S1:E60 – Carson No More

Theater the Mind podcasts are intended for mature audiences. Listener discretion is advised. Content warnings can be found in the podcast. Description. Welcome to Theater of the Mind presents retribution, episode number 60. I'm Mike. I'm your Dungeon Master. And this week's question from the Ultimate RPG Dark Guard Deck by James d' Amato is what tradition or festival did you grow up with that you feel at least one of your companions would appreciate?

Pause with the record show that I hate to be Pause.

You started early. I was in the middle of Open it and you fucking start talking.

I told him we'd go live and we started a whole ass conversation. I had to pounce.

I didn't. Anyway,

welcome to our second episode of the night.

Am I allowed to talk?

Okay, there was a pause for the can opening.

My name's Samanda and I play Mel Kelly. Mel. Her family, in spite of being not religious, always did really fun things for Easter. They would do the Easter egg hunt and they'd get the basket full of goodies and toys and other fun things and they'd color eggs and it was just a whole lot of fun in a oddly non denominational way for a religious holiday. And I think that, I don't know, maybe Emerie would appreciate that. Who knows, maybe Ulnock has some warm fuzzies with the daughter that he doesn't talk about. I don't know. I don't see Elliot being big on coloring Easter eggs and fluffy bunnies, but

you know, you never know.

I'm Jeremy. I'm playing Elliot Brandybane and Elliot's family. Their big celebration for the year was Thanksgiving. Tables of food and friends and neighbors would come over and it was just a huge gluttonous orgy of gastrointestinal Disneyland.

Just stop talking.

And he's really sure that Alnock would absolutely have loved his Thanksgiving. Like if he could have come over. Everybody just ate themselves into tryptophan comas and they passed out on the couch at like 2 in the afternoon and. And just slept. It was great. And he's pretty sure that Ulnach would have just been in heaven.

For the record, orgy and gastrointestinal do not belong in the same sentence.

Gastrointestinal orgy.

I just want to throw that out there for future reference.

I'm sure.

I like where this is headed.

You telling me that Olnock wouldn't enjoy that also?

Look, I'm not here to judge anybody's kink. I'm not kink shaming. Whatever you're into, you're into gastrointestinal orgies.

May.

May be a little bit of all. Not kink.

That's not the thing we wanted to learn about all. Not tonight.

We ate way too much food.

It's gonna. It might.

It may or may not come up.

I don't know.

We'll talk about it.

Is Ulnock still in his room?

If that is the one thing that we actually learn about fricking Ulnock's backstory, I swear.

Ulnock's

like Thanksgiving's amazing.

That's all.

That's it.

Ulnock. Please put a shirt on.

At least pants.

Good God.

You don't like the turkey leg grease on my chest here? You don't like that this is not

a full context part. This is Thanksgiving.

You know, this experience might turn Mel into a vegetarian if we.

That's not what they mean by stuffing.

All right, all right, all right.

Okay, okay, all right.

Let's fucking ring it.

Rate it in. Rate it in. Is your AI talking to us again?

I don't know why? It's supposed to be fucking off. Haha.

Your algorithm just got fucked up.

You're gonna have some weird shit now.

Don't assume that that's what did it. All of my audio is off. You should not be talking. Stop talking.

All right,

all right.

All Knock and his family celebrated.

We're gonna.

We're gonna just run with it.

It.

I don't know how this holiday actually works. About to piss a bunch of people off.

I'm sorry.

I've seen a movie of the same title. They celebrated midsummer. So I don't know anything about this particular holiday personally. We're going to claim that All Knock does.

So

it says your family celebrated it correctly.

I don't know. Who knows, right? Like, maybe they did, maybe they didn't. So you go out in a field, like there's like this. Like it looks. What I can remember. It's like a gazebo made of flowers, right? Like. And it's like it's got like a teepee looking thing.

I don't know.

But in the movie clips that I saw, I'm basing this very terrible memory on. They set it on fire with.

Eventually.

I don't remember why that is a. They still do that in. It's a Scandinavian thing. Like they make straw effigies in Burnham. I think it's. Is it a midsummer or is it a mid winter thing?

I think that's like end of harvesty.

I was gonna say in Santa Fe they do Zozobra in November, right?

Yeah. There's a lot of that kind of stuff.

And this is all Knocks TBI memory of how Midsummer works.

I guess.

You know, this tracks with most of all Knocks descriptions of things that have happened in the past.

But, yeah, it was basically summertime Thanksgiving, and we set something on fire at the end of the day, and that was awesome. And he thinks, based purely off of gut instinct, that James would be down for this celebration just because of the fire. I don't know, Maybe James could steal something and not tell anybody about it. I don't know. But I think he'd like it.

The reality is, the first time they tried celebrating this, that Ulnock can remember, they tried to deep fry a turkey and it caught the gazebo on fire, and their kid dug it so much,

they're like, this is what we do now.

It's summer.

He doesn't know.

Hello, I'm Downs, and I played James o'. Brien. And there wasn't really a lot of holiday celebrations in the o' Brien household. But at the end of the year for Christmas, they would always decorate to the nines. Like, everything was red and green garland everywhere, Just gigantic Christmas trees everywhere. And I think Emery would enjoy that with, like, all the decorations and whatnot.

Christmas vacation wild out, huh?

Yeah.

Hell, yeah.

Didn't see the parents a whole heck of a lot, but the maids decorated like crazy.

Went to town.

Oh, yeah.

