Autumn in Hieron 25: Work Off Your Sins
Transcribed by @robotchangeling and Kit
KEITH: Previously, on Friends at the Table…
AUSTIN (as Ventaro Doce): Here in the light of Adelaide Tristé, the Queen of Death, Empress of Pearls, The Reluctant Savior of the Longest Light, Blessed by the Far Sea, we begin the trial of Hella Varal, charged with the murder of Prince Angelo Tristé, Lord Tristan IX, The Ivory Crown, Our Brother, The Prince of Pearls, The Emir of Alabaster, The Reluctant, The Betrayer, The Coward, The Wretched, The Abdicator of Hope.
[“Autumn Not Winter” by Jack de Quidt begins playing]
ART (as Hadrian): There is a darkness inside you, Hella. But I believe with all of my being that that darkness is only visible because of the incredible light that emanates from within you.
AUSTIN: You’ve been up, studying, trying to understand what, what sort of like, loophole you can find to not be held in contempt of court but also hopefully lose?
JACK (as Lem): While I was present in the tower, I learned about a horrible event. An army is coming our way.
AUSTIN (as crowd): Mumble mumble mumble mumble!
KEITH (as Fero): Yeah I saw these ships, they’re really close! [Austin laughs]
ALI: [quietly] Oh my god.
JACK (as Lem): Hellas actions at the tower were not just murder against the man but also potential destruction of the last hope that Nacre has facing this horrifying mechanical army.
KEITH (as Fero): I stand before you today with my good friend, Hella, who murdered my other good friend... [Austin laughs]
ALI: [laughing] Yeah? Wait a minute…
AUSTIN (as crowd): Mumble mumble mumble mumble.
KEITH (as Fero): I don’t think there was a little fight. I was with them up until the end. We were here—we were here to help Calhoun out of his whole situation—
AUSTIN (as Brandish): [interrupting] I knew it! [muffled laughter]
KEITH (as Fero): Yeah! It’s—of course—of course you knew it! Everybody knew it! That’s not why we’re here, we’re here because of the death of Calhoun, not because we were trying to get Calhoun out of his sitch.
AUSTIN (as Brandish): Then why did she kill him? [“Autumn Not Winter” ends]
KEITH (as Fero): That’s what we’re here to figure out.
JACK (as Lem): A century, a century, and he was in the same building as the woman who cut your head off and you were on a boat. That is despicable, Captain Brandish.
JACK: Lem’s warming to it now. [all laugh]
AUSTIN: [laughing] Yeah, I can tell, he’s like, he’s getting into it.
[pause]
JACK (as Lem): Uh, I rest my case. [Austin laughs]
JACK: And I just drop, like, a book on the floor. [Austin, Keith, and Ali laugh] ‘Cause I’m getting rowdy.
AUSTIN: You’re getting very rowdy. So wait, what are you trying to do here? Are you trying to…are you...okay so the last thing that happened here was—
JACK: I’m just undermining his position.
AUSTIN: Yeah which, which to me sounds like filibuster.
KEITH: [crosstalk] That sounds like filibuster.
AUSTIN: Which is again, just like a general term that we’re using, the name of the move. Um...but, the last thing that happened was—yeah, okay, that’s fair. Yeah, if you’d like to—if you would like to do that, that would be a constitution roll. And just like, you just hammer him over and over and over and over again, like you just are unrelenting with this.
ALI: I mean, in Brandish’s defense, she was in jail. [laughs]
AUSTIN: That’s true, but like, at a certain point—
JACK: She chopped his head off!
AUSTIN: Yeah.
JACK: Or nearly.
KEITH: Oh, this is also—this, this—
AUSTIN: Mmhmm?
KEITH: It says uh, remove the VP placed by your opponent—
AUSTIN: Yeah.
KEITH: —in their last round, does that mean that he removes the negative?
AUSTIN: Yes, that he would remove the guilt. Yes.
KEITH: That’s perfect.
AUSTIN: Because it slips the guilt over to, uh, to Brandish in a way, right?
KEITH: This is a very—this is a very good move.
AUSTIN: This is a good move. This is a good strategy move.
KEITH: This is a very good...yeah.
AUSTIN: So give me the—give me—
JACK: My constitution is 0.
AUSTIN: That’s fair.
KEITH: That’s fine.
JACK: So I’m just rolling 2d6.
KEITH: Do you have a last hold, or is that...
JACK: I do, but it’s one.
AUSTIN: Yeah, I don’t—
JACK: I mean—
AUSTIN: I don’t know that it does anything if the thing is zero. Like it’ll come—
JACK: Oh, yeah, yeah.
AUSTIN: It’ll cancel out a negative, it’ll double a positive.
JACK: Yeah.
AUSTIN: But I don’t want to just like—it’s not just like a flat bonus, y’know?
JACK: No, that’s fine.
KEITH: Oh, right, yeah.
AUSTIN: It’s, mmm, just not as interesting. Because I’m a weirdo.
JACK: Finger’s crossed, gang.
AUSTIN: Yep.
JACK: Lem’s got his fingers crossed.
AUSTIN: Mmhmm.
JACK: [pause] Ah, yes!
ALI: Yay!
AUSTIN: Oh, there you go. There you go. So yeah, on a 7 to 9, you can manage to sway either the queen or the crowd away from what their previous position was, and it—that works out because Fero, on Fero’s turn he had only given two points to the crowd.
JACK: Cool.
AUSTIN: So you can, you can basically erase… [typing sounds]
JACK: Yeah. As Brandish stands up to go, Lem very hurriedly looks at the ground and goes back to his chair.
AUSTIN: Right. [to self] So that means this drops back down...strike that through, and then up here, so that’s two guilt gone from the crowd. Okay! And that’s nice for you because that does not add anything to your current situation. Whoops. Like, you did not, you did not then produce any verdict points of your own, do you know what I mean?
JACK: No. Yeah yeah yeah.
