Dispatch One-Shot

Summary

Critical Role: Dispatch One-Shot – Episode Summary

Podcast: Critical Role
Episode: Dispatch One-Shot
Date: November 6, 2025
Game System: Daggerheart (with custom moves)

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Overview

In this comedic superhero “workplace” one-shot special, the Critical Role cast explores the hilarious pressures and office politics of the Burbank branch of the Superhero Dispatch Network (SDN)—the behind-the-scenes organization that keeps jobs running smoothly for a city’s superheroes and villains. Inspired by Ad Hoc Studio’s new game Dispatch, this adventure blends workplace satire, superhero banality, and improvised roleplay. The team faces downsizing, a looming branch closure, and must avoid the axe (“the Hammer”) by proving they’re indispensable through teamwork, subterfuge, and lots of questionable decisions.

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Cast & Characters

• Matthew Mercer (GM)
• Travis Willingham as Marty Green, a shapeshifting, animal-mimicking janitor with secret cosmic origins and excellent cleaning skills.
• Laura Bailey as Barbara Honeycutt ("Queen Bee"), an aging, bee-themed former beauty queen turned office manager with literal bee powers.
• Damian Blackwell as Damian Blackwell/Mr. Mephisto, the uptight, ex-villain branch manager hiding a demonic cape.
• Fritzi (Guest; name implied to be performer name as well), as Fritzi, the perpetually-shedding, hyper-hairy, unpaid intern and administrative chameleon.
• Supporting NPCs: Valerie Halliday (regional manager/SHIELD member), Owen Rook (annoying salesman), Lizzie Sprout, Melody Bird, the pariah Johnny Lathe, consulting superhero Gavi "Spectra" Hexadpuram, and more.

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Main Adventure Theme

"Superhero workplace comedy meets office survival."
The Burbank SDN branch must prove its worth (and avoid layoffs or closure) as mysterious “consultants” arrive to downsize and streamline. Over the course of two days, the office must band together to manufacture success, clean up literal and figurative messes, and outmaneuver inept co-workers, villainous interruptions, and their own anxiety.

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Key Segments, Insights & Quotes

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1. Opening & Introductions (02:09–06:45)

• Matthew Mercer sets the scene: Rainy LA, brutal Burbank traffic.
• The audience is introduced to Marty, a meticulous janitor with supernatural abilities, and Barbara Honeycutt, a bee-wreathed, brightly dressed ex-beauty queen turned office manager.
• Fritzi, the intern made almost entirely of hair, is introduced—and the cast lovingly roast workplace stereotypes from the start.

"Barbara Honeycutt. Ex beauty queen, I would argue."
—Laura Bailey, [05:04]

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2. Morning Commute Chaos (11:21–19:49)

• The entire carpool suffers Burbank traffic, and everyone's signature powers (demon-headed intimidation, bee swarms, illusionary sirens) are used comically just to merge on the freeway.
• Fritzi’s mop of hair, Barbara’s bees, and Damian’s arcane illusions cause a minor emergency on the road.
• Humor is ever-present as each failed attempt to skip traffic earns a new round of stress, consequences, and laughter.

"Marty’s head turns into a red demon … shrinks back down …"
—Travis Willingham, [13:48]

"Look at that smog."
—Travis Willingham, [14:59]

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3. Office Arrival, Culture & Shenanigans (19:53–31:09)

• The Burbank SDN office is grungy and full of petty [and hair-related!] squabbles.
• Corporate tension and rumor-mongering is high: the team overhears they're being evaluated by a consultant ("Spectra"/Gavi), with potential layoffs and closure looming.

"We might be getting sacked."
—Laura Bailey, [30:36]

• Barbara and Damian plot to gather their allies, manipulate clocks with bees, and spin the office’s failings in a positive light.

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4. Scheming to Save the Branch (33:35–45:11)

• The team plans to fudge records, incite crime for good PR, and gather documentation to present themselves as more successful than they are.
• Marty aims to leverage his popularity with a custodial ASMR channel; Fritzi exploits her remaining system access from too many unpaid internships.

"We get rid of Owen first."
—Laura Bailey, [39:27]

• Tension rises as strategies shift between genuine teamwork and Machiavellian manipulation to survive the review.

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5. Prepping for Inspection – Office Politics (45:11–53:04)

• The group stages the office: Marty cleans and eavesdrops, Damian sets “professional” lighting (which just makes people sleepy), Barbara calls in superhero favors for a showy visit.
• Fritzi forges sales records, making it look like the heroes are involved in more big-ticket deals than they are.

"You're able to bring in the A team off the street..."
—Matthew Mercer, [50:45]

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6. High-Stakes Stand-Up Meeting (53:04–62:06)

• Branch manager Valerie Halliday, ex-SHIELD warrior queen, storms in as reviews begin.
• She gives the team a two-day ultimatum to save the branch or face destruction by "the Hammer," a fearsome two-person (physically and organizationally) specialist.

"If my branch gets shut down, getting fired will be the least of your problems."
—Valerie Halliday (Matthew as Valerie), [54:42]

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7. After Work Recon & Bar Scene (75:37–97:04)

• The crew seeks rumors at the Cape and Cowl bar—superhero/villain after-work spot. Fritzi pumps Johnny Lathe, disgraced “edgelord” hero, for Hammer info.
• Johnny reveals: the “Hammer” is a terrifying two-headed consultant who lays people off, known for surface-level interviews (and violence, if required).

"All you need is bullet points. I tried a Radiohead song—didn’t work."
—Johnny Lathe (Matthew as Johnny), [91:13]

• Barbara briefly sleeps with Johnny (regrettably).

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8. Day Two: Traffic, Heroic Mishaps, and PR Stunts (97:38–117:37)

• On the next morning's commute, the office tries to improve visibility by staging a PR-worthy rescue: Valerie Halliday lifts a minotaur's car blocking the freeway—with Marty’s shapeshifting help.
• Barbara films and edits the “heroic moment,” prepping social media to sway perception before the consultant’s review.
• Fritzi uses meme editing to enhance their viral post.

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9. Showdown in the Office: Villains, Dogs, and Chaos (151:00–161:11)

• Villain OllieOllieOxenfree invades, unleashing a herd of magical mini-oxen. Epic, funny combat breaks out; Marty and Fritzi’s powers turn the tide.
• Meanwhile, Melody’s “Bird Dog” (a monstrous, superpowered canine) is rampaging through a dentist’s office below—Marty and Damian must wrangle the pet before it damages the branch’s reputation.

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10. The Hammer Arrives: The Reckoning (205:22–241:45)

• Review day dawns. Marty, Barbara, Damian, and Fritzi each face The Hammer—a superpowered, dual-entity consultant pair—one at a time.
• Each character justifies their value to the company in their own hilarious, flawed way:
  • Marty impresses with versatility, is offered a management job at DTLA, but chooses to stay.
  • Barbara, after expert bullshitting and PR spin, is up for a promotion.
  • Fritzi is offered a (still unpaid) internship but is promised a real paycheck soon.
  • Damian tries to weasel out and shift blame while subtly promoting his own crypto coin.
• Decisions: Owen is exposed as a liar and is fired; bulk is let go; the branch is saved (though some office-mates are cut).

"I thank you for your participation in what has been a carefully laid out exercise. And you have all played your roles beautifully. I must take my leave now. Your lives will be over soon. I’m just fucking with you."
—Marty Green (Travis), [243:06]

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11. Aftermath & Celebration (241:45–end)

• The office relaxes at the Cape and Cowl bar, celebrating their narrow escape and the permanent damage to their work/life balance.
• Marty, despite being promoted, opts to remain where he belongs.
• Fritzi gets recognition (if not immediately, at least symbolically).

“Once in a while, you do manage to do some good. And maybe sometimes doing some good costs you a little bit of your soul under fluorescent lights, paper clips, and a lot of corporate jargon.”
—Matthew Mercer, [243:54]

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Notable Quotes & Moments

Best Quotes:

• “Traffic this bad is criminal.” — Damian, [110:21]
• “That little motherf***er… How many trip dips does this man eat at Chili’s?” — Barbara, [138:15]
• “We are the world. We are the children. That’s right.” — Damian & Fritzi, [72:30]
• “It’s like a big dude with, like, a little dude growing out of his torso. It, like, scares the chicks off and stuff.” — Johnny Lathe, explaining 'the Hammer', [88:26]
• “I’m an unpaid intern… This is my dream.” — Fritzi, [29:02]

Memorable Moments:

• Damian conjures emergency lights on the car to skip the Burbank traffic (16:04).
• Barbara moves the office clock forward with a literal swarm of bees (21:43).
• The “A-Team” of superheroes are called in for pure show, unshowered, to impress consultants (50:45).
• Barbara and Fritzi tag-team to take down Johnny Lathe with an army of bees and hair distraction (93:11–93:35).
• Fritzi, after battling another intern, becomes office assistant and social media manager in the space of five minutes (127:16).
• The fight with OlliOllieOxenfree’s 32 mini-oxen, ending with puffs of beard and mops (157:11–163:59).
• Marty’s emotional, surreal job review: “I’ll need some time to think about it. I have other offers.” (214:35)
• The crew realizes accidentally that their plot to boost crime for PR makes them the baddies (202:00).
• The “Hammer” reviews with management speak and, for once, fair outcomes.

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Opening & Setup: [02:09–06:45]
• Morning Commute/Traffic: [11:21–19:49]
• Corporate Shenanigans: [19:53–31:09]
• Scheming/Prepping for Review: [33:35–45:11]
• Team Staging for PR: [45:11–53:04]
• Stand-Up Meeting, Branch in Peril: [53:04–62:06]
• Cape & Cowl Bar Scene: [75:37–97:04]
• PR Rescue & Office Arrival: [97:38–117:37]
• Office Villain Fight: [151:00–163:59]
• Hammer Review/Job Survival: [205:22–241:45]
• Celebration & Wrap-Up: [241:45–End]

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Summary of Outcomes

• The Burbank SDN survives! The team bluffs, sabotages, and improvises their way into being deemed “worth saving.”
• Multiple side plots—exposing Owen's fraud, rescuing a rogue super-dog, and fending off minor office villain attacks—contribute to their (and the company’s) salvation.
• Those with the best (or at least most creative) corporate BS survive and even get promoted. Marty chooses camaraderie over promotion; Fritzi is (almost) finally paid.

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Final Thoughts

This episode is a tour-de-force of improv TTRPG comedy, blending mundane office miseries with the over-the-top flavor of superhero universes. The Critical Role cast’s chemistry and quick-witted riffing lend pitch-perfect satire to asinine corporate bureaucracy, while bringing genuine heart to misfit workers. Recommended for fans of The Office, Brooklyn 99, and all who have ever suffered a team-building meeting.

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For more from Ad Hoc Studio’s Dispatch, check Episodes 1–4 here.

Transcript

[Travis Willingham]

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[Damian Blackwell]

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[Travis Willingham]

Hey, what's up subscribers? Welcome back to the channel. So which variety of Dunkin at Home coffee is your fave? Original blend, French vanilla or hazelnut? Drop a comment.

[Matthew Mercer]

What are you?

[Travis Willingham]

Oh, this is what I do when I'm home alone.

[Laura Bailey]

Drink Dunkin' Original Blend or pretend you're an influencer?

[Travis Willingham]

Both. Want a cup? Hey, let's do a taste test for the audience.

[Matthew Mercer]

Okay, how's this?

[Laura Bailey]

The rich, smooth taste of Dunkin at Home is unmatched.

[Travis Willingham]

Nice. You're a natural.

[Damian Blackwell]

The home with Duncan is where you want to be.

[Travis Willingham]

B' Day critters. Travis Willingham here and welcome to the Critical Role Podcast Network. We are thrilled to have you here and thank you for making us a part of your day. If you'd rather listen to the full episode right when it comes out and without any ads, please consider becoming a Beacon member. You'll receive access to exclusive content discounts at all of our online Critical Role shops, exclusive pre sales for live events and much, much more. Start your seven day free trial today at Beacon tv. Now that we've got that covered, let's go ahead and get this adventure rolling.

[Matthew Mercer]

Hello and welcome to a very special one shot in collaboration with our friends at Ad Hoc Studio and their new game Dispatch. Dispatch is a superhero workplace comedy featuring voices from the likes of Aaron Paul, Laura Bailey, Travis Willingham, Matt Mercer, Aaron Yvette and Jeffrey Wright. And I cannot emphasize enough how much fun it is. Episodes 1 through 4 are out now. Check out bit ly cr dispatch to learn more. That said, while you may recognize the places and characters explored tonight as they are inspired by elements from Dispatch we want to emphasize that the characters and events in this one shot are our own creat and are not official content from Dispatch. They're simply inspired by it. Thank you again to Ad Hoc Studio for letting us play in the wonderful world you've built. Now without further ado, let's get into the game. Monday morning in Los Angeles is a small especially brutal on the traffic choked streets of Burbank. And today is especially brutal because it's raining. We see a powder blue Stanza parked in a cute residential neighborhood. And at the wheel we see a very interesting fellow. Travis, will you join us at the table?

[Damian Blackwell]

Hi.

[Matthew Mercer]

And who are you playing today, Travis?

[Travis Willingham]

I am playing Mardi Green. I take a lot of pride in this powder blue stanza and also the custodial arts which are not to be overlooked at any time.

[Matthew Mercer]

And if one were to look in through the driver's side window, what would they see?

[Travis Willingham]

You would see an immaculate interior. Also powder blue cloth fabric interior. But I have a wheel cover that's bright pink covered in chibi anime faces.

[Matthew Mercer]

She's five minutes late. She's always five minutes late. Laura, will you join us at the table?

[Travis Willingham]

She has to be first on the route. She likes shotgun.

[Laura Bailey]

Hi, Marty.

[Travis Willingham]

Good morning. How are you on this fine sunshiny day?

[Laura Bailey]

Fucking drive, hun.

[Damian Blackwell]

Okay.

[Matthew Mercer]

The car doesn't start immediately.

[Travis Willingham]

Sorry. Clutches. It sticks a little. There's a tray. It's fine, it's fine.

[Matthew Mercer]

As you tap your cigarette out the window, Barbara, what vision. What beautiful vision this descended from the heavens. Would a passerby be met with.

[Laura Bailey]

Barbara Honeycutt, Ex beauty queen, I would argue.

[Matthew Mercer]

Current.

[Laura Bailey]

Beehive golden suit. She looks like she's seen some better days, but she's still a looker. Don't you fucking mistake that. And yeah, she got bees everywhere. Bees all over. They fly around her all the time.

[Matthew Mercer]

They fly around your face.

[Travis Willingham]

It's Honeycutt there.

[Laura Bailey]

Get back in here. And they fly back into her beehive.

[Travis Willingham]

We should roll up the windows.

[Matthew Mercer]

Marty, as your car gives out an alarming squeak. You really gotta get that checked out. You are able to joltingly pull your way out of this cute suburban neighborhood into a slightly more downtown locale to pick up the intern you've taken under your wing at the Burbank branch of sdn.

[Fritzi]

I'm sorry, I might smell like wet dog. It's just rain and my hair doesn't play so well.

[Travis Willingham]

No, it's totally fine. Yeah.

[Fritzi]

Morning.

[Laura Bailey]

Morning, Fritzie. I reach into my purse and I hand back a brush.

[Fritzi]

Oh, thank you. Normally it takes me about an hour and a half to get through it all, but I'll try to go faster this time.

[Matthew Mercer]

And what would somebody walking their dog in front of this dilapidated apartment building see as poor Fritzi tries to tame the mop?

[Fritzi]

Oh, well, you'd see a mop. A mop of hair. Because Fritzi's all hair. Fritzi is 4ft of hair and she's got cute highlights to kind of, you know, give some definition to the blob. And she likes to part to show her right eye a little bit because girls gotta see.

[Matthew Mercer]

Wait, is it a side part or a middle part? It's very important.

[Fritzi]

Not a real part. It's. It's a manually created parting that likes to kind of come back. It's a lot of the Disney princess, you know, over and over. Yeah. Oh, but. Oh, but she does wear clothes. She doesn't have to. She wouldn't be like naked if she wasn't wearing clothes. Cause the hair covers everything.

[Matthew Mercer]

You wear your modesty all the time.

[Fritzi]

Yeah, but it's just everyone else wears clothes. A bit weird if I didn't, you know? Yeah.

[Matthew Mercer]

Fritzi gets into the car. A little puff of static kind of erupts from the seat as she does so, the rain creates a sort of frizz situation. That kind of conduct creates an electric, electric cloud of its own. And you pull away from in front of this ill maintained apartment building to a much, much, much more posh neighborhood. Your car doesn't even make it up the drive before it's stopped by the security guard who takes one look at it and goes, nuh.

[Travis Willingham]

I'm sorry. I'm here to pick up Mr.

[Matthew Mercer]

Visitor Pass.

[Travis Willingham]

It's around here.

[Laura Bailey]

We're here every day. Don't you remember us?

[Fritzi]

Hello?

[Laura Bailey]

Hey, honey.

[Matthew Mercer]

Mr. Damian. Thank you. He does kind of bless the lo. Oh, good morning, ma'.

[Fritzi]

Am.

[Matthew Mercer]

How are you doing today?

[Laura Bailey]

Morning.

[Matthew Mercer]

Ever a vision. You're here for the Mr. Blackwell. Yeah, I do recall you being on his. On his visitor list. Yeah, I'll buzz you.

[Laura Bailey]

What you doing later, honey?

[Matthew Mercer]

I'm going wherever you're going.

[Laura Bailey]

I'll give you a call.

[Fritzi]

He put it into you make it look so easy.

[Travis Willingham]

I don't understand that interaction at all.

[Laura Bailey]

Get driving.

[Travis Willingham]

Oh, sorry.

[Matthew Mercer]

You hear screeching wheels and a whining engine pull into your driveway, Mr. Blackwell.

[Damian Blackwell]

And it's raining, isn't it?

[Matthew Mercer]

It is.

[Damian Blackwell]

You watch as the red caped and well dressed branch manager waiting at his front door sigh heavily at the approach of such A disappointing vehicle as he waves his hand and the rain subsides. And he walks halfway there before it continues and drenches him delay.

[Fritzi]

Good morning, Mr. Blackwell.

[Damian Blackwell]

Please drive.

[Travis Willingham]

You got it, sir. Pardon my reach.

[Damian Blackwell]

I really need to get my charger fixed.

[Matthew Mercer]

It's always an interesting day when it's Marty's turn to drive the carpool that you have all agreed to. Somewhat under duress. The parking situation at the Burbank SDN leaves much to be desired. And unfortunately, either by demotion being transferred or maybe you're new in this industry. This is the branch that you all have ended up in. Your job is a simple one, but one that comes with a very great cost. The cost of the safety of Burbank. For you work for the superhero dispatch network. And Burbank's well being is in your hands and your hands alone, Travis. For without you, the buses would run on time, but the superheroes would not. A resource in short supply and in great demand.

[Travis Willingham]

Mr. Blackwell. I hope the HOV lane is to your liking this morning. Very premier level.

[Damian Blackwell]

It's interesting how car pulling somehow is slower than not. You watch as he brushes aside his ratty comb over from his rather thick but well kept mustache and glances into the side view mirror for a moment before going. Just ensure we can get there in time to find parking Burbank.

[Travis Willingham]

Of course we can go faster if you need to drop into a lower gear. You hear it?

[Matthew Mercer]

Whee.

[Travis Willingham]

There's a little speed increase. It sounds like it's going to explode.

[Fritzi]

I stick my head out the window to dry my hair.

[Matthew Mercer]

As you do, a massive belching cloud of black smoke comes out of the back of the powder blue stanza, leaving a gentle dusting of dry shampoo on your locks.

[Fritzi]

I can work with this.

[Matthew Mercer]

Coffee clutched in weary hands, our characters must know embark upon their first challenge. The morning commute.

[Travis Willingham]

Oh, shit. Oh no.

[Matthew Mercer]

You thought I was joking.

[Travis Willingham]

Hitting us with a dragon out the gate.

[Matthew Mercer]

You thought I was fucking kidding.

[Fritzi]

It's all right.

[Damian Blackwell]

I was forcing the fires.

[Matthew Mercer]

Allow me to move. Allow me to move to my dagger heart environmental stat block that I made especially for this game.

[Travis Willingham]

Morning commute.

[Matthew Mercer]

Phenomenal. Bumper to bumper.

[Travis Willingham]

Oh my God.

[Matthew Mercer]

You now have to make it across the freeway.

[Laura Bailey]

We can do it. I believe in us.

[Matthew Mercer]

As you sort of take the, you know, take your right turn to get onto the on ramp. Marty, you come to a standstill just as it's time for you to enter the flow of traffic. And much to your chagrin, no one lets you in.

[Travis Willingham]

Oh, Blinker, let Me? Sorry. I get a little aggravated. Clearly, there's an indicator sign that was built by the car manufacturer. Let you in, Marty.

[Laura Bailey]

Just force your way in. Force your way in. They're never gonna let you in if you don't just force it.

[Travis Willingham]

I have an idea. I open the door and I step out of the car and just. Marty's head turns into a red demon and goes. Shrinks back down. And I close the door.

[Damian Blackwell]

Yeah.

[Matthew Mercer]

Give me a. We'll call this presents. Give me a presence roll.

[Travis Willingham]

It's a presence roll. It's a nine with eight with. It's a nine with hope.

[Matthew Mercer]

A nine with hope. Not quite enough. Yeah. As you enlarge your head into a demon like shape and threaten to be let in, you're met with a middle finger and a shaking fist.

[Travis Willingham]

This is a hard city.

[Laura Bailey]

All right, my turn. I'm gonna look back and a huge swarm of bees is gonna start to fly out of my hair. And I'm gonna make an apiarian cloud behind me. And it's gonna. I wanna cause a fog basically behind the next car so that we can get in. So that it'll obstruct their vision.

[Matthew Mercer]

Yeah. I like this.

[Travis Willingham]

Look at that smog.

[Laura Bailey]

So I need to make a presence roll.

[Matthew Mercer]

Yes.

[Laura Bailey]

And see if I can actually cast this. That is better than that. I can add, right?

[Travis Willingham]

Yep.

[Laura Bailey]

12 plus 2. 14. I needed 13 bees. Listen, the only unfortunate thing is I didn't fully read this.

[Damian Blackwell]

Now on.

[Laura Bailey]

It gathers in a stationary area within very close range. Very close range.

[Fritzi]

Have we done close? Wicker man in the car.

[Damian Blackwell]

Do you have any idea what she's trying to.

[Fritzi]

Yeah, she's wrapping the hair around my body tightly so she bees in the car.

[Laura Bailey]

I could have gotten out if I'd have read.

[Damian Blackwell]

Stuck.

[Matthew Mercer]

In the window.

[Laura Bailey]

Open the window.

[Travis Willingham]

I don't want power.

[Laura Bailey]

Open the window.

[Damian Blackwell]

It all mudded. Eyes of Damian Blackwell, once known as Mr. Mephisto. They darken over as he attempts to conjure using his minor illusion ability, the look of flashing red and blue lights atop the vehicle, as well as shouting out the window.

[Travis Willingham]

How's it going?

[Matthew Mercer]

That was good.

[Fritzi]

Whoop, whoop.

[Damian Blackwell]

Instinct roll.

[Matthew Mercer]

All right.

[Damian Blackwell]

That is going to be a 14 with hope, which is a success on the minor illusion.

[Matthew Mercer]

Very good.

[Laura Bailey]

Mine was with fear. I didn't tell you that.

[Matthew Mercer]

Oh, that's okay. That's okay. Let me adjust my countdown here. This helps you greatly. People are not. People are not surprised that you have a siren on your car with the bee situation happening inside. Most people assume this Is a pretty dire emergency. A good meaning. A well meaning, I should say. Samaritan does sort of let you pull in in front of them. As the car in front of them lurches forward, they kind of wave you in. Not everybody is so nice. But you do see a couple of cars shift in and out of the way to accommodate the red and blue flashing lights. Are you trying to specifically look like police or just an emergency vehicle?

[Damian Blackwell]

I'd say in this state, looking at the type of vehicle he's currently riding within, an emergency vehicle is more likely, right?

[Matthew Mercer]

Yeah. People are a little bit more sympathetic to that. So the cars kind of peel out of the way, especially Marty's screeching. Definitely pushes it over the top.

[Travis Willingham]

Staying in first gear. Whee.

[Fritzi]

I have a long shot to try and help with the bee situation.

[Matthew Mercer]

Yeah, I think you have to fix.

[Fritzi]

Yeah, I got the hair full of smog. Right. And smoke calms bees.

[Travis Willingham]

Oh, shit.

[Fritzi]

Can I do a little. A little shake? Remanifest that smog?

[Matthew Mercer]

Absolutely. Give me a finesse roll.

[Fritzi]

Okay.

[Matthew Mercer]

Oh, my God.

[Travis Willingham]

She's a natural.

[Fritzi]

Okay, so it's 14 with fear.

[Matthew Mercer]

14 with fear. Speaking of, I should start tracking these. Let's get rid of these small ones and get some big fear trackers.

[Travis Willingham]

Yeah, I love matches.

[Matthew Mercer]

My steering wheel cover.

[Travis Willingham]

My Sailor Moon steering wheel cover.

[Matthew Mercer]

You are successfully able to calm down the bees. The smoke from your hair kind of gets them to settle. They lay themselves down kind of in a sleepy sort of position on your shoulders, on the car seats, on any surface that they can in your powder blue Stanza.

[Laura Bailey]

They're nice. That's what I've been telling you.

[Travis Willingham]

It's very helpful.

[Matthew Mercer]

Cute.

[Damian Blackwell]

Staged by the intern, Barbara. Keep driving.

[Matthew Mercer]

You get to work five minutes late. And unfortunately, at the Burbank SDN that is very, very looked down upon, you are able to find a spot underneath that one tree that happens to always drip SAP all over your car. But it is an open spot. You're able to just fit the Stanza in the wheels kind of scraping against the rough curb as you do so. It's always so hard to judge these things, especially when your car is full of bees.

[Fritzi]

Sleeping, taking a nap.

[Laura Bailey]

Get back in here, y'.

[Matthew Mercer]

All.

[Laura Bailey]

Get wake up. Get back in.

[Matthew Mercer]

And you make your way into this sort of business park with a very nondescript looking building with very sad windows, with a pale fluorescent light that kind of greets you as you come in. You smell that air that's been recycled through the same H VAC system that's never been Cleaned forever. That low pile carpet that kind of scrapes against your shoes as you come in. As you turn the handle to open that front door, it shocks you just a little bit, and you are once again embraced into the despair that is your nine to five.

[Travis Willingham]

So many coffee stains. I really have to work on these.

