The Adventure Zone - Ep. 33. The Crystal Kingdom - Chapter Five

Episode Date: February 11, 2016

Our heroes face a series of challenges while exploring Lucas' lab that are, admittedly, all pretty adorable. But still super deadly! Just, like, huggably deadly. Merle performs a random act of kindness. Taako remembers an acrobatic nursery rhyme. Magnus experiences the magic of flight. 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. All right, I cast Charm Person on Clark. Clark, my name is Taco. It's a pleasure. It's a really, really super great to meet. I feel like we've known each other for ages. I feel that way, too. Do you need any money or any?

Can I just start, can I give you all the things I have? There will be time for that. The dwarf opens up his helmet and a thick cloud of smoke comes out. My name is Boyland. Excuse me? This big crystal golem holds out one of its long, sharp claws and points it at Merle. You. A robot about the size and shape of a car engine.

Are you in need of assistance? My name is Noel. It doesn't have an L in it? Oh, boy. That's a real stinker. I got to tell you. The central pillar in the room that is now completely crystallized begins to groan. Sorry, did you say Billy Crystallized?

All right, that's the end of the episode. We're Billy Crystallized. You look marvelous. What mortal danger will our heroes not take seriously this week? Maybe they'll make some boner jokes and some skeletons. It's the adventures on. At what point, Griffin, we haven't solidified the structure of the episode now 33N. What point do we get to talk about, like, our theories, about what's going on,

and like fan theories. Is that in the after show? Yeah, that's a after the final role. No way. In the Adventure Zone Zone. Uh-huh. Hosted by Chris Hardwick. The Adventure Zone Zone.

Yeah, we'll talk about them there. We'll get some like famous guests that love the program. I'm talking about people like David Duchofney. I'm talking about people like... Flavor Flav. Flavors. Like Flavid Du Covney. Flavid de Covney.

Flavid de Coveny? Yeah, when they both... stepped into a teleporter experiment. That was at that high school, but something went terribly awry, and then became one sort of slime man. The whole gang. You know, the whole gang of people who like and listen to and enjoy our show. So, yes, the room has just been crystallized.

The central pillar is, this white light has moved into it, and it has started to groan, and these large cracks are starting to form in it, and it's starting to make some pretty gnarly, noises. Just to give you a reminder, this room you're in, there's the door into the, shit, what was the last room you were in? We went to, okay, we were in Lucas's bedroom. Right, so there's the door to Lucas's bedroom, there's the door to the room you came through from Hodgepodge, and then there's the door leading inward into the heart of the lab. And isn't there a mystery door? Oh, yes, and there's a fourth

mystery door that you could not get through because it wasn't active. Even if I chop it real hard? I mean, you could certainly try you can do whatever you want i was accused of railroading viciously in the reddit was that on the train episode why are you reading the reddit well i read the reddit so i can figure out what's going on yeah yeah if everybody could that's where i get all my theories from stop giving us all your really smart fan theories i figured the whole thing out now but folks it makes nobody feel worse than me because there's so much better than my own shit yeah but then people say i just picture griffin going oh yeah and writing that down so then people suggest things that they think I will do, and then I read them, and I think I should do that.

It turns into this stranger than fiction, self-fulfilling prophecy. Yeah, exactly. I love it. Okay. I would like to, before we run out of the room, try to chop on the mystery room. Okay. Just so I can feel like I've done something. Yeah, sure. Yeah, sure. What would that be? The door has not... Oh, it would just be a melee attack. The door hasn't been crystallized because it's protected by the airlock seal. So, yeah. It's just like not... It's not active.

It's not working. Well, I rolled a 12 plus 7 or 19. Okay. Yeah, that's good enough to wedge your axe in there and make a little hole. And through that hole, you can see through the airlock. It's open, actually, on the other side. And through that hole, you can peek into what looks like another sort of private residence, like another sort of private sleeping chambers, much like the room that you,

You were in just before, in Lucas's room, only it's not lit up at all. It's a bit, it does look derelict, but it is definitely a, a dormitory of some sort. Okay, great. Let's get out of here. The nurse bot, see that? Yeah, and she said, hey, can you not? We should get the hell out of here. Come on.

This is like a lot. Carrie Peach, who does like all the wonderful art for our show, did this amazing drawing of her and her sort of like I'm just going to say it scrumbled together nature and there's a great the best thing on it is there's like a little label on her that says uh in O period

like number one three one three or three one three like no L is fucking perfect that's fucking canon okay anyway yeah you're in this room this central color is starting to crack okay should we do a skidaddle check if you want oh critical minute no I got 17 ski

ski-d-oh. You scaduple. Oh, no. You fall over. I skedoodled. Where are you going? What are you doing? At the airlock. Like, the one place we're supposed to keep going, right? Okay. Like, my other option is back into Lucas's room, take a nap, and hope that it doesn't collapse. Is that an option? Yeah, so you're making your way in towards the middle of the lab. Yes. Okay. You make your way in through that airlock leading into the center of the lab. And as you sort of clear that airlock and get inside, of it, the central pillar in the middle of the room just kind of explodes sending shards of crystal shrapnel all over the room, although they just kind of stop in mid-air right in front of the airlock that you came through. And the curious thing about, like, the shards as they're

stuck in mid-air, is they form almost a perfect, like, dwarf shape, as if they were all targeting a Merle when they flew in your direction. That's just ridiculous, what? These gemstones, they don't hate Merle. And as they sort of fall harmlessly to the ground, you see that light pass through another rift and disappear. Hey, Griffin, I don't want to derail it, but is this the gyms targeting Merle or are you targeting Dad? Is there something you need to talk about? Are you mad at Dad for some reason?

