The Adventure Zone - Ep. 46. The Eleventh Hour - Chapter Six

Episode Date: August 11, 2016

If our boys want to get out of this time-locked quagmire, they're going to need some divine intervention -- and the only way to get this particular god to play ball is to get up to no good. Let's hope that big wheel doesn't stop turning on this rotation, yeah? Magnus hurls a friend. Merle does horse stunts. Taako gets the gold. Happy MaxFunDrive! Right now is the best time to start a membership to support your favorite shows. Learn more and join at https://maximumfun.org/jointaz

Previously on the Adventure Zone. The fifth grand relic, the temporal shallace, or chalice, depending on just sort of what region you're from. And as you make your way out in the street, you see smoke coming through the windows of the bank. There's a dark health woman who is lying on the ground, she is dead. There is a young man with jet black hair lying on the ground. He is also dead. And there's a small hole with another bubble around it, and there's light coming down through this hole. And actually from far above you, you can faintly hear the sounds of,

of commotion and of distant screams. You will need divine intervention. You will find it at the temple of Istis. All right. There is a skeleton. I would be willing to help you out to help you seek divine intervention from Istis herself. But I will need my brother's help in order to do so.

Tell him that Luca misses him and needs his help. Yeah, probably not in this loop, but... You're about to see these boys on their baddest behavior. lend them some sugar. They are your neighbor. It's the adventure zone. Let's just pick it up where we usually pick it up, where we've picked it up so many times before.

I imagine it's sort of like how when you sit on a couch for long enough, your butt impress just sort of leaves like a little fossil in there. I think there are three like forms of just your unconscious bodies like in the dust. Like you've worn it out in that one space in front of the gate leading into refuge. what do you want to do? I think it's pretty obvious we need to go find his brother. Right?

Right. Yeah, in the last episode, Luca told you that he works the stone fruit farms and that's where he is and he's up to some trouble. And that was that orchardy looking place we saw.

Yeah, you can see it on the map. It's like the northernmost spot. The farm-ish place. Yeah, the place that's explicitly labeled stone fruit farms in the key. So can we assume that we just are like moving past Roswell with our Yeah, you can use that same loop

I also just as we're walking past it I would like to take a peek down the well at the start of town As you approach the well I would like all of you to make perception checks Oh, dunk I had you do this last time too and everybody failed Not this fucking time

I got 12 I yeah no I got an 8 That's not very good daddy I know So I guess I fucking failed Do better. Whoa, I'll get it. A lot of swearsies.

Taco, how'd you do? Yeah, well, the kid has got you covered right now with this. He's got a 23. Oh, yeah. Jesus. Okay, no, the kid with those king-teen magic with those magic eyes. Taco, you see from behind the well kind of spying on you, it looks like, you see the shadow of a man

scaramouche scaramouche uh no you you do so i mean it does it kind of looks like a a guy's shadow like looking at you over the well and that to be frank that 23 was like just good enough to see this thing because it was really tough to see uh and it it vanishes almost as soon as as as you lay eyes on it but you know you know that was that was somebody looking at you um and i'll actually say with a role that good, you kind of piece together that you've walked

by this well every time you've come in town and you've never seen that thing there before, not in any of the other loops. Now this shadow Griffin, does he know what evil lurks in the hearts of men? No, there's no fedora on this being.

Is there like some kind of spiritual emotional fedora? Everybody's wearing a spiritual fedora, Travis? That's the secret. Have you heard the good news? I've got some pamphlets here about your spiritual fedora. That's what the book that the secret is about. Is there any sort of top hat?

I mean, what's the Shapo situation? No, there's... Don't leave us hanging, Griffin. Give the people what they want. There's just Stetson hat. Oh. Yeah, how about that? But yeah, the shadow's gone.

Just as quickly as you saw it, it is not there anymore. Do I have a... I mean, is it gone or did I stop seeing it? Do I have a sense of that? I mean, you didn't like... You didn't, like, start... No, it's just gone. It just disappeared right in front of you.

Well, I didn't see it, so I'm still headed to check down the well. I just want to kind of look down, maybe drop a penny. Oh, okay. Do you actually do that? Do I have pennies? I don't want to drop any, like... There you got to drop a diamond. Yeah, you got gold pieces, probably.

Unless you spent literally all of them. How about I just, like, drop a rock down and listen? You probably have a few gold pieces just as, like, per diem that the Bureau gets. But I don't want to drop some fucking gold pieces. Let's drop on a dollar point of them. Okay, you drop a rock. Fuck, this is captivating. Will he drop?

You drop a rock. Well, this is actually going to be interesting. You drop a rock. And it's like, you can kind of see down the well a ways. You hear the rock hit something. What sound would it make? It sounds, the sound sounds vaguely like, boom. Like, it doesn't sound like it's hitting rock

or it doesn't sound like it's landing on. anything. Unfortunately, it's too dark down that well for you to see kind of where it's stopped. I've got a theory. I know that that's not my norm, but remember how we could like hear the explosion and stuff when we were down in the mine at the shield with the worm and stuff? I think this is how we could hear it. I think we're right above it right now. We could definitely investigate that, but I feel like the farm should still be our priority, right? Definitely. But this might be a shortcut to get down there a lot faster next time. Let's remember the well. You're heading up to the stone fruit farms? Yeah. Okay. Um, how are you, are you getting up there? Because it's a,

it's like on the opposite end of the bubble than you're, then you're at. So it'll take you a fair while to get there, just, just walking. If only we had something we could ride. Listen, I see we're going with this. It's not three men. Are there any horses around we could hijack? Um, there's there is a one horse uh sort of uh posted up in front of the sheriff's office um but that's it I mean they don't really have need for for horses I yell over my shoulder Roswell we need your horse that's fine I'm too big to ride that thing anyway I hate that I hate that fucking horse all right I grab Merle and drag him up behind me I cast phantom seed yeah um gerald Geryl appears beautiful, shimmering, maine, maybe a look of jealousy or perhaps competition in their eyes as they eye this other horse.

Yo, thanks for putting the little dwarf on him. Wait a way, what that's supposed to mean? Because you're a fat man. I don't like it. Man, you know, Geryl always talks the truth, man. All right, Geryl, I'll follow your lead. You're like dark matter. You're so small, but it's like, yaw.

Yeah, we get that. Yeah, I'm fat. Let's go. You're not fat. You're dense, I think, is what Geryl's saying. Dens is not a good store. You're a much more complimentary. Yeah, but you're dense.

Like a good steak made out of metal. I'm not good at metaphors. I'm only about 30 seconds old. What's up? Let's ride. Wait, 30 seconds old, is it a different garyl? Every time gerald is summoned and unsummed. Sure, there's some kind of race memory thing.

He's not stringing together his memories. I guess that's, wow, shit, that's dark. And yet he remembered I was dense. What? You could just tell by fucking looking at you. Oh, okay. Okay, you work your way through the patch. I think if you're a horse and you don't get a sense of how heavy it would feel for someone to ride,

that's going to be like your first thing that you develop. That's 101. That's 101. It's like, that person looks dense. That person's dense. That person's got oats. That's 101. And one and one or two.

Okay. All right. So let's ride on the farm. Okay, yeah, you ride through those woods. It's a fairly easy ride. You go past Paloma's hut and get some of that good smell All over you

I wave at it just in case she's looking out the window She's not Well, you don't know Well, actually you probably I guess he does I do know I'm making it all up as I go And as you reach her to the end of the woods Then I yell, Paloa!

Oh my waving at you! She just yells holler Throughout the door. So she is a hollaback girl. She absolutely is. You make your way to the end of the woods, and you start to come near a clearing through which you can see stone fruit farms. And what you see are, and it's fenced in with a small sort of picket wooden fence. You see two wide plots of orchards, and they are lined with these tall, well-kept trees.

And each of those trees has dozens of these plump stone fruits. which are sort of plum-like, super-sweet produce that can grow in harsh environments like this, this one. And these stone fruits, you've definitely eaten them before. I think they're like as common as apples in this world. But these look like incredible. They are unblemished with a flawless marbled purple rind. Each one's about the size of a regulation botchy ball. And you see two people standing in.

in this field. You see a male elf who is gingerly harvesting some of these fruits from a tree near the center of the orchard. And you see a tall human woman who isn't doing any fieldwork. She is practicing aiming a crossbow at some bottles that are lined up on that fence. So that woman is facing in your direction, but has not seen you yet because you haven't emerged from the woods. To the left of the two plots, you see a large, fairly inviting-looking homestead. But as you look at it, you notice something weird, and that is that both the fields and even a portion of this house have been cut off by the bubble.

And these fields are really wide, but they're not especially deep because they just end at the bubble. And based on the width of these plots, you kind of surmise that they were once, like, vast, vast orchards that had been reduced to sort of a fraction of their size when the bubble went up. And remind me, Griffith, the bubble is. opaque or translucent? From, it's kind of,

it's kind of halfway. It's kind of shimmery. If you looked really hard, you could see what's going on outside. But, yeah. Have we really ever investigated the bubble? I mean, if we ever, I mean, we went through it that one time, but I don't think we've been back to it, the memory serves. Yeah, I mean, you've been, it's certainly been like around you.

I mean, it's everywhere. You can see it. You look up and you can see it. So that is the scene. Oh, and these two farm workers, I should mention. They're wearing purple kerchiefs around their necks. Oh. And they're using them occasionally to sort of dab the sweat out of their eyes.

They're not wearing them as bandit masks or anything like that, but they got purple kerchiefs on. So you are at sort of the end of the woods. You come to this clearing. You can see them. They have not seen you yet. What would you like to do? I have rustic hospitality, so I'm just going to go up and talk to them. You know, you've mentioned that every episode, and I don't know if we've ever taken advantage of it.

Okay. Yeah, you come up out of the woods. Do you say something to sort of announce yourself? What do you do? Be rustic. Be rustic. Do be rustic about it. And Elvin?

To the elf, I say, hi-ho there, elf. It's a pleasure to meet you on this fine day. You appear from the woods and yell, hi-ho! And as you do that, you actually startle. the woman that was shooting the crossbow at the bottles, and she lets an arrow fly in your direction. Let me guess who it hits. 17 versus AC?

That misses. Okay. And I've got my Fledger's mitt, so I'd like to imagine I catch it out of the air. Okay, yeah, you catch it inches in front of your face. And she panics and yells, oh, my God! and starts to knock another arrow in her crossbow. Sorry to startle you. Did not mean to it all.

We are just here looking for Redmond. We spoke with his brother, Luca, who said that this is where we would find him. We were hoping that you might be able to point us in his direction. The elf has come down from the tree that they were picking stuff from and grabs a staff from the ground and holds it up. and I think both of them kind of instinctively actually pull the kerchiefs over their faces and the elf says, did Roswell send you? Are you here to stop us? No, we stole this horse from him. We're not with him at all. Taco and Merle, what are you guys doing?

I'm watching this delightful exchange. Yeah, I feel no need to hop in here. I'm good. Okay. Have they seen Taco yet? They have not seen the other two. And Magnus, they say, are you alone? Yep, just me. Just here looking for Redmond. No big thing at all. Just wanting to talk to him about fruit.

The elf starts to... Big fan of fruit. You see the elf start to swirl his staff around kind of menacingly, and there's some sort of sparks, some sort of accumulation starting at the top. He's not casting anything. He's just kind of trying to... He's flexing a little bit. And he says, okay, drop your weapons right now. Uh, well, how about, uh, the old same time maneuver?

When we both put our weapons down, you've got that swirly staff, which is quite impressive. That's wonderful staff work. No, no, no, no. If you want to talk to Redmond, you're going to do it unarmed. Okay, you got it. Uh, just don't touch them. Uh, they are cursed and might kill you. So I put, oh, cursed weapons.

I've heard of those. Um, it happens. So I, I put my rail splitter and rapier on the ground. Okay. Yeah, you set. those down and you, you, uh, start to walk toward them. Uh, Tocco and Merrill, you guys just like watching all this happen from the, the clearing. Just waiting for our moment. Yeah. Okay. Just, uh, does it seem like there, does it seem like everybody's going to head inside? Um, yeah,

they, they all start to move. Uh, one of them actually comes over and frisk's Magnus, uh, looking for other weapons. You, I think you have a short bow to Magnus that they, oh yeah, I put that down on the ground. Uh, yeah, you're, you're being like, you're following orders, right? You don't have some secret plan to, like, uh, looking, I'm being rustically hospitable. Okay, cool. Yeah, and they are, they seem more at ease, actually, around you, Magnus. It seems like you've gained their trust.

They like my musk. Yeah, this is your rustic hospitality, I think, paying off. And they start to walk with you back in. Taco and Merle, from behind you, you hear rustling. You hear people running, actually. And when you look behind you, you see two other guys wearing, purple kerchiefs who you recognize as the drunk dudes who just probably just got blasted out of the bar and are running back to home base and they see you and they yell, hey, these,

we got some spies in the midst. And this makes the other two people turn around and draw weapons. Let's roll initiative. Oh, I don't get a surprise round or anything. I think they would get a surprise round on you, if anything. You are the surprised party by the backup that has come to join things. I got 13. Oh, sorry, plus 2, 15.

All right. That was a 15 and another 15. Weird. You add to that, right, Don? No, I got zero initiative. I have a fit. I rolled a 15. Oh, Jesus, guys.

Did you really? Yeah, this is weird. Curse table. What's everybody's deck modifiers? Mine's plus two. My deck. Taco. Plus three. So it's going to be Taco Magnus and Merle.

And in fact, Taco you go first. You got the two that are basically have weapons drawn on a disarmed Magnus. And you have the two ruffians that are behind you. And they are drunk and embarrassed because they just got DJ Jazzy Jeff out of the bar. But otherwise they're ready for. a fight. Are we still sitting on gerald? Yeah, I think you would, that's up to you. I think you would dismount knowing, not, not knowing what's going to happen in the situation as you emerged out of the clearing,

but it's up to you. Are you on, are you on the spectral horse? I think we're probably dismounted. Yeah, I just don't want to integrate him into a fight. I don't, I don't know how to do it. Just try to work in some really dope rodeo stunts. If you did want to integrate, if you want to integrate him into a fight, I think go for it. It sounds like it'd be hysterical, but um yeah yeah that if you want to ride him you can you're still on him i hopped off okay because i need no no that was on my horse which i'm calling horsey that's right um what's horsy's deal um if dad's still on dad's still on him i'm still on horsey okay okay it's time for dope rodeo shit uh yeah i'm gonna cast on the the magical one uh odaluke's resilient sphere you're just

You're just making shit. You're just scat-manning over there. Let me see the card. Let me see the card. Oda-Luke's... Oh, no, he's not. A sphere of shimmering force encloses a creature or object of large size

or smaller within range. An unwilling creature must make a dexterity saving throw. On a failed save, the creature is enclosed for the duration, which is a minute. That's a six. So he's just floating around in a bubble now? Nothing. Not physical objects.

energy or other spell effects can pass through the barrier, in or out. Okay. He can, I'll let him breathe. I like, I like the mental image of him, the bubble maybe floating around a little bit, like a literal like soap bubble. And this elf is now just kind of helplessly flying around. And some of those sparks that were like coming off the staff are now bouncing off the, the interior of the bubble.

And he shuts that spell down. He looks kind of scared. Yeah, be careful. You don't want to burn off a lot of. your oxygen there, bubble boy. Magnus, you are up next. You are disarmed. You are like right next to these two,

or I guess next to this one now, who had a crossbow trained on you. And the other one is floating around in a bubble now. You're about 10 feet from your weapons. Okay. I'm going to use my cutting action. Okay. To use dash and you gain extra movement for the current turn.

The increase equals your speed, blah, blah, blah. With the speed of 60, for example, You just get extra move. I got you. Yeah. To head for, you know, my weapons. Okay. And the three of you were walking into the house when you, you weren't inside of it yet, but that was the direction you were heading.

