The Fall of New York City

0:00:04 The Unsleeping City: Chapter II Lou Wilson as Kingston Brown; Ally Beardsley as Pete Conlan; Zac Oyama as Ricky Matsui; Siobhan Thompson as “Anastasia” Iga Lisowski; Emily Axford as Sofia Lee; and Brian “Murph” Murphy as Cody “Night Angel” Walsh Episode 1: The Fall of New York City [Next Episode] > [theme music]

0:00:08 Brennan: Hello one and all, and welcome to a brand new season in a mighty familiar setting that you know and love, welcome to season two of The Unsleeping City! [cheers and laughter]

0:00:26 Brennan: Remote style! I am your humble dungeon master Brennan Lee Mulligan, With me as always are our intrepid heroes, say hi, intrepid heroes!

0:00:34 All: [so out of sync] Hi, intrepid heroes!

0:00:38 Brennan: Going around the table with us today, we have Zac Oyama.

0:00:42 Zac: [in a Lapinesque voice] Hello.

0:00:44 Brennan: Emily Axford.

0:00:46 Emily: [imitating Zac] Hello. [Siobhan laughing]

0:00:48 Brennan: Lou Wilson.

0:00:50 Lou: [imitating Zac] Hello.

0:00:52 Brennan: Siobhan Thompson.

0:00:54 Siobhan: [imitating Zac] Hello!

0:00:55 Zac: I didn't say it that weird.

0:00:57 Brennan: Brian Murphy.

0:00:58 Murph: [sporting a buzzcut] Hi, I messed up giving myself a haircut.  Please don't dunk on me on the internet. Thank you so much.

0:01:02 Zac: Ooh, thank god. Thank god for that. [Siobhan laughing]

0:01:05 Emily: Wow, broke the format for your vanity. I love my husband.

0:01:08 Brennan: And Ally Beardsley.

0:01:11 Ally: Hello! I too messed up on my hair. [turns their head to show their rat tail]

0:01:15 Siobhan: No, you did that on purpose. You like that.

0:01:18 Ally: Yeah, it's true. It's absolutely on purpose. I paid for it.

0:01:22 Brennan: Well, as you see us here floating over our beloved Unsleeping City, you may wonder, “Hey, what happened to the dimensional dome? Where the heck are these fine people?” Well, I'm glad you're asking that question because it means that the reality of COVID-19 has placed this far in the past, and you're discovering this piece of artifact media from this time period. It's not safe for us to be close to each other. [Siobhan laughs] Lou shrugs.

0:01:51 Brennan: But we weren't gonna let that stop us from coming back to this mystical, magical place. A place of fantasy behind the mundane, set in New York City. But a New York City perhaps a little more magical than could at first be expected. Yes, indeed, this is season two of Dimension 20's urban fantasy adventure extravaganza. And without further ado, we are going to dive back into it. [2:25 - Kingston’s Intro (1994)] We descend on a blazing hot summer's day, over the New York City skyline. The pavement’s so toasty, you could fry an egg on it. And right out of the gate, I am going to throw a curveball at one of our PCs. You know it, you love it because check it out! Over the hot skyline… We notice that we don't… There's a lot of things we do see and don't see. The streets are covered in—the street signs that we are familiar with, but the style of fashion is a little bit different. We see someone walking down the street with a huge boombox on their shoulder playing music. And indeed, picture if you will, on the bottom of your screen and your mental camera, a little ‘1994’ comes up. [players laugh]

0:03:18 Brennan: And around 30 years old, Kingston Brown is walking down the street. [players laugh]

0:03:26 Lou: Okay. Yeah, yeah.

0:03:29 Brennan: Completely—a Kingston Brown, not concerned with being the Voice of New York, not concerned with magic at all. This is a Kingston Brown who is around 30 years old and is just trying to get where he's going. Lou, could you please go ahead and describe this version of your character for us?

0:03:49 Lou: Okay, so 90’s Kingston for sure has a high top. It's like a good… But it's like one of those dope ones. It's kind of like… It's got like a weird, like almost like a Lego shape and it's kind of angled and swooped.

0:04:03 Siobhan: Amazing.

0:04:04 Lou: Like a thin, gold chain over a very loud, kind of color blocked red, yellow, green shirt. And like a cool, a pair of pastel shorts, and Jordans with high socks.

0:04:25 Brennan: Incredible. Kingston, you are hustling down the street from a previous appointment. You have, for probably a handful of years now, already been working as a nurse at St. Owens. You're hustling outside right now to go hit up a payphone because you're expecting a call. And you see, as you approach… Normally you have bad luck with payphones. But as you get there, you see this line of people waiting for the payphone out in front. And this is like an important call coming through.

0:05:08 Kingston: Oh man, come on now. This is why I gotta buy one of those cell phones that everyone's going on about. Ah, goddamn.

0:05:17 Brennan: You arrive in front of the payphone. As you arrive there, you see the person right in front of you, sort of like suited businessman, looks at his watch, he goes,

0:05:30 Businessman: Ah, I don't got time for this.

0:05:32 Brennan: Splits, just as the woman in front of him looks across the street and goes,

0:05:38 Woman: Oh my God, Marcy, there you are. I was about to...

0:05:41 Brennan: Runs off, and the person in front of you goes,

0:05:44 Person: Oh, great, great, great—

0:05:45 Brennan: —actually on the phone, goes,

0:05:46 Person: Good, glad to hear it. Awesome. All right, I'll be there as soon as I can.

0:05:49 Brennan: Click. And a line of three people disappears right in front of you.

0:05:56 Kingston: Must be my lucky day, okay.

0:06:00 Brennan: The phone rings in front of you. The call you were expecting comes through. You pick up the phone and you hear the voice of your cousin Janice on the line go… almost on the verge of joyful tears going,

0:06:16 Janice: [gasping] Kingston, I can't… I just got off the phone. I got the job at Cornell, at Cornell Medical!

0:06:23 Kingston: [laughing] Yes, yes!

0:06:25 Janice: I can't believe it! Kingston, they called me up, they talked about the qualifications, I had the phone interview. I thought I was gonna have to drive all the way to Ithaca to try and get the interview in person. They hired me over the phone! Kingston, what did you do?

0:06:46 Kingston: I didn't do anything, Janice. I mean, it's all you, all right? It was entirely you. I mean, you had the qualifications, you did the work, and now you get the results. I am so incredibly proud of you. God, you are going to do great things up there, great things.

0:07:03 Brennan: You can hear her emotion. You can hear her husband, who she got married to less than six months ago, in the background. You know for a fact that this job is gonna be completely life changing for her.

0:07:18 Lou: Yeah.

0:07:19 Brennan: She says,

0:07:21 Janice: Kingston, I don't know what I'm ever gonna be able to do to repay this because listen, I know that this job didn't get offered to me first.

0:07:37 Brennan: And you just hear that warm silence on the phone of her knowing who they offered this job to first.

0:07:46 Kingston: Well, you know... whoever maybe it was supposed to go to, life has other plans for them. So, this is what you deserve, and this is what you need to do. So, you all have a safe trip up there and you call me when you get up there, all right? I'mma come visit or something. I don't know what's in Ithaca, but you know, it'd be nice to find out.

0:08:16 Brennan: She laughs and says,

0:08:17 Janice: I'll believe Kingston Brown leaves New York City the day I see it.

0:08:22 Kingston: Well, I'm looking for a reason to go. So why don't you come give me one?

0:08:26 Brennan: She laughs and says,

0:08:27 Janice: All right, I'll let you know as soon as we land in. We have a couple of days before the job starts. We're gonna start getting packed and start looking for places out there. I love you so much.

0:08:36 Lou: I love you, too.

0:08:38 Brennan: The phone hangs up. This was the call you were waiting for. You gave as glowing a recommendation as you could. And obviously Cornell had reached out to you based on your record at St. Owens. What's going through a young Kingston’s mind after that phone call?

0:08:58 Lou: I think whatever doubt or questioning Kingston might have of whether or not he should have taken that opportunity, I think he just keeps hearing the joy in Janice's voice and is like, this is how it's supposed to be.

0:09:18 Brennan: Kingston, you head off, you are way downtown taking care of some cert stuff based on the hospital, there was a sort of a course happening down here. So, it's a long walk back to—so, probably you're the closest place cause you're near City Hall actually. Probably the best thing is the 4, 5 headed back up to Harlem.

0:09:41 Lou: Sounds about right.

0:09:42 Brennan: You're heading over to Brooklyn Bridge, and you start walking down, a little bit distracted. Go ahead and make a Perception check for me with disadvantage.

0:09:59 Lou: Am I using the stats… using my now stats?

0:10:02 Brennan: Oh, you don't have advantage on Perception checks yet.

0:10:05 Lou: Oh, okay. Oh, well, but do you want me to add my bonuses or no bonuses?

0:10:10 Brennan: Oh, yes. But you only have a plus 2 proficiency bonus right now.

0:10:14 Lou: Great. Then that is an 8.

0:10:16 Brennan: So you're a little bit distracted thinking about some stuff you got going on. You've got another shift coming up at the hospital. I think life for this Kingston Brown is busy in a healthy and good way, and the job that is now going to be the foundation of a solid family life for your cousin, who's now moving to Ithaca... That was a big opportunity, and the fact that you are feeling sort of exclusively joy for that, I think there's a little bit of daydreaminess in Kingston.

0:10:56 Lou: Yeah.

0:10:57 Brennan: Which is what makes it really weird when you look up and realize that the lights aren't on in the subway station you are in.

0:11:07 Lou: Are there other people in the subway station?

0:11:10 Brennan: You look around, it doesn't look like it. I mean, the MTA has always got problems though. So, maybe the lights are just messed up here. But you don't...

0:11:20 Lou: [speaking faintly] God. All right. Okay. There's nobody? Like it's just dark and I can't...?

0:11:27 Brennan: You could go check out an MTA booth maybe and see.

0:11:29 Lou: Yeah. I think like after a second or two of like just standing in darkness, I am like,

0:11:35 Kingston: Oh, all right, what's going on? [loudly] Excuse me?

0:11:40 Lou: And I go walk toward the nearest MTA booth.

0:11:44 Brennan: You are at the MTA booth. You look around and see you're in a subway station that says City Hall Station. Beautiful tile work, arches everywhere, very art deco, beautiful, sort of civic structures in here. The MTA booth is empty when you get down here. And as you approach to kind of look in it and step away, you hear a kerplunk of a token falling through, and one of the turnstiles is accessible. But you didn't put a token in it. You just heard the kachunk. Someone's must've been like lodged in there, but it's a free token into the subway.

0:12:34 Lou: Oh yeah, yeah. I'm gonna go ahead and take advantage of this fortuitous luck, you know? It's a good day.

0:12:44 Brennan: You move through the turnstile, and now it's like darker down here cause now, you're past the turnstile into like the station proper. Everything's white tile and white marble down here, so you look around and it's… It's illuminated, even though there's no light sources down here, just because of all the reflective, shiny tile of kind of just the bouncing sunlight coming in from way far away. You get down to the subway platform, you don't see any lights down here, there's no people down here left. You see, across the rails, across the tracks of the subway, there's not another platform. So this is one of those old subway stations that only has the platform on one side and then sort of a wall.

0:13:36 Lou: Yeah.

0:13:38 Brennan: But you look down, and across the rails, there is like an opening in the wall that looks like... a burrow or something. But you see that it's caked with stuff. There's like a glittering childs' top, and there's like a gilded like portrait frame. There's a model airplane, and jammed in another place, there's like a puppet, and there's like a golden candelabra. But the walls and ceiling and floor of the tunnel are so jammed with kind of these beautiful objects that you actually can't see dirt in them. And the tunnels are like… Honestly, like about six or maybe six and a half feet tall. It's like an enormous opening across from you. This is now gotten to the point where it's left what you can explain now, it's one of the weirdest things you've seen.

0:14:44 Lou: And there's still no one around? I am alone in a dark… I think, yeah, Kingston's going to curiously try and see as much as he can without leaving the platform.

0:14:59 Brennan: You see light down in there, and you hear a bit of… You hear some like music playing from in there, and the light is flickering from the end of the tunnel. And you hear kind of [deep laugh]—Like a jovial laugh from off in the distance.

0:15:27 Lou: Kingston is gonna kind of slide off the platform.

0:15:33 Kingston: Hey, if y'all are doing work down here, y'all should put a work order sign cause it just seems like the station is open. But you don't want people coming down here, it's all dark and tripping. Hello?

0:15:51 Brennan: You see more light and you could hear more noise. For a moment, you hear some music and some other voices. And I think it occurs to Kingston that there might be some younger kids or some high schoolers who are messing around down here where it's not safe.

0:16:09 Kingston: What are y'all doing now in here? Shouldn't y'all being in school or something? Hey!

0:16:15 Lou: And I'm gonna… I'll full walk in being like… [bends his head to the side] Because I'm already pretty tall, like precarious of my high top. I kind of, head to the side, kinda walk in,

0:16:28 Kingston: Hey, I think there's some kind of work being done here. I don't think we should be down here.

0:16:35 Brennan: You walk in… As you emerge through this tu—You go though it for a while, glittering objects, scrolls, things like that. You emerge into a chamber, which is an enormous automat. Like the kind of World War II era wall of glass. Automat is one of those like automated diners. So it's just rows on rows of little slices of pie and cakes and things like that behind little glass doors that have coin-operated slots. Like back during the 40s, you would just like walk into this 24-hour place, put a nickel into a thing, and open a glass door with a slice of pie behind it and like help yourself. Huge automat. There are rows of ruby and golden-crusted revolutionary war era cannons. There is an enormous 14 foot long golden boom box that is playing like old school—- Even at this point, old school, like 70s into 80s, like Grandmaster Flash, hip hop, and it's just booming out. It's kind of fun, just like a fun trip, but it's playing to nobody. The floor is littered with subway tokens that have kind of piled up in the corners everywhere here.

0:17:59 Lou: Yeah, I think Kingston is just silently trying to make sense of where he is and what this place is. Is there food in the automat?

0:18:10 Brennan: Yeah, totally. It's enormous. It's like rows, upon rows, upon rows, tons and tons of stuff.

0:18:16 Lou: Can I look at what's in the automat?

0:18:18 Brennan: You see that there is a small apple pie that's like a hand-turned pie that is steaming in the automat, like it's fresh baked. And you look and see an old glass bottle of milk next to it. Emily and Zac look extremely concerned at the thought of old milk.

0:18:27 Zac: Milk?

0:18:36 Brennan: And oh yeah, the glass bottle is old but the milk looks fresh. And you look and see that there is a metal… There's like a door behind it because people load the automat from the back. So you get a feeling that you could look in the back there and push and see the space through the other side, if you were to open your little glass door and get this pie.

0:19:01 Kingston: Damn, these teens. I mean, bringing milk into subway stations now? Cast laughs.

0:19:09 Lou: Yeah, can I… I'll push that thing.

0:19:13 Brennan: Do you put a coin into the slot to operate the—?

0:19:15 Lou: Yeah, I’ll put a… Let me see what these teens are doing with this pie. [cast cracks up]

0:19:21 Lou: I'll put a coin in there to try and get this pie out.

0:19:24 Zac: 30-year-old Kingston is like present day Kingston. [players laugh]

0:19:30 Brennan: Let's see here. Hold on one second.

0:19:33 Lou: What do we need to see? Just give me a pie… Just let me eat the pie.

0:19:37 Brennan: Cool! You put it in.

0:19:38 Emily: Don't eat strange pie!

0:19:41 Siobhan: Don't eat pie that you found in the subway.

0:19:44 Lou: I don’t—hey, this is a good day and now there's just fresh pie and a glass bottle of milk, you know?

0:19:51 Emily: Sniff the milk first, please.

0:19:54 Brennan: You push it in, open the glass door. You have fresh pie, and the milk is like cold. And yeah, you see that there's a metal back that you think you could kind of like slide open.

0:20:04 Lou: Yeah, I'll take the pie out and then slide the—slide the metal back.

0:20:11 Brennan: Looking through the metal, you see a sunny field of grass.

0:20:19 Lou: What?

0:20:20 Brennan: With a small homestead in it. There is no city skyline, but you do see like other kind of stuff around. Off in the distance, you see some buildings closer. This is not at the right level, you're deep underground.

0:20:39 Lou: Kingston is gonna like jam as much of his head as he can into the slot, just to make sure that what he's seeing is what he’s seeing.

0:20:49 Brennan: You jam your head trying to see what you're seeing? It's too small. You can't get your… Your head can get in, but your shoulders can't get through. So, you're looking out. The Dutch woman is wearing… There's like a young Dutch milkmaid wearing a bonnet, like a colonial era bonnet. Comes out, she's hanging laundry on a line, there is a goat nearby. She turns to look at you and like cocks her head to the side.

0:21:21 Kingston: He—hello?

0:21:23 Dutch Milkmaid: Hello.

0:21:25 Brennan: And she speaks a string of Dutch and waves over at you.

0:21:29 Lou: I full like, rip my head out and slam the automat closed. Is there—What else is going on in this room?

