Realis 11: Conference on Clouded Dokine 03
Transcriber: logan
Opening Recap        1
Mingling With the Cultists [0:02:43]        3
Heading to the Theatre [00:16:46]        14
Doctor Phenomenon’s Presentation [00:22:30]        18
Meeting Doctor Phenomenon [0:43:15]        31
Discussing the Days [0:55:58]        40
Following Up With the Doctor [1:07:22]        50
Primed Sentence Discussion [1:13:24]        54
Hye Offers a Reading [1:19:27]        58
Opening Recap
Austin (as Candide): Who sent me that? Who — what is this? Why would they —
Art (as Donnie): That’s a great question.
Keith (as Wellaway): Do you have any enemies?
Austin (as Candide): I’m. A child.
[“Realis” by Jack de Quidt begins playing]
Keith (as Wellaway): I don’t know. You got a mysterious box that cursed us all.
-
Austin: It makes you think of a group called the Fatalists. They’re a cult that fundamentally believes that Realis is sort of stuck in a purgatory, a purgatorial state, so they want to destroy everything because they think that’s the only way you get to make something that isn’t Realis. That isn’t the same.
-
Keith (as Wellaway): Crowd work on day one, huh?
Austin (as Cartier Buff): Yeah, crowd work on day one. It’s a crowd work on day one type o’ world.
Keith (as Wellaway): I guess it is these days.
Austin (as Cartier Buff): Y’know, you come to Dokine. Dokine, they’re advanced out here. If I was on Ulled, maybe I wouldn’t do crowd work day one. Anyway, and then I’m gonna get the fuck outta here, [chuckling] ‘cause there’s a bunch of weird motherfuckers around, I don’t know if you noticed!
Keith (as Wellaway): Uh, yeah. Like weird for Dokine, or weird…?
Austin (as Cartier Buff): Yeah, weird for Dokine.
Keith (as Wellaway): That’s weird.
Austin (as Cartier Buff): Big eyed motherfuckers.
Keith (as Wellaway): Big eyed.
Austin (as Cartier Buff): You didn’t notice?
Keith (as Wellaway): Long, yolky eyes.
Austin (as Cartier Buff): In a sense! Lookin’ around like something’s supposed to happen.
Keith (as Wellaway): Something is supposed to happen.
Austin (as Cartier Buff): Okay, but you know. Comedy is the art of nothin’ ever really happening.
-
Austin (as Castagon): Have you seen this clown? This clown is a criminal. [chuckles] This clown is a criminal, can you lead me to this clown?
And is looking for guidance to find you.
-
Keith (as Wellaway): Is that them? Is that that cult?
Austin (as Candide): I don’t know. You wanna ask ‘em?
Keith (as Wellaway): No. Hye?
Austin (as Candide): You do it. Yeah, someone do it.
Ali (as Hye): You want me to ask?
Keith (as Wellaway): No, I want you to tell me if you know if that’s the cult.
Ali (as Hye): Which cult?
Austin (as Candide): Or ask.
Keith (as Wellaway): The cult that you told me about.
Austin (as Candide): The Fatalists.
Ali (as Hye): Oh, I don’t think so?
Austin (as Candide): You think they’re just weirdos?
[music ends]
Mingling With the Cultists [0:02:43]
Austin: You’re just gonna grab one of these people, like, to talk to them?
Ali: Let’s mingle! Aren’t we gonna mingle? We can mingle. This is a mingling — this is  a brunch, right?
Austin: It is, yeah, ([cross] Keith: I can’t mingle.) I think this is exactly the — the mingling hour is upon us. 
Ali: Okay.
Austin: You know? Why can’t you mingle? Oh, because Castagon will find you.
Keith: Right, I have a suitor. 
Austin: Oh!
Keith: I have a pursuitor. [cross] No, it’s a pur-suitor.
Austin: Oh, congratulations! Wellaway has a pursuitor. Tell us about your pursuitor.
Keith: It’s the minister from Ulled.
Austin: The magistrate.
Keith: The magistrate. Is there a difference?
Austin: I think of a magistrate as a cop, I think of a minister as a, either a functionary of the state, or a priest.
Keith: I think of a magistrate as a kind of minister.
Austin: No.
Keith: No?
Art: No, I think that’s wrong.
Austin: I don’t think that’s right. A magistrate is like a medieval cop. 
Keith: I thought they were like a medieval judge.
Austin: Sure.
Art: Sure.
Keith: Sure. [Ali giggles]
Austin: Yeah, I think a minister could be a type of judge, also. If it’s a state minister, not a priestly minister. [cross] You could draw the line, yeah yeah yeah…
Keith: [cross] Right, that’s what I was… there’s a center, Venn diagram.
Austin: Anyway, you’re busy being quick in wit and bone. So you can’t do the mingling.
Keith: Yeah. Right.
Austin: Yeah. But I think, yeah, there’s a —
Keith: I mean, I guess I could just constantly be on the defense. [cross] And never lose.
Austin: You could be. I mean, you’ve already countered the Sentence. What will eventually happen is, some other Sentence might become relevant, you know? You have to be a little cautious.
Keith: Right.
Austin: You only know one of the Sentences from…
Keith: Yeah, he might have a one Sentence in there. [cross] And I’m sure that he does.
Austin: He might have a, yeah, one that’s perfectly set up for a situation like this, you just don’t know. So.
Keith: What kind of evil mastermind would give an enemy the exact sort of Sentence to deal with me?
Austin: [evil laugh] It’s true. So does this mean Hye is the one who’s going to mingle with the potential cultists?
Ali: I’ll mingle.
Austin: Yeah? What’s that look like? Tell me about mingling. [Ali chuckles] For some reason I’m picturing this place so much like, a fancy hotel meets a movie theater. Which is not, I guess that’s what convention centers is kind of like, actually.
Keith: Yeah. ‘Cause they’re full of theaters.
Austin: They are full of theaters. You’re not wrong. What were you gonna say, Hye?
Ali: I mean, is this like a, is this post-show or is this like an intermission situation?
Austin: I think this is an intermission, but things get kind of fuzzy from here, right? Because the big expo hall where you can go do your tight five minutes to agent after agent or producer after producer is now open. And so some people are here to do that, to go do the comedy check-in. But there’s —
Keith: Right. I can’t wait to see Andy Kindler do the State of the Industry Address.
Austin: But there’s also the ongoing —
Art: Jesus fucking christ. [Keith laughs]
Austin: There’s also an ongoing mainstage event that is sometimes comedy but is often that sort of thing. State of the Industry style bullshit, you know?
Ali: What do the cultists do?
Austin: Pepsi. A lot of getting…
Keith: RC.
Austin: RC cola, yeah. 
Art: Oh, I thought this was like an ancient comedy reference. To the early season SNL skits with the, no Coke, Pepsi! Cheeseburger, cheeseburger, cheeseburger. It’s funnier when John Belushi is doing this.
Austin: [cross] This is not playing!
Keith: I don’t know that one.
Austin: No, me either. I believe you. I’ll watch these later.
Ali: [cross] A lot of homework tonight.
Austin: The… yeah, we got a lot of homework, it’s true. So you know, I think they’re getting concessions. They’re wandering, one of them I think is just standing in front of a schedule and looking at it.
Ali: Okay, so this isn’t like a, I’m following into the thing, whatever.
Austin: [cross] Yeah, you set me up a situation.
Ali: I can walk up with a drink in hand and say, 
(as Hye): Well, what’d you think of the opening show? Is that what that was — the keynote?
Austin (as Festival Cultist): I liked it when he spoke to us.
Ali (as Hye): Mm. Like, directly, you mean?
Austin (as Festival Cultist): Right. Like when the lady said, ‘that’s why you got a fat ass,’ and he said back, ‘you know that! And so does my missus!’
Ali (as Hye): Right.
Austin (as Festival Cultist): And we all laugh.
Ali (as Hye): Right. Right. And when he pointed out that guy and he said, ‘I know this guy knows what I’m talking about.’ That was exciting.
Austin (as Festival Cultist): I didn’t notice that one.
Ali (as Hye): Oh. Well…
Austin (as Festival Cultist): But that sounds hilarious. [Ali giggles] I must have been distracted. 
Ali (as Hye): So —
Austin (as Festival Cultist): Are you from the butterfly?
Ali (as Hye): Am I from the what?
Austin (as Festival Cultist): The butterfly. The city. The big bug we’re on.
Ali (as Hye): Oh, no no no. I’m with a traveling circus. The Krinsky family.
Austin: Eyes go big, you know?
(as Festival Cultist): The Krinsky family. Those Nerveless Chancers? And Traveling Curiosity? 
Ali (as Hye): Oh yes.
Art: Finally someone…
Keith: Our reputation precedes us.
Ali (as Hye): Curiosity here.
Austin (as Festival Cultist): You’re the curiosity?
Ali (as Hye): I’m one of.
Austin (as Festival Cultist): Which curiosity?
Ali (as Hye): Hi, my name is Hye. I, um —
Ali: [laughing] God, I never said that before and didn’t realize how that sounded! [Keith and Art laugh]
Keith: I’ve been waiting for that for eight sessions.
Austin (as Festival Cultist): [cross] Hye. Hi.
Art: Hi, my name is Hye. [Ali laughs]
Ali (as Hye): I’m a fortune teller with the Krinskys.
Austin (as Festival Cultist): Oh… you do the sin. [Ali wheezes] That’s so wonderful.
Ali (as Hye): I beg your pardon?
Austin (as Festival Cultist): The future telling.
Ali (as Hye): Well yes, that’s part of it.
Austin (as Festival Cultist): Oh… I won’t hold it against you.
Ali (as Hye): Why… would you?
Austin (as Festival Cultist): Oh, it’s forbidden. When you see a future… you guarantee it?
And like, shrug, like, obviously. [Ali laughs]
Art: Finally, someone speakin’ sense over here.
Keith: Yeah, that happened to me.
Ali (as Hye): I suppose that’s a way of looking at it.
Austin (as Festival Cultist): Have you considered a different curiosity?
Ali (as Hye): Mm… no.
Austin (as Festival Cultist): Hm. Fire eating, or camouflage. Or, um… What’s my favorite curiosity? Cookery.
Ali (as Hye): No, I could —
Keith: Boy, I have a show for them tomorrow night. [Ali and Austin laugh]
Ali (as Hye): No, I could introduce you to a, um, a stick guy.