And I was in front of them? They probably, you were probably side by side. Okay. But with the cunning action, they don't get an opportunity attack, right? Yes. Or maybe that's disengaged. No, that's disengaged. So they are going to get an opportunity attack if you run away from them.

Actually, hold on. side by side? Yeah, sure. Okay. Before I go, I want to just punch one of them. Well, there's only one left that's not in a bubble. Okay, yeah, I want to punch her. Okay. Oh, you bubbled one of the two that were near Travis? I bubbled the wizard.

Oh, okay. I was worried that he would be the one who could cause the biggest damage. Wow. Okay. That's your phantom fisting, I imagine? Phantom fisting. Yeah, sure. All right. Go ahead and roll. I rolled a 14 plus 822. Yeah, that works. So that's Not very much damage.

Nope, but I get to push her away for me. Okay. Yeah, I only did one plus four, so I did five, and I can push her back so then I can run. Okay, you phantom fist punch the one with the crossbow, and she goes flying backwards and actually hits the front door to the house, which causes quite a ruckus, and she kind of slumps down under the, right on the doormat, the welcome doormat into the house. Okay, I run and grab my weapons Okay And then I use my second move action

To charge right back at the door Because I have a feeling there's going to be a bunch of people coming out Okay Merle, you're up next Okay, how far am I from the two guys The two drunks? They got right up on you I think they're probably like five feet away

Okay I am going to Charge one of them with horsey Okay I'm going to do that really cool, that like a little big horn move and hang off the side of the saddle. You know, and I'm going to take the arc-like spanner and clobber one of the two purple guys. So are you charging one and clobbering the other? No, I think I'll charge the one and clobber the one.

Okay. Okay. The one on the right. Go ahead and make an attack roll. Okay. To D20. Four. Okay.

I think you, I mean, you definitely miss. Wait, wait, wait. Don't I add to it? Yeah, but there's, you're not going to. There's no way. You ain't clearing this AC, bud. Okay, yeah, you hang off the side of the horse with this wrench and bring it down and try to try to clover them. Try to like polo them as you go, I guess.

but I don't think I think you fail spectacularly and I think make a make a dexterity saving throw for me all right seven you definitely I'm falling off the horse yeah you definitely fell off the horse and the horse

did he do that thing or he like turns all the way around so he's like hanging upside down on the horse my head's bouncing against the ground no yeah that that happens and you hit your head on a tree trunk and then you fall off the horse. All right. The ruffians are up next.

The crossbow one is going to just sort of stand up and start banging on the door saying, we got trouble. We got trouble. Roswell found out. We got trouble. Get out of here.

And the two ruffians are going to, I think they're both going to wail on Merle, who is sort of laying at their feet right now. And I think because you're prone, you have They have advantage on the attack. Sure. So this is going to be not great.

Nobody's trying to get their friend out of the bubble. Seems like that's what I would do. I try to get my buddy out of the bubble. No, they're pretty... Let them wait on me. Yeah, they're not really near the bubble buddy. Yeah, but I try to get over there. I mean, they're not going to get closer.

Shit. It just seems like somebody. The first one, the best role they got was a 14, which I don't think is going to be Tracy. Okay. Second one, crits. Oof. Ouch.

Oh, wait, that's right nice. Oh, man. 29 damage. They have a big old hammer, and they just bring it right down on your tummy. And you cough up some stuff, and it's gross. Back to the top of the order. Actually, before anything else happens, the door, Magnus, that you have positioned yourselves in in front of, the door opens up. You have your weapons, right?

Yep. Yeah. The door opens up, and the only thing you see is a guy. And he's dressed in sort of fairly humble farmer's clothing. He's got a big, bushy brown beard. He looks kind of soft, for lack of a better term. Although he's a bigger, he's a bigger dude, kind of an imposing frame. and he yells with a booming voice

Everybody, calm down, put your weapons down. There's no need for us to fight over this. And the people, the people, these farmers and the drunk people from behind you, they all drop their weapon. Bubble Boy also drops his staff, and it's just kind of floating around in the bubble with him. And as you say his name, Redmond, he says, oh, I see my reputation precedes me. kind of laughs. Your brother Luca sent us? You, you met Luca. Yeah.

Sort of. It's completely. He's lost a lot of weight. We met most of him, yeah. The skeleton, yes. I'm, I know. Oh, okay. Yeah, I know all about it. I wasn't sure if you guys had kept in touch re-skeleting. You might as well come inside my little, my little wood nymphs. He yells to the woods, towards towards everybody in the woods, woods party. And the two drunk guys kind of sulk in. Such a big mistake.

These guys are going to ruin everything. And they sort of slump inside. I kick the bubble as I'm going in. Yeah, the bubble guy is like trying to hamster wheel his way inside. And everybody retreats inside. And Redmond motions you in. He's like, you may as well come inside. I've got a stew going.

Oh. The bubble moved. half of his movement range, by the way, when I kicked it. In case you're curious how far it went, it looked awesome. It kicked it like 15 feet. Okay. He says, would you mind unbubbling my friend there? He's, he actually...

Just wait. It's not a good smell. He's kind of claustrophobic, and I can't imagine. Hold on, wait. Five, four, three, two, one. Oh, yeah, the bubble pops, and he falls to the ground, and he hits his butt. Dad did a great bubble sound effect. Can we just get isolate that? Yeah, just isolate. Give it to me one time. Let's get a few more takes in.

Solicid for post. All right. That's good. That's great. We'll plug that in there and a couple other places. Okay. Let's move on. You made your way inside. And this is like, this is a fairly humble little home, but it's like very cozy. And you see pictures of Redmond with his arm around a slightly smaller, almost identical person. who, it's actually clean-shaven, but you can tell this, this is Redmond's brother, this is what Luca looked like. In life, they're both wearing robes with the sigil of Istis. There's some of the, like, there's like a banner of Istis hanging up on the wall, but there's not like a lot of it. There's not a lot of stuff. There's an office with like a bunch of plots

sort of laid out, like designs for how the orchard would be laid out. But, but, But you are all in the kitchen now, which has one interesting feature, and that is that, like, a corner of it is just gone. It's just bubble. You could, like, reach over to the side of the kitchen and touch the bubble, which Redmond actually recommends that you don't. And Redmond has served you all up and the four ruffians in his sort of party, some stew. And Redmond says, okay, now it's time to tell the truth, boys. What are you doing here? I forgot.

Yeah. So let me see. I think we need Istis' help, according to Paloma. You know, that witch lady? Oh, I love Paloma. Have you tried her scones yet? I've heard they're great. I have not had them talk.

They were off the chain. Yeah. And so we went to the temple, only to find it demolished. Yeah, that happened. Yeah, you probably know. And then we found your skeleton bro in a cave. And he said he said he could probably like get us

Istis' help, but he needed your help to do that. I mean, the two of us could maybe raise the temple if Istis wants that. I mean, it's kind of a long shot. It would only be raised if she deems it.

So she's not really one to interfere in our machinations, but I could certainly, I can certainly help out. I'm pretty sure she'd be on board because I think time and fate has kind of been fucked with. Oh, it's all goofed up, yeah. Yeah, it's real messed up. The problem is... If it helps, we have a member of our party who's very strong in faith,

and he may be able to help with this, with this endeavor. He's a very faithful man, very powerful with gods and what have you. And I literally has a hand of God. I'm willing to convert to... No, what? Nope. You don't sound like that. Oh, and I am willing to convert to Isthmusism. I got fucking sucked away. for a second there. Did you just feel that? I did. Yeah, I felt it too.

Wow, that you're so quick to abandon. I think actually when you say that, when you say that, Merle... He'll be deeply religious, but like... He will drop his God. When you say that, Merle, your pinky falls off of the wood hand, and it lands in your stew. Proop.

It, like, it just withered up and died. Or I could stay with Pan. And it grows. It grows back. Yeah. It grows back, it grows back, but it's a little bit smaller than it just was. I bet it makes the stew taste like shit. He says, Redmond says, I'm willing to help, but you all have sort of come here at arguably

the most inopportune time. There is something in motion that I'm going to need help with. Yep, that sounds about right. Yeah. Me and my party here have one interest, and that is to burst the bubble and escape from town. They started calling us the Liberation Brigade, which I think is kind of goofy. And everybody else at the table is like, aw. He's like, I mean, I get it.

Like you want to have some, some intrigue and stuff. I just want to. Yeah, some branding. I just want to get out of here. And I have this, this is going to sound silly. I follow the whims of fate. That is sort of my creed. It always has been.

And I know my gut. is telling me that the way out of town is in the vault in the bank of refuge. Got it. And I'm going to retrieve it with or without you. But the fact that Lady Istis just brought you here to me today tells me, I'm on the right path and you all can help me get in that vault. So you help me get in that vault and me and Luca will try to raise the temple up for you. I swear it.

Let's reverse that. And I think we've got a plan. Listen, unfortunately, things are, the plans already kind of underway. We actually need to get going basically right now. I'm going to shoot straight with you here, Redmond. We're in a bit of a loop, about an hour, and midway through, we've done this a couple times. You robbing that their old bank, everything's going to go to shit. What are you talking about?

Well, there's a thing under the town, and it's going to rip everything, just a new one, if you know what I mean. Yeah. Make a, make a, make a, I want you to make a roll for this. Make a, what's it called, where you try to convince somebody. Persuasion? Yeah, make a persuasion roll. I think that's the only way to do this. That is a, well, it's a 12 plus a one.

That's not going to do it. That's a 13. No, I don't think this line of reasoning is going to get in there. He says, I don't, I don't. I appreciate what you're saying, but what you're telling me goes against what my faith is telling me, so I hope you understand that we got to go ahead with this. I mean, we were the ones sent here by your God or whatever, but that's cool. And I appreciate all the help.

So you help me rob this bank. It'll take five minutes. I know you're in a hurry. It's a foolproof plan. It's going to go great. What do you say? Hell yeah. It's a caper.

Yeah, fuck it. What's the plan? Hey everybody, this is Griffin Macquarie, your dungeon master, your best friend, and your weatherman. It looks like it's cloudy with a chance of meatballs. I love that movie. I have no fucking idea what I'm talking about. Thanks for listening to episode 46 of the Adventure Zone. It's like the fifth or sixth or maybe even the seventh episode of the 11th hour arc. We're getting kind of close to the end of it and some stuff goes down. Not going to spoil it, but prepare for some stuff. I want to thank everybody for tweeting about the show using the The Zonecast hashtag. If you do that, you might end up as a character in the show.

Talking about characters like Luca, Purple MFTW on Twitter, Rin, Ren Fraley on Twitter, like Redmond, Chris Frommlett on Twitter. If you want to end up as a character on the show, just use the Zonecast hashtag, and you might end up doing it. There's, like I said, probably just a couple more episodes left in this arc. But then we're going to be moving on to a new one with new characters and new availability for names. But not only that, we just like really appreciate you, spread the word about the show. We don't pay to advertise it at all. So word of mouth is the only way that

we get new listeners. Um, so if you have a friend that you think would be into the show, uh, tell, tell them about it, send him a link. That burn them a flash drive or something. Don't burn a flash drive. Burn a CD. Don't burn flash drives. That's probably bad for the environment. Got a personal message here. If you want to get a message on the show, uh, just go to maximum fun. org slash jumbo tron and, uh, find out how to do it. It's, it's easy and we have some availability here at the Adventure Zone Industries. I don't know why everything has to be a small business this week, but here we are. This message is for Shannon Dapper. It's from Killian, who says, I wanted to be the first at the Bureau of Balance to wish you happy birthday. I think

you're incredible. You're strong, smart, funny, and have great tasting characters. I hope you have a great year. And when it's hard, remember, I got your back. BGW, Taco made you some fried chicken macarons. I hope you get them, but fantasy posts can be screwy. So, he might owe you one. Not exactly sure how a fried chicken macaron would, it seems like, it seems like the grease would sort of disrupt the natural chemical processes that form the macaron, although if anybody can make it work, it would certainly be taco. Got another message here, this one's for Anthony Amato, and it's from Nicole Klein, who says, Anthony, since the first day we met playing D&D, I knew I wanted you in my life. These five years have flown by. You do more than

make me happy. You make me realize I deserve happiness. I adore our life together and want to be with you forever. So hopefully Griffin will give me a sec to get down on one knee to ask. Anthony, will you marry me? Holy shit! I didn't... Sorry, I'm interrupting your moment. Do you think. Okay, this is the part where I admit that I didn't read this message, like, start to finish, before I just kind of jumped right into it. And I guess that's the right way to do it, because I would have stumbled all over myself if I knew that this was going to be a wedding proposal. I'm sorry, I just got so nervous. This is the first one of these we've had on the show. I hope it went well.

It's, it's, um, is this a very, uh, profound magical moment and thanks for let me be a part of it. And thank you, thank you for listening. And I hope, I hope the love is good. Hate to move on from, from such a nice moment into more advertisements, but got to feed the beast. If you enjoy the show, check out maximum fun.org and just, just click on some podcasts and go listen to them. We are so proud to be a part of this network. It is such a cool thing. And there's so many good shows. like The Flop House and Jordan Jesse Go and Baby Geniuses and Can I Pet Your Dog and stop podcasting yourself?

All of these shows and Throwing Shade. All these shows are so great, all free at maximum fun.org. If you want to hear us two more shows, just go to Macquarie Shows.com and you can find all the podcasts we do like Schmanters, the show Travis does with his wife, Teresa, about manners. You can find Sawbones, a show that Justin does with his wife, Sydney, about medical history. You can check out Rose Buddies, a podcast I do with my wife, Rachel. about the Bachelor franchise or Cool Games Inc, a video game podcast I do with Nick Robinson at Polygon. You can find all the shows we do so many, all at Macroyshows.com.

That is it for this commercial break. The next episode will be up on August 25th. So we'll talk to you then. Bye. He tells you, he's like, I'll explain on the way, but we really do need to get going. And leads you out of the house and you start to go back through the woods towards the town. He says the plan is really simple. We're going to blow the vault.

First, we're going to get everybody out of the bank. There shouldn't be that many folks there. I'm not sure you do that. We're going to get everybody out of the vault. We're going to get everybody out of the bank. We're going to place. He has a small sort of lockbox on him, and he pops these two latches in it and opens it up.

And encased inside, sort of in like a little styrofoam little divit, is it looks like a single cluster of the cluster bombs that you saw earlier. only it's pitch black and it's buzzing. And half of it is actually transparent glass and you can see inside. And some kind of combustion has already started inside of this bomb. It's about the size of a tennis ball.

He says, we're going to use this and it's going to blow the shit out of the vault door. We're going to get inside and hopefully find whatever we need to pop the bubble. What do you guys say? Ditto, remind me, the couple of times that we've been in the bank after they've tried this, the vault door was not open, correct?

The vault door was closed. It was unscathed. Okay. Yeah, I don't think that's going to work. I think you're underestimating that their vault. Well, I mean, it's a pretty good bomb, and I feel very good. Listen, there's a lot of things about this plan that are a bit hinky. The bomb ain't one of them. Look at that thing. Well, I mean, you say that. You reach... Okay, listen, can I tell you something right now? Yeah. You saw the bubble I made earlier? I'm like pretty cool. You understand that, right? Yeah.

What if I told you you could get in the vault without the use of any explosives whatsoever? Walk in, walk out. Okay. That does sound enticing. Make a persuasion roll. 14 plus... Okay, 14. That's...

No, that's still not good enough. Is there any way to assist? Yeah. What do you say? Like, what are you saying is true? I've seen him do it. I don't think you could. because you've already failed like almost this exact same persuasion role,

but Merle, if you wanted to try to like hype him up, I would give. I try it. Yeah. If you want to like a test for his magical prowess. Yeah. 14 plus five persuasion. Hey, listen. He knows what he's talking about.

