Hi, everybody. It's me Katie Azores.
Yes. Hello, it is me.
Hey, good. Hello, welcome back to Infinite
Quest the video edition, if you're watching it on this
video. But if you're not, thanks for
listening to the podcast. We still love you so much.
Yeah, we do. Well, today we're gonna be
putting it close to you. Well.
Fine, you have to be. I'm gonna forget that it exists
like this Is the Switcher for the.
The, the the things, the cameras.
Camera 1, Camera 2. I didn't do it.
There we go. Katie's camera Camera 2, Camera
3. Hello.
OK. Anyways, so I'm gonna.
I'm gonna forget that that's there a lot and then remember
and then go really hard on. Anyways, today we're playing.
I'm sorry, did you say St. Magic like we did before?
But this time there's a new rule, which is we have to finish
the entire story in that. Recording session so that we
don't like do half of it and then forget what happened and
fuck off and just do shitty stuff the next time.
So now we got to do it in one session.
That's the rule, OK? I want to get chest timers too,
like where we like click, you know, when you go back and forth
and it's like, you know, and I'll be like there was a fire in
a well and you there's a fire in a well.
The water got fire. Yeah.
The water. The water in the well.
That's right. OK.
That's what you would like to do today.
Yeah, because we're going to fucking well in part.
But we're going to fill this whole table with these post it
notes as we do the story. You slam on the table a couple
more. Yeah, sure.
So generally speaking, dear listener, the rules are we're
going to set a tone of the whole thing.
First, we're going to make a couple landmark cards or
business City building. I forgot, I assume everybody's
listening to this listen to the last one, which is not the case.
Probably not, probably not. So I'm sorry to use a Street
Magic as a collaborative storytelling game in which two
to six players build a city and you populate it with residents
and like places and stuff happens and stuff.
And we do that by writing cards. So we each turn, Katie and I
will go back and forth and we'll write either a neighborhood
card, which is like a borough. In this city that we create, so
like, the city would be New York and then you could be like, all
right, there's a neighborhood called, you know, Queens or
whatever, the Upper East Side. Once you have a neighborhood,
you can then build landmarks or residents within that
neighborhood. So Kate might be like there's a
neighborhood called Dawson's Creek and I'll be like Dawson's
Creek, the neighborhood. Dawson's Creek, The
neighborhood. The movie coming this fall.
And then once the neighborhood exists, we can like, build stuff
in that neighborhood. I'm at the end of every round.
They'll be an event in which something will happen.
What that is, we don't know. It's improv.
And then we'll have a little ask some questions about what
happened and then the next round starts.
It'll be clear once we start playing.
So you ready go? Sure.
Cool. So we gotta do first we do.
We gotta make a name for the sound and we gotta get it.
We have to set our tone first. We'll just set our tone.
Okay. So what are Eric?
Sticky 3 adjectives Okay? We.
Want a sticky Sticky Okay? No.
No X card. Sorry.
We can't do no Mad Libs style stuff.
No. Okay, that's fine.
That's fine. Okay.
So sticky. No, it doesn't have to be
sticky. OK, I don't know like no.
But all of your ideas? No, it's fair.
Sticky is not the best way to. I feel like it could be because
like, sticky could be like sticky, or it could be like it's
in a forest. Oh yeah, like a like day.
Or it's like a sticky situation because it's a heist?
That's true. Well, let's do a sticky then,
and we can interpret it, OK. However, we feel it's like a
challenging edge. Yeah, exactly, because it can be
literal, but it can also be like not, not, not literal, not
literal. We use three, right?
Stick be slippery. So sticky.
This is great. Podcasting.
Slippery. Because that could also be like,
you know, a character could be slippery.
You know, like they're hard to pin down bracelope.
Or is just fishes living in forest full fishies?
Slippery Fish is living in a sticky forest.
Sticky. And so this is not.
This sounds like we're making a porno.
It does kind of sound like we're making a porno, but it's gonna
be fine. Isn't fun?
How about I can't think of a single adjective that has ever
agitated. Ravenous.
I don't.
Know. OK.
It just sounded like a cool word to say out loud.
I like that. So we have Sticky.
We have Slippery, We have Ravenous.
Ravenous is like, OK, OK, OK. Ravenous.
Cool. Sure.
OK, so I'm going to put that there.
Badass. Well, put that like at the top
as you will for like Inspo. OK, so then we have to come up
with a name for our town sticky slippy bills.
Sticky slippy Townsville Town. Come on round and eat some
sticky foods We've got. We've got taffy, we've got
honey, We got those caramel apple suckers, the great ones.
Oh yeah, like, break your teeth out.
What? We have spaghets, we have
Sketty. We have now and laters we have
now and laters we have. Spaghetti's slippery, yeah.
Spaghetti's a slippery food. Slippery food.
We have sushi sushi's kind of sushi's pretty slippery
avocados. Avocados are very slippery.
Bananas, the slipperiest fruit. Yeah, I thought if you took a
bunch, if you wanted to make like a slip and slide out of
fruits and vegetables and stuff, I think avocados and bananas
would be up there as your well. Because I feel like everybody
always slips in a banana peel, but bananas are the fruit, so
it's very slippery. Yeah, I mean, that's, I guess,
what it's the peel's not slippery.
It's the banana residue on the underside.
That's what gets you. That's.
What gets you? That's what gets you every time,
man. Although I'm now I'm just trying
to think of, like, slippery foods.
What about, like, salad? Like oil and vinegar?
Yeah, because that's just oil. Very slippery.
That's very slippery toast when the butter falls on the floor.
Bananaburg No. Bananaburg oh for the name of
the town. For the name of the.