AUSTIN: So it doesn’t fuck with you in any way. Uhh, okay. Ventaro Doce looks up at the queen...to kind of get a sense of what’s- what’s happening next. Also, I do want to convey that there was like an almost sadness in Brandish in that last scene. Like, he- he was not—he doesn’t want to be here.
JACK: Oh yeah, totally.
AUSTIN: Okay. I wanted to make sure that was clear.
ALI: Yeah.
JACK: No, like, Lem knew that.
KEITH: He hasn’t been just a pirate for a kind of a while.
AUSTIN: Yeah. So, the queen, of course, unsurprisingly, gestures towards Hella on the opposite pedestal.
ALI: Hmm.
AUSTIN: That column lowers into the ground so that Hella can step out onto the field. Or not the field, but onto the, you know, into the kind of—
JACK: Onto the playing field.
ALI: It’s a field for her.
AUSTIN: Yeah. It is a field for her.
KEITH: Yeah.
AUSTIN: And onto the center, the chair. The examination chair. The crowd, again, is just like, totally—
KEITH: At the center of the pitch.
AUSTIN: Yeah. [laughs] The crowd is- is atwitter with mumbles and grumbles—
KEITH: With 140 character mumbles?
AUSTIN: Right. Everybody is just like “mumble mumble mumb-” and it just cuts off in the middle and it’s hilarious. [Keith and Ali laugh] Alright. Prosecution goes first.
JACK: [pause] What do I have to do?
AUSTIN: You have to examine Hella. Hella is your next witness.
JACK: Oh jesus christ. Okay. Hang on. [laughs] Oh god. There’s no way I can convey to Hella that I feel bad about this situation [Ali laughs] without throwing it, so I‘m just going to plow on and hope that maybe we can get drinks after this. [laughs] If we’re not all dead. Uh.
JACK (as Lem): Hella. Along with my companion Fero, uh, you and I are not of Nacre. Is that correct?
ALI (as Hella): Yes.
JACK (as Lem): Where do you originate from?
ALI (as Hella): Ordenna.
JACK (as Lem): The evidence found by my previous investigations suggest that the fearsome mechanical warblades cutting through the oily ocean towards us right now are also of Ordennan construction. Is this the case?
ALI (as Hella): Yeah? Yes.
JACK (as Lem): Ladies and gentlemen of the court, does that not strike you as a little strange? That the murder of our prince Angelo [Austin scoffs] was committed by an Ordennan mere hours before what seems to be a full scale Ordennan invasion fleet will arrive on our shores, and I hasten to add, will arrive on our shores within—
JACK: And I look up at the big clock.
JACK (as Lem): —a period of time. [Keith and Ali laugh]
AUSTIN (as crowd): MUMBLE MUMBLE MUMBLE. MUMBLE MUMBLE MUMBLE MUMBLE muh...
KEITH: God I want to add court murmurs to this so bad.
JACK (as Lem): Do you have anything to say to this Hella?
ALI: [laughs nervously, pauses] I’m—hmm. That’s tough, ‘cause he’s making a really weird argument? Um…
JACK: Yeah, deal with it.
ALI: And then— [laughs] she’s—I guess he’s essentially trying to connect her to those ships?
AUSTIN: Mmhmm.
JACK: Yeah.
ALI: Okay. Um, so. In that case. Um.
KEITH: Oh wait, can I make an objection?
AUSTIN: Totally!
JACK: Yeah, sure.
KEITH: I want to—I wanna object, uhh...on the grounds that—
JACK: Wait, you have to say it, Keith. Keith, you have to say it first.
KEITH: Hmm?
KEITH (as Fero): I object! [Ali and Austin laugh quietly]
AUSTIN (as Ventaro Doce): On what grounds?
KEITH (as Fero): On the grounds that all three of us know that we discovered the ships at the exact same time. [muffled laughter from others] These ships have nothing to do with Hella, and we all know it.
JACK: Is there any way I can do an objection?
AUSTIN: No, you...he gets to roll plus bond.
JACK: Oh my god...
KEITH: So that’s 2d6 plus 1, which is 6. So, perfect.
AUSTIN: Uhh, no. [chuckling] “The opposition continues their turn and may assign an additional VP at the end of their action.” Of course that’s what the defense would say. Right? Like, who—
KEITH: Yeah...
AUSTIN: Yeah, the defense could be lying. Like, this guy! Ugh.
[TIMESTAMP: 0:09:02]
KEITH: Shi—well, I’m just glad that- I’m just glad that I—that, uh, maybe I wasted this bad roll on this objection [others laugh] instead of the important thing which is coming after.
AUSTIN: Yes. Yes.
JACK (as Lem): Yes, Fero, we do- we did all discover that at the same time. But, I would like to remind you, we are traveling with a woman who has on previous occasions, uh...
JACK: I’m trying to find the way to phrase this...
KEITH: Been evil?
JACK (as Lem): Been, been...correctly identified as evil [Austin and Ali laugh] by a brother of a religious ministry. [Austin gasps] And who hid from us the knowledge that she had a particularly dangerous magical weapon. [Austin gasps louder] Who knows, Fero, whether or not we were merely pawns in her Ordennan invasionary masquerade? [Ali and Keith laugh]
AUSTIN: Wow! Hella?
ALI: [laughing] Don’t—don’t bring Hadrian into this.
JACK: [laughs] I didn’t name anybody.
AUSTIN: No, but like she got that letter last night. Uhh. [Ali laughs]
JACK: Oh, god.
ALI: [laughing] I’m so upset.
ALI (as Hella): That’s ridiculous. I— [Jack and Ali laugh]
ALI: I don’t know if I’m talking as Hella or myself right now.
AUSTIN: Yeah. Hella, you can definitely aid or interfere on whatever roll he’s going to make.
ALI: Okay.
AUSTIN: If that’s a thing you’d like to do.
JACK: [distantly] Hella, no!
