The Adventure Zone - Ep. 18. Petals to the Metal - Chapter One

Episode Date: July 2, 2015

In this first chapter in a new Adventure Zone story, Merle, Taako and Magnus are in hot pursuit of a master criminal in the metropolitan city of Goldcliff. Can they stop The Raven before her crime spree tears the town apart? I don't know, because we haven't finished playing this part of the campaign yet. Magnus does some chopping. Taako learns to Nightcrawl. Merle has a genuinely upsetting encounter with some vines. 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, the seekers look out for any information that can aid in the finding of these relics, but they are forbidden from claiming them themselves. That is where you come in, the reclaimers. Your job duties will just include following up on any promising information that our seekers and spies find for us. We will send you out on missions, and you will do what you did in Fandolin, ideally without involving the destruction of an entire city and the loss of thousands of souls. I mean, ideally, yeah. The three of you can see in the sky for just two seconds. The sky is filled with thousands of bright white eyes. Magnus immediately assumes he got a hold of some bad unicorn dick.

Come on in. Come to the place where fun never ends. Come on in. It's time to party with Garfield and Francis the Adventure Zone. Are you ready to start a new? storyline a new grand adventure. A new chapter.

Please, Griffin. Please start. I'm so hungry for it. And the Blood Eagle saga, which is what I'm calling this sole storyline, is the Blood Eagle saga. The Blood Eagle sausage.

This Blood Eagle sausage chapter begins right now. The three of you are fighting. You're in a fight? And you're in... Like with each other? Like, you're in combat.

You drank my milk. Hitting the ground running. No, you are in the icosagon. The training dojo for the Bureau of Balance, and you are squaring off. The three of you are fighting against a three strong team of formidable combatants. You're fighting against Killian. You're fighting against Avi. And Mobius.

And you're fighting. Who? I'm sorry. I think he meant to say Morpheus? Morpheus. from Max? No, Mobia says in the guy that invented the strip. The breathe race.

And the fight is taking forever. The fight is going on for a long time. You three are fighting against Avi, Killian, and Robbie. It's a friendly sparring match. And then we killed Robbie. Well, no, you can't kill Robbie. I have big franchise plans for Robbie. But you are doing some friendly sparring.

You're doing some training. Robbie is throwing some cocktails at you. Killian is doing some acrobatic evasion and firing off some dulled crossbow bolts at your way Avi seems like he's holding back a little bit maybe he's too nice to actually do any damage to any friend he's too friendly to take an honest to God full force swing at you drop us into a middle of fight I don't know the stakes

are there any babes or I'm trying to impress yeah sorry circling the ring there are dozens of Bureau of Balance employees that are there to see what these three reclaimers that have brought back to Grand Relecks, they want to know what these three people are capable of. And so, yeah, I guess

there are a few women in the audience, Taco. Okay, Gravary, there are women in the audience, but are there bibs? There are no more than four, no less than four bibs, but no less than 16 babes. Oh, I

know this one, and one of them has a birthday in May and only wears red hats. Somebody draw me a Matrix. Okay, I've got this. You remember the Matrix starring Mobius? Oh, you just sat back and waited for that one, didn't you? Just waited. Step into my web. The fight is interrupted before you can do anything impressive by the voice of the director.

But I was just about to you. I let the record show. Yeah, it sure sounds like it. The voice of the director booms through the danger room and requests, your presence in her office for an urgent matter. Killian says, oh man, I was just about to put the herd on, y'all.

I was just about to use my limit break. Y'all don't even know what I'm capable of. She sounds like Holly Hunter. She sounds like Griffin. Yeah. It's basically sound like Griffin, yeah. I mean, she was the first voice. She was the first voice I ever did.

And so at this point, are we all lining up to like high five and say good game and stuff? Oh, yeah, yeah. It's all very, very cordial. There's a special bureau balance handshake that you do And it's basically the the handshake the secret handshake from big That's sort of the greeting for members of your order

So when we show up half hour later to the director's office She's like, what were you guys doing? Was it the handshake again? Thank you for coming to my... She says thank you for coming to my office Shimi, shimmy, koko puff And does the whole thing So should we go to her like office or whatever? Yeah, you're there Okay, whoa.

Oh, hey. She is speaking to Davenport, going through some papers when you enter into her office and looks up at you with a start as you enter into her room. And she stands tall with her white oak staff and addresses you and says, I have an urgent mission for you. You'll need to depart post-haze. Hello. Oh, sorry. Hey, Jimmy, Jimmy, Coco Puff. Listen to me now.

Wait, no, that's country grammar. And how you doing? I'm doing just fine. Say hello to my fish. That's Stephen. You want me to address. Oh, look at that. Yes, I see you've got a little friend there.

Does he do anything? He swims around in his tiny ball, and he loves me. And right now he's doing his trick of swimming upside down on the surface of the water. Stephen is not dead. He's in a sphere. He's not in a fish bowl. How do you feed him? Even is eternal.

How do you? Oh. If you're quite done, I have a job for the three of you. It should be quite much easier than your last job, although your last job entailed you literally going to a train station and getting a thing out of a box. Well, there is a little bit more to it than that. I just remember to do my Magnus voice. Terrific. I have a job for you.