Town, which is what we're supposed to be doing.
How about oh? I stepped on you.
I stepped on an XLR cable. That's great.
That's OK. Fruitvale.
Fruitvale, yeah. OK, that's the name of a city,
neighborhood, Neighborhood in Oakland Fruits.
Really. Yeah, and that's fake.
Yeah, there was a movie named Veil Fruitvale.
Yeah, it's just because the fruit.
It's a neighborhood in Oakland. Yeah.
Welcome to Night Vale. Where's fruit?
Very clear. No, there was a really cool,
like, I think it was 824. I did it.
Or it was an independent buoy about Fruitvale and about, like,
a thing what happens in Fruitvale.
What happens in the Fruitvale Bart station?
And I have no idea, because I didn't see them.
OK, but it's very cool. Fruitvale, I guess.
OK, that's fine. That's the name of our town.
Fruitvale. OK.
That's right. Because we didn't say anything
else. That's fine.
I like that. Cool.
And then we have to put some stuff in the town, right?
Wait, can I initially? Can it be Fruitvailington?
Tweet on Tweed. Fruitvailington on Tweed.
Yeah, yes, it can be Fruitvailington on Tweed on
tweet. I don't know why, but it's just,
I don't know. I just want it to be.
I'm thinking about those all those stickies, you know, those
like, you know, the like bushes, like in England, like the how
they like. Like the hedges, Yeah.
You know, like the big like hedges that they like braid.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, I was fixing those,
but with like big, like cartoon like fruit snacks, just like
growing out of the bushes. Yeah, that would be cool.
It's like, the fuck is that game Candyland?
Oh yeah, Fruit Valington on Tweet is like the adults.
The adult grown up version is the Crunchy The Crunchy Candy
Lands. Very crunchy, sticky, sticky,
slippery candy lands. Yeah, shoots in ladders.
The stickiest and slipperiest game.
That is true, it should be called sticky.
Slippies should be called the sticky and the slippy return of
slippies, OK? All right, so it's all about
family. Some family, some power Okay.
So we gotta do in neighborhoods stick to slippery stick.
To stick, stick. Sticky 7, Slippery eight.
It just works. It just keeps working.
Sticky XI found your hat. I was sitting on it.
Initially enough, Ludacris goes to space in all of those movies
too, in all of the sticky, slippery movies.
It's the it's sort of the book of the franchise.
Is that at some point it starts up as a.
Ludacris goes to space as a just like a driving series, and then
it becomes a high series and they save the franchise.
That's right, yeah. Yeah.
And sometimes it's really subtle.
Sometimes like. But it's just in the background
of like one shot, there's just like a rocket ship.
And that's when you can go like, hey, did you know that's
ludicrous. Going to space?
Great. Like, like, you know, Viggo
Mortensen breaking his toe. I was literally just gonna make
a Did you know that Viggo Mortensen broke his tail on the
spaceship? I did.
I was gonna make that joke. It's fine.
Did you know? Did you know?
OK, shout out to Don Marshall. Love you John.
Alright, and Fruit. Valington.
Tweed on Tweed. Fruit Valington.
Fucking English people name their town so goddamn weird.
Classy. Things are upon other things,
yeah. Stratford upon.
Upon Avon. Like, come on, you want to go to
Stratford upon Avon? Also the the shot wasn't on Kate
when she put on a hat. So continuity error put on a
hat. I'm just going to keep taking it
off to ruin your life. No, come on.
All right. There, there, there.
I got it. I got the tail end, if you put
it on. OK.
And Fruit Balington on Tweed. There's a neighborhood.
There's a neighborhood here. Oh, OK, And the neighborhood is
called. I keep just I can't and
everything is sticky. Wanted to be like, I mean, it's
OK. It could just be the IT
squeezes. This could be just a weird one.
Call it. You're allowed to just be weird
if you want to be weird. OK, that's true.
Yeah, there's a town. There's a neighborhood in it.
Called molasses, molasses. Which is both sticky and
slippery. Yeah.
And a lot of things are sticky. And it's like, because it would
be sticky, like if it was like a thin film of it and you like,
touched it be like that, sticky. But if there was like a puddle
of molasses on the floor, like you would slip on that, you
know, yeah, it's dark. I don't.
I don't know. I don't want to write it better
than that, OK? Also, is it just molasses or is
it like the molasses district? Molasses.
OK, that's what I was clarifying.
It's fine. Molasses is like it used to be
like a cool place where like it's sort of like like N Oakland
and like temascale. I don't know what that means,
Eric. Some of the listeners do.
And they feel really cool right now because they're like, yeah,
I totally know what you're talking about.
It's not for you, Katie. It's for Bailey.
So it's like, you know, it's currently really.
It used to be like it's by a major transport hub.
Perhaps I want to show the people my dog can't.
Please move the camera. Please don't put it.
I promise I'll put it right back.
You're not gonna put it right back.
I couldn't put it right back. I took it 10 minutes of
finagling. To get this clean, you gotta
spike the micro. Follow Cadiasaurus on Instagram
to see the picture of Bailey that she just posted.
You can take a picture of Bailey with your phone.
She's so cute she had to take. A picture of Billy with your
phone. Well, she's not doing it
anymore. Oh, she's doing it again.
Jesus fucking Christ. OK, so it's like, it used to be
like a working class, neighborhood kind of thing where
people will work. Maybe it's like there's like a
train station in it. So it's like that's where, like,
the factory workers and whatnot would go.
But it quickly became like the trendy place to go where all the
tourists would come because it's where the major transport hub
is. So it's like, so we'll say
formerly affordable, got molasses, got gentrified.
