Heaven and Hell On Earth | The Unsleeping City Season 2 | Ep. 2

0:00:00 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 2: Heaven and Hell On Earth < [Previous Episode] | [Next Episode] > (Unsleeping City music)

0:00:09 Brennan: Hello, one and all, and welcome back to another thrilling episode of "Dimension 20: The Unsleeping City". I'm your humble dungeon master Brennan Lee Mulligan. With me, as always, are our Intrepid Heroes. Say "hi," Intrepid Heroes!

0:00:19 All: Hi, Intrepid Heroes.

0:00:23 Brennan: Lovely, incredible, wonderful. Last we left them off, the champions of New York City were in the midst of a lovely October day. The day before Halloween, wherein we saw Sofia Lee living with her mother above Spaghetti's Bakery, heading out to her psychic. A new character that we're meeting for the first time, Ms. Iga Lisowski who runs a little illicit money laundering slash psychic operation out of the Upper West Side as Madam Anastasia. We also saw Pete the Plug working at a bookstore, looking for a new spot to live, get-together for pupusas with the wonderful Kingston Brown, living with Liz back in their spot together. And also saw a little flashback to Kingston's earlier days back in the early 90s. We saw Ricky Matsui in a clock tower loft with the wonderful Esther Sinclair, living a wonderful life heading off to work at the homeless outreach shelter. And also met Cody AKA the Night Angel Walsh, mall lifer and now infernal paladin of [finger quotes] "Lucifer" who is just going by Bazathrax.

0:01:47 Emily: I wore a demon necklace for you, Cody.

0:01:50 Murph: I appreciate it. Thank you so much.

0:01:53 Brennan: We saw a day in the life of our wonderful and familiar heroes, some emotional turmoil here and there, some engagements announced over Instagram, some fights over underwear, nothing too far.

0:02:09 Emily: [wheezes] Delicates.

0:02:10 Brennan: Delicates. Your delicates, exactly. And an Islanders ticket that needed to go to a friend. We also saw the summoning of a devil into the slated for demolition Queens Center Mall, soon to become a Gladiator shipping and fulfillment campus, bringing tons of jobs and new buildings and a wonderful state-of-the-art campus to Queens, New York, along with a strange relationship with an arcane chest in the bedroom of Ms. Iga Lisowski in Greenpoint and a changing of a chest that has been unchanged previously for some hundreds of years. [2:26 - Ricky at Helping Hands]

0:02:57 Brennan: We return now to the Unsleeping City where that same day, we see Ricky Matsui working his heart out at the Helping Hands Homeless Outreach Center. What kind of work is Ricky getting up to today at Helping Hands?

0:03:12 Zac: Oh, man. Well, I think Ricky has recently watched a lot of YouTube videos on organization and is trying to organize like hygiene kits as best as possible, and just like really knocking out a ton of kits.

0:03:28 Brennan: Hell yeah. Ricky is getting these kits good to go.

0:03:33 Zac: Nice. Doing it.

0:03:35 Brennan: You're doing it. Tasha Keane, who is the director here at Helping Hands comes in and goes,

0:03:42 Tasha: Oh, look at this. All these ducks in a row. My goodness, Ricky, you are a gem. What a hero.

0:03:51 Brennan: She pats you on the shoulder, and mentions, she says,

0:03:56 Tasha: Oh, by the way, Rusty is here and would like to say hello to Ox if you get a chance to.

0:04:02 Ricky: Oh, yeah. Of course.

0:04:06 Zac: Is— I feel like... is Ox inside? Can he be in with...

0:04:11 Brennan: Ox? Yes, he's a super well— I think that you have like support dog qualifications for him.

0:04:18 Zac: Mhm. He's hypoallergenic. He can't be allergic to this animal I summoned. [Cast laughs]

0:04:24 Brennan: Exactly. Rusty comes in. Rusty's an old fellow. He's by here a lot and is very sweet to specifically Ox, but you look up as he comes in, and he looks up and says,

0:04:45 Rusty: Hey, look at that. There's Rick the Man. How's it going, Rick the Man?

0:04:49 Ricky: It's going pretty good, Rust the Man. How are you?

0:04:54 Rusty: [laughs] I'm better now that I got this boy here. Look at this guy. Come on, you bud.

0:04:59 Zac: I mean, I hope that Ox is not being manhandled too much by an old man, but it seems like they have a good relationship, I imagine.

0:05:08 Brennan: Yeah, he's being very sweet to him. You see that Rusty looks up and says,

0:05:14 Rusty: Hey, I'm sorry I haven't been around too long to say hi to the fellow. I've been busy, busy. I'm glad to see this fellow. You're looking good, Rick. How're you doing, Rick?

0:05:24 Ricky: I'm feeling good, you know, I just made a bunch of kits here, and, you know, I feel like I got my routine in order. You know, I got no complaints. How are you doing, Rusty?

0:05:36 Rusty: Good. Coming by-- coming by, you know, come by to help. I'm gonna help out a little bit, gonna get a bite to eat, but you know, it's all good. I'm glad to see you and the dog are good here, and I tell you, it's wild out there, you know? Rusty stares off very intently.

0:05:54 Ricky: Yeah, yeah, I think I know what you mean, but if you... [he notices Rusty staring] Rusty, are you okay? You just...

0:05:58 Rusty: Huh?

0:06:01 Ricky: You sorta stared at the ground pretty hard.

0:06:04 Rusty: Nah, it's pretty good. It's pretty good. [Brennan gets very close to the camera] There used to be a rat. [a pause]

0:06:12 Ricky: What? You used to be a rat?

0:06:14 Rusty: [Brennan returns to his seat] No, no, there used to be. He would come around, you know? I remember sometimes, you know, having a hard time getting myself here.

0:06:28 Ricky: And a rat would show up.

0:06:29 Rusty: A rat would show up and help me out.

0:06:31 Ricky: Hey, Rusty? There did used to be a rat.

0:06:36 Rusty: What?

0:06:37 Ricky: There was a rat. And it was huge, and it was gross, and it would help people. That's real. Rusty, that's real. [Murph and Emily laugh]

0:06:49 Brennan: You see, down the hall, Tasha kind of turns her head. She's not fully listening, but she just turns to see Ricky talking to Rusty. He goes,

0:06:59 Rusty: I knew it. [taps forehead then points at the camera]

0:07:02 Ricky: Yeah.

0:07:02 Rusty: I knew it.

0:07:03 Ricky: That's not a thing you made up. I just want you to know 'cause I've seen that rat, and I think he's... I think the rat's gone now, but I think, you know, other people will help in his place.

0:07:19 Brennan: You see, Rusty smiles and gives you a sort of ginger but warm embrace and says,

0:07:25 Rusty: I know they will. They're doing it right now. They're doing it right now. Hey.

0:07:30 Brennan: He gives you a little punch in the arm.

0:07:31 Ricky: Ow, so strong, dude.

0:07:34 Rusty: [laughs] Troublemaker. We got a troublemaker here. [Lou laughs]

0:07:39 Zac: I get Ox to do a backflip, I dunno.

0:07:42 Brennan: [woof!] Does a backflip.

0:07:44 Emily: [laughing] What?

0:07:47 Brennan: How late does Ricky tend to work at Helping Hands?

0:07:51 Zac: I think he helps close up whatever the like, hour is that happens.

0:07:57 Brennan: Cool. Rusty stays for a little while to help close up. Rusty is one of a couple of people at Helping Hands who both use the services here and also donate and volunteer their time here, and you have a lovely day making a tangible difference in the lives of people who need it. It's later at night. Sofia, after meeting up with Iga for that card reading, what does Sofia get up to that day? [8:34 - Sofia on the rooftops]

0:08:34 Emily: Wow.

0:08:35 Brennan: Or I should say into the night. I should say.

0:08:37 Emily: I mean... Sofia's a little shook by the description of “you can't fall in love, you're falling off of a tower”. So I think Sofia is like,

0:08:52 Sofia: Okay, if my present is falling off a tower, I'll go climb some towers. I'll do a little falling and catch myself. [adventurous, dark orchestral music fades in]

0:09:02 Emily: So I climb some skyscrapers. [laughs] But I'm also keeping an eye out for any trouble because part of not drinking is... excruciating boredom, and so a little adrenaline rush from getting into a scrap with someone who deserves it is perhaps acting as a substitute.

0:09:29 Brennan: Copy that. Go ahead and make a Perception check for me. This is if Sofia gets lucky, and if Sofia is really looking for a scrap, you can add an Investigation roll there as well.

0:09:41 Emily: She's really looking-- I got an 18 for Perception and a 10 for Investigation.

0:09:54 Brennan: Cool. You climb up some skyscrapers. What, I guess, you...

0:10:03 Emily: Scaffolding, fire escapes, window washer units.

0:10:11 Brennan: [laughs] You're just standing up on the precipice of a skyscraper looking out. You're kind of like near the Manhattan Bridge on the Brooklyn side. You're partway home to Staten Island before you get home, and the sun is setting. Gazing out over the city, you look... yeah, and there's just something about jumping from roof to roof of these tall buildings where the moment that you are in motion, and all you can do is anticipate landing and rolling into the next leap, there is a gleeful surrender of having to think about or do anything other than jump, and you're leaping from place to place. As you do so with that 18 Perception, you see sort of early night. You're a little bit closer to like the Clinton Hill area. You see there's some trees lining the street. There's some sort of dining areas out here. There's some bars. You see that there is a couple outside of a bar kind of engaged in a... it's just an argument, but man, are they being nasty to each other.

0:11:40 Emily: Okay. I suppose out of curiosity, this could be almost like a reality show. I suppose I... Is there like an area of darkness near them?

0:11:53 Brennan: Yeah, there's an area of darkness nearby.

0:11:55 Emily: Okay. I'm a Shadow monk now, so I teleport to that area of darkness to eavesdrop from the shadows.

0:12:03 Brennan: You teleport across the street through the shadows. In Sofia's departure from the Way of the Drunken Master, having embraced the way of the shadows, you are a ghost in the night, and...

0:12:20 Emily: I'll listen 'cause if it's a lover's quarrel, you know, I'll stay out of it, and in fact maybe it's kind of fun to hear some lovers really get into it, and be reminded that romance isn't all, you know, roses and bed and breakfast.

0:12:39 Brennan: A hundred percent. Yeah, you hear that this is a couple that for all intents and purposes, should not be together. They are having a clearly bad time. They are not communicating well. [Emily laughs]

0:12:54 Brennan: It's a big argument going on, and yeah, I guess for Sofia being like, “Hey, this is great, a couple that's on the rocks”.

0:13:04 Emily: I think if that's the case, then I come out of the shadows, and I say,

0:13:07 Sofia: [with increasing distress] Life is too short. Do you know how nice it is to be with someone that you belong to be with? You are preventing both of each other from finding that person. Go! Leave each other! Right now!

0:13:22 Brennan: Give me an Intimidate roll.

0:13:28 Emily: [laughs] I'm gonna intimidate you to not ruin, to not waste your lives. Nat 20! [Cast cheers and laughs]

0:13:37 Sofia: [loudly] Do you understand there people out there who would not make you feel the way you both make each other feel? [quieter] Do you understand how it will feel to feel that, right?

