(upbeat music)
- Ladies and gentlemen,
welcome back to Dimension 20:
The Unsleeping City.
(all cheering)
- My name is Brennan Lee Mulligan.
I'll be running this game for
our wonderful cast of players.
Say hi, intrepid heroes.
- [All] Hi, intrepid heroes.
- Brennan loves this bit.
- I love this bit.
I can't lie.
Reintroducing our old
friend, Mr. Zac Oyama.
- Hello.
- [Brennan] Emily Axford.
- Yeah, hi.
- [Brennan] Lou Wilson.
- Hey.
- [Brennan] Siobhan Thompson.
- Leh?
- [Brennan] Brian Murphy.
- Hey.
- [Brennan] And Ally Beardsley.
- Hey.
(all laughing)
- Wonderful.
Well, I'm gonna go ahead
and start to bring us
to this new land of myth and magic
that might seem eerily familiar
to some of our viewers at home.
It is a snowy, blustery day,
cold, crisp, clear skies
over the best skyline
of any city that has ever
been or will ever be,
it is New York City, baby.
Snow flurries from the
sky as the wind kicks up.
We see gusts of freezing air blow past
the Chrysler Building,
(Brennan whooshing)
down through streets of honking cabs
and just miserable looking pedestrians
who crowd into the tunnels
of the subways, pack.
All of a sudden their winter coats
trapping them in boxes of body odor
and heat stuffed together.
Their morning commute (chattering)
down through the tunnels.
Blast of laundry mixed with hot garbage,
and the sweet smell of the hot nut stands.
We go through the hellish
wasteland in Times Square,
up following snow again.
(sizzling)
Over the bridge.
Brooklyn Bridge right here.
Through neighborhoods where families
tuck their little bundled
infants through strollers
and walk down little lanes of trees,
back through neighborhoods where again,
little corner stores sell hot
bacon, egg, and cheese
sandwiches to morning commuters.
A bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich,
the best thing you ever ate.
It cost like what, 2.50, 2.25.
That's a deal.
(laughs)
We follow the wind (whooshing)
into early to mid December
morning in New York City,
a city where so many
people dream of coming
and making a life for themselves,
and it's always felt a
little bit like maybe,
just around the corner,
there's a little bit of magic.
Let me go ahead and roll to see
which of our PCs will go first.
(laughs)
We follow (whooshing)
a little whisk of snow
all the way down up through Williamsburg
where the hipsters still dwell,
but most of the rich
people that have now come
and displaced those hipsters,
and we arrive in a little
neighborhood called Greenpoint,
which is still an area
of bars and partying.
There's like rooftop
places that have now been
shuttered up for the winter,
or those few tenacious
places that have those
insane heating lamps up
so people can still be on a
rooftop bar in mid December.
And we go very close to the water.
There is a dingy, little doctor's office.
This doctor's office might
not be super accredited,
and it might not even be builder listed
as is necessarily a doctor's office.
It's kind of in a corner of a warehouse
way down by the water.
And the snow settles on a window sill.
And in a dingy, little medical office
we see our friend Pete the plug.
Ally, could you go ahead and describe
your character for the group.
- Yeah, I'm Pete.
Just let me know what
you're trying to track down
'cause I'm sure I can get it.
(laughing)
I sell everything, and I
personally take even more.
(laughing)
There's not an errand I can't run
after a fistful of mushrooms.
- What does Pete look like?
What's Pete wearing?
- Pete looks almost exactly
like Hunter S. Thompson
only young.
(laughing)
I'm wearing a cowboy hat.
I got on shades, like the yellow shades
'cause they're helping me with
seasonal affective disorder right now.
(laughing)
I am not doing well on the inside.
I did go through a breakup.
I did lose the one.
(laughing)
And she's thriving,
but I'm gonna be okay.
And it's cool that I found
a doctor that is so cheap,
I'm hoping.
- Speaking of which, so, Pete,
you are sitting on the little
kind of like roll out paper on the thing.
You've got the phone in your hand.
This is your personal phone
that actually has like
smartphone apps on it.
It's not your business phone.
- Got it.
- And you're looking at
your text history with Prea.
And--
- Of course I am.
(laughing)
- It's not looking great.
It's a big wall of you--
- Yeah.
- With timestamps kinda going back
for like a couple of weeks.
- Yeah, I said, and one
more thing a lot of time.
(laughing)
I probably just should of started
writing these things in a note
and like saving it to draft, but I didn't.
And she just wrote back, okay.
(laughing)
- Speaking of the doctor's office,
the door opens up, and Dr.
Lugash Primjitzki walks in.
Dr. Lugash is a very kind
but intimidating looking guy.
He is like broad shouldered
with these huge hairy arms
that kinda go like down
a little bit longer.
If you imagine, he looks like
he's got like strangling hands.
(laughing)
He has a bunch of like tattoos
of like weird dragons
wrapped around his arms.
He's got like Cyrillic lettering in them.
You see, this guy, white
shirt with black tie.
No doctor's coat.
He's got these, like a big square jaw
with like a nose that got busted up
in a bunch of boxing matches or something.
Salt and pepper hair kind of in a flop.
But there's extremely
thick rimmed black glasses,
so his eyes kind of are magnified
a little bit in his head,
which looks a little bit goofy.
Dr. Lugash walks in.
You've went with Dr. Lugash for a while.
Your supplier Seven
recommended him to you.
Dr. Lugash works with people
who need medical help for cash
and not on the books.
You see that Dr. Lugash
walks in with a little chart
and goes, okay Peter.
How's it going?
- It's good, man.
- Yeah, you feeling all right?
- Yeah.
- Your test results do
not indicate this is true.
Well, I'm looking here.
I guess we'll start with the small stuff.
Your vitamin levels are not great.
What have you been eating recently?
- I found out if you
microwave cheese on a plate
you can peel it off and
then it's like a crispy,
like crispy cracker.
- Oh boy, okay.
(laughing)
You know you shouldn't
be eating just cheese,
especially microwave.
You could go down to the corner store,
get a microwave toaster.
At least the cheese would be more crisp.
- Yeah, yeah, maybe you're right.
Yeah, I could probably eat
like a salad or something.
- So, good news as well.
You look like you're totally
healed up from the top surgery,
which is great.
Congratulations.
- Thank you, yeah, yeah.
Now I'm really (crying)
- Oh boy.
Okay, Pete.
Okay, Pete.
You see, Lugash, kind of comes over
and gingerly wraps his
giant arms around you
and pats you on the back of the head.
(laughing)
Peter.
- Peter is inconsolable.
(laughing)
He's just weeping into his arms right now.
- Hey, buddy, it's okay.
Hey, it's hard.
(crying)
Hey, Dr. Lugash, what happened?
- I know, it's fine, it's fine.
- It's clearly not fine.
- Yeah, I'm just happy to be alive.
- He pulls up a chair and
sort of nods knowingly
and says--
- I'm kind of reaching into
my bag for a mushroom cap.
- He says, enemy gang
find out where you live,
now you have to move?
Is that's what's going on?
- Oh, no, actually.
- What'd you just eat?
What'd you just eat in your mouth?
- A vegetable.
(laughing)
- He snags it and he says,
this is hallucinogenic.
Peter, you are on
anti-psychotic medication.
- Yeah, I know, that's why
it's totally safe to do this.
- Peter, I don't--
- I can take as much Suillus as I want to.
I've got the remedy.
- Peter, when is the last time you slept?
- I haven't really been sleeping.
Yeah, I have like,
right before I'm about to fall asleep
if I think of something scary or sad,
I just kind of stay up.
And then all of a sudden
it's like 5:40 a.m.,
and it's like, I might as
well microwave some cheese,
and start my morning.
(laughing)
- Peter, I'm going to just
run through a checklist
real quick here.
- Yeah, thank you.
Thank you, Doctor.
- You have no slept in a couple days.
It's effecting your health.
Sleep is most necessary
part of recuperation.
Don't take another mushroom.
One, honestly, even for
a good time, one is fine.
(laughing)
You are actively doing recreational drugs.
You haven't slept in days.
You are on anti-psychotic medication.
You are also taking hormone treatment.
You're taking male hormones.
- Yeah.
- So this, in the medical profession,
we would say is a lot going on, right?
I don't think that is good for you.
You need to, I can't believe
I'm going to say this,
you need to find a way to
get in touch with yourself
because you are trying
to medicate for situation
which medicine maybe cannot treat.
- I kinda get what you're saying, yeah.
- Maybe you take, that's the third one.
(laughing)
Lugash slams a meaty hand into your back.
And one of them sort of pops out.
(coughs)
He looks at you and goes,
(sighs) look, I'm going to go
and try to get a stomach pump
because you're going to
straight up go insane
if you process those mushrooms.
I'm going to be right back.
- Thank you.
- Lugash leaves the room.
(laughing)
Make a perception check
for me if you'd be so kind.
- Good, 17 plus what else is perception?
Oh, no additions, so 17.
- You look up, and you're
just sort of being annoyed
'cause like there's a drip in here.
I mean it's kinda like
a dingy old building.
(dripping)
You look over in the corner and
you see there is a radiator,
which is dripping a drop of water up,
and it's hitting the ceiling.
(dripping)
- Righteous.
(laughing)
- You see that a puddle
slowly starts to form
on the ceiling of the water
dripping out of the radiator,
and in a reflection of
that ceiling puddle,
you see that there's like a little
New York public health poster on the wall,
and the reflection of the kind of healthy
like sporty guy in a
park turns to look at you
and says, hey Pete.
The reflection in the
ceiling goes, how's it going?
I'm real.
- God, it's going,
honestly I feel like I can
be really honest with you.
I miss her.
(laughing)
And I deleted her number out of my phone,
but then I found it in our
early Instagram exchanges,
and I re-added it.
And I've already texted her this morning.
- Okay, magic's real.
Everything's about to change for you.
- Do you think she read the text,
(laughing)
or do you think like I should--
- The door opens and you
see Lugash comes back in.
- Hey, where'd you go?
(laughs)
- Look, this is not great, right?
Peter,
listen, mostly what I do here is
I pull bullets out of
gangsters that have been shot.
That's like my number one thing.
- In a way I was kinda shot.
- Not really.
- I got my off.
(laughing)
- I will admit--
- Did you hear me?
- I will admit it was my
first time doing top surgery.
- You did a good job.
I don't think you left that much
stuff in there that you shouldn't have.
- To please you.
- It's a little bit bumpy on this side,
but I think it's kinda cool.
- Well, I'm very excited to do it.
You might imagine it's not
a lot in my line of work,
there's not a chance to
prove I am a LGBT ally,
so it's nice to be able to do that.
- [Ally] Yeah.
- I am worried about you.
You need to get rest.
- Oh yeah, man, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- You need to heal.
Be careful at that today.
Oh, remember, by the way,
I would say go get rest
'cause also it's going to be
a crazy day for you, right?
'Cause SantaCon is happening today, right?
- (groans) Yeah, you're right,
and they're gonna want a lot of cocaine.
- Are people still doing a lot of cocaine?
- Just the Santas.
They're stuck in the 90s.
- (groans) Are these are
mostly people from Hoboken.
- Mm-hm, exactly, exactly.
- Where he's like 10 years in the past
sort of on that side of the river.
- Yeah.
- Do what you're going to do.
All right, well listen, one of my clients
has just gotten into a
violent car accident,
so I need to go make house call.
(laughing)
Be safe, Peter, all right.
- Yeah, thank you so much, Doctor.
I'll see you.
- He nods.
(laughing)
- What a great doctor.
(laughing)
- Yes, you head out.
As you can see, the yearly
cluster that is SantaCon
where a bunch of college kids
dress up in Santa outfits
and go on a crazy pub crawl
and make New York virtually
unlovable for a day,
has already kind of begun.
I imagine you just head back
to your apartment at this point.
- Definitely back to bed.
- Cool.
You get back to your apartment.
On the train, what do you think Pete doing
on the train as he's going.
It's like an above ground train,
a little bit getting away from there.
- Just listening to music.
I'm probably listening to like
an old Little Wayne album.
(laughing)
- Little text pops up on
your work phone from Seven
saying, price of the brick went up, lol.
(laughing)
- Okay, yeah, I say like,
yeah, we'll take care of it.
- You arrive back at your apartment
a little bit deeper into Greenpoint.
Go ahead and make another
perception check for me.
- 11.
- You walk up to the apartment.
You live in a spare room that is
functionally a converted walk-in closet.
You walk into the apartment and see Marta
who is this very old
like 60-70s Polish woman.
Got a little babushka around her head.
And her early 20s grandson, Yagdash,
(laughing)
He's got like a chin strap
beard, very thick eyebrows.
He's got like a windbreaker.
He's like up for wanna-be
gangster kinda guy.
You walk into the apartment,
and you see that a bunch
of you stuff is in boxes.
Marta turns around.
(Polish accent) Okay, so, I found proof.
And you see she takes a
weird little plastic bag,
and it's empty.
She's like, I know what this is.
You deal drugs out the apartment.
- What, no, no, what
are you talking about?
- You are a bad boy.
You do this?
- No, no, that is from a pen.
That's dry ink from a pen.
They do that now here.
