The Adventure Zone - Ep. 44. The Eleventh Hour - Chapter Four

Episode Date: July 14, 2016

Our heroes explore an extremely deadly derelict mine in an attempt to find out what's happening to Refuge every time the clock strikes noon. They do so with the usual amount of caution and grace, which is to say things go very, very, very poorly, very, very, very often. Merle makes some furry friends. Magnus finds a trap the hard way. Taako flies to Heaven. 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, and you're being crushed by the shattered earth, and you hear an anguished scream come from something massive and furious. Well, you'll have to do much better than that, loves. And then you wake up. Imminent destruction comes from below. Turn your eyes to the quarry. You're not ready to face what awaits you there, but you must know its face. And then the light comes back in the room.

I was going to go to the quarry anyway. What a rip-off. Cassidy is holding what looks like a giant cluster of green grapes that is attached to a long wire with a plunger. You are burned and you are crushed and you are dead. And you wake up again. The bad news is you do not have 50 diamonds. Okay, well, that answer is that, huh?

I'm going to delete the YouTube video as making about how to do an infinite diamond glitch in the adventure zone. Wow, this arc is going to the boy's KD ratio. Let's hope they can break the cycle and escape from the adventure show. In the last loop, you did a bunch of dump shit and learned that you can't take things with you through the loops. You were told to go to the quarry. Merle, you spied on Cassidy and sort of found a way into the quarry because she had some sort of

explosives stashed down there. And yeah, I think that anything else happened that I forgot. You made some new friends. A lot of fun memories were had. Yeah. Yeah, I think everybody had a great time. I wish I had pictures, but at least I have my memories. Um, so you wait.

Look at this photograph. It's me getting blown up again. Um. I lost the photograph. This thing doesn't work like that. Whoa, that song's a paradox. Yeah, shit. A song paradox.

Song paradox. And a parody. I love Weird Al Yankovic song paradoxes. So yeah, you have woken up in front of refuge again. I know that we did the loop last time. But I want to try something different. Okay. Yeah, what you got?

All right, fellas, I have, wait, that's Merle's voice. Fellas, I have an idea. Go with me on this one. I charge right up to Roswell and I say, your name is Roswell. We're visitors from outside the dome. You haven't had visitors in a long time, is that correct? Yeah, that's right. Okay, there's a statue in the center of town of three people, the visitor, Jack and June.

Jack and June died in the quarry. The name of your sheriff is Isaac. He's the elder. He lives in a big house at the end of the room. Who are you? How are you doing this? There's a witch in the woods named Paloma. There's a woman right now in your jail named Cassidy, and there's a dwarf foreman who works at the bank named Brockton.

Okay, okay, yes, I get it. What? Who are you? you? What are you doing here? How do you know all this? This is not our first time here. We seem to be stuck in some kind of loop. At noon today, something terrible happens. And the only way we can stop it from happening is if you come with us to the quarry. I think this is going to take everything that you're saying to Roswell right now is absolutely true. And they're pretty freaked out, they seem. I need you to roll a, not bluff, because it's certainly not bluff. Maybe

diplomacy. I need to brush up on the skills, because I don't really know the charisma skills very well. But what would be the right sort of charisma role here? Is there a bullshit line? It's not bullshit. It's the thing. It's not bullshit. It's true.

It's just like you're trying to convince. Persuasion? Persuasion would be it, yeah. Well, that fell off the table. 19, plus one, that's a 20. And I'm rustically hospitable. Yeah, I would have given you advantage on that too, just because it's a good play. But, yeah, okay, Roswell says,

okay, I don't, what are your names? I'm Magnus. Yeah, Magnus. Yeah. And you said something horrible happens at noon. Is there anything else you can tell me about the next hour? Yes. Something horrible happens at 1130, too. There's going to be a bank robbery shortly before then. And you're going to go inside and you're going to fight the guys. But if you don't come out, the whole bank is going to collapse on you and fire. Fighting the guys is a fools there.

Don't do it. Cassidy escapes. an earthquake from the jail cell, she goes to the quarry and attempts to blow something up in the quarry, and that's where the bad stuff happens. Okay, so what, what, and your hell on furniture. I knew that already. I, okay, I believe you, obviously, you know a lot about this town. Obviously, you know a lot about what's going on, but I'm, my duty is to protect the town. I can't just go off with you if there's about to be a bankrupt. What can you tell us about the, what can you tell us about the quarry? Um, nobody's been in there in, in quite a while. There was a rock slide and, it's all closed off.

Operations slowed almost to a halt. And then there was a disaster down there. A few weeks ago, about six weeks ago. And a few miners died. Cassidy was the only one that made it out. And so from that point on, just nobody's gone inside since then. I have a question. What?

If the diamond mine dried up a while ago, why were there miners in the mine? You know, they're thirsty. and think maybe there's more secret diamonds looking for a second vein. Gotcha. All right, you go, you keep an eye out on the bank. Okay. Whatever you do, don't stay and get everybody out.

Don't worry about fighting your guys. Your safety is more important. The town needs you. Remember that. Okay. Thank you. Go, go. Just go, go, go, go.

And Roswell takes off running towards the center of town and kind of takes up like a defensive position. So I think you probably did that faster than you did the last sort of convincing of Roswell. So let's say it's like 1105 right now. And then just like any time in future loops, you can just do this. That's our checkpoint. Yeah, sure. That's our save point.

Yeah. So you're going to the quarry? Yes. Okay. Well, hold on. I won't decide. Boys, do you feel good about that move? It seems to be the best place for us to sort of explore right now.

It's what Paloma said, right, when we went and talked to her that she said there was something. Paloma said that there was something you need to see in the quarry, even though you're not sort of ready to face it. And Carrie was messing around with some blow-up juice. Cassidy. Cassidy, yeah. Yeah, Cassidy, yeah. Carrie was messing with explosives, probably wherever she is somewhere. Okay, yeah, you go to the quarry, you go to that same locked gate that you were at before,

Merle. And even though Roswell's kind of in the center of town and sees you, like, get through it, either by picking it or climbing it. Magnus, maybe you want to pick it because it'll be the first time that you pick it. a lock and... Yeah, you know what? I do. Okay.

That'll be nice. Sure. Go ahead and roll, I think, what would that be? Thieves tools. Thieves tools, yeah. And I roll the 14 and I'm like... You get plus 10. It's insane.

Yeah. Okay, yeah, you pop that gate open. And Roswell sees you do this, but it's just like gives you a thumbs up and like waves you, just go, go, go, go, go. And you make it down that same winding ramp that, um, Merle, you pursued Cassidy down in the last loop, and you were at the bottom of this quarry. And if you look at the map, like, it's a pretty wide open space. Coming off the ramp to the north, you see that caved-in entrance.

And then otherwise, you're just kind of surrounded by flat earth. To your right, the only sort of thing of notice against the wall, sort of the sheer wall that leads back up into town, you see a patch of bushes. And that's pretty much all that you see down here. But the entrance is caved in. There's just, there's a ton of rocks sort of in there. And that, that is where Cassidy deployed the explosives in the last loop. Ditto, I'm going to investigate the bushes.

