The Adventure Zone - Ep. 53. The Suffering Game - Chapter Three

Episode Date: December 15, 2016

Wonderland has revealed itself as a genuinely unsafe place for our heroes to be. Can they make forward progress in a cyclical game designed to extract raw anguish from them? Can they reach their distant goal before they've sacrificed too much? Magnus goes spear fishing. Merle is the MVP. Taako has a spot of bad luck. 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, they are beautiful elves, one female, one male, and they are dressed in these tight-fitting, high-fashioned garments of gold and green and violet. You made it! Welcome to Wonderland! Fine, I'll go. Yeah, I got skull. All the skull means is, at some point in the future, you will face some pretty bad luck. You put your hand on the trust button and push it down, and then you see their decision, and in bright red letters, the word forsake appears. Welcome to the monster factory. Falling down through that hatch is a cube of slime that is about 15 feet tall, and then right behind it with a pair of beautiful, beautiful angelic wings is a humongous dire bear with bolts of crackling electricity.

sort of wrapping around its body. Let's roll initiative. Sounds like our boys are having the slime of their lives. I can barely contain my excitement. It's the adventure zone. Roll those bones. I want to hear those dice at the table. And then I want you to add your fucking initiative modifier to it.

And then we're going to come up with an orderly order for this fight. Oh, we're fighting. That's right. Oh, yeah. Yeah, we're fighting again. You're fighting a multiple. flying, electrified

dire bear and a multiplying regenerating poisonous slime. Bad news. Bad news, kiddies. Magnus got

himself a critical fail. That's an initiative though. That's fine. Well, yeah, but it's still a, let's see,

one plus two. Three. 18 for the kid. I got 10 plus once, that's 11. That's my good role. I'll tell you guys

what. Something, this is just a fun. This is, you know, as everyone knows here on the

and we routinely like to, you know, take a step out of the moment to, like, give helpful tips and tricks to people playing, role-playing games at home. We've never, never, never, never, never done this. And so here's a helpful tip and trick. Look back over past character sheets to find out all the magical items and weapons you had that you promptly forgot about as soon as you got them. Yeah. You guys are essentially fucking demi-gods right now.

You guys are like Benicio del Toro's character in, like, you guys are like Benicio del Toro's character in the fucking Marvel movies, and you don't even realize it. Like, Dad, do you remember that you have that special item that lets you, like, change spells by one letter or some shit? Oh, yeah. I forgot about that.

I forgot about my magnetic charge. I forgot about the tarantulas bracelet. No, I mean, you guys are dummies. That's, yes. Justin, Taco, you are top of the order. You have, you're in this room where there's a bunch of sort of factory equipment hanging from the ceiling that just produced

these two monsters. I'm multiplying, regenerating poisonous slime that kind of splorched down on the ground. It's about, um, this thing is huge.

It's about 15 feet, I want to say in, in diameter. Uh, and it's just this bubbling green, sentient slime. Uh, and then flying around in the air

about 20 feet up is a dire bear with long, beautiful wings, uh, that, uh, is sort of pulsating with electricity. Uh,

and you're, you're up. Well, you know what? I'm not going to fuck around. Yeah. I was hoping, I mean,

it's been a month. I'm, I was hoping, you maybe had a course of action. Yeah, here's what I'm going to do. I want to cast a magical spell. Okay. On the poisonous slime.

Excellent. This spell is called flesh to stone. I mean, it's slime. I definitely doesn't have flesh. In what reality is that not made of flesh? Its flesh is... Griffin, if the spell were called surface to surface to stone would that would that be better for you is that where you want to draw a line in the sand but

this thing is that if it had flesh then it would be a bag of skin full of fucking goo it would it would it would be like together then griffin surface tension what do you call it Griffin what do you call it when like a pudding gets that film at the top is that not called a skin that's a crimbrillet just no you're talking all god hold on read the description of the spell because if it says flesh in the spell description it has flesh it's flesh is made of goo when it's Definitely, I don't think so. Because if we're doing that, then you can be like, hmm, the ocean, I'm going to turn all of it to stone with this spell,

because to surface the ocean's like a flesh. If the ocean were a sentient being, Griffin, moving around attacking people, then yes, I would say that he would have a leg to stand on in that argument. Okay. I think we have to go with what the DM says. I can't believe it's been a month, and we're having an argument about whether or not slime is flesh.

It's like the body. you know, like the spirit is willing with the flesh is weak. The spirit is welcoming but the slime is weak. But the slime is flesh. I'm just not going to cast anything then. Oh.

Oh. Fine. Come on. Come on. Take a turn. You don't let Griffin wear you down. Okay, fine. Fine. By the way, I'd just like to point out, it is no fun when somebody won't let you do the spell you want to do.

Well, mine made sense, though. Your smells are dumb. Your spells are so bad. I would actually say, till later this episode, my friend. I would actually say this clip is currently being played in a top five least appropriate spell usage compilation video on YouTube right now. And it's probably ranking in at number two, maybe one. All right. I'm going to cast a different spell on this stupid ass slime.

It's called disintegrate. Oh, shit. Fuck you. There's this thin green ray that springs from my pointing finger. but I'm going to have it come out of my butt This is how I do Interesting Yeah it's a different thing

But it looks like a laser fart And the target Well listen It's got to make a dexterity saving throw Oh that's not that it's thanks to jam I do want to ask You're using your butt and not the umbra staff right Because if you use the umbra staff

Then you get the spell bonus I'm holding the umber staff with my butt Channeling it It's like a fraternity hazing I loved when the when they read cast Taco as Adam Sandler. I really appreciate that. Everybody's busting up.

That's the other thing about it. Even the bear loves it. You're loving it. That's a big seven. Okay, that's not going to pass. Okay. So now you are going to take 10 D6 damage. Oh, my God.

That's the one with six. Thanks, Papa. I don't have a six in there. How do you not have a six? It comes with every board game. My daughter eats them for power? Yeah, I got it. I got it.

Let's see. Five. Dad, count this for me. One. I got it. One. Six. Five.

Eleven. Four. Fifteen. Five. No, sorry. One. Sorry, one, Traff. 16.

Another one. Damn. 17. Two. 19. How many is that, Dad? six I think you're counting on it's seven you've done seven and it was 19

three that's 22 four 26 one 27 all right wow that was a huge huge hit um on this thing sorry and then I add 40 to that

what yeah no no no is it is it 10d6 plus four no sir no sir that's 10d6 plus 40 um damage. Wait, really? Yeah.

It's called disintegrate. It's called disintegrate. It's not called like loving caress from a new lover. Though it is now. Jesus. Oh, if it kills it, it disintegrates and I'm gonna need to hear that.

So you didn't quite, Jesus, you really swept the legs out from, that's a six level spell, right? Like, you're burning the big gun right now. I burned a six little spell. I wasn't gonna fuck around. Okay, yeah. You, you, okay, here's what this did.