And I'm Casey and I play Emory. Lee and Emory grew up in the eastern plains of Colorado, which is very close to Wyoming, so you can get some fucking fantastic fireworks. So, you know, there was always a. And if you didn't go to Wyoming, you knew someone who was, and you'd make a deal and they'd bring you back some fireworks. And there was always. The whole kind of neighborhood would get together and have it just the best Fourth of July cookout and fireworks and just have a total riotous fun time. And honestly, I think that everyone in the group would probably enjoy that very much. But specifically, I think Ulnock would have a fucking blast with some fireworks. And after hearing your midsummer holiday dishes, I feel very solid in that belief.

The holiday's just lighting shit on fire is what I'm hearing.

Yeah.

Destruction, really.

Everybody wants alnock for the holiday. What holiday?

Doesn't matter.

On Oxford, My short list for setting shit on fire, fireworks, kind of like riotous celebration were all Knock and Elliot.

So are we gonna have a Christmas one shot? We're gonna call it Allnock for the Holidays.

I love how everybody else setting things on fire. And Mal's over here.

Fluffy Things that is very in line with my actual holiday experiences.

But ducklings and baby bunnies and pastels and we were all happy and gay.

We specifically had some very fun Easter traditions in my family.

Like actually.

So yes,

Immortar's favorite holiday is Yacher Nana Otrest. Of course.

What was that?

Day of rest.

I didn't catch that. Could you say that again?

You say that perfectly fine again.

Yoromara ot rest.

Oh, got it this time.

Yeah.

Definitely known as the day of rest. It's the one day a year where everybody's able to put their farming utensils down and they hold a big baller market.

Their souls.

Yep. I wonder if Lord Ashwagandha celebrated that.

Does he even know what that is?

Right?

He's figuring it out. He doesn't agree.

Yeah.

But if it works in his favor. And on that, let's go ahead and roll for weird recap.

Recap.

We're only going to be able to

recap like what we did, right.

Whoever wins gets to recap a real

short what you roll.

Oh yeah, that one.

1113. Hello.

That matters.

Two in a row, Elliot.

Okay, we for some reason went and

told the

Carcinites, not the carcinogens Carsonians, that we found your people that were missing. Oh, and by the way, they powered your town and now you're out of electricity.

Yay us.

And the town was very thankful that we brought their people back. And then we all rated the ice cream before it melted.

Best decision.

Yeah.

Oh yeah, absolutely. Unfortunately, all Elliot could find was the mint chocolate. But it's still ice cream, so that's better than not ice cream. Even if it's one he doesn't care for. And then we went to sleep because we were all beat totally to hell. And then we all had freaky ass dreams.

Well, I mean, no. We went to sleep, we woke up, then we ate a lot of food.

Yeah.

And then we went back to sleep and had freaky ass dreams.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Yeah, we had a normal night, ate a lot of food and then had a weird night.

There you go.

You know that actually we had a

long nap in mid morning.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Woke up.

Afternoon feast.

Yes.

An absolute gluttonous gastrointestinal orgy.

Yeah, you had to say it.

There we go.

And then we had some fucked up dreams.

Oh, that's so good.

Again. That actually tracks the amount of food we all eat.

Yeah, like Thanksgiving at the Brandy beans was wonderful.

No wonder Elliot was having such a grand time.

That also explains why he came down in his underwear. Well, we were woken up my house.

Right.

Yes. There's something on your shirt and I don't know what it is.

Oh, interesting. Here it looks like a big ass

bug going for his throat.

It did look like a.

Anyway, all right.

Mint chocolate ice cream.

So, yeah, you guys all had weird dreams, varying degrees of restlessness. When you hear Ulnock scream, Jacob launch himself out of his room and throw open your door.

It's good he's here. I checked.

His nose is bleeding.

Yeah, don't have his nose.

Or.

Not my nose.

You should open the door before you run into it next time.

Speaking of which, you guys hear James's door open? Clang, clang, clank, clang, clang, clang, clang.

Everybody, it's fine. He's sleeping. I checked.

And then Elliot just.

Sorry, Jacob.

Then Elliot, unseen or unheard by anybody, just appears behind the group going, yeah, I checked.

Jesus.

Yeah, I heard you.

Bell. Put a bell on you.

She rolled incredibly well.

That was the. I rolled a bat 20 on that perception check to hear you come check on us.

I didn't roll my.

Anyway, she rolled well enough that she won.

Look, it was the only time I perceived anything other than the most basic of things. All night.

It's dark. I have night vision, which means I can't see because. Logic.

So we all had really shitty dreams that involved Jacob. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yep. I also had a conversation with my mother.

Anyway, I had one with my dad, incidentally.

Oh, okay.

Incidentally, dragons are a thing. I mean, unless I fabricated that whole thing, which I might have.

Dragon.

Dragon.

Well, you know what's weird? I bumped into a dude that had the head of a dragon, but he had the human body.

No, I'm sorry. I reject that reality. I'll believe in dragons, but I draw the line of dragon humans. That's just ridiculous.

Human body and dare I say, did it have goat legs? Was that a thing?

That was. That was. Later.

You saw somewhat of a different thing than I saw. There's a giant castle in Cincinnati, I think is where we were. Where I was.

There's a giant citadel in York as well.

Oh, great.

I heard about clowns.

What was that?

That's what I said.

Clown.

They're mannequin clowns, apparently.

What?

They're what?

I don't know. My dad's probably making stuff up one more time.

They're what?

Clown nipkins.

Oh, do they also hate sand? I hate Anakin.

My dumbass heard clowns and Dominicans. That's why I was like, hold on.

What.

That the circus is taking off. Dominican Republic.

Oh my God.

Cutting edge artists and lion tamers. Crazy. Oh, that's good.