I'd rather not get into it. Okay. I don't want to... We'll save that for the Adventure Zone zone. Yeah. We're going to go in the adventure zone untucked. We're going to get into it. As that white light sort of disappears through the rift,

you see Noel has her little satellite dish that she has on top of her head that was pointing at her. And she says, hey, I just want to let you all know. I scan that thing just to try and figure out what it is. And it's definitely, it's of undead origin. But it's got some sort of, it's got traces of divine energy. all around it. Trying to figure out, you guys know what's going on?

I'm not a big fan of that thing. Well, I mean, I've got some theories, but I don't think this is the time and place. Besides, he read them all on Reddit, so. Angus actually chimes in through your Stone of Faris Beach. He's like, ah, this is killing me. This all sounds so familiar, but I just can't place it. And you're flipping through some books.

He's like, I'll keep digging into it. You guys just keep on moving in, and just regroup with the rest of the team. Listen, it may be familiar, but it's not too familiar because I've never heard of anything like it. But not too not familiar, because it seems like something I would know about. So you're in this airlock

that is another one of these branching pathways, and it's leading towards two doors, and they are labeled as follows. The one going to the left is labeled the Death Laser Calibration Chamber, and the door on the right is labeled large humanoid species behavior modification testing. And then that sign is actually scratched out. And underneath it, in sort of crude handwriting, is the word hug bears.

And Lucas says, now, by my calculations, I think I know where you guys are. And you definitely trust me on this one, you got to go to that death laser calibration change. Hug bears. Hug bears. Hug bears. No, trust me, you guys. Hug. Bubba bears

It's gonna be Hug of ba bears Hug bears You're just yelling hug bears You're just yelling hug bears Bugg hairs What What

What did you say I say we go to the hug bears Okay As you pop open the room labeled hug bears You enter into a Pretty curious scene And it's unlike any room

You've been on In Lucas's lab so far It's actually a pretty cozy looking living room. And there's a lit fireplace and a mantle with some family photos on it. But this room has been turned

over, it almost looks like. There's a couch that's been overturned in the middle of the room with some scratches on it. There's some smashed tea cups and spilled tea on the ground. There are a few potted plants that have been upended that are weirdly like writhing on the floor.

And then right in the middle, of the room is just basically a giant hairy mass. Yes. And you can make out in this mass for bug bears of various shapes and fur colorings. And they are all asleep. And one of them actually has a pretty bad cut on his head, it looks like. But they are sleeping fairly soundly. And did I just so I can get a full picture?

Is Noel still with us? Or is she like, okay. Yeah, Noel's with you. I'm going to whisper to Noel. What's up? What's all this then? Noel, what is this shit? What happened to them?

Hey, can y'all check, make sure they're okay? What is this testing room for? What were you testing? Well, it's not really a testing room. It's just where the hug bears live. Oh, cool, cool. Oh, I shouldn't call them that the, I forget, I'm supposed to call him, I just call them hug bears.

Cool, cool, cool. Great, great. What's the story with hug bears? I'm not familiar. Hold on, I got a truck passing. Wait a fart? No, like a truck. Oh.

I got a truck passing's pretty good podcast slang where I have to fart. I mean, it's kind of an experiment, I guess, but mostly they're just like, they're just like buds. They just hang out and help us out and, and, you know. Oh, that sounds cool. They do a little bit of work here and there around the lab. And, yeah, they're just, they're good folk. I'm worried about it. That sounds great.

I'm saying like take us in from the ground level on hug bears. What are hug bears? As you say that, Taka, this hug bear pile starts to sort of rustle around, and you hear some groans coming from it. I am chugging for some hugging. Let's do this. I want to get in there. I'll hug these bears.

So you're just hugging them then? Well, not yet, but I'm definitely gearing up for it. You're not saying huggy bear, like from Starsky and Hutch, right? Right? You're doing your pre-hug stretches. That's correct. You don't want to tear something. No.

I want to do a... Attack? No. I want to do a nature check to see if I know anything about hug bears. Okay. Or can assess anything about this situation, about these creatures here. We've got a... 14 plus my four in nature.

Yeah, I mean, there's no such a... thing as a hug bear. There is such a thing as a bug bear, and you have met one, Clark. And the only thing you really know about bug bears is that they are giant and super strong and like unswervingly violent. They are just, they're just little furry balls of, of violence and hate and bloodshed. I'll be outside. They're irredeemable kill monsters. Taka's good out here. But Noel said they were fine, that they were good folk. Cool, cool, cool, cool. We all agree.

This hug bear pile is now wrestling and ruffling a little bit more. Okay, so we should sneak past them. I want to heal the one with a cut on his head. Okay. Cool. Great. You know, it's like the whole Androcles and the lion. I'm saying like literally, I'm not joking.

I'm outside of the room. I'm not going in. You're like in the airlock, like watching. Yeah, like watching like, what are they doing? I'm whispering to my shield about that time I fought a hug bear. I have a big. That's a lie. Oh, no, you really did.

I rolled an 18, by the way. Okay. I have a big fake smile on my face. You know, like Ralphie in Christmas story. Yeah, yeah, sure. And I'm walking up very slowly. And I find the adorable sweet, open-minded, sweet demeered hugbear with a cut on his head.

and I cast prayer of healing to heal his cut. Okay. All right? He devours you. You're devoured. Oh. You heal him from inside. I'm willing to do that.

That's how much I care. Oh, wow. Okay. Okay. So it's 12. Okay. So that's... 18.

18. So you heal him for 18 points of damage. This bug bear with the cut on his head, who looks like the sort of the... most grizzled of the bunch, that wound starts to fade a little bit. And he wakes up, and the whole pile kind of wakes up and very quickly sort of gets to their feet. And the smallest of this bunch runs up to you, Merle, and grabs you and screams terrifyingly in your face. Oh.

And one of the bug bears says, Christy, Christy, stop. Christy, stop. This is a different batch of folks. These aren't the folks that came through. These are different. And Chrissy's like, I don't care. I'm still going to, I'm still just going to, I'm going to start biting.

Hi, everybody. Who are you guys? What are you guys doing here? Well, my name's Magnus. Big bug bear fan, by the way. from way back. Love your work. Love it.

We're looking for Lucas. We want to help him. There's a lot of scary, hinky stuff going on. We got Noel with us. Say hi, Noel. Hey, guys. These guys are cool. They're with us.

Christy, you can set Merle down. He's good people. He's good folk. He healed your grandpa. And I'm not really with that crew. They call tacos my handle. And I'm kind of more with the airlock crew. which is me out here in the airlock.

Christy sets you down, Merle, and says, I'm sorry, I just thought, I just, I thought you were, I thought you were kind of a scurfuffle, and I thought you, I thought you guys were a party to that. No, sorry. We don't party. Quick check, a scurfuffle? Yeah, I, yeah, it's what I said.

All right, listen, we're sorry that we interrupted your country bear jam. We'll keep moving on along. No, it's fine. You didn't interrupt nothing. We just were taking a nap. We got hit with some sort of sleep and dust. That's the worst.

Yeah, no, it's not a good night's sleep. Who are these other people? We should introduce ourselves. Please. One of the other bug bears goes, oh, yeah, let's, I guess we should go down the line. So we're bug bears. Uh-huh. You probably figure that out already.

Yep. We're sort of the help here. We kind of help out around the place. And my name's Aaron Stiles. I do, I do, I help with his, with Lucas's, you know, fashion. I help get him dressed, you know, barber stuff, shaving, you know, that kind of thing. Yeah, basic. Gotcha.

You're used to ballets. The older grizzled one says, oh, my name is John Cook, and I do all the cooking. And I guess I do all the Johnin. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. And another one, another one speaks up and goes, oh,

well, my name's Jamie Green, and I helped him to the plants and the stuff like that. Uh, uh, uh, got kind of a,

kind of a green thumb. That's sort of my joke that I do. Um, and Merle, the one that attacked you says, uh, uh, uh,

and my name's Christy Kilgore. Um, and I'm, uh, sort of in charge of maintenance around here, but couldn't think of like a clever last name for maintenance. So I just went with,

I just kept my original name, my bugbear name, which is killed. Is this like a gelical cat's kind of situation where these are like the names Lucas gave you, but you have your own names for each other? Like these are, I mean, we have humanist names. Well, yeah, I'm sure. I mean, they're not our original names. We have our bug bear names, but we choose not to sort of remember that part of our lives because it was pretty, we used to do some pretty bad stuff out there out of the wild.

Do you guys, or perhaps did you guys, depending, not really sure, no Clark. all four of them look at you taco immediately and christie runs over to the airlock door uh and shouts um wait you you know daniel excuse you saw daniel out there if that's clark then yeah um and Aaron walks over and sort of pulls christie back and it's like you i'm sorry how did you how did you meet clark was his original name but when when he lived here with us his name was daniel he's he's my son And we're all family here. We're all, you know, we were a family tribe of bug bear that Lucas found and sort of adopted. How did you, how did you meet Daniel?

Well, was he, wait, wait, was he Clark originally? And then he came here and switched to Daniel and then went back to Clark. Is that what's up? It's hard to explain. You might, you may want to ask Lucas about it. It's kind of the specifics. We told us well. He's our buddy.

I hugged him once. He gave us some oolong. Then he joined in a wacky racers thing with us. It was great. Is he all right? He's totally fine. He's totally fine. He wants saved my life.

He's a good guy. That sounds like our Daniel. Yeah. Well, he's actually the earth sign formerly known as Daniel. No, he's fine. We saved him from some bad dudes. He saved us from some stuff. Well, gosh, we sure do appreciate that.

We miss Daniel a lot. No problem. And we didn't kill him or anything. We didn't fight with him. Nope, didn't kill it. Okay, we need to check. He's not dead. No, he's not dead.

No, dad, this is us telling you. He's not dead. Why, no, he's not dead. Why do you keep saying that he is? Here are the two ways people say someone's not dead. He's not dead. He's not dead. You're doing the second one.

You're falling into that second category. Hard. You're leaning into that category. He's not dead. He's very much alive. He's not dead? You're so bad. I like that one because it betrays the actuality of the situation, which is, I don't know.

We did fight him, though. No. He fell off the back of the car. No, the first time. Do you listen to our show? And then you met him again. Then we saw him again. He said you killed him and that it was a fucking bugbear ghost that helped you out.

And we record these. You can listen to these again. He's fine. Clark's fine. Clark's fine. Yeah. Clark's fine. All right.

Bug bears. Tell us about this other group that you encountered before us. Oh, yeah, they were really rude. They came through and we offered them, you know, some tea and we just, you know, we asked how they were doing. And they wanted to get by and head inward towards the, you know, the inner chambers of the lab. And like, we can't let that happen, of course. And so we had a sort of a disagreement. Sorry?

We, um, totally gotcha. Why? why can you not let hypothetically a group of people pass by to get in? Oh, well, that's like sort of our thing. We're like, you know, we do odd jobs around the place, but we're also, we are still bug bears.

Yeah, so we're like really big. So we also do some light security work for the lab as well. You know, we can't really let folks. Well, what if Lugas said it was cool? I guess that would be fine. He didn't tell us it was cool with this last group, though. So we got sort of a, sort of a,

kerfuffle and there was a little dwarf guy that attacked us so we gave him a little piece of our minds and there was a lizard lady and she threw some sort of smoke bomb at us and we all went to dreamy dreamtown. They sound like dicks. I hated him. Hey Lucas, can you hear me? Come in Lucas. Yeah, okay.

I guess you guys have sort of found out about one of my less ethical sort of experiments. It sounds fine. They seem great. Yeah, they really are. They're great. They have these these inhibitors, these inhibitor chips in their brains that I, I was trying to come up with a way to like have people that would do some help for me around the lab, but also like also protect the lab from

attackers. And so I found slavery, right? So that's like slavery. Well, I guess kind of, yeah, a little bit. But they, I mean, they seem genuinely happy and they, you know, they didn't like them. So this is why we couldn't charm Clark again. Yeah. So I watched what you guys did with Clark. when I watched you on the races, when I saw him pop up, I was a little bit surprised, and I got to know, what did you do to him down there? We charmed him. He's our buddy. You used like a charm spell on him. Clark, or as he was known here, Daniel Butler, he was my butler.

Lucas, you got to get better at that. Come on. I know, I thought it was cute. Anyway, he ran off. He got into a little scuffle with his sister, and he bumped his head, and I think it disabled. the inhibitor chip and he had a freak out and he ran off and escaped. And all I can think is that when you charmed him, somehow the wires got crossed in his brain. As it turns out, if you, like, inhibit all the aggression in a bug bear, they're actually very sweet. And so I think that he's

a bit on the fritz, Taco. Oh, right. Yeah. Okay. Now I remember I turned it the first time we met him. Yeah. To turn him into like Kelsey Grammer. I think the odds are actually pretty good that he's maybe going to be charmed by you forever, kind of like on and off. He can join a nation of podcast listeners. In that particular affliction. All right. So,

Loco means you to pass on to these hug bears. That is totally cool for us to continue on our way unmolested. Yeah, sure. Hey, guys, you just got a lot of pass, okay? They're trying to get into the middle. Before we go, will you tell us a little, just a little bit more about the scuffle? Was there a problem with the scuffle?

Oh, yeah, like, you know. Oh, yeah, we were, we don't want to be rude. We try to be real nice here as much as we can. But yeah, these three, honestly, it was just the dwarf guy that was mostly sort of causing, causing all the trouble. He was, honestly, reminds me back in my day, one time a guy came into my cave and I just killed him. Yeah. We've all been there. Oh, yeah, I definitely killed some guys who came in my cave too.

If that happens, you can throw them right off a cliff, and it's usually fine. Oh, oh, yeah, I've thrown plenty of people off cliffs. Yeah. Yeah, that's a cliff throwings, what bug bears do best, really. We should compare notes. So we need to keep on the move. It's all about the angle. The angle of that.

I think it's about the dangle, but that's just me. Well, I guess I, I guess we can let you through if Lucas is vouched for you. Can you tell me what's going on in this lab? Because I've heard lots of crinkle tinkles. Oh yeah, you guys need to get moving. Yeah, this is not a cool scene. You need to move on out. Yeah, do you want to come with us?

I guess we could, but like... Swear fealty! Swear to me! Sorry, I don't know where that came from. But like, yeah, you all are welcome to join us. You just have to swear fealty. Is he okay? He's fine.

You should just do that, though. Noel says, well, hold on. It might be kind of dangerous because it's all crystallized out there. Well, that's why I'm saying they should come with us. They can't go out that way, so we just have to keep moving inward. Yeah, but there could be other parts of the... Why don't you... I'll tell you what, you four just lock yourself in the airlock when we leave.

And you'll be safe in there until we can come get you. Okay. I think that's Griffin's DM way of not having to do six voices for the rest of the game. Yep. Well, it actually be... At this point, it's like eight voices, because you've got also like two different radios. That's true. This whole thing's gotten wildly out of the end.

We're going to elect one of us to speak for the others. I'm gonna have like a I'm gonna write in a story element where they all like merge into one Oh like sliders well like like David David Slymcovney okay Can we get y'all anything before you go can we yeah can we can we get you a tea or something can I give you guys a quick shave or Yeah I could cook you up a nice meal I could make y'all a ham a ham steak y'all have been lovely we have got to Mosey farewell, we'll never forget you.

We will never forget our time. I guess you don't want to know where the bugbear treasure is buried. Wait, where's the bugbear treasure? No, I'm just kidding. I'm just playing. Hey, wait, I have a question real quick. Why is there a second dormitory out there? Do you guys know if you're like doing the day-to-day stuff?

There was Lucas's room and then there was like an empty room. Oh yeah, well, that was, well, that was Maureen's room. And Maureen? Maureen, you know, Lucas' mom? Gotcha. Yeah, she's not with us anymore, unfortunately. Where is she? I think she's dead.

You should probably ask Lucas about that when, you know, later on. You guys should probably get a move on. I get this feeling that the base is sinking, and we all don't want to die. Yeah, no, I feel I feel like that. Did Maureen die? Yeah, God, how indelicate can you be, bud? Well, I didn't know her. Well, he could have asked Lucas.

Yeah. Yeah, I can talk to you guys about that later. Let's just, can we get this show? Oh, yeah, Lucas can here. That's right. Sorry, dude. We keep going. Thanks. Cool.

Cool talk. Pretty cool day I'm having with you guys, my three friends. Come on, Noel. Okay. Yeah, you guys say your goodbyes to the, to the bug bears, to the hugbear family. As you leave the hugbear room, you pass through an airlock

that is just like a straight tunnel. And this one, this single door is labeled a hugbear supply room. And it's where all the hugbear's cleaning supplies, cooking supplies, all of the supplies they need to do their work around the lab are.

And as you enter into it, you realize that this room has already been crystallized. And there's some shelves with supplies all over it. It just kind of looks like a big store room. Even through your suits, you can feel this room is actually really cold. And you realize it's because there's actually a small vent to the outside of the lab in this room. And there's some snow blowing into the room that is actually like instantly crystallizing and falling to the ground.

So there's like a crunchy layer of crystallized snow. And how cool would you say that looks? It looks pretty neat, actually. It's like a little crystal confetti cannon coming into the room. Unfortunately, right underneath that window, you see a crystallized figure, and it's pretty small, and it's wearing a null suit. Only the helmet is open in that null suit. and you see a dwarven figure with a cigar in his mouth.

Oh, God, it's Merle. And it's Merle from the future. Twist. No, you actually recognize this crystallized figure as Boyland, the dwarf who came in with Carrie and Killian. Boyland is closed for good. The sad thing is it'll never get to be Manland. Why did he take off his hair?

He was always so stupid. We probably just high-fives, by the way. Yeah, oh, definitely. In fiction. I don't know if that matters. Hey, everybody. This is Griffin McElroy, your dungeon master, your best friend, and your dirty little secret. Thank you all so much for listening to The Adventure Zone, episode 33.

I really appreciate you taking the time out of your busy day and your busy schedule, spent some time with four genuine nerdos as they talk about fantasy robots and shit. I want to thank everybody who's been tweeting about the show using the... the Zonecast hashtag, because if you tweet about the show using the The Zonecast hashtag, great, great things can happen. All of your dreams and wishes come true. You help us spread the word about the show because we have literally no other way of spreading the word about the show. And you could end up as a character in the show, like the huge slate of characters that ended up in this week's episode. I'm talking about folks like John Cook, talking about folks like Aaron Stiles,

I'm talking about folks like Jamie Green, I'm talking about folks like Christy Kilgore. I'm talking about folks like Daniel Butler, whose friends all message me to me to make sure his name ended up on this show. We'll probably have a couple more characters on this arc, and then a bunch more for the next arc. So go ahead and tweet, tweet the show. We really do appreciate it. We have a couple of Jumbotron messages on this week's show.

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Now, I know you're sitting here wondering, what is teenagers with attitude about? That just sounds like my whole life when teens come up to me on the street and just fucking bully me right there on the street. No, this isn't about those teens that bully you on the street. It's a podcast, and it's about the Power Rangers. Specifically, a podcast in which a bunch of adults sit down each week to talk about an episode of the more phenomenal 90s kids show Power Rangers. Listen to them, try to figure out what the deal is with the big floating head in the show, tube, why Rita Repalsa can never quite seem to stop foiling her own plans, and why Goldar, the winged ape man, has such a strong labor union. Having just finished the Green Ranger saga,

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Are you, Aura Ray? Hmm. Friendship and Firelight, the podcast for The Quest is only as good as the companions by your side. I like that. I like the idea of a podcast taking place in a place. and not just like in the void where four nerdos just shout garbage about dice.

Anyway, fnfpod.com. Check it out. Go listen to the other shows on the Maximum Fun Network. I'm talking about shows like Jordan Jesse Go. I'm talking about shows like Stop Podcasting yourself. I'm talking about shows like throwing shade

and Can I Pet Your Dog and One Bad Mother. There's so many amazing shows all on Maximumfund.org for you to check out. And like I mentioned before, we have a ton of new projects that we're working on that are all collected at McElroy shows. I'm talking about like new video game podcast, Cool Games Inc. I'm talking about Schmanors, Travis and Teresa's new

manners podcast. I'm talking about still buffering, which Sydney and her sister Riley are doing. I'm talking about Rose Buddies, a bachelor cast I do with my wife, Rachel. We got our fingers and a lot of pies, and you can find that pie display rack at Macroyshows.com. That's it for the commercial break. I'm going to let you get back into it. The next episode will be up on February 25th, and we'll see you then. Bye. So here's a crystallized boyland. He has his helmet open, and he has a pretty grim look on his face, and he's got his cigar in his mouth that he had when you guys first came in through here. When you guys first crash landed into the laboratory.

And he's sitting right under the window where the snow was coming in. I wave my hand and see if his eyes move. No. Oh, okay. No I thought maybe I could get him out Is the cigar? Is the cigar covered with crystal?

Uh, yeah. All of this man is covered in crystal. How covered? Completely covered. Like, what's the thickness of the crystal? Pretty damn thick. Okay. Well, I feel nothing about this.

And yet you have so much to say. But is it weird? Like, I feel no emotional connection to this crystallized man. That's fucking savage, Travis, Travis. Well, I barely knew him before. and I won't even know him now. He volunteered at the Boys and Girls Club, the Boys and Dwarves Club, every single weekend. He, what else can I say?

He had a gigantic family. Oh, my God. He was the father of 400 sons and 13 daughters, which is weird. That's why he's called Boyland. Yeah, because they spring from him, fully formed. And boy, was he just a great dad? He had a big old camping trip for all 413 of his kids planned for actually, next week.

Oh shit. And he was two days away from retirement. Are there tickets not refundable or? For camping? The camping tickets? No, that's a good point. You would have to like rent out like a whole forest to get all those kids up in the mix. Anyway, he was the sweetest guy.

I'm sorry, I did a bad job sorted storytelling, I guess, for him. And this, this in this brief eulogy, it's a shame that now, only now can tell you. Do I have a marker or something with me that I can draw like a smiley face on his face? Yeah, sure. Does he have anything worth stealing? that we could take? It's all coated in crystals, right? No, actually, he has a weapon,

and it's kind of a small hand axe that he's got. Why would you take that? It's just a one-handed axe. It doesn't look like anything special, but it was coded in the null suit juice when he got sprayed down. So, yeah, that would be protected. But him, he's all froze.

That's too bad. I take the axe. Okay. All right, so we move on. Oh, I should say something too, right? I'm a cleric. Well, and a dwarf, maybe is there like a dwarfan write, some kind of passage you want to read from the dwarf Bible?

I have to say it in dwarfese. Is that all right with you guys? No, please. Okay. I don't let me get comfortable. Mecca laika hi. I could have shot, I could have written it down in an envelope, held it to my forehead, and said that's what you're going to say.

I fucking knew it. Long-lived Jambi. Long-lived, Jambi, but short-lived, Boyland. Yeah, Boyland, he always had a big cigar in his mouth. Yeah. And a story to tell. And not even in a Freudian way. I mean, he...

And at least half the time I knew him, he was covered in crystal. He always had a crystal to share with you. Yeah. A pocketful of crystals he had. And he love root beer barrels. Okay. So, let's move on. But wait, there's got to be some significance to the window.

I mean, why would he be right under the window? Because it's a no-smoking lab, and he wanted to, like, he had to blow the smoke out the bend. I think that makes a lot of sense. It makes a lot of sense to me. I think that's what happened. He took his helmet off so he could have him a smoke and bingo-bang-bongo. That's it. He don't want to leave the Congo.

He got turned into a big decanter. Yeah, you could roll an investigation check, but Circle gets his, That's exactly what happened. Boom. I roll an investigation check just to be sure. Just to make Griffin feel useful. All right. I make an investigation check.

Oh my God, he's really doing it. All right. No, I'm literally telling you. Yeah. Go ahead and tell me, but I rolled a 14. What's your... Yeah, no, you... Hold on.

That's 14 with a zero modifier, Griffin. Okay. Yeah. Is that enough for you to tell him what you just told him? Yeah, he was standing next to the window and tried to vent his smoke from out of his suit, like you saw him do earlier, and some of that crystallized snow got on him. A single flake. In our time with Boyland, did he seem like a total ding-doll?

400 suns of zero brain cells. Ain't that how it go? Don't it always seem to go. Well, that's very sad, but I think we should... Oh, of the bugbear supplies. Is there anything that would be salvageable that might be useful to us, or is it all just pretty common material? There's a can of crystal beans.

I'll take it. Okay. What? Is there any wonder glue? Because I've been looking about that stuff all over the place. In Fallout 4, you mean? In Fallout 4. But I mean, okay, right.

I even find myself walking through the grocery store and I see duct tape and I go, oh, I should buy that because I need it in Fallout 4. That's actually, you can feed that into the port in the back of your Xbox. And that will work. That's how it works. No, there's nothing really salvageable in this room. It has been, it's been... Is the axe that dad took any good?

Should I fight him for it? Do we need the role need? No, it's not especially great. Okay, you can keep your shitty axe. It has every single one of his children's names is carved into it. Oh, yeah, please. I don't want that. God, it's probably falling apart now.

All right, are you moving on? Yeah. Yeah, let's go. So you're another Y Chamber, another airlock. This one is a little bit different from the ones that you've been through because the two doors on either end of it are kind of in a state of disrepair. One of them is labeled the gravity augmentation chamber. And this actually looks like an older version of the airlocks that you've seen so far.

The door just kind of looks not as futurist. It's like made of planks of wood. Yeah, basically. It is a wooden airlock. Um, it looks, no, not quite that old, but it, you know, it looks, it looks pretty, uh, aged. Um, the other airlock is labeled the temperature augmentation chamber. And this door actually has a, uh, weirdly enough, uh, like a layer of ice around it. Like, it's been completely iced over. Do we need to go find a plasma to get through it? Oh, shit, that is kind of like what that is. Yeah. Well, no. Okay. Dad, which way do you want to go? Yeah. Well, let's see.

We have a door we can't go through. Uh-huh. And we have a door we can go through. Yeah. Seems pretty obvious to me. We want to try the door we can't go through. Yeah, I'm there too. We've got to do the frozen one.

You know what? I say we just let it go. Yeah. Let it go? I would actually like to cast, before we go through all the rigmarole. and because my spill fingers are getting a little rusty, I'm going to cast clairvoyance.

