The Adventure Zone - Ep. 59. Lunar Interlude V: Reunion Tour - Part Two

Episode Date: March 23, 2017

Our heroes are out of time, out of options, out of places to hide. The holes in their history are starting to fill in; but are they going to like the answers they receive? We're almost caught up, now. Taako fights his fears. Merle loses faith. Magnus hears music. 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. I saw all of existence all at once. I saw a dark storm, a living hunger, eating it from within. I saw a brilliant light heralded by seven birds flying tirelessly from this storm. I saw seven birds. The twins, the lover. The protector, the lonely journal keeper, the peacemaker, and the wordless one. Can I ask you guys a question?

Sure. Of course, you're hot. Are you guys really okay with this part of the deal? That we get forgot? Are you cool with, like, if you beef it down there, the world just forgets about you? Well, I'm not planning on ever dying. Merle, Pan's not answering. It's, you know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, he's just not, he's just not there.

He's not there supporting you with, with holy power. He's not, he's just gone. Next to this table is a pod, and inside of it, you can see Magnus's body. Just before we leave, I leave a sapphire on the table. table next to the note. Trust the voices in your head and open your mouth and let the first words you speak be flaming, raging, poisoning sort of doom. I pick up the old battle axe and I start walking for the voidfish's chambers. And then we pan up and we see a 13th plane descending. It is a disc of shimmering, living darkness crossed with ribbons of bright blue, red, green,

gold, it is larger than the other planes combined. And as it lowers, slowly, bright white eyes begin to open all across the underside of this plane. Millions of them. Burning with malice and hunger. All focused inward and down, back down, all the way, back down, on the floating headquarters of the Bureau of Balance. And somewhere inside of that living, plain, we see a smile flash across someone's face. We're nearly caught up now. Have you been paying attention? This next part is, well, it's important.

It's the adventure zone. So, if I had an idea for this episode? Oh, good. Let's hear it. Well, we're almost 60 episodes in, right, and we haven't had a lost episode yet. So what if you just started this one at the start of the next episode? And, like, we'll just, the second part of the lunar interlude will just be like our lost episode. Okay, okay, I got to check it, yeah.

Okay, you're all, so you all have ascended to dragon form. Merle, you are the eternal dragon, crayfus. And Taco, you have become the elder dragon, Gerald. Don't steal my heart. And Magnus, you are, actually, Magnus is the Braveheart dragon. Don't steal my heart. I specifically made Magnus the Braveheart dragon. I'm not a braveheart dragon.

I'm not a brave heart dragon. I'm a Sean Connery dragon from Dragon Heart. Yeah. Dragon, yeah. No, I'm the Braveheart dragon. It's canonical.

I love your, Maggie. I always have. Can I be the Ironfish dragon? I already told you what dragon you are. Stop asking me. I don't want to be in the last episode. That makes me sound so old.

Also, everybody hates Iron Fist. What are you talking about? Oh, do they really? I'll always talk about a garbage pile. Oh, man. Then I'll go back to be in the eternal dragon.

I'm dated. Our show. It's too late. It's too late. Um. So let's actually do this episode instead. Is that okay, Trapp? Oh, okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's fine. That's fine. Whatever. So last episode, Magnus, you found a new body, but elected not to get into it. And Merle and Taco, the two of you kind of left Magnus behind to deal with his drama as you make your way towards the director's private quarters. So we're going to have to do some split storytelling here and kind of jump back and forth. And let's start out with Taco and Merle.

the two of you have made your way out of the abandoned fantasy Costco and towards the main dome that contains the director's private quarters and you're out on the quad now of the bureau headquarters and there's just nobody out here like at all you've never seen it this this empty here and with this this uh quiet motionless storm overhead this scene is like weirdly still um and you've made your way to to the entrance to the main dome now that contains the, like, the main hall and the relic destruction chamber and the director's office. And you saw Davenport and the two guards that were sort of with Davenport walk into this dome earlier. And you assume that the director is in here as well, preparing to destroy the animus bell. And also in this room, you know, in the back, sort of behind the dais is the entrance to the director's office, which is where the map is kind of telling you to go next. So what is, what's your, what's your game plan, the two of you for moving in here and

moving ahead if that is what you want to do? Yeah, I'm, we just looked at each other. Yeah. I think we, I, God Almighty. Man, if this doesn't sum up the Avengers zone experience, I don't know what does. So there's nobody around. No, but in the building You assume that there are people in that big

Big main hall Just to lay the table Like I'm asking like Are you going for a sort of stealthy approach Trying to sneak through this hall to get past it Or are you going to Lie and use your charm Are you going to use magic?

Do you have any sort of trip your sleeve that way? Are you going to confront it head on? Are you going to fight your way through? I think we're pulling a long con I don't think this is a burglary gig I think this is all... We've already gotten established fiction. Yeah.

Let's play it through. Yeah. Yeah, let's do that. Okay. So we're just going to go right in and say hi to everybody and act like a normal mission. Yay, Trace Horny Boys. Boo, Dead Magnus. Yeah, Dose Horny Boys.

Now it's Dose Lonely Boys. Dose Lonely Boys. It really is this time. We're actually going to go by Dosecis now. Oh, that's good. The two horses. That's good. All right.

You walk in and you see, you do see the director and she is standing in front of the big window looking into the relic destruction chamber, that sort of big cerebro-shaped room. And she is looking in and Davenport is in here as well with the two guards. and sort of standing kind of to the side and a little bit behind the director also looking in, you see Angus MacDonald, boy detective, who he looks, he doesn't actually look at you as you walk into the room. He is just kind of looking into the chamber sort of not distracted at all. But the director does look over when she sees the two of you walk in. And she says she starts to walk towards you and kind of stops because she doesn't really want to abandon her post. She wants to make sure this thing goes through, but she says,

Taco Merle, my God, I'm so sorry about Magnus. I knew there would be some risk sending you into Wonderland, but I'm so sorry. If I had thought that you couldn't take it, I wouldn't have done it. I'm so sorry. I'm going to, I'm going to cast Detect Thoughts. It's a second level divinination. Nailed it, got it in one.

You can tell I don't divinmate him. lot. The divininator. When I cast the spell and adds my action on each turn until the spell ends, I can focus my mind on any one creature that you can see within 30 feet of me. The creature I choose has an intelligence of three or lower, or doesn't use language, the creature is unaffected. Okay.

She has an intelligence much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much higher than three. That's perfect. She speaks eight languages. That's perfect. Yeah, I didn't think she was like. Um, rock or a fish. I thought she was a sapient human. Uh, do I get to roll to defend against this?

Uh, I don't believe so, but I, you could check in the, I can check in the, in the, you initially learn the surface thoughts of the creature. What's on its mind in this moment? Uh, the director is genuinely happy to see you. And she is relieved to, to, to, to, to, to know that you're there. Um, and she is, uh, at the same time, I would say the other emotion that she's experiencing right now is sort of like excitement and, and, and, and, she is really, um, and, anxiety and a little bit of worry, not necessarily at seeing you. I think they're two distinct thoughts. But she sees you. And this is not like some faky fake bullshit. Like she is genuinely like she's so happy to see that you, the two of you at least are safe. And she's sad. She's like

heartbroken about Magnus. She's really, really sad. If you probe deeper, the target must make a wisdom saving throw. If it fails, you gain insight into its reasoning, if any, its emotional state and something that looms large in its mind, something it worries over, loves, or hates, if it succeeds the spell ends. Either way, the target knows that it's probing into your mind. So if you try to go deeper, she will know that you're going deeper.

Or you can just take this surface level thing and walk. No, I'm going to skin it. She will win that contest of wills, I believe. All right. So, yeah, those two things you get, and there's no penalty. You know that she's happy to see you, sad about Magnus, and worried about something.

Yeah, okay. Lucretia, I have a favor to ask. I know you're right in the middle of this stuff, but, you know, we were thinking of having kind of a little memorial service for Maggie. Well, that would be appropriate. I mean, we will have to do the rights of remembrance. Well, I, sure. I'm thinking of something a little bit more personal.

You know, over the last few months, episodes, arcs, last few arcs, the three of us have gotten really tight. And, you know, and a lot of our best memories were forged together, just the three of us in your office. And so I was thinking, you know, hearkening back to the last time we were together, I was wondering if maybe before we do all this other stuff, if Taco and I could have just a couple of minutes in your office to kind of think about the guy that touched our lives. I'm not laughing in game.

I just want to clarify it. Yes, sir. And it's foolproof. And chopped off my arm. And if you can just give us this, please, we've done so much for you and we've lost this. This is in game. Hell yeah. The what he said for sure.

Yeah. I know that the two of you have had a truly awful day. And, of course, I'm glad you understand. Go wait in my office. I have some finger sandwiches in there. And we can all sort of come down a little bit. and we'll figure out a good way to send off our good friend, Magnus.

I do have some work to take care of first, but you go in there and... You take care of that, and thank you. That's from the bottom of my heart. Okay. So she gives you... I think she said she's going to take care of it in her office with us in there.

No? No, no. She's got some work to take care of out there. Yeah, she's taking those care of some work first, but she'll meet you later. So you have clearance to go. Nice work. Shit.

I never thought that. Not in a million but a trillion years. Yeah, to be fair, I thought you guys were in her office at the time, so I was confused as to what we thought what happened there. I, uh... Okay, so we go in our office, right? Yeah, I'm going to cast detect magic. Okay. That's me.

