which is that she's upside down and swinging back and forth.
She's like, so it's about, I thought it was about love.
Like, you think this is about love?
It's like two robots, right?
The other one is shooting.
What are you talking about?
It's about love.
You said it was about being swept off your feet.
No, no, I needed people to actually look.
Everybody just kind of walks by and ignores it.
So I felt like I needed to have some sort of interactive component.
This is interactive art.
Am I interacting with it?
Yes.
Can I stop interacting with it?
I guess.
All right.
So, in the gets her down.
Okay, you're going to have to roll for that.
All right, I'm going to imagine that's touch.
So that's going to be a five.
Best of the two.
Incredible.
Okay.
So you successfully get her down.
Well you're like, it's a long process.
It's a long enough process that as you're going, the ladies just sort of say, like,
I mean, I guess like I haven't been in love or at least not in a long time.
I mean, there's like childish love, you know, but like, what does it mean to really love
someone?
Like to love a robot?
Like, are we the robots in the metaphor?
We're the rusty robots in this metaphor.
Okay.
So what does the rust represent?
It represents all of our pain and suffering.
Is Emily convinced by what she's saying?
Yeah, it represents all of our pain and suffering.
Incredible.
Wow.
You lightly dropped this lady on her head a little bit.
Ow!
Sorry.
She hits the ground normal style, just a little bit injured.
She's like, I'm 43 and I'm going to have a bad ankle for the next month.
Just so you know.
Well, at least she'll be thinking about me once a month.
All right.
And on that note, your pager goes off.
A big, stupid pager, clunky, loud.
Code 111.
Connie wants to see you right now.
Oh, shit.
Um, well, I hope your ankle is okay.
It's not.
All right.
Gotta go.
Hey, where's your next exhibit?
Oh, you actually want to know?
I want to see where I want to go other places.
Oh, so I won't run into it.
Oh, that's I want to go around your exhibit.
Well, I do pop up exhibits all over the city.
Shit.
She starts running.
And the camera whooshes away.
Ah, past the grody and fucked up streets of Bugtown, past the tent city at the long
waits, past the chips themselves.
We're at the edge of town in the sloping, shady little grotto.
The sun's glowing over the horizon up above.
The ground underfoot is kind of sandy here, kind of loose.
And poking up from that sand, we see strange geometric shapes.
These shapes are about three feet high.
They're variable in color.
Texturally, they're somewhere between plastic and flesh.
And weirdly, they are really pleasing to look at.
This place is called the Nubbly Garden.
And today, for the first and only time this year, it's going to bloom.
So we see a few people gathered at the edge of this garden.
Everybody's hoping to harvest something useful.
But this is a public space kind of maintained by whoever.
So the people here are all outdoorsy types.
They've got big hats, big gloves.
The energy is not unfriendly, but everybody's on alert.
And towards the back of the crowd, actually, let's get some, let's hear some gardeners.
What are the gardeners talking about?
Mmm, my flowers are coming in good this year.
I think they're coming in bad.
I think we could have done less nitrates.
I mean, I used to say nitrates last year.
I think it was bad then, too.
You have to use your own pee as fertilizer.
Fuck.
It's your own pee, right?
That's what fertilizes plants.
No, God, it's been pissed this whole time.
Well, it works for me.
It's this is devastating.
Well, guys, guys, it all comes down to the glitter storms.
Come on.
Ooh, and the camera pans over to a certain woman.
Natalie, please describe your character.
So, Lottie is a, like, average height, tan-skinned, sort of stocky, older woman.
She's got, like, big, bushy, graying frizzy, curly hair, and has old, well-maintained,
but old and scruffy-looking overalls and work clothes with big rubber boots at the
bottom.
And on her back is a very large device-looking thing with some tubes coming forward to a
very bulky-looking rebreather on her face.
It's a pretty good mask.
It keeps her breathing well when she's out and about, but it's just very dated.
She's been around a while and been using the same one for a bit.
Amazing.
Yeah, so you're out here at the Nubbly Gardens.
What are you hoping to get today?
So most of the people here are probably looking to harvest, like, grown fruits or something
like that.
Lottie is hoping to catch some of the unripe stuff that falls off of the, falls to the
ground where people don't really want it, and she expects that she might be able to
grow some of these plants herself if she can get a decent harvest of those.
Oh my gosh.
Okay, we're trying to get, like, a Nubbly offshoot or cutting or something.
Incredible.
A little bit more, the gardeners.
The gardeners are saying, do you have bottles of piss?
How much piss are we producing?
How is...
I mean, you have quite a sense of garden, Rachel.
It's not for sale.
He won't even let us buy the piss.
I can't understand.
Why would he induce us to the concept and then just...
Use your own piss.
I won't.
Make your own piss.
Do it, Reginald.
Lottie, have you ever pissed on plants?
I don't think Lottie has done that.
Are these people, like, what's your vibe when you're, like, these community spaces, nobody's
really in charge of them, you know?
How tightly are you involved in, like, the Nubbly gardens, you know?
Are you just kind of showing up today to see what's up?
I think Lottie's probably not that involved with them, because she has her own gardening
to do back at the Screaming Slice, so she doesn't really, like, participate that much
in, like, local community gardens that much right now, because she kind of sees her own
as a sort of community garden.
Nice.
Ah, yeah.
Is there anyone here that you are close with or that you've known for a long time?
Yeah, I would say this probably isn't, like, Lottie's first time here, just because she's
failed in the past to try to get some of these growing.
So she's acquainted with, like, not, like, a guy who runs the place, but, like, the
groundskeeper, almost.
She's kind of, like, chastising them whenever she comes around.
Incredible.
Alright.
So, like, this is a little bit back in time.
The sun is just cresting over the hills, and these Nubblies, they only, they're going
to bloom once a year, and it's going to be a really tight window.
So everyone's, like, kind of chattering anxiously, and when the sun cracks above, like, these
crazy silhouettes of, like, industrial waste up on the horizon, everybody kind of, like,
everyone's holding their breath together, and you look down at these Nubblies, and you
see just a little bit of a crack, it's like one of them is opening up, and somebody goes,
it's happening, it's happening, and so everyone's kind of swarming to, like, the Nubbly of
their choice.
So what is it, which one do you go to, what does it look like?
Lottie finds one that's kind of, like, towards the base of one of these strange trees, and
it looks like it's trying to open up and bloom, but it only does, like, a little bit, and
she sees that and thinks that it's probably, like, the best one for what she's going for,
and she wants to take it.
I don't know if she has competition or anything like that.
Incredible.
Okay, I think that you're on your own back there, but as you're, you're, like, settling
down on your, like, creaky knees, you, like, hit the ground, you're like, ugh, I'm middle-aged.