So anyway, I don't know.

I don't know. That was not the main thing. The main thing was the giant devil that had made off with.

Yep. Did you guys recognize his eyes? It's the same eye that we saw. Yeah, yeah. The demon had the same eyes that the. The. The same eye that we saw poking through the thing that exploded in your hole.

Oh, oh,

the portable hole. The thing.

I gotcha.

Wait, we all saw that thing?

Yes.

Apparently I saw the devil at actually just some small town. I was on a. Overlooking a small town.

It was suddenly on fire.

It was raised to ground.

The one that I saw was on fire and the demon was.

Same.

Same was dancing around.

He had like a. He had a sword that was like.

I saw a black sword.

Cast light or reflect light in any way.

Yeah, it was like a black hole for a sword.

Did anybody check for those ghosts?

Yes, I did. That was the first thing I did. I looked for those Hummer Simpson fucks and I didn't see a single one. Wait, do you remember Estes park when we were at Stanley? Oh, that was the last time we all.

That was the last time we all had a weird dream.

I. I don't know. I've had nightmares.

I'm not sleeping indoors anymore.

We're just gonna sleep under the stars now.

Oh, that's safer.

Jacob, did you sleep okay? Were you sleeping all right over there?

Sorry for waking up till about 20 minutes ago when everybody started opening the door.

Sorry. Yeah, sorry.

It's okay. If you were making sure I'm safe, so I appreciate it. The tummy kind of hurts.

Yeah, that's fair. There was a lot of food.

Yeah, I can feel his stomach cramp coming. It's going to be bad.

We might all have indigestion.

I don't think I'm going to be able to sleep though.

Yeah, my chest hurts. It's on fire.

Oh, that's my chances. You are far too young to have heartburn, my boy. What?

We probably have Tums and what the CKG brought from the general store downstairs. So we'll. We'll see if we.

If you have to, you can mix up a little baking soda with water and drink it.

All right. Tums all around.

Yay, thumbs.

You.

Are you feeling okay? Your nose is bleeding a little bit there, buddy.

I felt. I. I tripped in my sheets and face planted pretty hard.

You tripped in your sheets?

I'm not gonna Mention my sheets.

No one else.

That sounds dirty. I don't know if I wanna know the rest of that, but that's cool, you know, whatever. You said you had to talk with

your mom or something.

That was weird.

Well, yeah. For whatever reason, I was in New York and there's like a gigantic citadel. But then like New York skyline turned to like old tiny, like German architecture, like Europe. And then there was like gigantic citadel with black spires.

I saw a gigantic citadel as well, but it was in Cincinnati.

Your dreams at least make sense. I don't believe that. There's a motel in the desert full of clowns. Like, that's just nonsense. I didn't even drink.

Stranger things have come and gone.

I was ranting about going aliens and going to the moon and back. Like, I think he's just. I think my brain's just making.

Shut up. That doesn't even talk. We're dealing with multi themselves dimensional things. Aliens are not on the list right now.

That's what I said. And then he was blaming the government. Like I didn't know he was a conspiracy theorist. That is news to me.

Is this the same fault that you've described before?

Yeah, I know.

What happened to him?

I didn't really ask. I kind of told him off.

Well, that's helpful.

Good for you. It sounds like he had it coming.

What happened with you, Emory?

I was in my art studio in Junction. I thought it was. I thought it was when I was still in college because I didn't have that. That was kind of a studio attached to the college. So. Yeah, my girlfriend was there. My ex girlfriend was there. It was weird.

It was weird.

No, Weird.

No tower? No, she was. She was drawing the eye in her sketchbook.

Oh.

Oh, and I. I didn't piece together that it was the eye in the. From the. That looked through stone. Yeah, I didn't remember that. But it did match the eye from the demon, so I was a little bit off put by that.

The thing recognized me too, and it smirked at me.

Yeah, shut up. Yeah, same.

Are you serious?

Yeah.

Did it recognize you too?

Yes.

Well, we're fucked.

Elliot, what about you? Other than the demon, what did you see?

Nothing important.

Insight check. Oh.

Oh.

I mean. I mean, we talked about like.

I mean, the rest of us share, but it's fine. You can be all elusive and curmudgeonly.

Thank you, old people. We reserve that right. It's our payment for having to put up with y'.

All.

Well, if we're all up, we want to head downstairs and find some Tums in, like, a cup of tea or something?

Yes. Yes.

I don't. I'm gonna need a minute before I try to sleep again anyway, so.

Hey, Jacob, let's come downstairs and make some peppermint tea.

I'm gonna need to ask somebody for machines.

I think you can just probably raid one of the other rooms. I don't think anyone's gonna be using this room.

There's really no one to ask, frankly.

Right.

I forgot we killed you much?

Yeah.

What?

I don't think Ms. That's going to help you much.

Right. You're right. Yeah. Yeah. The service is dead around here. All right.

Bazinga. Got him.

All right, so

how.

When we've been running around doing all of this investigation, what have you been up to lately, Jacob?

Well, were you learning skateboard tricks with the ckg?

I was watching those goofs to probably do cooler room. Really good at it.

But they try hard and that's what counts.

It's the thought.

You gotta be bad at something before you can be good at something, man.

Yeah. Now if that's the case, now's gonna be great.

The fact you're gonna learn from your mistake.

I tried telling him he should wear knee pads and he told me that

was lame

as he limped away.

Yeah.

Left half his skit on the hype.

Yeah.

When he's 50, he's gonna miss those knees. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. Nice. I just hung out while you guys left at night and did things. Saw you guys go into the bank and decided I didn't want to go to the bank because the bank's boring

sound.