[Matthew Mercer]

As you come in, you hear him before you see him. The young sales rep with the shining smile. You know him as Owen. Owen Rook. And you hear his voice come flying, floating to you through the barely cracked open door as he goes. Somebody's got a case of the Mondays. You guys are rolling in late today. Hello, B team. Hello, B team. Get it? Oh, late, late, late, late, late.

[Damian Blackwell]

Good morning, Owen.

[Travis Willingham]

Huh?

[Damian Blackwell]

Good morning.

[Matthew Mercer]

Good morning, Mr. Blackwell. Blackwell.

[Laura Bailey]

Are the clocks here digital or are they analog?

[Matthew Mercer]

Analog.

[Travis Willingham]

Gonna do some shit.

[Laura Bailey]

I wanna summon a drone of bees.

[Travis Willingham]

At a very close range.

[Laura Bailey]

No, no, listen. I'm gonna have a cloud of bees escape from my hair.

[Matthew Mercer]

Mm.

[Laura Bailey]

Trickle down. And they're gonna fly up to the clock and scoot it on back so it looks like we got here on time.

[Matthew Mercer]

I would love to see you try that. This is very ambitious.

[Laura Bailey]

It's far range. I don't even have to roll for this. They just come on out and do shit.

[Matthew Mercer]

Okay.

[Laura Bailey]

But I'm sure maybe like to do it undetectable.

[Matthew Mercer]

Yeah. Yeah, we're definitely gonna need to. There's gonna be a stealth aspect here. Which of your senses do you think this would hone in on?

[Laura Bailey]

Or your experiences maybe? Yeah, I could use my office manager experience.

[Matthew Mercer]

You've probably done this before. If you wanna spend a hope. I would actually say you pull this off without even rolling. You've probably. This is probably like a maneuver that you've done.

[Laura Bailey]

Yeah, I'll do it.

[Matthew Mercer]

All right, good. I hope you send out a thin stream of bees. They know their way into the back of the clock. They gently push it. His back is turned to you. How do you keep his attention on you while this is happening behind him? Or rather, the clock is behind him? How do you keep his attention on you while your bees go behind and move about?

[Laura Bailey]

Owen, is that a new shirt you're wearing?

[Matthew Mercer]

I think I've had this for, like, years, Barbara.

[Laura Bailey]

I don't remember ever seeing it on you. That color's becoming.

[Matthew Mercer]

Oh, I don't think you've ever paid me a compliment before.

[Laura Bailey]

You're looking so swell today. I just couldn't help it.

[Matthew Mercer]

You see over his shoulder, the bees have finished their little maneuver.

[Laura Bailey]

Oh, wait, I have seen that shirt. It looks like, shit, Owen, we're here on time, just like we always are. I don't know what you're talking about. I head to my office.

[Matthew Mercer]

He whips around to check the clock, notices that it is indeed 8am in the morning, and kind of looks in his own coffee cup and gives it a sniff. What? And then he checks his apple watch. I'm telling you, that clock's running slow, you hear as he starts to walk down the hall.

[Travis Willingham]

That was very impressive.

[Laura Bailey]

Get to work, Marty.

[Travis Willingham]

Sorry. Yes, right away.

[Laura Bailey]

Fruitzy. Yeah, I need that hairbrush back.

[Fritzi]

Oh, I'm supposed to clean it out.

[Laura Bailey]

Before you give it to me. I.

[Damian Blackwell]

Okay.

[Matthew Mercer]

One of your assistants comes clipping up to you. Barbara. What do we have on the agenda today, ma'? Am?

[Laura Bailey]

Order some new supplies.

[Matthew Mercer]

Okay, I could probably do that. So you want, like, just the usual?

[Laura Bailey]

Yeah.

[Matthew Mercer]

Paper and stuff?

[Laura Bailey]

Yeah, we go through a lot of paper, which is stupid with all the digital stuff happening lately, but I feel.

[Matthew Mercer]

Like everybody wants hard copies of everything. I don't really get it, but it.

[Laura Bailey]

Doesn'T make any sense.

[Matthew Mercer]

Would you like for me to walk you to your office? Oh, I got your tea in there for you.

[Laura Bailey]

I want a coffee.

[Fritzi]

Okay.

[Laura Bailey]

Thank you.

[Matthew Mercer]

How would you like your coffee?

[Laura Bailey]

Black.

[Matthew Mercer]

Just from like the drip from, like the. From the break room?

[Laura Bailey]

Yeah.

[Matthew Mercer]

Okay. Yeah, I'll bring you a cup. Is there anything else you'd like to have me handle today? You've got a meeting with. Well, we have a morning stand up that Valerie would like for you to have the entire team present for if you could just assemble them. Or I can do it for you if you'd like.

[Laura Bailey]

Yeah, you can do it. Thank you.

[Matthew Mercer]

Okay. That's gonna be in the big boardroom. I hear it's a pretty serious affair.

[Laura Bailey]

What's about?

[Matthew Mercer]

Well, I've heard they're downsizing and they're potentially talking about shutting down this branch of the operation.

[Laura Bailey]

Really?

[Matthew Mercer]

Who?

[Laura Bailey]

Who? Who's.

[Matthew Mercer]

Well, I just. I just. I just.

[Laura Bailey]

Where'd you hear that?

[Matthew Mercer]

Well, I was in the bathroom and I had a burrito that didn't quite sit right. So I was just sat in there for, like, forever. And while I was in there, I heard Valerie talking to. Well, they brought in a consultant. There's like. There's like, this guy from India or whatever, and I guess he used to work here, like 30 years ago.

[Laura Bailey]

What? Wait, what?

[Matthew Mercer]

And then he, like, retired. And then, like, they've brought him back in, but, like, he's like, I don't want to work here, but they're like, trying to, like, get him to, like, come on board or whatever. And they came into the bathroom and he was over here like, oh, I'm going to change things up. I helped build this company. It's not gonna fold on my watch or whatever. And then she was like, oh, I was gunning for this position. I've been working for this. This is, like, so unfair. And then he says. He says something, and then she said something. And then I guess, like, there's these, like, consultants, and they did. They're doing a report and that, like, on Wednesday, they're gonna either, like, fire a bunch of people maybe. Maybe they're gonna sack them. I think that's what you actually. You guys, don't say that. They're gonna fire them, and then the. Maybe they're gonna shut the whole thing down.

[Laura Bailey]

Get diamond in here.

[Damian Blackwell]

Get Damien.

[Matthew Mercer]

Which one is that in your posse? I'll go get him.

[Damian Blackwell]

Mr. Blackwell, are you taking drink orders? I'd like a strawberry iced latte. Pumps of vanilla.

[Fritzi]

Diamond.

[Damian Blackwell]

Yes.

[Laura Bailey]

Get in here.

[Travis Willingham]

Very well.

[Matthew Mercer]

Would you. You want me to leave you alone? Should I. Should I close the door? You want me on this side of the door or the other? Lizzy Sprout shuts the blinds. She has mold where there should be a curtain of hair, and it kind of leaves a gentle dusting of spores as she walks around your office.

[Travis Willingham]

What's her name?

[Matthew Mercer]

Lizzy Sprout. So you want me on the other side of the deal with him?

[Laura Bailey]

Just for now. Okay. Thanks, Liz.

[Travis Willingham]

Oh.

[Matthew Mercer]

Where did you come from?

[Fritzi]

I know sometimes people think I'm a coat.

[Matthew Mercer]

Oh. I thought perhaps you were like a very strange Christmas tree.

[Fritzi]

Do you think because I'm an unpaid intern, my job might still go away?

[Laura Bailey]

Probably. Were you here the whole time?

[Fritzi]

Oh, yeah. I was cleaning the hair out.

[Matthew Mercer]

I've got something else lined up. You should, too. I would never do this job for free. I do everything you do. But I get money from her.

[Fritzi]

This is my dream.

[Damian Blackwell]

I wouldn't take it to personally. Interns, as part of the nature of your business, is to, you know, be shrugged off in times of change.

[Fritzi]

Oh, no. I plan on climbing the corporate ladder.

[Damian Blackwell]

Right. What is it you required, Barbara? Perhaps we should discuss this as adults.

[Laura Bailey]

Office.

[Damian Blackwell]

Okay. Right.

[Matthew Mercer]

You want me to remove. Okay, come along now, little one. There you are. Come on. We've got to get Mr. Blackwell a coffee. And she gently ushers her out of the room.

[Laura Bailey]

Wait, do I know. Did that spring any memories? The way you were describing the consultant? 30 years passed and it Definitely.

[Matthew Mercer]

Did you know of a very special superhero that can conjure six spectral arms, one super smile and an acumen that can see the future and the past? He knows all, for he is annoying. She is surely talking about Gavi. Hexa duparum. Gavi for short. Now you know that he left to. He left behind the world of material riches for spiritual riches and went to India. But he might be back. He is just the kind of consultant that they would bring in to potentially reprise a role here.

[Laura Bailey]

Yeah, makes sense.

[Damian Blackwell]

And Barbara, you look a bit harried. Is there something that your branch manager could do to help alleviate your stress?

[Laura Bailey]

We might be getting sacked.

[Travis Willingham]

What?

[Damian Blackwell]

What?

[Laura Bailey]

They might be shutting down this whole branch. You might be out of luck. Out on the street, Damien goes against.

[Damian Blackwell]

The door and like looks outside. What did you mean? What are you talking about? What did you hear? Who knows this?

[Laura Bailey]

Lizzie was just talking about how she was taking a big old shit in the bathroom and people came in and she overheard him and they were talking about how a consultant was coming back in who used to be here 30 years ago. Does Guvi Dubrum ring any bells?

[Damian Blackwell]

Do I also am aware of Guvi's history.

[Matthew Mercer]

An old rival of yours from your supervillain days. A master of the arcane and mystical arts.

[Damian Blackwell]

What was Govy's superhero title?

[Matthew Mercer]

Actually, I have it here somewhere. Spectra.

[Damian Blackwell]

Spectra. It would be Spectra, wouldn't it? I need to sit down. I need to sit down.

[Laura Bailey]

Take a seat.

[Damian Blackwell]

He's having a panic attack and situation.

[Laura Bailey]

You know, he can see the future.

[Matthew Mercer]

He can see the past.

[Laura Bailey]

You know, this place is a dog shit pile. Of course you're gonna close us down. Yeah. Marty.

[Matthew Mercer]

Not now.

[Laura Bailey]

Marty.

[Travis Willingham]

What was that?

[Laura Bailey]

Marty, get out there by Fritzi's desk. You know she sheds everywhere.

[Travis Willingham]

Anyway, I already hit it once this morning. You want one more?

[Laura Bailey]

Hit it again.

[Travis Willingham]

You got it.

[Damian Blackwell]

Wait, wait.

[Travis Willingham]

Mommy.

[Matthew Mercer]

Mommy.

[Damian Blackwell]

I closed the door behind Marty. You've been a fine employee, Marty, haven't you? You've done such a grand job of doing as you're told. Of being a fine, upstanding member of our dispatch unit. Correct?

[Travis Willingham]

Yes, Mr. Blackwell.

[Damian Blackwell]

Trustworthy? Immensely. Good. We need to keep our allies close. We need to see who. Who we can trust and who we cannot within this office. If indeed Spectra is to come within the very bosom of our company's safe space.

[Laura Bailey]

You're right. You're right. We need to stick together. We need all of us. Get out there. Get Fritzi, get Lizzie. Who else's do we like here?

[Matthew Mercer]

Is there anybody you have an assistant.

[Damian Blackwell]

Melody, Right? Good. Melody as well.

[Travis Willingham]

Melody. Sorry. Gummer Powell was on a second ago and I can't. Can't shake it.

[Damian Blackwell]

As you walk out of the. He's so very odd.

[Matthew Mercer]

Weird.

[Laura Bailey]

So weird.

[Damian Blackwell]

There's something about him.

[Travis Willingham]

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[Matthew Mercer]

What are you.

[Travis Willingham]

Oh, this is what I do when I'm home alone.

[Laura Bailey]

Drink Dunkin' Original Blend or pretend you're an influencer?

[Travis Willingham]

Both. Want a cup? Hey, let's do a taste test for the audience.

[Matthew Mercer]

Okay, how's this?

[Laura Bailey]

The rich, smooth taste of Dunkin At Home is unmatched.

[Travis Willingham]

Nice. You're a natural.

[Damian Blackwell]

The home with Dunkin' is where you wanna be.

[Matthew Mercer]

Try angel stuff for your tushy.

[Fritzi]

It's made by angels.

[Matthew Mercer]

Soft and strong. Budget friendly.

[Damian Blackwell]

The truth choice is simple.

[Matthew Mercer]

Pick up a pack today.

[Fritzi]

Angel Soft.

[Matthew Mercer]

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[Laura Bailey]

I've been here for forever. What am I gonna do?

[Damian Blackwell]

Totally what the rest of us will do.

[Laura Bailey]

I Got bees, Damien. Bees.

[Damian Blackwell]

I know there's many mouths to feed. We'll figure something out, all right? I mean, we've been through. We haven't been through worse. We've been through a series of small scenarios that I think if you combine them, would be the equivalent of one such dangerous big thing like this before. I think we are also very accomplished. Some of us have done some things.

[Laura Bailey]

We gotta make sure that we look like we're successful when they come in.

[Fritzi]

Yes, I have your strawberry latte with two. Two pumps of vanilla. Mr. Blackwell, can I come in?

[Damian Blackwell]

You may enter, Frizzy.

[Fritzi]

It's Fritzy. But it's okay.

[Laura Bailey]

It's Frizzy to die.

[Fritzi]

It's true.

[Matthew Mercer]

Lizzie follows after her. And so does your own assistant, Melody. Fetched by Marty. You are in your sort of cramped office, Barbara. Yours is a little bit smaller than Mr. Blackwell's, but it is also a little bit more secure. There's fewer eyes that kind of fall on this part of your fluorescent piece of paradise. And as you pull down the blinds, you have a moment to confer amongst yourselves.

[Laura Bailey]

They're gonna shut us down. Well, they might be shutting us down. Sorry, Marty. I know you rely so much on this position.

[Travis Willingham]

Who's shutting us down?

[Fritzi]

It couldn't possibly. It's an institution.

[Laura Bailey]

Yeah, right.

[Travis Willingham]

Did you mention Spectra?

[Laura Bailey]

Spectra? You remember Spectra?

[Travis Willingham]

Supervillain? Former.

[Laura Bailey]

No, he's a hero.

[Travis Willingham]

Oh. I have to update my files.

[Laura Bailey]

Although some might say he's a villain. I never really liked the guy.

[Damian Blackwell]

Perspective scenario.

[Travis Willingham]

Really?

[Fritzi]

Well, if he's a hero, then he must be a good guy.

[Travis Willingham]

Does he look like this? And I'll go. And six arms come out and I'll return to my size.

[Laura Bailey]

Yeah, that's him. That's him.

[Matthew Mercer]

Melody comes and stands quietly next to you, kind of like almost shoulder to shoulder, back to back, and says, what do you think? You think they're really gonna shut us down, boss?

[Damian Blackwell]

Melody, I do believe they can try. However, we're a well oiled machine here at the Burbank office. And I think with a bit of faith, a bit of spit and griddle, I think not only can we keep ourself afloat, but perhaps we can embarrass Spectra once and for all. Yes.

[Laura Bailey]

Maybe cut it down on the twiddling of your thumbs.

[Damian Blackwell]

Old habit. When I get the caffeine in me. Sorry.

[Laura Bailey]

We do need to do that, though. We should fight some crime. We should take care of some shit. You know, we've been really bad about making sure that crime hasn't Been happening lately.

[Damian Blackwell]

Right. We are a bit behind on a number of calls. No, I am the branch manager. It is the responsibility of my employees to be better at their job.

[Matthew Mercer]

Well, you know, boss, from the way Lizzie tells it, they're either gonna shut us down or they're gonna lay people off. What if we push them more towards Park B And then we can get rid of all of the people here that we don't like.

[Damian Blackwell]

To cultivate and sculpt.

[Laura Bailey]

We can get rid of Owen first.

[Fritzi]

Yeah, I don't like Owen.

[Travis Willingham]

He's the NAS hat.

[Damian Blackwell]

Owen.

[Laura Bailey]

Mm.

[Matthew Mercer]

So what's our strategy going into this stand up meeting?

[Damian Blackwell]

Perhaps we.

[Matthew Mercer]

What if we blame it all on bees?

[Laura Bailey]

You're in my office. I can hear you.

[Matthew Mercer]

Well, I'm.

[Travis Willingham]

Wow.

[Matthew Mercer]

Just saying, some of it, the wasteful spending. It's half of our budget goes to paper.

[Laura Bailey]

I can't help.

[Matthew Mercer]

I can't help.

[Laura Bailey]

You're the one that likes to write so many post it notes. Listen, it is not my fault if we're spending money here, all right? She's shitting everywhere. I gotta get new vacuums every five days.

[Travis Willingham]

I just like the way they sound.

[Fritzi]

I can try braiding it.

[Laura Bailey]

Wait, you should try braiding it. You know, why haven't you ever done it?

[Fritzi]

It takes a long time.

[Damian Blackwell]

Melody, do we have collected the past six months of expense reports internally?

[Matthew Mercer]

No, but I'm sure I could put it together.

[Damian Blackwell]

See? All of a sudden his face goes paler. Collect and bring those post haste. To ensure that we can hardam correctum. To facilitate an extremely beneficial looking, an exuberant definition of our expertise and capability. And to remove a few line items that could be questionable.

[Laura Bailey]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Travis Willingham]

Maybe we can also show how we derive other lines of revenue in the company. I've been starting up my custodial ASMR channel. Well, it's got 13 followers, but I think with a little amplification, a little. A little organic.

[Laura Bailey]

Sorry, Marty.

[Travis Willingham]

People go to sleep too. The tingle, right?

[Damian Blackwell]

Appreciate that. You're such a loyal boy.

[Fritzi]

I worked in corporate accounts payable for a long time. Well, three days before they transferred me to a different apartment. But I can go get those records to see who our biggest corporate clients are.

[Damian Blackwell]

Do you have access to them?

[Matthew Mercer]

Oh, sure.

[Laura Bailey]

Yeah.

[Fritzi]

I've been in 14 different departments in the last nine months as an intern, and they never remember to revoke my access.

[Damian Blackwell]

You are.

[Laura Bailey]

Good job.

[Damian Blackwell]

Such a fine example of an up and coming talent. Here.

[Fritzi]

Thank you. Do you think I can get paid?

[Damian Blackwell]

That can be discussed.

[Matthew Mercer]

Okay.

[Laura Bailey]

Oh, yeah, yeah. I'll talk to hr.

[Fritzi]

Great.

[Damian Blackwell]

We've been compiling your reports, and let's just say that your capability in offering your knowledge, skills, connections, and access to such documentation would greatly reflect on your future here at the company.

[Matthew Mercer]

Oh, my gosh.

[Fritzi]

I'm putting that on my LinkedIn profile.

[Laura Bailey]

I'm going to start cleaning up my office a little bit. Just shoving the. Yeah, yeah.

[Travis Willingham]

Mad at a job.

[Damian Blackwell]

Not yet.

[Fritzi]

Not yet.

[Travis Willingham]

Thank you.

[Matthew Mercer]

Not yet, Marty. Just keep your chin up. You know, you're so good at the streak. Free windows wax up. Besides, you're like an icon. Like my little niece. She's got a little guy that looks like you, and she's like, oh, I love that guy.

[Travis Willingham]

My. My theta morph days. Oh, gee.

[Matthew Mercer]

Yeah, you're like, from like the Animated series. That's like, classic stuff. Honestly, this job's beneath you. Morty.

[Travis Willingham]

Thank you. That's very kind. They said I had a hard time establishing a character voice and holding it, but those days are kind of behind me now. And after all, I do like serving quite a bit. And it's really nice seeing what everyone on this planet does in their spare time.

[Damian Blackwell]

You do serve well, Marty. And this day, this very day, is an opportunity for you to rise above your station and prove your worth. Today is the day that you can prove that you're not going back to managing that American eagle. No matter what they do. They can put you back there. All right? That will never happen again.

[Laura Bailey]

Sad days.

[Travis Willingham]

Mr. Blackwell. I will help however I can. Thank you.

[Damian Blackwell]

Thank you.

[Matthew Mercer]

Thank you, Marty.

[Laura Bailey]

Those are their spoils.

[Damian Blackwell]

Do we know how soon we're supposed to have outsiders arrive?

[Matthew Mercer]

Well, I'm assuming they're gonna probably introduce him at the morning stand up, which.

[Laura Bailey]

Is in about 30 minutes.

[Matthew Mercer]

More like 13.

[Fritzi]

I'll go to the floor with accounts payable.

[Travis Willingham]

Maybe I can get out on the floor and just see what I can. Oh, any speak stealthy. I should go.

[Laura Bailey]

I'll pull up all of our successful missions and make sure that the paperwork is out for that. So that's the first thing they see.

[Damian Blackwell]

Perhaps we might be able to call back if it's not currently in. Use one of our finer BB teams and see if we can do a meet and greet as well.

[Travis Willingham]

Good idea.

[Damian Blackwell]

Good idea.

[Laura Bailey]

Good idea.

[Damian Blackwell]

I'll freshen up. And he's going to use his minor illusion to make his mustache a little thicker, his hair a little fuller, and his skin a little less sweaty.

[Matthew Mercer]

So you would all like to zhuzh for the morning standup as much as you can. Let's go ahead and do a group work roll. Who wants to take the lead on this?

[Travis Willingham]

I mean, you.

[Laura Bailey]

All right. Sure.

[Matthew Mercer]

All right. So you'll be our main roller. You'll get a plus one bonus for each roll that is successful from your party. And now you'll just narrate how you all help, which you kind of already did. So I think you said you were going to.

[Laura Bailey]

Clean up my office and call some people that like our biggest names in the superhero network and try to get them into the office.

[Matthew Mercer]

Oh. On your team.

[Laura Bailey]

So that, you know, so that it looks like we're important. We keep important people around us.

[Travis Willingham]

High caliber SDN yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Matthew Mercer]

So this will be. We'll kick it off with a presence role from you along with any experiences you think would play into this.

[Laura Bailey]

Am I. Am I basing this on everybody else's role or is this.

[Matthew Mercer]

Yeah, you'll get a bonus for everyone who is able to successfully help you here. All right, so how would you like to help Marty?

[Travis Willingham]

Can I use one of my experiences? You'll be a janitor and I go around and just try. Just try and tidy everything up. But also I'm just constantly going around and listening for anything we can steal and claim as our own.

[Matthew Mercer]

Yeah. Go ahead and give me an instinct roll. And you can definitely add your experience.

[Travis Willingham]

Double ones, baby.

[Matthew Mercer]

A crit. Fantastic.

[Damian Blackwell]

Doesn't help you as a reaction roll.

[Laura Bailey]

Too bad.

[Matthew Mercer]

So that's a plus one.

[Laura Bailey]

Okay.

[Matthew Mercer]

How would you like to help?

[Damian Blackwell]

Interesting. I'd say using my Shadow Weaver subclass feature, I'll walk about the grounds of the space where the meetings would take place. And I'll spend a Hope to add a 2 to this roll to make some of the exterior halogen lights to darken to give it almost a more intense brutalist feel that I feel exudes an atmosphere of professionalism. Yeah.

[Laura Bailey]

Yeah.

[Matthew Mercer]

Some mood lighting.

[Damian Blackwell]

Exactly. That's what a sorcerer does. That's terrible. That's gonna be a 10.

[Matthew Mercer]

A 10? Yeah. Not quite enough.

[Laura Bailey]

Oh, it's a reaction.

[Matthew Mercer]

Fuck yeah. As you adjust the lighting for the mood, you notice people kind of relax at work and get a little bit more sticky, sleepy and lackadaisical.

[Damian Blackwell]

No, no, no more now.

[Matthew Mercer]

That's not supposed to be the start.

[Damian Blackwell]

Yawning.

[Matthew Mercer]

Being like, I really like this mood lighting. I don't know why we had those bright halogens on.

[Damian Blackwell]

How I dress my bedroom.

[Matthew Mercer]

Fritzy.

[Fritzi]

Yeah, I'm sneaking down super sneaky to corporate accounts payable. And I want to pull Owen's sales Records and change the name of the salesperson to all three of them. Mr. Green's done some good work on the sales front. They're all moonlighting as salespeople, it turns out.

[Matthew Mercer]

Yeah, I mean, this could be finesse to see if you can get away with it. Okay, you got this.

[Fritzi]

It's 18 with Hope.

[Matthew Mercer]

Oh, yes. Very good. So, yeah, you're able to get down there. You're able to acquire the file. I think that modifying it and putting it back will have to be, like a second action, but I think you can glean some important information here if you take some time to, like, look over Owen's numbers.

[Fritzi]

Wow. We have the Empire shopping the area as a client.

[Matthew Mercer]

That's huge.

[Fritzi]

Well, that's a really big. That's lots of big box stores. I think. I think if we can get our names on that one, that's pretty juicy. A Walmart and a Lowe's.

[Travis Willingham]

Demographics keep our heads in the clouds.

[Matthew Mercer]

These. All right, so I think this gives you a plus one, because I think the plus one gets canceled out by the minus one.

[Laura Bailey]

Got it. Okay. So plus one, and I'm going to use my experience of seeing it all.

[Matthew Mercer]

Oh, yeah.

[Laura Bailey]

To call up all my. My buddies that owe me favors. Okay. And what. Oh, what am I. Is this a present?

[Fritzi]

Yeah.

[Travis Willingham]

Yeah.

[Matthew Mercer]

You're trying to convince them to kind of come in and look important today.

[Laura Bailey]

Okay. Yeah. That's 22, 24, 27, 28.

[Matthew Mercer]

Smokes. Yeah, I'll call that a success. With fear, they're gonna show up, but you're gonna owe them one.

[Laura Bailey]

All right. Usual.

[Matthew Mercer]

You're able to bring in the A team off the street, lightly misted with rain, fresh from a hard day of work. They look good. Normally, they would hit the showers, but they don't because you told them not to. So they look like they've been working hard. Shiny latex, rippling muscles, a little bit of smoke and grime right where you need it.

[Travis Willingham]

Wow.

[Matthew Mercer]

The A team comes in, lines up, and pretends to be. Pretends to be sort of like staging for a call. When you come in, they're sort of on ice right now. So they're just, like, pretending that, like, they're getting their kit together so that when the consultants come in, they're just posted up in a perfect picture, like a Michael Baywatch right at the entrance. It's like a Baywatch episode.

[Damian Blackwell]

Melody, make sure the team has access to all the powdered donuts in the kitchen.

[Matthew Mercer]

You're delightfully mischievous, boss. Hey. Hate to do this could we reschedule our morning hike?

[Laura Bailey]

I was just about to ask the same next week. Yes, it's Dunkin original blend time. Staying at home with Duncan. Don't mind if I do.

[Travis Willingham]

The home with Dunkin is where you want to be.