This is a podcast about middle-aged people.
She's older than that.
Incredible.
I'm above middle-aged.
She hears a yelp from Reginald the Piss Guy, Ney-Harp, and looks over to see that his
arm has been entirely swallowed, like, he was too eager.
He delved too greedily into the Nubbly.
His arm has been totally swallowed up by this three-foot plant.
Oh, man, at least it was my arm.
We all pause to think about that for a minute.
And he is starting to scream in pain.
You realize that, like, he's, like, trapped in there, and if he doesn't get help, something
bad might happen to this guy's arm, but you might miss your shot at getting a cuddle,
a cutting.
What are you going to do?
A lot of you is going to try calling out to him and giving him a suggestion.
Okay, what do you say?
Haven't you been here before?
Just take all the inside a little bit.
I can't feel my fingers.
Just wiggle them.
You don't need to feel them to do that.
Oh, Lottie, how about you roll something?
Okay, I'll go for command.
Okay, cool, cool.
You didn't.
I did.
God damn it.
For the listener at home, Natalie is maybe the luckiest person on this earth and never
rolls lower than a six.
Out of six.
Six out of six.
Incredible.
I'm going to start giving you bad dice.
It's going to be great.
So what you say saves Reginald?
You say one more thing, the perfect thing.
What do you say?
She just calls out to him and says, don't you have a girlfriend or something?
You know how to do this.
Oh, man.
Reginald the piss guy, how's your experience going?
Well, Reginald the piss guy just realized that he has something to live for.
And he does know how to do this.
Wow.
And we all pause to contemplate that.
Reginald successfully tickles the plant with his unfeeling hand.
He gives it the stranger, one might say.
And with a pop, pulls out of the nubbly, only grievously injuring it a little bit.
These things are so delicate.
And then what does it look like when you get your cutting or whatever you're looking
for, Lottie?
It looks like one of the blooms that people are trying to harvest, but it didn't fully
bloom.
So Lottie expects that instead of releasing a bunch of seeds, they're still in there.
Okay, incredible.
So you're just pulling out like handfuls of seeds and shits, what it sounds like.
I think it's just like one of the whole blooms just cut off, almost like a container with
seeds in it.
Oh, incredible.
It's so perfect and round in your hand, and you're feeling great.
And then your pager goes off.
And without even looking like on that six, you're just like smooth and professional.
You just look at it and you're like, oh, okay, Connie's calling a meeting.
Guess I'll pop over there.
I don't know if that's the tone in your head, but that's how I'm feeling it.
Yeah, it's probably a young smug after getting the perfect pine for herself.
Incredible.
Walks out of there thinking these fools have one flower.
Soon I'll have plenty.
All right.
So the little lady and her beautiful nubbly disappear into a crazy Star Wars diamond dissolve.
It looks really bad.
And we see, we all know the reference.
We know the bad transitions in Star Wars movies.
Yes, yes.
Thank you.
All right.
Let's talk about that for 45 minutes.
No.
So, we are slightly back in time.
It is just before sunrise and we're in a twisty little street on the outskirts of Bugtown.
And we see dozens of skimmers crowding the street, just hovering in place.
And skimmers are basically jet skis that hover, they are the main mode of transport on trash
planet.
These skimmers are loaded down with barrels, and we see mushrooms and spiky little nuts
and gnarled roots.
We see buckets of SD cards and plastic resin and bottle caps.
We see people selling vertebiest inner deep fried on coat hangers.
We see bins of flopping acid yellow fish.
And beyond the skimmer vendors, we see crooked hand-built little buildings, already alive
with neon lights and shocking odors.
So this early the crowds aren't out yet, but there's a few bodies moving.
We're haggling, we're trading, we're stocking up for the day.
This is the food court, Fresco's infamous wet market and restaurant district.
So the camera is shouldering through the street vendors and the hanging displays.
It comes to a stop before a figure with very high, very tense shoulders.
This guy's posted up at a cart vendor and he is having a productive discussion.
Nihar, please describe your character.
Yeah, so Connie is average height, like I think a little short of six feet, has like
white silver hair, all of it, just sort of short hair, well cut, kind of slick back.
The top of his head from the eyes up is like a bright cyan.
This is due to religious punishment.
But he also has a sort of cloak, what do we call it, like a poncho, which is made from
what was clearly like a burnt robe that's been sort of patchwork put together.
And as for his mask, it's like plain black plastic looks very cheap.
As I've said, the equivalent of using one of those disposable masks way too many times
during the pandemic.
Oh, yeah.
So it definitely like this is a throwaway thing.
It should not have been used this many times, but he can't afford another one yet.
I'm going to say there's a little crack on one side of it that every so often you're
just getting a blast of regular helica atmosphere and you're just like, it's bad vibes in there.
And also you're here shopping, you're stocking up for the day.
How are you carrying all your bullshit?
Are you laden with bags or like, how's this working?
I have probably like a little cart that it's basically just a basket with two wheels and
like one of the weaves is a little bit longer so I can just pull it.
Nice.
I'm going to say one of the wheels is also a little bit bigger than the other.
So it's always trying to go.
It's trying to go off to one side.
So like a regular shopping cart.
Yeah, kind of like that.
Shout out Kroger.
Please maintain your stores.
God damn it.
So what are you buying right now?
You're posted up at like a cart vendor.
You're arguing with this lady.
Her name is Almyra.
She has like a big pinwheel on her mask.
Like this is just kind of a decorative thing.
It's like slowly swirling the whole time you're talking to her and it's really pissing you
off.
It's just really distracting as you're talking.
So yeah, what are you buying right now?
So I think I'm probably buying like pepper flakes or something in such equivalent like
a flavoring equivalent something for the restaurant.
Yeah, sounds about right.
Okay.
So she is passing them over to you and she's like, and just so you know, like I'm sorry
about the price on this, but like they did come from out by gorgeous, you know, the town.
So it's going to, you know, there's a little bit up charge because, you know, we've had
the problems with the scammers and you know, all that shit.
So anyway, and she's weighing it out on a big old rusty like fully mechanical scale.
So, so you notice it when she weighs it and you just see as her hand just pushes it down
a little bit in the back like where she thinks you can't see it.
She's like, yeah, so that'll be about two pounds exactly.
So that'll be, you know, like one coin equivalent.
I'm sorry, am I paying for your finger as well?
But what?
No, it seems to me like a part of the weight was your finger.
So I feel I'm entitled to it if I'm paying the full amount.
All right, please roll something for me.
I think persuade.
I'm being a little intimidating.
That is a little agro watches.
I mean, like, is your vibe like a smile in your voice or is your vibe like, hey, fuck
you?