- Dry ink from pen.
You are a drug dealer.
- [Ally] No, no.
- You scurry around.
- I work at the school!
- What do you do?
You wear a cowboy hat?
- I work at the school.
- No, I see you eat drug
from your coat right there.
- That was a snack.
- You are a bad influence on Yagdash.
- No, Yagdash, Yagdash.
Look, I work at the school, right man?
- You see Yagdash looks at you and goes,
I thought you drug dealer?
- No!
(laughing)
No, remember the point is,
how much not a drug dealer I am.
- But I'm supposed to
buy drugs from you later.
- No!
- For party.
We're going to club.
- I don't, are you
hearing him say all this?
She's not mad at you.
- My sweet grandson, Yagdash would never.
He would never do this.
- Look, I don't sell drugs.
I promise.
- I find out, I find out
from this that you are bad.
I know you are up to no
good because you come in,
you got the crazy hair, and
you have the cowboy hat.
- This is just my hair.
- You're crazy, boy.
- No.
- So now you're going
to be out on the street.
- No, no, come on.
- Your father is here.
- What?
(dramatic music)
- You haven't seen you father in six years
or something like that.
And you hear a set of footsteps
walking up the stairs.
- What?
- The door opens and
you see your dad, Mitch,
standing in the doorway.
- What the?
Mitch, what are you doing here?
- You gonna call me Mitch?
Okay.
(laughing)
- Yeah, I am.
(laughing)
- Your dad has not seen you in so.
I had a hard time finding you.
He goes, picks up one of
the boxes of your stuff,
and just starts to carry
it down the stairs.
And it has a special box in
it that you definitely need.
- Okay, hey, put that down.
Put it, what is going on?
- He just continues down.
- I follow him.
- He goes down the steps.
He's like, well, eventually
we had to pay a private eye
to track you down.
- How did they find me?
I don't, what?
No way.
- What do you mean, no way?
- I'm too good.
No one can find me.
(laughing)
What are you talking about?
- You see your dad turns around.
He's like not really making
eye contact with you.
It's like super weird and fucked up.
Turns around and says, we knew
you had to be in New York.
We knew you left upstate,
dropped out of school.
We want you to come home, okay?
- No.
- What's so great about this place?
I saw a bunch of bums
driving on the way in.
It's dirty as hell.
- Yeah, exactly, I can't
go and live like on a farm
where there's like, I'm
the only trans person
anyone's ever met in their life.
- That's, okay, I don't
wanna talk about that.
- You're doing the weird chicken dance
that you do whenever--
- You see, he looks at you.
You start to feel something
weird as like emotions kick up,
and that feeling of like
going over a bump in a road
really fast where your
stomach starts to rise,
and you feel a little bit weightless.
And it's starting to
happen to you a little bit.
- Cool.
- You see that he looks at you and goes,
it's not a conversation.
He goes to say your dead name.
And he goes (blubbering),
and a bunch of bubbles
come out of his mouth.
And he starts looking around.
(blubbering)
And just tons of bubbles
start issuing out of him,
and they go into his
clothes and around him
and start lifting him up into the air
as he like flails his arms.
And your dad is surrounded by bubbles
and sails off into the sky.
(laughing)
- Fuck yeah, I grab my box.
I go back inside and try to live there.
(laughing)
- End of campaign.
- You take a step in,
and as you take a step in, you're feeling,
you've never had a high like this before.
You bump into someone,
and you hear them say,
hey, watch it asshole.
You turn around, and a trashcan
with two little eyeballs
on top flaps its lid.
He goes, I was standing
right here by the doorway.
Who are you, some kind of piece of shit?
- Okay, I need to take an upper.
(laughing)
- You see two of the other
trashcans turn around and say,
is this guy bothering you, dude?
I don't know, you trying
to start some trouble?
- No.
- If we weren't already outside,
I'd ask you if you wanna go outside.
- No, man, you're just a trashcan.
- Yeah, just a trashcan.
- You're just a trashcan.
- And you're just a piece of shit.
Kids like you move into the neighborhood,
you sell drugs, you make crime happen,
you a piece of shit, buddy.
- I run.
(laughing)
- You take off down the street.
You got your box in your hand.
Go ahead and make a
dexterity check for me.
- Eight.
- You go, and you're running.
And as you look down,
you're running through
a little like melted area of snow.
And you look down and see
that everything else but you
has a reflection in the puddle.
And at that exact second, you fall
(crashing) into the puddle.
(snaps)
All of a sudden
(dramatic music)
you are standing on the
other side of the puddle
in a snow covered New York,
where snow is issuing out of
the storm drains in the street
and flying up into a sky
full of endless stars.
This sky is more stars
than it is darkness.
It is nighttime here.
You see a full moon turns around to you,
and you see that there is a
beautiful woman in the moon.
Incredible eye shadow, full lips.
Turns and says, holy shit.
This is crazy.
- I'll say.
(laughing)
- You wanna take a look around?
(magical twinkling)
This enormous moon beam
collides with the ground
at your feet, and you are raised up on it
and see an endless
dreamscape of New York City
stretching around you.
A unicorn rushes past you.
(laughing)
You see the unicorn is sparkling,
but you can tell it has
also put glitter on itself.
(laughing)
And it's like, oh my God,
what are you doing here?
Sugar, are you new to this place?
Something tells me you're real as hell.
- Yeah.
- Wow, that is something else.
I am loving this.
- Okay.
- When you slap yourself, you
fall through the moon beam.
(crashes)
And you see as you're falling,
this insane owl/pigeon/monkey/angel
thing, like a weird.
It looks like a huge like
eight foot tall monkey
with a pair of wings on
its back and owl's face.
So it's flying around you and says,
he's back, he's back, he's back!
And grabs your face and
gives you a very binky kiss,
and says, I'm so happy you're here.
(whooshes)
You land on the ground, (whooshes)
and it's very like weird bouncy cloud.
And you see that there is a little rat
with a slice of pizza strapped
to its back like a hiker.
And you see he goes, oh, you're here.
That's incredible.
- Thank you.
- For sure.
- Uh, where am I?
- I don't know, where do yo wanna be?
(laughing)
- Okay, something else was
in those shrooms I think.
(laughing)
I think--
- What is Peter feeling right now?
- Insane, like this is crazy.
I think I'm just like,
where'd my dad float off to?
Like, yeah.
- As soon as you think of your dad,
you see a little thing of bubbles with him
sailing off in this dream realm.
And suddenly, you (whooshes)
drop through the cloud
and are in inky blackness,
and you hear whispers all around you.
He's gone.
We have him now.
You'll never have to
worry about him again.
We can make things that are unreal, real,
and we can make things real, unreal.
Whatever you want.
Do you want this power?
Your med bracelet starts
to glow on your hand,
and a little like happy face appears on it
throbbing like a button you could press.
- Is this DMT?
(laughing)
I think about pressing it.
Fuck it.
- (exhales) You hear a colossal rending.
And the entire darkness splits above you,
and the silvery stars and white clouds
(whooshing) pull through,
and you can feel things screaming with joy
as they escape from
whatever realm this is.
You suddenly feel yourself being
drawn into deeper darkness.
You hear a voice.
(whistling)
A single point of golden light.
(striking)
Bright gold burning with intensity.
You start to feel your real body sweating,
and your heart rate picking up.
(whooshing)
(whispering) Stop spreading the news.
(laughing)
I'm leaving today.
I want to (striking).
A rectangle of golden
light and burning lines
super imposed against inky blackness
forever beyond it appears before you,
and the burning singes
your skin and your eyes.
(whispering) I want to be a part of it.
(blowing)
You suddenly feel yourself dropping again.
And a little gray child's
face with inky black eyes
appears in front of you as black tears
go down its gray face.
- What the fuck are you doing to me, man.
(laughing)
- And says, you wanted to
be a wild magic sorcerer.
- Yeah, yeah.
(laughing)
- And it looks at you and goes,
it's happening.
I'm so sorry.
Heed the words of Lazarus
before it's too late.
(whooshing)
Disappears.
You are in an alleyway
surrounded by SantaCon people.
(talking in background)
(snaps)
- I wish I had a girlfriend.
(laughing)
- You see that one of the
SantaCon people turns over to you
and half of his face melts,
and he just goes, (gurgling),
and bites the side of your head.
- No, no, no, no!
- Great, and we're gonna
move on to our next PC.
(laughing)
- Jesus Christ.
- [Brennan] Wonderful.
- [Siobhan] What a way to start.
- Wow!
- Oh my God.
- That was trippy.
- I'm like, there's a lot of
tension being released right now.
- I know.
(laughing)
- [Lou] Oh my God.
Hell yeah.
- Should we trade fives.
Jesus, I have to like splash
myself with cold water.
- Yeah.
- Hell yeah, we're gonna roll
another little dice here.
- Gray-faced child.
- A little bit of snow kicks up.
(whooshing)
And goes across the harbor,
past the Statue of Liberty,
swirling through the giant
cables of the Verrazano Bridge
all the way to Staten Island
where we see a nice little hair salon.
First class luxury beauty salon.
We see that there is a
woman sitting in a chair.
She's got sort of a little smock over her.
And there is a woman
styling her hair right now.
Emily, could you please
describe your character to us?
- Okay, my name is Sofia Lee.
I'm sorry, no, it is Sofia Bicicleta
I was Sofia Lee for five beautiful years,
but then my husband Dale left me.
So now I'm back to Sofia Bicicleta.
Sophia Bikes, you might hear me be called.
I suppose I can have like
a bit of a hot temper.
Dale really balanced me out,
but now that he's gone, I'm
on a little bit of a bender.
(laughing)
But, that's fine.
I mean, I can keep up an active lifestyle.
Similar to Pete, I haven't been sleeping
because the bed I was sleeping in
I once shared with my husband.
So I just don't even like
being there right now.
And basically I'm in like a
tight leopard print skirt,
a tight pink cami, and (laughing)
basically I look like if Fran Drescher
went on like an Amy Winehouse bender.
(laughing)
- Yes!
- And I'm doing a pretty bad job
'cause I'm pretty hungover.
(laughing)
- You see the woman in the chair
is trying to make small talk with you.
She says, and honestly,
I couldn't believe it
because the house is a disaster.
Like they--
- Really.
- Oh, it's awful.
They painted it this shade of like,
I don't know, lime green.
It looks like it's St. Patrick's Day.
- I tell you, everyone on this island
has too much money they don't
even know what to do with.
- Well, that's what I was trying to say.
It doesn't take a lot
of money to be classy.
Like I don't understand why these--
- I know, but everyone just gets bored,
so they just, they're like,
well, I can't buy a bigger house
'cause then it'll be
obvious I'm in the mob.
So I guess I'll just paint my house
a new shade of lime green.
I'm sorry.
(crying)
- Oh God, Sofie, no!
- No, no, it's fine.
I really wanna keep doing your hair.
I gotta get it teased.
- I honestly, I honestly,
and Sof, I've been
coming to you for my hair
for three years now.
- Yeah.
- I'm not trying to.
You've fully cut my bangs down
to about a quarter of an inch.
(laughing)
- Did you not want baby bangs?
- Well, the thing is,
they're like a bristle now.
So it really sort of looks
like I'm some kind of,
I don't know.
(laughing)
- Yeah, I know, I know.
And I'm gonna give you a discount, I am.
- Okay, a discount, okay.
- Give me your little coupon, and I'll--
- Oh my punch card, my little--
- Yeah, give me your punch card,
and I'll punch out a couple extra.
- Honestly, you're a doll.
And honestly, it's so
fucked up what happens,
and like God forbid anything
were to happen to me
and Bobby, but--
- Okay, I don't think you
need to bring in you and Bobby
just because me and Dale fell apart,
and we wouldn't have fallen apart
if Isabella Inferano
didn't come over the bridge
or wherever she came from.
- Okay, look, I understand.
Look, everyone knows she's a, all right?
- Okay, okay, I don't
think that we should be
putting down other women that much.
- Oh.
- She's a succubus is what she is.
(laughing)
Witchcraft is the only thing
that could of taken Dale away from me.
Yes, we had our fights.
Usually my fault 'cause he
was just so even tempered.
- Sofie.
- All he wanted to do was just
watch the deer in the backyard.
(laughing)
- He'd just watch deer in the backyard?
(laughing)
- He loved it.
We had a couple animals that would come in
and out of the backyard,
and he just liked watching them.
- Sofie, look--
- He has a very calming presence.
- I love you to death.
Everybody in the neighborhood,
when you went and married Dale,
he's not from around here.
- I know he's not.
- People here marry people
from here, all right?
- I know, and I don't
want someone from here.
- And nobody wants to say, I told you so.
Nobody wants to say that.
So, here's what I'm gonna do.
I'm gonna settle up with you for today.
We're gonna stop it here.
I'm gonna go look at some hat.
- No, I can fix the bangs, I can.
Just a couple more snips,
and I think they'll be fixed.
- Okay, I'm looking at it now,
and it looks like those
old medieval monks.
It looks like one's just shifted forward
about five inches to
cut off the front part.
(laughing)
- Okay, it's not my best work,
but do you want a free mani?
- And I understand what
you're going through.
If I let any more of
this happen to myself,
I'm accountable for it, right?
I've already spoken up,
and I need to interject.
- If you want some pre-made sangria,
I've got some in the fridge.
(laughing)
- He looks over.
You see like a bunch of
like barber side supplies
that need to be kept
cold have been removed
from this fridge, and a
giant pitcher of sangria.
- Yeah.
- You see she says, okay,
it's 10:30 in the morning.
- I know, I exercise some
restraint at eight a.m.
- Okay, you know what, I'll
have a little bit of san.
- Okay.
- The door sort of like jingles,
and your brother Mario walks in.
- What do you want?
- How's it going, Sof?
Jesus, what's wrong with this lady's hair?
(laughing)
Problem?
- Oh Mario, like you know
anything about women's fashion.
- I happen to know a lot.
Just 'cause my fashion
line went down in flames,
doesn't mean I don't know about fashion.
- No one wants aligator skin anymore.
- When you say hurtful stuff like that,
that's how I know you're
in an emotional spot.
Aligator skin has been, is all right.
Fashion is cyclical.
You fucking stugots all right.
- Okay.
- I'm gonna lose my temper.
- Okay, okay, everyone keep it together.
- Here's what I wanna say.
Mom would like you to come by for dinner
at some point, all right?
This is the fucking olive branch.
- I know, I know, I know.
Yes, I will come by at some point.
I don't know what my
night is like tonight.
- How 'bout this Sunday?
- Sunday.
- [Brennan] All right.
- Oh, if I show up, am
I going to be guilted
for not going to church
because it's Sunday?
- Would it kill you to go to church?
I understand, right.
It's like you married some guy
who's not from the neighborhood.
Now you're not going to church.
- Don't bring him into this.
You didn't know him.
- Look, I don't know him,
but I know Isabella Inferanio, all right.
And--
- Oh my God.
- You know what--
- Do you want me to start running my mouth
about aligator skin again, 'cause I will?
- It is a USA business.
You can farm aligator
leather in the states.
It is ethical, and I don't
need to explain myself to you.
We'll see you Sunday or not, all right!
Jesus.
You see he turns and leaves.
You--
- Don't forget to pay the meter!
(laughing)
- You leave after your shift is done.
You settle up.
It's getting to be that time of the year
where Christmas music is
starting to be played around.
- Oh my God, it's hell.
(laughing)
- It's just that time of year again.
(whistles)
You're feeling extremely hung over,
and sobriety is starting to wind its way
back into the corners of your brain.
- Okay, well I have two options.
Because if I don't get a drink right now,
I'm probably gonna go buy
more Christmas presents
for Dale like he's gonna come back.
So I guess I'm gonna go to a bar.
(laughing)
- You head up to a bar.
Go ahead and roll a wisdom
saving throw for me.
- Saving.
21.
- 21, cool.
So, you get the fuck out of here.
You don't go to any of the
places on Staten Island.
It would remind you of Dale.
You don't go to any places here.
You hop on the ferry.
You head into the city.
- Wind in my hair.
- Maybe like pregame on
the ferry a little bit.
- Corona.
(laughing)
- One of those Coronitas.
(laughing)
- You arrive in the city.
What kinda bar are you looking for here?
- Honestly, just like one with
as many people as possible,
or like one, maybe one
that like a bunch of people
are by themselves so I
don't have to feel weird
for being by myself.
- Cool, so you find some dingy,
Irish bar somewhere in the city.
Old wood table.
You sit at it.
You start having a drink.
So go ahead and make that
constitution saving throw for me.
(chuckles)
- 16.
- Hell yeah.
You're holding your own.
You're able to, you're
going a nice couple rounds.
This bartender Shawn is looking at you.
He's kinda like a scruffy bartender guy.
He's like late 30s.
Hey, how's it going, Miss?
What can I get ya?
- Can I get a Stoli Raz
with seltzer and a twist?
- Yeah, I can do that for you, no problem.
- Okay.
- He goes over--
- That's raspberry.
- Yeah, oh I assumed.
- Okay.
- I assumed, yeah.
This place is close enough to the ferry
that it has every flavor of Stoli.
(laughing)
You see, he does the Stoli
Raz, puts the twist in it,
seltzer, puts it in front of you.
And he says, hey, I like
that, what is it angora?
It's a nice little sweater you got there.
- Oh, thank you.
Yeah, it is angora.
It is authentic.
You guys got like a Kindle behind the bar
or something that I could read?
- You wanna read an e-reader?
(laughing)
- I don't know, I just don't entirely know
how to interact with people right now.
- Oh, you see, he nods.
You see that there's a couple
guys at the end of the bar.
They got like striped shirts,
very like spiky frost,
or one of them frosted,
but like spiky hair,
sort of chains.
You see that one of them
looks over at you and says,
oh, you wanna read something?
(laughing)
- I'm trying to figure out how
that could be a pick up line
'cause it sounds like
the beginning of one.
Yes, maybe.
- Why don't you read my.
(yelling)
- 'Cause I had considered,
maybe it was gonna go in that direction.
Then I thought, no, he's better than that.
No, I'm not gonna read your.
- You see another one
that says like, come on.
- Because I don't read short stories.
Thank you.
(laughing)
Thank you.
- You see that everyone in the bar--
- I jump up on the bar.
- Everyone in the bar goes nuts for that.
(laughing)
You jump on the bar.
Cool, you are the hero
of the bar at that point.
You stay there for a while.
You're there honestly,
you're there for like hours.
- Don't read short stories.
(laughing)
- I don't read short stories.
- Not at all.
- After a while, I would say it's
like 10:30, 11 o'clock at night.
You've been there for a couple hours.
And you're having a ball.
That burn was so great.
The bartender's been hooking
you up with free drinks.
Go ahead, you've been here
for I'll say like four hours.
Go ahead and give me four
constitution saving throws.
(laughing)
- Okay, first two are 21 and a 12.
- [Brennan] Cool.
- The next two are nine and a 12.
- Nine.
- I am getting drunker though.
- You are getting drunker.
Yeah, it's getting to that point.
You say you're having a ball,
and a huge bachelorette
party comes into the bar.
You see they're all going, woo!
Tina!
Yeah, Tina!
They go to the front.
I see one of them says, the bride to be
will have a slippery nipple shot!
- Oh my God, there's barely
any alcohol in there.
(laughing)
You see Shawn walks over
to the bartender and says,
hey, it's all right.
This is a lot of business coming in.
- Yeah, no, you're totally right, Shawn.
I'm so sorry.
- You okay?
- Yeah, it's just sometimes
you lose the person
that balances you out,
and you're a bit unhinged.
- Let's get you some whisky.
You want a shot of whisky?
- You got any of that stuff
that tastes like Christmas,
the like cinnamon and fire?
(laughing)
- He does that,
go ahead and give a constitution
savings or a disadvantage.
(gasps)
- I got an 18 still,
but I did get a nat 20.
(laughing)
- Cool, that Christmas
shot goes down real smooth,
real easy.
You have this Christmasy shot.
- Gives me a clear head.
- Yeah, and you see that the maid of honor
clearly raise his glass and says,
Tina, you are beautiful,
you are wonderful,
your life is all laid out ahead of you,
and you're building it in this moment.
And honestly, there is not a better guy
than Richard for you.
We're so happy you found the one.
It is smooth sailing from here on out.
But there's one last
night of choppy water!
- I just wanna say something.
(laughing)
- All the whole bachelorette
party turns to look at you.
- Sorry, can I borrow this
old karaoke machine, thanks.
I mic it up.
(laughing)
I just wanna tell you, Tina,
that marriage was the best
thing that ever happened to me.
And you have a lot to look forward to.
And, I hope he makes you a slipper nipple
every night before you go to bed.
(laughing)
I do, I really do.
Start spreading the news.
- You say that, they stop you.
The bachelorettes, all the
bachelorette party comes over
and says, okay, thank you.
- You're welcome.
You're welcome.
- And you see, your vision kind of goes
a little fuzzy for a second.
There's three guys at the end
of the bar you saw earlier.
You get a little punch
drunk from the alcohol.
I guess you're just drunk.
And you look over, and you swear to God
these guys are like 10 feet tall.
And their skin is this like modeled green,
almost like weird vegetative or something.
And they have this long
noses covered in warts.
And they're all kinda laughing
and looking at each other.
And you see that two of
the bachelorette party
basically are like, you wanna
go outside for a cigarette?
Yeah, let's go outside.
And you see they walk outside.
And you see the three hulking people.
Again, your vision's kind of.
Turn to follow these women
outside after the bar.
- Oh no, I don't think so.
These trapped new otters
consider me their life saver.
(laughing)
And I stomp out.
And I'm gonna follow them.
- You follow them.
You see that the two women hook around
into a little alleyway near this dumpster,
and they're just smoking real quick.
They're doing that
thing where they're like
dressed very cute, but
it's freezing outside.
So they're just like
shivering and smoking.
And you catch the first line one of these.
Again, what is Sofia thinking
as she sees these like
hulking monstrous?
- I think she's just going through a thing
where she's like, oh my God,
I have been drinking so much
that sometimes like I am just,
I feel like I'm seeing things.
The other morning I woke up in an alley,
and I could swear that
like a giant rat man
brought me like a egg
sandwich and a Gatorade
to like help me sober up.
(laughing)
So I'm definitely, I'm definitely
killing some brain cells,
but you know what, you gotta kill some
to kill the ones that have
the memories of Dale on them.
(laughing)
So, yeah, if this means that some men
look like the creepy 10 foot
tall gray skin men from now on
that's fine with me as
long as I can forget
Dale's aftershave.
(laughing)
- So you see that one of these hulking
weird wart covered giants
looks over at one of these
young women and goes, hey, can
I bum a cigarette from you?
Seems like you got a real
party going on in there.
And so he puts a giant clawed
hand on the small of her back.
- Okay, all right, that's not
a part that we touch on women.
(laughing)
It's me, Sofia Bicicleta.
I was in there on a
karaoke machine earlier.
I'll also take a cigarette.
And I smush myself between the guy.
- You see that, as you
smush yourself in there,
you see that there's
something around these giant
troll people that's like these wisps of
almost like heat waves on a hot day,
or some kind of like
wispy bit of their shadow
pealing off of them, little flickers.
It almost looks like a very subtle fire,
or a smoke, or something.
And as you wedge in and touch one,
you see that the haze around
them actually disappears.
And the three of them look
and see that you're looking at their eyes
where their eyes actually are.
And they all kind of look at each other
and look back at you.
And you see that the two women
quickly like stamp out
their cigarettes and walk.
They sort of slide away from you,
and you see that the three tall,
for all intents and purposes,
trolls turn to you and say,
You got a problem lady?
- Yeah, I got a problem.
What are you doing with those women?
'Cause I do not consider you the type
to walk around without a cigarette.
- You see them look around
at each other and they say,
well, that's on us, I guess.
Cigarette tax is no joke though.
- That's true.
(laughing)
- They look at you and say,
well, maybe we can bum one off of you?
What do you think?
- I actually don't smoke.
- You see that one of these guys
rears back a clawed hand
to take a swing at you.
- All right.
I trip him.
(laughing)
- Go ahead and, yeah, go ahead real quick.
I'll make a, just make
a dexterity check for me
to see if you can beat him to the punch.
- Okay.
Kinda nat one.
(laughing)
- Nat one.
- That's the real roll of the game.
- This guy clocks you in the head for,
let me use my little dice box.
Siobhan made dice boxes for everybody.
- Yes!
- I'll show mine later.
- This guy clocks you for
12 points of damage.
And I need you to make another
constitution savings for me.
- 14.
- Cool.
Cool, go ahead and make
your attacks on it.
- Okay, first off, I'd
like to tell him that hurt,
but probably not as
much as my burn earlier.
(laughing)
And now attack him.
- [Brennan] Go for it.
- There's a 15 hit.
- 15 does hit.
- Oh, all right.
That's gonna be 10,
and then I'm gonna take my stiletto off,
and thwack him for another seven.
- Oh, awesome.
- And then I'm gonna spend a key point
to thwack him again.
- Fuck him up.
- Flurry blows for another six.
- Six, seven, and what else, sorry?
- 10.
- Six, seven, and 10.
17, 23 points of damage.
This guy, bam, knocks you in the head.
You come out, you're like nice hairdo
is a little bit messed up.
Tell me exactly what
happens to this troll.
- All right, I would like to
take off both my stilettos
and just put 'em through his eye.
(laughing)
- You see you go, wap,
into this guys eyes.
(yelling)
And just runs down the
street bumping into shit,
and the two trolls run after him going,
holy shit, Vin, are you okay?
I got shoes in my eyes.
(laughing)
- Leave that bachelorette alone!
She's got a really
happy life ahead of her.
- Sofia, you are shoeless.
- Again.
- You are definitely concussed.
You feel yourself kinda like drop
and like fall against
the wall outside the bar,
and sort of slump down into
a very soft warm trash bag.
- It's nice.
It feels like someone threw out a pillow.
(laughing)
- And Sofia goes to sleep.
Onto our next PC!
- Wow.
- Let's see who goes next
Bit of snow whisks off of the trash
as Sofia pulls that sort
of other garbage bag
onto herself for warmth.
- This feels good.
- And we go, (whooshing),
all the way off across the East River
into Cobble Hill, Brooklyn
where you come down,
and there's a little four
story stone building,
railroad apartments, classic
New York apartment building,
and we hear (sirens).
(honking)
As a raging inferno
melts the snow overhead.
The third and fourth
story of this building
are engulfed in flame.
We see out the window looking
through a set of bars.
There are bars to keep the window safe
for kids being in that space.
There is a little eight year old girl
with a little bit of soot
and smoke on her face.
She's clutching a little
teddy bear in her hand
looking at the bar and yelling down.
See that there is paramedics,
and firefighters, and cops down.
They're saying, don't worry little girl.
We're gonna get you out of there.
Stay close to the window.
Keep your head down out of the smoke.
You see she goes, I'm scared.
I'm scared.
(crying)
With an eruption of force,
the door of the room
(yells) explodes into cinders.
Zac, could you describe
your character for us?
- I'm a Ricky Matsui.
I'm a firefighter in New York,
specifically in Brooklyn.
I believe in just doing the right thing,
and I always wanted to be a firefighter,
so I accomplished that goal.
So I feel really good about myself.
I'm pretty much set for life, I guess.
(laughing)
And I'm just here to help.
- Ricky, you survey the area here.
You see that there is a barred window.
There's a little girl near
these bars of the window.
It's like a nursery room in here.
You see that two of your
other firefighters pals
have just busted down the door into a room
which looks like the
girls primary caretaker
who's her grandmother.
She turns around to look
at you and she goes,
(gasps) are you a firefighter?
- I am.
(laughing)
- What's Ricky do?
- Ricky, first Ricky's like,
that's a really cool bear.
(laughing)
What's his name?
- His name's Theo.
- All right, hold on to Theo real tight,
and then I'm gonna pick you up,
and we're all just gonna have a fun time
getting out of here.
(laughing)
- And emanating warmth of,
to say that it's holy often conjures
connotations of like a religion,
but a holy light made out
of just civic responsibility
and a love of safety
emanates from Ricky Matsui.
And you see the girl wipes the
tears from her eyes and says,
okay, we're gonna be
all right, little guy.
And she says it to her teddy bear,
and runs up and leaps into your arms.
What does Ricky Matsui
look like, by the way?
- Ricky Matsui is, he is like five, eight,
but like really strong.
(laughing)
He just works out a lot.
You just keep your body right
to keep your mind right.
(laughing)
It's the cheapest therapy
you can have, working out.
(laughing)
He picks the girl up with
just one arm, and he,
yeah, he's like kind
of like a Superman-ish
if you were Japanese.
(laughing)
And he's just ready to get out of there.
- Yeah.
- Cheapest therapy.
(laughing)
- You rush out.
As you're running, something
sort of tingles in your mind,
in the corner of your consciousness,
and you can feel moments
before it happened.
Go ahead and make a dexterity
saving throw for me.
- Oh, 12 plus, 13.
- 13.
You see that a, boom!
A burning beam falls down behind you.
You feel, about to have this
thing before it happens.
You go jump, tumble,
summersault with the girl,
holding onto her in your arms.
She is holding onto her bear.
(yelling)
There is now a burning obstacle in the way
between your friends who
are getting the grandmother
who will maybe not be able
to make it out past this beam
that is now stuck in the hallway.
- I make sure no one's watching,
and then I create water
on the burning beam.
- There is a little girl in your arms.
- Oh yes.
I say, look out the window real fast.
- She looks out the window real fast.
You channel the power within you.
Your fireman's ax, the
questing blade at your side
glows bright, and (whooshing).
A geyser blast of water erupts
from your outstretched hand.
(whooshing)
Coats the beam.
The water corrodes it.
It fire eats into it.
It snaps in half and clears the hallway.
- Hey, something happened.
What was the window like?
- Oh the window?
It was normal, I think normal.
- That's awesome.
(laughing)
- You make it out of here.
You can hear your firefighter
brothers behind you.
You make it down to the sidewalk,
and you emerge from the smoke,
and you see that there's
an eruption of cheers
as the grandma and the girl
comes out in your arms.
You see that there's a
New York One van there,
and a New York One reporter comes up
who's in the middle of a broadcast.
And she says, sir, sir, you've just
amazingly saved a young girl's life
in this burning building.
On behalf of the city, thank you so much.
This is the last people
in the building right now?
And holds the--
- The other people got out already?
- They got out already, yeah.
- Yeah, that's pretty much it.
Everyone at home, if you're watching this,
make sure that your
sprinklers are up to date,
that you have fire extinguishers,
that you're always taking the precautions
you need to keep your home safe.
We got lucky this time.
Make sure that you're
just keeping up with that.
Am I on TV right now?
(laughing)
- Yeah, this is for New York One.
- Awesome.
What's up Mom?
What's up Dad?
Emiko, hey, what's going on?
(laughing)
Just wanted to say,
holidays are a tough time
for Christmas trees.
You wanna make sure you're safe with that.
God, I'm just not used
to being on TV right now.
(laughing)
- She says, oh, that's okay.
- Was that good?
- I think we got what
we needed, absolutely.
- Awesome.
- Sorry, what's that?
- Did you want me to keep talking?
- No, you're good.
You're fully good.
- I'm good.
- [Brennan] Thank you so much.
You're fully good.
- Awesome.
- Again, the heroic job--
- Just stand behind her.
(laughing)
- Heroic job from the, the New
York Fire Department, FDNY.
- I can get out of here?
- Yep, uh-huh.
- Role check.
(laughing)
Obviously, the fire has been contained.
So we'll just move the shot over here.
Move the shot over here.
- Follow you, follow you?
- No, you're good.
You're fully good, sir, thank you so much.
- What kind of cameras?
(laughing)
- You reunite the little girl.
The little girl looks up at you.
And she's holding her bear
as you reunite her with her grandmother.
The grandmother says, thank you so much.
You saved our life.
You saved my little girl.
You are a hero.
- I mean, I'm just doing--
- March!
You're Mr. March from
the fireman's calendar.
- Yes, I worked for our calendar.
- Wow!
- It's me.
Do you want me to?
I'll sign it if you want, I guess.
- You see that she says, yes,
I made sure to grab it on the way out.
And she has a singed--
- You grabbed it?
- I grabbed it.
I made the firefighters
go back into the kitchen.
- Okay, well, just make sure to keep safe.
Wow, I'm not as tan as I used to be.
(laughing)
I gotta work on that.
- See, she closes it and says,
you're a real hunky number in here.
- Thank you, ma'am.
- 5 Alarms, no kidding.
(laughing)
- I just show her my abs.
(laughing)
- Then she cries a little bit.
You are really a hero.
- Thank you, ma'am.
- The little girl looks
a little bit confused.
You feel a little ping in your phone.
But the girl looks up at you
with a little bit of confusion
and she says, she says,
I looked at the window, but Theo didn't.
You made that big log stop burning, right?
- You know, sometimes firefighters
use all their tools on their belt,
and some of it is confusing to children.
- You're a wizard.
- I'm not wizardry.
(laughing)
- It's okay.
- Can you keep a secret?
- I'll keep a secret.
Only me and Theo will know.
- Okay, yeah, I kinda
got some magic in me.
(yelling)
- And screams and runs
around in a little circle.
Your phone pings again,
and you see that it's another.
You look at your phone,
see that it's a couple
of texts from Esther
who is the head of the
Clinton Hill Chantry.
And she is texting you and
says, need to meet up ASAP.
SantaCon today, couple of points to cover.
Would love your help if available.
- I send her a selfie of me with the fire.
I'm like, just finishing up here.
On the way.
(laughing)
How you doing?
Nevermind, I'll see you in a sec.
(laughing)
- You get a couple of the ellipsis
and then just the word, good.
(laughing)
How does Ricky get over to the chantry?
- How far is that?
- From here it's not too far.
The train lines aren't great going from--
- Sprints.
- Yeah, so Ricky just like gets up,
like sprints down the street,
and you get up onto the rooftops,
and are just bounding over
the rooftops of New York.
This ax glinting in the sun.
- Yeah!
(laughing)
- You arrive at the Clinton Hill Chantry,
which is a lovely brown stone,
in a very beautiful ivy
covered part of Brooklyn.
And you see that the door
has this sort of gargoyle,
one of those like bronze knockers
that has like a gargoyle biting
the little knocker ring on it.
You approach the door.
What do you do when you get to the door?
- I address the gargoyle.
I say, how's it going, Frank?
- It's been better.
I gotta tell you man,
this time of the year,
the heat and cold, the
metal expands and contracts.
I can feel myself busting my fat
through the wood of the doors.
How 'bout you?
Man, you looking good.
- I'm trying to get on that metal level.
(laughing)
You look good.
- Good luck.
That's great, man.
How's your ma, she's good?
- She's good.
My whole family's great.
I mean, a lot of people got problems.
- Oh, for sure.
Hey, believe me, I know.
For me, but hey, you gotta
count ya blessings, right?
You can move around.
I'm stuck in a door.
(laughing)
- If you ever want me to
bring you any kinda treats
or any kind of sandwiches or anything.
- Actually, yeah, if
you not busy right now,
there's this place down at White GNLs
that do like a chicken parm,
if you wanted to grab
one, I wouldn't mind that.
- Yeah, I could bring it to you later.
I kinda gotta go in there,
and I'm sorry about it.
(banging)
(gargling)
The door swings open.
You walk in.
This is one of those areas
of New York where it's like,
there's this like sense of old
distinguished parlors
rooms that's very sort of
dusty, leather bound books everywhere,
little glass case with some
strange swirled staff in it.
And you see that there's
still some painter's tape
over the glass case that your
questing blade shot out of
when you rescued these
wizards from the fire
about like 11 months ago.
You see Esther walks out.
Esther is a very cool,
young wizard in her 20s.
She's got like an undercut,
and a little bit of hair
coming over to one side.
She's got like a bunch of jewelry
and very like kind of wizard sheek
where it's like bangles, and jewels,
and rings that do stuff.
But then also just sort
of wearing a pair of jeans
and some high boots.
You see, Esther turns to you and says,
oh Ricky, good, you made
it here in record time.
- Well, you know, if you
go overt he buildings
it's a lot quicker.
(laughing)
- Great.
- I keep saying this, but awesome haircut.
It's awesome.
- Thank you.
- It's so cool.
- Thank you very much.
I appreciate it.
Just like to keep it new and exciting.
So I wanna talk to you a
little bit about SantaCon
and what's gonna be happening today.
- Awesome.
- Have I, 'cause you came
in here about 11 months ago.
So you missed the last SantaCon.
- True, this is my first SantaCon
since I saw the magic stuff.
- You see,
(laughing)
You see that she says,
all the magic stuff.
Yeah, since you were inducted
into the Unsleeping City
by the questing blade and
the magical world that exists
behind the waking world of
New York was revealed to you.
This is your first SantaCon with us.
- Yeah.
- So what do you know
about SantaCon already?
- Um, I guess it's just
like a bunch of drunk people
trying to have some fun in the streets.
It's kinda hard to do other
stuff while that's happening.
For firefighters, a lot
of us are working that.
So, it's maybe not my favorite thing,
but I get that people enjoy that.
- For sure.
- As long as they're being safe.
That's the way to go, I guess.
(laughing)
- So what SantaCon actually is
is a little bit more complex than that.
- Awesome.
- People perceive SantaCon to be
a large obnoxious pub crawl.
You ever wondered how Santa Claus
is able to get to all
those homes in one night.
- Well I just assumed
it's magic, but yeah.
- Well, magic has to work in certain ways.
Magic can't just solve everything.
That's why we have all these books.
It's actually quite complex.
Magic is very hard to do.
- I thought, yeah, okay.
- [Brennan] It doesn't
solve all your problems.
- Oh, okay.
- So, first of all, Santa Claus is real.
- Awesome.
- Yes.
Second of all, in order to get to
all those homes in one night,
Santa can't be in all
those places at once.
That would take a level of magic
that is honestly staggering
to even consider.
So instead what happens is
Santa Claus clones himself
millions and millions of times.
And each of those clones
goes to the separate houses.
Are you with me so far?
- Yeah, I think I get it.
What?
He clones himself a million times?
- Millions of times.
Clones himself millions of times.
And those clones then go about
and actually do that work for Santa Claus.
However, the technology that Santa uses
is extremely potent, but--
- Wait, is Santa a scientist?
- Hm?
- He's a scientist?
- Partially, yes.
- [Zac] Wow.
- But also an extremely powerful sorcerer.
- Oh, okay.
- Effectively, if you clone yourself
millions and millions of times,
even with the best arcane
equipment available
and the best spell casting,
not every single clone
is gonna turn out great.
(laughs)
- I grew up with twins,
and one of 'em was worse than the other.
So, that makes sense.
(laughing)
- I hear that.
I hear that, I believe that.
- Just in like sports, he
seemed like a nice guy.
(laughing)
- It's a little bit dissimilar
to that, I won't lie.
- Oh, okay, yeah.
- But effectively what happens is that,
like a week or two before
Christmas every year,
Santa Claus comes to New York,
and because of the Umbra Arcana.
