Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2: Book Club book Club book.
Speaker 1: I totally forgot. I totally forgot.
Speaker 2: Club Club book Club.
Speaker 1: It's been way too long.
Speaker 2: Yeah no, it's fine. Welcome to Cool Zone Media book Club,
Speaker 2: the only book club where you don't get to read
Speaker 2: the book ahead of time because of the way that
Speaker 2: the podcast world works. I'm your host, Margaret Kiljoy, and
Speaker 2: my guest today is gahar Hi Gary. Hello. Cool Zone
Speaker 2: Media book Club is where every Sunday I read you
Speaker 2: a story that's really kind of the whole of it.
Speaker 2: But this week we have a story by perhaps the
Speaker 2: best storyteller of our generation, a once in a millennia talent.
Speaker 2: This woman is a humble woman. She has a podcaster
Speaker 2: and an author by the name of Margaret Kiljoy.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right. I was really wondering who you're going
Speaker 1: to pull out there and be like, oh, who does
Speaker 1: Margaret thinks the best storyteller this g oh oh, okay, all.
Speaker 2: Right, yeah No, I don't know who I would actually
Speaker 2: say for this generation. It was last generation. I just
Speaker 2: assume I would be talking about Butler or LeGuin. But sure, no,
Speaker 2: I'm going to read you one of my stories because
Speaker 2: I've got a new tabletop role playing game out called
Speaker 2: Number City, and this story is called Confession to a
Speaker 2: Dead Man, and I wrote it because I wanted to
Speaker 2: write in that world. The whole world actually of the
Speaker 2: Number City started off me writing fiction before I later
Speaker 2: turned it into RPG stuff. Nice, but I can't remember.
Speaker 2: Do you play RPG as much? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I play an RPG now. And then were you
Speaker 1: we played in South Island?
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, that's what I think.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I played a really obnoxious wizard.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I don't even remember what podcast feed that's
Speaker 2: on to send people too.
Speaker 1: It was probably The Strangers Strangers Ones, I think, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: If you want to hear me and Gahre and Robert
Speaker 2: and someone else to do a.
Speaker 1: James baby Ooh, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't want to.
Speaker 1: I totally forget. It's been way too long.
Speaker 2: But it could be James. It might have been James. Yeah,
Speaker 2: if you want to hear us play Escape from Insul Island,
Speaker 2: you can somehow find that on the podcast feed. But
Speaker 2: this game is a different game. It's called p Number City.
Speaker 2: But this isn't the game. This is a story. And
Speaker 2: if you don't like RPGs, dear listener, don't worry because
Speaker 2: the Kickstarter did really well. So I'm on the I'm
Speaker 2: on the hook to write a hole novella in this world,
Speaker 2: but that doesn't come out yet. The story, however, has
Speaker 2: What type.
Speaker 1: Of world is this that we're going to be delevated to?
Speaker 2: It is a roughly diesel punk with magic alternate world
Speaker 2: where god kings rule over the world and use people
Speaker 2: like ponds, and people are running around with swords and
Speaker 2: armor as well as bolt action weapons, and there's occultists
Speaker 2: and radio coexisting.
Speaker 1: Occultists and radio. Yeah, isn't that just what we're doing
Speaker 1: right now? Well, yeah, podcasting is not really radio.
Speaker 2: But yeah, no, but this isn't the furthest thing from that. Yeah, okay, okay,
Speaker 2: that's true. No, see, you've got it all wrong, Alecti said,
Speaker 2: laughing a little, even though rain water dripped down on
Speaker 2: her through the leaky carriage roof, even though she couldn't
Speaker 2: reach the drops to wipe them off because of her handcuffs,
Speaker 2: even though the cheap lawman's carriage hit yet another pothole
Speaker 2: and her face cracked against the wood of the door.
Speaker 2: I didn't kill that guy. He was dead when I
Speaker 2: got there. No, yeah, I mean I would have killed him.
Speaker 2: It tried to even just missed my chance. The man
Speaker 2: sitting on the bench opposite of her just stared, waiting
Speaker 2: for her to say more. He was wiry, so was
Speaker 2: his beard. He was nearly enveloped by thick wool overcoat,
Speaker 2: but a hint of his pale gold uniform stuck out
Speaker 2: near his collar. ELECTI could just make out. The insignion
Speaker 2: is lapel, a sword crossed with a shepherd's crook. It's
Speaker 2: a cute name, ALECTI said, I'll give you that what
Speaker 2: the King's Boys and Girls Club. It's a cute name,
Speaker 2: like you're just a bunch of bootlicking murderous cops. Was
Speaker 2: the irony intentional when you came up with the name?
Speaker 2: I don't know, the man said, it was before my time.
Speaker 2: Maybe that's not what matters. What matters, ELECTI asked. Blood
Speaker 2: was starting to trickle down from her right nostril. It tickled.
Speaker 2: What happened tonight is what matters, The man said, If
Speaker 2: you didn't kill the reverend who did, tell us what
Speaker 2: you know, we'll let you walk. Oh honey, ELECTI said,
Speaker 2: I don't like when you lie to me. Who says
Speaker 2: I'm lying. The man asked, if you didn't kill him,
Speaker 2: we'll just hold you at Hazard long enough to get
Speaker 2: everything sorted. Let you go. The only thing we agree on,
Speaker 2: Electi said, licking the blood off of her upper lip,
Speaker 2: is that you're going to let me go. The road
Speaker 2: sounds changed from mud to gravel to cobble, and Electi
Speaker 2: looked out the tiny window. She couldn't make anything out
Speaker 2: through the rain and grime, but she knew they must
Speaker 2: have made it to p Number North at this snail's pace.