[Matthew Mercer]

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[Damian Blackwell]

Fritzi, how'd it go?

[Fritzi]

It went really well. I found out we have some very big, lucrative clients that make us a decent amount of money. They don't call very often, but you know, maybe if we can attribute that success to us, we'll have a little bit more, you know, staying power here.

[Damian Blackwell]

Wonderous, hold onto that information and when you're called upon, be prepared to prove your quality.

[Matthew Mercer]

The door slams open. As it does, you see the drywall crack and you see the regional manager of sdn, Valerie Halliday, walk in.

[Travis Willingham]

Halliday. Valerie Halliday.

[Matthew Mercer]

She is all thighs and all traps. Formerly known as SHIELD Members. She is an immortal warrior queen. And she wants nothing more than to be the chief Growth officer. A position that has just opened up. As she comes in, the lights feel like they get a little bit darker. She's glowering, she's angry. And like, worse than all of that.

[Laura Bailey]

Jeez.

[Matthew Mercer]

She smells really good. Like Chanel number five and espresso Double whammy. So I suppose you've heard the news, maggots.

[Damian Blackwell]

Yes, Ms. Halliday, we were aware of you stopping by.

[Matthew Mercer]

No, this branch can't shut down. I've put in too much work for it to shut down. So you have two days to turn the operation around. Cause if my branch gets shut down, getting fired will be the least of Your problems.

[Laura Bailey]

Well, what do you want us to do?

[Matthew Mercer]

These goddamn consultants are gonna be here in eight fricking minutes. So we gotta cut the fat. I'm not letting that six armed freak come in and take the job I've been working for for two years.

[Damian Blackwell]

Thank you.

[Matthew Mercer]

And if I go down, you go down. Cause I'm your reference.

[Laura Bailey]

I know, Valerie. We just gotta find the people around here that we can cut the fat with.

[Matthew Mercer]

It's not gonna be easy.

[Laura Bailey]

Get rid of Owen.

[Matthew Mercer]

Owen's our top seller.

[Laura Bailey]

No, he's a shithead. He probably ruins the sales for everybody else. I think he does it on purpose.

[Matthew Mercer]

Well, the numbers don't really lie.

[Laura Bailey]

I don't know. We got numbers right here that say it's all us.

[Fritzi]

Yeah, these numbers say that Mrs. Honeycutt got this big client.

[Laura Bailey]

That's right.

[Fritzi]

Did you want to see the proof or just take my word for it?

[Matthew Mercer]

Give me a presents roll.

[Damian Blackwell]

I'm going to spend a hilp to help her by going and as you know, the upper northwest of the San Fernando Valley has been a necessary acquisition for some time. We're pushing into possibly Panorama City.

[Fritzi]

Oh, it's a cesspool over there of crime. Oh no.

[Matthew Mercer]

Oh no.

[Laura Bailey]

Wait, wait, wait.

[Travis Willingham]

Hold on. Wait, wait.

[Matthew Mercer]

We got the health action, right?

[Damian Blackwell]

I added a five to whatever it was.

[Matthew Mercer]

Okay, so add a five.

[Laura Bailey]

Okay.

[Travis Willingham]

Once for rest.

[Laura Bailey]

Wait, are you impressing or persuading?

[Matthew Mercer]

I think deceiving.

[Laura Bailey]

Oh shit. I can't even do that. Anyway, that's gonna be seven.

[Fritzi]

So it's. Well, okay, so it's three, but minus.

[Travis Willingham]

Three I'm gonna use from my domain cards. You got this, buddy. Once per rest. After an ally attempts an action roll, but before the consequences, take a place you can offer assistance, rewards of support. When you do, your ally can re roll their dice.

[Laura Bailey]

There you go. Okay, wait, before you do that, I'm gonna. I'm gonna mind meld with everyone here and I'm gonna give everybody a focused die. So you can add a D6 to your roll.

[Damian Blackwell]

Wow.

[Fritzi]

You can do this, Frizzy.

[Laura Bailey]

Fritzi.

[Fritzi]

Oh my God. She got my name right.

[Travis Willingham]

Fritzi is actually quite the asset around here. She's really the glue that keeps things together. And I think an under recognized talent, it might lead to some additional revenue for the company in the future.

[Laura Bailey]

You can take a D6 and you can take a D6 as well.

[Damian Blackwell]

So we all get a D6. Focus die to spend on something.

[Fritzi]

So I roll all of them?

[Laura Bailey]

You can use that now or you can use it after you roll those dice and see if you need it. Oh, you know what I mean.

[Fritzi]

Oh, my God. Better. Okay. Okay, so it's 20, but minus one. So it's 19. With hope plus five. Plus five, it's 24.

[Matthew Mercer]

24. Nice.

[Laura Bailey]

That's great.

[Travis Willingham]

That's really nice.

[Matthew Mercer]

Much better.

[Travis Willingham]

Great.

[Damian Blackwell]

You're doing great.

[Fritzi]

Thank you so much.

[Matthew Mercer]

Valerie's figure towers over your own. Her shadow falls over your face with the newly dimmed lights. And she says, I'll take a look at those later, but I can take your word for it for now.

[Fritzi]

Thank you so much.

[Matthew Mercer]

We've been doing some good work around here. Wondering if maybe we should consider bumping you up to see assistant. Do I get paid well?

[Laura Bailey]

Yeah.

[Matthew Mercer]

That's what having a job here would be instead of an internship.

[Fritzi]

This went from the worst day of.

[Matthew Mercer]

My life to the best day. Well, we have to see if we stay open, so that's gonna be kind of part of the deal. Maybe some special incentive. Yeah.

[Fritzi]

Okay.

[Matthew Mercer]

Okay.

[Fritzi]

Thank you so much. I have a poster of her in my cubic.

[Matthew Mercer]

Her dark hair kind of falls in a heartbreaking shadow over her face as she looks like the vision of despair framed against the dark windows, looking out on the black asphalt. A Marriott light kind of far off in the distance. I fought a lot of villains in my day. Sometimes it's easier to fight with your hands with weapons than with little post it notes and spitefully written emails about how you hope this finds them well, when really you wish it would find them dead. Thank you for bringing powdered donuts today, Mr. Blackwell.

[Damian Blackwell]

This is quite literally the least I could have done. Mark my words, Ms. Halliday. We will show and prove our ability. Today is the day where we gather our resources and gather our might. Our brains, our minds, our cleverness. Together, this office will rise above the expectations of this entire corporate structure. And we will destroy Spectra once and for all. We will prove our office as worth maintaining.

[Matthew Mercer]

I hope so. Cause they're comparing us to DTLA's numbers.

[Damian Blackwell]

What?

[Matthew Mercer]

And we're coming up real short. They got so. Come on.

[Laura Bailey]

I mean, it's Burbank.

[Travis Willingham]

Down downtown. That's too high a bar. Too high a bar.

[Laura Bailey]

Listen, what if we commit some crimes and then fight it so it looks like our numbers are better?

[Damian Blackwell]

We're going to do our absolute best to provide incredible numbers in the presence of the assigned individuals.

[Matthew Mercer]

All right, they're coming. Let's take our seats. Why is the janitor in this board meeting?

[Travis Willingham]

Just Windex for ammonia.

[Matthew Mercer]

Ah. You know, I'M just busting your balls, Marty. You're an fixture around this place. You're an institution unto yourself.

[Travis Willingham]

Thank you very much.

[Damian Blackwell]

As the nerves take over, Damian in his chair, he focuses and gnaws on the side of the cape a little bit and goes like. Senator, are you with me?

[Matthew Mercer]

You hear. You hear a little voice come up?

[Fritzi]

Yeah.

[Damian Blackwell]

Can I told it?

[Matthew Mercer]

What's up?

[Damian Blackwell]

Do I have your assistance this day? I don't know. I can do this alone.

[Matthew Mercer]

Plarp.

[Fritzi]

Did you florp?

[Damian Blackwell]

I'll take that as a yes. Thank you. Mighty Xanatol Yora. Your contributions and your arcane gifts have seen me through so much. Let this day be yet another step of our fine partnership.

[Matthew Mercer]

I got you, bro.

[Damian Blackwell]

You too, bro. I think we'll be all right. I think we'll be all right.

[Fritzi]

I believe so too.

[Travis Willingham]

Sorry.

[Matthew Mercer]

You take your seats at the board table and soon you are joined by your other employees. And then eventually, the slightly floating figure of a gentleman comes in. His feet kind of drag along the floor a little bit like an ice skater as he moves in. He has the perfect silver hair that comes back in a perfect wave and quaff from bright bronzed skin. Eyeliner that is gold and kind of comes up to his temples. And every once in a while, almost like a trick of the light, you think you see a beautiful array arranged like a lotus flower of hands around him. But then, just as you look away and look back, it's like they're not there anymore. He comes in and sits at the opposite side of the table from Valerie and introduces himself as Kavi Hexadpuram. And as he does sit down, you notice that he has a briefcase. A very large briefcase that levitates and comes in behind him and just hovers above the ground next to him.

[Fritzi]

What do you think is in the briefcase, Ezekiel? It's pretty small.

[Laura Bailey]

What do you think he can do with all those hands?

[Damian Blackwell]

It's not that special, really. It's just about the technique.

[Matthew Mercer]

He flashes you all a fangy smile, his immaculate gray and purple pinstripe suit pressed. Just so sorry I'm a bit late. Flying in these weather conditions can be a little bit dangerous. Did you drive in?

[Damian Blackwell]

I rode in. I have a driver, you know, like successful people have.

[Matthew Mercer]

Is that what we're calling it these days?

[Damian Blackwell]

It's good to see you as well, Mr. Bottom.

[Matthew Mercer]

Yes, it has been sometimes indeed. Remember the fond days when your old mentor wasn't a villainous piece of shit?

[Damian Blackwell]

Well, matter of perspective. But it has been some Time.

[Matthew Mercer]

Perhaps this job is a sort of repentance for you, a way to make up for all of the horrible things you've done with into your life. I'm glad that we could play some small part in that.

[Damian Blackwell]

Not a small part, a rather large role in seeing that we have ascended as a troop of meaning given individuals. As your presence here, I think astutely, allows us to observe, you are amongst equal greatness.

[Matthew Mercer]

You're not incorrect. It is in my vested interest to keep this branch open, even if it means stepping in and taking things over for myself. You say I'm very good friends with the founders, and therefore it's important to me that their investment be protected. Because it's also my investment. Spiritually, of course. As he says this, you see Valerie snap her pen in half, sending a gout of ink up into the air. Only if required, of course, he says, almost as in response, I don't think.

[Damian Blackwell]

It'Ll be as necessary as you worry about. We are quite an accomplished troop.

[Matthew Mercer]

And.

[Damian Blackwell]

Of course, with our finest heroics at our disposal. Nizzy points to the A team who hopefully finished their donuts.

[Matthew Mercer]

The A team does look good. You were very successful in staging them. Just so. Yes. Crack team. Personally, I feel that perhaps the team isn't the problem, but the way they're being managed.

[Laura Bailey]

Breathe.

[Matthew Mercer]

It's very clear to me you have a lot of talent on your roster. I think the problem isn't necessarily the ingredients, but perhaps the chef. But I think with my influence, I could move most of you around to other operations if this one is found lacking.

[Laura Bailey]

But I live so close. Gavi. Hey. You remember.

[Matthew Mercer]

Hello, Barbara. Yes, of course.

[Laura Bailey]

Good to say I'm not smoking in this meeting. Maybe. You know, when was the last time you. Oh, I gotta have it in my hand at least. When was the last time you looked at our paperwork? You know, we've been. We've been handling stuff a lot better in the past few weeks. And if you haven't checked out that new stuff, maybe you should. Because, you know, our spending is down and our profits, or at least 3%.

[Matthew Mercer]

Well, why don't you send it over to me, Barbara? Or we can set a date and you can run me through your numbers.

[Laura Bailey]

I'll set a date with you. I look over at hr. Whenever you want to talk, you just come to my office. All right?

[Matthew Mercer]

You know, Barbara, I have to warn you were thinking of using the Hamrick, and if it comes down to that, well, we might be able to save the operation. But to put it simply, some of you will be interviewing for your own jobs.

[Travis Willingham]

Now.

[Laura Bailey]

When would that be?

[Matthew Mercer]

Because I like you. Wednesday afternoon.

[Laura Bailey]

Wednesday afternoon?

[Travis Willingham]

It's Monday.

[Laura Bailey]

We got two days.

[Matthew Mercer]

We find that the chance of an altercation goes down if you do a firing mid week.

[Damian Blackwell]

That is actually legitimate good practice. We have on good authority as well that there is a mounting crime spree in the area that could very well threaten quite a few individuals and civilians. So we are prepared to show with blazing flying colors how accomplished our organizational skills internally are.

[Laura Bailey]

That's right. Plus we got powdered donuts if you want some.

[Fritzi]

Gr.

[Damian Blackwell]

They did.

[Matthew Mercer]

Oh well, I mean I would like one if they. After my long flight. It'd be lovely.

[Damian Blackwell]

Lizzy, more powder donuts, please.

[Fritzi]

Did you mean Fritzy?

[Damian Blackwell]

No, Lizzy.

[Matthew Mercer]

This Lizzy rolls her eyes and goes. Lizzy rolls her eyes and she says I'm not your personal assistant. I'm her personal assistant.

[Laura Bailey]

So Lizzie, go get some power donuts.

[Matthew Mercer]

I just went there. The line was so long.

[Fritzi]

Lizzie, might I. Might I suggest the Krispy Kreme in the Empire shopping center which we.

[Matthew Mercer]

Why do you keep talking about that place? Is it cuz Owen's got the contact? Is it cuz Owen has got that account? Is it the one by the airport? Personally, I like flying out of there more than I like flying out of lax.

[Laura Bailey]

Go get some donuts.

[Matthew Mercer]

All right. Don't get your knickers in a twist. I'll go get your donuts.

[Damian Blackwell]

Add.

[Laura Bailey]

Add her to the list.

[Damian Blackwell]

Take Marty. I'm going to. I put a question.

[Matthew Mercer]

What's your name? Guvy. Heals the stress.

[Damian Blackwell]

Yeah.

[Matthew Mercer]

Lovely assistant you have there. Crack team.

[Laura Bailey]

Look, if we're looking to cut fat, you know, I could give you some.

[Damian Blackwell]

Recommendations should it be necessary.

[Laura Bailey]

Should it be necessary?

[Matthew Mercer]

Very well. There's no. There's eyes and ears everywhere. And they'll be watching you work. And come Wednesday, that hammer is going to be unleashed. Just make sure you watch out for yourself.

[Damian Blackwell]

Of course we shall dodge your hammer. Expedient back.

[Matthew Mercer]

All right then. And he floats up from his chair and gently wafts out of the room like a breeze.

[Laura Bailey]

You smelled so good.

[Matthew Mercer]

Valerie breaks another pen in half, sending now a red gout of ink into the air. No, not red. As she cracks the conference table and goes. God damn it.

[Laura Bailey]

Is he really friends with the owners?

[Matthew Mercer]

I have no reason to believe that he isn't. They flew him all the way down from India.

[Laura Bailey]

Could have flown himself.

[Matthew Mercer]

Well, what the hell is the hammer? Okay, listen, everybody round up.

[Damian Blackwell]

The hammer is. No, never mind. We have two days, which is ample time to prove our capabilities. We are the world. We are the children.

[Fritzi]

That's right.

[Damian Blackwell]

Right. The children of success, of corporate prestige. We are organizers, born leaders.

[Matthew Mercer]

Hey. Hey. Breathe. I need you to give me your eyes. Give me your eyes. Blackwell, look at me. You're my manager. This is like a. You probably don't know anything about sports. Okay, let me try another way. We're like an army.

[Damian Blackwell]

Yes.

[Matthew Mercer]

Yes.

[Damian Blackwell]

Yes.

[Matthew Mercer]

Okay. And I'm at the top. And you're my corporal. You probably don't know anything about that either. Okay? You're my right hand. Barb here is my left hand, which I need the right hand and the left hand to work together. And I need. I need you to find out what this hammer is he's talking about. Okay?

[Damian Blackwell]

Together.

[Matthew Mercer]

Because I don't know about y'.

[Laura Bailey]

All.

[Matthew Mercer]

I'm not trying to lose anybody. If I can keep my job and keep everybody in theirs, it's gonna help me sleep just a little bit better at night. I like all of you. Despite your many, many, many flaws, You've done right by me for the most part. Sometimes you come in five minutes late, and I find dead bees in the clocks, but I don't question it. Cause I like to think of myself as kind of a cool boss.

[Damian Blackwell]

Very cool boss.

[Matthew Mercer]

You know, I was hoping that I would move up to chief growth officer and one of you could be the regional manager. Did you ever think it? Not you. Oh, God, no. Oh, God, no gesture towards you. Like, not even. Like, not even close. I was just trying to include you. But, no, never. You.

[Fritzi]

First paycheck, then.

[Matthew Mercer]

Shh.

[Fritzi]

Then your job.

[Matthew Mercer]

Well, don't you all usually get drinks at the. What is that freaking strip mall over there? The Cape and Cowl? Maybe go there, work there. The other departments, the other branches. See if they've heard anything about the specialists or the hammer.

[Damian Blackwell]

We shall. And have no fear, Ms. Halliday, both of your hands will service you well.

[Laura Bailey]

First one, then the other, then maybe two at the same time.

[Matthew Mercer]

Stop staring at me so seriously. It's just gonna make me laugh harder.

[Damian Blackwell]

Drinks.

[Matthew Mercer]

You leave work and you go to the Cape and Cowl. It is now nighttime. The sky is turning the beautiful color of a bruise from light pink to dark purple, and it reminds you of your own bruised egos as you walk with weary feet to this nondescript bar in a part of town that people that don't work here don't go to.

[Damian Blackwell]

I keep my cape bundled up so it doesn't drag and get dirty.

[Laura Bailey]

Why do you still wear that thing?

[Damian Blackwell]

Because it's the source of all my power. The demon encased within here has granted me eyesight beyond the arcane veil. It gives me all sorts of abilities to twist reality to my whim. I don't want to get dirty. Soon, pipette.

[Travis Willingham]

Soon.

[Matthew Mercer]

The cape and cowl has a vague tiki theme. From the outside, it looks like it could even be a convenience store, because the lettering is very kind of, just like that plain neon lettering you see anywhere. It maybe just says bar underneath it on the window when you come in. There's some of that, like, dried grass trim on the windows. It smells vaguely of cigarettes and old Guinness. Its most distinguished feature is a full size shuffleboard table that usually people try to get dibs on pretty early. And it is full of costumed villains and superheroes off duty, all tired from a day's work, all eager for a pint and a little bit of companionship. A lot of the time, it's your home away from home. A good place to. To pick up on rumors, intel, and maybe even catch up with old friends.

[Laura Bailey]

Well, should we. Reconnaissance?

[Travis Willingham]

Yes, of course. I'll hit the bar. First round is on me. Beer, wine, spirit.

[Fritzi]

Shirley Temple, please.

[Laura Bailey]

Whiskey on the rocks.

[Damian Blackwell]

Sprite and milord, please.

[Matthew Mercer]

Sprite and that's a diabolical dream.

[Travis Willingham]

I love it.

[Damian Blackwell]

I'll be back. It takes an arcane mind to appreciate the delicacies.

[Travis Willingham]

You hear him, Shirley Temple?

[Laura Bailey]

Oh, gosh.

[Travis Willingham]

Please.

[Damian Blackwell]

All right, so what do we do? What's the plan here?

[Laura Bailey]

We. You still got your contacts in the villain world?

[Damian Blackwell]

I do. We cross paths every now and then. We have a bi monthly karaoke night. But I haven't really delved in any villainy since signing my initial paperwork. But I'm sure. What do we do? Do we spread rumors? Do we try and insinuate or cultivate a villainous network? Are we building a sub company to go against the other company? Are we going for villain?

[Fritzi]

Oh, I don't think so.

[Travis Willingham]

Okay, got. Let's see. Whiskey, rocks, Sprite, and Malort. Thank you, Shirley Temple.

[Fritzi]

Thank you.

[Travis Willingham]

And a double shot of Everclear. Cheers. Just throw it on my.

[Fritzi]

I watch a lot of deep dive YouTube videos on villains, and maybe I recognize some people here and can try and talk to them because I know so much about them.

[Matthew Mercer]

Yeah. Give me a province roll.

[Damian Blackwell]

Okay.

[Fritzi]

Oh, boy.

[Matthew Mercer]

Mm.

[Damian Blackwell]

Uh.

[Fritzi]

Oh, okay, so it's.

[Matthew Mercer]

You just need to be the 10.

[Fritzi]

Okay, 13 with fear.

[Matthew Mercer]

Okay, 13 with fear. Interesting.

[Damian Blackwell]

The return of the paperclip.

[Matthew Mercer]

The paperclips they're such beautiful colors. A green one? Um, yeah, yeah. You. You recognize a couple people. You recognize one of your own fellow interns who, who was kicked out of the program and is kind of looking a little bit disgruntled in the corner. And he seems to be talking to a very low level villain that you've heard of. Actually, he's less of a villain and more of an antihero. His name is Johnny Laithe.

[Fritzi]

Lathe.

[Matthew Mercer]

Laithe, yeah. Now you probably know him as you're maybe a bit of a fan of this group. Back in the day, there was a little tiny group of superheroes called the Pariahs. And they needed your classic Edgelord in the mix. So they had this real piece of shit named Johnny Lave. He was kind of their just like token knife boy. His specialties are like close up magic and knife tricks. But then when they later decided to sleep, soften their image, they kind of cut Johnny Lades to the curb. So he's currently unemployed.

[Travis Willingham]

Does he have a butterfly knife?

[Matthew Mercer]

He does. And he's doing tricks with it in the corner and doing that thing where you like, you know. I don't know the name of that game. Yeah, yeah. His. His pastimes other than close up magic include making women generally uncomfortable and wearing more camouflage than is appropriate at a. At a bar.

[Damian Blackwell]

Urban environment, definitely the high school with this guy.

[Matthew Mercer]

He probably has a camo hat on right now and he's like doing little lighter tricks and he thinks he is the center of the party, but he is in the corner and the women he is talking to do not want to be talking to him, but I do. Is this a past flame of yours?

[Fritzi]

No, I just. I want to see what Johnny's deal is.

[Matthew Mercer]

Yeah.

[Fritzi]

So I'm going to walk up and I'm gonna offer my hand for him to do that thing with it. But I'm gonna. I'm actually gonna hide my fingers, but it looks. Because I'm so hairy. It looks. So he's just doing this and he would be hitting every finger.

[Matthew Mercer]

Yeah.

[Fritzi]

And I. Johnny, wow. What a life you've lived. I've heard so many stories about just not me. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Matthew Mercer]

Johnny Lay.

[Fritzi]

Johnny Lay.

[Matthew Mercer]

That's what people say.

[Fritzi]

Yeah.

[Matthew Mercer]

It was good for a while.

[Fritzi]

Yeah. What are you up to now?

[Matthew Mercer]

It hasn't been great, man. You know, been trying to get my head shots updated. So if you got any money to help out with that.

[Fritzi]

Oh, I'm an unpaid intern.

[Matthew Mercer]

Oh, art wheel.

[Fritzi]

Yeah.

[Matthew Mercer]

Well, if you want to take some cards and spread my GoFundMe. That would be like.

[Fritzi]

Yeah. Oh, yeah, I'll do that.

[Matthew Mercer]

I'll do that. I've got a Patreon, too.

[Fritzi]

Yeah.

[Matthew Mercer]

It's called Johnny Lays Johnny Laz.

[Damian Blackwell]

Wow.

[Fritzi]

You know, I also.

[Matthew Mercer]

I'm on YouTube. Are you on YouTube?

[Fritzi]

No, I watch it. I consume content.

[Matthew Mercer]

Okay.

[Laura Bailey]

Yeah.

[Fritzi]

I'm a consumer. I was curious if you've consumed any knowledge about something called, like, the Hammer. Ever heard of it?

[Matthew Mercer]

Are you trying to be subtle about this at all?

[Fritzi]

Can't you tell?

[Travis Willingham]

Is it obvious?

[Matthew Mercer]

Do you have any experiences that could help you?

[Fritzi]

This is not the ex intern.

[Matthew Mercer]

Right?

[Laura Bailey]

This is who the ex intern was talking to.

[Matthew Mercer]

Yes.

[Laura Bailey]

Okay.

[Matthew Mercer]

You could just give me a straight presents roll. You'll just want to beat, like, a 15.

[Laura Bailey]

Okay?

[Matthew Mercer]

Anybody can help if they sew, if they can figure out a way to.

[Travis Willingham]

Why would you help?

[Laura Bailey]

No hope left. Why would we help the rest before the drinks?

[Fritzi]

Oh, yeah. Oh, wait.

[Laura Bailey]

But you have a focus.

[Matthew Mercer]

You still have a focus.

[Laura Bailey]

Die.

[Fritzi]

Okay, wait, I need a 15. So if I rolled a 15 meets, it beats it.

[Matthew Mercer]

Okay.

[Fritzi]

Yeah. Yeah. Cause I rolled a 16 with fear, but I got a negative one on presents.

[Damian Blackwell]

Okay, Just got it.

[Matthew Mercer]

You just got it. You rolled it with fear. I think the complication here is that he thinks you're a little bit into him, but he's willing to talk to you. He's like, oh, yeah, like, yeah, I know everybody. Yeah, like, everybody. I was part of this group. They were big for a little while. Street cred with the indie crowd.

[Laura Bailey]

Yeah.

[Fritzi]

Oh, that's the name of the group?

[Matthew Mercer]

No, it's called the. It's called the Pariahs. And I was like, kind of like the face a little bit. Like, kind of the brand a little bit.

[Fritzi]

Wow.

[Matthew Mercer]

I know lots of stuff that's so interesting.

[Fritzi]

I do, like a little hair flip. The whole body, the whole.

[Matthew Mercer]

I know lots of stuff, you know? I like your hair, by the way.

[Fritzi]

Thanks.

[Matthew Mercer]

Yeah, I like when girls keep it long instead of cutting it all short.

[Fritzi]

Oh, yeah, I keep it real long. It's long everywhere. So about that hammer. What about that hammer time.

[Matthew Mercer]

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I'm worried about the hammer.

[Fritzi]

Oh, yeah. Like what, though, specifically?

[Matthew Mercer]

We should do shots.

[Fritzi]

Okay, let's do shots.

[Matthew Mercer]

Shots, shots, shots, shots. Let's do shots. Come on. I'll tell you. Come on. Follow me, follow me, follow me.

[Laura Bailey]

Okay.

[Matthew Mercer]

He takes you up to the bar and says, two shots.

[Fritzi]

Yeah.

[Matthew Mercer]

Gives one to you.