0:21:42 Brennan: You hear—There's a large door, there's another one of these treasure burrows that leads out, and you hear through that, another booming laugh going, [deep laugh]. You see a button presses on the boom box behind you with no one touching it. And a new track, some Grandmaster Flash comes on, and you hear a voice booming deeper through that chamber sort of singing along with the music, it sounds like. This booming voice going like,

0:22:20 Voice: [laughing heartily] Don't push me cause I'm close to the edge!

0:22:27 Lou: Yeah, I think Kingston is gingerly going to get closer to the source of that sound.

0:22:32 Brennan: You move through the burrow—on a mountain of subway tokens, in a huge dome with the celestial heights and clouds on the top of it, gilded columns everywhere, a just suspended subway car is just resting on a—The dome is large enough that there is just a subway car in here as like an object of interest in this massive dome. The subway car seems to be studded with gems. It has X as the letter on it, which is not a New York City subway line. A massive, serpentine dragon. Pearl white scales mixed with azure blue and emerald green. Long whiskers, both a furry like beard and sort of drooping mustache, but then, also like long, catfish style whiskers. A set of like six horns coming off of a head that is at once draconian, but also kind of canine, but with almost like feline eyes. Multiple limbs, like about eight different limbs. His claws are massive, but compared to the length of this giant, serpentine body, his limbs are kind of scattered few and far between. His head is the size of a taxi cab. And he rears up, looks at you as you come in and goes,

0:24:15 Dragon: [laughs] Kingston Brown from Uptown!

0:24:20 Kingston: Yeah. Yeah, yeah yeah, that's—that's me. Are you the... dragon from that movie?

0:24:30 Dragon: Huh?

0:24:31 Kingston: The Never Ending Story? [cast laughs]

0:24:33 Kingston: Are you the dragon from the Never… Is The Never Ending Story real? What's happening right now? Did you trap a Dutch woman down here? What's going on?

0:24:45 Dragon: Did I trap a Dutch woman? Who?

0:24:48 Kingston: Well there’s a Dutch woman in a box!

0:24:49 Dragon: No, no, no, no. Did you go for the Dutch apple pie?

0:24:55 Kingston: Yeah.

0:24:57 Dragon: That’s—No, she's fine. She's in New Amsterdam. You're completely fine. She's not here. She's not in this pla… Well, she is in this place, but she's not in this time.

0:25:08 Kingston: What? What is that… Hey. Uh, don't eat me, please don't eat me.

0:25:12 Dragon: No, I’m not Falcor.

0:25:16 Kingston: I don’t wanna—What's happening?

0:25:18 Dragon: Ooh, sorry, let me explain.

0:25:22 Brennan: The dragon greatly reduces his size to the point now where he's still very long and serpentine, but now, his head and sort of front quarters are more the size of a tiger or some kind of similar animal. He goes,

0:25:36 Dragon: Kingston Brown, what an honest pleasure to meet you. An honor, truly. I am the Dragon of Bleecker Street, and you... you have a very special life ahead of you.

0:25:59 Dragon: He reaches down and from the massive pile of subway tokens, pulls a single, gleaming subway token. He grabs a piece of leather, spins it through the hole in the center of the subway token, extends it to you and says,

0:26:20 Dragon: This is a gift from me to you.

0:26:24 Brennan: And puts it over your head. You begin to hear voices speaking to you, voices of people far overhead and all around. It doesn't feel like you're “hearing things”. It feels like you are hearing... things. You're just now hearing the voices of people out in the city. The Dragon smiles at you and says,

0:26:55 Dragon: I am aware. I'm sorry that I was sort of having a good time. I've been listening to some of my favorite tracks and have been enjoying some of the automat’s fine foods, and life is for the living, you know?

0:27:10 Kingston: Yeah. And you got good taste of… What is this? And what am I… What are these… Who is this?

0:27:18 Dragon: Oh, Oh. Let us have a walk through up my chambers, you and I. I have much to tell you.

0:27:29 Brennan: And the dragon puts a reassuring claw on your shoulder. And it doesn't… It feels cool and scaly, but reassuring. There is something about the dragon's claw that doesn't alarm you like it otherwise might. And the absurdity of all this—somehow the coin around your neck anchors you, in a way. And the dragon goes,

0:27:54 Dragon: There was much to explain, and you have already paid for your pie. Let us eat, and I will talk to you and tell you what it is you are now seeing.

0:28:07 Brennan: Over the course of the next hour or so, Kingston walks and talks with this ancient dragon about the nature of the Unsleeping City, and the fact that for many long years, there has not been a Vox Populi within the Unsleeping City, but there greatly needs to be. As the conversation arrives at sort of a natural conclusion, Kingston's questions all get either wholly, or in most cases, only partially answered. The dragon has a massive sort of silver cauldron full of ice cream. You're now back on the subway platform outside the horde. And he's sort of stretching out his full form on the subway platform. What shape is Kingston in after the dragon divulges all of this information?

0:29:06 Lou: I think very much overwhelmed, but I think if this token seems to be anchoring me, I mean, I think that, for the most part, a lot of what Kingston's hearing is that there's the ability to do good, and there's the opportunity to do good. And as scary as that may be, there's also something exciting about that.

0:29:32 Brennan: The dragon looks up at you and smiles. Go ahead and make a Medicine check for me.

0:29:40 Lou: Okay. That's gonna be a 25.

0:29:49 Brennan: As Kingston is sort of meditating on the lifesaver to get out of the total collapse of your mind when faced with the fact that everything you ever knew about the nature of the world is wrong. That Kingston's lifesaver is, “This is a way to help people more than I can now.” The dragon smiles, and you see much like a reptile, some of his scales kind of molt off. And you see the dragon takes like a deep wheezy breath. He goes, [dragon breathes in heavily]

0:30:34 Kingston: You all right?

0:30:35 Dragon: What?

0:30:36 Lou: Well, can I push… I don't know where this Dragon's lungs are, but can I push my ear up against its chest?

0:30:48 Brennan: Yeah, you see, you go up. You try to find where its lungs would be in this long, long body, and you put your ear up against it. On a 25, you hear a rasp from within the Dragon's breathing, and you also hear a heartbeat that to you sounds, for a creature of this size, I mean, you're not a veterinarian, but you're like that's a pretty weak heartbeat and the blood pressure is pretty low.

0:31:22 Kingston: You don't seem to be doing so well. I mean, I don't know. Maybe this is normal for you, but it doesn't sound good.

0:31:33 Brennan: The Dragon looks up and smiles at you and says,

0:31:36 Dragon: I am doing very well, actually. The past few days have been very, very rewarding. Knowing that my time is coming means I have been able to engage in my vices more than normal. Big bowls of ice cream, trips to the automat, filling my time with my favorite memories, the best music, the best art, the best books and plays and music and...

0:32:20 Brennan: And you see as the Dragon says that, his scales shimmer, and you see like motes of light and hear ragtime, and jazz, and hip hop, and you see Vaudeville and Broadway shows. You see like street art, spray paint, but then turn of the century, you see like ticker tape parades, all these things throughout the history of New York City. And you see the Dragon looks up at you and says,

0:32:52 Dragon: My only fear was I wouldn't make it long enough to find the right one. The right one. And you are the right one, Kingston. [sighs] Frightening times are coming. There will be friends and allies in the Unsleeping City for you, and they need you. That will be your journey, I'm afraid, Kingston. There will always be those who need you. And you will have to decide how much of yourself you can give because it's always nice to keep a little slice of pie for yourself.

0:33:48 Brennan: Eats little piece of pie.

0:33:51 Kingston: This is my city, this is my community. And for everything that it's given me, I'm ready to give it right back, I think. I mean, I really don't understand. So there's just… There are goblins just out there, just in New York City?

0:34:08 Dragon: Extremely.

0:34:09 Kingston: I know I've asked this before, but just 100% [they begin to talk over each other] And there's another police department?

0:34:14 Dragon: [interrupting] Kingston, I'm so sorry. But actually, I'm sorry, looks like your train might be—

0:34:20 Brennan: The dragon vanishes as a train speeds by. Kingston, you're standing on the platform of the Brooklyn Bridge 4, 5 station. And the 4 train pulls into the station. And you watch scintillating motes of dry, shed scales filled with memories fade off. You've still got the coin around your neck.

0:34:45 Kingston: I am not gonna get used to this. I'm not gonna get used to this at all.

0:34:51 Brennan: And you wake up three years after the events of the Unsleeping City season one, in your apartment in Harlem, hell yes. And we're gonna cut over, roll a little die here. Okay. It is the morning of October 30th, three years after the events of season one. It's a beautiful fall in New York. Oh, baby, fall in New York is so wonderful. The air is crisp...

0:35:30 Emily: So, Halloween is tomorrow?

0:35:31 Brennan: Halloween is tomorrow. The group chat thread of the champions of New York has pr… Even those of you who have retreated a little bit from magical life, know that Halloween is tomorrow and Halloween is always a shit show, and some magical business happens. We descend on this crisp, bright fall morning, sun shining, New Yorkers walking around in light sweaters and jackets. The perfect time to be in the city. [36:06 - Ricky’s Intro] We move across the East river from Harlem, all the way down to beautiful brownstones and Ivy and trees to the wonderful Clinton Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn. And we see out on the corner, there is a tall building of apartments. And on top of it, a miniature clock tower. And we approached the glass face of the clock tower, which is frosted white glass, so it's not completely transparent, but light comes through. And we move through that clock tower to see a gorgeous apartment. There are plants everywhere around, away from the clock tower face, behind the clock tower. There are windows on the other side with rows and rows of plants suspended. And we see a massive kind of open, complex, open plan apartment with two figures lying in a giant bed together, one of whom should be described by Mr. Zac Oyama. Zac, can you describe your character?

0:37:17 Zac: Yeah. Hey, what's going on? I'm Ricky, as you all know. Ricky, just as strong as ever, absolutely ripped still. Fully asleep, has no… Just the type of person who just lays down in bed and fully falls asleep for maybe as long as he needs or longer. No, nothing in his brain will slow him down in that way. Ricky is just fully passed out asleep, maybe smiling in his sleep.

0:37:56 Emily: [laughs] What does Ricky dream of? [Brennan laughs]

0:38:00 Emily: His life is a dream, what does he dream of?

0:38:03 Zac: It's the exact same picture of… [Emily laughs]

0:38:05 Brennan: And by the way, I was actually mistaken. There are two figures in the bed, and a third on the bed because Ox the dalmatian is curled up the foot of the bed. Ricky, you're fast asleep. Next to you sleeping, oh, so peacefully as well is the current head and Chairwoman of the Gramercy Occult Society, Esther Sinclair. Esther has fully barnacled, like fetal position, around you in her sleep. You see her constant internal wizard work has her brows… She's almost always in like rapid eye movement as she sleeps, thinking or something. But...

0:38:50 Zac: Whatever the opposite of a furrowed brow is what Ricky has.

0:38:55 Ally: A loose brow, a sprawling brow.

0:38:59 Brennan: You see that Esther has her hair wrapped in silk with like star and moon, like wizard patterns around it. And is like sleeping next to you, breathing very slowly, but still working on something in her mind. And whatever it is, as you slowly wake up, you see whatever she's working on her mind, she solves it. And her brow and unfurrows and she smiles, and just softly snores a little bit. Around you are like huge, beautiful, deep, dark, reclaimed wood shelves that kind of are structured on like that very chic like exposed pipe. You know, it's that sort of like pipe, and exposed wood, and exposed brick. Huge collections of tomes are here, her personal arcane library. On her bedside table. You see there's like glass of water, humidifier, glasses and contacts, and a bunch of other… And her silver baseball bat arcane focus, leaning up against the bedside table. And this place is like plants, lovely furniture, big old TV, magic books, floating, hovering, arcane thing, huge workout area over in a corner, with a ton of weights everywhere. And you wake up as Ox gets up first, licks your face for another beautiful morning.

0:40:28 Zac: Yeah, Ricky's eyes just immediately open. He licks Ox back—no. Pats Ox on the head. And then is like,

0:40:38 Ricky: All right, it's time to rise and grind.

0:40:42 Zac: Ricky goes… He has this like morning routine where he gets his coffee going. And as soon as he starts the coffee timer, he just goes and does pull ups until it's done. Then he just carries around his morning. I think he probably gets a shake going as well.

0:41:08 Brennan: Hell yeah. The shake going is Esther's alarm. She wakes up as the shake goes.

0:41:18 Esther: [yawning] Oh, wonderful, wonderful. Another perfect day. Good morning, sweetie.

0:41:26 Brennan: And she floats out of bed, levitates over somewhere.

0:41:31 Zac: Trying to hand her a coffee like in the sky.

0:41:35 Esther: Thank you, my darling.

0:41:36 Brennan: Takes it.

0:41:37 Esther: Mm, perfect.

0:41:39 Ricky: Thank you.

0:41:39 Brennan: And scoots over to a very sunlit window, surrounded by plants, other things like that. Your guys' morning routine is very synchronized. She comes over, alights on a chair, a big armchair, and takes a bunch of sort of like arcane stuff, puts it to the side, takes coffee, takes a little snack of some kind of like cashews and Brazil nuts just something to get her body started. And it's like,

0:42:11 Esther: Okay.

0:42:12 Zac: As she’s snacking, I start trying to like sketch her with charcoal and my big… My new hobby is art, just the idea of art. I'm just taking a stab at drawing, concentrating really hard.

0:42:28 Brennan: Yeah, you see that Esther has… Still has a little bit of that punk edge, but also is now like cozy core punk, like long, long cardigan that she's wearing. She sort of smiles, looks over to you and says,

0:42:46 Esther: Should I hold a pose over here? Is there some sort of way I should be? Or am I free to...?

0:42:53 Ricky: Yeah. You know, from what I understand, it seems like people talk about people staying still. But if you feel like moving around, maybe I'll just figure it out.

0:43:01 Esther: Sounds—

0:43:02 Ricky: It could be cool if you're moving around in the picture, but I'm not sure how to do that yet.

0:43:07 Brennan: She says,

0:43:07 Esther: I'll try to keep it still here.

0:43:10 Brennan: Your guys' morning progresses. Esther grabs some breakfast for herself, dives into reviewing stuff. A lot of her work these days is not only arcane, but like running the Occult Society. You see a couple of minutes later, she grabs her phone, FaceTimes her mom real quick, Gabriela Sinclair. No longer one of the Furies of Tompkins Square Park, but rather the curse having been broken by Kugrash, Gabriela is now living elsewhere in Brooklyn. She see that, she goes like,

0:43:44 Esther: Hey Mom, thanks for jumping on the call real quick. I just wanted to go over some of this stuff with you because it's a little bit baffling to me, but I wanted to check and see if you would be familiar with any of this stuff.

0:43:54 Brennan: And is like screen sharing with her mom from a laptop some like arcane symbols and stuff. Her mom, Gabriela, as the phone is scribbled around, looks over and goes,

0:44:07 Gabriela: Is that Ricky I see in the background? Good morning, Ricky!

0:44:11 Ricky: [waving] Hey, how's it going? I'm just sketching… I'm gonna incorporate you into the sketch.

0:44:18 Brennan: You see that Gabriela smiles and goes,

0:44:22 Gabriela: Ah, oh, that's so sweet, Ricky. Oh my goodness, you look amazing. You look wonderful...

0:44:28 Zac: I'm doing squats while I...

0:44:32 Brennan: You see that Gabriela looks at Esther and goes like,

0:44:37 Gabriela: Oh Ricky, I wanted to send you something I was looking up.

0:44:41 Brennan: And you see a text [buzzing] shows up on your phone from Esther's mom. She says,

0:44:46 Gabriela: There was something very interesting that's happened in our neighborhood, a jewelry store opened up. It's very interesting, there's a whole new jewelry shop around the corner from me that opened up. And I was wondering, you know, I need to go—you understand that I was cursed to be a sort of fury, like this sort of sorceress spirit of New York City for a long time. So I'm just trying to kind of pick up the pieces, start back up, get back into the world of mortals so to speak.

0:45:15 Ricky: [confused] Did I talk to you about jewelry?

0:45:16 Gabriela: Well, no, it’s just—

0:45:17 Ricky: Did we have a conversation about jewelry?

0:45:18 Gabriela: Well, no cause you were saying you might want to lend a hand, and I have some jewelry shopping that I wanna do, and I was thinking that maybe you would...

0:45:26 Ricky: I'm not… I mean, I'll go with you. I don't know that I'm necess...

0:45:29 Brennan: You see, Esther says,

0:45:30 Esther: Oh, that's all for now, mom! Thank you.

0:45:32 Brennan: Click. And hits the button.

0:45:37 Ricky: I just forget, did we talk about...

0:45:38 Brennan: Esther looks and says,

0:45:39 Esther: You didn't forget anything, sweetie. You didn't forget it. You didn't forget a single thing. You forgot nothing. My mom is being a pest, and you don't have to worry about her.

0:45:49 Ricky: What a weird conversation. Cast laughs.