Okay, um, what are you, what do you, can I ask what you're looking for? Um, are you in her office now? I'm in her office. I'm in her office. I just cast detect magic. I'm kind of like looking for. for vibes. Barry told us that...

Oh. Barry! Yeah, that's a great idea. Hold on. This is like... Barry? I'm opening up the pocket spa and whispering into it like a fucking I-dream. You hear him shout from far away.

You hear him shout from far away. Yeah. Yeah, can I get out of here? It's a little cramped. No. What are we looking for? I have no idea. I'm this...

I don't remember. All of a sudden, he's muffled. Because I close the fucking pocket spa. put it back in my back. What a douche. Okay, well, no help from Barry. As you, as you walk into this room, you hear his coin that you have chime on. And it says, uh, and it says, uh, once you've, once you've, uh, once you've made it into the director's office, you're going to need to, uh, move, move past that big, heavy door in there, uh, to, to move back into her private sanctum. And once you get back there, you will be trespassing. So I guess, well, I guess this is kind of

the point of no return. Okay. Um, so you're in her office and her office, uh, it's got, her big desk on it. It has that big portrait hanging on the wall that she sort of did something to the last time you were in here to reveal that she was a much younger woman before she went into Wonderland. And you do have a big heavy door leading somewhere beyond. The door is what, like facing the portrait or to the side of the... I started to the side of it, yeah. Okay.

I assume it's locked. It's not. Well, shit. Do your detect magic thing. That's really cool. I mean, I can do a magic thing. No way. You did cast detect magic in here, though, right?

Yeah. Yeah. There's, I mean, it's just the, just the portrait. Just the portrait has some magic on it, but that's it. But there's no magic coming from the door or... No, not at all. It's not, like, tripped or anything? Like, trapped or anything?

No, there's no trap on it. Okay. Merle, let's talk super quick. What do you think? Should we do this? I'll open the pockets by back up. Burrell? Hey. Hey, listen, and think hard before you answer. We have been fighting alongside the Bureau of Balance for a long time. None of us can exactly agree on how long, but it's been a while. A little over a year.

I need you to tell me in a sentence why we should trust you and turn against the Bureau. I don't think I'm evil. Like, I don't think I'm evil. Like, I don't think I don't think. I'm an evil guy. Obviously, there's like some pretty big holes in the old Barry, Barry story. I got the old Swiss cheese brain, but like, I don't... You have veered off sentence and are hurtling towards paragraph, my friend. A sentence, please. Time is of the essence. And I think you need this worse than we do. He says, he says, I don't know, but I feel like I trust you. Magnus, you are walking out of the abandoned fantasy Costco. Can you confirm? In the last episode, you said you grabbed your old shield and old axe, and you left, like, sort of all of your other belongings for flesh magnus, right?

Correct. Okay. You walk out of this abandoned fantasy Costco. Let me make sure there's nothing awesome that I want to take with me. Okay. The two things I, there are two things I want to take with me. Okay. The tarantulas bracelet and my Bureau of Balance Bracer.

Okay, sure. You get those. A couple cool bracelets. You walk out of the abandoned. fantasy Costco with your bangles and your old battle axe, your old school axe, your old school shield. And again, there's just nobody out. It seems like everybody's just kind of posted up somewhere waiting out this big motionless storm. So your approach to the voidfish's dome is uninterrupted by anyone, which is good because you are a mannequin. And you board the long elevator ride down

without any problems really at all. And in fact, when the elevator opens, the last time you saw this hallway, or every time you've come to this hallway to come to the boyfish, there's like a detail of guards down here. There's nobody. There's nobody.

And that's when you realize, today is midsummer. It's been exactly one year since the Midsummer Harvest Festival. You all went to last year, and the Bureau's not doing anything this year. There's no big party, no big festival this year. but it seems that pretty much everyone's been kind of relieved of duty for the day in sort of recognition of the holiday.

And from down the hall, from inside the Voidfish's chambers, you hear a harp being plucked. What do you do? So describe, I've gotten off the long elevator, right? Yeah. And is it like if I leave the elevator, I'm in a wide open hall where Johan can see me? No, no, the hall leads into a big door at the end of the hallway, and that opens up into the Voidfish's chamber. And you hear a harp music coming from inside of there.

Okay. Well, I'm going to sneak up to that door, I guess. Okay. Yeah, you don't need to sneak. There's nobody here and you make it to the door just fine. Okay, I walk to the door. You're at the door again. You're super at the door now.

You're double at the door. Go to the door. So I'm at the door. Oh, my gosh. Can I sneak open the door? Yeah, you can make a stealth roll. Is there something between the door being... closed and open that he could get there.

Is there some other... It's like a Resident Evil game where you can either like creak it open, but if you double tap it, you kick it open? Let me see. And if you open it, go to page 32. You're killed by a Yeti. So it's a plus three. Oh, my dexterity is actually pretty good as a mannequin.

Plus three. So it's a 16 total? Yeah, you open the door. and it is silent. It is a silent door opening and you make your way into the room and it is like you've seen it before, a big dark room

with the voidfish's tank in the middle. And Johan is sort of sitting in front of the tank playing a little harp song. And as you walk into the room, Johan doesn't see you, but the voidfish does and starts to sing, starts to let out that low...

I put one wood, finger to my wooden face in a universal shushing gesture. It doesn't seem to get the hint, and it is still singing. And Johan says, like, oh, wow, bud, you're really liking this song, huh? I'll make sure to... I activate my tarantula bracelet and climb up the wall. Okay. You start climbing up the wall.

Yeah, let me double check what the tarantula bracelet does. It gives you spider climb on the wear. Yeah, so... Um, and renders my movement's completely silent, granting him advantage on stealth rolls. Yeah, for sure. Spider mannequin. Spider mannequin. Um, quicks your both the tongues.

No, it doesn't. Uh, the void fish is, the void fish is like, uh, making a lot of noise. And Johan's like, well, I'll, I'll feed you soon, buddy. I just need to transcribe this here. What was his voice? He was just, he was just, hey, dude, like droopy. Oh, I'll feed you soon, buddy. A little bit of a surfer thing, right?

Uh, well, that's just, no. That's just, no, that's, that's every other N. Wilson, right? Kind of an Owen Wilson thing. Stop. You are, let's just move on. He, uh, he, he, he does not see you. Johan does not see you.

So what are you, what are you doing? Um, I'm gonna try to get, like, above him as close as I can, so I can drop down on him. Okay. Um, this would take, I think, a stealth role if you're gonna drop in, oh, drop in, sorry, holy shit. Are you dropping in on Johan or dropping in on the void fish? Dropping in on Johan. Oh, fuck.

What do you? you doing. Got to knock him out. All right. This would be, I think... Thank goodness for advantage on the stealth checks. Yeah, I think this would be a stealth check. 17?

The first one was a two. Yeah, I think the 17 is going to get you there and then roll a, like, strength roll for the actual, like, attack of it. Cool. By the way, you can't hear my dice because I'm using a special dice box. Oh, yeah. It was created for us. I was made by Amanda for us. It's really cool.

So it's like a padded dice box. You can't hear mine either. Oh, that's a 19 plus 3, 22. I think, yeah, Johan was plucking this little harp, and you kind of dropped down from the ceiling, and what do you do? You just clock them? Yeah.

Or do you, like, Sam Fisher choke him out? Okay. Whatever's going to hurt him the least and still knock him out? That's what I want to do. I'm not trying to hurt him. Okay, probably like a sleeper hold then. Try the Vulcan nerve pinch You get him in a sleeper hold

And he puts up a little bit of a fight He drops his harp And a couple of the strings snap As it falls to the ground Oh, I feel bad about that And he goes down And now it's just you and the void fish Let's get back to the other boys

And I said that's not my wife Another terrible one So here's my thought Okay We just got the last thing of a jig, right? The last artifact or whatever you? After this, we're unemployed, right?

Oh. So, what my thinking is this, whoever these other people are, maybe they got work, because I know that these thugs are definitely not going to accommodate us with any sort of gig after this because we're done. We did what they wanted and now we're out, right? We're out. Wow. I am glad that you can see the forest for the tree.

Yeah. I'd like, I, maybe in here. Here, there's some more money because they're not going to give us more money that we have right now. Right. Correct. Correct. And, you know, in a way, we kind of deserve it because we've been doing all the heavy lifting. We have earned this.

So we're going to rob the shit out of them. We're not. Well, we might. This is, I think there's more of a scouting mission. Okay. But if the need arises, then for sure. But here, I think let's go for it. Because, like, honestly, we, I didn't sign any.

thing. That's kind of where I'm out. That's right. We never did it on paper. Never did it get it on paper. It's been like a handshake thing. It has been a handshake thing. Got some W-9s filed and then that's it.

So here's what I'm saying. We didn't sign nothing. Uh-uh. And we are free agents. Taco kicks the door open. Okay. It's fine. There's no.

And he hears of like, oh, God, it's so heavy. It's a big heavy door. Yeah, you kick it and it doesn't do anything. But then you open it like a normal person and it opens just fine. And you, you, you, And you, this door opens up into a long, empty hallway. It's huge. It's about, it's about 10 feet wide and 100 feet long.

