The Adventure Zone - Ep 29. The Crystal Kingdom - Chapter One

Episode Date: December 19, 2015

A new adventure begins! Join our heroes as they host a relatively successful office holiday party, and mourn as that party gets totally sidelined by a potential apocalypse. Magnus puts his carpentry to good use. Taako perfects his macaroon recipe. Merle does some re-gifting. 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 Bureau of Balance has a singular purpose, and that is to collect and destroy weapons of mass destruction, what we call the Grand Relics. You will be reassigned to lodging more deserving of your accomplishments, and to that end, we've hired a new seeker whose sole responsibility will be providing you with live intel when you're hunting down a Grand Relic. Hello, sirs! It's the boy detective.

It's Angus. We don't know anything about this creature, and we're putting all of our faith into it. My name is Lucas. Lucas human man. And I'm asking him to let me take it back to my lab and just see if I can figure out what makes it tick. Are you part of the pure avalanche or what? You I am over? He does not have a bracer.

Oh, I don't like this guy. Where is our campaign going next? A haunted amusement park? A hunted cany factory? I don't know. It's the adventuism. Let's start producing content together, the four of us. Content, content. Content, content.

Time to make the content. We're about to start a new leg of our adventure. Do you guys have any ideas as to where I'm about to whisk you away? If I've learned one thing in the ensuing year since we began this podcast, it is don't try to guess where Griffin is taking this dream. I will say, Griffin, I'm very worried that this is the episode where you add in, like a lovable nephew character. Oh, wait, that's Angus, isn't it?

You son of a bitch, you already did that. Yeah. Angus is like our, who's that kid from the Brady bunch? Oliver. He's like when Leo DiCaprio came on growing pains. Pretty soon the franchise isn't good, but be about the three you chuckle fucks at all. It's going to be all Angus all the time. Dad, how are you feeling, by the way?

Let's do a quick dad health check. I feel much better. Thank you to the outpouring of love. and a little bit of hatred that came from all of our listeners. Welcome to podcasting. Now, everybody was really nice and very kind, sent along healing words. Yeah, I'm glad you're back in good health. You do still sound like two big piles of garbage rubbing up.

Well, I'm going to, I guess I'll be in character voice the whole time. So you say that, Griffin, but I think he has an interesting jazz blues voice. That is fair. I'm kind of like Bessie Smith. Enough tidily shitting around. Time to get to the content. Content. Content.

Before we start this leg of the adventure, I have an important question for all three of you, and that is, what did you get each other? What? For, what do you mean? Because it's candle nights. It's candle nights in the world of the adventure zone. It's candle nights all around.

What's synergy. All around Feroon. It's actually a different candle night. It's not quite the same as the one that we celebrate here on Earth Prime. But it is candle nights. It's a week-long holiday celebration. You know, the world of the adventure zone is about as, as pain religious as it gets. And so everybody just kind of stopped doing their own, you know, ritual celebrations

because it got sort of complicated, tracking who was partying down on what. And everything kind of just organically congealed into one super holiday. I'm going to catch that up on candle nights. super quick. Okay. Dad, do you remember all the Christmases we spent together as a family, uh, gathered around the tree and singing songs of yule and basking in each other's love?

No. Okay. Let's try that again. And you say yes to my fucking bit. Oh, right. Got a joke. Okay. Sorry.

All right. Yeah, do it learn to do a joke for fucking ones. Right. Sorry. Okay. Dad, you remember all the times that we spent, uh, gathered around the hearth, uh, basking in the Christmas time, Yule spirit of each other's love? Oh, Justin, those are memories

I'll never be able to forget. Turns out you're wasting our fucking time. Oh. Because just around the corner was a new holiday called Kandal Nights that was not only better than Christmas, it is absorbed Christmas and Hanukkah and every holiday.

Like Catamari Domesi. I wondered why I hadn't seen any TV commercials all about Christmas. Because Candle Nights ate them all. Got it. Solstice, too. We won the war on Christmas. It wasn't much of a war, though, was it?

It was an invasion. Didn't even realize. They look behind them. What's that knife to your throat, Santa? It's me, Candleite Santa. I'm kind of like you, but better. Kind of like you, but better, but I don't have all your memories. I must consume you.

Please don't ask Candle Knight Santa questions that only Santa would go. Please, do not test Candlelight Santa. You will panic if prevent. The talented Mr. Santa Claus was my favorite Matt Damon slash Tim Allen movie. It was about time that the two of them got together to work on a project. Anyway, fantasy candle nights shares a lot of the same sort of aesthetic inspirations as candle nights. Because of it's countless multiple religious sources, people just kind of do their own thing. And they're just cool with it.

There's usually a tree or bush involved or any kind of like a bit, any kind of like lush plant. But that's about the only staple. And right now the three of you are gathered around your. your own Candle Knights Bush. And you're having a little Bureau of Balance holiday party. Is it like a white elephant or like more of a secret Santa or we just doing a straight up exchange? It's more of just a straight up exchange.

The three of you are actually in your brand new dormitory suite that you got set up in after your pseudo-promotion in the last episode. It's been a month or two since your... last adventure and uh uh yeah it's it's winter time it's candle nights you're in your dope uh sweet and it is dope you've each got your own sort of uh private sleeping chambers that attach bed home rooms yeah your own like sleeping rooms and it attaches to a shared living room it's a it's like a big it's a big space it is a a big step up from basically the dorm room you were sharing with Robbie uh aka Pringles aka jailbird i miss that dude

Well, he's in prison now. He's in prison. And so, yeah, you're having this holiday party. And you've got a pretty big living space to host it in. The coolest thing about this living space is why the director was hyping it up so much. It's actually on the bottom of the moon base. You've got like your own private elevator leading down to your private living suite. And you've got like a big dome glass window underneath you, just sort of looking down into

down towards the earth that you are floating. I want to say that I know that this is a fantasy world in which Griffin is painting a picture with words. I literally just had like a real life reaction to the idea of having a hole in the middle of my room that looked down thousands and thousands of feet. My stomach just dropped into my testicles a little bit. Was it a good reaction or bad reaction? It sounds bad.