I need the three of you to report to the city of Goldcliff. certainly you've been certainly you're familiar with Gold Cliff very we actually have only been to three places and they're no longer there most of them aren't there anymore Goldcliff certainly you've heard of it is the financial seat of power

in all of the realm it's where the money lives of course there's a grand relic one of our seekers have found in the city of Goldcliff and it is in the possession of a master criminal known as the Raven.

We've been unable to apprehend the Raven. That is so Raven. First blow. The first of Minnie, I assume. The raven is named for the black feathered mask that she wears. You will need to apprehend her and retrieve the relic that she has been utilizing to wreak havoc all around Gold Cliff. This time I can actually give you some helpful information as to the nature of this relic.

Just out of curiosity, this raven, is she like evil, chaotic neutral? Like, is she kind of a catwoman-esque figure? I can't imagine that people in this universe refer to other people as chaotic neutral. Like, that cannot be in fiction. I'm almost certain that that sort of information, how should I say this? should be developed throughout the course of your story. If life is like a story, I guess if you want to think about it like that. The relic she has used to up her criminal game is called the Gaia sash,

which gives the wearer control over nature. It gives them immense control over the powers of wind and thunder and flora. and heart and fire. And what makes this so curious is that the raven has taken up residence in one of the biggest cities in all the land and not in the forest where she would be a god. She has been impossible to apprehend thanks to the powers lent to her by the Gaia sash. You will need to go to Goldcliff, work with the Goldcliff militia to bring the raven in and secure the sash. while still acting under the sort of level of discretion that we require from you without too many people catching on what you're going for. That sounds pretty easy.

It sounds better than the train. Yeah. I mean, it's harder because there's a whole city. But if we just work at it, I'm sure we'll figure something out. If we just work together and stay positive. Yeah, like he said. Guys, we suck. What happens to us?

We suck. Speak for yourself, homie. level six. I must say, I'm chaotic good. I've been very impressed with the three of your job performance, but you sound, this level of confidence. I've never heard this from you three before. I think a lot of it has to do with our yearly review is coming up pretty soon, and we're

all hoping for a pay bump. Oh, I see. It's like the secret. You're acting confident because you want money, which is, that's the secret right there. Law of attraction, you know? One step forward, two steps back. We get together. She hates cigarettes, and I like to smoke.

Okay. Let's go see. Do we need any relevant equipment for this, or should we just, like, get moving? I mean, that's up to you, hoagney leads. We have a seeker on the ground that you can get more information from that you'll need to regroup with. He is also acting discreetly because his position is fairly high. up and he doesn't want anybody knowing he works for a shadowy cabal like ourselves. Is he with the militia?

Do we get in contact with him? I'm sure you'll figure that out. How about a name? Can we have a name? Something? You've met us, right? Like, you've met us. Right?

On this week's Adventure Zone, the third one in this series, they're still looking for the guy. He is the captain of the Goldcliffe. Militia. His name is Captain Bain. Is Captain his first name? Captain, Captain, Bain, yes. It's... I am a captain! Who is that? That was Bain, sorry. We'll work on it later. Why don't you call him Captain Benny, because I do a great Jack Benny.

I mean, I'm naming it after a real person, so I can't just change the real person. You know a real person named Bain? Yeah, I don't know him. He's on Twitter. He listens to the show. Are you new? Not anymore. Not his name. Is it? It's probably not his Christian name. Listen, we're going to get going, okay? Unless you have anything else to impart, any other leads, hot leads.

Any road snacks? Yes. Yeah, you got any road snacks? I've brewed you up a file of gorp, and I think you're going to love my special blend. Do you want to know the secret? Hmm. Love? Don't say raisins.

It's not raisins. Those are a shoe-in for gorp. I think that's what the R in Gorp stands. for. No, my secret. She says, come in, lean in close. I lean in close. I lean in far away. She says,

shelled? Yes, I leave the shells on them. Gives you stronger, sturdier teeth. Now get the hell out of my office. Are you? You're a loose cannon. Are you saying to me right now you make gorp? I make gorp. I actually call it gorp.

Please leave. You have stuff to do. Leave your badge and grop. Gun. Cooper. You should have guns. Please go. Please go. You're going to lose the trail.

Do we need to go see Avi? Yeah, you go see Avi at the launch pad. He's still a little sweaty from his workout. He's wearing a tank top. Hey, did you like it when we kicked your ass down of the Omagabraga Braga Frawn? The what? Omogabragas Froggeron. If any one of the three of you can tell me what a 20-sided shape is called, I will mail you a check for $200.

$1.000. A... All right, that's fine. Delugetitin? No, that's a 12-sided shape, but thanks for playing. Oh, are you talking about the Icosa hot? Oh, shit, I can't even do you know? Are you talking about the Icosagon?

Yeah. I don't think that fight. I think you're misremembering it. I got in quite a few good blows on you guys. I love you guys, though. Listen, we don't want to talk about who blew who. We got to go. Oh, I see, but you turn my words on me.

He got me again. It's classic. Can we go? Classic. Can we please start an adventure now? Yeah, hop into the fun ball, he says. Isn't there some sort of anti-nausea medication that we've received before? Am I misremembering that.