0:45:57 Brennan: As you get ready to head out to work for the day, you see Esther looks over and says… looking over and it's just sort of feeding herself… She's kind of talks her work out loud to you a lot, and says,

0:46:09 Esther: It's just so cool because like, we have all these applicants, and just Sofia has been working so hard, and we've been able to devote so much more time to looking for applicants. And there's so many cool people. Like, look at this guy. I think this guy we have to induct into the society. We're gonna have to figure out some way to open up a secret magic alley and have him stumble down it and discover that magic is real. This is the fun part of the job, 100%.

0:46:40 Ricky: It sounds really cool. I can picture what you're talking about.

0:46:44 Esther: Oh, it's great. It's getting to show up and tell people, “Magic is real, you might be a wizard.” Extremely, extremely fun. Oh, look at this.

0:46:55 Brennan: She says,

0:46:55 Esther: I think this guy's it for sure. This is a guy who's working at Columbia University on… This physics work is phenomenal, and that's the thing.

0:47:06 Brennan: Then she starts sort of going off about it and then says,

0:47:10 Esther: Am I keeping you here? You have to run off to work?

0:47:13 Ricky: Yeah, I probably should get going.

0:47:15 Zac: Do I know any of these people, that she's looking at?

0:47:20 Brennan: You go ahead and look at it. It seems like there's a couple of different people here that all… Esther is kind of like, branched out and is looking for people that are not just like people who are interested in the occult, but people that are like in the humanities, in STEM, people that are doing incredibly advanced mathematics and physics and stuff. She's like,

0:47:41 Esther: I don't know why it feels… I just feel like there's a way to involve more people here in the Order to get a variety of perspectives. I feel like a lot of times the more fusty and old school a person has their approach, like we're never gonna be as good at the old hermetic magic stuff as those old timers were. But you can bring a fresh perspective from another discipline and really reorient what we understand about the Umbral Engine, the Umbral Arcana… Did you know, I just learned after inheriting the headmaster stuff—

0:48:19 Brennan: And you see a moment of sadness pass over her face any time she kind of talks about inheriting the headmaster. It's been three years since Alejandro died, but still, that was like her mentor. She says,

0:48:29 Esther: Alejandro was so smart. And there was so much stuff. Like I didn't know, the Umbral Arcana is not a spell effect. The Umbral Arcana is a naturally occurring substance, and the Unreal Engine is just like controlling it. The magic is about harnessing a thing that already exists naturally in the Sixth Borough. Like I didn't even know that until I got access to this stuff. There's so much exciting work ahead of us.

0:49:00 Ricky: Wow. Sounds like a dam.

0:49:05 Esther: Kind of, yeah. It kind of is like that. Yeah, exactly. It's...

0:49:09 Ricky: I read an article about a dam three weeks ago, and it sounded similar to that.

0:49:15 Brennan: You see she gets up, she sees you, comes out of her hyper work state and comes over and says,

0:49:21 Esther: That's awesome. It's exactly like a dam.

0:49:24 Ricky: Awesome. It sounds like a really exciting work. And yeah, what you're talking about, it's always great to get like a fresh perspective. Like when I'm doing, I don't know, CrossFit. And then, when I'm going to mix it up, and I do like a dodgeball league or something, that's fun. And that's like I'm learning a different way to exercise.

0:49:46 Esther: That's exactly it, sweetie. It's a different way to exercise, that's exactly right.

0:49:52 Brennan: She just smiles and wraps her arms around you, gives you a kiss and says,

0:49:55 Esther: Have a great day at work. I know you're gonna do amazing things. You're… Uhg. My goodness. Mr. March.

0:50:06 Ricky: Oh, I mean, I don't know. I feel like my days of being on a calendar are long gone.

0:50:14 Brennan: You see that she waggles her eyebrows at you and says,

0:50:16 Esther: We can always do like a private photo shoot. Do just like a calendar, just every-month-is-March calendar, [wiggles eyebrows] if you want.

0:50:23 Ricky: Every month is March? Cast laughs.

0:50:26 Esther: All right, sweetie, you have a great day at work.

0:50:29 Zac: I hand her my horrible drawing and I get out.

0:50:34 Brennan: You head out to the street. Ricky, you head off to the street. You're walking Ox along, you're headed to the place where you’ve been working for the past two and a half years or so, the Helping Hands Homeless Center and Outreach program. And you are walking through Clinton Hill, how's Ricky feeling as he heads to work?

0:51:02 Zac: I think Ricky's feeling good, you know, it's like a good morning. He got up, had his routine. Everything felt like a normal, good day so far. And I think he's just ready to get after it.

0:51:18 Brennan: Hell yeah. You run by… Give me a Perception check real quick.

0:51:23 Zac: Do I still have advantage from...

0:51:25 Brennan: Yes, you do.

0:51:30 Zac: I rolled a 22.

0:51:33 Brennan: Hell yeah. You're heading off to the homeless outreach center where you work, and you see, off from the distance, just sort of on sort of a side street, sort of rolling around the corner, you just look and see your old company's fire truck kind of round the corner and head off down the street for the moment.

0:51:57 Ricky: I mean, I should say “hey”.

0:51:58 Zac: And I sprint after it as fast as possible.

0:52:02 Brennan: Summoning that superhuman speed, you rip around the corner and go along. And you see the three Johns are in the back of the firetruck.

0:52:11 Ricky: John cubed!

0:52:14 Brennan: You see they turn around and they go,

0:52:14 Johns: [gasps] Ricky!

0:52:17 Brennan: And all of them in their full gear leap off the truck, pick you up in a big hug. And they're like,

0:52:21 Johns: Dude, how is it going these days? Man, look at you. Dude, you look swole as hell. Looks like you're taking care of yourself.

0:52:28 Ricky: I am taking care of myself because that's how you take care of others. You take care of yourself first.

0:52:33 Johns: You take care of yourself first.

0:52:34 Brennan: You see all of them at the same time go,

0:52:35 Johns: You put your own oxygen mask on before you put it on the p...

0:52:41 Ricky: I mean, that's just being safe. But yeah, I'm doing good. Me and Esther moved in together.

0:52:50 John: Nice.

0:52:52 Ricky: I'm working at the Helping Hands Homeless Outreach place. And yeah, shit's great.

0:52:57 John: Dude, that is awesome, dude. It's so great that you found someone that takes care of you, that you can take care of. That kind of intimacy, that's what life's all about, dude. And the number one thing you can do when you get is you can give, man, and that's you to a T, dude.

0:53:11 Ricky: Aww, that's you, John.

0:53:14 Zac: I pick him up.

0:53:15 Brennan: Yeah, he goes,

0:53:15 John: Yeah, getting picked up!

0:53:19 Brennan: Each of you guys take about a minute and a half to each pick up each other, including the three guys who are gonna go back into the same fire truck together.

0:53:30 Ricky: So, what are you up to? What are you guys up to?

0:53:32 John: Ah dude, there's a fire. We gotta get going, man.

0:53:36 Ricky: Yeah, sorry.

0:53:37 Zac: I put them back onto the firetruck.

0:53:39 Brennan: You lift them up one by one,

0:53:41 Johns: Rock and roll, dude. Huge core strength man, way to go. Take care, Rick.

0:53:45 Brennan: And you see the truck takes off.

0:53:49 Zac: I think a part of Ricky misses it a little bit, but also, he's happy doing what he's doing.

0:53:55 Brennan: Yeah. You get to Helping Hands, you have a great day working at the center. There's like a food drive going on right now, you're helping unload boxes for that and get things stored and separated. And yeah, just that little wistful pang of seeing the fire truck drive off into the distance. [54:16 - Pete’s Intro] We whisk away from the firehouse to our next character. We are up in Uncommon Knowledge. We actually dive all the way up back to Harlem, to a tiny little bookstore, an awesome second-hand bookstore, all used books, a lot of old awesome things like that. There's a small little wooden sign outside that says Uncommon Knowledge, sort of tucked off the corner, a few blocks away from 125th street. This beautiful, magical, rich smelling of old dusty paper. And even as old and crowded as the bookstore is, you see that there is a little shelf outside where people can just take books. There's books that the store has basically said like, hey, just take one. There's also a little wheelchair ramp leading up into this sort of old building. And we go inside to see the man behind the register at the front of the store. Ally, could you please describe your character for us?

0:55:21 Ally: Yes. Hello, everyone. Yeah, Pete is just at work. He's been trying to sit up straight lately. He realized his posture is kind of lacking, and I think he's just kind of really focusing on that, kind of having like an anxious day. Just kind of like clothes are fitting weird and just like,

0:55:46 Pete: [moving his shoulders around] You know, maybe it's a posture thing. Yeah, all right.

0:55:52 Ally: So he's just kinda like at the register, like [sits up, chin down almost touching their chest] Cast laughs.

0:55:59 Brennan: Looking around, posture's kind of weird. You see that your… One of your coworkers comes in to replace you. You see, they come in… Their name is Zee Silverman. This is actually one of the few close work buds you have. You see, they come in, they got big glasses, kind of little flop of like fluorescent orange, pink and yellow hair. They have their little pronoun pin on the lapel of their jacket saying “they/them” on it. And you see that they are also a wheelchair user. So coming across the ramp, give you a little peace sign and go,

0:56:40 Zee: Hey Pete, how's the morning shift going?

0:56:42 Pete: Hey Zee, it was great. We actually had one of those school tours, so, you know. The place was full of kids, and I just kind of had to clean up a bunch of juice.

0:56:57 Zee: Sorry, is there like... Are there like juice stains around?

0:57:00 Pete: No, I got most of them up. But you know the place fills with kids. It's like let's really inspire a love of reading in these kids, but they always spill juice multiple places.

0:57:15 Zee: Okay, I feel like that's actually… Okay, that might be a bigger deal if the books all have juice on—How many kids had juice? You said it was a high school group?

0:57:24 Pete: No, no, no. They were little kids, it was like third grade or something. They were probably like 30, 35 of them. And I would say at least 15 of them had an open juice.

0:57:36 Brennan: You see that Zee goes,

0:57:36 Zee: Okay, I'm gonna run to the bathroom and kind of just like eat my lunch super quick, and then I'll come tap you out.

0:57:44 Pete: Yeah, no worries. Yeah, yeah, no worries. No rush. I got all the juice up, I dunno if I made that clear. I'm not leaving you with a big mess.

0:57:52 Zee: Gotcha, no worries. That's totally, totally fine. Cool, I'm gonna go scarf my lunch down real quick. I'm gonna run to the bathroom.

0:57:58 Brennan: You see that they head back, they say,

0:58:01 Zee: You need to be out of here at like pretty sharp cause you said you're looking at an apartment later today, is that right?

0:58:08 Pete: Yeah! Yeah, I am. I would love to get to that on time. It seems like when you show up late, they're always like... upset.

0:58:16 Zee: No, it's like hell, finding a place in the city, for sure.

0:58:20 Brennan: You see that they head back to the bathroom in the back of the store, and you hear the door kind of jingle again. One of the school chaperones comes back in with one of the young sort of like third or fourth grade kids. And they're the chaperone goes like,

0:58:40 Chaperone: All right, sweetie. Where do we think we lost it? It's gotta be somewhere here, right? We gotta find it so that we can grab the...

0:58:49 Pete: Oh, what'd you guys leave? I can help you find it.

0:58:51 Brennan: You see the kid looks up at you, and they are looking at you with like wide, wide eyes. You see, they've got like a little school uniform with a skirt on, like beads in their hair. And you see the kid looking up at you in like wide-eyed amazement. Go ahead and give me an Insight check with advantage.

0:59:14 Ally: Ooh. Oh, yeah, honey, that's an 18.

0:59:19 Brennan: Pete is looking down at this kid—who very clearly is in like a school uniform skirt, like beads in their hair—You're getting two different vibes from this kid at the same time. You're getting number one, kid looking at a queer adult and with a look of like recognition and wonderment. And you're also getting maybe something else beyond that as well. The kid looks around and is like,

0:59:57 Kid: Yeah, I was looking around at the different books and stuff and found a bunch of… So, it's like a little teddy bear backpack.

1:00:06 Brennan: And you see that they look up at you and say,

1:00:09 Kid: It's a little brown teddy bear, but it's got backpack straps built into it. It's my little teddy bear backpack.

1:00:15 Pete: Oh, that's really cool. I love stuff like that. Okay, man. Yeah, let's look around.

1:00:21 Ally: And I just kinda like help look around. And then I say to the chaperone,

1:00:27 Pete: Do you know where they left it? Do you know which areas they were in?

1:00:34 Brennan: The chaperone shrugs. And you see the kid points over at a stack of books and says,

1:00:40 Kid: Maybe it might've been behind there.

1:00:42 Brennan: The chaperones start looking. And the kid just turns to look up at you. And they're again, like about nine years old. And you see that they just sort of wave at you and go,

1:00:57 Kid: Hi. What's your name?

1:01:02 Pete: [struggling] Um. It's Pete. Oh, that's so hard to do. Sorry, it's Pete. My real name is Pete. I'll tell you my real name, and it's Pete.

1:01:12 Brennan: The kid sort of nods and looks up and says,

1:01:19 Kid: Cool, cool.

1:01:20 Pete: What's your name?

1:01:22 Brennan: The little kid says,

1:01:22 Kid: Amanda.

1:01:27 Pete: Cool.

1:01:28 Brennan: Yeah. And I think Pete on the 18 Insight can tell that this little nine year old is having those early, early feelings of like, “Maybe I don't want this to be my name forever.”

1:01:40 Pete: Cool, do you like that name? [Amanda shrugs.] Do you have any nicknames that you go by or?

1:01:50 Amanda: Well, there's a lot of other Amanda's in the school, and my last name is Daniels, and so sometimes, I get called Amanda D, and sometimes I get called Dee for short, and I kinda like the nickname Dee.

1:02:10 Pete: Yeah, that's a cool nickname. We have someone who works here, their name is Zee.

1:02:16 Brennan: You see that Amanda's eyes light up as they look at you. And they quickly look over your shoulder as a little flicker of a green light in the shape of a butterfly just moves around. And that one was not one that you even made visible to other people. It just moves around for a second. But you see that Amanda sees it.

1:02:44 Pete: Huh. You know, you can start to make your own reality. You know, you can tell people how you'd like to be perceived, and it's never too early to start that. You should tell everyone that your name’s Dee.

1:03:03 Brennan: Dee looks up at you with just tears like forming, and just smiles. The chaperone lifts the teddy bear up out of the thing and says,

1:03:15 Chaperone: Is this it? Okay, let's get out of here.

1:03:20 Brennan: And Dee smiles at you. And just again, is looking at you with like that rapt fascination of like, what a cool person! And like, I'm nine, I don't get—Yeah, like.

1:03:35 Ally: I think I have the butterfly fly around and then I make a circle with my hands and the butterfly flies through it. And I'm like,

1:03:43 Pete: Bye, Dee!

1:03:45 Emily: [laughs] Like vape tricks with it.

1:03:47 Brennan: Dee waves so excitedly, goes,

1:03:47 Dee: Bye, Pete! [excitedly blows kisses]

1:03:51 Brennan: And like blows kisses and waves and smiles and walks off back into the street.

1:04:02 Pete: [sighs, smiling] Ah, best part of the job.

1:04:09 Brennan: Yes. The Vox Phantasma of New York City bringing a little bit of the dream world into the waking. Zee comes out, replaces you, cuts you loose. You guys have an apartment to go head out and see. You check your phone for the info, and as you're sort of heading to the subway, I think Pete recognizes that you hadn't checked your phone for a good like 40 minutes. And there are no texts waiting on it when you look up. And it's just a very different life.

1:04:45 Ally: And I only have one phone now. A total bore for me. Hmm.

1:04:54 Brennan: You begin to head off towards the subway looking at that phone. Probably the most recent texts are from Dr. Lugash. And actually, yeah. The most recent text is morning from Dr. Lugash checking in about coming to tomorrow's meeting and just making sure you're there.

1:05:11 Ally: Oh, yeah. I shoot him a text back.

1:05:13 Pete: Oh, sorry, was at work. Yeah, I'll definitely be there.

1:05:16 Brennan: Awesome, great. You head off into the city.

1:05:23 Ally: I think I'm eating just like the worst food ever before meeting someone good. I have like a four-pack of like White Castle sliders.

1:05:34 Murph: You’re eating them cold? [speakers cross talking over each other]

1:05:37 Ally: Mm-hmm, just eating them so cold.

1:05:38 Siobhan: No.

1:05:39 Ally: I got them on the way to work.

1:05:41 Murph: So, they're defrosted?

1:05:42 Zac: You just didn't have time, yeah. [1:05:45 - Sofia’s Intro]

1:05:45 Brennan: Incredible. From there, we move and zoom up away from Harlem all the way back down, moving, moving, moving, all the way to Staten Island. [Emily laughs, Murph claps]

1:06:02 Brennan: All the way to Staten Island, to a small… I honestly think one bedroom apartment shared—

1:06:12 Emily: Okay, one bedroom. We upgraded from studio.

1:06:16 Brennan: Upgraded from studio. A one bedroom above Spaghetti's Bakery. [Lou laughs]

1:06:22 Emily: The smell of the cannolis wafts in through the windows.