Because this is a multiplying, regenerating poisonous slime, you, you, I swear you almost took it completely down with this one attack. But you blasted it with the ray. And some of it did get disintegrated off. Like some of its slime just sort of evaporated into the air. And right when that happened, it split in two and became two smaller slimes. but the beam, I guess, also hit one of those smaller slimes and disintegrated it as well. And it kept sort of refracting like that around the room, hitting different smaller parts of the slime as it splits off. And so the only thing that's left now are three, like, pretty small, like up to your knee-sized poisonous regenerating slimes.

Great. Fantastic. Yeah. And next up in the order is the multiplying flying electrified dire bear. And what they are going to do is, the bear's going to fly down at Magnus. Cool. But before it does, a sort of wave of electricity comes off of it. And then it sort of flies to the side of this flying bear.

And then immediately right next to it, is another flying electrified dire bear, but this one's body isn't made of like bear stuff, like the dire bear says. This one is just like a projection made of electricity. So now there are two of these things, one made of bear, and one just completely made out of electricity.

And both of them are going to fly down and do attacks on Magnus. Just sort of swiping down, pause first from the sky. The first one, the bear one, rolls a 21. Against what? AC. Yeah, I think that's fine.

Okay. Yeah, yeah, no, that's good. Wait, how big is it? It's, I mean, it's a dire bear, so it's probably about, like, 10 feet. Is it big enough to I get your ring? Yeah, you definitely get your ring bonus. And does the tie go to the runner in that circumstance? No, I think tie goes to the hitter.

Oh. And it ties. It ties me. Okay. And the electric one only rolls of 14. That's not good enough. That's not good enough, Griffin. You failed. The electricity bear comes down and swipes and you dodge out of the way. But while you're dodging, you are sort of oblivious to the bear meat bear who hits you for 21 damage. And I also need you to make a Constitution saving throw.

Cool. Cool. I'm not bad at that. Well, we'll see, won't we? That's a 17. Okay. As it swipes its claw into you, you feel like a charge of electricity kind of course through you, but you shake it off. So you said, sorry, just to confirm, 21 points of damage that's empirical, 21 empirical points of damage, not metric. What the fuck are you talking about?

21 is just a lot in one hit. That's one fifth of my life. Yeah. I mean, we're in the endgame. I don't know what to tell you. Okay. And with that, both bears sort of pull back and start flying back up a bit closer to the ceiling. So one bear, just so I'm picturing this correctly, is entirely like-made of electricity.

Like Superman in like the late 90s. How fucking rock and roll is that? And then the other bear, just... just has like a mild electrical charge, like someone rubbed a balloon on his head. Correct. Got it. The three slimes,

which are about knee high, before they do anything, they regenerate. And the three slimes, which were about knee level, boost themselves back up, and, boy, this is going to get complicated quick.

Now they're about all waist high. and two of them are going to go for Taco who disintegrated their bigger form and one of them is going to go for Murrow. Taco make two dexterity savings. Actually, no, I'm just going to roll attacks because they're small now. I came up with all these great mechanics for the slime,

like different attacks that it did when it was in its big form and different attacks for when it's in its small form, but you kind of... disintegrated. It's big for... I made it more annoying, apparently, only. Yeah. 15 versus AC? Yeah.

That's a hit? That's a hit. Yeah. And 19 versus AC. That one doesn't actually. Weirdly. That's crazy how that is. They hit you for...

Wait, I thought one was hitting me. Oh, no, I'm going to do you in a second. Those two hit you for 17 points of poison damage. Is that just like a melee attack, did it? Uh, yeah, I have the attack I have listed as pound. Okay. What? Yeah.

I am a protection fighter. Okay, yeah. What are you doing? Uh, disadvantage on the attack. Uh, you use your reaction for that, right? Yeah. So, because... So you can only do it once, because you only get one reaction per round.

Um... Yeah, I can't do it. I can't do it for both attacks, but... Okay, we'll do it for the second, the higher one, the 19. Oh, yeah, that's a, uh, 10. So, that, that gets blocked, right? Oh, yeah. 10, yeah.

Then you actually only get hit for 11 points of damage. Groovy. The other one's going to come for you now, Merle. Bring it, hoss. That is a 19 versus AC. Oh. It's been broughton. It's done got brought.

It's sour broading right there. And it's going to hit you, oh, just for nine points of damage, poison damage. Which you may be resistant to, actually. Yeah, I do have a resistance to poison So what does that mean? I don't know Yeah, you have resistance against poison damage So you only take five points of damage

Nice Okay All right Wow, this fight was supposed to be really hard I wish you hadn't disintegrated this big slime, Taco Well, if you'd let me fucking turn it into stone I wouldn't have Merle, you are up next

All right, where are the three slimes Two of them are kind of on taco and one of them's on you. Not on you. They're not like consuming you or anything like that, but they're... How far away from each other? I mean, the three of you didn't specify that you, like, moved around when you came into this room. So I'm assuming the three of you are within like five feet of each other.

So they are within five feet of each other. Okay. Then at a point, ten feet away from us... Sure. And yet Encompassing them I gotcha Encompassing them

I'm casting Flame Strike Holy shit It is a 10 foot radius 40 foot high cylinder Hey bud I got news for you

That's gonna hit those fucking bears too And each creature takes 4D6 fire damage And 4D6 Radiant damage

Okay They have to make a Dexterity saving throw Who boy You guys are really playing To these slime's weaknesses, huh? Hey, this ain't our first day on the beach

Um Sline 1 fails Sline 2 passes What was it? What was the dexterity saving throw? It's uh your It's eight plus your spell casting modifier Uh

Eight Why do I never remember my spell casting modifier? I don't know dude write it in a get a, buy a red marker. I'm going to write it down around. I've got it on the screen you gave me. This magic screen. Plus eight.

Okay. So 16. So then plus, okay. So the first one failed. The second one passed. Third slime failed. Jesus. The meat bear

crits. The electricity bear. Does not crit. Okay. So you're going to hit two of, of the slimes and the electricity bear with this. Right. So I'm rolling four fire damage.

46, yeah. Oh, I thought you said 46. Are you counting for me? Yeah. Four. Four, five, three. That's four, four, five, three. 16.

16. Fire damage. And here's the radiant damage. Two, four. dropped it on the four Six. It's a six. Well, swear to God.

He's swears to God. He's not Travis. We can probably believe it. Fair, fair. Cut deep, but it's fair. And one. And one. That's how you know it's legit.

13. Okay. Okay. So 16 fired, 13 radiant, right? You disintegrate the two other slimes. Woo! Also, this does half damage

to everything that passes the Exactly. So what was the total damage? 29. The electric bear is gone. That projection disappeared basically as soon as it was hit. So it's just gone. And 29, so 16 damage for the dire bear and the other slime.