Okay. I guess since you brought them up. Okay. Yeah. I mean, when people ask me like what my apartment's like, I know, like, well, it's great, but there's these bushes outside. It's Chekhov's bush. Yeah. Can we please not talk about Chekhov's bush?

He's very self-conscious about it. What's saying? Listen, I do my best. It's untamable wild lands. I just don't think you're putting in it on. All the shaving. All the traving. Oh, Ravtoca.

Oslaka. Pitrotto. These are the names of my pubic hail. Let me start again. Conrostia. Little Peter. Um, uh, roll that, Roll that investigation check before I die.

Uh, it's 15. Uh, yeah, 15 plus nothing. Okay. Um, Taco, Merle, you want to check it out? Yeah. Scope this bush. That was my favorite 80s comedy. Scope that bush.

I got a 19. Well, pop. That's a four for you, old buddy. That's a stinker. You're looking the wrong way, Merle. Over here. Magnus, with that 15, you see a few. few instruments tucked away inside of Chekhov's bush. You find a shovel, presumably the one that

Cassidy used on Merle in the last episode. There is a mattock, like a pickaxe with a broad side to it, and a headlamp tucked away inside of this bush. And Taco, with your 19, you see those items, but you also notice that the dirt kind of immediately underneath that bush has It's like, it's been disrupted. It's, uh, it looks like somebody has buried something here. I grabbed the headlamp. It seems useful. Yeah, because I don't think you have special magic eyes.

I don't. I got magic eyes. I can see in the, should I write down temporary headlamp? Yeah, I mean that headlamp. Yeah. What's there again? Uh, there's like a pickax situation. There's a shovel and then the dirt has been disrupted underneath the, underneath the, the, the, the, the, the bush.

I'll grab the shovel Okay I'll take to pickax Okay everybody gets a little treat A little bonus I check out that dirt Or our listeners I'm gonna die

Yeah I'm gonna dig in there With my shovel My new shovel How hard would you say You bury that bad boy in there Like an inch and a half And I'm like Oh

Oh the labor Oh the pain Oh I see You're having a hard time with it Just because you don't want to work very hard Yes these beautiful hands. Okay, I could take a head.

I got it. I sit down and start digging with my hands. What a relief. Okay, I cast healing on poor chaco. Thank you. Oh, what a relief? Okay, by avoiding digging with much pressure and digging with your hands, you safely exume a cluster bomb, which is that thing that you saw Cassidy carrying in the last episode.

There's probably about 15 of these things. They're about tennis ball size, and they're all sort of connected and wired into a central wire, which connects to a plunger. And now you have that in your possession as well. Sweet. Okay, so we weren't with Merle. So I'm going to ask this, like, of Griffin, which you can handle however you went to describing it through Merle's perspective.

When he saw Cassidy setting everything off, did that seem connected to the world tearing apart or were they separate events? They were separate events. Before she detonated it, the rocks got blown outward by some sort of force inside the quarry. Got it. You guys want to like blow this up? No. What? No, like where the caven is, like we have nowhere else to go if we don't, you know, blow it up and get in there. So we're done investigating the dirt? Yeah, there's nothing left in the in the dirt.

Oh, I'm sorry, no, you... You keep digging and you find the magic rod of... Of Todd. What you say it, it's canon. No, you don't find anything in there. The magic rod. The magic rod of Eternal Todd.

You know what? Let's play it safe. I'm just going to go in. I pull out the hole thrower. Okay. Ooh. I will tell you what kind of size hole we got going on here. Let me get my... My D-10 popping.

Okay. This is a five-foot deep and wide hole. Okay. I'm trying to imagine. So this is many rocks, right, that are all kind of piled up. So... Many rocks are actually called pebbles, Griffin. Good job.

Okay. We'll say you pointed this at the sort of biggest rock in the bunch, and you launched this five-foot deep and wide hole. And you can... You basically pierce right through this big rock, but you can't really see much of anything in there, except, well, I guess you have that headlamp. I click it on. Yeah, looking in there, you just see sort of a cavern moving inwards. And I can see in the dark, so.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah, you just kind of see a cavern moving inwards. Let's go. But, yeah, you've managed to find, I would say, maybe a safer way into this. We solved your stone puzzle. Okay. Plus, we kept the bomb.

Yeah, you're going to keep that bomb with you? It is, I will say this. It is a bomb. So be careful. Okay. No, I put it in a different pocket than Stephen. Okay. Yeah, no, that'll, yeah, you have thick lead pants that will contain the blast to a single leg. Okay, yeah, you move into this quarry through the hole. I mean, a five-foot hole is easily big enough for you to move through. and climb in

and as you move in, the cavern that you sort of opened up is fairly short before it opens up into a room. And this room essentially looks like the entry room or like the, it maybe doubles

as the break room for this diamond mine. There is, in one corner, there is a sink and an ice box. there are like three or four tables, like round tables with some chairs around them. A few of the chairs are upended. Right next to the entrance that you just walked in through is a little time card station. I can even punch your card. And there's about 15 cards tucked away in there. On the far side of the room, opposite you, is a big heavy metal door, almost like a vault-like door. and it is kind of similar to the doors that were in the Wave Echo Cave mine.

These are industrial strength big doors. And to your right, past the tables and chairs are 26 lockers. And these lockers are stacked up in two rows of three, or two rows of 13. And each of them has a little piece of tape that has crudely sort of mark down whose lockers they are and, uh, you assume that these are former mine employees. And if you will refer to Skype, I will now send you the list of names that are on these lockers. Griffin, this just says butts, butts, butts, butts, butts. No, Travis, it doesn't.

I wish you can stop lying to try and embarrass me. Mine says butt, just butts over and over again. Okay, I'm going to try to figure out how to get dad to, hold on. I'll read the names just real quick, just burning them right down for our listeners. There's Lawrence Abernathy, Cassidy, Ulrich Farnsworth, Xavier, Vanessa, Randall Perkins, Williams, Galding, Yael, Harlan, Dana, Jerry Barnes, Imerich, Zelda, Morrison, Isaac, O'Sha, Keith Quincy. One label that has been kind of scratched off and is unreadable, Terrence and Nial.

Are those all listeners? No, that would be crazy. Maybe, though. We don't have that many listeners. I'm checking out that scratched off label one. Okay. Yeah, it just looks like all the other ones. The lockers are in fine shape.

It's just the label is... No, like, I'm opening it. Oh, okay. I'm not just, like, looking at it, like a dummy. Yeah, these lockers don't have any kind of, like, a padlock or dial on them or anything like that. They're just, um, they're just labeled, and then there's, like, a little lever that pops a moment. I'm doing that kind of thing where, like, I open it, but I, like, lean away from the opening. You know what I mean?