I'm being very matter of fact.
We like, hey, you're ripping me off.
How about you don't?
Okay, I might call that yeah, command.
I think I can do command five.
Five.
Okay.
All right.
She like pulls her hand back and the scale like springs back up and she's like, listen,
you know, I got to try, you know, I got to go for it.
Okay.
Like we all know.
I know you have to try.
Just don't try it with me.
The sunglasses descend upon your face.
You're like, yeah, the cool guy moment.
So cool.
Sorry.
I see a side Miami thought.
Wow.
I want you to make that noise forever.
And she's like, yeah, yeah, whatever.
And she starts like, she's pulling in some more flakes into the bag and she also hucks
in some cool dried, it looks like mushrooms.
You're not really sure what it is.
She's like, all right, all right, on the house.
Hey, I appreciate you though.
Always appreciate you.
I appreciate you coming by.
Just don't try to rip off a loyal customer.
The Screamin Slice has many places we could get our ingredients from.
We don't really.
She doesn't hear that last part.
So she's like, yeah, yeah.
All right.
Listen, okay, okay.
So fuck, you want some heat?
You want some heat on top of this?
I mean, I.
Yes, absolutely.
Hey, speaking about loyalty, you know, I like a little gossip.
The pinwheel is just spinning on her face and it's just really hard not to just watch
this slow rhythmic pinwheel as she's talking.
You're like, whoa.
And she says, do you hear about the fucking giddy girls?
God, they're such dumbasses.
She don't.
Okay.
You know, they handle the deliveries for tender mercy, right?
They fucking lost it.
They lost their radio transfer.
They're just like out there looking for it.
It's fucking crazy, right?
You're telling me that there's a fresh produce delivery that hasn't been picked up by the
giddy girls.
Yeah, I guess it is what I'm saying.
This is fantastic.
So as you're turning away, like, let's say you're pulling out your pager, you're sending
out the call.
I'm being really nice, giving you all pagers, by the way.
So, you know, it's a thank you.
Thank you.
Rabbit wants to thank you.
I love to be thanked to tell you one thing about me.
But as you're turning away, you look up and like the sun is just cresting the horizon
and you see across the square, so a good distance away, you see two figures.
You see this flash of purple and your stomach drops and you almost look away, but you force
yourself to stay steady and make eye contact.
And this purple flash is a standard.
It's like a big vertical banner on a pole and it's got this lovely geometric icon on
it.
It's hand woven.
It's beautiful.
It's a real work of art.
And below the standard, holding it upright, you see two people.
You see one adult and one child.
Their robes are purple like yours, but there's our long and clean patch free.
They look at you.
You look at them.
Absolute eye contact.
You can't pretend you didn't see each other.
What do you do?
I have to divert my attention and try to walk away.
Yeah.
Okay.
So as you're walking away, the last thing you see is that the older one puts their hand
on the kid's head and just gently turns it away so that they can't look at you.
That hurts.
And duck it, duck it, the camera cuts and we are inside our incredible restaurant, the
Screamin Slice.
Who would like to tell us about the Screamin Slice?
What's the deal?
Okay.
It is one of the many restaurants in the food court.
The Screamin Slice is called that because their specialty is pizza and their pizza is
made from a specific mushroom.
I can't remember the name, but it's the big wide flat mushrooms.
You can picture it.
But when they are cooked, they release a lot of their water as steam and let out a noise
that one could say is a scream.
Hence the Screamin Slice.
I think it's probably one of the only places in the food court with like an oven, like
a pizza oven as well.
Yeah.
We got a big old oven.
It's great.
It's a big oven.
What does it look like in here?
Oh, it's real grungy, real bodega vibes inside.
Little booths with like the picnic kind of pattern tablecloth, but it's like vinyl.
Yeah.
Got the kids menus.
You got to do a maze on.
Got like gingham covered in plastic.
And they're all filled out several times over.
Kind of just like a New York bodega crossed with the worst chuggy cheese you've ever been
to.
Yes.
Oh my God.
There's an animatronic in the corner.
Natalie, what is it?
What's this animatronic?
It is, what did you call those like the not dogs that we're racing?
Oh, the vertebeasts?
Yes, it's a vertebeast.
Okay.
So just so you know, a vertebeast is a homegrown kind of mutant creature that we've got here
on trash planet.
Like if dogs were weasels or also slugs, they're really long and they're really fast and they're
kind of slimy and they suck.
But yeah, so we have a really big one and it's like goobin' it's like, you know, just
very big goober under your whoo-hoo.
Like you know.
Vinny vertebeast.
Vinny vertebeast, okay.
It used to be a normal animatronic and it broke down and the parts have been replaced
and redesigned since then with trash.
Incredible.
And the work's really hard on it.
And look, Vinny vertebeast has a secret.
What is the secret of Vinny vertebeast?
Vinny vertebeast has a secret compartment on his side that holds a bunch of little fun
trinkets for each of us.
They represent each of us.
Oh my God.
Okay.
I love that.
We'll revisit it later.
So are we in the booths or are we back in the kitchen as we're hanging out as a group?
I think since I called the meeting, it's gotta be in the kitchen, right?
Okay.
Yeah.
You're planning to steal something.
Oh yeah.
Just to clarify, how do we relate to the Screamin' Slice?
Why are we here and not elsewhere?
Well, Enla works there part-time and also lives upstairs.
Incredible.
Yeah.
Anyone else?
Yeah.
Connie works and lives there.
Yeah, on the roof.
Nice.
Yeah.
Lottie lives upstairs and also helps with ingredients by having a greenhouse in the building.
Probably on the roof, I think it is.
Yeah.
Incredible.
We also have a mushroom cave down below, which is kind of under construction right now.
That's a concern.
Tank, why are you here?
Do you work here?
No, Tank does not work here.
He just kind of comes and hangs out and eats and was kind of adopted and works for free.
Incredible.
Well, not for free.
He works for Bone Broth and other random shit food.
Plus the owner of Screamin' Slice, it kind of has Tank as a pet child.
Yeah, that's true.
That's a pet project.
Incredible.
Yeah, we see a bowling ball of a woman.
She is tough as nails.
It's early morning, so she's not quite at a full tilt yet.
But as you guys are like, you're all packed into the kitchen kind of cluttering it up.
And we see this lady, she also has like a blue thing on the top of her head.
It's a lot like Connie's, except hers is really faded and old.
It's a lot softer and you can see some of her natural skin color underneath.
And as you're standing around, you're speaking, she just sort of pushes someone to the side
to open the fridge and is like, can you just get out of here?
Just like, what are we doing?
Connie, you're working.
What are you doing right now as you're holding this meeting?
I'm probably chopping something.