And there's nothing in here, except for on the other end of this hallway, you just see another sort of big old, heavy vault door. And as you open up this door, the coin kicks on. And it says, you hear Litchberry say, now you see the 12 warbs on. pedestals in front of you. Here's how this puzzle works. Once an orb illuminates, you want to touch every fifth orb moving counterclockwise, unless that orb is on the opposite end of the one you just touched. Oh, and after the third round, the Emerald orb, you don't touch that one. You skip that one. And if it illuminates in sort of a warmer hue than it was on the last round,

then you have to start this process over in a clockwise order. But you make sure that you's, and he's outlining this, like, incredibly. to be listening to our Adventure Zone Night's bonus episodes? He's sort of giving you a fucking prima strategy guide walkthrough of a puzzle that's just not there. It just ain't there.

There's nothing in this hallway. I guess we keep on trucking then. Okay. Yeah? I mean, don't you think? Oh, let me tell you what. Let me do a... I don't roll any fucking dice yet.

In fact, they're still in my bag. So let me go ahead and roll a perception check. in this area. Okay. See if I can detect anything. That's a critical failure. Now then... And I'm going to roll a perception check.

Four. Four. God. It's just an empty hallway. Got it. Okay. Here's the thing that's always confused me about perception checks. I can't do another one, right?

I mean, it's... DMT, DM, the rules change. But, like, for my money, this was... This represents the effort. From a narrative perspective, this was Taco looking around the room and he didn't see anything, so he wouldn't look around it again. Is it lit back here? Hmm? Is it lit back here?

Ah, dude, it's lit as fuck, dude. No, it's, yeah, I mean, it's, yeah, it's as lit as the rest of the bureau balance. Torches or what? Yeah, sure. Or I think that they have some sort of fancy, like Lucas designed this place, so I think it's actually, actually like, honest to goodness lights, like light fixtures. They captured stormlight in there, and then they just use that for illumination. I think we ought to think outside the box. I have an idea.

Great. Let's walk down the fucking hallway. Nice. I would do that. The two of you step into this hallway, and as soon as you do, you sink into the floor like it's quicksand. Great. And your first step down from the door was, like, heavy enough of a footfall that, like, you are both kind of waist deep, and you are getting pulled under pretty quickly. Both of you make a strength save for me.

Actually, this would be athletics. Right? Like trying to, it's kind of like, that's what you use for swimming, and this is kind of like swimming. 16. 16. Weird. Really? Yeah.

Okay. The two of you are, the two of you aren't pulled under immediately, but you are sinking really quickly. And as you do, like, you're also getting sucked in towards, like, the middle of the room, like away from the door. what looks like little scorpions are like they seem like they're starting to come out of the walls like crawling down the sand uh towards the two of you um are we within reach of each other uh yeah i think so i whip out the vroom broom okay i grab a hold of taco and we fly out of the goo uh okay you grab onto the vroom broom and uh as you pull it out of your bag it bursts into flame

and is destroyed and it's gone, and instead you're holding a bouquet of these dead flowers, and a bunch of spiders climb out of the blooms, these dead blooms on top of these flowers, and start to crawl all over your sole wood arm. I need to cast... I'm going to make an arcana check. Okay.

Um, that's in 19. I'm trying to sense if there, if this is, I, I suspect this is not happening. So I'm trying to detect if we're under the influence of some sort of, uh, illusory magic or not. Um, I mean, if, if, if you detect that, that's, that's fine. I think this, this, this role is not arcana. This is not you saying, hey, some magic stuff is happening. I think this role is just, uh, a wisdom save just to say like, I, this, this would be taco trying to realize it.

Yeah. That's fine. Then that would actually be a 16. Here's how this resolves. Taco, you get pulled under and Merle's just gone and you're just in this black space and you are completely alone. And I feel like Taco doesn't necessarily love being alone, sort of given his upbringing. Like I think this isolation is like really fucking like scary. but then Taco is, you know, clever than we give him credit for and kind of says like, wait a minute, this isn't real.

And as soon as you have that thought, you're just lying on the floor of this hallway. And you're just kind of, you see Merle actually still just writhing around on the floor. And both of you are safe and in this hallway, but Merle is still sort of under the thrall of this thing. The nature of illusion magic in this game is once you realize it's an illusion. It's just gone. It's done. I never got a chance to use it. Everybody loves it.

Okay. I am going to put on my band of telepathic thought. Okay. And I'm going to shout into Merle's mind. It's a trick, dummy. Damn. Ow! Turn it down a little.

As soon as you hear that in your mind, Merle, you kind of embarrassed, I imagine, a little bit. realize you're just writhing around on the floor and you were under the thrall of some sort of illusory magic. So the two of you kind of come to your senses in this hallway and you have sort of gotten over this illusion magic. And now you hear this very faint kind of like, it almost sounds like a ticking noise or like a faint knock that's like, clink, click, click, kite, kite. And when you look around, you see something you didn't see with your perception check earlier. And, and, you know, And sort of hidden behind a column in this room is a large round bell, an alarm bell that's

hanging on the wall. And there's this big hammer just slamming into this alarm bell. So you seem to have tripped an alarm during your fucking bad trip here. But there's no sound coming out of it because you see a dome of magic around this alarm and somebody has cast silence on this alarm, keeping it from alerting every. outside and standing in the doorway behind you you see Angus MacDonald holding a wand outstretched and he said yeah nice magical man and he says start talking I I need to know what you know Magnus you've made it to the void fish you have incapacitated Johan who is on the floor

and are you kind of- In case anybody's wondering while while that last scene with Merle and Taco was going on. I imagine Magnus was doing his best to fix Johan's harp. Just because like, that's sweet. It's just such beautiful woodcraft. Yeah, these events are happening, I think, concurrently. They're happening sort of

side by side. I'm a very good carbon. You know, you're very, very good at it. It's not a big deal. Um, so you you fix them up. Um, you've made it to the, to the voidfish's chambers and it feels like the void fish is beckoning you um, for another swim back into its tank to have another sort of parlay with you.

That's what I was going to do anyways, except it's going to be a lot harder to swim because I'm so buoyant. Yeah, that's a good point. So are you, are you stripping down like you did last time? I guess you only have a few things. Yeah. I'm just probably going to clank it to my, I need the weight so I keep the shield and the axe strapped to my back.

Okay. Is there anything around me I could use to, like, weigh myself down, any chairs or anything? Well, how about as you, as you get like up top of the tank, I think the voidfish wraps a couple of its tindrals around you to help like to help you like stay stay under it tickles no I've already established the man I can can't feel anything so it does not tickle okay that's thank you for clearing that up you are so you're being you're being sort of held in the tank now um by the void fish oh in this straight I don't have to breathe or anything hey buddy uh it's I I hope you can it's me it's it's Magnus it like um you can't speak void fish necessarily

necessarily, but it sort of bellows in a way that, like, you know, it gets it. All right. It's good to see you, too. I feel like you've been trying really hard to tell me something. What do you know about me that I don't? It sort of sends another vision into your mind as it did the last time you went swimming with it. And I think it's almost like an election. charge sent up at the tendrils and into your your body and all of a sudden you are far away and you are in that you're in that crystal cave that you saw the last time you're here where there's just a bunch of voidfish just kind of flying around um kind of gleefully in this in this big twinkling cave um and this time you're actually seeing it from the voidfish's perspective i think last time it was from your perspective, or maybe it was from the voidfish's perspective, but regardless, you can see everything now. There's no obfuscation. There's no static.

You see yourself wearing this red uniform, and it's you, and you're younger, but it's you. Absolutely, it's you. And you are walking towards the voidfish, and you are, you're speaking to it, and you have your arm sort of outstretched to the voidfish, like you're trying to almost like, shake its hand or make contact or something. And you can also see from the Voidfish's POV, there are a few other figures in red uniforms of various sort of shapes. There's, most of them are actually wearing these long red robes, but they all have these patches on the left breast of them.

And you see you coming to talk to the Voidfish. And then I think this vision blinks, and all of a sudden you see you running towards that big silver ship. And there's a few other of these red-dressed figures in front of you running back to the ship, and the voidfish is coming with you. And then your vision blinks back to where you are in the tank. Cool. Thank you for that. So I'm a red robe. Yeah, you can just, that you don't have to show me a vision just like bellowed twice for yes.

once for no. I think it does show you a vision because it doesn't, like, it doesn't understand what a red rope is in the fiction of what we've created here, but you do see the, you see, it sends another flash towards you and you see inside of, it's inside of a room, it's inside of a tank kind of like this one, but a bit smaller, and it knows it's moving. So you assume that this is taking place like somewhere in this big silver ship. And we see a few scenes of like different days of you coming in. to like check in on the void fish and in every scene you are wearing this red outfit every time every time

every time um and you're being sweet like you're being really nice every time you come in to check in it you like try to figure out what it eats you try to feed it and it doesn't really necessarily want food really it wants compositions and it wants poetry and it wants uh information um but yeah it it it that's kind of how it answers you is it just shows you like yeah you're always in this You're always in this red uniform and you're with other people wearing red robes all the time in all these visions. Is anything I remember? Hmm. Hey, Taco, can you hear me?

I think actually this would be when they are having sort of their fucking psychic freak out. So if anything, you can hear Taco like screaming and like shouting and writhing and yeah. So I'll take that as a no. Is anything I remember real? What are you asking? Like, the, what are you talking about? Like, your time at Ravens Roost and all that? Yes.

Oh, yeah, that's all real. I don't know how the Voidfish would, like, lie about that, but that's, that's all real. I wouldn't. It's a real fear I was having. I'm doing some stuff here, but I'm not going to take the backstories that you all came up with and, like, fucking throw them in the dumpster for my own thing, because that's shitty DMing and shitty storytelling. So I'll just, this is Griffin, you outright. Like, yeah, that stuff's real. Cool, Leo.

