The Adventure Zone - Ep. 14. Murder on the Rockport Limited - Chapter Five

Episode Date: May 7, 2015

The game is afoot! The game of murder-solving, I mean. The game of Dungeons & Dragons has been afoot for a while. Magnus finds unorthodox uses for furniture. Taako practices his interrogation techinques. Merle becomes a robot mom. Happy MaxFunDrive! Right now is the best time to start a membership to support your favorite shows. Learn more and join at https://maximumfun.org/jointaz

Previously on the Adventure Zone. My name is Angus MacDonald, but I am the world's greatest detective, he says. I roll my eyes. Okay. I have reason to believe that the serial killer, the Rockport Slayer, is somewhere aboard this train. You hear a high-pitched shriek. Lying on the floor, you see a body. Wearing robes, it has been beheaded.

Both of its hands are missing, and it has a shimmering rainwater. Bo-po. No! Bhopal. No, we definitely appreciate him while he was alive! Suddenly, a figure starts to take shape on the ceiling. The three of you follow Angus into the passenger car. You feel a burst of hot air.

The door behind you just blasts open. That fiery crab monster lurches through. I cast levitate on the crab. Nice. Okay. I'm gonna step up and phantom-fisted out a window. He gets pushed out the window. He gets scraped up.

scraped up against the side of the tunnel and train. He's not outside of the car for very long when you see another burst of flame, and he sort of rocket propels himself back into the train about two calls. Now, hold on. Now! Can our hero solve the greatest mystery of all?

Love? Also murder? Let's find out in the adventure zone. So you just, I knocked this crab out the window and grinded it down a little bit, and it rocketed itself back into the car, a couple cars down, and you were running towards it? Yes. I did my part. I'm going to chill here.

Okay, so Taco taps out. What? Wait, hold on. Sitting down and chilling. The three of you start your pursuit of the two. Two. Are you really chilling? I'm chilling.

I'm chilling. I'm almost dead. gonna chill here. I did the hope they... Don't worry. Don't worry. Everything's gonna be okay. Trust your party. Okay. Great. So Taco's just gonna kick it, I guess. So the rest of this fight is just gonna be the Merlin-magnes show. No, no, he's just sitting now for right now. Final come. I limp behind them, blood gushing from my robes. It's very pitiful. Okay. The three of you, one of you who is gushing, begin your pursuit. As you open up the passenger card, door into the space where you found the corpse. You don't find the corpse because this entire room has been basically incinerated.

The walls, the floor, the ceiling, everything is sort of smoky and black. And the only thing on the floor is a pile of black ash where the body of Jenkins used to lay. The drink cart. First very blue jeans and now Jenkins. The drink cart in the corner is sort of melted down a little bit. Not the drink cart. This time they've gone too far. The crab dies.

The crab is done for. Is this from the fire shooting out of the crab ass? Yeah, the initial burst of flame that you shut the door to avoid. As you push on through this dark, chamber, you begin to make your way through the sleeper car. You open up the door in this chamber to the sleeper car. The cars, the sleeping chambers are all lined up to your right. You're in a very narrow hallway. And as you make it about halfway through this car, the door on the other end also gets sort of shattered by this crab that is now floating through the air but still sort of flailing

its four powerful claws around. Is it kind of cute? It's kind of adorable, yeah, sure. I'm angry grey. He seems to say. Hey, just for a fact, have it crawling along the side wall. That would look cool. No, it's just sort of floating, impotently,

through the air, just sort of waving its claws around. And we are back up to the top of the order, which is Merle. The three of you are about halfway between the doors in this car, and about 15 feet in front of you is the crab monster who is floating through the air. All right. He is bloodied, by the way. He is beyond past half health. All right. I take out my Warhammer.

You don't have it? Just to see a reaction. Well, there it is. I'm just kidding. I'm kidding. No, I'll cast healing word. Pretty good punk, Nick Cannon. I'm casting healing word on...

The crab. On taco. Oh, I see. On taco. And that's 2D4 plus 5. Are you doing healing word or healing touch? Healing word. I have cure wounds.

That's 1D8 plus 5. It's up to you, homie. Yeah. I'm going to go with what I said. I'm going to go with a healing word. It's 2D4 plus 5. And so the first one was a 3. Pretty good.

And the second one's a three. Really good. So that's six plus five. That cures him for 11. Heels him for 11. Yeah. Woo! Does that mean?

He swings to his feet and starts like punching the air. And then I reach out and I drop my extreme team Bible and I say peace out. Okay. It falls through the floor and it's just like that trains wheels. It's a very heavy Bible. Both in terms of weight and subject matter. I can't lose that. Next, in the order, is the crab who stabs two of its claws into the ceiling,

stabs one claw into either wall piercing into one of the sleeping chambers, it points its mouth at you, and you see its rows of teeth begin to spin and glow, and then from his pulsating orange mouth, a column of flame bursts down the car at all three of you. So go ahead and make dexterity saving throws to see if you get out of the way of this column. So he casts fire out of his ass and his mouth? This is his mouth.