0:13:47 Brennan: You see the woman looks up at you. Tears burst into her eyes. She goes,

0:13:53 Woman: Oh my God. I can survive being single. I don't need to be in a bad relationship.

0:14:01 Sofia: Yeah.

0:14:02 Brennan: She turns and goes,

0:14:02 Woman: Steve, go fuck yourself.

0:14:05 Sofia: Yes, Steve.

0:14:06 Brennan: And she flips this dude off. Steve is mostly angry at you, so he goes,

0:14:11 Steve: Who the fuck are you, lady? Get the fuck out.

0:14:14 Brennan: You see that as the woman turns to walk away, he reflexively grabs her arm, hard.

0:14:21 Emily: [laughing] Okay. I disarm him. And I flip him over. I flip him over into the shadow, so that I now have all advantage on all attacks against him, and he has disadvantage on every attack against me.

0:14:37 Brennan: [laughs] Go ahead. Go ahead and make your attack rolls.

0:14:42 Emily: Okay. I think I— mm. I don't like that he touched her, but I'm not really trying-- I'm trying to like, I'm trying to control his body but not really hurt him.

0:14:54 Brennan: Okay. Copy that.

0:14:55 Emily: Not really like— Okay. So I think I just want to physically control his body so that he doesn't try to do that to another woman again. The first one is gonna be a 27 to hit.

0:15:08 Brennan: [laughs] Yeah. For sure.

0:15:09 Emily: Okay, I'm gonna go for a Stunning Strike. That's gonna be, okay, so that is eight damage, and then I'd like to try and Stunning Strike him, so just to stun him.

0:15:21 Brennan: This dude is, you flip him into the shadows and move his arm in such a way that it like, pinches a nerve, and you see he goes into a full muscle back spasm where his full body can't move as he breathlessly gasps in pain. The young woman turns around to see that 'cause his hand is on her arm until you pinch his wrist so that all his fingers snap open off her arm so that she can watch as he, just like a sack of dirty laundry, flips off into the shadows and just-- thud. She looks at you and goes,

0:15:43 Woman: [a pause as she looks confused] Th— you’re—

0:16:06 Sofia: Zumba.

0:16:08 Brennan: [laughs] She puts her fingers over her lips like you've said a secret name of God to her and goes,

0:16:16 Woman: [hushed] Thank you.

0:16:19 Brennan: And rushes off into the night. Ricky. You... Oh actually, first of all, you know, Sofia, you get a text on your phone, but the guy is still muscle spasmed in the shadows.

0:16:40 Emily: Oh, I think I wanna like release him from it now that he— now that the girl is safe.

0:16:45 Brennan: You release from it. He's gonna take a swing at you.

0:16:50 Emily: Okay, he'll do it with disadvantage 'cause we're standing in the dark.

0:16:55 Brennan: You see a terrible, sloppy, bullshit, break-your-wrist haymaker from someone who's never been in a fight coming your way.

0:17:05 Emily: All right. I catch his wrist, and I break it.

0:17:08 Steve: [screams]

0:17:10 Brennan: He falls to the ground.

0:17:13 Sofia: I was trying not to hurt you.

0:17:15 Ally: Oh my god.

0:17:17 Brennan: He goes,

0:17:18 Steve: [screams and groans]

0:17:19 Brennan: Just on the ground.

0:17:21 Sofia: See, this is what bothers me. I was trying to teach you a lesson about touching women, and you fucking did it again, so.

0:17:31 Brennan: [laughs] Incredible. Superhero Sofie Bikes is standing over this dude. You hear a little bling! on your phone.

0:17:41 Emily: I look at it.

0:17:44 Brennan: You see a text from Esther saying,

0:17:46 Esther: Hey, Sofie. Miss you. Hope you're well...

0:17:50 Brennan: And then you see another one dropping a pin from her find-a-friend’s, which several months ago, she asked for you guys to turn on your mutual find-a-friend, and she was like,

0:18:04 Esther: Cool that you're in Clinton Hill. Seems like you're doing some roof hopping. Hope everything's okay.

0:18:10 Brennan: Then under that says,

0:18:12 Esther: Seems like you're in the neighborhood. Wanna grab a bite?

0:18:16 Emily: Yeah. I think I call her back.

0:18:20 Brennan: Cool. Okay, she picks up, and she's like,

0:18:22 Esther: Hey, oh god. Sofie, how's it going?

0:18:25 Sofia: Sorry, I just thought it was easier this way. Yeah, let's get a bite to eat. Where do you wanna go?

0:18:29 Esther: Let's go run the car somewhere. I'm not gonna be free for another like two hours. Does like a late dinner, like a 9:30 dinner work for you?

0:18:37 Sofia: Oh, okay. Yeah, that's fine. Yeah. Uh huh.

0:18:40 Esther: Okay, all right, well, miss you! It'd be great to see you. Hope you're well!

0:18:45 Sofia: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I know, I am. Yeah, you too. Bye.

0:18:49 Brennan: Phone goes off. Ricky you get a text immediately being like,

0:18:54 Esther: Sweetheart, Sofia's in the neighborhood. Looks like she's roof hopping. I'm not gonna be able to get away from work for another two hours. Can you go check on her?

0:19:04 Ricky: I could go hop on some roofs. [Brennan and Emily laugh]

0:19:08 Zac: I send her a selfie of me and Rusty and Ox.

0:19:14 Ricky: Just hanging out.

0:19:18 Brennan: [laughs] Immediate heart emoticon on the selfie.

0:19:21 Ricky: Roof hopping crew. [Emily laughs]

0:19:24 Ricky: Rusty will not hop on roofs though. I think he's too old for that. (laughing)

0:19:30 Brennan: You immediately get a little notification as Esther adds this photo to a Dropbox folder called "Ricky Selfies." (laughing)

0:19:42 Brennan: You take off. Sofia, after a little while, Ricky finds you on a rooftop somewhere in Brooklyn. I don't think you got any advanced notice that Ricky was gonna swing by necessarily, but Ricky, give me an Insight and a Persuasion check.

0:20:07 Zac: Insight would be, sorry. Oh, 14, and Persuasion, is what you said?

0:20:15 Brennan: Oh, Perception. Perception.

0:20:20 Zac: And I do Perception with advantage, right?

0:20:21 Brennan: Yes. Ever since you got turned into a dog momentarily.

0:20:26 Zac: 18 on Perception.

0:20:28 Brennan: Cool. You smell a little bit on Sofia, just some of those like those dog’s senses. You smell a little bit of adrenaline and the fear sweat of bad men.

0:20:47 Ricky: Sofia, are you cool? Sofia, hey.

0:20:51 Sofia: Whoa. Oh, hi, Mr. March, How are you?

0:20:54 Ricky: I'm good. Hey, are you okay? 'Cause I can smell, it seems like there were some bad vibes around here recently.

0:21:01 Sofia: Yeah, it's okay. I broke their wrist though.

0:21:04 Ricky: Oh, shit.

0:21:06 Sofia: Yeah, there was a bad vibe. I broke his wrist. I'm hoping that it leads to meaningful introspection.

0:21:14 Ricky: Okay. Sofia, I.

0:21:18 Sofia: Yeah, how are you?

0:21:20 Ricky: I'm good.

0:21:20 Sofia: I feel like I haven't seen you in a while.

0:21:21 Ricky: I'm pretty good. I, you know, I sort of changed jobs. I have a different, you know.

0:21:26 Sofia: Yeah, I know. I got the calendar this year, and you weren't in it. (laughing)

0:21:30 Ricky: Yeah, that's been, you know, an adjustment, not being in that calendar. Look, are you okay? What are you doing right now?

0:21:40 Sofia: Oh, I mean I'm just kind of, you know. My psychic said that I'm falling from a tower, right, so I'm just taking it very literally.

0:21:56 Ricky: Well, you know, I'm not a firefighter anymore, and so safety is not one hundred percent my goal all the time, although it is a pretty heavy hobby of mine. And I should say that you probably shouldn't jump off a giant tower. It seems maybe not the safest thing in the world. I have faith in you that you have abilities to handle a situation like that, but just would, you know. I recommend caution to everyone.

0:22:26 Sofia: Yeah. You know, Ricky, I think it's really sweet, but I do want you to feel comfortable that I can jump off a lot of things, and I have a lot of resources at my disposal to make it as convenient as possible, and in general, I think the people you should worry about the most are the people who cross my path.

0:22:43 Ricky: Wow. (laughing)

0:22:47 Sofia: I mean like who cross my, you know.

0:22:51 Ricky: Are you out for vengeance right now? I feel there's a bit, you know.

0:22:54 Sofia: No, I'm just out. I just, you know, going home is always a little bit of a reality check, so, you know, I stay out late.

0:23:07 Ricky: Yeah, well I don't know. It seems like Esther talked to you, but if you want to hang out with us, you know in a little bit.

0:23:16 Sofia: Yeah, that'd be great, yeah.

0:23:17 Ricky: I think that'd be fun, and also like it's just, I mean, I don't really get to like have this conversation with that many people, but hopping on roofs is fucking tight now, you know.

0:23:27 Sofia: Thank you. See? That’s what I'm saying. I absolutely appreciate how you feel about safety, but when you practice something enough, you can kind of put safety in the backseat a little bit, you know?

0:23:39 Ricky: Yeah, when you get a level of comfortability with something, you can just, you know, you can have fun with it.

0:23:44 Sofia: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, so if you wanted to just like hop a bunch of roofs, we could do that until Esther was free.

0:23:51 Ricky: Tight. Oh, did I show you this?

0:23:53 Zac: And I make Ox do a backflip again. [Ox woofs]

0:23:57 Sofia: Oh my God.

0:23:58 Emily: Sofia faints.

0:23:58 Ricky: I've been training him.

0:24:00 Sofia: Did that dog just do a backflip?

0:24:03 Ricky: Yeah, he can do the thing where he hops off my shoulder and catches a frisbee, and he can dart between my legs like dog show style.

0:24:09 Emily: Can I Minor Illusion a frisbee to try to see this?

0:24:13 Ricky: As long as it's over the roofs. I'd appreciate that, but yes.

0:24:17 Sofia: Okay. Wow.

0:24:20 Brennan: You hurl a frisbee, you see that as you hurl the frisbee, Sofia, it's made of sparkling light, and the sparkling light around it transforms into La Gran Gata who catches it herself, going,

0:24:28 La Gran Gata: It is mine. [chomps frisbee] (Emily and Ally laugh)

0:24:35 Sofia: She's very greedy. I love that about her. Yeah. How are things with Esther by the way?

0:24:43 Ricky: Oh, I mean, we just...

0:24:44 Sofia: You know, I know a jewelry shop around here that stays open late.

0:24:49 Ricky: ...Okay. Um...

0:24:51 Sofia: If you wanna go. I'm just saying I might go there to look for some stuff.

0:24:53 Ricky: Late night jewelry shop?

0:24:55 Sofia: Yeah.