Okay. It's like bugs fly out or something. You pull on the lever to this locker, and all three of you hear a horrible sound. That lasts like a split second, and it's like the sound is like, and it was actually the sound of this room more or less exploding. What? And all three of you have died. Ah, son of a bitch. And you're back in that white space.

and the old woman, the old woman in this white space, like, good job, partner. She just looks, she doesn't actually say anything to you this time. When you actually, like, come into the white space this time, she's, um, she looks like she's like catching her breath. She looks like kind of tired. And then you're back in front of Roswell. Okay. So can we just jump back to everywhere? Yeah, in the interest of time, we can just fast forward because you've done a lot of things to sort of get you to where you need to be. You're back in this room, and I've just described it again. My concern, Justin and Dad, is that this woman is through effort allowing us to loop,

and it's possible we may have finite attempts, or we need to space some time between attempts. Well, let's find out. Yeah. No. How about if you don't blow the shit out of us? To be fair, I said I leaned away. I don't know what Griffin wants from me. Can I ask a question that I've literally never asked the three of you in the whole time that we've been running this game?

Yeah. How do you, how does your, how do Taco Merle and Magnus like feel? Because like we're, we're having a lot of fun here with our Groundhogs Day shenanigans, but now they've died three times and it probably hasn't been great. You know, Griffin, I'm glad you asked. I think for Magnus, it's a matter of like, this is how he would live his life anyways. Yeah. And so I would say he feels emboldened.

Yeah. By being able to rush in, fuck up. and then rush in again. Okay. Yeah, that's fair. Okay. Merle's not a fan. Okay, yeah, I figured as much.

Not a fan. A little chafed and a little gassy from the whole thing. How's Taco feel? I very much want to know. Just another day at the office, baby. Okay. I would assume it would be very disorienting, I feel like. Yeah.

Dying like that and then not dying. Okay, what do you guys want to do here? I would you got some I'll tell it to you straight you got some puzzles coming up I have detect traps okay that's good yeah

what the fuck yeah yeah just can you constantly do that I mean it probably won't be as good as Travis's method detecting traps which is to say leaning away from I leaned away

I don't know what are you away from me go ahead and do your magic okay now I can't find it detect detect detect traps do you have a card

called detect detect detect detect I thought I did. I just saw a card that said detect traps and now I cast detect traps. Okay, that's not a spell. So it is. You just shout detect traps into the void.

No, it is a spell. It is a spell. What did you think you saw? I saw detect traps. There's detect magic. Oh, there's something about traps. Find traps. Find traps. Thank you. There we go. Find traps. You sense the president. presence of any trap within range that is within line of sight.

These cards, the print is so small. Okay, here's what I can tell you about that. First of all, with the tech traps, you can tell that the door is trapped. If you try to open it before you do something else, it will activate the trap. You can also tell that, and you can't tell specifically which ones, but you can tell that 16 of these lockers have mechanisms in them that will just set off the trap instantly. The others have, the others are still kind of trapped, but in a different way where they have to be set off in sequence.

Could I look at the rack of time cards and see if there's one with Cassidy's name on it? Yeah, sure. There is. Cassidy has one in there. How many did I say there were... When was the last time that Cassidy checked in? So the last time Cassidy checked in was six weeks ago. When she brained me with a shovel. No, it was six weeks ago. Wait, is it six weeks? Okay. Is the date on our time card six weeks prior to what we understand today's date to be? Yes. It was the date of this accident that Roswell mentioned earlier. And sure enough, I forget how many people I said died in the thing. but there are four other time cards with the same punch-in date,

and none of them, including Cassidy, have a punch-out date. The rest of the cards kind of just like taper off, like going back through the months, where people just like kind of quit working here. Emmerich stopped working here like a few months ago. Morrison is in here about a few months ago, quit working here. Isaac is in there, quit working here even like much, much longer ago. Hasn't worked here for a while, but their time card is still.

Griffin, you clever bastard. All of these names, there's 26 of them. They all start with a letter of the alphabet. Right. So there's something about the puzzle. I don't know if it's that we need to trip the vowels in order or we need to spell out a word. But if 16 of them are trapped, that means there's 10 that need opened in a certain order. Well, what are the four names on the cards that were the most recent ones?

Let's say Vanessa, let's say Williams, let's say Jerry and Quincy. I'm picking those completely at random now, though. And also Cassidy? And Cassidy, yeah. Those are the highest-scoring tiles in Scrabble. Can we spell Cuebo? I literally just pick those names at random. That has nothing to do with those solutions.

Or you're telling us you just picked those names. I'm also just sort of putting that fact. into the universe so that if I forget who the specific people were that died in the future is because I don't it doesn't matter. I like Travis's here. I think we have to enter the cards in a certain order. I think it's that we need to open the lockers in a certain order. Open the lockers? Yeah. I was thinking in the time clock, but we'll go lockers. Is there, okay, in dad's spell, does there seem to be any connection to the trap? No, the time cards, no, the time cards are not trapped at all. There's nothing. Okay. There's nothing there. Hmm.

You know what we need are diamonds. What? If we had some diamonds, then we might be able to buy some information from the witch in the forest. Because it seems like, barring other clues, that would be a fine... I mean, it can't have repeating letters, I guess, because that wouldn't really make much sense. What time card begins with the letter S? Yeah, there is one that starts with the letter S in the machine. And it's Susanna.

Okay, that's the name that's scratched out. Oh, Susanna. That is the name that's scratched out. That's the S name that we're missing. Is there anything written on that card other than her name? Nope, it's just one of the miners that quit working here a few months ago. And everybody hated her. That's why they scratched your name out, yeah.

The only hint I'll give you is think about what you want to do in this situation. Open door. No. Enter. Yel Z. You know what? What if we just blow out the whole room? I don't think...

We tried that once. We haven't killed us. Well, no, no, no. We go back through. We close your hole. We set it off. We reopen that hole. No?

Okay, that's fine. Can be a way to cheat with magic. If there's something that makes better podcast audio... Yeah, I would recommend you guys just start... Yeah, just try shit. Well, if you... I did that, girlfriend. And if you die...

If you die, then you die. But you'll just start right back here. Okay, what do I have? Yeah, but it seemed to kind of like bum that lady out, prove back that we died again. So fast. Yeah, so fast. By the way, what time is it? Right now, it's probably about 11.15.

Okay. I'm going to put on the lens of straight creeping and see if I can see any pattern of steps from locker to locker. Okay, yeah, here, all, yeah, okay, how about this? The steps are like all over this room. like this was a highly trafficked room, but there's one pair that is slightly fresher than the rest. Uh-huh. And even this pair kind of like walks back and forth like around these lockers so much so that you can't tell the exact path that they walked. But you can see that they started at the name Dana.

That is where the footprints, this fresh, this was the first name that these fresh prints of Bel Airs walked in. Dana. Dana. And I can't see where it ended? Yeah, how about that? you can also see that it ends at Nial, and then it walks to the door. Okay, you know what? I'm going to go open D. Okay, yeah, you pull the lever for Dana, and you open it up, and it's empty, and you hear a click.