Okay, this other slime is now like... Wait, wait, wait. Half of 29 would not be 16. You're right. It would be 15, rounding up, right? Yes, round up, 15. Then, okay, then, yeah, you just save. this slime a little bit of trouble. This slime, the remaining slime that passed the save

is now like, it's like a, it's like somebody opened a canister of GAC and just upended it on the ground and is like ankle high. The dire bear is still looking pretty fucking good, though. Okay. Did I just kill three creatures? That's great, dad. Congratulations. Yay! Christmas came early this year. 2016, not all bad. Please, Taco and Merle, keep track of the spells that you have used. Oh, yeah. I got it. Because I mean, you're burning, you're burning the big guns and that's cool and you're trivializing this fight and that's great and all, but you got to, you got to mark it down. I've had a long time to think about what Magnus is going to do. Good, because it is your turn.

And it's all going to hinge on one question, Griffin. Okay. We're in a room with a bunch of machinery, right? Uh-huh. Are there any, like, pipes or gears or anything near me? Um, there are, I mean, There is some, like, there's no loose metal. I attached to the ground. I get that. I mean, yeah, I mean, you could probably, there's some machinery lining this circular room and then hanging from the ceiling is a bunch of, like, big ass industrial machinery. So if you wanted to, like, you could probably find yourself a pipe or something.

I have a convocated plan that I'm going to do. Oh, Jesus. It's been a while since I did a ridiculous maneuver. All right. So here's what I'm going to do. First, step one. Use water skin on rope. Soak robe.

Step two. What are you, what is this quest for glory fucking puzzle? What is this King's Quest? This is going to be. This is, put the rubber chicken on the pulley. Uh-huh. Step two. Tie rope to chance lance and grappling hook.

Okay. I, I, oh man, this is, you got to, you got to, you got to, I need you to sympathize with me, Trave. Uh-huh. so much stuff to take place in six seconds of combat. No, I've just been doing this while Merle and Taco and the Dyer Bear and everybody have been doing everything. I've just been like slowly like wetting the rope and tying the rope to these are all I would

say simple actions, Griffin. And plus at this point, I get like four attacks. So like you can take three of my attacks away to make this happen. I'll make you a deal. If you burn your one daily bonus action, actually I think you have two and you used one in the woods. If you use your other one for this, I'll say then it's, then you can do all this. All right, I'll do that because Taco used the level

six spell and I want to do something cool too. All right. So I'm going to hook my grappling hook, since I've already used it in the woods I can't fire it again. I'm just going to hook it on a piece of metal and I'm going to throw the chance lance at the electrified dire bear. But first, but first I'm going to say

you've been a bad boy and you're grounded. Oh, I see. Okay, make an attack roll. That is 18 plus 9. So you basically attach this thing to some machinery while it was wet. And, okay. And then, right? Yep.

You are tethering this thing with a wet rope to some machinery on the ground. Correct. Okay. You are Matt, sorry. Yeah, no, it's wet and wild. Sorry. Do you imagine wet ropes are conductive? More so than dry ropes.

Well, I'll grant you that. Thank you. Um, roll, uh, roll damage. Oh, yeah. Um, I hope he just kills it. Nothing would make me happy. Let's see. This one D8.

Three plus five. So that's eight damage. Okay. Yeah. I like that. It's actually not very much. Um, because what this does is you see like straight up Benjamin Franklin flying a fucking kite.

You see that this bear's charge of electricity, uh, uh, uh, shoot down the rope. And you actually narrowly, like, avoid it as it travels down the rope. And it hits this ring of machinery on the ground of this circular room. And simultaneously, these interconnected machines just shoot a shower of sparks up into the sky. And it looks fucking badass. And this bear, its wings, they kind of burn off. and there's a plurable smell in the air

and it comes crashing down to the ground but it lands on all fours and roars at you menacingly but you have grounded the electrified multiplying multiplying dire bear okay now I'm going to use my second attack okay to attack it you know with with the rail splitter

okay oh nope nope nope that's a crit one yeah no that does not yet this D20. That's two crit ones with you. You do some badass shit and send this dire bear crashing to the ground. And as you approach it to attack with your axe, it looks at you with a sense of respect. But then you like whiff so bad. So hard.

And the bear's like, hmm? Okay. So back to the top of the order, we still have a very small slime. And we have the grounded dire bear. Taco, before you do anything, you, I want you to make a dexterity saving throw and you're going to have some disadvantage on it.

So you're going to roll twice and take the lower of two results. Okay. What was that first one? Four. Second one's a ten. Okay. I wasn't sure if you should have disadvantage on that, but regardless, both of those fail.

something something unlucky happens Hachima oh no oh no oh beans oh dang you feel something

tap your shoulder and you hear clink click click click and you look down and there is a bolt like a nuts and bolt bolt laying on the ground and not a second

after you see that bolt on the ground. One of these giant pieces of, like a washing machine size piece of industrial machinery, falls from the ring on the ceiling and lands on you. You're going to kill America's favorite wizard. As played by Adam Sandler. Oh, my God. Use your butt power. Hey, how much, how much, uh, health to stock have? I'm not going to tell you. Oh, tell me. No, I'm not going to tell you. How's, uh, what's, what's, what's, 39 points of damage to for you.

Nah, I'm good. Okay. You are also pinned under this heavy piece of machinery. I'm not good. Hold on. He's not happy. I don't want to give you the wrong impression. Shit is whack. You're pinned.

You're prone and you are pinned under this huge heavy piece of machinery. Let's say it's like, it like, uh, I hit you at the waist. And so you are pinned under this thing. And you're like, you're fucking, like, we don't really get into this. Like we always talk about sort of in the abstract. damage, but you're like hurt. A fucking washing machine just like fell 10 feet and landed on you. So that's where you're at and it is now your turn.

It was pretty unlucky. It's my turn to do something, huh? Mm-hmm. Hmm. What does prone mean exactly? You can't move. And if you make like a melee attack on something that isn't prone, you have disadvantage. There's a few sort of effects.

Okay. Um Usually getting up from prone Takes your entire move action But you have a washing machine on you So Um You would need to deal with that

Before you can stand up, obviously Uh, okay So is it an actual washing machine? I mean, are we in the awes? No, that's just what it looks like. It's a piece of like assembly line

machinery that you can't really identify. It's just that's the size of it. I'm going to cast blink. Okay. It's verbal. Ooh. All right. And I vanish into the ethereal plane.

Okay. Oh, man. Okay, so you vanish into the ethereal plane. Other boys, you hear kchunk as the machinery falls the rest of the way now that it's not being held up by Taco's legs. What do you see? Fuck. I want you to see something cool in the ethereal plane. He sees Rogue One two days before it.

comes out. Yeah, it's great. You see it. And it's surprisingly if it's pretty good. Loving it. Losing it. Lived about a side story, but really well-made. In the ethereal plane. Oh, okay, I think I know what you see. It's, hey, it's been a while since you blinked, hadn't it? Yeah. It's been a few story arcs. The last time you blinked was, I believe, in the lobby of the Goldcliff Trust, the bank, and you saw some creatures, small creatures with these bright white eyes that were kind of looking at you, kind of watching you.