Austin (as Festival Cultist): A stick guy?
Art: Oh, you got a stick guy?
Austin (as Festival Cultist): What’s he do with the stick?
Ali (as Hye): Put food on it. And grill it.
Austin (as Festival Cultist): Oh… a curiosity. [Ali laughs] Please introduce me to your stick guy.
Ali (as Hye): Oh, I’d love to!
Do I have like, can I have like, a business card, basically? [laughs]
Austin: Yeah, sure. You’ve had sort of business-cardy things — oh, like for the circus. Yeah, sure.
Ali: Oh, it would be funny if it said, I was giving him like ‘one free stick’ coupons, actually. [laughs] Turn this in for one, a voucher of your choice.
Austin: For one free stick? One… yeah, uh huh.
Art: [chuckling] One free stick.
Austin: One free stick with purchase of second stick. 
Ali: Yes, yes, yeah.
Austin: BOGO sticks. Yeah yeah yeah.
Ali: Uh uh, BOGO sticks.
Art: BOGO sticks.
Austin: BOGO sticks. You’ve heard of pogo sticks, now it’s time for BOGO sticks.
Art: [cross] Have I ever.
Austin: Yeah.
Ali (as Hye): Well, if you get a chance to check out the festivities, besides these festivities of course.
Austin (as Festival Cultist): I’ll have to do it soon.
Ali (as Hye): Are you comedians or just fans?
Austin (as Festival Cultist): I’ve never thought of us as comedians. But we do like to laugh!
Ali (as Hye): Yeah. I mean, I agree. I’m with you. Brother.
Austin (as Festival Cultist): Are you also a comedian — I’m not your brother. [Ali laughs] I’m sorry you were confused. Perhaps elsewhere, but not here.
Art: Wow. They don’t have wrestling where this person’s from.
Keith: But they do have Dallas.
Austin: They do have Dallas, yeah. Weird.
(as Festival Cultist): Would you be interested in a coupon?
Ali (as Hye): Oh, like a trade!
Austin (as Festival Cultist): Like a trade.
Ali (as Hye): What do you have to offer?
Austin (as Festival Cultist): We do lectures.
Ali (as Hye): I see.
Austin (as Festival Cultist): But it’s fun. It’s fun lecture.
Ali (as Hye): Yeah. Well, yes, yeah, I could see that.
Austin (as Festival Cultist): And also, there’s orange juice.
Ali (as Hye): Well there’s joy in learning.
Austin (as Festival Cultist): Orange juice. 
[Keith loses it]
Ali (as Hye): [cross] Right, I meant the lecture. [laughs]
Art: Wow, that really hit with Keith.
Keith: [still laughing] That’s so funny!
Austin: I do think Keith could see the expression change on my face, I really appreciate it. It makes me feel like I delivered the line well.
Keith: Uh huh!
Austin: And hands you a cut-out coupon from the program for this place, for this festival, that says ‘day one and day two only, at 9PM.’ And it’s this deeply scientific phraseology here, right? It’s like, an introduction to the truth of the many worlds thesis and, something about a gravitational pressure on Realis and the shapeology of reality itself. And it’s like, by Doctor Phenomenon. And it’s across town, it’s not near here. It’s in like a shitty, like, this whole place is filled with black box theatres, but it’s in a black box theatre that is like, terrible walking neighborhood. Y’know, the nearest interesting bar or restaurant is like fifteen minutes away, you know?
Keith: They really do know about Dallas.
Austin: Yeah, truly. And so yeah, there is some sort of recruitment to whatever cult they’re a part of. And you get the sense that they are not particularly good at it. Or, you get the sense that, y’know, again, maybe in another world this would work. But this is not, the vibe is not right for this place. You don’t expect many people to show up to the pitch that was just given to you for this lecture about the many worlds thesis and the gravitational pull of Realis itself. Across town, on the first night of the comedy festival. And it’s a two night event only, there’s only two nights of this lecture, so if you’re really gonna go you gotta make a decision, you know?
Ali: I do feel like this is relevant to my interests.
Austin: This is true, yeah. I mean, I think it’s relevant to your Dream, it’s relevant to a lot of things. You’re not wrong.
Ali: I do believe Realis is connected. And will be again.
Austin: You do. It’s true. So, maybe you should head out and see what Doctor Phenomenon has in store.
Ali: [cross] I will, I just might.
Austin: Yeah. Donnie, how’s — sorry, go ahead, what were you saying?
Ali: I was gonna ask if Wellaway would be offended if I left. [chuckles]
Keith: I wanna go, I can’t do anything here, I’ll get caught.
Austin: True.
Keith: I’m not performing.
Austin: Yeah, you can go, we can all go. I was gonna ask how Donnie, how your experience of the festival was as a ghost.
Art: It’s probably great except when people accidentally walk through, right?
Austin: Yeah, that’s exactly what I was thinking.
Keith: It’s great that we got an invite to this event, because I don’t think we got a name, or where they’re from, or what they’re doing here.
Art: Well…
Ali: I tried, I was asking if they’re here for comedy, I was asking if they were comedians.
Austin: That’s true. Mhm.
Ali: I introduced myself.
Austin: You did.
Keith: That’s true.
Austin: Yeah. They did not respond in kind.
Keith: No. I think they did respond kindly.
Austin: Aw.
Ali: I’ll mingle.
Heading to the Theatre [00:16:46]
Austin: So true. So do they three of you head off across town to the cult initiation?
Art: Yeah.
Keith: Yeah totally. Doctor Phenomenon, that guy sounds serious.
Austin: Sure does. What do you think the mass travel is like, you think there’s like a bus system on this place?
Keith: I think that there’s mail tubes, like pneumatic tubes like at the bank?
Austin: Huh, sure, sure sure sure. You just ride one of those?
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: Huh. Well, the tube spits you out onto a city block, this quadrant of the butterfly wing. As a reminder, it’s always going up and down. And I think it’s late, it’s nighttime now, but there’s still a sort of aura, the clouds below maintain a sort of phosphorescent gold. So it’s not ever truly dark dark, but they’re not so bright that it’s like daytime out, you know? This theatre is on a block that has a bodega on it, or y’know a corner store and like a liquor store. And then some residential buildings and then, you get the vibe that this theatre used to be a funeral home. There’s that sort of signage out front. But instead of being, like, O’Leary’s Funeral Home, it says like, O’Leary’s Black Box Theatre. The whole thing has a weird pall around it, you see maybe six other people who’ve shown up.
Keith: I hate Weird Paul.
Austin: Damn. John Lennon. 1964. [Keith and Art laugh] Yeah, and if you have the coupon, you’re allowed in. Here, instead of, this group of people first and foremost, are not wearing Mikey’s and weird sweatshirts. You get the vibe that the people here feel more comfortable on Dokine. When they take the coupon, they’re reacting in smooth and easy ways, They’re like, oh, thank you for joining us today. I think straight up asks you, 
(as Theatre Cultist): Where did you learn about our event tonight? Did you see it in the program for the festival?
Keith (as Wellaway): We met someone who gave us a coupon.
Austin (as Theatre Cultist): Wonderful! The coupons ran in the program, and then also obviously we had some people at the show. So, great to hear that. Please head in, we don’t have any food tonight but there are drinks available, reasonable price. If you’d go ahead and take your seats, that would be wonderful.
Austin: Donnie, are you —
Keith (as Wellaway): [whispering] Seems normal. This guy just seems normal.
Austin: Yeah.
Keith: [whispering] No, you couldn’t hear that.
Austin: Oh, I couldn’t hear that? 
Keith: [whispering] No, I’m whispering to them.
Austin: Okay, sorry.
Ali (as Hye): [quietly] Well yeah, they seemed interesting.
Keith (as Wellaway): [whispering] This isn’t how those other guys seemed.
Ali (as Hye): Well, it’s circus rules, right? You come out with your… [wheeze]
Keith (as Wellaway): You think those guys are following circus rules?
Art (as Donnie): [cross] What’s the circus rule?
Keith (as Wellaway): You come out with your, uh, you know…
Ali (as Hye): Yeah, your most, your most, uh… [cross] Noticeable, yeah.
Keith (as Wellaway): Weird guy first.
Art (as Donnie): You send out the weird guy to bring people in? That’s not how we do it.
Ali (as Hye): [cross] Yeah, you get attention!
Keith (as Wellaway): It’s not — wait, what about Weird Paul? Isn’t that why he goes out there? And hands out those flyers?
Art (as Donnie): Weird Paul’s very talented. [Keith laughs]
Keith (as Wellaway): He’s not called Talented Paul!
Art (as Donnie): Well, we’re all talented!
Ali (as Hye): Now we’re talking at full volume. [laughs]
Austin (as Theatre Cultist): I’m sorry, if you’d like to have this conversation in private, we do have a lobby you can go into. I’m not trying to overhear you, it’s just, you are being very loud.
Art (as Donnie): Well, you gotta meet our friend Paul.
Keith (as Wellaway): Yeah. Then you’d get it.
Austin (as Theatre Cultist): Seems really great. Or weird. I’m not sure exactly. 
Keith (as Wellaway): Talented.
Austin (as Theatre Cultist): Talented Paul. Got it. I’ll write it down.
Keith (as Wellaway): We should call him Talented Paul.
Art (as Donnie): [cross] That’s not how things work here.
Austin (as Theatre Cultist): [cross] If you have a talented friend, I would love to — you should bring Paul next time. We’re always on the lookout for talented people.
Art (as Donnie): I’m gonna be honest with you, I don’t really know where Paul is right now.
Keith (as Wellaway): Yeah. It’s been a little bit.
Austin (as Theatre Cultist): Okay. Well, enjoy the show.
Art (as Donnie): I hate that this guy looks normal and we look weird now.
Keith (as Wellaway): Yeah, how’d he turn that around on us?
Austin: Alright, you head inside. Get some drinks. Donnie, are you… I mean, that guy seemed to see you. You’re here as a visible ghost, or are you here as a…?
Art: Yeah, I’m here as a visible ghost.
Austin: I’m thinking people are just kinda, on Dokine —
Keith: Well you were in disguise the other day, right?
Austin: [cross] You’re right, you have human disguise now.
Art: Oh right, my horrible disguise!
Austin: [cross] Yeah, uh huh.
Keith: Yeah!