1:06:28 Brennan: Coming back from a morning shift at first-class luxury, beauty hair salon, Sofia Lee, you walk through the door of your apartment after you had about like three back-to-back appointments today.

1:06:47 Sofia: They all wanted the Rachel. It's back, I guess.

1:06:56 Brennan: You walk in and see that all the living spaces are completely occupied by yet another deep clean of the entire apartment. The curtains have been laundered, there's piles of laundry being folded everywhere. Your mom walks in, who you are now living with, Marie Bicicleta walks in and goes,

1:07:22 Marie: Okay, I couldn't tell ‘cause you're separating your whites from the colors, but you're also separating the delicates from everything else. So, I went through and re-separated and rewashed. If anything's not in the right place, you let me know.

1:07:38 Sofia: Mom, I don't care. Throw it all in one load. It's clothes, who cares?

1:07:43 Marie: I'm not gonna put your delicate—I'm not gonna put lace or anything like that. First of all, this is—

1:07:49 Sofia: [shouting] Mother, what need do I have for delicates in my life? Do you think anyone sees my delicates besides you?

1:07:56 Marie: [shouting, clapping hands together as if wearing acrylic nails] Maybe you want to find someone who wants to see your delicates!

1:08:01 Sofia: [tearing up] Maybe my delicates are just private for a little while, okay?

1:08:07 Marie: [clapping again] “Private” doesn't mean “nobody's” sweetheart!

1:08:10 Sofia: Let them get destroyed by the dryer, I don't care! No one's looking at my delicates, end of sentence!

1:08:18 Brennan: You see, she looks out and says,

1:08:21 Marie: [tearing up] I don't understand why you yell at me, I'm trying to help you—

1:08:23 Sofia: I know, I know—

1:08:24 Marie: —God forbid, your own mother—I mean, you think I like to go through and look at my daughter's lingerie? You should be able to do this for yourself. But you got these—

1:08:31 Sofia: I know, I know—

1:08:37 Marie: —who has a hair appointment at 1:30 in the morning? Why do you have hair appointments at such strange times of night?

1:08:44 Sofia: I told you I have some very particular clients and I'm on-call. I'm an on-call hairdresser, this is absolutely normal. You didn't know that the salon has a graveyard shift? It does. Okay? Nothing to see. I cut hair, that's all I do, Mom. That's all I do.

1:09:01 Marie: But why are they making you pull so many doubles? You go work in the morning, you work a graveyard shift at night. Sweetheart, [clapping] where is the time in your life to meet a man? Nobody is co—There are no men at the hair salon, sweetheart.

1:09:16 Sofia: Mom, I absolutely appreciate what you're doing. But you got to understand that right now work keeps me out of the bottle. And so, maybe it's not such a bad thing.

1:09:31 Marie: [holding hands up defensively] Okay. All right, forgive me. She knows! She knows the card up the sleeve to make Mom agree. So, there you go. There you go, play the card that makes Mom have to shut up.

1:09:44 Sofia: Yeah. And just so you know, if you try to sign me up for Tinder one more time—I mean, you shouldn't do it, because what did you do? You uploaded my high school senior photo, and then the bio was a Bible quote? Mother!

1:09:58 Marie: You look beautiful! Why shouldn't we—

1:10:01 Sofia: It was… nothing but predators, I'll be honest. It was just not a strategic… It was not strategic.

1:10:12 Brennan: She holds up an iPhone that she has had made so that the font is like enormously large on it.

1:10:20 Sofia: I can read one word on that.

1:10:23 Brennan: She says,

1:10:23 Marie: Yes, there only needs to be one word, which is “match”! And you've gotten 18! I run your account better than you do. Look at this conversation, this guy is a sergeant in the fire department. And look at this, he texted me saying, “Hey, what's up? I love the corsage in your main photo.” And look what I said. I said—

1:10:36 Sofia: What did you say, mother? I wanna know what you said.

1:10:49 Marie: —“Me”, I said, “Me, parentheses Sofia, am single and available.”

1:11:00 Sofia: I take it back, you just seem like you're catfishing. You just seem like you're catfishing.

1:11:06 Marie: What's catfishing? People keep saying I'm doing that. Does that mean you're doing well?

1:11:11 Sofia: No, it means that people think that you're pretending to be one person and you're not. And honestly, that is what's happening here. You're catfishing for a good cause. But nevertheless, the cat has been fished.

1:11:24 Brennan: You see she goes,

1:11:24 Marie: Okay, well, I guess I can't win. There's a lot of lovely men on here. The ones that—There are some that I find distasteful, but you gotta throw a lot of lines before you land a fish, sweetheart!

1:11:38 Sofia: Okay, Mother, I'm just gonna say one thing. I'm not the only single woman in this one bedroom apartment. So.

1:11:49 Marie: First of all...

1:11:50 Sofia: Is it possible that you are focusing on me because you don't want to look at what's going on with you?

1:11:56 Marie: First of all, I am not single. I am still married to that scum of the ear—I don't even want to say his name, all right?

1:12:05 Sofia: I don't want you to say it either.

1:12:07 Marie: Women in my generation, we don't get divorced, okay? And if I ever see the man I'm married to again, whose name I won't say, I'll kill him. And I want you to know that. He's dead to me. But I am not single, okay? I have beautiful children, my beautiful daughter.

1:12:26 Brennan: And she comes over and grabs your face. [mimes holding her face and kisses one side then the other]

1:12:30 Marie: I love you, I love you, I love you. I know I can be a nudge, I just want you to be happy, okay?

1:12:36 Sofia: I know. I know, mom, I know.

1:12:39 Marie: All right, I'm gonna finish the laundry. I'm gonna go get some sandwiches downstairs, and we'll get you something to eat cause I know you gotta head out again in not too long.

1:12:47 Sofia: Yeah, absolutely. A lot of hair needs to be cut in this city. A lot of Rachels. I got to turn a lot of zeros into Rachels.

1:12:59 Brennan: Your mom heads out. Also, introducing a new little game system here for those watching at home.

1:13:03 Emily: Oh, right.

1:13:07 Brennan: Yeah, so for everyone at home, Dimension 20 for this season, the Unsleeping City, because Sofia and Pete are both sober at the moment, we actually consulted with some awesome sobriety and addiction consultants to create kind of an extension of the Adaine Abernant panic attack system into a system to accurately reflect our characters as they work on their sobriety. So both Ally and Emily have a list of sort of sobriety triggers for Sofia and Pete. Fighting with your mom is one of Sofia's. So you go ahead, you're at a D20 right now because you've been doing meetings and you are doing very well.

1:13:55 Emily: I've been sober two years, three months, and 17 days. Not three years because after Kug passed, I went on a nine month bender, but um. I, yeah. Okay, I passed, I got a 5.

1:14:16 Brennan: Hell yeah, great. Awesome. Lou gives an “OK” hand sign.

1:14:20 Sofia: It's okay. Sofia, still your mind. She wants the best for you. You don't let the shame of starting a fight with someone who wants the best for you just fall off of you like water in the shower.

1:14:33 Brennan: You center yourself, you're feeling good. Sofia and Pete, you guys feel free to make those rolls even when I'm not calling for them as well. So, very cool. Sofia, you look at your phone. I think Sofia is probably the most on the ball in terms of tomorrow being Halloween.

1:14:54 Emily: Oh, yeah. I've got pumpkin earrings. I'm wearing leopard print pants. I know you're talking about magical, but I am saying Sofia is also decked out for Halloween. Pumpkin earrings, big pumpkin shirt, a pumpkin full of Halloween candy that she brings to every place she works.

1:15:14 Brennan: Incredible.

1:15:15 Emily: And also she's aware that magic will be in a potent stage tomorrow.

1:15:23 Brennan: Hell yes. So before you sort of have your business tonight, you see a little reminder of an appointment that you actually have in the city on the upper west side. You got a spot with your psychic today as well.

1:15:40 Emily: Ah, yes. Okay. Well, yeah, you know what? This will be good because I just had a fight with my mother. I'm like feeling just kind of icky from that. So I will just… I don't want to take the Staten Island ferry. So do I have a car at all?

1:16:00 Brennan: Go ahead and make a flat Wisdom check for me.

1:16:07 Emily: Okay. I got a 19 plus, hold on. 19 plus 3, 22. This is probably just gonna tell me I absolutely don't. [Siobhan laughs]

1:16:24 Brennan: You absolutely have access to a car. Your brother, Mario, stole a car, which you stole so he can't report it.

1:16:37 Emily: Okay. [laughs] Yes. Great, I get in the car. I plug my iPhone in, I start blasting music, and I hop on the Verrazano Bridge to take a really indirect route to the Upper West Side.

1:16:56 Brennan: Yeah, go on the Verrazano up the BQE over the Triborough down to the Upper West Side.

1:17:02 Emily: I love traffic, it's something to do when you're sober.

1:17:08 Brennan: A while later, as you're driving, you see that in the radio... So, what kind of music do you have playing on the radio right now?

1:17:19 Emily: I think I just, whatever station was on.

1:17:23 Brennan: You see that the stations are [imitating signal change] and settles on a super fun merengue station, as you—and starts playing. And as it happens, appearing next to you is your patron in the passenger seat made of light, purring.

1:17:45 La Gran Gata: [licks paw and grooms herself] Ah, mija, you look beautiful today.

1:17:49 Sofia: Gracias.

1:17:51 Brennan: You see, La Gran Gata smiles at you, the great bodega cat of New York and says,

1:17:56 La Gran Gata: Are we perhaps going hunting later tonight, or perhaps tomorrow? I know there are many that will steal the visage of the sexy cat.

1:18:07 Sofia: I mean, we've gone hunting every single night since I've been sober. So yeah, we'll be hunting, yeah. What are you in the mood to hunt for?

1:18:16 Brennan: You see, La Gran Gata says,

1:18:18 La Gran Gata: It is all good to me whatever, wrongdoers, wicked, and licentious orcs, wander the streets threatening the innocent people of this city. If we could also find some... mice or say—I know that you don't ever want me to...

1:18:36 Sofia: No rats.

1:18:36 La Gran Gata: No rats.

1:18:38 Sofia: We don't do rats.

1:18:39 La Gran Gata: We don't do rats.

1:18:40 Sofia: We respect the rats.

1:18:41 La Gran Gata: We respect the rats.

1:18:42 Sofia: Okay.

1:18:42 La Gran Gata: But maybe a full pigeon one time, you know?

1:18:45 Sofia: Hmm. I'm kind of torn because I knew a pigeon that once loved the rat. But I'll let ya have the pigeons.

1:18:51 La Gran Gata: Okay, good, good, good, good. [meows] [1:18:54 - Iga’s Intro]

1:18:54 Brennan: And La Gran Gata sort of twinkles out in light. And you arrive on West 72nd street. Not like—around Columbus, like not too far away from Central Park. Tucked away, not one of the main avenues. But there's a series of metal stairs going down to a shopfront that is partially subterranean. You see a neon sign flickering ‘Psychic’. And it's a weird neon sign cause it's flickering. But you can only see this storefront if you look down the stairwell outside of the building. You see a kind of crystal ball in the windows, psychic, cards read. You see the name on the front that says… That's like partially in Cyrillic letters, sort of Russian font that says “Madam Anastasia” on the front of it.

1:19:55 Emily: And I've been here before, right? Cause I'm kind of using… I'm leaning on this psychic instead of being an adult and going to a therapist.

1:20:03 Brennan: Yes. Also, you know this psychic because this is a psychic who got recommended to you because you can actually talk about your Unsleeping City stuff here. This psychic is partially connected to or inducted into the Unsleeping City. And you are familiar—In other words, you can be your full self here.

1:20:27 Emily: Okay. I go in.

1:20:28 Sofia: Madam Anastasia? Madam Anastasia?

1:20:34 Brennan: A woman emerges from the back. Siobhan, could you please describe your character for us? [Lou cheers]

1:20:42 Siobhan: [elderly Polish lady accent] Yes, I am Anastasia, Madam Anastasia. I am one of the great psychics of New York City. All of those other psychics I've got to say are frauds, but me, I am the real thing. I read cards for my ladies, the Upper West side, the Upper East side, the Lower West side, the Lower East side. All kinds of people all over the city, they come to me from my readings because they're so accurate and real. I'm 45 years young, I've got beautiful curly hair that I have wrapped in a scarf because people have a certain expectation of what their psychics are looking like. And I do have a pair of Tevas on also because you can’t really see the Tevas underneath the beautiful tablecloth that I have to do my readings on.

1:21:48 Ally: [delighted] Secret Tevas!

1:21:51 Emily: Can I do a Perception to try to see the Tevas? [Siobhan and cast laugh]

1:21:58 Brennan: Go ahead and give me a Perception check.

1:22:01 Emily: Okay. Shit, sorry.

1:22:03 Brennan: And Siobhan, give me a Stealth check.

1:22:07 Lou: Gotta hide those Tevas.

1:22:08 Siobhan: I got a 10 Stealth.

1:22:10 Murph: Oh no.

1:22:11 Ally: Oh no, there is a Teva poking out.

1:22:15 Emily: I got a 16.

1:22:15 Siobhan: I quickly pull my Tevas underneath.

1:22:18 Emily: I make a note to get her a nice pair of shoes.

1:22:21 Anastasia: You’ve gotta be comfortable, you know it's important to be comfortable. You got to walk around the city a lot, you know what I mean?

1:22:27 Sofia: Madam Anastasia.

1:22:29 Anastasia: Mmm.

1:22:32 Sofia: I got into a big fight with my mother.

1:22:33 Anastasia: Oh dear.

1:22:34 Sofia: It's the same song and dance.

1:22:35 Anastasia: Yes.

1:22:36 Sofia: She wants me to start dating again. I don't really know how to... be someone who is not living in... the memory of Dale. And I guess I thought maybe we could just do some tarot cards.

1:22:55 Anastasia: Yes, of course, you want to do tarot cards—

1:22:56 Sofia: Seems like that would be the adult solution.

1:22:59 Anastasia: What is your question that you would like to ask to the cards? I want you to close your eyes and concentrate very hard on this question.

1:23:08 Sofia: Okay.

1:23:10 Ally: I love this.

1:23:12 Sofia: My question will be… [sighs] is it okay to fall in love again?

1:23:21 Anastasia: Hmm, a beautiful question, very good. Okay.

1:23:26 Sofia: Thank you so much, your support means everything.

1:23:28 Anastasia: I'm going to cut the deck when you tell me to cut the deck, okay?

1:23:32 Sofia: Okay—[immediately] Cut the deck! Did I surprise you?

1:23:35 Anastasia: Okay. [Lou laughs]

1:23:36 Sofia: Okay.

1:23:38 Anastasia: Let us see what the cards they have in store for you, Sofia.

1:23:43 Sofia: Okay.

1:23:44 Anastasia: Hmm, your past: the Ace of Ones. One man, strong, virile. [holds card up to camera]

1:23:51 Sofia: Yes, he was strong, he was virile. He was—we had a really quiet, beautiful relationship, but also a [quietly] nasty sex life. Murph bursts out laughing and covers his face with his hands.

1:23:56 Anastasia: [crosstalk] Oh, that sounds… honestly? Sounds perfect to me. Absolutely.

1:24:01 Sofia: [crosstalk] So I think you're right, you're right. That card is absolutely right.

1:24:07 Anastasia: The present, what are we saying? Oh. Oh my goodness. [holds card up to camera] A card of ill omen, the Tower. I think, my dear, you're not ready to date yet. It's a card of change, of fall. Your life is in a time of flux.

1:24:27 Sofia: Oh… [rapt expression][nodding] Okay… you’re right, you’re right, it is.

1:24:28 Anastasia: Things are moving around—

1:24:29 Sofia: [quietly, nodding] Yeah…

1:24:30 Anastasia: —You don't have time to date—

1:24:30 Sofia: [quietly, shaking her head] No…

1:24:31 Anastasia: —You are falling out of a Tower! Ally bursts out laughing and covers their face with their hands.

1:24:33 Sofia: [speaking faintly] I don’t have time—I’m falling—I'm falling out of a tower? I’m falling—

1:24:34 Anastasia: You're falling out of a tower, but it's okay because [crosstalk] we're going to rebuild this tower together.

1:24:39 Sofia: [crosstalk] Okay, how do I stop falling? What do I grab onto, Anastasia? What do I grab onto?

1:24:42 Anastasia: No, you grab onto yourself.

1:24:42 Sofia: [quietly] What?

1:24:43 Anastasia: Because you are the strong one, you see?

1:24:46 Sofia: Ah… ah, there was a time in my life when I was supposed to choose myself, and it took me a long time. [laughs]

1:24:51 Anastasia: I understand, you—you know, when you're a woman in this life, sometimes it takes a long time to be like, “Oh, I got to choose myself sometimes.” You know what I mean?

1:24:55 Sofia: Yeah…

1:24:59 Anastasia: That's okay. But you got to choose yourself.

1:25:02 Sofia: Okay.

