CRACKLE! CRACKLE! Emily Slaughter isn’t messing around anymore with brunch and being nice to Shelly’s friends. She needs answers and she needs them now.
We’re playing Masks for this campaign! You can access a running list of all the NPCs from Campaign 4 here.
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Cast & Crew
- Game Master, Co-Producer: Eric Silver
- Co-Host, Co-Producer, Sound Designer, Composer (Connor Lyons): Brandon Grugle
- Co-Host, Co-Producer, Editor (Shelley Craft): Julia Schifini
- Co-Host, Co-Producer (Rowan Rosen): Amanda McLoughlin
- Artwork: Allyson Wakeman
- Multitude: https://multitude.productions
About Us
Join the Party is an actual play podcast with tangible worlds, genre-pushing storytelling, and collaborators who make each other laugh each week. We welcome everyone to the table, from longtime players to folks who’ve never touched a roleplaying game before. Hop into our current campaign: the drama and excitement of a superhero high school! Or marathon our completed stories: Campaign 3 for a pirate story set in a world of plant- and bug-folk, the Camp-Paign for a MOTW game set in a weird summer camp, Campaign 2 for a modern superhero game, and Campaign 1 for a high fantasy story. And once a month we release the Afterparty, where we answer your questions about the show and how we play the game. New episodes every Tuesday.
Transcript
Amanda: Last time on Join the Party.
Eric: Those masked agents running around, following Connor, turns out they've been looking for his aunt the entire time, and they think that Connor has something to do with it. And that's the thing he does, because the events of her disappearance syncs up for when Connor fed Mr. Sizzle, the Heroes 4 Hire letter and Anita isn't on this liminal plane anymore. Rowan and Connor try to make a deal to fix this with Todd Swapper, who could probably bring Anita back, but they need to give him $50,000, a body, and a place to actually do all the things where no one can see. Good thing, an adult shows up to help everyone. It's Emily Slaughter, who wants to take the kids to "brunch," quote-unquote, and tries to kidnap Connor by putting him in a helicopter. Rowan creates a gravity mode to separate her and Connor from Emily, Craft and many, many Hero 4 Hire goons who tumble out of that helicopter. And it's pretty tense right now. I wonder if a situation like this is in those raising a teen books. Hmm, probably not. Let's get the party started.
Eric: Hey, all you super friends. You want to get good together? You want to skip math together? You want to punch bad guys together? It's not that I haven't used my words, it's that nobody listens to me and I can shoot fire. 1, 2, 3, 4.
[theme]
Amanda: So I want to posit an idea. I made a moat separating the baddies in the helicopter from the party. And—
Brandon: Uh-hmm.
Amanda: —everyone knows, famously, moats are filled with, like, alligators or snakes.
Julia: Hmm.
Amanda: Do you want to, like, come up with, maybe, like, a scary space bug that is in Rowan's moat? Like, maybe little, like, ticks, but they're made of gravity, and they, like, cling to you even harder than a normal tick would? Maybe it's like a centipede with a lot of legs, and the leggies are like little arms of static, like a—
Brandon: Ugh.
Amanda: —ancient Pokémon?
Julia: Can I suggest that it's just Vincent D'Onofrio from Men in Black?
Brandon: Huh?
Amanda: Hmm.
Julia: In his human skin, not even in the bug skin. In the human skin.
Amanda: It's pretty good.
Brandon: Just one of him, or lots of many versions of him?
Julia: Just a lot of—
Amanda: Would you rather fight 100-foot Vincent D'Onofrio or 101-foot Vincent D'onofrios? I know my answer.
Eric: This feels like the discussion that happens at a comic book shop while I'm trying to pick up this issue.
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Brandon: It 100% is.
Eric: Three 15-year-olds are having the single dumbest conversation I've ever heard, and I'm like, "Can I just get Campaign Four issue 14? Is that okay? Can I have that?"
Brandon: "Yeah, but Daredevil could, like, smell his height, so like, Kingpin won't— will be like, 'It won't matter that he's a 100 feet tall man."
Eric: "You're 13 years away from being able to rent a car. Go away."
Julia: Wow.
Eric: "Also, I'm— also, I tripped over your skateboard, and now my ankle is broken, so I'm suing you. Congratulations."
Brandon: "I don't have insurance, I'm 13."
Eric: "Well, your parents haven't have insurance."
Brandon: "My parents are dead. Bye."
Amanda: I can tell you what, this shop does not have slip and fall insurance.
Julia: Definitely not.
Eric: Brandon, why didn't you play that 13-year-old orphan that you just created? You should have played that instead of Connor.
Brandon: Well, you know, Connor kind of is a—
Julia: He's an emotional orphan.
Brandon: —emotional orphan.
Amanda: Oh, no, but now he's also a literal orphan, because his aunt has disappeared.
Brandon: That's true. An orphan twice over.
Julia: Uh-oh.
Amanda: Ooh.
Julia: Uh-oh.
Eric: When you do it to yourself, I don't know if I have as much sympathy for them anymore.
Julia: Do you have a good relationship with Anita's husband or spouse?
Brandon: You know, Julia, I hadn't thought about it, so probably not as good as with Anita, but I would have been okay.
Julia: The Tigre, him or herself?
Brandon: Yeah.
Amanda: I think we said him.
Brandon: I don't care. She can be as—
Julia: We can retcon it, I don't care.
Brandon: She can be as gay as the day is long.
Julia: Uh-huh. Quite long.
Brandon: Which is quite long.
Amanda: And it was the summer solstice four days ago, so it's as gay as it gets.
Julia: I was just saying.
Amanda: Uh-hmm.
Eric: They have— Marco Tigre works for the Fed, so he's—
Julia: That's really good.
Eric: They're really busy, so they have, like, different— they probably have, like, different houses that also, like, see each other.
Julia: Marco Tigre is a great name.
Brandon: That is really a good name, actually.
Amanda: Respect.
Julia: Damn.
Eric: Yeah, he's— he has multiple degrees in economics.
Amanda: Wow.
Brandon: That's so nice. He— when he goes to parties, he talks to all of his friends about like, "Yeah, you guys remember that point— 0.25 rate increase? That was me."
Julia: "That was me."
Amanda: "Uh-hmm. You're welcome."
Brandon: That was— we call it the Marco increase.
Eric: That's how Connor describes him, and he's like, "Yeah, we're not really close. Nice, we're not close." The cover of Midterms part IV, issue 14, is the three of you as fantasy heroes fighting the Vincent D'Onofrio, that is— who is also a dragon who's coming out of the moat that Rowan made.
Brandon: Oh, no.
Amanda: Eric, how did you know my dream?
Eric: And finally, for the first time ever, we're going to say which DnD class each one of your characters are.
Julia: Wow. Oh, I have to think about this now.
Brandon: I mean, I'm, obviously, a barbarian, right?
Julia: Yeah, that makes sense.
Brandon: I gotta be.
Eric: Connor in a loincloth is— shows so much organ.
Julia: It does.
Brandon: Yeah, but what would he be wearing on the cover, though, Eric?
Julia: Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
Brandon: Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
Amanda: His Paladin for Rowan, sort of like oath-bound, you know? Like—
Brandon: Oath-bound to the universe.
Amanda: Yeah.
Brandon: That's beautiful.
Eric: The biggest cross necklace.
Julia: Hmm.
Eric: It's so ornate, so many jewels.
Amanda: And then when you look close enough, it says, "I'm Jewish. This is for work."
Julia: I think Craft is technically a sorcerer, but dresses like a really hippie druid.
Amanda: Cool.
Eric: Hmm.
Brandon: That's good.
Eric: I like that.
Julia: Yeah.
Brandon: And, Eric, what are you?
Eric: Oh, I'm the Dungeon Master.
Brandon: Oh, okay.
Amanda: Oh.
Eric: I'm holding a big, oversized D 20.
Julia: Nice. Classic.
Eric: And throwing it at Vincent D’Onofrio.
Brandon: They should make a Dungeon Master class just for funsies.
Julia: Hmm.
Eric: Oh, Brandon, you obviously haven't spent time in the bowels of Dungeons & Dragons Reddit as much as I have.
Julia: No.
Brandon: No, no, no. I don't want these fucking plebeian amateurs to make one. I want the one and only authoritative source of Dungeons & Dragons.
Julia: Mage Hand Mike.
Amanda: Yeah.
Brandon: Mage Hand Mike.
Eric: All right, so let's hop back to where we ended the last episode. 20 agents have their ray guns focused on Connor, because Connor definitely— there's no— he didn't do anything, so I don't know why that's happening. Rowan has put up a gravity dome protecting Connor, but on the outside, Craft is being parentally held back by Emily Slaughter, and the entire time, a helicopter is whirring its rotator blades and it's really action-y and dramatic. And the whole time, it's just, "Womp, womp, womp, womp," but you can't hear anything. It's loud. This is a thing where the entire football field is having all of its grass pushed out while it's happening, and everyone is kind of shouting over each other. Hey, I would say, personally, I would say, you're entering a battle against a dangerous foes team, huh?
Amanda: Yay.
Julia: I think so.
Amanda: We sure do need the team points.
Julia: I think so.
Brandon: Well, Connor would— I don't know mechanically how this makes sense, but Connor would like to try to negotiate the situation, but I don't know if that's part of the battle, or if that's before the battle takes place.
Amanda: Brandon, we sure need the team points. That's my goal.
Eric: Let's do this first and the— Connor can see if he can negotiate his way out, but I think some shit is going down.
Brandon: Okay.
Eric: All right. So we start by adding two to the team pool, so now you are up to two. Congratulations.
Brandon: Wee.
Julia: Wa-hoo.
Amanda: Much better than before.
Brandon: I love team points.
Julia: Better than zero.
Eric: Who is the leader of your team?
Julia: Connor.
Amanda: Connor.
Brandon: Me.
Eric: Does Connor have influence over every teammate?
Julia: Yes.
Eric: Bang. That's another one.
Brandon: Yay.
Julia: Huzzah.
Brandon: Three.
Eric: Each of you, tell me your purpose in this fight.
Amanda: Protect Connor and not let them get him.
Julia: Yeah. Yeah.
Eric: Connor, is that your purpose?
Brandon: My purpose is to deescalate and get everyone to calm the fuck down and find out what happened to one Anita Tigre.
Amanda: And not to be kidnapped, right?
Brandon: You know, if that happens, it happens.
Julia: Listen, if you want to get kidnapped—
Eric: I would say everyone does not have the same purpose in this fight. No team—
Amanda: That's okay.
Eric: No points.
Julia: Fair.
Amanda: That's okay.
Julia: Fair enough.
Eric: Hey, does anyone mistrust Connor or the team?
Amanda: Nah.
Julia: No.
Brandon: I don't think so.
Amanda: We're locked in.
Brandon: I mean, I trust myself.
Eric: And does Connor distrust the team?
Brandon: Hmm. Distrust? I don't think— it's so gray, because I don't think he distrust the team. But that doesn't mean that he's worried about his slipping leadership and influence, you know?
Eric: That's fine. Okay. The next one, I would say, we are going to remove a team because your team is ill prepared or off-balance.
Brandon: Hmm. Okay.
Julia: Yeah. One of us is separated from the other two, so that makes sense.
Amanda: We also thought we were going to brunch, and now we're in a fist fight, which I know happens, but it’s never fun.
Julia: Well, not all of us thought we were going to brunch. Okay?
Eric: That's the one I was referring to, that— then you— someone— in the back of two of your minds, just still thinking about Eggs Benedict.
Amanda: Yeah.
Brandon: Yeah. Have y'all ever— have been dreaming about pancakes, then had to fight someone? It's tough.
Amanda: Yeah, on the Long Island Railroad every time I take it.
Eric: Here's an interesting thing, Connor, if you'd like to, you can mark a condition to avoid removing a team from the pool, because we've already— we've removed one. Would you like to mark another condition?
Amanda: You're at four, right?
Julia: You can't, it's not the prom yet.
Brandon: So—
Julia: You can't do it.
Brandon: Yeah, I have four out of five tracked already. The last one is hopeless, and that's to unleash my powers, which, like, seems like I should not do that.
Eric: Got it.
Julia: And it's also not the prom yet.
Brandon: And it's also not the prom yet.