Okay, bye. You're talking, you want some fantasy dramamine? You're going to inflict... I need a dram of dramomene. It's dragoamine. It's a dram of dragoamine. Okay, here's a dram of drama. He says, oh, yeah, it happens to this.

best of us, buddy. Don't even worry about it. Oh, you know what? I think I'm thinking about the last time we did this, Travis's high. Yeah, I was drunk. Thank you very much. He was drunk. Drunk, okay. He does have his mug. You know, he could be like Mr. T on the A team.

He can't fly unless he's medicated. Avi pulls a flask out of his jacket. He says, actually, if you guys remember, I keep this on hand for when new folks show up if they are having trouble getting acclimated, give him a little nip of a hooch. So if you guys want a nip a hooch to help you on the way down, that's fine. But I'm worried, I'm worried if you make it a habit, then that it's a problem.

They should have come up with a name for that, making a habit out of drinking. So why don't you guys hop right in that fun ball, and I'll get you going. I do that. We do that. I do that. I'm going to get T-shirts printed that just say, I do that. Okay. He shuts the door to the glass cannonball and it depressurizes it.

You die, I guess. Oh, no, it has repressurized. Now it's at about half pressure. So you're... And now the ball is breathing. Oh, my God, it's sentient. You're inside of the living glass ball. No, it's not living.

You get inside. It rolls down a shoot into the cannon chamber, and you hear the muffled voice of Avi from outside yell, good luck. Have a good time down there in the world. And with a start, you are fired off. This time in a totally different direction than the direction you went towards Rockport on your last adventure. This time, you're flying east. I think you went west last time. and you're flying through the sky.

One of you is, is that the tiller, I'm guessing, the till. What's it called? The thing. The handle for flight. The steering mechanism. Well, it's more of a break. You're not really flying this thing, but you can slow its descent by pulling this lever. I'm not touching it. Last time I did, we crashed in a swamp.

That's true. I touch it. You destroyed some unicorns, if memory serves. And those are endangered, and you were billed. You were fined heavily for that. So you're flying down for a few minutes before you part through the clouds, you pass through the cloud layer. And this trip down is the most scenic one you've taken yet,

largely in part of the, to the natural beauty of Gold Cliff. It's, as its name suggests, it's situated on the edge of a cliff. and it's sort of carved out of this bleak landscape by these two wide crystal blue, crystal clear, crystal gale rivers. Don't it make my brown water blue? That's gross. And so it's surrounded by these rivers and they sort of split at the end of the city and surround it and then just flow freely over the cliff forming these two large, uh, breathtaking waterfalls. The city itself is largely comprised of these towering buildings that are kind of shimmering,

uh, in the unrelenting sun, uh, in this sort of desert-like area around this oasis. Um, and, uh, despite the fact that the, the, the land outside of the rivers is sort of a bleak wasteland, the city itself is kind of lush and green. Outside of those rivers, it's sort of just this blasted, featureless land, which sort of makes the city itself look all that more impressive. In that, the wasteland outside of the city limits of Goldcliffe, you see something peculiar. You see these long lines of dust clouds. And they're just carving a straight path through this bleak scenery. And as you watch them and you get a little bit lower to the ground, you realize that they are

actually extending and following a path that are marked by these large pylons, these large black pylons. And as you get even closer, you realize that the clouds are being whipped up by wagons that are speeding through the wasteland. And you see some occasional bright flashes of light moving between the wagon. They're heading towards the city or away the city. They're not even heading towards doorway the city. They're almost circling the city.

They're pretty far away. It doesn't look. This is not, nobody's mounting an assault on Goldcliff. You just see these lines sort of just racing out in the desert. Is it a race? Good question. From, with the untrained eye, with your six untrained eyes, eight, if you count the goldfish, it kind of looks like it a little bit. But you pass over, you pass over that scene.

And you are finishing your final descent into Gold Cliff. I'll start pulling the break. Okay. You pull the break and your descent begins to slow, giving you a closer vantage point of appreciating the city. And you are just gobsmacked by the largest building in town, which is this 20-story tall golden tower with a sort of gaudy golden statue on top of it,

holding a wreath emblazoned with the words gold cliff trust is it made out of gold it's all gold it's a lot of this stuff is very very gold uh and as you are uh trying to figure out how much you could hawk a statue of that size for uh you you you realize that this building is actually slowly being swallowed up by these gigantic thorny vines uh that are growing out of the ground at the bottom of the building. And there's a lot of activity just in front of the building with like dozens and dozens of you can make out some people and some wagons just sort of surrounding the entrance to the Goldcliff Trust that's being enveloped in these vines.

How high up are they? They are climbing up. I mean, they are about halfway up the structure at this point. And now, Griffin, should we assume that these. might be relevant to the story. No. Okay, so you land and you are, you land, and then you go to Mark's house,

and you just pick it there for a while. And he's like, what do you need, a grand relic? Guy of sash, I got that for you right here. See you later, dogs. All right, let's level up. Yeah, and time level up. You guys are level eight now. Another great adventure.

Your sphere, lands with a thud, in an alleyway, just about a quarter mile away from the Goldcliff Trust. And as you emerge from it, look around, you realize that nobody has really seen taking any notice of your entrance into the city. And as you exit, the door automatically shuts behind you. A balloon pops out of the top of the ball and your vehicle floats away. My wallet!