1:25:03 Anastasia: And let's see what this future holding for you. Oh, well this is a very handsome looking man. [holds card up to camera] We don't see his face yet. We're not sure who he is. The Three of Wands.

1:25:09 Sofia: Oh… Wow. [crosstalk] Three wands, huh. [Murph wheezes in laughter]

1:25:16 Anastasia: [crosstalk] But it looks he's going on a journey. Three of Wands. Hey, maybe it is. Maybe you've got three wands coming to you. Maybe this is what's happening in near future.

1:25:23 Sofia: [crosstalk] Oh my… oh my...

1:25:30 Anastasia: [crosstalk] It's three men. Do you think you can handle three men at a time?

1:25:34 Sofia: I don't know, my palms are sweating. I feel guilty about even handling one man. Oh, Anastasia, you always give me so much to think about.

1:25:43 Anastasia: I think having things to think about is very important for you. You know it—I think it's okay for you to not date for a little bit. It's okay. But also, we're looking for these three men. We're looking for these dark, handsome three men who are coming into your life. Keep your mind open, keep your heart open.

1:26:01 Sofia: Okay, [laughing] my heart is open.

1:26:04 Anastasia: And keep other things open as well. You need to keep them open.

1:26:10 Sofia: [chanting] My heart is open to three men. My heart is open to three men.

1:26:14 Brennan: The bell of the door rings, and a man walks into the psychic shop. He is wearing a sort of blue windbreaker, sweatpants, and socks and sandals. He's got a sort of gold chain, chest hair poking out of the sort of top of the windbreaker, chin strap beard. You recognize this as Yagdash Scrovich.

1:26:48 Lou: [laughing] Yagdash.

1:26:49 Brennan: It's Yagdash. It's Yagdash!

1:26:51 Lou: It's Yagdash!

1:26:52 Brennan: You see Yagdash comes in, looks over at [air quotes] “Madam Anastasia” and goes,

1:27:01 Yagdash: Hello, Mrs. Liskowski, I have bag of illegal drug money?

1:27:07 Siobhan: Mmm, I say in Polish,

1:27:07 Anastasia: Yagdash, what are you doing? I'm clearly in a reading, you're saying “illegal money”. What are you doing?

1:27:14 Yagdash: No, but you are cash business, so we do the money laundering here?

1:27:19 Anastasia: No, no, Yagdash, you know when the sign is popping, you don't come hopping, you know what I mean? I'm doing a reading. It's basic crime stuff here, Yagdash.

1:27:30 Yagdash: Oh, wait, you do the card reading for real? Because… because like, we own the pizza place, but it's not… We don't really make...

1:27:39 Anastasia: Yagdash, if I don't do the reading for real, the cops, they know that it's a fake business.

1:27:44 Yagdash: Ohh, and the cops arrest you for crimes.

1:27:48 Anastasia: No, they arrest you for crimes!

1:27:52 Yagdash: What, you know this? Do you read this in the cards?

1:27:55 Anastasia: If you keep on… Yes, I read it in the cards, Yagdash, if you don't—[crosstalk] you can’t start being smarter about this—

1:28:00 Brennan: [crosstalk] Yagdash pulls a gun out of his—He pulls a gun out of his bag of money—

1:28:02 Anastasia: [wagging a finger] No, the cards say you've got to just be smarter.

1:28:06 Brennan: He runs into the bathroom, locks the door, and you hear him go,

1:28:09 Yagdash: [yelling] Nobody let the cops inside!

1:28:12 Brennan: You hear, BLAM!, and then you hear—[scream]

1:28:17 Anastasia: [pressing her fingers exasperatedly into her brow] Yagdash… My roof… This is a rented office space, Yagdash. If I don't get my deposit back, this is on you—Why are you shooting guns inside?

1:28:29 Yagdash: They are for the cops!

1:28:31 Siobhan: I turn to Sofia and I say,

1:28:31 Anastasia: I am so sorry, this...

1:28:32 Yagdash: The bullets bounce off the pipe and hit me in the ass!

1:28:36 Anastasia: [crosstalk] I don’t know what [laughing] this boy is doing.

1:28:39 Sofia: Is this a former lover of yours?

1:28:41 Anastasia: I will do another card for you, Sofia.

1:28:43 Sofia: That was all Polish, I don't know what you guys said. Was that a former lover? [Lou laughs]

1:28:45 Sofia: [crosstalk] Current lover?... Future lover?

1:28:48 Anastasia: [crosstalk] Let's do another card for you just to see what about this future lover, you know? So let's close your eyes and concentrate, maybe your ears as well. Concentrate very hard.

1:28:55 Sofia: Oh… Okay, close my eyes… Okay.

1:29:02 Emily: Okay, I put some airpods in. [closes her eyes]

1:29:04 Siobhan: I open the door to the bathroom and kick Yagdash out.

1:29:08 Brennan: He limps out with just an ass covered in blood. And he goes,

1:29:11 Yagdash: Okay, I still leave—I leave the drug money still for you.

1:29:16 Anastasia: Yes, leave the drug money, go to the hospital you idiot. What are you doing?

1:29:19 Yagdash: That's where the cops will be looking for me first thing.

1:29:21 Anastasia: No, go to Dr. Lugash, what are you doing?

1:29:24 Yagdash: I go to Dr. Lugash, you see.

1:29:27 Anastasia: You’ve been doing this for yea—I've got to talk to your aunt.

1:29:29 Brennan: He takes a burner out and calls, and he goes,

1:29:32 Yagdash: Dr. Lugash, I did a crime in the bathroom.

1:29:35 Anastasia: [interrupting] Not in here! Leave the—leave!

1:29:36 Yagdash: Okay.

1:29:37 Brennan: You see he walks out the door, Yagdash leaves. So, Sofia, you conclude your reading there that afternoon with Madam Anastasia. And Madam Anastasia, or as her real name is actually Iga Lisowski. Iga, you know that your daughter's having a sleepover with some school friends tonight.

1:29:59 Siobhan: Mm-hmm.

1:30:00 Brennan: This was your last appointment of the day. But your daughter is like hosting a big friends’ sleepover for the first time. It was like a big middle-school deal tonight. You see a text on your phone asking if you can get snacks from the store. And then under that, there's sort of an ellipses... and then the ellipses again, and the ellipses again, like she's thinking of saying something and not saying it.

1:30:22 Iga: What are these dots? What are these dots mean?

1:30:25 Siobhan: I text back.

1:30:27 Brennan: She says,

1:30:27 Jessica: They mean I'm typing something, mom. But can I ask you a favor about tonight?

1:30:35 Iga: Yes.

1:30:36 Brennan: She says,

1:30:37 Jessica: It would be great if we could just get regular snacks from the store, like Oreos and chips and stuff like that, and not make a bunch of Polish snacks for my friends.

1:30:51 Iga: Oh, so the Polish snacks are…you are too good for Polish snacks now? My little borscht bites, you don't like them?

1:30:57 Brennan: She texts back and she says,

1:30:58 Jessica: I just want my friends to have a normal time.

1:31:03 Iga: Goat's cheese is a normal cheese. Sheep's cheese is a normal cheese. But just because your friends... they only eat this American cheese, which is bad.

1:31:11 Brennan: You see, she texts back and she says… Just one-word texts in like a stack, and just say,

1:31:17 Jessica: please

1:31:17 Jessica: just

1:31:17 Jessica: be

1:31:17 Jessica: normal

1:31:17 Jessica: tonight

1:31:21 Iga: Okay, okay. I'll get you the Oreos. I'll get you the trash food, the trash sugar food.

1:31:31 Brennan: She texts back,

1:31:31 Jessica: Thank you, mom.

1:31:34 Brennan: And then there was another ellipsis for a second. And then she says,

1:31:38 Jessica: Also, can we have borscht bites tomorrow? I love borscht bites.

1:31:44 Iga: Yes, we can have borscht bites tomorrow. [1:31:46 - Cody’s Intro]

1:31:46 Brennan: You head off to go back to Greenpoint. We are going to cut now over to Queens, New York, baby. Massive signs hang. Caution tape all around the resplendent Queens Center Mall. One of the only true malls in New York. Manhattan of course has so many shopping districts that a real mall could never really have lived in Manhattan. But out here in Queens, the space and the population density were just perfect for the mall to end all malls, that has been shuttered and slated for demolition. All around, we see signs as part of a huge public relations blitz for the new largest-in-the-world, state of the art Gladiator shipping and fulfillment campus. Gladiator is one of the largest internet companies in the world. It is streaming services. It is shipment. It's online shopping. It is education. It's all kinds of stuff. It's an enormous company. And there's all these signs of like happy, enterprising professionals and smiling people talking about the new Gladiator Campus of shipping and fulfillment centers. There will be Gladiator dorms for people to like, live in the company structure, as part of the structure here. There's like a whole food court for the employees that are gonna be living here. And there's even a sign outside saying like, “Get ready for your neighborhood to have the brand new Gladiator shipping and fulfillment center. Say hi, neighbor.” And there's someone holding a little payment card that's basically like a credit card that you can get, like it's part of a rewards program to have people that can fully move off of cash and just be using like Gladiator currency. So you see all of this. And then—it's daytime, there's construction workers all around. This is like a long way away from being built, but the demolition is getting set up actively. Men with hard hats are walking around, construction workers. Probably across the street from this, hiding in the shadow of an awning… we see… [Emily cackles] Zac covers his face as Siobhan smiles. [heavy metal starts playing]

1:34:23 Brennan: Murph, who do we see?

1:34:26 Murph: We see Cody who is a… He's a mall goth without a mall. He has a like Skrillex kind of haircut with like, long, black hair on the one side, and then shaved on the other side. And then he's got a blue streak going through his black hair. Very pale, he’s got some like eyeshadow on. So much leather. [Siobhan laughs]

1:34:54 Murph: A duster, like a long black duster. And then I think... he hates Halloween because people always think he's dressed up and compliment his costume. [Siobhan and Emily laugh]

1:35:08 Murph: And he has like, he's a real sword guy. He's got like a big replica Buster sword from Final Fantasy VII on his back, and a bunch of other swords around him, and like kunai and things like that. And ninja throwing stars. Zac shakes his head.

1:35:17 Lou: [groans] Oh man.

1:35:25 Murph: And always has a cigarette in his mouth, and is just eternally pissed off and was pissed off before the mall got closed down and is even more pissed now and he's just waiting for the construction workers to turn around so that he can chuck a ninja star at some of the Gladiator signs.

1:35:46 Cody: ‘Cause I fucking hate Gladiator.

1:35:50 Zac: Oh my god. [Cast laughs]

1:35:57 Emily: You have the tiniest cigarettes, it's like… smooshed.

1:36:01 Murph: He picks up butts off the ground and he relights them.

1:36:07 Cody: [takes drag from tiny cigarette] Times are lean without the mall.

1:36:11 Brennan: You see a group of the construction workers kind of turn their back to you for a moment, and start moving away. You see one of—this sort of old foreman, this kind of like squat, Irish-looking guy, like white hair kind of foreman, he got a clipboard. He's going like,

1:36:25 Foreman: Yeah, so we’re gonna take this down ‘cause we gotta get the… So, the landscapers are going to come through here, they're comin’ in from 68th down to 63rd. So this is all goin’ to be campus, but we gotta get that leveled out ‘cause we gotta get the backhoe in here to uproot this tree over here. Murph shakes his head.

1:36:42 Brennan: And they sort of move a little way as a way, giving you an opportunity to huck a ninja star.

1:36:47 Murph: I huck a ninja star, I try to hit… You said there was somebody with a happy face. I try to hit him like right between the eyes.

1:36:57 Emily: You mean a person or a poster?

1:36:59 Murph: Oh, a poster. Definitely not a… [crosstalk] I'm not committing murder.

1:37:03 Emily: [crosstalk][laughing] Okay.

1:37:04 Lou: [crosstalk] Cody’s a murderer. Cody just like a—

1:37:05 Murph: [crosstalk] Yeah he’s—he’s not—

1:37:06 Zac: [crosstalk] Murph kills a man, like a—

1:37:06 Lou: Attacks all these innocent construction workers.

1:37:10 Murph: No, no. Cody's a real defacing property guy. He's the guy who you'd like, sneak out at night with in high school, but just start like kicking a mailbox. You'd be like, “Dude, stop.”

1:37:21 Brennan: Cody, you huck a ninja star straight into the poster's face. As you do so, you hear the thunk. And you see that the foreman whips around and says,

1:37:33 Foreman: Hey, hey! It's that—it’s that fucking kid. Kid, you get the fuck out of here! Get the fuck out of here, buddy!

1:37:40 Cody: I'm not going fucking anywhere, dude. You get out of here.

1:37:43 Foreman: Oh, I get out of here?

1:37:43 Cody: Yeah.

1:37:44 Foreman: Go ahead and give me one good reason I shouldn't walk across this fucking street and kick your ass!

1:37:48 Cody: [takes a drag] Where's your sword, bro?

1:37:51 Foreman: Where's my fucking… I don't need a fucking sword.

1:37:53 Cody: Where's your sword? I have twelve!

1:37:55 Foreman: Yeah, I'mma rip that sword out of your hands and shove it up your ass, kid!

1:37:59 Cody: [reaching over his shoulder] Yeah, you can try.

1:37:59 Murph: And I pull out the Buster sword.

1:38:04 Brennan: Immediately behind you hear [imitating a siren] and you see...

1:38:09 Cody: Fuck! Oh, I'm sorry, is it illegal to fucking hit paper with ninja stars? Is it fucking illegal?

1:38:18 Brennan: You see—[laughs] yeah, you see the cops come out and they say,

1:38:22 Cop: Hey man, we clocked that Buster sword from a while away. You can't pull that on people.

1:38:28 Brennan: And you just see the foreman and across the street goes,

1:38:30 Foreman: Yeah, that's right, kid! You're a long way from Transylvania, asshole!

1:38:35 Cody: Yeah, I'm not from fucking Transylvania! I worked at the fucking Hot Topic that you're fucking destroying. So actually, I belong here and you belong... on the internet? ‘Cause Gladiator’s from the fucking internet? Fuck you dude! Where's your sword? [takes a drag]

1:38:50 Brennan: You see that, [laughs] another construction worker goes,

1:38:51 Construction worker: Hey, where's your...

1:38:52 Brennan: He goes,

1:38:52 Construction worker: How come you're out in the daylight, Dracula? What the fuck is going on, man?

1:38:57 Cody: Uh, I'm actually like Blade, I'm a fucking daywalker, dude. Read a comic. [Emily and Brennan laugh]

1:39:06 Brennan: You get hassled by the cops. Do you think Cody has… This is by the way, Cody [finger quotes] “Night Angel” Walsh. Do we think Cody has like a permit for this replica Buster sword?

1:39:21 Murph: [laughs] No! [Cast laughs]

1:39:21 Murph: Absolutely not!

1:39:25 Brennan: The cops fully jack this sword.

1:39:28 Cody: You said I couldn't have the fucking blade sword. This one's different. [Siobhan laughs]

1:39:32 Brennan: They see, they go,

1:39:32 Cop: Look, man, it's really simple. If you're gonna have a replica weapon, you either can't have it filed down to an edge like this, or it needs to be double-bladed. A single-bladed weapon in the state of New York is an illegal weapon. You can’t, unless you are transporting it, right?

1:39:53 Cody: Yeah, I'm transporting it... to that dude's fucking head.

1:39:56 Cop: Okay, so that's…

1:39:57 Murph: And I point to that construction worker.

1:39:59 Cop: So that absolutely is assault. That's verbal assault.

1:40:04 Cody: This is real assault. They're taking cars and shit, and driving it like, construction vehicles and driving it around my fucking job, man. I'm just trying to do my job. [takes a drag]

1:40:15 Cop: Okay, this—Sir, I don't need to know a thing about you—

1:40:20 Cody: So I’m allowed to have nunchucks, is what you're saying.

1:40:23 Cop: Again, if you are transporting them to a martial arts studio where you are licensed and have the insurance for that, yes, absolutely.

1:40:31 Cody: So, if I sign up for a fucking Tae Kwon Do class, I can just freak out with these weapons? Is that what you're telling me? Is that what’s allowed?

1:40:35 Cop: You can never freak out with these weapons.

1:40:39 Cody: Not that I would freak out, I'm fucking very controlled. [takes a drag]

1:40:43 Brennan: The cops—You see that the guy leans in and says,

1:40:45 Cop: Look man... I'm gonna let you off with a warning because frankly, I don't find you threatening. So. [Emily laughs]

1:40:53 Cody: That’s fucking weird. Do you not find the devil threatening?

1:40:59 Ally: [laughing] You don’t find the devil—[doubles over in laughter]

1:41:06 Brennan: But they say,

1:41:06 Cop: You've got to get out of here.

1:41:07 Brennan: And so they send you off packing. Go ahead and give me either Investigation, or give me Perception.

1:41:15 Murph: Ooh, baby. That is a 19.

1:41:20 Brennan: 19, hell yes. You know that there's a way to get into the Hot Topic, just not with this many people around. There's so much good shit left in there that didn't get moved back out, and you know that they're just gonna raze this place to the ground and junk all of that shit.