Amanda: Thank you, Julia.
Brandon: So—
Julia: I will keep at that joke until we get to the prom episode. Damn it.
Brandon: We're never going to get to a prom episode. So no, I don't think I will do that.
Eric: Brandon, can you make a mark of you saying, "We're never gonna get to a prom episode"? I'm sure it won't come up later.
Brandon: Yeah, yeah.
Eric: Cool. All right. Bang. So you are at two team. All right. So back to the action. The agents piling out of the helicopter trained their ray guns on Connor with Rowan holding the moat open. One of the agents all with their masks, they're different light, bright masks. They're all different colors. Well, some of them— all the different colors of the rainbow, each of them with light, bright smiles kind of inserted into the masks.
Brandon: Oh, Happy Pride.
Eric: And one of them shouts—
Eric (as agent): Connor Lyons, get into the helicopter and we will talk about what happened to your aunt, but you need to come quietly and quickly.
Brandon (as Connor Lyons): Okay, okay, everyone, everyone, hold on. Rowan, Craft, hang on. Emily Slaughter, hold on. Don't use your sword. Don't slaughter.
Eric (as Emily Slaughter): I'm not doing anything. I'm just talking to my daughter.
Brandon (as Connor): Mask-less agents that are fearful and strong and powerful, we can talk about this.
Eric (as agent): We're very much masked. We're all— you don't know who we are. We have masked up. We're masked.
Brandon (as Connor): Yep, I definitely can't hear your identity card in your back pocket.
Eric: You can hear their identity card?
Brandon: That was— it's true. I just said it out loud.
Eric: Oh, I know— man, there's so much we're learning about Connor's powers.
Brandon: And Connor is like, yeah, holding his hands out to sort of both sides and telling them to hang on. And Connor's like—
Brandon (as Connor): Okay, I'm not gonna come with you, but I feel like there is a middle ground we can reach here where, like, we trade information without trading myself, my body. So, like, what do you think is happening? And maybe I'll tell you what I think is happening and maybe there's somewhere in the middle that we can— you know?
Brandon: Can I power negate the helicopter so I can stop yelling?
Eric (as agent): You are long past the negotiation phase. Come with us and tell Miss Rosen to drop the barrier.
Brandon (as Connor): Well, no, I'm not gonna drop the barrier for now, because that's the only thing that's protecting us from you.
Eric: All of the agents charge up their guns.
Brandon (as Connor): Emily, Emily?
Eric: And Rowan, if you want to keep the barrier up, you're gonna have to use another burn.
Amanda: Yeah, we are.
Eric: Okay. How many— how much burn do you have?
Amanda: This will be my second of three.
Eric: Okay, wonderful. So, yeah, all of them fire on the barrier. [shots]
Brandon (as Connor): Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Eric: And Rowan, you can hold it up.
Amanda: Yeah, Rowan is visibly shaking and under her breath, maybe you can hear this Connor, but she's just muttering—
Amanda (as Rowan Miriam Rosen): Okay, okay. We got this, we got this, we got this.
Amanda As in her head, Voidie-Lynn says—
Amanda (as Voidie-Lynn): Doesn't it feel good to put on a show of power, sweetheart? Now, don't you want to awe them?
Amanda: Everyone goes, "No, no, no." And she's vibrating, holding this barrier in place.
Brandon: Love it.
Julia: Hmm.
Brandon: Connor turns to Emily and is like—
Brandon (as Connor): Emily, could you stop them, please? So we could talk through this.
Eric (as Emily Slaughter): Why would I do that? Sounds like we told you exactly what we need you to do, and you're not doing it.
Brandon (as Connor): Well, I don't think the US Supreme Court's gonna look kindly upon an organization that shoots on minors.
Eric (as Emily Slaughter): Oh, the US Supreme Court, that's so cute. You think they're gonna do something about it.
Eric: And I'm gonna shift your mundane up and your danger down, Connor.
Julia: Damn.
Brandon: Okay, well, I'm gonna resist that.
Eric: All right. I mean, I think you should take it because an adult's talking to you, but you're gonna resist it—
Brandon: I think I'm gonna resist it.
Eric: —you're gonna resist it if you want to. Remember, just roll straight up.
Julia: Hey, Eric, while Emily is distracted by Connor, can Craft text Wraith and be like—
Julia (as Shelley Craft): Hey, need some help by the football field. It'd be cool if you could come.
Julia: Also Vesper, group chat with all the hot girls in my life.
Eric: Group chat—
Amanda: Damn.
Eric: What's your group chat called?
Julia: All the hot girls in my life.
Amanda: Julia, if you have that chat—
Eric: Nice.
Amanda: —I'll be really sad if I'm not in it.
Julia: No. Girlfriend.
Amanda: Okay, okay, okay.
Eric: Rowan's phone buzzes, too.
Julia: Yeah, Rowan's phone—
Amanda: Yes.
Julia: Rowan is in that group chat.
Eric: Yeah, yeah. Vesper says—
Eric (as Vesper): Oh, that was you? LOL.
Eric: And Wraith says—
Eric (as Wraith): Right now? You need me right now?
Julia (as Craft): ASAP.
Eric: Connor, what do you got?
Brandon: I rolled a nine, so I get to choose one. Clear a condition or mark potential by immediately acting and prove them wrong. Shift one label up and one label down of my choice, cancel their influence and take plus one forward against them. I think— ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. I think I'm just gonna cancel my influence and take plus one forward against them.
Eric: Okay. So the next time that you do something to Emily Slaughter, you can do that, and Emily Slaughter can't shift your labels anymore. What do you say? What do you say to reject your influence?
Brandon (as Connor): As long as we're still here in America and there are still good people—
Brandon: This is— I don't know why I'm saying this. I don't want to talk about America.
Eric: Because it's— because there's a helicop— a Black Hawk helicopter behind you, so the implication is that you're in like— you're in a war movie at the moment. I think you're—
Amanda: Got it, got it, got it.
Eric: I think it's in your head.
Brandon: Okay.
Brandon (as Connor): As long as there are still good people out there who are doing the right thing, justice will prevail. I just need you to stop, okay? Can you just stop this so we can talk? If you ever want to go to brunch with us ever again.
Eric (as Emily Slaughter): There's nothing to stop. Tell Miss Rosen, tell Rowan to put the barrier down, and we're gonna move forward with figuring out what's going on. But you need to come with us, because if you don't come with us, that's resisting, and the US Supreme Court doesn't take kindly to people resisting.
Brandon (as Connor): Aren't you—
Brandon: Does the helicopter just say Heroes 4 Hire on it?
Eric: Oh, no, it's just a black helicopter.
Julia: Oh, I thought we had the invisible helicopter.
Eric: No, the in— that's a different helicopter.
Julia: She did offer the invisible helicopter, I'm just saying.
Eric: She did offer it. She did offer it.
Brandon: Can I assess the situation and see if I think these are, like, private contractors, or if they're, like, actual law enforcement people?
Eric: Yeah, that's a great— yeah, that's a great question. Why don't you assess the situation?
Brandon: Thank you. I will.
Eric: You can roll plus superior.
Julia: Should I tell Emily like, "Hey, Emily, if you give me $50,000, I can get Anita back"? Is that a bad idea or a good idea?
Brandon: It's a great idea.
Amanda: Better idea than we had.
Brandon: Someone should also roll this, because I believe I have a minus four.
Julia: Jesus.
Amanda: Oh, my.
Julia: I'll also assess the situation to see if telling Emily that's a good idea.
Eric: Brandon called it, so he has to do it.
Julia: Okay, sorry. Go ahead.
Brandon: Well, I did roll a seven minus four for three.
Eric: Oh, nuts.
Julia: Mark potential, buddy.
Eric: Oh, nuts.
Amanda: Oh, boy.
Eric: You take your eye off the immediate situation to try to take in what's going on around you, to like— to zoom it, to hear their ID badges. You're trying to literally smell what their employee status is. At that moment, Rowan concentrating so hard on the barrier. Craft texting in her pocket. You break concentration for just a second, and one of the agents kind of grabs their mask and takes it off, and throws it at the barrier.
Brandon: Hmm.
Eric: And it makes an incredibly low sound. It goes [hums] and ray— and starts to radiate off. And your powers, you've never felt this in reverse. When you try to shut down someone else's powers, there is a kind of, like, understanding the frequency of how they work, understanding how it fits. But now, it's like you're being hacked in reverse. You're feeling— this is like the opposite tone. This is the anti-harmonious tone.
Brandon: It's like a noise-canceling headphones, where they play the sound back in reverse and it cancels. That's how it cancels the noise.
Julia: That's how those worked?
Eric: Right. And— because you're— you are your powers, you have been transformed into your powers. They are trying to literally shut you down.
Brandon: Hmm.
Eric: It is vibrating through the barrier. So Rowan, you can use another burn to try to hold it or you can drop it, but this is still going to affect Connor even inside.
Brandon: Because I— if my job to be technical and professional, it's— they don't play it in reverse. They play it a 180 degrees out of phase.
Julia: Cool.
Eric: That's what I mean. That's what I'm saying.
Brandon: I just need to say that.
Eric: That's what I'm saying.
Julia: You're blowing my mind, man.
Amanda: They make the waves kiss in different directions.
Julia: Ah.
Brandon: Exactly. And then they cancel each other out.
Eric: Yeah, they're making— this EMP is kissing your powers, but upside down like Spider-Man.
Julia: Wow.
Amanda: And sometimes the kiss is bad.
Brandon: Hmm.
Amanda: And that's what's happening.
Brandon: Uh-hmm.
Eric: Yeah.
Amanda: Eric, I'm gonna drop the barrier, and instead I'm gonna use my final burn to use the flare snatch. So I'm going to spend my last burn to use my powers to seize any object up to the size of a person, from someone within view, and it seems like a great opportunity to grab Emily's katana from her.
Julia: I'm worried that it's soulbound and she'll just be able to recover it, but I love this energy.
Eric: I love that.
Brandon: Get that sword. Get that sword.
Eric: Can you describe that?
Brandon: Get that sword.
Eric: Yeah. Describe it. What do you do?
Amanda: So I think the barrier dissipates, and you see the static, like, dissolve into air, but the part in the very middle between Rowan and Emily and the helicopter and the threats coalesces into a lightning bolt, streaks across the space between us, almost like a javelin being thrown, wraps around the Katana and yoinks it right out of Emily's holster. And it flips back to Rowan like a rubber band. And I'm gonna attempt to hold it by the hilt. Am I able to?
Eric: Yeah, you can hold it.
Brandon: Yeah.
Eric: At the same time, Connor, the EMP, the reverse EMP blast, is affecting you and vibrating your entire body.
Brandon (as Connor): [grunts]
Brandon: That's what Connor sounds like.
Eric: Well, it's probably a little less goofy, because I need you to roll to take a powerful blow.
Julia: Fair enough.
Eric: Because you are— your entire body is being shaken.
Brandon: Unfortunately, I mean, he can't choose what it sounds like. It's— it might sound goofy even when it's serious, so—
Eric: Well, I guess I'm talking to Brandon about the level of goofiness that he's masking himself with while he's about to get knocked out of this fight, but that's--
Julia: Brandon, you have to roll a two in order to not-- to resist.
Eric: Okay, so you're rolling plus conditions. This is a roll, so you get plus four because you have four conditions marked.
Brandon: Great.
Julia: Brandon, just roll a super roll.
Amanda: We can roll up. We can roll up.
Julia: It's your specialty.
Amanda: Yes.
Brandon: I can just roll two.
Julia: You can just roll a two. Easy-peasy.
Brandon: I rolled an eight.
Julia: Oh, geez. 12, that's a 12.
Eric: Eight plus four is a 12, so you have to choose one. Remove yourself from the situation, flee, pass out, et cetera. Lose control of yourself or your powers in a terrible way, or you can choose two options from the seven to nine list, and those are— that might be tough.
Brandon: So if I lose control or my powers in a terrible way, like, I can't be like, "Oh, I lose my powers in a terrible way and I blow up the helicopter, and it's scary." Right?
Eric: No, you can't. No, you can't do that.
Brandon: Okay. What would that— like what would that look like?