No, I'm restocking the mushrooms and peppers that I got.
Okay.
How's it going?
It's going fine.
I have to probably patch up some of the bags to store some of this stuff.
Yeah.
Okay.
She's like, do you got all the bags back?
Her name is Halbert, by the way.
I don't know if I said that.
She is tired.
She's got a big cup of Joe, which is mushroom coffee here.
We don't have real coffee beans.
Everything go well at the market?
Yes, that's actually why I brought it.
Good.
I don't care.
All right.
Bye.
She like grabs some shit out of the fridge.
She is just eating raw pizza dough.
It's a bad time for her.
But yeah, it's actually like the cheese dough.
We don't have bread here.
So anyway, what are you all saying?
You all one by one arrive onto the scene.
What's the vibe?
Connie, what's up?
Like, you rang?
So I just received some news that could help fill our pockets and help the screaming slice
just a little bit.
Oh, do tell more.
Oh, I guess we should wait for the rest of us.
What are you doing right now?
You're like trying to you're clocking into your job.
What are you doing?
I'm going to start prepping some from veggies.
So I'll like be cutting up some shit.
Incredible.
The knife is bad.
It is rusted and weird.
It feels bad in your hand.
Thank you.
I'm going to push back against that.
I think we're I think it looks good at maintaining her knife.
Oh, I thought this was the restaurants knife, not yours.
Well, I mean, I would bring my own because I would hate the restaurants.
There's a bad knife on the wall, but you're using your knife.
All right, fine.
You've taken me to court and I've lost.
Tank arrives on the scene.
What's your vibe?
I can't I can't be fast.
I could I broke my hand and disappointed the star of the team.
We see spikes coming out of his forehead like blood dribbling just cuts all over my body.
I guess it wasn't that much of an emergency, but thank you for coming.
If it wasn't done with an emergency, why'd you use the emergency code?
Because it was kind of an emergency.
OK, but now we have to have a kind of an emergency code.
You know what?
I just want we need levels.
We do need levels.
We do.
We need a little more nuance.
We flashback to the previous meeting when you tried to have a nuanced radio code.
Give me three sentences of that.
What was that like?
OK, so when when it's like like a medium, medium emergency, you just you just use one
one one one two.
All right.
But I mean, once you just see the first three ones and just be like, nah, I'm good.
No, I don't think.
It's true, emergency tank.
Well, I don't know if it's like an emergency, but like, you know, like medium.
You don't cut back.
Back to present day.
All right.
Lottie wanders in from the mushroom caves down below.
How are you doing, Lottie?
Lottie walks into the room just kind of like carrying like a big heap of mushrooms in her
arms and she sees that tank is all kind of like scuffed up and cut up and she's kind
of like worries a little bit and kind of like drops and runs over to him and starts
fretting over his scratches.
Oh, no, no, I'm good.
Tank, are you OK?
What happened?
Did someone hurt you?
I'm good.
No, no, I'm good.
Here, take some of this.
It'll help you out.
It's just acid.
No, what is it?
It's probably just one of the patches of mind that she's been driving for the day.
Oh, incredible.
Oh, yeah.
Just so we know, a very common drug you're on trash planet is manja.
It's kind of a psychoactive algae powder.
It's really common, it's really cheap and people trade in it all the time.
So you just hand over some manja and you're just like, all right.
Incredible.
Tank, do you take your manja or what?
Yeah, I take the manja.
It has no statistical effect on you.
Just so you know.
I just thought of like the Pokemon screen.
Yeah.
It's like not effective.
Yeah, exactly.
I have a lead on what could be some fresh, actually fresh ingredients.
So you recall everything that you both was told to you and that you know from the ambient
world at large because we know these things.
You know that.
So there's a really nice steakhouse called the Tender Mercy Steakhouse and they are
the finest restaurant in all of Fresco.
And one of the things that makes them incredible is their ingredients, which actually come
from off-planet.
And red meat is so hard to get.
It's so, so difficult here, but they have stuff dropped from orbit and just someone
picks it up and takes it to the restaurant.
And typically that's the giddy girls.
That's just like a little local, you know, scufflers like, what are they up to?
We don't know.
But you have just heard that the giddy girls lost their transponder or like they lost the
radio code.
Some shit happened and they can't find it.
So there's something has been delivered and no one has picked it up.
So it's somewhere out there.
It's a radius of around two kilometers in the south of Fresco.
Yeah, south of the canyon.
Yeah.
It would have landed somewhere over there.
We just need to comb through everything and hopefully not come across any bad actors in
the meantime.
Sorry, that's endless just sarcasm.
I know.
If I've heard this just from a salesperson, that means other people have as well.
We need to be fast and we need to be ready for a fight.
All right.
I think that's the good point is any at this point, you get one role.
You can either gather information or acquire asset.
And then after that, we're going to go right into like mission shit.
So what would you like to do with your one role before we kick off?
We have a skimmer, right?
Oh, we have a skimmer, but I thought this would be kind of fun.
So the skimmer belongs to Lottie, but there's some stuff wrong with it.
Let's all go around and say each of us tells us one thing that's wrong with Lottie's skimmer.
Devon.
Yeah.
Unbeknownst to everyone else, Tank took it out for a joy ride and just like crashed
straight into a tree.
I'm going to say broken frame, but it's not fully broken yet.
It's like on its way out.
Okay.
Well, we refashioned the engine to act as an oven at one point.
And when putting it back together, we didn't quite do it right.
So it doesn't cool down properly.
Overheats quite easily.
Okay.
Overheats.
Incredible.
Lottie.
The strange, this was the duvet brother skimmer, wasn't it?
Yeah.
The strange duvet themed upholstery on it is just really dirty and smells bad.
Smelly skimmer.
Okay.
I'm going to put the tag smelly on this skimmer.
Yeah.
And finally Ella, what's wrong with the skimmer?
You know, it kind of leans to the left side.
It just scrapes against the earth as if they're supposed to hover cleanly and it's like everywhere
it goes.
Oh yeah.
I was thinking like only on certain bumps, but yeah.
Okay.
It's just sometimes.
So you are able, just so we know, a lot of trash planet is just a scrapyard.
Just picture a scrapyard.
It would be so difficult to physically climb over all that.
So that's why a lot of stuff here hovers.
So luckily you already have a skimmer because of off-screen adventures.
But yeah, is there anything you would like to acquire assets or any information you would
like to get?
Yeah.
I think I would like to just be able to figure out the area.
Like the geography of where it landed, any potential hazards or advantages in that area.
Okay.
So this would be your one role.
Are we cool spending our role on that?
I was just pitching.
Yeah.
I mean, we need more information anyway.
I think our skimmer is definitely worse to the wear.