He's, he's pre-med. I'd listen to him if I were you. I'm intrigued by you. And Lady Assist obviously wants you to be involved with this caper for some reason. And he closes the lockbox and snatches the snap. the latches. What's he drinking? What's my boy drinking?

He's not drinking anything. What are you talking about? I thought we all sat down to... No, you're on your way. You're on your way to the... You've left the house. You're like on your way to the bank now. Okay.

I'll pour him a glass of water from my water skin. Okay. Okay. He says... You want to see... You want proof that I know what I'm doing? Check this out. He says, yes, this is not the most opportunity.

I'm like walking and you just handed me a glass of water, but sure. Yeah. But it's so... hot and thirsty. It's hot, huh? Wow. When you have a chill one, and then I point my ring of frost at it, and it has the ability to make beverages frosty. He says, give that a lot of.

He dips it, and he goes, yeah, that's a very cool beverage. You are the quitsets had a rack. I knew it. You were the chosen one. Listen, I'll make, I'll make this plan B. My all-R-R-is-like, so strong. You have no idea. You make anything cold. It's not even a thing.

Rams and steel, baby. He taps the box and he says, I'll make this plan B for bomb. That's how I file things away. But you get in there. Time is going to be sort of up the essence of this heist. Sure. My way's quicker. So. And safer.

I'll give you guys two minutes and we'll hang out. We'll hang out sort of towards the outskirts. We'll hide. And you go in and we'll give you, we'll give you 120 seconds to get in there, Do your thing. Do your magic thing. And then if you guys get in trouble and it doesn't work out, we'll come in and you help us just sort of crowd control and we'll do it. We'll do it our way.

Is that sound fair? What are you getting out of the fault? Is it just money? I don't know what's in there. I just know what it is. It's going to help us pop the bubble. I know it. Cool.

Let's do it. Let's do it. I want to make it clear. Like, that's not just like a shitty McGuffin. Like I think him and his brothers like, faith in fate is like they've been following their guts their whole life. So their intuition is their religion. I'm sold on it, baby.

You don't got to sell me. Okay, so yeah, you come to, uh, all of you are sort of by the elders' manner, and you're kind of creeping behind the fence that is surrounding it. Um, and, uh, they send the three of you out first. And as you start to approach to the bank, you see Roswell standing in front of it, because that's where he told Roswell to fucking be. I know. Roswell's standing there.

and they are patrolling the bank and they say, how's everything going? Have you figured out how to stop the disaster? Yeah, we need to get everyone out of the bank. I have a cunning plan. I can't share it with you now because I don't know who we can trust on your team, but we need to get everybody out of the bank.

It's just me. What are you talking about? I'm not going to empty the bank out. There's a mole. A little big, giant mole. There's a mole. Okay. Like he said, it's a mole.

I'm not going to make the bank empty out. I still don't know you guys from Adam. I just trust that you have some sort of otherworldly knowledge. You might use that knowledge to rob this fucking bank. I'm not going to, I'm not going to empty it out. Hey, can I ask you a question? Are you Anderson Cooper? I don't even know who that is.

Are you Ahmad Rashad? I have no idea who that is either. Then you do not know the identity of the mole. What I'm telling you is there is a mole, okay? And we don't know who we can turn. But we know we can trust you. You're on board with whatever we need. Am I right?

No, absolutely not. What if I let you hold on to my fish as collateral? I don't think Roswell is going to empty the bank out for you because that would be crazy. It would also make this heist not very exciting. Well, we got 120 seconds. Okay, we're just going to put on the- Are we on the timer right now? No, not yet.

They probably wouldn't start it until you go inside. But are you going to just let Roswell kick it there while you rob the bank? We're not going to attack Roswell, Dad. Maybe you don't remember, but he was like skull level to us. Roswell will fuck you a lot. Khan's really high to us. Okay, go get Lucas. Is that the name?

Lucas, no. Wrong arc, bud. Who's the name of, what's the name of the elder? It's Mark Blucus. Sheriff Isaac. Go find Sheriff Isaac. We'll post up here. When you guys get back, we'll tell you everything you need to know.

I haven't seen it today, but I'll go wait in the office for him. Great. Okay. We'll instigate our plan. We'll start at 1205. Okay. Roswell clambers off to the sheriff's office, and now the bank is unprotected by Roswell. You boys ready to do this?

Can I be George Clooney in this? Always. Okay. I thought you're going to make me Casey Affleck. Okay. All right. You going inside? Yep.

I kick open the door. Fuck. That's unobtrusive. You kick the door over it? Well, the guards goes, hey, this is a nice door. Come on. Fucked your door. Okay.

You're kind of rude. This is your, are you all going inside? Like, what's your, are you formulating any kind of plan before you do this, or are you just going to fucking improvise? That doesn't really go along with the whole character I've built. Yeah, that's fair. Okay, well, then this is, this is your first time all being inside this bank, unexploded. And you notice a few things. First of all, it's the nicest building you've been to.

in refuge. It's very, very well kept, very nice interior. There's a couple of potted plants in front of a long wooded desk with a sort of glass partition protecting Brogden, who you see behind it, sort of counting out some diamonds and putting them in a tail. There is that heavy metal vault door right behind them. And that vault door looks as imposing as it ever has, because it's never really been affected. It's nine feet in diameter, all unrelenting black iron. You can see that there's a huge combination lock dial towards the center of the vault door, and that is flanked on three of its size with what looks like small metal hatches. That is the makeup of the vault door. There's a glass dome on the ceiling that doesn't appear to be a light fixture. It's just kind of hanging into

the room. It's about two feet in diameter, and there are two large, heavily armored guards flanking the desks. Each of them are wearing pole arms and their whole loadout is basically identical to Roswell's. It's the same armor. It's the same equipment. And it's probably what Roswell was like outfitted with. And yeah, you see, you see Brogden behind the desk wearing a, she's wearing a pair of small glasses. She's going over some spreadsheets and she says, can I, can I help you? Please don't kick any more pieces of furniture, okay? I point at one guard and look at the other one and I say, By the order of Sheriff Isaac, guard, arrest that man.

Oh, boy. Okay. And are you pointing at the one, are you accusing the one that complained when you kick the door in? Yes. Okay. It says, what do? He's been working with the bandits to try to tear this town apart from the inside out. The other guard looks at the one you're accusing.

He says, Jerry, have you been working with the bandits? And Jerry says, no, man. I didn't, I don't even know any of the bandits what you're talking about. I whispered, Taco, get moving. What's their, what's their, like, visibility on me currently? I mean, you all said you walked in, so. Yep, I did walk in.

It is good. It's good visibility. Okay, okay. They got four eyes full of Taco. Okay. I put my hands on my head and I say, I'm sorry, I'm sorry I, this is terrible of me, I'm sorry

and I'll, I surrender and I lay down on the ground why they continue talking. What the fuck is going on with this robbery? This man is an informant with the bandits. He's told us everything, Jerry. You're going to have to come with me. There's enough shit in the bank that

they, I'm imagining there's stuff between us and them that they lose visibility on me if I lay down the ground. I don't understand, like they, okay. Isn't there, like, so you said there's like desks and stuff, right? Um, yeah. If you're, if you're hiding behind something, that's fine.

But if you're just laying down on the ground, you don't turn invisible. Well, I don't turn invisible yet, my dude. Okay, yeah. They stop, they stop seeing me. There's one of those, there's one of those desks that you can, like, fill out a deposit form on. If you, if you want, you can hide behind that. Yes. Okay.

I'm behind the desk. You could just arrest you whatever you want. I'm sorry. Okay. But Merle, were you doing anything to help in this charade? Yes, I am. I have a spell called command. I speak a one word command to a creature I can see within range.

Okay. Target has to succeed on a wisdom-saving throw. And I want to cast this on the guard that's not Jerry. You know, I'm looking at this spell now. know there's only like six things you can make them do what are the six things you can make them approach you you can make them drop whatever they're holding you can make them flee you can make them grovel you can make them halt and then there's got it yeah got it um yeah they did not save uh what do you flee okay so you're making it with a character voice okay

flee this is important which one are you using it on you're not Jerry now I said the one that wasn't Jerry Okay. Then the one that Magnus was trying to get to arrest the other one. No, no, wait. Suddenly just fucking runs that. No, we got to go with this because it's too good. It's too good that the plan has been this bad so far. The one that was going to arrest the other one, or you were trying to get to arrest the other one, just runs out of the room. Oh, wait. You were Jerry? Sorry, I meant him.