[Fritzi]

It's tequila. Oh, tequila. Oh, boy. My Kryptonite um, never had a drink. I say to myself, oh, can we.

[Laura Bailey]

See what's going on?

[Matthew Mercer]

Oh, yeah, yeah. He's doing. He's making a bit of a spectacle of himself.

[Laura Bailey]

Can I make contact?

[Travis Willingham]

Mm.

[Laura Bailey]

Do you want help? All right, I'll saunter on over and say, oh, Fritzi, thank you for getting me my shot. I've been just dying to drink some more. Yeah, Tequila.

[Fritzi]

She loves tequila.

[Laura Bailey]

I love tequila. As I'm holding my whiskey in the other hand. Who's this young gent you're talking to, Johnny?

[Fritzi]

Lady? Yeah, he was just telling me about the hammer.

[Laura Bailey]

Oh, you know about the hammer?

[Matthew Mercer]

Yeah.

[Fritzi]

Clink, clink, clink, clink.

[Matthew Mercer]

Give me. This is just to determine whether or not you make a face. I think presence. Stone cold. I was gonna say strength, because it's tequila, but I'll say presence.

[Laura Bailey]

Well, 11 with fear.

[Matthew Mercer]

I'm gonna take the fear, but that is enough to succeed. You don't make a face.

[Laura Bailey]

Oh, he has a lot of fear.

[Matthew Mercer]

You don't make a face. And this raises his opinion of you in his approximation. He thinks you're very cool now. And he's like. As he downs his own with, like, nothing. Doesn't he even use the lime or the salt? Leaves it on the bar. Oh, yeah, yeah, It's. It's this guy. They call him the Hammer for short. His name's Hamrick. And if he comes to your office, just know things are bad.

[Laura Bailey]

What does he look like?

[Matthew Mercer]

Well, it's like. It's kind of like two guys, like, mashed into one, and it's like a smart dude and, like a strong dude. So, like, if they have to, like, restrain you and throw your computer out and throw you out of the pariah building.

[Fritzi]

Oh, this. This is a sore subject.

[Laura Bailey]

Yeah.

[Fritzi]

I'm so sorry, Johnny Lane.

[Matthew Mercer]

No, it's fine.

[Laura Bailey]

You ever seen the Hammer around here?

[Damian Blackwell]

No.

[Matthew Mercer]

Around. Around the cape and cowl? No type of scene. He's really, like, professional and stuff, you.

[Laura Bailey]

Know.

[Matthew Mercer]

Because it's like a big dude with, like, a little dude growing out of his torso. It, like, scares the chicks off and stuff, so.

[Laura Bailey]

Yeah, nothing like you, Johnny.

[Matthew Mercer]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You guys. Do you guys like darts? You want to play darts?

[Fritzi]

Maybe.

[Laura Bailey]

You know, I'm all right.

[Fritzi]

Another time.

[Laura Bailey]

Yeah. Thanks. Johnny.

[Matthew Mercer]

I have a tattoo.

[Fritzi]

Okay, I believe you.

[Laura Bailey]

I don't see it.

[Fritzi]

Don't need to see it.

[Matthew Mercer]

He lifts up his shirt and then pulls down his pants a little bit to show the top of his hip bone.

[Laura Bailey]

Uh huh.

[Matthew Mercer]

It's a knife. It's like a little.

[Laura Bailey]

Like, it tucked into his waist pants.

[Travis Willingham]

Yeah, yeah. Is it pointing in?

[Matthew Mercer]

Yes, yes. It has wordings above the blade. That's like, follow the blade and get laid.

[Travis Willingham]

Oh, boy.

[Fritzi]

That was a choice, Johnny.

[Laura Bailey]

Wow. Is a hammer local?

[Matthew Mercer]

Oh, no, no, no, no. It's like an entity. They gotta, like, wake up or whatever.

[Laura Bailey]

Wow.

[Matthew Mercer]

Yeah. And they say he can, like, fix everything. Like, not gonna lie. When he was done with the pariahs, you know, they took off.

[Damian Blackwell]

Yeah.

[Matthew Mercer]

You know.

[Laura Bailey]

They took off without you, huh?

[Matthew Mercer]

No, I didn't survive the Hammer. I went into that room and I was made redundant.

[Laura Bailey]

That's unfortunate. And the hammer's coming Wednesday.

[Fritzi]

Wednesday.

[Laura Bailey]

All right, great.

[Fritzi]

Yeah.

[Matthew Mercer]

You guys getting hammered?

[Laura Bailey]

No. I mean, a little. Tonight?

[Fritzi]

Yeah. Yeah. Any. Any tips? In, in, in. When we see the hammer.

[Matthew Mercer]

Oh, yeah. Be on time. Don't be late for work, because that goes.

[Damian Blackwell]

Right.

[Matthew Mercer]

Like, somehow, like, Hamrick will know.

[Laura Bailey]

Okay.

[Matthew Mercer]

Have an impressive project to talk about during your interview. Like, one thing.

[Fritzi]

Got plenty of those.

[Matthew Mercer]

They're very surface level, Right? So, like, if you can get them, like, two good bullet points. I didn't. I launched into a song I had written. They didn't go for that. They didn't like that. It was inspired by Radiohead. They didn't care. Yeah. So that doesn't. If you just keep it, like, bullet pointed and keep it simple, that'll help.

[Damian Blackwell]

Have we got what we needed?

[Laura Bailey]

No. Oh, he got punched in the face again. Didn't you?

[Travis Willingham]

Yeah.

[Damian Blackwell]

Jenny.

[Laura Bailey]

Slightly. We got some information.

[Fritzi]

Sure did.

[Laura Bailey]

Fritzi's.

[Matthew Mercer]

She's good.

[Fritzi]

I talked to Johnny Lathe. Mr. Lathe?

[Laura Bailey]

Who's right here?

[Matthew Mercer]

Jonah Lathe.

[Fritzi]

Johnny Lathe. I forgot.

[Matthew Mercer]

You have to have a shot glass in his hand.

[Laura Bailey]

Johnny, Go away. Go on, get.

[Matthew Mercer]

You could just say no.

[Laura Bailey]

Get on out of here.

[Matthew Mercer]

You don't have to be.

[Laura Bailey]

Go back to your corner.

[Matthew Mercer]

You don't have to be a bitch about it.

[Fritzi]

I don't. I don't like that link.

[Laura Bailey]

You gonna fight the queen, Johnny? You gonna fight queen bee?

[Matthew Mercer]

Are you gonna sting me? You're gonna sting me?

[Laura Bailey]

I'm gonna.

[Matthew Mercer]

Alas. I heard you're, like, old enough to be somebody's mom.

[Laura Bailey]

Moms are cool, Johnny. And I'm gonna have a distracting swarm fly out of my beehive, and I'm gonna try to knock him out. All right?

[Matthew Mercer]

Yeah.

[Laura Bailey]

Yeah. I have to make a presents roll. I don't have any hope. I can't add any experiences to this.

[Fritzi]

Can I spend a hope to help?

[Matthew Mercer]

Um, second here? I believe you can wait. But in what way would you like to help?

[Fritzi]

What were you doing again?

[Laura Bailey]

I'm sending bees out to knock him out. Right.

[Fritzi]

I do another really distracting hair flip so he doesn't see it coming.

[Matthew Mercer]

Take that. I'll take that for a hope. I'll take that for a hope.

[Laura Bailey]

So I roll with advantage.

[Matthew Mercer]

I think you get a D6 to this.

[Laura Bailey]

Okay. Why can't I roll with fucking hope? Save my damn life. Okay. I'm gonna add my. My focus to it as well. 22. Oh, yeah.

[Matthew Mercer]

22 with fear.

[Travis Willingham]

Put him up there.

[Laura Bailey]

God. Maybe I should just switch my two out and I should call the other one.

[Travis Willingham]

Hope Low. Reverse psychology.

[Laura Bailey]

Yeah, yeah.

[Matthew Mercer]

Yeah. The bees stream out. What do they do as they like? Kind of. Do they attack him? Do they sting him?

[Laura Bailey]

My bees are very intelligent and they know exactly what nerves to sting to knock him out. So they, like, hit these little spots on the back of his neck.

[Matthew Mercer]

Yeah, he goes down like a stack of bricks. And the entire bar is better for it.

[Laura Bailey]

There you go, Johnny. And he will stay that way until he takes damage. Or unless you want to spend a fear to wake him up. But you don't have a lot of fear, so I don't think you should waste it.

[Matthew Mercer]

You think it's probably best to call it a night. It's starting to get a little late. You're all feeling it a little bit, except you, who is stone cold sober somehow and still manages to do this job. Yeah, this is the time of night where the bar tends to get a little messy. Anytime superheroes and boos are involved, it kind of gets a little sloppy.

[Damian Blackwell]

Is there any rumors you want to try and leave here? I haven't had as much luck.

[Travis Willingham]

But.

[Damian Blackwell]

Marty, you're an unknown presence amongst the villains here. Perhaps there's an opportunity here for you to. To make some new friends. Leave an impact. Be a newcomer who has some very reliable information.

[Travis Willingham]

Oh, I did. I've been buying lots of drinks. People usually ingest it instead of wear it, which is peculiar to me.

[Damian Blackwell]

It's good you're making friends.

[Travis Willingham]

Yes. I got a couple numbers for us.

[Damian Blackwell]

Well, great.

[Travis Willingham]

Yeah. What were you doing? What happened to.

[Damian Blackwell]

Fell down?

[Travis Willingham]

Oh, that's very unfortunate.

[Damian Blackwell]

Clumsy.

[Travis Willingham]

I bet the steps aren't indicated with a nice, bright, reflective yellow tape, which is good to indicate a change in surface level.

[Damian Blackwell]

Probably against regulation. We should report them regardless. Well, they're good with those numbers. Perhaps you can make some calls and we can try and maybe seed some of this chaos that we could then beat down.

[Fritzi]

That's right.

[Laura Bailey]

Yes. I'm gonna go back in there and look for somebody to go home with. Y' all good. Also, be on time. That's the other thing you said.

[Fritzi]

Oh, be on time. But we always are.

[Laura Bailey]

But we always are.

[Travis Willingham]

We are. I could pick us up 15 minutes earlier.

[Damian Blackwell]

Actually, that might be quite helpful.

[Laura Bailey]

Why are you looking at me?

[Fritzi]

Maybe we never put the car.

[Laura Bailey]

I'm always on time.

[Fritzi]

Just keep it rolling. We don't have any.

[Travis Willingham]

Any transmission a moving.

[Laura Bailey]

Yeah, that's a good idea.

[Damian Blackwell]

Let's go and test our reflexes.

[Laura Bailey]

That's right.

[Matthew Mercer]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Travis Willingham]

Very well.

[Damian Blackwell]

Rest up, put together your brain cells, and prepare to prove our quality.

[Laura Bailey]

I'm gonna go in and try to find somebody to sleep with.

[Fritzi]

Two for one. Find someone who can help us.

[Matthew Mercer]

I think that might be a good place for a break.

[Fritzi]

That's a perfect stuff.

[Matthew Mercer]

I feel like that's like a great place for a break.

[Damian Blackwell]

From there, after a break and take the next 30 minutes to hopefully finding someone to sleep with.

[Matthew Mercer]

We can just fast forward past that, everyone.

[Damian Blackwell]

Oh, hey there. Matthew Mercer here. If you're enjoying the show, you can tell your own stories in Daggerheart right now. Check it out [e-mail] or your friendly local game store. Speaking of which, let's get back to the story.

[Matthew Mercer]

And we are back, Mr. Blackwell. You are seated in your chosen mode of conveyance the morning after the events at the Cape in cowl.

[Damian Blackwell]

Indeed. Thankfully, my charger has been repaired, but unfortunately, that means the cycle of our carpool lays upon my shoulders. So I leave my abode to retrieve the rest of my compatriots within my Digitruck, a fantastical polygonal device that is the utmost of luxurious rides.

[Matthew Mercer]

It's big and you get a little bit carsick if you're in the backseat.

[Damian Blackwell]

It's one of the features. It's very brutalist and dark. There's a massive screen that mostly doesn't work, and I press a button and it drives for me. But I have to keep taking over because it almost crashes about five or six times on the way.

[Matthew Mercer]

You already have Marty and Fritzi with you. Marty, do you take shotgun when you're not driving?

[Travis Willingham]

Never. No. I would never do that. No. In fact, I just make sure that the seat is clean for Ms. Honeyguide before she arrives.

[Fritzi]

I wouldn't dare take the front seat, so I'm also in the back.

[Travis Willingham]

Yeah, backseat crew.

[Damian Blackwell]

But you see, this here is a lesson. The two of you have aspirations of rising within the company. You must learn to Embrace your divine right to receive. One of you must command this accompaniment. Who here has the proverbial nethers to prove yourself?

[Fritzi]

Do you want the divine right?

[Travis Willingham]

Could be yours if you like.

[Fritzi]

I don't talk about my nethers.

[Travis Willingham]

Okay.

[Damian Blackwell]

What are Barbara's?

[Matthew Mercer]

As you say this, you hear a syrupy, sweet, thick voice in your mind as your cape ruffles a bit. To life. Larp.

[Fritzi]

We long for the souls of the wicked.

[Matthew Mercer]

We long for the old ways, the dead ways.

[Damian Blackwell]

I understand.

[Matthew Mercer]

We long for power to feast on them. Plurpy flesh of our enemies. What have we become? Chauffeurs to the diminutive and weak. The hairy and the hair braid.

[Damian Blackwell]

They are means to an end. My demon Lord Plorp, I assure you, everything. Everything has a purpose. And we are on track.

[Matthew Mercer]

A Plurpus.

[Damian Blackwell]

Everything has a purpose.

[Laura Bailey]

Yes.

[Travis Willingham]

No. You go sit in time out.

[Fritzi]

Oh, my God.

[Matthew Mercer]

You must do my bidding this day. I long for blood and misery.

[Damian Blackwell]

Right.

[Matthew Mercer]

Tonight, I will feast on tears. See that they are someone else's and not your own.

[Damian Blackwell]

I shall do my best, Senator. And in exchange, grant me the capabilities of bringing low the terrible majesty of Spectra.

[Matthew Mercer]

I will do what I can.

[Damian Blackwell]

I appreciate that. Just consider it. Just keep it in the back of the mind. Yes, ma'.

[Travis Willingham]

Am. Was that out loud?

[Damian Blackwell]

Yes, absolutely.

[Travis Willingham]

I feel like.

[Fritzi]

Do you want to sit in the front? Because I don't want it in your.

[Travis Willingham]

Hold on. I'll go sit. I'll go sit in the front.

[Damian Blackwell]

If you press this button, it makes the road rainbow.

[Matthew Mercer]

Sorry, just a second. I definitely have something stuck in my teeth.

[Fritzi]

Do you want some hair?

[Matthew Mercer]

I was eating. I was eating popcorn.

[Travis Willingham]

That's how it happens. The ultimate killer. Popcorn.

[Matthew Mercer]

All right, I think we're good. I think we're good. The individual says, rolling out of your bed. Barbara.

[Laura Bailey]

You need to.

[Matthew Mercer]

Who did you go home with last night?

[Laura Bailey]

Johnny.

[Matthew Mercer]

No, no, you can't. You can leave it up to chance.

[Travis Willingham]

You can leave it up to chance.

[Matthew Mercer]

Johnny.

[Laura Bailey]

Really, Barbara, He's a sure bet. He's a sure bet.

[Matthew Mercer]

You followed the blade.

[Fritzi]

Followed the blade.

[Laura Bailey]

I followed the blade to get laid.

[Damian Blackwell]

And to get laid.

[Matthew Mercer]

Quinn.

[Laura Bailey]

It's awful. It was not good. I regret everything.

[Matthew Mercer]

As you muse this to yourself, Johnny is rolling out of bed. Putting on his hoodie. Putting on his camo hat. I could, like, make breakfast for you, babe. Like, how do you like your coffee?

[Laura Bailey]

Out now.

[Matthew Mercer]

Oh, you're not. You're not a morning person. How about a little smoochie? A little smoochie? Nope.

[Laura Bailey]

Get out the window. Oh, God. Go out the window. Go out the window. Out the window right now.

[Matthew Mercer]

You take too stress. As he leans in for a kiss.

[Laura Bailey]

No.

[Matthew Mercer]

Just a little kiss for my special girl. Oh.

[Damian Blackwell]

Oh.

[Matthew Mercer]

Just a little kiss for a swarm of honeybees. I'm gonna knock him out again.

[Travis Willingham]

The seat has been cleaned.

[Laura Bailey]

I want to try to knock him out.

[Travis Willingham]

I'm ready for you.

[Matthew Mercer]

I can't knock him out. I don't think so.

[Fritzi]

I don't want to help you on this side.

[Laura Bailey]

I only rolled an 8 on presents.

[Matthew Mercer]

With hope this time.

[Laura Bailey]

Oh, I'm going to take that.

[Damian Blackwell]

Hope.

[Laura Bailey]

Did I recover any hope while I was sleeping?

[Matthew Mercer]

Oh, yes. Everyone recovers to hope while you're sleeping. Everyone recovers to hope. Thank you for asking. You're. You somewhat recover from the events of the day and you feel more hopeful today as you. As the sun is out in Burbank. It's not a rainy day. Hopefully traffic will be better. With that failure. Johnny goes and answers the door for you while carrying your stuff. He's trying to be nice.

[Fritzi]

He.

[Matthew Mercer]

He's got your bag. He's got everything. He opens the door. You guys all see him come out. He's in boxer shorts and a hoodie and a camo hat.

[Laura Bailey]

I'm gonna run up and just lock the door behind. Get on home. Go get.

[Matthew Mercer]

He walks up to the car with your items.

[Damian Blackwell]

Jeez.

[Matthew Mercer]

Can you like take care of this or like make sure that you know my girlfriend's. You just want to take that? This is her phone. She forgot to charge her last night. We were pretty busy.

[Laura Bailey]

I keep my hand over my eyes as I. Bees are gonna try to chase him away from the car and your little love bites.

[Matthew Mercer]

You're so funny.

[Travis Willingham]

Ms. Honeycot.

[Damian Blackwell]

Have you.

[Travis Willingham]

You have you bathed?

[Laura Bailey]

No, I have not.

[Damian Blackwell]

My suit coat. And put it over the seat.

[Laura Bailey]

Oh.

[Matthew Mercer]

She's bathed in very cheap Drakkar Noir. Smells like just Axe body spray and regret.

[Laura Bailey]

We should get going.

[Matthew Mercer]

Shut the door.

[Laura Bailey]

We're going to be like.

[Matthew Mercer]

We can.

[Laura Bailey]

I can't be late again.

[Travis Willingham]

Roll down that way. Don't you.

[Laura Bailey]

Nobody ever mentioned this again. All right.

[Fritzi]

Do you want your phone?

[Laura Bailey]

Yes.

[Matthew Mercer]

Your phone screensaver has been changed to a picture of the two of you.

[Travis Willingham]

Yes.

[Matthew Mercer]

While you were sleeping.

[Travis Willingham]

Yes.

[Laura Bailey]

How it is such a misconduct.

[Travis Willingham]

Oh my God.

[Laura Bailey]

I'm going to delete that picture and.

[Travis Willingham]

Change it back cuz he's sleeping. Bare hip blade up.

[Matthew Mercer]

You know what, Travis? Yeah. Bare hip blade up. That's going in my notes. You begin your morning commute and we'll start another counter.

[Laura Bailey]

Oh, geez. Did we get a earlier start this time though?

[Travis Willingham]

We did.

[Matthew Mercer]

You did.

[Travis Willingham]

Although your interaction cost us a little bit of time.

[Laura Bailey]

I'm always a little bit of an interaction in the morning. All right. This was normal amount of time for me.

[Travis Willingham]

Of course.

[Matthew Mercer]

In your rush to be free of Johnny Wave, you actually do make it to the Digitruck a little bit faster than you normally do. There's a probably a run in your stockings and you're not in the best shape, but you know, you're on time. At least now it is sunny, so you would hope that the traffic is better. Tuesday is typically a little bit kinder on the sole, but on this particular sunny day, day, a young woman by the name of Harriet Butterbell, distracted by a cute manotar posing in his underwear on a billboard, managed to turn her car completely perpendicular on the freeway. Now, Harriet Butterbell is not a normal sized lady and therefore she does not drive a normal sized car. It is the size of a basically a small domestic armored vehicle and it has unfortunately blocked two lanes, resulting in four lanes of traffic being reduced to two, meaning that all rolls today are increased by a difficulty of two. As you kind of get onto the on ramp and try to merge into this very slowly moving river of cars. You do see Harriet Butterbell and a massive minotaur herself in booty shorts and a tank top flexing by her car trying to chat up the highway patrolman who is like kind of looking perplexed at how to tow this thing that has completely lost one of the wheels on its axle when it went sideways. Thankfully, no one is hurt that you can see. But what is hurting is your chances to get to work on time.

[Laura Bailey]

Wait now, wait a minute.

[Damian Blackwell]

Are your bees going to lift it out of the way?

[Laura Bailey]

Do I have on speed dial on my phone? Do I have any of my contacts, any of the superheroes that have super strength?

[Matthew Mercer]

Let's see. Actually, yeah, you probably do. You probably know a couple of them.

[Laura Bailey]

Thank you very much.

[Matthew Mercer]

Do you want to see if you could try to get one of them to come by?

[Laura Bailey]

Yeah, just fly in real fast and just move it.

[Matthew Mercer]

Yeah, Give me a knowledge roll.

[Damian Blackwell]

It's amazing. The depths of a digital black book.

[Matthew Mercer]

You'll want to get a 15 on this. 15, 15.

[Laura Bailey]

Can I add my seen it all experience to this?

[Matthew Mercer]

Absolutely.

[Laura Bailey]

All right, all right, all right, all right. Spend that hope. 15 meets.

[Matthew Mercer]

It beats it.

[Damian Blackwell]

Hell yeah.

[Matthew Mercer]

You managed to get. You managed to get the big woman herself on the phone. Valerie Halliday.

[Laura Bailey]

Listen, Val, the highway's blocked. I need you to get over here on the 101 stat, all right? Because we can't be late again.

[Matthew Mercer]

Should we.

[Fritzi]

Can we paint this as a crime?

[Laura Bailey]

That she's a crime on the highway, and you're gonna help fight it, right? Cause, listen, all of our jobs are on the line now.

[Matthew Mercer]

You want me to come move a car?

[Laura Bailey]

Yeah, but it's a big car.

[Fritzi]

It's a crime car.

[Laura Bailey]

He's Harriet's car.

[Matthew Mercer]

Like a PR move. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like Burbank sdn and cleared the traffic jam.

[Laura Bailey]

Exactly.

[Damian Blackwell]

Traffic this bad is criminal.

[Laura Bailey]

Oh, all right, we'll make sure that. I'm gonna film it. I'm gonna film it on my phone when you get here.

[Matthew Mercer]

All right, I'll be right down there.

[Laura Bailey]

Thanks.

[Fritzi]

Well done.

[Travis Willingham]

Should we have some villains come? Two of the guys that we talked to last year, I think they would be perfect for this. Olliolli, Oxenfree and Toots. They said they were very amenable.

[Fritzi]

He toots toot toots.

[Travis Willingham]

Yeah, I mean, he toots forceful. It clears out a crowd. Crowd control is actually what he's used for. He's a former embassy security officer. Yes.

[Laura Bailey]

I'm digging in my purse to look for some makeup so I can fix my face up before all this pr.

[Matthew Mercer]

Would anybody else. Would you else like to do anything while you wait for Valerie to make her way over here?

[Fritzi]

I could. I. I could try. I could try a forceful push on this cart.

[Matthew Mercer]

But do I need to.

[Fritzi]

If we have. I can solve this.

[Matthew Mercer]

You can stage to maybe help Valerie when she gets here.

[Damian Blackwell]

Yeah.

[Matthew Mercer]

Yeah.

[Fritzi]

Okay. This is my chance to get a paycheck.

[Matthew Mercer]

This is your chance to be seen. Merely a shield maiden from 8th century Vinland. She could definitely, probably use a hand.

[Fritzi]

I'd love to.

[Matthew Mercer]

She hasn't been in the field in a while.

[Laura Bailey]

Marty, you get out there with your phone as well. Get a different angle so we can get it on social channels.

[Travis Willingham]

Okay.

[Matthew Mercer]

Valerie doesn't drive there because she knows better. Traffic's at a standstill. Instead, you hear the groaning of concrete as she climbs up with one leap, grabbing one hand onto the side of the freeway. And then pulls herself up in a perfect pull up, vaulting over the side, her suit and pencil skirt, the lycra in it flexing to the maximum of its tensile strength as she does so. To the flicks, her calves look like steel wrapped in silk stockings.

[Damian Blackwell]

Oh, my God.

[Matthew Mercer]

And her red bottoms clack, clack on the asphalt as she walks over to the car winks at you, knowing that you've got this set up and she's going to attempt to move it. You said you're going to help her. Yeah, yeah, Go ahead. And would you like to spend a hope to do so or are you using an ability?

[Fritzi]

I'm using an ability called for forceful push. I make an attack with my primary weapon against the target within melee range.

[Laura Bailey]

So I can just walk up.

[Matthew Mercer]

You can just walk up.

[Fritzi]

I'm just walking up to this turned over car. Cause it ain't going anywhere. Okay, so now I do that. Oh, it's a 13 with fear.

[Matthew Mercer]

Not gonna lie to you. I rolled a T too. No, Valerie. No.

[Damian Blackwell]

Wow.

[Laura Bailey]

Yeah.

[Matthew Mercer]

You said at 13 with a beer.

[Fritzi]

Yeah.

[Laura Bailey]

Oh, no.

[Matthew Mercer]

As Valerie walks up with you and you both get ready to push this car, the heel on Valerie's Louboutin snaps and she completely loses her grip, tumbling over. And as she does, one of her legs kind of juts out, taking your legs out from underneath you and you both kind of collapse, taking one stress each as you're kind of embarrassed on this busy road full of cars with your co workers that kind of watch you completely biff it.

[Travis Willingham]

I drop my cell phone same and I head over and I will use an animal incarnation, my elephant, elephantine size. And you'll see like a big swell appears in my chest like a bullfrog. And then it just moves into my right arm where my right arm turns into like an elephant trunk. But it's super fucking blacksmith. Muscly crazy. It grabs one of the tires and you're. I try and like help pull the car while picking up Madeline at the same time. Valerie.

[Matthew Mercer]

Yeah. Oh, you try to pick her up at the same time?

[Travis Willingham]

Yeah.

[Matthew Mercer]

All right, let's get a strength check.

[Laura Bailey]

Come on. You still got that focus, right?

[Damian Blackwell]

I do.

[Matthew Mercer]

And you get a bonus from your ability too, I believe. Right?

[Travis Willingham]

I do not. But I mark a stress to use it. That's amazing.