And there were like a few in that ethereal version of the lobby. You see them again in the ethereal version of this room. But Taco, they are lining the walls. There are hundreds of them all looking at you.

And as soon as you appear, soon as you see them, they just sort of scurry back through the walls and blink out of existence. But for a second... What do they look like? They look like... Compare them to a Muppet. Hmm.

That's a tough one. They look vaguely humanoid. They have sort of long, featureless arms and legs. And then sort of almost... kind of cute, I guess. Like delicious crumb? I don't know. Yes, sure.

But their defining feature are their like big old white eyes. And their bodies are white too and made of sort of an ethereal. I mean, everything in the ethereal plane is made of this kind of like wispy white material.

And so yeah, these little like one foot tall humanoid, vaguely humanoid beings were kind of spying on you. And they disappeared. as you blink. Great.

But you are freed from the, from the machinery, and you can stand up. But I believe that's your move and your action. So I think you're done. Sounds good. Okay.

Next in the order is the dire bear. Who's, I mean, the first thing that the dire bear does is roar and another wave of electricity comes off of him. And now there is another electrified dire bear. well, just one because Merle destroyed the other one.

And the two dire bears are both going to come at Magnus again because he keeps stepping. I keep poking the bear. You keep poking the bear. Actually, only the electric bear is going to come in for that swipe attack. The electric bear rolls in 18. That is a miss. That's a miss.

Okay. You nimbly dodge out of the way of the electric bear's swipe. The bear bear is going to charge up a beam of electricity that he shoots at the ground in your direction, and it kind of makes a small explosion. And actually, I'm going to need, oh, Taco, you're in a different plane, but Merle and Magnus make a dexterity saving throw to get out of the way of this explosion. Okay. I'm laughing my ass off. 18 plus 2. That's a 20.

17 plus 1. Fuck me. Danger squad. Well, I switched to my good D8. Yeah, I guess. Well, I, like, don't go crazy. I got... Somebody dropped a washing machine on me, and I got squished into a ghost.

It's like not. It's not foolproof. We're not firing on all cylinders. Everybody dodges out of the way of the both bears electric attacks. Next in the order is the little slime. that regenerates, it regenerates and now it's not so little anymore. In fact, it's about back up to knee height, and it is going to take a swing at, I think it saw that its brethren didn't really make much of, make much headway,

hitting Merle, so it's going to hit Magnus. 22 versus 60s. And you definitely don't get your ring. This thing is adorable. No, yeah, no, I get it. I just got bit by ditto. I know what's up. Uh, that is 15 points of poison damage.

Yep. Okay. Mm-hmm. Yep, that sounds, sounds a boot right. Merle, you're up next? Update me, Magnus. Oh, I'm fine. That takes me... You said 15, deado? Yeah, yeah.

I'm at 75. I'm fine. You got this slime. You have a slime that keeps regenerating. You have a bear that is still looking pretty healthy and an electric clone of that bear. If, if, uh, if I cast healing, I can't healing. heel taco, correct? No, he is not in the same plane as you. I cast Wind wall. Okay.

Wind wall, a wall of strong wind rises from the ground at a point you choose within range. You can make the wall up to 50 feet long, 15 feet high, and one foot thick. You shape the wall in any way you choose, as long as it makes one continuous path across the ground. When the wall appears, each creature within its area must make a strength saving throw.

A creature takes three D8 bludgeoning damage on a failed save. Or half as much on a successful save. Or half as much on a successful one. Interesting. Also, it keeps fog, smoke and other gases at bay. Smaller, smaller, flying creatures or objects can't pass through the wall. Wow, this is a cool little spell. Okay.

Thank you, Jeremy. Thanks, Jeremy. So I'm going to say that you could probably get these three. remaining enemies in a line and get the wall under them, which I'm assuming you're doing. Yes. That's exactly what I do. Okay. The Dyer Bear, meat bear is going to go first, strength saving throw, which this thing's

actually pretty good at. Yeah, that's a 21. The electric bear did not save. And the slime also did not save. Okay. So the small slime and the electric bear didn't save the meat bear did. All right, so 3D8. Eight.

Nice. Two. Ten. Six? Sixteen. Okay. The wind wall, as soon as it, like, touches the electric bear, it just disappears. The slime gets blown upward into one of those pieces of machinery in the ceiling, and it just splats and is gone.

The slime has been vanquished. The dire bear gets blown backwards a little bit and takes eight damage and is only just now starting to show some signs of wear and tear. Oh, crap. Yep. Next in the order is... I never thought I would say this out loud, but thank God for Merle. Yes! Yeah, God for Merle! Only one person's doing any...

Well, aside from Taco disintegrating the slime, which... Still, that helped me. That helped me in my campaign. Magnus? Thank Pan. I'm sorry, thank Pan. Okay. Magnus, you are up?

I'm going to reach it in my pocket and pull out a handful of jerky. And I'm going to kind of wave it in front of the barrel. Oh, my sweet boy. My sweet boy. Trying to mesmerize him with jerky. He's like having any effect. No. Okay.

This thing only eats one thing and it's batteries. Then I'm going to take a bite of the jerky and flip them all. real hard. And that's your turn? No, no, no. Those are all free action. That's flavor. Flipping off is free action.

Oh, okay. That's how D&D works. Wait, let me check my guide. You just tell me what free actions are. It is. It is. I'm going to switch to put my shield away. Okay.

Switch to two-handed rail splitter and attack. Okay. This old chestnut. Mm-hmm. That's 17 plus 926. Yeah, that's a hit. And it's a D10

Can I Oh yeah So then eight Eight points of damage again Okay And I'm also going to You know what I'm also going to go ahead and use

Goading attack Okay When attack lands Yeah it has to attack you or else Well it has to roll a save, right? Yeah Yeah So you got to beat

16 I did not I rolled in 11 Yeah okay So it either needs to attack me or have dissimating. Is that the sound of it? Is that the dire bear getting so pissed? Yeah.

So the dire bear either needs to attack me or have disadvantage. Okay. And then I'm going to attack again with the two-handed X for my second attack. Well, that's probably not going to hit. 7 plus 9, 16 versus AC. Yeah, that's a hit. Oh, really? Yeah.

Do you want to help your dog? Teresa's got her. Sounds like she's doing pretty good. Yeah. It's a healthy sounding pup. We've had a lot of packages delivered to the house because it's the holiday season. And Buttercup fucking hates it. Yeah, sure.

Okay, roll damage. That's D10. 6 plus 9.15. Okay. Oh, no, sorry, plus 5. 11. So 19 points of damage total. Cool.

All right, this thing's starting to look pretty bad. And then I'm going to use cunning action. to get away? Yeah. Okay. To disengage just like back 10 feet. Sure. Okay.