Exactly. So there might be like pockets
of people who are let like rent controlled and they can like
keep their places, but it's just like becoming very quickly, did
you know? Capitalist bullshit that there
are like 15,000 on like unused apartments in New York that are
all rent controlled and the landlords won't rent them
because they're they're protesting rent control and so
they just like, let them sit empty rather than let rent
control people live there. Jesus, isn't that wild?
What happens to people when they get money?
Like I don't. It's just insane, man.
I don't know. I was like, if I had a billion
dollars, you know what I would do?
I would save every dog. Yeah, I would save every dog.
And I would find unhoused people.
And I would be like, hello, would you like an apartment and
a dog? And then it would just be, you
know what I mean? And then everybody gets a dog
and an apartment. And it would be fucking rad.
That would be really cool anyway.
So molasses. It's gentrified and let's say
third wave coffee shops. What is Third Wave Coffee Shop?
It's like what I just thought it was that big.
Is it you're always like on your turn thing or like right now
thing? No, I was just thinking that we
should take Bailey for our IDE and then maybe she would finally
poop. Oh yeah, it doesn't have to be
on the back. God damn it.
Oh, I'm. Sorry, always a good coffee.
Made you think of pooping. Made you think of Bailey?
No, because she likes to go to the coffee shop down at Trillet.
And so I was like, oh, we could go to get coffee at the 3rd Wave
coffee shop at Trillet. Right.
Is that what? It's actually called the 3rd
wave, no, but it's, you know. You did know what third wave
coffee was? I I think I used like context
clues to like infer. You know what I mean?
Wow. Cuz I was like, I don't.
I feel like I know what that is, but like, I've never heard it
before, but like I know what that.
Is Starbucks is first wave, Yeah.
I might be getting it backwards too.
I feel like first wave is like little indie coffee shops and
then Starbucks is like second. I don't know.
That's how I would. Do it second wave is like.
You know, not like Starbucks, but it's also not just like one
shop. So like that new place that just
opened up by the, you know, the Foxtail.
Yeah, Foxtail, which, by the way, if you live, that would be
second one in Atlanta. Foxtail coffee.
Very good. Very good.
And so far we've only been there
a couple times. But every time one of the braces
has been wearing some sort of pride something or other things
cool pins cool like. Fun in Georgia is when you like,
you see a person who's like down.
Like, yeah, like, yeah, almost have to serve a lot of racists.
Very cool, very cool hair. All the braces at first.
Tail very much, yeah. It's definitely like a purple
hair kind of coffee shop, you know?
So coffee Molasses is formerly affordable.
It has been gentrified, and there's also good coffee there,
though. OK, what's its true name?
Oh, its dream is, which for those of you who don't know.
So the idea behind, I'm sorry, did you say St.
Magic is sort of an exploration of, like, cities and towns, but
also finding the sort of like magic that is sort of inherent
in the world of this game. And so everything has like the
name that it is known by, but then it also has its true name,
which sort of symbolizes like the magic and the power that it.
Yeah, so this one would be like sticky.
No it's not. It's true name is not
everything. It's just named sticky.
Sticky stick sticker send the mayor.
Its true name is Ooh. Okay.
See this is when this the game starts to develop, because right
now. This is just a place that you
could do anything with. There's no like, it's it's a
scalar, not a vector, if you know what I mean.
But it's true. Name or TN, which is what I'm
pointing at. The bottom is patient zero.
Is the patient a person that lives in that town?
I don't know. Is the town that's or is the
neighborhood itself. Patient zero?
I don't know. But that's the true name.
It's patient zero. OK, OK.
I'm going to. I'm like struggling with like
coming up with like names today. I think it's cuz I spent like
1/2 an hour before this, just like moving cameras very
slightly and very, very pedantic.
And now it's like just think of anything.
It's like I can't. What's right?
What's wrong? I don't know.
We have to play like zips apps off right now.
OK, well, here's the thing. I know what the reputation is.
That immediately came to me. But I don't know if I have the
name first. So I'm gonna tell you the
reputation first and then maybe I will come up with the name.
OK, so above. Is it a landmark?
Location, neighborhood. Neighborhood.
So in up river from molasses there is a manufacturing
district where the bulk of the the products that the city makes
are created. And I kind of want to because
like I my instinct is that it's they make candy.
It's like a candy manufacturing, you know what I mean?
And it feels, it feels still keeping like, no, that's dumb,
but that I'm like, actually it's our world and it's OK if that's
what we want it to be. I mean, candy has to get made
somewhere. Somewhere out there is a city
where they have a lot of candy, but I think.
Hershey, PA. It's, it's one of those things
where you would hear, you know, oh, they make candy and you're
like, that's probably a fun place, but if you go to this
district, it's a district. I just don't know what the
district's name is yet. It is the exact opposite.
It is polluted. It is grungy, It is grimy.
It is not particularly great working conditions for the
people who work in the factories.
And there's a lot of them. There's a lot of people who have
to get to. I'm trying to think of like
candy words, but I can't think. Of any candy words.
You know what? I'm just going to support my
neurodivergency in this moment and look up some candy making
words, because I can't think of it.
Taffy caramelized caramel. Laffy runts.
Nerds runts. Butterfinger.
Absolutely That actually Okay. It's going to be called the
boiler district. The boiler district.
And so I'm going to say that it's dark, sooty, polluted, not
a fun place. And then I'm going to say that
it's true. Name is the infection.
Okay. So the boiler district is the
infection molasses patient zero. Yeah.
And the boiler district is like upriver is like upriver from
molasses, upriver from molasses. So molasses is downriver from.