That's great. That's a great start. Very good. One down. One down? I mean, demolition has ten letters, but it has I and O in it twice. Are there any other Jake Gyllenhaal movies? Detta nation, no? So it's D? We're good. So far. You know what?

I'm going to open. I'm going to open E next. Boom. The room explodes. Okay. And you wake up in the white space. What does she look like? I mean, the same as the last time you were here.

It has not been that long since your last visit. We're working on it. Sorry. Okay. And you're back in the room. Hey, you're not E. Hey. What?

Hey, dim bulbs. Hold on. Well, if you're trying to... Don't blow up. So, the last letter is N. Don't blow up. That's 10 letters. That's D-O-N.

So you use the end in the third place. You can't... That's that... Do blow up would work. Disarm. Disarm. This arm. Entrance.

Okay. It has to end with an end. You got to hang with me here, Clint. And it's only got ten. And letters, Clinton. Yeah. Here, look, this is what we're working with. And some, there's, uh, destruction.

I open I. Okay. I'm really good at this in Fallout 4. I'm assuming you popped open D first. Please God. Yes, yes. Yeah, you pop open D. It is empty.

You hear a click. You pop open I. It's empty. You hear a click. Whoa. Okay. D.I. Diamond?

By the way, you didn't pop open, these, these lockers don't just have letters on them. You popped open Isaac. Isaac's lock. I don't care about Isaac. Okay. Should we go with S? Disarmed, distract. Dad, why don't you try S?

I'm going to stand back a little bit. Yeah, I lean away. So this is the unreadable scratch-off label that you figured out was Susanna. Susanna. Yeah. Okay, yeah, you pop that one open and there's a click and it's empty. Woo! Do you want to go A?

Hey, you know what? Let's keep these bones are rolling. Go for it. Yeah. Yeah. A. I'll pull A. Okay.

you pull open Abernathy's locker and it clicks and it's empty. Okay. Go ahead, dad. Pull open. Oh, I love that. You guys are adorable right now. Yeah, you open it up and it clicks in a tempter. Okay.

I am. Cute. You click cute. No, no. Will he pull Morrison. Okay, Morrison clicks in it's empty. Okay, that's as far as I got. And when that happens, you hear the vault door, you hear something click behind.

Got it. You hear something click behind it, but it does not open up. Oh, shit. Okay. No. I got it. It's two words that we think it's a phrase. I think it's disarm and open.

That's what I just said. Dad said open before you did. Dad, you have to speak up. I'm doing my best here to try to highlight your brilliance. All right, do the thing. Oh. Click, opens. P.

Click, it opens. It's empty. E. Click it opens. We win the trip to the Bahamas. In! It opens and is empty. And when it opens, the vault door starts to swing open,

and 16 of the lockers all swing open to reveal cluster bombs wired to the insides of them. We don't touch them. Don't touch the bombs. We don't touch the bombs this time. But they very slowly swing open alongside the vault door, revealing an entry into the next room. And I just want to say, I'm very, very proud of all three of you. Yeah, we did a good job.

Although we've got listeners right now. that knew it 20 minutes ago. Yeah, that's fine, guys. Keep it to yourselves. So the door opens. Can we just stroll on through? Yeah, sure. Okay.

It explodes and you die. No, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. Can we look? First? Okay, you can look. That's a good question. Are Cluster bombs the only things in the lockers?

Yep, that's it. Okay. Hey, guys, bad lockers. It's not really what lockers are for. Don't you feel bad for the people who aren't D-I-S-A, who are like, don't keep anything in your locker as you like. Hey, boss, listen, I'm not bringing my lunch. First of the Elvis mind, I really like to be able to,

I told you once, I told you a thousand times. Only one thing goes in your locker, that's the last of them off. But the other thing in the icebox. Two things. Two things of note. First of all, this trap seems like it was rigged together. Like, you... Don't say hastily because...

Not hastily, no, this obviously took a while, but this is not standard mine procedure. This was a trap that was laid here. Right. For people coming to mind. I'm with you. Travis, to answer your question, yeah, there's some meat in the icebox. The icebox is perplexingly still kind of cold. It's not a refrigerator.

Like, there's actual, like, ice in it keeping things cool, and that ice is still, like, going strong. It's kind of chilly in here, so maybe that has something to do with it. but there's meat, just like raw steaks in the icebox. Hey, Taco, is this magic, this icebox? Is it magic in any way? Let me run it. Arcana check. Okay.

Or Arcanah. Sorry, Arcana. I've been listening to it. Archam Asylum. Too much Patrick Roth's. Okay. 15 plus. That's enough.

I'll say that the ice. 19. The ice in this box... The ice in this box... And I hadn't planned on talking about the specific type of ice that was in this box. But let's just say it is kind of a magic ice that stays colder for longer, and I'm going to call it good ice. Hold on, I'm being swept away by the fantasy tapas for your weaving. This is good ice, and it's kept this old meat, which is how it would show up in your inventory, fresh for longer than you thought it would last.

Why would a mine keep raw meat? Well, this is by all means the highest priority mystery. Let's re-made on this meat question. I just want to say that we're going to walk into a room with like a huge slathering beast in it and be like, oh, it was for, like take it or don't, but we don't have to run an unsolved mysteries episode about what kind of meat and while we have meat. I take the meat and the ice.

Thank God. It explodes. Yeah, it was on a weight, a weighted trap. And a voice comes out of the bottom, Not my meat and ice. Boom. I make a bag of sand that looks like it weighs as much as the meat and the ice. And then I squawp him out.

Now we're going to have to go running down this tunnel while a big ass rock chases us. The door that you opened up opens up into an elevator, which, of course, it does. And it's not, it's not, it's not upsy. You're lifting friend. It's just like, it's sort of an industrial. elevator. It has sort of exposed walls. There's like no ceiling on it whatsoever. It's like a freight elevator. There's going to be a company logo on it though, right?

They had to have made it. Yeah, I mean, it is a, I guess it's part of the, the Miller family of products. And yeah, there is a, there's a mine cart on the side of it with some boxes and then a panel that has an up and down button on it. And as you open the elevator sort of lattice, you see two small shapes run out from under the mine cart full of boxes. And they look like little furry bugs. And they have big, adorable ears and a couple little black furry wings with white spots. No white spots. It's just all black fur.

and they scurry out from under the mine cart and kind of run up to to your party. Well, hey there. Hi, little fur bugs. They make a little noise as they come up close to you. Is there trouble down in the mines? There is. Now, Griffin, with my animal proficiency, can I understand what they're saying? No.

He should appreciate his folksy charm. No, but they offer you a... Could you carve something for them. They offer you a free night at the furry bug inn. I take it. No, you can't understand what they're saying. This isn't... If I've learned one thing in Los Angeles,

it's when you're offered something free, you take it. You take it, yeah. No, they're just kind of... Do you guys want to come with us? Is there anything we need to know? Can you show us anything important? Okay, you're talking to bugs. You are talking to bugs.

And they just... He's talking to bugs. They just... Can I, real quick, just point of order, because it just struck me. Did we take tacos hole with us? No, that's not how we need this. Okay, I wasn't sure if it was like a, you know, Roger Rabbit, like you peel the hole back off the wall. No, that would be incredible, though.

Okay, well, you boys scurry along. We're going to adventure on. Have a great day. Thanks for everything. Merle, one of them scurries up onto your boot. and starts like climbing up your boot a little bit towards your jort purse

which has meat in it which has the raw meat yeah the other one the other one follows suit and starts scurrying up the same leg I hold out the raw meat and let them have a little nibble okay they they almost completely devour it faster than you could ever imagine

they like jump up onto it and it just kind of disappears and they run off outside through the hole that Taco Man just zip-tip the whole time. But they seem very contented and very happy. And if there was a thing like karma points in this game, you would get those. That may be the first self. The first self, okay, you get karma points.

I don't know what they're going to be used for, but. No, that's inspiration. Inspiration. Okay, yeah, I'll give you inspiration. Just for being kind of animals, which is very pan. I talk to them. Okay. They didn't understand you, though.

Let's go down. Okay. I had a puzzle here, but I think it would probably take too long. to get past it. Cool. So you did it. Thanks. Thanks.

What was it? Yeah, tell us. So you can't ever use it again? You had to hit the elevator button in a certain way or else it explodes. Stop me if you've heard this one before. Hey everybody, this is Griffin McElroy, your best friend, your dungeon master, and your local handyman. Stop flushing all that junk down the toilet.

This is episode 44 of the Adventure Zone. Thanks for listening to it. I think it's like the third or fourth. episode in the 11th hour arc and boy, our boys are just, they're just having fun with all the dying and all the groundhogs daying and just, just having a grand old time, and I hope you are too. I want to thank everybody who has tweeted about the show using the Zonecast hashtag. If you do so, you might end up as a character on the show. We have a couple more NPCs in this area that I haven't picked names for yet.

So if you want to see your name on the show, I just tweet about the show using the Zonecast hashtag. We really appreciate that because we also don't advertise the show in any way. way. So word of mouth is really the only way we have of getting this show in front of new people. And we work really hard on it and are really, really proud of it. So anything you can do to help spread the word, we really appreciate it. Got a personal message here. If you want to get a message on the show, just go to maximum fun.org slash jumbotron. You can find out all the details on how to get a message on the show there. This one is for our DM Nikolai, and then in parentheses the creator.

I'm guessing that's Tyler's brother. That was a fun Tyler the creator joke, everybody. This message is from Mikhail, Rodux, or Rodux, Savina, Geryl, and Isluid. God, I hope that gerald. I don't know if it would be funnier if that garrul was named after the Adventure Zone horse, or just like this was just sort of separate creation. Anyway, they all say to Nikolai, on behalf of all the residents in the world of Sharpie, we would like to wish you a happy birthday. We had boxed up a magic fox to give you, but it kind of exploded.

Our bad. Anyway, sorry for ruining all the great plans you had for us over the last. few years. We would say we'll do better, but I think we all know that's a lie, especially with the, and unfortunately the message cut off, but especially with the D&D's local tournament coming up. We have to really prove ourselves. I don't know if that's a thing. Is that a thing? Competitive D&D? Maybe I'll be not lazy enough to Google it later. Anyway, happy birthday, Nikolai, keep up the good work. There's a bunch of other shows on the Maximum Fun Network,

which we are a proud member of, that I think you're just going to love. Just go to MaximumFund.org and just start clicking. Just start clicking on things. Maybe you'll accidentally click an ad. You'll put like a quarter in my pocket or something. I don't actually know how that works. But there's great shows on the network, like getting curious, and the next generation, and the Beef and Dairy Network.

A lot of really good shows, all at maximum fun.org. We also have a website called mackleroyshows.com, and that's got all of the different podcasts and video things that we do. I'm pretty sure it also has all our P.O. Box information. I just opened up a P.O. Box 66639, Austin, Texas, 78766. So I know the boys have been getting postcards and stuff like that for a while. If you want to send stuff, Austin words, that's how to do it. But go to Macquarie Shows.com, you can see all the shows we do like Schmanters,

the show that Travis does with his wife Teresa about doing manners good or sawbones, a show that Justin does with his wife, Sydney, about the medical history or Rose Buddies, a show I do with my wife, Rachel, where we talk about The Bachelor and Bachelorette television shows. Again, that's Macroyd shows.com. That is it for this week's commercial break. Thank you all again, very much for listening. We're actually leaving today to fly to Boston to do our live show tomorrow on the 15th. So Boston, what's up? We'll see you then. Just a reminder, this one's not going to going to be the next 11th hour episode. It's going to be a little side story.

And I think we're going to release it later this winter once Travis and I are on paternity leave and need some content to help fill the feed. So yeah, it's going to be a fun little, weird little side story. And I'm excited to do it. Excited to see all these shining wonderful faces. Hang out with some people that have been tweeting with us for like the past like two years now. I'm just so excited. We'll see you then.

And if you're not coming to the show, look for the next episode of the Adventure Zone on July. By 28th. See you then. Bye. You make your way down. And actually horrifyingly, on your way down, this is when the earthquake happens. Because this is the loop in which you solved the puzzle,

and it took you a very long time. Well, not a very long time. But, yeah, so you hit that 1130 point. There's an earthquake. And so just like, while you're going down, and this descent takes quite a while. This descent takes probably about five minutes of going down. Just everything starts shaken.

and this freight elevator kind of like bangs off the walls a little bit. And at one point it actually drops a few feet, but it doesn't fall all the way. Like there's probably some sort of emergency break on it that catches it. And then after a few seconds of not moving, it continues its descent after the earthquake stops. Another fine Miller product. And you open up. And as you, as the door opens, you get just a blast of cold air on your face, the exterior door, not the lattice door to the elevator. later. And you are in a humongous cavern. The only light being provided is, well, I guess Magnus has his

headlamp on. There's an orange light above the elevator door that's also kind of illuminating things a little bit. And you can see in front of you is another cart, like a tram that is on a track that is going down into the cavern. and this cavern is going pretty steadily constantly down and the cart actually has a broken wheel so it's not exactly on the track but this is not like a mine cart for moving for moving minerals this is like a personnel cart for getting people like deeper into the mine much faster but it is currently broken

and you can see actually some cracks in the ceiling that some dust is falling from like these cracks were just sort of hewn into the stone with the earthquake and there is a sort of a faint constant buzzing noise happening in this room which despite the fact that you have these two lights in it is kind of is still very very dark how broken is it is it's like a wooden wheel it's just like something I get fixed no it's like a metal it is a metal wheel that is broken that's not to say you can't fix it but it's like the metal is broken is the buzzing

like sound like insects maybe a nature check would reveal that to those who want to roll a nature check I'm going to do a nature check you know who would probably be very good at a nature check yeah not me I got an eight you really can't tell seven

but you got a pluses you got a plus I do have a plus that's always looking at his cards I'm playing in the head for what you have no fucking clue what's happening I have a great idea.