Speaker 2: It was another thirty or forty minutes before they reached
Speaker 2: Hazard Penitentiary. Electi and her friends didn't spend much time
Speaker 2: in Panumber North, where the streets are made out a
Speaker 2: street and the people are made out a misplaced loyalty.
Speaker 2: She said aloud, what nothing, Tell me what happened? The
Speaker 2: cop said again, yeah, fine, She said, no reason not to. Besides,
Speaker 2: she missed her therapy appointment that week because her therapist, Joan,
Speaker 2: had been on a bender with the squad from the
Speaker 2: South Docks. The dog girl what was his name? Dog
Speaker 2: girls all had stupid names like wrench or carburetor or
Speaker 2: Petunia or whatever Petunia that was. It had a nice
Speaker 2: bike didn't even explode very often, so he claimed he
Speaker 2: was cute. Couldn't blame Joan for missing the session. Yeah fine,
Speaker 2: I'll tell you what happened, but only because I'm gonna
Speaker 2: kill you. So it started, like every good evening does,
Speaker 2: at a party thrown by the anarchists. It's the fun anarchists,
Speaker 2: of course, the Errenian, not the boring anarchists, the Corsaurians
Speaker 2: of course. The don't call us anarchist anarchists from the
Speaker 2: North Docks where are even more boring. The industrial workers
Speaker 2: of Harrow, not them. It started at a party. It
Speaker 2: was a good party, mostly on a rooftop one of
Speaker 2: those weird theaters in the shadow of Triumph Tower. So
Speaker 2: you've got the sunset coming pretty through the ash haze
Speaker 2: over the factories, and you've got the stupid glow from
Speaker 2: the stupid Silver Church, which I do not like admitting
Speaker 2: is pretty. Some of the clackers were up for their warrens,
Speaker 2: trying out those bulbs you run electric through and they
Speaker 2: glow all handsome and light the evening up, and most
Speaker 2: of them don't even explode. There was a troop over
Speaker 2: from the Dead Quarter doing a pantomime plus half an
Speaker 2: orchestra from the Alps with their heirloomcellos and shit. So
Speaker 2: I'm having a good time because I love all that shit.
Speaker 2: I love the shitty mushroom beer that's all we get
Speaker 2: to drink because your God's dumble or as all the
Speaker 2: farms blown up and a forbid he bother importing some barley.
Speaker 2: I love the potluck snacks everyone brings. Who knew you
Speaker 2: could fry a rat in so much oil that it
Speaker 2: tasted good? Who knew you could grow hot peppers in
Speaker 2: the top of Triumph Tower. We're a little bit more
Speaker 2: sun peaks in. You know what I love the most
Speaker 2: about all these parties, though, I love that we fucking
Speaker 2: have fun despite how hard you and your immortal bag
Speaker 2: of dicks of a boss God try to make us suffer.
Speaker 2: I love that we still have music even if we
Speaker 2: barely have food. I love when you fail to take
Speaker 2: things like that away from us. I know what you're
Speaker 2: gonna say to that. You're not trying to make us suffer.
Speaker 2: You're trying to, like what, bring us back into his
Speaker 2: grace so we can win the war, rebuild the farms,
Speaker 2: and go back to living boring lives of quiet mediocrity
Speaker 2: like we supposedly had seventy years ago, right, get people
Speaker 2: trusting that money will feed us instead of us feeding
Speaker 2: each other. However, we can return the flock to the fold. Well,
Speaker 2: you got to get a new metaphor, because there's no
Speaker 2: more flocks of sheep anywhere anymore because they all got
Speaker 2: slaughtered for food ten years ago and all of their
Speaker 2: fields have been bombed as shit for half my life.
Speaker 2: But anyway, the party, party good, that's not the part
Speaker 2: you want to hear about. I guess who am I
Speaker 2: to deny you your last wishes? You want to hear
Speaker 2: about the Reverend Lemon hened the fourteenth. You want to
Speaker 2: hear about who it was who decided his ear would
Speaker 2: look better with an eighty bity teeny tiny spike stuck
Speaker 2: into it until it hit the brain. I mean, let's
Speaker 2: be honest, lots of us would have decided that. But
Speaker 2: you want to hear about the guy who actually pulled
Speaker 2: it off. Who wasn't me? So I'm at the party.
Speaker 2: I'm there with my friends. Malice, she was a marine
Speaker 2: before she went a wall kept her armor and her
Speaker 2: trauma pretty useful in a fight, which is good because
Speaker 2: she gets us into a lot of them, Sannie the
Speaker 2: rat king God. They're weird. Most people who use they
Speaker 2: them pronounsi us them singularly. Right, Sanni uses them plural.
Speaker 2: See a has the royal we se sees a god king.
Speaker 2: He says, we do not approve of you a lot
Speaker 2: having fun in the one and only life you have
Speaker 2: on this planet. We are not amused by your mockery
Speaker 2: and all of that. Right, Sanny uses the vermin. When
Speaker 2: you talk about Sannie, you're talking about the human kid
Speaker 2: buried under all those rats, But you're talking about the
Speaker 2: rats too. Love Sannie and Losa was there, of course. Honestly,
Speaker 2: I'm not sure about Losa. Are we even friends anymore?
Speaker 2: We hang out together, sure, do crimes, but we haven't
Speaker 2: talked in ages, not like really talked. God, you know,
Speaker 2: it really feels good to just get to open up
Speaker 2: about all this stuff, say, all the stuff that usually
Speaker 2: just lives inside my head. I really appreciate that. I
Speaker 2: appreciate you. I just want you to know that you're
Speaker 2: gonna be inside kind of a living nightmare soon enough,
Speaker 2: which you deserve because you're trying to lock me into
Speaker 2: a cage. But I just want you to know that
Speaker 2: you're appreciated as a person, even if not as a cop.