We could just. We should have this whole table
be like a whiteboard thing and we could like.
That's actually a really good idea there.
Sweet. That's a very good idea.
That'd be kind of cool just for like playing more simply, you
said actually, again, that's actually a really good idea.
There's a pet peeve. It's a pet peeve of my dear
listener. It's just a little pet peeve of
Malay and they're Malay mad. But you know, you know pet deal
listener. When you say actually, it's a
negation of what you previously thought.
If you went to like a restaurant and then you got like back and
your friends were like, do you go to that shitty restaurant,
You'd be like, it's actually really good.
Like, it means the thing that you were assuming is the case is
actually not the case. So when somebody has an idea and
the person says that's actually a really good idea, it's like
will that. Were you assuming it wasn't?
Were you assuming my? I know you didn't mean that, but
I just figured why waste a? Good rant.
The secondary definition of actually the 1st is adverb as
the truth or facts of a situation.
Colon. Really.
We must pay attention to what young people are actually doing
So what they're truly actually doing.
The restaurant is actually good. It can also be used to emphasize
that something someone has done, has said or done is surprising.
He actually expected me to be pleased about it, right?
And then used when expressing A contradictory or unexpected
opinion, or used to introduce a new topic or to add information
to a previous statement. So I feel like so both the 2nd
and through definitions are offensive.
You're saying likes to express surprise?
Yeah, like I'm like that's actually a good idea.
I was surprised it was a good idea.
No, I wasn't surprised. It was a good idea.
It was a surprising good idea. It's fair, and I know you don't
mean anything, but like, it's the same.
I'm just saying it's. The same make a neighborhood.
Do you? Surprise.
Well, I don't have to make a neighborhood.
No. Yeah.
So now you have the option You can add a landmark to either or
you can add a neighborhood. But until we have a landmark, we
can't add any people landmark, yeah.
The person has to be attached to a landmark.
In that case, I'll do. Also, just to clarify for
anybody who might be, I can't reach it.
Anybody who might be playing at home and it's like that's not
how you play this game. I don't give a fuck.
I don't care. We're playing a little fast and
loose with the rules only because, like we're, we've been
kind of in a. Ruts lately.
And so we're just kind of like shaking off the dust and having
some fun together. Plus I think we have like we
have like two ways that we could do this.
One is quick and dirty and two is spending the next year and a
half developing the same city, which I think is pretty cool.
Yeah, I would, honestly. I think that'd be really cool.
But we we'd need to like, not
forget what? Yeah, and with a.
Whiteboard table. Yeah, my stop is actually
forgetting the landmark will be platform. 9 1/2 No, It's like
wish brand Harry Potter. That's really funny. 9 7/8 what
happened to the platform? 9 1/2 Yeah, it's the it's the
platform that the train that goes is between the boiler
district and molasses is so like it takes you so it's in molasses
and the platform it takes you to the boiler district okay it's
reputation is. You do.
For landmarks you can do address.
And true name. I don't think you do a
reputation, but let me check. OK?
I don't. I honestly don't remember, and
its address could be a literal address, but it could also just
be like. Yeah, a title, an address, and a
true name, all chosen by one player.
In that case, the address is far away.
Is the address. OK, And its true name is the
artery. Nice, and it's in molasses.
Oh, it's in molasses. It's in molass.
Can you put an L on that? Just so it's we know it's
landmark. OK, cool.
All right. My hair's too floppy today.
Katie. I can't.
I can't be. I should.
Really. Wear a floppy little guy Who's
floppy little guy? Who is floppy?
Little guy. I have a bisexual girlfriend.
I have to have floppy. That's the rules.
Is that the rules? Yeah, the posties.
Apparently Tiktok keeps telling me.
Yeah, the shirt is giving bisexual energy today.
Thanks. That's good.
Okay. I'm gonna add a resident.
Yay. I'm gonna add a resident.
So okay platform. There is a man who works there.
He is old. He is old in a way that no one
really knows if he is living or dead.
He looks like a ghost and he is covered in the soot and the
smoke of the trains that come and go.
From the station and he is known as the station master.
Wow. So he works at the actual
station. He's done and.
I'll say he has, he has pronouns and the true name we're supposed
to come up with together. And I think sometimes that
happens in like the course of like an event, so we can save
that. Were we supposed to do an event
after platform 9 1/2? Maybe I don't.
I don't remember. It's fine, Rules Smuels.
OK, so that an event. Happens, yeah, so that an event
happens, and oh, it's the person who's oh, we didn't set the
compass at the beginning of the round either.
Fuck. No, it's OK.
This was our first round. So now that we have this
established, let's just sort of like Recon it and say, now let's
establish a compass, we'll do another round and then we'll do
an event at the end of that. OK.
Does that make sense?
Because now we have like some places totally OK.
So what is our compass? And the commas is just like a
cool set of words that show what the theme of like, this round
is. Yeah, thicker than water.
Thicker than water okay. I don't know.
That's cool. Thanks.
Well, I really like the imagery of the the train goes upstream,
so the river is flowing from the boiler district down, but the,
you know, the train goes up. So they're literally fighting
against, like, I mean, they're not in the water, but you know.
Or are they Or are they? Okay.
So we got the boiler district, we got molasses, we got the
platform, we got the station master.
Okay. So now it is your turn.
You're you're the person who did the compass, so it's your turn.
It is your job to explore the city.
Explore the city. Which means that you can do a
neighborhood and do another landmark, right?
Right, right, right, right, right.
Right. You could also technically, I
think, put another person if you wanted.
What would you like to do? I'm gonna do a landmark.