ALI: [quietly] Oh my god.
AUSTIN: I mean, determine...let’s determine what it is he’s doing, first.
ALI: Yeah.
KEITH: It sounds like spinning straw.
AUSTIN: To me too.
KEITH: Spinning gold.
AUSTIN: This is- this is—
KEITH: ‘Cause it’s bullshit, it’s not real.
AUSTIN: Y’all on some bullshit. Yeah.
KEITH: Yeah.
JACK: I’m a lawyer, what do you…
AUSTIN: Yeah, okay, yeah, okay.
ALI: Mmm.
AUSTIN: So let me—
KEITH: I haven’t told any lies yet, Lem.
JACK: Oh, I’ve told loads. [Austin laughs]
KEITH: All my shit is based on like real things!
AUSTIN: Mmhmm.
JACK: Look, finally. Look, how many times did you get to turn into a bird? Finally this is an Archivist doing their job. [others laugh] Wilfully distorting the truth in order to get what they want. [all laugh]
AUSTIN: Yeah, give me a bond roll to interfere with—if you’d like to, with—which is +1 probably. Because you—
ALI: Yeah, I guess..
JACK: Oh, sorry, I just looked at one of my bonds, and it’s “I resent the fact that Hella thinks I’m naive”, which… [Ali and Jack laugh]
AUSTIN: Yep! Well, that’s coming up, isn’t it?
ALI: Yeah, ‘cause I think it would interfere, ‘cause like, I think Hella probably looks visibly thrown off by this?
AUSTIN: Yeah, yeah. Well—also, to be clear, Hella’s bond right now with Lem is, “I don’t fear Lem, but I should keep my distance”.
ALI: Yeah.
AUSTIN: And like, boy, that’s paying off a little bit. [Ali and Jack laugh] Also, also, Hella’s bond with Fero is, “I don’t understand Fero’s motivations, but I think he’s dependable.” [Ali laughs]
JACK: Oh, god.
KEITH: I feel like I’ve only proven myself as dependable.
JACK: We accidentally made a great thing! [Ali laughs]
AUSTIN: Mmhmm!
JACK: [laughing] We’ve accidentally made a...
AUSTIN: Yep!
ALI: So, it’ll be 2d6, and that’s it? Or…
AUSTIN: Uh, 2d6 plus 1.
ALI: Okay.
AUSTIN: Yeah.
KEITH: I do want to say that this still tracks with my bond with Hella, which is, “Hella is a villain who puts her needs above the lives of her friends.” [Jack laughs]
AUSTIN: Yep. Yours with Lem is, of course, “Lem and I have fought together for our lives; we are like brothers”, which is sad.
JACK: Oh, god.
KEITH: Yeah.
ALI: So I rolled a 9.
AUSTIN: Oh! Okay, yeah. So, on a 9, you can give him a negative 2 to his roll, but you also expose yourself to danger, retribution, or cost. Which we’ll get to in the future. [Ali and Jack laugh quietly] So go ahead and give me a roll, Lem.
JACK: That is charisma, right?
AUSTIN: Yeah.
JACK: Okay. Aaand, boop. Mm!
AUSTIN: Minus 2 is still a 7, so it’s still a success. So, you’re able to—I think that’s give one—yeah, assign one VP wherever you like.
JACK: I’m gonna put it towards crowd guilt. I’m getting that crowd rowdy.
AUSTIN: You are.
JACK: They’re knocking cups over. All over the place.
AUSTIN: Crowd guilt goes up by one… [typing] that goes there, and...sorry, there’s a lot of record keeping on my side.
ALI: Mmhmm.
KEITH: [sighs] Remember when I couldn’t stop rolling 11s? [Ali and Jack chuckle] I miss those days. Or that one—I miss that one day.
AUSTIN: [typing] Yeah, that was a good day.
KEITH: Mmhmm.
AUSTIN: The ice party just had a session that was the opposite of that, it was the best. It was so good.
KEITH: Oh, they’ve had that a couple times.
AUSTIN: They—the next—you’re gonna get to one, and like, hoo boy. [Ali laughs]
KEITH: Yeah.
AUSTIN: It’s so good, it’s so good.
KEITH: The one in Auniq was also kind of like that.
AUSTIN: Yeah, the one in Auniq was like that. This one’s better, this one’s so much better.
KEITH: Okay.
AUSTIN: I’m excited for people to listen to it. Okay. Fero.
KEITH: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Your witness.
KEITH: Alright. Can I first read the crowd?
AUSTIN: Yeah, sure.
KEITH: Alright, I’m gonna—that’s what it’s called, right?
AUSTIN: Mmhmm.
KEITH: Which is plus WIS?
AUSTIN: You’re not—how are you doing that, like what’s your—are you just kind of like…
KEITH: I think that I’m...I think I’m doing kind of—I know that I’m not quite as tall as Hella and I’m not up on a platform—
AUSTIN: Yeah.
KEITH: —but I feel like just like looking at the crowd and watching the way that they react and who they’re looking at and why—
AUSTIN: Right, right.
KEITH: Like, what their faces are saying about who they’re looking at.
AUSTIN: Yeah, that works.
KEITH: And that’s an 8.
AUSTIN: Okay, so that means you get to choose two of the following things to learn secretly: crowd guilt VP total, crowd innocence VP total—
KEITH: Mmhmm.
AUSTIN: —queen guilt total, and queen innocence total.
JACK: And Lem contempt total?
AUSTIN: Oh, right, yeah. And Lem contempt total. You could totally do that.
KEITH: Right. Don’t give a shit about that.
AUSTIN: Yep!
JACK: Screw you.
AUSTIN: I just said what do you want, and I’m gonna message you these things.
KEITH: Okay. I wanna learn the—
AUSTIN: I know I’m like a “no hidden information” guy, but this is the one case where I think it’s interesting.
KEITH: Yeah. I would like to know the crowd guilt and innocent total.