But I think the fact that we could potentially be up, I'd like to have more information
personally about how many people were up against, who were up against potentially and like have
a little bit more information about where, or have more information about where the fuck
we're going.
I would say let's figure out who's going after this because like we could also tell them.
That is an approach.
You could just wait until someone else gets it and then you could take it from them.
That's true.
That's basically guaranteeing a fight.
But yeah.
It's supposed to be the giddy girls, but they're, well they're currently out there
searching for it.
If we just want to post up and wait, we could do that.
So you guys would know ambiantly the giddy girls are pretty big hitters usually.
Like they're definitely tougher than you guys.
That doesn't mean you shouldn't go for it, but that is like that would cross your mind
where you're like, yeah.
Okay.
Then maybe we just get information and try to get to it first.
They are an established group.
I think Lottie could probably ask around just like her customers.
Okay.
Especially as she gets the day going and like interacts with a few of them for their daily
batch.
And I do have an ability to know everyone where I always seem to know someone who knows
something plus one reward when using charm together information.
Oh shit.
Okay.
Plus one reward.
Okay.
So we're going to call this controlled great in terms of the risk of what we're doing.
So if we want to do that, I can do that as a Lottie feature.
Cool.
100%.
Absolutely.
So I'm using charm.
And I want to see a montage of people you're talking to.
So yeah.
Okay.
Five.
All right.
So you successfully glean some information.
All right.
So Devin, who's the first person that Lottie talks to?
Hey.
You got the stuff?
Yeah.
I know you're here for your howler.
Yeah.
I'm here for the howler.
All right.
Do you have your payment this time?
Well, I was hoping we could negotiate on that.
That's what we did last time.
Yeah.
But you seem so affable.
I am.
I figured maybe we could work something out.
Yeah.
We worked something out last time that you were going to pay me this time.
Well, maybe I was thinking we could double down on that and push it out the next time.
I am sensing that that's not going to be the case here.
I don't think this time, but perhaps you might be able to lead me with a little bit of collateral.
The only thing I got on me is my wedding band.
That's probably worth a couple bags of howler.
Well, I mean, it is sentimental.
I will.
We abandoned the mission.
We're invested in this guy now.
What's his marriage doing?
Well, I guess I'm good for it.
I'll get it back.
Listen, Ernie, you know I'm just giving you a hard time.
Here's an extra one for the wife and bring back enough for Ford next time.
Ford.
Okay.
I got to take a couple extra shifts in the mind now.
But yeah, the wife will be pleased.
Do you take the wedding band or not?
Wow, you could have been married.
I got it.
I'm just going to be constantly transferring the marriage.
That's how marriage works, as we know.
What do you ask this guy?
And since I'm being so nice to you, Ernie, have you heard anything on the streets lately about the Getty Girls or some kind of shipment nearby?
Yeah, actually, I do.
The Getty Girls, they're out there swarming like a swarm of trash bees out by Buster's Canyon.
So it seems like something's going on.
Thanks, Ernie.
I'm glad you could help me.
No problem.
Does that reduce my payment?
It does.
Thank you so much, Ernie.
Please bring me enough for three and a half next time.
Okay.
I'll spread the word as well.
Well, your complication is that Ernie, the cool guy who's married, is going to tell everyone that you're a pushover and that you're giving really, really low prices on drugs.
So you did roll a five.
So that's your complication is that all your upcoming customers are going to think you're a pushover.
All of them are just the ones from him.
Well, the new ones.
Yeah, the new ones.
Okay.
Don't tell your mouth, does he have it?
Have you heard this guy?
He speaks so loquaciously.
I mean, everyone is delighted to hear from Ernie.
And his wife.
And our book club.
Very popular book club.
Oh my God.
You can read?
We cut to the book club.
This is the next 45 minutes of the episode.
All right.
Anyway, so incredible.
You have acquired the information that the giddy girls are looking in South Buster's Canyon.
So next up is the engagement role, which is it's a D six unless we are either adding or removing bonuses for circumstances.
So can you think of anything that would help like argue me?
Give me an argument.
Why I should give you extra dice and why I should not take them away.
I mean, I can think of a reason you should take what I know.
I can also think of a reason.
I mean, I grew up in the upper up the upper lands.
I kind of know what's happening around there.
So I can at least try to like direct people dope.
Okay.
All right.
That's plus one.
Anybody else have anything?
I don't know if it qualifies as a plus one, but I feel like it at least have a way to minus is the information we gathered and not searching down where the giddy girls are.
I'm trying to decide how mean to be because you guys are not the first on this, right?
So I think I am going to take off one dice for just other people have been looking longer, right?
Someone who's not Natalie, please roll the catch.
A ban from engagement dice.
Yes, you are.
The mission goes perfectly.
Nothing is wrong.
Oh, no.
That was a two.
Oh, Jesus.
So, all right.
So paint the picture.
Who is driving the skimmer right now?
Lottie.
Okay.
How are you feeling?
How often do you go in the up country like this?
Because this is like deep in the up country.
Lottie pretty much probably never goes out there.
Maybe every now and then to find some new plant or something like that, but there's no customers out there.
There's very little reason to be out there.
I don't know.
She's probably feeling pretty comfortable.
She enjoys driving the skimmer around.
So she's just kind of enjoying the vibe hits a rock here and there.
Nice.
Would you say she's going extremely fast or extremely slow?
I could see an argument for either one.
She's going a little concerningly fast.
Like just enough that when we hit like a bumper rock or something like that, it's uncomfortable for the passengers.
Nice.
Okay.
Lottie.
Because you are like scaling and dropping off of trash heaps.
Like there's nothing flat anywhere.
So you are just constantly like, like, I mean, you're floating, but it's not good.
You're not having a smooth time.
So tank, you are clinging on by the skin of your wound.
Incredible.
So we're deep in the upcountry and this is the part of trash planet that is just landfill.
It's just where all the shit fell from orbit.
It's where it all moved around when the nuclear blasts went off.
It's where, you know, all this crazy shit just piled up, covered up with dirt and ash.
And every so often something will fall from orbit and obliterate the whole area and reshape the landscape again.
So there is life out here.
There's some plants.
There's some stuff that is surviving despite it all, that this is rough, fraught territory and it's different every time you see it.
So, Emma, what is it like being back here?
How often do you leave the city these days?
Because you grew up out here, but...
Yeah.
And Le doesn't leave the city all that often just because, like, to visit her family every once in a while, but even then it's just...
It's nostalgic, but like in a whole, like going back to your hometown it doesn't feel like home anymore kind of energy.
Okay.
And so there's that fact that something could just fall from the sky at any moment and kill all of you in an instant.
Like how is that sitting with you?