Do you need a refresher
on the Umbra Arcana?
- I do, yeah.
(laughing)
I'm sorry.
- That's okay, no, it's all right.
So, I run the Clinton Hill Chantry,
which is a branch of
Gramercy Occult Society.
You with me so far?
- Yeah.
- The Gramercy Occult Society
manages the Umbra engine.
- Yeah.
- Right?
And that creates the Umbra Arcana,
which is the spectral force
that keeps New Yorkers
from being aware that magical things
are happening around them at all times.
- Keeps them safe from
the idea of magical stuff.
- Yes, precisely.
That's exactly right.
- I can figure it out that way, yeah.
- It keeps them safe.
It's a safety thing.
- Yeah.
- So because of that, Santa
deposits his defective clones
here in the city once a year.
That is SantaCon.
- And what happens to
them after they get here?
- They mostly wonder around.
They're pretty harmless.
Most of them have a hard
time moving or getting around
because again they're defective clones.
But basically, we just
need to round them up,
and kind of either, depending
on how some people feel,
you can either hold onto them,
and they naturally die
in a couple of weeks,
or you can just incinerate them.
But basically, that's what happens.
- Is Santa good?
- He cares deeply for the
children of the world,
and voluntarily clones
himself millions of times.
The ethics of it are alarming.
I won't deny it.
(laughing)
- It's above my pay grade a little bit.
- It's a little bit above your pay grade.
So if you just want to
sort of hit the bricks,
and kind of keep a patrol this evening
for any of that weird stuff happening,
and just sort of round up
any clones that you find
and deposit them to us.
If they are causing danger,
I would say that we dispatch
them right then and there.
- Wow, okay, yeah.
It's the right thing to do, I guess.
- It's the right thing to do.
- Yeah.
- Great, and that selfie was good.
That was a nice little--
- Oh cool, thanks.
I wasn't sure what you thought of it.
But yeah, I can keep sending
them to you, I guess.
(laughing)
- Wasn't really an invitation,
but do what you need to do.
(laughing)
What's Ricky do after that?
(laughing)
- Ricky takes off to hit SantaCon.
- Cool.
You're wondering around.
It's getting a little
bit later in the day.
You're kind of like rooftop
to rooftop moving around.
Go ahead and make a
perception check for me
and investigate check.
- Perception's only a seven.
10 for investigate.
- To investigate, cool.
So you're investigating around.
You follow a weird kind
of minty smell on the air,
and you arrive at this alleyway.
You smell the mint growing stronger.
As you look over the edge
you see an unconscious
Pete the Plug.
And you see that there
are three horrifying
mutant Santa Clauses
moving towards Pete's body
on the ground.
- From the--
- You're up above them.
They're in the alleyway going (growling)
- I just stop and, hey!
What are you guys doing?
(laughs)
- Merry Christmas.
- Okay guys, hold on.
And start climbing down.
(laughing)
- You safely descend.
Pete, you come to.
You got bitten on the head,
and you can only smell mint.
And you can feel your bones
becoming sweet in your body.
(yells)
(laughing)
Ricky, you fully descend
into the alleyway.
What do you say to these
weird sort of mutant,
like shamble around you,
like surrounding you.
What do you do as they?
They kinda look a little
bit menacing to you.
- I just, I step between them and Pete.
I say, you guys gotta go
stand over there right now.
- Cool.
(laughing)
- Santa's stand over there.
- Make an intimidate
check for me real quick.
- I got a 20.
- A 20?
The one that you were speaking directly to
explodes into peppermint,
and the other two go (yelling),
and they just start running away.
- Oh no.
They're running into the street?
- They're running into the street.
- I look at Pete,
and I feel like I have
to check on him first.
- Cool.
Yeah, go ahead and make I
guess a medicine check for me.
- 22.
- 22, rad.
You, there is a occult sickness
spreading through Pete's body.
- Do I know if it's a disease?
- You know that it's a magical disease,
something that only a magical healer
would be able to handle.
- Okay.
I couldn't use lay on
hand for five points.
- It's not pointing,
which is something else.
- Oh, okay.
- Pan help.
- Hey sir, listen to me.
I'm a New York City firefighter.
(laughing)
- Bit me!
- Yeah, it looks like you
got a pretty nasty bite.
- I pull my gun like I'm
gonna go after the two Santas.
- Hey, sir.
Sir, I'm gonna ask you
to put that gun down.
(laughing)
Sir, I'm gonna need you
to put the gun down.
- I got all the licenses for it.
I put it back in my leg.
- That sounds great,
but you're in sort of a state right now.
I'm gonna get you some help.
Okay, so.
(growling)
I know a guy who can help us.
He works at the hospital.
- How much is it?
No, I can't go to the hospital, man.
- I'm sure you really need
to go to the hospital.
- No, no, no.
- I can smell how sweet
your body's turning.
(laughing)
And it's time to take care of that.
(laughing)
- Ow!
And yum.
- A full peppermint tooth pops
one of your original teeth out,
and a candy cane stripped
tooth is just in your mouth.
- Oh, my tooth!
I just lost a tooth!
- Honestly, that's awful.
Let's go.
(laughing)
- Pete is having a hard time walking,
and Ricky, you get an arm underneath Pete.
You guys take off as
you kick up (whooshing),
a little bit of snow (whooshing)
wisps up into the air.
Over the river to Manhattan.
And uptown, up over the park,
over the Upper West Side,
past Columbia University,
all the way to Harlem,
a beautiful, beautiful morning.
It's getting a little bit
late in the morning now,
and after having worked
the graveyard shift
the previous night, in a lovely apartment,
the sounds of the neighborhood
coming to life all around him,
Kingston Brown wakes up for another shift.
Lou, could you describe
Kingston Brown for us?
- Of course.
Hello, my name is Kingston Brown.
I work at St. Owens.
I'm about six, two.
I wear my grandfather's black trench coat
generally over either my nursing scrubs
or like a white t-shirt.
I'm New York born and bred.
I been here since 1963 when I was born.
I've almost never left.
I love it here at the city.
These are my people.
This is my space.
I take care of it.
I am a steward of New York City.
I will be here until I die.
(laughing)
- Kingston, you wake up in your apartment.
This place is your sanctum.
What kind of stuff is around you
in your apartment right now?
- I mean, we got framed jerseys,
of course from my favorite hockey team,
the New York Islanders.
(laughing)
Of course.
I got framed jerseys.
I've got like a very nice like
sound system, mostly vinyl,
but not like hipster
vinyl, like actual vinyl.
(laughing)
I've got like, and it's
like comfort over style.
There's like a lot of like
trinkets, and heirlooms,
and things that like my grandfather,
or that my parents had
that they've given to me,
or things that I've collected from friends
or people who I've worked with.
Then kind of a door and the walls.
- Beautiful.
You put on your coat.
You look out and see a little bit of snow
take over the neighborhood,
and you feel the rate of your heart
begin to match the rhythm
of the city around you.
You head downstairs.
You're up on the third floor.
You get into the second floor.
Your mom in like a little
nightcap with a little nightgown,
big thick spectacles,
clear-framed spectacles,
pops out of the door with a
plate of eggs and sausage.
- Mama, I can't.
I gotta go to work.
I can't eat right now.
- Why can't you eat breakfast?
- Mom, I'm a 55 year old man.
I can feed myself.
(laughing)
- So you don't want my breakfast.
- Of course I'm gonna eat your breakfast.
I'm just saying that you don't need to
go through all the
trouble to make it for me.
- It's not a trouble
when you love somebody.
- All right.
I go inside.
I take the plate inside.
(laughing)
- You go inside.
Your mom is glowing with
just love and pride,
having successfully trapped
you on the staircase.
- Yeah.
- There is so much more
food waiting inside.
- Okay, ma, I thought
it was just this plate.
- What?
- I thought it was just this plate.
- Okay, well there's a little more.
What do you want me to say?
(laughing)
- Well, I can't eat all of this.
I'ma eat what's on this
plate, and then I'ma go.
- Okay, you can take some with you.
- I can't take some with me.
- [Brennan] You can take some.
- I aint gonna take some with me.
- You see that she
kisses you on the cheek,
and you can feel her old little hand
with this little ring on
it slip a little Tupperware
into the pocket of your coat.
- Ma, what is this?
(laughing)
- I don't know.
- I'm not supporting this habit.
- It's your business.
You have Tupperware in your coat.
- We're not gonna fight.
We're not gonna fight right now
'cause I have to go to work.
- Okay.
- I'll take this food with me,
but we're gonna have words later.
- I hope we do.
And kisses you on the cheek.
(laughing)
And you head downstairs.
You see that your niece and nephews
come barreling out of the
first floor apartment,
all late for school.
You see like putting shoes and stuff on.
Morning, Uncle Kingston.
- Good morning.
- Oh man, I'm late for school.
- Why are y'all late for school?
- Well, it was a.
Your cousin Claude leans
his head out and says,
late for school because of video games.
What are you gonna do?
How you doing, Kingston?
- I'm doing well, Claude.
How are you?
- You know, another morning.
You see he says, did you
work graveyard last night?
- Of course.
- You gonna make yourself sick.
Why you doing that?
- I aint gonna make myself sick.
I'm 55 years old, right.
I can take care of my damn self, Claude.
(laughing)
I do work.
I get your children to school on time.
(laughing)
- Claude is, you can feel
like the spiritual energy
of your cousin being put in his place.
- Oh, and then I put a hand his shoulder.
I'm like, being a father is tough,
and I understand that.
(laughing)
- You see that little
Cooper looks up at you,
who's your nine year old nephew.
You see he goes, Uncle Kingston,
why didn't you ever had kids?
(laughing)
- I'll see y'all children later.
(laughing)
- You go out the door.
You start walking down the street.
You see that from all
around the neighborhood
you hear saying, hey, Kingston Brown.
How's it going, man?
- Hey, how you doing, Johnny?
- I'm doing all right.
You know, keeping out of trouble.
Hey, thanks for that
thing with my sister, man.
You're a real swell guy.
- Hey, man, family, we take
care of each other, all right.
You're on the block,
you come ask Kingston.
You need something, I give it to you.
- You see that he claps
you on the shoulder.
You go to the corner store.
You see Cozmo's there at the register.
You see he says, hey, there he is.
- Hey, what's going on Coz?
- You see he puts the
coffee in front of you.
- Oh, just the way I like it?
- As always.
- Black as hell just like me.
(laughing)
- You see he smiles and says,
all right man, you take it easy.
Hey, thanks for that
thing with my brother.
That was a real--
- Hey man, we're family.
All right, on this
block, if I can help you,
you come find me, I will.
(laughing)
- You walk right out into traffic.
(laughing)
You, at this point,
the cars would never
dream of hitting you here.
Not in your neighborhood.
- Never.
- You see the cars (buzzing).
It's perfectly, you do not
need to break your stride
for the cars to effortlessly zoom past you
in all directions.
You get to the other side.
You walk over to the bus stop.
The bus pulls in.
Suzette pulls up in the bus.
You see she says, good
morning, Mr. Kingston.
- Good morning, Suzette.
- Oh, it's wonderful to see you.
- Wonderful to see you as well.
It hadn't been so long since
I was on the bus ride home.
- I know.
I'm glad to see you up and at 'em again.
- Of course.
- You, as you take your
first step onto the bus,
you see that with no touch of anything,
the little light flicks green.
Your fare is taken care
of by the city itself.
You walk onto the bus,
and you start to head off St. Owens.
Arriving at St. Owens,
what's the first things that
Kingston gets up to in his day?
- First, walk straight
up to the receptionist.
Take out the Tupperware
that my mother gave,
and give it to her.
- Oh my God, I forgot to bring lunch.
- I thought so.
- Oh my God, how do you know this stuff?
- Hey, what can I say, I know my people.
I know my city.
(laughing)
- You see she goes, this smells delicious.
- Well, I can't say I made it,
but I tell you, I can promise it's good.
- You see she smiles and says,
well give your best to my mother.
- Of course.
- You begin your day.
You say hi to Emiko Matsui.
She looks over and says,
Kingston, there's a sort of
busy day ahead of us here.
- Okay.
- That guy Lowell Masters came in again.
He's back with a kind of
similar problem from last time.
- Okay, well somebody
needs to talk to him.
- She hands you a chart
and brings you over to a room.
You see that this guys in here.
You see, he's kind of a
older balding kinda guy.
Sort of looks like one
of these New York guys,
just neighborhood guys.
He's got a thick mustache.
Looks up and you see he goes,
okay, look, I'll tell you
exactly what happened.
So, it was pretty standard.
So I go around 'cause
in the subways and stuff
there's a lot of cool stuff down there.
And I found this, looked like some kind of
bronze statue of a falcon
or something like that.
I thought I'd pawn it for
a little bit of money.
What I needed to do was I
needed to varnish it, right,
to get some of the rust off.
So I put some varnish on it.
And then what happened was,
I was getting ready for a shower.
So I was naked, of course.
You understand, right?
And before I take a shower,
I like to have a little bowl of cereal.
Just something I like to do.
- Lowell, I'ma stop you right now.
- What happened is, the
cereal's up on a tall shelf.
- [Lou] Lowell.