Came out of the bank.

Yeah. Yep. In spurts.

Really short, violent spurts. Almost as if they only lasted like

six seconds per person. Is it your turn to attack? No, it's their turn to attack. Okay. I gotta wait here.

Yeah. Now what are we doing?

We're gonna head out of town in the morning.

Oh, yeah.

Okay.

First Tums, then ride.

I don't want to ride a horse right now.

Looks like we got my belly too full. There's black tea, there's peppermint, There's. There's some chamomile lavender in here.

All about peppermint.

Peppermint.

Sorry.

All right, so we have two people doing peppermint, two people doing chamomile.

I don't actually want the peppermint. I just.

You had a whole musical number.

Yep, I did.

I did.

My grandma said it helps your tummy.

Let's do Black Seed.

Yeah, it does help your tummy. Sometimes.

Do we have Sprite and Crackers?

I didn't find any, but I was looking for tea.

I'm looking for Sprite and Crackers roll. I'm gonna raid the kitchen.

Very unimportant luck.

Sorry, Bot. I found shit.

They had a 2 liter of sprite, but it's been open for a while.

Oh, that is the flattest Sprite you will ever find. Any flatter and you'll have to replace it with the spare. Sorry, I'm too tired for more jokes.

Well, you guys don't find crackers. You actually find super flat soda and some really stale oyster crackers.

Sorry. Unfortunately, I found. I found flat Sprite and crack at Crackers.

Having a great time?

No, no.

I just remember when I was a kid, my mom is to say, this

would help your stomach.

So I don't think more food is what any.

I was told it was not gorge yourself.

It was like sippy kind of help. Something. I don't know.

Maybe it makes you burp.

I don't know.

Anyway, we administer to our distended bellies.

Yay.

Successfully administer medicine.

I didn't wear my Thanksgiving pants. I should have wore my Thanksgiving pants.

This guy's got the right idea. He wore the Thanksgiving pants.

Yeah, the stretchy. The stretchy one.

Emery was wearing her pajamas for most of the afternoon.

Oh, yeah. If that's all you guys want to do, the rest of the night can go uneventfully.

We all do watch at the same time.

Yeah.

I ain't sleeping again after what I saw. Dude, no way.

You guys did get the long rest for lunch, so none of you have the exhausted.

Does anyone else go. Does anyone go back to bed?

Elliot's gonna try to go back to sleep.

I'll try. I don't know if I'll be successful.

Do a little horizontal meditation, nothing else.

Yeah, I assume Jacob goes back to.

He's back to sleep. Yeah.

Y.

You know, this whole, like, being an elf thing and I don't know, like, that's different. Like, I know the elves that we first met. They said that they only like meditate for four hours, but they never mentioned that they get some up dreams when they meditate.

I wouldn't think that happening a lot comes with dreams.

Well, it's just like, I like, review the day and most of our days are pretty up.

Can't argue with that.

I mean, if that's your replay reel that you're going through. Yeah, fair enough.

Four hours of re trauma.

Oh, no, not again.

If it's too exciting, just Go over the trip across Nebraska. That'll put you right asleep.

Oh, yeah, dude. Just nothing but corn for.

Yeah, millions of cornrows.

Generally, my experience is that when you meditate, you're supposed to clear your mind.

See, I'll try that cornrow. I'll just count evil sheep or something.

Specifically evil sheep.

Evil carnivorous sheep with fangs.

Or just don't think about

evil sheep

because they're all bad.

No, maybe count breath. Just.

I like that one.

Oh, my gosh.

Yeah, they're really sneaky. They'll pull the wool over your eyes.

Oh, my God.

Anyway, at that, Mel goes back to bed. Like, I'm done with this conversation. All right, bye.

Have fun breathing. Counting your breaths or whatever you said.

Way to make sleeping sound sinister. Have fun breathing.

Enjoy your next 24 hours.

Good luck.

Have fun going horizontal and breathing quietly for eight hours.

Yeah, enjoy your time. Anyway,

so you. You mentioned that you saw your mom in New York.

Yep. It was the longest conversation we've had since I was seven. Actually. Actually, I said five, but, you know, that's sad. Anyway, there was a whole other thing, but I'm not going to get into it. Anyway, yeah, she and I had a convo. She said that she didn't like my outfit, which, surprise, surprise, she said it was weird that it was green.

Parents never like your fashion sense, so, like, I wouldn't be too worried about that part. My parents never really approved of mine either.

Originally I thought that, you know, like, it's weird, like in the past or something like that. But she said, you know, like, I look weird green. Which means it's recent.

Well, interesting.

I mean, classes.

With his green skin.

Quite tasty, it seemed.

So you think.

Do you think you actually was in New York?

Yeah.

I don't know. I can't exactly communicate with my mother at the moment to ascertain whether or not I was in New York. But there was like, a little dude that bumped into me, like, tried to steal my wallet. And then I ran into the dude with the dragon head. Had. And then, like, the world changed from like the. The skyscrapers and whatnot to old to like, like German architecture. And then there was the. The citadel out in the distance. And she was about to tell me who was in charge because I asked her if Lord. What's his name? Moritar. Thank you.

I was like, which one?

If a Moritar was in charge. She said, no, it's Lord something. And then I got out of the. Then I said, the demon, the devil, dude.

With the city on fire, we Know that there's a third one.

Oh yeah.

How many? Okay.

Because there's Lord Ass Rifle.

Yes.

Then amoritar than the other one.

So those are the three.

Our Patrick's.

I had just gotten to the part of the page. You got there before I did.

What is the scales?

Scales.