Oh, oh, I, I know. Do you know what's really happening with the artifacts? No, it doesn't. It moans in a way that it sort of lets you know it's a, it's a no. But it's starting to like sort of get a little antsy now, like it wants something. Oh, I know. Is there anything I can do? to help you get your kid back. Yeah, it fucking, like, grabs you with all its tendrils now, and it sends, like, this huge shock that, like, you can't feel anything as Manic and Magnus,

but you kind of feel it. Like, my body and Fantasy Costco feels it. Yeah, you're, we see a shot of, like, your hand inside the pod and the Fantasy Costco, and it, like, twitches. Um, and, uh, it makes this, it roars fucking loud as it does this. Um, and you actually, um, From behind you, Johan starts to stir a little bit. That's how loud it was. And you see this vision. And it is the voidfish kind of like nursing this egg in the bottom of its tank. And it's this tank that it's in right now in this room. And the egg hatches and a small baby voidfish comes out. And it's very adorable. It doesn't have nearly as many tens of. as its, as its, uh, its parent here, but, uh, it does have like the same sort of floating galaxy

of stars inside of its like core body. And it's just kind of floating and dancing around. And, uh, both, both of these void fishes are really happy for, for a moment. And, um, eventually, we see a shot of the door to this chamber opening. And you see the director walk in. And then the scene changes. And we see the direction. And we see the, the direction. And we see the, rector carrying the baby voidfish out in its own sort of small container. And we see the other voidfish, the adult parent voidfish, just singing and screaming just really super sad. And the vision ends. And you are released by the void fish. And you see Johann and he's just he's just up now.

He's just like standing up. He is not unconscious anymore. And he's kind of rubbing his head. And he looks up at you. And he's confused, right? He sees like, he is the caretaker of the void fish. And this was obviously not in the playbook. And he starts to point up at you and starts to shout something.

And then suddenly he. he is cut down. He is sort of thrown backwards and he is just collapsed and he is lying motionless on the floor. His newly repaired harp several feet away from him. And then you blink, right? I guess you don't have eyes, but your vision kind of clears. And you see that he is surrounded by humanoid figures. And you can see him clear as day now.

These figures are of varying shapes and sizes. A few stand like almost like six and a half feet tall with these broad shoulders and long arms, just these big brutes. Some look vaguely robotic with boxy appendages and clamps for hands. Some look like these just living shadows with long horrible claws for hands. You remember actually when you had that memory of you and Barry getting killed, these look like those. Some of them are just like people wielding these weapons that you can't quite discern, but all of these figures have one thing in common. They're all composed of just this dark material with flashes of color swirling around inside.

And you recognize them, Magnus. You recognize them with horror because you know now that the hunger is here. The seven of you managed to hide for a really long time, but it was all for nothing because the hunger has found. you all now and it's going to be the end of everything. Hey everybody, this is Griff McKeery, Dungeon Master, your best friend, and you're not a lone guy for this break because everybody else is here with me. I'm Travis McRoy. I play Merle Taco.

I am the elven. I think I'm a rogue. This is my favorite bit. This is my very favorite bit. Griffin usually cleans that up in post. I basically have a, I've got so much speech from all of you, so many words, you guys saying words that I have basically like a futuristic Texas speech thing. So I could just

make you guys say whatever you want. Like, I rolled a 20 and hit him with a sword. Yeah. We haven't recorded a new episode in like, I don't know, six months. Yeah, it's been wild. There was like this fucking fantasy space station and then like we, there was like this evil

like game a place and we all got kind of lost in the weeds there. So this is the break of the thing and we all wanted to talk to you about the Max Fun Drive. Max Fund Drive is a great time of year because it's when you can show your support, demonstrate your support financially in a fiduciary sense to these podcasts that you love so much. And we know that this show means a lot to a lot of people. And you have shown us that so many times with beautiful fan art and very kind cosplay of us and beautiful, everything. And now we're just saying, that's very good. How about a check? I also want to say, like,

there's not from Justin, dad or I, but there's a ton of work that goes into this show from Griven's End. And so I'll take a second to brag a little bit on him because he spends hours writing it, hours editing it, and also goes above and beyond to create music and, you know, additional sound work. And like, he just does so much work on this show. Don't tell you. Don't tell anybody at my job, my capital J job, but I work harder on this show than I've worked on anything in my whole life. So yeah, and I think like I can, I feel comfortable doing that just because like we are supported financially. And so like it feels like a job, right? Like we get, we get paid to do it because people support this thing that we make.

This podcast would not like wouldn't exist, period, I think, without the max fund drive and the support we get because like the other podcasts are a lot of work too. But we kind of thought that there would be a market for this. when we started making it, like, that max fun drive, this show's first year on the Max Fun Network, and we did that drive was like completely buck wild. And so many folks came out and let us know, like, yeah, this is a cool thing. And we want to support you making it. So I feel like we tripled down on the effort that went into it. So like this show is, I feel like a sort of a Max Fun Drive story almost.

So you get some benefits for supporting the show. Like you feel a certain ownership over the Adventure Zone. You can help us reach our goal. We're trying to get 10,000 new and upgrading members this year. We have great pledge gifts if you are a new or an upgrading member. Can dad talk about those? He always does such a good time. Yeah, Daddy, tell me about these pledge gifts.

Well, I'd be glad to, Griffin. For a $5 pledge gift to get the exclusive bonus content, for $10. Wait, hold on. Let's talk for one second about that bonus content. Hours and hours and hours and hours, like days of days of bonus content, including two Adventure Zone nights episodes. which are kind of a, you know, a different world where I DM, Griffin, Dad, and Justin play. There's two of those, one from last year, one from this year.

And then a second in the chamber if we hit that 10,000 new. A third in the chamber. Yeah, a second for this year, third overall. $10. This is selling a lot of people. The exclusive enamel pin designed by Megan Lynn Cott. And they've got a design for every max fun show. so pick your favorite at Fincher Zone.

Ow. What does this happen? Dad hurt himself. Oh, I thought you hit your old mouth on the microphone? I hit my old mouth on the microphone, funny man. $20 you keep a touch kit. It's nine custom note cards plus envelopes. Three encouraging designs designed by Brian Sonny D. Fernandez,

a four-color rocket pin, a getting their rocket stamp on a rocket-shaped candle. Reboot him. Smells like a freshly sharpened pencil, french up and a little bit. I'm tasting and hold on. For the, for $35, there's a pair of rocket-engraved beer mugs.

At every, every, we'll get to the, because we'll have to do another breaks. We'll get to the other stuff. Okay. And every time you

move up a donation level, you also get all the stuff before it. So at $10, you get the, you get the pins and you get all the bonus content. If five bucks is all you can do, totally cool. Like, we super, super appreciate just like the, you're showing your support.

Not only that, you get like a fucking enormous catalog. There's what? Like, how many shows are on the network right now? 33. A hundred and, oh, 33. 33. 33 shows on the network. And, like, Mbimba has been going for like seven years. So that's seven years worth of bonus content just from our show alone. And we've been on the network for a long time. We have a, I think, a live show also in the bonus content, the LA live show with you guys in Bottlenose Cove in the Sandcastle Kingdom. Like, uh, that was a, that was a fun one. So, like, there's so much bonus content. So five bucks is I can do. Cool. Like, we super, super appreciate it. And you'll get some

really cool stuff for there. But like the biggest thing is just we appreciate you supporting us and allowing us to like turn this thing that we make into a career. Because that is how we've been able to like do all the cool stuff that we've been able to do. It's all because of donations from viewers like you. Yeah, but between this and selling blood, this has really got me in getting it together. And if you are, if you would like to support this show and all your favorite shows on maximum fun.org, you can go to maximum fund.org forward slash donate. And also, I don't think we made this clear, when you donate, you choose what shows you listen to, and your donations go to directly support the shows that you love. So do this now.

Just like, I know you're probably eager to listen to the rest of the episode. But just like, just do it now, just like knock it out and don't even just don't even worry about it. The rest of the episode actually won't start until you do. Yeah, this is our DRM. We're playing a tone right now that will deactivate your computer. We got all day, man. All day. Go ahead and just Maximumfund.org 4th slash donate. Go ahead and head on over there as we can get back to this

raucous adventure. And when you do, let us know on Twitter. Just tweet us. Be like, hey, I'm supporting the show because I like your stuff. We won't necessarily turn that into you getting a name on the shit show,

but we'll say, hey, cool. Thanks for the support. We appreciate you letting us, helping us do this thing. Should we get back into the adventure? They're still filling out their stuff. Yeah. Oh, you're right.

Keep filling out that field. Ooh, don't miss that one field. You want the security code in there. Yeah, you do want. Thank you, Julie. Thank you, Charles. See, we have the big board that Santa Claus uses. Yeah, they're coming in live.

And we can see. Oh, thank you, Theodore. Good job. Thank you, Suresh. I'm so glad he came out. He told me he was going to, but wouldn't sure. All right, now I think they're done. Now we can go back.

Taco and Merle, make a wisdom saving throat. 16. 17. Okay. You two are fine. Thanks. Thanks. Can I ask a quick question?

Yeah, sure. Off topic. Are we to assume that, like, that was Barry's nightmare? Like, that puzzle that he described was, like, an illusion for him? I can tell you now, since you're sort of past it, the Pringles came back here, right? This is where Pringles did his, like, recon and where Lichberry, like, sort of formulated the plan. Pringles Berry got caught, so if, like, you're trying to protect something and you know that an intruder got in and did some recon, you changed the shit up. And so the game plan is different, right?