Art: Okay yeah, I’m in the horrible disguise. 
Austin: You’re in the horrible human disguise, that makes sense. Great. This is how you’re not terrifying people constantly, great.
Art: It’s none of their business.
Keith: [chuckling] So this guy’s looking at the horrible human disguise, and being like, there’s a friend and that’s the weird friend?
Doctor Phenomenon’s Presentation [00:22:30]
Austin: Yeah, that’s right. [Keith laughs] Exactly. Alright, you head inside, you take your seats. And there’s the sort of quiet music playing in between shows, whatever the black box stereo is just running. And that quiets down. And there’s a slow and steady drumroll, and then fog starts spreading across the stage. And then out comes a man in a simple black suit, with a simple black shirt, and a simple black tie. I would say middle-aged, dark skin, graying hair. And he says,
(as Doctor Phenomenon): What if I told you there are worlds other than this one?
Keith: Woo! [Ali giggles]
Art: Yeah, we came here on a spaceship.
Austin (as Doctor Phenomenon): What if I told you there are moons other than the thousand you know? [Ali gasps]
Art: Well that also just makes sense.
Keith: Murmur.
Austin (as Doctor Phenomenon): What if I told you that Realis itself was the only true norm? The only thing real? The only thing you can peg reality to?
Austin: And at this point behind him, a huge glowing blue orb lights up, projected behind him. It’s Realis. [Keith gasps] And what follows is, effectively, a sort of baseline pitch for what I would call an early version of what you know to be the Fatalists. It’s like you’re seeing, Hye, you know about a version of this that is like, and we should destroy all of the worlds, right? But instead what you’re getting is a version of it that’s like, hey, there are all of these other version of reality out there, and that’s a little scary, but we’re learning how to access them. And in fact, we’ve met people from other versions of reality. Not just other moons, people who exist in other versions of reality itself. And I think at one point, Doctor Phenomenon even mentions, 
Austin (as Doctor Phenomenon): Have you seen on the news the arrival of the strange insectoid space carrier? We believe it comes from another realm. Another version of reality.
Austin: Not knowing, of course, Hye, that you were maybe partially responsible for summoning it. Maybe, kind of indirectly, not really summoning it, but there’s a causal chain there that connects you to the arrival of that thing. And is giving you —
Keith: Well, we also have those identity thieves. Oh no, that’s different. Those are —
Austin: Identity thieves. What are the identity thieves? I’m blanking on this.
Keith: The people that we met on Ulled who were like, other people.
Austin: Sure, yeah. Which, increasingly, I think you should be thinking those are part of the Fatalists. The people who stole those, yes, a hundred percent.
Keith: They had the lock on the door that was like, eerily from a different place.
Austin: Yeah. And there is a spiel being given here that is about joining this group that we are in the primary, the beginning stages of learning about these other worlds, these other realms. And that they’ve been visited recently by their alternates, by versions of themselves. Not literally, like, not Doctor Phenomenon two from world two, but like, we’ve recently made contact with those who pursue our same ends from another one of our realities. And they are going to lift us into greater things, you know? And I think is making this play that like, you should join up with this emerging cult. There’s an intention here. Doctor Phenomenon wants you to become enculturated in the beliefs of the Fatalists. And the Sentence that he is using is, ‘when delivering my spiel onstage, I always tempt others with promises of a better world to come.’
Keith: What’s the Reality on that? Oh, we don’t know, we have to —
Austin: You don’t know. I’ll paste it for you so you can see it laid out. Is anyone able to counter this, or are you going to begin to be pulled into this reality —
Keith: Yeah, I have ‘the Violet Blaster eradicates anything in it’s firing line.’ [Ali laughs]
Austin: [cross] I mean, you fuckin’ do. You certainly do have that.
Keith: [cross] No, no no, I’m not gonna — [laughs] That would be crazy if I did that.
Austin: Uh huh. That would be.
Keith: I could hone something, I mean I could evolve something, but nothing right now that I want to evolve in the way that this would have me evolve — like, ‘I’m always quick in wit and bone,’ I could twist that to be like, or ‘I always reveal the truth,’ but I’ve got a pretty good way that I wanna move those that doesn’t involve this. 
Austin: That doesn’t involve counter-talking this weirdo.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: Or maybe he’s not a weirdo. You know, truly cards on the table, you are seeing a sort of like —
Keith: He’s a splinter. This is a Fatalist splinter.
Austin: Yeah, I think that that’s a good way of thinking about it, Or, they’re all splinters, right? And you’re seeing one that’s like, kind of not so bad.
Keith: The nice guys. [cross] They like to laugh.
Austin: You’re kind of seeing one that’s like, well yeah, I get how you get started on all this. Right?
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: Yeah. And it seems they’ve come into contact with another different splinter.
Keith: Let’s say, ‘I always reveal the truth,’ I’m gonna defend Reality zero.
Austin: Is anyone else — yeah, okay. You only need one person to try to counter this. You’re gonna defend with Reality zero here?
Keith: Oh if it’s only one person, if somebody has a Reality one, then —
Austin: Yeah, you don’t each need to counter, one person can counter this.
Ali: Can we, ‘When we work together, we always hide our true intentions with spectacle?’ I guess that’s not relevant.
Austin: I mean, it’s not relevant, but it would be very funny. [Ali laughs]
Keith: Well, we could be whoopin’ and hollerin’ in here, hiding our true intentions that we don’t care about this. And pretending —
Austin: But do you not care about this?
Ali: [mutters]
Austin: Yeah, Hye kind of cares about this. [Ali laughs]
Keith: I would say that whether we’re interested in their pitch or not, it’s not our true intention.
Austin: I don’t know that that’s true for Hye. Hye’s dream is, ‘I will witness the alignment of the moons and bring fame to my sponsors.’ Anything that’s like, moon alignment related, the idea that there’s other moons feels…
Ali: Yeah, that could fuck up the prophecy. Or whatever I believe. [laughs]
Austin: Yeah. I mean yeah, it could. The thing that you believe, that you laid out a couple episodes ago, Hye, is that like, you wanna see all the moons in alignment, in a perfect —
Ali: Oh yeah yeah yeah, I think that I will see an eclipse one day.
Austin: Right? An eclipse of all the moons, is a thing you believe.
Ali: Yep. Uh huh.
Austin: Which is a wild thing to believe.
Ali: Right, and it’ll make other people rich for some reason. [laughs]
Austin: It’d also make other people rich. I mean, what a, you know? In some ways naïve, in other ways maybe the most realist we’ve ever had. So yeah, I don’t know that you can use that Band Sentence, because I think you need everybody to be really bought in.
Ali: I’m sorry. I’m sorry for being cult vulnerable.
Keith: No, it is your fault. [Ali laughs] You could so easily say, yeah that’s still number two to investigating. It’d be so easy. You don’t even have to say it’s not important, you just have to say it’s number two.
Ali: I could make the argument that like, as interested as I am in this I’m not, like, I don’t wanna join, you know what I mean?
Austin: Sure. Sure sure sure. But my real question here is how are you actually using this Sentence to counter? Which is much more, you know, ‘when we work together we always hide our true intentions with spectacle,’ is not just hooting and hollering throughout the thing, you know? I don’t think that that’s spectacle. I’m happy to use the Sentence if you want, but I actually think I need to, you know, do you do a counter-presentation? Do you do… what is the spectacle that you’re hiding your true intentions with?
Keith: I had a pitch which was, Donnie would create an invisible tightrope for me to walk while Hye shoots fireworks into the air and then I will deliver the line, ‘we’re very interested in the invisible bridge between worlds!’ Because I’d be walking the invisible bridge.
Austin: You’d be walking the invisible bridge.
Ali: Mm, mhm.
Art: Yeah, mhm, great.
Ali: And we’d be so involved in our task we would not be indoctrinated. 
Austin: Sure. I mean, you don’t have to make a causal chain, necessarily, between — I guess you would, I guess that makes sense, sure. Is there…
Keith: I feel like what we’re doing is we’re selling our lie with an absurd, over the top performance.
Ali: [cross] Oh, I see I see.
Austin: I mean, this is about as absurd and over the top as you can get, invisible tightropes and… I mean, I think what happens, so. Do you spend tokens on this? We should resolve the conflict at this point and move forward.
Keith: Remind me, I’m pretty sure that the answer is no, but you can’t regenerate a token the same turn that it’s used by doing the Sphere [Austin: Correct, yeah.] on the turn that it — okay.
Austin: Well, it’s not really turn-based but, I mean, actually, you totally —
Keith: But like, this is responding to a personal private problem through performative public means. So I couldn’t spend my token and immediately get it back because this is also that. Or even if you think it’s not, assuming that it was.
Austin: Assuming that it was. I actually think you totally could, yes, but I do think that this is perhaps not actually a personal private problem. I think this a fairly, it is a pretty performative public problem because it is a group of you at a public performance being indoctrinated.
Keith: It might result in a private problem, which is being in a cult.
Austin: Which would be being in a cult, yeah. I think there’s flexibility there. And if you’re listening to this and you’re like, well if I’m running it I would decide the other thing, I think that’s totally fine. I think for this, you know, for me, it leans more performative public than personal private.
Keith: Sure. But theoretically in the future, if I saw an area where I could use a token and I could —
Austin: If you were depressed, and you were like, I know what I have to do. I have to put on a show, and you spent your token on that, you absolutely could regain your token by…
Keith: Which is what I say every day we do a podcast, by the way.
Austin: This is true. Yeah. This is what we all do. [Ali laughs]
Keith: Gonna put on a show!
Art: [cross] Yeah. We’re all saving the rec center right now.
Austin: That’s right, exactly.
Keith: If you wanna save the rec center, you can go to friendsatthetable.cash. Where you already are. You could tell a friend!
Art: If you think, yeah. Tell a friend.
Keith: Yeah. Upgrade your donation.
Art: Save the rec center a little more?
Austin: Alright, so. That’s your answer. Is that you saying can I spend my token because you’re hoping you would get it back, or is this now you saying does somebody else have an Impulse that would be better suited?
Keith: If anybody’s dying to use their token or has a better Impulse, that’s great, but I’m offering my token, I’ve used a lot of tokens, I feel like I’ve been good at getting my token back [Austin: That’s true.] so I’m not worried about using it here.
Ali: Yeah, my Impulse is ‘respond to a mundane problem with magical means.’ I mean like…
Austin: Kinda on the line, right?