Speaker 2: Los is a patchworker. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, back,
Speaker 2: alley surgeon who flays corpses and mixes up fungal paste
Speaker 2: and sows the skin of dead people onto living people
Speaker 2: in order to heal wounds. You're thinking, A scary bitch
Speaker 2: with a scalpel who doesn't think a thing about ripping
Speaker 2: the bones out of living people. You're thinking, right, Losa's
Speaker 2: a scary bitch. He does all those things. Also a
Speaker 2: hell of a dice player, a good cook, and would
Speaker 2: you believe it, and honest to a the vegetarian. And
Speaker 2: we really did used to be close. I was at
Speaker 2: all three of her weddings and the four resultant funerals.
Speaker 2: But after that time in the basement of the club
Speaker 2: fighting all those giant centipedes, it just hasn't been the same. Plus,
Speaker 2: I think she's jealous of how close I've gotten with Malice,
Speaker 2: or maybe it's the other way around. Right, So the
Speaker 2: four of us are at this party and I'm just
Speaker 2: trying to have a good time, But malice is all
Speaker 2: We need a mission. Let's do a mission, and Losa
Speaker 2: is kissing up to her about it, so she's like, yes,
Speaker 2: look at me, I'm Losa. I will temporarily pretend I
Speaker 2: share your ethical framework in worldview in order to get
Speaker 2: closer to you and drive a wedge between you and Electe.
Speaker 2: Or at least that's what I assume she said, because
Speaker 2: suddenly she wants a mission too. Guys, can't the mission
Speaker 2: Sometimes get drunk and maybe high, and maybe just ave forbid,
Speaker 2: get late. No, no, no, it's time to do crimes
Speaker 2: for the good of humanity or whatever. I look at Sanny,
Speaker 2: but they're just feeding bits of mushroom to those rats,
Speaker 2: and their eyes start spinning and they whispered. Whatever happens,
Speaker 2: we're in, just like you can be in on these sweet,
Speaker 2: sweet deals of capitalism that interrupts this podcast. Here we
Speaker 2: go and we're back. So that's how I knew I
Speaker 2: wasn't gonna get late at the party, because every single
Speaker 2: one of those bitches would have died a thousand times
Speaker 2: over if it weren't for my spookyes saving them with
Speaker 2: a well timed curse or a jaunt into the ether.
Speaker 2: We find a guy with the Ernni knows everyone. I
Speaker 2: guess that's repetitive all the ERRENNI know everyone, we find
Speaker 2: a guy. He's cute, but I'm not allowed to see
Speaker 2: if he's down a fuck because we've got work to
Speaker 2: do for some dumb reason. And he says, there's this
Speaker 2: elbow guard. I know you know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2: I know you care more about that fucking thing than
Speaker 2: you do about the life of the poor dear Reverend
Speaker 2: Lambin Hend the nine hundred and fiftieth of his name
Speaker 2: or whatever. I know that's why you followed us. Anyway.
Speaker 2: The cute guy, he tells us and everyone else at
Speaker 2: the party, besides about his elbow guard, holy to the outsiders,
Speaker 2: ancient made out of granite and quarts in the ceremonial style.
Speaker 2: Let's see if I get this chain of events right.
Speaker 2: Lamban had this tenant, an old outsider lady who got
Speaker 2: entired of sleeping in a crypt in the Dead Quarter.
Speaker 2: And I tried to do things proper and get a
Speaker 2: room in North Pannumber. Only now there's no money and
Speaker 2: everything is favors and reputation and shit. Mister Hend doesn't
Speaker 2: really like unprestigious guests, so he got into his head
Speaker 2: that she owed him something, so he marches into her
Speaker 2: house and picks up the most valuable thing he sees,
Speaker 2: Like the prick that he is, the elbow guard, he
Speaker 2: takes it to the esteem to see what it's worth.
Speaker 2: Only I think a skip saw that go down. And
Speaker 2: now the whole city knows. They especially know that there's
Speaker 2: an inscription in the damn thing, and half of it
Speaker 2: is written in the language outside, and half of it
Speaker 2: is written in whatever fuck weird language related adult p number,
Speaker 2: and that no one can read that scrawled across the
Speaker 2: hole under city. So it's valuable to lots of people.
Speaker 2: So first, yeah, the ideas that we're going to steal
Speaker 2: the damn thing, get it back to the outsiders where
Speaker 2: it belongs. It's just the right thing to do. And
Speaker 2: sure none of us would mind that. They'd be grateful
Speaker 2: and maybe let us use their gunsmithies sometimes. Then Losa, though,
Speaker 2: see she grew up on the streets mostly because her
Speaker 2: mom was from Panumber North Like she's fourth generation patchworker.
Speaker 2: You see where I'm going with us. You remember when
Speaker 2: your little King's Boys and Girls Club rounded up the patchworkers,
Speaker 2: called them unholy, drove them out of your territory. What
Speaker 2: was that? Ten years ago? When you know Loso was ten. Well,
Speaker 2: guess who were mom's landlord had been? Guess who had
Speaker 2: told you all Los's mom in the first place. Lemon
Speaker 2: fucking henned the fourteenth. Sorry, Reverend Lemon hand the fucking fourteenth.
Speaker 2: He ain't so revered as this title implies, not by
Speaker 2: most of the city. Losa says her bit about what
Speaker 2: happened to her, and what do you know, half the
Speaker 2: party has stories about this guy hired some thugs, not you,
Speaker 2: other thugs to blow up a pie shop run by
Speaker 2: the lords of the New Order that was competing with
Speaker 2: the one he had interest in. Ain't too good to
Speaker 2: the people he hires either. He was one of those
Speaker 2: thugs he'd hired who was at the party, turns out
Speaker 2: Hand and tossed him to the lords as soon as
Speaker 2: it was convenient. His friends rescued him. Funny thing about friends.