Okay, got it. You both resist as Angus McDonald, the world's greatest detective, casts around you a field of Zone of Truth. That was adorable. Nice try, kid. He invented Zone of Truth. I am, Mr. Zone of Truth. To be fair, you should make a third role.

Taco, yes, Taco, you hear from inside your bag. Somebody say, hey, I'm hiding in this guy's bag, and I'm getting kind of claustrophobic, and also I'm not supposed to be up here. Oh, shit. And actually, like, I think Barry's head is, like, popping out of your bag now as he starts to, like, get out of the bag. Okay. Ango, you got me. I have to tell the truth.

This is Barry. He lives in a bag. What else can I tell you? Um, you can start with everything. What do you know? What's going on here? Tell me, tell me now. Now, and Taco, I swear, don't lie to me.

I'm the world's greatest detective. You don't think I know that something's up. I can't lie. You cast a zone of truth on me. Yeah, we resisted, though. Well, okay. Now he knows that. Oh.

See, yeah, so we resist. I was trying to lie. I'm sorry. My partner over here, apparently he has a internal zone of truth that's always sort of just going for the gusts. So, yeah. I am a holy man. Yeah, sure. So let's kill him.

No, okay. So here's the deal. Oh, gosh, where to start? The Bureau of Balance is bad, we think. This guy in my bag says they're bad. What happened to Magnus, really? Really? Tell him. Okay.

Because the listener at home has already heard this. I tell him what happened to Magnus. You tell him the truth? A propeller spin and you kind of fade in. Yeah, right. I tell him what happened to Maxx. Magnus, 30 minutes later, we cut back. Are you, are you doing the absolute truth?

Or are you doing your, your bullshit? He died and now this magic mannequin is coming to blah, blah, blah. Okay. How about this? Maggo? I know. What's your name? Ango.

I'm going to cast zone of truth. Okay. I'm going to cast it on Taco. And you'll know he's telling you the truth and that I'm telling you the truth. Okay. Zone of truth. Pah! I see.

I mean, I just cast a zone of truth. He's lying. Griffey, he's lying. Wait, is he lying? Does he need to roll a bluff check or did you really cast a soda truth? Yeah, you're gonna cast a soda truth. Okay.

Okay, well, I rolled in 18. Do not try to control my fucking shit. Okay. I'll say this about Angus McDonald. His insight is as such that he is, he's fucking hard to lie to regardless of magic tree. Okay, how about this? I won't resist. I don't resist the zone of truth.

I willingly submit to zone of truth. So now you know he's telling the truth. So you tell him the absolute truth about like Magnus is in this mannequin body and everything. My position is I trust Angus McDonald entirely. That's where I'm at. All right. And I'm saying that out loud. Angus, I trust you implicitly.

And here's the exact 100% truth as we understand it. Because if anybody can fucking figure out what's going on, it's you. So hook me up. He lowers his wand. And I think he's got like a kind of a cool little holster for it, maybe. or maybe it's like a little fanny pack situation that he puts it into and he says um it's on come on we all know it's on a lanyard guys okay it's definitely on the lanyard yeah he says um taco thank you you i feel like you all have been keeping me at arm's length for a while but i

promise you i am i'm good at this let me help he says i i love the bureau i love the director she's given me an enormous opportunity here she gave me a She gave me a home. And so I don't think she's doing anything wrong. But those spheres that Davenport takes into the relic disposal chamber, well, they're not the same spheres that come out. And he throws, like, a piece of chalk down, and it kind of like rolls and sort of stops at your feet. He says, she just did it. She just destroyed the animus bell.

I made a little mark discreetly on the sphere before they took it in. And it wasn't on it when it came out. So I don't know what's going on, but like, obviously you don't have to be the world's greatest detective to know that there's a bait and switch going on. But I feel like we don't have the complete truth of what's going on here. So if you say that you can find it, let me help you get there, he says. Well, it's right down this hall, near the side of that door. Okay. But listen, Angus, you should know something.

Yeah. If you stick with us, you're kind of, you're kind of a bad guy too. This is not specifically technically something we're supposed to be doing. He kind of smiles and starts to walk towards the door and he says, the ones looking for the truth, well, they're never the bad guys. I know that from my Caleb Cleveland novels and walks towards the door. God, I love Angus. You're at the door.

it's the same sort of style of vault door as the one that you all came into earlier, but it has a like a keypad on it with seven empty spaces above the keypad. And you don't get anything from the coin. And as you like motion to it, Barry, who's now also sort of outside of your bag, just kind of like shrugs. Like, I don't know. And Angus takes a look at it and he says, this doesn't appear to be trapped or anything. Maybe just, I don't know, Taco Merle, maybe just tried something out just to

calibrate our efforts? How about Knit Picker? Knit Picker's like a lock pick thing. This is, this would not, this is, this, there's no tumblers here. This is a, like a keypad with a seven-digit password. Well, dad gets out nitpicker and makes him try to open it. This is because I want to see how the picker reacts to him being forced to his door. Oh, yeah. Okay. All right, you put down, I summon my nitpicker. I pull him out of my bag and I put him in front of the door and I say, Go get him, Tiger.

You set him down and he looks at it and he looks back at you and he's like, What the fuck is wrong with you? How are you this bad at adventuring? You know what I do? I pick locks and stuff. Does this look like a lock? No, it looks like a fucking tandy 5,000. What am I supposed to do about this?

Well, I... Hold on me put on my fucking cool backwards visor and just swordfish this shit. No, I can't do anything. with this? What are you talking about? I'm a little gnome. While he's berating him, I use the hole thrower. Just use it on the doors, so I can go through the door. Okay. Um, roll a, roll a dice. Let's see, I need a V. 10. Don't use that one a lot. Ten. Wow.

Okay. Um, yeah, sure. You just cast it. I'm, I was going to bullshit you here, but a 10, like, it's hard to say this door is more than 10 feet deep because that's wild. That would be quite a door. That would be quite a fucking door. Yeah, okay. You throw a hole and you throw it right over where the keypad was. And I think the keypad just kind of falls harmlessly off. And there is a huge hole in the door now.

10 feet wide, 10 feet, well, not 10 feet deep, but through the depth of the door. And you can walk through pretty much effortlessly. Let's get back to Magnus. I'm sorry if we messed up your puzzle. Was that a puzzle? Did you have a puzzle? Well, I gave you a fucking skeleton key for basically any wall or door-based puzzles like fucking a year ago. So that's my cross to bear.

Magnus, you are in trouble, I guess, safe to say. What are you doing? Man, such a good question. These figures are starting to walk towards the Void Fish's door, by the way. The first question. Yeah. Is, can I see, is Johann breathing? Faintly, I think, a little bit, but I mean, he's, he's, he's bad, dude.

He was in the middle of this mosh pit when it sort of popped up and it's, he looks really very, very bad. Okay. And the hunger advancing on me, right? Yeah, on the tank. Is spider climb still active? Am I still within my 10 minutes? Yeah, sure. I don't see why not.

So you swim up out of the tank? Yeah. Okay. Oh, wait. One last thing. Voivish. It sort of sings a little bit. I'm going to get you your kid back.

It sings really loud now, and it kind of rattles the glass tank, and it actually rattles all of the hunger down below. And, yeah, what are you doing? That was cool. Anything you can do to help with that, by the way, would be greatly appreciated. The last thing I want to ask the voidfish is, do you need this water, to live. It says no. It doesn't. Cool. I want to smash the tank. Okay. Uh, from within? Uh, kind of standing on top of it, because I wouldn't be able to swing the axe through the water. That's not how physics works. Okay. You, okay, you're standing on top of the tank and the, uh, the void fish,

uh, the void fish fucking lifts up out of the top of the tank with you. And it shakes its head, no. Uh, and you bring your axe down on top of the, uh, onto the, Nat 20. Nat 20. No shit. Uh, you're not using rail splitter, but this axe does the job fine as it sends a long chasm down the, uh, down the side of the glass tank.

And the tank shatters and it sends this, this huge wave of water outwards. And it doesn't just, it's, it shatters everywhere. And in fact, I think you fall with it because the tank loses, its shape sort of as the glass goes. And this huge blast of water comes and knocks away a bunch of the hunger, right? I think a few of them, the sort of the more robotic-looking ones, they kind of fall over, done. I think some of the lighter-looking ones, like the lighter shadow ones, get just like knocked and pushed away.

And a few of them get pushed back through the door and down the hallway. You, Magnus, you land with a thud sort of right next to. Johann. And though you knocked away a lot of these things and you cleared out some of this room, some of the bigger ones just walk up to you and they just start attacking you. And I don't necessarily want to... I can do bullshit and just roll against you like 20 times. But I think...

Yeah, I'm going to die. They just tear you apart. They just fucking destroy you. Hold on. I do want to just... Okay, that's a 14. How many do I take out? before they take me down.

This is important to me. Yeah, sure. Okay, with the wave of water, you took out, what did I say? There were like 40 in here, I think. You took out, like, all the robots. So that was like 12 of them.

And you took out like, I think you took out about 20 with the wave of water. And then as you land next to Johan, you're just like fucking last standing. You rolled a 14, you said. Yes. I think you take out like three or four. You take out four of the big ones.

But they get the better of you. and they cut you down and you fall, your mannequin body falls right next to Johann. And then all of a sudden, in a scene that is sort of immediately familiar to you, you are back in the ethereal plane, the plane sort of behind our plane, and you recognize sort of that haunting gray scale. This scene is still sort of unfolding around you. You see your body continuing to be, like, attacked by these, by the hunger. but there's no portal open to the astral plane sucking you in this time.