Wait, wait. Okay. Okay. As soon as he takes off. I pop a piece of mockingbird gum and make my voice sound like Roswells. Okay. Jerry, he's the real criminal, Jerry. Go after him. You got to get him.

Quick, I'll be right in. Um, uh, I want to paint a picture, Brogden at this point is, uh, stands up from the seat she was sitting on at the desk. And she is looking very, very nervous right now. Uh, as Jerry says, uh, I trust you, Greg.

And he fucking bolts out of the building after the person that you just commanded to run away. As that happens, they, fuck yes, okay. As that happens, as they run out of the room, they brush past two people who have walked into the bank. And these two people, one of them is a dark-haired man. and he's carrying the drawer from a cash register that is just heaped with diamonds. And you haven't seen this guy before just because you haven't gone to the place where they are. But the last time you saw them was dead on the floor of this bank. And another person comes in also carrying a register drawer full of diamonds.

That's Wren. And as you see Wren walk into the bank, you piece together. that every time you've been in here, there's been a dead dark elf woman on the floor. And she comes in as the two guards are running away. And I think the dark-haired guy actually gets spooked as two guards come fleeing from the bank. He goes running out of the building. Rinn doesn't. Rinn just drops her till full of diamonds, which kind of scatter everywhere.

And she sees you, Tako, underneath the desk, and you'll say, oh, my God, Taco. What are you doing here? Desk inspection Ren, do you trust me? I trust that you're an excellent chef. Holy shit! She's like come down to like Neil and be like, can I have an autograph or something?

Absolutely. Me, me outside right now. That dark-haired guy that went bolting out of the building, you hear him yelling for Roswell. Right, okay. Hold on. What time is it?

What time is it? It's 1145. Shit. Consequences don't matter. We need to move. Hey, listen, Ren, I'm wicked. Sorry about this. I cast banishment on her.

Holy shit. Okay. She rolls to save? Yeah, charisma. Charisma check? That's a 19. Shit. She is not banished, but she knows that you cast some sort of harmful spell.

No, it is not a harmful spell. No, it's not, no, no, no, no. Banishment is not a harmful spell. No, but she knows you tried to, I mean, if you knew somebody just cast a spell. I was trying to say, you shit's about to break back. She, like, she scurries backwards on her hands and knees and, like, that's fine. Tears, she's got tears in her eyes. Yeah.

And she stands up and bolts from, from the, from the bank. She looked really, really upset. Oh, that fucking works too. Yeah, that works, too. Sorry, Ron. Um, well, then I just fucking walk over. When that one other thing happened, when you cast, the second you cast that spell from your position underneath the desk, you hear the sound of breaking glass and the dome above you had shattered and you hear a

and sticking out of the desk looks like a dart that is dripping with something but because you underneath the desk it didn't hit you it landed uh it connected with the it connected with the desk and the dart didn't hit you but you can see now that the glass dome around it has broken there is what looks like a small turret, hanging from the ceiling. And at this point, I'm going to pop it off. Brogden reaches down under her desk,

and you hear a click, and her desk starts to change. I grabbed Taco. Okay? We got to move. What are you doing? Because we could get into some shit, or you could try to stop this action.

Let me describe it. And as she hits this button, a metal gate, that is like the width of the room starts to drop down from the ceiling and it is going to cover up basically her half of the room and sort of separate all of you from her. Not a metal gate like bars like jail cell bars start to drop down from the ceiling. But I'll give you time to make a reaction to this, but you've got to do it.

Is the vault on the other side of those bars? Yeah, it's on the other side. They're lowering down, yeah? Yeah. Yeah, I'm Indiana Jonesing under that shit. Okay, Taco, Merle. Is this a role? I mean, describe what you're, describe what you're going to do.

Scoot under the bars. We got to get to the vault. Okay. Taco. Is Brognan doing something? She's just hit a button under the, under her desk. And, I mean, that is what she did, and that is what started this gate lowering from the ceiling. The desk, there are panels on the front of the desk that have started to rotate, but you can't really see what.

the desk is transforming into because we're like in bullet time right now. Okay. Yeah, I, I'll get under the fence as well or under the gate as well. Okay. All of you are going to need to make some dexterity ass saving throws. Okay. Like athletics? And these are going to be, I mean, if you can think of a skill, if you wanted to like

describe how you're using the skill, I think it could be dexterity. I think it could be athletics would probably be fine. You think acrobatics would be fine. I'm going to throw taco. It is more important for him to get there than me. Okay. Then I'm going to, I'll just give Taco advantage on whatever he tries to do as he fastball specials you Taco. Yeah.

Do I have time to cast a spell? Yeah. If you also want to assist in Taco getting through. I am going to cast enhanceability on Taco, Kat's Grace. Okay. Which increases his dexterity. Okay. I got a 21 strength check.

Okay. You throw Taco. And- By how much, dad? I don't know. I should say on there how much it increases it by. So see page 237. All right, what's the name?

Wait, hold on. I got the players handbook up. What's the name of the spell? Enhanceability. Oh, this is going to be fucking great. I have advantage on the stare at text. Okay, I have advantage on dexterity checks. Well, so you get double advantage.

Okay. All right, cool. You have double advantage. You have super advantage. Why don't you just roll your, are you doing acrobatics? I'm doing an acrobatics check, yes. Okay, here's what you're going to try to do. I'll describe how this would be resolved with an acrobatics check with your permission.

I think you, Magnus has just thrown you, and I think you are going to try and contort your body so that you go through, like, the hole in the teller's window that, like, diamonds and stuff would be passed through. Because I think that would be, like, the only opening that would make sense. And also it would be amazing. Okay, great. That's an 18 plus 321. Yeah, you make your body into basically a spear and you go perfectly through that window. And in doing so, I think you just knock Brogden right out.

You just go through the window thrown with a tremendous force and like enhanced in the air by Merle. And you make your way through just as the gate, a chunk to the ground, sort of separating you from Magnus and Merle. I land perfectly and throw my arms up to the air and shout, Taco gets the gold. You'll Taco gets the gold. Merle, we need to resolve this. Make a dexterity saving throw. 17.

Okay. You dodge just barely out of the way as you cast that enhancement spell on Taco. And a dart plugs into the ground at your feet fired from that turret above. Chunk? Yep. Oh, yeah. I'm just for future reference. I'm gonna just hold my shield over my head and as much over Merle's head as I can.

Okay. I don't got what the kids call the magics. And Taco, before I think you start your assault on this vault door, you all hear, Kach chung, kach chung, kach chung. And barreling through the door to the bank, Pol, Pohl Axe, Halbert in hand, Roswell appears, and says, in the back of my mind, I always knew it. I knew it.

I knew you guys like to know good. No, it's initiative time. Cool. Okay, well, that's not bad. I got a 19. I got a 5? But wait. And an 18.

17 for me. 19 for Magnus. What was yours, dad? 18. 17 for Taco. Yeah. Merrill, what's your next again? My dexterity adds a zero dexterity modifier.

All right. Roswell got the same thing. Magnus, you are up first. You have that turret above you. Oh, and by the way, no, I think the desk would stop its transformation. That Brogden fight could have gone very bad, but I think you nullified it. So you have that turret above you. She was, yeah, I don't want to tell you what was going to happen.

But you got the turret above you, you got Roswell in front of you, and Roswell's ready to just fuck you up. Yeah. And Taco is through the gate, and you have Merle at your side. Merle, by the way, you're still damaged from the fight earlier. Wait a minute, I ate Magic Stew. Yeah, no, I don't think it was Magic Stew. What do you doing, Magnus? Magic Stew is my favorite character we've created so far.