AUSTIN: Okay.
KEITH: Okay.
[slight pause, typing sounds]
AUSTIN: So, yeah.
KEITH: And now it’s my turn to talk to Hella?
AUSTIN: Yeah.
KEITH (as Fero): Hella, Lem brought up an interesting point, which is that, your magical weapon. [Austin laughs slightly]
ALI (as Hella): Yeah.
JACK: Full stop?
KEITH (as Fero): [clears throat] What do you know about your magical weapon?
ALI (as Hella): ...Nothing? [laughs quietly]
KEITH (as Fero): I can tell you what I know about your magical weapon. Which is that it didn’t do anything until the moment we arrived in Nacre, and then—do you remember what it did then?
ALI (as Hella): Um, it started singing “Tristero”.
KEITH (as Fero): It was wailing “Tristero”, it was horrible. I had to turn into a bird to distract a guard to make him think that I—well, basically—
AUSTIN (as crowd): He turns into birds? Mumble mumble mumble! [Ali laughs]
KEITH (as Fero): Remember when we got captured, we—we would have gotten captured even earlier, because your sword wouldn’t shut up. It kept screaming “Tristero”! Did you ever figure out why it kept doing that?
ALI (as Hella): No. [Austin laughs, Ali laughs nervously in response]
KEITH (as Fero): But did you—but, did you ever have any encounters with Tristero or anything about Tristero after that?
ALI (as Hella): Yes.
KEITH (as Fero): What happened?
ALI (as Hella): I—so, you spoke to Brandish before, and we were fighting.
KEITH (as Fero): Mmhmm. Yeah.
ALI (as Hella): And I guess he got—
KEITH (as Fero): For anybody who doesn’t know in the crowd, [Austin laughs] Brandish and I and Hella and Lem had an encounter with Brandish up on the tower up there.
AUSTIN: The hotel?
KEITH: It’s a hotel?
AUSTIN: Yeah.
KEITH (as Fero): Up on the top of the hotel. Brandish snuck up behind us and we had a scuffle. So what happened, Hella?
ALI (as Hella): I—he got one over on me, and…
KEITH (as Fero): It was a good one, too.
ALI (as Hella): Sure.
ALI: [muffled laughter] Sorry.
ALI (as Hella): When...when I was knocked out, I was in...the palace?
AUSTIN: Yeah, it was like the court of, it was—yes, it was in the palace.
ALI: Yeah.
ALI (as Hella): And that’s where Tristero was. [laughs nervously] He asked me—
KEITH (as Fero): What do you mean? Tristero’s long dead.
ALI (as Hella): No- well- but—yeah, but— [laughs slightly] He was there, and he asked me if I was ready to move on, and I said no. And in that case, he said that I had to bring his son back to him.
KEITH (as Fero): And his son is Calhoun—or, Angelo.
ALI (as Hella): Ye- I guess, yeah?
KEITH (as Fero): Which we had found out minutes earlier, basically.
ALI (as Hella): Yeah, I didn’t...I never knew.
KEITH (as Fero): So you had been running with Calhoun all this time. You didn’t know that he was secretly a prince that lived in a castle and ran away—murdered his father and then ran away?
ALI (as Hella): No, no—we never spoke about that. If I would have known, Brandish would have never taken him, I wouldn’t have let him. [sighs] No.
KEITH (as Fero): Did you ever have any other experiences like that? Like that one dream?
ALI (as Hella): I...I don’t think so.
AUSTIN: Is that a—do you know, Ali? Are you lying here? [Ali laughs] Is Hella lying?
ALI: I don’t think that Hella thinks that she’s lying. But like when—
AUSTIN: Yes.
ALI: Yeah, so when she like went back, there was all of that like visions that she had, and I think that she literally doesn’t know.
AUSTIN: Okay. She doesn’t know, she doesn’t know that the dream with Calhoun, with Angelo, [Ali gasps] was real, was that again.
ALI: Oh! Oh, god, that’s right.
AUSTIN: Yeah. [Ali laughs] That’s the thing that—yeah.
KEITH: That’s what I’m—yeah, that’s what I was asking about.
ALI: Oh, um...oh. Yeah, so, okay. [laughs]
AUSTIN: Huh.
ALI: ...Wait, what did—okay, in that case…
AUSTIN: She dreamed—she just dreamed she was back in the palace, and—
ALI: No, what did Fero just say, in that case?
AUSTIN: Okay.
KEITH: Oh, I said,
KEITH (as Fero): Did you ever have any other experiences like that one dream?
ALI (as Hella): [laughs]
ALI: And she laughs, she does. She shakes her head.
ALI (as Hella): I saw Calhoun last night. And it was just like before.
KEITH (as Fero): You mean where Tristero was.
ALI (as Hella): Yeah. They were in the same clothes and the same place, and...he was angry, but. Yeah.
KEITH (as Fero): So, what you’re saying is that...you agreed to take your friend’s life, to save your own life, the life of a man who took his father’s life, to not live here anymore. [Austin and Ali laugh]
ALI (as Hella): Sure, yeah.
KEITH (as Fero): And...I think that’s all I have for you, Hella.
KEITH: I go and I sit down, and I think...I think that that is spin straw from gold over lay out the case, only because of the leap that it takes for people to believe that Hella had those dreams?
AUSTIN: Right, right, right. Yeah, you have to sell that pretty hard.
KEITH: Yeah.
AUSTIN: There was a way it could become “lay out the case”, which is that like...you’re steps—
KEITH: ‘Cause these are all facts.
AUSTIN: Well, and because you’re steps away from saying he’s not dead. In the way that we think about death here in Nacre, right?
KEITH: Right, yeah.
AUSTIN: Think about that. But yeah, yeah, go ahead and give me the charisma roll. Unless, again, unless there is an objection. It doesn’t sound like it.
KEITH: 10.
AUSTIN: Whoo!