Speaker 2: It's nice to have friends anyway. More and more people
Speaker 2: saying this shit. He's a bad landlord, a shitty boss,
Speaker 2: awful of the people he fucks. He's just this is
Speaker 2: not a redeeming bone in that man's body. So pretty
Speaker 2: quick we go from let's rob the guy, so let's
Speaker 2: kill the guy you know how that goes. And a
Speaker 2: couple of dog girls are around with their bikes, and
Speaker 2: one of them even a a sidecar, and they figure,
Speaker 2: what the hell, why not go for a joy ride
Speaker 2: or I guess I'll kill Ride up to p number North,
Speaker 2: find this guy's house, swap out his insides for his outsides,
Speaker 2: grab the stolen elbow guard. Wham bam, thank you, ma'am.
Speaker 2: All the good night's work. Nope, you fox her on
Speaker 2: the prowl. Good thing. The dog girls are smarter than you.
Speaker 1: Lot.
Speaker 2: The voyager patrols like six times. We stop at an
Speaker 2: alley by the canal, hop up onto the second floor balcony.
Speaker 2: The door was wide open. How the hell malice climbs
Speaker 2: up in all that powered armor dragging a goddamn boiler.
Speaker 2: The world will never know, I swear to a I've
Speaker 2: never seen her strength fail her. And here's where it
Speaker 2: gets good, right, here's where you start to care. The
Speaker 2: damn man is already dead, like he's sleeping, and except
Speaker 2: there's blood on the pillow. I know a thing or
Speaker 2: two about a thing or two, And while everyone else
Speaker 2: is just like what the fuck happened here? I can
Speaker 2: tell them that, like Okay, bear with me. You know
Speaker 2: that the world is made up of three worlds, right.
Speaker 2: I know A tries to keep you in the dark
Speaker 2: on basic cosmology. But there's three worlds form a triangle.
Speaker 2: We live on the material. Then there's the ether, which
Speaker 2: is I guess where you could call the angels. That's
Speaker 2: where they live. Then there's the rot with you know, demons. Right,
Speaker 2: we touch both other planes, and each of those other
Speaker 2: planes touches ours and the other one. It's a triangle,
Speaker 2: not your dumb hell or of heaven linear hierarchy you've
Speaker 2: been lied to. So as humans live on the material, right,
Speaker 2: But we're made out of stuff that transfers from one
Speaker 2: to the other. What you call your higher soul than
Speaker 2: your lower soul, which are dumb words for it, by
Speaker 2: the way, I say, it's a gape and thelema, and
Speaker 2: maybe those are dumb words for it too, Who knows.
Speaker 2: When you die, your stuff moves on. A gape goes
Speaker 2: in the circle clockwise, heads over to the ether till
Speaker 2: it heads over the rot, till it heads on back
Speaker 2: to the material. Thelema goes caraclockwise over to the rot,
Speaker 2: then the ether, then back to here. You get the idea,
Speaker 2: what has this got to do with ear spikes? See,
Speaker 2: back before your fucking god kings ascended, people here knew
Speaker 2: a thing or two about the planes, and more people
Speaker 2: than just us weirdos could communicate across those borders. And
Speaker 2: those people whose name is lost to us, probably forever
Speaker 2: in my society, the hermetic order of nothing, we call them
Speaker 2: the forgotten people, which is not super original, but it
Speaker 2: is descriptive. Those people, the forgotten people. They used to
Speaker 2: kill people by jamming spikes into their ear. That's my point.
Speaker 2: It's kind of classy and not much mess. Didn't even
Speaker 2: wake the guy up. You should try it. No, actually,
Speaker 2: well not you. You shouldn't try it. You're a cop.
Speaker 2: You actually shouldn't kill people or exist. I'd say quit
Speaker 2: your job and find new friends, but it's too late
Speaker 2: for that. So there we are, and I'm trying to
Speaker 2: explain a Gape and Thelma to everyone, and they're kind
Speaker 2: of ignoring me, because everyone does when I talk about
Speaker 2: that stuff. And Malice is looking through the guy's bedroom
Speaker 2: and there's like it's like a dumb, goddamn museum and
Speaker 2: they are complete with stolen artifacts, pine glass and plaques.
Speaker 2: There's an old, rusty saber from Kirik and a rovy
Speaker 2: and rare book. And wait, get this, there's a human
Speaker 2: skull labeled as having belonged to a chieftain of Sore.
Speaker 2: Can you believe it? You're just staring at me. You
Speaker 2: don't get it. Soor doesn't have chieftains. It never did.
Speaker 2: The whole country is built on a plateau no one
Speaker 2: was able to reach until the god King Sore lifted
Speaker 2: his people up with his mighty magic or whatever. Come on.
Speaker 2: Their whole religion is based on that. How do you
Speaker 2: not know that Sora is even friends with eighth right now?
Speaker 2: You should know that. And there's a glass case where
Speaker 2: the elbow guard should be, But of course it's empty
Speaker 2: because someone stole it, probably whoever earspiked our good friend.
Speaker 2: Because of course the plaque is just a handwritten piece
Speaker 2: of paper because there hadn't been enough time to find
Speaker 2: an engraver. It says elbow guard probably important. We're all
Speaker 2: having to laugh about the chieftain's skull. Unto a rat
Speaker 2: runs in, looks up at Sanny, and Sanny looks down
Speaker 2: at the rat, and they turn to us and tell
Speaker 2: us that people are on their way a lot of people.
Speaker 2: That's the good thing about having a swarm of rats
Speaker 2: at your command. What kind of people, Losa asked, They
Speaker 2: don't know their fucking rats, Sanny said, only Sanny probably
Speaker 2: doesn't curse when they said it. We should get the
Speaker 2: fuck out here again, probably without the fuck. It's hard
Speaker 2: not to cuss when I'm in your shitty fucking carriage.