I left my Kindle and the seat back. We all left shit. Dad's third Kendall. Lost another one. You left your Zoom charger in there, and now it's as good as dead. See, that's a real... You talked me into buying that Zoom. Well, listen, it was 2006.

I said a lot of shit back then. Good point. What do we see immediately in front of us? You see a couple of vagrants in there in some shabby sort of makeshift dwellings in this alley. There's some kids playing hoop end sticks. Where are we in relation to the The building? Oh, you're pretty close to it.

It's around the corner. Well, now, hold on. I want to hear more about these vagrant kids. That seems like a promising thread. Do they seem to like love is the true value kind of thing? Like, they're poor but they're happy? This is a very 1% town. And these vagrant kids are also in the 1% but on the other end.

But they are just so, they have found a full. fulfillment with this hoop and stick that all of the tea in China couldn't make you happy. And so I guess the moral of the story is love was the real treasure all along. I'm like, I'm like already at the building. Okay. I'm like, I'm there. So ditto at the fantasy Costco, I bought the lens of straight creeping, which when look through highlights the footprints, tracks, markings of any person or thing that

traveled through the area recently. Okay. I think that's going to come in handy finding the Raven. I mean, you can use it right now and see if you can pick up on the Ravens tracks. Okay, I use the lens of straight creeping. Okay, all you see are straight line tracks, and you try to deduce exactly what these could possibly be, and you realize it's a ring, it's a ring and stick, it's from the ring, and these kids have been playing ring and stick for a long time. See, I didn't use it.

That was a trick. I can't believe you fell for that. It's all hoop tracks. But, God, there's so many hoop tracks you think these kids must have been playing a hoop and stick for like a thousand years. Okay, I've been at the building for like five minutes. What's happened to me since then? You are at the, are you all at the Goldcliff Trust? Yes.

Yes. You're at the Gold Cliff Trust. There are some police wagon, sorry, militia wagons. You understand when I say militia. I'm talking about fantasy police, right? Yeah, you can just say police. We got a few fantasy police in our, in our listenership who are, like, um, elevators?

I don't think so. I noticed that you used this one scale when I was farting in my hand and smelling it. Get out of here. You got it. We love you guys. Yeah, yeah. We love 99% of you. Just not you hand sniffers.

Not few handsnifers. There are a few militia wagons surrounding the entrance to the building. The building is now almost completely enveloped in these vines. mines. And the vines have also started to sort of spread almost like carpeting the street around the Goldcliff Trust. And so these militia people are giving it a pretty wide berth. There's about a dozen or so militia folks surrounding the entrance to this building. And in the back of the crowd, near a particularly large wagon, is a broad, mustachioed man in his late 60s, you would think, who's yelling gruff orders at his underlings.

Is he bigger or smaller than Magnus? He's big. He's brick shithouse big. And you are like a, I don't know, like an oak shithouse. Yeah. And that's not... Elastic value is very charming. Yeah, for sure.

But it's not advisable because that soaks up the smell. I want her over to him. Hail and well met and stuff. I'm Taco and we're from... Well, you know... And I like seven times. Hold on. Wait, wait, wait.

Barry, get Private Berry out of the vines. Oh, my God. Get him out of... Wait, did you tell Barry to get Barry out of the vines? Listen. Berry H. Sergeant, Sergeant Barry, get private Barry out of those vines. He's getting all slow.

B-A-R-R-Y and B-E-R-R-A. Sorry, what were you saying? My sergeant, Detective Strawberry, he's got a lot of different titles. Who the hell are you three? What are you doing? I'm busy here. Are you Bain? Yeah, I'm Captain, Captain Bain.

What of it? We're from the wink and the Nudge sent us. And we're wiggling our eyebrows. And leaning into it. suggestively. Huh? Let's put it this way. You can understand us when we say the words void fish.

Yep, yeah, that does it. Good stuff, good stuff. Let me see your arms, though. Okay. I flex. No, not. I hold out the arm that doesn't have a bracer on it. Okay.

I hold out my leg. Check out me. And it looks like you've got an ankle monitor on it there, dwarf man. What's that all about? Anyway, all right. You seem like trustworthy folks. Can I just compliment you on your judge of character? You're a great police captain guy.

Good policing, captain. So what are we looking at here? What's the, what's the sitch? Listen, I'm more big picture kind of, you know, direction, a lot of producer credits on this. Listen, we're not hiring. What's the situation here? I mean, we are co-workers already. I guess that's true.

Here's the situation. The Raven is in the building. I'm guessing stealing all the gold. I'm just going to go out on a limb. There's a lot of people's finances are all tied up in the Gold Cliff Trust. And so she's in there. We managed to evacuate a lot of the building. But as you can see, we're having trouble gaining access to it because of what on account of the vines.

Do you want us to go in and get her? That would be. Can I tell you something? That would be terrific. Let me ask you this. Follow up. Hit me. Do you think we're high enough level to do that?

I don't know. High levels of VEGar. Does that sound good? Sounds bad. We're this many. You're six. I'm about to send three six-year-olds into a building. Well, we've seen a lot of shit.

We're a six-year-olds who have been around the block. You know what I mean? Like, this isn't our first rodeo. It's our second. I'm familiar with your rodeos. You guys are legends. Well. Go on. Say hello to my fish.

Your legends in some small circles. I host a podcast, a fan cast about you guys. Okay, a narrow, narrow but impactful fan base. I'm into it. Well, listen, we're about to turn this shit into our hidden temple. These legends are wandering right in there. How many civilians are left in the building? We think we cleared them all out.

Oh, too bad. We're pretty good at often civilians. Yeah. I got to say, that's an upsetting thing to hear. I'm an officer of the law. Well, they usually turn out to have been bad in the first place, but we don't know that when we do it. Pure stupid luck. Griffin, when I look at the building, do I see an entrance on like a level that we would be able to get into and have the vines like made egress and ingress impossible? So the vines are not. not are not completely covering every single square inch of the building, but they are completely

wrapped around. So you can make out sort of where the entrance of the building is. It's right in front of you. They are parked out in front of the main entrance of the Goldcliff Trust. But, yeah, you get the impression that these vines are going to make getting into the front door pretty tricky. I run up and start blithely attacking him. Just hacker and slashing. Giving a couple chops of the old axe. Captain Captain Bain yells, well, okay, see you later. Boy, you guys sure are rude at ending conversations.

Oh, no, I'm still talking to him. I didn't stop the conversation. Okay, you're a good 60 feet from the entrance of the building. Then let me point out, Captain, Captain. Please call me Captain. Captain. Just one. If you just call me one, then I assume you're just using my first name.

Okay, one. Magnus and I kind of have the gruff voice thing kind of staked out so you could kind of change that. Do you want to have a gruff off? Oh, yeah. Let's roll gruff. Okay, Taco, you're the only non-gruff individual here. I want you to give me a word.

You don't have to make a big federal case out of it. And then we're going to go around in a triangle and say the word and see who does the gruffist job with it. Yeah, bring it. Okay. Bring it, Copper. Your phrase is Taco rules. I feel like I'm really making some progress. us.

Taco rules. No, try again. He only gets one shot at it. No, you're right, I fucked up. You're right, I had one chance and I fucked it right up. You're going to have to change it. Well, let me hear the other two, and I'll be the final judge. Taco rules.

What the hell? Yeah, that's gruff, baby. Oh, no, Lobo ate my dad. Magnus is over there getting David Allen Greered in Jumungi. Why did he rush in? Oh, well, stupid. Yeah. Hey, everyone, this is Griffin McElroy, your dungeon master and your best friend.

How are you doing? Are you doing okay? Thanks for listening to Episode 18 of the Adventure Zone. The first part of a story arc that I, just for the life of me, cannot come up with a name for. But hopefully by the time this is published, I will have a name for it, and it'll be really clever, and you'll read it and just get really hypey about hearing the rest of it. Got a personal message here from one listener to another, or maybe one of the one, listener to a non-listener, in which case they're just kind of shouting into the void. If you want to shout into the void, you can go to maximum fun.org slash jumbotron,

and that'll tell you how to get a personal message on the show. This message is for Lindsay Iserman, and it's from Arthur. And Arthur says, Happy birthday to the only person that could talk me into listening to a D&D podcast. Now a romantic evening means a bottle of wine, a synth-heavy score, and the sultry voice of that sweet, sweet, sweet dungeon master. Love you, sweets. not sure if that last part is directed at me or not,

but just in case it is, I love you too. One last message here, a commercial message, which you can also pick up at maximumfund.org slash jumbotron for your small business or your creative works. I want you to go check out elderwoodboxes.com. Elderwood boxes makes pocket-sized artistic wooden boxes to transport your Dungeons and Dragons dice in style. They personally select the finest woods to handcraft pocket-sized dice boxes

with a unique hexagonal look, with literally thousands of combinations of engraved art and wood type, no two boxes are the same. If wood carving, dice, and Dungeons and Dragons is your thing, and it is, go check us out at elderwoodboxes.com and customize the right box for you. P.S., we miss Barry Blue Jeans.

We all miss Barry Blue Jeans. He was a beloved character that appeared in, like, two episodes, then he died. It was the name, wasn't it? I kind of, it's like the best name, and I just sort of wasted it on a red shirt. If you could do us a favor and maybe tell a friend about the Adventure Zone, we sure would appreciate it. We don't market or advertise this show in any way.

We rely entirely on word of mouth. We just made about a month or so ago, we made episode 1.5, which is a super pared down version of our pilot episode. That just gets to the story stuff and the chuckles. That is a way easier way to onboard people onto the show. So, yeah, even if your friends maybe aren't big D&D fans, like we weren't either before. we started doing the show. So if you could just try and spread the word, we would really appreciate it. Leave a review on iTunes and do all that good stuff. We thank you. Thank you. Also, go listen to the other shows on the Maximum Fun Network. There's a ton of really, really good shows on there, like Pop Rocket,

Jordan Jesse Go, Judge John Hodgman. We do other shows on the network like my brother and my brother and me, Sawbones and Bunker Buddies. Justin does a YouTube show called Things I Bought at Sheets, and Travis does a podcast with his buddy Brent called Trends Like These. We got our fingers in a lot of pies. but there's infinity pies at maximum fun.org. Go check them out. They're all free. Free pie. You're going to love them. Also, last thing, if you want to get on the show, be a character on the show, just tweet about the show using the zone cast hashtag, and you might end up in the show, much like Captain Bain, who is named after Vinton Bain, who's Flesh eater on Twitter. Got a few more characters, a few more open spots for this story arc, so get those toots in now.

All right, I'm going to let you get back to the show. Thank you all very much for listening. I really do appreciate it. I'm excited to start a new story, arc. I'm excited for the 4th of July. That's neither here or there. Next episode is going to go up on July 16th, so I'll talk to you then. Okay, so what is Magnus actually doing, Magnus? Magnus said he was hacking at the vines.

And slashing. Oh, okay, well, that was... You solved my puzzle because slashing was the real secret. I'm just trying to do my best here, Griffin. You know what I mean? Every day. As you are hacking and slashing at these vines, I'm guessing using rail splitter? Yeah.

you are managing to get some meat off the bone plant you should be able to cut through any of them right instantly well they're not that's certainly just a tree and not until I push the button on the handle is there a button on the okay no it's just trees only and you can only do that once per day so or else Magnus could single-handedly deforest the entire planet I have a spell called blight. What's that to? It's a necromanic energy that washes over a creature of your choice,

but it can also be used on a plant creature or magical plant. Oh, I know. I was just saying that eventually I'll be able to catch with us. So if you can stall, if he can stall. Let dad squash the bugs. Let dad run out of town and go kill some level one. I'm going to go grind. I'm going to go grind.

And then I'll pick up some coal-bonds. Dad is going to buy with microtransactress. She's going to go pick up and turn in some crush bone belts. That was the nerdiest reference I've done on this show so far. And this is a Dungeons and Dragons podcast. As you cut them down with Rail Splitter, which Magnus has been doing fruitlessly now for like 10 minutes. You're knocking some plant matter. You're knocking some meat off of the.

off of these vines, but they are regrowing back in just as fast as you can cut them, even thicker than they were before. I, oh, no, can't do that. Oh, wait, no, I've got this. Vines, vines, go away. Please let me through. I can't think of a rhyme. The vines part. Nope.

They do not. I have channel divinity, charm animals, and plants. If I present my holy symbol, which I think you all know I have my extreme teen Bible, then invoke the name of my deity, which I'm sure you remember, is Pan. Did you pick Pan just because it was the shortest and easiest to remember? Oh, yeah, yeah. Do you even remember the name of the deity you had before Pan? Of course I do, Griffin.

Malodorous something or other. Each beast or plant creature that can see you within 30 feet of you must make a wisdom saving throw. If the creature fails its saving throw, it's charmed by me. for one minute. And while it is charmed, it is friendly to you and other creatures you designate. Okay.

So I could actually ask it to part, right? Yeah. I mean, you can command it. I'm not going to make a saving throw for a vine. Does Stephen need to make a saving throw? Yeah, Stephen actually does need to make a saving throw.

Okay. He rolled the 13. I don't know if he has any pluses. I think I would do it, but that's fine. 13 is not so right now Merle has command over your goldfish and I don't even know I don't even know what that means

I don't know what that means in the context of the game and the context of the story I don't know what that means I could make it poop it does it poops in the ball and then the poop immediately dissolves in the water so stop asking me how where the poop goes there's a lot of tweets last week how does it poop it just the water is magic it's a magic fucking it's a magic

ball and it dissolves poop and it turns the poop back into air. Okay? Wow. You got to back off that T-level medicine. It's really making you anxious. All right. So what do I roll? You don't. You just talk dirty to these plants. Hey, baby, I love your tendrils. Let me see your pistols and stamen. Grosseroy. Oh, man. You started it, McElroy. My knee is basically touching your knee. Please don't do this anymore. I didn't move.

enveloping the front door begin to flower and bloom I die which ought to be a lot easier to cut I die in fiction and remove my headphones and go to Gino's pizza pub and family fun center

and play ski ball for two hours I will we'll do the flowers start to wilt and pat and fade hey there vines can I leave you know what my buddy's over here

gonna sing a little sexy music no we're not sing something Hell, come on, sing something. Oh, wait, but the vines begin to flower sort of curiously. Uh-huh, see, come on, come on, sing something. Let's, let's bloom together. Oh, yeah, you know what, I've been looking at you vine.

I got here a few minutes ago, and I cannot take my eyes off you. I looked at you across the square, 60 feet away, and I said, do not be chopping on this baby. Look at that sweet, sweet pollen sack. Come on. Let's go over there. So anyway, you know, it would be really, really good if you would like spread your vines. I can't. And open up and let us walk in through your door if you know what I'm talking about.

The vines. Statistically speaking, at least one of our listeners has just discovered. that they are in possession of the world's worst fetish. The vines flower, the flowers, there's a jubilant puff of honeysuckle dew and the vines part allowing you entrance into the building. And I think I just described a plant orgasm. Yep. And I hold my thumb and little finger up in the universal symbol of I'll call you. Okay.

And this has been 50 shades of green, starring four idiots. I am in the door. Oh, I've already left. I wink at the vines, and I go in. The vines wink back, which is weird. That's very unpleasant. Yeah. Once you've been cultivated by Merle, you've been cultivated for life.

