The Adventure Zone - Ep. 35. The Crystal Kingdom - Chapter Seven

Episode Date: March 10, 2016

Our heroes recover after performing some impromptu emergency surgery on their holiest team member, and then, after kicking it for a while, learn the secrets of the universe. No big deal. Taako tries on a new voice. Magnus does some backseat Regulating. Merle learns about an exciting new plant. 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, 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. You pull out from inside. An old compact mirror. Inside is actually just a circular disk of emerald. Okay, so he's stealing technological ideas from our world. Guys, he's crystallizing!

I turn around and chop it off. I chop it off. Quit chopping. I'm chopping off. You're chopping off my damn arm. Seriously. If we need a new arm, the good news is he's got lots. Yeah.

So if we could figure out a way to make that work, that would be rad. Yeah. I'm unconscious. Thanks. Now, I'm not... Okay, that's not what unconscious people say, but let's keep moving. I hope Merle's proficient in unarmed combat. I'm sorry.

I'm better than that and you should expect more for me. It's the adventure zone. We come to you live from a breaking news story, a tragedy. A tragedy that has, oh my God, well, don't both do it. When they do breaking news at TV stations, they don't have two different beep-a-deeps. But they do have someone live do it, like on Carmen San Diego, when Roccapella would do the breaking news. Yeah, but if Rockefeller did it, they'd be fucking harmonizing and stuff. Anyway, breaking news story, Dad has just touched Justin's dice.

He touched my dice, he got it, whatever it is, he got it all over it. Good, get over it, dork. That's not, you're not supposed to touch. I'm a rebel, man. I got attitude. I got serious attitude. It sounds like Justin has implied that there's some sort of residue that dad has left on it. Cope zero fingers.

Not bad. It's just like whatever he does. Critical misses, you mean? Just this critical stink is all over it right now. And I'm worried that like... Critical stink is a great D&D punk band name. I, we're critical stink. Let's roll.

Before we get into... Let's roll. Thank you, Travis. Somebody appreciated it. I like this. Before we get into the excitement and action and resolution and shit, I feel like we need to do some corrections and amendments here at the top. Okay. Just dad does have an axe.

But it's a... And he announced it in the first episode, and people were kind enough to remind me that dad does have an axe. Wow. You'll hear that? What was that? That's some fucking Atmo. It's stormy as hell. Hell. Oh, okay.

Just know that that's not imposed. It's not storming inside of Lucas's lap. Dad does have a hand axe. He announced it in episode one, but it's basically a hatchet. It's like a hatchet that you would use in, like a child would get for Christmas. Like you would use in the book. Hatchet. Is it a Gary Paulson hatchet. Hence the name, Lil Choppy. I also want to say the reason we didn't use the red barrels is because we beat them anyways.

Pretty handily. I don't think we took a lot of damage. We didn't need the red barrels. It wasn't until afterwards when all you punks got to hear Griffin say, the red barrels that you went, yeah. Like, yeah, hindsight, 2020, you guys. Another quick one there. I learned this. I didn't, there's no such thing as negative Kelvin.

But what if he's really sad? There are also isn't, like, I think I said, a thousand degrees, Kelvin. That's not a thing either. I, uh, I'll, uh, just one last, as long as we're piling on here, I've been saying the word proboscis wrong, my whole fucking life. You know what? We're not a factual show. This is not about science.

and learning it's about Dungeons and Dragon. I saw somebody try to defend me like, well, in this fantasy universe, maybe it's pronounced probiscus. No, friend. You're embarrassed on. Wait, it's not probiscus. My sweet friend, no, proboscis.

Oh, proboscis. It's a flower. I've been saying proboscis the whole time. Is it not proboscis? It's proboscis. Proboscis. Is proboscis like a weird West Virginia thing? Yeah, it's like aunt.

All right, let's play Dungeons and Dragons and get on with it. Okay. Okay. Who needs a refresher? Anybody? That's... Merle's arm got chopped off. I just listen to it. Yeah. I'm also...

Wait, one last correction. I'm sorry last week after we beat them that I didn't call them fartagreeds. Oh, man. Or nardagragrades. A gross factual error for Justin. That's a gross factual. It was incorrect of me. We got a lot of fan mail about it.

One thing we also need to resolve, Merle, what is your dominant hand? Because I think that's the one that we're going to say got got. because I don't see why you would grab a thing with your non-dominate hand. I actually think he said he was ambidextrous. I did at the very beginning of the show, but along with all these other facts, I guess that was forgotten to. It's been two years. It feels like five. Well, if you want to flip a coin and tell me which hand got caught.

I'll roll a dye. While dad's rolling that dye, so I'll tell you which hand got got got. I should also mention that very early in the show. I also said that whenever people are around Taco, they get super horny and want to give them lots of money. I said that. Everybody was like, good, good, good, good. Yeah, we like that. I actually, I wrote that down.

Yeah. They get super horny and I want to give them lots of money. I lost my dominant hand. I lost my dominant. Nice, which is your right or left. My right. Okay. Taco, I actually remember the super horny giving you money thing.

Like, has that not? That's just how it's. It's like my acrobatics. skill. You just haven't used it. So about 20 minutes have passed since you guys got Merle into this Med Bay room. Merle's dead. He bled out.

I'm dead, right? He died between episodes. It's a D&D podcast first. But he's been recast as a younger. This is Oliver, the new Merle. No, he's, he is alive and through a series of medicines

and salves that Lucas has applied. You're actually pretty lucid. And and the pain from your grisly wound has almost completely subsided. Hey, it was a very clean cut. Thank you very much. I made grisly. Okay, yes. Take pride in your work, Trow.

It was surgical. It was surgical in nature. I'm a surgical with this bitch. By the way, while we're on this subject, thanks to all those people who tweeted and said, here's hoping Merle dies. Thank you. Well, everybody loves a shake-up, Dad. I don't think that that's personal against you, but, like, you know, the interjection of

it. Who knows what celebrity we could get to play the next? next tomorrow. The possibilities are very exciting. Let me let's do some storytelling. Wait, wait, just to be clear, Travis, you're saying that we would not replay, let dad play a new character. We would bring

his old character back to life with a new actor like Doctor Who. Yeah. Okay, got it, cool. Got it. Perfect. Thanks. Thanks, you could, you could come back as like maybe a whimsical spirit or some kind of like talking book. Sure. Yeah. Or talking dog.