Yeah, definitely. I love that guy. Hey, it's like Magic Brian. Anybody want to see some frustrated education? It's me, Magic Stew. By the way, it's been longer than two minutes now. and I think seeing Roswell run into the place

the other robbers are kind of hanging back to see if you can take care of them first. Okay, I'm going to charge it, Roswell. This is what we're doing, this is what we're doing. Okay. Go ahead and make them rolls. Two-handed, well, one-handed because I'm holding my shield up.

One-handed, real splitter. Okay, 16 plus... 925? Oh, yeah. Cool. And I'm going to use disarming strike. And then that's the...

I get to roll to save that, right? I think so, yeah. Side note, I've been fucking around with Roll 20 lately. I don't know if you guys know anything about it. But it is an online app that you can do all of your roles in, save all of your character data, and visualize things with maps and tokens, uh,

and get descriptions on every, like, spell in this game and every other role-playing game, basically ever. It's very fucking cool. and I think we should give it some serious thought using it. It's like super lightweight and free. I've been messing around with it and it's pretty cool. So it says that you have to make a strength saving throw, but doesn't say what you have to hit.

How do we figure that out? What's your strength modifier? My strength modifier is... It's whatever. It's eight plus the relevant stat. Cool. Yeah. So...

Yeah, I save. Shit. Is his strength like real good? Yep. Yeah, I thought that might be the case. Are you attacking again? Well, I'm going to do damage first. Okay, so it's seven plus two, it's nine.

Okay. I'm going to attack again. Okay. It's 17 plus nine and 26. Yes. And I'm going to hit him with goading strike. Okay. You already dice.

Five plus damage. They have to attack you now, right? Oh, yeah. They have to attack me. Yeah, yeah. And then plus seven plus five. So 12. 17 damage

and 17 is what he has to beat for a wisdom saving throw to avoid it. No, they do not save. Cool. You done? Yep. Okay, Roswell's going to take two swings at you. Yep.

The lowest one is a 20? I mean, yes. Okay. Oh, my God, that's a lot of damage. 56. Damage altogether. Okay, well, I'm going to use... Oh, yeah, I'm going to use Perry.

Okay. Hey, it's me Perry. I see you're getting killed. What can I help? You know what? Actually, huh? I should have used my cunning action.

Is it too late to do that? Yeah. Sounds like it. Cunning is you forget to do it. I have a cunning plan. Well, I had one. So it's reduced by nine. Okay.

So... 47. 47 damage. I am instantly bloodied. Yeah. Um, next in the order is, uh, Merle. Okay. Um, I'm going to cast, I'm going to mask your wounds on Magnus.

Okay. On, on Magnus. Okay. And that's a 3D8 plus my spell casting ability. It says mass. Is that like area of effect? It can be, uh, up to six creatures. So how about myself and Magnus? Because Taco is not hurt at all, right?

No, okay, cool. So it's 3D8. And my spell casting ability modifier, which I don't know what that is. It's 8. It's 8. Okay. So 3D8 plus 8. Uh-huh.

So that's 3. 8. 3. So that's... 14. 14 plus 8. So that's... We're both healed for 22, correct?

Yes. Yes. Well, that was good. That might keep me from dying on the next run. Yeah. Some of Magnus's, when, when, uh, when Rollswell just like cut you, like, slash an X across your chest and you had like, you could see like pools of blood starting to come out of Magnus and Magnus's wounds close up somewhat. Uh, next thing is that the first time I've ever healed anybody? No, it's, but it's been a while. Uh, Taco, what are you doing?

I want to use the hole through her on the vault. Okay. Uh, yeah, go for it. it is a six foot hole so i fucking assume i'm um that's through the door right the metal is five feet deep so just barely perfect you got through it i had hole thrower in mind and i kind of wanted to make it a 50 50 um so so yeah you create a six foot hole uh it's six foot wide six foot deep um and uh you it just sort of opens up before you um and you can see into the vault here's my question When I look into the vault, there are any gems in there?

There's so many fucking gyms. This will be the temptation of Taco because there are quite a few gems on the ground. There's big boxes, big wooden boxes, with a sign that say to be filed and the boxes are full of diamonds. It's like shimmering bright, beautiful, bright in here. There's also the only sort of thing of interest in the room

other than these beautiful, expensive-ass-looking diamonds, you see a pedestal almost perfectly in the center of the room. And I think just for dramatic effect, there's a single overhead light shining down on it. And this journal says Isaac on the side of it. That is what you see into the vault. You haven't moved yet, so you can still move. I run into the vault and grab

I could scoop something up as part of my move, right? Not an action. I think now that we're this deep into the podcast, you can. Okay, I scoop up a handful of the most expensive-looking gems I can find. Fucking fantastic. Wonderful. You scoop up some wonderful, beautiful diamonds. Merlin Magnus, I think you can see what's going on in this room at this point.

Taco! What the fuck? Hey, listen, guys, trust me for once. Okay, anything we can do to help? Stay alive and stay out of my way. We can do the second one easy. Tall order. All right, Magnus, you're up.

All right, I'm going to attempt disarming strike again on him. Okay. Let's see how it goes. Attack. 14 plus 923 yeah that's a hit strength check i have to beat a 16 yes okay yep uh no i don't i do not beat it fuck yes okay uh roswell's halberd goes spinning out of their hands uh and uh i think actually back out through the door outside uh and you hear it stick into the the ground out there um you're doing something else you do another attack actually you know what because this is like an attack on

your enemy's hands. That's like what the description actually literally says. When you do that, you don't just get rid of the halberd. You knock off their gauntlet that was sort of giving form. And now you can just see like the living red clay that that was inside that gauntlet forming kind of a round end to the to Roswell's arm. Got it. Got it. You doing something else? Yes. Is there any fire anywhere nearby? Yeah, sure. There's two torches hanging by the wall. Okay. I'm going to dash. Okay.

And I'm going to grab that torch and move back. You're defo going to take an opportunity attack. Okay. I said one thing to stay alive. Literally one request. Don't die. That's going to hit. What is it? 21.

Yeah, they hits. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay, Roswell, just using that clay arm just punches you in the ribs as you go past. But it's, I mean, it's still a very powerful strike and it hits you for 11 damage. Okay, I can take that. Okay. And you grab this torch and what are you doing? And I'm going to move back and I'm going to attack his hand with the torch. Okay, yeah.

You, I don't even think you need to roll for this. You just jab this torch into the clay hand. And I mean, it's not, this isn't, Roswell's not made out of gasoline, they're made out of clay, but you do see, uh, sort of, you do sort of see that arm kind of stop animating so much. And you hear Roswell scream. Um, and that, that arm. I'm really, really sorry. I'm really, really sorry. And that arm kind of becomes hard. Yeah, you guys are, are getting deep in the paint with some beloved characters right now. And I'm going to action surge. Uh-oh. And I'm going to chop that arm. Oh, Jesus, you love this shit. I'm so sorry. You're a fucking pervert. Fetish. Exposing everybody.

You're fetishes. So sorry. 16 plus 9 is it 25. Yeah, I don't. Yeah, it just shatters. That arm shatters. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.

Yeah, go ahead and roll damage. Okay. So that's a 7 plus, well, I didn't hit him with the disarming strike. I didn't do damage with that. Right. So that's 16 points of damage for that. that and then I rolled a seven plus five so it's 28 points of damage altogether okay um do I get do I roll damage for the torture attack or is that just the arm that's just the arm I think okay okay uh

Roswell is up next um and they are just kind of holding where their arm was um and my action sir just an extra action or an extra turn I can't like run away or anything can I no you took no okay um is going to, they just kind of point like the remainder of their shoulder of the arm that you just removed and a fount of red clay is going to basically try to encase you and hold you down. So that would be 21. Jesus, 21 city over here. Is that against my AC? Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, that hits. Yeah, so Roswell just sort of in retaliation just kind of forces, animate some of its red clay body. You actually see after this attack, they kind of slump down a little bit in their armor. Their armor doesn't fit as well anymore because they use some of their body in this attack. But a big heavy blob of red clay hits you and you fall to the ground and you're basically kind of, you are incapacitated. But it does, I don't think it would do any damage.