Ali: Right. Like, social influence is a little bit mundane. [laughs]
Austin: It is!
Ali: A cult is scary, but this guy is just some guy.
Austin: Yeah, the Sentence he used was not like, while you’re giving your spiel, magically manipulate the people. Right? It is the thing that I actually said, which I’ve already changed the tab, there it is, it is ‘tempting others with promises of a better world to come.’ So it is not a magical problem, I think that’s fair. Now, is it a mundane problem is another question, but, eh.
Keith: Is it of, relating to, or characteristic of the world?
Austin: Well that’s everything. [Ali laughs]
Keith: Almost definitionally. Hmm.
Austin: This is because I think this show fundamentally has a broad understanding of what the world is, do you know what I mean?
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: I think if we were different people, other people draw the line differently than we do. So.
Keith: Yeah. I’ll say, I’ve been understanding the word mundane to mean like, ordinary?
Austin: That’s right, that’s what I mean here.
Ali: Yeah.
Keith: And again, it’s sort of on the line of like, this isn’t an ordinary situation, but it also kind of is, like a guy giving a presentation is not weird.
Austin: If he was giving a presentation on tax code, I would say awesome, I think. And again, we’re at this point trying to find the most efficient way to cash in a token, you all have your tokens. Any one of you has your token here, we’re just trying to find, can someone spend one and instantly get it back because they have…
Ali: Oh, okay. Yeah, I mean, yeah.
Keith: It’s worth talking it out for next time, you know?
Austin: It is, it is.
Keith: The more we understand our own Spheres, the easier it will be to use them in the future without having to talk about it.
Austin: And I will say there is some overlap here, this game’s in playtesting at the time that we’re recording this, it probably still will be when you’re hearing it. I would bet that there’s an ashcan version of it available for play or purchase, but there’s a lot of overlap between yours and then Donnie, yours is similar but not exactly similar, right? Your Impulse?
Art: Yeah, ‘cause it’s ‘respond to a practical problem with ritualistic means.’
Austin: Right, and it’s like, the difference there being practical and mundane are kind of synonyms colloquially for us, but ritualistic and magic aren’t exactly the same for us. I think if Hye was like, I need a pen, and then summoned a pen with magic, that would be responding to a mundane problem with magical means, but for you it would be like, I need a pen. I know, I’ll light all of these candles and summon a pen, you know, in a lengthy ritual versus snapping your fingers and Sailor Moon magicing yourself a pen. So there is a difference there, and maybe we need a better word than practical for yours, Donnie, but, y’know. We’ll get there.
Keith: Practical, I mean I don’t know how this ends up using it a hundred times in a row, but the difference between mundane and practical to me is like, mundane is kind of about the situation and practical is about a material lack, or a material issue?
Austin: That is exact — yes, yeah, yeah totally. Yeah, In Donnie’s case they already have the pen, but they need to summon some more ink for it or something in that sense. Anyway, is anyone spending a token? You’ve done the thing, I think —
Keith: I’ll be the tokener.
Austin: Okay, you spend a token, is anybody else spending a token?
Ali: What would be the benefit of using two?
Austin: You don’t know what the —
Keith: [cross] Going from a zero to a one then a one to a two, we don’t know what this —
Austin: [cross] It’s already a one because it’s a Band Sentence, Band Sentences start at one because they have the qualifier ‘when we work together.’
Keith: Right.
Austin: But yeah, you just don’t know what the strength of…
Ali: Oh, what his…?
Austin: Yes, correct.
Keith: I think that we’re probably good. I don’t think this is a three. If it’s a two, we’re good, because it’s already a two.
Austin: Because you’re countering.
Keith: But I hate to leave it on the table, also.
Austin: After all this.
Keith: Right.
Ali: I mean, but this seems like the…
Keith: The idea of like, if we don’t get the three and then we lose to a three, I’d kick myself [Ali: Right.] right in the ass.
Ali: Damn. [laughs]
Austin: [cross] Damn. God damn.
Art: [cross] Right in the ass.
Keith: Right in the ass!
Ali: Does this feel like the conflict of this environment? Probably, right?
Keith: Like, the biggest thing that’s gonna happen here?
Ali: Right.
Keith: Yeah.
Ali: Okay, then we’ll get it up to three.
Austin: Then you’ll kick in so you have up to plus three.
Ali: Yeah.
Austin: Alright, you successfully —
Art: That’s probably good, right? Because I gotta tell you, I’m struggling with ritualistic means.
Austin: You know what, yeah, save that token. You could always get your token back other ways, as a reminder. You could always get a, whenever a bond gets its third mark you get to recharge your token, and then also you can Tragic Success, you can use means to lead the band deeper into chaos. So there are other ways to get it back, but you know what, good point, good thinking. And it doesn’t matter. Two would have been enough in this case. [Ali laughs]
Keith: Yeah, I knew it. The idea that you would have tied us to this cult like mechanically right away, I couldn’t see it.
Austin: Well, I did just mark you by this cult mechanically, you know?
Keith: That’s why I thought that you also wouldn’t do this.
Austin: I see, that makes sense. Now we’re metagaming the right way. This is like watching a TV show and being like, well, they just deployed this character and that actor costs X millions of dollars, they’re not gonna actually kill them in the first movie, you know? Or whatever.
Keith: Sorry, was that your example of the right way, or the wrong way?
Austin: That’s the, that’s the, it doesn’t matter. [Keith and Ali laugh] Doctor Phenomenon, Fatalist leader, has been countered. [typing] Fatalist leader…on Dokine…not the worst version of the cult. Uh, that’s too long. Early —
Keith: Shingle. Shingle is the word we used before.
Austin: What? Shingle?
Keith: They’re like a shingle.
Austin: Did we say they’re like a shingle?
Keith: Yeah, or at least I compared them to a shingle.
Austin: A shingle of a roof, is what you compared them to.
Keith: Right, or like the shingle of a company.
Austin: A shingle of a company, I see, yeah. I wanna emphasize —
Keith: Like YouTube and Google are shingles of Alphabet.
Ali: [wheezing] What the fuck are you talking about…
Art: This is really a heel turn on your previous Bing character. [Austin and Keith laugh]
Keith: Well, Bing is a shingle of Microsoft!
Austin: Is it? Or is it just a brand?
Keith: Hmm… 
Austin: See? You don’t know.
Keith: I think that they have a head. If they have a head, they’re a shingle.
Austin: I see. This has been countered. Doctor Phenomenon cannot use ‘when delivering my spiel onstage, I always tempt others with promises of a better world to come.’ And, is bought into this idea that you are bought in. Is like,
(as Doctor Phenomenon): Wonderful! Look, look!
Austin: And like, points to you as evidence that like, amazing things are possible to the other people in the crowd who all clap for you, you know? And Doctor Phenomenon’s like,
(as Doctor Phenomenon): Jerry! More smoke!
Meeting Doctor Phenomenon [0:43:15]
Austin: And extra smoke from the fog machine comes up, and enhances your part of the show. And at this point, the show winds down. People begin to move up to the lobby, and Doctor Phenomenon comes over to you to be like,
(as Doctor Phenomenon): Normally we get a positive response, but I’ve never seen anyone jump in and become part of the show like that.
Keith (as Wellaway): Well, we’re natural showmen.
Austin (as Doctor Phenomenon): Wait a second, you’re Wellaway Piaster!
Keith: I do an awful and exaggerated bow thing.
Ali: [laughing] Oh my god.
Austin (as Doctor Phenomenon): Great group here, I can’t wait to hear your show tomorrow.
Keith (as Wellaway): Thank you.
Austin (as Doctor Phenomenon): Do you have any idea what type of material it’s gonna be?
Keith (as Wellaway): Uh, kitchen sink comedy.
Austin: Right. I forgot. Austin forgot. [Keith laughs]
(as Doctor Phenomenon): Oh, a little bit of everything, huh?
Keith (as Wellaway): Yeah, a little bit of everything.
Austin (as Doctor Phenomenon): Can’t wait to see it. You’re gonna be around for the third day, right? The final day?
Keith (as Wellaway): I’m not sure. Well, I go with the circus, so I’m not sure where the third day will take us. [cross]
Austin (as Doctor Phenomenon): Oh, you gotta stay! I mean, the three of you are really serious, I feel like you are. That’s the day, that’s the day it’s all gonna…hoo. It’s all gonna… we’re gonna see someone, something real that helps convince people that we gotta get out there. We gotta get out of our normalcy and go to see if there’s another… You know, we’ve had visitors come to us, but we haven’t gone anywhere, you know what I mean?
Keith (as Wellaway): Right. What’s gonna happen on the third day that’ll allow people to go somewhere?
Austin (as Doctor Phenomenon): Well, when Final Day shows up, who’s the third, you know, keynote speaker, it’s gonna be one of those situations where, uh, the road between here and there, as my understanding, gets — this is the language they use with me — it gets shorter, you know what I mean? It gets —
Keith (as Wellaway): Final Day used this with you?
Austin (as Doctor Phenomenon): No no no, Final Day’s not here yet.
Keith (as Wellaway): Oh okay.
Austin (as Doctor Phenomenon): We’re gonna help Final Day get here, and then she’ll do her set, I guess? And it’s gonna open everyone’s mind, and we’ll all arrive.
Keith (as Wellaway): Is Final Day in the org?
Austin (as Doctor Phenomenon): Psh. Well, the org is, which org? You know, ‘cause we’re just a shingle.
Keith (as Wellaway): Right. I guess either. At any level.
Austin (as Doctor Phenomenon): As I understand it.
Ali (as Hye): What types of interactions have you had with… visitors?
Austin (as Doctor Phenomenon): Well, um, they’ve been around the festival, I don’t know if you’ve seen any — actually, some of them have very graciously been handing out flyers for us to recruit. Which I think is amazing, you know, they come from some other world where we’re already a whole advanced sect or organization, and y’know, for us, we’re just getting started. We’re just starting the questions, and they’ve come back to be, or come here, I don’t know if it’s a time thing, or if it’s a… There’s so much to learn! And, and, and, they’ve very gracefully walked around and handed out the flyers, they gave their time, and I don’t know, maybe it’s self-interested, maybe they have to do that so that their version of the organization is grown and expanded, but like, you know, it’s just. It’s pretty amazing! And they’ve answered some questions, they said oh, in our version of Realis, there’s boats. And I was like, well we have boats. [Keith laughs] But they were like, it’s different. Mm. You know.