- So there's a step
ladder to get up there.
- Lowell, you gotta stop
coming into here Lowell.
You gotta fix your
life, all right, Lowell.
'Cause I know for a fact.
Lowell, cut to the end of the story.
- I fell off the ladder and
the statue went up my butt.
- Yep.
(laughing)
Lowell, have you ever tried a therapist
instead of a medical doctor.
- No, what happened
was, it was an accident,
and it got up there.
- Okay, Lowell.
Lowell, this is your fourth
time you've come up here
with something in your butt.
Let's be real right now, Lowell.
Let's be real right now.
Lowell, how many times
have you come up here
with stuff in your butt?
- Four times.
- Four times.
We're gonna take the thing out your butt.
I'm not saying I'm gonna
deny you medical services.
(laughing)
I'm just saying
that you need to ask
yourself some questions.
'Cause I'll tell you, I get in real close,
aint nothing wrong with being kinky.
I'll tell you that right now.
I'm not kinky, but aint
nothing wrong with being kinky.
All right, so you wanna
be kinky, that's fine.
Just be kinky safely, all right?
- You mean that?
That really--
- 100%.
Aint nothing wrong with being a freak.
(laughing)
- You're a good man.
You're a good man, nurse Brown.
I appreciate that.
- Of course.
- [Brennan] You're a good man.
- Of course.
No, what were you gonna say?
- I just, no one's ever
told me that before,
and I find a lot of these
cool treasures and artifacts,
and stuff like that, and
I put 'em in my butt.
I just like the feeling
of it going up there
knowing that someone put a lot of time
and effort into this sort of thing.
- Hey, I get it, all right?
You like artifacts, or
having artifacts you,
or something like that.
I'm not trying to get into it.
That's your business.
But you just need to figure
out how you can do it safely.
'Cause I'll tell you,
it's expensive to come to the hospital.
It's expensive.
Stop paying all this money.
- Money's no object for me
'cause I do sell these
artifacts afterwards.
- Oh, for your money, okay.
(laughing)
I'm sorry, what?
You're selling the artifacts?
- No, no, no, no.
I clean 'em.
I clean 'em.
- Okay.
You know what, Mr. Masters,
you better handle that?
(laughing)
- I'm gonna get ready for the operation.
- Of course.
- It's great.
It actually does look like a
tremendous spiritual weight
that's been lifted from him
of a weird self-loathing is now gone.
He seems sort of at peace.
It's a couple hours later.
You're talking with a buddy of yours.
This is actually one of the many trolls
that populate the rivers
around New York City.
It's a bridge and tunnel troll.
So he's a buddy of yours
who works under the
George Washington Bridge.
You see, he's going, thanks again, man.
This is great.
So, basically I just, I take this,
and the warts will start coming back?
- Exactly.
- [Brennan] Okay.
- If you wanna spend some
more time around water,
that wouldn't be a bad idea.
- Okay, it's just hard.
I haven't actually been in the river now
'cause the whole thing is it's
all electronic these days.
- I mean, exactly.
- Back in the old days,
trolls had to jump out
and actually collect a toll
or do a riddle or something.
And now you just, it's all the easy pass
and whatever else.
- Exactly, so hey, that just means
we gotta put in that extra effort.
Right, but there's time in the day.
There's always time in the day.
You just gotta find it.
- You're not wrong, man.
Boom, doors swing open
and Ricky Matsui comes in
with Pete the Plug under his arm.
- Ricky!
- Put me down.
(laughing)
- You're gonna be okay, sir.
- Ricky, what's going on?
Y'all two been jumping
off buildings again?
Ricky, I told you to stop
jumping off buildings.
- You're right, I can
do it very carefully,
and I don't suggest many other people.
I got a very sweet smelling man here.
- Excuse me?
(laughing)
- I'm sorry, sweet smelling?
- I don't know what you meant by that,
but yeah, my tooth fell
off, and now it's a candy.
Hey, how much is this gonna cost?
- All right.
- Just walking through this door,
I feel like I owe you 500 bucks.
- All right, money is not a.
Can I pull them into a quiet
room, or a room that I know?
- Kingston, you walk
over to a supply closet.
And through the supply closet,
a door that opens only to you,
and the subway token around
your neck glows bright.
Opens.
And a room that you use for when people
from the Unsleeping City
come here opens to you.
Pete, you see this
weird magic door open up
into this side chamber.
Ricky, you've been in here before.
You see your sister looks over at you
as you're walking into it and says,
Ricky, what are you doing here?
- Oh, my friend is Kingston,
and we're gonna go talk about some cars.
- Yeah, me and Ricky are friends.
We like to bowl.
- How did that door open?
- Oh!
- Emiko looks over and says, what door?
And you look and see that the opened door
is covered in the same
weird flickering shadow fire
that I described from the guys before.
(wisping)
And you see that Emiko
cannot see the opened door.
- Hospitals have so much money now.
(laughing)
It's crazy.
- You take Pete.
- I'll take him.
- I'll go talk to my--
- Great, fantastic.
I take Pete in the--
- The door is closed.
Pete, you are in there with Kingston.
- Can I cast the check poison and disease?
- Yes you can.
You hold out your hand.
You know that today is SantaCon.
Normally, it's a little bit of a hassle
to clean up all those clones.
This is something you haven't seen before.
This is a very virulent, dangerous thing.
There is like some kind of Arcane virus
that is turning this kid's
bones into peppermint.
- What happened to you?
- How much can I tell you?
Like can you turn me into the cops?
- What?
No, what are you talking about?
We're in a magic room right now.
(laughing)
- I don't know.
Look man, okay fine.
I took some mushrooms.
- You took some mushrooms.
- I took more than normal,
and then my dad floated away on a bubble.
A man hit my face.
- A man hit your face?
Who hit your face?
- [Ally] He bit my face.
- A man bit your face.
Who bit your face?
- It was after I pushed
a happy face button
and I let it all out.
- You let, I'm sorry.
Okay.
- Darkness.
- Now I need to understand.
This disease looks like you
were bitten by a Santa Claus?
- Mm-hm.
- Okay, is there something I can do?
What can I do with what I know.
- Give me a, 'cause you have the spell up,
so give me a medicine
check with advantage,
'cause you're actively
looking at it right now.
- Great.
Okay, so that's 22,
and something that's
not, way less than 22.
- Cool.
You.
Go ahead also and give me an Arcana check.
- Great.
10.
- Okay.
You ascertain what's going on.
This kid has a magical disease
that you think you can
treat here in the room
with what you've got.
- Okay.
- There is something much
deeper and more profound
magically happening that you don't think
is an external virus.
You think that there's something medical
or otherwise going on
with this kid, period.
- All right.
All right, what's you name, son.
- Jeffery.
- All right, Jeffery.
(laughing)
I'ma work on what's the problem right now,
the thing that's got
your teeth popping out.
- Yeah.
- But we should talk after that.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- 'Cause there's something going on.
- Okay, yeah.
I actually have a doctor.
So if you could just tell
me what you were gonna do.
- Oh really, who's your doctor?
I can pull your records.
What's your doctor's name?
- He's a different kind of doctor.
You probably don't know him.
- A different, what's a
different kind of doctor?
- He's just like.
He's like, he's probably not.
You don't know him.
Different circles.
- Give it a shot.
- He doesn't work in a
place like this, okay.
He works--
- Give it a shot.
What's his name?
- Hm?
- [Lou] What's his name?
- Dr.
(laughing)
Dr. Bringman.
- Bringman?
(laughing)
- I look at my bracelet.
What does it say?
- Dr. Lugash Primjitzki.
- It's Dr. Primjitzki.
- Oh, why didn't you say so?
- Really?
- Yeah, of course.
- [Ally] Oh, okay.
- Works at the warehouse down in Brooklyn?
- Yes, yes, exactly.
- Of course!
Fantastic doctor.
- Above the popcorn machine.
- Yes, honestly, surprisingly good
for working under the table like he does.
- Mm-hm.
- That man could work
in a hospital like this,
walk away with hundreds of hundreds
of hundreds of millions of dollars.
- Wow, that's so much money, man.
(laughing)
- I mean, what can I say.
I'm speaking in hyperbole, as they say.
Nah, I'm talking, he
could make a lot of money.
He's a good doctor.
Anyway, can I set to like fixing--
- You put a syringe together.
There's a lot of stuff in this room
that is traditional medicine
mixed with stuff that is just
some like Arcane tinctures,
different things.
There's like basilisk venom here,
and like unicorn blood,
and all that crazy.
You put a syringe together.
Alcohol swab the area.
You administer it.
And Pete, you feel the pain
stop almost immediately.
And not only that, but
you feel a sense of like
Christmas cheer enter
your body for a second.
And you still got that one
peppermint tooth there,
but other than that,
it appears like you're healed or better.
- Okay.
- And you also feel a sense of,
there's a moment where
after you get the shot,
you two feel something.
Could you just roll a just a wisdom check?
Actually you roll a charisma check.
You roll a wisdom check.
- 19.
- Over 20.
- Oh, awesome.
As you are healed, you look up,
and you are looking at Pete
and see this weird
hallucinatory thing of like
bright lights, big city, marquis,
and like twirling gouts
of like colorful magic.
You look at Kingston and
see a like golden light
setting in between the rows of buildings.
And this feeling of a golden light
in the heart of like a
happy city full of people
and neighbors all beating
together in one heart.
And your guy's magic touches
and steams with (sizzling),
but then unites in some kind
of helix, and disappears.
- The hell?
- Whoa, get away from me.
- What did you do to me?
- I don't know.
- I've been doing this for 30 years.
I've never seen nothing like that.
- What's happening?
- I don't know.
Where did you come from?
- I don't know.
I'm on a lot of meds right now.
So maybe that was like
a weird combination.
- Okay.
- Go ahead, roll actually
just a history check for me.
- Oh, look at that.
Over 20, 23.
- You know who can help you
figure out whatever this is.
- Oh, fantastic.
You know, what are you doing today?
You got some time?
- Uh, yeah, I probably got some time.
- I got a friend who could help us
understand what's going on right now.
- Okay, is it that weird buff dude?
- No, it's not that weird buff dude.
(laughing)
But he's probably gonna come along.
What do you think of him?
- I feel like he would bully me.
(laughing)
- Nah, he's a nice dude.
He's a nice dude.
Little dumb but very nice.
- He's like a golden retriever.
- I like that.
I haven't heard that one before.
- You guys step outside.
Ricky, your sister's going,
that NY One interview.
Look, a lot of my friends are single.
It would be easy.
- Yeah, I just, I appreciate that.
I'm just kinda looking for
someone that has like a certain.
Your friends are nice,
but I'm just kinda focusing
on my career right now.
- Fine, fine, fine.
You guys walk out.
You see Kingston and Pete.
Pete looks healthy again.
And you guys take off into the snow.
Bada boom, bada bing.
The snow (whooshing) whirls out
as Kingston, Ricky, and Pete
all head out from there.
(whooshing)
Up into the sky, settling
down Central Park,
in the middle of one of the
streets that crosses the park
down through the manhole
cover into water that melts,
into the dank, grimy, filthy,
subway tunnels of New York City.
A couple of MTA workers
with their lanterns up
pick away at the side of the wall
doing some repairs from water damage.
And one of them says,
I'm telling you guys.
I seen it.
It was the size, it was this freaking big.
The size of a freaking
dog, I swear to God.
(laughing)
Shut up, Wally.
You did not see a rat the size of a dog.
I swear to God I did.
He was huge.
The thing was enormous.
He was like a, I don't know,
but he came out, and I said, ah!
And it looked right at me.
And I swear to God it smiled.
(laughing)
He says, you're crazy.
You talking about rats and rat kings.
Rat kings are real.
You guys, you better wake up
'cause rat kings are real.
They live in the sewers.
They're all tied together by their tails.
It's real.
So the guys walk away and
say, Wally, you idiot,
and walk away.
And Wally goes, you know,
you say that now, but--
From the steal rafters
overhead hidden in darkness
is our friend Kugrash.
Murph, could you describe Kugrash for us.
- Yes, hey, I'm Kugrash.
I look like kind of a Master Splinter.
(laughing)
I've got like a hooked
humpback, about two feet tall.
I'm a rat man.
I've got like a rusty metal staff
that kinda looks like a pipe.
Then I wear rags made out of like
discarded MTA employee clothes.
And you know, I live
in the subway tunnels,
and I take care of the
discarded people of New York
and the little beast and the cockroaches.
I'm the that feeds the flies.
(laughing)
A dumpster druid.
- Kugrash, you look
down at Wally who goes,
okay, you guys believe what you want,
but I know what I saw.
- Hey, Wally.
(yells)
(laughing)
- Who's there?
Jesus?
Jesus Christ?
- I just make some chittering sound.
- You turned into a rat.
It's a miracle.
(laughing)
Wherever you are rat Jesus, I love you.
(laughing)
- Such a sweet man.
(laughing)
- Kugrash, it's the day of SantaCon.
You're scampering around.
What are you getting up
to on a day like today?
- I think we are absolutely this year.
We are every year.
We are not prepared.
I'm trying to find like homeless people
and get 'em indoors and things like that.
- You scurry around.
You find a couple guys.
Some of the homeless who
have been around long enough
actually can see you now
and know who you are.
And couple of them, you
show up with food for them.
They go, oh, Kugrash, thanks pal.
- Yeah, a lot of this stuff people just.
A lot of this stuff is
bread from restaurants.
People take it in their takeout bags.
They think they're gonna eat it,
and they don't eat the bread,
but it's still good bread.
I eat the real shitty stuff.
You can have the good stuff.
(laughing)
- I appreciate it there, man.
It's real nice of you.
Has some bread.
You're scampering.
Go ahead and give me investigative check.
- Sure.
Not great.
11.
- You've been looking around.
Normally, in this insane day where
all these mutant Santas
fill the Unsleeping City,
and regular humans only
see it as a pub crawl,
but all the magical denizens of New York
know that it's this weird thing
where a bunch of gross
mutants kind of bumble around
until they get cleaned up.
You normally find like
a bag of like hot coco
and treats and stuff from Santa Claus
that he leaves for you to distribute
to like homeless people
and things like that.
It's getting later in the day,
and you haven't found it yet.
And you haven't heard from
him at all, which is weird.
- Santa, bum, where the hell are you?
(laughing)
Where the hell is this dude?
- As you're scurrying around though,
you see an unconscious Sofia
passed out in some garbage
a little bit covered in snow.
- You gotta be kidding.
People just, we're just walking past this.
We just see somebody passed out.
She's using a trash bag as a sleeping bag.
We're just gonna, all right.
Everybody's walking,
all right, I'll do it.
I see that her, that
she's missing her shoes.
And I guess I have,
I probably have like a little pack of
like little plastic
bags and things with me.
So make her some makeshift
plastic bag shoes
with like rubber bands.
(laughing)
- Incredible.
Sofia, you wake up with new plastic shoes,
and maybe a little bit
of food next to you,
and you see you're incredibly hungover.
And you see for the first
time through sober eyes
Kugrash in front of you.
- Oh hey, it's you again.
- Oh my God, are you real?
- We talked about your ex
husband for like a while, Dale.
(laughing)
- I know.
- For like three hours.
You and I hung out.
- I know, I have that memory.
I just thought that maybe it was like
too many wine coolers.
- You were insanely drunk.
You can hold it.
You were having a conversation.
- I'm sorry, are you a rat?
(laughing)
- Sort of, I'm a rat man.
- Is this a SantaCon outfit.
Oh, you're in a SantaCon outfit.
I don't understand it thematically, but.
- Do not compare me to those.
(laughing)
All right, I gave you--
- Okay, someone from
outside of New York comes in
and everyone hates them.
Is that what it is, 'cause
they're from New Jersey?
- What happened to your face?
You got punched?
- Yeah, but I, I mean, you
should see the other guys.
What Dale used to say.
- Where they SantaCon?
Oh, Dale again.
(laughing)
- Yeah.
- Were they SantaCon guys?
- No, it was, I mean, my
memory's a little hazy,
but it was these guys,
and they were kind of
messing with these girls,
and then I got in the way,
and I made sure the
girls were taken care of.
- That's good.
There's not enough
people like that anymore.
- Yeah, and they were tall.
They were really tall.
I'll leave it at that.
- Kugrash, you see two little cockroaches
out in this cold weather, which is crazy,
skittering across a
railing very, very fast.
And you see that they have
two little like hobo sacks
over their shoulder, and they're
skittering along a railing.
- Hey, Fred, Marty.
- Hey, what's going on?
- Where you guys going?
- We getting the out of here.
- Oh yeah, SantaCon?
Do you see what happened to this lady?
- No, not SantaCon.
Some shit just went down in the park.
- Some shit just went down at the park?
- Yeah, it was crazy.
- What happened at the park?
- I don't know.
There was like, what would you call it?
It was like a horse
carriage but with no wheels.
It was just like the carriage
part, no wheels on it.
And there was a bunch of horses
that had these big tumors
coming out of their head.
- Reindeer, yeah, they're Santa.
You've certainly you've.
- These horse have tumors
coming out of their head.
- It's called a reindeer.
- What?
- Don't worry about it.
I don't need to teach you.
- Horses with big--
- Santas in the park.
- Well, I don't know,
'cause it like blasted
like gray and white.
Like that, and the horses like took off.
I hope to go see a doctor 'cause it's--
- Is Santa dead?
Did somebody shoot Santa?
- I don't know, dude.
I'm not religious.
(laughing)
- All right thanks.
Thanks, Fred.
Thanks, Murrey.
- Take care, bud.
And he runs.
(laughing)
- Santa Claus is real, and he's dead.
- Okay, I'm sorry, rewind.
You just make cockroach noises.
You just hissed at some cockroaches
who hissed back at you for what
looked like a conversation.
I mean, they gestured and everything.
- Yeah, well we were just making--
- And then you said
something to me about Santa.
- bug noises for a full like minute.
Yeah.
- Yeah.
- Yeah, so I understand
animals, and they understand me.
Something I picked up over the years.
- From being an animal.
- I am a rat man.
We should go to the park.
Santa might be dead.
- Ah, why not?
(laughing)
Let me get a walk me down, and we can go.
- You know what, why not?
I'll have some too.
I can't go in there.
I'm a rat.
- Right, Shawn?
Shawn?
- You see that Shawn takes the iron up.
Jesus Christ, you're wearing
the same clothes as last night.
- Is it a different day?
- It's a full different day, yeah.
- Give me a couple of Mikes Hard.
(laughing)
- You want that in a coffee cup?
- Can I get one of those buckets
that you put the coronas in?
- Full of Mikes Hards?
- Yeah.
(laughing)
Like a painter's bucket.
- I'll see if we got a box.
He goes downstairs.
Minutes later, you are
walking down the street
with a full bucket
(laughing) of hard lemonade.
- I crack one.
(laughing)
- I'm swinging it.
- I'm Kugrash, by the way.
I don't know if you--
- Kugrash, I'm so Sofia Lee.
- Sofia, right?
Yeah, we've met.
- Bicicleta.
Yeah, I am sorry that
I don't remember you.
- That's okay.
- But I will remember you now
because I'm very sober right now.
In fact, somewhat sick.
- Yeah, let's get a little up
and go see if Santa's dead.
(laughing)
- I think that sounds good.
- You just head over to the park.
Each of you guys make an
investigate check for me.
Feel free if you wanna cast
any magic as well to do that.
(laughing)
- I got a four.
- Nine.
- Four and nine.
You guys wonder into the park for a while.
- Do we find a hotdog stand?
- You guys for sure find a hotdog stand.
So the guy says, hey boys,
can I get you a hotdog?
Hotdog?
- Uh, yeah.
I lower my face so no one sees I'm a rat.
(laughing)
- I got him, I got him.
Two hotdogs, thanks.
- Put two hotdogs there.
See he goes, it's crazy 'cause there's a,
I don't know if you guys heard,
there was a sort of fight
out in the promenade
past here a little while ago.
- Oh yeah?
Who got into it?
- He points to some hedges
sort of heading off
towards Belvedere Castle
where the woods get a
little thicker in the park.
- Hey, you wanna go hiking?
- Let's go into the bushes.
- Yeah.
(laughing)
- You guys head into the bushes.
Give me a nature check.
- Okay.
A little better at that.
22!
- You go through the skittering thing.
You see some squirrels.
- Well hey there, Kugrash.
- Hey, what's up?
What's up, Lenny?
- Oh nothing much.
Christmas time, you know seasons--
- Yeah, Christmas.
- We love Christmas.
- Yeah, it's been wonderful, man.
- I stole someone's keys.
- You stole, why the, Lenny?
- Who knows?
- You sociopath.
Give me the keys.
- Fuck you, dude.
- No, why?
(talking)
Squirrels just steal shit
and put it in their trees.
- I'm sorry, once again, rewind.
There was a bunch of--
- He said, fuck you, he ran off.
- Yeah, I saw he had a set of keys on him.
(mumbling)
- You guys arrive in a clearing.
You see that there is a
enormous polished red sleigh.
The area where reindeer would
be attached to the sleigh
has been severed,
and there is a giant glove box
torn out of the font of the sleigh,
and there are things scattered throughout.
It looks like people
have been like rummaging
through this sleigh here.
You see that there is
peppermint smelling blood,
like white and red blood
spattered everywhere around here.
You see that there also a number
of small little green ivy leaves.
We got 22 nature check.
These leaves are not
from the Waking world.
These are from not the Sixth Burrow.
These are, in fact,
the 22, you smell them.
This is fairy magic that happened here.
Maybe not the peppermint blood,
but there's fairy magic happening here.
- Oh it is the pixies.
- Right, I thought this was just a place
kids take pictures with Santa.
- Do you see what?
They mugged Santa.
They stole all of his shit.
- Okay, again, Santa's
real and you're a rat.
- The pixies did this.
- Okay.
- Them sons of.
Serious, this is bad.
Santa's fucked.
(laughing)
We are fucked.
- I'm just going with this ride.
All right, yeah.
- You notice that there is a little glyph
carved into the wood at
the front of the sleigh
that looks like it was broken somehow.
It's some fairy shit that
you don't know about,
but you do know who does.
- I think I know somebody who
might be able to read this
bullshit, this is.
- Yeah, this isn't Greek
or anything like that.
- Oh, you speak Greek?
- No, but, I mean, I'm Catholic
so I've encountered Greek
in a religious sense.
- Oh, that's good.
- Yeah, wow.
(laughing)
- Hell yeah.
So you take off from there.
- Yeah, I take off for--
- You guys both head out from there.
No need to roll.
The snow kicks up from the park.
(wisping)
Wisps all the way downtown,
past Columbus Circle,
going all the way to Broadway,
where we see a line of
fans clamming and cheering,
holding their playbills
from different shows
because they're in line for a show
that actually hasn't opened yet.
They were lucky enough
to see some previews
for Midsummer Nights,
a musical version of
Shakespeare's classic,
A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Why not take the broad's original plays
and make it a musical.
The Times Square billboards show
all of the signs for the show coming up.
The fans are like in the
cold and the snow waiting.
The stage door opens
with a dramatic swing.
And Siobhan, could you please
describe your character for us?
- Darling, sweeties.
I'm Misty Moore.
I'm a Broadway diva, lover of music,
lover of energy, lover
of dance, and light,
and stars, and music, and brilliance.
I'm, well, a lady would never say her age,
so I won't.
(laughing)
I'm four foot something.
Maybe five, one in a beautiful high heel.
Always wear a tap shoe, even outside.
(laughing)
And I'm just loving life, loving love.
- You step out.
The crowd erupts into cheers.
Your assistant Alissa
and your pianist Benjamin are behind you.
They walk out.
(screaming)
Misty, Misty, Misty!
(yelling)
You see that there's a girl
with pigtails and braces,
clearly some like 16
year old Midwestern girl.
She goes, oh my God, Misty Moore.
(talking and crying)
- Oh, my goodness, I haven't
seen one of these in years.
I mean, obviously I have
one in my apartment.
Which is signed by all of the cast,
but a blank one, oh!
I haven't seen one in years.
- Oh, yeah, it's incredible.
We just saw this show.
We were lucky enough to go see.
You were amazing.
- Oh, I'm so glad.
I'm so glad.
I'm so blessed and honored to do this work
for people like you.
I don't do it for me.
I do it for people like you.
- As you say that, you see
her and the other young girls
and boys around her all
just like salivating.
You see the girls say like,
my favorite song of yours.
I actually did one of your songs,
and I did it in the way that you did it.
(blubbering)
I'm so.
A burgeoning, sweet, silvery,
golden, pink, and purple light
begins to (whooshing) come off of them,
and though they cannot
see it, you certainly can.
Up into your nostrils.
(laughing)
And you feel like a million bucks.
- You know, as actors,
all of us, us actors,
we're just like--
- (yelling) You put us in
the word we with yourself.
(screaming)
(laughing)
They just go fucking nuts.
You see Alissa bends over
as you're signing stuff,
and you see she says, obviously,
of course, take as much time
as you need, Miss Moore,
but we do have an appointment.
There's an interview happening
back at your penthouse.
- How do you spell Rebecca, darling?
I don't wanna spell it wrong.
- You spell it R-E-B-E-C-C-A.
Some people call me Becca.
But you can call me Rebecca.
I wish I could do things better.
I don't know if there's a stage name.
I haven't signed up for that yet.
I really wanna move to New York.
Do you think that's a bad idea?
- Everybody should move to New York.
But you know, some people should leave.
But you don't know until
you get here, darling.
- I can't wait to come here.
(whooshing)
And again, you just see these little
silvery sparks come off of them,
and you feel amazing.
You leave from this place.
You head back to your wonderful penthouse.
- I pour myself a vodka on the rocks.
(laughing)
- You see Benjamin looks
over at you and says,
really, you ask how you spell Rebecca?
How many times have you
spelled Rebecca in your life?
- I don't know, some people are weird
and there's an H in there.
I don't know.
- I guess you're right.
You walk into your penthouse.
Huge entire walls are just glass windows.
Central Park South
looking out over the park.
Alissa comes over and brings a reporter in
from some entertainment magazine.