0:24:57 Ricky: Hey, you know this is honestly interesting to me. It's the second person who's asked me about a jewelry shop lately, and do I come off like a jewelry guy? Like, I don't, it's usually not very functional to me. I don't think about jewelry.

0:25:09 Sofia: Yeah, no, sometimes it's like a fun present or a fun like, a token meaning something else.

0:25:14 Ricky: Oh, cool. Yeah, well, I guess I'll go with you if you wanna go.

0:25:20 Sofia: Okay.

0:25:24 Emily: [laughing nearly too hard to speak] Me and Ricky go look at engagement rings, but I never call it out. I pretend like I'm looking for myself.

0:25:34 Ricky: These are cool.

0:25:37 Ally: Bummer.

0:25:39 Ricky: Are you gonna buy a couple of these? These are really expensive.

0:25:42 Sofia: No, Ricky. I'm not. I'm not, no.

0:25:44 Ricky: Okay, so I guess I'll see what Esther's doing.

0:25:48 Sofia: Yeah, okay. Okay.

0:25:51 Brennan: You guys do some roof jumping. Ox and La Gran Gata keep their respectful distance from each other, and you eventually end up at a tiny, little, very... You end up at a tiny, little Italian restaurant around the corner. Like couple of tables, very small, great food, not that expensive, and Esther comes in and sees you, Sofia. You've probably been working with her not too infrequent, so it's not like you've gone months without seeing her, but she walks up and goes,

0:26:09 Esther: Sofie!

0:26:27 Brennan: And puts her arms wide and gives you a big hug.

0:26:30 Emily: I lean into the hug.

0:26:32 Sofia: Esther, I'm actually really glad to see you. I have some sort of more official business to maybe talk about unless you wanna just shoot the shit. We can talk about it later in a more official capacity.

0:26:44 Esther: No, go for it. Let's sit down.

0:26:46 Brennan: You guys sit down, get some bread and olive oil, and some like little candle light. She goes like,

0:26:52 Esther: Yeah, absolutely.

0:26:54 Emily: Wait, now I feel like I'm crashing their date.

0:26:59 Sofia: This is very romantic. Do the two of you just wanna be alone?

0:27:04 Brennan: She says,

0:27:04 Esther: No, I mean, this is like our, one of our like local go-tos, but it's not here all the time, yeah.

0:27:12 Sofia: Okay. It's just, it's much fancier than we have in Staten Island.

0:27:17 Esther: Yeah, I mean it's like at Clinton Hill. This is, I think this is sort of pretty, yeah, you know. I'm sorry if it made you uncomfortable. I didn't want to.

0:27:26 Sofia: You're fine.

0:27:27 Esther: Yeah. But yeah, what did you wanna talk about?

0:27:33 Sofia: Okay, well I guess I've been doing a lot of reading at the library at the monastery because they actually have like many interesting texts, and, you know, reading is a hobby I picked up in sobriety that's actually a pretty underrated hobby. It's...

0:27:50 Brennan: Esther nods vigorously. She says,

0:27:52 Esther: Yeah. Yay books. Yeah, a hundred percent.

0:27:56 Ricky: Honestly, I agree. I feel similarly.

0:27:59 Sofia: Yeah? What's your favorite book, Ricky?

0:28:02 Ricky: Gosh, my favorite book. 'The Mind Hacker,' it's a near future a novel about water rights and, and also Bitcoin. I didn't kind of catch a lot of it and didn't quite understand what it was about, but.

0:28:21 Sofia: That's cool.

0:28:22 Ricky: There's definitely layers of mystery throughout.

0:28:27 Sofia: Wow.

0:28:29 Ally: It just says that verbatim on the back of the book. (laughing)

0:28:33 Zac: He's been reading this book for two years. [ethereal, soft background music]

0:28:39 Sofia: Well, yeah, I've so I've been going through a lot of the books at the monastery, and a couple things keep coming up that are a little strange, and I was curious if Gramercy Occult Society knew anything more about it, but, you know, a lot of the books at the monastery, it's very practical, very pragmatic, you know, how do you defend yourself against X, Y, or Z, but they keep referencing sort of like monsters and beasts from like deep dreams.

0:29:11 Brennan: Esther sort of furrows her brow a little bit, and...

0:29:16 Sofia: Like something deeper than what we went and saw.

0:29:23 Brennan: She sort of thinks for a moment and says,

0:29:27 Esther: Huh. Well, I feel like a lot of that is conjecture. I mean,

0:29:36 Brennan: You see that she looks very interested. She says,

0:29:38 Esther: I remember you talking about finding some of these older scrolls about like the most dangerous forms of dream entities, but, you know, there's so much we don't know about the geography of Nod. This is sort of, I mean, I've read some things that are talking, that talk about like different other cities' relationships with the dreamscape and other things like that. What have you kind of read about the... Have you read anything about like deeper dreaming or no?

0:30:12 Sofia: Well, I guess the thing that's kind of bumping me is that like, you know, that you say, “Oh, it's just conjecture,” but like the Order of the Concrete Fist is all about what is. They are the opposite of conjecture, and so when I read, you know, bestiaries about deep dream beasts that only come out sometimes that doesn't feel, it's not in their style to be hypothesizing.

0:30:39 Brennan: She looks to you and says,

0:30:40 Esther: Okay. Well, yeah, it's true that we, there's a lot we don't know about Nod even still. I mean the society is trying to bring on new members right now to kind of engage in all the work that needs to be done. Do you think, look I don't wanna... the order and the society have had periods of tension in their working relationship over the past century and a half in New York City.

0:31:10 Sofia: Yeah.

0:31:11 Esther: It... I would be op- listen this is, it's you and me, you're the chosen one. I'm the chairwoman and head of the order, head of the society. If we said thumbs up, do you think you and the other monks might be into a more formal exchange of resources? I mean, if there's stuff the monks know about, things deeper-

0:31:37 Sofia: I mean.

0:31:38 Esther: Yeah.

0:31:39 Sofia: Yeah, I haven't really... If anything, it was probably a little, a little... I probably jumped the gun by telling you because we're friends. I probably should have run it by the other monks. I mean Nadia at the library knows I've been looking into this stuff, but I'll bring it up with them, I'm sure I can.

0:31:59 Esther: Yeah, I mean that sounds...

0:32:01 Sofia: I'd love to pool our resources. I don't think that there's any reason that we shouldn't.

0:32:04 Esther: I think we should.

0:32:06 Sofia: Right?

0:32:07 Esther: I mean this is the order, the society, and two Voxes in the city at the same time. We have...

0:32:14 Sofia: A rare moment.

0:32:16 Esther: The planets have aligned as they say. Yes. Talk to the monks, and let's put our heads together.

0:32:23 Sofia: Okay.

0:32:24 Brennan: You see that she... Go ahead and give me an Insight check real quick.

0:32:31 Emily: Nat 1.

0:32:33 Brennan: Here's the deal. Sofia has been burning the midnight oil researching, and basically what you had discovered that about the nature of Nod was basically that the sixth borough is the part of the dreaming that touches New York and the Unsleeping City, right? And what Sofia's revelations were about were about the relationship of like, is Nod, I guess like what started Sofia's journey was, is Nod the fullness of the dreaming, or is there more dreaming past Nod the farther you get away from the Unsleeping City in New York. And Sofia's found out some troubling things. You were about to see Esther connecting dots in her own head with some of the society's resources until your guys' food arrived, and you saw her, in perfect rhythm with Ricky setting up his plate, just take something from her plate that she knew Ricky would want, that she wouldn't want and put it on his plate, and there's just a small squeeze of his arm. Emily rolls a die on her screen.

0:33:48 Zac: Puts a whole meatball in his mouth.

0:33:52 Emily: Okay, that was a trigger for me, but I passed. (laughing)

0:33:58 Brennan: So you...

0:33:59 Ricky: The book says it's a, you know, it's a thrill ride of suspense. (laughing)

0:34:05 Ricky: So, that's also...

0:34:06 Ally: He's holding the book.

0:34:08 Ricky: Important to consider that.

0:34:09 Ally: He's trying to be one of those guys that has a book in his back pocket like,

0:34:11 Lou: [crosstalk] Always ready to go.

0:34:13 Ally: “Oh, just on the go. I'm just reading.”

0:34:16 Ricky: This is my favorite book.

0:34:21 Brennan: Sofia, Esther and Ricky walk off arm in arm that night, and Ricky, Esther walks away with you and looks up and goes,

0:34:33 Esther: How do you think Sofia's doing?

0:34:38 Ricky: That's a hard question. I feel like she seems really busy. I don't know if she's too busy, you know? I think she's, maybe like there've been times where I wasn't feeling so great, so I worked out super hard, and I just would do two three-a-days.

0:35:00 Esther: Sorry, two three-a-days?

0:35:03 Ricky: So sometimes, so you know I do two-a-days, right?

0:35:06 Esther: Of course. Yes.

0:35:07 Ricky: So I would add two three-a-days to every week, and so three days, so two days of a week, I would work out three times, and that was usually 'cause I wasn't feeling great.

0:35:19 Brennan: As you do that you see Esther just nods, and her eyes just sort of slowly migrate down to your abs through like your baseball shirt. She's like,

0:35:27 Esther: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

0:35:30 Ricky: You know, you know what makes me... Hey, Esther? Sorry, my eyes are up here.

0:35:34 Esther: Yeah. [jerks her head up] Sweetie, yes of course. Yes, yes, yes. Absolutely.

0:35:38 Ricky: What's interesting to me is like, I feel like in the past when I had questions like this, I used to ask my ax, and I'd feel like, I dunno, I was just thinking about that today.

0:35:53 Brennan: See, she looks and says,

0:35:54 Esther: Yeah, I mean, what you did with the questing blade was incredibly selfless, sweetie.

0:36:03 Brennan: You guys get back to the apartment together, and Esther takes a moment to sort of put some stuff away and then sits on your couch. Again, super lovely, cozy home together, and she looks at you and says,

0:36:18 Esther: Sweetie, you... You're very good all the time, and it's not like you don't take care of yourself. Like, you do take care of yourself physically, mentally, like you're all about safety. Is there... It was a huge sacrifice when you gave up the questing blade because that was that was your key into the Unsleeping City. That's how you met me. We went to the Hall of Heroes, and you saw the other champions of New York, the defenders of the city, and I think you know you always do that, like hero Ricky Matsui thing of anytime you make a big sacrifice, you're so quick to go, 'Anyone would have done it. It's the right thing to do. It's the thing I have to do.' But occasionally, if you do something selfless, it's okay to acknowledge that it like stings a little bit. It's okay if part of you misses that.

0:37:41 Ricky: Yeah, I hear you. Well I'll, I mean anyone would have done that. It was the right thing to do...

0:37:48 Esther: [covers her face] Goddamn it, Ricky, no. No.

0:37:51 Ricky: That's definitely true, but...

0:37:52 Esther: No, that's not, I wasn't saying it in that.

0:37:55 Ricky: You know, to be honest, every now and then, I instinctively reach for my ax, and it's not there and I, I feel a tiny bit sad, not so much 'cause I want to hit things or whatever, but, you know, he was kind of a bud, and...