I'm gonna do a landmark and it's gonna be at the in the boiler
district and it's gonna be, it's gonna be the boiler room.
Oh, or actually, the boiler dish is a whole neighborhood, right?
Yeah. So never mind.
That's gonna be a factory. I wasn't picturing the boiler.
Oh, I thought it was gonna be like a bar.
Oh, the boiler room. Yeah, it could be.
I'm not sure I'm telling you how to change your, how to do your
landmarks. I'm starting to think of like, I
don't want it to be like the gumdrop factory, but like what's
the name of like the oligarch family, you know?
Oh yeah, you know who's the Proctor and Gamble of of the.
So it could be like the. Gramble and practor?
I don't know the the. Wankers.
I don't know. And like I'm.
Going really hard on like candy and I don't know why we're
trying to like, do you know how like Waystar Roico from like
sounds like a fucking super corporation name?
Yeah. Do you know it's also a real
corporate? Like, that's real.
Really. Yeah, I thought it was a Waystar
is like a real company. I thought it was a farce of like
Sinclair Broadcasting it. But there's also literally a
company called Waystar. Well, all right.
I wanna go the McGill. OK, the McGill, Gracemere
factory. Gracemere is a great name, yeah.
And its address is on the Throat of the River, and its true name
is. Well, we haven't picked that
yet. No, we can't.
We do. Yeah, Yeah.
Its true name is the swollen heart.
Nice. Fuck yeah, dude.
Fuck yeah dude. I'm going to add the resident.
Rupert Gray Smear, and he is the patriarch of the Gray Smear
family and he is a mogul. He's a tycoon and some might say
a tyrant, which is not how you spell that word, but that's
fine. And.
Why is my brain out working? I'm so frustrated, right?
Frustrated. A little frustrated.
God, I'm usually like boob ideas, ideas, ideas.
And today my brain's like, Nah, and his true name will be TBD.
Gotta figure that out collectively.
OK, OK, so now you are the person who determined the
compass, so you get to decide the event.
That happened. OK, the event is a train, so
it's like morning, but it's the morning light isn't like the
nice blue morning light. It's sort of more of a watch the
wait. So this isn't molasses.
OK, so it's morning and it is nice blue morning light, but it
barely breaks into the station. So the event is the morning
train leaves platform 9 1/2 Okay in route to the boiler district.
Okay, I'm drawing a train. That's not what she looks like.
It's a train that. Has got it looks great.
It leaves the morning train leaves from platform 9 1/2 in
molasses for the boiler district with nobody on it.
There's nobody on the train. Okay is that unusual.
It is unusual, yeah. It's very unusual.
Usual Cool, thanks. Yes, it is quite unusual.
Okay. So now we have an option.
So we can do we can do a little scene.
We can do a little scene Reno, if you like, or we can just
speak as voices of the city and we can ask a question.
We can state an opinion or show a consequence.
I don't know. I kind of wanna see you do a
scene as the station master. As the station master?
Yeah, Okay, let's say you're on the phone.
Okay. We don't hear what the other
voice on the phone, but you are telling.
Well, you're on the phone and you're to eat.
Like you knew that the train was empty, OK, And you're saying
something? I don't wanna, I just want to
like tell you how to take the scene, but like, you know,
you're talking on the phone to it to to someone.
OK, in reference to the train. OK, also we should let everyone
know. Our listeners at home know this
is not exactly how this game is played up to this point, is it?
We flooded a lot. We did, but Eric and I decided
it would be fun to do this this part.
So this is not, this is not mandatory, this is just we've
sort of homework this part events can be seen.
Yeah, yeah, but yeah, so. But it's not like a you have to
do this. But Eric and I, you know, we we
have fun. OK, so.
So in the back of the Come on brain, let's go, let's okay.
In the back of the Molasses train station, which has stood
for many, many years, there is a small rundown office.
The office is. Bare, uninteresting, A dirty
coffee cup here, some old newspapers there, but primarily
the walls are covered with timetables and you know, train
safety posters, that kind of thing.
There is a desk with a couple of pens and half eaten sandwich
wrapped in brown paper and a old style.
Rotary phone which rings every morning at precisely 8:03 AM.
This phone has rung every morning at eight, 8:03 AM.
For as long as the station master can remember.
The station master took over for the station master before him
and the station master before him, and there are rules to be
followed. At this particular train station
and every morning at 8 O 3:00 AM the phone must be answered and
for weeks the station master for months.
For years the station master had answered this phone and he would
always say the same thing. He would simply say a number,
the number of writers going towards the boiler district.
Sometimes the number was very high, sometimes the number was
very low. But on one of those train
tables, timetables pinned to the wall on the back, there's a
chart that has been scribbled by the current station master,
which is the monthly averages of people.
And as he's been answering these phone calls every morning at 8 O
3:00 AM for as long as he can remember, he's also noticed that
the numbers have been dwindling. In his use, the numbers were,
you know, hundred 150, maybe even 200 during the busy season.
Then they slowly went down to 80, then 75, then fifty, then
25, and recently no more than 1012 people had been riding the
train. But this morning, the thing that
he had sort of been waiting for finally happened.
He waited at his usual post, his usual station at the usual time,
waiting for any ticket holders for the train to appear, and
none did, and so AT8O2. He sent the train along the way
and returned to the office, waiting for the phone to ring.
And like usual it did. This time, the station master
had no number to report, and so he.
Reaches over slowly. He's so old it takes him a while
to get to the phone. He shuffles over his brown work
boots, sort of muddying on the floor, and he slowly picks up
the phone and he hears the usual nothing on the other end of the
line and he says one word 0 OK, now seems like as good a time of
any to talk about our new sponsor.