Maybe more of a producer role in the back, taking a back seat, a robin to our highway. Why am I laughing? I don't know. I don't know. It's serious. That's what you'll be doing a lot of, though. And a lot of good ones, sirs. And you'll be asked to leave the set because you're interrupting the filming.

Excellent, young masters. Way to goof him again. Do you need any lemonade? Fruing plot twist. Okay. Merle, you have been treated. What I'm trying to establish is you're actually doing okay. Aside from you're missing your right arm.

By right arm, it's mostly your form. It kind of just kind of stops at the elbow. And you're really thoroughly bandaged up on that arm. The bleeding has come to a stop. Things have calmed down in the past, in the 20 minutes that have passed. And just to be clear, when last we left, Yeah. Merle had explained to us that he heard a British guy.

Yeah. Who tricked him. Yes. And then Lucas, if I remember correctly, he said, I'll explain everything. Yeah. Lucas right now is actually in the corner. He's actually removed a panel from the wall of this Medbay. And you can see he's got some sort of like hastily constructed terminal that he's like rewiring some stuff in the panels.

And he's like fiddling with this terminal. And as he does, you can hear sort of rumbling and some ambient noises coming from pretty far off in the lab. And in this medbay, now that things have calmed down, you've actually got a chance to sort of take in your surroundings. There's some cabinets with medical equipment and medicines. There is some sort of scanning device. And there is a null suit chamber, much like the one that you guys had. in the Bureau of Balance. It's maybe a little bit smaller than the one that you have in your lab that you use to suit up at the beginning of this adventure.

And hanging off of the side of it is a suit that is Lucas-sized. It is human-shaped. And Lucas stops messing with this panel that he's fiddling with. And he goes, okay, I've rewired and had shut down most of the rest of my lab. It should buy us about about an hour and a half to get downstairs and shut this thing down. That should give us about an hour and 29 minutes for you to explain what the holy hell is going on and one minute to get downstairs. What don't you already know? There was an accident.

Okay. What don't we know? I got a compact. Let's see into some strange world. A. B. There's a voice that keeps talking to us. C.

some British guy more or less took Murrell's hand D what the fuck is happening Oh he really shifted blame I mean Yeah some British guy Listen if you If somebody got stabbed with a sword

Would you say the sword killed him? No I was merely the tool That operated on Merle Through this British guy I was a tool Travis is telling his shield like I don't know I never put his hand off So this is like guns don't kill people

Magnus takes axes kills arms He says Actually before we get started Murrell I had an idea Because we're going to need your Your clerical ways as we go deeper And I was thinking I had a kind of idea of

How I could maybe restore Some of your Two-Handness If that makes sense I'm listening I'm a little grumpy Okay As everybody can understand

A little put off Magnus I I understand that you may have taken a little trophy from Hodgepodge after defeating him. Can I, can I see it? Uh, give me a minute to find it. Russell, Russell, Russell, Russell, not this one, not this one, not this one. No, not this one. Well, is it this?

No, not that one. Well, you are really well armed. Is it this one? Yeah, that's it. He takes it and holds it. I was a self-ph-phagherpigrant would say no. He takes the right, uh, he takes the right, uh, he takes the, the right arm and he holds it up to

Merle and it's really little. It's like a small like a doll's arm like a toy like a G.I. Joe arm. He's like no, I'm just kidding. That would be ridiculous. It's like a little toy arm. Like if I put like if I could

somehow plug this into you, how would you control it? That's that's sci-fi bullshit. Robot arms. Today the part of Merle being played by Kristen Whig. Yeah. Can you imagine? He actually goes back to that desk where he was messing around with a belt and a petri dish where he's messing around. And you see him... Can I have that arm back, please?

Well, I need a piece off of it. He unscrews this like cap at the end of it and attaches it to this thing that he's tinkering with. And as he's tinkering with it, Kerry comes back into the room. And she says, hey, I'm back. I've got what you asked me to get from Jamie. And she is holding a potted plant with these four wooden shoots, it looks like, coming out of it. And if you'll recall, you saw this very briefly when you went into the bugbear chamber. And Lucas goes, okay, no, this is the idea.

This is going to be great. And he takes that plant and removes it, depots it, takes it out. And as he's like taking it out of the pot and shaking the dirt off of its roots, you actually see the plant like kind of protest. Like it's like trying to slap his hand away. And he plants it in this petri dish that you can see has some sort of green viscous fluid in it. And he sprays it down with something. And he picks it up and it just kind of looks like this wooden plant is hanging off of this belt. And he creates some sort of concoction that he walks over to Merle and he says that here,

drink this. Trust me. Please. This is going to be so sick. This is, Merle, I know you've been bird by people asking you to do stuff that maybe you don't trust in the past like 15 minutes. But trust me on this. This is going to be tight as hell.

Sure. I'll do it. Yeah. Your other arm. Your other arm falls off. I'm really down. So, yeah, go ahead. Kick me while I'm vulnerable.

I feel very vulnerable right now. You're down in this, Bev? It's like an apaltini. It actually tastes more like a carbonated wheatgrass shot. Nice. It doesn't taste especially great. But as you taste it, and as you drink it, you see this, this wooden, these four wooden shoots hanging off of this belt kind of come to a stand still and start to wrap around each other and tie around each other. And they form what

looks like kind of a crude, four-fingered arm. And Lucas explains, he says that, okay, so biology is not my specialty, but this is definitely going to work. This is a plant called Soulwood. And it's a psychically tuned plant that can resonate with certain people that resonate with them, and it can sort of change its biology based on the whims of other living creatures. And from what I understand, plants are like kind of your specialty. Romantically. Romantically speaking. So my thinking is, do you mind?

I'm going to get close. I'm going to get intimate. Hell yes, ASMR. Yeah. He starts whispering. in nerd ASOR. Okay, so what's gotta do? He takes this belt

and wraps it around your shoulder and then there's another fastener that goes around your chest. How do you feel about autoerotic asphyxiation? As he's doing this, he is straight up like Army of Darkness attaching this

wooden arm to you that is now roughly the site. It's actually kind of bigger than your other arm? I chop it off. Oh, no. That didn't last very long at all, huh?

No, I don't. Not this time. Yeah, you have this wooden arm, and you feel this, like, this psychic link with it. You feel like a deep connection with this, this arm made up of these four wooden shoots that have twisted around each other to form the shape of an arm. So I guess it all worked out. Yeah, everything worked out for the best. I want you to feel completely off the hook, Magnus.