Okay, okay, that's possible.

What kind of scar is that one gonna give me?

You're gonna become a lizard. You're gonna have scales.

Well, weird. It seemed like. Like Mel's conversation was

correct.

Yeah.

Cuz you said your dad was in Utah. I thought he was in California. I was the he doing in Utah.

At this point, Mel's halfway up the stairs. I don't fucking know. He thinks he's saving me. He's never tried to save me in my life.

Well, does he know that you're not in Junction anymore?

Well, the dream version of him does.

Well,

I guess that's a story for a different day, huh?

Yeah. I didn't think. I don't think my part of my dream.

Dream.

I didn't think my part of my dream was modern. Was current modern, whatever it was.

Junction on fire.

I. I was in my forge. I don't know.

I don't know.

And it's. It's not a place I've been particularly recently and definitely not with. With J. So.

Okay.

I was just thinking of something. Have. Had you been to the place you went to.

To New York? Yeah, I've been there all the time.

I mean in your. In your dream. Like specifically.

Not the. Not the weird architecture, but the other place. Yeah, I know that place like the back of my hand.

I had never been to the place that I.

Well, not the town being burnt. No, no. New York.

Where I went in Cincinnati. I'd never been there.

How did you know it was Cincinnati?

My daughter told me.

Oh, you. Your daughter, huh?

Yeah.

What happened in your dream?

Do you think she lives in Cincinnati with her mother?

It would sound that way. It felt very real.

Yeah.

And unlike yours, it felt very current.

Mine felt current, but frankly it seemed like a load of nonsense.

Yours sounds a lot more bananas than everybody else's. I do understand.

Like it seems like nonsense, frankly.

There's another citadel and my daughter specifically mentioned the lords. No specifics on names, but multiple.

We've already heard about the lords. Asherphal, our Patrick's. And they were originally.

There's only like the lords. There's only like the three. Right. So there's one apparently in Cincinnati, but then there's also one in New York. And then there's what's his face in Boston?

I mean, this is tired Mel talking, but Cincinnati's kind of on the way.

Mel, if you're gonna be part of this conversation, you wanna come back down the stairs.

No, I'd rather stand halfway up and shout at you. If she comes back down the stairs crankily.

Cincinnati, if you want to.

Emery will pour you another cup of tea.

Thank you.

Come back to the conversation. See you way back.

I gotta see if LA would.

I mean, we're like I. Iowa, Ohio, actually kind of north. So we're like.

Yeah, I mean, it's not on.

Kind of on the way. It's east of here.

It's not possibly. But it's not. It's not not there, but.

Yeah, exactly. Are we wanting to make a difference detour to Cincinnati? Well, I mean, do you feel like your kid's in danger?

The look on his face tells me

we're in an inn. What's the chances of finding a United States map in the inn?

Somewhere to look at.

We have my dad's old road atlas.

Oh, yeah, we got the atlas.

We've got a map.

Well, we could look at it and see that it's literally on the way.

It is pretty nice.

If we go straight east, we will go through the middle of Oax.

Iowa.

Yeah.

Well, let's. Let's swing by and see.

Any more out of our way than

Carson, but it's like three states away. It's not next to Iowa.

Yeah, well, I know it's not next to Iowa.

I mean, I. Yeah, actually you'll have to.

A little bit of a southern.

Yeah, but it's gotta go around the Great Lake anyway. So we gotta go south no matter what.

So the 20 hour drive.

So the one cathedral that we. The cathedral we know of, its actual physical location in the middle of the mountains was Etch Raphael.

Oh, yeah.

Ash.

Raphael.

Yeah.

Wait, It'll be a decent southerly dip. Cincinnati's almost at the bottom of Ohio.

Then there was that weird one that we wound up getting like what teleported to.

And that's. And that's like. That could have been one of the ones that you guys saw. Potentially.

Yeah.

He didn't exactly have to see the outside of it. Yeah. So who knows what three lords.

Could there possibly be more? There's more temples there.

Sure could be.

Maybe they're demi lords.

Sorry, old knock. The lord you're looking for is in another castle

there. Was that the. Because the original cathedral was dedicated to Ashraphile.

It was kind. Yeah, it was Dedicated to ashraph that had symbols of all three.

Yes, that's true. The one we were teleported to was one citadel.

Could be like a timeshare, you know, like they have multiple houses, you know, and.

And the. The lords might not necessarily run like they're cathedrals. They're not. Okay is the word that you thought of when you saw that thing. Citadel or cathedral?

Citadel.

Citadel, Tower, Castle, definitely almost tower.

What I could tell is like that

is a place of power. A cathedral is not. Right. Like we saw a cathedral, we didn't see a citadel.

So actually it was a castle. I don't know if there's a difference between castle and citadel, but castle.

There is.

There is. Yes.

Sorry.

But regardless, Ulnach wouldn't know that a cathedral can be dedicated to the lords without the lords being physically present, like the one in the mountains. So it's possible that. That there's a lot of these popping up all over too.

And I'm sure that they're all doing

a castle and not a cathedral. Then that's a different thing.

That could actually be where one of the lords is staying.

Mine's weird because it's almost like an entire chunk of the other whatever place kind of got removed and then just put smack dab in New York.

Well, that we don't know. That didn't happen.

Yeah.

I mean, I asked if it just appeared or if anybody built it. She said, my daughter said that it was like it was on fire in the area and then smoke. And then once the smoke settled, there was a castle there.

They deleted what was there and then replaced it with the castle.

I mean, it would kind of make sense. That's what happened with the cathedral in the mountains.

Now that one kind of just there.

Yeah.