There's no Reaper coming to collect. There's just above you through the ceiling, you can see a swirling light above you. And you feel it kind of pulling you towards it a little bit. And it's kind of in the shape of your body. But before you get pulled away, you see immediately in front of you standing on top of his body, You see Johann. You see his spirit. And he looks up at you solemnly, Magnus, and he says,

Magnus, don't let them erase me, Magnus. Don't let them make the world forget. And then you are pulled away. Taco and Merle. You're now in the director's private quarters with Angus McDonald and with Barry. And the similarities between this room and Barry's like cavern hideout kind of striking. There's a, there's a desk in this room, although this one's obviously much more orderly than berries, because Lucretia is a very neat person. Towards the back of this desk

are two tall, even stacks of journals. And in front of these two stacks are two fresh, a completely empty, open journals with two sets of quills and two inkwells sitting like right next to each other. Merle, you see on this desk a holy symbol hovering and spinning above a disc, just kind of weightlessly floating above this disc. And you feel this powerful force. And I meant to remind you at some point this episode, but it never quite came up that Litchberry mentioned that there was some sort of force keeping him away from the

bureau headquarters. You know it's this thing. It is a holy symbol that is projecting out this field. And it's just this big circle of metal, kind of like a chakram almost. And inside is the design, this design of this big tree with 100 branches reaching out to the ends of the circle. And that symbol, make a religion check, Merle. A religion check. Yeah, you have a religion skill, which is probably pretty dope.

Religion plus four, so that's 20. 20. Okay, yeah, you recognize this symbol. as sort of, it's sort of a non-denominational symbol of the gods. It kind of represents like the whole pantheon. It's almost like in our world, it's like one of those coexist bumper stickers, right? And it's very powerful and it is projecting this field. But you can feel like a lot of holy power coming from it.

Also in this room is a map of the world. And like Barry's, this map is the one Lucretia has been using to track the relics across the globe. Her map, like the desk, is much neater than berries. And in the corner of this room, there is some sort of small tank almost with this light shining from within it that you can't quite see. And actually, when you look at this tank, your mind kind of feels weird. And that is familiar. But even making that connection, I think, is sort of beyond you at this point where, like,

it's just weird to look at this tank. Like, there's something in there that you know is there that you can't quite see. And also suspended above this tank is a bell. And as you walk into this room, the coin clicks on, and you hear Litchberry say, Okay, now you should have had enough time by now to get in there and drink. So you should be remembering now, but it may take you a while. But the short version, we're all and was one of us. But now if we can reach, we should be able to before.

And as he's talking, you here, hear just static. And every time you do, lights from inside this tank flash and shine. And as they do, that alarm bell above it lets out a deafening chime. And the coin keeps going. Now, just grab some extra for XSCHS. I know. I'm in the room too, right?

Yeah, you're all in the room. Yeah, we're all in the room. Can I get to the water in the tank? Yeah, sure. Um, okay, I'll drink some of it. Okay, you have a, you have a flask and, uh, there's no, like, spigot for this one, but the tank is just, like, open on top and you can just dip your flask in and you, you drink it? Okay. I'll pass it tomorrow. Okay.

Well, you both drink? Yeah, I guess I'll give some to berry, too. Okay. No, I actually won't give any to berry right now. Better give some to hango. Yeah, I'll give some Angos, though. Wait a minute. Awesome.

Oh, Jesus. Are you drinking out of a fucking big gulp? Ah, that's good. Yeah, he is actually. Okay, you... It's from Taco Bell, which he and I are going to have a discussion about later. 60 years old, dream. I happen to be 61 and a half.

Yeah, live moss my ass. Live menos. Live menos. Moe Manos. Live no moss. Me too. Hey, would it do any good to cast silence on the bell? I have silence.

A little late now. Do it. Good point. Do it, coward. Okay. I cast silence. Okay, yeah, the bell is quiet, but it's kind of the damage is done. I would like to resolve the thing that you guys just drank this voidfish, Icar.

Any void fish. And you don't give any to Barry, because is there any particular reason why? We've come this far with Barry. What do you think? Give him a sip. Yeah, yeah, he got a little sip. So he'll only get the vowels. No, he drinks some from the flask, and he actually has his own flask.

He takes like a, like a canteen full of this Iker. He's out of the bag now, right? Yeah, he's out of the bag. Yeah, and I got to, let me say something here real quick. Angus, do you see this? Your big hero? Lucretia has got this tank with you know what in it, right? Obviously something's wrong.

He takes a drink and he like steps backwards. He grows three sizes. He grows, it's Michael's secret stuff. No, he takes a drink as you all take a drink and yeah, all of a sudden, sure, all of you can see, there's a smaller baby voidfish floating in this canister. And Merle and a taco, Angus seems to react to that. And he's like, whoa, a little baby voidfish, how cute.

And he starts, like, tapping on the glass. Well, don't do that. The baby voidfish, like, holds up a little tindril up to the glass, too. Barry, it seems like, is like somebody just hit him in the head with a fucking hammer. Like, he is just, like, holding his head now and sort of shaking it back and forth. And he's, like, down on the ground. And Taco and Merle, you both feel like, you know how you feel like when you've got a cold just starting?

Like, you can feel this cold coming on. You know it's going to fuck you up. Or, like, you know that, like, you ate too much and, like, oh, boy, I'm going to be sick tonight. Like, you feel this. You feel something big coming. at your brains that is like it's it makes your gut run kind of cold and barry is like uh barry says like boys don't don't try to remember too fast it's it's it's it'll take you out merle can you do something about that holy symbol please before before and you hear feet um marching towards you down the down the

hallway um as people respond to the sound of the alarm that went off yep i cast divination okay My magic puts me in contact with a god or a god's servants. Okay. I got to try again. I got to try again. All right. I get to ask a single question concerning a specific goal, event, or activity to occur within seven days. Okay.

And the DM has to offer a truthful reply. Okay. It may be a short phrase, a cryptic rhyme, or an omen. Okay. I will request cryptic rhyme. Cryptic rhyme would be really fun. I will take it in the form of a haiku. The wind, the water.

Okay, you ready for my question, DM? Sure. How do I deactivate the holy symbol? Here's what's up. And I apologize in advance for this. But there's just kind of a narrative thread I need to get back to in a big way. I think this is how I do it. Not only does Pan not answer you,

you can't cast the spell and you actually feel it now and it's it this this is more finite than like the other times that you've cast spells and they've been kind of wonky um you don't have you can't cast magic any like you don't your magic comes from pan and pan's gone pan's not with you pan's not connected to you anymore so you're tap like the source for your magic that you tap is now gone and whatever you've been like tapping into whatever like residual energy it's gone and so so So until further notice, Merle is completely disconnected from his divine source. But who will heal us? So the spell didn't work or didn't reach anybody? Nothing happened. You didn't cast it. You have no magic powers.

They are gone. It might as well have been Clint. Trying to talk to Pan. I didn't say I was trying to talk to Pan. But with the, well, there's no good. Okay. Well, in that case, there's, it's still the same. In that case, it's still the same.

Just nobody answered. There's no powers. But you just don't have any powers at all. Now, I will tell you with that religion check you made, because it was a 20 and, like, really, really good. You detected that there's no, like, traps here. There's no, like, you're not going to be fucking destroyed if you go grab this thing. And actually, you recognize that the disc that it's floating over is kind of like the thing that is powering this spell. Well, the divine symbol is the thing powering the spell, but the disc is like what is sort of keeping it active.

I go grab the disc. Okay. Yeah. As you grab it, as you grab the divine symbol, it sort of like stops, you just sort of grab it from where it's floating over this disc. And you feel that spell just gets sucked into the disc, that anti-litch ward, the undead ward. And it just shatters the disc does. And the holy symbol you're holding, you now just have. and it is a plus two holy symbol, which is cool if you could use it to cast spells right now.

But you have deactivated sort of this field that was keeping Lichberry out, and you have a new thing for maybe someday. By this time, the guards have arrived into the room. And Barry shouts, boys, don't put up a fight. Things are in motion now, and we just got to go with the flow. but you're going to start remembering soon, but just take it slow, please. I'm begging you. You've got to take it slow.

And Angus is like, I don't know what you're talking about. I just see this voidfish, this cute voidfish. Is there a replay button on the coin? Yeah, really. So it could repeat the message now that we understand it? No. There's not. Of course not.

Let me put away my spell cards. Yeah, really. Magnus. Hey. Yes. You choke out a lung full of that green brackish fluid. from the pod as the membrane encasing you splits, dropping you back into the backroom of the fantasy Costco.

And you land on your hands and knees, your fleshy hands and your fleshy knees. That's the sound of my mannequin character sheet. Carbyscan. And you see all of your belongings around you. You notice something about your hands. You've got all 10 fingers. This body is fresh.

and because it was sort of taken from material from before Wonderland. So you're also not 10 years, I think it was 10 years older. Yes. And this body... Maturity. This body remembers nearly everything. You remember Merle and Taco and your quest for the relics. You remember your life with Julian Ravens Roost.

I wouldn't, again, take that from you. You remember the revival of Barry Blue Jeans. You remember that you're on the Bureau of Balance Moon Base here to break into the director's belongings to retrieve something that will help fill in the gaps of your timeline. You remember all of it except for the visions that you experienced in your mannequin form, the memories you were recalling. You don't remember being from another world. You don't remember giving the chalice to Jack and June in refuge. You don't remember dying alongside Barry Blue Jeans. You don't remember the big silver ship.