And then Magnus and Merle engaged in a very complicated, like, high-five secret handshake so you can test out. We do the shimmy, shimmy, cocoa pop, the bureau handshake. Yeah, as you do the secret Merle and Magnus handshake, Merle, you feel like it is like not a big deal to move this thing at all. It takes maybe a little bit to become as dexterous with it as you were your original OG dwarf hand. But yeah, you have pretty good control over this soulwood arm.

And it actually, like, kind of curls up towards you and gives you a big thumbs up, as if to say, hey, I'm your arm now. Wow. Creepy. Really creepy. Yeah. Good. That's really going to cut back on my fireworks.

I want it in the canon. And hey, good news. Now you get somebody to blame for your roles. It's the tree. I want it in a canon that Magnus is actually like a little bit jealous of his sweet new wooden arm that Magnus, not out loud, mind you, but just quietly to himself. Yeah. And I would like it in canon that Magnus can kiss my Kenny Chesney tattoo.

That's fair. All of this is fair. I can, can you imagine what delectable torture that would be, though, for Magnus to have a tree on his arm that he cannot fill it? Yeah. Can Magnus make a tree? even he can't split. So in terms of mechanics, Merle,

you now have just a permanent disadvantage on sleight of hand rolls. That's just, that's, your days of having good sleight of hand rolls are behind you. My days of having any good rolls are behind me.

But, you can now control this hand separately from yourself. You can take it off, chuck it, control it like you would normally. What? Like your,

your hand. You can control it remotely. So it gave him superpowers, basically. Yeah. Great. More so than the magic he could already wields, you know, summoning angels and all that. Magnus cuts both his legs off. Like, all right, juice me up.

What do you got for me? That's set off. Lucas says, okay, so we don't have a whole lot of time for you to get acclimated to your new arm. So you're going to have to figure it out on the fly. But before we get out there, we're going to need to recharge your suits. And Noel says, oh, that's right. Oh, gosh, sorry, I completely blanked. And a little compartment opens up and a tank pops out that looks very much like the tank of a spray that they plugged into the chamber when you first got sprayed down to null suit yourselves.

And Lucas slips into his null suit and plugs the tank into the chamber. And he's like, all right, everybody, pile on in. it's time to recharge. And I guess very awkwardly because there's more of you now. Like you're doing like a real world road rules. Like how many coeds can we fit into a phone booth challenge? You all get coded in another layer of null suit juice. The meters, you have these like little panels on your wrist that are showing how much energy you have left in your null suits are completely full up now.

And everybody gets all sprayed down. And may I say in Amazon reviews, I'm giving the null suits originally one thumbs down. That's not how Amazon reviews work. I couldn't pass up a thumb joke. Oh, that's a good point. We're going to have a lot of those now. Hey, Lucas, why we're all showering together? Yeah.

What is that? You're standing on my thigh, which is weird. Thank you for the boost. When Merle mentioned a British guy, did that ring any bells? for you. Okay. I swear, guys, the lying stuff is over now. I have no fucking idea what a British you know. But you realize that like this is an all audio medium. So all I can do is ask questions, right? I can't look around and observe. No, I get it. If you want, I can, I can tell you all about the compact. Yeah, that'd be cool. I can, it would be easier if I show you the Cosmoscope. Um,

can you guys, are you guys ready to roll? Yeah Still a lot of pain, but okay Oh yeah Justin I want to hear your Today will be played by guys Yeah your cold and flu version of taco It should be interesting

Yeah Taco silently nods in agreement You guys make your way out of the med bay And through the decontamination chamber Back into the central hub This room is kind of a mess Because the Crystal Golem started to

form in here and kind of fucked shit up as he was like breaking pieces of crystal off. And you make your way into the door that you saw earlier that was labeled the Cosmoscope. And as you pass through the airlock into the Cosmoscope, you enter into what you assume to be a pretty large chamber, although it is like completely pitch black in here. Save for a pillar of light, which is illuminating what looks like a circular disk that is kind of of free-floating in the middle of the room, facing you. And Lucas walks into the back of the room, into the darkness. You see him get out of flashlight, and you can see he's like messing with some sort of lectern back there. Time for scary stories.

And he says, this is the tale of the old sailors' mummy. No, he flips some switches on this lectern, and you see an image pop up on this disc, and it looks like the lab that you are currently standing in, as seen from above, from outside of the lab. And he says, okay, I'm about to get into some pretty heady concepts. I'm probably going to blow your whole mind and just kind of reshape the way that you think about existence and stuff. So if it ever gets to be too much or you have any questions, please feel free to stop me, okay? Okay, wait, stop. You've blown my mind. Okay. Boy, this is going to take forever, I bet.

Let's take this slow. My whole life, I have been obsessed with the concepts of taxonomy and hierarchy. That for everything that exists, there's always a bigger thing that contains it. There's always someone cooler than you, right? That's one way of putting it. Yeah. And so there's always a bigger thing that it has a bigger thing that contains it. and so forth, repeated on to just an inconceivable decrease. Turtles all the way down. Turtles all the way down, turtles all the way up, bigger turtles. So, he points to this disc in the middle of the room.

He says, okay, so this is my lab. We could go way deeper on like the microscale to like elementary particles and stuff like that, but for the lightweight version of this demonstration, let's start here. Here's my lab. Got it. And he holds out two index fingers and does like an iPhone. pinch, pinches them together. And the image pans out.

You see it zoom out. And now you can see the stillwater sea underneath his lab. He goes, okay, so here it is floating over the stillwater sea. And he pinches the screen again. And he said, okay, and here's that sea in relation to the neighboring landmasses. And here's the whole continent, Fé Run. And here's our whole world, Ibeir to roll. How'd you do that?

Just bear with me. You're going to go way, way further. What? Here's our solar system. Huh? Here's the local interstellar cloud, the local bubble, the local arm, the galaxy. And as he's doing this, like, you are seeing just like the entire galaxy, the spiraling. And it's beautiful. You've never seen anything quite like it.

And he goes, and here's the local... I've seen it. Oh, okay. I want to actually ask you guys about that here in a minute. But here's the local group, the local cluster, local super cluster, and so on and so forth until here. And you were just— It's all just a collar on a cat. It's—

Yeah. He says, this is the observable universe. This is everything we know, everything, every place we've ever been, every person we've ever met, every place anyone's ever been is in here. But more importantly, so are the immutable rules that govern the people, places, and things inside of this universe, things like gravity and thermodynamics and arcane interactions. And all that stuff, all that matter and energy and the rules that govern it comprise this, our universe. You guys are just a handful of people who have ever seen the observable universe before, so it's pretty cool, right? Way to do it. Yeah.

Yeah, is there like a guessbook we need to sign? Hey, listen, hey, uh, listen, what is... Joe Zobidoo. Listen, what if I was to take one step past what you've shown me here? Taco, can I say something? What's up? You have just made me very, very happy. He walks to the back of the room again.

And also, just to clarify, horny. And also, you have a deep... It all ties together. A lot of money. You've made me very horny, he says. And he flips a switch on that lectern. And the whole room lights up. And the disc in the middle you can see that you were just looking at is made of some sort of dark, blueish green material in a perfect circle with some silvery trim all around it.

And this disc is levitating. But you realize as the lights go up, this room is filled with these discs. And they're all arrayed in orbit around this central disk in rings around it. And there's 10 other of these discs in the room. And they're all different colors, bright reds and oranges and greens and blues and whites. And they're all displaying a wide array of scenes of impossible things. You look into this red disk. Like what?

Well, you see it like a world. that looks kind of like the world if the world was made completely out of lava and fire. And then there's a blue disc where it's just a giant ocean, a world made of water and ice. You see a world where millions, millions of these living lights just float weightlessly through the air. And worlds where oceans of magical energy wash up on shores made of these brilliant white sands. That's that one. It's Abiza. You see a world where everything's the same

Except everybody's got mustaches You see, well, no, that's not one of them But you see all of these like incredible worlds And you don't know where to look And Lucas says... I would, I would look at Buffett Planet back there A couple of planets back. Yeah

Lucas says Taco, to answer your question, this is the next thing that's bigger. This is our planar system. This disc that you see that represents our observable universe, this is actually our plane. This is the prime material plane. We're smack dab in the middle of the planar universe.

And each of these are different planes of existence. And they each produce unique energies and they share these energies. They inform the material and physical makeup of each other. Some connections. They each have connections. Some are more tenuous than others. But these make up the real existence, each plane having its own sort of energies and rules. It's, this, this is what's bigger than, than the universe.

Okay. And then what's bigger than that? Good question. Thank you. Good question, I think. Well, let's start with this. There are six building block points, right? And these, he points to these, um, discs that are on like the outermost ring, uh, away from the,

away from the prime material plane, uh, disk that's in the middle of the room. And he goes, so you got your elemental planes, fire, air, water, earth. And then you got the planes of light, light and shadow. No. Taco, certainly, you probably know a little bit about these during your studies at Wizard You. Yeah, I've got balls deep in some of those other planes. I think he's got a secret room in one of them. When I use Blank, I get all up into those other planes.

Yeah, that's right. When you use Blink, you end up in the ethereal plane. And you see that. You didn't list that amongst your planes. Well, there's more. I'm going to run through them. But if you actually look, you can actually see underneath the, uh, uh, disc that you were looking at first, or you're like looking at your own universe, you actually

see another disc underneath it. And he's like, that one is the ethereal plane. And it's kind of like a filter. It's like where the raw energies of the rest of the planes are kind of filtered into the prime material plane. So it's not just like everything's on fire or drowning all the time. So yeah, anyway, that's the seventh. And then we got the planes that sort of inform the energies of life itself, like the plane of magic, where magic energy is born. And then On the opposite into that, you see there's the plane of thought, which is the source of logic and reason and emotion. So the boring one. Well, as you actually look into the plane of thought, which is this deep green emerald mirror, you see similar scenes to the things that you saw in the compact, Magnus.

You see like, you see a large, wide gray road with a bunch of vehicles just sort of sitting stuck on it. Reddle dragons. You see, yeah, you see scenes like you saw in the, in the compact. So this plane is where all the creativity and energy for this world comes from, the creation. Yeah, it's like where the, it's where the home of, like, logical thought is. That's why I call it the plane of thought. Show me Donald Trump. He says, I don't know quite who that is.

Although the fact that you guys make so many references to this world makes me think you have to, to have spent some time there at some point. I have a little house there. I can't tell if you're joking, which is like kind of part for the course. Anyway, there's the other higher planes. There's the celestial plane, which is inhabited by the beings that I guess some people would consider deities. There's the meat plane, the vegetable plane, the dairy plane, right?

The bread's plane. Soluble fats plane. Yeah. Yeah, but you only want to visit that one sometimes. The plane plane, that's not very exciting. I've been working on an updated version. There's a plane plane, that's just full of planes. And the plane, plain, plain, plane with all these plain planes and the plane.

Yeah, you've got to be careful with that way. I've been working on a new version of the food pyramid to kind of educate the people of Fé Rood, but it's kind of like a cube, and it's for people who like to party. It sounds, hey, listen, I've got to be honest from me to you. That sounds dope as hell. And then the prime material plane, the ethereal plane, you know about those. And then the astral plane, which is where our unconscious forms or our souls retire when we die here in the primaterial plane. Is Merle's arm there?

Wait a minute. Wait a minute. That goes completely against my theology. Yeah. Wow. Is there a Pan plane? Please respect his beliefs. Well, Pan probably kicks it in the celestial plane.

He actually, as he was talking about the astral plane, you realize that there are, there are, there are, He's talked about 12 different planes, but there's only 11 in the room. And he goes, he says, oh, the astral plane. So anyway, let me explain. Crystal, certain types of gemstones, if grown into a perfect circle, they can't be cut. If you cut it, it doesn't work. If they have to be naturally grown in a perfect circle resonate with the different planes of existence, with the 12 planes that form our planer system, right?

Well, everybody knows that. Yeah, that's 101. Literally, literally nobody outside of this family knows that. I knew it. Until that. I knew it. Yeah, we knew it. We talked about it yesterday. You remember that, Merle? Yeah, when I wasn't speaking to you. Yeah, exactly. It's a little man. These guys are just being Brad Godotias. Don't let him rat like a chain.

Go ahead with what you were saying. I'm loving all this. Lay it down. So anyway, my great-grandfather found a crystal just like that. And it was a perfect emerald disc that had just grown like that naturally in nature. and through that he was able to see into the plane of thought. And using that, we may have gained a little bit of inspiration for our inventions here in the Prime Material plane. Kind of cheating, I guess, if you want to call it that. Yeah. Is it possible that through tampering and connecting with these planes that you might have gotten the attention of something that we shouldn't have?

Definitely not. that really that kind of feels like what's going on here can you guys give me a minute sorry one sec he's gonna go write he's gotta go write a new he's like uh no no no give me 20 minutes it's like when the producers have lost pretended that that it wasn't about

purgatory the whole time it was it was it was about pergatory it was about purgatory the whole time oh I thought it was it was inside like a snow globe thing and it was like here's the thing that the tricky thing is even when it wasn't about purgatory, it was, because that's how purgatory works. Oh. Hey, I'm back, sorry. So, yeah, my family, we've sort of led the industrial revolution in, in this world for generations now because of that mirror. And so because of that,

my mother, Maureen, started to sort of come up with this idea of how we could create other mirrors and other worlds. But it's really hard to do, you know, because you can't, you can't, like I said, you can't cut these gemstones to create these mirrors. Well, it was easy. Everyone would do it, you know what I mean? Exactly. Everybody would have their own extra planer sort of telescope situation. Killion's actually getting a little short, short-tempered about all this. She's like, can you please just like explain what this, why you use the grand relic to do all this stuff? Because things are, I don't, this is cool and everything. He was trying to grow another mirror for the ethereal plane. Okay, yeah, that's why I assume. I was just kind of hoping to get to the point.

He read between the lines, Killian. He says, okay, so. So she's not seeing anybody. Your, your mom is not like dating or anything, right? Yikes, okay. Maybe carbon dating. Is she a plant? That's his thing. I mean, my mother was very, very much a botanist. She sort of helped.

Did your mom die or did she, like, disappear one day? She passed away. Well, passed away into another plane. Well, yeah, into the astral plane, because that's where you go. Anyway, so I was where we, I used the full, to transmogrify just pools of water into into these different mirrors. And it took me some experimenting. I had to figure out which gemstones correspond to which planes.

Man, I made so many gemstones. But yeah, the result is I created these 12. Unfortunately, I was working. He flicks another switch on the lectern and the discs start to sort of rotate around the central one. like they're moving like planets in orbit. It was like I was trying to get their trajectories right and I accidentally broke the astral mirror so I got to grow a new one of those although

smooth move X-Lex-Lex-Lex-X-X-X. I very much doubt that you guys are going to let me keep playing around with that philosopher's stowed so I guess I'm just going to have to cut my losses there. Well, but then I get it when you want the complete set and you don't have it and you're like a one-o-way, you know? Anyway. It's like Laskar plates.

Yeah, I mean, I'm a collector too, man. I get it. This is what I was working on. This is what I was using. the philosopher's stove for, is to create the Cosmoscope, which I could use to see the whole planar system. And Burrell, you asked a very important question earlier that I would also like to circle back to. Ah, yes. What was it? You already forgotten. Of course, that question, he freezes and time kind of, time kind of freezes.

You're in complete control of this world, Griffin. You made that habit. And don't act that was out of your control. Yeah, time is kind of frozen here. The orbit of these disks has stopped. And Killian and Kerry and Noel have just kind of stopped. And from behind you, you hear a voice ask that question. And it asks, what's there than this? Oh, God, if he's got a raincoat on, I am not turning around.

Oh, like a flasher in his penis. Thank you, Travis. I just wanted to make sure that all of our listeners, especially the younger ones, really understood what dad was in play. Yeah, you know, the children who listen to the podcast, Daddy. Of course. Children who are going to be very confused the first time they see an onion.

Like, I don't know what these are supposed to be for. You shouldn't let your kids listen to this show. Griffin literally named a character King F***. It's like, where does that even fit in? You know, I don't even... Well, I mean, I know where it fits in, but listen, I didn't mean that in the way that you thought I'm in it. Hey, everybody. This is Griffin McElroy, your dungeon master, your best friend, your dog whisper. Thank you for listening to Episode 35 of the Adventure Zone.

What turned out to be an extremely exposition-heavy episode, sometimes that just happens. We're trying to build bridges, trying to set some groundwork. Got a lot to talk about in this week's commercial break, so let's get right into it. I've got a personal message here. If you want to get a personal message for yourself or your small business, business on the show, just go to maximum fund.org. It's the easiest thing in the world. You can find all the instructions on how to do that there.

This one is for Michael Berkarski, and it's from Clara, aka Her Excellency Lady Pants. Clara, aka her most excellent ladypants, says, I just spent too much money, well, I will be the, you know, to each their own. I just spent too much money to be the first one of us to make a McElroy say something on our behalf. I think I win at friendship. And I guess friendship is now a sport about being. the fastest to pay a podcaster to say things.

Also, going to super fancy Japanese restaurants. We should do that again. P.S. I win. Yeah, I mean, I'm not crazy about being, I guess the scoreboard this bold new sport, but I like the direction that it's going in, and

I would love to be a sponsor of your make-podcaster say shit team. And one final message. This one is actually a call to action to go give a read to a new book. It's called the Cogs of Alost. Sura, that's A-L-U-S-U-R-A, by Sydney Lotto, which is available now on the Amazon Kindle for $3.99 for $3.99.

What is this book, you ask? Well, I'm about to tell you, calm down. The Cogs of Alasura is a steampunk adventure following the exploits of Eleanor and Simon Braeder. As they hunt down their former teammates who murdered their king, they discover a dark secret that will shake their country to the core and push their very marriage to the brink. Along the way, they must fend off hordes of ferocious elemental fungus monsters that prowl the night and feed on those who leave the safety of Alasura's walled cities. Just search Terra Phanite, T-E-R-R-A-F-I-N-I-T-E for links to the Facebook page. This is good if you listen to our bonus episode, which is very steampunky, and you've got that flavor in your mouth and you want more of it.

Go here. Go check out the cogs of Al-Sura. Give me one second. I'm going to just jot down ferocious elemental fungus. monsters to steal that for a later episode of the Adventure Zone. Thank you very much. So, this is very, very important. Starting next week, the Max Fun Drive, the 2016 Max Fun Drive kicks off and it runs for two weeks. If you listen to the show last year, you know all about the Max Fun Drive. We are a part of the Maximum Fund Network. We are happy to be a part of it.

Us with my brother and my brother, me, and the other shows that we've been doing, we've been on the network for forever now. And we absolutely love it. It is a donor-funded, supported network. Every year we do bonus content, we do special episodes, we have exclusive gifts for new and upgrading members who donate to help support us and keep us going and allow us to spend more and more time and resources on doing these podcasts. And that starts next week next Monday on March 14th and it runs for two weeks. So if you are a donor to the maximum fun network or you've become a donor during this drive, you will get access to all of the bonus content that the Adventure Zone has ever done, including all of the bonus content that all of the show. shows on the Maximum Fun Network has ever done. It is tons and tons and tons of content. And that includes a new bonus episode that we did special just for this Max Fun Drive, where Travis was the dungeon master of a whole new game, whole new world, new characters,

new everything. It's like an hour and 40 minutes. It was really, really fun. We're trying to figure out a way to do more of it as an incentive for the Max Fun Drive that we would give out to donors. But yeah, it was really, really fun. And if you want to hear it, you can become a donor and you can help support us and you'll get all kinds of pledge gifts. So that's sort of our incentive for donating. During the Pledge Drive, we are going to put out an episode for two concurrent weeks. So we are actually not skipping next week. We're going to have a new episode next week.

However, we are actually going to do the The Adventure Zone Zone, zone, a dumb, dumb, bad, bad joke that we joked about, where we would do sort of a Talking Dead style discussion of the game and the story, and we would answer questions and sort of, address fan theories and all that stuff. So to sort of bridge the gap between weeks, or between bye weeks, I guess, between Fortnite's, we are going to have an episode up next Thursday where we do the The Adventure Zone Zone. If you have a question that you want to get on the show that you want us to talk about,

about D&D, or about this campaign, just go ahead and send that to Adventure Zonecast at gmail.com, and we'll probably end up talking about it. I have no idea how this episode's going to go, but we definitely wanted to do something for concurrent weeks. And so we are doing the The Adventure Zone Zone, and I'm really excited about it. And, of course, we'll have more details on how you can help support us and support the network next week during the Max Fun Drive. I want to thank everybody who's been tweeting about the show using the Zonecast hashtag. If you tweet using that hashtag, you might end up as a character on this show. Like the many characters that have ended up in this arc, there were no new ones in this episode, if I can remember correctly.

But yeah, we're probably got a couple more episodes in this arc, and then we're going to move on to the next one. and that's always a big opportunity to get a bunch of new characters named after you. So go ahead and tweet about the show using the Zonecast hashtag. We really appreciate you spreading the word too. This has gone on for roughly forever.

Our next episode will be the The Adventure Zone Zone, and that's going to go up next Thursday, March 17th, and then we'll have another episode up back to more regular programming on Thursday, March 24th. So, hey, see you next week.

I'll do a recap of what happened before we started talking about Dix, you hear a voice from behind you say, What's bigger than this? I turn around. No, Magnus turns around. Which one am I? I'm lost within myself.

I don't know. Nobody has character voices except me. I turn around. That's fucking, that doesn't make any sense. Why would he say that? I turn around too. I'm turning around. We're all turning.

As you all say that you're turning around as you turn around. Out loud. Out loud, you see a floating figure in a bright red robe. I attack it. Yeah, I'd blast it with magic missile. Okay. Magnus, roll your dice. 15 plus 7, 22.

Okay, he's incorporeal, and your axe passes right through him. I attack again, I get two attacks per turn. 14 plus 7, 21. Your second attack hits. What? No, it doesn't. He's incorporeal. It passes right through him.

But does he seem mift? Nope. Taka, you're magic mistling him? No, I, well, I mean, it depends. Did I know he was incorporeal before, or did I watch him Travis attack first? If I watched Magnus attack first, I probably didn't blast it with Magic Missile. Okay, then as... Magnus steps into the place where he is and, like, kind of blends with him and goes,

Oh, whoa, whoa, I'm in a red robe. He phases... Okay, now I do use Magic Missile. He phases sort of upwards, so he's floating above you. Okay. Excuse me. Uh-huh. Sub.

No. ASL. ASMR. I spoke to you about the hunger of all living things. When? When was that? The last time he fucking saw you, remember a thing. Remember anything?

No, that wasn't character, Griffin. That was Magnus. Oh. The last one and the office. his building. And the, oh, oh, with Bain, Bain, with Captain, Captain Bain. Yeah, he tried to poison you. He tried to poison us?

Okay, so a lot of things went unnoticed. I'm not, I'm not remembering. That one is by me. Well, take it on credit. I warned you about the hunger of all living things. Mm-hmm. He motions to all of the different planes, and he says, This is the power it seeks, the power of creation itself.

Got it. A billion, billion lives have been devoured by this hunger in pursuit of its power. A billion billion? Yes. That's a lot. It sure is. He waves a hand, and there's a crate sort of in the back of the room by the lectern. It actually kind of like a trash bin.

And as he motions towards it, it tips over and some small gemstone discs crash out of it. And one of them, you can see, is a, it's a very dark disk, kind of like black, but you can see definitely like flex of red and green and blue color in this black disc. And this disc begins to shake. and this horrifying black cloud sort of emerges out of it. And it slowly creeps towards these disks that are floating in the room. And one by one just consumes them. And as each disc is consumed, you hear like screaming voices coming from it. Whoa.

It is an absolutely terrifying scene. And it consumes the prime material plane. And you feel kind of sick watching it. And after it has consumed all of them, this red-robed figure snaps his fingers, and the cloud disappears. This vision kind of leaves you. And he says, there's no more running. There's no escape. This world is life's last chance.

Who are you? It's not time for me to tell you that yet. What time will you tell me? In like 10 episodes. Okay, I'll put it in my calendar He says You three are the only To find that umbrella

Yeah, I took it off this I took it off this dead thug With a red robe This dead guy He had a red robe He was dead though You just killed Listen, I didn't kill him

Or no No, okay He was long dead We would No problem He's starting to He's starting to Shutter

There's red electricity kind of crackling through him. And he says, You found her? I'm going to step a little bit away from Toka. As he shouts that, he bursts into flames and disappears. Dag.

Wow. And the lights come back on, and Lucas says, What's bigger than this? And we turn around and he's got his penis now. Listen, we've been. through a few things just now. Todd, it doesn't matter.

Go ahead with your little presentation. I think we're all getting a big kick out. Hey, by the way, I meant to tell you this is a great PowerPoint. Thanks. A lot of people forget to give props for PowerPoints. Thanks. It's not as easy as it looks. Thanks, sir.