[Matthew Mercer]

We're gonna say this gives you advantage because you're using your ability.

[Travis Willingham]

Great, diamond. I died.

[Matthew Mercer]

23.

[Travis Willingham]

23, 24. 24 with fear.

[Matthew Mercer]

24 with fear.

[Travis Willingham]

25 with fear. Sorry.

[Matthew Mercer]

I can add. Yeah, you are easily able to move the car, but I think the little bit of consequence here is that as you move the car and pick up Valerie, she's not happy that you picked her up.

[Travis Willingham]

Oh.

[Fritzi]

I'm still on the ground too. You didn't pick me. That's okay. I can get him myself, ma'.

[Damian Blackwell]

Am.

[Matthew Mercer]

It's just all about the Marty, we've talked about this.

[Damian Blackwell]

When Digikar drives up, I lean out to the window to the. To the PCH officer, the CHP officer, and hand him an invoice and be like, so, yes, the Burbank Sabira dispatch are gratefully happy to have aided you in your endeavors this morning. Take that to your commanding officer, and hopefully we'll have payment in the next month. Thank you very much.

[Matthew Mercer]

Let everyone know.

[Laura Bailey]

Let everyone know that we did it.

[Matthew Mercer]

Now you begin to make your way down the highway. It's a little awkward. It's a little icy. Valerie is stuffed into the back with all of you.

[Fritzi]

Listen, I have her heel. Do you want your heel back?

[Matthew Mercer]

I would like my heel back. Thank you.

[Laura Bailey]

Val, I'm gonna edit this video that.

[Matthew Mercer]

Makes it look like you were right.

[Laura Bailey]

There doing it too.

[Matthew Mercer]

I really thought I had it.

[Travis Willingham]

I've just got my elephant trunk hanging out the window because I can't change back until I take severe damage.

[Damian Blackwell]

Don't make it touch the side. It's very likely to take prints. No, stop it.

[Matthew Mercer]

It's so hard to clean that.

[Laura Bailey]

Okay, so I've edited the video to where it looks like Val jumped in, went to lift, and then the video cuts, and then you. I'm gonna have video of you also lifting, and as it goes up, it cuts, and then it's y' all three standing there at the end together with the traffic flowing by.

[Fritzi]

Wow. The magic of editing.

[Laura Bailey]

And there's like, heroic music. I'm gonna put heroic music under it for the rail.

[Matthew Mercer]

You make it to work sort of on time. As you pull in, it occurs to you that your digitruck. There's absolutely no way you'll fit underneath the sappy tree that the blue powder blue stands always fits underneath.

[Damian Blackwell]

That's fine. I'll just park it wherever nobody seems to bother with it.

[Laura Bailey]

Oh, no.

[Matthew Mercer]

You just park it in the middle of the.

[Damian Blackwell]

Yes. The respective vehicle of this size and prestige.

[Travis Willingham]

Oh, yeah, yeah. Those lines don't mean anything to you. Too real. Too real.

[Matthew Mercer]

It was too real. Mr. Blackwell blocks three cars. Oh, actually, six if you count the ones on the other side, with how wide this vehicle is by parking in between the lanes. And you all walk into work where you are met with that beautiful white light that washes over you all immediately, aging you all 15 years, bringing you back with a strange chime into that mode where your personality melts away and you become a tool in the corporate hands of the Burbank SDN. What time is is 1 minute to 8am Cheers.

[Laura Bailey]

The best we've done.

[Matthew Mercer]

As you walk in, a young woman is sitting at the receptionist desk and kind of answering calls. It's very clear she's just trying to look busy. In fact, the attitude and mood in the office is very strange today. Instead of staying standing by the door gloating at you, Owen is actually working. Melody is actually working. Lizzie is not working. Lizzy is filing her nails and smoking in a corner with her mossy hair kind of cascading down over her tweed suit. You can cut the tension with a knife.

[Damian Blackwell]

Good morning, everyone.

[Matthew Mercer]

Immediately, Owen is like, good morning. And at the front desk, good morning, Mr. Blackwell. You've got a three o', clock, a four o'.

[Damian Blackwell]

Clock.

[Matthew Mercer]

I can push your two to maybe five.

[Damian Blackwell]

Yes, do that.

[Matthew Mercer]

Who's that? Who was that?

[Laura Bailey]

Do we know her?

[Matthew Mercer]

Huh?

[Laura Bailey]

Do we know who her. The receptionist was gonna say?

[Fritzi]

I thought.

[Laura Bailey]

Never seen her before.

[Matthew Mercer]

Never seen her before?

[Fritzi]

I thought answering the phone was my job.

[Laura Bailey]

Well, you should have been here.

[Fritzi]

I'm early. Who are you?

[Travis Willingham]

You got. You're getting paid now. You don't have to work hard.

[Matthew Mercer]

You get a finger. Burbank sdn. Yes, of course. I'm more than happy to direct your call. Hold, please. Burbank sdn. Yes, I'm more than happy to direct your call. Hold, please. Burbank sdm. Yes, I'm more than happy. Do you know their extension? Please hold while I find it for you. Burbank sdm.

[Fritzi]

Okay, I'm gonna take my hair. Okay. And I'm gonna wrap it around that phone and I'm gonna yank the phone towards me.

[Matthew Mercer]

Ooh.

[Travis Willingham]

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

[Fritzi]

No, no, no, no, no. And then the other strand also wants to push that finger out of my.

[Matthew Mercer]

Yeah. Are you using one of your powers for this, or would you just like to roll your. You could just roll your finesse if you want.

[Fritzi]

It could maybe.

[Matthew Mercer]

It could maybe be finesse or agility.

[Fritzi]

No, it could maybe be my hair storm. It temporarily restrains.

[Matthew Mercer]

I think that's perfect. Yes.

[Fritzi]

This is a strength rule, okay? It's 15 with hope, plus my one strength.

[Matthew Mercer]

So 16 with hope, 16 with hope. Amazing. Yeah, Definitely a success. Your hair wraps around her finger very rudely in your face and the phone, and she looks stunned for a moment as you yank the phone away from her.

[Fritzi]

Yeah, this is my job, lady. What's her name, anyway?

[Matthew Mercer]

Donna.

[Fritzi]

Okay, well, Donna, I don't know who you are, but you're in my.

[Matthew Mercer]

Well, I'm Donna Dazzler of the New Hampshire Dazzlers.

[Fritzi]

You can Dazzle that butt out of myself.

[Matthew Mercer]

I'm the new intern.

[Damian Blackwell]

What?

[Fritzi]

What do you mean? Please hold. What do you mean?

[Matthew Mercer]

I come from Covey's office. I'm handling his affairs while he's in your. Yeah, he's observing today.

[Laura Bailey]

Wait, it's Covey, And I was saying guvy. Is it Covey?

[Matthew Mercer]

Mm. Oh.

[Damian Blackwell]

Should we all fix our nose?

[Matthew Mercer]

Yeah.

[Travis Willingham]

Donna's the bitch.

[Laura Bailey]

Wait, Donna, what about our other interest term? I don't know.

[Matthew Mercer]

Go sort mail or something.

[Fritzi]

I've already done that, and they moved me to reception.

[Matthew Mercer]

Okay, but nobody wants to be received by you. You're, like, busted.

[Fritzi]

I'm still restraining you, right?

[Laura Bailey]

You are.

[Fritzi]

I still got that finger in my hair, right?

[Matthew Mercer]

Yeah, you absolutely do.

[Fritzi]

Can I fuck up that little finger?

[Travis Willingham]

Yeah. Snap that metatarsal.

[Matthew Mercer]

Give me a strength check.

[Damian Blackwell]

Okay.

[Fritzi]

Uh. Oh, well, okay, so it's 15. 16 with fear.

[Matthew Mercer]

16 with fear. It succeeds. You break her finger. This one. This one, Right? Yeah, yeah, you break her finger. And as you do, she lets out a hypersonic screech. Oh, no. It's like a DJ booth is in this woman's throat.

[Damian Blackwell]

Oh, jeez.

[Matthew Mercer]

And as the subwoofer, like, vibrations literally make the air in front of you ripple, they also rack your body. Let's see. How would you like to react? Would you like to avoid this in any way? This is an attack.

[Fritzi]

Yeah, yeah, I want. I. Yeah, I want to. I want to spin at it.

[Matthew Mercer]

Do I get out of the way? Yeah. Give me an agility check.

[Fritzi]

Oh, shit. Oh. Oh, I'm good at that.

[Matthew Mercer]

Okay.

[Fritzi]

16 with fear.

[Matthew Mercer]

16 with fear. Yeah, you're able to get out of the way, and instead, this, like, sonic screech that sort of involuntarily escapes from her mouth shatters a Herman Miller chair that is sitting in the corner.

[Laura Bailey]

We have a Herman Miller.

[Matthew Mercer]

Sending the incredibly expensive office equipment into the parts of which it is made across the entire reception room.

[Fritzi]

I'm so sorry, Ms. Honeycutt.

[Laura Bailey]

Get in my office, honey.

[Matthew Mercer]

Okay.

[Laura Bailey]

Uh.

[Matthew Mercer]

I can't believe she broke my finger.

[Laura Bailey]

Sorry about that. You should find a. You know, the kitchen's over there. You could probably find a napkin or something to wrap around it. We have some drink stirrers next to the coffee machine. I'd use that.

[Matthew Mercer]

She takes her advice, leaving the receptionist desk vacant. You have won your little turf war. You don't think she's gonna be wagging her finger in your face again?

[Travis Willingham]

We should figure out where Guvi is observing from. I'm gonna clean up this chair and Then I'm gonna make my way around and meet back in your office. Gotta run some recon.

[Matthew Mercer]

Yeah.

[Damian Blackwell]

While this is happening, do you have those contacts that you managed to acquire in the bar last night?

[Travis Willingham]

Yes. Yes. I'll text it to you. Bumblefuck. Olly olly oxen free and toots. All right.

[Laura Bailey]

Is Valerie still with us?

[Matthew Mercer]

Yes, she is about to get ready to go to her office.

[Laura Bailey]

Val, can we look at getting Fritzy here upgraded to my assistant? These are desperate times, and I don't know if I can rely on Lizzie.

[Matthew Mercer]

I think we could do that. Do you want us to let Lizzy go or find another position for her?

[Laura Bailey]

You know, here's the thing. On Wednesday, they're gonna be cutting the fat, right? We need to have some people that they can cut so they feel like they're doing their job. So maybe you just find another place for Lizzy to be for the main.

[Matthew Mercer]

Yeah, I don't think Owen has an assistant.

[Laura Bailey]

Yeah, he. He could use the help.

[Matthew Mercer]

Oh, I'll put her under Owen.

[Laura Bailey]

Fritzy, you're on me.

[Matthew Mercer]

We have about three hours of HR videos for you to watch, and we have some W2 paperwork. If you go downstairs and you talk to Ronnie, there's going to be a quick onboarding. It'll only take about six to ten hours. And then.

[Fritzi]

Could I do that Thursday?

[Matthew Mercer]

No.

[Fritzi]

Okay.

[Matthew Mercer]

Yeah. I mean, not if you want to get paid. Also, it'd be a bit of a liability.

[Damian Blackwell]

So.

[Matthew Mercer]

There's a great video that was made in the 80s about respecting your co workers that you need to work.

[Fritzi]

Probably doesn't involve breaking their fingers.

[Damian Blackwell]

Huh.

[Fritzi]

What if I forgo my paycheck for a couple days? So I want the title, but you don't have to pay me yet. So I don't have to watch these videos.

[Matthew Mercer]

I wouldn't have gotten to where I've gotten without upgrading people to jobs that are not within their job description, but not giving them the commensurate pay. Two days. Just kidding. I don't operate like that. But considering the circumstances, I'll see what we can do. Maybe Ronnie can fast track you a little bit. He is very slow though, right? Honestly, guys, I think today you might just want to keep your heads down. Stick to the grind. Just do your job. Do it well.

[Laura Bailey]

Okay?

[Matthew Mercer]

No shenanigans, no chicanery. Ideally, don't break any more fingers.

[Laura Bailey]

Right.

[Fritzi]

Something came over.

[Matthew Mercer]

We don't have to pull some grand heist. We can just do what we do and show them that we are really good at Doing it. I'm trying to give you a pep talk. Is it working?

[Laura Bailey]

Absolutely. I'm checking my numbers on Insta and TikTok and seeing what those videos did.

[Matthew Mercer]

All right.

[Laura Bailey]

How they doing?

[Matthew Mercer]

I need you to get this team on board, but I'll put the new intern on that. On the social media. Maybe that's more her speed. You don't like the new intern?

[Laura Bailey]

She might not like us. Fritz, you good at social stuff?

[Matthew Mercer]

There you go.

[Fritzi]

Yeah, I spend hours at night. Doom. Scrolling perfect.

[Laura Bailey]

Oh, here. You get it.

[Fritzi]

Okay.

[Laura Bailey]

I'm gonna text you this video. You get it up there.

[Fritzi]

You have my number.

[Laura Bailey]

I do not. Here, I need you to send it to yourself.

[Fritzi]

Yeah, that makes more sense.

[Travis Willingham]

You can check out my ASMR channel on Squirrel Social. It's all custodial. It's. The waxing is really quite relaxing.

[Damian Blackwell]

Go on now.

[Laura Bailey]

Get out there and.

[Travis Willingham]

Oh, sorry.

[Laura Bailey]

Find some info.

[Damian Blackwell]

I have. I have quite as quite a busy morning to attend to some immediate meetings. I'll just adjourn to my office to deal with my positively important business for the day. Thank you, Valerie.

[Matthew Mercer]

You retreat to your offices. Let's go ahead and place your tokens on where you are.

[Laura Bailey]

Oh, we have tokens.

[Travis Willingham]

Over here.

[Matthew Mercer]

Yes. Thank you. Is this your office?

[Fritzi]

So am I sitting at reception, or.

[Matthew Mercer]

Do I have to go down to Ronnie? That's up to you.

[Laura Bailey]

Got to be out of commission for hours watching.

[Matthew Mercer]

This is the building entrance right here. This is the reception.

[Laura Bailey]

That's reception. But you wouldn't be there anymore. You'd be.

[Matthew Mercer]

This is the janitorial closet. Where would my assistant be? We have.

[Laura Bailey]

You'd be in the. Is that the little office next door to me?

[Matthew Mercer]

This is the exit. Or actually, your assistant would be here. Sure.

[Damian Blackwell]

You want.

[Matthew Mercer]

Honestly, an assistant would probably have one of these. Just kidding.

[Laura Bailey]

You got this little cubicle.

[Fritzi]

I'll take it.

[Matthew Mercer]

Yeah.

[Fritzi]

Oh, no.

[Matthew Mercer]

Here we have.

[Damian Blackwell]

Majestic shuffleboard.

[Travis Willingham]

Last night, shuffleboard was needed.

[Matthew Mercer]

Put you right outside Ms. Honeycutt's office. Here we have, like, the showers in the locker rooms where A team and B team kind of get ready some elevators that go down to the first floor. And of course, there's our reception desk and break room and what have you. Do you all go about the normal humdrum of your day?

[Damian Blackwell]

No. Oh, absolutely not. We have to do what we can to persevere, to exemplify, to rise above. I close the blinds and my office, go to my phone, look over the numbers that Marty here had sent me, and I'm going to first call I'm going to first call Bumble.

[Laura Bailey]

Does he also deal with bees?

[Damian Blackwell]

You don't want to know.

[Travis Willingham]

Roly Polies are his thing.

[Matthew Mercer]

Buzz, buzz, Bumble. What can I do you for, Mr. Bumblefuck?

[Damian Blackwell]

You're with me, right? Doesn't hear anything from this cape. You have met an acquaintance of mine last night while drinking. He is a gentleman with glasses. Quite a. Quite an accomplished killer in his own right. But he gave me your information as possibly someone who's interested in making some quick money.

[Matthew Mercer]

Yep. All right, so like how it works is one throw costs $400. Two throws, you get a discount.

[Damian Blackwell]

No, you misunderstand. Some real money, some criminal money.

[Matthew Mercer]

I'm pretty sure this is criminal money too, buddy.

[Damian Blackwell]

There are shipments coming in mass amounts of extremely gold bullion weight in illegal substances. I need them to be recovered and brought back to my warehouse within the hour.

[Matthew Mercer]

Give me a presents roll. You're gonna want to be a 15 on this.

[Travis Willingham]

Alrighty.

[Matthew Mercer]

You hear a soft plort from your cape?

[Damian Blackwell]

I need to make this guy believe me. Wait. Will you help me? Blorp. Blorp.

[Matthew Mercer]

You get a plus one to your roll.

[Laura Bailey]

Thank you.

[Travis Willingham]

All right.

[Matthew Mercer]

I will lives for this evil stuff.

[Damian Blackwell]

Here's what I'll do.

[Travis Willingham]

Here's what I'll do.

[Damian Blackwell]

I can spend a hope, be like. And do not worry, this is not traceable. You will be paid in crypto. Apply my Glyph Coin Crypto founder. Is that a plus? Two to that? Okay. That is 19. 23 with fear.

[Matthew Mercer]

Oh, 23. Oh, yeah. 23 with fear. Resounding success.

[Damian Blackwell]

You will find them within the Burbank ikea, hidden in the blue couches. You do not have much time, but you must carve into them until you find it. Then run. I will be utilizing my contacts there to bring security away so you will not be spotted.

[Matthew Mercer]

You know, normally I use my powers to like squeeze people up into little footballs and pump them through goals, but I feel like this is a job that is well suited for me.

[Damian Blackwell]

So ever if anyone gets in your way, punt away.

[Matthew Mercer]

I'm on it, boss. What's your cut gonna be? What do you get out of this?

[Damian Blackwell]

Well, you deliver it to me. The goods we distribute. So quite a bit. Besides, Glyph Coin is on the way up. Hold on to it for about two years and it will change your life.

[Matthew Mercer]

Okay, I think I understood like 30% of that, but all right, most people do. I thought I was supposed to buy GameStop.

[Damian Blackwell]

It's transferable.

[Travis Willingham]

Just gotta wait for the comet Economy.

[Damian Blackwell]

To fall back immediately. Call over to Barbara. Barbara, could you please send one of our available teams to the Burbank ikea in about 45 minutes to an hour, Stake out there is going to be an attempted raid and destruction upon the property. And let's make sure the cameras are rolling.

[Laura Bailey]

What y' all been up to, Damien? I like it. Let me look at who we got today. All right, I don't like. I'll make some phone calls and get some of our B heroes out to find out.

[Matthew Mercer]

How does the first part of your.

[Laura Bailey]

Day go outside of those phone calls right there? Mm. I will be going through my spending reports, finagling them to make them look like, you know, they're not as bad as they are.

[Matthew Mercer]

Give me a knowledge roll.

[Laura Bailey]

All right, what do I got? All right. Shit. Okay. All right. That's 19, 20.

[Matthew Mercer]

20.

[Laura Bailey]

With hope.

[Matthew Mercer]

With Hope. Amazing. You are able to not only identify a couple of places where you could cut costs and where some expenses are doubled up, but with that resounding success With Hope, you actually notice that Owens expense reports seem a little weird. The numbers are a little too round. At very regular intervals.

[Laura Bailey]

That little motherfucker.

[Matthew Mercer]

His travel expenses specifically don't seem to add up. There's a lot of flights, hotels, things on there that don't match up with what you think he's been doing. The dates are off. It would take a very careful eye to notice such a small discrepancy. But you're like, why does he always need a train ticket or an airplane ticket on the 21st of the month?

[Laura Bailey]

I'm definitely.

[Matthew Mercer]

Why is lunch at chili's always exactly $64? How many trip dips is. Does this man eat it.

[Laura Bailey]

They have lunch specials there. It should not be that expensive. I'mma call Marty Mart. Actually, Fritzi.

[Fritzi]

Yeah.

[Laura Bailey]

Get Marty in here. Marty. All right, sorry.

[Fritzi]

I'll stand up.

[Travis Willingham]

Thank you. Yes.

[Laura Bailey]

Marty, get in the office.

[Travis Willingham]

Which one?

[Laura Bailey]

Mine?

[Travis Willingham]

Oh, yes, ma'.

[Damian Blackwell]

Am.

[Laura Bailey]

You're discreet, right, Marty? You can be discreet, right, Marty?

[Travis Willingham]

Yes.

[Laura Bailey]

All right, here's the deal.

[Travis Willingham]

Okay?

[Laura Bailey]

I need you today at lunch. I want you to follow Owen, all right? Be discreet. See where he goes. Cause I got a daily report here saying he goes to Chili's for $64, and I don't believe a second of it.

[Travis Willingham]

What do you get at Chili's for $64 exactly?

[Laura Bailey]

There's nothing on the menu that would be that much. I'm sorry, it went down the wrong pie. You follow him. Hold on. You follow him, all right? And find out what he's actually spending money on because I think he's lying. And we could nail his ass. We can get him out. And I know we've been trying to do that already.

[Travis Willingham]

I can do that. I can be discreet. I can actually blend in. Explain.

[Laura Bailey]

That's right, change your little shape there. And you go on out to Chili's and you do something successful and useful, Marty. And you show people exactly what you're made of.

[Travis Willingham]

All right, all right, I can do it. All right, I'll save the branch.

[Laura Bailey]

It's all on your shoulder. Single shoulder.

[Travis Willingham]

Single handedly kill. Oh. What?

[Laura Bailey]

Only if you absolutely have to. But listen, I think you should not do that. And we should throw him under the bus tomorrow.

[Travis Willingham]

Oh, great. Yeah, I was gonna try and figure out where Covey was holed up and working in the office.

[Laura Bailey]

Oh, well, shit, I can do that.

[Travis Willingham]

First and then I'll follow Owen. Cause it's not even. It's not even lunchtime yet.

[Laura Bailey]

Yeah, we'll do your shit fast and then you go do my shit.

[Travis Willingham]

I won't let you down.

[Laura Bailey]

You never do, Marty. Hey, get on out of here. Now.

[Travis Willingham]

I'll leave and pick up the trash can that was just outside the door. And I'll empty the little trash cans by the desks as I move around. But I'm not so much looking at the little islands in the common work areas. I'm more keeping an eye on the perimeter. Offices, conference rooms, break rooms, Anywhere where I might spot or smell a heavenly note of spectral flower energy.

[Matthew Mercer]

Give me an instinct. An instinct. Check. You're gonna need to be. This is gonna be hard. You're gonna need to beat a 20. It's gonna be very difficult.

[Travis Willingham]

I'm going to use. I'm gonna burn. I'm gonna sp. To hope to use my experience from outer space. And I'm gonna let my real alien nostrils develop, which are four times the size of average human nostrils. Like they just suck in all sorts of shit. But it also helps me, like get the hint of anything that's along, along the way. Okay, That's. That's a 21. 22. 23. 23. With fear.

[Matthew Mercer]

With fear. Okay. It's enough though. You do catch a whiff of what smells like fresh rain and lily pads.

[Damian Blackwell]

Sure.

[Matthew Mercer]

And a gentle wafting breeze that you know isn't coming from the H VAC system because it doesn't have the kind of power to move air like that.

[Travis Willingham]

No, it doesn't. That smells like crayons.

[Matthew Mercer]

It's coming from the stairwell.

[Laura Bailey]

I Will that one.

[Matthew Mercer]

This one over on this side.

[Laura Bailey]

Okay.

[Travis Willingham]

Can I creep up to the stairwell ever so carefully and just. And just see if I can hear any conversation coming from within it?

[Matthew Mercer]

Mm, you most definitely can. Give me a finesse roll to see how quiet you are. You'll get a snippet of conversation either way, but this just determines how much of the snippet of conversation you'll get.

[Travis Willingham]

That's a 16. With hope.

[Matthew Mercer]

With hope. You glide towards the stairwell. And as so often the most important people that uphold our society are. You are not noticed as you drift through the space, even though you maintain it. Without you, none of these trains would run on time. You have a penchant for blending in, and so you walk through, and it's like you're not even a person. As you approach the stairwell door and maybe even crack it open a bit, you do hear Gavi's smooth voice speaking to a voice you've never heard before. And the part of it that you hear is, well, I would really prefer if we didn't shut down the whole branch. You don't think it's possible, even with your considerable skills? Well, I've heard that you've hammered many an operation into shape. You hear a second voice, silky smooth as the first. Be like, well, now, I can't work miracles, you know, I'm definitely gonna get in there. I'm gonna try. Gotta do what you gotta do. Things being as they are. Be that as it may, you know, it's just. And looking at the numbers, the call volume, it's not really at what we need. We're gonna need a little bit of an adjustment. Gotta synergize the operation, take what we have, divide it and turn it into something that works not only perpendicular, but parallel. And as my associate here would tell you, were he but capable of the English language, you would know that he agrees. And here is. And here is the rub. You know, sometimes you gotta cut off the hand to save the arm. Sometimes you gotta cut off the arm to save the body. And here's the thing, too. People land on their feet. And also, keeping in mind who our loyalties are to who are we working with? Who are we working for? Let's look at job descriptions. You know, but I think if we could get this down by 30%, we could talk. But you'd have to. You'd have to. I mean, you're kind of what you're asking me for.

[Damian Blackwell]

Well.

[Matthew Mercer]

You'Re asking me for the moon, and I'm. I'm. Well, if anybody could deliver it to you, I guess. I suppose I would be that guy. Ah, you know, but, you know, I won't take up too much of your time here, so let's maybe huddle up. Let's reconnect. Get on a. Get on a call later today, and maybe we can figure out what we can do to get your product back online.

[Travis Willingham]

Does it sound like this individual is in the stairwell with him or on a digital call coming through a device?

[Matthew Mercer]

It sounds like he's in a tunnel.

[Travis Willingham]

Got it. Oh, a tunnel.

[Matthew Mercer]

You hear govy? And it doesn't take an incredibly insightful person to know that he is incredibly fucking annoyed. And he's like, yes, of course. Thank you so much for your wonderful insight, Mr. Hamrick. Well, you know, I. 30% is a number that maybe we could get down to. I mean, I can think of a couple people that could go. Typically, when such reorganizations are done, you go for the highest salaries. And that abomination of a car in the parking lot. I don't think I have to tell you who the highest salary is. Perhaps Instead of removing 30% of the employees, we remove two. Just something to consider. Well, you know, here's the thing. We got to talk about institutional knowledge. We got to talk about loyalty, you know, and when you remove the head of a company, you're losing that institutional knowledge. We gotta think about that. We gotta think about high skill worker, we gotta think about low skill worker.

[Travis Willingham]

Oh, God. I just peel away from the stairwell.

[Matthew Mercer]

You're old. Really high. So you get all of it.

[Travis Willingham]

I leave and I hightail it back to Ms. Honeycroft's office. And I go, you're fine. And I leave and go to Mr. Blackwell.

[Damian Blackwell]

As you're heading that way, your phone rings.

