The Adventure Zone - Ep. 62. The Stolen Century - Chapter Three

Episode Date: May 4, 2017

Our heroes have earned a break, don't you think? Merle finds a place to settle down. Magnus keeps 'em on their toes. Taako dispenses some beach wisdom. 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

Hey everybody, this is Griffin Macroy, your dungeon master, your best friend, and your number one fan. It's such an honor to meet you. Thanks for listening to Episode 62 of the Adventure Zone. It's the third episode in our Stolen Century arc, and this one's going to be, I wanted to give you a heads up here at the top of the episode. It's going to be a bit short. We kind of got together to record some stuff, and when we were done recording this episode, we didn't know it was going to be like a whole episode, but it just kind of felt like a, I don't

know, a good sort of self-contained thing. And not only that, like, it's going to help us get back on track. Obviously, this is our second week in a row doing an episode, and then we're doing this to get back on the regular schedule. So the next episode is going to be up on May the 18th, and then it's right Thursday's right again, and we did it. And this sort of shorter episode is our way of getting back on track. So I'm just going to do, like, the stuff I usually do in the middle of the episode now, since it's not going to be a super long one. Our first sponsor this week is Blue Apron. You've heard us talk about Blue Apron a lot.

I've been using it for about a year now. Me and Rachel are big, big fans. I cooked up a tasty salmon dish with this, like, good mustard seed potato salad thing earlier this week. That was completely amazing. Basically, what they do is for less than $10 per person per meal. Blue Apron will send you seasonal recipes

along with pre-portion ingredients that you can use to make delicious home-cooked meals. Right at home, obviously. That's what makes them home-cooked. They got stuff like beef, terriarchy stir fry with sugar snap peas and lime rice, baked spinach and egg flat bread with a sauteed asparagus and lemon aoli, three cheese and baby broccoli stromboli with tomato and oregano dipping sauce.

God, that all sounds good. You can check out this week's menu and get your first three meals for free with free shipping by going to blue apron.com slash adventure. That's blue apron.com slash adventure, Blue Apron, a better way to cook. Also want to tell you about NatureBox. They got all the snacks. that you crave, all the snacks that you need. You can start snacking healthy right now with NatureBox.

They send you snacks that taste great and are better for you, created with high-quality ingredients that are free from artificial colors, flavors, or sweeteners, so you can feel great about your snacking. They got all kinds of good stuff like salt and pepper pop pops, dark chocolate non-noms. They got raspberry whole wheat figgy bars. They got Big Island pineapple. That's just like some big dried slices of pineapple that's real, real good.

They have so many snacks that you're going to love, and right now you can save even more NatureBox is offering Adventure Zone fans 50% off your first order when you go to Naturebox.com slash Adventure. That's Naturebox.com slash adventure for 50% off your first order. One more time, naturebox.com slash adventure. Got some Jumbot Char messages, too. I'm going to go through real quick. This one is for Noah, and it's from Jeremy Le Jeremy,

Damanic Game Show host, and the rest of the Squishy Boys. I don't know if this is multiple. I'm going to assume this is multiple. people. They say, Noah. Despite our best efforts, you've managed to keep our adventure rolling, and we can't thank you enough for it, especially when you let us keep the dog we found, because he ended up being the best fighter in the party. Ain't that how it goes? Thanks for being the best DM we know. Here's to more horse meat sandwiches and never zooching, or is perhaps zucking, another initiative role. I don't know how to pronounce this. I don't know if you're

rolling with Mark Zuckerberg as a member of your party. but that's an inspired D&D choice. Thanks for the good work, Noah. Hang in there. Got another message here. This one's for Chris, and it's from Leslie, who says, Happy birthday and anniversary to my boyfriend and DM. As Adventure Zone is our show while traveling,