Something is blocking all of these things that while you were dead, you were able to remember. Most problematically, Magnus, you also do not remember the hunger. Take 14 points of damage as you are stabbed with something in the shoulder. You're stabbed in the shoulder. you have a moment to be like, oh, I'm back in my body again. And then you're just stabbed. And you see the wound kind of open up in your shoulder. You do not see anything in this room that did it. You are being assailed by some invisible force. And you feel like hands starting to grab at you. And you can kind of feel that there's like stuff in this room, but you absolutely cannot see it. What do you do?

I grab the sapphire. I smash it and I say the flaming raging, poisoning sort of doom. Okay. You, you, I think, yeah, you, when you're stabbed, you are kind of knocked backward against the table and you have a second to just like flash your eyes across the note. And it's long enough for Magnus to know what to do next. Do you just fucking crush it in your hand? Yeah.

Cool. That's badass. All right. You smash it and you call forward the poisoning, raging, flaming sort of doom. Um, you are otherwise nude? And you have this, but you feel a certain sense of security from this giant fucking flaming sword that appears in your hand. It only looks as though an eight-year-old design it because an eight-year-old design it. But it still looks fucking over-the-top radical much more than my 29-year-old mind could possibly device.

Twitter is going to explode. So is everything in this room, I think. I'm going to swipe it in the biggest fucking arc that I can. Make an attack roll. Well, so I roll a 15, and if I assume my rail splitter... Yeah, sure, same stats as rail splitter. So 24. That's good.

Here's what we'll do. I think with a 24, I think these things get one more sort of attack against you. And you're, like, nude right now, so your AC is kind of bullshit. Correct. So they got a 16, which is probably enough to hit. Um, yes. But they only slash you for nine points of damage. And you feel like as you do what you do here in the middle of it, you are interrupted just

slightly by like a small cut across your stomach as you take nine points of damage. Otherwise, you, oh, this is, this is how I envision the raging flaming poisoning sort of doom. Uh, it has like a, um, flint wheel on it. Kind of like a bick lighter. And so you just like drag your hand across it and all of a sudden this thing is ablaze. and you just fucking tornado spin all around this room sending like streaks of flame and poison like through the wall like against the wall like and like sizzling up against the wall and you can't like see anything still but you can like feel the sword connecting with shit and carving through shit and in the trail of fire that the sword leaves you see these figures just falling and collapsing to to the ground uh and after this this very tight quarters melee takes place, it is silent, and you are just in this room by yourself with a bunch of invisible corpses. I get dressed socks first. Yeah, all right. Let's just say you get,

you get all of your shit back together. Sox first. Sox first. And just using that same attack roll, just because I want to kind of move it along, and I don't think this would work as like a normal fight. You sort of carve your way out of the abandoned fantasy Costco. Just every once, in a while just like using intuition, just like fucking swinging. And yep, there was a thing there and you cut right through it. And you still can't see it. And you don't know what these things are, but you know they cut you. And so shit's bad.

And as you sort of kick your way out of the main door of the fantasy Costco, you are back out out on the quad of the Bureau of Balance headquarters. And the scene here is fucking horrible. There are a dozen Bureau employees out here. And they're all just swinging wildly with their weapons. now some of them are casting spells just blind trying to combat this invisible threat and as many like guards are like trying to fight these things that they can't see off there are guards just laying motionless on the ground and it is a chaotic anybody i recognize you do see some familiar faces over by the entrance to the main dome you see carry and killian they are over there fending off these invisible enemies and they're losing a little bit of ground noel is kicking ass. She's using her flame cannon

sort of a few, like a dozen feet away from Carrie and Killian, and she's just firing in all directions, like very confidently. Like, she's the only one that can see what's going on here, and she's just like, she's wrecking shit. But Carrie and Killian are losing

a little bit of ground as they're defending this door. And as you dash towards them, as you approach, you see something get the better of Killian. She blocks an attack with her big crossbow, but it gets knocked away, and that leaves her an opening. and you see this long red slash appear across her left arm,

and she kind of falls to the ground. And when Carrie sees this happen to Killian, she yells, and as she does, she changes a bit. You see this circle of frill that you've never quite seen before kind of unfold around her dragon-borne neck, and her eyes go kind of feral and wild, and this blue cloud of flame and lightning comes pouring out of her mouth, and she spits this electrical fire in a wide circle around her.

And you see it swirl around like a bunch of these invisible shapes that are just flailing and collapsing in the fire. And when this ring of blue flame clears, things are quieter for a little while. The fire subsides, and as it does, you see Carrie helping killing and her arm quickly. And through the flames, she sees you, Magnus, alive. And she's just dumbstruck.

Hello. Hail and well met. She runs over towards you, and that's a 21. She punches you in the fucking face. Fair enough. Really hard. Not too hard. It's kind of like you jerk.

That's only three points of damage. She wasn't putting her full weight behind it. And she's like, how did you? Why did what? Yeah, listen, I realize a lot, a lot. But right now, we need to get in there. We need to get to the director and we need to figure out what the fuck is happening. And then later, I can tell you about my weird wooden body and the whole thing that was going on and why this is and what this is.

but for now, I just need you to trust me. She launches herself at you, and she throws her arms around your neck in this big embrace. And she says, let me guess. You ignored my lessons. When there was trouble, you, well, you took the big hit, didn't you, bud? The four of you, Angus and Merle and Taco and Barry are, uh, in front of the director, and each of you kind of has a couple of guards standing nearby.

Davenport is here standing up on the dais with the director, and as you all sort of were brought into this room, Barry broke off and just sprinted towards the director pretty, pretty like aggressively, but Davenport actually kind of stepped in the way, and they tussled just for like a second, but Barry was pulled away and placed with the rest of you. And so the four of you standing now sort of in front of the dais and up on the dais is the director and she's she is surrounded by this um somewhat opaque but you can see through it um magical barrier and she's kneeling down and right next to her is one of those lead orbs um and you actually see a little i think just to sort of drive this home there's a little um a little white star

drawn on this orb with chalk and she's kneeling over her white oak staff and she's channeling some sort of energy from the orb into the staff which of course was the grand relic that she made when the seven of you first came to this world

and as you realize that you just had that thought you feel like your brain just got fucking struck by lightning and she looks at you as you both like kind of grab your heads and she says oh my god Did you did you inoculate yourselves?

Yes, we did. She says it's going to be too much. You're going to remember too much. It's too specific. You'll be killed. Why did you do that? We're stupid. Barry doesn't seem to be having as difficult a time.

Because, well, because every time that Barry dies and turns into a litch, he kind of remembers it again anyway. So this process isn't quite as painful as him. And so he's just standing next to you as you are sort of grabbing onto your heads, and he's looking up at the dais. And we'll say Taco, you're standing next to Barry in this line. And you hear him whispering an invocation. And you can tell that he is casting the spell command. And you hear him mutter a single word. And he says, drink.

And Lucretia says, what did you say? And Barry says, Lucretia, you got to help. them remember. It's over. You owe them that. You already have the relics. Just help them remember. Their minds are going to shatter if you don't. And Lucretia begins to explain. And she says, okay, listen, boys, and just try to follow along as I explain it. Don't try to think ahead because what happens next is very important. Taco, Merle, Barry. There were seven of us. We came from another world, another reality. We were members of the Institute of Plainer Research and Exploration.

We were an elite team of scientists and explorers sent to explore the realities beyond our own on this impossible ship. But something went wrong. We were pursued by a destructive force beyond measure or comprehension. So when we came to this world, the seven of us, we made the relics to try to hide the life. that they contained from the hunger that would consume us. But it was a mistake. We damned this world from the moment we put the relics out into it. And I didn't want to create the relics, but I was, and she looks grim for a second, she says,

but I was overruled. And so I took fixing our mistake into my own hands. I fed a record of our mission to the voidfish. And I made you all forget. I made the world forget what we did. and I hoped to give myself an opportunity to collect the relics myself and put right what we made wrong. And I failed. My first attempt at collecting a relic was in Wonderland, and I nearly died taking the truth of this world and the light and the hunger with me.

And so I set out to form an organization that could aid me in my task, one with checks and balances and a distrust of magical artifacts built into its core tenets. but this too was unsuccessful. The reclaimers I sent out, the thrall was too powerful for them to overcome. And so I needed help, but the only ones I could trust with helping me collect the relics were the only people immune to their thrall, the people who made them. You. And the void fish, as it so often has provided a solution, a child.

I was able to feed the child selections from our mission log, providing an essential redundancy. You could drink from the mother and learn of the existence of the relics and help me find them and destroy them, while the child could continue to hide the truth of their creation and the mission that brought us to this world after our long voyage. So I found you, the three of you. I ensured your employment with Gundran to bring you in contact with the first relic, and I created a grand story of rogue wizards exploiting schools of magic and evil liches.

to set you along the path, to provide you inspiration, and you did so well. But with these, and she gestures to the orb and her staff, she says, with the light of creation reformed, I can build a barrier to keep the hunger at bay. I can build a home that all of us can be safe in together, save for Loop. I'm so sorry, Taco Barry.

There was nothing I could do. And Taco, you remember Loop now, of course. How could you forget Loop? Those memories that you had in the chalice of your, like, lonely childhood, of you just, like, out on the road, just fighting for survival, there was something there that you couldn't quite perceive, some static? It was Loop. It was your sister out there with you on the road, outcast, but never alone. She says, so those are six of us, me, Barry, Loop, Taco, Merle, Magnus, and of course the seventh, our captain.