[Fritzi]

D.N. burbank without me. I direct your call.

[Damian Blackwell]

Frisbee. This is Mr. Blackwell. I have a question to ask of you. If there were a place in Burbank that would be a place to stage spectacles that comes to mind, a location that you think a grand fight and showdown could occur, where would your mind go to immediately?

[Fritzi]

Ooh, it would go to the Whole Foods off of Olive Avenue.

[Matthew Mercer]

Gods, you're chewing.

[Travis Willingham]

For your position. Specific. We're gonna break that down there.

[Damian Blackwell]

Thank you so much.

[Fritzi]

You're welcome.

[Damian Blackwell]

I'll keep this in mind for your report.

[Fritzi]

Okay.

[Matthew Mercer]

As you get off the phone, I'm going to spend. Whoops, lost it. That's fine. I'm going to spend two. Fear.

[Laura Bailey]

Oh, God.

[Matthew Mercer]

And two things happen simultaneously. Melody approach approaches you at the front desk. Looking quite worried and sort of in her simpering way, because she is an assistant to, you know, a wonderful villain. Hey, I need your help.

[Fritzi]

What can I do?

[Matthew Mercer]

Okay, so I brought my dog to work. I'm not supposed to bring my dog to work, but I brought my dog to work. And there was this whole thing with the dog sitter, and I think he kind of. He kind of ate part of her.

[Laura Bailey]

But.

[Matthew Mercer]

Like, I'm on my last strike. I'm not supposed to bring bird dog to work. And I brought bird dog to work, and I lost bird dog. Cause I put him in the Zen garden on the second floor. And that door is gone. There's a lot of broken glass. And I think he's somewhere in this office. And. And if they find him and they realize I brought my dog to work again, I'm done. Like, I'm just. I'm cooked.

[Fritzi]

Yeah, I'll help.

[Laura Bailey]

You'll help?

[Matthew Mercer]

Mm. Okay.

[Damian Blackwell]

What do we do?

[Fritzi]

Can I have a second? I just gotta make a call.

[Laura Bailey]

Yeah, okay.

[Damian Blackwell]

Okay.

[Fritzi]

And then I'm gonna get. I'm gonna get all my buds on a conference call and say, okay before that happens.

[Matthew Mercer]

Cause I did spend two fears.

[Fritzi]

Oh, that's right.

[Matthew Mercer]

The glass of the conference room window shatters. Oh, no. And in jumps a ridiculous looking man with the most spindly legs you've ever seen in your life. And a horned helmet and a long, wispy beard. He shouts, olly ollie, oxen free. Yes. And as he shouts it, a billion miniature oxen sprout from his beard.

[Laura Bailey]

Oh, Jesus.

[Matthew Mercer]

And he goes. I come to challenge you, Marty. For our duel is as of yet unfinished. Chaos erupts in the office as the oxen begin to just charge forward in a wave. You won't escape my vengeance this time, Marty.

[Damian Blackwell]

This is my branch, and you are not to stomp it with your beast. I'm gonna go ahead and charge from my office towards the direction of where the oxen are coming. You said there's a bunch of tiny ones.

[Matthew Mercer]

They're about the size of, like, small dogs.

[Travis Willingham]

Okay.

[Matthew Mercer]

And there are. Let me give you a number here. There's 32 of them.

[Damian Blackwell]

Wow.

[Matthew Mercer]

And they've all sprung into life from his beard?

[Travis Willingham]

Yep.

[Damian Blackwell]

All right, so here's what I'm going to do.

[Matthew Mercer]

Standing with his crotch up, leg on the table, other leg on the chair, shaking a fist menacingly.

[Damian Blackwell]

All right. As The M for Mr. Mephisto that still besets the center of his cloak begins to glow, his eyes go black, and I leap off of One of the desks to put my feet flip up to the ceiling and use wall walk to affix my feet to the ceiling and continue to walk towards the area above of where this mass of tiny oxen are rushing and attempt to rain of blades as I begin to unearth my breath. Ni the swirls. Ye Chopra blorp. And I'm going to go ahead and open my cloak. And from the shadows within, a bunch of arcane blades begin to rain down from above onto these oxen to try and prevent them from fucking up our office. Amazing.

[Matthew Mercer]

Fantastic. Yeah, I think we're in combat. So go ahead and roll to hit.

[Damian Blackwell]

All right, let's go.

[Travis Willingham]

Come on, oxen killer.

[Damian Blackwell]

Spend a hope to do this. It's an instinct roll for me. All right. Oh, that's not great. That's not great at all. That's gonna be an 11. We hope.

[Matthew Mercer]

An 11 with hope. Just give me just a moment here.

[Damian Blackwell]

This would be against all targets within very close range.

[Matthew Mercer]

Okay, that hits.

[Damian Blackwell]

Okay, fantastic.

[Travis Willingham]

Oh, good. I almost used that feature to let you re roll.

[Damian Blackwell]

All right, so for that, they're not vulnerable. So it's just gonna be seven points of magic. Magic damage upon any of the oxen that are within kind of a very close range below me.

[Matthew Mercer]

Fantastic. So seven points of damage. You see several of the oxen kind of turn into puffs of wispy beard hair as your blades come down on them, kind of thinning the herd a little bit, thankfully, before they hit the glass wall on the opposite side of your conference room. So you see some of them kind of veer off trying to avoid your blades, and they go out the door. And the rest of them kind of go k' thunk against the glass because there's not enough force to go through it. And you see several of them just kind of like, disappear into puffs of beard.

[Damian Blackwell]

Contain the chaos.

[Matthew Mercer]

I'm gonna.

[Laura Bailey]

Oh, shit.

[Fritzi]

I'm gonna. Yeah, I'm gonna hairstyl storm it again and. But this time I. I want to, like, lasso any. Anyone, if any of them. They have to be within very close range. Are any of them in. In very.

[Matthew Mercer]

Probably not.

[Damian Blackwell]

Actually.

[Fritzi]

I think I'm green.

[Laura Bailey]

You could get up.

[Fritzi]

I could get up.

[Matthew Mercer]

I. I don't view that as, like, a very far movement. No, I think you could move and do that action. Okay, I'm gonna rule that you can.

[Fritzi]

Yeah, I wanna. I wanna get in the middle of it. Got a couple lassos going on.

[Laura Bailey]

Oh, shit here.

[Travis Willingham]

Lassos.

[Laura Bailey]

Okay.

[Fritzi]

So that's the strength Rule. Oh, okay. It's a 23. 24 with hope.

[Matthew Mercer]

A 24 with hope. That is successful.

[Damian Blackwell]

Oh, you are full on hope now.

[Fritzi]

Oh, I'm full on hope now.

[Matthew Mercer]

Full of hope.

[Damian Blackwell]

You can do it now if you want to.

[Fritzi]

Oh, yeah. I'm gonna. I'm gonna get in the groove with no mercy. And I'm gonna spend three hope and I'm gonna gain a plus one bonus to my attack rolls until my next rest.

[Matthew Mercer]

Amazing. And then go ahead and give me. Did you give me damage yet?

[Fritzi]

I didn't.

[Laura Bailey]

Okay, what do I. I roll for this?

[Damian Blackwell]

Well, this is for the hairstorm, which doesn't do damage.

[Fritzi]

Oh, I just restrain.

[Matthew Mercer]

Okay, you just restrain.

[Fritzi]

I'm just lassoing a bunch.

[Matthew Mercer]

Anything that's within, go ahead and roll me. Let's do a D6 and that'll be how many you remove from the hoard. Okay.

[Fritzi]

Three.

[Laura Bailey]

Three.

[Matthew Mercer]

Fantastic. So you're able to lasso up three of them. Them.

[Fritzi]

Yeehaw.

[Matthew Mercer]

Fantastic. I'm going to go ahead and spotlight our villain. Sorry, sorry. I'm sorry. It's just really.

[Damian Blackwell]

Say this.

[Travis Willingham]

Say his name.

[Matthew Mercer]

He's going to use his ability mockery on you and he's going to try to convince everyone that you're. He's going to try to scapegoat you. Give me just a moment here. He shakes his fist at you and goes. You've scorned me for the last time. For I, Ollie Ollie oxenfree, am not to be outdone. Three times you've hid from our duel. Foolish man. You claim to be a cleaner of things, but your hands are filthy. Filthy with deceit and cowardice.

[Travis Willingham]

Cowardice.

[Matthew Mercer]

Give me a presence reaction roll. You need to beat a 14.

[Travis Willingham]

Oh my gosh. Presence reaction negative. Oh, that's terrible. That's a 2 with 14.

[Laura Bailey]

Fear, but it's a reaction. So fear doesn't count.

[Matthew Mercer]

Fear doesn't count on a reaction roll with a two. You take two stress and you are now vulnerable. And then he throws an ox at you. I have to spend. I have to spend an additional. He throws an ox at you. Let's see.

[Laura Bailey]

He just like throws it through the air. A tiny ox.

[Matthew Mercer]

Yes, Sprout. Technically, he pulls it out of his beard.

[Laura Bailey]

Amazing.

[Matthew Mercer]

Let's see. Oh, it's not a super high attack roll.

[Damian Blackwell]

Eight.

[Travis Willingham]

That misses.

[Fritzi]

Oh, wait.

[Matthew Mercer]

But you're vulnerable.

[Travis Willingham]

I am vulnerable. Is that making my evasion?

[Matthew Mercer]

I think. Let me see.

[Damian Blackwell]

Plus D6 against you.

[Matthew Mercer]

Oh, yes. Thank you. Okay, so. So I said 8. Right.

[Laura Bailey]

12.

[Matthew Mercer]

Burn ya.

[Travis Willingham]

I'll burn an armor.

[Matthew Mercer]

All right, it's gonna be 9 physical damage as the ox comes flying through the air, kind of hits you and explodes in a puff of beard hair.

[Travis Willingham]

Got it.

[Matthew Mercer]

Would you like to respond?

[Travis Willingham]

Yes.

[Matthew Mercer]

To your arch nemesis.

[Travis Willingham]

As I am hit by this little pint sized oxen, I will. I will think to the. To the great defensive beasts of this planet. And my. My mind will rush through porcupine, blowfish, something in between. I'll go. And these quills shoot out at me everywhere as I use my animal incarnation as I mark another stress. And when an adversary within melee range deals damage to me, they take 1d10 physical damage. And it stays until I take severe damage. And I will reach over to my janitor's cart and I will grab both the mop and the broom and snap them in the middle in a pre broken area and conjoin the broom and the mop to create a fearsome dual wielding staff. And I will take a swing at the nearest ox next to me.

[Matthew Mercer]

All right, roll to hit. You just need to beat a 10.

[Damian Blackwell]

Great.

[Travis Willingham]

That's 16. 17. 17 with hope.

[Matthew Mercer]

Amazing. All right, go ahead and give me damage.

[Travis Willingham]

1, 2. 10. 5, 6, 7, 8. 9. 10. Physical damage.

[Matthew Mercer]

10. That's quite a bit. That's quite a weapon. Yeah. The remaining oxes as you go into the fray, explode into more puffs of beard hair as you manage to clear them all out not only from around Olliollioxenfree, but also from the boardroom as you kind of cut a path with your carnage.

[Travis Willingham]

Not residual hair.

[Damian Blackwell]

Not hair.

[Matthew Mercer]

There is hair everywhere. Oh, no. It's thin, fine, wispy, Almost looks like wool.

[Travis Willingham]

Say less.

[Damian Blackwell]

This is bad.

[Laura Bailey]

Are. How many oxen are still running around the office?

[Matthew Mercer]

There's none right now, but Olliolli oxenfree is still at large, so that might change.

[Laura Bailey]

All right.

[Travis Willingham]

Take them down.

[Laura Bailey]

All right, I'm gonna run out of my office and I'm gonna. Oh, I gotta be real close for that one. Shit. I'm just gonna. I'm gonna give a little bee cloud around him. I'm gonna run up. Can I get close enough that I'm gonna be very close to Ollie at this point?

[Matthew Mercer]

Yeah, you're actually. Cause Ollie was there and he kind of ran up here. I think he could get there.

[Laura Bailey]

All right. All right, I'm gonna go up and I'm gonna be cloud his damn face and beard.

[Matthew Mercer]

Hell yeah. Let's do it.

[Fritzi]

All right.

[Laura Bailey]

And I'm gonna. Oh, yeah. I don't. Okay, okay, that's 17. That's a hit with fear, unfortunately.

[Matthew Mercer]

Okay.

[Laura Bailey]

Because I'm doomed in this game, and I'm gonna do eight physical damage.

[Matthew Mercer]

Ooh. Major damage damage. As your bees buffet this man, he's like, yes. For truly. He's like, oh. Oh, my.

[Laura Bailey]

And it backs him up. Hopefully he falls over a desk or something.

[Matthew Mercer]

Roll for it.

[Laura Bailey]

Okay.

[Matthew Mercer]

Just roll it. Yeah, Just give me, like, a luck roll.

[Laura Bailey]

That's not a good roll. What was I rolling? Was I rolling DD12?

[Matthew Mercer]

I was gonna do, like, over 6 or under 6. Like 50, 57. 7. He falls off the desk. He's on kind of landing in a prone position on the ground going, my. This is highly. Ow. Irregular. This is the last you've seen?

[Travis Willingham]

Never skip like that.

[Matthew Mercer]

Ollie. Ollie.

[Laura Bailey]

Run away. Ollie. Get out of our office.

[Matthew Mercer]

He attempts to crawl out of the office, and if no one stops him, he will crawl away.

[Damian Blackwell]

I will walk above him and just spin on him from above.

[Laura Bailey]

That's right.

[Matthew Mercer]

You're on the seal.

[Damian Blackwell]

Wow. My cape's like.

[Matthew Mercer]

Charlatan. The last of you charlatans.

[Fritzi]

Am I close? Am I close?

[Matthew Mercer]

I think we're out of contact combat. Oh, unless you do want to, like.

[Fritzi]

I wanted to grapple him back.

[Damian Blackwell]

He did.

[Travis Willingham]

He did what we wanted. Right? Like, attacked the office or do we want to capture.

[Fritzi]

Yeah, I want to. I want the PR photo.

[Travis Willingham]

Okay.

[Matthew Mercer]

Oh, you want to get him. Get him. Yeah.

[Fritzi]

The big fish on.

[Matthew Mercer]

Yeah.

[Laura Bailey]

Yeah, that's good. Yeah.

[Damian Blackwell]

We did have. Security cameras were keeping all of this. Oh, yeah, right.

[Fritzi]

Oh, yeah, that's right.

[Damian Blackwell]

An assault.

[Fritzi]

Still holding.

[Matthew Mercer]

Yes.

[Fritzi]

Lassoing.

[Laura Bailey]

This is a.

[Matthew Mercer]

This is a. Yeah, I'm gonna say this is like a mundane action that you don't have to roll for. He's covered in bees and crawling away, mentally defeated.

[Damian Blackwell]

I called Bumblefuck, not Ollie. Ol Oxen.

[Matthew Mercer]

Bumbleflug might be at IKEA right now. This is unreal.

[Travis Willingham]

Digging through blue couches.

[Matthew Mercer]

And you are able to restrain an olliolly oxen brain.

[Fritzi]

That's right. Get back here, Ollie. Ollie. Oxen for you over here.

[Laura Bailey]

That's right. I look up at the security cameras. Yeah. And don't you ever cause trouble again, Ollie. You stay out of Burbank and you remember that this dispatch office will always defeat you. Fucking suck it.

[Travis Willingham]

You'll rule the day that you.

[Laura Bailey]

You'll rue the day that you mess with us heroes.

[Travis Willingham]

Burbank doesn't suffer fools.

[Laura Bailey]

Cause Burbank doesn't suffer fools. Honey, I love it.

[Matthew Mercer]

If you're trying to sell it to Me, I'm sold.

[Damian Blackwell]

You can use the remainder of your free hair to restrain him strongly enough and we'll place him within the broom closet until the responsible authorities arrive.

[Fritzi]

Yeah, I just. I comb through my hair and I get all the shed.

[Travis Willingham]

I might have to get some stuff out of your hair.

[Damian Blackwell]

You don't mind, but if you have chains, rope, anything that could be of useful.

[Travis Willingham]

There's lots of Cheese whiz. Oh, that. Yes. I'll find something to restrain him with.

[Laura Bailey]

Oh, what time is it?

[Matthew Mercer]

It's starting to get a little bit later in the day. It's probably about 3:45 now.

[Laura Bailey]

Oh, shit. We missed lunch.

[Travis Willingham]

Damn it. Owen.

[Laura Bailey]

Where's Owen? Is he at his desk?

[Matthew Mercer]

Owen is missing.

[Fritzi]

Damn it.

[Damian Blackwell]

Wait, I have.

[Travis Willingham]

I have a good idea. If Owen's not here, maybe I could pretend to be Owen and really, like. What's the phrase? Pooch the screw.

[Laura Bailey]

Yeah, that's the phrase. We have hero trackers. We have trackers, right? Oh, can I go to the computers and see where Owen is? Is he on the trackers?

[Matthew Mercer]

You could try to track down his particular tracker. Give me a knowledge roll. You're not in dispatch, so it's like a little bit harder for you.

[Laura Bailey]

Oh, that's my best roll of the night. That is 21. 22. 23 with hope.

[Matthew Mercer]

Yeah, 23 with hope. You are not only able to ascertain that he's on his way back from lunch, but you're also able to tell that he didn't go to Chili's at all.

[Laura Bailey]

Where was he at?

[Matthew Mercer]

He was at ikea.

[Laura Bailey]

Uh.

[Travis Willingham]

Oh, it's all starting to come together.

[Laura Bailey]

Do you think he knew?

[Damian Blackwell]

There's a possibility that either he is secretly part of the team that you called, or he is pumblefuck. Oh.

[Laura Bailey]

That would make so much sense.

[Travis Willingham]

Seven layer dip of betrayal.

[Laura Bailey]

I'm gonna go back. Oh, I'm gonna go back and look at all those records and see if I see any crime happening in those areas that those expense reports are coming from.

[Matthew Mercer]

You see that? In this case it overlaps, but in other cases it does not.

[Laura Bailey]

Well, shit, I got nothing. I really thought.

[Damian Blackwell]

How about we call him into a brief meeting, perhaps to celebrate the fact that he might be receiving a promotion with the presence of Svetra. Oh, sorry, goofy. In our office. And when we close the door, we get the information out of him.

[Laura Bailey]

Yeah, I like it.

[Damian Blackwell]

We can use my office.

[Laura Bailey]

We haven't spent a lot of time in your office lately. I like it.

[Travis Willingham]

Do I get to be a gooby?

[Damian Blackwell]

Oh, oh, if you'd like to.

[Fritzi]

Oh, quick question. Melody lost a dog.

[Laura Bailey]

A bird dog.

[Damian Blackwell]

What?

[Travis Willingham]

A bird dog?

[Fritzi]

A bird dog, but. So she'll get fired if people find out that she brought this dog to work.

[Matthew Mercer]

You would all know as not intelligence interns, that Melody Bird's dog is not a normal dog. It is a super dog.

[Fritzi]

Oh, shit.

[Travis Willingham]

Uh. Oh.

[Matthew Mercer]

Uh.

[Travis Willingham]

Oh.

[Damian Blackwell]

Well, it got lost here.

[Fritzi]

Yeah. So I was wondering, like, if we just want to put, you know, her on the list of the fat that we're trimming.

[Damian Blackwell]

How soon till Owen gets here?

[Laura Bailey]

I'll look at the tracker.

[Matthew Mercer]

He's about 15 minutes out.

[Damian Blackwell]

We have to find this doctor. This could bring us all down. Quick search for Bird Dog.

[Travis Willingham]

Oh, I'll take the second floor.

[Laura Bailey]

I'll check the patio.

[Travis Willingham]

The patio outside for a smoke break. Like an asshole.

[Damian Blackwell]

I'll take the opposite stairwell upward to see the second floor from that side.

[Travis Willingham]

I'll check the ladies room.

[Damian Blackwell]

Fitzroy, where do you want to go?

[Fritzi]

Oh, I want to go down to the basement.

[Laura Bailey]

Yeah.

[Fritzi]

Maybe Ronnie. Maybe Ronnie. Good thing I seen it.

[Damian Blackwell]

All right.

[Laura Bailey]

Yeah.

[Matthew Mercer]

Everyone give me an instinct roll. Who's looking for Bird Dog?

[Laura Bailey]

Ronnie's in charge of payroll.

[Travis Willingham]

Oh.

[Fritzi]

Ooh.

[Laura Bailey]

Oh, that is bad. Can you help me? Can't I just reroll some?

[Travis Willingham]

You want me to use that now?

[Laura Bailey]

No, it's not that important.

[Travis Willingham]

No, no, you're not. 20 with hope for.

[Matthew Mercer]

Okay, okay.

[Damian Blackwell]

24 with hope.

[Fritzi]

Oh, 14 with hope.

[Matthew Mercer]

14 with hope. That's good.

[Laura Bailey]

4 with hope with hope.

[Matthew Mercer]

All right. The two of you immediately become aware of a slight rumble beneath your feet, and it occurs to you that perhaps Bird Dog is growling somewhere on the floor right below yours, which happens to be a dental office that specializes in 3D printing Invisalign trays.

[Travis Willingham]

That is unfortunate.

[Damian Blackwell]

Like, I can't. From across the floors. Oh, no. Quickly.

[Matthew Mercer]

You run downstairs to see all of the 3D printers going haywire. Yeah, it's a horrible freaking sound. And you just see a massive hulking dog with a big streak of yellow. Yellow down. It's like Mohawk like mane that runs down its back. Big rippling haunches. And he's just, like, tearing up, like, what looks to be like, giant pillars of filament, probably worth thousands of dollars and just, like, ripping apart everything in this building. People are screaming and running for their lives.

[Travis Willingham]

I don't understand pets on this planet.

[Damian Blackwell]

We gotta take it down.

[Matthew Mercer]

Birdie.

[Damian Blackwell]

Bird Dog. Bad bird Dog. Put it down.

[Matthew Mercer]

You say bad bird dog.

[Laura Bailey]

Oh, no.

[Damian Blackwell]

Maybe.

[Matthew Mercer]

Oh, no.

[Travis Willingham]

And then there were five.

[Damian Blackwell]

I Don't have a pet. I don't know how this works.

[Matthew Mercer]

Bird dog turns around and goes. Make an agility reaction roll.

[Travis Willingham]

Oh, no.

[Damian Blackwell]

That'S a crit. Don't get anything for it. But still it's a test.

[Matthew Mercer]

Let's see. I think in that case it actually.

[Damian Blackwell]

Let's see.

[Matthew Mercer]

Just a second. Okay, you're good. You see a wave of energy kind of emit from his mouth. And you're able to leap out of the way as you see a 3D printer on your left shatter with the subsonic sound.

[Damian Blackwell]

Good, good, bird dog. Very good.

[Matthew Mercer]

Bird dog. Give me a presence. Ch.

[Damian Blackwell]

That's a ten with hope.

[Matthew Mercer]

A ten with hope. Yeah. Bird dog then gets excited. I'm gonna spend another fear. And he leaps onto you. You can roll agility or instinct here as a reaction.

[Damian Blackwell]

Instinct. Oh, that's gonna be a 14.

[Matthew Mercer]

One shy. So you take. Oh, my God, 15 points of damage as bird dog leaps on your chest and starts licking your face.

[Damian Blackwell]

Oh, that's severe. I'll mark an armor slot to reduce that to major damage.

[Matthew Mercer]

His big tongue kind of wraps around your whole face, almost paralyzing you. As he does. So you feel like your skin start to get a little numb. Margie. And his crushing weight is just like on your chest cavity. Margie, help me.

[Travis Willingham]

I'll run over with my mop. My mop blade. My mop saber. And I'll take a strike at the tongue. Trying to free Mr. Blackwell.

[Matthew Mercer]

You see me at 13.

[Travis Willingham]

That's not gonna do it. I can't even. You got this, buddy, myself. That is a nine with hope.

[Matthew Mercer]

Okay. Yeah. He's undeterred. In fact, as you poke at him with your stick, he thinks you're playing with him. And that gets him a little more hype. And then he does a little bounce on top of Blackwell as he thinks you're like, maybe try to play fetch with him.

[Travis Willingham]

And how big is a bird dog? It's like the size of.

[Matthew Mercer]

Well, he's about. He's about the size of like an Irish wolfhound and a half, but he's just dense. Like, he has like a sort of almost gravitational force to him. Like just energy compacted into a beast that's just fur and static.

[Fritzi]

It.

[Travis Willingham]

I'm going to take a stress to magically transform into a creature of your tier lower for the beast formless. But I'm going to assume this wolfhound is one of. And I'm going to turn into a bird dog.

[Matthew Mercer]

But hey, there's a Loki story about.

[Travis Willingham]

This But a seductive bird dog.

[Damian Blackwell]

No.

[Laura Bailey]

You gonna get mounted by a bird dog?

[Travis Willingham]

I'm just trying to get him off of Blackwell. All right.

[Matthew Mercer]

Immediately, like, sits up kind of, like, regally and, like, does, like, a little. Puts, like, one paw forward and kind of, like, ducks his head a little bit. Sniffing at you. Curiously, I mirror it.

[Travis Willingham]

Back it up playfully.

[Matthew Mercer]

He does one of those things dogs are. They go.

[Travis Willingham]

And I will bolt out of the room and break out into the.

[Matthew Mercer]

Immediately chases after you.

[Damian Blackwell]

I wonder how the girls are doing.

[Laura Bailey]

You think. You think we should have followed him?

[Fritzi]

They probably got it.

[Laura Bailey]

We probably got it.

[Matthew Mercer]

It's just a dog.

[Fritzi]

Yeah. Like the size of a bird. Is that what a bird dog is?

[Laura Bailey]

I think.

[Travis Willingham]

Yes.

[Damian Blackwell]

Yeah.

[Matthew Mercer]

So that's not bad. With this, it's about 4. 45. And as you all know, right before the end of the workday is when they celebrate any birthdays. Oh.

[Travis Willingham]

Oh, no.

[Matthew Mercer]

These last 15 minutes before 5 o' clock become very perilous for you all as you assemble in the break room. Bird dog now restrained in the parking lot. The office mostly put back to normal after the oxenfree attack. You all look a little worse for the wear. It's been a rough day, but you've done some good work today. In fact, the office is a little bit abuzz with especially some of the. Some of the work you've been putting in. As you kind of congregate and pass around plates of paper. You're actually celebrating Hal do well's Creation Day. A strange cyborg entity with a head like one of these monitors back here with a smiley face on it. This was the day on which he was created. He looks at all of you and goes, Greetings, fine people. Tis I, Hal Doswell.

[Damian Blackwell]

Yes, we know.

[Matthew Mercer]

We congregate today for Mind Creation Day. Please eat, drink, be merry.