0:38:18 Esther: You deserve a bud.

0:38:19 Ricky: Yeah.

0:38:21 Brennan: She gives you a big warm comforting hug and buries her face and your neck, and goes,

0:38:29 Esther: Well, you know, questing blades are pretty rare, but who knows? Maybe, maybe the questing blade will return or come back, I don't know but...

0:38:39 Ricky: I looked on Craigslist. I couldn't find anything.

0:38:42 Esther: Probably not Craigslist, hun. Yeah, probably not Craigslist. Probably a different website or maybe not a website at all, maybe something more magical than that.

0:38:50 Ricky: A magical website?

0:38:51 Esther: No. (laughing)

0:38:55 Esther: You see...

0:38:56 Ricky: It just feels like, sometimes to me, the magical thing could be honestly any regular thing that's magical, you know, like, magical podcasts or something like that, you know, or a magical...

0:39:09 Esther: We should start a magical podcast. I feel like we, if we did release a magical podcast, it's not a huge audience of people that can perceive magical things, but that could be very fun, that could be a fun couple thing to do.

0:39:21 Ricky: Yeah I would do that.

0:39:24 Brennan: You see, she looks at you and goes,

0:39:27 Esther: I'll keep an eye out for anything like that. In the meantime, I know that Sofia is gonna need some help tomorrow just like keeping an eye on the city during Halloween, and questing blade or not, I know you're off from work tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow like tag along with Sofia and like hit the old stomping grounds again, you know, go keep the city safe.

0:39:50 Ricky: Uh… Gosh, I like safety. Gosh. [Brennan laughing]

0:39:56 Ricky: Yeah. Yeah, let's do it. I'll hop some roofs hanging out with Sofia. It sounds like a good Halloween. Thanks, babe.

0:40:05 Esther: You got it, babe.

0:40:06 Brennan: And you guys get ready for the night. Sofia, you head back to Staten Island, what do you do as you arrive? How do you make your return to your home in Staten Island?

0:40:18 Emily: I get in my car. I go all the way back to the Upper West side where my car is, and then I drive back, once again going through Bay Ridge and taking the Verrazano Bridge.

0:40:35 Brennan: You take the Verrazano. You're driving to Spaghetti's Bakery. You pass by the empty lot where your house used to be, and you see a shimmering, scintillating column of light very faintly but almost like fireflies or something like that, and you see a shape turns and beckons to you there as a mama deer and two fawns come out of the woodline.

0:41:20 Emily: I put the car into idle, leave the keys in it, and open the door and try to follow them.

0:41:30 Brennan: You go.

0:41:31 Zac: Is the car still moving?

0:41:32 Brennan: Yeah. (laughing) The car just kind of inches forward very slowly. Ghost riding. Sofia, you walk over. It's been a couple weeks, but as you approach, you see that the light sort of motes, the fireflies coalesce, and with wings on his back, Dale appears before you.

0:41:57 Emily: And, but I saw him a couple weeks ago?

0:41:59 Brennan: Yeah, probably like six weeks ago.

0:42:01 Emily: Oh. Can I touch him? Is he corporeal?

0:42:05 Brennan: He's corporeal.

0:42:06 Emily: Okay, cool. I make out with him.

0:42:09 Brennan: He, 'cause he's covered in angel blood. He's got the questing blade on his side. He's beaten his way out of heaven again. You guys make out hard. You can tell that he's so invested in this tiny amount of time he'll have, and the spaces between visits get longer and longer as the angels find ways to stop him from using the questing blade to get back out again. He's making out. You can tell the only thing as he's making out with you is every once in a while, he'll come up for air and go,

0:42:39 Dale: Look, look, look, look, look, look. They're licking the dew off the grass.

0:42:43 Sofia: Oh my god. I mean it's just, I was gonna say it's heaven on earth, but you're literally heaven on earth, so I mean, there's just a lot of that right now.

0:42:55 Brennan: You guys fully make out. I will say that like, you see that the deer start going back into the woods. As the deer retreat further into the woods, Dale's like,

0:43:06 Dale: Do you wanna follow them?

0:43:08 Sofia: Okay, yeah.

0:43:11 Brennan: You go follow them with Dale into the woods. You quickly lose the deer in the woods and return to making out, and I would say whatever... Dale is down for whatever Sofia wants to do in those midnight Staten Island forests with the smell of the New York Times printing factory and the world's largest or America's largest landfill. (Emily laughing)

0:43:41 Zac: Beautiful.

0:43:43 Brennan: Beautiful. Off in the distance.

0:43:44 Emily: I think we do exactly what you imagined. And she's gonna be like,

0:43:47 Sofia: I don't know, is this gonna work? Is this... Okay.

0:43:48 Dale: It’ll work, it’ll work.

0:43:49 Sofia: Yeah, I don't entirely understand how you're physically here, but I'm not gonna take it for granted.

0:43:54 Dale: Hey, these are not, you don't have to ask these questions. If it works, it works.

0:43:59 Brennan: And you see, he smiles at you and winks and says,

0:44:02 Dale: It is what it is.

0:44:03 Sofia: It is what it is. It's, yeah, which is honestly a bad motto. It's not a great motto. It's not inspirational, but it is what it is.

0:44:12 Brennan: He nods. You two are in a tiny clearing off in these sort of Staten Island trees lying down on the ground, looking up at no stars at all because of all the light pollution from New York City. Just looking at the underside of gray clouds and empty sky. Just going.

0:44:35 Sofia: Beautiful.

0:44:36 Dale: Wow.

0:44:37 Sofia: So, Dale, just so I can kind of get my bearings, what's the social scene in heaven like?

0:44:52 Dale: You know, there's a lot of wild people up there. Some people, you would expect. Some people, you honestly really wouldn't, and the people who aren't there are surprising. There's some people that you really think would be there, and they're not there.

0:45:06 Sofia: Wow, wow. I guess I'm trying to understand like, what's your social life like up there?

0:45:15 Dale: Oh. I don't really, I don't really have, I don't really have one up there.

0:45:28 Sofia: Okay.

0:45:28 Dale: You know, there's the other, I talked to other monks both from the Concrete Fist and from other orders. There's a tremendous amount of sort of enlightened people, and incredible sages and scholars and... Why do you ask, if I can ask?

0:45:51 Sofia: I just, you know, our visits are, they're not scheduled, so every time I see you, it's kind of a surprise, and then I wonder if they'll stop at some point, and if there would ever be something in heaven that would, you know, beyond the angels that are physically trying to prevent you from coming back down, if there was, you know, if there was ever going to be anything else that might prevent you from coming down. Like if you, I don't know, met someone up there.

0:46:37 Brennan: Go ahead and give me an Insight check.

0:46:43 Emily: 19.

0:46:45 Brennan: Also, Dale got a 24 on an Insight check for you. You look at him and see that he looks sort of confused and...

0:46:58 Sofia: I'm sorry, I know this isn't a fair conversation. I just, you know...

0:47:05 Dale: No, I understand. I don't really spend a lot of time focusing on heaven, paradise, you know, the beyond. I'm mostly just trying to plot and figure out ways to get past security and get back here.

0:47:36 Brennan: What is he reading on Sofia right now?

0:47:40 Emily: What he's reading on Sofia is that she is in the opposite situation, but the same situation at the same time where she's not really living in the present. She's kind of just always, when she daydreams, it's daydreaming about getting to where he is.

0:48:03 Brennan: He looks at you, and it gets very quiet for a while. He goes,

0:48:15 Dale: How about you? How's your social life down here?

0:48:19 Sofia: It's awesome. (laughing)

0:48:24 Sofia: I just had dinner with Ricky and Esther.

0:48:28 Dale: Oh, great. Oh, Ricky's such a good dude.

0:48:31 Sofia: I mean, yeah.

0:48:32 Dale: He's the founder of the feast. He's why I'm even able to come here.

0:48:36 Sofia: Yeah, yeah. So yeah, I'm really, I'm really having a lot of fun.

0:48:45 Brennan: He looks at you lie to his face, and he goes, [slow, jazzy music]

0:49:02 Dale: These are really hard for you.

0:49:07 Sofia: Oh, please don't read that from what I just said. It would be harder if it didn't happen, and I hope you understand that.

0:49:18 Dale: Right. No, you're right. I... Yeah. There's... The things that are waiting for us past here are not worse considering each and every day of your life here in this place. (slow music)

0:49:55 Dale: Huh.

0:49:58 Brennan: You see, he starts crying pretty hard, without sobbing, but you just see those sort of tears are coming down his face.

0:50:07 Sofia: Why, why? Why are you crying? We're...

0:50:10 Dale: Nothing. I'm sorry.

0:50:11 Sofia: We both agree that we miss each other. Isn't that beautiful?

0:50:15 Dale: Of course. Of course it's beautiful. Of course.

0:50:19 Sofia: Is it hurting you to come see me? God, it is, isn't it? I mean, you should be enjoying paradise. You shouldn't be trying to escape it all the time. For what?

0:50:34 Brennan: He smiles and looks off and just goes,

0:50:47 Dale: I... Yeah, I got some... Sorry I'm having a hard time articulating things. [chipper voice] How is the monastery? Cindy, Nadia, Solomon, everyone's good? First Fist of the monastery. So cool. Chosen one.

0:51:12 Sofia: Yeah, it's a lot of paperwork, yeah.

0:51:14 Dale: Mostly I mean it's a whole monastery about pragmatism and realism. So the being chosen one is mostly paperwork, and just sort of...

0:51:20 Sofia: Mostly paperwork, yeah.

0:51:21 Dale: Sorting out the kind of tax status of the monastery. Yeah, it's great. Woo. Fun.

0:51:26 Sofia: Yeah, I know. I'm learning a lot, and I see why you loved it so much. (giggling)

0:51:33 Brennan: He nods and says,

0:51:33 Dale: I'm so proud. You're the best thing that ever happened to me.

0:51:41 Sofia: Well, you are obviously the best thing that ever happened to me.

0:51:47 Brennan: He goes silent, and you guys spend a nice long amount of time together, continuing to talk about favorite memories, things shared.

0:52:00 Emily: Okay, so it transitions to good because I definitely feel nervous from this conversation.

0:52:07 Brennan: You see that Dale moves it in the direction of good and sweet things.

0:52:13 Emily: Okay. Cool.

0:52:14 Brennan: And it almost seems like he makes it like a perfect night, like you hit every one of your inside jokes, all of your favorite bits, every great memory all the way down, and that he takes a lot of time to say like little things here and there like bits of advice about the order and things that he wished he had known back when he was a monk, and stacks all these things up until truly it's like the sky is getting light in the East, and you wake up in the middle of the day, covered in ants on a hot patch of dirt. You fell asleep in Dale's arms, and he is gone.

0:52:59 Emily: Okay, I, the player, know exactly what that means. Does Sofia know what that means? What you just described mean? [Brennan claps, laughs]

0:53:07 Emily: Does she pick up on the fact that he made it the perfect night and also gives all of the tips that he needs to give?

0:53:16 Brennan: Go ahead and roll. Give me a DC 20 insight check.