Next in the order is Taco. Taco, you are in the ethereal plane. You can move around and pop out and take an action at well. Yeah, I actually automatically pop out at the beginning of my turn. Oh, okay. I realize. Where did you move to while you were in the... Well, you just stood up.

That's right. Okay. Yeah, I basically just stood up. So you're basically back in the real, the material plane and you're standing in front of that piece of machine. I'm near my body, but I'm near where the thing fell. Yeah, I'm farther, far as I could get away from the bear. How's the bear looking? It's bloodied.

It's, uh, yeah. Actually, while you don't see blood coming out of it, you see sparks. Oh. Cool. Oh, wait. That big ass bear from the Dark Tower series. Mm-hmm. Oh, shit.

Also, more due from Brave. There's a lot of big bears than in pop culture. Yeah. The big polar bear from Golden Compass? The dad from Berenstain Bears. How do you remember anything? Yeah, the dad from Bernstein Bears, famous mechanical bear. I don't even know how I had you, kids.

I'm all cyber parts. Paddington at the very end, when the magic spell hits him and he turns into a 50-foot-high bear. That's crazy. Quarroy. What's the magical plant? We talk about cinematic bears? We can talk about bears tomorrow. Do you guys remember Corderoi?

Oh, I just really don't want this episode to be this whole fight. I would like to do other stuff as well. So is he still tethered? Yeah, you know what? He is, but the machinery is kind of, it's deactivated. But he is still, yeah, you still, I mean, Magnus, you didn't retrieve the chance lance, right? Correct. Which you can do magically and at will.

So, yeah, it's still in him and the rope is still got him. It's like through one of his legs. and there's a lot of sparks coming out of that leg. Oh. Yeah, no pity for the bear. Sorry. Yeah, I don't feel bad for the bear. I just don't, I was trying to think of something fun to do,

but I feel like maybe I should just attack it. Well, that could be fun. That could be fun. It's fun in its own way. Yeah. Okay, I, you know what? I'm just going to cast Ice Storm. Oh, fuck.

Been using a lot of elements. Fuck this guy. Done. He has got to make a dexterity saving throw. Okay. Seven. So not great. Just a 40-foot-high cylinder of rock-hard ice is just pounding into the ground.

Okay. Just super aroused ice. Yeah. He's near the edge of the cylinder, so we're not taking. any damage. I know I'm doing there. Yeah, the room's bigger than 20 foot radius so you could position this further away. Yeah. So we're going to get

2D8 bludgeoning damage. Does this include the slimes? Are there still slimes? No, slimes are dead. Okay. Eleven bludgeoning damage and four, seven, eight, eight cold damage.

So how much total? 19. 19. Okay. You create this column of frost that is so thick that you kind of can't see through it. And the bear starts to charge you to try to escape from this column of frost. But he doesn't clear the frost. And as the column dissipates, you see this bear is frozen solid and defeated.

Are we out of combat? Yeah. I whack him with my ice. Or with my axe. Hey, my axe. I want to shatter it. It's not like Merle also wanted to do that. I think it's a race to the finish.

I kick it over. I know. I was going to use my spell speak with animals to say, Screw you, bear! Then I hit him. Then I hit him with the axe. Good spell slot usage. So everybody just kind of teabags this bear.

Oh, and then Taco falls over and starts vomiting blood. Who? Yeah. It's really bad. He's hurt very badly. He's injured very bad. Meanwhile, Marl's just screaming out of bear while Magnus kicks it on the ground. Can I cast mass cure wounds?

Sure. Yes. I cast mass cure wounds. Okay. 3D8 plus my spell modifier. So it's great. One, eight, two, Jesus.

You basically just went and got me a Coca-Cola. Plus eight, so 19. who marlishly hands me in three ibuprofen and takes one back to save for later. Actually, um, you cast that spell, the masculine wounds and, uh,

the three of you feel like, you feel some of your wounds closing up. Um, but Merle, something like feels off while you're casting this spell. Like you, you are channeling Pan's divinity every time you sort of cast one of these divine spells.

Um, And it's not as strong as it usually was. And so you actually only heal everybody for 11 points of damage. And then as soon as your wounds kind of get stitched up a little bit and healed, you hear those two voices again. And you see the two people that you saw, the two elves that you saw when you first came into Wonderland. and the male elf says, no, God, I got to remember Jesse James, right, Jesse and James from Pokemon. Now, hold on just a second, what do you think you're doing?

And the female elf says, that's cheating. You know the rules. Once you sacrifice something here, you don't get it back. And the three of you are each hit for 11 points of necrotic damage and the wounds that you just had stitched up. they open back up, and you are just as bad off as you were before the heel. Wait, hold on. Wait. Because in Wonderland, there is no healing.

Well, snap old. Hey, everybody, it's Griffin Macroy, your dungeon master, your best friend, and your sommelier. Try this wine. It's red. Thanks for listening to episode 53 of the Adventure Zone. It's the third episode in our Suffering Game arc, which I'm hoping to keep pretty short, because we're kind of getting down to it now. Thank you all for bearing with us over the past, I don't know,

two months or so, as Travis and I both have had babies at this point. Last time I spoke to you, wasn't a dad, now I am. That's pretty fucked up if you think about it. So, yeah, things have been a bit bumpy. We appreciate you sticking with us. I hope you enjoyed both of the live episodes. They were a ton of fun to put on,

and I think they turned out really well, and the response has been super, super great. and we appreciate it. Speaking of non-standard episodes, because the holidays are coming up, and most of us, not me, I have like 18-day-old baby, most of us are going to be traveling, though,

for the holidays, and we have these newborns, and so we're going to put up one more episode that will be a special episode. This one will actually be another episode from the Flop House Gang. It'll be another switcheroo episode. I think they did a great job with the first one,

and Stuart Wellington from the flop house who DMs the game. We had a chance to talk about what he was going to do. We hung out a bunch of Max FunkCon East with this new episode. I'm super excited for you to hear it. That one's going to be up on December 29th. But before we get to that, we're going to do the rest of this episode, obviously, and before we get to the rest of this episode, I'm going to sell you some stuff. I have a few JumboTrom messages for this episode.

I have some, I guess, kind of bad news. Like I announced in the last couple episodes, we put up all of the spots for 2017 on sale, and they are all gone. We have no more Jumbotron spots for 2017, which I know is kind of a bummer if you wanted to get a message on the show and didn't get a chance to. Sorry, but thank you all very, very much for your support of the Jumbotron. This first Jumbotron is about Empire of Imagination, Gary Gygax and the Birth of Dungeons and Dragons. It's a new book from Michael Whitwer that is now available in paperback. You can find it in all major bookstores and online. It's got a new forward from Doom Creator John Romero.

And it's also available in audiobook by Audible, narrated by Being Human star Sam Whitwer. It's an Amazon Best Book of the Month winner for October 2015, a geekdad.com best book of 2015 winner. And here's a review from Booklist, which says, for fans of role-playing games and D&D specifically, this book is required reading. So it seems like this kind of splits the uprights of our audience.