Keith (as Wellaway): Did they say how it’s different? I’m interested in different boats.
Austin (as Doctor Phenomenon): Uh, they said that the water was different. They said that it was like, floatier. 
Keith (as Wellaway): Huh.
Austin (as Doctor Phenomenon): Yeah I don’t… the heavier —
Keith (as Wellaway): That’s the main thing to me about boats and water.
Austin (as Doctor Phenomenon): Well, they said they could make heavier boats because the water was thicker, or something.
Keith (as Wellaway): Okay.
Art (as Donnie): That’s incredible.
Austin (as Doctor Phenomenon): Yeah, I, pfft. So if that can happen, what else can happen?
Keith (as Wellaway): Anything.
Austin (as Doctor Phenomenon): Anything.
Art (as Donnie): Literally anything.
Keith (as Wellaway): Literally anything.
Austin (as Doctor Phenomenon): You could have, you could have, uh, food that you eat, and you never get hungry.
Keith (as Wellaway): Water thicker than the mind can comprehend.
Austin (as Doctor Phenomenon): You could have light that introduces new colors.
Ali (as Hye): Well, the moons are very influential over the water.
Austin (as Doctor Phenomenon): This is true. What if there’s a Realis with more than a thousand moons?
Keith (as Wellaway): I wonder if there’s a Realis where the moons have no influence over the water.
Austin (as Doctor Phenomenon): These are the questions that I’m asking! This is why I’m so excited about you joining us. 
Austin: And I’ve realized, Austin has realized, this guy is not calling himself a Fatalist at this point, obviously, quite obviously.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: I don’t remember if I gave, does anybody remember if I gave a different group name for this early version of this thing that will develop into the cult? Because I don’t know that I did.
Keith: I don’t know that you did.
Austin: I think that it’s something like Students of the Refracted World, or something like that. Scholars of the Refracted Light. You know, something like that. Something about being refracted. There’s this idea of like, there’s a beam of light and it’s refracted in all these different ways, you know? Let’s call them, and I’ll put this —
Keith: SORL. 
Austin: Spell that, S-R-L? Yeah, Scholars, yeah. S-R-L.
Keith: Scholars of the Refracted Light. I have it S-O-R-L. SORL.
Austin: Yeah, SORL. Scholars of Refracted Light, no T. No The.
Keith: No T, No The.
Austin: Boom. And then I’ll put this on your…
Keith: [cross] Like the vegetable.
Art: [cross] Well you can always omit a T or a The in an acronym.
Austin: Yeah but when you do that, I wanna omit the O also, you know?
Keith: Yeah.
Art: Mm.
Austin: There we go. Lemme make that tinier so it fits… boom. Alright.
(as Doctor Phenomenon): In any case, there’s popcorn out in the lobby, and soft drinks. So if anyone wants anything, please go ahead. I’m gonna be here all week, and if you have a communications array that I could reach you at, or anything like that, we would love to have you back. Honestly, we’re gonna do another one of these tomorrow night. We know you have your show. If you wanted to come back and be part of the recruitment, we could figure out a way to work it in directly. I mean, that thing where you walked on the air, like on some sort of invisible ghost energy, that would be incredible.
Keith (as Wellaway): Uh, yeah, we just felt divinely inspired to participate.
Austin (as Doctor Phenomenon): That’s what this world needs. Anyway, great to meet you all again. Doctor Phenomenon, Wellaway Piaster, I know.
Austin: And then like, looks to the two of you, Donnie you’re there in your human disguise, right?
Art: Yes.
Austin: Is looking for names, I guess, basically, right? Wellaway, I know you, and then turns to the two of you.
Art: Oh, does the human disguise need its own name?
Austin: I don’t know, that’s what —
Keith: Ronnie. [Ali giggles]
Austin: Ohh. Names —
Art: Ronald.
Austin: Ronald. Ronald?
        (as Doctor Phenomenon): Ronald. So good to meet you.
Art: Okay. Doesn’t need a last name, then I’m not gonna come up with one. [Austin chuckles]
Austin: Well, y’know.
Ali (as Hye): Oh, it’s a pleasure. I’m Hye Malis.
Austin (as Doctor Phenomenon): Hye Malis, oh, wonderful name. Great. Perfect. I’ll look you all up, and uh, again, welcome. Oh —
Austin: And then hands you a, produces from an inside pocket, y’know, fancy, sparkly suit. Fancy like lowercase F fancy, like not actually fancy, you know? ‘Cause it’s a sparkly suit. And produces some sort of card, some sort of, I think of it as a card ot the palace, but it has a little version of the mark you’ve been marked with in the bottom right corner that has been like, drawn in by hand as if to say, as if to mark it as like, hey this is a special invite or almost like a key. Almost like, hey, you can show this at the door. I think maybe he even says,
(as Doctor Phenomenon): If you come by during off hours, you can show this at the door and they'll let you in if you have any questions. So good to meet you again.
Keith (as Wellaway): Yeah, let me ask one more thing. What do you know about the other versions of your organization?
Austin (as Doctor Phenomenon): Um, kind of just what we talked about on the stage. There’s other versions of the moons, there’s other, there’s other — I don’t mean like, there’s another Dokine, but maybe there could be another Dokine? I just mean there are other visions of Realis. Which could be time, I have to take seriously the possibility that there is time travel. I mean, we’re always traveling through time, we just generally do it forward.
Keith (as Wellaway): Right. Mostly at one speed.
Austin (as Doctor Phenomenon): Mostly. Mostly, but not entirely!
Keith (as Wellaway): Mostly. But not in space!
Austin (as Doctor Phenomenon): That’s right, where we live. And so there’s that. I know there’s versions of our group that have grown bigger, I know there’s versions of the group that have a smaller membership at certain points. You know, it’s just what they’ve told us. I actually know that we had a big convention on another moon at some point. Hundreds, thousands, almost like a concert.
Keith (as Wellaway): Yeah.
Austin (as Doctor Phenomenon): But I, y’know, I haven’t been, so. It’s just exciting to know that what we started here is not… it doesn’t just end, you know what I mean? I mean, nothing ever really ends, you know, but…
Keith (as Wellaway): Yeah yeah yeah. Hey, not on Realis.
Austin (as Doctor Phenomenon): That’s right. I mean… who could, anything seems to be possible right now.
Keith (as Wellaway): Okay, bye.
Austin: Gives you a little like, wave, and walks out into the lobby to go greet the other people and further bring them into the organization. What’s up? What’s next for the, I almost said Nervous Chancers, which is not correct.
Keith: No.
Austin: The Nerveless Chancers. 
Keith: Those Nerveless Chancers.
Austin: I guess you’re the Traveling Curiosity, actually.
Keith: We’re the Traveling Curiosity.
Austin: Yeah, my bad. My bad, apologies.
Keith: We’re part of the Traveling Curiosity.
Austin: Right, yes.
Art: Maybe we’ll get promoted one day.
Keith: What is the other, Final Days?
Austin: Final Day.
Keith: Is Final Day a comedian that I know?
Austin: Never in your fucking life.
Keith: Right.
Art: [cross] That’s a terrible name for a comedian.
Keith: Is also named Final Day, which is an ominous name.
Art: Yeah.
Austin: Yeah, though not out of the realm of names in Realis as not —
Keith: No, but I’m putting it together with the context clues. It seems bad.
Austin: Doesn’t seem great.
Art: And in general, I don’t think you want your comedian to have an ominous name. Most…
Austin: Yeah, most comedians don’t really go for that, huh? They try to keep it —
Keith: Yeah. Who’s the most ominously named comedian? Jim Gaffigan.
Austin: Gallagher. Gallagher 2!
Art: [cross] Gallagher 2, yeah.
Keith: Gallagher 2, yeah. It’s got a horrible implication with low context. [Austin laughs]
Austin: Well what happened to Gallagher 1? [Keith laughs] The mallet comedian? What the fuck is going on?
Keith: Yeah.
Art: [chuckling] Gallagher the mallet comedian would also be a pretty… [Austin and Keith laugh]
Austin: Yeah.
Keith: Do we need to check up on this F.D. character?
Art: Yeah, uh huh.
Discussing the Days [0:55:58]
Ali: Well we want to explore a little bit here, right?
Keith: It just seems like there might be an apocalypse.
Ali: [laughing] Does it?
Art: [cross] That’s why it’s a bad name.
Keith: Yeah, is everybody not getting the apocalypse vibe of Final Day? I’m getting an apocalypse vibe.
Ali: Oh, no…
Austin: No?
Art: No?
Ali: Well…
Keith: Final Day, people from another world…
Ali: She’s just visiting.
Keith: I think that somebody specifically said that uh, the fuckin’ Keith Mars guy that we found was like, you know, waiting for something to happen. This guy confirmed they were waiting — These people seem, [Ali: Well they’re — ] I don’t wanna say feckless, but…
Art (as Donnie): I thought there’d be more to it.
Ali (as Hye): They’re waiting for —
Art (as Donnie):  I thought it’d be like, grander.
Keith (as Wellaway): I think they’re stooges.
Ali (as Hye): I think they’re just waiting — [cross]
Art (as Donnie): And not the kind you’d expect at a comedy festival.
Keith: Right. Sorry Ali, what were you saying?
Ali (as Hye): I think they’re just waiting for a connection. They seemed lonely.
Keith (as Wellaway): This guy?
Ali (as Hye): Yeah.
Keith (as Wellaway): Yeah, I guess. But we’ve been cursed by these people. Somewhere out there is the curse version of these people, and if they’re involved with a person called Final Day, and everybody’s like [menacingly] just wait to see what happens on the final day. On the last day of the festival, person named Final Day with an organization from another world that cursed us…
Ali (as Hye): Well that’s —
Keith (as Wellaway): It just feels like an apocalypse to me.
Art (as Donnie): Maybe it’s a stage name so that they get the billing on the final day?
Ali (as Hye): Right, that just seems clever. It’s a comedy festival.
Keith (as Wellaway): You don’t really even want the final day, it’s the worst day.
Art (as Donnie): Well, you’re headlining!
Ali (as Hye): Yeah, you’re rememberable. 
Keith (as Wellaway): Headlining the worst day.