[Damian Blackwell]

Thank you. And I did not be misunderstood that we appreciate each and every one of our employees and treat them with due respect. Appreciation in celebration, like any branch worth maintaining.

[Laura Bailey]

And I need to see your expense reports by tomorrow morning.

[Matthew Mercer]

As you all know, I myself cannot enjoy the delight of human cake. But whilst you partake, I shall be partaking in the holy thermal paste which I shall apply to my divine circuitry.

[Laura Bailey]

Oh.

[Damian Blackwell]

In fact, Owen, why don't you have the first bite?

[Laura Bailey]

Owen?

[Matthew Mercer]

Owen. You look around. Owen's not here.

[Laura Bailey]

Owen. What are you. Where'd Owen go?

[Matthew Mercer]

He should be.

[Laura Bailey]

He's on the clock right now. He should be in this office, just.

[Matthew Mercer]

As you say this. He comes in late. Hair a little bit too sold too Soled. Oh, I didn't miss it, did I? Gosh. Great one, Hal. Great job on that update. Great. I mean, that rollover, that was crazy. Crazy. Good one. This guy. This guy. Thermal paste. Love ya.

[Damian Blackwell]

Oh, and there's another celebration today as well, Owen. We've heard word that it's your cultural Heritage day. I'm white. Your family from Santa Barbara.

[Laura Bailey]

Santa Barbara.

[Damian Blackwell]

Celebrating Santa Barbara Day. It does require. We have a special reward for you in my office though, if you wouldn't mind coming with us.

[Matthew Mercer]

It's Santa Barbara Day?

[Damian Blackwell]

Yes.

[Matthew Mercer]

Oh my gosh, you guys can barely remember any of the holidays. You remember this one? Look at you guys. I remember when I tried to get Casual Friday going. You're a bunch of Grumpy Gus's. You're like, ain't nobody trying to do all that, Owen. And now you got Santa Barbara Day.

[Travis Willingham]

This guy.

[Matthew Mercer]

This freaking guy.

[Damian Blackwell]

Yeah.

[Matthew Mercer]

Oh, of course. Right away, Mr. Blackwall.

[Damian Blackwell]

Yes, thank you. Everyone else, please continue eating your imbibements, your divine pastes.

[Laura Bailey]

Enjoy your cake. Cost a fucking fortune.

[Damian Blackwell]

Right this way, Owen. Thank you. Shall we?

[Fritzi]

Yeah.

[Damian Blackwell]

Blinds.

[Matthew Mercer]

Owen sits down. I gotta say, I feel like this was such a delight, such a pleasure. Pleasure's all on this side of the table, I'm certain.

[Damian Blackwell]

Owen, it's come to some of our understanding that you've some irregularities in your work habits. Is that correct?

[Laura Bailey]

Where you been, Owen?

[Fritzi]

I. I don't.

[Matthew Mercer]

I don't know.

[Damian Blackwell]

What.

[Fritzi]

What do you eat at Chili's?

[Matthew Mercer]

Well, I. I do. Those are expensed lunches. I am doing business at Chili's.

[Fritzi]

With who?

[Matthew Mercer]

With a variety of associates that I meet with for our accounts.

[Laura Bailey]

Why are you always taking the train?

[Matthew Mercer]

Well, you know, sometimes I like to be more fuel conscious than some of us, you know.

[Damian Blackwell]

Why do your business associates at Chili's always have the same meal?

[Fritzi]

Well.

[Matthew Mercer]

Gotta say guys, these are some really weird, hyper specific questions.

[Damian Blackwell]

Where were you this afternoon, Ewan?

[Matthew Mercer]

I was having lunch with a very important contact at the Ikea. They have a great food court.

[Damian Blackwell]

They actually do have a great food court.

[Matthew Mercer]

You can get anything there. Give me a presents check if you're trying to intimidate him.

[Damian Blackwell]

Oh, I'm very, very much doing so going to spend a. Hope to use my Shadow Weaver feature and another hope to use my brand manager experience. I lord over him in my office, in my branch, and cause the corners of the chamber to grow darker around me and the light seems to subside until it's just the singular desk lamp I have that's bouncing from underneath Giving me that sort of Vincent Price underlit experience as I lean forward like, Owen, we know everything. This is now your chance to come clean. That's gonna be 25 with Hope. Wow.

[Matthew Mercer]

He immediately crumbles. I'm so sorry, Mr. Blackwell. I really like this job. I really do. You know, but sometimes it's really hard to make the really tough sales figures. So sometimes I listen in on your phone calls and I take your leads. And when I heard about the lead at Ikea, I wanted credit for it, so I went to Ikea. And as for the Chili's thing, okay, there's a waitress there I like, and so I take my. My business associates there, and I always tip her really well. And. And I'm still a good worker. I'm still a good person. I haven't killed anybody. You eat people. I did. I just. I just. I. My dad used to own a Cadillac dealership. I was to not. I'm not even supposed to be here, and I make the best of it. And you guys come in and you're all grumpy every day and, oh, is it cool to want to not. Is it not cool to want to do your job? Is this the crash out you wanted, Mr. Blackwell?

[Laura Bailey]

Tone it down, Owen. That's a lot.

[Matthew Mercer]

I think that's. I think at that Plorp gets his wish. And he probably starts crying. So embarrassing. My receipts and priorities of me like this.

[Damian Blackwell]

Why is it embarrassing? It's only because your life has crumbled around you and you realize your entire work effort has been a sham in the face of our crumbling company in which they're telling us to let go. People, you seem to be climbing to the top of that list. Isn't that right, Owen? Oh, isn't that right, Owen? I unleash the shadow from the corner. So the camera in my room's been catching all of this as well. Oh, cry for me, boy. Cry for Xanador. It feeds him.

[Matthew Mercer]

You're late every Monday.

[Laura Bailey]

No, you have no evidence to.

[Matthew Mercer]

You shot down the Hawaiian shirt Friday.

[Damian Blackwell]

That was a communal decision.

[Matthew Mercer]

And I thought the picnic at the park was a fun thing to do. I'm going to get you from.

[Laura Bailey]

It's fucking hot outside, Owen. Nobody wants to go outside for a fucking picnic.

[Matthew Mercer]

Probably also not on their day off.

[Laura Bailey]

It was 99 degrees yesterday.

[Damian Blackwell]

My cape kind of like curls up and starts, like, sucking the tears from his face.

[Matthew Mercer]

Yeah. You hear Plorp go, yes. Weep for me, little man.

[Fritzi]

First your tears, then your soul.

[Laura Bailey]

Do any of us hear Blorp?

[Damian Blackwell]

No.

[Travis Willingham]

I don't think so.

[Damian Blackwell]

If you see me going.

[Fritzi]

Blessed salt, it feeds me.

[Damian Blackwell]

Yes. Drink deep, my sweet. Nothing. Nothing. It's almost end of the workday. Very well, Owen. You will be part of our review tomorrow. I assume lest you have some major means of making it up to the company, the Burbank SDN will have much to discuss with our guest tomorrow about your recent and glances at the papers over in your hand. Historical irregularities. Is there anybody else who you've been working with, or have you been working alone?

[Matthew Mercer]

Oh, it's just me, Damn it.

[Damian Blackwell]

Very well. Thank you for your time and your tears.

[Matthew Mercer]

My collects his things. You see him take one of the cardboard boxes and preemptively start putting his things into it. The chop mark is so bad. It's so diddly dang bad right now.

[Travis Willingham]

Diddly dang?

[Matthew Mercer]

When God closes the door, he opens the window so you can jump out of it.

[Damian Blackwell]

Well, that seemed rather successful, right?

[Fritzi]

Yeah.

[Matthew Mercer]

Really.

[Fritzi]

Okay.

[Travis Willingham]

You hear a knock at the door, Come in. I'm standing there as COO V. We're zoan.

[Laura Bailey]

Right. I forgot that was part of the plan.

[Travis Willingham]

She's deep. I grew six arms. This requires a lot of energy. I'm starting to bleed out of my ears.

[Matthew Mercer]

Can you let it go? Can you let it go?

[Travis Willingham]

I need to.

[Laura Bailey]

Good job.

[Travis Willingham]

Lie down a little bit. I almost died. How'd we do?

[Laura Bailey]

You did great.

[Damian Blackwell]

Wonderfully. He was so scared of your presence as you approached, he ran out and practically quit himself.

[Travis Willingham]

Glad I could help save the company.

[Laura Bailey]

All right, well, y' all want to hit up drinks tonight? Cape and cow.

[Travis Willingham]

Cape and Cow. Lord Chili's.

[Damian Blackwell]

Well, I preemptively made a phone call this afternoon to give a tip to one toots. One toots that about 7 o' clock this evening when most are finishing with work and making their way to their local groceries to pick up materials that a heist is to occur. Can we send real fast our evening shift team to encounter with a very extensive camera crew to prepare for the morning's report?

[Matthew Mercer]

Of course.

[Laura Bailey]

I'll let dispatch know.

[Damian Blackwell]

Thank you kindly. And thank you for the suggestion.

[Fritzi]

Yeah, you're welcome.

[Matthew Mercer]

Doing a very important napkin calculation before you leave work for the day, do you post the social media post?

[Fritzi]

Oh, for sure. And it's a meme edit.

[Laura Bailey]

What is that? What's a meme edit?

[Fritzi]

You know, it's got like a. There's like a zebra superimposed on it and the. The zebras doing like a. Like the slag dance. You know, just to make sure we get those views.

[Laura Bailey]

Hashtag.

[Fritzi]

Hashtag. Sea World's dead.

[Matthew Mercer]

Of all the things, give me a knowledge roll to see if you can. Can, like, comprehend and analyze social media trends.

[Laura Bailey]

Oh, shit.

[Travis Willingham]

Gladness. You got this.

[Damian Blackwell]

I'll spend a hope here to help you on this. All right, so I have a niece who does these posts quite frequently, and while I'm not quite able to interface, I can suggest a few meme tastic additions.

[Laura Bailey]

Okay. So you can add a decent. Okay.

[Fritzi]

Oh, okay. It's a seven.

[Travis Willingham]

You can do this, buddy. And once per rest, I'll allow you to reroll by taking the words of support.

[Matthew Mercer]

Thank you.

[Fritzi]

Okay. It's a. Yeah, it's a 15 with hope plus five. Plus five.

[Matthew Mercer]

It's a 20. A 20, right?

[Laura Bailey]

Oh, you take a hit point for that?

[Travis Willingham]

No, it hurt me, but I needed it.

[Matthew Mercer]

As you load into the digitruck, that is miraculously still there. Not because it was. There was not an attempt to tow it. There definitely was. It's just that attempt was unsuccessful. Given the size of the vehicle, you notice one of the plates in the front has fallen off. But your car is still there. But as you load into the digitruck, you notice that your video is kind of doing numbers just within the first 30 minutes of posting.

[Fritzi]

You guys, I think we're going viral.

[Damian Blackwell]

That's incredible.

[Fritzi]

Yeah.

[Travis Willingham]

Wow.

[Laura Bailey]

That's amazing.

[Damian Blackwell]

Who keyed my car?

[Laura Bailey]

Huh?

[Damian Blackwell]

Who keyed my car?

[Laura Bailey]

Who didn't?

[Travis Willingham]

I'm sure we could look over the security footage. It's highly accessible. Sorry.

[Laura Bailey]

We probably shouldn't do that.

[Travis Willingham]

Right? Focused on the tasks ahead.

[Laura Bailey]

Yeah, we don't want to waste resources.

[Damian Blackwell]

Very well. Drinks then.

[Laura Bailey]

Drinks.

[Matthew Mercer]

You head to the Cape and Cowl or Chili's.

[Laura Bailey]

Oh, right. Cape and cowl are Chili's.

[Damian Blackwell]

Oh, I guess Cape and Cape and.

[Laura Bailey]

Cal have more people there that we could talk to.

[Travis Willingham]

That you could talk to.

[Laura Bailey]

Listen, it takes a fine selection. Although I've seen most of them, if I'm being honest.

[Damian Blackwell]

I have my hands at 10 and 2 and then release them as it goes into a terrifying autopilot. And like. Well, I feel like this is a rather accomplished day. It's worth celebrating.

[Travis Willingham]

And.

[Damian Blackwell]

So, yes, let's celebrate and see what other leads we might find. Sweet. Senator.

[Matthew Mercer]

You pull into the cape and cowl, and the crowd is a little bit thicker tonight. You notice people are kind of drinking out of stress. Maybe not celebration. There's some people that maybe made blenders at work today and are. Are a little bit on edge about how their reviews are gonna go. The Next day, there's a lot of commiserating happening, but there are other people that feel like they're safe. The din is not its usual raucous sort of wall that you walk into. It's just a little bit more subdued than usual.

[Laura Bailey]

We should have gone to Chili's.

[Travis Willingham]

I'm going to make my way around the Cape Cow and just try and pick up on any conversations. Anyone that seems particularly worried about today's actions.

[Matthew Mercer]

Yeah, go ahead and give me an instinct roll.

[Travis Willingham]

A 14 for you.

[Matthew Mercer]

Okay, you do hear something. 14 is high enough. You hear your good friend Ian, also known as the Incredilist Bulk. He's massive, he's purple, and he's really been doing quite well since he took up the anger management. But you notice him nursing a rather large flagon of something dark that smells a little bit acrid as he's sitting there. And he's just like, oh, man. All these years. All these years I sat. I just can't believe it. You mess up one decimal spot, you mess up one thing on the wrong day, and. And then it's just. It's all gone. Then what am I gonna do, you know?

[Damian Blackwell]

Balk?

[Travis Willingham]

Ian, is that you?

[Matthew Mercer]

Oh, Marty.

[Travis Willingham]

Did you say.

[Matthew Mercer]

Hey.

[Travis Willingham]

Did you say you were. What? Did something happen today because of your equations?

[Matthew Mercer]

I met. I messed up big time, man. I messed up big time. It's like my fingers are so big, sometimes when I click on the little kizos, I hit the wrong one. And I did it today and I ended up sending, you know, the. The squad with the fire user to the fire, and I ended up sending the squad with the water bender to the drowning. And people are really upset with me now, but I just. I got the. I got him mixed up. And I don't know what I'm gonna. I'm. I'm losing my job tomorrow.

[Travis Willingham]

No, no, honest.

[Matthew Mercer]

And, you know, Becca left me for a younger, hotter bulk.

[Travis Willingham]

Oh.

[Matthew Mercer]

So I already got to pay that, you know, and it's just I've really been struggling because I just wanna. You know, and I've just. I've really been struggling with it.

[Travis Willingham]

What do you. What are you drinking there? A pokey?

[Matthew Mercer]

Oh, this is Jagermeister and Frenette.

[Travis Willingham]

That sounds like regret. Yeah.

[Matthew Mercer]

Listen, it burns so good. Cause all I want to do is burn down the Burbank sdn. It's okay, because when you get in the ring with the Bulk, you get the Hulk. Sorry.

[Travis Willingham]

Yeah. Old habits, they die hard.

[Laura Bailey]

Yeah.

[Matthew Mercer]

Sorry.

[Travis Willingham]

Well, listen, if you think things are gonna go poorly I probably have some people you could talk to, but I'm sure they recognize all of your excellent service up till now.

[Matthew Mercer]

You think so?

[Travis Willingham]

Of course.

[Matthew Mercer]

Give me a presence check.

[Travis Willingham]

That's one. That's. Yes, that's a 13 with fear.

[Matthew Mercer]

He heals one's stress. I hope you're right. I really hope you're right. You always got my back, Marty.

[Damian Blackwell]

Thank you.

[Travis Willingham]

Of course. Have you ever. Have you ever been or has your branch ever been hammered before?

[Matthew Mercer]

No. First time? Yeah. You know, I don't know that I want to get hammered. There's normally guys like us as weeds that do the hammering, right? You know, when I was in the ring, I was somebody. Yeah. I pulped a few guys. You know, maybe that was bad. You know, but you can't make jam without squishing some apples. I think. I think that's a thing that they say.

[Travis Willingham]

You know what? I think you should talk to Mr. Mr. Blackwell or Ms. Honeycott. We're gonna be. We're gonna be doing everything we can to save our branch. And you, you're an asset.

[Matthew Mercer]

Thanks, Marty. That place would have burned down a long time ago without you.

[Travis Willingham]

Just stay with the Jaeger. I'll be back. I'll bring you an Everclear, Okay?

[Matthew Mercer]

Okay. He fist bumps you?

[Travis Willingham]

Just. Nothing. Just applesauce in my head. Lie back and tell the others. You know, Bulk's over there, and Ian looks pissed. He thinks he's gonna get the axe.

[Laura Bailey]

What'd he do?

[Travis Willingham]

He did some wrong dispatches, and now they're coming after him.

[Laura Bailey]

Add him to the list.

[Travis Willingham]

Oh, no, but he's a great. He's a solid guy. Plus, I mean, maybe we could. Maybe we could use him. How? Well, I mean, instead of dispatching with the orders that he has, maybe he could, you know, play. Play along the line.

[Laura Bailey]

Yeah, I suppose we could do that. Now we're trying to cut the fat, Marty.

[Travis Willingham]

Mm.

[Laura Bailey]

And so far we got, what, four names?

[Damian Blackwell]

Three in the question mark?

[Laura Bailey]

Well, we got Owen, we got Lizzie.

[Damian Blackwell]

Mm.

[Laura Bailey]

Got Melody.

[Travis Willingham]

Mm.

[Damian Blackwell]

Sorry. Melody.

[Laura Bailey]

Melody, yeah. Fucking Mr. Got out today. She's out.

[Damian Blackwell]

I know.

[Laura Bailey]

You know how much money she probably cost us?

[Damian Blackwell]

But she has such a villainous way about her as my assistant that I don't draw. But I suppose. Put her on there.

[Laura Bailey]

And now we got her in. You know, that's a good amount. How many did you overhear that we.

[Travis Willingham]

Needed to cut over here?

[Laura Bailey]

Didn't you overhear people talking about percentages?

[Travis Willingham]

No.

[Laura Bailey]

Oh, all right. Nevermind then.

[Travis Willingham]

But you could cut my pay.

[Fritzi]

Cool.

[Laura Bailey]

I Don't remember off the top of my head how much you make, Marty.

[Travis Willingham]

It's pretty modest.

[Damian Blackwell]

Cut Marty's pay.

[Fritzi]

I'd offer to cut my pay, but I'm not paying.

[Damian Blackwell]

We can pay you and then carry it.

[Laura Bailey]

That's true. That would look good. Okay, yeah.

[Damian Blackwell]

That'S complicated. Wait.

[Laura Bailey]

What are we doing?

[Matthew Mercer]

We got time.

[Damian Blackwell]

What are we doing? We should just be trying to save the bulk.

[Laura Bailey]

What time is it?

[Damian Blackwell]

Not the bulk, but the bulk of the. It's confusing.

[Laura Bailey]

Is the grocery store under attack yet? Has that happened already?

[Damian Blackwell]

It should have been. Did you dispatch the secondary team?

[Laura Bailey]

Yeah, of course I did.

[Damian Blackwell]

Let's look at the news. We go and check if there's any news.

[Matthew Mercer]

You notice that the news is reporting on a rash of attacks in Burbank and that perhaps there needs to be more done to invest in Burbank Security.

[Fritzi]

This is our chance.

[Damian Blackwell]

What?

[Matthew Mercer]

Wait.

[Laura Bailey]

But shouldn't the reports be that SDN is. The superheroes are fighting the rash of crime?

[Travis Willingham]

Well, not if Ian's improperly dispatching heroes.

[Damian Blackwell]

Oh, shit.

[Laura Bailey]

Was Ian the one that I talked to and dispatched?

[Matthew Mercer]

You don't recall, but the math is kind of mathing a little bit.

[Laura Bailey]

Oh, no.

[Travis Willingham]

Did we up the crime and up properly handle the fix?

[Damian Blackwell]

Should we be shut down?

[Travis Willingham]

Are we the bad guys?

[Fritzi]

Are we the baddies?

[Laura Bailey]

Oh, R R, I'm going to need a drink.

[Damian Blackwell]

All right. Yes, I. I can get drinks. What? What did you want?

[Laura Bailey]

I want whiskey on the rocks.

[Damian Blackwell]

Whiskey on the rocks. Marty.

[Travis Willingham]

151.

[Damian Blackwell]

Jesus Christ. Yes, Hugh Fleffelier.

[Fritzi]

I might need a drink.

[Travis Willingham]

Yes.

[Damian Blackwell]

Yes. What would you like?

[Fritzi]

What's a nice. What's a nice alcohol.

[Travis Willingham]

Lemon drop.

[Laura Bailey]

Whiskey on the rocks.

[Fritzi]

Lemon drop sounds nice.

[Laura Bailey]

Vodka soda. That's nice and easy.

[Damian Blackwell]

It's a little sweet Long island iced tea.

[Fritzi]

Oh, yeah, that sounds. I love iced tea.

[Laura Bailey]

Damien, don't you give her no Long island iced tea. You know what that'll do to her.

[Fritzi]

Is Long island bad?

[Damian Blackwell]

I'll get you what I'm having.

[Laura Bailey]

Okay.

[Damian Blackwell]

Brandy and Faygo.

[Matthew Mercer]

Are we in a competition to come up with the nastiest trees?

[Damian Blackwell]

I think so.

[Travis Willingham]

There's no competition. There's only a winner over here.

[Damian Blackwell]

I don't know. Literally, I was thinking of a drink with Fernet, and you dropped that. I was like, oh, that's awful. Well, very. Well. There has to be a way about this, if indeed the social push on the media is that Burbank needs to be invested in its defenses. And we can take that and spin it with the coverage of the things we have managed to. Did at least the Whole Foods thing get taken care of?

[Matthew Mercer]

Let's actually roll to see how well that went. I have some of your dispatcher.

[Laura Bailey]

We sent people and some people to film it to ikea.

[Damian Blackwell]

Let's see if the ikea.

[Matthew Mercer]

The unfortunate part of this for you guys is that your NPCs have been rolling very terribly because I'm rolling for them. See here.

[Fritzi]

Okay.

[Matthew Mercer]

Oh, that's a crit. So the Whole Foods job went very well.

[Damian Blackwell]

Great, Fantastic.

[Laura Bailey]

You know, there were so many people there, they probably all got it on film.

[Damian Blackwell]

Oh, yes.

[Matthew Mercer]

Which villain did you send to Whole Foods?

[Damian Blackwell]

That was Toots.

[Matthew Mercer]

Toots?

[Laura Bailey]

Yeah, his name is Toots.

[Travis Willingham]

Toots. Very different from Toots up in New Hampshire.

[Damian Blackwell]

Toots.

[Travis Willingham]

Toots.

[Matthew Mercer]

Toots was apprehended and taken down. Great for farting on the deli meats.

[Laura Bailey]

Ew, that is disgusting.

[Damian Blackwell]

It's really terrible in the Whole Foods too, because there's no fast way to get out.

[Matthew Mercer]

The next morning. You're a little bleary eyed.

[Fritzi]

Yeah.

[Laura Bailey]

But do we clear our stress overnight?

[Fritzi]

First time last night?

[Damian Blackwell]

Yes.

[Fritzi]

Okay.

[Matthew Mercer]

You recover your stress? Yes, actually. All right, let me look. You can tend to your wounds, clear your stress, repair your armor. Any two of those.

[Damian Blackwell]

Correct. All right.

[Matthew Mercer]

The morning can. This morning is uneventful. The traffic is light. You all have a quiet, somber mood. And this time when you come into work, Owen isn't there to mock you. The fluorescent lights beam of hope, but a little bit of despair. Hope because you think that you've done some good work over the past few days. Despair because you still aren't sure if everyone's gonna make it out of this in one piece. And even though this place some days feels like your prison, some days it feels like your family away from family. But maybe that's because you work here way too much much. And you don't have a really good work life balance. You get the familiar shock when you turn the handle, curse the door handle as you do. The duct tape on the floor seems especially shiny. And of course, you are ushered into the boardroom for your individual meetings with the Hammer. Now, you are not surprised by the vision that you're met with. With. Actually, all of you got this information from the bar, but Mort and Gordy Hamrick are comprised of one massive boulder of a man with a super scientist psychic kind of jutting out of his torso that kind of does all of his communicating for him. And the two of them form the entity that will determine your fates and the Fate of the Burbank SDM the lights in the boardroom are bright. You can smell stale coffee, Chinese takeout, printer ink. In fact, Mort and Gordy's hands are blackened at the tips with printer ink as they kind of stick sit with steepled fingers. You're not called in first. It kind of feels like waiting for the executioner. You see different members. Maybe some that you're closer with, some that you're not, go in and come out either looking crestfallen or looking relieved. And it's a little hard to watch. You see a sad computer monitor with legs kind of droop, throwing up a sad face emoji as you realize that perhaps the good doc has not made the cut. As you sit, kind of like waiting, Ian comes and says to you, marty, I don't know. I don't know if I'm gonna make it.

[Travis Willingham]

Yeah, probably not. It's pretty grim.

[Matthew Mercer]

They cut. They cut Hal Doswell. That feels. That one hurt. I know he was an old model, but he probably could have. We probably could have gotten him an update or something, and. Printing budget was crazy with that thing, though. He couldn't. He had to, like, print out everything, but.

[Travis Willingham]

Yeah.

[Matthew Mercer]

Marty, are you okay?

[Travis Willingham]

Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's a natural cycle, these things.

[Matthew Mercer]

Well, Marty, I'm sure you'll be fine. You haven't messed anything up, have you?

[Travis Willingham]

Dope, I clean things up.

[Matthew Mercer]

Honestly, if you go in there and say that, you know, it's the anticipation that's killing me. I just wish I could burn it.

[Laura Bailey]

But.

[Matthew Mercer]

Thanks for, you know. No matter what happens, good luck in there.

[Travis Willingham]

You're a good one, Ian.

[Matthew Mercer]

You're a good one, too, Marty. I'm gonna go take a shit.

[Travis Willingham]

Okay.

[Matthew Mercer]

Last dump on the company dime. And he trudges with determination towards the bathroom to shit on the company dollar.

[Travis Willingham]

Nice respect.

[Matthew Mercer]

All right, I'm gonna have you guys roll to see who goes in first with the specialists.

[Laura Bailey]

What, are we adding anything to this or just a straight?

[Matthew Mercer]

Just straight.

[Travis Willingham]

Okay.

[Laura Bailey]

Sixteen.

[Matthew Mercer]

Thirteen.

[Damian Blackwell]

Thirteen as well.

[Travis Willingham]

Six, but double threes.

[Matthew Mercer]

So I'll let you decide if you want to go first or last.

[Travis Willingham]

Last.

[Matthew Mercer]

Last.

[Travis Willingham]

No, first.

[Matthew Mercer]

First. First.

[Travis Willingham]

I'll go first.