You mean Geek Therapeutics? That's the very same one.
You mean the fine folks who offer evidence based
certifications to clinicians, social workers, professionals,
parents, teachers and students on how to use geek therapy to
unlock the best version of your clients and yourselves by
bridging the gap between geeks and therapists to create
practical and innovative therapy sessions that anyone can
implement in their practice? You had that just right, all
memorized, ready to go. That's a pro right there.
Yeah, that's exactly who I'm talking about.
But in all serious. Eric and I are super, super
excited to announce our official partnership with Geek
Therapeutics. They're an organization that we
are fascinated by and excited by and we 100% believe in the work
that they do. And it really is not just for
fancy therapist folks. It is for teachers, for parents,
for educators, for TTRPG players, for D M's who just want
to learn more about geek stuff and how to incorporate it into
the lives of their family and their friends and their kids.
And then just it's really useful.
It's really useful stuff. They they specialize in things
like Supernatural, Come on Zelda, Final Fantasy, Meme
Culture, Dungeons and Dragons. If it's nerdy, they do it.
And several more that we can't tell you about but we know about
because we're working with them and we're really excited.
They're gonna be super cool, and if you want to learn to be a
therapeutic game master of that sort of thing, they can do that
for you too. That's a great way to learn how
to build a better adventure, keep people safe, encourage
personal growth at your table, all sorts of good stuff.
And if you are one of those fancy affirmationed therapists,
they have certifications that are accredited by the APA, the.
NBCC, The A/C. The APC.
They offer cultural competency courses to encourage diversity
and inclusivity. They offer courses on
problematic gaming. They offer just the whole Geek
therapeutic certificationes. It's worth scrolling through.
There's some pretty amazing classes on there.
And if you're looking for therapy yourself, they also
offer therapy that you can find on their website.
You can even find a Geek Therapy certified therapist near you.
Find yourself therapist who understands.
Love for Sam and Dean Supernatural.
Supernatural Throwback Supernatural throwback.
Yeah yeah yeah. You can go to
geektherapeutics.com. For more information, please
take a look at their website. They're an incredible
organization. We're so excited to be working
with them and for books and for courses and for videos and all
that good stuff that is not therapy.
You can get 10% off your order with Code Infinite Quest.
I'm so excited to do all the stuff we're about to be doing.
You're gonna be hearing a lot about us in geek therapy in the
coming while, and I'm so stoked about.
It it's going to be amazing. But hey, we should keep talking
about that thing that we were talking about.
Yeah, this episode, it's really it's going it's.
The best one I've ever heard. Choo Choo on the chugging train.
Let's go. Get back to it.
OK, here we go. Let's go wow, OK00, this is a
wall. And then we ask questions or
state opinions, Yeah. So we can, yeah, we can.
We can state an opinion, we can ask a question or show a
consequence, and then we have to show the effect of that, that
something has to change about the city.
I wanna say that station master says 0.
Zero. That's right.
That's what he says because there was 0 people on the train
and when he says zero, when he reports 0 molasses the entire
neighborhood and all the shops and all the apartments and all
the objects in it start to corrode.
They start to like rust, decay, you know, Metal starts to rust,
food starts to go bad. Much, much like abnormally, like
you can watch it happening. Bricks start to crumble a little
bit, okay. And that's what happens, yeah.
No, that's great. I would like to propose a toast
to the bride. No, what I was going to say is I
think that we should do two more rounds.
So we do 3 rounds and whatever happens in those three rounds
happens in those three rounds. But then that's it.
And then that's it, is the little we get a little cliffy
hanger or you can figure out a way to like knit it, knit it up.
I think if we leave it on clivering we have to come back
to it. Can't.
No, After what we did. Well, after we what we did.
This is Noya Springs. It's dishonest to the listener.
The listener is listening this far.
They deserve a satisfying ending.
It's edging. It's only edging if you finish.
If you eventually finish, then this is nothing.
I'm just not finishing something you started like.
OK. Well then we'll, I think, let's
just wrap this up in three cuz I think you and I always
constantly want to like develop, you know, and expand where it's
like this will force us to like make moves, make decisions.
OK, OK, OK, so my compass. Yeah, Three round St. magic.
That's that's ballsy. That's ballsy.
I like that we're figuring this out, live.
This feels like something we should have talked about before.
There you are. Okay.
So my compass is going to be a growing no, a looming, A looming
something. Sense of dread, I imagine.
Well, I was gonna say a looming piece, but that feels like Dany
Ma. That doesn't feel like the
number two, You know what I mean?
Okay. And this is the compass for the
round, right? What is the compass for the
round? Yeah.
I changed my mind again. I'm gonna say that it is the
ties. That bind tool, That's my
compass. Okay.
I am going to explore the city, wander the city, and I'm going
to Oh my God, we only have three rounds.
This is so hard. This is hard now, yeah, because
we just made this so much harder.
You know, it's like I would have written a shorter letter, but I
didn't have the time kind of thing, you know?
Okay. I'm gonna actually, I'm gonna
establish I don't know what I wanna do now.
It's fine. It's okay.
I know. My brain isn't working.
I'm like self-conscious about it.
I'm like, I couldn't even. This is for the podcast.
We have to be like, super good and talented at everything.
And we're failures. But sometimes your mind just
doesn't work and that's Okay I'm going to yeah I'm just going to
do a new neighborhood I think. And this neighborhood is known
as the past years and the past years are its reputation is it's
a place of. Rest, it's a place of peace.
It's like a big sort of like Central Park kind of situation,
but it's also kind of the place where you are the the joke is
that you're quite literally put out to pasture.