Okay, pal. Nature check. Okay, so it's 11. Okay, yeah, with an 11, you can tell just sort of by the fluctuations in the noise that whatever is making it is alive. I have a spell called mending.

Oh. That allows you to fix things, metal stone, and I know you're looking it up right now. No, I trust you. Here's a fun fact. That spell is actually baked into the arc light spanner, your weapon that you got from Hurley during the battle wagon races.

Why don't you two go investigate and I'll fix the wheel on the cart? Daddy fix the wheel? That sounds pretty good. I think we're in okay shape right now. And if we died, no big whoop. Okay, yeah. Merle, you get to work. And what happened if one of us died?

I don't know. I guess everybody would just deal. That's the key to the mystery. Oh, that's the key to the mystery. Sorry, my microphone's already broken. exploded no million pieces like a fucking gizmo. I mend it with my spanner. Blather and blather skies, dad, you exploded my mind.

We're going to move forward, Merle. Keep your stone of force speech on. Yeah, Merle is, Merle's working on the wheel. It's going to take him a couple minutes. But the pieces of the wheel, it shattered into like four pieces, start to float through the air and start to fuse together. And it's almost like some sort of invisible forces welding it as sparks come flying out of your wrench. Okay, Magnus and Taco, what are you guys doing? You got about the light from the elevator gives you about like a 20-foot radius circle into this cavern and the, and you got the tracks going right in front of you and Merle's behind you working on the cart.

What time is it? I mean, by now it's about probably 1135. All right. I'm going to go to look down the path, I guess, look down the track, see if there's been any damage, any cave in, anything like that. Investigation? Yeah, sure. That sounds good. I'll run and run, too.

Okay, so I didn't find shit. I got a 13, nothing. So a 13. Okay. No, it seems like the tracks are pretty clear. Taco would you roll? A three. I'll be lucky to find my own asshole.

Yeah, you move around your cheeks for a bit, and you're like, oh, no, no, no, no. Not again. You done transmuted it shut. Again, damn it. Um, Magnus, with that check,

actually, and because you have the headlamp, you can actually tell, there's no, like, big rocks or anything blocking the path. Um, but as you move your light around,

um, this tunnel, uh, and, and specifically, like, around the floor checking to make sure that the tracks are okay. Um, it almost looks like your,

there's like, like, smoke on the ground and, and all around. And as you, like, shine your headlamp into the smoke, like,

it kind of parts for you a little bit, um, revealing the track. underneath. Cool. Hey, Tago? You see this? I know you're looking for your butt hole.

I don't understand your voice. Sorry. I know you're looking for your butthole. What is the, is this smoke seems unnatural? Yeah. For sure. Touch it.

Okay, I'll cast detect magic. See what we got going to. here. Okay. And he does. There doesn't seem to be any magic. That just, that just handed me the tech magic while I was searching for as if to reinforce that his card sorting system is better than mine, which it most certainly is.

Yes, it is. I mean, I'll simplify it. There's no, there's no, like, magic that you can, except for the mending spell that's happening right behind you, you don't, you don't pick up on anything. Sorry, didn't mean interrupt. Okay. Sounds good. At this point, the cart has been fixed. Oh, great. Another great adventure, Magnus.

Yeah, we did it. I think we solved the weird SWUG puzzle. I have a... Okay, this is an interesting D&D conundrum. I, Travis McRoy, have a suspicion and something I would test out, but I don't think Magnus would. So, like, I'm just going to move forward and not do it.

Respect the fiction, bro. Yeah. So, like, let's get in the cart and let's go. Yeah. Let's do it. Merle, you down? Yeah, do we know how to operate? Yeah, there's a lever that seems to have three settings.

Right now it's in the middle. But there's one to like go back and one to go forward. Okay, I'll come catch up to you guys. Aren't you a little bit ahead of me? Yeah. Okay, yeah, Merle get in. Merle goes right. I do that lever.

Yeah, sure. Toot-toot, tink, tiki, chicka, chicka, chicka, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, check it, check it, check it, check it, check it, okay, I stop. I will say that when Magnus gets in kind of holds his shield, kind of over his head, like an umbrella. a little bit. Okay.

And you're just moving on down the cave? I'm going to call it. It's my magic trolley. Okay. I'm going to open the Umbra staff. Okay. I'll move my head too. Let Merle really wonder what's going on.

Okay, you move away from the entrance, away from that orange light above the elevator door. And this is going to be a fun like dragons, uh, dragon's layer style death. We're just like, uh, like in a cartoon,

like just something. happens to you, and then all of a sudden it's just skeletons standing there holding the umbrella in the shield, and somebody, like, whistling while they move a lever. Because all three of you are almost instantly devoured by something as soon as you leave the light. By the Vasta Nerada. And you're back in the white space, and same deal, just kind of exhausted, and you're back in front of, you're back in front of as well. Hall thrower, done. Yeah. We know the code. You do the puzzle. And let's actually, to further spec, that fiction. You pop that code in pretty quickly this time, right? And you go down, you have your

little interaction with the, the dark bugs, and then you go down the elevator. Not necessarily. Okay. I don't know that we want to, I wonder if the meat would be more useful if, like, we didn't offer it to them. Like, do we need to do that? I guess not. But that got inspiration out of it. And it seems to make them happy. It's true. I did get karma out of it. Okay. And my point was, you did that so much faster that you probably made it down the elevator before this earthquake happened, right, like before 1130. And now when you get to the bottom, the scene's the same. The cart is broken.

But you don't hear buzzing, and there aren't no cracks in the ceiling. You do just hear the, okay, you hear like, so you can hear some stuff in there, but it's not like, it doesn't sound like. It doesn't sound like whatever it is, there's not billions of them. Is there still smoke covering the tracks? Yeah, I mean, when you investigate, you don't see smoke. You just see, like, you see a handful of those little bugs. And they run away from the light as soon as you shine it on them. Griffin?

Yo. Do our spell slots reset? They do. Every time? Yeah. Okay. Cool, cool. Okay.

What do you want to do? But let's say at this point You can get down here The fastest you can get down here is like 1115 Okay Well that's actually 1120 Yeah that'll be good You guys got like spells that do light

Right That make things glow That's actually what I was looking for I thought I did I mean my magic eyes can see in the dark Yeah but what I'm saying is If light seems to drive these things away Why not make like the cart glow

That's not a bad I have a spell called light That's a fucking really efficiently named spell. Yeah. Yeah. And the object sheds bright light in a 20-foot radius. I'll cast it on the cart. Okay.

I cast it on the cart. And are you repairing it? Are you repairing it as well? Yeah, it's not going to go anywhere until I fix it. Okay. Yeah, you repair this cart and you make it super-duper shiny. You have repaired the cart, and it's about 1125. Let's move.