1:41:40 Cody: If anyone touches those Jack Skellington hoodies, I'm gonna fucking freak out.

1:41:44 Murph: And I just like, kick a Halloween decoration on the side of the road. Lou covers his face.

1:41:49 Brennan: You just kick a full pumpkin that like a coffee shop had carved for their stoop. [Emily laughs] [1:41:54 - Kingston and Pete get lunch]

1:41:55 Brennan: And you head home. As Cody marches back, knowing that you'll be able to return tonight to get those things, you know the way in. We zoom back over to the third story apartment of a beautiful family-owned building in Harlem, New York. As Kingston Brown awakes from his beautiful dream of himself as a younger man, because guess what baby, Kingston Brown, for about a year or more now… Actually, yeah, almost three years has been having lovely dreams at night, and remembering them on waking in the morning. Kingston, you awake to see the most beautiful woman in the world sitting on the bed with a giant mug of coffee placed next to you on the bedside table. She leans down and gives you a kiss. Liz is in her apartment uniform, which is—Liz wears very professional clothes to work. She's a lawyer. She works in city buildings and works with the city. So the moment she comes in the door at night, it is one of your oldest, softest, most threadbare T-shirts, and one of your oldest, most comfortable boxers, and that is what Liz wears in the apartment. That is the apartment uniform. It is a steady war of attrition as your old T-shirts move from your dresser to hers over the course of weeks.

1:43:33 Kingston: You can’t be—hey, that's one of my favorite T-shirts, all right? That was the time… You know, my uncle got that for me from the Playboy jazz festival. You can't just take—You just can’t wear… you know, that’s...

1:43:44 Liz: This was at the bottom of your shirt drawer. Tell me, do you actually wear this? Do you actually wear this shirt?

1:43:52 Kingston: [stuttering] M-maybe. I don’t—No. No, I don't wear it. But, you know.

1:43:56 Brennan: You see, she leans down, gives you a kiss on the cheek and says,

1:44:00 Liz: It's comfy, it's nice.

1:44:02 Kingston: Okay.

1:44:03 Liz: I promise—

1:44:03 Kingston: Well, you look good in it.

1:44:05 Brennan: You see, she winks at you and says,

1:44:07 Liz: I know I look good in it.

1:44:11 Brennan: And she walks out. You wake up—beautiful morning, that you're—you’re off in your living room, this is a classic old railroad apartment. You got like old vinyl playing in the morning. Liz came back with some of her furniture, you have a little like one of those small, marble top cafe tables, like the kind that you'd find in Paris, just like a little Parisian thing over by the window near the sunlight. Liz is sitting there having her coffee, old school, like reading a paper, newspaper. And lying down on the couch, next to you, is the most stately, comfy, sleepy, bulldog in the world, Bruce, who's right there next to you.

1:44:59 Lou: I go give Bruce a good old belly rub.

1:45:03 Bruce: [puts paws up in the air and pants]

1:45:06 Kingston: There he is. There he is.

1:45:10 Lou: And then like toss a toy across the room for him to go chase.

1:45:14 Brennan: Bruce loves to play fetch, and he plays it at a glacial speed. The toy goes, he likes swivels his head, looks, gets up, shakes himself a little bit, moseys on down the couch to make it to the Ottoman. From the Ottoman, to a little sort of like a nice, folded blanket. Rolls off the blanket. Waddles his way over to the toy, grabs the toy. Kind of forgets where he came from. Remembers, goes back up with the toy to the couch, and plops it on the arm of the sofa in front of you.

1:45:51 Kingston: You're perfect, you know that? You're perfect. [Cast laughs]

1:45:56 Lou: And I go join Liz over at our Parisian table.

1:46:04 Brennan: Those beautiful little… You can tell it was like one of those like stone and metal tables that was made for like an outdoor Alfresco kind of dining. But you guys have it here, beautiful seats. For like 40 minutes of your morning, there's an old vinyl of just some of the best jazz in the world playing. You guys drink these huge pots of coffee that are like—you have this old reliable coffee maker. Liz usually puts one or… She like mixes it up a little bit, this morning there's like a little dash of cinnamon in there. You see... life couldn't be more beautiful.

1:46:39 Lou: It's great.

1:46:41 Brennan: Liz looks up at you and goes,

1:46:44 Liz: [yawns] All right, I better start thinking about getting to work. You know, I'm working on this case, and you know who's actually helping me out, who we’re pulling some evidence from is um…

1:46:50 Kingston: Who is that?

1:46:57 Liz: Well, it's your friend Kugrash's son, David, is actually...

1:47:02 Kingston: Oh! Yeah.

1:47:04 Liz: He's doing a lot of help. But looking after this thing, it's a whole Rico case right now. We’re lookin’—you know, after Don Confetti and the whole thing, like finally, it's been years, but we’re actually, have the case ready to kind of dismantle that whole pixie organization.

1:47:22 Kingston: Mafia, whole situation, yeah.

1:47:23 Liz: That’s right.

1:47:23 Kingston: Okay, that's good, you know. I'm sure Kugrash is out there somewhere watching it all, very proud.

1:47:30 Brennan: You see that she puts her hand over her heart and says,

1:47:32 Liz: [kisses up to the sky] Thank you Kugrash for watching out for us. Murph does the hairy baby dance.

1:47:37 Brennan: She looks at you and says… [laughing] Aww, Murph doing hairy baby. [Cast awws]

1:47:42 Emily: I feel like I, as a player, have to roll one of my things...

1:47:49 Brennan: You see, she looks up at you. You got a relaxed morning ahead of you. You're not working until later today. She looks up and says,

1:47:56 Liz: All right, I'mma get ready to head to work, hun.

1:47:58 Brennan: She looks and says,

1:47:58 Liz: Oh, by the way, because we're kind of gearing up, I actually have some depositions this Friday, so I'm gonna have to pass on that Islanders game I know that you got tickets for.

1:48:09 Kingston: Oh, come on. I mean, it's okay. It's completely okay. I was looking forward to it, that's all.

1:48:17 Liz: I know. We'll go, I promise. I have to miss the Islanders game so that we can go walking by the river on Sunday. That's sacrosanct, nothing's gonna touch that.

1:48:26 Kingston: Okay, that’s what’s important, that's what's important.

1:48:29 Brennan: She gives you a kiss goodbye. Kingston's got a spare Islanders ticket for Friday that he's got to figure out what to do with.

1:48:37 Lou: You know I'm hitting the phone. Let me text Pete real quick. Just,

1:48:41 Kingston: What's going down Friday? If you got the time, I got a spare ticket to go see New York's best team.

1:48:51 Ally: I write back,

1:48:52 Pete: Oh, the Yankees? [cast laughs]

1:48:58 Ally: Cause I'm fucking with you.

1:49:00 Lou: Okay, good. Kingston gets truly like, viscerally upset.

1:49:04 Ally: And then I write a laughing emoji.

1:49:06 Lou: I text back,

1:49:06 Kingston: Hahahahahahaha.

1:49:06 Lou: Send.

1:49:13 Kingston: Cool, so you're down?

1:49:16 Pete: Yeah. I'm super down.

1:49:19 Kingston: Very cool. Let me know if you want to grab dinner or something beforehand. Liz's working long shifts this week. Would be great to see you.

1:49:28 Ally: I say,

1:49:28 Pete: That sounds great, let's go to that pupusa spot.

1:49:33 Lou: Oh, I text back,

1:49:33 Kingston: I love pupusas. Cannot wait for pupusas and the Islanders.

1:49:42 Brennan: Yeah, I'll say. Pete, you're actually… You're near Kingston right now. It's like near lunchtime. If you wanted to grab pupusas now, you have a moment before you head out.

1:49:52 Pete: Dare I say we go grab some right now. What are you up to now?

1:49:59 Kingston: Hungry for pupusas.

1:50:02 Ally: We get there, we get there.

1:50:02 Brennan: Hell yeah.

1:50:03 Kingston: Headed downstairs, meet you at Cosmo’s.

1:50:07 Lou: And I immediately toss on my coat over my comfortable sweater, and bound down the stairs, excited for pupusas.

1:50:18 Ally: I quickly finish my sliders and throw the trash away, book it....

1:50:23 Brennan: You bound down the stairs. You've also probably got… You gotta take Bruce for a walk before you head to work yourself.

1:50:27 Lou: Oh, perfect.

1:50:31 Brennan: Kingston, you hit the street. The music of the city comes to life, you walk in a synchronized heartbeat with those around you, your friends in the neighborhood all say hello to you as you pass by. The dogs of the neighborhood all nod to Bruce as Bruce passes by. You get to Cosmo’s, Cosmo goes,

1:50:51 Cosmo: Ay, Kingston Brown, man.

1:50:54 Kingston: ‘Ey, what's up Cosmo? Can I get a tall black one just to kick the day off?

1:51:00 Cosmo: I like it, my man, here you go.

1:51:02 Brennan: Your coffee lands in front of you on the city's tab. Blam. Cosmo says,

1:51:07 Cosmo: Ay man, I got to say, thank you again for that and help with my lease man. Those renters, they were trying to rake me over the coals, I appreciate it.

1:51:15 Kingston: Happy to do it. You know, hey, they gotta make money, it doesn't need to be at our suffering, all right? We can talk this out. There's always a conversation to be had, you know? Don't hesitate. Do not hesitate to ever call on me if you need me.

1:51:28 Cosmo: Absolutely. Yeah, you got it Kingston, you got it.

1:51:32 Brennan: You see that Pete joins you here as well. Pete, you show up, and there were probably some mixed emotions here because it's awesome to see Kingston again, but probably you haven't seen Kingston in a minute. Kingston has been kind of like, you know, with Liz and like living his own life for himself for the first time in literally forever.

1:51:52 Ally: I give him a really big hug that lasts like, pretty long.

1:51:57 Lou: And it's like right in front of the counter at Cosmo's, it's like a good hug that kind of takes over the entire entryway of the store. There's just a lot of like quiet, like,

1:52:08 Kingston: How’ve you been man? It's good to see, good to see you, man.

1:52:09 Pete: Man, it's really good to see you.

1:52:13 Kingston: It's so good to see you, man. It's been too… I'm sorry we haven't gotten this together sooner, all right? That's on me, all right? That's on me.

1:52:21 Pete: Nah, don't worry about it. Really, don't worry about it. I've been busy, so yeah.

1:52:25 Kingston: Yeah, yeah. Everything's good over at the bookshop?

1:52:28 Pete: Yeah, it's been great. Yeah, things are… Honestly, can I be honest with you? Things are a little slow, and I'm still getting used to that, you know? It's like I can just go to bed at like 10:30 at night, and get a full night's sleep. And that's not boring, that's normal.

1:52:51 Kingston: Yeah.

1:52:52 Pete: It’s not boring.

1:52:52 Kingston: You're making a big shift, big shift from what your life used to be, to what your life is now, all right? And that takes some adjustment, that takes some growth. And growth is always gonna be uncomfortable because it's different.

1:53:05 Pete: Yeah, yeah, it's true. It's so true.

1:53:08 Kingston: Anyway, let's talk about it more over pupusas.

1:53:12 Pete: Let's do it!

1:53:13 Brennan: You two have a beautiful lunch of pupusas. Each of you guys give me an Insight check.

1:53:19 Ally: Ooh. 20, but not nat.

1:53:23 Brennan: Cool.

1:53:23 Kingston: 25.

1:53:25 Brennan: 25. I think both of you can kind of see each other here. Like I think Pete is seeing… Like Pete ended up moving out of Kingston's place because Kingston was… his life was healing. He was going to get back together with Liz. And I think you see how truly well Kingston is doing. I think Kingston, you clock the little 60 days sober chip on Pete. And again, Ally, what do you think Kingston's seeing on Pete with a 25 Insight check?

1:53:57 Ally: I mean you're probably seeing that I'm really still trying to figure it out. I haven't quite gotten there, but I'm sure you're getting that vibe of like… you know, when people put on their most put together front for like their parents or something. So, you're really getting like the report card, like, “School's good, yeah” like, version of me.

1:54:19 Lou: Got it.

1:54:22 Kingston: I don't want to get too personal, but did you—did you and Rowan, like, you know, like you know, do—do it. I don't wanna—I don’t wanna ask. I'm not trying to get all up in your business, you know? But, you know.

1:54:36 Pete: No, I… Yeah, you know—ah, god, it was so stupid. I was just having like a pretty hard time. And I'm just so used to meeting up with people not sober, you know? I pre-gamed it a little bit too hard and yeah, I think I just really like, embarrassed myself in front of her. Pretty much, I got there, I met some of her really cool theater friends, and then I barfed in what I thought was a potted plant, but was her lap. And then I started crying, and she kinda… I don't really know what happened after that, but I woke up at her house and she didn't talk to me, and I just kinda like, left.

1:55:31 Kingston: Cool, yeah. That sounds really bad, just like rough.

1:55:35 Pete: Yeah. I had like a little thin blanket put over me, so that was really nice of her to like, maybe tuck me in. But yeah… She—I— [shrugs]

1:55:43 Kingston: But you always know, if somebody's putting a thin blanket over you, it's because you did a bad thing.

1:55:47 Pete: It's a sign, yeah. There were thicker blankets that she could have used.

1:55:51 Kingston: Exactly. She could've given you a thicker blanket if it was in a positive light, but she wanted you to feel a little bit of that coldness. I hear that, that's rough. I'm—‘ey, I've gotten a thin blanket before, all right? It happens to the best of us.

1:56:04 Pete: Yeah. I mean, I get it. It was just a lot. And that's part of the journey is realizing when you're a lot. And not everybody wants to take care of you, especially if you just met, even if they are like, really hot. [Brennan laughs]

1:56:24 Pete: She was so hot.

1:56:28 Kingston: Uh huh, yeah. Well, hey man, you know, I'm sorry. You know I've been busy. You know, got the Liz and Bruce and just moving in and—

1:56:37 Pete: That sounds so great, man. How's it been? Has it been like—

1:56:40 Kingston: Incredible. I don't know, man. It's been weird. It’s been weird, I'm having my own confusing feelings about not being in the streets with you guys anymore, and not being out all hours of the night. You know? But things are good. We watch shows on Gladiator Prime and just kind of hang out.

1:57:00 Pete: Cool.

1:57:04 Kingston: Like I was just sitting at this little table we got, and the light was shining in, and she just looked perfect. It was just like this moment where I was looking at her and I was just like, I don't want anything else. I want naught right now. And I don't know, that's new, it's different.

1:57:23 Pete: You deserve it, man. You really do.

1:57:26 Kingston: Yeah, well, hey, and you're gonna get it, all right? [crosstalk] And you let me know if there is anything I could do to help.

1:57:30 Pete: [crosstalk] [laughs] Yeah, right.

1:57:33 Kingston: I don't know many like… I don't know if I can wingman you, I don't know if that's my vibe, but I’d try. I mean, I don't know if you want a 58 year old man, you know, hitting the clubs with you, but you know. We can figure something out.

1:57:48 Pete: Hey, I'm gonna hold you to that. I'm gonna bring you to a club.

1:57:53 Kingston: I mean, hey, you already made me get this tattoo. So, you know?

1:57:58 Ally: [miming pulling up a short sleeve] We show off our tattoos.

1:57:59 Lou: Yeah, I full on take my shirt up in the back.

1:58:03 Kingston: This thing hurt like a mother, all right? You know, didn't tell me that. You didn't tell me how much it was gonna hurt. I'm still mad about that. [crosstalk] I'm creased.

1:58:12 Pete: [crosstalk] Hey, I'm sorry.

1:58:13 Brennan: Kingston and Pete have finished your wonderful pupusas. Kingston, you're gonna head back to drop Bruce off at home and get ready for an evening of work. Pete, you begin to head off, excited to see Kingston for the first time in a long time. As you head out on the subway… No, sorry, not even the subway. You grabbed the bus going down 125th street across the Triborough, that'll take you right to Astoria. You're like looking around at your phone. The last text you got from Rowan was a long, long time ago. She has kind of checked out of the Unsleeping City. She's mostly in Faerie now. Like she is a very different incarnation of the same being that Misty was, and has been like, hasn’t left the Faerie court that she created in a long, long time. And the faerie court is kind of thriving, it seems like she's thriving. And let me ask you a question here: Would Pete still follow Priya on any social media channels? [Emily gasps] Ally nods. [players laugh]

1:59:28 Ally: Yeah, definitely.

1:59:30 Zac: The saddest nod.

1:59:31 Brennan: You've been doing really well about not visiting her pages. So the algorithm has died down and has not shown you any of her stuff in a while. Her hand, superimposed over a beautiful white sand beach. A diamond ring around her finger, and an enormous, muscular hand warmly grasping hers alights at the top of your Instagram feed.

2:00:10 Ally: I immediately see if anything's tagged or who—

2:00:15 Brennan: The giant fucking hand is tagged.

2:00:22 Ally: I—Is this a joke? Was she on Game Changer? [Cast laughs]

2:00:26 Ally: Sorry.