Bad reaction. Yeah, I don't think I can acclimate to that. Like fantasy vertigo. It's like being on top of Willis Tower and standing on like the glass windows. Yeah, sure. Hey, Griffin, I bought, I bought, can you write down in your book that I bought a rug from my room and put it over the hole? Yeah, you can do that. You, uh, you roll a rug over your big, beautiful glass window, which seems to disappoint everybody in the room.

Because you're currently floating over never winter, which is ironic because it's definitely winter. And the, you know, the city is, the city's all lit up with, with Kansas. to light's lights but yeah sure you roll the rug over the room keeping me from having to describe things down below you anymore you're welcome that's my canonites gift to you thank you um laziness so yeah everybody's uh you've invited a few uh guests over a few like we'll call him essential personnel at the bureau of balance the director showed up uh Avi showed up he's little tipsy uh Killian uh is is in the mix Angus is there you didn't invite Angus but he's He's a real angus.

He's a sleuth, and he figured out that you're having a party, and he rolled up. And Johann is there. He's playing some festive music on a fiddle, and you're having a good old time. And yeah, it comes to the part in the holiday party where everybody exchanges gifts. And Johan walks up to the three of you and hands you all three very small boxes. And he goes, I hope you guys like it. I've been working on this one for a real long time, and I thought that the three you might, you know, appreciate it and tell your friends about it.

Well, I got this for you. Well, sorry, let me do my voice. It's been a while. I got this for you, Johan. I carved you a small figure of yourself. Enjoy. Neat. Well, would you, where'd you get the wood for this?

I got it from your violin. Wait, which one? Not the Rosewood one, right? You know, I can't remember. It was the one with the tag from your mom. Well, this is, this was Rosewood. This figure you've handed me. Uh-huh.

So. That's how I knew you'd like it. Do you seem to really like Rosewood? And he'd asked us, what do you think? Would he like the Rosewood? Oh, so this is from all three of you then? No. No.

No, I'm in macaroons. I'm just one that stole it from your room. He did all the carving. Okay. So a little theft. I get you. Well, guys, cool holiday. Good, good interactions. As always, my man. My main, me. Wait, don't forget your macaroons. Oh, yeah. Let me try. These are actually really good. Yeah, I know. I'm very, pretty good at doing this stuff. He sprinkled some rosewood on top of it. I did not. That's insane. It's candle nights. Okay. Well, I didn't, I didn't ruin your, here's your violin. I was just, okay, but you did steal it for the price.

though. Well, yeah. Okay. Well, pretty good though, right? You're welcome. You got me. I think I learned something about the holidays today. In a way, he got you a statue and a violin. If you think about it, the mystery remains of where you got the wood for the... Anyway, good to see you guys. Enjoy, enjoy my gifts. As you unwrap the gift that Yo-Hung got you, it's just a small, like, very small, like a like the size of a lemon. It's a small bronze box with a little crank on it, and as you turn it,

one of his compositions play. He's like, I got you guys each a copy of my mixtape. I think you're really going to like it. It's fire. That raw fire. It's pretty raw.

By the pointer sisters? Anyway, if you meet anybody down there that wants to, you know, produce something, publish my work, then, you know, tell them to hit me up. So Johan is doing the equivalent, like the, whatever the Fay-Run equivalent of handing out CDs in, like, Times Square is?

Yeah, basically. If we meet Fantasy Rick Ross, I'll probably, I'll get this tape in his hands. Killian gives you guys some gifts, too. Similarly, pretty small packages as you unwrap them, they are each hand-carved, personalized wet stones. which Magnus you'll probably get some use out of, but the other two of you don't really specialize in bladed weaponry, but they're nice. They're carved in the shape of ducks.

Aw. They're my favorite, she says. Re-giv. I hand her a carved wooden duck. That's really weird. It's really weird that we, how did that even, did you know I was going to get you a duck stone? Or how did you?

I read your diary. Well, that's, This is not a great candlelight so far, guys, just sort of judging by the interactions that we're all having in this room. Hey, but wait, bright side macaroos. Let me try that bad. Damn. Yeah, how we do. That is how you do, indeed.

And by the way, we know that you like, like, like, Johan. No, don't, you can't put that into the slash of it. It was there. It was right there in the diary. No, stop it. She's blushing. Avi gives you guys some gifts and they're wrapped up

and they're obviously small bottles of stuff and as you unwrapped them yeah they're little like airplane-sized bottles of brandy wine but he promises that that's the good stuff you're gonna enjoy that my guys nothing for nothing for me though okay that's fine

sort of wait I got something macaroos I'm on the Adkins diet can't eat that I card you this board for beer tasting You put little glasses on it Macaroons are fine on Adkins

I replaced the ground almonds With chikaronis or Pork rinds Oh god that sounds good Well yeah actually let me take a stab at one of those bad boys They're called macarones Egg whites and I replaced instead of using castor sugar I normally would I went with

Splenda This is uh yeah this is like I can taste like artificially sweeten pork accidents. It beats the heck out of more celery and good deli turkey. Oh, my man. Yeah, no. Keep at it. Yeah.

Thanks, guys. And I have, I have something for you. Oh, boy. Let's check it out. It's called a trick track. Okay. And when you are a worshiper of pan, you hand out these little tracts. And they tell little stories like the little shoes.

little shoes. Yeah. But the thing is you get to the end, and it's not about any religion. So it's a trick track. Oh, I see. Like a little prank gift. I get it. I like how you print this.

There are just bad books. Enjoy these shitty comics. Enjoy these shitty small books. And it looks like it's printed on pine cone paper. That's fun. It's actually made out of Rosewood. Angus walks up to you guys. and he hands you all three books, and they are each different...

Nerd! Well, I thought... Were they out of socks? No, you guys don't need socks. It doesn't seem like, but these books mean a lot to me. They're from my favorite young adult book series. And as you unwrap them, they are different installments in a young adult mystery novel series, titled Caleb Cleveland, Kid Cop.

Which is a young adult series about a young detective. And Angus says, these books were very formative for me. And he taught me a lot about, you know, checking things out and solving crimes and cracking clues. That's sort of the three main pillars. Checking things out, solving crimes and cracking clues. When I put my arm around Angus's shoulder and I say, for Candle Nights, I promise not to play Keep Away with any of your stuff for the coming season. Do you really mean it?

Yes. And when I take my hand away, I've stuck a kick-me sign on his back. This is the best, this is a Candle Nights miracle. Did you guys hear that? I kick him. No, but oh, God. I, uh, listen, Angus, I have something for you too. And I reached my bag and I pull out three spoons. Well, listen, it took me a while to buy these back

From the place where we lost them Don't think about that too much Wait, but what you just said, like I'm deducing that what you should have Christmas Christmas. Christmas. I had an little extra gold So I bought you these three spoons And Griffin, that will get rid of the extra gold I had After last week.

Okay, that's fair. I bought these three spoons for Angus. This is amazing. It was a 48-piece set. So now I've got... My hand starts to creep towards taking them away from him. I grab my wrist and pull it back. No. Yeah, promises a promise.

Thank you. This means a lot to me. I'll keep work. This is my personal quest. I know a lot of people are invested in my storyline, and that is to recover the remaining 44, you know, spoons, knives, forks, pieces of flatware that belong to my grandfather. And once I do, maybe I'll uncover a terrible secret about the universe.

Okay. All right. Can't wait to tune in. And this is for you, Angus. It is a wet stone shaped like a duck. Well, this is great. I can use it as like a paperweight or something. I thought you'd like it.

How did you know I like ducks so much? Haven't we talked enough? I guess so. Is it adventure time yet? Thanks, bye. There's actually one more person that has a gift to give you, and it's the director, and she walks up to you and discreetly... Bonus!

...hands you three envelopes. As Angus is walking away, I chuck a macaroon in his head. I forgot. That's true. And inside the envelopes, I don't know why I said envelopes, because this isn't going to make any sense, but there is 200 gold pieces a piece. Each envelope. Hey, thanks for these shitty, jangly envelopes. Well, yeah, I didn't really think about the delivery mechanism quite so much, but this is your holiday, your candle nights bonus.

The three of you put in good work this year, and you've got a little bit more than everybody else. So if you could be sort of discreet about... Wow, 200 gold pieces! Oh, hey, damn, damn it. I don't expect any gifts from you. I'm your employer, frankly, that would be... I hand her coupon for one free back rub. This is exactly what I was actually afraid of.

This is actually, Magnus, this is the nightmare scenario. You can use that whenever. Yeah. But wait. Elder flour macaroons. I'll take a run at it. Okay. Hot diggity shit.

That's what we do. That is how we do it. That is a baller cookie. How did you even do this? The secret is to get the almonds ground down really fine before you try to make the cookie. And also the filling should be thick enough so that the cookie can stand on its side and stay together. She pulls out a notebook. She pulls out a notebook and she's like writing all this down.

She tears a page off stuff in her top. You get it out in my book. I have a little something for you, too, Madam Director. You sound like death. Thank you. It's a little music box with a crank on the side. That's weird. I got a very similar thing from Johan.

He said it was his, he said it was like a fiery tape or something. It's a set. It's a mix. It's a match set. Let me see. She cranks it. She cranks it. This is the exact same song that plays on my mix box.

I can't believe he stole. your idea, Merle. Shh, little bastard. So, yeah, you've exchanged presents with everybody, had a good old time. I have presents, hold on. I have presents for Merle and for Taco. Okay. I made you guys chairs for your new digs.

And if you lift up the cushion, it doubles as an indoor toilet. That's some heavy magic. I carved it with my own two hands. Because I was a carpenter, if you remember from my backstory. You didn't even use a tool? Well, I... Don't be a jam. He just chopped the wood apart in the shape of toilet chairs.

The director is still standing nearby. Wow, no gifts from you guys to Magnus, huh? That's a little awkward word. Well, you speak too soon. Here's a book. I was standing next you when he gave us all three of these books. Oh. Here's a macaroon.

All right. You know, I haven't given you any macaroon. Merle, here's a macaroon. Thanks. Here's a macaroon. One for you, Magnus. There, nobody splits macaroons. I eat the macroon and I get a plus 2 AC.

And all your rolls get plus three. I have a bo-go coupon at Fantasy Costco. There is one present left underneath the candlelight shrub. And it has a tag on it. And it says four Taco Merle and Magnus. And it's wrapped up in a very ornate paper, very shiny, glossy, silver paper. And it doesn't have a from name on it. It doesn't say who it's from.

Just as it's two, the three of you. I open it. Okay. Of course. You run up and tear the box open and explodes you die. You tear the box open. It doesn't explode. You don't die.

I'm fine either way. Wow. So which is it? No, it's a safe. It's a safe box. You tear it open. And inside is a small, like sort of fine velvet, almost like a jewelry gift box. And as you pop it open and the three of you are sort of looking over into this package, as you open it up, you see there are three.

iron-on badges inside of this box. And there are these dark blue circle, like iron-on emblems. And inside of each of these blue fabric circles, there are 12 more circles, all different colors sort of around the outside of each badge. And in the middle is a word that's really. written in a language that none of you recognize. You cannot read, you cannot make out what the word is, what these badges are for, because you can't seem to read this word in the middle. And tucked in between these three badges is a note that says, for your eyes only.

Okay. And the director looks at you as you open up the box that says, what is that? What did you guys get? Nothing. What do you mean? I think it's a James Bond movie. I cover them up real quick. and put it in my bag. That's not really the spirit of candle nights, you know. We're all just trading. It's pornography. It's... Oh, then I'll take it.

It specifically says for our eyes only. Well, that is very... Suspicious, right? I realize that after I said it, it's really suspicious. I'm... Listen, it sounds like it could be a security risk. I think you guys might need to... No.

No. She's interrupted by... by a voice that is coming from a stone pendant that she's wearing around her neck. This stone starts to glow, and you hear a very muffled, staticy, distant voice come through her necklace that says... What's Lisa? It's me, your necklace! You know that new sound you've been looking for? I got this music box. You gotta hear it.

She looks mortified. Because we know her name's Lucretia? And she stands up and stops her line of questioning immediately and stands up and turns around. And you hear her gruffly whisper into the necklace. How did you get this frequency? What's the frequency, Kenneth? And then you hear the necklace say something, but she sort of moved away from you so you can't exactly make out what's going on. But you do hear her say, you did what?

To who? And she walks even further from the crowd and seems to be having a very intense conversation with her necklace. With her necklace. And she pulls out that small notebook and keeps writing stuff down. and eventually, like, she's, she is just, like, yelling. She is having a very, she is very disappointed in whatever is on the other side of this, of this. Griffin, is this the kind of thing where people have started, like, shuffling out of the party? They're like, ooh, okay, you.

A, Paul has fallen over the crowd, and nobody's like. Somebody pick up Paul. Nobody's talking and drinking and having a good time so much anymore. Everybody's just kind of like, everybody looks pretty worried, because the director is this upset about something. Some shit is going down. Thanks a lot. Lucretia for spool on our party. I make eye contact with Johan and kind of like spin my finger and like a play some music

kind of gesture. Okay, he starts playing the, that part of that one song. It's like, play some funky Dixie Band. No, he's just, everyone loves. Yeah. Nobody knows what it is, though. Yeah, he doesn't know what it is either. That was a joke.

It's Blackwater by the Doobie Brothers. Thank you. He plays some, yeah, he plays some music, but it's slow and very, it's, it's, it's is of a concerned tone. It's in a minor key. Play some funny gixie land. You guys sound like two being throat singers. Keep on rolling.

Just keeps rolling along. Oh, black water. He don't do nothing. Stupid. Stupid show. After a couple minutes of muffled argument with this pendant, she writes down something else in her notebook, tears out the page and walks over to Avi and hands it to him.

And she says, move the headquarters to these coordinates right now. Pronto. We're in a hurry. I walk over to her. Need that back rub? Oh, it is not the time nor the place. Um, nor the situation, nor the situation, okay, later, not now, maybe. You should set him up in advance though.

He booked up quick. That is true. Um, Avi looks at this piece of paper and says, um, these, uh, these coordinates are south of here. And the director's like, okay. The director's like, yes. And he says, uh, the, the moon typically doesn't move south. And, uh, she says, just do it. Just go.

Just do it. and Avi scurries out of her. You gotta pick out my brother at the airport. What would Cardinal directions be in relation to in a moon base? Probably as you were viewing the sky from the ground. If, yeah. She just had a conversation with her necklace. Don't worry about Compass Rose.

Okay, that's fine. Yeah, she says, I wasn't having a conversation with my necklace. My necklace is an emergency. She was having a conversation with me. Yes. Listen, it's Lucretia's time. No, I, this, my pendant is a stone of far speech that is specifically for emergencies only. And somehow, Lucas, our scientific advisor, who has helped us build this base. Oh, the guy who was an asshole to the void fit. Oh, so you have met him. Yes, I would also use those adjectives to describe Lucas. I hate that dips shit. Oh, yeah. He's a bad. Dush.

Dush bag. I mean, he's a bit abrasive, but we owe a lot of our success to him. I don't know anything to him. He, uh, that was him on the other lines of fart in a shirt. I don't even like him. We didn't even invite him to this party. He didn't make him macaroon. Okay.

That was him. Somehow he hijacked the frequency of, of my emergency stone of far speech. And he's informing of a fairly dire situation. He's gone too far. He's found a grand relic. And has... He found a grand relic and has apparently been experimenting with it behind our backs. But he's not a reclaimer.

He's not. Yeah, good point. He managed to get his hands on it. He... Because he is a... What's the word I'm like? Dushbag. Dushbag? No, he's a consultant for us.

We did have him inoculated with the voidfish's icker. So he's able to know about them. But he absolutely is not authorized to find them and hunt their down, and especially not to use them. But he's been experimenting with it. It's a bad one to be tinkering around with, boys. It's the philosopher's stone. No. What's that?

Whoa. The Harry Potter book? I have no idea what you're talking about. It's a... Good try. It's a stone that allows the user to transmutate any material into literally any other. material and in the wrong hands it could bankroll the army or in this case it could turn the entire world into a solid crystal extinguishing all life on the planet and that's the bad one that's

it can take one comedian's jokes and turn it into another comedian's jokes without crediting them exactly and merle here's your sign I'm confused. Why does Lucas want to ice nine the planet? You hear Lucas chime in through the pendant, and he says, listen, it's not me who's doing this, okay? Yes, I found the Philosopher Stone, and I was doing some experiments with it to help the Bureau of Balance, and maybe my grasp outreached, my sort of my scientific ethical boundaries.

Yes, okay, I will give you that, but something has taken over the Philosopher's Stone, It used it to turn the exterior of my lab into crystal and into specifically solid pink tourmaline. And whatever is channeling that relic is still somehow using it, meaning everything that the gym touches is going to get King Midas. Sorry, it's also going to get coated in gemstone. Is there anyone else in the lab?

Were you the only one working on the project? Yeah. I mean, I have some robotic helpers. But they don't possess the sort of sentience required to pull off a stunt like this. I don't know what it is that has taken over this stone. But right now, I'm trapped in my own med bay because right outside is a crystallized room. I should explain my lab is separated into different chambers by what I call arcane airlocks, which kept my whole facility from getting all tourmalined.

But unfortunately, the entire exterior of the base is covered in what is essentially a sort of virulent crystal. And the suspension cores of my lab, it's basically what your Bureau of Balance headquarters is modeled after. They can't compensate for the extra weight. And so I'm sinking because of my lab's new candy coating. And if I hit the Stillwater C below,

that's it. That's it for the world. It's going to spread. I look at Angus. You got all that? Because none of that made sense to me. He's been writing all of this down. Okay, great.

I'm glad we got this girl. Friday. Based on my calculations, we've got about 82 minutes before I touch down. And that's, that's going to be very, very bad for life. So I need you all to get here and rescue me and help me get this stone back before, so I can undo what's been done and before, you know, the world gets crystallized. Well, we have people over. We've got company. That is true. Can we do it tomorrow. I got lunch. I got like 11.

I could get pre-11. If we do it tomorrow, it might be just a little bit too late because I like I did just specifically said, oh, 81 minutes now. Cool. Cool, cool, cool. All right. So, ditto, quick rundown. Basically, the deal is anything that this touches will turn to crystal, right?

Pink tourmaline. Right. I'm not going to say that because I'm an adult. Okay. And so if the, if his lab touches. the ground, whole planet crystal. Yeah, his lab is floating over the Stillwater Sea, which is a sort of a unique body of water that doesn't have any sort of waves or any sort of tidal motion at all.

And his lab is floating over it, and if it, yeah, if it touches that, it's just going to spread. And like Justin suggested, it's going to ice nine the whole planet. Lucas Magnus here. How do we get in then if there's this whole like contagious crystalline thing? I think I have a solution for that. Lucretia? She says, stop doing that.

Stop. It's Madam Director. He says, okay, Madam Director, I think you're going to need to use the null suits. And I'm going to need them to bring me one too. And she writes down another note in her notebook and tears it out. and hands it to Johan. And she's running low on notebook paper. She's like, damn, I should have asked for another notebook for candlelight.

That would have been very forward thinking. I hand her a coupon for one free notebook. That doesn't make any sense. But she hands it to Johan and sends him off. She tells him to go to Leon to prepare the null suits. And she says into her pendant, Lucas, we're going to pull your ass out of the fire. time, but we're going to have a nice long talk about ethical, about your ass, about your fiery ass when this one's over and out. Damn it.

She's the pendantist's stop going, damn it, I could have done way better there. You'll get them next time. But yeah, she points a wand at her stone pendant and it clicks off. And then she says to the three of you, despite what you just heard, your mission falls under normal parameters. Taco Merlin Magnus, you're in charge of retrieving the Grand Relic, not Lucas. Don't let him anywhere near it. And then she turns to Killian and says, Killian, it's time to get the squad together.

It's time for the regulators to roll out. We're sending you in to detain and extract Lucas for his abuse of confidential information. Standard protocol applies if he makes a move for the relic. And Killian just says, you got it. And walks out of the room. What? If, wait, wait, what, what happened? You didn't finish your sentence.

He makes room for the bell. Killian turns around and says over his shoulders who walks out of the room. Bad stuff. Wow. Guitar sting. And a dove flies out of the door she just walked through. And then all of a sudden the people in the room are just like, oh, shit. Oh, God, there's a dove in here.

And you spend like 20 minutes trying to get rid of the dove. You're wasting a lot of time. 61 minutes now. Lucretia, how well do you know Lucas? Is it possible that this was all a trick? I don't buy that the administrator would let Magnus continue to call our Lucrezia. Yeah, that shit ain't going to fly. Madam Director Lucretia, how well do you know Lucas?

I know him fairly well. We've worked together to found the Bureau of Balance. I wouldn't be able to do the things that I do if it weren't for his scientific innovations. I mean, everybody to some extent knows the Miller family. They are a long lineage of inventors responsible for most of the technological advancements in our world. If you've ever, I mean, if you've ever been on an elevator, certainly you know the Miller family's work. I'm no boy detective, but the artifacts we've encountered up to this point had a really strong corrupting influence. And it sounds to me like he's...

If he's using a scientist. Yeah. And this is a very, this would be the most corrupting of a scientist. It would be pretty bad for, it would be pretty bad for anybody. Other than the three of you, who seem to be the only ones capable of resisting

the thrall of these relics, it would be bad for anyone. But the fact that he's already using it means it's probably already too late. Oh, God. She looks really, she looks really worried and kind of tired. I guess, I'm trying to say is, what if we have to kill him?

If that's what it takes to keep him from using it, then... Oh! Okay, then. Leave the detainment to the regulators. You kind of buried the lead there, Lucretia. If it comes down to it, and I hate to say this. You had my interest, and now you have my attention. Listen, why isn't Lucas a full member of the Bureau?

he's not interested in joining. I couldn't convince him to join in full. And now I'm starting to think that this has been his plan all along. He's been taking the information that our seekers have been gathering and the confidential information I've been sharing with him under the promise that he would help us in return. I, she is like seething now kind of with anger. She says, you have to stop him and bring him to me

so that I can... Davenport! Davenport stumbles into the room and he's wearing some goofy-looking armor. He's wearing a big... He's carrying a big light-up toy candle. And he's just doing a little dance. He's like, Davenport! Davenport!

He's doing like a little holiday song and dance. And the director says, Davenport, read the room. Davenport. Davenport. All right, regulators. Count up. Wait, real quick.

I got a macarine for you, boy. Open up, Davenport. Come on. He cracks open the visor of his night armor. He goes, Davenport. Do you just drop it into his mouth? Yeah, just drop it into the visor. It's Davenport flavor, just like you're like...

And you're a cannibal. Davenport. All right. Hey, everybody. This is Griffin McElroy. Your dungeon master, your best friend, and you're benevolent. anonymous benefactor. That's right. It was me who sponsored your hockey team. Thank you for listening to the Adventure Zone episode. I want to say 29, but my gut is telling me it might be 28. We'll figure it out in post. We really appreciate you giving us some patience this week as dad was sick. As you can hear from just sort of the way he sounds in this episode, we weren't making that up. But thank you all for being cool while we got him on the MEND. And I hope you enjoy the episode. I want to thank everybody who's been listening to and tweeting about the show using the Zonecast hashtag.

We appreciate you getting the word out. If you tweet about the show using the Zonecast hashtag, you might end up as a character in the show. We have a few characters in this episode, one of which not exactly a character, but Caleb Cleveland, Kid Cop, is named after Caleb Cleveland on Twitter. Caleb is drawing on Twitter. Thank you, Caleb. And you're about to meet a couple other characters, one of which is named after Carrie Peach. Carrie draws on Twitter, who's done some really cool character art for us. And Steve Boyland, who is S.A. Boyland on Twitter, might be Boyland. We have some trouble sort of figuring that one out.

But thank you to all three of you for tweeting about the show, using the Zonecast hashtag. We have a bunch more characters coming up in this arc. So keep tweeting, and you might end up immortalized forever. Thank you also to people who have been reviewing the show on iTunes. It really does help us out when you review and especially when you subscribe. It helps bump us up the chart. And thank you to everybody who voted for us in the AV Club Best Podcasts of 2015 chart. We appreciate your helping, getting ranked up there. We didn't even ask for it and y'all came out for us. So thank you very much. I have a couple of personal messages to read this week. If you want to get a message on this show, it's easy. Just go to maximum fun.org slash jumbotron and just find out how to get on the show.

We have plenty of spots available, so if you want to give a shout out to somebody, think about doing that. It helps support us as well, which we really like. Here's a message for Corey Sessams, my brother. I should clarify, I only have the two brothers. This is the brother of Billy Sessams who sent this message. And Billy Sessams says to Corey Sessums, this is the coolest Christmas gift I can think of getting you. With me traveling all the time and you moving to crazy places, ha ha. It actually says, ha-ha, it wasn't me out of like an additional burn stinger there.

Ha-ha. I sometimes fear we might grow apart. But whenever I listen to Mbim-Bam or the A-Z, I think of you and know that no matter where in the world I am that you are listening to, and that reminds me of all the great times we had. Oh, man, this one just affected me in an emotional way. This is a very, very sweet gift, Billy. And I'm not just saying that because it monetarily benefited me and my family. That's just a really sweet thought. A happy Christmas, happy holidays,

an enthusiastic candle nights to both of you and to the whole world. Here's another personal message. This one is for Kess, and that's not my usual sort of questioning tone because I don't understand how to pronounce a name. Don't get me wrong, I don't know how to pronounce this name. It actually says KES question mark. So I'm going to hit that with KES, and it's from Garth. 7p. Garth and 7p say to Kess? Happy birthday, Kess. I still can't believe you moved across the country to Rhode Island with me on a whim. You are a true friend, you weirdo. Your navigation skills

have kept us alive, both in New England traffic and rogue traitor, a moment of silence for our psychic phases. Necronzo P. Garth. I'm not going to pretend like I know what either of those last things I just said meant. As always, I hope it wasn't secretly racist in some way. But I'm guessing it's probably from a tabletop role-playing game in some way. Just sort of like based on like

what this show is that they have decided to put this message out on. But happy birthday, Cass. If you have some extra time in your hand this holiday season and you want some entertainment, go listen to the other shows on the Maximum Fun Network. They're all free and they are all really

really hilarious. Pop Rocket is a good relatively new one about pop culture recommendations and discussion and stuff like that. Bullseye is a classic, a favorite. Go listen to the Flop House, which is also ranked as AV Club's best podcast of 2015, and deservedly so. There's a bunch of really, really great stuff on the network, and I'm betting that you're going to find something that you just love. That's it for this episode. The next episode, let me check my calendar, make sure I get this right, we'll go up on, oh shit, New Year's Eve. Yeah, I guess New Year's Eve. Uh, well, all right, the next one's going to go up on a day that nobody's going to listen to it. Uh, whatever. Thank you all for listening and, uh, enjoy the rest of the episode. And have a happy

holidays. So you are, uh, uh, snowing here. What? I just want to let you guys know it's snowing here. It's beautiful. Oh, that sounds really nice. Uh, it's, it's snowing in, in our fantasy world, too. Um, The three of you have gone to Leon, the artificer's chambers, under the direction of the director. That was a weird sentence. And it's a, you know... Yeah, a lot of horseshit in there, huh? Which is a lot of horseshit words. It don't mean anything.

Yeah, kind of. I thought you were talking about Leon's the artificer's chamber, which is also full of, like, a lot of magical horse shit. And he actually walks over to a large object in the corner of his room. and he pulls a big tarp off of it and reveals sort of a big cylindrical tank. It almost looks like those new security scanners that they have in airports. And by new, I mean that they've had for like a decade now. And only it's a fully closed-in tank. It's pretty big.

And it has like a pedestal in the middle of it. And he says, this is very exciting. We've never actually gotten to use the null suits before. This was actually an invention of Lucas's own creation. And these suits allowed you to cancel out a particular school of magic. And he looks at the note that the director gave him and says, OK, you three pop in. I think I know how to get this thing rolling.

What color suits do you want to take in? What? You get to pick your color. Oh, does it have any effect on anything? Oh, no. It's just what's your style? Riley. Oh, great. I'm going to go with a burgundy. I got orange.

Oh, nope, no orange. I'm winter. Let me size you up real quick. Oh, damn. Orange is the only suit in the size that you... That's going to clash with my green undertones, but all right. He hands you an orange suit. Murrell color? Burntumber? I got one yellow dwarf suit left. Somebody already took the Umber suit.

Yellow? Yeah. Good. Cool. Like pee yellow or baby poop yellow? It's a bright neon yellow. And, uh, taco? Um, cinnamon.

Green. Got it. Green. Here you go. Green, green soup. I feel like maybe there was a, uh, uh, no point. I'm asking. We don't have a lot of all suits.

You know, I don't fucking just let people be crazy. Oh, no. Look at the. Oh, wait. No, look at this. I found a burgundy and a burnt, umber and whatever dumb color taco said. Cinnamon.

Cinnamon, so you guys are... Oh, we'll go with your shirts. No, no, no, these are all dumb... No, there's a reason. I can tell there's a reason. No, there's no reason. It's just different dumb shades of red. Here you go, idiots.

So the three of you... I can't believe you all went with the red shirts, but fine. You're all wearing different shades of red. Burgundy is more purple, but that's fine. Okay. I don't even know what burnt umber is. Yeah, I didn't think you did. And I thought I was ordering a latte.

So, I guess we all... We all have egg on our face, huh? He hands each of you suits that are tailored to fit. Not exactly tailored to fit, but they do fit. Is there a room in the crotch? There is ample space in the crotch. Not for me. These suits sort of, they wrap around your whole body.

And each of them comes with a glass, almost fishbowl style helmet with a retractable visor on it. And each one has like a little panel in the wrist. And Leon tells you to get inside the chamber and take all of the weapons and items that you're going to bring with you and set them down. And he takes some of these hoses from the pedestal in the middle and then connects them to those panels in your wrist and steps out and shuts the chamber. You see him turn a dial. And then all of a sudden this chamber is like spruce. by all of these different nozzles all around the chamber.

And actually, you guys are secretly just getting a spray tan. Jokes on you. Oh, that's nice. Your suits actually are filled with sort of a sharp chemical smell. I farted. Oh, boy. That's going to be the first of many jokes like that, I bet, in this campaign arc. And when the process has ended, all of your belongings have been sprayed down with this material.

and your suit, the panel on your suit has a meter on it that was in the red before you sort of connected and got all filled up and is now filled all the way to green. And Leon says, so with this, any transmutation magic that tries to affect you or any of the belongings you brought into the chamber are going to be impervious. Taco, unfortunately, this means any outbound transmutation spells, aren't going to work. So keep that in mind. All right. It seems fair. Also, the suit is extremely durable, but try not to let it get punctured

because you inside of the suit are still vulnerable, but the suit itself will provide you protection from transmutation magic so long as you are wearing it. Got it. Check. So, yeah, after equipping these null suits, Which don't bestow any armor benefits. They sort of go on over your armor.

Sorry, Magnus. You make your way up to the hangar. And this whole time, the headquarters has been moving, which has been sort of a nauseating effect. It typically moves a little bit in the night sky. Is it like a cruise ship thing where it's like you don't notice it until you think about it and then you want to be? Yes, exactly. Like, yeah. And it's also like when you're just sort of normally moving the.

normal route that your moon base moves. It's very slow, but it has to move to sort of give the appearance to people on the ground that it's an actual moon. But imagine people on the ground just saw the moon at like 90 miles an hour, just turn 90 degrees in the night sky and start zipping. So yeah, there might be some splaining to do later. But you've made your way to the hangar. And the back of the hangar's been sort of opened up. And you, you, you, you, you, see the night sky in front of you, it's snowing actually pretty hard. It's actually a pretty bad winter storm going on. Um, and on the edge of this sort of, uh, dock are these two gondolas. And, uh, uh, standing next to one of the gondolas, you see Killian, uh, who is also wearing a

null suit. Um, and she has two accomplices with her, uh, one of which is a dragon born woman, uh, a fairly slight dragonborn as far as dragon bourns go they're usually pretty big dragon-looking people it's more of a more of a lizard born and a dwarf who uh you're you're assuming it's a dwarf because it's a short stout figure but their glass helmet like is completely uh opaque you can't see through it at all and all sounds great killing killian motions to you over to the uh to the gondolas and she says uh oh i i uh i want you guys to meet the uh my my regular my rolling crew, my squad. This is, uh, this is Carrie Fang Battle.

She's a, she's a rogue, and she's damn good of what she does, rogue-like stuff. Fang Battle. Uh, I, I, I, have heard tale of your, uh, brother, uh, scales? Oh, man. Hold on, I need a voice for her. Oh, man, you know about Jeremy? Yeah, he can be a real tool sometimes. Ha, ha, ha.

That's not me, though. I'm Carrie Fang Battle. I'm a rogue. I'm the best er. is what I do, rogue stuff, you know. No instrumentation whatsoever, huh? No, I didn't go the bard route, which my dad wasn't so psyched about, but, hey, I'm good of rogue stuff.

You know how I do my thing. Rogging around. Roggery. You're good at roguery. You're good at roguery. Yeah, you know the point. If you see my brother... I think that it's kind of a bummer as a parent when your kids steal something.

They're like, hey, Deborah, yes, Carl. He seemed very proficient at that, didn't she? Yeah, she didn't seem. very proficient at theft. Ah, son of a bitch. She's a rogue. Oh, man. The, uh, the, the dwarf uh, opens up his helmet and a thick cloud of smoke comes out. And you see inside, Chee-Cin-chong. No, it's actually a very, the gruffest looking dwarf you've ever seen. It's like if somebody put Merle through a meat grinder and then just sort of sloughed him back together again, and then like glued some hair onto him. Uh, and he's a female? He said, no, it's a man,

and he's smoking a big cigar. And he says, Hello. I suppose introductions are in order. That's not necessary. My name is Boyland. Excuse me? What are you laughing at?

I mean, I know what you're... Keep in mind, this is the name of a real person that we borrowed for the show. It's just your name was so cool that we were struck by it. Oh, yeah, it happens a lot. It's a lot of, a lot of... Boyland, can I just jump in here?

It might look like shit. It might be Boiland. Boyland makes more... Go with Boiland, please. I don't want to tell you how to say your name, Boiland. But, like, maybe Boiland would be the way to go. Did you say I look like shit? It's just what I look like.

You kind of look like shit. Are you okay? You apparently look like my friend Merle here who's been put through a meat grinder and had hair clean. to him. I think that's an accurate description, but I don't need to look good. I let's just say I don't have a charisma-centric build. Do you feel good? Not on the inside. Oh no, we're going to have a lot to talk about, Boyland. The director is there too, and she walks over and holds out her pendant, and Lucas addresses the assembly. And he says, so there are a few points of entry that you could conceivably get into the

base through, but your best bet is the conservatory. I have a pretty big skylight there that was open when everything went down. So you should be able to get through there pretty easily. And once you're inside, just start making your way to the center of the facility. You'll find the med bay where I'm hold up. I'm in the main elevator lobby on the same floor as the conservatory. You just have to go through some of my lab facilities to get there from the conservatory. Also, if you can power them down as you go, you'll be able to free up some power that I can channel back into the suspension cores and buy us all some more time. Griffin, when eventually we make a movie out of the adventure zone, will this be more of like an

Ocean's Eleven style? Like, you know, we'll see the like corridors and lasers and stuff. This is all completely original for my head. I didn't like any of it up based on stealing theft. Angus chimes in through your stones of far speech, which you have tucked away inside your suits so you can sort of communicate. And you hear him say, be careful in there. According to the psych profile, I've drawn up based on what the director has told me about Lucas,

he's a pretty reckless individual. And I'm willing to bet his experiments aren't above board safety-wise. Cool. Does there any way to turn off the radio in the suits? I mean, I wouldn't advise it. I'm going to provide some good, helpful intel and some charming dialogue. Can you try to, can you at least try to talk a little lower, darling? Butch it up a bit

Hey everybody it's me Angus Oh god that's worse No I'm here to provide you with No no no intel No it's like Lucas It's like it's like Will Ferrell's impersonation of Harry Kerry fell down a flight of stairs And landed on Grandpa Simpson Um

Lucas Lucas Magnus here Um real quick before we jump on down there into your whatever lab of horrors. Is there, you mentioned there were some robots. Are we going to be facing any like crystalline monsters or bad guys of any sort? I didn't, I mean, I mean, I didn't see anything. I just saw the lab around me sort of start to get all pink and crystally.

And so I ran as fast as I could for the nearest airlock. So I... Real quick. I take a minute and I tell my shield the story of the time I ripped a robot's arms off. Okay, yeah, it etches that into the face of it. The director says, you guys are going to probably need this. She takes off her necklace and hands it to, well, she just hands it out in the three of your direction. I take it.

Okay. And she says, you'll probably need this to stay in touch. Now, ditto, to be fair, we didn't have this when we did the null suit coding. You can put it on underneath your suit. I put it on underneath my suit Okay Wait a minute Wait a minute

You need help with the class Pony turn around No you've got a visor that sort of slides upwards And retracts pretty easily Um Uh So yeah you you are now able to stay in touch With Lucas

Um and uh Carrie Fang Battle says All right guys time to roll out You guys ready to get busy living or get busy dying Yeah sure Wait a minute Dying Maximum Fun

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