Just sort of stares at you, bug-eyed, like...

It's paralysis, so they cannot speak.

Oh, it's full paralysis, cool.

And I put the sword with Rombi attached to the tip to his neck, and I say, in the continuation of if I were to freeze, that would put me at the mercy of the adversary across from me, wouldn't it? Now listen, I have a limited amount of time.

I need out of this place.

I need to be out fit with everything that you've got in whatever vaults, whatever safekeeping.

I need armor.

not

I'm having a daiquiri on this beach planet.

I think that speaks to what you were saying, John, and also what you were saying, Jasper, about adaptation and stuff, is there is such an implicit trust around a table of creatives be it virtual or otherwise, when you're telling a story.

And I've often likened...

When I've tried to explain role-playing games to people who don't play, it's like you're writing your favourite TV show and you have no idea how it's going to end.

But between those of you around the table, you're going to make it work.

Because you're all invested.

Because you're also the actors.

Because, I mean, they kind of do, right? Like, when you have such monumental things like that.

... and just disappear.

As you do this, and as your brother disappears into the snow, and you realize that the landscape around you is thick, the ground beneath you almost reaching up to your knees, you suddenly watch as a single beam of warmth begins to stretch in front of you, and you realize that the door to the shed is open.

And stood within it, silhouetted against what looks to be a fireplace inside, you see a figure almost as wide as he is tall.

He is dressed all in fur from his head to his foot, and his clothes are all tarnished with ashes and soot.

His eyes, how they twinkle, his dimples, how merry.

His cheeks are like roses, his nose like a cherry.

His droll little mouth is drawn up like a bow, and a beard of his chin is as white as the snow.

And then I just, like, drop, I drop the sandwich, and I'm like, "What?"

Ed, what do you got for us?

I have a final episode and a final bow to tie around our Christmas arc of joy.

Let us dive in one final time into chapter four, The True Meaning of Axis.

Shadi was dead to begin with.

He did not know how it had happened.

Indeed, he did not know it had happened at all.

Indeed, indeed, he had no memory of anything whatsoever.

Oh, plus four, 11.

And anything that wasn't aware we were in the elevator now is so aware that we're in the elevator.

First off, Shadi, gain a point of inspiration.

And as you look out towards the outside of this lift, you see...

Space.

Or rather... you see a large floor to ceiling window, concave, looking out upon the universe.

And you realize that as you look out, that there is a large red carpeted balcony immediately outside the lift that looks down onto a large open plateau.

It is huge, red carpeted.

But opposite,

Please go

before me or John say anything else.

Okay, so genuinely, so above table, I just want to remind you of the players that we have around the table before we begin our episode.

So in terms of the Turlet family, so you know Yernal and Syphon, Bedetta, Levina, Flushwick and Miralou, as well as Porcelina.

But do you recall the most famous Turlet of all? Shaddy, the constant fuck-up.

Had a very gnarly death.

And that was just the first one.

Okay.

It was awesome.

It is strange, as you have this memory, you remember it in different ways.

It was a toy car, it was a toy figure, it was a toy plane, it was a toy ship, it was a toy dinosaur.

Weirdly, all of these things exist at the same time, and yet they are the same memory.

The strange thing is, as you go round and round in this memory, over and over, and you see your brother's face over and over and over, cycling through this space, cycling around these robots, cycling through these memories, the end result of this memory is always the same, and it is Yurnel fixing your toy, and two brothers playing together.

As you slowly come to a stop, breathing heavily as the smoking remains of widowmakers lie all around you on the gantry.

[laughs]

As you continue making your way through the vents, you can hear a number of conversations down below, and you can see that the widowmakers, even while they are on duty, they still take time to stop and wait and patrol.

[laughs]

[Instrumental music playing] Previously on Shadrich Turlot does a Die Hard.

After the death at the hands of the Salt Father, a death he had no memory of, Shaddy Turlet had been reprinted, along with his brother Yurnil, who himself had undergone a similar procedure.

The two mind-wiped sons of Miralu and Porcelina Turlet were now little more than hired muscle for the family.

And as the holidays approached, they had been given a mission.

Marking a merger of nigh unprecedented scale, the company known as Webflix were poised to purchase [censored] Co, with the buyout due to be made official aboard their headquarters, Century Tower, a great structure positioned between two black holes.

Such adjoining would naturally present an enormous danger to the Turlots.

[laughs]

told this robot to rip my arm

off, and I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa.

As he just reaches across and very, very jolly, just grabs your right arm and yanks.

And in that moment of utter pain, as your scream rings out.

Can you make an insight check for me, please? Oh, shit.

24.

You said that Yernal used to be the COO, though this is something that it is not remember anymore.

Attach the other arm.

Perfect.

I suggest in that case, let's sort of shake that off.

And I mean, are you both ready to jump straight in? I am so ready.

Okay, rotators, settle in for the first episode of this brand new miniseries starring two brothers.

T'was the season of taxes and all through the air were the whispers of mergers of stocks and of shares.

For t'was on this most auspicious of nights two companies had decided that two wrongs make a right.

The spied accountants of Webflix and...

Let's

Donc,

je dirais que avec vos succès, quand vous commencez à brocher l'entrée dans ce tunnel, vous commencez à voir une impression allumée d'un grand, rond, écarté.