2:00:29 Brennan: Game Changer, only on Dropout.

2:00:34 Ally: No, no. I go to the profile of muscular hand person.

2:00:41 Brennan: The dude waiting for you on the other end of that link is a guy who is a woodland survival influencer. So he's got like an Instagram around living off of the land sustainably, but seems to be at a lot of like, openings and premieres for stuff. It's like a lot of brands associated with it. He is this huge, like a little… Like as broad shouldered and muscular as superhero actors, but still being very lean. All of his flannel shirts are fitted. He's got this like, cow catcher chin with a perfectly manicured stubble. He seems to make his living off of like, wilderness brands on his social media. He's got a tremendous amount of followers, verified.

2:01:36 Ally: Can I do some sort of roll to look through old tagged photos and see if he is cis?

2:01:46 Brennan: Give me an Investigation check.

2:01:50 Ally: Yeah, that's huge. 23.

2:01:54 Brennan: 23, you look through and see one of the rare moments in his early Instagram where he went off brand, there is a childhood photo of him, which is the best you're gonna get. But it appears that—at an early birthday party, like missing teeth, little kid photo, that you see “Happy Birthday Calvin” which is the name he's still going by today, up on a banner behind him.

2:02:23 Ally: I throw my phone on the bus. [Cast laughs]

2:02:29 Pete: Interesting! Sorry. Oh gosh. My hands are so sweaty. I'm so sorry, that slipped!

2:02:42 Brennan: To continue these rolls. And again, you're over Priya. But there's just… This is some kind of, some kind of thing...

2:02:49 Ally: Of fucking course, yeah. Huh.

2:02:56 Brennan: You see that his most recent posts, other than a reshare of the post being like, “Priya Danger is the most beautiful woman I've ever seen in my life.” The post right before that is him… It's like a branded thing where he's out on a felled log holding this drink called Cipher, which is Gladiator's branded, flavorless nutrition beverage. And him being like, “All the nutrients you need with none of the hassle”, you know?

2:03:30 Ally: Oh my God. I think they deserve each other. I think I'm trying my best to think like, “Good luck, you two.” But there is a part of me that's hurt by this.

2:03:47 Brennan: If you have not already, this is one of Pete's triggers. Go ahead and roll that d4. And again for everyone at home— [Ally holds up two fingers]

2:03:52 Emily: Ooh, good.

2:03:56 Brennan: Two, okay, great. Good, good, good. For everyone at home, we'll put up the sobriety rule somewhere. The really dangerous roll is to roll a one on a d4 in terms of your sobriety because there are no other dice to go down to to maintain your sobriety.

2:04:14 Ally: Yeah, and this is just… I'm able to work and bump myself up dice and invest in that, yeah.

2:04:19 Brennan: Yeah. But Pete's not in a great place right now.

2:04:24 Ally: No, he's not! No, he's not, Brennan!

2:04:31 Brennan: Kingston, as you walk away from this meeting by the way, you're heading back to go to your spot, everything's good. And you're stopped short for a moment. There was a huge electronics spot on 125th Street. And a buddy of yours ran his electric shop. It's a fucking ghost town, it's empty. It's boarded up. You look at it, this dude, Reggie, you you've known for like 30 some odd years, like a long… Like before you were Vox Populi, you knew this dude. Plaster, spackle, painter's tape up, and it's just empty. It's just an empty store. It doesn't even have a for sale sign on it, it's just empty.

2:05:14 Lou: Is it open, or is there like, the ability to see inside?

2:05:18 Brennan: You can see inside, it looks like they've had painters in here. But you go to open the door and the door can't open. I mean, it's locked. It's not that unusual that there'd be a locked door. But it seemed like it happened fucking overnight, this place is gone.

2:05:36 Lou: I text Reggie and just,

2:05:38 Kingston: Hey, walked past the shop, seems like rough business. So sorry to hear that, please let me know if there's anything I can do to help.

2:05:46 Brennan: You get a text back from Reggie that says… You get a text back from him real quick that says,

2:06:01 Reggie: What, if anything, stays? [a long pause]

2:06:12 Lou: Just that?

2:06:13 Brennan: Just that. You were mistaken. You saw something that, for a moment, you thought you saw that, but it’s not there. There's an ellipsis, he says,

2:06:21 Reggie: Hey man.

2:06:21 Brennan: He goes,

2:06:26 Reggie: All's well, got a huge offer to buy me out of the building. A lot of money. They're going to put a new, some phone company, some kind of front up there. Not sure exactly what.

2:06:43 Brennan: But he says,

2:06:43 Reggie: Sorry for the neighborhood shop to go. But it’s enough money that I’m thinking of getting a spot, probably up in Westchester somewhere. Sorry to not say goodbye before I headed out from the neighborhood.

2:06:58 Kingston: Sorry to see you go. Don't spend it all in one place. Laugh Out Loud.

2:07:01 Ally: Written out?

2:07:05 Lou: Written out fully capital L, capital O, capital L [2:07:10 - Pete’s new apartment]

2:07:11 Brennan: Yeah, and Kingston walks back to drop Bruce back off at the apartment. Pete arrives in Astoria at the spot you're looking at. The spot you found here is a very small room in a house in Astoria. You'd actually be staying in a house out here. It's an upstairs room, it's like an attic. You found it for $750 a month.

2:07:42 Ally: Wow, amazing.

2:07:43 Brennan: So, you arrive at the house to take a look at it. House opens up. This young, skinny looking dude, Arab-American guy, glasses, kind of a little poof of hair on top, wearing pastel blue T-shirt, goes up. He goes,

2:07:59 Dude: Hey, how's it going? Pete, right?

2:08:02 Pete: Yeah, hey, what's up?

2:08:04 Dude: Hey, Nasir, nice to meet you, man. Come on in and take a look at the spot. I'm going to give you… Not every roommate is home right now, so I can’t show you every single spot, but I can show you your spot and kind of where we're at. Thanks for coming out, man. You would complete the puzzle here.

2:08:22 Pete: Hey yeah, good to hear. I'm really looking for a spot. This place is really nice. A house!

2:08:27 Nasir: It's not bad, right? I mean, yeah. I mean, when it like, when it snows, it's like more than a 20 minute walk to the subway or the nearest bus. But, y’know, hey, y’know walking's good for your legs. So check it out.

2:08:44 Brennan: You see that he brings you through, he introduces you to a couple other roommates. You get a sense that Nasir is like the guy on the lease. He says,

2:08:51 Nasir: This is my work station out here, which is sort of—I know it’s in a public, shared area but it's just ‘cause that's where it, it's helpful for internet speed. And also, just like my room is kind of small. I pay...

2:09:07 Pete: What do you do?

2:09:08 Nasir: I'm a web designer, so I work from home. Here, I'm like working here in the living room a lot, but I do pay more. I’m not like screwing you guys out of that money.

2:09:20 Pete: Okay, cool.

2:09:22 Nasir: Check it out, we got a couple other people. This is Josh.

2:09:25 Brennan: You see in the living room, there's just like a curtain. This young dude, Josh Mendoza, walks out. He looks over at you and goes like,

2:09:33 Josh: Oh, hey, man. Are you coming and looking out for the attic room?

2:09:40 Pete: Yeah.

2:09:41 Josh: Hell yeah, dude. I'm Josh, nice to meet you, man.

2:09:44 Pete: Good to meet you, too.

2:09:46 Brennan: He looks over and says,

2:09:47 Josh: Have you introduced him...?

2:09:48 Brennan: Nasir goes,

2:09:48 Nasir: So there's a couple that lives here in one of the other rooms. They do, again, pay more than just their room would be. Their names are Lars and Brita. They... [a pause] have a lot of guests over.

2:10:06 Pete: Uh huh. Like they're just really like, they have a lot of friends?

2:10:10 Nasir: They don't really have parties. They sort of bring a lot of guests back to their room. So that's kind of something that's going on here.

2:10:16 Pete: Ooh! Oh! Oh, yeah.

2:10:19 Nasir: Hell yeah. There's one other—

2:10:21 Pete: Okay.

2:10:23 Nasir: Yeah, for sure.

2:10:24 Pete: Like sex, right?

2:10:25 Brennan: You see, they look at each other. And Josh looks at you and is like,

2:10:29 Josh: [laughs] Yeah, it's sex. They do have a lot of sex in there.

2:10:33 Pete: Ok, cool, cool. Great. I'm working on being straightforward in my life. So yeah, cool.

2:10:38 Brennan: You see Nasir looks at you and says,

2:10:39 Nasir: Yeah, but they're chill. There's one other dude that lives here that actually lives in sort of the cutoff part with Josh—

2:10:47 Brennan: And Josh goes,

2:10:47 Josh: He's super rad and super friendly. He's like my best friend.

2:10:51 Brennan: The door opens, Murph, your character walks in.

2:10:55 Cody: Fuck!

2:10:56 Murph: And I punch the wall.

2:11:00 Cody: They took my Buster sword.

2:11:06 Pete: [shocked and confused] I'm sorry, man.

2:11:06 Cody: Thank you.

2:11:06 Pete: Who's they? Like— Is—

2:11:12 Cody: The cops, freaking Gladiator’s taking over the mall. You heard the mall closed down, right?

2:11:19 Pete: No, there was a mall?

2:11:23 Cody: [offended] [throws his hands up] I'm going to my room. [Brennan laughs]

2:11:26 Murph: And I start to walk away.

2:11:28 Pete: Wait, sorry, no, I just don't do a lot of shopping! I do a lot of used—I like to hunt the bins.

2:11:35 Brennan: You see that Josh leans over and says,

2:11:38 Josh: Um. Yeah, the mall got shut down, and that… that's Cody. I worked at the PacSun, and Cody worked over at the um… Hot Topic.

2:11:47 Pete: [in sync with Josh] Hot Topic?

2:11:51 Brennan: [laughs] He goes,

2:11:55 Josh: And we both kind of landed up here. So we kind of split… We're actually planning on getting some plywood in here and kind of actually partitioning this chunk of the living room off.

2:12:04 Cody: And we're going to hang like… We've got like a Soul Edge. Have you ever played the game Soul Calibur?

2:12:10 Pete: Yeah, yeah, actually.

2:12:11 Cody: Yeah. So we're just going to put that like right front and center.

2:12:17 Pete: What? Just like a poster, or...?

2:12:18 Cody: No, like a sword, dude.

2:12:20 Pete: Oh, for sure, yeah. You're a big sword guy.

2:12:24 Cody: Are you interviewing, are you like here for the room, or...? [takes a drag]

2:12:28 Pete: Yeah, I'm Pete, what's up?

2:12:30 Cody: Cool, what's up? Night Angel. Listen, how do you feel about… Because this is a point of contention and I could use somebody on my side. How do you feel about mounted scythes in shared living spaces? [takes a drag]

2:12:47 Brennan: You see Nasir actually says,

2:12:49 Nasir: Actually, we don't need to ask Pete about that because that actually, it has already been a house vote.

2:12:56 Cody: But there would be a new one if Pete moved in, would there not be?

2:13:00 Nasir: Right. So—

2:13:01 Cody: ‘Cause Josh is on my side.

2:13:03 Nasir: Okay, yes. I know that Josh…

2:13:05 Brennan: You see Josh goes,

2:13:05 Josh: Always, dude, mall for life.

2:13:10 Brennan: You see that Nasir goes,

2:13:10 Nasir: Cool. So we're not gonna do that, pretty much.

2:13:19 Cody: This is what it's like to live here. [takes a drag] [crosstalk] He’s got his desk out here.

2:13:22 Pete: [crosstalk] Honestly, I welcome the energy. This is fun.

2:13:26 Nasir: Hey man, Pete, actually, I'm gonna head out with you in one sec.

2:13:28 Brennan: You see Nasir gets really close to you, Cody. It's like,

2:13:30 Nasir: For real dude, I'm just gonna say it again, you cannot smoke in here. If you want to go into your room where you pay rent and you want to smoke in there… And I still actually sort of demand, because I am on the lease, so you need to open the window to be able to do that.

2:13:47 Cody: Cool, there’s actually—we're gonna have a house vote cause there's actually no working out in the shared living spaces either. So you can go in your room if you want to like, do your job or whatever cause I'm just trying to do mine. [takes a drag]

2:13:57 Nasir: Listen, I pay more for the shared workspace...

2:14:00 Brennan: So, Pete, you see this kind of unfold.

2:14:04 Ally: I'm trying really hard to not laugh and just be like, really invested like, [nods] whoa, this is, yeah, important convo.

2:14:15 Brennan: So Pete, but yeah, you do see the spot. The attic room's not bad. It'll be hot, it would be hot as hell during the summer, but it's October right now, and it's kind of not a bad place to crash for a little while. And it's a sublet, so it's totally month to month. Like it's an illegal sublet. So you're...

2:14:35 Ally: Speaking my language! [2:14:39 - Cody sneaks into the Mall]

2:14:40 Brennan: Cool. You and Nasir work that stuff back out. Cody, you head off to the mall that night. And go ahead and give me a Stealth check, if you'd be so kind.

2:14:56 Murph: [laughing] Cody's not that stealthy, let's see. [Siobhan laughs]

2:15:00 Ally: You brought an even bigger sword.

2:15:01 Murph: Yeah, he’s got…

2:15:03 Siobhan: Clank, clank.

2:15:04 Murph: Oh, actually my stealth is okay. Ooh, 23.

2:15:06 Brennan: Woah!

2:15:09 Murph: Naruto running, jumping between each foot.

2:15:13 Siobhan: Parkour, parkour, parkour.

2:15:15 Brennan: You fucking Night Angel your way into the empty mall. You are back. The tiles where once Taco Bell was consumed and happy, happy shoppers moved to and fro all of their favorite stores brought into one central location. You see the Hot Topic before you.

2:15:41 Murph: I take my Soul Edge from my back.

2:15:41 Lou: Oh my god.

2:15:41 Murph: I put it down and I take a knee. [a pause as he bows his head] I put it back on and I enter the Hot Topic.

2:15:54 Brennan: You still have your manager key from your many years of managing this Hot Topic. You open the gate, push it up, move through, there’s still so many treasures in here worth saving. Hopefully tonight, you can get like a couple loads done. But what do you go to grab first?

2:16:13 Murph: You gotta go Breaking Benjamin, P.O.D. posters, all the pro wrestling T-shirts, Adventure Time sort of hats and whatnot.

2:16:20 Ally: [drinking water, then they laugh] Mmhm!

2:16:26 Murph: Studded belts. Ally holds their nose as they try to swallow the water.

2:16:29 Brennan: Under the studded belts, and some of the wrestling tees— [the cast laughs as Ally continues to try and recover] [Ally coughs]

2:16:33 Siobhan: We broke Ally. [Zac imitates the noise Ally made]

2:16:38 Murph: This is from a very—Cody is from a very particular time. I don't think Hot Topic has most of these things anymore.

2:16:45 Ally: The Adventure Time hat sold me.

2:16:51 Brennan: You are scrounging around underneath some of the wrestling tees. You grab something, it looks like a giant nov—one of your giant novelty wallets. It's like this crazy infernal kind of devil-looking book. Do you guys sell some of these that have secret compartments where you're hold a whiskey flask or something like that? As you flip through this, it's just a straight up book. It also doesn't smell rad. It doesn't smell like Axe, or some of these would be like, kind of like cologne or whatever. It smells like nasty, rotten, old meat. It is a bad smelling book. But the production quality of it is incredible. It's like some of the pages are stitched into the binding with leather cords and shit. There's like nasty ass old runes and stuff.

2:17:51 Murph: I think Cody is just looking for rad stuff. Just as soon as he sees the... He skips over all of the words. When he sees the runes, he's like,

2:17:59 Cody: Fucking hell yeah, dude.

2:18:00 Murph: And just like looks for the weirdest, most occult stuff in it.

2:18:05 Zac: You think it's Evil Dead merch?

2:18:07 Murph: Yeah.

2:18:09 Brennan: You find some occult stuff. Also give me a Perception check with disadvantage.

2:18:17 Murph: I have a -1 Wisdom.

2:18:19 Brennan: Oh no.

2:18:22 Murph: That is a nat 1. [Brennan claps]

2:18:27 Emily: It becomes a 0. [laughs]

2:18:28 Brennan: I'm gonna tell you all the things that Cody doesn't notice. Cody doesn't notice the motes of red light that bubble up from the ground where this book was laying. Murph mimes obliviously paging through the book.

2:18:45 Brennan: Nor does he notice the strange pentagram that kind of unseals, almost as if an orifice of some other hidden world had just finished belching this book out into the bottom of this Hot Topic. Cody doesn't notice any of this. You just notice the page that finally has like high Gothic script Latin that you actually think you'd be able to read.

2:19:12 Murph: Hell yeah, I read it.