Eric: I guess you could, but then you'd look like a monster, and also that would have residual damage if you wanted to do that—
Brandon: Got it.
Eric: —for example.
Brandon: Okay.
Eric: Because I guess the word terrible in a kind of biblical sense.
Brandon: Got it. Okay.
Julia: Hmm.
Eric: Like the opposite of awesome in the biblical sense.
Julia: Hmm.
Amanda: When you say the biblical sense, it means they had sex, right?
Julia: Yeah.
Brandon: Now, that's when you say you know someone.
Eric: Yeah. Connor's gonna beget 20 children.
Julia: All of the Heroes 4 Hire agents become pregnant from Connor.
Amanda: Now, we're comic books, baby.
Eric: And we have to hear about each one of their children who beget other children, who beget—
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: —other children.
Julia: It's a whole chapter.
Amanda: Uh-hmm.
Brandon: The Connerism, Connorific religions. I think I'm going to remove myself from the situation.
Eric: Hmm.
Brandon: Because that's sort of what I want to do anyway. So it's a little bit of a win-win on my part, but also it's embarrassing.
Julia: Fair. Are you gonna flee? Are you gonna pass out? Like, what's the situation?
Brandon: I'm gonna flee, but I'm seeing if it's okay with Eric, because that's a little bit, like, positive.
Eric: I think— yeah, that's the issue. You can flee, but I think you're gonna get picked up, which I think is fine. You can get picked up somewhere else, and this situation is de-escalated, but I think that you will get picked— I think if you try to remove yourself from this situation fold— you're kind of folding, I guess in a poker term. Like you're folding, you're getting out of the— it's not good, but you are getting out of this situation, but you did lose.
Brandon: I think maybe then I'll just pass out.
Julia: Hmm.
Brandon: So at least there's some opportunity for my teammates to, like—
Amanda: Yeah.
Brandon: —protect me, at least.
Amanda: I like that.
Julia: Yeah, you can do that.
Eric: Yeah, if you want to lose your control of your powers, too. I just think that it needs to have some sort of negative— there has to be negative implications of it.
Brandon: No, I think Connor has never experienced, yeah, this sort of out of phase power negation thing that they got going on.
Eric: Uh-hmm.
Brandon: So it's sort of, like, just really overwhelming and sort of like, yeah, just canceling his brain waves, and he just, like, immediately passes out.
Eric: Oh, I have an interesting thing. Let me know if you like this. As Connor passes out with this reverse power EMP affecting him, he falls to his knees, and for a moment, his skin becomes opaque again, and he is this regular 17-year-old boy. Like I can see the Insert Panel of just, like, the sketch of you as a regular-looking kid with, like— delicately your legs over each other, so we don't see your junk. And—
Brandon: I'm still wearing clothes.
Eric: I mean, I don't know. I think this artist wanted to use their, their figure drawing classes.
Julia: Anatomy skills.
Eric: Yeah, their anatomy skills. He falls to the ground, and then flips back to Connor's transparent form, and then splits into goo.
Brandon: Ugh.
Julia: Oh, no.
Brandon: But Eric, was he, like, really handsome for a second, though?
Eric: Oh, he was, man. He really was.
Julia: He would have been captain of the football team.
Brandon: Yeah. He's like fucking presidential handsome over there.
Julia: Wow.
Amanda: He would definitely had sex by junior prom, at latest.
Julia: A 100%.
Eric: And you know who sees that when you fall over? Wraith and Vesper come running up to the field.
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: Are they singing H-O-T-T-O-G-O?
Eric: He comes running up to the field. They stop when they get the full scope of everything happening, and they're like—
Eric (as Vesper): Who— was that Connor for a second?
Julia (as Craft): Yeah, he was, like, hot for, like, one second.
Eric (as Vesper): Jesus. Geez.
Amanda (as Rowan): Dude, you can't call our teammate hot.
Julia (as Craft): I mean, yeah, I can, because he's not now.
Brandon: The puddle says—
Brandon (as Connor): You called my aunt hot.
Amanda (as Rowan): I learned my lesson.
Julia (as Craft): I also think calling someone hot is a way of supporting them. Comforting or supporting.
Eric: Emily Slaughter takes a step towards Rowan.
Eric (as Emily Slaughter): The sword isn't everything.
Amanda (as Rowan): Yeah, but it's something you care about, and Connor
is something I care about, so we're gonna do a one-to-one trade.
Eric (as Emily Slaughter): Connor for the sword. Connor for the Katana.
Brandon: Break the sword. Break the sword. Break the sword.
Amanda: How does it feel when I hold it, Eric?
Eric: I think it thrums in your hand. It's also jerk— trying to jerk away from you. Like, there's definitely power coursing through it.
Amanda: Hmm.
Eric: You know, it's glowing with this purple energy, and it's definitely trying to pull away back to Emily.
Julia: Isn't it, like, canonically, her brother's soul in the sword or something like that?
Eric: Yeah, probably.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: Yeah.
Julia: That seems like something we said last season.
Eric: Yeah, that's definitely so— I definitely did say that. That's a 100% true.
Brandon: I didn't listen to Campaign Two, though, so I don't know.
Julia: Fair enough.
Amanda: That's fair. As Rowan is holding on to the sword, Voidie-Lynn is whispering to her from her breast pocket, still in the glasses.
Amanda (as Voidie-Lynn): Wouldn't it feel good? Wouldn't it feel so good to use this kind of power? What if we just let it slip? Just let it go?
Amanda: Rowan is grabbing hold, knuckles white, tightly on the hilt of the sword.
Amanda (as Rowan): You got five seconds, Emily. Five.
Eric (as Emily Slaughter): Or what?
Amanda (as Rowan): Four.
Eric (as Emily Slaughter): Tell me what happens next, Rowan. If you're going to do a threat, the least you could do is tell me what you're threatening me with.
Brandon: Chop off her arm right now.
Amanda (as Rowan): The helicopter and all your friends are gonna go.
Eric (as Emily Slaughter): And that's what you want people to remember you as?
Amanda (as Rowan): Yeah, showing up for my team.
Eric (as Emily Slaughter): As the girl with gravity powers, killing 25 people, destroying property, doing it at the school. I don't know if the principal likes you even enough to forgive you for that.
Amanda (as Rowan): Three, two. Last chance.
Julia: I'm just gonna shock Emily.
Eric: I would love it if you directly engaged a threat. I think if you're doing violence, especially with someone who can do it in return, I think you gotta roll plus danger.
Amanda: Yes.
Julia: Great. My danger is a zero, but I'm not afraid, so—
Eric: Hmm, there we go.
Julia: Ugh.
Eric: Could be anything.
Julia: It's a four.
Brandon: That's not good.
Amanda: We can't even get you up.
Brandon: That's not good.
Julia: Of course, trying to face my assumed parental figure doesn't go well for me. That makes sense. That checks out.
Eric: Okay. What— yeah, what— so how are you shocking Emily?
Julia: I think Craft was just gonna reach at the back of Emily's neck and do an electrical shock to get her to pass out. I assume that maybe Emily realizes that's about to happen before it happens.
Eric: She definitely does. She grabs you by the forearm and throws you over—
Julia (as Craft): Ow.
Eric: —her shoulder at Rowan.
Julia (as Craft): Ow.
Eric: And I would like if Julia or Amanda decided who was going to roll to take a powerful blow.
Julia: I'll do that because I have way less conditions.
Eric: Okay. Rowan, do you catch Craft?
Amanda: No. I think Rowan is too occupied keeping the sword in her hand.
Eric: Okay. You don't catch Craft. Incredible.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: I think that Vesper and Wraith, their school Superhero Training kicks in and they both—
Brandon: Uh-hmm.
Eric: —pivot to try to grab Craft.
Julia: Cool. Which hot girl catches me? Because I did roll a four plus two for a six.
Amanda: Hey.
Julia: Yay. Low rolling this episode.
Amanda: Let's go.
Eric: You absolute motherfucker. All right, you still get the mark potential, but you say how you weather the blow? Yeah, they grab you. I think both of them at the same time. Like Vesper throws a bounce pad down and jumps on it to grab you, and Wraith—
Julia: Cool.
Eric: —kind of, like, swoops in like a ghoul, so they both from different angles, like two outfielders going for the same ball. They just both collide and grab you, and all three of you roll over.
Brandon: Oh, this was your dream all along, Craft.
Julia: Yeah. Listen—
Amanda: Damn.
Julia: —it's not a love triangle if everyone's into it.
Brandon: You know, Glimmer is gonna be pissed that Glimmer wasn't included in your hot girls chat.
Julia: Listen, yeah, maybe she was, maybe she wasn't. I don't know.
Eric: She texts two hours later, "Sorry, swimming."
Julia: Yeah, there you go.
Brandon: Rowan, you know what you could do? I was just thinking about this.
Amanda: What?
Brandon: You could make the sword denser by, like, condensing the gravity within it, and then maybe it's so hard after that, that it can cut through, I don't know, helicopter. I don't know.
Amanda: It's a cool idea.
Julia: It's a magical sword, it probably can already cut through a helicopter.
Brandon: Yeah. But even more, Julia.
Julia: Hmm.
Brandon: More.
Eric: A few of the agents jump back into the helicopter and bring out kind of like a larger version of one of those, like, pneumatic tube containers that they use in old banks.
Amanda: Oh, no.
Brandon: Don't like that.
Eric: So they have, like a bigger one, and they start to kind of, like, scoop Connor into the pneumatic tube.
Amanda: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Rowan is not gonna let that happen.
Eric: One of them has a mop. One of them has a broom.
Amanda: So funny. A squeegee.
Eric: Yeah, two of them are holding it. Sorry, no. I'm be— a squeegee would be too silly, Amanda.
Amanda: Okay, okay. You're right. Sorry, sorry.
Eric: That's too silly to deal with Brandon's character's body.
Amanda: You're right.
Eric: Just a regular push broom from Home Depot. That is the respect—
Amanda: Uh-hmm.
Eric: —that I'm giving to Connor.
Amanda: Absolutely not. Rowan is going to surge forward and with the sword in her hand, like she's leading a battle, reduce gravity all around the goons and the helicopter so they float up into the air, and then immediately restore it so they crash back down.
Brandon: Yeah.
Julia: Nice. A classic gravity move.
Brandon: A classic.
Amanda: Yeah. And I think as always, you see, like, gravitational waves rolling off of her hands, but this time, they're tinged with purple.
Julia: Ooh.
Brandon: Ooh.
Eric: You probably shouldn't take your eye off of Emily Slaughter. There's a panel of you seeing Connor getting swept up. And then there's another panel, and Emily Slaughter is, like, right in front of you, reaching for your arm. She has a decent amount of time on her hands, so she was able to go up to the Himalaya Mountains and learn the secret karate techniques up there. She's gonna try to take the sword away from you.
Amanda: Yeah, no, I slash at her.
Eric: Yeah. I want you to roll plus danger, because she's trying to do something to you.
Amanda: Okay. That is a five on the dice, plus one for danger. Anybody want to help me get to a seven?
Brandon: I'm a puddle.
Amanda: You are.
Julia: Yes. I think Craft is going to do a classic, "Look out" kind of thing. You know?
Amanda: Got it.
Julia: I think Craft knows how fucking wily Emily Slaughter is, and knows not to take her eyes off of Emily if she can help it. And so was tracking her, sees that Rowan gets momentarily distracted and does a classic team, "Watch out."
Eric: The speech bubble is so big that it refocuses everything. I love that.
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Eric: Let's take a team off, and that's up to seven.
Brandon: Yes.
Eric: Hell yes. All right, so that gives you a seven. You can do one of three things here, as Emily Slaughter is trying to challenge you.
Amanda: Uh-hmm.
Eric: Emily Slaughter is going to do three things to you, and you can resist one.
Julia: Damn.
Eric: Okay?
Amanda: Okay.
Eric: You can either resist damage that she does to you. You can resist her taking her sword back, or you can resist putting you into a hold for a moment for her to monolog in your face.
Julia: Let her monolog. She loves to monolog.
Eric: So two out of three of those things are going to happen. You're either gonna get hurt, she's gonna take the sword back, or she's going to, like, put you in a hold where she can speechify at you. You can resist one.
Amanda: Keeping the sword.