I know we're listening at our gate in the airport right now. Thanks for all the love, support, and pictures of sloths over the last six years. I can't wait for many more adventures together, like wherever we're headed right now. That's, uh, uh, they, they wanted this late April, early May. So hopefully they're on a trip right now. Staying safe. Seeing the sites, taking lots of pictures and bringing home a souvenir for me, because I'll cry if you don't. Uh, I want to thank everybody who's been tweeting about the show using the, the Zonecast hashtag. Uh, got just a couple more character names that I'm using. I've started to like finish outlining this arc and, um, there's a couple spots. So, uh, if you tweet

about the show, you might end up as a character. Uh, and otherwise, we just really appreciate it because we don't pay to advertise this show at all. And we're, mouth is the only way that we get new listeners, and it's grown into this really big, cool thing because of y'all and your enthusiasm. So thank you all so very, very much. I think that's it. I'm going to let you get into the episode. Again, it's a bit of a shorter one. We appreciate you hanging in there as we sort of get the ship back on schedule. And like I said, at the beginning of this break, the next one's going to be up on May 18th. And then, oh, shit, we're going to see a lot of you for the Austin Live show that next weekend. So I'm looking for.

forward to that and see you all real soon. Bye. Who the heck was that nerd? The intro is my job. Just watch how it's done. It's the adventure zone. So in the last episode of Stolen Century, I think it's safe to say things got maybe a little bleak, maybe a little bit dark. There was maybe, I may have ended Travis's world that he made and worked really hard on.

No, it's non-canonical, Griffin. And you ended a version of that in your universe. You know what I mean? Okay. And things got to say. Travel World 2. Yeah. It's not called that, but okay.

Things got maybe also a little fungal, a little gross, and maybe folks weren't so into that. And so I thought maybe for this episode, we could lighten things up a little bit. And I think the best way to do that is I have a good old-fashioned beach episode. Beach Garden. Yeah. No more wasting time and composing music for the show. You've got fucking Michael Winslow over here.

Yeah. The guy from Family Matters? Oh, no. Yeah. Well. Is it? Eddie. You're thinking of Eddie.

Winslow. Sorry, Justin. Were you just trying to figure out if Michael Winslow was the name of one of the characters on Family Matters real quick? Yeah. Their last name was Winslow,

so it's not like it would be a wild stretch. How was that never? Well, I always talked enough about, but how is that never a cameo appear? How is that not again? Hey, it's me, your cousin Michael. Hmm. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Boom. Woo, woo, whoa, whoa. Fucking typical Michael Winslow references for everybody to enjoy. So, yeah, that we just spent a minute and a half on. So in this cycle, the seven of you come down on the Star Blaster, and that name, it's like a rich. It's like a rich honey. Every time I say it, it's just, also, I apologize, I'm very croaky because I started couch to 5K today, and I almost died.

And I think I pooped with some of my lung matter out. And so I'm a little grumbly. So in this cycle, you, you, the 70 of you come down into what is essentially a completely uninhabited world. Most of it is under a huge ocean. Only like 5% of the, this world is landmass. And you're not really sure what the deal is after your sort of flyover reconnaissance, whether civilizations used to exist here and collapsed and drowned or if they never existed or what. But in a rare stroke of luck, when the hunger first scopes you out in the light of creation falls,

it falls just like a day's ride away from where you all are. And so you find it and recover it like within the day with little issue. And so the seven of you like have a year. in this, like, pretty nice tropical world. And at sort of Davenport's behest, you all decide to sort of take a break and have sort of a, like, a mental health year. And so you all work together and you build this large,

sort of comfortable shelter on a pleasant beach right next to where the Star Blasters parked, and you spend a relatively peaceful year together just sort of, you know, fishing and cooking, for one another and just sort of genuinely enjoying the break from this otherwise like really, really difficult journey. So, um, with that in mind, how do you all spend your year? Hmm. I'm giving you all sort of more like freedom to like do whatever this time. There's no like immediate, you've got the light of creation. And I want to make it clear like this is not me trying

to pull some sort of, um, twist on you. Like I wanted to give you like an opportunity to sort of, um, You know, have a cycle to yourselves to like do whatever without the apocalypse looming over you. Yeah, I think I'd like to be a beachcomber and take all the shells and shark's teeth and drift wood and what have you and make things for my crewmates. Make things like you would find at a wings or one of those, you know, trinket stores. I want to make some cheap crap for my friends. Well, it's not cheap if you picked. I guess it's the cheapest because you literally picked it off the ground. I'll try this.