2:19:16 Brennan: As you read it out loud to sound out the Latin, [makes explosion noise] the book erupts in flame as a pentagram surrounds you. The book slams to the ground, and a column of fire belches out from it. As it does, you see the fire is flickering. And you see momentary beads of neon light cutting into it and see movements of light coming along these pathways, almost like cars traveling on highways. And you hear motors, and the motors are like fucking with the infernal flame. It's almost like these like highways made of light constrict and bind. [makes crackling demonic noises] And you see something crawling up out of the flame going,

2:20:21 Voice: [demonic growling] Who dares summon me? Give me a fucking hand. Give me a hand!

2:20:28 Murph: I think Cody is like, looking like, just… ‘Cause they have a lot of rad shit. So he just assumes this is some kind of crazy smoke machine thing. So he's just looking at how the book works. He's like,

2:20:38 Cody: This fucking rules, what the f— [reaches a hand out] My name is uh, Night Angel. AKA Cody, I guess.

2:20:46 Brennan: You grab a hand. You rip this being out of the flame and those highways of light, sort of runic highways vanish. The fire dissipates, and a four and a half foot tall devil appears before you standing on the book—I will try to describe this as best I can. Four and a half feet tall is a horned… The head of a marmot. So a like, marmot-headed hamster-y or guinea pig-y kind of face with curling ram's horns. About the size of a human head. On an extremely weak, humanoid, hairless torso with long clawed hands. But then at the waist of the torso, it is a full four-legged capybara body with a long rat tail. So it's kind of like a centaur rat tail with marmot head. And then a pair of vestigial wings on its torso's back. And you see that this devil goes,

2:22:03 Devil: [very raspy] Ah! Holy fucking shit dude, what the fuck?

2:22:09 Cody: Dude, what the fuck?

2:22:09 Devil: What the fuck? Where am I?

2:22:12 Cody: Are you… you're in… [chuckles] You're home. [takes a drag] It's where darkness is born, this is Hot Topic. Are you Lucifer? ‘Cause I've been fucking waiting for you my whole life.

2:22:24 Brennan: You see, this devil looks at you and says— [Cast laughs]

2:22:34 Zac: “Are you Lucifer, because I've been waiting for you my whole—” [laughs]

2:22:40 Brennan: You see that the devil goes,

2:22:44 Devil: [hesitantly] Uh. Okay, yeah. I'm Lucifer, I'm the real devil.

2:22:55 Cody: [nodding] That—I mean, yeah.

2:22:57 Devil: Okay, so this is the real world. You're a human mortal, I'm the devil. [Lou laughs]

2:23:02 Devil: I'm not asking these as questions, I'm saying this. This is all—This is true. Okay, holy shit! Ah, the mortal world. Okay, what...? Oh. Mortal! Answer this riddle! What city are we in?

2:23:18 Cody: City of sin.

2:23:20 Devil: Las Vegas? [Emily laughs]

2:23:22 Cody: No, the other city of sin. It's fucked up here. [takes a drag]

2:23:27 Devil: [excited] Oh, we're in New—[crosstalk] [gasps] We’re in New—

2:23:27 Cody: [crosstalk] Please, let me work for you. Please.

2:23:30 Devil: You wanna work for me?

2:23:32 Cody: Please, let me work for you. Lucifer, please. We need to kill Gladiator and save the Mall, and I will sell my soul just in a second. Take my soul.

2:23:40 Devil: [chuckling] Ho-ho-holy shit. You just broached that topic. I didn't have to like set anything up.

2:23:49 Cody: Just take whatever—do I need to like, give blood, or...?

2:23:53 Devil: Yeah, blood's great. Yeah, shit. Okay, hold on. Do you have something we can—

2:23:58 Murph: I just like Andrew W.K. it, [laughing] and I just start like, grab a brick or something and just.

2:24:06 Cody: [hitting his forehead] Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!

2:24:07 Devil: [waving his hands] No! Dude, no! Shut up! Stop! No, listen! Do you have something to write on? Something blank that we can write on?

2:24:15 Cody: Yeah, I found this weird fucking book that you came out of that I can—

2:24:19 Devil: Not that, not the book. How about this?

2:24:21 Brennan: You see, he goes and grabs a WWE poster and unfurls it.

2:24:24 Cody: Whoa! Dude—Oh wait, okay. It's Roman Reigns, it's fine. [takes a drag] [Emily laughs]

2:24:31 Brennan: [laughs] Just on the back of a Roman Reigns poster, he goes,

2:24:35 Devil: Okay, [writing] in exchange for working—For the privilege of working for me, you will sell me your soul, full deal. [Lou laughs]

2:24:48 Cody: Well, you need to give me like powers and shit, man. Like you have to like fucking kill… [crosstalk] We have to get rid of...

2:24:52 Devil: [crosstalk] Yes, powers, powers, powers.

2:24:55 Cody: We have to get the mall back.

2:24:56 Devil: I will give you powers, great, great, great.

2:24:58 Brennan: You see, he says,

2:24:58 Devil: Hold out your hand.

2:25:00 Cody: Okay, just, I have to be able to like, freak out and be strong.

2:25:04 Devil: You got it, pinprick of blood. You're good.

2:25:08 Murph: I just give my hand.

2:25:10 Brennan: You see, pricks your finger and says,

2:25:12 Devil: All right, now put it on the dotted line.

2:25:14 Brennan: It's just like some Sharpie dots that he just put on the back of this poster. He’s like, he’s using his hooves to keep it from rolling up.

2:25:21 Cody: All right Lucifer, I sell my soul to you.

2:25:26 Murph: I write—[laughs] at first, I write “Night Angel”. And then I realized that it might be binding, and then I change it to “Cody”.

2:25:33 Brennan: You do it. You see, he goes,

2:25:34 Devil: Great. I'm gonna sign my name as Bazathrax. Don't worry about that.

2:25:41 Brennan: And then you see, signs “Bazathrax” on the line. He goes, fwah! It turns into fire. He goes,

2:25:48 Bazathrax: Holy shit, I can feel it. There’s no—The infernal realms can't reach here. There's some kind of hex preventing them from… Cody—sorry, Night Angel—we could do a lot of good work here, man. It's wide open field, baby. There's no one else doing what we're doing in town right now.

2:26:11 Cody: [nodding] Let's bring the flames of hell to raze Gladiator, and from the ashes, the mall will grow.

2:26:19 Bazathrax: Hell yes. Great, good job. I'll always know where you are. Just say my name.

2:26:26 Cody: So, Lucifer, are we… So now that we're working together, are we just gonna get like a bunch of your fallen angels and we're just gonna go like kick those construction guys’ asses, or what?

2:26:36 Bazathrax: Cool. So, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna run a little bit of recon, and I'm gonna get back to you about all these plans, okay? What you should do for right now—

2:26:44 Cody: You are Lucifer, right? Just to—

2:26:46 Bazathrax: 100% dude, 100%. Would never lie to you about that. I am the person you mentioned. But, like—Like you know how you go by Night Angel, right?

2:26:59 Cody: Yeah.

2:27:01 Bazathrax: So, that's like a code name, right? So Lucifer is a very powerful name. And so, we're gonna go by my [finger quotes] “code name”, which is Bazathrax, okay? [holding hands up on each side of his mouth] It's a secret name only you—[gets very close to the camera] only you and me know about.

2:27:18 Cody: Bazathrax, I got it.

2:27:19 Bazathrax: Okay? Great. You go home, I'm gonna do—I'mma some snooping, but—you got all kinds of powers now, don't even worry about it, okay?

2:27:26 Cody: Um. All right, Bazathrax.

2:27:31 Brennan: You feel filled with infernal might. And Pete, you sign on that apartment. You're free to move in whenever you want. You can...

2:27:42 Ally: I Venmo immediately.

2:27:43 Brennan: Cool, you Venmo immediately. You roll in with like an air mattress that night. And you see Cody come home, and your Vox Phantasma shit goes wild. That guy wasn't part of the Unsleeping City when he left, and has come back part of it now.

2:28:02 Ally: Can I summon my lime green butterfly?

2:28:06 Brennan: Yes. [twirls hands] Butterfly appears.

2:28:09 Pete: Hey, what's up man?

2:28:12 Cody: Oh, hey, um. What's up? So you moved in?

2:28:15 Pete: Yeah. [a pause as he moves the butterfly between his hands]

2:28:21 Cody: Do you work…

2:28:23 Murph: Cody looks in both directions.

2:28:27 Cody: [quietly] Do you work for Lucifer too?

2:28:33 Pete: Do you work for Lucifer?

2:28:36 Cody: You're doing cool shit. Do you work for hell?

2:28:43 Ally: Can I do some sort of check to see what the the fuck is going on?

2:28:47 Brennan: Give me an Insight check.

2:28:49 Ally: All right, 19.

2:28:52 Brennan: This dude has sold his soul in the last 45 minutes.

2:28:59 Pete: Hey man, what just happened to you? What? You—Are you okay?

2:29:06 Cody: I'm better than I've ever been. Listen, we should go up to the attic because technically I wasn't supposed to ever say “Lucifer” to anybody, and I said it to the first person I saw. [cast laughs]

2:29:17 Cody: And the walls are thin here, [crosstalk] and my bedroom is a sheet, Josh—Josh is just here.

2:29:20 Pete: [crosstalk] Yeah, come on up, come on up. Yeah.

2:29:20 Ally: We go up to my room. [2:29:24 - Iga’s chest]

2:29:25 Brennan: You guys head upstairs. Iga, what's Iga doing at home as your daughter Jessica—You see that your husband, Oskar, comes in and goes,

2:29:35 Oskar: [slight Polish accent] Okay, the girls, they are downstairs, and you know, they are watching a movie, having a good time.

2:29:42 Iga: Okay. You don't think I should go down there?

2:29:46 Oskar: It's just, you can if you want. Actually, I might go see about—see why the pizzas are not here yet. They asked for some blankets and stuff like that maybe. Do we have some up in the upstairs, maybe?

2:29:57 Iga: Yeah, no. Yeah, absolutely, we got blankets. They didn't bring their own blankets though? What's their parents doing? Isn't that what you do when you go to the sleepover, you go to somebody else's house, you bring your blankets? I'll get them blankets.

2:30:10 Oskar: Sarah only brought the sleeping bag, it’s not as fun. She cannot make a tent.

2:30:14 Iga: Ohh, okay, okay, they're making tents.

2:30:17 Brennan: You head upstairs to your bedroom. What does Iga and Oskar's apartment look like?

2:30:26 Siobhan: There's a lot of wood. It looked like it was decorated really nice in like, 1979. So there's like a lot of floral carpets, and everything is really well kept, but old. A lot of mismatched prints. The bed has handmade quilts on it. Like, it's a lot of sturdy furniture that's built to last.

2:30:56 Brennan: Hell yes. You go up, grab some blankets. You pick them up off of a very old wooden chest in the corner of your room. As you pick them up, you see the chest almost has like, lichen or moss growing on it, ancient rusted metal. The chest is carved with thick trees, and a heavy latch on the front as it sits in the corner of your bedroom. You bring the blankets and stuff downstairs. You see, Sarah says,

2:31:28 Sarah: Thanks Mrs. Lisowski.

2:31:33 Brennan: You hear Dana, another friend of one of the girls over in the corner whisper over and go.

2:31:40 Dana: [whispering] I wanna as—Let me ask, yes. [normal] Mrs. Lisowski, what is a borscht bite?

2:31:45 Brennan: And you see Jessica looks over and goes,

2:31:48 Jessica: [agonizingly] Guys, no. No.

2:31:51 Iga: A borscht bite’s—it's delicious. You take a little round of sheep's cheese, and then the pickled beets, you chop them very, very small. And then you roll the sheep's cheese in the pickled beets...

2:32:04 Brennan: You see another girl goes,

2:32:04 Girl: Sheep's cheese?

2:32:07 Iga: It's delicious. It's very good. It's traditional.

2:32:10 Brennan: You see, Jessica says,

2:32:10 Jessica: Thanks, Mom. Thank you.

2:32:13 Iga: [holds hands up] Enjoy your high sugar treats. I’m not in—I'm not interrupting, I'm not interrupting.

2:32:19 Brennan: You get back upstairs. The chest... is askew.

2:32:29 Iga: Oh. Spirits, what are you doing? Are you messing around my bedroom?

2:32:35 Ally: [laughs] So unfazed.

2:32:37 Brennan: You see that the wooden trees carved into the chest sway in the wind. [dreamlike music]

2:32:50 Iga: Oh boy. Oh boy, okay. Misiek!

2:32:55 Brennan: Crawling out from behind the bed is what to the world looks like a Chihuahua, but is actually an incredibly tiny, very old, oh-so-sick little dragon.

2:33:05 Misiek: [coughs and moans]

2:33:14 Brennan: Misiek flies up onto your shoulder.

2:33:15 Iga: How are you doing my little Misiek?

2:33:19 Misiek: [pants, then coughs]

2:33:23 Iga: Ah, so good.

2:33:24 Siobhan: I give him like a tiny little… I have like a little strip of jerky that I give him.

2:33:27 Misiek: [eats noisily]

2:33:30 Iga: Misiek, what is with this box? You've seen this box before doing this thing?

2:33:35 Brennan: You see that Misiek looks down, the trees sway. Misiek raises his back up into an arch and leaps to the bed and starts whining at you.

2:33:43 Misiek: [whimpers]

2:33:51 Siobhan: Oh, I pick up Misiek.

2:33:52 Brennan: He scrambles away and goes under your pillow, and is whining for you to like come to him.

2:33:59 Siobhan: Okay, I do that.

2:34:01 Brennan: As you approach, you see that the chest collapses and shrinks in size with a violent jerk and re-expands. You see that it warps, and you are seeing the space of the room warp around you. Distances between the walls and the corners of the room are shifting.

2:34:26 Iga: Hello?

2:34:27 Brennan: The trees begin to fade, almost like something is trying to make the chest smooth. And you see the box snaps back out and roots and leaves slam out from the chest into your walls and floor. And the chest starts thudding violently into the floor and ceiling. [quickly waving his arm up and down] Bam-bam-bam, bam-bam-bam-bam-bam-bam! Light starts to emit, thick green light emitting out from the seam of the chest.

2:34:57 Siobhan: Okay, can I try and like settle it down?

2:35:03 Brennan: You can leap on it and try to rodeo this bad boy.

2:35:05 Siobhan: Yeah, I'll try and do that.

2:35:07 Brennan: You leap on it. You hear from downstairs like,

2:35:11 Jessica: Mom, we're trying to watch a movie. [Brennan makes more thumping noises]

2:35:15 Iga: It's okay, don't worry about it. It's just the, uh—it’s the neighbors.

2:35:20 Brennan: [laughs] You hear from next door,

2:35:22 Neighbor: Liar, it is not the neighbors. You are the one banging.

2:35:25 Iga: It is you, you are wearing your shoes inside again. We talked about this.

2:35:33 Brennan: [thumping noises] You hear something from inside the chest going [scary demonic noises] Looks like something's trying to wrench the chest open. The light turns to dark green, purple, gold, indigo, violet, spill out from the chest. Momentarily, the light becomes gray. As it flickers, you hear the buzzing and zapping of fluorescent lights. [more thumping] And FWOOM. The chest slams down. You hear cracking coming from inside the chest, and you see the magic of the chest flickering. A chest that has belonged to your family for more generations than you can count.

2:36:14 Iga: Okay, well, this is new. This is a new thing. It's a new thing. What do we do?

2:36:22 Siobhan: Can I do like an Arcana check?

2:36:24 Brennan: Give me an Arcana check.

2:36:27 Siobhan: Ooh, a nat 20.

2:36:29 Brennan: Holy shit.

2:36:30 Ally: Ooh!

2:36:31 Lou: There you go.

2:36:32 Brennan: Iga, you are a resilient woman. You are tied to the earth. You, like someone wrestling a rodeo steer to the ground, wrestle this chest to the ground, and to grow some roots of your own as you slam it down. You slam it shut, close it. The light seals. You can feel that whatever was trying to break inside, hasn't broken. Something was coming for it, but it didn't get to it. As you step away from the chest that has been covered in trees for centuries... you look and see, at the corners, at the edge of the forest are ancient Polish wood carvings... of skyscrapers. Set into the wood of the chest.

2:37:31 Iga: Oh now what are these buildings doing here? No, okay. What? See, I don't like it when they look new, but they look like they've been there for hundreds of years. This is not a good sign for me, okay. Blah. Misiek!

2:37:39 Misiek: [whimpers]

2:37:48 Iga: What is it?

2:37:50 Brennan: Misiek flies over, looks at the buildings. And you see on top of one of the buildings is a woman very familiar to you and another man that you maybe have not seen. You do not recognize Ricky Matsui on top of that skyscraper, but you do recognize Sofia Lee. And that's all for this episode.

2:38:19 Emily: What!?

2:38:20 Brennan: We're not even gonna get to the battle, gang. We'll pick that up next time. That is where we are going to leave off for this first episode of The Unsleeping City season two.

2:38:27 Ally: [scoffs] What?

2:38:33 Brennan: Hell yeah. [NEXT EPISODE - Episode 2: Heaven and Hell On Earth]

2:38:33 Captions extracted by: Kyber Bonsai

2:38:33 Edited by: Tillie the Paladin, gluegunshots, tevildo, Shanimal, rowan solsys