Speaker 2: Do you people not know how to fix a roof?
Speaker 2: You keep it shitty just so your guests have it worse.
Speaker 2: But you have it worse too, you asshole. You're just
Speaker 2: making the fucking world worse. God, I can't wait to
Speaker 2: get out of here and kill you. My nose is
Speaker 2: fucking bleeding and I can't see shit, and my hands
Speaker 2: are cramping anyway, so we fuck off right back out
Speaker 2: the window. The doggirls who drove us there, they're gone.
Speaker 2: I guess they saw which way the wind was blowing.
Speaker 2: And those bikers like some of us all right, but
Speaker 2: not enough to fight off the cops and risks getting
Speaker 2: killed or sent to hazard. That's how we figure whoever's coming,
Speaker 2: it's probably you all. Malice wants to stay and shoot
Speaker 2: you all with her bolt thrower, which sounds like a
Speaker 2: reasonable plan to me, but Sanny and Losa don't like it,
Speaker 2: so we break into the empty house next door and
Speaker 2: lay low. Sure enough, it's you and your buds who
Speaker 2: show up. Probably remember this part. You go in search
Speaker 2: the house, find the body.
Speaker 3: Me.
Speaker 2: What I do is I make sure my friends are
Speaker 2: keeping watch, and I pull out the candles and the
Speaker 2: incense and the chalk and the charcoal, and I get
Speaker 2: myself a circle drawn up on the wood floor in
Speaker 2: the empty house, and I tie a silk rope around
Speaker 2: my waist and I project myself into the ether, or
Speaker 2: to be more accurate, some portion of my gape crosses
Speaker 2: over while my body stays put, and I'm walking around
Speaker 2: like a ghost through walls and shit, tethered to my
Speaker 2: body by that rope. I pop over next door and
Speaker 2: guess whose essence is still lingering, not dissolved yet into
Speaker 2: the ether proper, Reverend Lemon Hen the fucking fourteenth, that's
Speaker 2: Who's It's funny because that's how I know you were
Speaker 2: one of the kingsmen who showed up, because I was
Speaker 2: in the room with you while you were investigating good eye,
Speaker 2: catching that feather.
Speaker 1: On the ground.
Speaker 2: By the way, we'd missed that Lambon is standing there,
Speaker 2: looking all angelic and blist out like every other dead prick,
Speaker 2: And he seems surprised that I can see him, asks
Speaker 2: if I'm an angel sent to help usher him into
Speaker 2: heaven for his lifetime of good deeds. So I look
Speaker 2: at him, and I never claimed to be an honest girl. Well,
Speaker 2: I mean, I've claimed it, but it's never been true.
Speaker 2: I look at him and I say, yep, that's me,
Speaker 2: sirraphic as hell. Just need to tie up some loose ends,
Speaker 2: get everything sort of with your paperwork. Tell me in
Speaker 2: your own words, how you died. He tells me his story,
Speaker 2: which wasn't too long. He went to bed same as normal,
Speaker 2: then woke up feeling something weird. Flicked his eyes open,
Speaker 2: saw a man, gaunt and age leaning over him, pale
Speaker 2: skin like the lampreman. Then he caught, just a moment's glance,
Speaker 2: just like the saw some horror the likes of which
Speaker 2: he'd never dreamed. Some kind of taxidermy bird gone wrong,
Speaker 2: six feet tall, feathered, beaked eyes everywhere across his body.
Speaker 2: What was it? He asked, like I had all the
Speaker 2: answers I did this time, though, and I wanted to
Speaker 2: be addict to him and make something up. But I thought,
Speaker 2: you know what, this guy's like, soular whatever. He is
Speaker 2: about to disintegrate into the ether and he's never going
Speaker 2: to experience anything ever again. And it looks like I've
Speaker 2: got a soft spot for folks who are already dead
Speaker 2: or like in your case, basically already dead. So I
Speaker 2: tell him, and this is where I cut to ads.
Speaker 2: But I think we're gonna run our don't talk to
Speaker 2: cops ad because this is a whole story about someone
Speaker 2: who talks to cops. You shouldn't do this. This is bad.
Speaker 2: So here's an ad about not talking to cops. And
Speaker 2: then if any other ads run it was a terrible mistake.
Speaker 1: The Washington State Highway Patrol.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally, just the all sides of this picture. You know,
Speaker 2: we believe in something over here.
Speaker 1: Here's that we believe in something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, not sure what these things we believe in, these
Speaker 2: sponsors and we're back. And this is what you want
Speaker 2: to know too. You and Lemon have got a lot
Speaker 2: in common. Actually, I tell him that he's describing a
Speaker 2: demon sort of. I'm telling him he saw a geddesist
Speaker 2: above him. You think, as a cultists are rare and
Speaker 2: scary those of us who fuck with the ether. Oh,
Speaker 2: you're gonna love the geddesists, so they fuck with the rot.
Speaker 2: I tell Lemonhon that this guy built a mannequin out
Speaker 2: of dead animals and then ripped open a portal in
Speaker 2: the rot and lit a little bit of that weird
Speaker 2: shit that lives over there into the material to animate
Speaker 2: his little death puppet, which means he likely made some
Speaker 2: kind of deal, like you serve me for a week,
Speaker 2: then you're free to go do whatever you want and
Speaker 2: the material, which means the city is actually in for
Speaker 2: some bad luck soon because that fucking thing is still
Speaker 2: out there, and that's your fault. You know that people
Speaker 2: you claim to protect are gonna die anyway. He tells
Speaker 2: me about the Gaddesist, and I tell him, thanks, buddy,
Speaker 2: you'll be whissed off soon enough. Don't worry about the
Speaker 2: slow disintegration of what's left in your mind, all part
Speaker 2: of the process. I don't tell them about the angels
Speaker 2: that are going to be eating his soul, same as
Speaker 2: Maggote to corpse. I just pop back over to my body.