KEITH: [snaps fingers] Boom, 10!
ALI: Nice!
KEITH: Yeah!
AUSTIN: Killin’ it.
KEITH: So on a 10 for that…
AUSTIN: Yep.
KEITH: I can assign two points—
AUSTIN: And you take one court, going forward.
KEITH: And take one hold, yeah.
AUSTIN: ‘Cause you like, you’ve- your—that performance swayed the crowd so much, that like, wow, like people buy into you.
KEITH: Yeah.
AUSTIN: So you can assign two VP wherever you’d like.
KEITH: I’m going to assign those both to court innocence.
AUSTIN: To the crowd?
KEITH: Sorry, crowd, yes, crowd innocence, yeah.
[TIMESTAMP: 0:21:14]
AUSTIN: That goes up… [typing sounds] Okay. We are now moving on from our pearlescent curiosity to life celebration. It is time for both Lem and Fero to conduct their retrospective on the life of this case. Lem will, again, go first. Hella moves back. Hella is escorted back to the podium, which raises back up off the ground, Or not the podium, the...the pedestal, the column, which lifts back up off the ground when she goes back.
KEITH: I want to say, real quick, that the last two recording sessions of boat party friends at the table—
AUSTIN: Mmhmm
KEITH: The last episode was one of the most fun that I’ve had recording this, and I basically didn’t roll once in three and a half hours. [Ali and Austin laugh] And this is also the most fun, and it’s nonstop rolls, so.
AUSTIN: It’s nonstop rolls, yeah!
KEITH: It’s just…
AUSTIN: It’s true.
JACK: Rolls around the block.
AUSTIN: Yep. Oh, we should be recording fails, for XP.
JACK: Oh, rats.
AUSTIN: Make sure you go through and check fails real quick.
KEITH: I’ve had two fails, I think?
AUSTIN: Sure.
JACK: What is—what’s the fail margin?
AUSTIN: 6 or under.
KEITH: 6 and under.
JACK: Okay.
AUSTIN: One...
JACK: Hang on, I’ve failed at least once.
AUSTIN: Yeah, I see the one, yeah.
JACK: I’ve failed once.
AUSTIN: Yeah, okay.
JACK: Yeah, I’ve failed once.
AUSTIN: Okay.
JACK: Okay.
KEITH: Yeah, two. Two for me.
AUSTIN: Okay.
JACK (as Lem): People of the court, there are two simple points I would like to make. Point number one: you might think you’re ghosts now. [pauses]
[Keith, Austin, and Ali laugh loudly, someone claps twice]
JACK (as Lem): Point number two:
AUSTIN: That might be-- [Keith and Ali resume laughter]
KEITH: Ahh. Comedy’s everywhere, guys. [Ali laughs]
AUSTIN: It’ll sneak up on ya.
JACK (as Lem): [laughs] Point number two: what a terrible thing that was done, for Hella to not only prevent...Ugh, ugh! I have traveled with these people for—how long have we traveled together, Fero? [Austin laughs]
KEITH (as Fero): Oh, uh...nearly a year?
JACK (as Lem): I’ve traveled with these people for nearly a year, and—
KEITH (as Fero): Well, Hella for less time. Me, nearly a year.
JACK (as Lem): Yeah, yeah.
KEITH (as Fero): And then I kinda—I was your neighbor for a bit, too. [Austin laughs quietly]
JACK (as Lem): Yeah. And in that time— [laughs] You were great, it was great, a great time.
AUSTIN: “Remember that time we got that orange juice, that was good, that was good.”
JACK (as Lem): Ahh. [Ali laughs]
AUSTIN: “We went over, and we had that par—”
KEITH (as Fero): Freshly squeezed! I don’t even need to drink, it was just nice.
JACK (as Lem): Oh! Do you have that book I lent you? [pause] Okay. [Austin laughs] Okay, so. In that time, I have seen my friends—friends—turn into birds, decapitate people, fall off buildings, very nearly get blown up by bombs, hide from people—
KEITH (as Fero): Objection! The depapitation was you! [all laugh hard]
AUSTIN: Fuckin’, roll it! No, you—yeah, roll it. [laughter] Oh, wait wait wait wait—
KEITH: That’s plus bond, right?
AUSTIN: I have to know what Jack was going—what was Jack going to be rolling before? Was that a—that was a “spin straw”, or was that a...
JACK: Yeah, it was a “spin straw”.
AUSTIN: Okay. Because if—yeah. So go ahead and roll your objection.
ALI: Oh, god.
KEITH: 8.
JACK: Oh, j—
KEITH: What?
AUSTIN: Uh, so on an 8, you have to change from spin straw to something else. [Jack chuckles] So that means you cannot—you can no longer just be bullshitting them. Because—because he called you out on that bullshit, right? Like…
JACK: Mmhmm.
AUSTIN: He called you out and said, “no, no, no…” [all laugh]
JACK: Okay, uh…
KEITH: I should’ve been objecting more! [Ali giggles]
AUSTIN: Objections are fun.
KEITH: Yeah.
JACK: Uh, hang on...goddammit, Fero. [laughs]
AUSTIN: Oh, wait, speaking of objections, wait, did we goof on an objection at some point? Also, it’s actually an 8, ‘cause it’s 2d6 plus 1 to—you got that bond.
KEITH: Yeah, yeah, no I said 8.
AUSTIN: What was the other objection that we did?
KEITH: The other objection was I objected to…I objected—
AUSTIN: Yeah, you failed your objection, right, right. And then Lem succeeded on that charisma roll, so he actually has an additional VP to assign, I just remembered that.
JACK: Oh, do you want me to assign that now?
AUSTIN: Yeah, yeah, please assign that now, because he failed.
KEITH: Do we remember what the objection was? ‘Cause I think that’s important to where he assigns the VP.
AUSTIN: It is, you…
JACK: I just...
AUSTIN: What was it? It was in the last—it was while he was examining Hella.