Because it's close enough to stuff. Definitely would have been on a lot of those like weird Colorado tourist destination list. Otherwise.

That is a whole new definition to mobile home.

Yeah.

You know, I mean, interdimensional teleportation is what's not on my list of how to move around. But no, I should. It should have been. I guess we did do that.

Maybe they had a really big portable hole.

Maybe that's the industrial sized hole. Yeah.

Imagine putting that in your pocket.

I don't know what it is about that place.

I love talking about the hole. It's so much fun.

It's a whole lot of fun. I like announcing that I have a hole in my pocket. Proudly.

Anyway.

Yep.

I don't know. I think the castle, if we can make it on our Journey perhaps.

I mean it's not far out of our way.

That's fine. I'm okay with it.

If we could. You know.

It's not like we're.

Provide some safety to additional family. It would be desirable.

Just that you sound very very worried right now. And that some.

Some sort of hooded figures. She ran from them. She was afraid of them.

And

I haven't seen her or heard her voice in five years.

We need to go that way.

We'll stop and we'll find her.

Yeah.

And we'll make sure she's okay.

Once we're no longer bloated, we will pack up and that for first light will head out. It's still going to take us a long. It's a while.

I'm worried about Jacob too. Because whatever the that thing was.

Yeah. The demon thing's gonna be after.

If we all saw it in our dream.

This. And that's the same. That's the same eyeball that we saw in the seal.

We already knew that.

Knows that we're the ones who did that.

We already knew that they were after Jacob. This isn't.

But what is that thing?

Is that we knew they were after Jacob.

We didn't know that that specifically might be.

Is that one of the. Is that one of the God thingies that we're gonna have to fight against that devil?

Maybe we don't know how this whole hierarchy works. Maybe they're all in cahoots.

We all saw the same bluff city.

Don't ever say cahoots again. You just shouldn't say cahoots.

That town didn't look familiar to any of us, did it? Like did anyone recognize the town? That the devil guy?

No, it was too tough to fiery. I was a little distracted by the devil guy frankly.

And that's fair. He's a very menacing figure.

Yeah, he was very.

I didn't even notice the eye look familiar. I just remember they were vaguely yellow.

Yeah. It just went from like perfectly peaceful town to on fire.

That understanding is a misspeak on my part. It was on fire the whole time.

It was like it was on fire the entire time.

I saw was on fire.

Kind of like the old Germany area. Did not apparate in front of you.

Yeah.

It kind of just like it was already there.

You just didn't really notice.

Right. It was like a transition when you're

like dreamy weird state.

You could see.

It was like watercolors to kind of

like giving way to.

Yeah. Yeah. It was a lovely fading.

Very different.

Yeah. Old world There was a. There was a Lucas film transition screen wipe.

Yep.

Holy.

A cast.

So we will start with Cincinnati and then hopefully we all still alive.

That we've been saying that from almost every single time.

I mean, we were kind of heading towards New York, but I think that's for the race. Than Boston. No, no.

Boston is. Is it more north is northeast of New York.

Oh, I did not know that.

West coast cross. Weird.

It's almost like this was planned in some way.

Here. Here's the map. Mel.

What?

Oh, yeah. Did not know that.

Cool.

Yeah.

So everything is on the way to where we're already going. So it may be stepping into more trouble.

I feel like the further east we go, we're going to be stepping into more trouble anyway.

Exactly. And as long as we're prepared for that fact, and especially to make sure your daughter is okay, it's definitely worth it.

Yeah, I mean, I would want to make sure anybody in your family is okay.

Yep.

Devil bro recognizes. So we're gonna have to deal with him anyway.

We did. So we're here for you too. Same for you.

You didn't see like there was no like citadels or anything in your dream thingy?

No.

What happened in your dream thingy? I know it might be mundane to you, but it might have some clues because we don't know.

Saw Walt at the ranch fighting away people that were trying to take over it. He wasn't doing very well. Nothing we can do about it. If it's true, we can't go back. That's what I meant. Nothing we can do about it.

Well, maybe my dad Info wise vagabond group will end up at Walt's. At your ranch?

Yeah. A ragtag of bonus content people.

Short somewhat hobby looking Mexican guy.

I didn't notice. They were just four random people standing in this hotel with polka dots and clowns and some weird shit.

That sounds like an absolute nightmare.

That is right?

That is a Thanksgiving induced fever dream.

That's what I was thinking. But it was super satisfied to tell my dad off.

I'm sure it was.

Oh, yeah. You haven't seen or talked to the guy in forever.

Yeah, now he thinks he's gonna save me.

Didn't you.

Did you tell him that you punched a God?

No, I forgot that.

Oh, you totally should have led with that. It was like, you can't save me. You don't need to save me. I punched a God. You should have told him that. That would look great.

You talked to him on the phone, right?

Yeah, that was back In Junction.

That was episodes ago.

You did.

You did 57.

That was before we decided on what we were doing and everything. But didn't you ask him for help?

I always asked him for help. He's never given it.

But now that he is giving help. You know what? I have a fucked up family too. You do you?

I thought I needed it then.

Yeah.

Yeah. It was kind of nice talking to my mom. I haven't talked to her in forever.

Was it. Was it a good conversation?

I mean, she kind of dissed my fashion choice, but that's not exactly new.

I have it. We all.

It's good to know that her sight's good.

Yeah. At least her vision's good.

2020 vision, my guy.

She didn't seem all that, like, surprised about the whole Citadel in the middle

of New York thing, so. I don't know exactly. I mean, we're assuming the content, all of the contents of our dreams are true, not just the ones that are. Like. My dad said that he was doing a job for a guy, but he couldn't remember the name. And it sounded a lot like Ubogiwon, but not exactly.