Eric: Got it. Keep the sword.
Brandon: Keeping the sword, keeping the sword.
Julia: Keeping the sword.
Eric: She faints one way, like she's going to break your arm over her knee, like in an action movie, and she gets behind you and puts you in a headlock.
Julia: Classic.
Eric: And she says—
Eric (as Emily Slaughter): I was never as powerful as you, but I have something that you don't. I have focus, I have experience, I have drive. You could do this. You could be better than me, but you'd have to change every single thing about you. That's what Shelley's doing. Shelley knows what's best for her.
Amanda (as Rowan): I already have a weird older sister figure, no.
Julia: Who's you're weird older sister figure, Miss Rita?
Amanda: Voidie-Lynn.
Julia: Oh yeah, shit.
Eric (as Emily Slaughter): Oh, Shelley didn't tell you about her deal? That's why she's getting such good grades now. It's because I pushed her there. You could be pushed too, but you need to let go of what you think is best.
Eric: And then before you can respond, she tightens the headlock, choking you. And I want you to mark another condition.
Amanda: Brings us to five, folks.
Brandon: Wee. What happens if you have five conditions and you're asked to mark another one?
Amanda: You're taken out. I lose consciousness or flee, and then the GM gets to tell me when I come back into another scene.
Eric: Oh, when you—
Brandon: Oh.
Eric: —get another condition marked?
Amanda: Uh-hmm.
Eric: Oh, shit. Hell yeah dude.
Julia: A hard player move.
Eric: Hell yeah dude.
Julia: Shit, dude. It's gonna be a real tight, almost—
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: —total party, not killed, but knocked out.
Brandon: Total party puddle.
Amanda: It's good.
Brandon: Sorry.
Amanda: Rowan's gonna make eye contact with Emily and let a little bit of fear shine into her eyes. Rowan's actually just gonna think about Voidie-Lynn, like, popping up when she's at a party or something, and just like the real fear, like, flashes into her eyes. And she's gonna choke out through the headlock.
Amanda (as Rowan): What? How? Go— how? What do you want?
Amanda: And I'm trying to pierce the mask for Emily.
Brandon: Hmm.
Eric: Sure.
Brandon: With the sword, stab her in the face?
Amanda: My word swords.
Eric: I think you can definitely do that, because she left herself open to monolog, so you can a 100% do that.
Amanda: Yeah. Cool. And so I'm rolling plus mundane.
Julia: I love when someone opens themselves up to monologuing.
Amanda: So I have a negative one to mundane, and I have every condition, so that's a further negative two. So I'm gonna roll and then it's minus three. Let's see what we get.
Eric: All right. Let's see what happens.
Amanda: Yep, that's a three minus three for a zero.
Julia: Oh, no.
Brandon: Yay.
Julia: That's so bad.
Amanda: Is that extra bad?
Eric (as Emily Slaughter): I want you to stop, but I guess I'll do it myself.
Eric: I'm putting another condition on you. You're choked out. She fully chokes you out. Your vision gets blurry and you fall limp onto the ground.
Amanda: Rowan's down.
Julia: Damn.
Brandon: Good luck, Julia.
Julia: Craft's still up. Craft's got a team of hot girls, and it's gonna be like—
Julia (as Craft): Don't let them take Connor.
Brandon: Hot girls to the rescue.
Amanda: Damn, dude.
Julia: Saving the hot guy, who's a puddle.
Eric: Wraith is now fully in her Wraith form and you say— and she says—
Eric (as Wraith): You can't see on my face, because it's disguised— but it's disguised by the folds of evil. Well, what the fuck is going on?
Julia (as Craft): They're trying to kidnap Connor because they think he made his aunt disappear and he didn't. And so it's really fucked up, so you gotta help us.
Eric: Vesper says—
Eric (as Vesper): You're sure he didn't?
Julia (as Craft): I mean, not in the way that they think he did.
Eric (as Vesper): What did they think that he did?
Julia (as Craft): I don't— I have— I don't know.
Eric: Pew, pew, pew, pew, pew, pew, pew. Scatter!
Julia (as Craft): Help.
Eric: All of the agents are firing ray guns at each of you—
Julia: Cool.
Eric: —as Wraith swoops away and Vesper does 10 dodge rolls—
Brandon: Yeah.
Eric: —in a row—
Julia: Cool.
Eric: —like Vesper's in a rogue like video game.
Julia: Cool.
Eric: Hey, Craft, what the fuck do you do?
Julia: Craft made a great conversation earlier with Coach Bowman and with Wordsmith.
Eric: Hmm.
Julia: Craft is like—
Julia (as Craft): Listen, powers are hard, but sometimes you need a moment where you're gonna, like, fucking do the thing, you know? And it sucks that Emily is here, and I feel a certain type of way about proving her wrong.
Julia: And so Craft is gonna try to start a hailstorm.
Brandon: Oh.
Julia: Like a chunky one.
Eric: Hmm.
Brandon: Chunky one.
Julia: Chunky hailstorm.
Eric: Really connect with your powers?
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: And what is— the hailstorm's just gonna, like, knock everybody out?
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: All right.
Julia: You know like a really intense hailstorm.
Eric: I mean, that'd be bad for a helicopter, truly.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: I like this. I think we get three panels kind of layered on top of each other, one of Connor getting pushed into the containment tube. Emily Slaughter pulling the sword out of Rowan's hands now that she's passed out, and then Craft just looking up to the sky, trying to channel her weather powers. Do you get any other bonuses here?
Julia: No.
Eric: All right. I guess you get plus freak, and there still is plus one team.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: So you could always selfishly do it. I think you could do it if you wanted to shift your freak up. I think it's selfish because you're doing this by yourself, but—
Julia: I have a plus one to freak right now.
Eric: Okay.
Julia: I'm feeling good.
Eric: We'll see what happens.
Julia: Feeling confident.
Eric: We'll see what happens. All right, unleash your powers to reshape the environment and overcome an obstacle.
Julia: Come on. [dice roll] 11. Five plus five plus one, five plus five plus one.
Amanda: Brandon, we should just quit the podcast, because Julia—
Julia: No.
Amanda: —on her own is doing much better.
Julia: I failed twice.
Brandon: Hot girls getting rolls.
Amanda: You're right. It's the hot girls.
Julia: I've also— you guys did way more rolls than me. In my mind, Craft was very much like— because it's Emily was very much frozen and inaction—
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: —for the first half of this combat. And so now she's actually fucking stepping up and doing something besides texting to bring people in.
Eric: Describe the hailstorm, describe what happens.
Julia: I think it starts kind of slow. I think the clouds sort of gather quickly in a very kind of scary way.
Eric: Sure.
Julia: And then they're like, you know, pea-sized first, and then they're more like quarters, and then they're like baseballs, and then softballs. And then suddenly there's huge chunks of ice just falling from the fucking sky.
Eric: Jesus Christ.
Brandon: And then icebergs fall from the sky.
Julia: Like shards of ice are falling like it's fucking— it's scary.
Eric: You get up, you— I mean, the helicopter explodes, right? Helicopter, ice storm, bad.
Julia: I almost spat my water everywhere.
Brandon: Hot girls spitting water.
Eric: Destroying massive amounts of equipment in large explosions. Whole page of the helicopter explosion.
Julia: Cool, as deserved.
Eric: As all of the agents and the agent flying the helicopter dive out, hit the deck, big explosion. That's—
Julia: Thought you're gonna say die. I was like, "Wait."
Brandon: Me, too.
Eric: Vesper hits the deck. A piece of shrapnel just flies through Wraith, and Emily Slaughter protecting her sword, dives down just right in front of her while you're standing there.
Julia: Craft's gonna kick her?
Eric: Emily Slaughter grabs your leg and says—
Eric (as Emily Slaughter): When could you learn— when did you learn to do that?
Julia (as Craft): Literally right now, bitch.
Amanda: Yes.
Julia (as Craft): You pissed me the fuck off.
Eric (as Emily Slaughter): I knew you could do it when you were focused.
Julia (as Craft): I'm not focused. I'm just fucking mad.
Eric (as Emily Slaughter): That's the same.
Julia (as Craft): No, it's not. What the fuck are you even talking about?
Julia: Kick, kick, kick.
Eric: She block— she blocks every single one. She does a back flip on the third— when you kick on the third one, pushing off of your leg.
Eric (as Emily Slaughter): It's the same. It's the fuel for you to be better. That's what you did all last year. You refused the fuel that could make you better. This is all I wanted for you.
Julia (as Craft): You are so fucking annoying, and this could have all been solved if you gave me $50,000. Like I have a solution to this, but you didn't fucking ask me, did you?
Eric (as Emily Slaughter): I'm supposed to ask you if you have a solution with for $50,000?
Julia (as Craft): Well, no, you should— you're supposed to ask me if I know how to solve a problem, rather than trying to kidnap my friend.
Eric (as Emily Slaughter): Right, because you always are so solution-oriented and are always offering to fix my problems, and not always the other way around. You still owe me like $500 for Costco, by the way.
Julia (as Craft): Whatever. Who fucking cares?
Eric (as Emily Slaughter): Why do you need $50,000?
Julia (as Craft): To bring Anita back.
Eric (as Emily Slaughter): How?
Julia (as Craft): I have a solution. I will also make it stop hailing if you will just fucking listen to me for once.
Eric (as Emily Slaughter): Agents, stand down. Let's hear what the girl has to say.
Brandon: That's all it took.
Eric: Yeah, someone should have said something.
Brandon: Good thing Connor's a puddle, because Connor is no longer the leader of this team.
Amanda: Hmm.
Julia: Craft lets it— at least just— it's just little pebbles of hail now, instead of— like it's still hailing, but it's not giant shards of ice falling from the sky.
Eric (as Emily Slaughter): Okay. Why do you need $50,000 to bring back Anita?
Julia (as Craft): Because we found someone who has the process where he can bring her back from what happened to her.
Eric (as Emily Slaughter): And you trust him? If he's giving you— if he's making you give him $50,000?
Julia (as Craft): I mean, I'm not gonna give him the money until he fucking does the thing. Obviously, I'm not fucking stupid.
Eric (as Emily Slaughter): No. No, you're not. And you need a pla— I assume you need a place to do this?
Julia (as Craft): Yeah.
Eric (as Emily Slaughter): A secure location that no one's gonna walk in in the middle of bringing someone back from wherever Anita is?
Julia (as Craft): Yeah. I mean, like, I thought I had a place, but, like, I made a cool deal with a ghost, so I figured he would be, like, kind of down for that if I— it doesn't fucking matter, but—
Eric (as Emily Slaughter): I have the ability to make any location secure. We do a— where I want to, we'll give him the $50,000, and we'll send him on his way, and we'll make sure that he does it.
Julia (as Craft): And you will leave Connor the fuck alone?
Eric (as Emily Slaughter): I'd like to know why Anita Tigre, the most essential person to the Heroes 4 Hire organization, disappeared from the cosmic fabric. I'd like to know why. And once I know why and it's fixed, then I'll stop trying to bring him in to figure out where Anita Tigre is.
Brandon: Maybe she should have asked.
Eric: Your mouth is under your butt.
Brandon: Oh, sorry, that's what it sounds like when I said it, but Connor says, it says—
Brandon (as Connor): [mumbles]
Eric: Thank you, thank you.
Julia: Huh. Should I tell this adult that my friend made a mistake?
Eric: I love Masks.
Julia: Should I tell an adult that a teenager accidentally disappeared a woman?
Amanda: I think we need Emily's help with this one. That's my personal opinion.
Julia: Yeah.
Brandon: I don't think it's important that it's a woman, Julia.
Julia: Like a full adult is more what I meant, not the, you know—
Brandon: I know, I'm just kidding.
Julia: —the gender split there. I think Craft is, like, fairly upfront. I think Craft says—
Julia (as Craft): Connor made a mistake. He didn't realize that it would have such big kind of sweeping ramifications, part of it is Hero 4 Hire's fault. And we were gonna solve the problem, but then you guys tried to kidnap him, and now he's goo. So—
Brandon (as Connor): [mumbles]
Eric (as Emily Slaughter): What did he do? Why is she gone? Was it—
Julia (as Craft): I want to hear what you think it might have been.
