The Adventure Zone - Ep. 49. The Eleventh Hour - Chapter Nine

Episode Date: September 22, 2016

  Their prize secured, our heroes look to close out their final loop in Refuge by doing something unprecedented: They try to keep everyone in town from exploding, for once. Merle does some stargazing. Taako encounters an old friend. Magnus opens a tube. 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, quickly emerging from the ground, you see three very large, very purple worms. These three little piggys just cry the whole way home. Just like crying, doing a sad little purple worm cry. So I'm the bad guy. As they run away. The thing that most catches your eye on this main drag is the statue. This figure standing behind them is tall and muscular, is wearing a robe, a bright crimson red. Oh, like the backer.

guys. Turn right. Okay, I turn right. She gets like really, she's nose to nose. Turn right. And the metal sliding hatch that you saw over the top of shaft A that hadn't been shut is actually shut over this hole. So it's covering the entirety of shaft B. And you see June in front of you and she's young again. And she falls to her hands and knees and the cup rolls away from her and lands perfectly at your feet. That's enough dilly dallying and pussyfooting around. These heroes are out of time.

It's the Adventure Zone. I love you guys. I can't record another podcast all in the same room with you all. This is very weird. I've never played D&D with you before. I've played of you. Yeah, we played in live settings. Oh, I wasn't playing.

But that's for the money. That's it for money. This is for the fun. This is just for the funny. I can see just the waves of nerd energy just radiating off out of all of our pale, salo-y skin. The fun will be when we start communicating just purely non-verbally with all, like, looks and nods.

That's good podcast. Yeah. What is this? That's good podcasting. In accordance with Dungeons and Dragons protocol, I have provided for you a giant loose pile of Doritos in the middle of the table. And I have soaked the carpet with Mountain Dew,

that you may suckle at your wish. I'm just going to put my mouth down there. I just kind of go buck wild. Can I tell you the most upsetting thing about the loose pile of Doritos? What's wrong? Each Dorito is a different flavor. And I don't know how either.

I don't know why you did that. There's one of each from every, and not just like current flavors, every flavor that has ever existed. Well, each flavor will give you dog breath. This is a weird energy to start the show with. Okay, you guys want to play some D&D? I would really like to finish this arc today.

I'm so horny for it, Griffin. Okay. Welcome to the same. with me, fellas. I say horny a lot. Okay, so when last we left off, you just sort of beat the offer given to you by the temporal chalice

and June, you're back at the top of shaft B and June has sort of collapsed after giving up the cup and it fell and landed at your feet. Before we get to what you guys do next, there's like a quick off

camera cut scene and it shows a few folks around the town of refuge. You see Cassidy sneaking out of the crack in the wall in her cell. And as she makes her way outside, she kind of shakes her head and closes her eyes and looks kind of confused. And then you see everybody in the Davy lamp,

and the Davy lamp just falls silent, and Wren stops polishing glasses for a second, and kind of looks confused. And you see Brogden in the bank kind of sit up with a start, and then she flips a switch under her desk in the bank, and it drops these heavy metal gates over the entrances into the bank.

And you see the Liberation Brigade and Redmond, their leader, stop their march into refuge and just kind of shake their head like they're remembering something, and they head home. And there's this air of confusion as everybody in the town of refuge

starts to remember the things that have happened in these past loops. But there's also a lot of, yeah. We did a lot of things assuming they were erased from time. But they're also, they also look kind of afraid because each of them knows what's about to happen to their city. And down in shaft B, you know the truth.

And that is that the temporal chalice is laying at your feet. It is no longer active. And this is the final loop. I want to do something because I've been meaning to do it since, I think episode maybe 46 or 47. It's hard to remember. I pick up the chalice and I look at stupid what's his face and his face.

Isaac. and I say, I told you we've dealt with this before, asshole. Okay, yeah, I just really want to make that clear because he didn't believe us at first. Isaac is kind of in shock. Isaac is not laying on the floor after being thoroughly sacked by Roswell. And he doesn't respond to that.

But Roswell picks Isaac up by the shirt collar and just kind of holds Isaac right up to their face and reaches down and plucks off Isaac's sheriff badge and attaches it to themselves. Fuck yeah. Yeah. It just drops them back down on the floor with a thud. And Roswell looks at the three of you and says,

What's the plan, boys? Just to describe the room, again, it's almost identical to shaft A. Only the hatch on shaft A was open. And there was a lever there that hadn't been deployed. In shaft B, the hatch is closed. There's a little platform that June is on. June is now, again, I think we said she was like eight years old when all of this started. She is a little girl again.

she is not the old old shriveled up person that you saw in the white space and what time is that uh you would estimate that it is about uh it's like right before 1130 okay um you do hear some rumbling in the other room uh over in shaft day and june says uh oh god i'm i i'm not using the cup anymore i don't i'm not going to be able to sustain the barrier he's gonna he's gonna bust through we got to do something all right boys i i let's think this through That'll be a switch. I know, but we're in the same room now, so I mean, we've been in the same room in the whole game. Don't worry about it.

Evacuate or fight? It seems to me that if we evacuate, they're just going to wreck shop anyway. I mean, they're going to destroy the whole thing. Isaac says, you can't fight it. You can't fight it. Boys, listen to me. I've done this loop. A couple thousand times.

I've tried everything. You can't, you can't fight it. It's all over. There's nothing you can do to kill that purple worm. Trust me, I've tried everything. I mean, you can't fight us either. I mean, so if we're doing greater than less than kind of equation. That's fair.

I mean, that's a really good point. Yeah, I mean. It is kind of a three brains against one thing. Yeah, well, two and a half. Well, June. June. She stands up and dusts her little yellow, dress off at the knees.

Does she look like a fanning? Can we say she looks like a young minor fanning? One of the minor fannings? Yes, one of the lesser fannings. And Isaac too, I guess, is long. And maybe Roswell. When did the worm attack start? Was it before or after the big bubble?

Oh, it was after the big bubble. It was hibernating. This is June talking. It was hibernating in its nest. And when the bubble popped up, it cut its nest in half. And she got separated from her babies. I don't think we should kill it.

I don't, it doesn't feel right. It sounds to me like the bubble needs to come down. I don't think that's a bad idea. But if she breaks into the surface, you're not going to have time to convince it. We got to keep it underground. If we can keep the worm underground, but somehow get it out of town,

we might have a chance, but there's no way to bring the bubble down. I've tried everything with that, too. Shink. What about this? That's the chance, Lance. I don't have a good sound for it. Yeah, we'll keep working on it.

Oh, Lance. I mean, that can bring the, that'll pop a bubble. It'll bubble real good. I have an idea, he says. And he walks over to the lever of shaft B, and he says, in all the loops that I've done, I haven't pulled this lever. This mine works with a ventilation system where the hatch has to be closed over either shaft A or shaft B.

And I've been afraid to do, to open up this shaft because if the worm comes up here and killed June, that would be the whole ball game for all of us. So if we flip this switch, we can close shaft A and open up shaft B, and that'll at least keep the worm from destroying the town the same way. It has some 2,500 times. You know, at least change something. So kind of a fun, kicking new way of destroying the town. That'll feel very fresh and vibrant.

Destroy new. Maybe, but we've tried everything else. It's worth a shot, don't you think? Sure. Yeah. You know what? Fuck it. I don't have much of a plan outside of that.

Let's go for it. Flip that. Flip that beautiful. And hey, worst case scenario, we die. We come back to life. No, big deal. Not well, let's do it. And I hit the lever.

Okay. Yeah, you hit the switch and the hatch over shaft A closes over the bubble that was placed there. And the hatch into shaft B opens up. And while shaft A was kind of just like a straight shot down, it's like that was where they found the original motherload of diamonds and they just board right down into it. Shaft B you can see is kind of more of an exploratory shaft. Like they were using shaft B to look for where more diamonds might be. And so the, the cart track that you're standing on goes into that shaft and kind of spirals all the way

around it, branching off into little tunnels here, here and there as these tunnels were sort of them just look and trying to find more as they go. It kind of looks like a roller coaster down there of mine cart tracks. And as you open up that shaft, there's a small hole at the sort of the start of the track and four mind carts roll out into them. And Roswell doesn't hesitate for a second. Roswell runs and jumps in one of the cars and says, I'm going to lead the worm away from the city. You three are more than welcome to join me if you want. You got it.

Isaac? It seems like fun? Isaac? Yeah. For once in your miserable life. do something cool get June out of here get her to safety

where is safe what's what's gonna be safe safer than here man fucking everything's gonna be safe we're done boobola don't you worry but I I'm theor let me uh hypovacize

things are gonna go bad in this mind oh no it's gonna get whack definitely it'll get whack before it gets better I don't even know he goes to the three of you and sort of says

discreetly like I don't even know if she's gonna want to come with me man Jesus eight, my dude? You're way big. She's way little. All for her cake. Tell her there's cake. She saw me kill her daddy. That doesn't... Cake

Cake trumps that. I killed her daddy. That doesn't seem like the type of thing you just easily forgive. She's had a lot of time to think about it. Like a lot. Yeah, I guess we all have. And all of a sudden June is behind him with her hand outstretched, like,

all right, come on, let's go. Dummy. That's a good one, June. Sickburn. She points to the three of you and Roswell and says, I'm begging y'all, please don't kill it. Please don't kill it. It's just a mama that's looking for her babies. Promise me.

Promise me you're not going to hurt her. I promise. No, no such promise from the other two. Yeah, I've lied to kids before. Yeah, I promise. Yeah, like he said. Okay, they head out through the airlock and it's just you three and Roswell and you get into the carts.

I would like to try something before I get into the cart. I want to close my eyes. Hold out the chance lance And whisper a small prayer to Istis To point me at the best track So there's only one starting out track But it can point you towards one of the cars And it points you towards the first car

Okay, I get in the first car Okay There's three other cars Two, three and four What positions do you guys want to be in? Roswell will fill in wherever you don't want to go I feel like I could be the most used in the back

because I can cover us back there with magical spells. Okay, Merle? I'll take three. Okay. So the order is Magnus, Roswell, Merle, Tako. All right, y'all ready? By the way, folks, keep an eye out on your news feeds for the announcement of the new theme park. The Adventure Zone, the theme park.

There probably is one of those called The Adventure Zone already that is not affiliated with our brand. At all. There's lots of Go-card tracks called. the adventure zone, I found out after we called the podcast that, and I've been working with our lawyers to shut down every last one of those fucking places. If Griffin has any power at all, he will kill go-karts forever. I will ruin everybody's go-kart memories. Okay, there's a small, very small motor on the back of each of the carts, and as you all get in, they kick into gear, and you start down the track. And the track,

for this first leg, it just kind of spirals all the way around. It does a lot. It does a long loop spiraling down the length of shaft B. Do we have to do a constitution check to see if we puke? I mean... We haven't eaten in like 70 days. That's not a bad idea. Yeah, let's just roll just so I have like an idea of like how you guys handle the, the wet and wild nature of these stunts.

I got a two. Four. Okay, you're all five. Okay, so nobody's... See, sick boys. Nobody's loving. Well, mine's plus seven, so it's a nine. Still, okay, then you are kind of loving it.

Okay, yeah, you are, so you're spiraling down the length of track B moving downward. This event, by the way, is going to be separated into several legs. This is leg one. This is how we're going to handle this. You're moving down the track as you spiral downward. And just barely after you get started, you hear that roar that you've heard so many times before. But it's interrupted almost immediately by a loud crash. and then you hear the roar again,

but it's even like angrier this time and you feel the ground around you start to rumble as you are spiraling down the track. And once you get about 100 feet down from the top of shaft B, you see from a wall on the opposite end of the spiral. You just watch it explode open. And there is the purple worm

and it's got a mouthful of fire that it's like charging up. I want to say something cool, like, I think we got its attention. I'm like that as we go, but I'm screaming. You actually don't have its attention, because it smashes through the wall, and it arcs its head up and starts to

head up towards refuge. What do you do? I always say to assume that, like, if we conned Roswell and he was, like, a skull to us, is this, like, quadruple skulls to us? Just using sort of your, like, logic, this thing is a fucking, like, nightmare beast,

the likes of which, like, you've never, ever seen before. I'm going to love it. my short bow at it then and see if I can just like hit it with an arrow. Okay. Because listen, for the promise, we wouldn't hurt it, I get the impression of single arrow ain't going to do much. Yeah, make an attack roll.

How far is it from us? It's about 40 feet from you. It's a three. That's not great. Yeah, I mean, you get the, this is like shooting an arrow at like a super train. It's like shooting an arrow at an airplane. Like, it just like, bink. But would it not get its attention, aren't we trying to lure away?

If it had been a sick-ass arrow roll. So that was Travis's action. We're trying to get its attention so we can lure it away, right? Yes. Okay. I've got a spell called gaius. Gaius. Gaius.

Got a bad case of gaius. It has to succeed on a wisdom saving throw, or it becomes charmed by me for the duration. But while it's charmed by me, if it doesn't do what I tell it to do, it takes 5D10 psychic damage. every time it acts in a manner directly counter to my instructions. Okay. How long does that last? No, how long it lasts? It says the duration. Okay. 30 days.

30 days. 30 days. Wow. Okay. 30 days. Okay, I rolled a Nat 20, so I'm pretty sure that's going to save against... Yeah. Gays. Yep. That saved against it.

All right. I cast Shatter. Okay. A sudden loud ringing noise. painfully intense, erupts from a point of your choice within range. I'm going to do it from 11 feet away from us. Okay. Okay. How far away is it from us?

It's about 40 feet away from you? Perfect. I'm casting shatter because it makes a huge noise. Okay. But nothing is within range, so there's no damage. Okay. I'm just casting it. All right, yeah.

So that, you cast shatter and it makes an ear splitting noise. And it also, it has a special effect. on like crystal and rock and shit like that right uh it uh it has disin like if if the creature's made of inorganic material it has disadvantage uh it echoes all through shaft b and just like uh shoots up past the uh past the worms upward trajectory uh and hits the ceiling like the echoes of it hit the ceiling and a few big rocks uh come down from the ceiling and smash into the purple worm's head and it turns to find the source of the noise and it sees the the three of you boys, or the four of you, uh, in your mind cart. And sure enough, it pivots downward and starts to

head in your direction. I flip it off with both hands and stick my tongue out. Nice. It looks like this. Yeah. And we got to see it at home. It's really rocking. Yeah. It's very awesome. Dennis Leary at his coolest. Uh, okay. Yeah. So you have the worms attention. It is now flying, uh, downward at you. And like at this point, it has cleared its body from the hole that it first smashed in. through, this thing is long as hell. And right when it's actually about to catch up to you guys, the track branches off into a tunnel. So now you're not spiraling downward anymore.

Now you're just kind of on this straightaway going through a tunnel. While I've got the second, I just kind of calmly switch my hero's belt to fire. Okay. Do you do it discreetly so nobody else sees? Yeah, just like, okay. So you are now on a straightaway and you see the worm behind you crash through a bunch of the different tracks, just kind of shredding them. And then stop itself and arc its head up. And then all of a sudden it is following you through the tunnel.

And it is way too thick for this tunnel. So it's kind of like its rows of teeth are grinding in opposing directions clockwise and catarclockwise, just like drilling into the tunnel behind you. So you're on this straightaway. All of your carts are good and going. But the purple worm is gaining ground. What do you do to slow it down? And this is leg two. Are we in any particular order?

I mean, you're in cart order, which can affect things later on, but I'm just kind of... I don't have anything to slow it down, so let me do a... What are you going to do? I'm going to cast Shield of Faith on Taco, which adds to his AC. He's now in the front because you're in the back. He's worm-wise. You're closest to the worm. And I figure you're going to do more damage than Magnus does.

Okay. Okay. So I cast Shield of Faith. Shimmering Field appears and surrounds Taco, granting a plus two bonus to AC. Okay. That is what a cleric does. That's really good. Nice. Good. I'm going to, unsatisfied or perhaps untrusting Marles Ackerman, I cast fire shield on myself to add additional, this is actually a 10-foot radius, so I think it would get me.

You'll probably get all of you, yeah. Yeah, get up salt. So this, what it is at specifically is a chill shield. So this chill shield creates this her distance to fire reach. Oh, wow. Very chill shield. I'm going to protect you, I guess. Right now, are we all still? lying to. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I've,

I've done that. Okay. Those are your actions. Magnus, what are you going to do? All you're trying to do is slow the purple worm down. Super good question. Well,

with all of my magic and cool stuff, I'm going to do nothing. Why don't you make a chair and throw it out of it? I do that. You don't have anything to make a chair out of. Oh, damn, I thought, oh, okay. I mean, I have, I'll tell you the one thing that I've always got. What?

An idea. Oh wow Thank you I like that line Okay Looking up the ceiling Do I see any cracks Or anything?

Yes Just in front of you You see some cracks In the ceiling Okay great I'm gonna aim the chance lance At the cracks Okay

So 16 Plus 9 25 Okay what was your goal With that You're just trying to wedge it in there Yeah Okay yeah You throw the chance lance

Up And I call it back to me Okay All right Yeah So You throw it up and leave it and it sort of passes over all of your heads and the purple worm is basically between

you and it and you recall it. Yep. Okay. Then I think how we can make that work is we'll just use that role as the attack on the purple worm. The purple worm was going to go next and you actually saw from its like neck. It has these frills of tentacles. And one of them was starting to whip forward. But the chance lance actually cuts right through that tentacle and cuts it off in a spray of purple

goo. Sorry, June. And you hear the purple worm kind of wail. So I think with that you prevent the penalty that was going to happen on leg tube, but I don't think you guys are out of like two. I think you still need to slow this thing down so we can start another round of actions. And to be clear, you didn't promise you not to hurt it. You promised not to kill it. One of those two.

I promise something. Who's going to slow this worm down? I'm going to use my scrying bones. Oh boy When you use my scrying bones I get to ask the DM A yes or no question Once a day

Okay so you are You kneel down in your cart And you get these bones I got like oh God Here we go here we go Here we go please baby Daddy needs a new pair of shoes And my question to you

Okay Is the worm More vulnerable On the inside Than trying to go through the outside In other words If we attack it Will it have more effect

if we aim for the mouth and the inside? Yes, its outside is covered in, like, really, really thick, leathery skin that allows it to, like, move through, chew its way through solid rock without, like, getting all cut up and torn up. So the mouth and the inside are more vulnerable. Yes.

There. That was for you guys. Okay, but he's still getting an action, right? Is that his action action? But that answer should have been given to you, like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, because these bones are just a rattling or rumbling on the floor of your mind card.

Well, I didn't know the bones could talk. That would be really cool. Justin, I see you going through a bunch of spell cards. Just trying to find something useful, man. Okay, I'm trying to picture it. So we have four carts. He's coming through a tunnel. Yep.

And he's kind of chewing it up, right? It's a she. It's a mama worm. It's a she. Describe for me her teeth? She has like a bunch of, like, a dozen rows of teeth that sort of spin in opposing directions. Okay, great. I'm going to throw a whole bunch of robot arms into them.

Okay, so you just have a hefty bag full of roboid arms. And I'm just like waiting, holding them off the side, and then I just kind of dump them in the way. So it's a whole bunch of metal arms in there. Oh, but you've worked so hard to collect them. Yeah, but I don't want to die. I mean, I'm going to take every robot arm from you. You will have no robots, all of them.

I'll rebuild. Okay, you send some roboid arms. They bounce backward down the track, and a few of them get wedged in her teeth. Are you making, I guess, make an attack roll. This would be a... It's a 10 plus my standard pluses plus 8, 18. Okay, yeah, it doesn't stop her.

Plus the opposite of unarmed. Disarmed? Super armed? I would say several of the arms just don't go in her mouth at all. A few do, and she just like handily eats them. No big deal. But a couple get wedged in her,

a couple of rows of her teeth, and it slows her down a little bit. bit, but she's still, she's still pursuing. Taco would sound like you had some hot shit. Not hot shit. I don't know. I'm just going to try something. All right. All right. I have, I have tentacles in my own. And I cast Evard's black tentacles. I remember this one.

Squirming ebony tentacles feel a 20 foot square on the ground that you can see within range. For the duration, these tentacles turn the ground in the area into difficult terrain. So basically casting on the tracks as it's following us. So like behind my myself, basically, when it enters the affected area for the first time on a turn or starts to turn there, the creature must succeed on a dexterity saving throw or take D6 bludging damage. I'll do this right now. Okay. Because this thing's like right behind you, so it would happen.

Ooh, that's a six. Okay, so we'll say this is that money. As it moves its way through, these tentacles reach up and grab the worm, and it pulls these tentacles to the point where they're about to snap and break. But the purple worm for just a moment gets held up and has to fight its way. out of the grasp of these long tentacles. And it gives you all time enough to move out of this straightaway

safely from the Purple Worms approach. So you've made it through this. Good job, Taco. You've made it through... Magic is easy. You've made it through the straightaway and exit out over a large black chasm. It's just like the tunnel you were in

just stopped and all of a sudden there's nothing but track ahead of you. And from the rear cart, a lever springs up from the floor and Taco for a split second ahead of you you realize that the track branches off to the left and the right and you can change the direction of all four carts by choosing the direction to go.

Which way do you pull it? So there's just two ways I can pull it? Left or right, yeah. Just the two different ways. Okay. I'm sorry, I could either pull it left or right. Yeah.

Oh, God. Okay. If you all can see Travis with that? If I was just going to turn it left or right. Uh, I, can I, Travis is on the floor. Oh, God,

I'm going to lose it. Go right. So, wait, I can just left or right. Yeah, so two options. Go right. There's the problem. Please, there's a problem. Okay.

It's a problem. You got to right. Chaff, please. My daughter's sleeping. Please try to keep it down. No, I understand. So just left or right? Yeah.

Oh, please. Please. Please. Do I see anything to the left? No, it's kind of dark in here. It's hard to tell. Again, it's kind of hard to tell. You just kind of see the branch.

I always had anything to go on. I've got some control spells. Okay. Maybe right. I guess right. Oh, God. You jerk the lever to the right, and all four of the cars go off into the right path. and you go down a ways on the track

and then into another tunnel and right before you go in that tunnel you actually see the left track and it just ends and then below that you see like 10 carts just like all piled up on the ground 100 feet below with some skeletons

can we say that the mine company did a really bad job if after the first cart they weren't like you know what we're going to close this one this one doesn't work we should get rid of that lever now that I think about it and we owe a big one to penumbra

I believe. Paloma. Paloma. Okay, so you've moved into another tunnel. The purple worm has caught up almost. It is, again, just about behind you. And all of a sudden, levers pop out of all of your carts. Taco, actually, the lever you just used sort of recedes back into the cart, and a different one pops up.

These move up or down, and all of you have to flip them into one of those positions, including Roswell. Up or down. Up or down. And you all don't have to pick the same thing. I'll go down. Okay. Yell it out in character because I think we should at least be two and two. I am going down.

Okay. You flip yours into the down position. I'm going up. Magnus flips his into the up position. Taco. Which way is Roswell going? Roswell will go whichever way I guess you don't go if we want to do an even two-two split. Down.

Okay. You flip yours in a down position. Roswell flips into up. So Roswell and Magnus are going up. Taco and Merle are going down. And sure enough, the track kind of does a branch going upwards. And carts number one and two branch off and go up the track. And Merle and Taco, you stay on the lower track, which actually dips down a little bit.

And the purple warrant just gets a burst of speed out of somewhere and is basically in between the two of you on these tracks. and let's say Magnus and who's in the front of the lower section now. Merle, Magnus and Merle make a dexterity saving throw. Yeah. You can use one on mine, buddy. Thank you. That's good enough.

12. 15? Yeah, you're good. You sort of beat away these tentacles as they whip up from out of the worm's mouth. Gross. What? We already said we were going down. Gross again.

Two grosserunies. This one's getting the explicit tag on iTunes for sure. So, Merle and Taco, you are above the purple worm. I'm sorry, reverse that. Magnus and Roswell are above the purple worm. Merle and Taco, you're below the purple worm. What do you do to slow down or handicap the worm from these positions? I cast spiritual weapon.

Okay. I'm going to cast spiritual weapon, which creates a floating spectral weapon. I shape it to look like a giant fish hook. Okay. Because if that doesn't scare the shit out of a worm, I don't know what will. Nice. Okay. So you just roll an attack?

Yep. Yeah. 18. That'll definitely do it. All right. And then I roll a D8, correct? I'm so glad I'm here so that I can give you my dice. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. All right, so I roll a D8. Not supposed to touch another means dice. It's a 5. You're using up all my luck. And my twist bolt casting modifier is it plus 8. So that's 13. Okay.

Yeah, you hit it for 13 damage, which isn't a ton of damage for the purple worm. But the hook does get caught in its giant mouth full of teeth. and drags it backwards just a little bit, which kind of moves it from in between all four of your carts to now just kind of behind it. Nice job, Merle. Good work, Merle. Taco and Magnus, you're still kind of in danger from the worm.

It is still sort of close enough to get some damage on you. Okay, so it's me. You and Roswell on top, Merle and Taco down below. I've been doing a lot of bacon saving. You got anything you want to try? With what? Bo, you got a spear, whatever? With my spear?

Okay, my spear and my bow. Oh, I've seen that fucking look before. Okay. Have you? Actually, you haven't. Have you? That's a good point. I've heard of this luck.

Okay. Describe the skin of the worm to me? Oh, my God. Thick and purple and leathery. I know what you're thinking. Okay. Any openings? There's a small opening that was made by the hook just now on the, like, side of its cheek.

Okay. I want to Yes I want to Yes Come on Do it Well so my

Okay This is what I want to do Tie rope to the chance lance Okay And tie the rope off To my cart Okay And aim that

Uh Hmm No no no No Okay I tie Hold one end Tie it to a crowbar

Okay And I'm gonna aim The Chance lance For that hole Okay It's gonna be a tough shot 19 plus 9 it's 28 uh yeah that'll do it you throw it and it manages to wedge its way into the hole and i put that crowbar on the the the rails okay you now have a taut rope uh leaving between you and

no not on my car when i drop like hook it between the rails okay yeah you okay this is how this is going to work out uh you do that you uh put it down you you you you just drop the crowbar into the rails. I think we get a close up on the purple worm's eyes. It's like 17 eyes as it like realizes as the rope sort of whips backwards behind it, it goes like, and it just comes to almost a complete stop. And you have, you've definitely handicapped the worm and kept it from catching up to you. Side effect, you have almost destroyed the track that you and Roswell are on.

And you've pulled it completely off the wall that it was sort of like these iron bars had secured it onto. And now the track is sort of sort of free and wobbling and about to go down. I recall the chance lance. Okay, you recall the chance lance and you have it back, but the track is still about to fall over with the you and Roswell on it. What do you do? Are the two boys below us? Yeah, more or less. All right.

Junebug. Yeah, what do you need? It's not a great time. We got to jump. This is a shitty, shit, shit, shit plan. You know that, right? So I figure you can, like, do, like, a stretchy thing. I saw you do it in the bank.

You want me to do what now? I want you to do big stretchy arms, like stretch Armstrong. You know what I mean? We're going to get down there? You want me to stretch my body and connect our carts to their carts? Very much, though. This is a stupid idea. Junebug, do it.

Okay. Roswell fling, like, whips its arms to the side in a T, and the armor on its arms just goes flying. off and backwards into the abyss and now it just has these two long clay arms and it whips them down from your carts on the top track and grabs onto the back of merle's cart and forms basically like a clay bridge with its body okay i grab onto roswell i say let's go over there tighten it up stretch uh uh uh what you go first just go cross my arms i slide down their arms using like my shield as like uh you know the zip line like that that's fucking great okay because of that

That, oh, you just, you just do it. You work your way down. How is Roswell? You're commanding Roswell right now. How does Roswell get down? Because they can't use their own arms as a bridge. But they're holding on, right? They are holding on, yeah.

Okay. Just jump. This is a shit idea, are you sure? It's going to be great. Okay. They're going to make an acrobatics role. I'll say they have plus, I mean, they're not acrobatic. They're a huge ball of clay.

So let's do straight up or down. Let's see how they do. Okay, here's what's going to happen. Roswell manages to sort of retract, like you said, like retract itself. So Roswell, like, manages to get in, but it's not like a clean entry. And Roswell loses some clay. Like their legs and their leg armor and the clay that was on their legs just gets, like, knocked off as it gets caught in the tracks. But Roswell pulls themselves off.

And you see some of their torso kind of like siphoned down and form new legs, but there's no armor on them. there's no armor on them at all. And the bird on Roswell's shoulder, like it looks completely frazzled right now, like because of what just happened. But Roswell stands up and puts up a naked fist with nothing coming out and then like looks at their fist and then forms some clay to make a thumb.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But now all of you are sharing two cars. And you see the track above you just like fall. It's actually wobbling and kind of in danger of falling over onto your lower track, but it goes the other way and collapses into the wall. That was close. Okay.

Fourth leg. You are nearing the end of this tunnel. The worm is way, way behind you at this point. But you realize that in all the commotion that just happened, the power unit for the back cart, the engine, must be going out or something because it's got a big gash on it and it's shooting out sparks. And your carts are starting to lose speed.

very quickly as you hear the worm making its way in your direction from deeper behind the tunnel. What do you do to get these carts moving again? Don't you have a wrench, Merle? I have the adamant spanner. Yeah, and then like a magic wrench

that fixes things when you hit him? Yep. Okay. Super cool. Whang! Merle, you are in the rear you are in the rear car, so you hit the engine with the animate spanner and the gas on it seals up and the sparks stop shooting out. However, there's way too much speed, there's way too much weight in these two carts that they

weren't sort of meant to carry. So your carts are moving again, but the, the worm is catching up really fast. So if you have another way to sort of gain some speed right now, all three of us in... All four of you are in two carts. I say we make Roswell jump out. No. That less, then it's less weight. We'll go faster. Listen, I don't argue with your logic. Roswell says, like, if that's what you... No, Ros, I'm not going to do that to you. Roswell, it's a good idea. Hang on.

And I cast levitate on Roswell. Okay. Roswell is now, okay, you've lifted the weight out of the cart that was Roswell, and Roswell still has their two clay hands on the back of the cart, floating behind you. And the removal of that weight was exactly what you needed. to get the speed back and going again.

The purple worm has more or less caught up to you, and Roswell, their arms are stretching out because they're made of clay, and Roswell is now starting to actually fall backwards. What do you do to save Roswell? We pull them back? Okay, yeah, you grab under Roswell's arms and pull them forward as the purple worm snaps its mouth shut,

just narrowly missing Roswell. one of you'll have to keep like a hand on Roswell's like armor to keep its clay from stretching out. Who does that? If you do that. Cool, I'll do that. They need both their hands for magic and stuff.

All right. So Magnus, you are now kind of holding on to Roswell keeping them from floating away. And you've cleared this leg. And you come out of this tunnel and you are in a massive underground cavern with tons of small tunnels

board in nearly every direction. all searching for new veins of diamonds. But there aren't tracks leading into these tunnels, and you actually realize with horror that the track that you're currently on comes to a full stop in this room. There's a steep, about 120-foot ramp leading downward, followed by a brief incline,

and then just nothing. And about 70 feet in front of the end of that ramp upward is the only source of light in this room. it's the shimmering light coming off of the exterior bubble of town. It is a full sphere, and so it reaches underground too, and that is where you are. So you're basically heading down a ski jump, essentially, leading into the bubble, and you have reached the end of the line. How much time do we have?

You have just kind of moments. Okay. Okay, I have a plan. It's a little nutty, but go with me on this. Merle, grab Roswell. Check. Okay, Taco, get into this cart. Okay, Merle is now holding on to Roswell's arms, keeping them from floating away.

Yes, okay. Wee. Get in the cart. Yeah, I'm in. Okay, great. Taco hops into the front cart. Now, you've got a thing that, like, makes things bigger, right? A spell?

Yeah. Like you did with the motorcycle, right? Yep. Okay, soup up the engine on the back of the car. That's dumb. It'll be great. It seems dumb. We got a breakthrough, right?

And remember the cannon? The only way to get through the bubble, was the high speed, right? And I've got this lance. Okay. Let's do this. Brace your asses. As you are clearing the tunnel, you also realize there's another source of light,

and it is the purple worm, and it has a big old fireball that it is about to barf out on all of you. Merle, what are you doing? Quick question. You're holding up a card like you're in Yu-Gi-I'm going to. Do it. Play it. I play. Blue-Eyes, White Dragon.

We're sending the empty cart towards the worm or towards the bubble? We're in the cart towards the bubble. There's a cart behind us that's empty now. I cast Guardian of Faith on the one we're cutting loose that's sending it back to the worm. Okay? To do damage. All right.

Slow it down. An angel appears in the rear cart. Delores appears in the rear cart and says, this feels right. Delores! Baby. And that rear cart skips, she jams a beautiful golden heavenly spear

into the hitch connecting the two carts and goes flying backwards. and does an attack on the purple worm, I guess. We're kind of playing Calvin ball with the purple worm at this point. Okay, so you have this very, very fast cart, and you are, oh, wait, you cast that spell, but in doing so, you definitely, definitely let Roswell go, and now Roswell is just sort of floating off backwards. Oh, no, you don't.

I cast Bigby's hand, and a large hand appears and grabs Roswell and holds Roswell and holds them. Okay, here's the scene. All the three of you are now flying down this ramp. You're about halfway down it, this ski jump ramp out to the end of the bubble. Roswell is free floating behind you, basically perfectly in between you and the worm. And Roswell has drawn their halberd, is drawn their halberd in like striking position. The worm is immediately behind Roswell with a big mouthful of fire. And you cast Bigby's hand and a big hand reaches out and grabs Roswell. And Roswell says,

okay, you all have done some great work here. I need you to trust me right now. Trust me. Taco, tell me that I made refuge safe. Just do it. Tell me that I made refuge safe. Roswell, you made refuge safe. As you say that,

Roswell starts to kind of expand like they did in the bank. And Roswell says, thanks a lot, fellas. And a fireball shoots out of the purple worm's mouth. and right as it leaves its mouth, you watch Roswell just kind of spasm

and send its clay outward in a giant red sheet. And as it does, the glow, like the yellow glow that was sustaining it, just disappears from the clay as this giant red sheet catches the fireball and keeps it from destroying all of your carts. And as it does, as Roswell does this, you see that yellow light just kind of leave that clay and just enter into the vermillion flycatchez.

that was on Roswell's shoulder the whole time as this red bird flies upward and away from the fiery explosion. And the purple worm kind of gets caught up in the clay net as well and gets slowed down. And the three of you are safe and free as you fly down the ramp and launch upward off the end of the ramp all in one car.

lands like a lance like in his shoulder forward. Okay, you are, the three of you are a dart that has been thrown off the end of this ramp and jab into the side of the bubble and the extremely loud room that you were just in kind of just falls silent and you are in a white space and in a cart, in a mine cart going a hundred miles an hour, but just sort of sailing through the white space. and then all of a sudden you see a hole in front of you in the white space as you see daylight and red clay and you emerge out of the bubble where you entered into the town of refuge and you flip over, the cart you're in flips end over end and dumps you on the ground as the cart keeps going just past you

and you are back in the woven gulch and you are lying just in front of Avi and his big big, big Yeager cannon. And Yagi, Avi turns and looks at you and he's really startled. He says, you guys just scared this shit out of it. And before he can finish, the hole that you just came through and the barrier expands. And the purple worm sails through it. The purple worm, worms sails through the side of the bubble. I pull Avi down.

You grab Avi and pull him down. And it's like a train going over you. Like it casts a shadow over all of you and sails over you for probably a good 15 seconds before it skids to a halt just past you. And without missing a beat, it whips its head around and readies another fireball in your direction. But just as it's about to incinerate you, you feel a rumble beneath your feet. And from all around it, from all around the purple worm, three smaller purple worms burrow up from the ground. And it's the ones that you fought at the beginning. I am spared, might I add, fought and spared. And these three purple worms are all whining this,

this sound that is, they sound overjoyed, but it's a horrible noise. And the mama worm looks at these three little worms and then back at you and then back at the baby worms. And then it roars, but not the like anguished scream that you've heard, you know, a dozen times or so now right before refuge was destroyed. It was, it's a roar of joy. And it wraps itself around its three children and pulls its head high up into the sky and and then slams down into the ground, burrowing away with its family.

It's a mother and child. Reunion. You guys have heard that song before. No, but I get the point of it. It was pretty straightforward. You literally said the thing that happened. You said the thing that happened. Well, Paul Simon did originally.

I was just quoting. Hey, everybody, it's Griffin McElroy, your dungeon master, your best friend, and your other thing. Thanks for listening to episode 49 of the Adventure Zone. It's the last episode of the 11th Hours arc. It feels like we just started that a couple weeks ago. But really, it's been like five. months. Thanks for listening to this whole arc. The feedback we've gotten on it has been so great,

and I'm really happy with how it turns out here at the end of this episode, which I'm going to let you get to, but first, I'm going to do some commercials to you. Got a bunch of Jumbotron messages to read to you. If you want to get a message on the show, just go to Maximumfund.org slash Jumbotron. You can find out how to do that there. First message here is for Carl, the man boy wizard, and it's from Fluffles the brave. These are fake names, aren't you? This is a... This is, you're prank in me, aren't you? Unless that's your real name, in which case, oh my God, I'm terribly sorry. Fluffles says to Carl,

Happy anniversary to the most magical man in my life. The past 365 days have been fantasy and fun-filled, and there's no other person I would rather have spent the last year adventuring with. From mountain climbing to playing D&D, I'm glad to have you by my side through everything. I love you forever and always. This was supposed to go up on July 30th, so this is an anniversary plus,

change. It's a you're, you're already on your way to the next anniversary and I'm so happy for you. Congratulations on all the love and keep, keep, keep it going. Hang in there. Hang in there. Sounds like something. Anyway, great job on the love and well done. Got another message here for Helgar. Sorry, this message is actually for Hegelar. But if you're Helgar and you want this message should be about you, you can just make believe. Anyway, it's from Johnson who says to Hegelar, What up, buddy? Congratulations on finishing your master's and getting married in a few weeks, both of which have probably already happened.

Definitely. Sucks about your parenting critical miss a while back, and remember not to do anything awful with your biotech degree, or you'll have a fingering potato coming your way. Miss you, dude. I'm hoping this is just sort of a fun, innocuous end joke and not like, you know, this person's invented a potato bomb, and that was the most threatening thing I've ever read on the show.

But yeah, congratulations. on both the nuptials and the masters, both of which have like almost certainly happened like six months ago because we're really bad at doing these things on time. I got one more message here. This one's for Katie and Dan and it's from your brother, your brother and me who say congratulations on leveling up as grownups and getting hitched. When we tried to come up with something that would adequately symbolize your love, we came up with lizard person and cobald slash fic. We'll be sure to fill you in on the anatomical details in our wedding speeches. Love your brother's will, Mark, and Jacob.

that is probably, that's going to be just a Buckwell wedding speech. That's going to be one of the wettest and wildest wedding speech is probably in the history of the whole exercise. But congratulations Katie and Dan on getting married. It is fun stuff and I bet you're really going to dig it. Thanks to everybody who's been tweeting about the show using the Zonecast hashtag. We don't pay to advertise the show at all. So word of mouth is literally the only way that we get new listeners. and we have a really great following now,

and that's entirely because of you. So if you can tweet about the show using the Zonecast hashtag, man, we sure do appreciate it. I think the next episode is probably going to be a lunar interlude before we get started on the next arc. So we'll probably have some new characters coming up in the next few episodes. So if you want to end up as a character on the show,

just tweet about the show using the Zonecast hashtag, and it can happen to you. A few thank you. Thanks to the Maximum Fun Network for having us. You can go to Maximumfund.org and find out all about the different shows on the network. They're all so great, and we're so happy to be a part of the network. They have shows like Throwing Shade and Stop Podcasting Yourself and Jordan Jesse Go and Judge John Hodgman and the Beef and Dairy Network and the greatest generation.

So many amazing shows, all for free on Maximum Fun.org. If you want to find the other shows that we do and other ways to sort of get in touch with us, like our PO boxes and all that stuff, you can go to mackleroyshows.com. And we got a full list of all of our projects there. So that is it for this episode. the next one will be up on let me do some quick math oh shit let me get my calendar hold on wait the next episode is going to be up on

October 6th and so we will talk to you then see you soon bye Avi Avi is just white as a sheet he is paralyzed in fear how's it going he doesn't he doesn't respond to you he is just he's just like

I slap him hey I've got a fun question how long we've been gone you think Avi yeah it's a real good one He doesn't respond to you He's just paralyzed I slap him again He doesn't move or respond to that

Because he's he's paralyzed I slap him Okay you take turns slapping He doesn't move Because he's literally paralyzed And you realize he's outlined In red light And from behind him

You actually see sort of Apperate behind him The redrobed figure that you've encountered a few times now. And it holds, it really quickly holds a finger to its lips and then waves its hand in a circle and your stones of far speech,

they go dim. They go dark. And the red robe figure says, did you retrieve the cup? Yes. Nothing. We didn't do anything with it. You didn't use the cup?

Nope. No. We all three said, no, right? Yeah, we didn't use it. I'm really proud of you. I thought there was a chance that maybe this would be the one to end your adventure. Wait, you're proud. Wait, hold on.

You're the Red Row, right? You're one of the bad guys. Who's told you that? Everybody. Everybody. The Bureau and what's her face, the director. TMZ. I need to know.

Do you do. Trust me. Wait, no, no, no, hell no. Not just no, hell no. You're fucking popping up in a red robe like Satan. You're speaking parcel tongue. You're like, do he's, no, we don't trust you? What kind of question is that?

As you say that, that you don't trust him, this apparition, this basically red-robed ghost, or it's a litch floating in front of you, It starts to lose its composure. It starts to lose. And I mean that literally, like, the spectral form starts to jerk violently. And a bolt of energy kind of like whips off of it. And actually, Merle, make a deck save.

That's a crap, 20. You dodge out of the way, actually, as a bolt of red energy kind of like whips off this red robe and sort of moves, moves past you. And this red robe figure falls to its knees. and he's muttering to himself, like he's trying to calm himself down, and it doesn't sound like it sounds every other time that he's spoken to you. It sounds like a guy's voice,

and he says to himself, Loop, they don't trust me. I can't do it anymore, Loop, I'm sorry. And he calms down, and the sort of distortion that was happening to him kind of fades, and he stands back up and says, the next time we meet,

I will need you to trust me completely or not absolutely. Otherwise, all of this will have been for nothing. The hunger is almost here. And when it arrives, this world will be lost. And he disappears. And immediately, Avi says, was that a purple worm? And is unparalyzed.

Oh. Yeah, it totally was. Hey, Avi, quick question. How long have we been gone from your perspective? Like 45 minutes? Hell yeah. Yeah, that's not right? That's so good.

Do you want to know what football teams are going to win? You all notice that actually the bubble is still up in front of you. Like the bubble did not come down. And in fact, the whole that the three of you and the worm all came through has closed back up. Refuge is still surrounded by this enormous, magical, opaque. barrier. But you see Istis' reflection inside of the barrier, and she talks to you and says, I'm really proud of you all for not taking the chalice's offer. I can't imagine

how difficult that must have been to resist. Thank you. Yeah, that means a lot. It was, it was not easy. She says, you're probably wondering why the bubble didn't come down after you came through it. Yeah, I stabbed it. And you made an exit for yourself, but I, refuge is out a step with the rest of time. And I'm going to get them back on schedule now. But time passed a bit differently in there than it did with the rest of the world. June, using the cup on the day that the worm attacked, it looped. She looped a single day 2,517 times.

Well, they're about to catch up. you should really watch, she says. And Istis disappears, and the bubble goes transparent, and you see refuge and its citizens on the other side. And they're moving extremely quickly because time is moving really fast in the bubble. You see like almost a light strobe light effect, and it's because the sun is rising and setting

a few times per second. And the whole town is gathered near the edge of the bubble near where you're standing, and you watch in time lapse as they quickly erect a big wooden sign, which they decorate and ornately paint with a single word, and the sign just reads, thanks. And under the sign, there are three clay figures that some kids are crafting up, and they do it in time lapse really quickly, and it's modeled after you. There's these three little clay statues that kids are making. And as you move, as you watch this fast forward scene in front of you,

Every time you move, the kids like instantly reshape these clay statues to kind of like mimic you, like they're playing a game with you, even though time is passing at wildly different speeds. And nearly seven years pass in 10 minutes and you see it all. You see midsummer harvest festivals and candle nights celebrations. You see a few weddings. You see a couple of funeral processions. You see you see good days and you see bad days. but the whole town and its inhabitants seem happy, like the events of all those loops brought them together in a strange way.

And after 10 minutes or so, time inside the bubble slows down until it's nearly at real time. And the town gathers around the sign they erected in your honor, and without a sound, the bubble pops. And refuge, and everybody living in refuge is there, and they're cheering. And they quickly sort of envelop all four of you. There's a lot of folks who want to know more about Avi,

who they haven't met. He's just this mystery man who they've watched. through the bubble for seven years. They pull him in and just start asking Avi all these questions like, oh, we had bets. We had a theory that you were their boss and you're the one that really helped him bring the bubble down. And Avi's just like sort of graciously hanging out with them.

And they whisk all of you away to a big feast they've prepared in your honor. And I guess before heading out of refuge, who in town do you want to say goodbye to? Who do you want to check in on seven years later in their time? I want to check on Paloma? Okay. Yeah, Paloma's right there. like Paloma's ready. She is much, much, she looks much older.

She's an older woman now. And she hands all of you just like a giant basket of baked goods. Like a ridiculously large basket of baked goods, which, yeah, you would taco. You appreciate the craftsmanship that went into these. And she says, you all did very good. I saw many different results that could have been in the crystals. Many of them were quite shitty. But it seems like you found the.

best one of all. So well, well done. I want to check on Cassidy. I have a question for Paloma. Yes, what is it? Did I make the right choice? Hmm. That's hard to say. We're all here, and I think it was the right choice, because things could have gone very, very badly for all of us if you had made a different choice. So it was maybe not the best choice for you, but it was the best choice for us. Does that make sense?

Thank you. She starts to walk back into the crowd. Before she does, she grabs you Taco. She says, Taco, can I talk to you for a moment? Sure. She pulls you away from the group. She reaches out her hand, and she hands you a crystal. And she, it has a prophecy in it.

And you see it. And her eyes kind of roll back. And she says, I have one last prophecy for you, something you will need to know. In your hour of greatest need, you will find the power that you seek from the man wreathed in flames. Jesus, like, can you...

I have, like, now, three prophecies. I have to keep my head simultaneously. Thank you for this. Like a fucking walking story Bible over here. And Paloma, is that all? Yes, that is it. Well, my lady, I have one request for you. Yes, what is it?

Will you find the kids in town who spent all that time to make those beautiful statues of us and tell them to make my dick bigger? And then I reach my hand up for a high five. She's like... She instantly goes up and high fives you. She's like, she is rolling laughing.

I knew she was down. You got me good that time, son. Oh, where's Junebug? You run after Junebug? Yeah. We'll do that. Let's do Dad and Cassidy first. And then we'll do you in Junebug.

Yeah, you find Cassidy, she has been exonerated of all guilt for the crime of going up the temple of us days. Yeah, no, she's been a good, a good member of town. And in fact, when you find Cassidy, yes, she's wearing like a nice suit. She's wearing like a nice suit. And she has a top hat on. And you find her in the elder's manner because she has been made the elder of refuge. And she says, uh, it's my little. garbling friend. I remember you.

Well, I knew you were made of sterner stuff. And, you know, people love that folksy shit. If you're a candidate, I can see why you've done so well in politics. It's like I told you, Cassie's just chocked full of good ideas

from my toes to my tips. My frosted tips, it's a new fashion style I'm trying out in the last seven years. It's all the rage here in this bubble. Well, I'm very proud of you, Cassidy. You think you'll have come back to visit? No.

No, no. Well, all right, man. Don't you want to give me something? Taco got something? I think I've got just the thing for you. She reaches into her pocket and she says, In your hour of greatest need, these will supply you

with just the saving grace that you require, young man. And what are they? You stretch out your hand and she drops a couple of root beer barrels into your hand. but they're all sticky and they're covered in lint and stuff because they were in her loose pocket just kind of floating around. Thanks.

There's my favorites, you know this. Yeah. We've been trapped in a bubble. It's a closed environment for seven years, and I've held on to these root beer barrels. I've fought off the temptation to eat these things. Where are you going? Typical, typical, typical.

Fine, thanks a lot. Okay. Where's Junebug? You find Junebug in the Davy lamp, and she says she's like, well, she'd be about 15 now. Yeah. So she's a, she's a young woman now.

She's working at the Davy Lamp. And she's working with Wren, who also greets you happily as you all make your way into town. And June thanks you effusively. She seems wise beyond her years now because she went through something, you know, magical and sort of inexplicable. And she, she thanks you. And Magnus, she says, hold on one second and runs up to her room in the Davey lamp. And when she comes back down, she hands you a tube. And it's like the type of like tube that scholars might store like scrolls inside.

And she says, I think, I think you should have this. And the tube has your name scrawled on the outside of it. Like a, you know, a gift tag or something like that. And she says, I got to get back to work. but it's really good to see you. It's good to see you, too, Junebug. Should I open it? She says, good luck.

And she runs back up the stairs and into her room. And Magnus, you actually hear in your head, you hear the voice of the red robe that you've seen a few times now. And he says, Magnus, if you open that tube, Magnus, it's going to be harder for me to protect you. Yeah, bite my ass. I open the tube.

Okay. You open the tube and see what's inside of it, and we're going to resolve that a bit later. Is that okay? Yeah. Okay. I need to find somebody before we go. Who do you look up? I want to find Ren.

Okay. Yeah, you hop into the Davey lamp and you see Ren, and she is polishing some glasses behind the bar, and she says, oh, my God, Taco. I'm just kidding. I remember you coming up and seeing me a couple times. How about that magic lesson, boss? Actually, that's what I wanted to talk to you about. And before I had stepped inside, I'd cast Fabricate on some blank paper that I brought with me. Okay.

And I inferral for her a diploma. Okay. And it said, top of her class, this scroll bestows upon you, Wren, the high honor of being the first and only graduate of Taco's Amazing School of Magic. Her hands clasp over her mouth And her eyes go wide When she sees this diploma And she says

Aren't I supposed to like Take lessons and stuff Aren't I supposed to like Learn from you first before Rin? Yeah I've been watching the whole time She takes the diploma

And she says I'll never forget this And jumps up and gives you a big hug And here's one other thing And I give her the Gus Master And I say I don't need this Because I know how to cast this spell

And it's heavy. She takes the fan from you, the Gusmaster, 5,000, and, uh, oh, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. I'll use it every day. In my head, I thought this is an incredibly special treasure to me. I should have flipped those, so I'm sorry. Let me try again. This is an incredible treasure, and I want you to have it. Thank you. Thank you, Taco. I'll never forget this. Will I ever see you again? Ren? It's hard to say. I'm not the DM on this one, buddy. So here's hoping. I don't I have one more thing I want to find out. Yeah, please.