KEITH: Yes.
AUSTIN: And…
KEITH: Oh! I know what it was. He was talking about how—he was trying to connect Hella to the warships.
AUSTIN: Right, right.
KEITH: Like as if we were part of her hidden scheme to—goddammit Lem, you asshole! [Jack laughs softly]
AUSTIN: And you said, [deep voice] “No, we’ve known each other forever!” and—that’s my you impression. And then—
KEITH: Thank you. [Jack and Ali laugh] It’s super accurate.
AUSTIN: [cartoonishly deeper voice] “You’re very—you’re very—you’re down here. Hey everybody, it’s me, Keith.”
KEITH: [imitating same voice] “I’m super—hey, you guys stop it, you gotta—you’re not even telling the truth. That’s what being a lawyer’s all about.” [laughter continues]
AUSTIN: “Truth-tellin’!” So, yeah, assign one more.
KEITH: “This would not fly in Rosemerrow mock trial!” [Ali, Jack, and Austin laugh]
JACK: I’m gonna assign that to...also, like, if I’m trying to— [laughs] if Hella was...who’d’ve thought there’d be consequences to your actions? [Austin laughs] If Hella was...if I was trying to link Hella to the Ordennan invasion—
AUSTIN: Yes.
JACK: —the purpose of me doing that was to further monsterize Hella and the Ordennan invasion.
AUSTIN: Yes.
JACK: Which would put the crowd on the whole “why the hell are we in a goddamn courtroom—”
AUSTIN: Yes.
JACK: “—we need to climb up the walls.” So I’m gonna go crowd…innocence.
AUSTIN: [crosstalk] Crowd guilt? Oh, oh, I see what you’re saying, yeah yeah yeah.
JACK: [crosstalk] Crowd innocence, because they’re like, “fuck this noise, let’s go to another place”.
AUSTIN: [crosstalk] “Why are we even…” Yeah, sure, sure. [pause, typing sounds] Okay.
JACK: Okay. So now I have to...
AUSTIN: Sorry, sorry to totally derail that, so. So yes, closing arguments again. Now, so now you can no longer be just charismatic, you can no longer just be coming up with bullshit and trying to sway them with your rhetoric, you have to give them—you have to do something else, one of the other options you have.
JACK: Okay! Okay...okay.
JACK (as Lem): We are wasting time. My studies prior to the trial in Ventaro Doce’s library revealed to me that at a conservative estimate—and I was never particularly strong at maths, but I double and triple checked my figures here. At a conservative estimate, Nacre can muster thirty thousand ground troops. This is simply not enough based on my reports. We need to muster everybody. We need to get people into the streets. We need to get people manning barricades. We need to get people in the harbor. And why the hell are we still waiting around in a court?
AUSTIN: So you’re going for innocence pretty directly, here. Oh, okay. So, so, give me just a little—
JACK: So, for me—
AUSTIN: You should—you need to—give me a—
KEITH: Yeah. This is still ostensibly Jack saying they’re connected, but really he’s saying, don’t even think about this.
AUSTIN: Yeah, I think you—you should at least add a little tag about how that should mean we should convict her hurriedly and move on. Right? So.
JACK: Yeah, okay. Okay. So, I look at the clock, and I say…
AUSTIN: Also there’s clocks, but only in Nacre. [muffled laughter]
KEITH: Right.
JACK: Oh, do we not have clocks elsewhere?
AUSTIN: Eh. I don’t know.
JACK: Oh, Austin, you know how these clocks work?
KEITH: I don’t imagine clocks fitting into most of these settings.
AUSTIN: Yeah.
JACK: It’s water, water pours into other things—
AUSTIN: Okay.
JACK: —which pours into other things, and, you know, it’s a water clock.
AUSTIN: Yeah. It’s a water clock.
KEITH: Oh, it’s a water clock, yeah, water clock.
JACK: They’re super easy to make. I was making one right now on the call.
AUSTIN: Oh, wow!
JACK: No, I was not making a water clock. [laughs]
AUSTIN: Aww.
KEITH: I could make a water clock blindfolded.
JACK: Yeah, I just have to.
AUSTIN: I ??? 29:50 [anticipates where Keith is going with this]
KEITH: Sorry, I can put a blindfold on a water clock.
AUSTIN: Goddammit. [Keith and Jack laugh]
JACK: Okay...
JACK (as Lem): They’ll be here by nightfall. We need to convict Hella within fifteen minutes—like, you know, between that little marker over there and that marker just below it, a unit of time I’m calling fifteen minutes.
AUSTIN: [laughs] That’s what we call it in the Archives.
KEITH: Before that little portion of the wheel gets wet—
JACK: Yes.
KEITH: —she needs to be in jail. [Austin and Ali laugh]
JACK: Wait, how—water clocks are different things than what I thought they were.
AUSTIN: Yeah, in this universe…
JACK: It’s to do with a little wheel getting wet. [laughter]
AUSTIN: Ventaro just has a squirt gun, and he counts, [Keith, Ali, and Jack laugh loudly] and every fifteen minutes he squirts a different part.
KEITH: Yeah. Every time he goes, “It’s probably been five minutes,” he squirts— [all laugh]
JACK: The wheel is getting too wet!
AUSTIN: Yeah.
JACK: We can’t let this wheel get wetter.
KEITH: People in Nacre show up super late for a lot of things, but it’s fine ‘cause they’re immortal. [Austin, Ali, and Jack laugh]
AUSTIN: Yeah, nothin’ but time!
JACK: They’re not gonna be immortal for much longer.
KEITH: People go, “What, you’re gonna make me wait all day?” and then they laugh, like, yeah, who cares. [Jack and Ali laugh]
[TIMESTAMP: 0:31:00]
AUSTIN: [typing] Give me a roll, give me your INT.
JACK: Okay. Uh… [quiet beep] Oh, well, that was inevitable.