I roll the 19. Okay. 20. Wow. 16. 16. Okay. All three of you.

simultaneously, I guess, leap to the right through the door of one of the sleeping chambers, very narrowly avoiding this hallway-sized column of flame that shoots down and incinerates basically the carpet below your feet. And that is... That was nice carpet, too, remember? Remember how nice... Yeah, we talked about how nice it was shag. Yeah. So, yeah.

Guys, guys, that was our first moment of competence. Nice. Holy crap. High fives all around. And we miss. We missed. We missed the high five. Right in the face.

Okay. That is it for the crab's turn. He is still sort of wedged in between the, he is still sort of positioned himself between the wall and the ceiling to prevent the recoil from sending him rocketing backward down the train. I really loved that this fucking. crab is floating now. It completely changes this fight in my mind. I'm glad you've embraced it. Yep. Next in the order is taco. The three of you are now sort of squirled away in, we'll say it's

your sleeper chamber next to your triple bunk beds where you just dove in to avoid the spout of flame. Is there any other furniture in the room? Is there anything else in the room besides the bunk beds? There is a small sort of tea table and two wooden chairs next to it. Any cutlery from, you know, a snack we might have had earlier? There's a spoon on the table. Yeah, there's a teaspoon and a teacup and a teapot and a sugar bowl with some sugar in it. Are any of those things shaped like a knife or an axe or a club? The spoon, it could be shaped like a club if you were a very small person with a big imagination.

There is no life I know. Taco. Taco, take the wheel. Taco, take the wheel. Taco take the wheel. I'm casting Melf's acid arrow. Milt. Mels?

Hi, I'm Mell, and this is my favorite acid era. I hope you enjoy my assid arrow. Asadero, kids. And don't tell me to kiss your grits. Okay. Is that a reference to something? Alice. You're appealing to a demographic.

That does not, that doesn't exist in the world. That's why I'm here. To talk to ghosts? Mel's, I said. Move, first of all, move towards the mic. Second of all, is this a spell that was created by a man named Mel? No. Or a woman named Mel.

Melf. It's Mel B's scary acid arrow. Mel B's scary spice acid arrow. A shimmering green arrow streaks to turn to the target and bursts with a spray of acid, make a range to attack against his target on a hit. The target takes 4D4 acid damage immediately and 2D4 acid damage at the end of its next turn. Wow. Scary spice was the most dangerous of all the spices.

I mean, that's obviously not debatable. Right. Sporty, I don't know. Actually. I was always most terrified by a baby, but I think that's just because of like weird issues. I don't know. Okay. I'm making a range attack.

Oh, yeah. Sorry. Are you poking your head out of the, are you moving back into the hallway? Or you just sort of sticking my umbrella out the door and black? I fucking love it. Holy crap. He didn't make that up. That's a real spell.

Thank you. Okay. So you're just poking your arm out the window. In my head. I mean, I'm poking my head out. Okay. You're leaning out of the car to blast it. He's holding a mirror up out the door.

Go ahead. make a range attack? What do I do? What is that? How do I do that? You just roll a D20 and add your spell casting modifier to it. Eleven. Eleven total? Yeah. That doesn't do it. Okay. So on a miss. So their armor does not decrease what they take damage, right? No. Are you talking about the crab monster or what? The crab monster, I guess it's shell. I would think it was cracked and wouldn't take as much damage. Okay, so I'm going to do 2D4. on a miss? Yeah, that's awesome

Slashes them with that Does it say half damage? Because if that's the case You actually roll 44 and divide in half Okay, two, three, one Two, two Eight Eight, eight, four

So it takes four damage Okay, you shoot it It just sort of falls to the ground Right below it and some of the acid Splashes up onto the crab monster And it takes four acid damage you hear it sizzle away and it actually smells weirdly delicious. That's what I say.

See, if you've got a melted butter spell. Yeah, it would have to be clarified though. Okay. A melted butter spell where it melts butter. How's that for clarification? Nice. Wow, that was good. Thank you.

What a rib tickler. It's a thinker and it tickled my ribs. It works on a lot of different levels. Magnus. Let's put that into Dad Jokes Weekly. I grab one of the chairs From the room Okay

And I run out to the crab And two-handed claw rat All right We're gonna have to come up with some numbers For chair It's gonna be blunt damage Obviously Yep

There's a metal chair No I specifically said it was a wooden chair Wowzers Okay so this is a A heavy wooden chair Let me, hold on. Hey, can it be one of those lazy boys? It's such a...

Yeah, I have the lazy boy over my head. We'll say this has the same characteristics of a club. I think that's fair. I'll say 1D6, but because you're so skilled in carpentry, I imagine that you've had to attack somebody with a chair before. So you definitely have expertise on this. That's not debatable. And you also are just really good at hitting shit with chairs made out of wood.

So I'm going to say 1D8, you have expertise with it, and I'm going to give you a point of inspiration. A, for making a makeshift weapon, and B, for picking a makeshift weapon that is so completely within your wheelhouse. Thank you. Well, if I have expertise with it, then I roll the 17 plus 6, so that's 23. Okay. And then I roll a D8. D8, yeah. And I rolled a 4.