Like it's where most of the dead of the city are are buried.
And so it's a place where it's just kind of like very like
reflective, very, you know, reverential, like that kind of
thing. And its true name is the end of
things. OK, OK, I'm going to do a
landmark in the pasture. There is a sundial.
There's a in the pasture is a sundial.
Its address is in the center of Moreston Cemetery.
And the sundial, its true name is the answer.
Ooh bam. Okay, okay, so, so you sit at
the compass, so. Now it's an event, an event of
your choosing. The at noon.
On the day that the trains were empty, as the food and streets
and walls of molasses begin to decay, there is a noise that
begins to sort of grow. It starts as a faint hum.
It starts as a sort of just do you hear something type of
thing? And it gets louder and louder
and louder until at 12:00 PM exactly.
There is a noise, like the splitting of a giant bell that
reverberates through the entire area of Fruitvailington.
Fruitvailington on Tweed that reverberates through
Fruitvailington on Tweed every. Person looks up, looks around,
can't imagine what it could possibly be, and those who are
closest to it see it first. The sundial has cracked down the
middle and broken open. I.
Gotta write that dude. So I just poached with the
pencil to me. I'm sorry.
Well, you also have the opportunity to ask questions,
state opinion. Is the voices.
I mean, what happens when the motherfucking sundown cracks?
That's my big cue. You know, not why, but what
happens now? Okay.
And the effect on the city is quite profound, just like in
molasses, as things be sort of began to sort of decay and
crumble. First one person notices, and
then another, and then another, all across the city.
But time well clocks, watches, things that keep the time stops.
Watches fall apart. Clocks kind of where they're
standing. The large clock at the top of
the like, the bell tower, sort of just like Crumbles.
And yeah, so no one knows what time it is in Fruitvalington on
tweet Okay they went up and went and done broke their time.
They broke time. They broke their time, OK?
Third round, final round? Is this the final round?
Yeah, OK. And I have I have a thing to say
about this after we're done. OK, so cuz so dear listener,
please stick around. There's a point to this, OK?
The compass is sacrifice. The compass is the greater good.
The greater good, the greater good.
The greater good and what counts as life?
That's really good, folks. Thanks.
In our sticky, slippery, ravenous town of Fruitvalington
on Tweed, I'm going to do a residence.
OK, OK, the residence the. Residence is a rat.
It's just a little brown rat. I love him.
A little brown rat and he's screwing around.
This is at platform 9 1/2. There's a little brown rat
scurrying around there. And can I also say that like a
day has passed. So like the corner of Black, you
know, the stuff starts decaying, all the scary stuff, big noise,
and now like a day has sort of passed.
I also want to point out that, like the decaying stuff, like
the people aren't decaying, like the facilities around the Mars,
so it's not like they're urgently about to die, but it's
sort of like. Hey, my breads are mold.
My bread is mold. You know, so exactly.
So they're sort of freaking out. But OK, I'm gonna say a brown
rat. OK.
Does it reputation for residents.
It's pronouns and true name. Gotcha.
Well, I guess pronounced her. Well, we'll say it's a he.
Him. Rat didn't speak language, but
you know. Little guy.
Does he like cooking?
Yes. And he pulls hair.
I'm gonna say his true name is The Unwitting Lamb.
Now me the rat just saying no. No.
Nine and a half 9 1/2? Yeah, 9 1/2.
OK. Unwitting lamb.
And that's, I don't say like what he does or anything, right?
That's just no. That's yeah, but you get to
choose the event. So what it is, maybe we get to
see what happens to that. Maybe we get to see whatever
with that. Maybe we get to see whatever
just to that cool. I am going to make a landmark is
what I'm going to do and I'm going to say that in the boiler
district, deep, deep, deep in the bottom.
Of the biggest factory owned by the Gracemere family, there is a
door, and the door is old and iron and steel, and it's been
chained shut for as long as anybody can remember.
And it's going to be called The Door.
No one opens and its address is. The underneath?
No, the underbelly. That's better.
And it's true. Name is the pathway Cool.
So when do I keep looking at you for approval?
So it's a change shut door that's in like the it's in the
factory, yeah. It's in the bottom of the
factory. Bottom of the factory change
shut door. Never know the door.
No one opens. OK.
Well then I guess it's. It's event event time, Huh?
I gotta shut this down. Oh yeah.
Or TVD. What am I gonna do with all
these pieces, Katie? How?
Do I would love for you. I just want.
I just want to see what happens. Sure, sure.
OK. This is the morning again.
OK. The next day, yeah, it's about
758. The town is still decaying.
Panic is starting to break out as people are realizing that
it's happening everywhere in town.
There's not like riots or anything, but people are
starting to realize that something that is deeply out of
their control, like a love crafty and thing is happening
and people are starting to either, like, accept their fate
or start to go into panic mode. Things are about to boil over.
The station masters sits and he looks at the train again and the
station master I also want to point out the station master's
office is starting to crumble, starting to corrode.
The paper on his desk is starting to yellow.
The coffee cup is getting moldy. Trigger warning.
This is my office, but he doesn't seem perturbed by it.
Like he seems sort of dismayed by it.
But he's not surprised. He's not, you know, he's not
panicking and surprised like everybody else is.
He's just almost like if you're on the bow of a ship that's
sinking and you know there's nothing you can do.
He's not stoked, but he's up for it.
And he sees the train and he sees it sitting in the station,
smoke billowing from it. The doors are all wide open and
there's nobody, there's nobody on the platform.
There's nobody on the train. Time ticks over at about 8:00.
Wait, is the time working at the station?