Okay. So I can see on the other side of the, on the other side of the door there to try to get some sort of inkling of where we're going here or whether or not this is worth the, certain to be 15 minutes of audio that it will require for us to get through this fucking thing. Okay.

Which door are you changed? second? The one The frozen one. The one. The one. Necessitate magic to see what's on the other side of it. Okay. It is a, I created a visible sensor within a range of a location familiar to me. Oh, no, I know what's up a clear points. Okay. You just don't have to, you just don't have to make any rules or anything?

No, just concentrate. Okay. I'm choosing seeing, by the way. Sorry? I can choose seeing or hearing. What, you could fucking taste the room? No, I just, it's just the two there. Just see it here. smell it. It smelled like cold.

Yeah, you, um, you, he's got to concentrate first. He's got to concentrate. He's got to concentrate. Hey, I'm not touching you.

Hey, look, I'm not touching you. I'm not touching you. All right. I'm not touching you. Um, are we, are we sure we're not dad's dad?

Let me describe this. Justin's eyes are tightly cinched together. He has like a grimace. He put a belt on him? On his face. He has one finger extended. I can't. Can't tell from this distance.

Oh. Okay. Okay, Taco, you pass through this icy door. And you're actually, once you get through, the whole airlock tunnel is just a giant solid sheet of ice. And as you make it into the door, even that ice is sort of extending into the room, probably a good eight feet or so of just solid ice. inside of that room though you see two figures in null suits

battling what appear to be sort of like ice covered robots almost we have to get in there this room looks like a like a winter wonderland and these two figures are just taking these ice robots to fucking fool school

one of them is running up a wall and like hanging off the ceiling and just like throwing down daggers that are just like cutting these things apart. The other one is using a crossbow to just like blast them to little pieces. But yeah, in this winter wonderland scene,

you see Killian and you see Kerry just murking some robots in there. So they're like holding their own. They're really better than we are at this stuff. Super better at it. Well, guys, it's empty. Let's try the other one. Are you sure?

No, I'm positive. Because I heard, I saw your eyes twitching a lot. Empty is hell. If he says it's empty, it's empty. And when you heard me say, oh, shit, sweet flip, that was just a childhood rhyme I used to help focus myself. So you didn't see anything. It's just a frozen room. You're just like your mother would swaddle, you young taco baby.

taco and just sing to you, oh shit. When you were just a tequito. Oh, dip, sweet flip, my little nugget. Hot stunts, cool nights. Are those ice robots, oh, dunk. Wait, there's ice robots in there? That's part of the rhyme. It's just part of the song.

It's just part of the song. It's oddly appropriate. No, but yeah, it's empty. Because I can, I think I can hear fighting. You don't hear, you don't hear shit. There's eight inches of ice between us and the ice robots. There's ice robots? Son of a bitch.

Yeah, you're ice robots, fine. Fuck. Do they have arms? No, currently, yeah. The ice, can you melt it? How about if I cast sacred flame just to see if it'll open if we thaw it out? But it's empty. Okay.

That ship is sailed, hasn't it? Yeah, you're not going to be able to pull it off. Okay. Kidding aside, I don't, there are people that I wasn't kidding. It's lying. They're in there, Killian and Carrie are in there, and they're handing a couple ice robots. They're metal asses, but they have it under control. By no means, do I think they are in need of our specialized services.

Gotcha. So let's check out the fizzy lifting room. Cool. Okay, as you open up the door to the gravity augmentation chamber, you see a large spherical chamber that is pretty dark and pretty dirty. It looks like nobody's really been in here in a while. And things in this chamber are just floating, just floating in space. There's a lot of just sort of flots them and jets them, and it almost looks like Lucas is just kind of been throwing his trash into this room,

because there's, like, a refrigerator floating around, and, like, some just panes of glass flying around and some cages flying around, some microscopes, and some just industrial equipment and crates and barrels, just kind of floating around in this chamber without the effects of gravity on it. Hey, Lucas? Yeah, what's up?

What's with your trash room? Oh, bless this mask, right? Yeah, so I'm not especially great about like getting rid of my junk because I might need it again someday. And also I guess I don't really know where you throw away industrial waste. So that chamber actually, Maureen, my mother, she actually worked on it to sort of master, you know, gravity, anti-gravity technology. It's actually helped make our labs and your headquarters. And you made a weird shrinking elevator thing. Cool, cool, cool, cool.

Yeah, it's pretty sick, right? Well, do you remember when you went down there? Your mom made anti-gravity. Okay, yeah, she had. It's pretty cool. She had some stuff going. Was that before she died that she made? Well, I would have to assume.

Cool and neat. Anyway, yeah, just get through there and come on. You're getting close. I jump. You jump into the anti-grav room? Yes. Okay, you're in there, and sure enough, you're just floating now. Through the room.

It's everything I dreamed it would be. I feel alive for the first time. You're experiencing the magic of flight. Uh-huh. It's pretty, well, you're actually having to, like, scoot some trash out of the way as you fly through the, through the garbage room. Still pretty good. Yeah, if it weren't for all the garbage, just would be, like, the most miraculous experience, basically, ever. Okay, now, Taco takes my hand, and we leap out together, and I look at him, and I say, can you read my mind?

Is that a wrap, right? Who gets that joke later. Okay, because it's not us. The people on the show you're doing it with. It was a Superman, right? It was a Superman reference. Okay. Thank you, son.