Merle, you're up next? What time is it? You intuit that it's about 1149. Okay. I'm going to cast a spell on Roswell. Okay. Don't cast a spell, the turret. No, no, no, no.

You definitely can't say that you're under clay. Oh, okay. I thought maybe I could breathe. No, that's all right. No, that's going to be something we're going to have to deal with. Okay, go ahead, Merle. obviously he has to be powered by magic, right? Yeah, they are powered by a very, very, very powerful magic that you don't quite understand yet.

So if I were to cast Dispel Magic? Yeah, you could give it a try on Roswell. This will be cool. This is a great idea. Go for it. I don't think there's any, you don't have to roll or do anything. You just cast Dispel magic. Like dispelling the spell that causes Earth Elementals to, like, move around.

because I think both you and Taco are familiar with the concept of how elementals and familiars and stuff work, like animating inanimate objects to make them do your bidding, although you've certainly never met one with as much personality as Roswell. So when you cast this at Roswell, Roswell kind of contracts in their armor and shrinks back and recoils at the spell, and they stop moving for just a couple of seconds. and then it's almost like the spell just reactivates. And it's not like any magic you've ever seen before. And again, this sounds like DM bullshit,

but it's, there's some, there's something keeping Roswell alive. There's something that makes Roswell Roswell that this, that your dispel magic spell, for some reason, doesn't dispel. Because Roswell's an elemental, right? Yeah. Taco, we're, and trust me, I'm not going to let that go too,

unresolved, depending on what Taco does on this next turn. Yeah, I got it. Don't worry. I slowly walk out of the vault. I grab the drill on the way up. Okay. So, for what I'm going to do, I had to get these really powerful gems. They have to be worth at least a thousand gold pieces in order for me to cast this.

Oh, fuck. My name is Taco, and you work for me now. And I cast planar binding. Okay. All right. What's that do? With this spell, you attempt to bind a celestial and elemental of fay or a fiend to your service. The creature must be within range of the entire casting the spell. At the completion of the casting, the target must make a charisma saving throw. On a failed save, it is bound to serve you for the duration.

Okay. Oh, God. This is going to be... If the creature was summoned or created by another spell, that spell's duration is extended to match the duration of this spell. Okay. Fuck, this is going to be good. Okay. Do I have to make a roll? Do I roll to save? charisma. Charisma saving. Well, that, okay. 12, it's not going to do it. Okay, here's how this is going to pan out,

because this scene is about to change pretty dramatically, and also we need to start tying it up. Have you ever seen Akira? Yes. The movie Akira? Uh-huh. You know at the end where the boy turns into the big blob monster who's being just,

as you cast this spell taco, you feel something wrong. You feel like you're trying to command and control that magic that I just described to Merle that you don't quite understand. And it's almost like a computer error. Like two things are running simultaneously that should not be running simultaneously. And this conflict causes something happened to the very spell that gives Roswell life that is horrifying. because the armor just goes flying off of Roswell and you just see this like straight up clay face shape

and the clay just expands and like shoots out of where their arms are and their legs are and their head is and it's just flooding this room like it's pouring out of the building and it's just flooding this room with clay and it's starting to like Magnus I think it's for you

it's just like all over you because you were already kind of laying down on the ground. Yeah, I'm sorry. It had already broken pretty bad for me. Merle, it pushed you up against the wall. Taco, I think you're, you are a little bit less affected by it. And because you were a bit, a little bit further away, but it's definitely like it's creeping through the bars. And I think the, you feel like something knock the book out of your hands and the pages

start to move it. And you feel sort of a divine force. almost like Istis's hand is sort of like guiding you once again with with the hand of fate to look at at this journal that you have recovered despite the fact that you are standing in the fucking danger zone okay so look at the journal okay um do that you you open up Isaac's journal at sort of the behest of fate um and it is open to the next to final entry in the journal and this this will be the last thing that we do here the entry is Isaac, who you have not met yet, although you start to sort of understand what kind of a person

Isaac is as you read this journal entry. Do you want me to read it or you want me to send it to you so you can read it? It seems like it would be weird for me to read it out loud. But I guess I probably, what? I can read it. I'll read it. Isaac's next to last entry in Isaac's journal reads, my daddy was a safety inspector for mines operating all throughout the northern counties of the Sword Coast. And as you might imagine, that made for a very cautious upbringing for myself and my kin. Every bit of wisdom my old man passed on to me dealt with how to avoid the dangers of the world outside our cottage's doors, how to evade bandits and ward off hungry beasts in the wilds, and how to prevent accidental hazards in the home, stuff like that.

But nothing prepared me for today. Nothing prepared me for that fucking cup. and I just want to paint the picture of you reading this as clay is like climbing up your legs and waist. You continue reading. From the moment I saw it, I knew there was nothing I wouldn't do to get that cup. I just didn't know why. I trusted myself to resist that temptation, to put it back toward the back of my mind, to focus on the hard work of bringing this diamond mind back to life.

And today I faltered just for a moment, and I ruined three lives in the process. I killed Jack. That's my first time thinking that thought, not protecting myself from the awful truth of what I've done. We were looking for June and the minds together. She's want to get lost in the minds. And I could just tell he had it on him. That cup had a tight grip on my guts.

I could feel it through a six-foot-thick lead wall. And I did it as quickly as I could. As I could, as I pushed him over the edge of shaft B. And he fell. As he fell, he turned to face me, and he shouted his last word. It was a spell. that he flung in my direction. And in that moment, just after dooming him, I prayed it was some kind of killing curse. But he missed. It flew over my head as he sank into the black below.

And when I looked behind me, I saw my prize. The cup I had killed my very best friend for in June's hands. She grabbed it right where he dropped it. Only by perfect irony, she was frozen in place right there by a barrier that I just cannot penetrate, shielded by a power that I craved. enough to kill for. There's nothing I can do to get her out of that state. I tried it all. And there's nothing I can do for refuge now that she's trapped us all in here too. I deserve damnation for what I've done. Refuge doesn't. That's the next last entry. And as the clay is like almost completely overtaken you, you read the final entry, which says, I figured out what that spell was. Jack's last spell. He conjured an earth elemental, a guardian to protect June, protect all

a refuge in his absence. I met it just on the outskirts of town. Refuge deserves a better guardian than myself, that's for sure. So I equipped them with some gear, gave them a name, Roswell, for my dad, and set them on patrol using the summoning spells command word. And that word might be the hardest thing to stomach. It was Jack's dying wish, his hopes for a safer life for his daughter in his home, manifest into a single word, his final word, his final thought. So you read this final word, just as the clay is about to overtake. take your head. Junebug.

And just as quickly as this monstrosity had sort of exploded and enveloped everything in this room, the clay contracts and is pulled back in to Roswell's sort of base form. And you see them standing there and Roswell says, what would you like me to do? Maximumfund.org. Comedy and culture. Artist owned. Listener supported.

I'm Allegra Ringo and I'm Renee Colbert and we host a podcast called Can I Pet Your Dog? Renee, can I tell you about a dog I met this week? I wish that you would. In turn, though, can I tell you about a dog hero? May I tell you about a dog breed in a segment I like to call Mutt Minute? I would love that. Could we maybe talk about some dog tech? Could we have some cool guests on like Lynn Manuel Miranda, Nicole Beyer, and Ann Wheaton? I mean, yeah, absolutely. I'm in. You're on board?

What do you say we do all of this and put it into a podcast? Yeah, okay. You think? All right. Should we call it like, I don't know, can I pet your dog? Sure. All right. What do you say we put it on every Tuesday on Maximum Fun or on iTunes? Sounds good to me. Meetings over. Attention, you're up.

This fall, Maximum Fun is bringing a bunch of your favorite podcasters to London. Catch Judge John Hodgman, International Waters, and Bullseye, all recording live episodes at the London Podcast Festival. We'll have fan meetups and will be joined on stage by a glittering array of celebrity guests. The London Podcast Festival runs September 22nd through 26th, and you can buy your tickets right now. Just go to maximum fun.org.