Eric (as Emily Slaughter): Okay. Did he find an ethereal loom that plucking threads out of the fabric of reality, and he plucked too much?
Julia (as Craft): No. No.
Eric (as Emily Slaughter): Did he build— get one of his science friends to build him a machine that rewinds and rewinds time like in a VCR?
Julia (as Craft): No, but kind of fun. That's a fun idea.
Eric (as Emily Slaughter): Did he write her name on a document and then that document got burned in some sort of like ethereal fire?
Julia (as Craft): So he didn't write her name on that document, but he did get, like, a form letter from Heroes 4 Hire about a lawsuit, and he wanted the lawsuit to go away. So he said, "Let me just eliminate this lawsuit from all of reality in existence."
Eric (as Emily Slaughter): And was the lawsuit related to the 11-year-old girl who was the Jaguar warrior?
Julia (as Craft): Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Eric (as Emily Slaughter): Anita told you guys where the Jaguar warrior was for your project, for Dr. Ram's class, right?
Julia (as Craft): Anita might have said that there was a thing at a place, and she couldn't say anything more about that.
Eric (as Emily Slaughter): Shelley, you know what Occam's razor is?
Julia (as Craft): Yeah. Again, I got raised by an evil, mad scientist whose name was Dr. Prometheus. I know what Occam's razor is.
Eric (as Emily Slaughter): All right. Occam's razor—
Julia (as Craft): He had two guys who were part of his goon squad at one point named Occam and Razor.
Eric: She ignores you.
Eric (as Emily Slaughter): Occam's razor is the—
Julia (as Craft): Fuck!
Eric (as Emily Slaughter): —most obvious thing. It's usually the thing that something complicated usually is. Ugh. Fine. You could have just told me.
Julia (as Craft): Honestly, didn't realize it was a problem until your goons came after us at the Funbratory.
Eric (as Emily Slaughter): I thought Connor was the sensible one. He could have told somebody.
Julia (as Craft): Well, sometimes people feel guilty about a thing and they don't want to involve other people.
Brandon: Sometimes with 17-year-olds get sued by large corporations. It's scary.
Julia: It is very scary.
Eric: One of the agents drops the container that Connor's in.
Brandon (as Connor): [mumbles]
Eric: And then mixes him up like he's a green smoothie.
Brandon (as Connor): [mumbles]
Eric: There's a piece of kale kind of floats by in the container.
[theme]
Amanda: Hey, everybody. It's Amanda. This midroll is brought to you by a pollen drunk bumblebee drifting ever so slowly across the yard. Thank you, and welcome to our newest paying member on Patreon, Carrie McEwen.If you want to have your name read out loud in this midroll, and you're like, "That'll be so much fun," but like, what do you get as a part of the Patreon? What does that mean? You talk about it, but like, how does it feel? I have great news, which is that we now offer seven-day free trials of the Join the Party Patreon. If you hear us talk about Discord, how fun the Party Planning is, I took Julia all through the drama of Big Brother last week, and how easy ad-free episodes make it to catch up on the show. A free trial on Patreon is a wonderful way to experience it for yourself in a low pressure way. You can decide to join afterward or not. Go on over to patreon.com/jointhepartypod to start your free trial today. That's patreon.com/jointhepartypod. Hey, all, do you remember how we made a vinyl episode? We did a One Shot set in the campaign two universe, aka The Superheroes that made the world that this campaign is happening in? And you can buy it. You can buy a literal vinyl that has our voices on it, and Brandon's beautiful sound design and scoring, and gorgeous art by listener Kevin of our superhero PCs from Campaign Two. I promise you, this is a physical object that is worth having in your home. I just moved and moving sucks, but one object I was very happy to move is our beautiful vinyl. Now, we only made 100 of them. There are less than half of that number left. So if you want to own this, you should go to jointhepartypod.com/merch and buy it now. Don't make this a Chad dice situation, folks, where we made Chad dice, then we ran out, and now you're like, "Oh, my God, I'm so sad the Chad dice are gone." I know, we're never going to reprint this vinyl. I can tell you that with certainty. So go to jointhepartypod.com/merch, and buy the vinyl now. And don't worry, every purchase comes with an mp3 that you can download immediately, so you can listen to the episode for all time digitally, plus have that gorgeous, physical object, jointhepartypod.com/merch. If you like Join the Party, I know you are going to love the other shows that are a part of a Multitude Podcast collective, especially This Guy Sucked, a history podcast for haters by haters. Historian Dr. Claire Aubin and a new expert every single week pull back a scholarly curtain on some of the world's biggest bummers. And they're bummers you've heard of before, folks, Charlemagne, Alexander the great, all kinds of other people that you've heard their name in history books and been like, "Wow, that's a lot of conquering," but you don't know what they're actually like. You will learn what they were actually like on This Guy Sucked, and somehow you're gonna end the episode feeling furious, but in a really fun way. Like you got to just, like, talk with friends at a happy hour about how much this particular person who's no longer in your life is terrible, and it's great because everyone we talk about, they're dead. I love This Guy Sucked. It's so, so good. From Charlemagne to Carl Schmitt, every single episode will give you the ammo you need to win dinner table or happy hour arguments about why the main characters of your history books were probably, actually, kind of the worst. So New episodes come out every Thursday. Listen to This Guy Sucked in your podcast app now. We are sponsored this week by Cornbread Hemp, which is a wonderful organic CBD company based in Kentucky. Now, the founder used to live down the block from me in Brooklyn, and I am a huge fan of their stuff. They are not only USDA-certified organic, they are also vegan-friendly. Most products are vegan and they are very clearly labeled, including CBD oils and THC gummies. Very hard to find those in vegan options. They are family-owned, crowd-funded, grown and made in Kentucky, certified by independent labs. These folks are the real deal. So if you are looking for, let's say, a CBD balm to help with some muscle pains and aches, I have, like, basically arthritis in my right hand, and so I use their CBD balm when my pain days are really bad. Or if you're looking for some THC gummies that you can order in the mail and have delivered to you. I do that all the time. I love to pop a THC gummy just hang out in my backyard, hang out in the hammock, reading my book, go to sleep. I honestly love Cornbread Hemp. I've been buying them for years and years, and I'm so happy to share that if you go to cornbreadhemp.com, you can use the code Join the Party for 25% off your order for first time customers. That's cornbreadhemp.com, the code is Join the Party and that'll get you 25% off your order. Go on over, support Cornbread Hemp, they are a great business.
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Eric: Ugh. Okay, let's do it. We turn the page, and Todd Swapper is walking up in the middle of the night to the secure location. The three of you are all back up now. Where is the secure location? How has Emily Slaughter secured it? And where are the three of you in the location? Where are the three of you stationed?
Brandon: Warehouse behind an Astros.
Julia: Okay, I like that.
Eric: Is that where they keep all the bowling pins?
Brandon: Yeah, because in this franchise, the first franchise, outside of Lake Town City, in Jupiter, most of the people that go to Astros are super-powered, so the pins just get destroyed constantly.
Eric: Hmm.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: Gotta buy it in bulk.
Brandon: They have to have a huge—
Eric: Gotta buy it in bulk.
Brandon: Yeah, huge bulk.
Eric: There's probably like a cloning machine back there, and every 11th pin is alive.
Julia: Oh.
Amanda: I hate that.
Julia: That makes me sad, since we just said they all get destroyed.
Eric: Yeah.
Amanda: Yeah.
Brandon: Instead of having, like, the, you know, screens that say like "turkey" or whatever, they— the pins themselves just say like, "You suck! Split."
Eric: When you get a strike, the pins play out scenes of Shakespeare.
Julia: Fun.
Amanda: Love it.
Eric: Until you've seen a bowling pin do Lady Macbeth's out damn spot, you haven't lived.
Amanda: Uh-hmm. I'm always saying this.
Eric: We're— okay, so we're in the warehouse behind the Astros in Jupiter. How has Emily Slaughter secured the place?
Julia: My first thought was lasers.
Amanda: That’s something.
Julia: That's nothing, Julia.
Brandon: I mean, that's something.
Julia: Julia, it's nothing.
Brandon: It's something.
Amanda: Julia, what if she made like a laser, like, curly Q Victorian fence? Like lattice, like full lattice with a lid?
Brandon: Oh.
Julia: I think Emily Slaughter rented out the space for a, quote-unquote, "corporate event" in order to clear it out.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: Yeah, that's incredible. There's this laser securing the whole thing. As Todd walks up, the front door is covered in lasers and he's like—
Eric (as Toddrick Swapper): Can I come in? How do I un-laser this? How— what am I supposed to do?
Julia: The lasers drop because we have surveillance.
Eric: We see so many cameras that are circled in the comic book. Incredible. Now, where are the three of you stationed?
Julia: I think we're in the back room where all of the pins are.
Amanda: Uh-hmm.
Julia: All the lights are on, like it's a birthday party, you know?
Eric: Oh, my God.
Julia: Where it's like black lights and, like, all the star projections—
Amanda: Uh-hmm.
Julia: —and nebulas and everything.
Amanda: Uh-hmm.
Brandon: In the warehouse?
Julia: No, in the front part, and then he has to go into the back.
Brandon: Oh, oh, the connect. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Eric: Oh, yeah, the—
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: —black light is on. There's a banner that says, "Happy 14th and a half birthday, Shelley Craft." Incredible. And the three— and all three of you are going to be— are just, like, gonna meet Todd?
Julia: Yeah.
Brandon: We're probably there already, so Todd's immediately gonna see us.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: Well, I didn't know if, like, two of you were hiding and only, like, Rowan was gonna meet—
Julia: No. I think he knows we're a team.
Amanda: We’re together.
Eric: No, it's fine. Great.
Julia: United front.
Eric: Todd opens the door to the back room.
Eric (as Toddrick Swapper): Cool. I wish my 14th and a half birthday had this many lasers.
Julia (as Craft): Yeah.
Eric (as Toddrick Swapper): Mine was at— it was at a petting zoo, a goat ate my gloves.
Julia (as Craft): Yeah, I'll be honest. I don't— Emily didn't do anything for my 14th and a half birthday, so I don't know where that sign came from.
Eric (as Toddrick Swapper): Cool, cool.
Brandon (as Connor): Did you get goat powers when they—
Eric (as Toddrick Swapper): I didn't swap the powers from the goat. I did take a kid's powers where every time he sneezed, he exploded. And I guess it wasn't every time, it was just one time.
Julia (as Craft): That sucks.
Brandon (as Connor): So you can never sneeze?
Eric (as Toddrick Swapper): Yeah, he had his nasal passages stopped up.
Brandon (as Connor): No, you now?
Eric (as Toddrick Swapper): No, it's in—
Brandon (as Connor): Is it your power? Is it just in a vial?
Eric (as Toddrick Swapper): No, it's in here.
Eric: And he—
Brandon (as Connor): Oh, okay.
Eric: Right. You guys haven't seen this. He opens up his big jacket, and there are vials inside, each one labeled with different powers with, like, different, like— almost like colored smoke inside of each one.
Brandon (as Connor): What are some of these powers?
Eric: Rowan, what are some of the powers?
Amanda: One is called plantar fasciitis, but good and every time you take a step, there is both a shooting pain, but also flames coming out of the bottom of your feet.
Eric: Hmm.
Brandon: Oh.
Julia: That sucks. I hate that.
Amanda: That's one. Julia, what's the other one?
Julia: It's like basically the same thing, but it says, "Plant," and then a dash, and it's the same thing, but you have plant powers.
Amanda: Incredible.
Eric: There's another one that's arthritis, but good. So every time you take a step, your knees hurt, but it's because there's a gun in your knee.
Julia: Oh.
Brandon: Jesus.
Amanda: Gotta lube that up.
Eric: That's why you got to take it away.
Brandon: One is just laser eyes.
Amanda: Nice.
Eric: Nice.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: Hey, Brandon.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: Nice. Nice.
Brandon: Because it's not something but good. It's just good. It's just laser eyes—
Julia: Yeah. Cool.
Brandon: —that are good. Yeah. You know? Heat vision, you know?
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda (as Rowan): Oh, yeah. So, like, that's his situation.
Eric (as Emily Slaughter): All right, I've never done a drug deal in my life, so this is new for me. How is this gonna go?