At least I paid attention when we sat at your lap. Your fatherly lap last year. The fatherly hearth. Your weird three laps that you have. But you had installed. That's going to get some fan art. Your dorsal lap. Yeah, Noel follows you into the chamber too.

Noel, look at me. Yeah, no, yeah, you're doing great. I'm an angel. Yeah, you're a beautiful angel, and you're floating around, and you're doing such a great job. Are you proud of me? I'm real proud of you. How do I get down?

Hey, Magnus, do a stunt. I do a stunt. Oh, man. Oh, that's the 18 on stunts. Yeah, you don't really have anything to push yourself off on, so you just kind of, like, twist around. But she's, oh, wow, that was real. Good, Magnus.

Am I the best at stunts? You're the best at flipping and spinning. Thank you. You're so great. All right. Taco and Merle, you guys do a duo stunt. No. Okay.

I thought you'd have fun in the Zero Gravity Room, but that's... This is about fun. I can fly whatever I want, so it's like, pshaw. Yeah, I can, like, just standard not do magic, so this is, like, the best I've ever felt ever. Yeah. That's pretty good, I guess. want to stay here? No. I just signed a lease on a condo. Y'all hear something coming from a pretty big ball of rubble below you towards the center of the room.

And emerging from that ball of rubble, you see three shapes sort of push themselves off the bottom of this spherical room and start to move upward toward the three of you very slowly. And you can't really get a beat on what these three figures are. They got this like pink, weirdly shiny like bubblegum skin almost. And they have these eight like padded feet and these circular snouts with this row of sharp teeth all around them. And they got these eight legs that are ending in these like gross, wispy, tindral fingers. And they're friendly?

They're just, they're not making any noise and they're not really animating very much. They're just kind of floating up in your general direction. Okay. Hey, hey Lucas, me again. Yeah, what's up? You guys having fun in my trash room? What's the weird bubble gum octopus things? Weird bubble gum, what are you talking about?

Yeah, they got us now. Griffin described it better. Were you listening? Were you listening when he described it? I mean, there shouldn't be anything in that. There's like three of them. They were in broken cages. They're floating to me in a very threatening manner.

Oh, they're just tardigrates. Well, they're just, they're just little guys. It's pretty big. They're microscopic. We were doing experiments on zero gravity, like animals, how they thrive in it. And, you know, tartagrades, they're microscopic. No, these are so dramatic. They are thrived as hell.

Wait, what? It's like the size of, I don't know, how would you describe it, Griffin? A car engine. Yeah, they're about the size of a car engine. He says, that could be anything. That's not possible. Tartagrades are microscopic creatures. I hold the Naga's up.

Look. Oh, shit. I can't see, but now I believe you. Thanks. You guys need to get out of there. Yeah. Tartagrades are, we call them unkillable water bears.

You got to get the fuck out of there. You call them that? Is everything a bear here? I push off some garbage towards the door. Bye. Okay, as you push off some garbage to start floating away from the door, the three Tartagrades,

which is a real animal. I was doing some Googling around, guys. This is a neat animal. They do zero-gravity environments on them. Do a quick Google search. They're one of Sidney's favorite animals, actually. She thinks they're adorable. How do you spell it?

Like Tardis, like Tardis in the grade. Oh, okay. Uh-huh. I don't like that. Yeah, when they're you-sized, they're definitely less adorable. It does look like a super fat, angry manatee, though. Yeah, these three super-fat angry manatees... I can probably sound like this.

I'm a tardigrade. I'm going to eat it because I'm angry. The bad thing about tartargrades is that they basically will eat anything. Some water bears have been known to eat entire live organisms like Rodifers and other tardigrades. or elves, or elves, human and dwarves. Because all three of these shoot out these long,

fleshy pink proboscuses. Boy, that's a fun, pleasant mental image at all three of you. And I need all three of you guys to make dexterity saving throws with disadvantage because you don't really have anything to move off.

Even though I said I pushed off some garbage? All right, you don't have this advantage. Yeah. 19. 18 Toon Taco you don't really need to roll again Merle you do because you have disadvantage

Let's see if I can go a one Wait a minute Disadvantage means you do You roll twice and you take the worst The two Eight Okay Did you guys know that Tardagraids were first discovered

By a German pastor named Johan August Fremwez? Thanks Siri You're welcome This is a little thing I learned for the dark grade wiki. Knowledge is power. I'm just looking for something

that'll help me beat them. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, it's definitely, I definitely wanted to send you on a fucking science, science hunt. That's the key to do with this battle.

You literally told him to Google them. You literally said that. I guess that's true. Yeah, now that you've spoken the name of their discover, all three, just disintegrate. Well done. You've figured out our secret.

Maximumfund. com. Comedy and culture. Artist owned. Listener. supported. Hi, I'm Sidney McElroy, and I'm Riley Smurrow, and we co-host a podcast called Still Buffering, a sister's guide to teens through the 80s.

On our show, we tackle all of the hot teen topics that kids have on their minds today. Hot teen topics? Well, you know, the questions that are plaguing teenagers through their tumultuous growing years. Questions like, how do I party? Or what do I do with all this hair everywhere? The same questions that people like Sydney had during their years as teenagers, many, many, many. Okay, not that many. So, so long ago.

Yeah, okay, I think they get the idea. So search for still buffering on iTunes or maximum fun.org for new episodes every Tuesday. Still buffering. I'm a teenager. And I was, too.