I want to go to the temple. Okay. Temple's there, right? Yeah, Temple of Vises is there, but it is rebuilt. It's not the temple that you magically rebuilt. The two brothers have sort of rebuilt it. And in fact, ooh, this is good. You see Redmond, and you've seen Redmond before.

He's seven years older. And you see, and you see Luca, and Luca's not a skeleton anymore. Luca, whatever magical effect that was done to Luca while in. inside the bubble has been reversed and now he just kind of looks like a shorter kind of pudgyer redmond and they have their robes on and you find them at the temple of vistas which was not like magically restructured it's just been rebuilt by hand uh hello brothers um magnus yeah thank hey hey nice voice thank you it's the one i've always had um i'm so glad to see you've got skin and stuff again and the temple's rebuilt.

Can I have a moment inside for a second? Just me? Sure. Give him the room, Redmond. Redmond nods because I don't remember what his voice sounds like. And they walk outside of the temple. Okay. Are you doing a two cathedrals thing?

No, no, no. All right. Istis. Can you hear me? Is this a thing? You're probably not on call, but if I could get you for like a second, I just have one question. Let me help you. Testing, one, two, three.

It's just two candles that are sitting on the pulpit light themselves. I didn't get a chance to ask because it happened after we met, but when we were with June slash the cup, it was running back through our history. There were these long periods of static. Do you have any idea what that is? Nothing happens. Is it anything we need to be concerned about? One of the candles falls over, and the flame on it goes out, and the candle rolls off the pulpit and falls down the stairs. I walk up to the pulpit.

Okay. To make an offering to the mighty Istis. Okay. I reach into my pocket, and I go and I put there, and I say, Mighty Istis, an offering to you to show our love and gratitude. And I put those two nasty root beer barrels on it. Okay. You hear a voice on the wind go, Yuck.

Oh, I'll take them back then. No, leave them. Maybe I can clean them off. One last thing you do in refuge before you take off. As you make your way back from the temple, you walk by the Elder's Manor and by the statue of Jack June and the red robe, the bigger burlier red robe than the one that you just saw standing between them.

and the kids have also made a little statue of Roswell there and you sort of stop for a moment and look at this statue and admire the kids' handiwork, I guess, and you hear a voice go, boo! And you look, and it's the vermilion flycatcher, the red bird that is now sitting on the statue of Roswell and says, I don't remember being nearly this rotund

when I was more full-bodied, but I guess they did a good enough job. You lost a lot of weight when your legs fell off there at the end. That one was on us. And Clay adds 10 pounds to you, really. Roswell says, who's now just completely inside of the bird body, says, it's really good to see you guys. I'm glad you stuck around.

It's really good to see you not dead. I don't know what magic animated me and made me, you know, commandable. But whatever it was, I feel like, I'm kind of not bound to service here anymore. So I'm going to fly around and see the world and, you know, find out what I'm doing here. Well, if you get bored, there's this like half moon thing up in the sky. You can come check in on us and hang out. Yeah, most birds can fly to the moon, right?

It's not really the moon, though, Taco. Like, we can get to it in a bubble. Well, that's exactly the kind of stuff I want to give a shot. So maybe one day I'll try to fly to the moon and I'll see you there. And I'd like to point out that even though we controlled you, when you were left to your own devices you sacrificed your life for us. No, I'm still alive. It's all good.

And I'm like, we were all there for that, too, Meryl. That's not like a big reveal. Yeah, true. Well, I'm just happy. I'm just happy you did. Oh, okay. So we didn't die. Just kind of recad.

We didn't die. Yeah, I'm glad you didn't die either. Okay, I'll see you guys around. And Roswell flitters and flies off. I have a quick epilogue I want to get to, so Avi summons a bubble for you guys, an extraction bubble, and your return to the moon base

is fairly without consequence. I'm assuming you hand over the cup to be destroyed. Yep. Okay. Yeah, it's sort of the same. Okay. I would like to know it was on the paper

before I do. Can I know that? That's the epilogue. Okay. You hand over the cup to Davenport in the director's chambers. I know we're kind of moving past this, but we got to wrap it,

and there's one other thing we need to get to. You put it inside one of those big heavy lead balls with the little circular window in it. He shuts it inside, wheels it into the big white chamber. It gets put up on a pedestal, big spears of light pierced through it. And when it opens up again, it is empty. And the director says, Avi reported everything in already. I guess I'm sorry for making such a big deal out of everything.

Apparently this relic wasn't as difficult to reclaim as I thought it was going to be. So, well done, boys. No, it was super tough. No, get bent. I tell her the whole story. Okay, well, I take it back. That sounds fucking awful. It was real rough, and we died a bunch.

Bunch. And so I think we probably get our life insurance a couple times over, right? Some kind of payout from the Bureau. I don't know about the life insurance stuff, but how about this? And she forks over a bag with 5,400 gold pieces inside of it, which you split three ways. I think that's eight. Is that 18, 18, 18, 8. Did I do the math right?

Yes. Okay. Each of you gets 1,800 gold pieces and a token for the fantasy gosh upon. All right. Let's get to this epilogue real quick. It's later that night. Merle, you are laying out on the lawn of the Bureau of Balance Quad. And it's pretty late. Most folks have retired to their bunks for the evening.

There's a nice cool breeze that's made cooler by the elevation of the Bureau HQ. And you're laying on the grass and there's a small bed of flowers actually growing up where your sole wood arm is laying on the grass. And you're looking up at the stars, which you're known to do sometimes, and the elevation of the headquarters gives you sort of an unparalleled view of. So you often look up at the stars, but tonight, as you're laying out and looking upward, you feel like there are fewer stars in the sky than there usually are when you do your stargazing. And as you just sort of intently watch the sky to try to confirm that, to try to count them, you see it undeniably.

A star winks out right in front of your eyes. Am I drunk? Not tonight. That's weird. Taco? You take the central elevator of the residential dome downward that same night, down to the bottom floor, which houses your guy's private dormitory. and as you open your door and you drop your keys at the small table by the front door and hang up your cloak of the Manoray on the cloak rack,

I imagine you're pretty exhausted. This has been a pretty exhausting sort of loop. I don't want to speak for you. Maybe you're good to go. I pat the cloak of Manoray and say, someday you'll be useful, friend. You hang up your cloak and you turn and you realize you have a visitor in this room. He's sitting on the couch in the living quarters that you all share.

he's wearing a fancy black suit he's got a super handsome face and it's Travis McRoy it's Cravitz who stands up and says well we need to talk don't we because you boys you've added quite a bit to your death count

haven't you? That one's on me Magnus you are in a little corner of the dining hall which is a big massive communal space for the bureau. Late as it is, there's nobody else here. That gives you the privacy that you need to look at what's inside this tube one more time.

And you pop it open and unfurl it. And there's something strange about the parchment inside of this tube, which is that you can see it. You can see what's on it. But when you try to draw conclusions based on what you see, when you try to understand what it is you're seeing, your mind turns to static. and it's an incredibly uncomfortable sensation. So what you see inside the tube are two sheets of paper. And the first one is a design for the statue that stands in the middle of refuge depicting Jack, June, and the broad-shouldered red robe standing between them.

And it has a date etched in the corner of it. The other piece of parchment, when you look at the date, you can tell this was an older draft of this statue, an older design of the same statue. And in this sketch, in this earlier sketch, Jack and June, look exactly the same. But the red robe's hood is pulled down. And you can see his face. And it's an incredibly familiar face, Magnus, because it's your face. This figure in this red robe is you.

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