Eric: As Emily Slaughter walks out from the shadows.
Brandon (as Connor): Can you stop being a piece of shit for, like, two seconds?
Julia (as Craft): You just have such narc energy. You have to stop with the narc energy. Like, don't announce that you've never done a drug deal.
Eric (as Emily Slaughter): I haven't. It was important to know.
Julia (as Craft): It doesn't matter. You don't have to say.
Eric (as Emily Slaughter): I'm Emily Slaughter.
Eric: She reaches and she started to shake Todd's hand.
Eric: And Todd takes it and be like—
Eric as (Toddrick Swapper): Toddrick Swapper, nice to meet you.
Amanda (as Rowan): Great. So as you— stop flirting. So as you can see, we brought an adult with money. After you bring back Anita, we will pay you, you 50 grand.
Eric as (Toddrick Swapper): Okay, sounds good. It's gonna take a few hours, just from kind of the uploading and downloading. Where's the—
Julia (as Craft): We brought an adult with money.
Eric as (Toddrick Swapper): No, no, I got that.
Julia: Craft— and then Craft stares at him.
Eric as (Toddrick Swapper): No, she looks like someone who has $50,000. That's not what I'm worried about.
Julia (as Craft): No, we brought an adult with money.
Brandon (as Connor): We brought somebody with money.
Amanda (as Rowan): A person with a body and also money.
Julia: We're being too explicit about this now.
Eric as (Toddrick Swapper): Oh, you were gonna try to swap me out. No.
Julia: Goddamn it.
Amanda (as Rowan): No.
Eric as (Toddrick Swapper): No.
Amanda (as Rowan): The body's outside.
Brandon (as Connor): Yes, I was.
Amanda (as Rowan): I would not give up you, Emily. You might be very useful to me in the future. Todd, the body's outside.
Brandon (as Connor): I would absolutely love for you to never exist in this universe ever again, Emily.
Eric as (Emily Slaughter): That's fine. Makes sense.
Brandon (as Connor): Cool.
Eric as (Emily Slaughter): I would have done the same thing.
Julia (as Craft): Fair.
Eric as (Emily Slaughter): I see a lot of myself in you, Connor.
Julia (as Craft): Ew.
Brandon (as Connor): I'll strangle you right here, right now.
Eric as (Emily Slaughter): Do it.
Julia (as Craft): Jesus fucking Christ.
Brandon (as Connor): Team, team, team.
Amanda (as Rowan): No. No. Long game, Connor. Long game.
Eric as (Emily Slaughter): If you strangle me now, you won't get $50,000. My— when I die, all of my money gets sent to Jupiter, and not the town, the planet.
Julia: Hmm.
Brandon: Hmm. What a kill switch.
Julia: Is there a bank there?
Eric: Yeah, the— it's the red spot, National Bank.
Julia: Cool.
Amanda: Yeah.
Amanda (as Rowan): So you're gonna get started, I'll bring in the body?
Eric: Okay. Here's Eric's question, what do you have? What body do you have?
Amanda: I think Rowan is just going to use her construct power, gather up some clay, some grass, some sticks, kind of pat it all into a mound, and use her flare of construct to animate it to look like a dead body. I think, specifically, she's gonna make it look like the cantor who she hated at her synagogue growing up.
Eric: Nice.
Julia: Damn.
Eric: Cantor Asa sucks.
Amanda: Uh-hmm.
Eric: He's not nice.
Amanda: Uh-uh.
Eric: Cool. Rowan, yeah, you drag it back in. Todd says—
Eric (as Toddrick Swapper): Okay, we got a body.
Brandon (as Connor): Oh, my God, bro, you killed someone.
Eric (as Toddrick Swapper): Let's not—
Amanda (as Rowan): We talked about this.
Eric (as Toddrick Swapper): Hey, let's not discuss the implications of what we're doing right now. Let's just keep going. Let's just keep going.
Julia (as Craft): We're doing enough crime.
Eric (as Toddrick Swapper): Fine. And I assume—
Amanda (as Rowan): I'll sit with him, it— and I'll wait.
Eric (as Toddrick Swapper): And Emily's gonna give me the $50,000 when I'm done.
Julia (as Craft): Yeah.
Amanda (as Rowan): Yes.
Eric (as Toddrick Swapper): You promise. Everyone here promises.
Julia (as Craft): That is the point.
Brandon (as Connor): I mean, Emily, can you please show the money?
Eric (as Emily Slaughter): Do you want— how do you want it delivered to you, in Bitcoin, cash?
Brandon (as Connor): You didn't bring the cash?
Eric (as Emily Slaughter): No, I just have all of it on me.
Eric: And she reaches it into incredibly slim white jean pockets and just starts pulling things out, like Krugerrands, an actual physical Bitcoin.
Julia (as Craft): Whoa.
Brandon (as Connor): A physical Bitcoin.
Amanda (as Rowan): She's good for it, I promise. I mean, look at her vibe.
Eric (as Toddrick Swapper): Sure.
Brandon (as Connor): I mean, she's super not— you should definitely— if she doesn't give it to you, you should definitely kill her and take it.
Amanda (as Rowan): Connor, enough.
Julia (as Craft): Connor.
Brandon (as Connor): I'm sorry, she tried to kid at me and kill me.
Eric (as Emily Slaughter): I would do the same thing. I would honestly do the same thing. This is all really good precautionary thing. Keep— you know, sharpen that anger. It's a weapon, and a utility, like water.
Brandon (as Connor): A weptility.
Julia (as Craft): So we all deserve it. It's all free.
Eric (as Emily Slaughter): Yeah. Yeah.
Julia (as Craft): Should be free from the state.
Eric (as Emily Slaughter): Anger is anger is a state required utility. All right, I'm gonna—
Amanda: From each according to their means, to each according to their needs.
Julia: Uh-huh.
Eric: Todd takes the body, lays it down in the middle of the warehouse, and puts one hand on the body, and kind of reaches up into the sky with the other. His hands start to glow this, like, sickly yellow color. It almost looks like data, just stuff coming down from the sky. You almost see, like, this sickly yellow line going through from one hand, through the arm, across his chest, into the other one, and it getting downloaded into the body that you've delivered.
Brandon: Cool.
Julia (as Craft): Have you done this before?
Eric (as Toddrick Swapper): Yeah, once before. Yeah.
Brandon (as Connor): Todd, do you need like, a, like, a brow mopper? Like, can I help somehow?
Eric (as Toddrick Swapper): Yes.
Julia (as Craft): Wait, Connor, you don't have a follow-up question about how he's done this before?
Brandon (as Connor): If it works, I don't care if he's ever done it before, you know?
Eric (as Toddrick Swapper): Yeah, you could mop my brow every once in a while. Just don't— it's— I need to concentrate, so just do it, like count for, like, three minutes in your head and I'll, like—
Brandon (as Connor): Okay.
Eric (as Toddrick Swapper): —shrug you off if I don't need it. But—
Brandon (as Connor): Great.
Eric (as Toddrick Swapper): —it would be really great if I don't need to project manage—
Brandon (as Connor): Yes.
Eric (as Toddrick Swapper): —doing that.
Brandon (as Connor): I'm on Team Todd from now on.
Eric (as Toddrick Swapper): Great. Cool. All right. I— could just everyone step back? You can wait around. It's gonna take, like, three— no, five— no four and a half-ish, estimated four and a half hours, so— oh, I'm 2% done— wait, no, 1% done. I— it's gonna keep going— I don't know exactly. I don't know exactly.
Eric: That's for everyone who remembers what dosses. That's a joke for all of you.
Julia: I got the joke.
Eric (as Toddrick Swapper): So you guys can just hang out. It will— let's just get it going.
Eric: Does anyone want to do anything while you're waiting— while Todd's downloading this stuff or we could always just, like, swipe ahead?
Julia: Yeah, no. I want to talk to Rowan, and I want to say—
Julia (as Craft): Hey, listen, I know I kind of fucked up earlier, and—
Amanda (as Rowan): Oh, my God, stop. You did not.
Julia (as Craft): No, no, no. Let me get it out. I know I fucked up earlier and, like, I should have said something to Emily earlier, and I put you and Connor in a fucked up situation. But I also think that you did a incredible job, and I don't think that you should at all feel bad or guilty or anything like that with how you handled the situation. I think you did a really, really fucking good job.
Amanda (as Rowan): Oh, my God, thank you. That's so nice of you. I mean, I was annoyed that I passed out, but to be, like, bested by a girl boss. I mean, that's kind of good.
Julia (as Craft): Yeah. For sure, for sure.
Amanda (as Rowan): You know?
Julia (as Craft): Yeah.
Amanda (as Rowan): And, like, I know we're supposed to be preparing for midterms, but, like, if we could do this, I think we could do that.
Julia (as Craft): Hell yeah. What if, like—, can we submit that fight instead of our midterm, you think?
Amanda (as Rowan): Worth a try.
Julia (as Craft): Because, like, I didn't think I was gonna be able to do the hailstorm thing, but it was pretty cool. I just wanted to say, Rowan, I think you're great, and I think you did a fantastic job earlier.
Amanda: Rowan is openly weeping, but with no noise, and just says—
Amanda (as Rowan): Shut up. I love you.
Julia: I want to comfort and support because I want— I— Rowan at five is stressing me the fuck out.
Amanda: So that's so nice of you, Julia. After I pass out because I got too many conditions then had to add one. I do get to clear one.
Brandon: Oh.
Amanda: So I chose before this scene to clear afraid, but I will totally clear one more hopeless, ideally.
Julia: Let me roll.
Eric: Yeah, let's comfort and support.
Julia: [dice roll] That was a seven minus one.
Brandon: Oh, no.
Julia: Fuck. Well.
Amanda: Dang.
Julia: I'm halfway to leveling up again, everyone.
Amanda: Yay.
Eric: Rowan, how do you not— how do you shove Craft out?
Amanda: I think Rowan looks over Craft's shoulder to where Emily is standing on her phone, probably—
Julia: Probably.
Amanda: Or, like, filing her nails.
Eric: Yeah, Emily's on her phone a little too close to looking over Connor's shoulder, who's looking over Todd's shoulder.
Amanda: And I think Rowan thinks, huh, Craft must feel really embarrassed that her guardian is involved like this. And, like, probably she means it, but if I were her, I'd be really self-conscious.
Julia: Damn.
Eric: Hmm.
Julia: Called out.
Amanda: I thought it was really sweet.
Eric: Nice. I love that. I think that we did the comfort instead of doing the triumphant celebration of the team moves. We did that instead, so I think we can just move on, but that's nice.
Julia: Oh, yeah. I forgot about that as a thing that we do. Whoops.
Brandon: I mean, I don't think we had a triumphant celebration.
Julia: No, yeah, two of us passed out, and then we just managed to get Emily to agree to pay $50,000. Didn't feel triumphant.
Eric: Well, yeah, you could have, like, shared a vulnerability or a weakness instead. But I think that—
Brandon: Oh, of course.
Eric: —comforting each other—
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: —was the mechanic we're trying to do.
Julia: Got you.
Amanda: Uh-hmm.
Eric: Though you can— I guess if someone wants to share a vulnerability or weakness with each other, you could try to do that.
Julia: Oh. Maybe I'll do that with— because Connor's at four, too?
Brandon: Yes.
Julia: Yeah, I think I'm gonna share a vulnerability with Connor.
Eric: Hmm.
Brandon: Does yours have a different outcome? Because mine is— what— yeah, what is the outcome for that, for you?
Julia: When you share a vulnerability or weakness with someone, ask them if they would defend you against people who mistrust you. If they say yes, clear condition and shift savior up in any other label down. If no, mark a condition and shift danger up in any level down.
Brandon: That's to you, though.
Julia: Yeah, it should be the opposite. I want to take away some of your stuff rather than mine own shit.
Brandon: Right, right. I can't do that with mine, so—
Eric: Oh, yeah, you mark a condition and mark potential, yeah.
Brandon: Right.
Eric: Connor, if you share a vulnerability or a weakness, then you could—
Brandon: Right.
Eric: —clear a condition.
Brandon: Correct, yes, but then I'd have to also shift my mundane up and any other label down, and I don't want to that.
Eric: Okay. Cool.