Vous pouvez voir que le bâtiment a été écroué, écroué, il y a des marques de clous tout autour de cette grande pièce dommée.

Et vous pouvez voir plusieurs tunnels qui s'éloignent.

Certains d'entre eux ont été fabriqués, d'autres sont artificiels, d'autres sont des remèdes de la station de subways, qui s'éloignent dans cette presque facsimile d'un cycle de train qui s'éloigne dans les différentes directions de New York.

L'eau continue de sortir, ce bassin de l'eau s'éloigne tout autour, et vous voyez que cela se trouve presque à l'attention, complètement toujours autour de l'ensemble de la chambre.

Des centaines d'individus, tous ceux qui portent des moustaches sur leur tête, des moustaches de rat, et tous ceux qui regardent vers le centre de la chambre.

» Et je vais pointer à la partie de l'or que ce truc semble s'émerger de.

I'm skating as fast as I goddamn can.

Okay, Incredibot, I need you all to make grit checks for me, and I'm going to introduce a brand new element to this game.

So, the way that Force of Extinction works is generally when you are making a skill check, you are doing it against your skill, so you are looking to get equal to or under.

However, when an adversary is introduced into the equation I roll a die.

The more dangerous the monster, the smaller the die.

So for example, a D20 would be comparable to you.

It would be another survivor.

Oh, you are very lucky you

[laughs]

So we have Butch the soldier, we have Gaia the medic, and we have Two the engineer.

So those are your characters.

Those are our survivors.

Uh, so next up, where do our survivors come from? So before, uh, we delve into that, I'm gonna explain a little bit how skill checks work in this game.

So it is entirely done with D20s, 20-sided dice.

So whenever you make a skill check, you always start with one D20, and then you get to add a dice for any of the following that are true: you have a situational advantage, you are using a tool, or you are being assisted by someone else.

[laughs]

What, um, does Bryan then do?

The second thing that he does, as he has been pooling the two of them into this ball to throw them, all of the Imbrium from inside this creature, as they are leaving the fist of this giant robot, begin to descend and implement themselves into the hips of Bryan one, that is, around Ember's neck.

Wait, but, but what is your legal name? [laughs]

My legal name, I can finally reveal, is actually...

No.

Is, uh, Edward Spence.

[laughs] You can find me, uh, everywhere on the internet under my name.

I am terrifyingly searchable.

Eddie, what do you think?

Well, like, I, I like the idea of, like, the episode quality immediately skyrocketing compared to it, is like if we just take Trek, like a lot of people right now, they're confused about the product.

They don't know where it all fits together.

There's a lot of it, so you're a little bit shy.

And when you do dig into it, like Academy was a good example, there's so much, like, shoehorned into those, just really shoved in, that the episode itself kind of suffers.

So I think, like, episode quality would get really, really good if you did that.

If you're just making a Star Trek show, you don't need to mention this, you don't have to remember that, you don't have to wink at this, and you can just make up your own sci-fi solutions, I think you'll be free to have, like, cool dialogue and cool interpersonal conflicts.

See what you think, and if you like it, we will do more separate things." That's all they need to do.

So you feel like you could kind of m- make your way, uh, there if you wanted to reconnect with Ember, 'cause right now you have no contact with Ember whatsoever.

whatsoever.I think just looking out over the trees, just turns in the direction of that clearing.

"Your doom is coming, Ember."

Is, is that you, Bryan? You, you got real big, friend.

Bryan looks down at the nomenclature on his chest and just quickly just, just scrawls over Bry as just this thunderous screeching as he just finishes writing Bryan on his chest, just gives a bit of a thumbs-up

Maybe I kinda enjoy it.

But I think, and he sits down on the ground and just, yeah, but I think, and we'll, we'll, we'll get after Sprocket in a little bit.

I just need to stretch my legs.

But, um, I think, like you, there is this, like, warmth that you have.

I don't think you can help it.

It's like you have this whole, like, sun inside of you, and you are just so, so whole, and I think people gravitate towards that, you know? I think that's your gift.

Love it

...

Oh, and apologies, because you failed the dex save, you take three points of bludgeoning damage as you- as both of your legs land either side of a tree branch, uh, and you hear a "ping."

I would say as this is happening, and as the legs are kind of dangling either side, um, you just hear, uh, a whirring, and a clicking, and a, a kind of interior rearranging in this-... rusty robotic pelvis as there's just a [mechanical sounds]

What are you thinking?

I mean, listen, it says we're sleeping giants dream.

I mean, you know, you're not gonna get much bigger than a Void Chrysalis Shipyard, are you? And it says dream, not lie dead, so I'm thinking that would be my first, my first port of call.

But then do we need to do these in order? 'Cause sleeping giants dream is in the middle.

Uh, um, be- but before we go ahead and get out of there, uh, little, my little robot, uh, my little robot friend, uh, Edward Spence, um, what have you got going on? What's going on in your life? Where, where can people find you?

[robot noises]

We're gonna be completing-

[robot noises]

That's your full legal name.

[laughs] I'm professional.

Yeah, pretty good.

Pretty good.

Pr- on, on the border of sane, certainly.

... do you not, do you not tell that? Do not, do not tell that

... no, no, I can say it.

James.