I, Miss Moore, I'll be doing
the interview with you today.
So pleasure to meet you.
Talk to me about working
with Perry LaFev again.
- Perry, my darling Perry.
It's such an honor.
It's been such a time since
we've worked together,
and he's such a beautiful
director, just a beautiful man.
And we sit, and we really
dig into this work.
We dig into it together.
And we're really creating this character
'cause obviously we all
know the Shakespeare,
Midsummer Night's Dream.
We know it's, for so many people,
the first Shakespeare that anybody does.
But we're really trying
to take a new twist on it,
a real new bent on this character Titania.
- Writing all this down, he says,
and you're gonna be playing Titania?
- Yes, I am Titania, Queen of the ferries
who obviously in the original
play has a smaller role,
but I really feel like we've beefed it up.
And I'm not a young woman anymore,
but I really feel like I can
hold myself on that stage.
And well, I don't wanna spoil
it too much for the fans,
but I think they're in for a surprise.
- As you say that, you are
no longer a young woman.
You look down at your hand,
and you do in fact see some liver spots,
some light things here,
and you can feel something
twinge inside you.
It's been maybe 40 or 50 years
since the last time you did it,
and you can feel this body
starting to tell you that
the time is fast approaching.
- Yeah.
But that's showbiz!
(laughing)
- You continue talking to this interview.
You're having your little vodka.
The one from the preview went smashingly.
You suddenly hear a noise
coming from the boiler.
You have one of those
thing where you have like
your own heating and everything
so you don't have to
deal with anyone else.
But a little hall closet door opens up,
and an air vent kind
of (exhales) pops out.
Kugrash and Sofia.
(laughing)
- Oh my God, you are a
trip to hand out with.
- This is the real New York.
- I'm loving it.
This is where I belong.
- So, anyway, I'm so terribly sorry,
but I do have a show at eight.
So, Alissa!
- Sorry, coming right now.
I'm so sorry.
That will not happen again.
- Yes, no it won't.
(laughing)
- She comes over and says, that's all.
Miss. Moore needs her vocal rest.
Thank you so much.
Bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye.
She ushers him out.
You turn around.
Your beautiful cream white
carpets are bedecked with filth
as Kugrash walks in with Sofie.
- Oh my God, Kug, is that Misty Moore?
- Yeah, it's Misty.
Hey, Misty, it's good to see you again.
- I saw you in Kinky Boots.
(laughing)
- You did.
- Oh my God.
- [Siobhan] Oh what a beautiful show.
- You radiated.
You made that show.
- Thank you so much.
It's such a beautiful story.
It's so important.
- The boots.
- Oh, I love those boots.
(laughing)
But it's so kinky.
- It's so kinky.
- Misty, we think Santa might be dead.
Do you know what this weird pixie is?
And I guess, could I have like,
was it like on the sleigh?
- It was, but you could of like.
It was on the glove compartment door.
You could of broken it off.
- It has saliva all over it.
I ripped it out with my.
(laughing)
Here it is.
Can you read that?
- Yeah, why don't you put it down
on the coffee table right here.
Yes, the pixies, the park pixies.
Don Confetti and all of his people.
- Yes, I think we found--
- I hate that little man.
- Yeah.
- Can I read it.
- You can absolutely read it.
Let me know if you're doing
any magic or stuff to it.
Or you can go ahead and
make either an arcana check.
- I mean, if it's Sealy, I speak Sealy.
- Yeah, it is Sealy.
- Great.
Then I can just read it.
I can also do an arcana check,
but my arcana levels.
I don't study magic, I just am magic.
(laughing)
- You look at it.
You recognize one element of this,
which is immediately troubling to you.
This is a clear Fei Rune.
All it is about basically is about
breaking a ward on something,
breaking magical wards,
which would make sense
'cause Santa's sleigh
would be warded beyond imagination.
The thing that gave this
the juice to work though,
'cause normally a fairy,
especially pixies,
would not be able to
crack into Santa's sleigh.
There's something being invoked here.
And hidden within the rune,
you recognize something.
You don't know what it
is, or can't read it.
It's an infernal rune.
You--
- Well, there's something pretty nasty.
You know that religion?
It's one of those religious ones.
- Sure.
- You know what, it's written in Sealy,
but this is some dark
nasty stuff, just like.
- Some devil.
- Yeah, infernal, nasty, hell playing.
- Misty, you look at the rune again.
You don't read infernal,
but you do know who does.
- I think I know who could
help us out with this
nasty little situation.
Maybe I'll put you in a
blanket and carry you over to--
- Sure, yeah.
I jump into her arms.
(laughing)
- Okay, let's rest, okay.
- It's like a baby bajorn.
- It's Miu Miu, it's not Prada.
It's Miu Miu, it's not Prada.
(laughing)
- I'm just going through your drawer.
(laughing)
God, this place is so nice.
- Incredible.
You guys take off.
(whooshing)
Snow kicks up from Central Park West.
We follow the snow through the air
(whooshing)
as it winds it's way.
(whooshing)
Two gusts of snow.
As Ricky, Kingston, and Pete,
and Sofia, Misty, and Kugrash
converge on the steps of the
public library by Bryant Park.
You guys, there's snow
everywhere, taxis, busy day.
It's getting into like the mid afternoon,
and you guys spot each other
in these two groups of three.
- Kingston!
Darling.
- Kingston, how's it going man?
- Misty, Kugrash, what's going on guys?
- I'm so sorry, are you Mr. March?
(laughing)
- Oh yes, that's me.
- Oh my God, the girls at the
beauty salon are gonna flip.
Can I take a selfie with you?
- Yeah, of course.
- Also guys, this is Jeffery.
Jeffery, this is--
- Jeffery, hey.
- Hey, what's up.
- This is Misty.
I'm Kugrash.
- Oh my god.
Are you a rat?
- I'm a rat man, yeah.
- I'm sorry if that was rude.
- Pete, the mushrooms are done.
You're fully, you know that you're sober
You know that you're sober.
The degree to which this is
all like a fun little trip
is fully leaving you,
especially after whatever that
shot Kingston gave you was.
And suddenly you hear a
booming voice to your right go,
well, well, well, would you wish to enter?
One of the huge stone lions turns
and is speaking directly at you guys.
You hear a voice to your left.
I think they do wish to enter.
(laughing)
Hello, good to see you again.
- Hey.
- If you're gonna ask
us which one of you lies
and which one of you tells
the truth, we can skip it.
We know.
- Both of us always lie.
- Yes, we know.
That's the trick.
- We're not trying to
play these games, boys.
- Oh, let's play some games.
We guard the library.
We are the guardians of the
Gramercy Occult Society.
Hello, oh, a new face.
Hello, I am Orlando and
this is my boyfriend Rovias.
- Okay, like you guys,
this was really nice,
but I don't really have time for like
a puzzle room kinda thing.
- I do, I love this.
- All right, I'm not very good at them,
but I can definitely try my hardest guys.
- Welcome, welcome, welcome.
You guys see that the two
stone lions sort of laugh
and joking with you guys a bit.
They go, well, what
business brings you here
to the Gramercy Occult Society?
- We need to talk to Alejandro.
- Very well, then talk to him you shall.
Let none bar the entry
of these companions.
(cracking)
And you see that a secret
stone door opens diagonal
in the steps of the library going down.
- Can I just say, you've
been working on your voices,
and you sound great.
- You know that vocal coach came by.
Thank you.
- It's really impressive just
since the last time we spoke.
It's great.
- It's hard 'cause our
diaphragms are made of stone.
(laughing)
- What did you used to sound like?
- [Brennan] Hm?
- What did you used to sound like?
- I used to sound a little like this.
- Awesome.
(laughing)
- Santa Clause is dead everyone.
- Let's go.
- Oh, well okay, let's go.
- You guys walk down into
the Gramercy Occult Society.
The New York public library.
You go down the steps,
and the steps immediately like M.C. Escher
so that you're sideways, upside down,
going through other doors,
and you arrive in an upside down library
where the gravity's been reversed.
So you know that your heads
are pointed away from the sky,
but it looks totally normal to you.
Huge, tall libraries
everywhere covered in books.
And you see that a very old,
extremely rotund man walks out.
He's got a big white
mustache, little flat cap,
and comes out to talk to you guys.
He has the warmest eyes.
It just looks like
extremely gregarious guy,
but he's definitely
like well into his 90s.
You see that this is
your friend Alejandro.
- Alejandro, what's going on, man?
- Oh, Kingston Brown,
it is so good to see you again, my friend.
- Good to see you as well.
Hey, but we have a situation.
My man over here, Jeffery got
some kind of Santa disease.
I don't know, what are y'all here for?
- Well--
- Yes, we found Santa's sleigh
abandoned, reindeers gone.
- What?
- Some sort of attack from the pixies.
I found some little pixie mints stuff.
Santa's real.
You know that.
- Oh yes, Santa's real.
See, how many people here are new?
- Who's new?
Jeffery, I think is pretty--
- I don't know, but I love it.
- His name's Peter, I think.
- What?
- What?
What'd you check my bracelet
when I was out, man?
- Yeah, it was dangling in
my face while I was running.
- You run so fast.
(laughing)
- It said something infernal on it.
- Alejandro looks at you and says,
wait a minute, you're being serious.
Santa Claus is missing right now.
- Yeah, and somebody left behind
some kind of infernal rune.
- Yeah, I couldn't read it.
It's all infernal to me.
- He says, we've been
getting some strange reports.
Hold on.
He touches a bookcase,
and a shimmering thing
of light appears over it,
and you see there are
two twin young women.
They look about 17 years old.
They are clearly like
Alejandro's granddaughters.
You might recognize them.
But he says this, Ana,
Amelia, what is wrong?
Because they are clearly injured.
You see that the two of them say,
grandpa, we're out here fighting.
Something wrong.
These SantaCon clones,
they're not like normal.
They're really dangerous.
A bunch of them are coming.
We think they're coming from Times Square.
(groans)
- Okay, this is the first
thing I think I can do to help.
I know how to fight.
- All right.
Well--
- I don't know what the
fuck else is going on,
but I can fight.
- Alejandro looks and says, Ana, Amelia,
get to safety right now.
Hold on.
(buzzing)
And you see that all of
these little running trains
and subway cars of light appear
and draw this insane like subway map rune
in front of Alejandro, and he (whooshes)
pushes it past you, and it like scans you.
And he grabs the light,
condenses it in his hand,
and says, I'm going to
see what is going on.
If my granddaughters are in trouble,
it means that things are
getting very bad indeed.
They are very proficient
with wizards, all right.
Wizards.
- I've been holding my
gun this whole time,
but like incognito.
- Well, you think I don't
know that you're trapped.
- Hm?
- Give it a shot, see what happens?
Why don't you give it a
shot and see what happens?
- I'm gonna ask that you don't do it.
- Oh, please do, I love
it when people do this.
Go ahead, oh I love it.
- Hey Peter, put the gun down.
- Is this a joke though.
Who are you guys working for?
- Do it.
(gunshot)
- You see (blasting) a
little shield appears
in front of him and says--
- So cool.
- You think I'm gonna walk.
I've been a wizard in New
York City for what, 65 years.
You think a bullet is
going to do the trick?
Listen to me.
You have been awakened
into the Unsleeping City.
There is a world behind the world.
New York is a place of magic.
In this realm, the city that never sleeps,
the dream world and the waking world
co-mingle, intertwine, and
in certain places become one.
I do not know why it has happened.
We will find out in due time.
But you are now here in the
Unsleeping City with all of us.
Magic is real.
And you better get your shit together
or it's gonna be a real bad look.
- Epic.
- You see, he says, I will study this.
Make it over to Times
Square as soon as you can.
And he turns around (blasts) disappears.
- I just start running to.
Let's go guys!
(laughing)
- I feel like there's a faster
way for us to get there.
- Yeah, we don't need to run.
- I'll just chase Mr. March.
(laughing)
- You guys head off.
You walk out.
Kingston, you look out and
you see your bus pulls up.
- Fantastic.
- You see Suzette opens it and says,
Kingston, you're downtown now.
- Yeah, we need to get
to Times Square pronto.
- You see she looks,
and for a second she looks like,
no way is that on my route.
But she says, oh, I got mixed up.
I'm on the wrong route.
That's right, Times Square.
Next stop, Times Square.
Bing, bing!
And a trafficless street opens up
as Kingston gets on the bus.
You guys take off.
As you pull into Times Square,
you see that Times Square is empty.
- Oo!
- Covered in snow and ice.
- This is like The Walking Dead.
- In the center is an enormous icy cocoon,
a chrysalis of ice.
And you look and see
swarming SantaCon Claus.
(spooky howl)
The bus pulls away.
And I'm gonna need all
of you to go initiative.
That's all for this episode
of The Unsleeping City.
Tune in next week, and
we'll catch you guys then.
Forget about it.
(laughing)
Dice.
Guys, that's all for this
chapter of Dimension 20.
But wait, more full
episodes call out to you
from the realms beyond Dropout.TV.
Will you come to their aid and sign up
for your free trial today.
We wish you a Merry Christmas.
(laughing)
- Even in these times he's laughing.
- Ah! It's crushing me!