Le does not miss that feeling.
Yeah.
She keeps having a... she's kind of grown accustomed to having like a solid roof over her head and having that kind of consistency.
That's the chips, man.
That's like when stuff falls and hits the chips, people are fine.
So yeah, it's really scary.
You're exposed.
So everybody, let's go around and say one thing we see out here in the Wastes.
I think...
I don't know.
There's just like a big, empty refrigerator.
Just like...
Wide open.
And...
Yeah, it's just sitting out there.
It's so big. It's like the size of a small house.
Like you're guessing it's from some kind of industrial processing plant.
You have this crazy urge.
You're like, I could get in there and close the door.
Look out.
It looks safe.
It looks safe in there.
It looks like it might protect me from a nuclear blast.
Yeah, incredible.
Some...
Almost like a meteor shower in the sky. We see some sort of heavy metal crystal thing.
Just burn up and spark and fizzle away in the atmosphere.
Scary.
Okay, it's beautiful and it's scary.
You're just like, oh, you kind of feel it in the back of your throat.
You're like, fuck.
Yeah.
In the part that we're driving through right now, there is a bunch of...
Seems like some sort of like trash, from like a kid's hospital or something like that.
Got dumped here.
So there's just a bunch of like, like scruffy old stuffed animals from off-planet.
Just like scattered around in various states of disrepair.
Heads ripped off, stuffing everywhere.
And no, they do look like that. Yeah, it seems like the local wildlife has been having fun with them.
It's a massacre.
Ooh, a teddy massacre.
Incredible. What do you see?
I'm thinking that there's at least a couple of like large, whole like skeletons.
Like you don't have like the paneling on the sides because they've been stripped.
But like the big like armature of like the bottom of big cargo ships.
Ooh, okay. Yeah, they've already...
Like skeleton bones, like elephant or whale bones.
They've already been processed by the scavengers of the wastes and you're right.
It's just the parts that are so big.
It would be really hard to move it without power, you know, like big, big tools, you know.
And it's eerie out here.
And also we are starting some clocks because shit is going down.
All right.
So we have an eight o'clock that you all are trying to fill.
It's called Locate Meat Pod.
Your goal is to locate the meat pod.
We are also racing two other clocks.
Let's see.
One of them is Giddy Girls Find the Pod.
That is a clock that exists.
And the other one is... Well, I'll tell you about that other one.
So as you guys are out here, we're seeing the wax forest coming up ahead.
And the wax forest is kind of an unusual spot because a lot of the, you know, most of the trash out here is random.
The wax forest has been very carefully curated by a group of people.
And it is all waxy style substances that they could find put in one place.
And there's also some like natural shit going on with the juice underground.
Yeah, somebody give me a rundown on the juice.
What is the juice?
Who would like to tell me about the juice?
I feel like Tank is the best person to talk about juice.
Yeah, Tank is the most qualified.
Sorry to volunteer you want to do that.
So the juice is a substance found on trash planet.
It is a kind of a slimy, oozy kind of substance green.
But with the juice comes some unexpected powers to those who interact with it, mainly ingesting it.
And it... People have tried to use it for specific purposes,
but it's really fickle and it results in some weird side effects when you try to use it.
It usually ends up with unintended bad consequences.
Yeah, so these huge splashy scars we're seeing on people that are super colorful, those are called juice burns.
And that is when the juice goes wrong.
So it is good shit.
Do you want to talk about the mechanical aspect of juice?
Yeah, and so the juice is represented on our end by a homemade oracle deck called the juice deck.
So every time someone is using the juice, interacting with the juice, we're going to pull a card and it's going to be very cool and very sick.
Also the juice originated from the trash juice where all the juice ran out of the trash and it was one big mess and it was great.
So it's like an accumulation of all this tech and trash and weird shit.
And nuclear fallout and weird stuff that was already on planet.
Just some sci-fi juice.
Generalize delicious sci-fi liquid as we know.
One could say it's the inherent chaos of the universe.
Oh, man, some kind of religious order might say that. I don't know. Interesting.
So as you guys are out here, you see the wax forest coming up ahead. It's really eerie.
It doesn't look like anywhere else on trash planet.
You don't see any people working in it right now, but typically there are a few people around.
And so you're kind of on edge for that reason too.
But as you are going, you hear like you hear a lot of shit out here.
Wind howling, you hear stuff falling over like the mountains of trash are just always kind of falling over at all times.
And you also hear the thrum of another skimmer.
I think, Enla, you hear this first where you are just queued in instantly and you see another skimmer out here picking through the waste.
And it's pretty far off right now, maybe about a half mile.
But there's somebody else out here and they're moving slow and you immediately get the sense they are doing exactly what you're doing.
Oh, yeah, we should take a second and talk about the concept of clocks because they're a really important game mechanic.
So we're going to use a lot of clocks for a lot of things because each clock represents a progress bar towards something happening.
So as the game master, I'll be setting clocks for our heroes and they might be things like defeat the bad guy, find the missing thing.
They're always intentionally vague so that characters can contribute to them in different ways.
Like the defeat the bad guys clock, you could progress that through combat, but you could conceivably also do it through like dialogue or stealth or using the environment or whatever.
And we call that ticking a clock when you progress a clock.
So clocks are always four, six or eight segments.
I might say like this clock is a four clock. That means you need to tick it four times to fulfill the goal.
However, opposing forces also have clocks.
So sometimes we have racing clocks where we've got to fill our clock before the bad guys fill theirs.
So this is a six clock. It is racing you.
This is Doink's Burgary finds the pod.
We are up against the heroes of the Doink's Burgary.
And let's see with our, so you all rolled pretty bad on the engagement roll.
So we're going to tick.
Okay.
So giddy girls find the pod is a six clock as well.
So we're going to tick two for them and we're going to tick one on Doink's Burgary.
And where are we at with the locate meat pod?
You're at zero because you rolled bad job.
In addition to this, this part of the waxwork forest as you're entering it.
Something you probably all have masks on right?
And la, do you wear a mask even when you're like, I know you don't need one, but do you ever wear one just because or I don't know.
Yeah, I mean, I feel like being this far out, I probably would.
I just don't really bother in the city.
Yeah. What does it look like?
It's a pretty, it's not like any huge respirator situation, but it is just in my mind, it's really just like a piece of fabric she kind of wears.
It's not like a full respirator.
It's like a cool Vantana.
Yeah.
It's like just like a cool like Ray mask.
Yeah.
She's so cool.
All right, so you take in a deep breath and you hook up this familiar smell of juice.
There's a shimmer in the air.
There's a shine in the area.
We are in a shine zone.
So this is where the juice becomes missed.
It's low enough here.