Let's go. That's bust ass. Yeah, you hop in the cart and begin moving down the track. And sure enough, you can see these little bugs, like, scattering as you move down the path, and they are giving your cart a wide berth. You are curving around to the left. Always, there's kind of, like, after you've been going for a few minutes, there's like a hairpin turn. Not exactly a hairpin turn, but, like, you are turning almost 180 degrees to the left,

and then you're just going down and down and down this path for a super long time. So we passed the point where we got devoured. And, well, it's at 1130, just past that hairpin turn, there is that earthquake. And then sure enough, cracks in the ceiling start opening up. And some shapes, those thousands and thousands of those little bugs start crawling out of it. And I'm going to say maybe a few of them land. Let's say maybe like... I've got my shield over my head.

Thank you very much. You got a few. Okay, so you're protecting your dome. I guess you did establish that in the last. And you're protecting yourself. Okay, go ahead. What do you want me to do? Grow my shield bigger.

How? Let's just say that some bugs are about to fall into your cart. How would you deal with that? I can only speak for myself. I'm holding my shield over my head. I say we try to, like, kill them. Okay. We haven't killed anything, like, for five episodes.

That's a good point. Kill the bugs? Kill the bugs? Are the bugs coming? Well, obviously, my good karma isn't working. Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, I'm having a hard time thinking of any other way to defend us. I'm sure there's some magic that I could...

Well, you've got your umbrella. We could just, like, keep them off us, you know? The bugs are... I don't know if I described them accurately enough. They're very cute. Aw. But they did eat us. They did, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, but they're cute. Okay, hold on. You guys have spent five minutes trying to figure out how to kill some bugs. They're going to eat us. I'm just saying real life... And you said they're cute. Real-life Griffin could have done this in like 10 seconds, man. To be fair, Griffin, this is your fault because you put us in the mindset of solving puzzles and tracks.

That's a good point. Fair enough. How do we know they'll bother us? I thought light chased him away and aren't we still surrounded by a nimbus of light in this troll? Yeah, but there's a few that are like in the cart with you and they don't know how to get out and they're like freaking out and they're starting to like nip at your boots. Oh, I thought they were falling with my war hammer. Hold on. I thought they were falling from the ceiling. They're already in the cart with us? Yeah, they like fell from the ceiling into the cart. Stomp, stomp, stomp, stomp, stomp. Okay.

Yeah, you can just stomp them. That's fair. It's gross. It's gross and it's horrible. Kind of anticlimactic, though, isn't it? Maybe a bit, but sometimes the easiest solution's the best one. Boy, that's true. The stompiest.

Okay, you go down this path, and it's, again, like a long cart ride. This mine, they had dug, like, a lot out. And as you go down the path, the bugs are still giving you a pretty wide burst. and you can see like some other sort of passageways that don't have tracks coming out, them sort of branching off to the left and right and then just like deep, deep holes going down from those. And so this was like the main vein of this mine, not vain like mother load, but like where people would move down. It was a pretty long journey.

It took you about 15 minutes to go down. So you don't have a ton of time. But you've made it to the end of this tramway, and you've pulled in front of another door with another orange light on top of it that is keeping all these bugs at bay. And this door just has a button on it that says open, and that's pretty much it. Yeah? Do you want to, well, I mean. All this time, Magnus is slowly just pushing his finger towards it. Merle, do you want to try to check it?

Searcher for traps? I cast find traps again. Okay, the door is not trapped. You can tell that. I push it. Okay. There is something behind the door that is trapped. Damn it.

But you did not activate it. You press it and you hear the sound of machinery moving far beyond the door. And then you hear silence. Like nothing happens for a while. And then after about a minute, your door starts to slide open. It takes it a real long time. It takes it like 30 seconds for it to completely open up. And then inside is a very, very, very small room.

It's kind of reminiscent, actually, of the airlocks from the Crystal Kingdom stuff. And you just see another door inside with an open button. And then on the backside of the door that you just came through is another open button. So there's a button on either side of this door. You come through. And then there's another door on the opposite side that has an open button on it. and is are there windows or anything any kind of no windows there's no way to see through it let's go ahead and do it okay um you punch the open button um on the other door and the one that you came through begins its slow cycle again of shutting um and once it does you this is a bug thing you just to keep the bugs out uh it the door shuts you hear it and then um on uh there's a wall um to to you to your right when you came in And a panel on this wall opens up and you see a clock.

And this clock is a 60 second timer and it's counting down. And underneath the clock, immediately underneath the clock, is another small metal panel that has like a slot in it. Almost looks like a key card slot at a hotel. And that's what you see. and the clock is counting down from 60 What's it at right now? Oh, it just started 60? Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're not going to move it in real time, but...

This is the trap from the elevator, isn't it? No, this is a different one. Oh, okay. There's like a slot, you say. Yeah. Slot like a key card slot. Is it something I could use my thieves tools on and pick and disarm? If you want to use...

If you want to use your... No, there's no exposed wires. If you want to use your thieves tools to see what you can do, you can do that. Is everybody? Well, by everybody. It's been a good life. I do that. Okay.

Wee. I mean, that's a 12 plus 10s. They're 22. I put my hands up in there like Superman. Because I do you ready to go to heaven. I mean, I rolled a 22. Okay, with a 22, you realize that there are some very, very, very small screws on the corners of this key card panel. And you screw them off.

And you have exposed, after removing this panel, you can still see this key card slot, like right in the center of things, but this center is surrounded by five wires. And there's a red, a yellow, a blue, a green, and a black wire. I cut the green wire. Wait a minute. What do you know?

Hold on. Real quick, Dad, if you want to share it me how you know what's... What's the other color? Red, yellow, blue, green, black. I'm going to just take... I mean, canonically, Magnus did say it. So you do have a trip to heaven, and we can just hop right back into the room. 60 seconds on the clock, what do you do?

I've eliminated one option. I'm not going to do it like this. Let's think about what we know for 60 seconds. Red, yellow, blue, green, black. Well, they always say cut the red wire. Isn't that what it was in speed? What? What was it, speed the red wire?

What is it in the M&M's? movie trailer. I cut the black wire. To heaven, we're going on a trip together. Wait, but you just cut the same wire. You cut the same fucking wire again. No, he did green last time. But both have killed you.

Okay. So are we back there with this timer in 60? There's got to be a better way to figure this out. So it can be. So there's a couple ways to solve this one, and that's all I'll tell you. But if you don't want to be in this room and you want to be in an earlier place,

you let me know. Ah, ah, what? The time cards. You really are into those, huh? Well, he just said there's a slot, a small metal slot. He didn't say what you had to insert was metal. Okay.

So get, um, I don't know, you want to go to Cassidy's? Well, if we're already there, hold on. I'll get us out of here. I use three-splitter to cut all five wires at once. You there in heaven.