0:53:22 Emily: Okay, I desperately want to fail this 'cause I don't wanna know. 6 plus a 3. 9. I don't know it! Great. Good. [Brennan and Lou clap, Emily laughs]

0:53:37 Sofia: Wow, that was just an awesome evening. Wow, I feel really... I mean, Dale really went out of his way to like have a good time. That was awesome.

0:53:49 Brennan: [laughs] Incredible. The following day. It's Halloween. We have some characters that had a lot of crazy shit happen the preceding night. The following morning, Pete and Cody, you guys are now living in the same spot. The following morning. Cody, you know like the nearby like bagel spot and place to get like a breakfast sandwich and stuff like that. Pete, this dude who got infernal awakened into the Unsleeping City last night is now your roommate.

0:54:24 Ally: Yeah.

0:54:26 Brennan: What are you guys... As you guys dive into it the next morning on your way to get breakfast, you're walking down like Steinway street and Astoria, what are you guys talking about?

0:54:35 Ally: Okay, I think I wanna know like everything about what you promised, what the like, do you have the contract on you, or like what the fuck? What are talking about?

0:54:45 Murph: Let me see. Fuck, I was so excited. Did I bring the book with me or the contract?

0:54:55 Brennan: [laughs] Give me, honestly, a DC 5 Intelligence check.

0:55:00 Murph: Oh, my Intelligence is okay. It's my Wisdom that's bad.

0:55:03 Brennan: Okay.

0:55:04 Murph: Okay, I'm fine. Dirty 20. I rolled an 18.

0:55:08 Brennan: Great.

0:55:09 Murph: So yeah I guess I show the back of the ripped WWE poster that is signed in my blood that doesn't, I think, doesn't clarify anything. It just says that I gave my soul away essentially.

0:55:26 Brennan: Go ahead, give me an Arcana check, Pete.

0:55:29 Ally: Oh, great. Okay. So this is gonna be, oh, yeah 27.

0:55:36 Brennan: Ooh, doctor. This is the fucking dumbest infernal contract you've ever seen. You've ever seen. It's on the back of a WWE poster, crisp out of the plastic, scrawled in blood. It's very clear that Cody got woozy from blood loss because he wrote the full word "Night Angel" out in his own blood, which is too long to write in your own blood without getting woozy. The deal, the contract, the bargain is in exchange for selling his soul, he gets to work for this devil.

0:56:20 Pete: What? This was a bad deal, dude. What the fuck were you thinking?

0:56:25 Cody: Lucifer himself fucking comes out of hell.

0:56:29 Pete: No. No! This is a random little devil.

0:56:30 Cody: [crosstalk] And tells you that you can save the mall, and you won't sell your fucking soul? (laughing)

0:56:36 Ally: Oh my god. Do I have any idea of like, why devils would be back or?

0:56:42 Brennan: On a 27, you know a shitload. Ask me as many, truly as many questions as you want. First of all, you know Bazathrax. Memories comes up from Emma Lazarus back when she was the Vox Phantasma of New York. Bazathrax is a lesser, lesser, lesser devil lord, like sub, sub, sub devil lord. He is literally a lord of the second out of nine pits of hell. He's in the number two, he's in one of the number two, and like kind of right through the front door, and he is the sub lord of reckless decisions. That's his fiendish domain is reckless decisions, and literally he's what you're realizing is like the, like the Highway Hex is still here, like Robert Moses is gone, but the thing that kind of shunts powerful devils and fairy creatures and celestials like out of New York. Bazathrax is one of the larger entities that could have made it through the highway hex, so also you remember that, like Isabella Infierno, back three years ago, was hell's representative here, and she was a succubus. She was like not a high ranking devil either, like again one of the most powerful... It's sort of like a net that bigger fish can't swim through, but smaller ones can, and so like, Isabella could make it through, but because no one could like, no one bigger than her could come get her, she just like joined up with Robert Moses and hung out for years, right? But with her gone, there is literally zero infernal presence in the city, so you're like, "Oh, someone like Bazathrax who is a full-stop chump could still clean up here because there's fucking no competition, and there's 8 million people."

0:58:45 Ally: Yes. Okay, can I...

0:58:47 Pete: Hey, 'Night Angel' Cody, can you fucking summon Bazathrax please? I need to talk to this guy.

0:58:56 Cody: I was super pumped when it happened. I'm not a hundred percent sure if I can, but I think I can 'cause technically he's my boss now.

0:59:05 Pete: Yeah, yeah, right. Yeah, cool man.

0:59:08 Cody: Cool.

0:59:09 Emily: You know how employees can always summon their boss?

0:59:12 Cody: You’re cool, right? 'Cause like you can like make butterflies and shit, so you made a deal with another devil or something, right? We're getting the mall back.

0:59:21 Ally: Okay. I explain like, can I just explain a lot more to Cody? Like,

0:59:27 Pete: There's actually a whole group of people. We work to keep the city safe, or...

0:59:32 Brennan: Yeah.

0:59:33 Ally: Can I explain? Yeah.

0:59:36 Cody: [nodding knowingly] You guys are Blade.

0:59:37 Pete: And you keep, see, I notice, man, that you keep bringing it back to the mall. We're actually, none of us are working on the mall. I'm so sorry to tell you.

0:59:46 Cody: So that's sort of my thing, I guess.

0:59:47 Pete: I'm not the Vox Phantasma for the mall. I'm like for the whole city.

0:59:52 Cody: But I am.

0:59:54 Pete: No, dude. Well, yeah maybe. Yeah, yeah. You're kind of the Vox Populi of the mall.

1:00:02 Cody: Got it. Cool. Yeah, I think I get like the fucking gist of it. Let me call Lucifer and see if he wants to...

1:00:11 Pete: Bazathrax, yeah.

1:00:13 Cody: Maybe that'll, maybe he'll sort it out.

1:00:15 Pete: Great, yeah bring him in. [Breaking Benjamin soundalike rock music]

1:00:16 Cody: Oh mighty Lucifer, in the name of Jeff Hardy and the Hardy Boyz, in the name of Breaking Benjamin and all the other sick ass nu metal bands, I summon you.

1:00:36 Murph: And then I just like pull out a knife and stab myself in the leg.

1:00:40 Pete: No, dude, you don't have... You just gotta, you just gotta say his name I think, man, don't worry about it. You don't have to hurt yourself.

1:00:46 Brennan: On that 27, first of all, Cody, you fall to the ground. You have a bad leg stab.

1:00:51 Cody: Fuck.

1:00:53 Brennan: It's bad. For Pete, you can tell that nothing happened here because the devil's name is not Lucifer, so this is, it's not gonna work.

1:01:05 Pete: So, hey, man, look you just got to say, 'Bazathrax.' You gotta summon Bazathrax. You got me?

1:01:12 Murph: I say the exact same thing again except Bazathrax, and I stab my leg again.

1:01:14 Cody: Fuck!

1:01:17 Pete: No, no, no, you don't have to fucking stab yourself, man.

1:01:21 Brennan: In a burst of nasty like sewer smoke, a man hole cover pops up, and you, Pete, see Bazathrax again. Marmot head, ram's horns, slimy humanoid, very like emaciated looking torso with long claws and like a centaur, capybara lower body with a long rat tail that goes,

1:01:38 Bazathrax: Holy shit.

1:01:44 Brennan: And crawls out of this smoking manhole.

1:01:47 Ally: Okay, I'd like to grab him by the collar and shove him against a wall and be like,

1:01:52 Pete: What the fuck are you doing here? Tell me everything.

1:01:56 Brennan: Holy shit, okay. Go ahead and roll initiative.

1:02:00 Ally: Oh, not Intimidation?

1:02:03 Brennan: Actually, yeah, before you roll, Intimidation, gimme Intimidate first.

1:02:07 Ally: Okay. Ooh, that's a 28. [quiet, electronic, bass-heavy background music]

1:02:14 Brennan: [laughing] Cody, you've seen Pete do some like butterfly stuff. As Pete slams this demon, you see that the wall behind Bazathrax turns into pure liquid chrome, and circling daisy chains of happy, what look like, children's dolls with buttons sewed into their eyes, dancing in this technicolor swirl going into infinity, reach out, and with their little puffy hands, grab Bazathrax and restrain him in this circling phantasmagoria. Bazathrax goes,

1:02:54 Bazathrax: Whoa, whoa, whoa, I give up. I full give up. I surrender.

1:02:58 Ally: My butterfly is flipping him off.

1:03:00 Cody: Are you fucking kidding me, dude? Can I sell my soul to Pete? Can you trade my soul?

1:03:05 Brennan: He says,

1:03:07 Bazathrax: Fuck you!

1:03:09 Pete: Well, I'm gonna try. I'm gonna try to get your soul back. Bazathrax, what the fuck are you doing here? How did you get here? What's going on? Tell me.

1:03:18 Bazathrax: I don't fucking know, dude, I don't fucking know. The kid summoned me all right? He said my name in the fucking book, and he signed his soul. You can't sell your soul to shit, dude, you work for me!

1:03:28 Brennan: Cody, you see that he snaps one of his fingers even while restrained, and you slam down to one knee with the sword in your hand.

1:03:38 Cody: It's so fucking sick that I work for a devil, but Lucifer kind of sucks.

1:03:44 Ally: Can I like, with any sort of magic, create like a contract for Bazathrax to sign and try to somehow get Cody out of this?

1:04:00 Brennan: Give me an Arcana check here.

1:04:03 Ally: Okay. What is my Arcana? Oh, good. Ooh, 20 but not nat.

1:04:09 Brennan: Cool. You feel like this devil's probably not gonna sign anything because the worst you could do to this devil really is banish him back to hell, and then he would just be in hell, but one soul richer right? So there's not, like, you and he are at an impasse because you're vastly more powerful than him, but because of the nature of what he is, there's like a short list of things you can do to a guy like this, right?

1:04:36 Ally: Okay.

1:04:37 Brennan: But you could definitely get some concessions out of him because he's scared of you.

1:04:42 Ally: Yeah, I wanna know everything or what's going on. What his plans are.

1:04:47 Pete: Cody, let Cody stand back up. Jesus Christ, man.

1:04:50 Brennan: You see, he goes,

1:04:50 Bazathrax: All right, all right, all right, all right, all right, hey, stand back up, kid. Stand back up. Do what the Vox Phantasma says, okay?

1:04:57 Cody: Yes. I serve my dark master.

1:05:01 Pete: No, dude.

1:05:02 Ally: I put my arm around Cody.

1:05:03 Pete: Look, man, you don't. This is a fucking like weird old gym teacher.

1:05:08 Cody: Do you have any— I understand, I understand, but I'm just trying to make the best of it because do you know how long I've been waiting for this? Do how many fucking goth kids just wait for the devil to fucking show up and just turn you into a fucking like hell warrior.

1:05:20 Pete: He's not the devil.

1:05:20 Cody: He’s a devil.

1:05:21 Pete: He's honestly, he like stocks the vending machines of hell, man, like you're fucking talking to like not the devil.

1:05:30 Bazathrax: I wish. I fucking wish. That's a primo gig. That is a primo gig.

1:05:36 Cody: All right, Bazathrax, you can work, you can stock the vending machines, I fucking believe in you, you fuck.

1:05:44 Brennan: He says,

1:05:44 Bazathrax: Cody, Cody, I'm lying. I really am Lucifer. Don't worry. Don't worry. [winks] I really am, just shh, shh, shh, shush.

1:05:53 Cody: I don’t know who to believe anymore.

1:05:56 Pete: Hey, Cody, okay... Actually, you know what? Bazathrax, just what, what's going on? Literally spill it.

1:06:06 Brennan: You see, he says,

1:06:07 Bazathrax: Look, something fucked up is happening in the city. This place is crazy.

1:06:10 Brennan: He goes like,

1:06:10 Bazathrax: There's, it's like, there's, there's no fucking devils here anywhere, and like, I don't know how to put it, but there's like something that's keeping like people from noticing when shit is weird or whatever.

1:06:25 Pete: Yeah, yeah, we have that.

1:06:27 Cody: They're doing something at the mall. they're taking over everything.

1:06:30 Ally: I explain the Umbral Arcana to Cody.

1:06:36 Pete: No, no, it's not the mall, again. Anyway, so, it's much bigger than the mall.

1:06:41 Brennan: You see, Bazathrax says like,

1:06:41 Bazathrax: Yeah.

1:06:43 Brennan: He's like,

1:06:43 Bazathrax: That shit, it's fucking leaking out everywhere. It's getting thick and goopy in places, which is pretty fucking crazy.

1:06:51 Brennan: He's like,

1:06:51 Bazathrax: There's something fucked up. It's... It's going down. Has anyone been keeping an eye on the sewers? Do any of you heroes keep an eye on the sewers or anything?

1:07:02 Ally: Would I know if any of us have been doing like monitoring?

1:07:05 Brennan: Well, not really since Kugrash died...

1:07:07 Emily: Kug would have.

1:07:08 Brennan: Yeah, Kug would have.

1:07:11 Ally: I think I have like on my keychain, I have a little like Class of 2019 for Kugrash 'cause we all said he graduated, and I think I got everyone a little key chain that says that to remind them of Kugrash, and I just hold it.

1:07:30 Brennan: I love that. Bazathrax says,

1:07:30 Bazathrax: That's all I know. I can help you find it. Look, something's fucked up in the sewers. Something's fucked up in the subways right now. There's a, there's a confluence. There is a confluence within the subways. That's all I know. [ominous, tense music]

1:07:46 Pete: Tell me more. Can you take me there?

1:07:49 Brennan: He says,

1:07:49 Bazathrax: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can take you there. I can take you there.

1:07:52 Cody: Are these demons friends or foes?

1:07:55 Brennan: He says,

1:07:55 Bazathrax: Oh it's not demons. It's coming from people.

1:08:01 Brennan: You see, he says,

1:08:01 Bazathrax: It's the antipopuli. [laughs]

1:08:05 Pete: Huh.

1:08:10 Brennan: As he says “antipopuli”, Pete, I think... you hear “antipopuli”. Give me an Arcana check again.

1:08:23 Ally: Let's see. That is 11.

1:08:26 Brennan: Antipopuli is way out of your field of knowledge. This is some Kingston shit.

1:08:30 Ally: Okay. When am I gonna meet Kingston for that game?

1:08:36 Brennan: That's happening probably like two days from now, but today's Halloween, so probably you gotta like, today might actually... You know that Sofia is gonna be busy doing shit today. It might be time to round up the troops.

1:08:51 Ally: Yeah, okay. I send out a text to everyone just saying, “We got—” Just kind of explain this whole devil thing, and just say my new roommate got roped into it, and he's cool. Just,

1:09:04 Pete: I'm gonna introduce you to a guy. He's cool, just he's cool.

1:09:09 Brennan: Gotcha.

1:09:10 Emily: As a way to get... Oh, sorry.

1:09:12 Brennan: Sorry. I was gonna say, Iga Lisowski, the next morning it's Halloween, your kids are getting ready. Your chest is still changed after being unchanged for centuries.

1:09:25 Iga: I do not like this. I do not like this. [groans]

1:09:32 Siobhan: Is there anybody I feel like I could talk to about this? Like I'm somewhat within the confines of the...

1:09:46 Brennan: Yeah, you're within the Unsleeping City, but you've just made a point to avoid those people because they're dangerous, and you like have a family and don't fuck with those kind of people.

1:09:57 Emily: We could say hypothetically that I would have probably texted you for like a tarot reading after seeing Dale or something like that.

1:10:04 Brennan: I mean, you do know that you have one client who is an important fit. You know Sofia has divulged everything to you. I think Sofia's your go-to probably.

1:10:12 Siobhan: Great. I will maybe text Sofia,

1:10:16 Iga: Hey, I need to talk to you. I can give you a reading at a discount. (laughing)

1:10:25 Ally: Not even free!

1:10:29 Emily: Sofia immediately hops on the phone to call her.

1:10:35 Sofia: Hi.

1:10:36 Iga: Hello.

1:10:39 Sofia: Hi.

1:10:40 Iga: Hi, Sofia. How are you doing?

1:10:44 Sofia: Honestly a little confused, which is why I texted you at all.

1:10:49 Iga: Yes. Fun. I have a thing that I need maybe some little help with.

1:10:58 Sofia: Oh, absolutely. What can I do?

1:11:01 Iga: There is an heirloom that I have, a family heirloom, it's an important, let's say powerful heirloom.

1:11:11 Sofia: Hmm, necklace, brooch.

1:11:15 Iga: Sure. So something happened to this heirloom. It is a, it's a box I will tell you, it's a box that has power. Now, something happened last night. It has always had trees on it, and now it has you on it as well as the trees, so...

1:11:37 Sofia: I'm sorry, me or like a hypothetical you?

1:11:38 Iga: Yes, you. There is a picture of you and also a very, very buff looking man who is taking a selfie. This is, again, a hundreds of years old box. I do not know.

1:11:55 Sofia: Madam Anastasia, have you, have you gotten the firefight... Do you have the firefighter's calendar from 2019?

1:12:01 Iga: Yes, of course I have the firefighter's calendar for 2019. It's the best one. They took out, they replaced Mr. March this year. I'm like, “What is going on?”

1:12:10 Sofia: Right, okay. Is there any resemblance between the man on your box and Mr. March?

1:12:17 Iga: Oh my God, this, yes, definitely is Mr. March. He is my favorite in that whole calendar.

1:12:22 Sofia: He's everyone's favorite.

1:12:24 Brennan: I feel like, as you're having a text conversation, Sofia, you and Ricky just have like your feet off the side of the skyscraper you're like eating lunch on. Like, Ricky.

1:12:34 Sofia: Yeah, would it be okay if me and Mr. March swung by and looked at this box?

1:12:42 Iga: Yeah.

1:12:43 Sofia: Is that the help that you were looking for, or did you?

1:12:45 Iga: I don't know. I mean if you think, yes. Do you or do you know somebody who's like good with magical items, or?

1:12:54 Sofia: I know a couple people.

1:12:56 Emily: I guess I'll get on that group thread. Can I just add Madam Anastasia to the group thread?

1:13:02 Brennan: You absolutely can, yes.

1:13:04 Iga: It's fine. It's my burner phone. (laughing)

1:13:08 Lou: Welcome to the thread.

1:13:10 Brennan: Hell yeah, so, as Iga is going to meet up, you see that Oskar says like,

1:13:18 Oskar: All right, you headed out for the day, darling?

1:13:21 Iga: Yes, I've got to, hmm. Yes. I'm going to, yes. I'm going out for a little bit.

1:13:30 Brennan: Your husband looks at you with a look of, I have known that my wife does something bizarre for, you know, like 15 years and he goes,

1:13:41 Oskar: Okay, you have a great time to go out in the city to do your business. I love you.

1:13:46 Iga: I love you. Hey, I'm going. If I go by the Carnegie Deli, I'll get you a sandwich.

1:13:51 Oskar: Yes, please do. Also maybe we grab some, from Carnegie Deli, if they have that, the pickled radish, you know.

1:14:00 Iga: Oh, yeah, no the, yes. Yes.

1:14:03 Oskar: Great, I like it from there.

1:14:06 Brennan: You see that your kids are getting ready for Halloween later in the day. Look at you headed out with a box that is now travel sized. After you have compacted it with your magic.

1:14:21 Siobhan: I have that and Misiek in like a really big sort of hand-woven bag.

1:14:27 Brennan: Incredible. You head out to meet Ricky and Sofia. Cody and Pete, you had the thing Bazathrax said. You're still carrying Bazathrax with you. Cody, very humiliating, your devil lord is being dragged around by Pete. You guys can see that Bazathrax is just on a sedan chair of like, sort of, they look like they're made of light paint. Like it's made of light, but it's dripping like paint would and splashing into light on the ground. Just a small like cushion of butterflies that he can't escape from of different colors is moving him along he's like,

1:15:06 Bazathrax: Whoa, whoa, whoa.

1:15:09 Cody: Dark lord, could you like, do devils ever like trade? Like could I get traded? Could you just like trade me up?

1:15:18 Bazathrax: It's not the fucking NBA, dude, okay? People don't get, no one's getting traded, all right? That's not gonna happen.

1:15:25 Cody: [quietly] Fuck. [normal] Yes, my dark lord. This fucking rules. This fucking rules.

1:15:30 Bazathrax: Whee, dude. Whee!

1:15:32 Ally: When we're walking, can I ask Cody about the mall? Like,

1:15:34 Pete: What's your thing with the mall, and what's happening with the mall right now?

1:15:41 Cody: What's not happening with the mall right now is the question.

1:15:45 Pete: This is gonna be poetic, isn't it?

1:15:48 Cody: I worked at the Hot Topic. I was a mall goth.

1:15:55 Pete: Yeah.

1:15:55 Cody: All my friends were there. I had friends who worked at Spencer's. I had friends who worked at Zumiez. Hell, I even had friends who worked at PacSun even though I don't like the sun. And then people started buying shit online, and it was really fucked up. First, Spencer's closed and then Zumiez not long after.

1:16:17 Pete: Whoa.

1:16:18 Cody: And then PacSun, and Hot Topic stayed right till the end, but then they just shut the whole mall down, and now Gladiator’s coming with their, “Oh, we're on the internet, but we're gonna, we need a fucking campus.” Fucked up, so.

1:16:34 Pete: So they're just mowing it all down and making a fucking Gladiator campus?

1:16:39 Cody: Yeah, they're making, like they said it was gonna be like a big job thing or some fucking bullshit, like they're just, like they're crushing all the small businesses like Sears. You know what I mean? Fucked up.

1:16:50 Pete: Yeah, totally. Little mom and pop shops like Sears.

1:16:55 Cody: Yeah, like Sears and the McDonald's is fucking closed. I have to walk like a fucking two miles to get to McDonald's.

1:17:03 Pete: That sucks.

1:17:04 Brennan: You guys arrive where you've been headed, which is outside of St. Owens Memorial Hospital. Kingston, you're just getting off a shift, having been reached out to by young Pete here 'cause you knew that Kingston would know about that antipopuli thing.

1:17:20 Ally: Yeah, can we go to like Kingston's little secret whatever room, or?

1:17:25 Brennan: Yeah, absolutely.

1:17:26 Murph: What does the devil look like in real life? Is it like Kugrash where it just looks like something weird, but not a devil?

1:17:33 Brennan: It looks like a bunch of sagging helium balloons right now that all have satanic logos. [Emily laughs]

1:17:40 Brennan: So that's what everyone else is seeing as Pete has a bunch of sort of sad, half deflated, satanic balloons behind him.

1:17:47 Pete: Get over here. [Brennan and Murph laugh]

1:17:51 Ally: Talking to these balloons. [Lou laughs]

1:17:56 Lou: Yeah, they uh, Kingston is fully dressed up for Halloween and is dressed like a pirate.

1:18:04 Cody: Oh, shit. You're a goth, too?

1:18:06 Kingston: What?

1:18:07 Cody: It's so fucking good to, it's so good to meet another goth.

1:18:12 Kingston: I've never been called a goth before. Nice to meet you. Pete, is this your new friend and your other new friend?

1:18:20 Pete: Yeah, look, Kingston doesn't usually wear eyeliner. It's just for his thing right now. Okay, yeah.

1:18:28 Murph: Cody looks extremely offended.

1:18:32 Pete: Kingston, devils have gotten in. This devil right here, this is Bazathrax. He conned my new roommate into giving him his soul. We'll deal with that later, but he's said something about the antipopuli.

1:18:48 Bazathrax: Can I interject? I really didn't con him. He was extremely quick to offer.

1:18:51 Cody: I’ve been fucking waiting—

1:18:54 Pete: I need to believe that you conned him.

1:18:58 Cody: Well, the thing is that Bazathrax is like, okay, you know when you start working at Hot Topic and there's like your manager, and then there's like corporate, so Lucifer is corporate, so that's my real boss. So I work for Lucifer.

1:19:13 Kingston: Okay.

1:19:14 Cody: I'm coming for Bazathrax's fucking job.

1:19:18 Pete: Okay.

1:19:19 Kingston: All right. Okay. We can, we'll work through this I think. I think, Cody, it's nice to meet you. I'm Kingston Brown. We'll..

1:19:27 Cody: Nice to meet you.

1:19:28 Kingston: We can get into Bazathrax and all of that. I think that seems to be a little less pressing than, Pete, the antipopuli.

1:19:37 Lou: Have I heard the word "antipopuli" said before?

1:19:39 Brennan: You a hundred percent have. Go ahead and roll me a Religion check with advantage.

1:19:43 Lou: Oh, what a thrill. Here we go now. It's only a 14.

1:19:49 Brennan: Only 14. You know the term "antipopuli," it basically refers to, it's like antimatter but made specifically of ill will towards people. Antipopuli is rooted in the culture of the place that it's in. So the antipopuli of a like, you know, small, quaint, Northeastern town might be like, oh, not saying hi to Jeff down at, like, the lumber store, right? antipopuli in New York is specifically related to the misanthropic ill will and refutation of the social norms of the city that create a magically toxic spiritual substance. And when it congregates, it can become spiritually poisonous to people in a very potent way. It's extremely dangerous stuff. It is a combination of misanthropy, ill will, and substance that exists in direct opposition to the social customs and norms of a place.

1:21:05 Lou: That gets Kingston real nervous 'cause I don't know. Well, it sounds like, yeah, I think I like, look at Pete and I'm like,

1:21:12 Kingston: Okay. I mean, the fact that we have anti-people building up or antipopuli building up is a bad thing, and it sounds, I mean, this definitely means that there's a bigger problem going on, but I mean, if there's something we can handle right now that your Bazathrax can maybe bring us to, it feels like we should get the gang together and go handle this.

1:21:37 Pete: I think so too. Yeah, it sounds like just a bunch of this substance is being created in mass under the city. Yeah, we should get everyone and go back down to the sewers, the train station. It seems underground.

1:21:54 Kingston: Hey you, in the chair, you said you have a, you know where this is coming from?

1:21:58 Bazathrax: Yeah, yeah. I've been snooping around all night. You know, taking a look around. I can lead you to it, yeah.

1:22:05 Cody: My dark lord, what if people just started calling me ambassador of the dark lord and you would like not come out and you would just like talk to me in my head?

1:22:14 Bazathrax: What's that?

1:22:15 Cody: Dude, why don't you like, get the fuck outta here, and you can just talk to me in my head and tell me where shit is, and I could just be ambassador of the dark lord?

1:22:22 Kingston: Cody, this is a hospital. You can't smoke in the hospital. I'm sorry.

1:22:28 Cody: [quiet] Fuck. [throws down his cigarette] [Brennan laughs]

1:22:32 Murph: It's just like, when it's his roommates, I feel like he's like an asshole, but as soon as like an adult tells him to do something, he's like, "Fuck."

1:22:40 Kingston: Hey, thank you for putting that out. I appreciate that. Thank you.

1:22:44 Cody: Fine.

1:22:46 Brennan: You see, Pete, with that incredible Intimidate check from before, you feel like you could probably, at least momentarily, like imprison Bazathrax within Cody so he's not like getting up to trouble.

1:23:05 Pete: Hey, Cody.

1:23:05 Cody: I fucking beg you. Yeah?

1:23:06 Pete: I'm about to do something really metal for you. Are you ready?

1:23:10 Murph: I bend a knee and pull my sword out.

1:23:13 Ally: Can I take Bazathrax and turn him into a chest piece tattoo for Cody and just slam him into his chest?

1:23:22 Brennan: A million percent.

1:23:25 Ally: I turn him into a chest tattoo that says "redemption," and it's dripping in blood. [cast laughs] [brief metal riff]

1:23:34 Murph: Cody never smiles and just like keeps trying to not smile.

1:23:38 Cody: [struggling not to smile] This is awesome. Thanks. He reaches a hand up to his mouth.

1:23:41 Pete: Hey, are you okay, man? Are you having a stroke, or?

1:23:44 Murph: No one has ever been this happy.

1:23:47 Cody: This is normal fucking stuff, and I'm just doing my job. Thank you.

1:23:53 Brennan: Oh my gosh.

1:23:55 Pete: For sure, man, I got you.

1:23:57 Brennan: You can feel Bazathrax burning inside this incredible tat that has been made by the Vox Phantasma himself of New York slamming this like raw dream magic into your chest that is now this dripping Gothic font. You hear Bazathrax in head say,

1:24:13 Bazathrax: Oh, shit. What the fuck, dude? Aw, goddammit.

1:24:18 Cody: Well, okay Bazathrax, we're gonna have to fucking work something out because you can't just talk whenever you want. You need to like tell me shit, not just say like, 'What the fuck is going on in here,' because that's going to get, you're going to drive me fucking nuts, man.

1:24:29 Brennan: Cool. I'm going to say that you're not sure how to talk in his head so you do have to talk out loud. [Murph and Zac laugh]

1:24:38 Brennan: Your half has to be out loud.

1:24:40 Murph: I'm just freaking out.

1:24:41 Brennan: Yeah. You see, he goes,

1:24:42 Bazathrax: All right, dude, look, I'll help you out, okay? Look, there's a confluence happening on West Fourth Street by Washington Square Park, West Fourth subway station. That's where I saw it, okay? If you guys head there, that's what you're gonna find it.

1:24:55 Murph: All right. I relay that to the crew.

1:24:57 Ally: Let's do it.

1:24:58 Lou: Great.

1:25:00 Ally: We text everybody.

1:25:02 Lou: Exactly.

1:25:03 Kingston: Wherever Sofia and Ricky can meet us, we'll meet, and the new person, you guys know who the new person in the group chat is?

1:25:07 Sofia: Her name is Madam Anastasia. She's the most honest person I've ever met.

1:25:14 Brennan: So, Iga. You, you head and you have your box. You meet up with Ricky and Sofia as they are taking like the L out of Brooklyn to go meet up with everybody else at West Fourth Street. On your way to this thing, I think, Iga, you're probably just getting swept up in it by virtue of like talking to these people. What do you say to Ricky and Sofia as you meet up with them?

1:25:42 Iga: Oh. Oh my goodness, Mr. March. It is truly just such an honor to meet you.

1:25:48 Ricky: Former Mr. March.

1:25:50 Iga: Oh, yes. Well, yes, but the forever Mr. March in our, in our hearts.

1:25:56 Ricky: Thank you. Thank you. I might be making my own calendar, but I'll let you know if it happens.

1:26:00 Iga: Oh, w-wow.

1:26:01 Ricky: Yeah.

1:26:02 Iga: That's amazing.

1:26:03 Ricky: Maybe it was supposed to be for just private.

1:26:05 Sofia: Yeah, I was going to say, I think as someone who's friends with Esther, I can't see that calendar.

1:26:10 Ricky: Yeah, maybe I'll... We'll talk about it. We'll give you an answer. We'll talk. Sorry, nice to meet you.

1:26:15 Sofia: Madam Anastasia, what is going on with this box that you're telling me about?

1:26:19 Iga: Yes, so... [slightly suspenseful music]

1:26:21 Siobhan: Nobody but us could see it on the train anyway, right? 'Cause it's only people who are inside the Umbral Arcana.

1:26:27 Brennan: If you made it full-size, everyone would think you just had a lot more suitcases than they thought. [Emily laughs]

1:26:33 Siobhan: Okay, great. So, I like elbow people out of the way on the subway and then make it big.

1:26:39 Brennan: Whoom!

1:26:45 Iga: Okay, this, it's hard, it's, okay it's a little hard to describe because you didn't see it before, but this used to be just trees, and if you look at that's for sure, you, and that's for sure you on the bunch of buildings.

1:26:54 Sofia: Oh my god, I’m gorgeous.

1:27:03 Zac: Can we see ourselves on it?

1:27:07 Brennan: You can see two figures. This is like an ancient, medieval like Eastern European, kind of moss-covered in parts, chest. It looks like something that some ancient pagan warrior god would have had in their like, giant castle in a fairytale somewhere. And instead there are still trees carved into it, but now there are skyscrapers, and they look and feel ancient to the touch. And you see that there are two figures on top of one of the skyscrapers that look like a broad-shouldered man and a woman with like high hair swept back in a ponytail from her head, gazing heroically off into the skyline of these skyscrapers.

1:27:55 Sofia: Madam Anastasia, you've been so direct with me already, and I'm sorry to ask for more honesty from you, but what does this box mean to you? What do you keep in it? How does it change sizes?

1:28:08 Iga: Oh, I... The box, we do not open. We do not open the box. I had a great-great-aunt. As a little girl, she opened the box. Who knows, she’s gone.

1:28:21 Ricky: So it's sort of a big haunted box you keep in your bedroom?

1:28:25 Iga: I don't like haunted, I would say more it's a box of power that a powerful spirit resides inside, and...

1:28:34 Sofia: You have children, right?