If I have expertise, it's plus 6. So I hit it for 10. Okay. You hit it for 10 damage, loosing it from the wall and ceiling where it had perched itself. So it's now sort of just floating aimlessly backward down the... It's still alive? Hallway. Yes, but it is very, very, very bad off.

It is almost impossible to get rid of crabs. Have you noticed that? Oh, man. Bringing the heat. You are really on some next level shit right now, Daddy. You hear the door Wait, what happens to the chair in my hand? Does it remain whole?

Oh no, sorry, it explodes. It shatters in your hand. You just broke this shit off and it's ais. Yeah. The door to the passenger car behind you slides open and you see an imposing almost square figure filling the doorway. And this figure runs at full speed.

towards Magnus's position, towards the crab. And as this figure moves forward, you make it out as just the beheader who sprints towards the crab at lightning speed, does this sort of like Ongbach jump off one wall and then another, and then sort of cannonball flies at this crab,

and then in mid-air, you see the shape of her axe just appear in her hands, and she brings it down on this floating fire crab. And she misses. She literally crit. That's not a faky, fake bullshit thing. I'll FaceTime you the dice, but she crit.

She crit on this crab. There's a 5% chance that she was going to crit, and it happened. A crab crit. A crab crit. Pan. I'm a whole show for this. Pan is good. Thank you for the crit.

She Rolls dice until she gets what she wants. She does 29 damage cutting the crab into two pieces And Magnus raises his hand and says I did 29 damage punching out on a window It's not that big a deal, guys, all right? We all do 29 points of damage

And as its two composite halves float through the air Both pieces of its corpse Turned to ash. and fall to the ground. It was good eating. I say, Hey, great timing.

Magnus says, I had it. She says, sorry, I had a pretty bad initiative role. Sorry, I was pooping. It took me a while to get to where you were. To be fair, it looked like you guys had it handled, but I thought I could help out any way I could. Let's just let dad get it out of the system

I guess we're the kings now Is your king Crab We were in a bit of a pinch Right It was kind of a crusty crab Well that's You just said the name of a thing

Yeah that's not very good No it was it was a lowercase C We did a clausome job These are all great She says Okay I'm done I'm done

Yeah we don't shellfish. Oh! Come on, guys, we're crustacean time. I'm sorry, did you just say we're crustacean time? Yeah, it's like wasting time. So does this mean we don't get... We don't get experience from this kill?

No, she stole your... She caassed you, bro. No. She rolled up on that mob. You were camping. K-S-it right from under you. God, it's just like Azaroth. I mean, I was making some EverQuest references, but Did you ever play EverQuest Dad? Let's talk about that. Let's take a moment. Let's just take the next 10 minutes, because I didn't have anything else to talk about before we did the break. And let's talk about Dad's EverQuest experience.

Did you ever play EverQuest, dad? I don't know. I did play EverQuest, yeah. It's all right. No, you guys actually did get some experience points. I was just goofing. But no loot. There was no loot that came out of it, unless you like crab ash, in which case. Would you say the experience and like the victory was its own reward? Yeah, I would say that you feel fulfilled on a deep spiritual level. I got to use a chair.

Yeah, you used a chair. You punched a thing out of window. It was pretty... Yeah, and we all acknowledged that was really great when you used the chair. Gee, God. Thank you. I think we want to... I want to find out a little bit more about Jess the beheader.

I turned to Jess and say, hey, that, that, like, spiritual axe thing was pretty damn sweet. Oh, it's not spiritual. It's just soul-bound to me. I can just sort of bring it, bring it to me whenever I need it. Can I have it? Oh, no, absolutely not, because it's not soulbound to you. Well, could we soulbound? Like, is it like a, like, a, like, we blood brother kind of thing?

We're like, we cut our palms shake hands and then I can use it too. She says, listen, as the world heavyweight champion of the WWE, I know my way around some good chair usage. And that was... What's that sad for good? The Midworld Wrestling Federation. Without the F. Yeah, and without the M.

Well, there was a lawsuit. It's very, very complicated. Anyway, I know good chair usage when I see it, so I do actually want you to have this axe, and she hands the handle. Oh, my God. It hands the handle towards you. She says, I just want you to know that I'm just very impressed, she says, and puts the handle in your direction. Thank you. I take it.

As you take it, it disappears from your hand and reappears in her. She goes, ah. We both have a good laugh. That's one of my favorites, she says. That was very good. I'm Magnus the Hammer. But good job reinforcing your image as a panhandler. So, thank you.

Listen, you only get what you asked for in this life, Dad. She says, ah, what was it, Magnus the Hammer? Magnus the Hammer. Okay. Is the Hammer your last name? No, is the beheader your last name? Legally, yes, I got it changed to fit my brain. Actually, Magnus is his stage name.

His stage name. His real name is Didley. Listen, guys, we just blasted a giant crab. I think we're past the point of fake names. I don't think so. I do. Magnus is making a unilateral decision. I am just, I just want to say when I was writing this mystery chapter, how certain I was

that the three of you were not going to be capable of introducing yourselves to the characters I was creating. And you have fulfilled that prophecy just with flying colors. She says, do you guys have any idea

where that thing came from? The beach. It was on the ceiling. I think it came from the ceiling. Yeah, well, let me ask you a question. Can we should, Dude straight.

Yeah. Why are you on the train? I don't know like a weird crazy reason for being on the train. Everybody else has. Are you just like on the train? Nobody's like just all in this train. Are you all in the train? I'm on the train.

Yeah, I'm doing a hype tour for my upcoming match, my upcoming fight. And I'm going to Neverwinter to do a junket, she says. Who are you fighting? Oh, I'm fighting Greg the leg or leg cutter. Oh, I've heard about him. It's supposed to be a pretty good matchup because like I swing high. He's swinging. low. Greg the leg, leg, better? His name is Greg the leg leg. His name was Greg the bedwether

lead, but he'd realize that wasn't as good. And his favorite song was yellow lead better. But now he's just Greg the leg leg. Leg cutter. But no, I have a great reason for being on this train. Why do you suspect me as something, huh? No, it's just like everyone has a crazy, like we said we were here for, I don't even remember. It's all gone. to hell. It's all gone to hell. There was a crab and then Encyclopedia Brown showed up and he left and then Jenkins died. That was okay. And then you have this axe. It's magical. It's been a really exhausting day. I'm Justin, I think. Holy shit. Okay, wait. Excuse me for just one second, Jess. I need to talk to my compatriots for just a moment. Yeah, that's fine. I'm going to go check out the

scene of the crime, see if there's anything I can do to help, she says, and walks back towards the passenger car. Do that. Do that. You guys, Jenkins was beheaded. It's there in the name. She's the only one we've seen with an axe so far, and it was a clean beheading. That's true. But how do we know for sure it was Jenkins? I don't know that we do. Why else would you remove the head and hands? And the hands were done simply. because the cuts were not as clean. Hmm. So maybe whoever took the hands didn't take the head? But if you took the hands, then there'd be no fingerprints. And if you took the head, there'd be no dental work,

and you couldn't identify who it really was. Unless there was some sort of magic, but who's ever heard of such a thing? Oh, wait a minute, it's D&D. This isn't CSI, Papa. We don't need to think. We're not going to send it to the lab. What are you talking about?

Let me tell you something. If we send it to the lab, we'll be lab rats. He just didn't. That doesn't even work. He literally removed his glasses for an audience of me. That's fine, but this isn't like a fucking red wall RPG. You're not rats. If we were rats.

Okay, wait, is it too late to retcon that we're all rats or ratcon? Yeah, this is a rome. Redwall RPG. Okay. Now do the joke. Dad, do the joke now. I'm not in the mood anymore now. Nor I.

Yeah, I'm the one who ruined that. He's not a dancing rat. I don't get that one. All right. We're in Nim. Okay. So the only people we've ever encountered on this train are Jess, Jenkins.

God, I hope you've been taking notes. Yeah, Jess, Jenkins, Angus. Graham. Graham, the Juicy Wizard. And the conductor. the engineer. Who we haven't seen Hyden or hair of.

And so if someone killed Jenkins or someone killed someone, it's one of those five or someone we haven't seen before. Yeah, I'd say that. So it's either one of those five people or someone on the planet.

Well, that's not Angus. Is it me? It might be Taco. Has anyone kept an eye on Taco the whole time? I'm literally asking. I have spells. I think the thing that we need to do is interrogate the only other person that was at the scene of the crime. We need to talk to Juicy Wizard.

We do. We need to squeeze the juicy wizard. There it is. There's a joke that works. That was a joke. I'm done. I haven't got anything else. I'm just going to sit back here.

You're throwing a lot of spaghetti at the wall, but our listeners can't choose what spaghetti to eat. They're eating all the spaghetti that is thrown. And some of it has floored on. Griffin, you're getting pretty saucy. Ha ha ha ha. It's linguine. I'm in hell. Hey, everybody.

This is Griffin McElroy, your dungeon master. Although I have never taken this campaign into a dungeon yet. So I'm starting to think that maybe a new title would be appropriate. Anyway, thank you for listening to the Adventure Zone, episode 14. Thank you to everybody who has been tweeting about and sharing the show on Twitter. Facebook and LinkedIn and Friendster. We really appreciate it. As always, if you tweet the show with the Zonecast hashtag, there's a chance that you might end up as a character in the campaign. We haven't added a new one yet and probably won't until we get through this chunk of the adventure, which were

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Let the investigation begin. I want y'all to get NCIS on this shit. I think we should talk to Graham. I smack Graham in the face and say, wake up. Okay, you're suddenly in the passenger car. You slap Graham in the face. He is laid out on one of the benches. on the right side of the passenger car.

In the passenger car is Angus, who is looking all around that chamber in between the cars where the murder took place. Or I should say, where the corpse was found. You don't know whether or not the murder actually took place there. And Jess, the beheader, who is just sort of chilling. I don't know what she's doing. Oh, listen, I'm controlling like six human minds at once in this. thing. You're a remarkable group. I'm pretty amazing. I basically have six normal brains, or maybe one brain that's six times the size of a normal person's brain. I need to ask a question. Yep.

Is this, is this the big parlor scene where the detective figures it out and unveils the secret? Well, all the time we'll tell, Dad. Okay, then let me ask another question. Are we agreed that we're doing away with the whole ruse that we're these other people? We can't make that decision out of character. If we're going to make that decision Okay. All right, lads. Oh, fuck. Are we giving up the fake identities?

Yes. Yes. Yes. A thousand times yes. Good. Then I cast Zone of Truth. How many zones of truth did you fucking prepare? Were you like, good morning, everybody? Give me like 30 minutes to stock up on all my truth zones. It failed. And you said we rested and got everything back. Okay. So you're busting out your, you're, you're just like a zone of truth cleric.

I don't bring a lot to the table. No fiery beams of purifying, sanctified light required. I just make people tell the truth. Well, yeah. Simplifies things. Before I wake up, Graham, is he still passed out? Is he still out? No, no, he has a cool compress on his forehead.

And he's lying there. He's white as a sheet and he is trembling. He looks a little green around the gills. I still smack him. Okay, you smack him as hard as you can. No, I didn't say as hard as I can. I smack him 20%. Okay.

Just 20%? 20%. That's hard enough to kill something. Okay, 5%. Okay, 5%. You shatter all the hands. With my left hand. With my left hand.

Okay, well then he takes the slap at 5% force and sits up and goes, what are you doing, man? I was away. No, you need to wake up. I was awake. I was conscious. No, I mean, I mean like metaphorically, wake up. Do what?

That hurt a lot. Well, you'll hurt a lot worse. It'll hurt a lot worse. Have you lied to me? Okay. Am I, are you interrogating me? What's going on? It seems like it.

I'm sorry about my partner. He can come on a little strong. I walk to the back and cross my arms and start fuming. We're doing bad adventure. It's a good adventurer. Help me out here. But there's three of you. So is one of you just a neutral adventurer?

It's good adventure, bad adventure, adventure reading a book. Okay. All right. Listen, my part, help me out. This guy's a loose canon. Give me something to work with here. What did you see in the car?

We found you with a corpse that looks kind of like Jenkins. What did you see? What happened? It was Jenkins. I was sitting here in the passenger car. I decided that I wanted to go and see if I could take a round on the pleasure chamber. And so I walked back. And when I opened the door to the sleeper car, I saw a corpse on, I saw a body on the ground without a.

Hefe. He faint. I step back up. I smack him. This time, 6.5%. Whoa! That smack hurt 1.5% more than the last one. What are you doing to me?

You don't get out of this by passing out. Cusi. Statistically, I mean, not to quibble, but if it was 6.5%, it would hurt a little over 20% more than the one before it, because the one preceded it had been five. Well, I took an educated guess at what 100% of his smack would feel like. Okay, that made sense of right. Okay. Grant a cup of coffee, can I get you a little something? That would be great, except the drink cart just got obliterated, so I don't know how you're going to do that. I keep slipping into Angus. I look at Graham.

I look at Graham and say, when you saw the body, did it have hands? No. There were no hands. It had been beheaded and behanded. And you had been in the passenger car. I was in the passenger car. Yeah, I was in here with... For how long?

For about 20 minutes or so. I was in here with Jess. She was in here too when I walked back to check out the... to go to the pleasure chamber and, uh... We heard a shriek. Was that you, Graham? I don't remember Shrie. I have a pretty gravely, mature, masculine voice, so I don't think...

Graham. Why don't you use it? This is it. Hey, listen, I couldn't find any coffee, but they had these little Andes mints, you know, those little chocolate mints? Here, have a couple of those and just answer the nice men. Wait, are we doing good coffee? cop, bad cop, mom cop. Okay.

Thanks, Mom. He says, and takes them and unwraps them. That's really good because now he's safe from Dementors, too. He says, let him finish. Or did that come from the X-Lax box? Oh, God. Let me think.

Yeah, it was the X-Lax box. You better hurry. So, now that I'm on a pretty tight schedule. So wait, good cop, bad cop, diarrhea. The last time I saw Jenkins was It was just a few minutes before I found him He came up and did a drink service up here He went to the front of the train

And then brought us back drinks and then Went back towards the back of the train And then I went back there a few minutes later To see if he could take me to Pleasure Town This next spot's extremely important Go When he was doing the drink service Did you notice him setting aside any drinks or anybody taking extra drinks they might have been putting aside for later?

Are there somewhere on the train we can find some drinks? I don't think so. I think about it carefully. You didn't even think. It's just really important. Just help him out. The drink card is gone. He's got the shakes pretty bad.

I already got the shakes. Taco needs his medicine. Daddy needs his special magic juice. No, but what were we saying? Jenkins. Oh, that's wagon. Can you corroborate this story? Like, you were here the whole time, right?

Just looks back at you. She says, yeah, I was here the whole time. And he was here, too. I saw him shriek and then fall down like some sort of small child. And the door shut behind him. I got to be honest, I didn't think anything of it. I just thought maybe he was having a connipion or something. Jess, you didn't kill Jenkins, did you?

I only ask us to pedder, you know. The what? Be thorough. The beheader, you know, Jess, the beheader. No, that's like a state. That's a thing I do for work. I don't, do you go, sorry, what's your job? Wait, you didn't.

No, before I insult you, I need to know what your job is. Me? Yeah. Bodyguard. Oh, no, we're not doing that anymore. I'm Justin. Taco? Mm-hmm.

You are, you are impossible to talk to, and this is the worst conversation I've ever done. I'm a shitty wizard. I just want to know if you can. Jill Jenkins are not, right? Of course I didn't. Okay. Do you adventure on your free time? No.

I only behead people when I need to or when I'm being paid to do it for entertainment. To be fair, living is the greatest adventure. I guess. Jess and Graham are each other's alibis. We were with Angus. So that only leaves the... How long was the body back there? Graham says, I saw Jenkins just a few minutes before I found him.

So whenever it happened, must have been in that period of time. Hey, did you get into the pleasure chamber? Or were you going to go get access? He says, no, when I was on my way there, I saw a dead body that was decapitated and had its hand. And that was not your pleasure request. He falls down again. He's fainted. I smack him 7.2%.

Okay, you hear something pop. And he goes, I meant 6.8. I meant 6.4. I smack him with the other hand and pop it back into place. I cast cure wounds and fix his broken jaw. Okay. Do you have to roll to do that?

God, yes. Gee, many gods, my God, one. Hey, listen. I only have the one setting. I mean, it's 7.2. All right. I roll a, it's a DA. Da-da-da-da-da.

Oh, man, why didn't we cast cure wounds on Jenkins. Because his head was cut off. Well, you would have had to roll really well. Don't get me wrong. D8 plus 5. Oh, I rolled an 8. Your best healing yet, and it's on the jaw that Travis just broke.

Okay, you see Graham's jaw magically set back into place. And both of his cheekbones are starting to turn a deep purple. Okay, and I grabbed the front of Magnus's shirt, and I say, come on, man. Come on, we're not getting anywhere with this approach. Was that good? Was that good? That was really good. And Graham says, oh, that's a little way, but thank you.

Wait, did it heal him into a mouthful of marshmallows? What do you talk about? I can't totally normal. Oh, God, this is normal voice. Break his strong. Can somebody... Okay, Travis. Yeah.

Recap. I can tell you everything again. One more time now. Okay. No, Josh. No more for me. Quiet mushroom out. Here's what we're looking at.

Okay. In the passenger car, we had Jess and Graham together. In the sleeper car, we three and Angus were together. Jenkins entered the passenger car, offered drinks. He went in a conductor car food to bring him drinks. He went in the conductor car to bring him drinks. And when he came out of the conductor car, did he seem different in any way?

Yeah, his head was gone. No, I'm just kidding. He was fine. Okay, let's go to the conductor car. Walk, walk, walk. Wait a minute. Oh, God. Do all of you have a lead foot?

We're jumping. We're jumping down the car. Okay. You hop like little bunnies to the conductor car, or the front of the passenger car. and the space between that and the engine car. It's not a conductor, by the way. It's an engineer.

I don't know why I keep saying conductor. Keep getting my train jobs confused. The high security door into the engine car is sealed shut. I'm not shaving a haircut. Okay. There it is. And you hear the voice of, God, what did I say? His name was?

Hudson. How. Hudson? Hudson. Hudson. Yeah. Hudson. Hudson. Because I was trying to make a Hudson Hawk joke.

and I couldn't get to it. Yeah. I was trying to make an Ernie Hudson joke, and I couldn't get to it. And I was just trying to play D&D. With my family. You hear the engineer's voice come from a small cone above the door, sort of megaphone system.

You hear him go... Hello, is everything going okay back there? Is everything going? Yeah, we're having a pretty smooth strip. should be there in about an hour or so. Great. Jenkins is dead. Jenkins is dead? Yeah. He was the one with the bow tie. Don't feel bad. I forgot to.

Boatye? Jenkins was a dedicated employee of the... Now he's just a dead employee. We all got there. Cout and goofs about this, huh? It doesn't seem like the right time or place for that. Listen, we just need to know, is there anyone else on the train? No, I can show you the manifest, but I don't think I should come out of here, especially now. I can't open up the engine car to whoever did this heinous crime.

So it was just you, Angus, Jess, Graham, the three of us, and Jenkins. Yeah, that's it. That's everybody on the manifest. John Boy, Elizabeth, Jim Bob. I don't know what you're talking. None of those. No, it's just us. So that's the people that you need.

Listen, we need access to the caboose. We have to get to our secure item. You can go in the caboose whenever you want. You just can't get in the safe. I think we need our weapons is what we need. I can't do that. I have no guarantee that it's not the three of you that didn't kill our poor Jenkins. We promise it wasn't.

How is Jenkins killed? Tell me, I need to know. He was beheaded. And then be handed. And then burned up. It seems to me like the person on the chain that goes by the name the behedar might know something about that. No, we asked. We asked.

And when she just said, no, it wasn't me, and you all were like, cool. I mean, she's like, well, yeah. She has a corroborating witness for her alibi. Oh, and there was a magic spell cast on her, so. Why don't you open the door and I'm not opening the door. There's no way. We can talk about this when we get to never win her when the authorities can be involved. Here's what we're going to do.

You keep this door secure. Deal. I like that part of it so far. It's going very good. Six of us are going to move from here to the caboose. Okay. We're going to search every car until we get to the caboose. Okay.

And if we get to the back and there's anything wrong, we're jumping off. We're going to need access to a secure item. You'll be killed. Sorry, what was the last thing you said? If we get to the back and anything's amiss. Anything's wrong. We're going to need access to a secure item. It can't fall into the wrong hands.

The CryptSafe takes one hour of sustained contact from me, the engineer of this train, to open. So by the time I get it open for you, we'll be a Neverwinter, and the authorities can handle this themselves. Sounds great. Okay, but we need our weapons. I can't do that. I'm sorry. Can't you? Is it can't or won't?

Can't you? In order to give you your weapons, I'll have to leave this car. And that's not happening. Because you know why? Don't you want to be a candor? I want to be a... Well, first of all, I'm an engineer. But don't you want to be a kinductor?

Isn't that your dream? No, an engineer is not like a way higher pay grade than a car. Yeah, but I mean, it's a lot more responsibility, too. Why don't you be, you know what I... You know what I want to be more than anything? What's that? Just a guy with a head. Well, we all want to be that.

Wouldn't you like to be a friend? Engineer. Okay, I'm going to go ahead and shut off this channel. You guys let me know if you figure out who did this murder. And hopefully... Hey, let me... Can I... Can I...

Yeah. Yeah, you didn't take my weapon. See this? I can't see that. Open the window that may or may not exist. No. Yeah, we need to give you some other weapons. Okay.

I have a weapon here. I'm starting to feel a little bit threatened, so I'm going to go ahead and go. Okay. If you can't, if you go, I'll fuck your train up real bad. It's going to be brutal. So now I'm starting to feel like... I cast presidigitation and he smells something that sounds like dinky. Oh, sir.

I guarantee you it doesn't smell any worse than my own hand. That's just a sneak preview, baby. There's lots more where that came from. So you're telling me you're going to stink up this whole train, all of it. Hey. And then burn it down. Okay. We need a search.

Okay. Have fun. He says, and you hear, Quit. He called my bluff. Good one, though. Good try. All right. So we have no access to the little pleasure closet without without chickens. There's no way that can be used, right?

You can go check it out. Oh, wait. That has to be the classic, classic detective shit. If his rod is missing, right? Whoever killed him took it. So everybody in the room turn out your pockets. Okay. Are you

Where are you? We're still in the passenger car. Well, we need to go back into the car where everybody is. Yeah, everybody's in the passenger car right now. Angus is in the space where the scene of the crime is just sort of going over everything. Graham is still lying down, still supine, and Jess is just sort of looking out the window. All right. Turn out your pockets.

Uh, Jess goes, no. And Graham goes, oh, okay. And Angus does. well. So Angus and Graham outturn their pockets. Graham has some Andy's mints in his folds. He doesn't seem to have diarrhea, so that's probably good. He has his own magic wand and a spellbook, and that's it. And Angus has his hand crossbow and his book of interception and a toolkit, a detective's toolkit with like a a mirror on a stick on it and a notebook and a magnifying glass and a dusting kit and grappling hook and all kinds of stuff. So basically the whole turnover all your weapons only applied

to us. What do you mean? It's got a crossbow and what's her name can some of the very well a very well concealed crossbow he says. Hey, hey listen I don't know why I didn't think of this before is that everybody's pockets it is right? Just Justin not in Jesus refused. Let's talk to Angus for a second. Hey, Angus. Hey, what's up? You're like a great detective. I don't know why you let the babysitters club here.

I've actually been watching you. You've been doing a surprisingly good job, he says. I've already figured it out, of course. Yeah, well, why don't you give us a hint? Isn't it more fun if you try and figure it out for yourself? He says. No. No.

I was just kidding. I haven't really figured it out yet. I was just like putting... Lise, I'm a 10-year-old boy. You're a 10-year-old douche. Are you the world's greatest detective in comparison to your age? Is it a sliding scale thing?

I'm the best detective in the world. I'm very young and I'm very... I'm very self-conscious about my age, so I guess I put on a front... I'm glad that I have somebody to talk to about this. I'm going through a lot of changes right... I turn to jazz. All right.