Speaker 2: Low Sun, Malice are playing dice. Sannie is talking to
Speaker 2: their rats. I guess you could say, talking to themselves.
Speaker 2: I tell them what's up, and Sannie's like, oh weird,
Speaker 2: dead bird creature rats can track that. Off we go,
Speaker 2: and you know where we went because you tracked us.
Speaker 2: Ave only knows how you bastards are good at tracking people.
Speaker 2: I'll give you that. All the way through p Number South,
Speaker 2: around Triumph Plaza down to the South Docks, the rain
Speaker 2: picked up and didn't help our mood, and it took
Speaker 2: us half the night to get where we were going,
Speaker 2: to a little run down shack up against a peer
Speaker 2: with someone muttering insighed. So we're all set to kick
Speaker 2: in the door. I've got a bomb out and everything,
Speaker 2: cigarette lit and the holder in my mouth. When Malice says, you, guys,
Speaker 2: I don't think this is how we should approach this situation.
Speaker 2: And if Malice doesn't think direct physical confrontation is the
Speaker 2: best solution, then it means a really not the right solution,
Speaker 2: because she solves almost everything with silence. Soon we scoot
Speaker 2: on over in the dark under the pier and back
Speaker 2: out comes the candles and the chalk and the rope,
Speaker 2: and I'm off to the ether for a second time
Speaker 2: that night. You know how tiring. That is whatever, hop
Speaker 2: on into the shack. There's this guy, there's the demon.
Speaker 2: They're talking. Demons talk weird. Imagine like eight people talking
Speaker 2: at once, saying almost the same thing but not quite.
Speaker 2: But the core of it is pretty banal. The getes
Speaker 2: sist's a spy for her, is going to sell them
Speaker 2: the elbow guard. That's it. Then the demon says there's
Speaker 2: someone outside, and the two rush out the door, and
Speaker 2: I turn around to rush back in my body, but
Speaker 2: I don't even make it through the wall before I
Speaker 2: black out. And guess where I wake up? Here with you?
Speaker 2: Alecti was silent for a while after telling her story,
Speaker 2: waiting for the lawman to say something or react in
Speaker 2: any way. He didn't. A fear came over her for
Speaker 2: the first time. She was certain that whatever else, her
Speaker 2: friends were out there in the city looking for her,
Speaker 2: tracking the carriage. They would call in some favors, and
Speaker 2: any minute now a crew on dog's wheels were going
Speaker 2: to roll up, engines roaring, and Malice was going to
Speaker 2: use that big gun of hers to set her free.
Speaker 2: She just thought it would have happened by now. She
Speaker 2: hadn't figured she'd reach the end of this story. The
Speaker 2: cop must have been able to see her confidence drain away,
Speaker 2: because a smile slowly worked its way across his face.
Speaker 2: She couldn't give up, not on her friends. Yeah, they'd
Speaker 2: let her get captured in the first place, but they
Speaker 2: must have been busy dealing with the spy and his demon.
Speaker 2: Any minute now, she sighed, leaned her head against the
Speaker 2: window as rain dropped down on her cheek. Next time,
Speaker 2: she was going to go to the party alone, and
Speaker 2: the only call to adventure she was going to answer
Speaker 2: was the adventure of getting laid or maybe, And she
Speaker 2: knew she was getting real desperate and sad when her
Speaker 2: mind went into this the darkest of corners. Maybe she
Speaker 2: should ask Losa back out. Yeah, they hadn't been good
Speaker 2: for each other, but whoever was given up? Then the
Speaker 2: lawman finally asked. She sat upright and glared. The carriage
Speaker 2: slowed to a halt. Looks like we're here, he said.
Speaker 2: Then blessedly, a foot long steel bolt shot through the
Speaker 2: sidewall of the carriage and impaled the man through the chest,
Speaker 2: pinning him to the firewall. Blood came to his mouth,
Speaker 2: dripping into his gray beard, and he looked down with
Speaker 2: surprise and horror. A scream broke through sudden and shocking silence.
Speaker 2: ELECTI had heard that scream before. That was the scream
Speaker 2: of a man covered in rats. Then the scream stopped,
Speaker 2: replaced with a gurgling. That was the noise of a
Speaker 2: throat cut with a scalpel. The driver, you do love me,
Speaker 2: ELECTI said, as the door to the carriage was wrenched
Speaker 2: off its hinges. What, Malice asked, tossing the steel door aside.
Speaker 2: Los and Sanny peered in from behind her. I said,
Speaker 2: what took you so long? ELECTI lied, Oh, Malice said,
Speaker 2: looking genuinely Contrite. The demon and the spy slowed us down.
Speaker 2: They got away too with the elbow guard. Losa stepped
Speaker 2: into the carriage, pulled out a scalpel and picked the
Speaker 2: handcuffs open. Thank you, ELECTI whispered into Losa's ear, where
Speaker 2: the others couldn't hear it. Fuck I was so scared,
Speaker 2: me too, Losa whispered. All I could think was that
Speaker 2: what if I never saw you again? I'm sorry we
Speaker 2: let them get you. They met eyes for half a moment,
Speaker 2: then drifted away. All right, you dumb bitches, ELECTI said,
Speaker 2: standing up glancing over quickly at the still dying cop
Speaker 2: on the bench across from her. Let's go steal back
Speaker 2: in artifact. That's the end of the story.
Speaker 1: That was fun.
Speaker 2: Thanks. I picked you because I think you're the only
Speaker 2: person I know who will know if I pronounced a
Speaker 2: gape orthelima right or wrong.
Speaker 1: You did not pronounce thelima right, But that's okay.