It's not as easy as it looks. There's a lot of aesthetic decisions. Yeah, I worked. I like the fonts. I worked really hard on it. There's some good clip art. Lies free, like free use clip art. Hey, it's me, Clippy.

I see you're trying to explain the planer system. Might I recommend? And, uh, comic sands? Noelle, uh, noelle has her little satellite dish scanner thing out. Um, and it's, it's glowing green. And she says, well, that's weird. Um, I sense green. I had my scanner on before, from before when I scan that crystal monster.

And it's, I'm picking up some, it says it's, one of you guys isn't a litch, are you? A what? A lich. I'm not. No, not to my knowledge. No. I guess, but. But I have a couple of liches that are friends.

Yeah. Oh, yeah, I've got lich. They're cool. They're really, they're good, they're good people. I guess my scanner's on the blit, on the fritz. I'll have to. You're sensing a litch? Yeah, picked up on a litch being in the room.

And a lich? Like somebody's a latcher? I don't. A lich is like a undead. Like, you can make an arcana check and I can tell you exactly what a lich is. All right. Yeah, rolling. I forgot about that.

Okay. That's not going to do it. That's a four plus zero. Yeah. Four. All right. I'll make one with my plant arm. Fifteen.

Nice. Yeah. Merle, between your sort of backgrounds in religion and arcana, you know that a litch is sort of this embodiment of a very powerful magic user who, sort of combines their essence, their life energy, with their magical energy, and sort of transcends their physical form. Technically, it's like an undead. Imagine like a ghost made out of magic. But a magic user has to kind of willfully do that.

Although... Like David Blaine. Kind of, yeah, except that what's interesting is that most liches, when a magic user does this, it's like way too ambitious a thing. they can't really control that energy. And most liches are just like insane. Like they have no control over themselves. They're just like hyper, hyper violent, hyper evil embodiments of like raw magical energy. They are not usually well-spoken beings. And Lucas also says, well, that's, that's weird. What are you guys knocked over by my rubbish bid? I had some things here that I was,

these are some mirrors that like didn't end up being anything um did what do you guys like come over and kick this over no no that doesn't sound like us but sounds like some we would do we really you know when we're staying at somebody's place we take really good care of it so i don't yeah no not us um this is going to be my final plea for everybody on the show to use character voices i would do anything to make it more sonically pleasurable for our listeners let me let me try No, it wasn't me. No, I didn't do it. Nope, we're very careful about places. It was me.

I can't. No, I'm not going to play with you, little kid. You guys could essentially swap right now if you wanted to. Oh, that's easy. I'll just talk like I always talk, because that means I don't have to be careful. Or dad, ever. So the mirror on the floor that you actually, the black mirror that you saw that cloud come out of, from where you're standing, fairly far away,

you actually see some like faint white moving shapes in it. I get closer to it. Okay. Yeah. As standing over it, you can actually see what look like white eyes looking back at you through this black mirror. And as they sort of make eye contact with you, these eyes quickly shut and disappear. I pick it up. Okay.

Can I, hey, Lucas? Yeah, what's up? Can I, uh, have this? Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I mean, I guess it's kind of value. I mean, it's ethically unsound. You're not gonna like, you're not gonna sell it, right? No.

So that's, that one's made out, uh, let me see. That one's made out of black opal, which is, I mean, it's, it's inert. It doesn't resonate with any planes. But yeah, I guess if you want to keep it, you can hold on to that, that if you want. I do. Okay. And I chop. his arm off.

That's just going to be a, it just when you least expect it. Well, you know, I don't want his arm to turn into a black disc with a little white flex in it. It's cool. It's cool. No, no, it's not, it's not, uh, all these things, all these crystals and stuff aren't, aren't, uh, spreading around. This room is not also I should have mentioned earlier. It's not crystallized with the pink tourmaline. Um, he says, uh, okay, anyway, yeah, that's what I've been up to.

So, uh, let's, let's, let's, let's, the spirit, uh, sorry, Lucas, what, Real quick. One second. The spirit that we encountered talked about seeing beyond the plane. What? Oh, nice one. Good one. Yeah, there was a thing, yeah, because we know so much. There was a spirit, a thing that, like, inhabited the golems that we've been fighting and that kind of stuff that sang to us about seeing beyond the plane and their crystal kingdom. And it really feels like this planer stuff might have something to do with that. That's it We're sorry We didn't tell you before

Lucas Are you Richard Nixon Is that okay Is that good? Yeah it's fun I'm gonna You can't just do any voice You just told me to do a character voice

You just told me to do Myrhyl mommy You know what You're on a fucking tour Of American history To do one character voice It to do it Well you're doing a different character voice

You're very light voice Because my throat hurts And again That it's two to your zero voices. Well, you're using up all the character voice. He says, he has no idea what you're talking about. What songs? What are you talking about? It goes like, Here in my crystal kingdom. There is a castle

on a cloud. I have an accused. I'd like to go. There is my dreams. Here in my crystal king. That was manga singing in character voice. Yeah. I mean, the song is basically a mashup of that and the forest music from the Super Mario RPG. I've realized now in post. We should probably get a move on because I think we're down to about 50 minutes now. And yeah, we should really get scooting.

Okay, quick 20 minute nap. Hey, man, that'll be groovy. Let's go. Let's go Sammy Davis Jr. As a gnome. Wait, so, my dude. Jerry Lewis? Hold on. We got Dean Martin. We've got

Sammy Davis Jr. I'm out the door so I can't hear this. So back in the back in the sort of central hub room of this floor, Lucas walks over to the central pillar and it's got one of those like red

handlock things on it and he puts his hand on it and it makes a bing bong noise. And you hear an elevator sort of moving up to come to your level. And he says, okay, are you guys ready to go down to the lower level? You guys ready to stop this thing?

What is down there? What are my robots just attacked me? I don't know. I think we could stop him, but I think... Oh, cool. Robots. Let's do it. I believe in the power of our friendship and teamwork that we can all do it.

Yeah, well, maybe. Hell yeah. Carrie and Killian actually draw their weapons. And they say... And Killian says, Lucas, the only place that you're going is the pokey. We've... What time, man?

We've received orders to... We had to get... We had to figure out what he was doing. Do you not remember our orders from the director? No, I do, but you couldn't wait until after he helped us stop the thing? I'm not going to let him get anywhere near the Philosopher's Stone. I don't trust this dude as far as I can do. So what are you going to do with him right now?