Ali (as Hye): Mm…
Art (as Donnie): No, it’s like, the grand finale.
Keith (as Wellaway): That’s not how festivals work…
Ali (as Hye): It’s the main event. [cross]
Art (as Donnie): Alright, it’s not my field.
Keith: It’s not your field, and then what?
Ali: It’s the main event.
Keith (as Wellaway): It’s the main event, I don’t — that’s not how I feel about the festival. [Austin chuckles]
Austin: Is Wellaway learning that other people think that he’s not headlining? [Ali laughs]
Keith: I think that this is a common discussion about which day is the good day or the bad day. People like the good day because it kicks off the show, and has the biggest attendance. If anybody’s going to a day, it’s either the first or the second day.
Ali: [cross] That’s not true.
Keith: If anybody’s not going to a day, it’s the third day.
Ali: You’re using anime convention rules and not like, Wrestlemania rules. And I’m from a boxing planet, so.
Keith: Why would it be Wrestlemania rules? This is a comedy festival.
Ali: [laughs] Because! You have all the —
Austin: You never seen those clowns at the ring? [Ali and Keith laugh]
Ali: It’s not like, oh Sunday’s the slowest day because there’s only four hours instead of seven.
Austin: [chuckling] I guess people are going home from Boston. [Ali laughs] They wanna beat the traffic.
Keith: It’s three equal days. No one wants to stay until late on a Sunday, they gotta get home!
Austin: This is anime con rules!
Art: Yeah, these are anime con rules. I know anime con rules when I see ‘em.
Austin: Yeah.
Keith (as Wellaway): Look —
Art (as Donnie): If I’m travelling for a show, I wanna see the whole show.
Keith (as Wellaway): And I think that there’s a lot of people like that, but attention drops off. It’s just human nature. Besides, y’know, the first day kicks off the show, it’s the conventional show. The second show is the freewheeling show, it can be anything it wants, it’s the creative outlet. And then the third day is just sort of a wrap up show. It’s the, I mean I’m sorry to say this, it’s the big dump of the show! It’s the worst of the three!
Art (as Donnie): So anyone who’s on a day that you’re not on is a big dump?
Keith (as Wellaway): No! I’m saying the first day is arguably the most important day, but it’s also the most traditional.
Art (as Donnie): I’m — Okay.
Ali (as Hye): There’s a lot to consider with your skillset, huh?
Keith (as Wellaway): There’s a lot to consider. All I’m saying is, I don’t think anybody would spin up a stage presence to intentionally get the last day of this particular comedy festival ‘cause it’s just not, y’know. It’s not a big deal, frankly.
Art (as Donnie): It’s the closing act.
Keith (as Wellaway): It’s the third of three closing acts.
Art (as Donnie): No, it’s the closing act!
Keith (as Wellaway): It’s the close-downing act.
Art (as Donnie): No one’s ever said that phrase in the history of language!
Keith (as Wellaway): No one’s ever had to ‘cause no one’s ever had this conversation! Frankly, it’s understood.
Art: Ha! [Ali chuckles]
Keith: I start absentmindedly juggling. 
Austin: Huh.
Keith: I start juggling at — this is juggling versus. Because of how not bothered I am about being accused of not going on the best day.
Art: Don’t let them print in the paper that I’m mad. [Ali and Austin laugh]
Austin: This seems like the end of a scene to me. And then Wellaway juggled away.
Keith: Yep. Whistling.
Ali: I was gonna start just saying the curse again.
Austin: Oh, sure.
Keith: Sure.
Ali: Four across the moons… 
Austin: Just out loud?
Ali: Yeah, in character. Just like, musing about it to myself.
Keith: Can you say it out loud to us, too?
Ali: Yeah, it’s pinned in our Discord, but I will repeat it.
Keith: Oh, that’s where it’s been.
Ali (as Hye): Gather up the pieces, they fit together so. Four across the moons, or is that really so? Hidden in plain sight, how will you ever know? Gather up the pieces, and toss it ‘cross the pond. Skip, a skip, a skip, a skip, a skip, a skip, a skip, a skip, a skip, and then you’re gone.
Austin: And it did seem like it was skipping there, so who knows how many skips it is.
Keith: Right.
Austin: That might be an appropriate number of skips, it might be not enough skips, it might be too many skips.
Ali: Oh, the skips were like, the record skipping?
Austin: Yeah, seemingly.
Ali: Oh… I see…
Keith: [cross] That would be cool to put —
Austin: [cross] Or nine could be an important number, who could say.
Keith: Nine makes sense as an important number to me.
Austin: Just conceptually? [cross] It’s one before ten…
Keith: Yeah, it’s a very occult number. You can do a lot of weird games with it.
Austin: Yeah it cuts down into threes, y’know? [cross] All the multiples —
Art: Yeah. Which is a magic number.
Austin: Which is a magic number. Not all the multiples of nine add up to nine, right?
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: Or, not all forever, right? It’s just…
Keith: Uh, I think maybe —
Austin: No, it’s not all forever, because eventually there’s too many numbers. ‘Cause eventually there’s more than…
Keith: Oh, but then you’d have to take, you’d have to roll it over and then it still adds up to nine.
Austin: [cross] Yeah, there’s some sort of —
Art: I think it’d add up to multiples of nine.
Austin: Multiples of nine.
Keith: Yeah, maybe that’s it.
Austin: Right, obviously the, uh, oh my god, the digital root is gonna be nine.
Keith: You gotta take the digital root into account.
Austin: Right, uh huh.
Keith: So, are we gonna go try and dig up dirt on Final Day, or are we gonna do something else?
Art: Yeah, we should go investigate Final Day.
Austin: Where are you headed?
Keith: We’ve never heard of Final Day, Final Day didn’t show up to the mandatory luncheonette.
Austin: Mandatory luncheonette, did not show up, correct.
Ali: Mm.
Art: So a rule breaker.
Austin: Apparently.
Keith: Rule breaker. Or, not existing at the time, possibly.
Austin: Could be.
Ali: Or, went to a different appointment than you did? There were two lunches?
Keith: There was two lunch versions at the same time. There was a five minute lunch and a twenty-three minute lunch, or something? [Ali giggles] But it was the same place.
Austin: [cross] Something like that, uh huh. It was the same place, yeah.
Ali: Okay, okay.
Keith: Yeah. And so I guess I would probably try to find, like if I had a booking connection or a comedy connection that I thought might know Final Day? Or maybe just like, going back to the hall and like, try to snag the information. The file day.
Art: [cross] The day file.
Austin: So you wanna like, sneak into the offices and see if there’s paperwork on all this?
Keith: Yeah. Those are my two best pitches, is, I know someone who might know Final Day, or, we have go and nab the file.
Ali: Do we wanna sneak around here for a little bit before we head back to the festival?
Austin: You can kind of intuit this place, I mean, you can poke around really quick and it’s like, this is a black box theatre they’ve rented out.
Ali: Oh, sure sure sure.
Austin: And you’re able to find, y’know, there is —
Ali: Did that guy leave behind like, a briefcase?
Austin: He did not leave behind, um… if you like, sneak into the back room, you sneak behind the curtain here, behind the stage, backstage, that’s the word I’m looking for. Yeah, it’s totally possible that he left behind, y’know, his casual attire and some sort of bag. Some sort of, I think that’s a briefcase type guy, yeah, sure.
Ali: Yeah, I wanna find a notebook, or like, text messages [laughing] between him and Final Day.
Austin: He doesn’t have a phone.
Ali: Sure.
Keith: Ali, you’ve come up with something that I like, which is that maybe this guy will tell us where Final Day might be? [Ali laughs]
Ali: Okay, a little more straightforward than I was saying, but certainly!
Austin: Yeah.
Keith: I mean, I kind of was like, well we’re done with this guy, we’ve exhausted him. But the idea that he might know where Final Day is is pretty tempting.
Ali: Right —
Austin: I will underscore, he did say she’s not here yet.
Keith: Right.
Austin: But I guess, maybe that wasn’t super clear because of how I was being kind of like a vague Dark Souls guy.
Ali: Right, but I wanna know what communications they’ve had.
Austin: Sure. The…
Art: Is there a hotel room somewhere where we could just go wait.
Austin: Go hang out, yeah, totally. I suspect this is probably a locked briefcase. I think this is uncertain, unless you’re just… like, what are you doing to open this briefcase?
Ali: Keith, are we going with your plan where we just talk to him instead of rifle through his files?
Austin: Yeah, we should make a decision on this.
Keith: I think we should try talking.
Ali: [giggling] Okay.
Keith: This guy likes us. [cross] He thinks we’re down.
Following Up With the Doctor [1:07:22]
Austin: You go back out into the lobby, he is holding court with three of the other guests, but it’s been a little bit now since you all got into an argument so he’s kind of winding down his follow-up pitch. He’s handed out cards, these versions of the cards don’t have the symbol that signified that they’re like, important people. But these people are all on the hook, these people are gonna come back for sure. And he has a little bag of popcorn he’s been eating out of. They have a little popcorn machine, like a standalone cart, that he got a little bag of popcorn out of. So you all walk back in, he’s like,
Austin (as Doctor Phenomenon): Oh! Somehow I thought you left. Let me see if this is right, uh, Wellaway, obviously. We got Hye Malis. And then, Ronnie. Ronald? Ronnie. Ronald. Ronaldo. My man.
Keith (as Wellaway): Well we were just chatting about the festival and how excited we are for all the different shows, and we were talking about Final Day, who I actually am not, I’m not familiar with her work.
Austin (as Doctor Phenomenon): You and me, same.
Keith (as Wellaway): Same? Oh, same. Oh, okay.
Austin (as Doctor Phenomenon): I hear very, um, very conceptual is what I hear. You do kitchen sink stuff, I think she does more like, attic material.
Keith (as Wellaway): Attic material. Okay.
Austin (as Doctor Phenomenon): Like really high-minded, you know what I mean? Up in the air. Up in the attic.
Keith (as Wellaway): Yeah, I would love to see the show and I was wondering if you knew anybody who had more information? Maybe we could talk to them about Final Day and what the show’s gonna be like, maybe hear more about her style?
Ali (as Hye): How did you become aware of this woman?
Austin (as Doctor Phenomenon): Well, it was from one of the other shingles. Y’know? I didn’t, y’know, when they showed up at my door to say hey, you might wanna come to this comedy festival, we’re another version of your organization form another version of Realis, that was news to me, you know? And they were just like, we could use some help doing setup and I was like, well we could use some help passin’ out flyers! You know?