AUSTIN: Jesus christ!
ALI: Ooh...
KEITH: Ooh, hello.
AUSTIN: The opposing crowd position, the one of innocence, gets two. [Jack laughs]
KEITH: Not—not bad. At some—I wanna say this. Because I have that my one piece of hidden information?
AUSTIN: Mmhmm.
KEITH: Never mind.
AUSTIN: Yep. Yeah, we’re almost there.
JACK: I have no hidden information.
AUSTIN: Well, he read the crowd that time.
JACK: Oh, yeah yeah yeah.
AUSTIN: Okay. Fero.
KEITH: [deep voice] Hello! [laughs]
AUSTIN: Uh huh.
KEITH: Alright. These are—this is basically—these are my closing arguments, basically?
AUSTIN: Yeah.
KEITH: Is what I’m doing? Okay. Hella—here’s what I—I address Hella directly, and then I also want to address the people.
AUSTIN: Uh huh.
KEITH: I forgot what I was doing for a second. I lost my place.
KEITH (as Fero): The thing that I hope that we’ve established today, is that, Hella, in an effort to save herself, took the life of a man that I find dear, that Lem finds dear, and that she finds dear, at the will of the man who lays still at the foundation of this very place, Tristero. And...that when it was all done, she saw Calhoun sitting on a throne in Tristero’s robes, and he greeted her, and she greeted him back. And now here we are.
KEITH: And then I sit down.
AUSTIN: Alright. What’s that?
KEITH: ...I wanna say that it’s still charisma?
AUSTIN: Yeah, I don’t...yeah.
KEITH: ‘Cause it’s still like a leap, right, like it’s still...it’s either laying the case or charisma.
AUSTIN: I think that the bit—hammering back that bit about like she sees him again, for me, is laying the case. I think that’s—
KEITH: Alright. So this is a tricky roll for me—
AUSTIN: Yeah, I know, I know.
KEITH: This is a -1 roll. So I’m gonna do the roll and then I’m just gonna take 1 away, ‘cause I don’t have a...
AUSTIN: You still have that—you still have that one court hold.
KEITH: Oh, I still have one hold!
AUSTIN: Use that to cancel out the...
KEITH: Yeah, I’m gonna use that, one hold to negate the—yeah.
AUSTIN: Yep, so just 2d6.
KEITH: Yeah. 11, boom! [snaps fingers]
ALI: Whoa!
JACK: Mmm.
AUSTIN: Geez!
ALI: Yeah, buddy!
AUSTIN: [typing] What- oh, what—google docs, you work for me! You work for me, google docs.
KEITH: [??? 33:40 voice] “You work for me, google docs!”
AUSTIN: Okay.
KEITH: “Or you’re outta here!”
AUSTIN: [laughs] Assign three verdict points, as you will.
KEITH: I’m going to assign all three verdict points to the queen, innocence.
AUSTIN: Okay. [typing] Which was not the thing you asked for previously, correct?
KEITH: Uh, sorry, what do you mean?
AUSTIN: You—yeah, so you have no idea what that looks like right now.
KEITH: Oh, I—I have no idea what the queen’s...
AUSTIN: Yeah, you could’ve been like counting cards, so to speak.
KEITH: No, I was not counting cards.
JACK: By which you mean making tally marks on a piece of paper.
AUSTIN: Right.
KEITH: Right. [laughs] Doing simple math.
AUSTIN: Okay, I do now have to do some tallying, so we’re gonna take another break—
KEITH: Cool.
JACK: Alright, make another cup of tea.
AUSTIN: —while I tally things up before the final turns here.
KEITH: Okay.
AUSTIN: Uh, let me give you some—are you all still here?
ALI: Yeah.
JACK: Yep.
KEITH: I’m still here, yeah.
AUSTIN: Okay. Let me give you a little bit of narration, here. Which is, at this point, Lem and Fero’s duties are complete. There’s nothing they can do anymore, and at this stage there is, for Fero, there really is a similar feeling to the moment when the man let himself fade away that you saw when you first arrived at Nacre.
KEITH: Mmhmm.
AUSTIN: It—in that it is equally sad, regardless of what the outcome is, to put this thing, this complicated thing away, and to know that there is nothing left to be done here. But also joyful, because thank god it’s done. Finally, you can move on.
KEITH: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Whatever happens, you’ve made it through this thing.
KEITH: Mm.
AUSTIN: This thing, this life. The crowd...is kind of an autonomous, like, machine.
KEITH: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Talking amongst themselves and looking to figure out who will move forward and speak for them.
KEITH: Sort of like a very mechanical grieving? Like a—like, we don’t h—
AUSTIN: No. Well, yes and no. Like I don’t want to emphasize the mechanism of—they’re mechanical in the sense that they know that they have a duty to do—
KEITH: Right, yeah.
AUSTIN: —and are committed to doing that, but there is still an emotion here.
KEITH: Yeah, I guess that’s what I mean, like the part of grieving where like—
AUSTIN: Yes.
KEITH: —you still have to do the things that you need to do in a day.
AUSTIN: Yes. Yeah, right, like, you still have to pay the bills. You still have to go get groceries.
KEITH: Yeah, yeah, right.
AUSTIN: You still have to go to the wake. This feels like a wake, at this point.
KEITH: Yeah, the—that’s what I was gonna say, was the—this, what you described, sounds to me, the part of the wake that is a responsibility to not just be sad.
AUSTIN: Yes.
KEITH: And instead to like—to, yeah.
AUSTIN: Somehow, some way...
KEITH: To be supportive.
AUSTIN: And to be productive.
KEITH: Right.
AUSTIN: So we’ll be back, and we’ll see what they come up with for their turn, for the public consideration portion of this event.
KEITH: What’s this about Hadrian’s son?
ALI: Yeah, he has a wife and daughter.
KEITH: Whaat?
ALI: Yeah.
KEITH: Since when?