Once you, as you, as you enter the door, one of the vines rears back and just whips your butt, just like, p. Thank you. The vine shuts the door behind you. Hey, if you're thinking of making some fan art for that lesson. Don't. Please do. Please don't. The three of you are standing in the posh lobby of the Goldcliff Trust.

There is a regal carpet that you're standing on as you enter in atop a marble floor jutting out of it are these massive white columns that are surrounding this grand fountain in the center of the room and in that fountain there is something that looks like a gigantic tree that is growing out of it sort of unnaturally. And you get the impression of that tree wasn't there before because it has sort of displaced a lot of the water from this fountain. So the floor is a little bit wet.

Some of the vines have started to creep in through the foundation of the building, but not very many. Other than the tree, this foyer is sort of still in its undisturbed, lovely state. Do we hear anything? You hear a... It's funny you ask that, Justin. There is a shrill alarm that is causing...

It's just heard it. Yeah, that was crazy. There's an alarm that is piercing the silence that's not there because of the alarm in the room. The alarm is ringing out unanswered. A really vivid word picture of just, there's an alarm. There's an alarm, and the alarm, if there was silence, would be ruining it, is basically what I just said. So you're saying there's not, not silence. That's exactly

what I'm saying. There's the absence of silence. It's loud. It's a loud room because of this alarm that's going off, but nobody seems to be doing anything about it. Wait, if there's an alarm going off, how is it silent? Oh, good question, Justin. So, on the far end of the room behind

the fountain from where you're standing are a row of booths, like a teller booths. Yeah, teller booths. A row of booths there with a pretty secure door dividing the main lobby from them. And then on the left side of the room from where you're standing are a few doors. Griffin, does the tree, is the tree doing anything other than, like, is it going up through a roof or is there anything on it?

Does it seem to have a purpose aside from just being a tree in a room? Is it checking out my ass? Anything like that. Strictly platonic from this point. on. Please. Do I have time to smoke a cigarette? You absolutely do.

Not. You could make a check. Yes, I would like to do that, please. Is that perception? Probably investigation, as you can notice. Investigation. I roll the 17. Okay.

You don't notice any sort of obvious, like, movement or anything from the tree, but some of its leaves are falling off, which is curious because there's not like a a breeze in here. There's not like a stiff breeze. You're indoors. But this tree is shedding some of its leaves. Hmm. He's really deciding whether or not he wants to use that old.

That is correct. Okay. Is the tree blocking our way to anything? No, it is. You're about 40 feet away from it. And it's sort of in the center of the room. The only obvious exits are those doors to the left side of the room. room. Is it climbable? The tree? Yes. I mean, it's a tree. So it's as climbable as trees get.

Okay, now I would like to use the lens of straight creeping now. You look straight down. You're basically standing right in front of the entrance. And you use the lens of straight creeping. You see a lot of footprints moving out of the building originating from all around this room, probably the evacuees of this building. But, you know, you. You detect one pair of footprints that is really curious because they start right there at the front door. And then they vanish for like a good 15 feet. And then they reappear. And then they vanish again for another 15 feet and so on and so forth.

Yeah, it's it is not the usual sort of footprint pattern that people leave. Pretty cool sentence. And they lead directly to the middle of the room into the fountain. and then they lead to the left side of the room through one of the doors over there. Wait, before we head through the door, is there any loot? We're in a bank.

Yeah, like, do we see any? Is there, that's actually not a bad question. Is there any, like, any sign of, like, money or anything, like, obviously, like, stolen or destroyed or anything? Not, nothing, like, obviously stolen or destroyed on this floor. But again, you only have access to about half of this lobby Unless you get into those booths in the back of the room Magnus, you want to go look at the booths or you want to go through the door?

I mean, let's check out the booths first Boots. Okay, let's go check out the booths. Booths. We go to booths. Okay, as you walk toward the booths, towards the booths on the back side of the room from where you're standing, you walk forward.

And as you begin to approach the fountain in the, the center of the room between you and these booths, the tree awakens and turn towards you, and you can make out some knots and features in this tree, which is not a tree at all, my friends. It is a tree ant. Part ant, can you even imagine anything more terrifying than a tree ant and his name is Trent? That's not a listener. I just thought it would be a fun joke.

And as it turned out, you were right. I was right. It's a really fun show. His name is Trent. Nope, just Trent. Doesn't have to be a reference. Just a fun joke I made. Does he look as though he's rolling for an issue? No, it looks like he's going to do a surprise round because y'all just walked right up on him. He is going to rear back and he's got one sort of big limb and one sort of small but limb with some sharp barbs on it. and he's going to go ahead and swing in a pretty wide arc at all three of you with this big lamb.

Why don't you make a dexterity saving throw to try and get out of the way of this attack? He rolled a 16. I rolled a 4 plus 2, a 6. 14 here. No dice. 17. 17. 17. Okay.

No, mine's zero. Okay. Merle, you duck out of the way and shout, hey guys, look out! Maybe give a fair warning to your compatriots who do not acknowledge it. This massive limb smashes directly into Magnus and Taco and hits you both for negative three damage. 14 damage. Whoa. Picking and picks you up and slides you.

back toward the entrance of the room about 30 feet away, and now we're going to get into initiative. Okay. And it says, Groot. Oh my God, it's Groot. It's Groot from the hit movie, Groot and his buds. 14. 14. I got a 12.