Keith (as Wellaway): I would love to talk to them, I would love to talk to the other version of the org.
Austin (as Doctor Phenomenon): Well that’s yeah, that’s all part of it, of course! Come to the next meeting.
Keith (as Wellaway): Sure. Can I, is there a way to catch up? I would love to catch up, I would love to come prepared to the next meeting.
Austin (as Doctor Phenomenon): Well what do you — I mean, y’know, yeah, of course. What’s the… is there like, a… I can’t give you, like, the minutes —
Keith (as Wellaway): No, I don’t need the minutes, I just thought maybe we could just go chat with them, get their perspective on the whole thing, so that we can come with a better sense for next time.
Ali (as Hye): I think what Wellaway is that our performance schedule can be very demanding. And if we can meet them —
Austin (as Doctor Phenomenon): Oh… you’re a performer?
Ali (as Hye): The three of us? Yes, yes.
Austin (as Doctor Phenomenon): Oh! I didn’t — Well, I just know about Wellaway, I didn’t know that you were all performers! I mean, I saw the great —
Keith (as Wellaway): Well, sure, yes, we’re a part of the titular Traveling Curiosity.
Austin (as Doctor Phenomenon): Oh, The Traveling Curiosity! That’s you two. And then, right, okay.
Keith (as Wellaway): Yeah.
Ali (as Hye): Mhm.
Art (as Donnie): Well no, it’s much more than just us two.
Austin (as Doctor Phenomenon): It’s you three, obviously, I guess I should’ve said three.
Keith (as Wellaway): It’s a comprehensive org.
Austin (as Doctor Phenomenon): It’s comprehensive org, okay… Well —
Ali (as Hye): If we can meet on a more private basis —
Art: And not a comprehensive bore, like I thought Keith said. [Keith and Ali laugh]
Austin: I think he just says, straight up,
(as Doctor Phenomenon): You gotta understand, the folks who came to me, they’re like, really busy setting up for the final day. And if I go and ask them this, it’s kind of like a favor… I don’t know if they have time, and I don’t wanna bring you all the way there and have it be, you know what I mean?
Keith (as Wellaway): Well, how about this? If you tell us where to go, we won’t bring your name into it. Unless it goes really well.
Austin (as Doctor Phenomenon): I mean, you should bring my name into it. Why wouldn’t you bring my name into it? I mean, if you —
Keith (as Wellaway): Well, just that if it felt like you were doing us a favor, and they thought that maybe you —
Austin (as Doctor Phenomenon): [stammers] I was gonna say they might not even talk to you without knowing me, but who am I, you know? Maybe my name doesn’t travel that far. I guess. They’re at the hotel right across from the centre.
Keith: Is this the same hotel that I’m in?
Austin: Yeah.
Ali (as Hye): How curious.
Keith (as Wellaway): Great. Hey, that’s great.
Austin (as Doctor Phenomenon): I’ll give you their, I don’t wanna give you their room number, that’s kinda rude. But if you ask at the desk for uh, Mr. Topaz…
Keith (as Wellaway): Mr. Topaz…
Austin (as Doctor Phenomenon): Maybe he’ll call up for you or something, y’know.
Keith (as Wellaway): Sure. Well thanks, you’ve been a huge help.
Austin (as Doctor Phenomenon): You’ve been a huge help!
Keith (as Wellaway): You’ve been a huge help.
Austin (as Doctor Phenomenon): I’m telling you, come to the next group.
Keith (as Wellaway): Sure.
Austin (as Doctor Phenomenon): What would be great — listen. What would be great… tell me if this makes sense.
Keith (as Wellaway): You wanna walk on the wire?
Austin (as Doctor Phenomenon): I don’t wanna break my neck. I’m not trained in wire-walking. What I am trained in is teaching people how to deliver the message. How to get people’s eyes open. And you go all around. So what if in the next meeting, you meet the group, and then on top of that, you can leave with some material so when you do leave Dokine, you can bring the message to other moons?
Ali (as Hye): I see…
Keith (as Wellaway): Look, I love to bring a message.
Austin (as Doctor Phenomenon): This is great. This is, this is the break. Alright. [claps] Thank you so much.
Primed Sentence Discussion [1:13:24]
Austin: Hye.
Ali: If, if if…[giggles] I wanna do a reading on this guy. [Austin: Yes.] I wanna offer him a reading as like, it was nice to meet you and I care about you sort of thing.
Austin: Yeah. Okay.
Ali: [chuckles] I don’t know that it’s gonna do anything ‘cause we dont roll dice in this game?
Austin: Well, but you can state an intention, right?
Ali: Uh huh, mhm. I am going — Oh boy, I’m looking at Art’s sheet, I am not wielding my spectral power. [laughs]
Austin: [chuckles] Uh huh?
Ali: Ooh, and I have ‘I always sense which prediction someone needs to hear’ primed.
Austin: Yeah.
Ali: Yowza. Okay, um. [laughs]
Austin: Yeah, you could Realize that to something wild.
Ali: Alright. Maybe I, oh boy.
Keith: You know what’s gonna be a great Sentence for the day after tomorrow?
Ali: Mhm?
Keith: ‘I am always bound by my own destiny to witness a cosmic event.’ [Ali laughs] That feels like it’s gonna be relevant.
Austin: Uh huh. Sure does.
Ali: You’re really — you are so apocalypse-pilled right now. [laughs]
Keith: It’s apocalyptic! I mean, I think it’s blatant.
Austin: Jumping to conclusions.
Art: ‘You're so apocalypse-pilled’ is a weird thing to tell someone who’s been recently threatened with an apocalypse. [Austin, Ali, Keith laugh]
Ali: How do I make ‘someone needs to hear’ better, and more sincere?
Keith: What do you mean, better? Oh, right, because you’re gonna level it up.
Ali: Right.
Austin: Huh. What do you mean you want it to be more sincere?
Ali: Well, I —
Austin: You wanna take out the bit that is you knowing what they want to hear?
Ali: I think so, right? I feel like from Hye’s perspective what she thinks she’s doing is actually connecting someone with an aspect of their future.
Austin: Sure, though I would say that’s already available via ‘I always read the future in the stars.’ Right?
Ali: Okay, sure, yeah yeah yeah. Right. Um…
Austin: Like, in a sense you have both available to you. You can read the future and say, here is what’s gonna happen to you. You can also, you could do both of these things to someone, right? You can also look at someone and say, hoo, what they really need to hear is, blah. Is, y’know, you should take a sabbatical and go fix your mental health right now, [Ali laughs] or you should really cut back on the salt. You know? You can read that. But you can also look into the future and be like oh shit, you’re gonna have a really bad Thursday. So I don’t think that it’s necessarily, the Sentence is meant to be ‘I can manipulate people.’
Ali: Right, right right.
Austin: It’s about reading people’s intentions. Or, it’s about reading where people are, you know? In a way, it’s sort of like, ‘I can always read the future in the stars’ is about looking forward, ‘I can always sense which prediction someone needs to hear’ is almost the past. You know? It’s like, what’s their circumstances?
Ali: Yeah, yeah yeah yeah. Hmm, then maybe… I mean they’re both primed, so they could both be…
Austin: They could. And remember that priming, Sentence Realization can literally be ‘when I’m alone with someone, I always sense which prediction someone needs to hear.’ Or, ‘when I have the time to do a full reading.’
Ali: Right right right, yeah.
Austin: ‘Cause right now, the thing that’s wild is you can do this at a glance, right?
Ali: Mhm.
Austin: You always sense which prediction someone needs to hear. You just have it intuitively. I can ask you like, how do you do it? But like, it doesn’t need to be a whole big thing. You always sense prediction someone needs to hear. So it’s tied to prediction, but it doesn’t have to be… so there’s like, lots of ways that you could limit this that you’ve already been maybe narratively limiting it, but that is not officially there. In the same way that ritually summoning the power of the moons is this big open thing, you know what I mean?
Ali: Right right right, yeah yeah yeah. Then… this is a lot of time for just a throwaway thing, but it’s — [laughs]
Austin: I don’t think so, I think this is the game in a real way. 
Ali: What if it was like, ‘I always read the future in the stars to light a pathway for someone?’ That’s the same thing. [laughs]
Austin: Well no, ‘cause I mean, I think that’s very limiting. I think the idea that you’re like, reading the future in the stars has nothing to do with, [Ali: Like, a guy.] a person, yeah, exactly. Yeah yeah yeah.
Ali: Right.
Austin: And I would just say like, ‘I always read a person’s future in the stars.’ You know what I mean? Or ‘I always read the future of people in the stars.’ Which is still broader than a pathway, you know?
Ali: Oh, right, yeah.
Austin: But it’s still a pretty big reduction, you know? But it’s still pretty broad. Because people are pretty important, you know?
Ali: Okay, yeah. I always read a persons… a creature’s, thank you Fabula Ultima. [laughs]
Austin: [cross] A creature’s, like this. Yeah, uh huh. Smart. An ally’s. People who have not read Fabula Ultima are like, did Austin just make a weird allyship joke? No. It is very specific rules about how magic and targeting works in that game where it’s like, if it says ‘an ally’ that does not include you, but if it says ‘a creature,’ that can include you.
Ali: Mhm.
Austin: And creature’s broad, I mean listen, [Ali: I have a spaceship, yeah! I don’t wanna, yeah.] you have Escrundillio, you have a spaceship that’s alive, yeah, a hundred percent.
Ali: I don’t wanna leave oomfie out of this, so.
Austin: Yeah, totally.
Ali: Okay. [laughs]
Austin: Perfect.
Hye Offers a Reading [1:19:27]
Ali: That being said, I wanna be like,
(as Hye): Before I go, I’d love to do a reading on you, if you wouldn’t find offense.
Austin (as Doctor Phenomenon): A reading — oh, are you a, um, you’re like an oracle?
Ali (as Hye): Uh, yes, I um, I call myself a syzygyist even though I can’t say it. [laughs]
Keith: You have a pronunciation guide that was really working for a little while.
Ali: Sy-zy-gyist. It’s right here. It’s just, yeah, uh huh.
Austin: [cross] Yeah, it’s right there. Sy-zy-gyist. Yeah. It’s really even a pronunciation guide, I just put dashes in between the letters. [Ali laughs] But, yeah.