It's humid enough right now.
You're going to be under a low level juice effect for the proceeding events, whatever they might be.
So and look, because you sniffed it first.
Please pull for me our first juice card and then read me the name and the verbs.
So smooth.
Moon shooter, second of touch.
And then the verbs he said.
Yes.
Balancing, chancing, radiating.
I think right off the bat, you got the word balancing in there.
Immediately you have the sense that like the trash is shifting under you.
Like you're like, this is an unstable zone.
Shits about to go off.
There's this other skimmer out ahead of you.
There's other people in the waste.
What do you guys do?
What are you doing right now?
We are in action.
I feel like Inla would give some sort of warning one about the skimmer other skimmer, but two as well about the trash moving.
So yeah, what do you say?
Hey guys.
It's a fun day, but we've got to keep moving.
We need to get back on the skimmer as quick as possible and it looks like we have company.
It'd be great if they could get caught in the trash avalanche.
Trash avalanche.
And LaSais to herself.
Interesting.
Okay, what are we doing?
What's the move?
Are we getting out of here or are we looking around here?
I think we got to look.
Yeah, we got to scrounge.
We just got to be super careful guys.
It's very uneven here.
Lots of rovens die in these kinds of situations.
It's okay.
Tank's not a roven.
Yeah, I'm good.
If only rovens die.
Tank is going to be really heartened.
Cool.
Got it.
Are there any waxy landmarks?
Yeah, there's a huge pine tree looking thing.
You can't tell if it was created or if it sprung from the earth, but it's massive.
It's pretty unusual to have something freestanding that hasn't fallen over like that, so that's a big landmark for you.
And then off in the horizon you can see the Low Point Basin, which is a huge lake of juice.
That's probably where this mist is rising off of, but that's still a ways away.
That's up by Pig Beach where the pigs are, the night pigs.
But yeah, anyway, it's daytime so you're fine.
You don't have to worry about the night pigs.
Yeah, what do you do?
I think Tank's going to go look by the big tree.
Are you taking the skimmer?
Are you on foot?
Yeah, I'm going to go on foot.
Oh, shit.
Okay.
What does it look like as you are traversing the trash piles?
Kind of like, I could feel like stuff just kind of falling away as I step through.
So it's kind of like I'm walking with big snow shoes on.
Do you have snow shoes?
No.
I mean, that could be an equipment thing.
That is true.
It's trash shoes.
No, I think Tank is just kind of winging it, just like trying to find stable ground as he goes to the giant wax tree.
Okay.
Do you want to roll something for me?
Yeah, I'll roll scrounge.
That is a four.
That's a four.
Okay.
I just want to know.
I have rolled different die for each one of these fours.
Incredible.
All right.
So you are very awkwardly, like you're like jumping off the edge of like a big industrial machine and you're just scrabbling up like a turned over cart.
You know, it's really awkward being out here in the wastes.
Your hands are cut up like just from earlier this morning.
You're just like, shit, you know, and that like kind of haze in the air.
Even through your respirator, you can feel it like it's really hard to fully block out juice.
So also, as we know, every time the juice is in play, any one that you roll is going to incur a juice burn.
Just so you know, it doesn't even have to be your highest one.
It's just anyone.
So yeah, and juice burns are not permanent conditions, but they are.
They take some time to get rid of.
So you are hopping out and scrabbling around.
You're out by this tree.
This wax kind of crunches under your feet.
It feels very strange here.
You probably don't come out in the trash very often, right?
No.
Yeah.
Okay.
Feels weird.
Feels bad.
You're not into it.
And you like rock up by this tree and you can feel shit moving deep, deep down below you.
You're like, oh, shit, you know, and you look out and you can see the low point basin and you can see you missed rising off it.
And you see the glint of something that looks a lot brighter than everything around it.
It looks like it has not been sandblasted by the, you know, acid rains and the fucking juice.
So, you know, it looks pretty new and it's out by Pig Beach pretty far away though.
We're going to call that one tick.
So maybe a couple of miles out.
You're like, is that it?
Like you can't quite tell, but it looks really bright to you.
I'm going to, I'm going to look back to the group and I'm going to like try to get their attention nonverbally.
And I'm just going to start doing a bunch of like hand signs that no one, like I told no one about.
And they make no sense to anyone.
So back with the group.
What is, what is Tank doing?
Do you know what's happening, Connie?
He's like doing this weird interpretive thing.
Is he trying to get our attention?
I mean, he has our attention.
I just don't know what any of this means.
Maybe it's part of the training that he does for tick ball.
Hey, don't move too much.
You're going to, you're going to shift the trash.
So the complication, the complication at this point strikes.
You feel this tingle in the back of your spine right before it happens.
You feel it more than hear it as something breaks orbit and something is going to hit the ground here soon.
You don't know how far off it is.
You don't know like what the deal is.
You're just like, shit, shit.
And you got to go now.
So that we're going to call that a four o'clock and it is three ticks.
So unless anyone would like to resist.
So tank, this is your role.
So you could resist if you wanted to.
However, this is a four o'clock called orbital strike.
Just so you know.
I will try to resist that.
Okay.
That's a five.
So one stress, one stress, one stress.
Okay.
So we're going to call that two ticks on orbital strike.
You have a little bit more time.
Let's see. So we've you've successfully removed one of your ticks.
So just for the listener, like it's not that it happened and then it didn't happen.
It's that I'm telling you what could happen and we're deciding how hard to push ourselves and what we're doing in these moments as time stretches out in front of us and we're reacting fast, fast, fast.
Let's talk about stress.
So stress is a core game mechanic.
Characters can choose to take on stress to advance their goals.
Each character has a stress track.
It's about nine ticks long, give or take.
And if they completely fill that track, they will instantly drop out of the mission and take on a trauma condition that affects their story and their character indefinitely.
So stress won't necessarily kill you, but it has huge ramifications.
And it's something we're being real careful about managing your stress is a huge part of the game.
So you like, what do you do?
And lies, you're like, like, shit, you know, this is happening.
We take cover. We need to take cover stat.
Yeah, what do you do on the skimmer?
All right. So I jump on the skimmer with Lottie and I'm motioning for Connie to get on with me.
We are trying, we're like, hey, we need to get over there to tank and we need to find cover immediately.
Lottie just starts speeding the skimmer over towards tank.
Cool. All right. You just scoop them up.
Oh!
You are scooped.
And where do we go? Where do we go in?
Well, I mean, I don't know. Tank, did you see something?
Yeah, yeah. Down by Pig Beach. There's something shiny.
Lottie's already accelerating that way.
I will say you're realizing that that is a low point.
And so if anything hits a lot of stuff falls gravity style to a low point.