ALI: Um, I guess since creation. Well, not like— [laughs] since created.
KEITH: [??? 36:36 voice] “Since the dawn of time!” [laughs]
ALI: [laughing] No…
JACK: His son’s called Walter Benjamin. [Austin chuckles]
KEITH: “On the first day…”
AUSTIN: I’m back.
ALI: But yes—oh, hey!
JACK: Oh, hey, Austin.
KEITH: What’s up, Austin. You were gone for a long time, that was nerve-wracking!
AUSTIN: I ate a bagel.
ALI: Oh.
KEITH: Oh, okay.
AUSTIN: I thought about who was going to speak and what they’d say. Ali, I linked you to a thing that you can go to.
ALI: Yeah, I’ve clicked it.
AUSTIN: Okay. You can add those things I sent you before there and see what they say.
ALI: Oh...okay. I don’t [inaudible ??? 37:0]
KEITH: I really think I did a good job.
AUSTIN: You don’t have to say them outside—you don’t have to say them out loud. In fact, you shouldn’t, probably. But it will help you understand what I’m doing here. [typing sounds]
JACK: That doesn’t sound comforting.
ALI: Oookay. Okay, okay!
AUSTIN: So, we’re back, I’m back.
ALI: Oh! [distressed sounds]
AUSTIN: Uh huh!
KEITH: Ali’s making noises ‘cause she knows something we don’t.
ALI: Oh, but—okay, so that’s—ahh. I know numbers. [laughs]
AUSTIN: She knows some numbers. Before this started, I sent Ali some ciphered numbers of what the starting, like, feelings were—
KEITH: Right.
AUSTIN: —among the crowd and queen and regarding Lem’s contempt.
KEITH: Mmhmm.
AUSTIN: Which, you know, maybe if someone hadn’t turned into a bird and drawn a bunch of attention to their exchange in the middle of the night, his starting contempt would have been lower.
JACK: Don’t know who that could possibly be.
KEITH: I feel like I, uh—that was very smooth of me, and I took it with stride.
AUSTIN: Uh huh.
[pause]
ALI: Uhh.
AUSTIN: And then, one second, I need to check one more thing, and then we’ll be good to go. [typing] I need to see how often this one thing happened. [to self] Two...okay! Whoops, whoops, whoops, and then...one, two…
JACK: This is gonna be a disaster, isn’t it?
AUSTIN: It’s not great.
ALI: Oh nooo…
AUSTIN: Okay. So—
ALI: Oh no! Wait—oh god. Wait—
AUSTIN: So, so.
JACK: Okay.
KEITH: Ali’s just making a bunch of noises—
AUSTIN: Yeah, all sorts of noises..
KEITH: —and they don’t sound like good ones.
AUSTIN: This is—it’s not good.
ALI: I am the most reactionary person in the world, so it’s good that Austin was like, hey, here’s the curtain. [Ali and Jack laugh]
AUSTIN: Yeah. Yeah, Ali has access to my—to the file that I’ve called “A Just Record: The Case Against Hella Varal”, which has all of the numbers of this case in it now.
JACK: Oh, god.
[TIMESTAMP: 0:39:16]
AUSTIN: So, Emmanuel steps forward. And stands, let’s say, in front of the chair where all of the witnesses had seated themselves, so he can address the court. Did Emmanuel have a voice? Did he have a—yeah, he did. He had a very—he had a very...
KEITH: He had a very soft, regular voice.
JACK: The sort of voice that would say “you’re making an enormous mistake”.
AUSTIN: Yeah, yeah.
KEITH: “You’re making an enormous mistake, and I’m making a pastry.” [all laugh]
AUSTIN: That’s my favorite Arrested Development line. [Keith and Ali laugh]
JACK: It’s so good.
AUSTIN: He steps up and sighs and kind of looks down.
AUSTIN (as Emmanuel): Hello. I am Emmanuel Aracia La Salle, and I— [sighs] I speak for the people of Nacre, the Pearlescent Kingdom, the Empire of Ivory and Alabaster. And, I have to say, you three have been trouble since the moment I met you.
KEITH: Vote of confidence, jesus christ.
AUSTIN (as Emmanuel): You have, from the beginning, interfered with our culture, our plans, and now, our very heritage and nobility. But, I think at the end of the day, you are just fools. You are not malicious. Regardless of the events that night in the tower, it seems foolish of us to restrain a woman with Hella’s strength and vigor, in the eve of what seems to be...a dramatic confrontation. And from what we know, we do not believe that she is an Ordennan spy or an agent of an enemy of Nacre. And so we move you, Your Highness, to please find Hella Varal innocent, so that we may move on and begin our preparations. As for...
AUSTIN: And he looks over at Lem.
KEITH: Who did save his life!
AUSTIN (as Emmanuel): Never mind.
AUSTIN: He says, and steps away. Not making eye contact. So...the crowd begins to disperse. They don’t get to be here for the final judgement. They’ve said their due, and now it’s time for the just record. Doce stays, obviously, that’s kind of his job here, is to enter this into the records of Nacre. And looks up at Queen Adelaide Triste, who smiles at Hella and nods her head. And the pillar begins to drop, and you’re free to go. [“Eve’s Light Parade” by Jack de Quidt begins playing] She then turns her eyes to Lem and sighs.
AUSTIN (as Adelaide): We have a complicated relationship to the events of today.
AUSTIN: She says.
AUSTIN (as Adelaide): Sometimes what we hold in our hearts goes against the duties we must perform. I know that better than you could ever understand. We know that better than you could ever understand. It seems that you, however, were almost proud to flaunt your loyalty to your friend in our court. It pains me to free one of you and imprison another, but here we are.
JACK: [laughs] Oh, dang.
AUSTIN (as Adelaide): You will, from this moment forward, be attached to our coterie, and as we leave our humble city, you will remain an attendant to our moving library, where you will serve under Doce until you’ve worked off your sin.