Keith: Right, well ‘cause it’s well, SZA. And then gist.
Austin: Sy-zy like SZA.
Keith: Right. And then gyist like gist.
Austin: Anyway.
Ali (as Hye): I can sense you have a connection to the moons and I’d like to explore it more.
Austin (as Doctor Phenomenon): Absolutely. Is there like a, do I have to get into an orb or anything?
Ali (as Hye): [laughs] No?
Art: Mhm?
Austin (as Doctor Phenomenon): Okay.
Ali (as Hye): No.
Art: Wait, what? [Austin and Ali laugh] [cross] Want him in the orb?
Keith: Oh, I start blowing up the orb. I take out the orb and I start, [loud blowing noises] shhhh, shhhh…
Ali: [cross] Any sound.
Austin: [cross] Any sound! It’s gotten so big!
Ali: [cross] Stop it!
Keith: How did that come through on the mic? That sound good? [laughs]
Austin: Yeah, that was a balloon! You just had one right there, huh?
Keith: Yeah, just had one right there, just had a beach ball actually, it was a beach ball.
Ali: Really?
Keith: Shhh — No, I’m doin’ that! [Keith, Art, Ali laugh] It was so good I had ‘em convinced it was real.
Austin: [cross] Knocked ‘em down. God damn. Any sound. 
(as Doctor Phenomenon): Um, yeah, okay. Uh, go ahead. 
Ali: [cross] The funny thing about this is —
Austin (as Doctor Phenomenon): Do we have to go outside, do you need to see the moons, do we need to…
Ali (as Hye): Yeah, if you could follow us outside. It’s not always required, but it certainly helps. And I, um, would just need to speak to you for a moment.
Austin (as Doctor Phenomenon): Yeah, right here. [Ali giggles] You mean away from the rest of the people, ‘cause it’s like… Maybe I’d be more comfortable if it was just you and me. No offense to Wellaway and Ronnie.
Keith (as Wellaway): Hey, none taken.
Austin (as Doctor Phenomenon): Ronald.
Ali (as Hye): Yes, yes, I find my patrons are much more comfortable in a private setting.
Art (as Donnie): Some like to be in the orb.
Keith: [more loud blowing noises]
Ali: [laughing] Get out of here, stop doing that!
Keith: Oh, I’m lightheaded. [keeps doing it anyway]
Ali: I don’t like it, I don’t like it!
Austin: No more balloons. No more orb.
Keith: Why don’t you like it? [Ali laughs] I didn’t like it either until one second ago.
Austin: Incredible. Walks over with you, happily.
Keith: Never had one lesson. [Art, Keith, Ali laugh]
Austin: [sighs] Walks with you out into the street, out into the… Which again, beautiful golden clouds even here at night. And then you’re on these huge wings of this city. Y’know, the moons are above you. Realis is kind of set along the other side of the world that you’re on, but its blue light still bouncing off of the other moons in front of you. What is your intention?
Ali: Looking at the note that I have about the Fatalist cult, [Austin: Yes. Mm, interesting.] yeah, I want to ask him to think about —
Austin: Right, because you always ask — Right, yeah, go ahead.
Ali: Right. To think about what ‘unmake’ means to him.
Austin: Yeah.
Ali: And then do a prediction.
Austin: Okay, what is it that you want from this prediction? Again, what is your intention?
Ali: Yeah, that’s the… what is my intention? I think my intention is to…
Austin: Are you trying to learn something about him? Are you trying to change the way he feels about something? Are you trying to learn a fact you don’t know about the cult?
Ali: Yeah, I think that there’s something in the suggestion of an apocalypse, [laughs] [Austin: Oh!] that I would like to, um, get a pulse on?
Austin: Sure.
Ali: Or, I don't know, there’s something about this guy where he seems kind of being [chuckling] manipulated a little bit? For him to just be like, oh you’re me from a different world? Yeah! There’s something in like, the way I think Hye wants to know what’s set out for him. To see if he is in, like, danger.
Austin: Yeah. Love it.
Art: I love the gentleness you suggested that maybe this person is misleading people when… they’re a cult leader.
Ali: [laughs] Well, y’know!
Art: A profession generally accepted to be kinda shitty.
Austin: Well what if he’s right? [Ali laughs]
Keith: Yeah, what if he’s right?
Austin: Yeah, okay. So the Sentence you’re using is, choose your means?
Ali: Uh, yeah yeah. ‘I always read a creature’s future in the stars.’
Austin: Mm. ‘I always read a creature’s future in the stars.’ Is anything or anyone attempting to stop you from doing this? Let me check. Uh, huh. There is a Sentence that is going to try to block you here.
Ali: [gasps] Bum bum bum…
Austin: To counter you. And it is, ‘Dokine’s light always alters the obvious.’ What should be clear is potentially not because Dokine itself is getting in the way. This is not him trying to block you, this is Dokine. So, are you using any tokens?
Ali: [sadly] I don’t have one! [laughs]
Austin: You don’t have one, unfortunately. 
Keith: Although, this is a level one Sentence, right? Those Moon Sentences are level zero.
Austin: That’s correct. 
Ali: Oh! [cross] Alas.
Austin: You do know this, but this means I get to mark this Moon Sentence.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: So, I’m gonna do that. You succeed.
Keith: Austin almost tricked you into using a token you don’t have.
Ali: [cross] Mm. Dastardly.
Austin: Well, I knew you didn't have a token, I knew because you spent it earlier. Boom, alright, ‘Dokine’s like always alters the obvious’ is countered, or is not countered, but it fails to counter you. But it does mean it does kind of impact you, right? Like, looking up at the moons as you do your syzygy is like, oh wait, you have to account for the face that the light of Dokine gets in the way and like, tries to mislead you.
Keith: [cross] Gotta look past the swirl.
Austin: Yeah like, you think you see a moon, but really it’s just like a puff of the strange, yellow-gold smoke. And then like, it kind of clears when you look past it, you know? So yeah, you succeed here, and, god. You kind of asked — Okay, you had him focus on the word unmaking, unmake.
Ali: Mhm.
Austin: And then were kind of like, interested in whether he was being misled on top of everything else, right?
Ali: Right, yeah.
Austin: Or am I misunderstanding? Okay. You know, I think that the — There’s two things you get from this. You’re reading the creature’s future in the stars. One, Doctor Phenomenon wants nothing more than to make. Unmaking is, in fact, in his history, he is an agent of creation. Not an agent of destruction. How you see this in the moons, I’m not sure. Maybe you see one big moon, and you see other moons come out of their shadow. You know what I mean? [Ali: Mhm.] Like, from occlusion, from beyond. It’s like, oh, that’s a symbol of creation. You know that that’s what that means or maybe it’s that the moons that are in alignment have impulses that are towards creative urges or whatever. However, each of those moons that emerge from behind the occluded moon are headed towards different moons that they will be reoccluded by. They’re not literally gonna crash into them, but they are all symbols of destruction, right? And it’s like, nothing this person creates will ever, maybe not ever. Maybe one of the moons that becomes unoccluded is going to be in a free path for the foreseeable future and it doesn’t look like it’s gonna disappear behind another moon again. So there’s a chance some version of this person gets to make something that isn’t fundamentally destructive, maybe there’s an open-endedness to the vision that you’re seeing. But I think you have the emotional read of the situation right. This is a deeply optimistic occultist who believes in a sort of strangeish thing that’s had an incredible encounter that proves that he’s right about it and is being misled and manipulated to continue to build and become the catalyst for something grand and terrible. Unmaking exists in his future only in the sense that, you know, to quote the theorist Paul Virilio, “when you invent the ship, you invent the shipwreck.” [Ali chuckles] He doesn’t have to be on the ship for the shipwreck to happen, you know? It’s just that he’s built —
Keith: The shipwreck can be in a different version of reality.
Austin: A hundred percent. And unfortunately, you are at the founding of a thing that will turn and twist and reshape itself from something that is fundamentally curious into something that is not just nihilistic, but committed to the destruction of all things. Kind of a big one to get, you know?
Ali: Mhm.
Austin: And he’s like,
(as Doctor Phenomenon): So what do you see? [Ali laughs]
Ali: Oh man. Um, I —
Keith: That’s a tough message to deliver, because it sounds, if you believe the stuff, it sounds like you're the one trying to lie.
Ali: Right. Yeah, I mean, I would wanna tell him that he’s like, in danger, right? Like, I… [laughs]
Austin: Well I mean, that’s the other thing. You don’t see any fundamental danger for him.
Ali: Right, right.
Austin: In his life, you know?
Ali: Uh huh.
Austin: And he won’t even be around when the bad stuff happens. It’s not like he lives to see this thing he’s built turn on himself, you know what I mean? Or turn on people he likes.
Ali: Oh, sure sure sure. But in that —
Austin: It’s so much stranger and long term than that, you know?
Ali: I guess the thing that I say to him in that case, is like,
(as Hye): Despite opportunity, bear in mind that another version of yourself might not have the same desires that you do. Just because it’s another you doesn’t mean that you’re aligned in all things.
Austin (as Doctor Phenomenon): Yeah. Yeah, I, yeah. I think I get it. Well, um, that’s something to think about. Uh, anyway. Thank you.
Ali (as Hye): It was a pleasure to meet you.
Austin (as Doctor Phenomenon): You too. Good luck with the circus. I mean — that’s not what I mean. I’ll see you in a couple days, after the show. And then you’re gonna come back and we’ll keep exploring… everything.
Ali (as Hye): Mhm. And you should come to the circus.
Austin (as Doctor Phenomenon): Are you doing like, a two for one with the comedy festival or anything? Like a BOGO?
Ali (as Hye): Oh, I don’t believe so, but, um, here. Let me give you this.
Ali: And I give him like a little ticket. Like a friend’s pass, like a… [laughs]
Austin (as Doctor Phenomenon): Oh! Incredible.
Austin: And Doctor Phenomenon says thanks again, shakes your hand. Goes over and shakes both Ronald and Wellaway’s hands, and heads inside. Unless there’s more conversation, in which case he’ll stick outside.
Keith: No.
Austin: Okay.
Ali: Yeah, I don’t know that I can push him off the path, I can just tell him about it.
Austin: Mhm.
[music outro  – “Realis” by Jack de Quidt]