Speaker 2: Thelima is that the lima?
Speaker 1: Okay, sorry, okay, But all the characters do sound like
Speaker 1: people I have noted my life. Yeah, ah, I see,
Speaker 1: I see what Margaret's pulling from here.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: No, even just the way they talk it like, oh yeah.
Speaker 3: You're you're obviously cofeeing someone's very specific speech patterns. Yeah, totally, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1: Oh that was fun. The wordflow was very nice to
Speaker 1: listen to.
Speaker 2: Thanks. Yeah, it was fun to do the like I
Speaker 2: tried writing. It's actually very hard to write D and
Speaker 2: D style campaign things like adventures, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: and you know it'll never it's always sort of a compromises.
Speaker 2: It's just a different way of storytelling, and so I
Speaker 2: really like doing it at first person so that I
Speaker 2: could be like a little bit more free form. Also,
Speaker 2: Sophie has been asking me to do a love story
Speaker 2: with this with this show for a while, and I've
Speaker 2: been struggling to find a good love story, and so
Speaker 2: that's part of why I chose this one. Okay, okay, Sophie,
Speaker 2: this is the this is the love story that you
Speaker 2: asked for.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it was.
Speaker 3: It was.
Speaker 1: It was quite fun. I no it. It really did
Speaker 1: sound like someone's like someone like a very specific person's
Speaker 1: like a conversational flow. Yeah, either either with them just
Speaker 1: like talking to themselves or just like going on like
Speaker 1: a mini rant. They just like keep talking.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally.
Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, that's that's kind of how someone sounds.
Speaker 1: But they just like keep just like keep going.
Speaker 2: Well, and in this case, it's like she thinks that
Speaker 2: she's going to get interrupted any second, and then she's like, yeah, yeah, fuck,
Speaker 2: why am I still going? Like yeah, and probably like
Speaker 2: slowly becoming aware that talking to the cop might not
Speaker 2: have been the right move.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, this was this was perhaps a mistake. Yeah, ah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that was that was quite fun. The uh, the rat
Speaker 1: person kind of terrifies me, but that's fine.
Speaker 2: Well, if you want to hear Jamie Loftis play a
Speaker 2: rat King character Jamie loftis is on If you search
Speaker 2: for number City on YouTube, you'll find an example play
Speaker 2: of an adventure where one of the other co writers
Speaker 2: of the game inman runs a game for us. And
Speaker 2: I actually don't even remember what my character is, but
Speaker 2: I remember that Jamie's character is a rat king.
Speaker 1: I do remember a while ago Jamie getting really into
Speaker 1: the rat king. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that's a that's a
Speaker 1: that's a solid Jamie character.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Malice is interesting to me as well.
Speaker 2: I malice is I've used that name for characters before.
Speaker 2: I played an Orc labor thug and a Dungeons and
Speaker 2: Dragons campaign where I like ran around with a mall
Speaker 2: and tried to convince people to join industrial unionism, much
Speaker 2: to the rest of no one else who was playing
Speaker 2: that campaign with me was trying to make it about
Speaker 2: a destroy union. What the fuck are you doing? We're
Speaker 2: trying to play a game. Yeah, I'm like, why are
Speaker 2: you like this? Yeah, it's more fun this way, but
Speaker 2: uh yeah.
Speaker 1: All of all of the dog girl names were way
Speaker 1: way more pretty than most of the dog girls I
Speaker 1: have met, And it's like, what was it was like
Speaker 1: it was like like Petunia or something. What was carburetor
Speaker 1: is the least carburetor makes sense? Yeah, tracks wrench is okay?
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The third one specifically was was much much Patunia, much
Speaker 1: too pretty for yeah, for a dog girl. In my experience,
Speaker 1: that's fine. As a dog girl appreciator, that is that,
Speaker 1: it's fine.
Speaker 2: Okay, So, so dog girls are different than you're probably
Speaker 2: perceiving dog girls. It's not a fir.
Speaker 1: No no no by your version of dog girls is
Speaker 1: pretty spot on. Actually, okay, okay, in this case, they're
Speaker 1: squad or bikers. Yeah yeah, no, yep, yeah yeah, all right,
Speaker 1: you got it, you got it, all right, all right.
Speaker 1: Most of the anarchist dog girls I have I have met.
Speaker 2: Yes, fair enough. I don't even remember where that name
Speaker 2: comes from, like, because there was some of these characters
Speaker 2: have existed as concepts for like ten years before I
Speaker 2: started writing it as a role playing game, you know,
Speaker 2: and I was like writing these like different gangs in
Speaker 2: this city, and it was just going to be this
Speaker 2: novel I was like plotting out. And so it's funny
Speaker 2: because some of the styles of characters I remember where
Speaker 2: they came from. Not all of them were by me.
Speaker 2: The world soon became a much more open thing with
Speaker 2: other designers, but dog Girl was one of the original characters,
Speaker 2: and I just like, don't I have no fucking clue
Speaker 2: where I came up with that name.
Speaker 1: I've never heard of Diesel Pug before, but I like
Speaker 1: the idea.
Speaker 2: Well, so I started writing this. My deepest, darkest secret
Speaker 2: is that I used to run a magazine called Steampunk Magazine.
Speaker 2: Oh oh, And when I first started writing this, it
Speaker 2: was kind of my like fuck you to steampunk. It
Speaker 2: was my like, this could have been a beautiful, weird
Speaker 2: anti colonial thing, like with fiction set during a really
Speaker 2: interesting time period where capitalism and the distrialization were really
Speaker 2: doing their thing, you know, to.
Speaker 1: The people with top hats and mice inside pulling gears levers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. It was like, instead, one of the most obnoxious.