Julia: Okay, fair enough.
Brandon: But I also just want to say for all time, we've never had a thing— a built in mechanic that tracks our shitty rolls, and we do now and—
Julia: Well, we did when we played the campaign.
Brandon: That's true. But we do now. And I want to say Julia has had more shitty rolls than Brandon.
Eric: That's true.
Julia: Awesome.
Eric: That's true. Wonderful. Okay. I think Emily Slaughter gets off of her phone and puts it back in her incredibly deep, skinny lady pockets.
Julia: That's how you know we're in the future. Anyway—
Eric: Yeah.
Eric (as Emily Slaughter): Connor?
Brandon (as Connor): What?
Eric (as Emily Slaughter): You know, this is just a job. You don't have to take it so personally.
Brandon (as Connor): If you're gonna talk to me, I would rather you just say, like, what you're trying to say quickly and efficiently, because I don't really love the sound of your voice, and it does make me want— I could hear it extra well, as you know, does make me want to, like, rip your voice box out. So, like, if you got something to say, say it quickly, and we'll just get past it.
Eric (as Emily Slaughter): I have your file. I know what you can do. I understand what it's like to cover up your mistakes. I know that Anita is certainly the same way, and that's why she's great, and that's why I try to be great.
Brandon (as Connor): If you could keep Anita's name out your fucking mouth, that'd be great. Thanks.
Brandon: And then he turns to Toddrick and wipes one bead of sweat off of with a little cloth.
Julia: Single bead.
Eric (as Emily Slaughter): Okay. Okay.
Eric: She goes and sits on a crate of bowling balls that all have smiley faces on them.
Brandon: Oh.
Eric: And she goes back on her phone.
Brandon: Are any of them alive?
Eric (as sentient bowling ball): Hey, let me out of here. I'm stuck.
Eric: After about four and a half hours in the warehouse, you kind of have seen this body slowly turn— like, from the feet up, slowly turn into Anita, from, like, this crunchy late 30s cantor to Connor's Aunt Anita. I— If I remember, she had big, red— curly, red hair. If I can't— I can't remember.
Amanda: Sounds hot, so yeah.
Brandon: Doesn't ring a bell, but I like it.
Julia: Yeah, me too.
Eric: Very good.
Julia: I think Craft also, halfway through this asks—
Julia (as Craft): Like, she's gonna come back with, like, all her, like memories and like she's— was in reality, right?
Eric (as Toddrick Swapper): Yeah, that's the plan.
Julia (as Craft): Okay, just checking, because sometimes it's like, yeah, now her body is back in the universe but then she's not gonna remember Connor.
Brandon (as Connor): Craft, she— Todd has to focus. Craft, come on, he has to focus.
Eric: And then Todd puts his arm down, collapses on the ground, and says—
Eric (as Toddrick Swapper): Okay, we're done. The last thing to do is to put her back in her bed. If she comes back to a place where she remembers, it'll be easier for her to reintegrate into reality.
Julia (as Craft): Oh, you mean like regaining consciousness in the back of a fucking bowling alley warehouse is not a good idea?
Eric (as Toddrick Swapper): No, it might be disorienting. Yeah, can I have the $50,000?
Brandon: Connor's gonna scoop up Anita as that's happening.
Eric: Yeah. Emily takes out a wad of cash that is so like neatly put together, it has to have been put together by a bank.
Amanda: Uh-hmm.
Eric: And just puts it in his hand and says—
Eric (as Emily Slaughter): Pleasure with doing business with you. This warehouse will explode in one minute. We should go.
Julia (as Craft): Jesus. But the people love the Astros, Emily.
Eric (as Emily Slaughter): I got explosion insurance. They'll be fine.
Amanda: Rowan is hustling out of the warehouse with her hand at Connor's back, getting toward calling an Uber, calling a car.
Eric: Incredible. All right, well, let's do some montage stuff at the moment to wrap up the episode.
Julia: We're all sitting in an Uber XL.
Eric: We got a panel of everyone in an Uber XL.
Amanda: Yep.
Eric: In the back of an Escalade.
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: Uh-hmm. The driver is eating a sandwich while driving us. We're giving him two stars.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: He has the loudest, insert music genre, you find annoying here. I'm not gonna say it on tape, what I think it is, but, you know, you have the one that you think it is.
Amanda: Then we cut to Anita apartment where we have put her in bed, still fully dressed, because no one was gonna go there, covered her with a cover, let— sort of like, you know, take her hair out. She's, like, laying there like a doll. And then in the kitchen, Rowan is trying to cook breakfast for everybody, because she thought that would be comforting. Rowan, terrible cook. And so there's just like, eggs that are both, like, runny and burned, a smoke detector going off, toast burning in a toaster. And Craft is like, "What's happening?"
Julia: I think halfway through, Craft goes—
Julia (as Craft): Hey, let me take care of this. Let me do this. I watched the robots do it all the time.
Brandon: And to be clear, at some point, Rowan did try— was like, "Oh, should we put pajamas on Anita or something?" And Connor looked at Rowan and is like—
Brandon (as Connor): Rowan, no.
Amanda (as Rowan): You're right. You're right. You're right. That's on me. That's on me.
Julia: I like the idea that we've set her up in bed with a tray of breakfast like it's Mother's Day.
Brandon: With a little flower.
Amanda: And then she wakes, she sits up gasping, like she was just resuscitated, and it goes everywhere.
Julia: And we go—
Julia (as Craft): Happy Mother's Day in— I guess it's December, I think.
Eric: Yeah. It's so funny.
Amanda: Midterm, I think it's October.
Eric: It's October. That's very— it's so funny. Connor, is there anything you wanna montage here?
Brandon: I mean, honestly, Connor would just be sitting there, waiting for Anita to come to.
Eric: Hmm. The next day comes, it is Monday. It is midterms day. Do all of you go to your midterms?
Julia: Yeah.
Brandon: Is Anita awake?
Eric: Anita is not awake.
Brandon: Then, no, Connor does not.
Julia: Oh, I think Craft grabs Connor's face and said—
Julia (as Craft): I have to go show Coach Boneman on who I am.
Brandon (as Connor): Yeah, of course you do. Yeah, do it.
Amanda (as Rowan): I have to go watch her do that, because there's no way I'm missing it. But I have my phone, so use— and use the house phone to call my phone. Okay?
Brandon (as Connor): Rowan, you also have to take your midterm.
Amanda (as Rowan): Yeah, yeah, that too, but I'm not worried.
Brandon (as Connor): Okay.
Eric: All right, you go back to campus, you run into the gym. Everyone is stressed out for midterms. People are trying to hold themselves together. You see Jamie. Jamie has now taken on some Mr. Freeze type characteristics.
Julia: Uh-oh.
Eric: Red eyes, totally freezer burned.
Brandon: Uh-oh.
Eric: 50% ice at this point.
Brandon: Uh-oh.
Julia: Hey, that's on Jamie. Jamie should have anticipated that maybe the powers wouldn't work with his body.
Amanda: Uh-hmm.
Eric: Yeah, probably.
Brandon: Or maybe it is like an SCI, you know?
Julia: Maybe.
Brandon: Just like a— yeah.
Julia: Gotta get treated.
Brandon: Gotta get treated.
Amanda: No shame. Just get treated.
Eric: Let's see how you do on your midterms. I didn't tell you this before, but I think you guys will be okay. I want each of you to roll plus freak.
Julia: Yes, that's a plus one for Craft.
Brandon: I assume you're not including Connor in everyone.
Eric: I'm not including Connor. Connor did not go to his midterms.
Julia: Oh, the baby Jesus.
Amanda: Seven plus one for Rowan for an eight.
Eric: You did all right.
Julia: That is a nine plus one for a 10.
Eric: Let's fucking go.
Amanda: Damn.
Eric: Hell yes.
Julia: For failures and successes today, failures and successes.
Brandon: Yeah. Yeah.
Julia: That's what life is, baby.
Eric: Craft, you get put through your paces, all of your different limbs and different times get sliced off.
Julia (as Craft): Ow.
Eric: You are run through an obstacle course that is mostly sword and axe-related, with plenty of lasers.
Julia (as Craft): Ow.
Eric: And at the end, Coach Boneman in a kind of resting like lioness skeleton, says—
Julia: Aw.
Eric (as Coach Boneman): Okay, what weather skills have you been developing?
Julia (as Craft): We got electricity, we got wind and brand-new, we got snow/ice.
Brandon: Woo! Snow/ice. Yeah!
Julia (as Craft): I had to research what Snow was. It was fucking weird.
Eric: How do you show this snow off for Boneman?
Julia: I think because it is in the gymnasium, Craft doesn't want to create a shit ton of damage, so I think it is like a beautiful flurry that, for a moment becomes a blizzard, and then Craft, like, reels it back in, and goes—
Julia (as Craft): Eh, eh.
Eric: hmm.
Julia (as Craft): Pretty, yeah? I could do more, but you know, the gym.
Eric (as Coach Boneman): No, that's enough. Good job training. This will be reflected in your file.
Julia (as Craft): Sick.
Eric: Rowan, here's the issue. Remember back in the first session, in the first issue, where coach Boneman couldn't hold their skeleton together?
Amanda: Yes.
Eric: In front of you? You walk up and Coach Boneman has pulled themselves into a big Brontosaurus skeleton. And as they take the steps towards you, the skeleton, starting from the neck down, just starts to fall apart and collapse. On the ground, the skull says—
Eric (as Coach Boneman): You haven't gotten a handle on that, have you?
Amanda: Can I try to suppress my powers entirely? Can I try to, like, shrink them down in my own body, in my center of gravity, to be as small as possible?
Brandon: A little black hole.
Julia: Hmm.
Eric: My question to you is, do you think Voidie-Lynn, inside of you, would like that?
Amanda: I think she'll allow it for a little bit, because we did something pretty bad-ass yesterday.
Julia: She satiated.
Amanda: Uh-hmm. The blood lust is not bloodlusting.
Eric: You can push it down, and as you're pushed through your paces, which I think is like an obstacle course, but it's in the air. You need to fly through things while moving things with gravity. You— you're doing similar obstacle courses, like the telekinesis kids have to do.
Amanda: Uh-hmm.
Eric: But you don't do it nearly as fast as you did it last year.
Amanda: Rowan is dripping with sweat. She is, like, incredibly exerted. Do you have— you know how, like, watching people do, like, extremely fine motor skills, they're, like, sweating because it just, like, takes so much concentration. That's what she's doing. She's using like 5% of her power range and operating in that, like, micro, micro band,
Julia: Damn, dude.
Eric: Hmm.
Eric (as Coach Boneman): You know, this was slower than last year.
Amanda (as Rowan): Yeah. It's actually more impressive than last year, because my, like, upper limit is high and so I'm doing it in like a smaller band.
Eric (as Coach Boneman): But I wouldn't know what your upper limit is, because you need to suppress it in order for me to hold my form together. It's concerning.
Amanda (as Rowan): I'm just saying this does not happen to other people's forms, including my teammate Connor, who you know, is also kind of like a skeleton in a sack of goo. So I'm not—
Julia: Aren't we all?
Amanda (as Rowan): —sure if it's something specific to you, but I am doing two things at once. Yeah.
Eric (as Coach Boneman): Interesting.
Amanda (as Rowan): I am bisexual. Thank you for asking.
Eric (as Coach Boneman): Didn't ask. Never would ask.
Amanda (as Rowan): Okay.
Eric (as Coach Boneman): Okay, Rowan, it'll be reflected in your file. You'll see your midterm reflected on the big board.
Julia: Damn.
Amanda (as Rowan): Okay.
Eric: Julia, take one potential.
Julia: Oh.
Eric: And you can shift up freak if you'd like and down any other label.
Julia: Guys, I'm one away from leveling up again, and that's crazy.
Amanda: Let's fucking go.
Brandon: What a bad roller.
Eric: Amanda, you have to choose something. You have to give an adult influence over you because you disappointed an adult. You have to sacrifice your social life by giving someone else influence over you. You lose a responsibility or you hurt your academic standing.
Amanda: Well, all adults have influence over me, right?
Eric: Yeah, but you might have missed someone, and if you give an adult influence over you again, they can shift your labels immediately.