Excuse me, the time is working. Let's say that the time is
working the station, but only the time piece that is nearest
to the phone Okay, because the phone has to ring at 803 okay.
So that clock is. Like, that's the only clock in
town that works. Okay, mysterious.
I mean, it's yes, but for saying it works, it's 8:00 because that
clock says it's 8:00. Yeah, like okay okay.
You know what? I.
That's that's not telling the time.
It is the time. Okay, every other clock was
synced up. You know, not knowingly, but
that's, you know, Okay. So this God clock, you know,
ticks over. It's 8:00, eight O 1.
The train starts to give the whole leaving station.
What does it say? Goes and the station manager is
looking on the track, looks over to the phone, looks back to the
track, looks over the phone back to the track, takes a hit off of
his pipe and right at the doors are about to close.
A little brown rat scurries through the door and all the
train and the door is closed and the train starts to leave the
station. 803 and the phone rings and he picks up the phone and
says one cuts back to the town. All of a sudden fruit starts to
get ripe again. Metal starts to clear.
Cars now look brand new. The buildings look like they
were just built and everything looks not only good, but better
than before. And the people rejoice and the
people just start eating everything around them and
drinking this now clean water. And then the train arrives at
the factory. Yeah, the door opens and the rat
is dead. No.
And then the last final shot is a split die after shot of the
change door in the basement slowly stops shaking cuz it was
shaking Recon. And the last shot of the whole
movie is just the sundial now fixed.
Okay okay I guess that's And is that how the game went?
You just tell a story. Yeah, yeah.
So my thought was that like the people traveling on the train
like to work. It wasn't the fact that they
were sacrificing themselves to go to to go to this job that was
slowly killing. Slowly killing a lot of people
is what was like the deal with the devil that made the town
flourish and profitable. But if there was nobody, if
there was 0 people on the train, then everything gets taken away.
But if there was only one rat, the rat has to die all the way.
Ah, you know, poor buddy. Thank you for your service.
Anyways, that's my that's that's my ending.
So that was pretty good, Bubs. Thanks.
Good job. Well, it was a little short boy.
Yeah, a little short guy. Well, here's the thing, dear
listener, you might be sitting here going, what the fuck was
this for? And I have a theory is that
sometimes it can be. Really easy to sort of get stuck
in a rut, especially if you're not feeling super creative or if
you're not feeling like your brain is braining all the
braining things. And that can be super
frustrating. And so sometimes it can be
really useful and really just kind of like, I don't want to
say stress relieving because I felt stress, but it can be.
A positive experience to just put down the stuff that you need
to do and say, I'm going to be a little bit creative, I'm going
to make something, I'm going to make up a story.
I'm going to think a thought that I didn't think earlier.
And now that there's like some great lesson to be learned here.
Because that's not what I'm saying, but I just think
creativity is important and I think taking time to.
Sort of scratch your imagination brain and flex the imagination
muscle can be really helpful when you're neuro divergent
because it can be really easy to be like I have to stick to my
routine or I have to worry so much about deadlines.
But sometimes it's just nice to sit and think about what if
there was a pretend town with a spooky door and a weird guy who
answered the phone? You know, and a mouse you.
Know what I'm saying? Yeah, totally.
That makes sense, yeah. End of podcast, End of podcast
Now Sorry, I feel like I didn't respond to you when you.
No, I agree. I mean, just like just starting
just doing something is so hard when you are in those ruts where
it's like like I don't want to see the thing that I would make
if I were to make something because I don't think I'll like
it, you know? But it's like if that stops you
from making stuff, then you'll never make anything again.
And is that the fucking goal, you know, Yeah.
So you have to sort of just push through and you're like let's
and so that's why we wanted to do one that we had to end in one
session cuz then it's like. It doesn't have to be.
Doesn't that be good? Just make one in one session.
Yeah, you do not have to be good.
And like, is this the most earth shattering, fantastic piece of
storytelling that has ever been created or ever will be created?
No, absolutely not. This was a delightful half hour.
But when you're stuck in a rut, which frankly we have been for a
while, it can be so scary to get started again.
It can be so scary to be like, well, we did that really, really
great thing one time, and now that's what we have to come up
with every single time or we're failure.
And that can be really hard to combat.
And so I think Eric and I have both really been feeling that
lately. And so something that we just
kind of wanted to do was just low stakes, you know, Who cares?
Who cares if it's a silly little story about a candy factory, you
know, like it didn't exist before now and now it does.
And that's kind of cool to think about.
That's pretty cool. Yeah.
You know, I don't know. I don't know.
I don't think that there's like a big, you know, piece of wisdom
to impart here, right? He starts.
The imagination. I'm thinking of like Kyle at the
end of the South Park episode. I've learned something today.
I've learned something. Creativity matters.
Well, everybody, thank you so much for being here.
Yes, hello. Appreciate it.
Can you have announcements? Oh, we're gonna be a Dragon Con.
So if you're going to Dragon Con in Atlanta, you should go to
that and see the things that we're doing.
My things keep changing. I just added a thing today.
So you know, we'll, we'll see what happens.
And that's all I can think of right now.
It's like pressing, oh, I'm going to be a big bad con.
If you're going to big bad Con, let me know.
Say hi. But yeah.
Yeah, Sick. Gnarly.
Sick. Gnarly.
Well, thanks everybody from office here.
In request. Remember to be kind to yourself,
remember to be kind to others. Remember to take your meds, eat
some food, drink some water, and remember that we love.
Good job. You did it.
That's pretty good, right? All of them.
That was almost I wasn't needed a snack.
I said eat some food. That's Okay, Whatever.
You can change it up sometimes. It's no big deal.
Okay. Bye.