All right, bye. Jess? Turn out your pockets. Uh, no, I'm good. I'm all right. Thank you. Okay. Turn out your pockets. Hey, turn out your pockets. Okay, I do. I've got my grandmother's knife. Uh-oh, a knife. A bed roll.

It looks like you could probably use a knife to cut off a person's head, huh? Don't you think? It's like a two-inch blade. Yeah, I mean, it would take a while. How can you prove that? How can you, no stop? How can you prove that you didn't cut this guy's head off with your grandmother's knife? is my grandfathers. Stop. I'm doing a perception check on Jess.

Okay. What are you trying to proceed? I'm just looking at her whole thing to see if there's any like anything that seems out of place, stains, damage, anything like that seems out of order. Hey, do you want me to cast Zone of Truth? Hold on. That would be an investigation check. If you are pouring over like a specific thing.

Okay. Investigation check on Jess. Perception is if you're trying to find something. thing. Investigation is if you're trying to learn something about something you know is already there. Okay. I got a 12, so it's not great. No. I'm not very sleuthy. Well, with a 12, you see that she doesn't have any blood on her. She has a little bit of crab ash on her from when she halved the beast you were fighting before. But yeah, no blood, no signs of, you know, struggle. Her clothes aren't torn or anything, her armor, I should say.

All right, I guess we're having to frisk her. Okay, that sounds like it's going to be a lot of fun, she says. That's going to be a lot. That's going to be a ton of fun for all four of us. Do you guys like gambling? She says. Yeah, yeah. Let's place bets on how far I can throw each of you, she says.

Are you roided up? That's a little aggressive. Wait a minute. I cast detect magic. Okay. If there's anything, any magical items in this room, I will see an aura around them. Okay, that's fine.

That's fine. That's a sound the track. So you pick up on a few things. You pick up on the Book of Interception. You pick up Graham's magic wand. You pick up the faintest hint of a trace of magic on Jess's axe. You pick up your own magical items, of course, yours and Merle's. yours and Merle's

you pick up Magnus's jumping boots the rail splitter has some traces of magic on it you guys have accrued a few magic items at this point Jess other than her axe doesn't have anything okay guys she doesn't have anything apparently nobody does in this room

she's clean so yeah the room is clean the rod isn't in here then let's move to the sleeper car and we'll take a buddy system my buddy will be Jess I'm not coming You are No, I'm good

I'm gonna stay here And then if I see anybody Even remotely threatening I'm gonna cut them in half That here Let's split up our jobs You guys can do your Encyclopedia Brown shit

And I'm gonna stay up here And I'm gonna cut anybody in half who steps Oh hey, Merle Merle, leave a scuttlebug here Oh, good idea Okay You wind up the scuttle bug What is it called?

Scuttle Buddy I name but scuttle buddy So you, there's a mosquito in this room and it's killing me. Is that, wait, did you just send the scuttle buddy into my room in real life? You wind up the scuttle buddy, a small, it turns towards you and makes a, oh, woo, noise. It's recognizing you as its mother. It's imprinting. It's imprinting.

It's very, very adorable. It turns away from you and out of its butt. You see a tiny little round nodule pop out of its butt in front of you. Scuttle Buddy. And it turns back and goes, woo, woo, woo, and starts sort of nudging this little nodule towards you, proud of it. Pick up its poop. God, this is the cutest thing.

Why has nobody done any fan art on Scuttle Buddy? There was some Scuttle Buddy art. All right, I pick up the nodule. It's a little sticky. Scuttle Buddy takes one of its pincered legs and points at the side of its own head and goes, Woo-Zoo-W-W-W! Well, I take the nodule and I place it in its head? It says, and it pops it out of its own head, and then it points at you and then to the side of its own head.

Oh, put it in your ear. All right, I put it in my ear. Okay. As you do that, you... You can hear the things in the room around you, almost like they're being amplified. Like there's a little bit of feedback. Like there's a little bit of an echo. And the Scuttle Buddy very discreetly climbs up to the ceiling and wedges itself between the ceiling and a light fixture on the ceiling and sets up shop there.

Probably would have been better if Jess hadn't seen that. She didn't. Jess, if anything happens. Yeah, you guys got it. And then in your ear, Merle, you hear. I love you too, Scuttle Buddy. My Scuttle Buddy, my Scuttle Buddy will be available in all of Toys R Us stores by November 1. Collect them all.

There's 800 Scuddle Buddies. Each one costs $16. See if you can tell the difference. You can't. They're very, very similar. Comedy and Culture, artist-owned. Listener supported. Hi, I'm Julie Sabatier, host of Rendered.

It's a show about making meaning and breaking rules. We're answering important questions, like, can you build a space suit in your living room? I went to my brother's place in Beaverton, and he has a swimming pool, and I pressurized the suit and sat down there underwater for about 10 minutes. The thing that I built was supporting my life. That felt really good.

What does it sound like when you play a polka record through a styrofoam cup? And what happens when an airport carpet gains a cult following? Oh my goodness. The carpet has an Instagram. Check out rendered now at maximum fun.org, or wherever you like to listen to podcasts.