So if you want to know more about how D&D got created, check out Michael Whitwer's new book, Empire of Imagination, Gary Gygax, and the Birth of Dungeons and Dragons. Got another Jumbotron message here. This one is for Lara, and it's from Jesus and Fam, who says, hi, Laura, we are so proud of you. You just finished a wonderful thesis film and graduated. We are about to celebrate our fifth anniversary.

And, oh, yeah, happy birthday. With all these events over these three months, hopefully we'll hit one of them. We love you and wish you the best of luck with your internship, and we know you will have a bright future. Now, I appreciate sort of the scattershot, sort of spread fire approach, hoping to get one of these dates in the three-month window. Now, this message was supposed to go up on June 2nd, so we whiffed it by a bit. We whiffed it by a bit. But, Laura, it sounds like you're having a banner year. Congratulations on all of your accomplishments.

and happy birthday and anniversary my god one last message here this one's for rebecca and Wayne and it's from kenny and Liz who says bix and olive congratulations on your engagement from simpleton half-org dennis and your fumbling DM who'd have thought a bookish possibly gay elf lady and a bumbling sunburnt dwarf could make such a great pair may your lives together be filled with 20s and may you be strong enough to deal with the ones when they come also my hands are rats Congrats. That's either a fun in-joke between two players in the same D&D group, which we get a lot of in the Jumbotron, or this is some horrible affliction. And if that's the case, please donate to Rat Hands today.

I want to thank everybody who's been tweeting about the show using the Zonecast hashtag. If you use that, you might end up as a character on the show, because that is basically exactly what happened to Cam, Cam Marshall, Sparf. Sparfloored on Twitter, a character that you're about to meet here in a bit. It's also what happened to Rowan, polite botanist named for Rowan. Antonia, Antonia DePierry, Tonya Rina.

I should really practice these names before I just run out of them. We appreciate everybody tweeting about the show. We don't pay to advertise the show at all. And literally the only way that this community has become as big and as fucking cool as it is is, is because of you all. It's because of word of mouth.

So anything you can do to keep that going, iTunes reviews, ratings, just sharing it with a friend. We appreciate that so, so, so much. That's it for this ad break. Thank you all very much for sticking with us. Again, the next episode is going to be a flop house switcheroo app featuring the same characters from the first flop house switcheroo app. And that's going to go up on Thursday, December 29th. And then starting in the new year, gang, we are going to get down to it. I've got the end sort of in sight.

It's still going to be a while, but basically it's just going to be full steam ahead into the conclusion. And then I feel like I should say this every time I talk about the end of this campaign. Of course, the podcast is going to keep going. We are talking about what is going to happen next. But the Adventure Zone will continue no matter what. We promise this show is too much fun and it's too creatively satisfying for us to stop doing it. So the show will continue even after this campaign ends. So yeah, we're excited to get to it.

Next episode, Flop House Witcheroo, Thursday, December 29th. We'll see you then. Bye. If I die, I don't have to still be on the podcast, right? Like, I can go play Final Fantasy or something and just get a chill going. Like, dad can be in here. But you have to keep listening.

You have to keep listening. I don't feel like I do. I'll do the download. I think if you die, you have to move over to the loser's couch to be interviewed by Pinn Gillette. So you were kidding. You were kidding about the not healing. No. So after...

What's Merle going to do if he's not able to heal everyone all the time? It's all character. After these two sort of fantastic looking, sort of pseudo-spectral elves reveal to you one of the core rules

of Wonderland, they kind of grin and the male elf says, great job. Now, smile and show your opponents how well you did. And then the two of them disappear and one of the

segments of the exterior circular wall of this room turns into like almost like a huge LCD screen. And on that screen standing in a room that kind of looks like your own, except it's basically empty and kind of all lit up, you see two just nasty looking halflings. And they're dressed up in adventuring gear. And they look up at your screen almost like they can see you just. as well as you can see them. And the two voices say, these two travelers are making

great progress through Wonderland. They chose forsake when you chose trust, so you have them to think for that extra difficult challenge you just faced. I take an action search to flip them off real hard. Is that what you want, Griffin? As you do, you realize both of them are flipping you

four birds combined. I like look at Taco and Monroe while I'm still holding up both middle fingers. Like, come on, go. Come on. Come on. Guys. Go on. Help me out. You're going to make that mist

come out of your mouth. Oh. Yeah, actually, as you flink you, thank you, Merle, as you flip them the bird a little bit, that black mist comes out of your mouth. Sorry. Magnus.

Sorry. Instead, okay, I remember very, as soon as the, and I turn it into like a wave and a thumbs up. They just flip you even harder. They like, they like flex.

They like flex to get those fingers going. I give them like a, you know, I point to my eye. I make a heart over my heart. And I, and I point at them. This is like Johnny Cash on stage double flip. Yeah.

Wow. I puke some blood. These two are just, you see these just two nasty looking shitheads, and the screen flips off. Well, after, as they're flipping, as everybody's flipping. After they flip off.

This screen flips off. And from somewhere in the room, you hear another voice, and it's not the voice of these two elves. It is another voice, and I'm going to come up with it right now, just sort of using my patented technique. by which I may I want to take a drink of water

You hear this voice from somewhere in the room Say Guys who should I do Give me an idea for a voice please It can be anything Do something husky You haven't done husky Andy Rooney

Andy Rooney Do you ever wonder why you roll dice Okay that can be good Wow you guys got boned that round huh Why didn't you pick for sake Y'all need to study some game theory And so it's got theory Is it Twitter?

You hear this voice coming from the room And it's not like the elves voice Which is just coming from like an omnipresent everywhere Like it is coming from It sounds like to your right and below you And it almost actually sounds like it's coming from one of the pieces Of machinery on the exterior wall So is it coming from one of the pieces of machinery

On the exterior wall? I mean it's coming from that. direction. Who goes there? Hello. Hey, and well met. Come hither. And I will reveal to you my dark secret.

I don't know. Oh, okay. I move over to see his dark secret. A little hotter, getting hotter. He says as you approach the machine. You realize the voice is coming from below this machine. Okay. I look under the machine.

You see a severed, human head. Yeah. And the head, like, is just laying there because it's a head. And then it's eyes open, and it goes, blah! Magnus does not react. He says, I'm just kidding. No, that's fine.

I've seen worse. I just fought a flying bear. Why would someone's head bother me? Would you actually mind fishing me out of here for a bit? I've been... Oh, yeah, of course. I've been chilling under here for a while, but I think we're good for now. Okay, cool.