1:28:35 Iga: It helps out our family. Yes, I have two children, and my daughter when I’m done...

1:28:38 Sofia: How do you make sure the children don't open the box?

1:28:40 Iga: They know not to open the box.

1:28:43 Sofia: Okay. Okay.

1:28:45 Ricky: Feels a little like we should maybe take a few more precautions with this box.

1:28:46 Sofia: Put some locks on the box.

1:28:49 Zac: Ricky's gonna cast Divine Sense to see if it's, to detect good or evil.

1:28:59 Brennan: Powerful magic. Not divine, not fiendish, not fey, not undead, but something of a category like those things that you've never detected before. Give me a Perception check.

1:29:22 Emily: Can I do one as well? I guess I probably wouldn’t—

1:29:24 Brennan: Yeah. Give me a Perception check. Calling DC 20.

1:29:30 Emily: I only got a 10.

1:29:31 Zac: I got, 13 for me.

1:29:33 Brennan: Cool. You guys look at it, and yeah, your Divine Sense tells you that there's some powerful magic to this with a type of being like those other things but not those things. Feels deep and primeval.

1:29:47 Sofia: So Madam Anastasia, was it communicated to you what your, that, you know, did your parents say, 'Watch over this box? Never open it? It is the task of our family?'

1:30:00 Iga: Yes, pretty much that. Yeah, those are all the things that were said. It's been passed down from mother to daughter for generations.

1:30:08 Sofia: Mother to daughter. Interesting.

1:30:10 Iga: Yeah, always mother to daughter. I don't know. We always have one daughter. She's the one that takes the box. It's sort of an inevitability. I don't know. It's...

1:30:20 Siobhan: I shrink the box back down and put it back in the bag next to Misiek and give Misiek a little bit more drink.

1:30:28 Brennan: You guys transfer trains to go down. You take the C one stop down to West fourth, and as you merge on the platform, Kingston, Ricky and Pete, meet up with Iga, or sorry, Ricky, Sofia, and Iga meet up with Cody, Pete, and Kingston.

1:30:48 Iga: Hello, Kingston.

1:30:48 Kingston: Hey. Hello. I was wondering if it was this Madam Anastasia.

1:30:54 Iga: How you doing?

1:30:56 Kingston: I'm good. How are you?

1:30:57 Iga: Yeah, good. Yeah, pretty good.

1:30:58 Kingston: Interesting. I haven't seen you interacting with the Unsleeping City.

1:31:02 Iga: You know, I tried. It's not my business. It's your business. I don't try to get involved, but, you know, sometimes maybe we can help each other out a little bit, you know.

1:31:14 Kingston: Hey, this is true. This is true. Good to see you all.

1:31:19 Cody: Hey, what's up, everybody? I am the ambassador of the dark lord, formerly the “Night Angel”, AKA Cody.

1:31:29 Ally: I Mind Link with everyone while he's talking. [Emily laughs]

1:31:35 Ally: I'm like, look anyway, like explaining, but nodding next to you like.

1:31:42 Emily: I'm nodding based on what Pete is saying and not listening to Cody.

1:31:46 Murph: I just like keep going on.

1:31:47 Sofia: Interesting. Wow. Yeah. Okay. Powerful. Wow, wow.

1:31:48 Cody: Yeah, so like Bazathrax is like, he's a manager, but corporate is Lucifer. So I work for Lucifer.

1:31:55 Iga: Wait, what is your name? What's your name?

1:31:58 Cody: The ambassador of the dark Lord.

1:32:00 Iga: No, no, Cody?

1:32:02 Cody: My name is fucking Cody. God!

1:32:04 Iga: Okay, thank you.

1:32:07 Kingston: Do you want us to call you Cody, or do you want us to call you something else?

1:32:12 Cody: [quieter] You can call me, you can call me Cody.

1:32:13 Pete: Dude, he goes by 'Night Angel.' I don't know why you're being so shy, man.

1:32:18 Cody: Well, now I'm the ambassador of the dark lord.

1:32:19 Ricky: He said Cody.

1:32:19 Pete: Dude, you're a lot of things, and they're all badass, okay? Cody’s a cool name.

1:32:23 Sofia: If you wanted to, you could just tell us which one you prefer.

1:32:27 Cody: Cody's cool. You can just call me Cody.

1:32:29 Sofia: Okay, Cody.

1:32:30 Kingston: Great, Cody it is.

1:32:31 Zac: Can I tell—

1:32:32 Sofia: Kingston, how do you know Madam Anastasia?

1:32:36 Kingston: Oh, I mean, I just know most people, and, you know, she's been around, has chosen to, not be as involved, and I respect that choice, but it is nice to see her today.

1:32:51 Brennan: Kingston, you feel a, a sharp pain. A sharp pain in your chest. If you were going to guess what it was, it'd be like a, some kind of like maybe a muscle spasm or maybe something else, but you feel sharp pain in your chest.

1:33:19 Lou: Being in this group, I think I do my best to hide it. Just kind of like, be like,

1:33:26 Kingston: [holding his chest] All right, well, let's, ow, ah, let's, let's get to it.

1:33:30 Brennan: Give me a Deception check.

1:33:31 Lou: Great. That's gonna be, wow, that's only a 12.

1:33:40 Emily: What would that go up against? Our passive perception, or?

1:33:43 Brennan: That's your passive Insight, so anyone whose passive Insight is 13 or higher, Pete, yeah, you notice something's wrong with Kingston.

1:33:51 Siobhan: Oh, yeah. Mine as well.

1:33:53 Brennan: Yeah.

1:33:53 Ally: I clock it, but I don't call him out on it, but I want to ask him later.

1:34:00 Brennan: Kingston, you begin to hear whispers coming from one of the empty rails. You guys are on the platform in between the local... You have like the local train stopping on one side of the platform, the express on the other. Looking down one of the express lanes, Kingston, you see this woozy thing of the subway extending down there, and for a moment, all of you stop, like seeing certain things. Like Pete's little green butterfly like flickers out for people. Everyone kind of sees Misiek, the little sick looking dragon in Iga's bag, kind of turn into a chihuahua for a second like, and the tunnel extends. Kingston, you begin to hear, sort of like a, [eating noises]

1:34:55 Voice: Move over. I said fucking move. Why are you always like this? [demonic-sounding gibberish]

1:35:00 Voice: Yeah, I said it, he wouldn't know.

1:35:01 Voice: I'm not giving up my seat. [laughing] [demonic-sounding gibberish]

1:35:08 Brennan: And you see through a haze of like a heat wave, a train approaching the station, and you get this powerful sense of New Yorkers wailing out. And this is not articulately put, but you just know this is a bad train.

1:35:31 Kingston: Hey, everybody, this next train. This is not articulate, but it's a bad train.

1:35:40 Ricky: Whoa, did you just come up with that?

1:35:42 Sofia: That sounds kind of fun to me. I like that.

1:35:45 Cody: Do you wanna just throw a fucking rock at it, or?

1:35:47 Kingston: No, it's not the good bad. It's the bad, bad. I might, I'd be ready for something.

1:35:59 Brennan: You guys see the train pulls into the station. As it starts slowing down, you start seeing it's filled with commuters, but it's also sort of flashing in and out of, it seems like somehow more or less normal than usual distorted somehow. As it gets very, very slow, the train is like looking at it's about to stop, and then you hear over the PA it being like,

1:36:32 Announcer: My mistake, this train is going express. Not making this stop. Not making this stop at all!

1:36:40 Emily: I jump on it.

1:36:41 Ally: Can we try to make it stop? Yeah.

1:36:43 Emily: Yeah.

1:36:43 Brennan: Yeah, Sofia you can leap to the very back.

1:36:45 Emily: Cast Jump on myself, and jump on it.

1:36:48 Brennan: You can leap to the very back car of the train. Actually, all of you can. It's starting to pick up speed again, but if every one of you guys wants to leap to the back of the train, you absolutely can.

1:36:57 Zac: Let’s do it.

1:36:57 Lou: Yeah, let’s do it.

1:36:57 Murph: I do a running jump onto it.

1:36:59 Brennan: You run and jump on.

1:37:00 Emily: I'll reach my hand out to help anyone.

1:37:02 Brennan: Cool.

1:37:03 Zac: I try to pick up Cody.

1:37:03 Cody: What?!

1:37:04 Ricky: I got you!

1:37:04 Ally: Can I cast Cold? Can I cast like Cone of Cold to like freeze its gears and like keep it there, or does it seem like I don't have time?

1:37:15 Brennan: You can definitely cast Cone of Cold. It would potentially damage the car itself, but you could definitely do it to slow it down for a moment to let everybody like leap onto the train.

1:37:29 Ally: Nah, we'll just leap. I think we'll make it.

1:37:31 Brennan: Cool.

1:37:32 Siobhan: I'm gonna use my Elemental Gift and fly.

1:37:35 Brennan: Hell yeah. Iga just takes off flying off the ground. As the train begins to pick up, you hear that voice say,

1:37:42 Announcer: [increasingly maniacal] That's right, ladies and gentlemen, this train is making all express stops. In fact, just one more stop. The end of a line! (laughing)

1:37:56 Brennan: You guys leap. So trains like this have conductors, sort of like stations at both ends of the train. You guys bust through the door on your end to see this conductor's area has been completely destroyed, smashed apart, rent asunder, and as you open the door to look in, you see a bizarrely empty subway car with people crowded around the doors. You see that the people crowded around the doors are crowded because there's a bunch of just fucking spaced out people who are not moving further into the car. They're just like on their phones or reading and like leaning against poles and shit, like, and there's all these New Yorkers that are trying to get to seats that they can't get to because these people won't move further in. Kingston, as you see this, this is like a shot to the heart of like, [[clapping for emphasis] you. don't. do. this.

1:39:06 Lou: Yeah.

1:39:07 Brennan: And you realize this entire train is flooded with antipopuli. There is a magical substance here. This train car is filled with a spiritual force, gleefully shredding the most basic and fundamental laws of how you are supposed to behave on the subway. And as you recognize that, all of you see the people flicker, the people that are stuck disappear as the train car morphs into a train car with the floor as grass and stone gravestones everywhere. And you see those people that are not moving further into the car just like spaced out, not being considerate, not paying attention, rotting flesh hangs from these zombies as indeed you pass by the station of everybody here on Halloween. I'm going to need everybody here to roll initiative.

1:40:17 Lou: Yeah! [cast members cheer and whoop]

1:40:18 Brennan: That's all for this episode of the Unsleeping City. Tune in next week as a very Halloweeny subway car filled with monsters, all engaging in the rudest acts of New York subway etiquette imaginable. Join us next week for episode three of the Unsleeping City. [cast members eerily laugh like ghosts]

1:40:43 Ally: Wow.

1:40:45 Emily: Oh, Kingston, nice Halloween costume.

1:40:47 Lou: Oh, yeah. Full on dressed like a pirate through this whole fight. [NEXT EPISODE - Episode 3: The Mystery of the Haunted Subway]

1:40:47 Captions extracted by: Kyber Bonsai

1:40:47 Edited by: gluegunshots, rowan solsys, Shanimal