I'm going to damn dime on it. Okay, well, give me an example of some of the stuff that you, some of the stuff that you make, and let's play this out a little bit. Well, I'll start with the Primo stuff, the shark's teeth necklaces, you know, where you take the shark's tooth and you drill a little time.

hole in it and you know spend a lot of time looking for the shark's teeth which enables you to get really bad sun burn so that's kind of the downside that's what I'm sacrificing roll uh do me a favorite roll plus mind and let's like figure out like how successful you are it sort of digging stuff up um wow uh six and a one that's seven and then an eight is mine okay um make success yeah I think you find like shark's teeth and wood I think if you'd roll like a 10 plus or something, you'd be like pulling out like fucking pearls and, um, all kinds of like fancy, fancy stuff. But yeah, you have the, the basics that you need to make stuff. So you make some sharks, you make a shark suit. You make a shark suit. Yeah. Who's that? Who's that for? And I'm going to take the little,

like, the shells I find and like glue, googly eyes on them, because that's always funny. And they make little bodies out of like pipe cleaner or whatever pipe cleaner. I'm sorry, you're going to have to roll for googly eyes. You can't just, oh, yeah, there is a special I think that's plus body because you've got to really maneuver those little plus body. Nah, I didn't find a googly eyes apparently. Okay.

That's a two and a minus one. And actually, just based on the rules of the game, Dad, you died. You died. You tried to put some googly eyes on a shell and the shell broke and it cut you to ribbons and you died. Oh, God.

I'm sorry. I thought this was just going to be a fun. No, no. It's all right. I went doing what I loved and that was. Making trash. Making trash. So help me match some, like, gifts up to some people.

Like, what did you get for Magnus? Oh, for Magnus, I made a fake arm, like, for your upper arm. You know, instead of getting, like, a tribal tattoo, I got a bunch of driftwood, and I strung it together to make, like, an upper arm. I'm sorry. You made a, you made a, you made a, you made a tattoo. It's just, you drew it on a big piece of wood that you then tied on to him. This is the, this is, you invented the temporary tattoo.

It's almost like, Dad doesn't know the word jewelry. No, this is good. Well, no, this is more the jewelry. This is from the heart. This is a piece of wood that you tie onto your arm. I'm sorry, Jane Seymour's heart collection, dad? That's from the heart. Yeah, that is true.

What did you get taco? For Taco, I made him a pair of slippers out of the kelp. I found a bunch of kelp and I wove them together and made him... You got him slimy shoes. Can we just do these scenes? Yeah, do this scene of you giving these slime shoes to Taco. Yeah. Well, I wasn't sure your size.

So there's a lot of give in kelp. And if they're too small, get them wet, and they'll get bigger. And these are for you. Oh, oh, thank you, my man. These are just beautiful. And the thing is, if you don't like wearing them, you can roll up raw seafood in them and make sushi. Perfect. I'll be sure to put these to good use.

Let me know when his back has turned. So anyway, Magnus, I turn. All right, cast levitate on them. Oh, no, look at them. Look at them. Oh, no. Oh, no, my beautiful shoes. until his back was turned so you could draw his attention back to them?

Well, he went and see me cast levitate on my eyes. What are you doing by levitt? Are you just like throwing them up into the sky? Right. They're just levitating away. Oh, no, my beautiful shoes. And when he turns back to look at the shoes, I cough and throw the arm bracelet into the ocean. And then, and then, and for you, uh, loop, I found a gigantic Portuguese man of war.

And I ripped its guts out and I made a shower cap for you. Oh, I don't. And you notice the tentacles kind of hang down and it looks like pink hair. So I thought, you know, with, you know, you would like that. Cool. I don't want that. No, you will. You'll love it because next time you shower.

It's a dead fish. I don't want that on my head. Merle, you get that I don't want that on my head, right? I think you're playing coy with me. I think this is probably something you've thought about for a long time. time. Okay. She takes it and throws it to the ground and it just kind of splatters as it hits the ground. She's like, oh, no, a demon, while you were looking, an invisible demon that only I could see threw it to the ground. Oh, durn. And Lucretia, I made this. It's, I took three sand dollars and made

a Mickey Mousehead out of it. That's M-I-K-K-E-E-M-E-M-E. M-K-K-K-E. M-E-E. A. U.S. Mickey Mouse. Sort of another trademark feature. Sort of another dead fish hat. But the thing is,

if you're ever drinking three glasses of beverage at the same time, it's a triple coaster. Excellent. Yeah. Yeah.

Consume that. Barry is slowly backing out of the room that you're standing in as you do this award presentation. It's okay, Barry,

because I'll have to wait and make years later. I'm not feeling real good from that. that cut I got from the shell and I'm gonna go lay down for a couple minutes You're not actually gonna die from the shell

I wanna make that clear No I like it I like it I want to die from the ship You're not gonna die from the shell That would make us all feel really bad About throwing your gifts away Nobody dies during the beach episode I forbid it

I still don't feel good I'm gonna go lay down He ate some bad man of war While you go lay down I think Lucretia who's like the only person That like kept Your gift maybe comes to like check on you and make sure you're good.

And she's talking to you and she says, Merle, it seems like your gift giving didn't go maybe as well as you wanted. And I just wanted to apologize for the rest of the crew. They told me to, they definitely told me to come in here and apologize for how rude they were. But I got to say, I was, I, I'm impressed at sort of how, how well you've taken to this, this hashtag beach life. It seems like you've really kind of, you know, It seems like you're really comfortable here.

It seems like you're really, I don't know, happy here. I like it here. I could see myself settling down here, except, you know, for the toxic exploding shells. It's not bad. Thank you. But did you say they didn't like my gifts? I know. What did you say?

I got confused by... Oh, I thought you were saying that they didn't. No, I thought you said that. I thought that you said. I thought you said that. No, oh, no, they loved them. Did you not see their faces? They're filled with childlike glee. Anyway, you lay down. Yeah. You lay down and rest up and she leaves. I'm going to dig a little hole in the sand to puke in. Justin and Travis, what do you think I should give dad for this scene? I don't know if, Merle, did you make anything for, Merle, did you make anything for yourself that we could count as an asset, or is this a

bond? I think an asset, just because, like, you made some shit. What did you make, I want you to have made something for yourself to sort of remind you of this beach world. What was it? Yes, of course. I took a piece of driftwood and I embedded shark's teeth in it and now it's a wicked club. Okay. Yeah, sure. Fuck it.

Yeah, that's cool. Like a little, uh, warriors style improvised beach weapon. Like something that the rock would use. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Take one asset for your. And I'm going to call it the rock.

I think this also isn't the only, since it's a year, this is probably not the only gifts that you made for folks, but with that role, I think they were of equivalent value. But go ahead and take an asset for this thing that you've made for yourself. Taco and Magnus. So I, so I, here's what I'm picturing. Magnus sees a piece of driftwood, picks it up, stares deeply into it, sees the grain, is, is looking at the different shapes. of the wood, like, you know, getting it real close to his eye. And then he yells, Loop! Pull! And throws it up as high as he can. Okay. And sure enough, like, Loop just, like, magic missiles it the fuck out of the sky.

She actually, like, Devil May Cry-style, like, combos, air juggles it up in the air. And she was, like, standing on the ship. She was very far away from you when this happened. So from, like, a hundred meters away, you just hear a shout, Rad! And give you a big thumbs up. What is this sort of like, what are you envisioning here? I'm envisioning it being kind of like a training year for Magnus, but also like keeping everyone on their toes kind of thing. So it's like, you know, so it just throughout the course of the year kind of like a, you know, Magnus jumps out from behind a rock, you know, Cap-import, you know, or like. Let's do that.

Okay, Cap-and-Port's just sort of walking out on the beach. She's having some Cap-import time, some alone time. Um, he's, he's got like a bottle of, uh, he's got a bottle of wine that he brought from a previous world. And he's just like, this is the place that he wants to drink it at. And so he like sits down, rolls out a blanket, sits down on the beach at sunset as the tide is rolling out. And just is like really enjoying this glass of wine. And you, I guess this is when you pull your, just make sure he's on his toes. You, what do you do to like?

Just jump from behind a rock and go, Magnus. Okay. He's, I mean, he spills pretty much the entire, he throws the glass of, you know, when you get like really scared and you're holding something, you will just like launch it. I think he just like throws the entire glass of wine who's holding and the glass into the ocean. I was like, what the, why? That was. You got to be ready. And then I run away.