Yeah, I grabbed the head in the most... comfortable way pot I figured grabbing it by the hair is probably gonna hurt yeah okay well and this is so consistent because once again Magnus moves ahead

that's kind of how the saying goes I guess that's the catchphrase I've been using for two years okay so Magnus is now holding this head and a severed head makes it sound like it's this grisly bloody thing it's just sort of like a human

dude's head and it's not leaking and he seems surprisingly vital for just ahead. How much neck we're talking, Griffin? Very little neck. But he's wearing a little red skull cap. And he introduces himself as you're holding him. He says, hey guys, my name's Cam. Sorry I can't greet you with a formal handshake, but I seem to have misplaced my

everything. I love it. What are you guys doing here? Oh, fighting bears. Oh, by the way, I recall my chance lands. Okay. I'm not going to get out of that shit. He says, that's kind of rude to do that in the middle of a conversation, don't you think?

Maybe, but would you rather I forget it? Do you seem like a stickler for rules, Cam? How's your trip through Wonderland going? Oh, you know. It's fine. I lost a pinky. Oh, that's it? I can't.

Comparatively, like, I realize. You lost a pinky? Listen, I get it. Like, I'm not going to sit here and say it's the worst. I'm talking to a head. Like, I get that there's worse, that there's worse. And you're staying the next door guy who got his arm chopped off. He's able to check his privilege.

Yeah, I know what's up. This sucks, but like all things considered, you know, I get it. I know where I'm at. Cam, the disembodied head, starts sniffing, like a lot, like a bloodhound. And he says, um, I'd, uh, I'd love to tell you guys a little bit about me and sort of what I'm bringing to the table. But first, you wouldn't happen to have a certain tasty, spicy treat with you, would you? I, well, I felt like maybe that was a setup for taco that I was missing.

Or jerky? I know it's jerky. It smells like, it smells preserved and delicious. What is that? Yeah, tacos stands on it because honestly fucked his head. He has zero patience for it. I've got some jerky here, my friend. Jerky is perfect.

I can't swallow, but I can just chew on it for a long time and get that spicy taste. Seizing oasis. Let's not be so brazen. Hey, hey, let me flash forward to 30 seconds for now when we see chewed up jerky glops, just sloughing off of this dude's throat. No, thank you, sigh. No. Let me just get a little bit of that tasty, spicy meat.

I give him a little jerky. That is good stuff. He actually just spits it out. That's good. Oh, that's way better. Like a fucking cookie monster, eat cookies. He says, I like you guys. You guys seem like nice guys.

What brought you to Wonderland? Looking for a bell. A bell, that's right, yeah. Must be a pretty fucking good bell. Oh, yeah. I mean, honestly, we know. very little about the bell. It's called the enema bell, so

we're not really sure what it does. That's not what you sound like, old man. That was a good joke, though. It was good. It was solid. I've been here in Wonderland for... I have to move dad's Christopher Lloyd action figure that he keeps the... To remind me! Back over. Okay, there we go.

I assume things aren't going so great. I was watching you fight, and it seems like... I mean, you seem like you're still pretty vital, but... Yeah, I mean, I mean, Hold on. You're in the same room we are. I would say we are collectively doing a little bit better than you, Cam. Oh, I mean, I've been here for a long time, but I got screwed over. But that's not important. Is this just your first room then after the, you did the wheel once and then you're here? So there's still. We did the wheel. We did forsake. Yeah. Oh, see, that was a, that was such a. No, yeah, we did trust. Yeah, we did trust. Yeah, I know what's up. Yeah, that was a bad move. You, you guys know you got to pick for sake every time no matter. what, right? Like, that's, that's 101. Anyway, it's not important. You guys seem like nice dudes,

and I think I could, I think I could help you out, uh, getting, getting, uh, making, making progress through Wonderland and facing less gnarly fights like the one you guys just had to get through. Um, how do, how, would, does that sound good? Maybe you could scratch my back and I'll scratch my hair and I'll scratch your whatever with my teeth. Anyway, this is not. Uh, yeah, I'd rather not. Okay, listen, I'm of the mind of you take help where you can get at, rustic hospitality and all that. Okay. So, yeah, help us get ahead.

Okay, that's, if we're going to do this, then we can't do that. You got just no more of them. Yeah. Okay, well, can I do, can I do one more? Can I do one more? You can do exactly one more, and then, but I'll give me some jerky for my, for my discount. Okay, I give him a piece of jerky. I think, I think you're going to.

to be an excellent teacher, and I can't wait to get to the head of the class. I think maybe you ought to let me carry him. Nope. That would actually be good. I tuck him on my bag. Oh, you have a new companion with you named Cam, and you spend a little bit of time getting to know Cam. And Cam has explains that he's been in Wonderland for a while now, and a little bit of to the fact that he got screwed over by somebody that he brought that that he

traveled into Wonderland with but he seems like a pretty knowledgeable source of information about this place um so do you have any questions for Cam to sort of aid in your your journey this hazardous place is it going to be a joke about his head no okay damn it now you got to think of a real question cam how come we can't heal oh well that would defeat the point of this place, right? Like, you guys understand that this point place is just here to make you suffer, right? Yeah. We really didn't do our prep on this one. We just kind of got thrown in. I have, I have two questions for you, Cam. Shoot. One, you mentioned the first room. Is this just like a cycle, or is this one room and then we do

something different in the next room and then something different? It's kind of like a cycle. It's one of those, what are they called? Endless. cycles. Well, that sucks. Yeah, guys, like, I, I, there's no getting out of Wonderland. You're gonna, I don't know, you, you, you came here for a bell and that's great and all, but you're, you're gonna die here and they're gonna make you suffer just as much as possible before you do. It's the only reason why this place exists. Uh-huh. Okay. All right, all right. Listen, why do people come here if that's the truth? Good question. They come here because whatever treasure their heart desires is supposedly waiting for them here. But that hasn't been my experience.

Okay. So I have my second question. When we suffer or get angry, this black fog comes out our mouths. Yeah. What is that? That's suffering, boss. Got it. How much do you guys know?

about liches? They get stitches, I think. Let me roll real quick and I'll tell you how much I know. Yeah, roll an arcane attack. I know 15 out of 20. What'd you get? Well, actually, with my modifier, it would be a 21. I got 16.