Is your dad working for the guy that we punched?

Potentially. Potentially. I don't know. He says he didn't sign anything, incidentally. Also, I'm pretty sure he's blackmailing the people that he has conned into taking him across the desert. So, you know, I think your dad

and my parents would totally get along.

You know, I think they would, yeah. If you want, your mom can be another one of his ex wives.

She's married.

Why does that stop anybody Fair.

Anyway.

And you guys are feeling fine after talking to your parents?

I told you, I told him off. It was kind of satisfying.

I mean, the whole talking to my parents, to my mother thing was kind of wiped off of my radar once I saw the devil dude with Jacob.

Fair enough.

I'm still working off the adrenaline and all that. And the food.

I mean to. Fine. Fine.

I mean, we're as fine as we've

ever been, I guess. I guess that's fair.

God, we're great.

Brutal moment of realizing that everybody's got really fucked up families. They have very different flavors.

It's a hard not.

I feel like, honestly, James and Mel have in some ways very similarly fucked up families. But James did the. Any attention's good attention. And Mel's like, no, I'm just pretty imperfect. And then everybody loves me.

Yep.

You should have tried the perky, imperfect James. It gets you more attention.

I don't think I could pull that up.

High knees.

Let's go.

Oh, my stomach.

Yeah, you don't want to move too much right now.

You gotta take your ease. Constitution.

Save. Eight.

Nineteen.

Oh, you're fine. Some definitely shifts, though.

I used up so much energy.

It does. It does make me wonder, though, if my dream was current in some. I don't know. I don't know how it could have been, though. Like, it's.

I remember a simple time when we didn't have to psychoanalyze our dreams.

Well, only when we all have the same one.

Yeah.

The common factor is definitely the giant red devil.

Yeah.

Yeah. And that's, like, stereotypical. Like. Like, that looked like Tim Curry from the Legend. It did.

Just.

We know. I mean, we. Again, it's scary and it's uncomfortable, and we don't like it, but we knew it was there.

Yeah.

We just don't know where there is. And there could easily become here. So we're just prepared for that. Yeah.

And what's important is that Jacob is still here. There.

No, here.

There.

Well, the good news is that as long as we're on the plains, it's unlikely we'll be standing on a bluff looking over a city.

That's true. There are no bluffs here.

So we've got a little bit. Unless we're playing goldfish, we're Appalachian on that specific hill. Yeah.

We'll cross that hill when we get to.

We'll stand on that bluff when we get there.

Yep.

Yep.

There's no point in fretting about it. So who wants to go with a run with me when the sun comes up?

I mean, what time is it now?

When do you want it to be?

I don't know.

About two?

Sunrise.

Close two. Two in the morning.

We got a few more hours.

I mean, I'm not fucking sleeping. I'm on edge.

Maybe a run. I can't believe I'm gonna say this, but maybe a run.

Might do us some good.

Might do some good. Shake something loose.

I'm gonna convert you all.

No, that won't happen. The military made me.

Look, I don't like it.

The PT converted him.

I think I'll pass, but thank you.

I'll go with you in the morning.

You want to call Cadence?

Yeah.

I haven't done that in a while.

I don't know, but I've been told. This should get really old.

Who's Cadence?

I guess we're gonna learn how they do running in the military.

Not the phone's gonna work.

You don't need A phone. You just yell real.

If everyone's running, I'll run, too.

Yeah, as a group, we got peer pressure.

Come on, we can do this.

I don't want to stay at the hotel at the end by myself.

That's fair. We don't want you.

Come join us in misery.

Yeah.

Not Missouri. Missouri.

Yes.

So unless we have anything else to talk about, I vote it be morning. Now.

The rest of the night passes uneventfully.

Whoa, that was quick.

Fast travel to the morning and you have just a wonderful run. Except for most of you being rather antisocial. It's a kind of uncomfortable run because everybody is waving and smiling at you.

Right? Oh, what's even better is Elliot Whip smells acid.

Right, Old boy stayed in shape.

Yeah.

I rolled a con check to see how well I was able to keep up. And I rolled a 19 on the die.

Yeah, that was crazy.

It was almost a three. It was almost three and it went back to a 19. So she really wasn't sure she was going to like it. And it actually felt very good and all.

Knock's creeping up on the rear. His alcoholism has gotten to him a little bit.

Oh, yeah.

Don't be creeping on the rear.

Rolled a five.

Jesus.

And Mel's, like, panting, ellie, not far

in front of you because I'm still not a runner.

Yeah, right.

In my defense, running was. I nearly died and you did not. And my ribs hurt.

Why?

How?

I don't know.

Are wonderful.

Boots are made for running,

and I can't do it. But Elliot would be able to do a very appropriate date.

Mel's over here.

Ow.

No, Mel, you gotta sing while we're doing it.

I can't. I think I cracked a rib.

We've got some ibuprofen back at the inn.

Hey, Mel, you're supposed to be doing high knees.

Oh, fuck you.

Mel's in the back of the group with Emery and Ulnock.

The trick is to pace yourself and not immediately, you know, die.

Ulnock would be holding up the rear, but I am shouting out the kid.

I didn't know I cracked a rib till I tried to run with it.

Boy, horseback riding is going to be so much fun.

I feel like.

Yeah.

We get to the horses and I look at Ernie. If you bite me, I will bite you back.

So help me roll an animal, Henry.

Intimidation. Come on.

I think that's intimidation.

Sure.

I rolled a nat one.

So that's.