Okay. So you want to do it. Give me one more. Give me one more of your, your surprise training. regimen. Okay. I'm going to go with, uh, you know, uh, Merle. Okay. What do you do to Merle? What? I'm still shell-shocked. While Merle's still lying sick in bed, I'm hiding underneath his bed. And, and how does this resolve? This is puking. I stand up silently beside the bed so that when he comes back from

puking into a bucket, there I am. Magnus. Why would you do that? Merle, a tax could come at any time, Merle. You gotta be ready. Magnus. Magnus, go ahead and roll plus heart, I guess, to see if you just fucking annoy everybody, maybe. I thought this would be experience, but okay. I don't think it's, eh.

I mean, everybody else is getting experience. How about this, based on your heart roll. Let's see how you do. I roll the seven plus one, it's an eight. Okay. I'm going to offer you a choice with that. Either you can take one bond as represented by just like, I don't know, there's probably a couple folks on the crew who like enjoy this,

or you can let Merle and Taco take plus one experience for your training them. I will let him take plus one experience. All right. Merle and Taco take plus one experience. Thank you. That was my goal. Yeah, I like the way that resolved. Taco.

What's up? Do you have an idea for what you want to do? Guess what I'm going to do this year. What's that? I'm going to learn to surf. All right. I'm going to have, first I'm going to work with Magnus to find a nice light wood that he can carve into a basic shape. Okay, one thing here.

I don't have, I don't know if Magnus is a carpenter yet. Like, Magnus, are you a carpet? I thought that might be something that happens eventually, but like, and obviously Magnus becomes a carpenter after we arrive on the, on podcast planet. But I don't, I mean, we can talk about this, Magnus. Do you have like an upbringing that would make you a good carpenter? Is this not, I think, it kind of felt like something that you pick up along the way.

Maybe this is where he picks it up. He's got a whole year. Well, I mean, I don't. I'm not poop putting this idea. I'm just, yeah. No, I will say that. Like, hey, beloved, also I should mention that, like, I'm a magic boy, so, like, I can make another surf. Like, I was trying to be nice for your fantasy game, but, like, I can get, I can, like, get a surfboard.

No, this is not me. This is not me trying to come up with, like, trying to figure out what the cool story is here. Like, is, yeah, I would say that at this, at this point, Magnus is not yet a carboner, but if you need me to hack a part of a piece of wood. But, but, but, but. But, but. We have a character who has just spent a whole year of sort of salvaging. beach materials into like cool shit. I think Merle maybe could make you a surfboard pretty good at this point.

So it was cool shit. I told you. This surfboard's pretty cool. All right, you've got a surfboard. What's it look like? Because I imagine you can do some magic to make it look righteous. It's a magic carpet design. It's a mellow cruiser good for lazy days and lazy waves.

Just Google that or? Nah, just kind of top of my head stuff that I know about surfboards. and of course I'll use transmutation magic to glass the outside of it because I don't have access to fiberglass sheeting so I'm going to use the outside to glass it just like a cool surfboard Now Justin on that board will you be able to hang like eight or nine

Yeah I'm probably going to hang ten on this vaivoy I know that's kind of my plan Oh you know what I'm going to remember that to use as like a like a magic spell to make something fly. Perfect. I'm laying in the groundwork. By the way, the name of the surfboard is Woody.

No, it isn't. It's Woody, yeah. It isn't. No, it's called the wavecarver. And keeping in line with our perfect naming conventions. The wave carver is awesome.

And it's got obviously bitch and flame decals on every inch. Like anywhere you look at it, it looks like awesome flame decals. How do you keep them from? bleeding into each other. Well, I glassed it after I put the design on there. But wouldn't all the flames, wouldn't it just look like one big flame? Whoa, Traff, that, you just described a pretty cool surfboard. All right, what is this, what is this?

I don't think there's anybody on the team who knows how to surf, so is this just self-taught, just like you getting out on the waves? How does, how does Taco know what surfing is? I'm inventing surfing, Griffin. I'm inventing surfing. Let me tell you this. My original plan for this year was to just piss it off. All right.

Like my original plan for this year was just like not fucking do anything. That was my first instinct. And I feel like Taco at some point just like got bored with that. Like that was his first plan for like the first two weeks was not to do shit. Saving his energy for the challenges in classic survivor tradition. And instead he's going to try to learn how to surf. So you just you just get out there and just like start humping those waves or just work working your way up to the big house? To the big pipes.