[Laura Bailey]

Okay.

[Matthew Mercer]

The desk has been polished to a gleam that you can see your own face in because you polished it. There's a massive stack of papers next to the two specialists in the corner. You see the six armed entity, kind of gently supervised. And as you walk in, they're like, hey, buddy. The head on the torso says, come on in, sit down. Great to have this little chat with you just want to talk a little bit about what you do at the company and just see where you're at. Like, what's your day like? If you just want to walk us through that and talk to us a little bit about, you know, just what you do here at Burpeguest.

[Travis Willingham]

Oh, sure. I walk over to the chair and I kind of like, clean off the seat before I sit down. You know, I'm really concerned with keeping the working environment tip top. Because to function at your best, you have to look like you work at the best anyway. So I take care of the outside and inside of the building, and I also tend to anyone's needs inside the first or second floors. And yeah, I kind of just fill in wherever I'm needed.

[Matthew Mercer]

Oh, okay. Would you describe yourself as a team player?

[Damian Blackwell]

No.

[Matthew Mercer]

Oh, okay.

[Travis Willingham]

I'm more of a. Like a. Like a lone wolf.

[Matthew Mercer]

Oh, you see the clipboard come out. Okay.

[Travis Willingham]

But. But that operates in a pack as a lone.

[Matthew Mercer]

Well, you know. You know, it's just that we're looking for people that are really adept.

[Laura Bailey]

You.

[Matthew Mercer]

Know, when a problem that comes up, how do you handle that? Something unexpected.

[Travis Willingham]

I instantly mimic him by turning into what he looks like. And I go. I just adapt and handle it and return back to myself.

[Matthew Mercer]

Now that's impressive.

[Travis Willingham]

I'm really good at taking orders and I'm a quick learner.

[Matthew Mercer]

Quick, quick learner. You know, I just. I gotta say, you've got middle management written all over you. This is baffling to me. You know, you just got all these qualities that on paper tell me that you are somebody that is begging for attention, that's begging to be seen, to be noticed. And maybe this is a chance for you. I think you haven't been properly challenged. I think we want to challenge you. A spot just opened. DTLA sdn. That's a big building. They got a whole janitorial staff down there, buddy.

[Travis Willingham]

A whole staff.

[Matthew Mercer]

A whole staff. They need somebody to manage that staff. I've been looking through your files.

[Travis Willingham]

I'll need some time to think about it.

[Matthew Mercer]

I gotta say it. I've been looking through some of your files. Ships here. Well, it's a sloppily run ship. It's not a tight ship, but you gotta say it's clean. Clean as a whistle. That just sold me even more. I just. It would be my honor to just reach right across this table and just shake your hand and just, you know, offer you this position.

[Travis Willingham]

I'll need some time to think about it. I do have a lot of other offers out there. I appreciate your interest, though. I'll get back to you. And I stand up and I leave.

[Laura Bailey]

Wow.

[Matthew Mercer]

You just hear them as they're. As you walk.

[Damian Blackwell]

Wow.

[Matthew Mercer]

What a wasted talent.

[Fritzi]

Wow.

[Matthew Mercer]

Just whose job was it to look at that and think, let's put him at the bottom of the ladder? Cause let me tell you, this is what you hear.

[Travis Willingham]

I slipped the door.

[Matthew Mercer]

I'm like, how'd it go? Was a bloodbath.

[Travis Willingham]

They're considering promoting me.

[Fritzi]

What? Isn't that a good thing?

[Travis Willingham]

I'm not sure. From Marshall. I need to go to the bathroom. Like, run to the bathroom. I go up the stairs.

[Laura Bailey]

A promotion. That's good, right? Yeah.

[Fritzi]

Where do you think they're getting the money if they're promoting him?

[Laura Bailey]

I've seen a lot of people leaving that office with a frowny face. You know, they're probably.

[Damian Blackwell]

I'm sure they've cut some of the fat. But also I have an influx of interest from the successful endeavors that we've laid throughout the town. So I'm certain they're confident in our capabilities.

[Matthew Mercer]

Who's next?

[Laura Bailey]

I rolled a 16, so I'm next. All right. Top to bottom, huh? All right. I'm not walking without a cigarette because I'm serious about this business.

[Matthew Mercer]

Good morning, Ms. Honeycutt.

[Laura Bailey]

That's right.

[Matthew Mercer]

Oh, amazing. Please, sit, sit. Would you like a glass of water? Perhaps a lemonade?

[Laura Bailey]

I'm all right. Thank you so much.

[Matthew Mercer]

Really interesting office you run here. You're the office manager? That's right, I am, yeah. Could you walk us through some of your formal education, if you will? It's all here, but I'm still gonna have you repeat it just cause I would like to know it through your words.

[Laura Bailey]

Yeah, well, I'm queen bee. Served with the. The star children. Stupid name for a group. For several years. And then, you know, as I sort of settled down, I decided I needed something more permanent. So I've been serving here as office manager for 15 years now.

[Matthew Mercer]

You know, you caught a pretty big blunder in the system yesterday.

[Laura Bailey]

I gotta say, I caught a few of them, actually.

[Matthew Mercer]

You have an entire accounting department, and yet none of them missed this entire thing with Owen. He's gone. Let him go.

[Laura Bailey]

Get him out.

[Matthew Mercer]

Glover it is.

[Laura Bailey]

That's right.

[Matthew Mercer]

But I gotta say, it was really your quick thinking in and attention to detail that got us there.

[Laura Bailey]

Thank you very much.

[Matthew Mercer]

And that's the kind of go getter attitude we really like here. We really like that, you know, and. And The. The crime. This area has been rocketing, and it seems like you've just, you know, we.

[Laura Bailey]

Really stepped it up.

[Matthew Mercer]

Yeah, you did. You did. It feels like you really have both hands on the wheel here. Love to see that. That's great, you know, Love the knowledge you bring to the position. Love that you got boots on the ground experience. That's really important. We really like that, too. Just have a couple questions for you.

[Laura Bailey]

Anything. Yeah, you ask.

[Matthew Mercer]

The paper goods budget, you know, Now, I know that that's not the only part of your job, but what percentage of your job would you say office supplies is?

[Laura Bailey]

You know, 40%. Here's the thing.

[Matthew Mercer]

40%.

[Laura Bailey]

Here's the thing. Up until yesterday. Now, you might be aware I have fired Lizzie as my assistant. And when I was doing all my. My paperwork yesterday and looking at accounting and whatnot, I realized that Lizzie was over ordering that paper by a lot, you know, So I moved her off of my assistant job, got frizzy in her place. Fritzi, she's a great gal. And found she's capable of so many things, you know, I upgraded her to social media manager.

[Matthew Mercer]

You hired someone and then gave them a promotion within 24 hours?

[Laura Bailey]

Well, it's my assistant job as well, you know, it's another title. Still the same amount of pay, but it makes her feel special. And we've been needing some good PR around here.

[Matthew Mercer]

That's really novel way of managing when you give people excess responsibility, but the same amount of pay, it lets them know what they're capable of. That's right. Give me a presents roll.

[Laura Bailey]

Can I add an experience to this?

[Matthew Mercer]

You actually get a plus two to this for. Let me check my notes here. Fudging the sales records to make them look like they're in your name. And for busting Owen, you've literally been.

[Damian Blackwell]

Graded through this entire session. This is awesome.

[Laura Bailey]

Can I add my seen it all experience?

[Matthew Mercer]

Absolutely. Okay, go ahead and spend the hoe.

[Laura Bailey]

All right.

[Matthew Mercer]

And I'm going to need to beat a 15.

[Damian Blackwell]

Oh.

[Matthew Mercer]

Oh, okay.

[Laura Bailey]

That's great. That's 17 off the bat. Plus two, plus three, plus two. So way over a 15.

[Matthew Mercer]

Way over.

[Laura Bailey]

With Hope.

[Matthew Mercer]

With Hope. Well, you know, that's some really novel thinking. You're bringing in some pretty cool new ways of managing. When it comes to management, we have several modalities, as it were. Pardon the vernacular. And you have a very unique, fresh, young, and honestly, we could use more women in management.

[Laura Bailey]

That's good. Good optics.

[Matthew Mercer]

No. I got him. Gotta ask you one more thing here. Some of Your dispatchers, if you had to choose which ones were to, let's say, be all let go, which ones would you pick?

[Laura Bailey]

Listen.

[Matthew Mercer]

Cause looking at it, you got a crack team of soups. You got Marty just killing it in the. In the logistics department. Lots of great upand cominging young talent on the roster. They understand the importance of outreach influencing content creation. Really important. We look at that a lot these days. We look at the brand a lot these days. But the dispatch. I'm seeing a big problem with dispatch.

[Laura Bailey]

Yeah. Look, I don't wanna talk bad about any of my employees.

[Matthew Mercer]

Oh, but we're not really talking bad. We're just comparing notes, professional to professional.

[Laura Bailey]

I know that. Look, I don't wanna say anything, but I know Ian's been dropping the ball a little bit lately. Yeah, good guy. Good guy. But, you know, making some big mistakes there.

[Matthew Mercer]

Who hired Ian?

[Laura Bailey]

I don't know. I think that was. You know, Ian's been around a long time. I think he was hired before Mr. Blackwell got in the office, so.

[Damian Blackwell]

Okay.

[Matthew Mercer]

I was gonna say, you know, some of the staffing issues. How much of the hiring would you say Mr. Blackwell does?

[Laura Bailey]

Oh, you know, I'm not fully aware of all of it, but probably 80. 80% of the employees now. 80% were previously employed. And Mr. Blackwell brought in about an additional 20%. And a lot of the people that, you know, he's hired have been. They've been ringers. They've been good. He brought in Marty after all.

[Matthew Mercer]

Is that true? Sure. Give me a presents. Another presents roll. This one needs to be a 20. Oh, God. Okay.

[Fritzi]

Shit.

[Matthew Mercer]

I'm gonna add my experience to that as well. Cause I think Marty predates Mr. Blackwell. Marty's ancient.

[Laura Bailey]

Okay, well. Okay, that's 20.

[Matthew Mercer]

Hell, yeah.

[Laura Bailey]

But that's with a fear, unfortunately.

[Matthew Mercer]

Well, Marty's a great get. And honestly, the only crime is that I feel like his talents haven't been adequately nourished. What? You. You know, Ms. Huddicutt, we got no problems with you. We've decided we're not gonna close this branch. We think it can be saved, but we're just gonna be tightening up the operations a little bit. And as part of that, we might have you take on some additional responsibilities and maybe take on a bigger title.

[Laura Bailey]

Thank you very much. Good. That wouldn't come with a pay raise, would it?

[Matthew Mercer]

Absolutely, it would. And stock options.

[Laura Bailey]

This has been a great meeting. You know, I really enjoyed talking to you.

[Damian Blackwell]

Of course.

[Matthew Mercer]

Of course. We'll move you into a bigger office space. We're gonna have a lot. Tons of it. But we're gonna be moving to a more hot desk type of layout where the employees don't really have desks. They just have stations to kind of come into where they can use that. But you'll have your designated space, and we might increase the number of people under you up to two. So you'll be able to have everything you need to kind of do what you need to do best.

[Laura Bailey]

Thank you very much.

[Matthew Mercer]

Great. Send the next person.

[Laura Bailey]

Yeah, I'll send them right on in. Shut the door. Go straight for a cigarette.

[Damian Blackwell]

So what's the bad.

[Laura Bailey]

It went great. Went great. I might be getting a promotion.

[Matthew Mercer]

What?

[Damian Blackwell]

Fantastic.

[Laura Bailey]

Yeah, I really talked you up in there. All right.

[Damian Blackwell]

Oh, you didn't have to do that.

[Laura Bailey]

And you, too. You're doing great.

[Fritzi]

Really?

[Laura Bailey]

Yeah.

[Fritzi]

Are we all getting promotions? This is going a lot better than I expected.

[Laura Bailey]

Yeah.

[Damian Blackwell]

This is one way. Everyone did kind of pull together these past few days and really showed. Showed their.

[Laura Bailey]

You know what? I'm gonna. I think all of us have been great, and I'm gonna inspire us right now. And all of us right here, we get to take our stress away, too. Stress? If you got stress, you can mark it down.

[Fritzi]

I didn't sleep very well last night, so.

[Laura Bailey]

I know that. I know that, Fritzy.

[Fritzi]

Thank you.

[Matthew Mercer]

She got my name Pretty.

[Fritzi]

Thanks, Ms. Honeycott.

[Damian Blackwell]

It's been frizzy this whole time.

[Fritzi]

Yeah.

[Damian Blackwell]

I'm so sorry.

[Fritzi]

Oh, it's okay.

[Damian Blackwell]

You know what? You've proven yourself adequate. You go next.

[Fritzi]

Oh, thank you.

[Damian Blackwell]

Of course.

[Fritzi]

Okay, here we go.

[Damian Blackwell]

Fritzi, don't forget you got this.

[Fritzi]

Thank you. Hello. I am Fritzy.

[Travis Willingham]

Oh, sorry.

[Matthew Mercer]

Hi. Hello. Yeah, if you could just come on in, have a seat. Yeah, there's a chug of water there for you. Nothing to be nervous about. Just kind of want to know what you do here because it seems like you've been bouncing around apartments. It doesn't look good. Trying to figure out where a puzzle piece fits is an important part of how all this works. So where do you. How do you think you fit in?

[Fritzi]

I fit here.

[Damian Blackwell]

Okay.

[Fritzi]

Keep it brief.

[Matthew Mercer]

Okay.

[Fritzi]

I am a value add. I am a culture fit. I am unpaid.

[Matthew Mercer]

You know what went viral? I don't see any problems with any of this. You know, you gotta pay your dues, you know, and you gotta do the time. And I love a boots on the ground go getter. Yeah, I mean, I think we're done here if you wanna send in the next guy. This was great.

[Fritzi]

Well, leave.

[Matthew Mercer]

Fabulous.

[Fritzi]

Thanks.

[Matthew Mercer]

Wonderful. To me meet you, Fritzy.

[Fritzi]

Okay.

[Matthew Mercer]

Keep doing you, hon.

[Fritzi]

Okay, bye.

[Matthew Mercer]

Keep doing you. God, I love college kids. God, they're the best.

[Fritzi]

Oh, I get paid. I think it went well. I don't. I think I'm still here.

[Damian Blackwell]

That's cool.

[Fritzi]

I think I'm still unpaid, though.

[Laura Bailey]

We'll change it tomorrow.

[Damian Blackwell]

Yes, we'll get that. We'll get that remedied immediately.

[Matthew Mercer]

Whoo.

[Fritzi]

Your turn.

[Damian Blackwell]

Right. Of course.

[Fritzi]

Promotion. They're just handing them out.

[Damian Blackwell]

Apparently, it just seems to be the case. All right, I'll see all of you cats on the other side. All right, Senator, with me, friend. Blop. Hello.

[Matthew Mercer]

Hello. Mr. Blackwell. Please, have a seat.

[Damian Blackwell]

Of course. It's my pleasure. Was it Hamrick, right?

[Matthew Mercer]

Yes, yes, Mort. And I'm Gordy.

[Damian Blackwell]

Mort and Gordy. Pleasure's mine.

[Matthew Mercer]

Yes, of course. Mr. Blackwell, your office is in shambles.

[Damian Blackwell]

Oh, that is a really exaggeration. It has gone for through some challenging points in time, some beyond our control, but we've managed to pull it together. Each and every moment in which a challenge presented itself.

[Matthew Mercer]

I don't like to think of challenges as challenges. I like to think of them as growth opportunities.

[Damian Blackwell]

And we've grown. We have. If you look at the numbers of successful dispatches and even just the past few days, callings of required assistance from the SDN here in Burbank, we had a wave of crime, criminal activity that seemed to threaten the very citizens. And yet even overtime work was done to ensure they felt safe at their very home, their place of business.

[Matthew Mercer]

You're making some really good points, and I want to acknowledge those While also acknowledging that you could have been doing. Doing this much sooner. I would like to address your hesitancy in your action.

[Damian Blackwell]

Methodical problem solving.

[Matthew Mercer]

How would you describe your methodology?

[Damian Blackwell]

I would describe it as plotting.

[Matthew Mercer]

Plotting.

[Damian Blackwell]

I have experience in plotting.

[Matthew Mercer]

What would you have experience with?

[Damian Blackwell]

Well, I. I was initially. I don't know if you're aware of this, but I was once known as Mr. Mephisto.

[Matthew Mercer]

Oh, I am well aware of Mr. Mephisto.

[Damian Blackwell]

Well, then, you know, I'm quite accomplished at plotting, actually. And so for me, it's not so much the immediacy more than the long term goal.

[Matthew Mercer]

Well, unfortunately, immediacy is important to this structure of work. Specifically. I mean, the SDN has very quick turnarounds and timelines. I question whether or not you would be able to adjust to our pace of doing business.

[Damian Blackwell]

As a manager, you rely on your team to handle things that are beneath your surveillance.

[Matthew Mercer]

The big head growls at you. You take too stress.

[Damian Blackwell]

Well, yes. You trust in your team. And we do have quite a moving shaking team. Some up and coming youth, one of which a fine Fritzi has already proven quite. And I will strongly recommend that they receive a fair compensation for their immediately proven position at this company.

[Matthew Mercer]

For the a compensate of course, but we pay in experience. You take another stress. Wouldn't you say that experience is its own reward? Building a catalog of not only work history but also contacts, perhaps exposure in.

[Damian Blackwell]

A corporate atmosphere, of course. But I also understand here perbank is not an inexpensive place to live. Neither is Los Angeles in general. And for someone to put their personal effort and interests into the company's aesthetic, such as a young bright eyed individual as her, it is more than just a company interest. It is investment in her future, in her truth and her ability to live and thrive under the banner of sdn. So I would disagree.

[Matthew Mercer]

Give me a presence roll.

[Damian Blackwell]

And I'm gonna spend a hook to add my branch manager experience.

[Travis Willingham]

Yes.

[Damian Blackwell]

All right. A 20 with hope.

[Matthew Mercer]

You make some good points. Perhaps investing in talent is a great way to keep them on board. And you did bring Marty on board? I.

[Damian Blackwell]

Yes, I did.

[Matthew Mercer]

Did you not bring Marty on board?

[Damian Blackwell]

Of course he was.

[Matthew Mercer]

We were under the impression that you had onboarded. Well, your batting average is a bit strange. Let's talk about Melody Bird.

[Damian Blackwell]

Ah, yes.

[Matthew Mercer]

Now, you chose this young talent as your direct report.

[Damian Blackwell]

Yes, she has quite an energy about her that just it fit well with my work aesthetic. She has proven since to be a bit challenging in her responsibilities. And I would recommend her to possibly be some of the fat cut from the force, if you understand.

[Matthew Mercer]

When she was in here, she told us she had just been dealing with some personal problems. If you were in my chair, how would you handle that? And furthermore, do you ever see yourself in my chair? And furthermore, what are your plans to be in my chair?

[Damian Blackwell]

First and foremost, I was unaware that that she was having personal problems. And I would first ask if these are anything that would impact her work. And then I would request her to do her best to not let them impact her work. And if it requires assistance outside of work, I'd be happy to provide her with that sort of guidance outside of the work experience. As far as your chair, we are all aspirational beings being human beings. And indeed I have lofty goals to one day perhaps have my own little fiefdom here under esteem.

[Matthew Mercer]

Fiefdom. That's an interesting one.

[Damian Blackwell]

It's a poor choice.

[Matthew Mercer]

Is that how you would describe your managerial style? Would you describe it as a fiefdom. Take another stress.

[Damian Blackwell]

I would do you.

[Matthew Mercer]

Fashion yourself as a sort of king, a sort of ruler over your employees?

[Damian Blackwell]

I would not at all deign to assume such. It's a shared responsibility that requires very clear singular vision to guide it forward. Which is what a manager does is imagine not a king over its subordinates, its employees.

[Matthew Mercer]

Take another stress subordinates king. These are troublesome words. I like to think of myself as a thought leader, not a king.

[Damian Blackwell]

Right. I was using examples as kings are.

[Matthew Mercer]

Metaphor for us titles whereas the one that you wear should hopefully be one that you earned or are qualified for. Wouldn't you agree?

[Damian Blackwell]

I would agree it was merely a I was making a reference to historical analogies to play for the storytelling of it all which is what we do with our new social media push that has been so successful is to tell the stories about our successes Here we're learning the opportunities to not just be a company and a business, but we are indeed a brand.

[Matthew Mercer]

Was the social media push your idea?

[Damian Blackwell]

He glances over his shoulder and makes contact with Barbara. No, that was Barbara's idea.

[Matthew Mercer]

Hmm. Is there any reason we shouldn't consider Barbara for your position? How would you rate her work ethic and her ability to manage a team? And furthermore, where do you believe her flaws lie? Would she not be suitable for such a position?

[Damian Blackwell]

She is very accomplished individual and a great asset to the Estian brand, especially this branch. She's proven quite quick on her feet. A wit that is adaptable I would say she has unique taste in partners. Maybe not the most incisive ability to read the quote quality of someone she lets goes but outside of the professional space I do not see that bleed into the office necessarily. She has a great high for detail as well as a. I think she is a strong fit for any management position within the company.

[Matthew Mercer]

And if we were to bring her into a higher role, what role do you see yourself fitting in?

[Damian Blackwell]

Well, to answer your previous final question, I see myself overseeing wider swaths of this company. Quite like the seat that you take to this day. One who can look into and read the insides and outs of others and judge them appropriately and see where best they fit in a long fitting plot such as the long reaching arms of a company. Is that not plotting in its own right?

[Matthew Mercer]

I'm gonna let you decide what you want to roll for this. It can be you have options on your sheet.

[Damian Blackwell]

I do, I do. I'm thinking. I think this is gonna be instinct because he's now trying to read that.

[Matthew Mercer]

Makes Sense to me, Hamrick.

[Damian Blackwell]

Both Mort and Corey.

[Matthew Mercer]

That makes sense to me, Morty.

[Travis Willingham]

All right. Oh God.

[Damian Blackwell]

Oh God. I didn't mean to roll that.

[Matthew Mercer]

You just need to be 15.

[Damian Blackwell]

All right. I will spend a hope to.

[Matthew Mercer]

Where are you at stress wise?

[Damian Blackwell]

Oh, I only have one left then. The sweat beads are falling. I will say, as you see, true leadership shows entrepreneurial spirit. And I myself, myself have been on the ground floor of crafting a financial future for myself and other like minded suits. And should the opportunity arise after our discussion today, there might be a door open for you, Hamrick. Both of you. And that's a crib.

[Matthew Mercer]

It is. It is. This is the greatest game. This is the greatest game. Oh my God.

[Travis Willingham]

Holy shit.

[Matthew Mercer]

Double sixes. Oh my God.

[Damian Blackwell]

I was like, that's a nine. No, it's not. Oh my God.

[Matthew Mercer]

Well, I'm sure you would agree with the volatility of the market that looking at other forms of revenue to truly is the way forward. I'm very interested in hearing about your alternative investment opportunities at a private time.

[Damian Blackwell]

I'd be happy to. And strangely enough, some individuals out there have been able to turn pieces of art into extremely valuable bits of digital currency. We'll talk another time.

[Matthew Mercer]

I think we need to have dinner at some point. I think things are going to be changing at Burnbank sdn. And I think they're going to be changing for the better.

[Damian Blackwell]

I couldn't agree more.

[Matthew Mercer]

And with that, the efficiency experts leave Burbank sdn. In the parking lot, you see a dejected, incredulous bulk destroying a. A digi car.

[Travis Willingham]

Just let him go.

[Matthew Mercer]

Smashing it to pieces.

[Damian Blackwell]

My CDs were in there.

[Matthew Mercer]

CDs and you all debrief at the Cape and Cowl.

[Laura Bailey]

Good job, Ritzy. I want to make sure you get on that payroll as. As soon, soon as possible.

[Fritzi]

All right.

[Laura Bailey]

Thank you.

[Damian Blackwell]

Agreed.

[Travis Willingham]

Cheers.

[Matthew Mercer]

Cheers.

[Travis Willingham]

Cheers.

[Damian Blackwell]

I have to say, I didn't think we were going to pull it off.

[Fritzi]

I did. I believed in us.

[Matthew Mercer]

Also.

[Fritzi]

I feel like a lot of you really showed up for me and I really thank you for all the encouragement to my face and also the nice things you said, I think behind my back, right?

[Laura Bailey]

That's right. Marty. You sticking around? You gonna go over to downtown?

[Travis Willingham]

No, I'm going to downtown. This has all been part of a larger plot. I thank you for your participation in what has been a carefully laid out exercise. And you have all played your roles beautifully. I must take my leave now. Your lives will be over soon. I'm just fucking with you. I turned down the promotion. I want to stay here.

[Laura Bailey]

Aw, Marty, that's great.

[Travis Willingham]

Yeah, I mean, you know, that's wonderful. The lights still have all the bees in them and stuff. And until it's clean, I'm gonna stay.

[Damian Blackwell]

And I'm gonna get mean, happy to have you. As I withdraw my hand from under the table and the dark purple energy fades. Well, Mephisto, I've still got a few kicks of magic in me.

[Laura Bailey]

At. You're a good guy, Mephisto.

[Damian Blackwell]

Don't go spreading that rumor around. I have a reputation to build.

[Matthew Mercer]

And with all of you dreading that tomorrow is Fritzi's turn to drive, I don't know.

[Fritzi]

I have the learner's permit. You guys. It's gonna be okay.

[Matthew Mercer]

You all get ready to go back for another day at Burbank SDN there's some days that you wonder if maybe you've sold your soul for the almighty dollar. But on days like this, you realize that once in a while, you do manage to do some good. And maybe sometimes doing some good costs you a little bit of your soul under fluorescent lights, paper clips, and a lot of corporate jargon. Thank you for joining me for this. Thank you again to our friends at Ad Hoc Studio for letting us play in the world of Dispatch tonight. A reminder that while you may have recognized the places and characters explored tonight as inspired by elements from the Dispatch universe, we want to emphasize that the characters and events in this one shot were our own creations and and are not official content from the Dispatch game. They were only inspired by it. That done. Go check out dispatch. Episodes 1 through 4 are out right now. Check out Bit Ly Cr dispatch for more info. Good night, everybody.

[Travis Willingham]

And that concludes this episode of Critical Role. If you liked the adventure, please consider leaving a review on your podcast platform form of choice. We love welcoming new critters, and your review could beat the roadmap that leads other kindred spirits our way. We hope you enjoyed the story, and again, thank you very much for listening.

[Matthew Mercer]

Hey, hate to do this.

[Laura Bailey]

Could we reschedule our morning hike? I was just about to ask the same next week. Yes, it's Dunkin' Original Blend time. Staying at home with Dunkin'. Don't mind if I do.

[Travis Willingham]

The home with Duncan is where you want to be.