So that's a more dangerous place to be.
I think Lottie unless directed otherwise is in a little bit of a panic and just heard a location and is moving.
Yeah. What do you guys say between you?
Pig, wait, Pig Beach. You said Pig Beach.
Yeah. Didn't you? Didn't you see my hand signs?
I saw them. I did not understand them.
We went over this flashback to us going over this.
Yes. Yes. Tank, what are you saying to endless? You figure out that your hand signs.
Look, okay. All right. So when when I make make the ear sign with my the hands over my ears, the bunny rabbit thing. Okay.
Pig, but I won't be able to see you because it's night. You're in the middle of it represents night pigs.
It's not me only doing it at night. You're in the middle of the dinner rush.
However, it is standing there screaming at you over this conversation.
There's just like orders taking up behind you. Sorry. We flashback to our present day.
You did the night pig sign. How is I supposed to know what that meant?
Because I told you right there. There's night pigs at Pig Beach.
You are slashing down this trash pile. You're hurling over shit. You're going really fast.
Lottie, you're an amazing driver. We're really proud of you. Someone roll something.
What are we doing here? It sounds like Lottie is the one taking action here by driving. So what would you like to roll?
I can't think of anything other than touch that really it would be.
Okay. What about find? Oh, yeah, I would allow a finder.
Trying to like find a safe location or something like that? Well, it depends. Are you trying to find a safe location or are you trying to go through the shiny thing?
Yeah. Nobody has stressed the importance of finding a safer location.
Lottie says she is still heading over to Pig Beach. I think and Lowe would be like really acutely aware.
Like you probably have some gut sense of like how the trash piles move, but you have not communicated this.
You absolute bitch Natalie. When will we buy her cooked dice? Come on.
That was a six, folks. I'm going to fight all of you.
I got a six. All right. We know. It's Natalie rolling. So there's a six. Okay.
So I perfectly succeeded on the finder all going towards the thing that doesn't spot it in the shiny, but we're probably pretty far from it.
So I'm going to say that Lottie spotted like a good path for the skimmer to get like a really good vantage point on what it is.
Yeah. And that's where she's headed now. I'm going to say this is some fast and furious shit where like the trash pile is shifting under you, even just the concussive force of something enter like falling from orbit.
It's already kind of cracking down and you see like something like screaming metal and you're like, oh, a ramp and you just like you're just like smiling pleasantly.
Your gray hair is like flapping behind you like incredible. So take two on your locate object clock.
Yeah. So this is the point when Enla realizes that they don't have the spidey senses that she does. And she's like, guys, do you not feel that something is moving like this whole this whole pile is shifting.
There's something coming into orbit like we have got to find some cover.
Connie, how are you doing? Also, how often have you been in the wastes right?
Not very often at all. And I guess to respond. I'm will be fine. We can we can take cover behind the lake of trash, maybe or something. We'll find something down there.
It's more important that we find the meat, the delivery, even if we get crushed in the process.
We won't. The weave is with us today. But but but pig pig beach is a low point. It's entirely possible that we'll get completely covered in trash.
I have faith in our prospects. Pray for us Connie.
I think examine would be the right one to see, I guess to try to find good cover or at least to see if I can tell what how the trash is going to fall.
Oh, I like that as like, OK, a tapestry thing like you're trying to see the weave like I'm trying to see the way the trash will fall based on the hill.
OK, all right, roll something for me. Examine. Sure. Yeah, risky standard. Yeah, risky standard. Thank you. That's a five. Incredible. OK.
What are you seeing as like you're you're looking behind you at this higher up mountain, you're seeing the wax forest, you're seeing these like superstructures and industrial machines that are tilted at crazy angles already.
And you're feeling that pressure in your gut. Like what do you see as you see it all fall into place?
Like what I see is a bunch of simulations almost running in my head and there's one spot like basically because of the way that the trash has fallen, there's a large like metal piece of ship or something that's like V shaped that will part anything falling well enough that it might not keep us safe forever,
but it'll definitely provide more cover and make sure that we're not fully submerged in trash if it were to come to that.
Yeah, what does it feel like to be like, yeah, I can still access this like this is still part of me, you know.
It feels as good as it always does. I'm very connected to the universe.
Manoeuvre us to this corner here that that ship, that piece of ship that'll save us.
And then I like look down for approval like isn't that good.
Yeah, it's funny. Yes. All right. And then your consequence strikes and the camera cuts away to a different skimmer, a further out skimmer and we see piloting this skimmer.
Also this skimmer is like nicer than yours. This is a big tough black skimmer. It's kind of like imagine a pontoon boat, you know, it's like it's just chugging along steady and the person driving it is wearing a very, very crazy mask.
It looks like a huge cube, but it's covered in like checkerboard, but the checkerboard is bright, bright teal and like hurts to look at hazmat yellow on all sides.
So like when you look at this thing, you're just like Jesus Christ, you know, pretty, pretty bad, pretty bad poison.
Yeah. And so we see this person piloting her skimmer and she's got a couple people on board with her.
And critically, she's also covered in like, you know, the bandoliers, it's like the belts that cover you.
That is covered in whistles and in dried meats and in various objects.
And she is like trying to whistle through her mask and her mask is a huge cube. So it's just coming up.
Fuck. And she like hugs her, like, you know, heaves it up a little bit, sticks her mouth out, tries to whistle without breathing in at all.
And she does like quick, I won't do it because microphones, like a couple of quick whistles that are clearly signals to something.
And we see like zooming alongside the skimmer, we see three little vertebeasts.
They're about as big as Whippets, the dogs. They are like various acidic poison frog colors.
They look real fucked up and bad. Like these are the dog weasel worm things and they are just so fast and so long.
And like a couple of them hop onto the skimmer with her like horrible noise, tongues lulling out.
And she like reaches in her vest and pulls out. It's a really, really small container of something.
And she like holds it up to this vertebeast and like horrible dog noises, pugs on crack, it's bad.
And then they go diving off and these things running through the trash is like a joy to see.
Like these things have evolved specifically to survive on trash planet.
So they're just rippling through, they're just fast in a way.
And we are going to tick too on Doink's Burgary finds the pod.
You're listening to a Hypergallant production. If you like what you heard, please leave us a rate and review. Check out our website on hypergallant.com.
Thank you to the Dren, the Surf's, Crime of Passing, Herbert's again and our very own Rabbit Sullivan for the use of their music.
Thank you to Morgan Davy, Malcolm Craig and Gregor Hutton for the use of their game A-State.
Like a swarm of...
A swarm of what? Tell us about the swarm.
Trash bees. You're making me edit this together. You cannot interrupt.
No, keep that in, keep that in.
Sorry, I just like to make people look mad.