You think you've done it and you turn around and he jumps on your ponytail.

God damn it.

No, not to Bite it off.

I turn, whip back around, and I give him a stink eye.

There's the horse smiling.

Well, I mean, you said you were gonna bite him back. I did. Called your bluff. Called your bluff.

I did warn you guys that they're gonna be fresh today, so.

Yeah, they're definitely eyeing you as you touch saddles.

Yeah.

Having all the blood flowing is gonna be good, so just try to keep your seat best you can. After about the first mile or two, they'll settle back down, but it's gonna be a rodeo.

Yeehaw. Oh, God.

So unless there's any particular reason you don't want to leave town right now.

I would like to leave town right now.

We would like to leave town.

Is Edna coming with us?

Yes. Oh, right. Yeah.

She doesn't go on the ride.

No. I figured.

Which is fair.

I figured she goes on the semi kind of almost brisk walk to the stables.

Edna, you. In case nobody told you, we're going into the belly of the beast. It's only gonna get worse traveling with us.

It's, you know. Yep. I still gotta get to Notre Dame, deliver this message.

Yes.

To my fallen compatriot.

Okay.

Where's Notre Dame?

I have no idea where Notre Dame.

I was just about to ask if anyone knew, so I'm glad we're all here.

Indiana.

Yeah.

So that should be.

Yeah, that's kind of in the way. Yeah, we could totally pass through Indiana on the way to Cincinnati.

Yeah, it is. Ah, it's gonna make you go do east and then drop down.

Yeah, that's fine.

That's fine.

Oh, we're gonna hit Ohio and chiggers season.

Oh,

sugar.

Chickers, little bugs.

Ah, chickers.

I don't know what that is.

They're like itty bitty little bugs that kind of like bite and scratch.

You know, the gnats that kind of

get smaller than that. They're like sand fleas, but they live in the fields.

Yeah.

They love grass.

They're so love grass. And when they. When they get you and they bite you. Amputation supposed to help for a little bit.

Okay.

Yeah, that's cool.

It's just so bad.

They're basically sand fleas, but in grass, if that helps.

Chiggers. Welcome to the Midwest.

Yay.

I hate it.

Yeah, me too.

Just don't roll around in the grass and most of the time you'll be okay.

I mean, I'm not kind of wolf out anymore, so that shouldn't be a problem. Yeah, I mean, one would hope.

One would hope.

Become a.

Were Flea.

It's.

You're aware of all of the fleas?

Yes. As if you're loaded up, horsed up. They are definitely spry and feisty and ornery.

Oh, yeah, they're going to be feeling frisky this morning.

Oh, boy, this is going to be so great on a flat, full stomach.

Can't turn around a little bit. You know, you're getting it generally in the direction of the gate. And as you're passing, there's a cute little girl on the side. Thank you guys for saving my auntie.

Welcome.

You're welcome.

As the horse goes cantering off and Mel's gripped. Gripping the saddle horn.

I gotta roll. Perception checks.

Son of a. 13, 30, 20.

Passive 10.

Also passive.

9.

My bad. But, yeah, it doesn't matter.

Okay, Elliot, James, see her after she says, thanks for saving my auntie. Her eyes kind of blank.

Oh, what the.

You hear.

They heard that.

And you hear the singing. She kind of blinks, looks kind of confused, and just kind of backs away from you guys.

I look to the rest of the group and I see that Elliot has also picked up on that. Like, what the fuck?

Elliot looks at you for just a second. He just kind of shakes his head a little bit. And then he's just gonna go heels to horse dead, run out the gate, and you just see him just.

And that's where we're gonna end the episode. Hey, there, listener. With this being a shorter episode and basically just one long conversation, I decided to do the outro and the ads all in one fell swoop. So. Theater of the Mind presents Retribution. As Amanda Arston as Mel Kelly, Jeremy Arston as Elliot Brandybane, Michael Burnell as Ulnach Vargar Johnson. Michael Downes as James o'. Brien. Casey Weingarten as Emory Lee. And myself, Mike Schock, as your dungeon master, we are coming to the end of our Wizards and Wines series with our friends at Restoration Vineyards. So if you've been waiting to come, you've really only got two more events left. We will be there on March 2nd and then again on March 16th. That said, we aren't ending forever. The winery is just getting into their busy season, and frankly, there's just no room for our tables. However, we will still be meeting every other Tuesday at the Fruita Tavern for our Barbarians and Brews events. Those have been an absolute blast. And as always, seating is limited. So snag your tickets early. Sometime mid fall, we will be returning to Restoration Vineyards. At least that's the current plan. Time will tell, but like I said this is not a forever ending. This is just an end of the season. We release episodes every two weeks, so our next episode will drop on March 15th. Folks with ears of a hawk will note that that means our next episode drops the day before our final whiz and whine of the season. As always, we have a promo code for both Pinecast, who we use to host our podcast, and Epidemic Sounds, where we get most of our music. The songs we use today, in order from Epidemic Sounds are forever in our hearts by Gavin Luke and always remembered by Stefan Ekstrom. We also used Eerie Heartbeat muffled and designed Rumble Low Rumble Noise Distortion from their sound effects library. The Theatre of the Mind theme and outro were written by Mike Schock. As always, this is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of our collective imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual events, places or people, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

That was freaking awesome. That was awesome.

He's driving back from Denver. I get a phone call from Kenya.

Pumped.

I got an idea.

Who are these people?

How do we get out?

I can't get out. I can't get out

my name.

Why are we struggling?

It's just a curtain. I thought doors were hard.

Doors are hard for D and D DND characters.

Curtains are hard for DND players.