I think it started with. like floating on the board just to like get away from everybody and then eventually he got too far out and had to try to learn how to surf back yet. Didn't Magnus throw his wood arm bracelet I gave him into the ocean?

Yeah. Maybe that was an inspiration. You saw it floating on the wall. Maybe. Oh, that's good. You saw it just like getting pushed around by the waves and you're like I'd love to be on that. Yeah, or one of the chunks that blew out of the sky like was floating. I was like, oh, that seems chill. So, uh, Roll Plus, body.

Damn, didn't really think through that one. It's really more about, it's really more about heart. If you think about it, Griffin. You've seen Johnny Tsunami. Hey, that's a nine minus one, so eight. Okay. I don't think, take plus one experience. I don't think, I don't think you ever get, I don't think you ever cry, like,

I don't think you ever, like, crush that big, those big pipes. Incorrect. Oh, you do. I think I do once, right? Okay, here's what you are, you are a competent surfer, and you pick it up, you pick it up pretty quickly, and you're surfing pretty good. And in doing so, I think you just like, maybe this is when you become a little bit more dexterous, right? Like, maybe this is where sweet flips, like, starts going because you need some of that stuff to be, like, good at surfing. Okay.

And you, I think Loop, I think Loop watches you like surf sometimes when you like go out for your, for your lessons. But then she gets bored because she's not the one surfing. And so she goes back to doing what she does. But Barry Blue Jeans is like a big fan. Barry Blue Jeans loves watching you do it. He's like kind of hypnotized. So you spend a lot of the year like practicing surfing in addition to like all the other hanging out that you do. with everybody.

And after like one session of coming in, Barry Blue Jeans is like, wow, good day today. Taco, you, this is what Barry sounds like, right? Sure. Who remembers? Yeah, I don't. Boy, that was a good day out there today, Taco. You're really eating that foam up, just really carving that spray. Hey, can I ask you a favor?

Sure, yeah, of course. I made myself like pretty vulnerable here And I hope that you can appreciate that And I know that we haven't we've been traveling together for two decades But we haven't really had much time to get to know each other Um Will you Fuck

You teach me how to swim Yeah Wait Oh you're kind of a Barney, huh? A what? Barney, it's surfer slang It's like an inexperienced surfer We call him a Barney

I mean I'll never get up on that graceful board And carve that spray the way you do But just like Everybody else goes swimming all the time And I just don't know how to do it And it's like It's getting the point where it's like I'm a grown ass man

And it's just kind of embarrassing And I don't know It's stupid I can ask Magnus if you want I just thought that maybe You're just so good out there on the water That maybe you could What did you need?

Boy this beach really Sound really carries across it out You know something? Boy! I heard my name. It's just every time Merle barfs, I hear it no matter where I am, it's just sort of in my head constantly. Taco, will you teach me how to fucking swim, please?

I'm just getting, now I'm getting Nancy. Yeah, man, Dawn Patrol. We'll get out there first thing in the morning. Okay, you teach, you teach him out of swimming. He's really bad at it. And he, I think you have to make him some sort of magic ear plugs in order for him to even do it. it actually becomes like a thing.

Like every morning you go out and you get that good morning surf in. And then Barry comes out to like root you on. And then you give them some swimming lessons. And now people will stop tweeting about me that I said that one of Barry's favorite things is swimming in a cold lake on a hot day. And then two episodes later say he didn't know how to swim. I'll take that. No, you all got me. You razzed me good.

And in doing so, I think you and Barry become a bit closer together. And roll plus heart for me real quick. That is... Oh, 11. All right. Hmm. He says, boy, Taco Ice. It's close to the end of the year now.

And you're both very good at what you do in that big, beautiful blue ocean. He says, boy, Taco, I appreciate it. I feel like I've, there have been times where I haven't been able to hang out with everybody because y'all go swimming. And there are times where there's people I, like, you know, I want to hang out with. And I just haven't been able to do it. And that's not a good look. And it makes me look like a big nerd.

And I, it's just, I just like, I don't know, it's, I never mind. It's stupid. Thanks for teaching me how to swim. Well, I mean, you could have just come out with us. I mean, what are you, who are you afraid looking silly in front of? It's, don't worry, but it's nothing. I, uh, I, I, Mary, we should get back to the ship. Barry, I rolled in 11.