Litches are like a pretty like deep magic, like knowledge thing. sort of a forbidden thing. Think like Hor Crux is in the Harry Potter verse, but Taco with that role, you definitely, definitely know about liches. A lich is basically when a magic user,

like a wizard or a sorcerer or a warlock, merges their soul, like their life essence with their magical power, then at the moment of their death, they sort of get a second life in a,

spectral form composed of just raw arcane energies. And because of that, because it's sort of like real dark necromancy stuff, it is super, super taboo. And not only that, most wizards who sort of go for this procedure and turn themselves into liches when they die, most of those procedures end in catastrophic failure because when they sort of combine themselves with just raw magic power, they sort of lose their minds. And they lose their living identity completely

and just sort of turn into this mindless being of wanton magical destruction. So that, that, you know, is what a litch is. And so you relay all that. I know all this stuff, I guess you say, to the severed head. Here's some things I know. He says, he says, He says, I don't know if you guys have figured this out, but this place is run by two pretty powerful

liches that aren't just sort of mindless beings. See, if a lich can anchor themselves with a powerful enough sort of emotional attachment, then they can sort of maintain their identity and they can maintain their sanity. And I wonder, have you guys ever? Have you guys ever? witnessed like a magic that's kind of more powerful than you could explain that was sort of born out of a moment of like intense passion or or emotion yeah yeah for sure we have oh yeah when i proposed to my wife that's exactly what happened you may not be wrong there's some shit like that in what was it rapture what was the town we were in rapture yeah so in in rapture you remember that roswell was this like was that the name of it

No, shit. It wasn't. Fuck. It was refuge. It was rupture. It was rupture. It was called refuge. Reefuge. Roswell was like an elemental that lived way beyond the person who made it and like had sentience and identity and was created by a, like, Jack, the, the former mayor of the town as he was falling to his death. He created this thing. You also remember like, if you remember back in pedals to the metal, you remember that when Hurley jumped in and sort of. reversed Sloan's transformation, you never really could explain how that happened. So Cam explains, he says, this is going to sound pretty cornball, but bear with me, there's a school of thought that powerful emotions are a form of energy, just as real as heat or light or magic. So a particularly strong fear or joy or fury or love, they're not just these kinds of cognitive effects. They have real actual power in the world around you. So using one of those

emotional attachments, a litch can anchor themselves to their former identity, something like a powerful love or determination or pure joy. They can maintain their reason without losing themselves to the magical power that they've bonded themselves to. But somehow the two liches that run this place are empowering themselves not with their own emotion, but with the emotions of people who came into Wonderland, specifically suffering. So that's why you're here and that's what they're going to get out of you

whether you like it or not. Got it. Okay. Everybody step in the pocket workshop real quick. What are you talking about? I have a thing. So here's what I'm thinking, fellows.

If Cam's right and I have no reason to doubt him. I'm right. He's in your back. I know. I'm including you in this, Cam. I know you're there. Then this is a rigged game, right? Yeah. So the only way to win a rigged game is to change the game, right? Right. That's the Captain Kirk philosophy. Right. So I think I don't have anything specifically in mind right this second, but we need to keep our eyes open for an opportunity to change this shit around. Because I ain't getting trapped in another endless cycle. We did that in the last. one. I'm not doing that again. Yeah, I'm with you on that.

I have a question. Is that a new band? Is that a new bandsaw? Did you get a new band saw? I did. Thank you. That is not. Black and Decker? Well, the other one just kept throwing the blade and I just got sick of it. There was something, it was a balance issue or something. That's nice.

So here's the thing. Be careful so you don't lose another finger. Yeah, agreed. Taco. I would like you to pick the word. That's going to be the word. to let us all, like, let the four of us know that it's about to happen, that it's time to make our move. I'll come, yeah, for sure.

Okay. You don't have to tell us now. You can keep it and we'll say a weird word and we'll know. Okay. That's not a good word. Is that not how that works? No, he'll come up with all kinds of weird words. How about sway them?

Well, that's only going to be good if you listen to the last move in, bam. That's called a tie-in, Griffin. How about banana stand Afghanistan? I didn't ask you, Merle. Right, you didn't. Why? Okay, I talk kind of for a living, and I'm being tasked now with coming up with like a single word. Okay, I got it.

The. Well, hold on. Okay, that's not great either. How about saute? Perfect. That's good. Perfect. And if it fits a character.

So okay, yeah. Perfect. All right. Let's get back out there and let's fuck some shit up. Do you think I could come with you guys? Fine. Yeah. If I join your group, everything's going to get just a little bit harder for you guys.

You're going to have to sacrifice a bit more if I go with you. You're going to have to take on my sacrifices because, well, look at me. I don't really have anything else to give. So if I come with you, it will be a bit. harder, but I promise, I can carry my weight. I can help you out with information and tips and tricks. I have an idea. Right now, here in the pocket workshop, right? We're in a pocket dimension, right? Yeah, I don't know how. I don't, you're asking me, I don't know. Okay. I set his head down on the Potter's wheel, and I'm like, you hang out in here, and we'll check in with you when we need you.

That sounds great to me. Perfect. The Potter's wheel turns on, and he's like, don't know. No, don't do this. Don't do this. Wee. No, don't do this. Don't do this. Make a like a hi. Make a hi-ne-ho.

Okay, you guys moving on? Yes. You make your way out of the pocket workshop. And when you exit, the sort of wall of the room that became a screen now just has a big door in front of it built into it. And this doorway is open. And beyond it, you see just more pitch black darkness. And as you move through that door into the next chamber, it's a familiar sight because you see sort of the same boot-up sequence as spotlights on the ceiling and floodlights on the floor cross to point at a roulette wheel in the middle of the room. And the walls and the floor and the ceiling illuminate in these bright neon panels that change with this pulsating music.

and just beyond the wheel is another big stone door that is shut until you make your sacrifices on the wheel. But this one has four dim red lights above it. And the female elf's voice booms through the room. And she says, that's right, you're spinning the wheel again. Only she's a bit hungrier this time. The sacrifices demanded will be a little bit brutal. Also, you've added another member to your party. I'm not really sure how you did that, but you'll need to complete four sacrifices if you want to pass on through the next chamber.

Hold on, I believe if you'll count, you will find here. But do a quick headcount. You hear from another dimension, fucking cut it out. Shh, shh, shh, quiet. What if we say no? I don't understand. Well, what if we just don't? Then you lose?

Well, I mean, yes, but I also like to know the parameters that I'm just wondering, like, I get what the win scenario is. What's the lose scenario here? You don't get your, you just don't get your prize. And you let us go when we leave? Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, no, no. No, you got to, once you start through Wonderland, you have to finish. We can't finish, though, right?

Yeah, of course. Yeah. You wouldn't just send us into something that he couldn't finish. You hear... I trust himself. I don't know. You hear some wrestling, like, of paper. It says, let's see, let's see.

If you finish, you'll end up getting... So that's your prize, huh? Hmm. Okay. Well, yeah, you're making good progress. Let's see what you can do. And then you actually hear the tinkling of a bell being wrong. Maximumfund.org.

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Visit MaxFunCon.com to buy your tickets right now. From the dawn of time, one podcast has unlocked the secrets of science and technology to enrich the lives of billions. And now, after a year where they've unlocked the golden age of knowledge, they're about to hit warp speed and go stratospheric. Wait, hold up. On Ono, Ross and Kerry, we don't make extraordinary claims. We investigate them. We go undercover with fringe religious groups, investigate paranormal claims, and we participate in pseudoscientific medical trials. treatments and then report our findings to you. And yes, we've even investigated Scientology.

Shrash! New episodes every month at maximum fun.org. Oh no, Ross and Kerry. They show up so you don't have to.