I have a 14 and a 4. So I'll take the 14. Are you sure? Can I sell you on that 4? Yeah, you are going right now, Taco. I cast blink. Okay. What is that? And your eyes get

moisture than they were before and you feel relieved. It had been, you guys realize in the whole time I've been doing this podcast, you've never blinked. Because you've never said you did it.

This is crazy. I swallow. No, I cast blink. That's one of my new third-level transmutation spells. Okay. Welcome to the show. Blink.

So here's how blink works. I rolled a D-20 at the end of each of my turns. and on a roll of 11 or higher, I vanish from this plane of existence and appear in the ethereal plane. What the shit? I know. At the start of my next turn, when the spell ends,

I transport back to the physical plane within 10 feet of where I was before. And why I'm in the ethereal plane, I can see and hear what's going on in shades of gray, but I can't affect anything, and nothing can affect me. You can fucking night crawl now?

Yeah, I can bam. Bam! Yeah. That's radical. I know it's really cool. I was very proud of that selection. Okay. So yes, I cast blink.

Okay. And now... I also have that, according to my sheet here. I've written down... Blame. Oh, everyone's blinking. My turn is over, and I roll... Okay, 16.

All right. You blink into the ethereal plane And do you disappear from sight from Magnus and talk? And Merle? Yes, and Magnus loses his goddamn mind. They have no clue what's happening. Okay. What the-thor?

You blink into the ethereal plane and suddenly your vision goes gray. You blink out of view from from Merle and Magnus. And the scene in front of you, other than the color swap change, stays relatively, same. But for a split second, for a flash after you enter this ethereal plane, you see three gray figures with bright white eyes standing all around the room, sort of positioned around the room, sort of surveying the scene. And as soon as you appear in this ethereal plane and see them for just a second, before you can even discern what they are, they blink out of you. Oh man

Nothing weird here Are they in the physical realm now? No Magnus and Merle You see nothing They just changed the channel they were on They all switched to 5.1 Not this idiot

And that's it for your turn Okay Next in the order is Merle I want to cast prayer of healing On Magnus Oh okay yeah he took a hit Yeah He would regain hit points equal to

2D8 plus my spell casting ability modifier. Which is, I think, six now. It is. Nice. Can you, is that a touch spell? Is that a range spell? Do you say the range on it? Anyone that I can see. Okay, you can see him. Within range.

How is your eight? Seven. Oh, are you doing it? Yeah, you're doing it. Merle, you are still standing right next to the fountain with Trent in it. Are you going to kick it there? Are you going to back up? Yeah. No, I'm not. Hell yeah.

I'm not going to. So I roll my eight, so that's eight. And that's twice that, correct? Well, you roll a second time. Okay, eight, and one, so that's nine plus six. So I heal him all the way, right? Wait, why is this? How do you figure out of the spellcasting modifier again?

I'm sorry, this is the one that always, I always forget. This isn't hit dice. I don't really get it. It is your, your spellcasting modifier is your, so for clerics, I think your wisdom modifier plus your proficiency bonus. Your proficiency bonus. Which is three, correct? Right.

Three plus three. Three plus three. And then plus your, actually plus one because you have your extreme teen Bible and that's plus one. So I'm healing for 16. But I can't go above my base number, right? No, no, no. There's a mechanic called temporary hit point.

I actually don't know if Fifth Edition has temporary hit points. It does. And I would just like to point out for the first time in the history of this podcast. I think I actually cashed a healing spell. That was a healing spell. It's confirmed. That's a good one. Who had 17 fucking episodes in?

Next in the order is Magnus. I am going to run up to the tree, push the button on rail splitter, and chop it in half. Okay. You run up to the tree. And you're welcome, by the way. Yep. That ain't going to work. You click the button on real splitter.

It powers up. and you rear back and with a mighty swing cut through it like a hot knife through water. And you hear it emit a... Oh, my butt. You chopped my butt. And it topples backwards away from the front door and topples and falls backwards into the booths in the back of the room, which sends up paperwork and receipts and ledgers go flying up into the air as you fell Trent, the tree aunt, who uses his two giant, meaty tree branch arms, and he rears himself up and looks square at Magnus in the face who's standing in the fountain,

looking very proud of himself, and he rears up his bark. face. It's bark-like because it is bark, and he screams at you very loud with sap pouring out of his mouth. What's he saying? Yeah, it's some sort of tree language, which Merrill understands, I guess, maybe. Yeah, I do. I do. Okay. So let me translate.

That means he aggressively is going to retaliate against you and cause you some kind of harm. But I talked to him in half. And he did take some damage for that. Yeah, I should hope so. I think cutting in half counts as a crit. So that's 16. And then some falling damage.

And some halving damage. Extra. 14 damage. So 30 damage altogether. That's pretty good hit. I would just like to point out that if I were fighting a human being and I didn't attack that chop them in half cleanly, like as I believe you said, a hot knife through water, I don't think we'd be rolling for damage.

Well, it is a magic tree. a human. Maximumfund.org. 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.