I'm going to take him. We're going to extract him. We're going to fucking lock him in prison probably forever. And you're just going to leave us here to deal with this shit. You guys can handle your reclaimers. We can't do it. If we get too close to the thing, it might end up tempted. us. It'll definitely tip this motherfucker.

We're taking this guy to jail. I appreciate less help. Thank you so much, Killian is getting kind of agro and Carrie's like trying to sort of, okay, guys, listen, we got to take him away. We got to take him out. And Lucas is like, Merle, Merle, Magnus Taco, come on, help me out. I can help you guys stop this thing. All right, here's the deal.

Killian, Carrie, take him back to the lab. Lock yourselves in where we just were. lock yourselves in leave his necklace on him if he helps us get through this through communication Lucas if you help I will plead your case I will say that you are cooperative that we don't have like a court we don't this guy used a grand relet and he knew not to do that that's that's it like you saying this out loud are you saying this like in care yeah that's killing's voice I know it's confusing okay um okay hey uh well you know good plan magnus but suddenly she just blew up your spot way to play along

Gilian real smooth yeah I don't tell you I don't tell you guys how to recover relics you you don't tell me how to regulate you actually have done that before I just said many times I can remember okay the first the first time we met yes I explicitly told you how to recover relics but you weren't on the on the payroll then listen you guys are good at this we're good at this she points at Lucas we're this is what we're good at which is getting creeps away from from destroying the fucking world you would be locked in a fucking frozen room if we hadn't come along so don't sit there and lecture me on how you know how to do your job.

We're going to get through this together. You got it? As you're, like, arguing with Killian, um, you notice that this pool of, it looks like blue, just like a pool of the color blue is spreading out of the central elevator in this room.

And then very quickly, like a, like a sound wave, it like roars through the entirety of the room, and you feel like the lab shake a little bit. Um, and you actually feel this, this wave of,

of blue ripple underneath your feet. And then suddenly the whole room is blue sapphire. Abadee, baba die. And then very quickly, before you can sing any more of the song, there's another roar and another wave, and then the room is bright green emerald. And then another wave, and it is just shimmering orange topaz.

And the room just keeps, like, fluctuating quickly between these different colors, and it kind of feels like there's an earthquake happening as the entire lab transmutates between. these different gemstones. And with each one, there's like another deafening roar. And finally, it all kind of settles on, let's say amethyst. What color is that?

Purple. Purple. And it's sort of... Did you mean to say amber? Amber, yeah, it stops in amber. No, that's not good. We'll do Amethyst. No, that makes us look all washed out.

What color is the energy? I mean, the energy is 311s amber, but... Okay. As, listen. So this guy, yeah, it kind of puts an end to the, uh, the argument that you're having. I, Killian, I'm sorry. I don't even know what we were arguing about. Friends?

Yeah. So you're going to let us take this guy back and you're not going to raise a big... Oh, no, that's what we were arguing about. Thank you. I completely forgot. Lucas says that, gang, listen, we don't have time for this. Um, and, uh, I need all of you guys to make Constitution saving throws. Not great.

Yeah, mine is great. I had a four plus three, seven. I rolled 18 plus two is 20. Damn it. Nice. One plus dick for me. As soon as Lucas says that, you all feel the panels that are built into the wrist of your null suits that Lucas designed, you feel them very quickly heat up, and then you

You feel something very bad as these purple volts of electricity just kind of surround you emanating from that panel and paralyzing you. God damn. And Taco, you just fall to the floor. You are not moving. You have been completely paralyzed as you fall to the floor. Magnus, your, like, head is good and your hands are good, but your arms and legs are both. paralyzed. And Merle, just your legs are paralyzed as you fall to the floor. But all of you go down, Carrie and Killian go down like a sack of bricks. And right, as soon as that happens, the elevator

doors open. Lucas runs in. And as the door shut behind him, he says, I am so, so sorry. Well, you know what, you dickhole? Like, I was fighting for you, you ass. And he's gone. And Killian says, I am going to absolutely murder that man. Yeah. I am absolutely going to kill him. Oh, my God, I'm going to kill him so good. Yeah. You and me both, Killian.

Great. Now I can't feel my legs. I'm down to one arm. One freaking arm. Both your arms are actually pretty good. And you can throw one of them off and still control it. One of them's a weed. Hey, guys.

Hey, guys. Check it out. Oil can Right? Oil can't Right? Oil can Like the dinner

I think he's saying oil can I thought he said Brerflin You hear crinkle tinkles Fuck They're coming from the floor You can tell now that you're all on floor You can tell that it's kind of reverberating

Through the crystal that's taken over This room And yeah, the crinkle tinkles are building, and they're getting way louder. And you hear the beginning of a song start to play, and then through the very crystal that has, in case this room, you hear another verse of the song. Save from the darkness by my child you, but my true love, break the sea is talking. I'm actually going to say the lyrics out loud because I think some folks have trouble understanding vocaloids. Not most,

most people, like, don't have an... I don't speak vocaloid. Yeah, you don't have an ear for it. The voice just saying, saved from the darkness by my child, locked in a cage of glass and steel, but my true love remains in exile,

beckoning me to break the seal into this crystal kingdom. Can I ask a question? Yeah. Is anybody writing this shit down? Yeah. Okay. I mean, not me, but I assume some. somebody is. Perhaps they could send it to us. And as that verse wraps up, another rift opens in space.

Merle, you're probably the only person that can really like get up to see this happen. And out of that rift, that white fire comes out of it. And those loose pieces of crystal shards that the golem kind of abandoned when it left this room, start to self-form again. Merle, you see your arm, your poor, poor crystallized arm sort of float into this mass and come together to form another crystal golem. This one is actually way more like slender than the other ones you've seen. It looks like weirdly like bony, almost like a crystal skeleton with these long, much longer, much sharper looking appendages. And this menacing apparition comes and stands over the five of you. All laying paralyzed on the ground.

And through all of your stones of far speech, you hear a voice say, well, this is hardly fair. Maximumfund.org. Comedy and culture. Artist owned. Listener supported. A Thai is a pedantic person. I think when he pronounces these words, it's in a very show-offy way. Gyro.

Yiro. Sacre-blue. Sacrebleu. Ayers Rock. Ulu-Roo. What you are witnessing is real. The participants are not actors. They are actual litigants with real cases.

They call in via Skype to Judge John Hodgman's court, the real people's court. Now I call you to Judge John Hodgman's internet court. Find it at maximum fun.org or wherever you download podcasts.