Okay, yeah, no, you're back in the, you're back in that entry room. I forget the exact names that I laid out for you that there are cards for. Cassidy's was among them. The four people that died in the accident are among them. Nial, I think, is one of them.

Terrence is one of them. Isaac is one of them. Quincy is one of them. Hey, you know what? We should get Isaacs. He's the sheriff now, and it seems like maybe he would be a high-ranking person. that would have access, right? Does that make sense? Does indeed. Okay, let's grab all of them. There we can. And we'll think about it on our long trip down.

Okay. If this is the case, this time I want to use my shield to kind of like keep bugs from getting in our cart so I don't have to squish any adorable bugs. Okay, you don't kill any bugs this loop. And you make it to the end and you make it in the room, 60 seconds on the clock. And how much time on altogether? What time is it right now? I mean, the fastest you could probably get here is, the fastest you could get here is like 1150. So if someone's been building traps and the only one to survive the caven, if the only one to survive the cave in was Cassidy, maybe Cassidy put in the traps and we should use her card. Does that stand to reason?

Well, but Isaac survived. Well, that's assuming that's the same Isaac. There could be more than one Isaac in the world. Chris Isaac? Griffin wouldn't do that. Let's, uh, why don't you? I like, I, you agree with Travis? or me.

Isaac or Cassidy, Dad? I'll let that pick. Isaac. Okay. You put Isaac's punch card in, and the clock stops. And you hear that sound again, and the door in front of you slowly starts to open. Nice. You're not mad at me already, Trow that I picked Isaac over Cassidy.

No, Dad, I don't give two shits. Well, you were right. The panel snaps shut as the door on the far end starts to open up, and that After completing its long cycle of opening, you reach the largest room you've encountered in this mind so far. It's a big circular room, about 300 feet in diameter. And the first thing that catches your eye is the hole in the floor. There is a guardrail around this hole, but beyond that rail is just this gargantuan chasm

that runs nearly the whole span of the room. There's only about 10 feet of walkway lined with cart tracks going around the room. and the rest of the room is just all whole, baby. There is a thick metal ring running along the exterior of the hole, and you could see some like thick, like really, really, really thick, ridged metal poking out of either end of that ring, so it kind of looks like a really sturdy metal hatch that is currently open. And there's a sign hanging on the railing directly in front of you,

and it's labeled Shaft A. and next to that sign is some sort of control. Are you sure it's not Shafta? It could be Shafta. No, it's Shaft A, and next to that sign is a control box with a long lever coming out of it. And there's another really important thing that you notice about this hole, and that is that there is some kind of force field in it. And it's just below that heavy metal hatch, and it looks kind of similar to the bubble that is surrounding refuge. It's more translucent.

You can see through it. It's not like refracting light. But there's this force field inside of the hole. It's kind of wavy. And it pitches outward a bit, giving it kind of a similar shape to the bubble around town. But you notice there are actually a total of three of these bubbles in the room. There's this one inside the pit. There's a much, much smaller bubble on the ceiling that a faint light,

is actually shining down from through a hole that is maybe only just like three feet wide. It's a much, much, much smaller hole immediately on the ceiling. The ceiling is way high up, probably about 20 feet, 20, 30 feet up. And there's a small hole with another bubble around it and there's light coming down through this hole. There's a bubble around that hole that's just a bit wider than the diameter of the hole. And then there's a third bubble. And it's surrounding the only other door in this room on the opposite end of the pit that

you're currently standing over. And that door looks identical to the one that you just came through, except that it has this big bubble force field around it. And actually from far above you, you can faintly hear the sounds of commotion and of distant screams. Bye-bye. See ya. Nope.

It's only about 1155 right now. Well, it's late. But the world hasn't exploded. You just hear, you hear. you hear some commotion and actually because you've done this so many times now it sounds like the commotion of people rushing to try to put out the bank. Does it sound like we're like directly below it? Not directly below it, but you can hear it and you're below it.

I listen, I know that there's an, I know our impulses usually to act, but I think we would be best served to just chill and see what happens. see what happens. Okay. Can we, can we see through the force field bubble? You can, yeah. That heads down. Yes. I suspect that this is a case of like they dug too deep and hit something they weren't supposed to and that kind of thing. Or somebody. Let's find out. Okay, you wait around a couple minutes and you guys want any of this ice? Just chewing on ice?

That ice is too good to waste. I gave them the meat to those bugs. Through that hole in the floor, I forget who asked if you could see through it and see down it. Yes, it was me. Okay. Through that hole in the floor, you can see shining through the darkness, teeth. You can see thousands of them arranged in countless roads that are pouring down a mouth that is easily 200 feet wide. And emerging from that mouth are two. big rectangular flaps that are also lined with teeth that are curling and dripping with malice.

And that mouth is lit ever so slightly from within with dozens of small flames that look kind of like pilot lights for a furnace that looks like it's about to explode. And with the help of the light shining directly downward, you can see what owns that mouth. and it is a gigantic body that has a thick skin, thick-ritched purple skin. And this is a body that is halted mid-attack that is moving now, almost imperceptibly, but it is moving a bit, and the fires inside of its mouth are starting to grow and become alive. And it is pushing with enough force to give this force field, apparently like, a workout because waves are starting to ripple across the surface of it, almost in a panic.

And from above you, you hear the chime of a clock. I throw the cluster bomb down. Okay, you throw the cluster bomb. I like that play. All of you, all three of you, because you got a good chuck in, you're not like right next to the blast, but all of you take like 24 damage and are knocked backwards. and it doesn't seem to have any effect on this thing. Wait, did it go through the force field?

It didn't, no, it just kind of bounced off the top of it. Actually, this thing was just about to breach it, so it maybe hit it, but even if it did, it didn't seem to stop it at all, because this thing is 200 feet wide and is essentially a weapon of mass destruction. And now that you sort of work your way back towards the hole after being blown away back from it, and the movement that this thing has is now like no longer imperceptible. You can see it moving. It's coming up through the hole.

It's moving upward a few inches and then a few feet. And the flames in its mouth are expanding and intensifying. Can we hold hands, guys? Can we all hold hands? All of you hold hands as both the flame and the purple worm burst through the bubble. The force-fueled ultimately giving up the ghost. and the room is flooded with fire and you are destroyed by a blast of nearly supersonic force

and the last thing you hear is a scream of unbridled fury and you do not live long enough to hear the 12th chime of the clock above you. Well. Okay, so just I just want to throw this out because the audio, and Grimmons probably already cut this, but just for Dad and Justin. Remember, we fought like some purple worms at the very beginning of the thing before we entered the thing this is probably connected

This one is much much much much much much much much much larger than those Got it Yeah but we beat them so I like our odds Actually we just chased them off That's right dad Thank you for the reminder Okay I feel less good about the odds

Maximumfund.org Comedy and Culture Artist owned listener supported Hey guys this is Adam Conover You may know me for my true TV show Adam ruins everything Well guess what Now we're doing a podcast version right here on Maximum Fun.

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