You gotta tell me, Barry. He says, um, I just think, you know, it's like all, all of you, I don't want to be, I don't want to embarrass myself in front of. And like, for example, just like, for example, like, like, loop. I look, I look up. Yeah, I look up the loop a lot. And, you know, I don't want to be out there floundering around, splashing around like some sort of goobus.

So, um, just think just... I see where you're going with this, Barry. You, listen, this is not a surprise to me. You ever heard the term locked in? It's when a wave crashes and the surfer is inside it. More surfer terminology. One of our surfer lingoes. Real quick, real quick.

It's been a year. Is your hair longer now? Is your hair like sort of? a little bit surf crunchy? Yeah, better than ever. And I have a puka shell necklace that I made and the special thing about the enchantment that I made when I transmuted it,

is that the moment we leave this reality, it disintegrates. Like, it can't exist outside of this. This is not my perma look. Sorry, I did not mean to interrupt your speech. I just needed to know if you were like full-blown Bodie or not. Hey, do you want a seaweed leisure suit to go with your poop and necklace? Absolutely not.

I'm worried that would mess up my lines. So, Barry, you're locked in. This wave's crashing all around you, my man. And I don't begrudge you anything. You know, we've lost a lot. And there's a lot more we might lose. But the one thing we do have is the thing that... people in love rarely ever have enough of and it's time oh i don't know about you know i don't know about in love

it's only been um 21 years sure sure shit barry um barry you got all the time in the world my man all right let's call it there that's good uh that's a good cycle um i don't think i don't think we escape yeah you escape and it's just fine i don't think we need to like i don't think we need to get into into that. I don't think we need to... I would actually like to not maybe put as much an emphasis on, like, the end of it. But you have the light and you fly away, and this world is saved, not that there was much here for them to attack. And maybe the last thing we see is, like, as you... Hmm, you know what would be good here, actually? Hmm, is this the place to do it? I think there's

the place to do it. Okay, about a week before the end of this cycle, Lucretia has been working on something this entire year as like a gift for everybody that is that that is she's really excited about but she's been very reclusive about and hasn't let you all know and when when the year's almost up you all are having just one more beach rager is there a word for Dawn Patrol but at like night taco surfer boaty taco regular surfing I guess I think you I think you guys just have like a nice little cookout and you see just Taco

just effortlessly sailing over the waves and Merle at this point you're all I sneak up on Barry Okay And do what? I jump out from behind a rock But maybe Griffin I wouldn't need you to roll To see if Barry anticipates it

No I'm never going to roll any dice while playing this game You sneak up on him And he like throws his head like kind of forward as you sort of grab him from behind and his glasses go flying off his face. And writers are about to be like dashed on the rocks. Like Loop like reaches down and catches him really quick and hands him back to Barry who kind of blushes. And I just whisper in his ear. Max.

Um, and Taco, you come back in and you all have like one last sort of great night here. And Lucretia. You know I'm getting a little country boil going by the way. Yeah, for sure. No question. And Lucretia, as you all are about to go in to sleep to leave the next morning, Lucretia unveils what she's been working on. And it's just a portrait of the seven of you here in this world.

And you're all wearing your uniforms. And for once, you all look just so happy. Maximumfund.org. Comedy and culture. Artist owned. Listener supported. Judge John Hodgman ruled in my favor. Judge John Hodgman ruled in my friend's favor.

Judge John Hodgman ruled in my favor. I'm Judge John Hodgman. You're hearing the voices of real litigants, real people who have submitted disputes to my internet court at the Judge John Hodgman podcast. I hear their cases. I ask them questions. They're good ones. And then I tell them who's right and who's wrong. Thanks to Judge John Hodgman's ruling, my dad has been forced to retire one of the worst dad jokes of all time.

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I am a longtime member, supporter, and devoted follower of maximum fun. And now finally I have my own podcast on the network. It's called Magic Lessons. And it is me coaching people through their creative issues and problems. This season, we have some amazing creators that were helping through their joys and struggles of making something out of nothing. And then I bring in special guests like Glenn and Doyle Melton, Brandon Stanton, Martha Beck, the poet Mark Nepo, Michael Ian Black, Sarah Jones, Gary Scheingardt, these amazing friends of mine to come and help. coach these people so that they can get their work done. I hope you'll tune and do it. It's called Magic Lessons and it's all about love.