Amanda: I'm gonna give influence to Coach Boneman, because it is pretty terrifying that my powers, ambiently, are having an effect on a person's body.
Eric: Coach Boneman immediately shifts your superior up and your mundane down.
Amanda: All right.
Eric (as Coach Boneman): You have to be better than this if you want to be high on the rankings.
Amanda: But give me a negative two mundane plus two superior.
Julia: Damn. Just for the record, I brought my freak up and my savior down. So my freak is now plus two and my savior is zero.
Eric: Lovely.
Brandon: Nice.
Eric: Back in Anita's apartment, Connor, your aunt still hasn't woken up. It's about— it's the evening of Monday now, midterms are totally done. There's no running over there to finish them now. She's still out.
Brandon: There's a panel where you see Connor on Anita's phone, texting Toddrick, just like blue bubble after blue bubble after blue bubble after blue bubble with no responses. It's like—
Brandon (as Connor): She moved left. Is that good? She still hasn't woken up, is that bad? She said the word, “hushum” in her sleep. Is that bad?
Brandon: And just like checking a million times on— with Todd, and Todd has not responded to any of them. Assuming this is actually his right number.
Eric: No, you're texting the pizza place at the airport again.
Julia: Ah, damn it.
Amanda (as Rowan): Not Il Polpo. They text so fast with eight arms.
Eric: Connor, the phone starts to float out of your hand.
Brandon (as Connor): Oh, shit, not again. And he tries to—
Eric: And then the— not again?
Brandon: He drops his phone all the time.
Eric: Oh, he thought he was dropping it and it fell upwards? Incredible.
Brandon: Yeah.
Eric: The phone floats up, and then the lamp on her side table floats up, and then the breakfast in bed tray floats up, and all the plates and glasses and eggs that she didn't eat floats up.
Amanda: Three-day old eggs.
Eric: And Anita's body floats up as well, with the covers falling off of her.
Brandon: Connor, like, tries to, like, push her back down to the bed. He's like—
Brandon (as Connor): What's happening?
Eric: Everything in the apartment starts to float upwards, swimming in a way you have only seen astronauts on the space station swim around the room. And then Anita's eyes open. She falls, everything falls. Big sound effect crash on the panel. She looks up and says—
Eric (as Anita Tigre): Connor, what are you doing here? Don't—
Brandon (as Connor): Anita!
Eric (as Anita Tigre): Don't you have school?
Brandon: And he hugs her.
Brandon (as Connor): The— you— we have so much— we— I have so much to catch you up on.
Eric (as Anita Tigre): Okay. Oh, God, my work email.
Eric: And she grabs her phone out of your hand.
Julia: Same.
Eric: And that's the end of this arc, motherfuckers.
Amanda: Wow!
Brandon: Yay!
Julia: Whee!
Eric: You did midterms. Good job.
Julia: We did them.
Brandon: Well, two of us did midterms.
Eric: Hey, Brandon, you cannot do midterms, and you didn't— you still do midterms.
Brandon: That's true.
Eric: Let's do some end of session stuff, shall we?
Brandon: We shall.
Amanda: Yay!
Julia: Yay!
Eric: And I know that all of you have leveled up, so let's try— let's address— I think a bunch of you have leveled up, so let's address those as well. All right, end of session. At the end of every session, choose one, grow closer to the team, explain who made you feel welcome, give influence to that character or clear— and clear a condition or mark potential. Grow into the image of yourself, explain how you see yourself and why, shift one label up and one label down, or grow away from the team, explain why you feel detached, take influence over you, away from another character.
Brandon: Well, I think I would grow into my own image of myself, meaning— of more of a monster, because he had an entire corporate entity after him, trying to kidnap him, which only happens to things like Frankenstein's monster in media.
Eric: I don't know what you're talking about.
Brandon: So I would shift one label up, one label down. My danger and freak are already all the way up. What is difference— I know I always ask this, what's the difference in savior and superior again?
Eric: Superior is seeing yourself as smart, capable, crafty, and quick. You see yourself as superior when you think you're smarter than everyone else, or know what to say. Other people see you as superior when they think you're the smartest person in the room, or you're an arrogant and egotistical jerk. Savior is when— it's basically defending other people, defending, guarding, protecting, being a stalwart, thinking yourself as a martyr, someone who gladly sacrifices yourself to protect and defend others. Other people think of you either when you're noble or you're a bit overbearing and moralizing.
Brandon: Got it. So I think I'm gonna shift my mundane down one, and then my savior probably up one.
Eric: Uh-hmm.
Brandon: Because he's sort of thinking, like, almost, like, sacrificially, like he can be like, "Well, I can be the monster and deal with that as long as I, you know, help save the people around me." You know?
Eric: Love it.
Amanda: Word. Rowan grew closer to the team. I think we felt and faced some real danger together, and we also split up, and nobody mistrusted each other. So I feel really good about that. I would love to particularly single out Craft. That was a really sweet moment. You know, when she tried to reassure Rowan, and even though I suspect she was feeling self-conscious about Emily, it was still really nice. So take influence, and because you have it, you get plus one forward against me, Julia, should you need.
Julia: Never.
Amanda: And I'm going to clear the condition of insecure, because I feel good about my team, and I'm good about who has my back.
Julia: Hell yeah.
Eric: Since Craft already has influence over Rowan, Craft, you can shift Rowan's labels.
Julia: Do you want any of your labels shifted?
Amanda: I would love to put danger up and superior down.
Julia: Sounds good to me. I think Craft also felt like she grew closer to the team. I think they, like, saw a side of her that she normally wouldn't be willing to show people, which is like the relationship with Emily and everything like that.
Brandon: Uh-hmm.
Julia: And also felt like as a team, this was one of the hardest challenges that they faced. And I think that even though it didn't feel like a triumphant victory, it did feel like they managed to succeed in a way that Craft was not expecting.
Eric: Hmm.
Julia: So— yeah. And I also think that in particular, like the relationship between Craft and Connor is a really interesting one after this session, because Craft has been trying the diplomacy route that I think she has learned from Connor. And it has been difficult for Connor in this particular arc, because he has been so targeted, I guess, that being able to sort of shift these responsibilities in the team feels important.
Eric: Hmm.
Brandon: Hmm.
Eric: Hell yeah.
Julia: So I will give influence to Connor, which he already has, so he can shift my labels if he wants. I don't feel strongly about my labels changing right now, but—
Brandon: Do I have to do it, Eric?
Eric: I want to say probably.
Brandon: I assume so, right?
Eric: I assume so as well.
Julia: Okay.
Brandon: Tell me if you have a preference, but like—
Julia: Yeah.
Brandon: —narratively, it feels like superior would go up.
Julia: Okay.
Brandon: And maybe freak go down. I don't know. What— tell me what you think.
Julia: I think if anything like superior would go up, and then maybe mundane would go down or danger would go down.
Brandon: Yeah, I think— whichever you prefer, but yeah, I think narratively maybe danger would be the right one.
Julia: Yeah, I'll bring danger down, because otherwise I'm at a negative two for mundane.
Brandon: Gotcha.
Julia: Well, I'm at a plus three for superior right now, which Craft is like—
Julia (as Craft): What?
Eric: And then you can clear a condition or mark potential.
Julia: I'm gonna clear my angry condition.
Eric: Nice.
Amanda: Nice.
Eric: Did anyone level up?
Julia: Yes, I did.
Eric: Okay. Tell me about it.
Julia: So I am also one away from leveling up again. So I'm gonna take a move from another playbook, and I'm stuck between three, and I would love to hear everyone's thoughts on the matter.
Amanda: Okay.
Brandon: Okay.
Julia: Because I think one is very fun for me, and then the other two make a lot of narrative sense.
Amanda: Fun, fun, fun, fun, fun.
Eric: Okay.
Julia: Well, let me tell you about the first, then we could all decide—
Amanda: Okay.
Julia: —as a group. One of the moves is a protege move, which is called Been reading the files. You've learned about the superhuman world through your mentor's resources. In this case, I'm assuming that would be Dr. Prometheus, but eh.
Eric: That's fine.
Julia: When you first encounter an important super powered phenomenon, roll plus superior. On a hit, tell the team one important detail you've learned from your studies. The GM will tell you what, if anything seems different from. What you remember. On a plus 10, ask the GM a follow-up question. They will answer honestly. On a miss, the situation is well outside your base of knowledge. The GM will tell you why.
Eric: Oh, that's pretty cool.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: I do like that.
Julia: I do like that one. The other one is from the reformed moves, which is called What the hell, hero? When you call out an injustice that a hero has perpetrated, roll plus danger. On a hit, take influence over them. On a seven to nine, choose one. On a plus 10, choose two. You get them to admit their wrongdoing. You win over an onlooker. Take influence over them. You don't turn their attention and anger onto yourself. On a miss, they dismiss you. Mark a condition, their choice, shift danger up, savior down.
Brandon: Hmm.
Eric: Oh, it's pretty cool.
Brandon: Hmm.
Julia: And then my final one, which is the fun one, is from the beacon class, which is, come on, lucky. You have a pet of some sort, a smaller companion that helps you out detail it. Choose three basic moves and tell the GM how it helps you with those moves. Whenever your pet could help you, take plus one to that move. If your pet ever gets hurt, treat it as taking a powerful blow.
Brandon: Oh, no. That's so sad.
Amanda: It has to be that one. It has to be that one.
Julia: It has to be that one?
Amanda: In my opinion.
Eric: I think we've had a lot of pets in our Dungeons & Dragons campaigns that give bonuses to things, and the other two sound very interesting.
Julia: Okay. You know what? I'm actually— I think in going with Craft is learning a lot of new things about her powers and about, like, the world that she's in. I think I might take the been reading the files from the protege.
Brandon: That one seems really useful. Yeah.
Julia: Yeah. I think it's fun.
Amanda: It seems useful. My headcanon, Julia, was that you would get like an herbivore lizard, so that they have flat teeth that can grind your weed for you. That you don't have to ever have a grinder, but you can just use the lizard and then say, "Spit, baby," and then it'll spit it up.
Julia: Okay, here, I was gonna take one of my dad's drones and then make it my own.
Amanda: Also cute.
Julia: Also cute, but the lizard is very funny.
Brandon: But you can have a grinder in the drone.
Amanda: That's true.
Eric: I do like this, though.
Julia: You like the lizard?
Eric: I like this, though, because there's such a balance between these three different parts of you. Like, one, the weed head we know right now.
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Eric: The second is the good at school student who Emily Slaughter hopes that you are, and then the third is your past as a villain's child. So you're finally accessing all three in a very clear way, which I think is cool. It's like maybe with a hacked drone, you, like, plug it into a monitor and you actually start using some of the databases that you've always known are there.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: And you just turn it away.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: I think it's cool.
Julia: And then eventually, he'll become my pet.
Eric: Hell yeah.
Julia: When I hit one more thing, he'll become my pet.
Amanda: One more failed roll, baby.
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Eric: With the last panel of this issue, I think that we got to take a look at the big board.
Brandon: Oh.
Eric: We got to look at the rankings.
Julia: Uh-oh.
Brandon: I can't. That's not good.
Amanda: Not good for Rowan.
Eric: Craft, you have jumped another, like, 13 spots. You're in, like, high 40s, low 30s. You're still outside of the top 25 that Emily Slaughter is asking for you, but you are shooting up the ranks.
Julia: Woo.
Brandon: Nerd.
Eric: Rowan, unfortunately, you have dropped to number seven.
Amanda: Boo. Boo.
Eric: Still top 10, still top 10, but now you're number seven.
Amanda: No, it's kind of a bummer, yeah.
Eric: But I guess it's fitting, because even after the midterms have been processed, sitting at number eight is still Connor Lyons.
Julia: What's happening?
Brandon: I am immovable.
Eric: Who knows?
Brandon: I'm too perfect for school.
Amanda: Huh.
Eric: Go to your comic book shop and buy the next issue of Campaign Four, Join the Party.
Brandon: Wee.
Julia: Hmm.
Eric: It's super school.
Brandon: I signed it.
Julia: Huh.
Eric: Sorry, we have an on sale, these Brandon Google signed ones are 50% off.
Amanda: Oh, no.
Julia: That makes sense.
[theme]