When I redacted the logs to feed to the second voidfish, I let you keep your names while eradicating any information pertaining to the mission. But for our captain, his life was the mission. He was impossible to edit around. And so, unfortunately, his name was all he kept. and she motions to her side and then reacts with a start as a silver dish falls to the ground, sending a bag of coins and three goshapon tokens bouncing down the steps of the dais. And there's Davenport. And he's holding the flask that Barry surreptitiously tucked into his hand.

And he's wiping some icker away from the edges of his mouth. And he shakes his head and he says, Lucretia, what have you done? And then the door opens. The last thing you see are team sweet flips, kicking in the door to the main dome, revealing to everyone inside the catastrophic scene outside. And Merle and Taco, you see Magnus back in the flesh, and the director gasps when she sees him alive. Not out of shock again, but out of happiness. but her relief quickly subsides and is replaced with the same horror that is now creeping over all of you.

Merle and Taco, as you see outside the door, you see those shadowy beings that assaulted Magnus earlier, and you recognize them too as the hunger. But more importantly, you see massive, half-mile-wide tendrils of living darkness worming out of the sky above and colliding with the ground below to form thick swirling pillars and from those pillars the hunger's armies have begun to manifest marching outward to raise the world below

it's the end of the world boy what a wild twist and turns there huh we are actually recording this right after we finished recording that bit so it's not sardonic no there's lots of wild fucking twist and turns And we're spent. We are absolutely spent. Yeah, pictures just like towels around our neck, like bottle of water.

Like, hey, we've had a lot of fun here today. But you know what's not fun? Asking for money. We'll get to the asking for money. I think we need to clear two things up really quick. First off, next week, a lot of people have been asking for this. We're going to do another VVe the Adventure Zone zone, which is going to be a fucking... Worst name for anyone.

It's really, really good. It's going to be a tightrope walk for yours truly because, like, don't ask, like, what's this mean? Or how's this going to happen next? Oh, that's a good point. This the the adventure zone zone is going to be your questions. So if you tweet them, use hashtag T-T-A-ZZ so we can, you know, find them. And without giving too much away, the second thing is that the next proper episode of this show, which will be up on, I always fucking get this wrong. The The Adventure Zone Zone is March 30th.

The next episode will be April 6. Holy shit. Well, nothing's happened that week because Persona 5 comes out. But like two months after that, the next episode, no, I'm just kidding. will be an episode where we kind of get into some stuff, filling in some of the gaps. So that'll be the next sort of thing. Again, not the last episode of the show. I feel like I have to clarify that every time.

Now that that programming note has been made, let's talk about the Max Fun Drive, huh, boys? Here's the thing. We talked about your support going to the shows. Like, we make this show, one, we love doing it. But we click record on a machine so other people can hear it because you love it. And I will say in all honesty, I am constantly humbled by how much people love the adventure zone. Like it has made me feel so – people – I literally just clicked over to see a tweet. Somebody said about them being touched by how invested I am in Magnus.

And I say this honestly, I am invested in it because I know you care about it and I want to do a good job for you. there's some and also folks there's some amount of money that you can give us that Travis will stop reading Twitter while we record and I don't know what that dollar amount is but I really if you could just get to that level of professionalism whatever that dollar amount is folks I would just love to get to that point I do want to be clear Justin I only did it when other people were talking

not while I was talking right oh so it's just like real life yeah so the max fun drives the only thing keeping our fucking family together at this point I guess And it's not really doing a good job of that. It's not even doing that. So we need more members, new, new and upgrading members. So yeah, it's, we, you here have heard probably a bunch of these breaks at this point. And I hope you don't just sort of dismiss it as, I don't know, shilling or whatever.

But like, I really, it is, it is, we, we've been able to do as much stuff as we've done with, with the different podcasts and now the TV show and all the live shows and the new podcasts. We've been able to do all this stuff because of the support that we've done. get from you during the max fund drive. So like, I don't know, it's an, it's an important, it's a really important thing for me. And it's really touching and humbling every year to see the support we get. And you can, you can be a part of that. You can be a part of the show. You can help us sort of grow this thing and try new stuff just by going to maximum fund.org slash donate and becoming a monthly donor. Dad, you want to walk us through some of the other levels for some of our

more big ticket? I'm going to jump in real quick, though, just before I forget, because I've seen a lot of people asking about this. The pens, Jesse announced that if we hit our goal, of 10,000 new and upgrading donors, they're going to make the pens available for sale to $10 and up donors so that they can get more of them if they want to, and the proceeds of that will be going to charity. Awesome.

And also, if we hit $10,000, we've talked about, we mentioned last time that bonus episode. Oh, yeah. Yeah, another Taz Knights episode. Yeah. They'll get if we hit $10,000. Well, I tell you what,

we've covered the $5 with the bonus content, the $10 with the enameled pin, the $20 with the note cards and the pin and everything else. And of course, all the levels before that. $35, we mentioned for the engraved beer mugs, that gets added to the pile. And for $100 a month, the Inner Circle Culture Club. Now, I don't have to tell you what that is. I'll let somebody else tell them what that. You get to where people on the maximum fund network get to pick something cool to send, that's why you've never been involved Dad, because I don't own anything cool. You'll probably try to send them a fucking Ben-Varine record.

Hey, now. Rachel and I have a Rosebyes this year. Did an Al Jaro record, so I don't want to hear it. Let's not put down Vareen or Jero. No, absolutely not. They're all great, great, great folks. But one of the Max Fun shows will send everybody on this list, one of their favorite things. We've sent out some bizarre items before, like, raindrops on roses.

I think we said, like, we said, uh, fuck. Shotla Funk CD. Definitely said Buckshot LaFung CD. Vicker. And then... It was music. Music Evolution was the specific Bachshall LaFunk album.

And we also sent out, I believe, Meet the Beatles, didn't we? Believe we sent out Meet the Beatles on DVD, I believe. Good stuff. How can we match that? We can. Those are the two best artworks. Yeah.

For $200 free registration to Max FunCon 2018, it is always a blast. It's a blast not only for the people going to it, but for those of us of Max Funn, who get to hang out with you guys. Yeah. Honest with you.

So there's those higher tiers, but again, like any donation level that you're comfortable with that you can do, like all that is is just you showing your support for our stuff

and showing support for Adventure Zone and helping us like make more stuff out of it and more stuff with it. And you know, we should also point out that the goal of 10,000 is not just new donors. It's also upgrading donors. So it's been a donor before

from a previous year and maybe this year, you started listening to some new shows. We added Rose Buddies to the network. Adam ruins everything. There's a bunch of other shows that just got out of this year. Minority Corner, all these other shows. And, you know, maybe you've been checking out more shows,

and maybe you found yourself, you're making a little bit more money and you can afford to give a little bit more. Maybe consider upgrading your donation level to the next highest tier. Yeah, I saw somebody on Twitter said they went from $5 to $10 because they pay that much for Netflix. and they enjoy max fun content and a lot more than Netflix

and I think that's a really good way of thinking about it. Let's hold up. We don't have Terrace House on our thing. Now we don't have Terris House But you talked about

Terrace House on Rose Buddies, so... That's true. Never mind we do have Terrace House. Fuck all y'all. Also, you get an exclusive the bonus content

at just $5 a month even if you do $5 a month the bonus content is so cool including you get an exclusive scene from our TV show where we talked to Chief Chigorelli about something that you'll see. But that's really fun and funny.

And you can get it for just five bucks a month. Yeah, I will be honest with you. I upgraded my membership. I just, that's the truth. I just did it today. I just, I updated mine. I upgraded mine to the next level. Well, congratulations.

Thank you. I want that pin and nobody will give me one. Which one did you go with? Oh, I went with the Rose Buddies pin. Oh, good. That's a good one. Just kidding. I got adventures on it.

Yeah. Oh, all right. He's literally, yeah. He went with Venturesone. So if you can, Maximumfund.org for it slash donate or go to maximum fund. org and click the Donny button either way. Sorry, I guess for this kind of anticler. Like, we just did like a big, huge fucking campaign long twist reveal. And then, yeah.

You really ought to build some kind of dramatic scene for the end of this message, Griffin. Can you not do that as a DM? Yeah, you know what? There is actually. We're surrounded. Yeah, we're surrounded by all these other podcasts. You know what? I will actually drop a little thing here at the very end.

A little, um, there's like after the, after the credits. And then fucking Samuel L. Jackson walks in. So, um, yeah, here's one last thing. And we'll see you next week for the, the adventure zone. Bye. We see inside of Lucretia's office, specifically the portrait. And wearing these uniforms of red are seven people. There's an elven woman who looks so much like you, Taco.

And she has her arm around Barry. both smiling. And Taco, you're just like front and center frame and you're cheesing it for this picture. And Merle, you and Davenport are standing side by side and you've got your shirt sleeves rolled up and you're laughing and just like flexing and striking a pose. And Magnus, you're just kind of standing behind them and smiling and waving kind of goofy. And in the middle of this, this crew, with the same cautious smile you've seen hanging over her office for a year now is Lucretia and she's holding her journals and she's surrounded by friends. And if you were in that office still, you could see it all now.

You could see the seven of you celebrating a rare moment of peace and happiness during your harrowing journey. And it's time to remember this moment now and all the others that brought you to where you are today. It's time to reclaim your stolen century. Listener supported.