Speaker 2: There's many, many wonderful people that I met through that subculture,
Speaker 2: but like it, it didn't go in ways that I
Speaker 2: found interesting, and so I actually started writing it as
Speaker 2: this kind of like steampunk world. And then this publisher
Speaker 2: reached out to me and was like, hey, do you
Speaker 2: want to write a role playing game world that I've
Speaker 2: been writing the mechanics for, And I was like, yeah, totally.
Speaker 2: And so he hired me to write this world. And
Speaker 2: he was like, I want to write a steampunk world.
Speaker 2: And I was like, can it be a fuck you
Speaker 2: to steampunk world? Can it be a this is what
Speaker 2: it should have been world? And he was like, yeah, okay, fine,
Speaker 2: And so this was my like fuck you, I quit.
Speaker 2: This is what it should have been that I started
Speaker 2: in like twenty twelve or something like that. Okay, And
Speaker 2: then and then that publisher just literally disappeared, just like
Speaker 2: they had a successful kickstarter for some other game and
Speaker 2: then never finished that game and then.
Speaker 1: Disappeared many such cases.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so then I was just left with this
Speaker 2: orphan world without a role playing game system. And then
Speaker 2: eventually I brought on some other people or some of
Speaker 2: my friends offered to help me basically, and started making
Speaker 2: it this new thing. And then I was like, I
Speaker 2: have no allegiance to setting this in the equivalent of
Speaker 2: the early nineteenth century, And so now it has more
Speaker 2: of like the diesel punk vibe, is more of like
Speaker 2: World War One vibe in a lot of ways.
Speaker 1: I think some of it also feels like a world
Speaker 1: that we could slide into. Yeah, Like it's not even
Speaker 1: just a past thing. It's like, what if our world
Speaker 1: goes through a sort of collapse, but people still use diesel,
Speaker 1: but now diesel's like the OA, like most other technology
Speaker 1: has now become not like functioning, Yeah, but the diesel
Speaker 1: has remained like that is kind of also what it
Speaker 1: reminded me as it's like it's like we're like sliding
Speaker 1: back in time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, although but in this particular world, they actually still
Speaker 2: use steam boilers and not diesel engines, but the vibe
Speaker 2: is more diesel punk. Okay, okay, there's like radio and electricity,
Speaker 2: but they haven't figured out the diesel engine. Interesting because
Speaker 2: most places actually use magic more than technology anyway, because
Speaker 2: you can enslave angels in this world, you.
Speaker 1: Know, many many such cases.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they'll send you on a little treasure hunt. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a that's a that's a little John d joke. Well,
Speaker 1: I did like the ether. That was that was fun.
Speaker 1: That was fun. The demon I felt was probably appropriately grotesque.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's some I can't remember the name of the
Speaker 2: word for that particular demon, a stole us. I think
Speaker 2: that the people who wrote up the demons had a
Speaker 2: lot of fun with them. I bet, I bet well
Speaker 2: that does it for book club this week. If you
Speaker 2: liked the number City, you can get it. There's a
Speaker 2: print book and an ebook, and we finally started mailing
Speaker 2: it out to the backers. It's back from the printer
Speaker 2: and it's off in the mail towards people. If you
Speaker 2: backed it last summer, thank you very much, and your
Speaker 2: book will be in the mail shortly if it is
Speaker 2: not already, and you can order it through Tangled Wilderness.
Speaker 2: Strangers in Entangled Wilderness is a publishing collective that I'm
Speaker 2: part of, and eventually it'll be available through other distributors
Speaker 2: and stuff. But we are We're used to printing and
Speaker 2: distributing books. But every every creative feel has entirely different
Speaker 2: distribution systems. And like, if you want to make a
Speaker 2: board game, you're dealing with an entirely different world than
Speaker 2: if you make a tabletop role playing game. Then if
Speaker 2: you make a legally distinct from chooser and adventure book,
Speaker 2: then if you, huh, it's very annoying.
Speaker 1: Yeah that sounds that sounds complicated.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But and if you but once.
Speaker 1: There's a novella on the way, there is.
Speaker 2: I have no idea what's going to be about you.
Speaker 2: I have some idea of what it's going to be
Speaker 2: about yet but not totally. Might might be these characters,
Speaker 2: might be other ones. I might write something that's just
Speaker 2: like weird, sad nineteenth century nihilist literature, but said in
Speaker 2: this world without like much in the way.
Speaker 1: Of an adventure at all. I mean, nineteenth century nihilist
Speaker 1: literature is very different than modern nihlist literature. Yes, okay,
Speaker 1: So like you mean actually nineteenth century nihlist literacy. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: like like Russian, like like Russian nihlist literature.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, like basically social democrats, social democrats, yeah, yes,
Speaker 2: a fascinating politics. Yeah. The eighteen sixties when people, when
Speaker 2: boys with log hair, wanted to overthrow society much like
Speaker 2: the nineteen sixties.
Speaker 1: Well, I certainly look forward to that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Oh shit, now I might be stuck with that. Well,
Speaker 2: if you want to hear more of Gear, you can
Speaker 2: hear Gear on It could happen here, which might be
Speaker 2: where you're listening to this anyway. And if you want
Speaker 2: to hear more of me, you can hear me on whatever.
Speaker 2: My cool Zone media show is called Cool People.
Speaker 1: With People Stuff Who did Cool Stuff?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, in which I talk about the nihilist from
Speaker 2: the eighteen sixties and one of the first episodes. You
Speaker 2: can go back in this spice and we'll see you
Speaker 2: all next week. And in the meantime, I don't have
Speaker 2: a catchphrase to sign off with.
Speaker 1: Bye, don't talk to cops, Watch out for the Ether.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it could Happen here as a production of cool
Speaker 2: Zone Media.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
Speaker 1: cool Zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 1: You can find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated
Speaker 1: monthly at coolzonmedia dot com slash sources.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening.