The Adventure Zone - Ep. 7. Moonlighting - Chapter One

Episode Date: February 12, 2015

In this interlude chapter to the Adventure Zone saga, the mysteries of the universe are revealed to our heroes. Magnus has a good cry to some elevator music. Taako further unravels The Eldritch Riddle. It's about to get super weal up in here. 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, Gundren is suddenly completely engulfed in flame. And Killian says, time to go! And she's pointing in the center of town at a well. The three of you dive into the well as you look up through a small circle of light you see is flame above you. Just a giant burst of flame. Vandalin's gone. The entire town where it used to be, you look around, and all that you can see is, black glass, a circle of black glass on the ground. Well, this all sucks. She suddenly looks over and

sees the gauntlet again. She says, if you've already escaped the thrall of that thing, you can collect it, and we can take it somewhere where it will never do anything like this ever again. You see a glass sphere and a giant balloon pops out, a basically a hot-air balloon. One of those two moons in the night sky is getting much larger. Guys, the moon's expanding. And suddenly you have gone into the moon. And Killian says, uh, well, guys, hold on to your butts. Okay, I roll up, butt holding.

Okay, 14 on holding my butt. What will our heroes find on the moon? I hope it's not aliens because I'm afraid of those. It's the adventure zone. The four of you in your magic hot air balloon pod emerge into light. The light temporarily blinds the four of you just because, you know, you were just in a dark, dark tunnel for quite some time. But you emerge and it's bright and as your eyes sort of adjust, you get a good look at the room around you through the sort of glass exterior of this magic floating sphere. Paint us a word picture, Griffin.

Here goes. He's trying to. Nope, let me reach into my chest of ink, and here comes the adjectives. I'm going to unpack my adjectives for you. Remember, show, don't tell. You are in a dome-shaped room. Almost has sort of an Epcot ball feel to it, if you can imagine what the interior of the Epcot ball.

Do they ever let people inside that thing? Yes. Okay. Inside of it is a spaceship earth. world of energy, right? Okay, well, imagine that. Is that where Figment lives? No, he lives in the world of imagination.

Get your shit together, Clint. Hey, guys, guess what? This is the world of imagination. You're in... Oh, so suck it. One of the gervlins you killed... That's a weird reaction to being in the world of imagination. But all right?

World of imagination, suck it. One of the gurblands that you actually killed in the last chapter was Figman. You didn't even... Oh, no. Maybe you should ask people's names before you just slaughter them. So, yeah, you're in the interior of this dome-like structure. The exterior of the dome is sort of made out of these glowing triangles of glass. It's a very ornate structure, and you get the impression that this is some sort of hangar for these balls that you just traveled in.

And you see some people. You see people all sort of dressed in blue and white soldiers garb. You see on one end of the room there are some sort of holes in the floor that you think could be other tunnels. Mounted on top of those are these giant cannons. And you don't see any like shells or cannonballs or anything like that, but you see these big, big cannons on one end of the room. And you realize that you have emerged onto sort of a landing platform.

Does there appear to be like a gift shop or like some kind of like restaurants in the terminal? No, you think maybe there's, you know, another dome with a gift shop in it. Oh, so like Dome B is where like Delta? Maybe there's a dome beta and that's where the Chili's to go is. Chili's to go is the words I was about to say with my mouth and then you said, oh, but I hate you. It's the only other restaurant other than Cinnabon that exists in every airport. No, sometimes there's Max and Irma's.

That's true. In an airport? Yeah. I've never seen that. Fantasy time. Fantasy time. Fantasy time. Fantasy Max and Irma's.

Magical Mac. Miracle Max and Irma is. Ye old Max's and Irma's tavern. Apothecary. Okay. Kalyan taps on the wall of the glass sphere and the hole that you guys boarded in opens up, and she climbs out and entreats the three of you to follow her. She walks down a flight of stairs off the landing platform that you guys have emerged onto. And as soon as you sort of cross the threshold of the sphere and place feet on solid earth, well, kind of solid earth.

Solid moon? I don't know. The three of you get kind of dizzy. You get kind of nauseous and disoriented a little bit. Almost like as you look around and sort of take in your surroundings, the more you look around, the more you get a little lightheaded and foggy. We did survive the explosion in Fandlin, right? Like this isn't heaven, right?

Yeah, Roma Downey reaches over and. Surprise. No. Surprise. I'm fake. Griffin's like the creators have lost. We immediately guessed this was purgatory, and now he's trying to cover it up by creating some other BS scenario about why it's not purgatory.

But spoiler, it's purgatory. It is. Wait to the end. It is. Yeah. So, Killian, you know, turns back and sees you sort of reeling as you descend the stairs and says, oh, by the way, things are going to be a little. weird for a bit, but I promise that's going to pass.

Just stick with your buddy. Drink some orange juice. Yeah, take these, lie down because you don't want to fate on these stairs. That'll be bad news bears. But I promise, I'm going to get you guys taken care of very quickly. I just need to run out and get you all authorized really quick. It'll take just a few minutes, but please just like hang out here, sit down, take it easy. Don't overexert yourselves.

And you're going to be just fine. and she turns around and walks out of a door from this dome-shaped hangar. So do you guys want to like pop a squat? Just like have a seat? Yeah, I'll just, let's just chill. Yeah, so we just sit down on the stairs, you know? Just take a minute to like think about what has led us to this point in our lives. Yeah, that would be good.

Like any backstory at all would be. I wrote out a four-page-long backstory. You said it was too serious. Yeah, dude, because it was like wicked, mad. serious. And listen, I want to tell you, somebody leaked it because I've been getting all these tweets and wow, did you see Magnus's backstory? How did that happen?

I didn't like it. How did that get to the press, Travis? I did not leak it. Okay. Somebody hacked your internet. It might be somebody in my entourage. Your posse. Okay.

There are two guards sort of watching the door that Killian just walked through. And one of them turns and looks at you kind of sympathetically. The other one is unmoved. Imagine the, what are they called? The, the, the, the Downton Abbey guards. No wait, Downton Abbey's not what it's called. Those guards are not a real place. That's not a real place, nor do they have guards.

You know where the queen lives at Town Abbey. Downton Abbey. One of these two very stoic guards turns and looks at you sort of sympathetically, and it's kind of waffles for a bit, and then ultimately... He makes waffles? He breaks his post and, walks over to you guys and reaches into his jacket and pulls out a flask and hands it, just sort of holds it in your guys' directions. Like, here, here, uh, hold on, let me come

with a voice for this guy. Here, uh, see, that's just my voice, but lower. Here, uh, you guys should, uh, you guys should drink this. It's, trust me. Trust me. I'll take it. Oh, okay. I'll take it. Yep. Eager Beaver. I hope this, I hope this is go-good. Uh, it's, it's, it's, it's, It's brandy, but it's... I try it, and it is go-go. No, it's... Roll for go-gut. It's no idea.

It's a character choice I'm making. It's definitely go-garet. No, but see, Taco just tastes... Taco tastes gogurt whenever. He drinks libations. Everything Taco drinks magically transmogrifies. That was the first spell Taco ever cast, and now it's a terrible curse. And I can't get it.

Gogur-A-Gur-A-Han. It's a Sisyphian curse. It's a Sisyphian curse. He thought it was going to be... a 24-7 gogert party but no he's kind of like mad scurvy um okay so you know it I don't because it's key lime

gogert so that's fine on the scurvy front I'm cool read a book are you passing the uh the flask around are you hoarding it all to yourself don't bogart that flask let me roll to see if I'm full yes I'm full I pass it over to

Magnus I take a swig it's delicious it is delicious That is delicious brandy. That's for my hometown of Brandy Buck. I'm really glad you're not from Fandling. Why is that? No reason.

I got an unclean. I got an uncle in Fandolin. Were you just there? Correction, darling. You had an uncle in Fandolin. Oh. He was probably away on business. He's probably fine.

Well, I didn't. I mean, he wasn't like my favorite uncle or anything, but. Good news. Okay. Just check with the executor of his will. I mean, just saying. Nope, the executive is dead too. As you, as you guys swig this, this brandy, you find that the, the dizziness is sort of passing a little bit.

You don't know if, you know, there is some sort of, it's neutralizing whatever it was happening or if you're just getting a little drunk. But it is helping out. None for me. None for me. Are you sure? I didn't know. Yeah, I'm a cleric. I need to set an example for my code. You're Merle, right?

I heard a rumor that you had 1,999 party party. points. Okay. All right. One little drink. No, listen, I don't want to peer pressure you. If you don't want it, that's fine. Drink.

Most of those party points deal with pinatas. Okay. You drink it, and it just makes you, like, better than Magnus and Taco. Like, you just, you are more sociable and more personal because of all the party points. He, he takes the flash back and says, I know, I know things are going to be pretty confusing for a little while. I know that you got the staticky stuff going on. I know that you're kind of dizzy. And listen, every single person that you're going to meet up here, you know, went through the same thing.

So don't worry, trust me, it's going to get a lot better really soon. And we're all really excited to have you. Do you guys know this guy? Taco, use your way. Oh, get some information. Sorry, my name is Avi. Well, there you have it. He wasn't going to say that, and I made him say that.

Offie? Avi. A-V-I. It's a... It's a... Yeah. It's actually a very, very common name in Brandy Buck. I think Brandy Buck might be a Lord of the Rings thing, but here we are. No going back now. Certainly not to Fandelion.

He says, after everything's over, you guys can come find me if you don't want to hang out or whatever. I like to... Mow bro out. Yeah, we can just, you know, lift some weights or something. Whatever you guys like to do, it's all up to you. I like to lift some weight, so that's why I suggest it. That sounds totally great.

We need a minute just to process everything that's going on, though. So like... Just then, as soon as you say, we need a minute to process everything, Killian comes back into the room and said, Okay, you guys are clear. Just follow me, and we can get this show on the road. Hold on. Bye, Evie.

Okay, I follow her. Nice to meet you guys. You seem like real sweet dudes. Right on. You walk out of the hangar and see that indeed you are surrounded by more of these sort of dome-shaped buildings, these Epcot Ball-esque buildings. And they are of varying sizes. You're standing on almost like a grassy field. It's actually very lush, very well-kept better than you assumed some sort of secret.

Moon Base was capable of producing. This goes against everything I've ever thought about secret moon bases. It's an astro turf. No, it's real grass. It's nice stuff. It's the best grass. It's the best grass. That's it.

That's all there is to it. That explains Avi's demeanor in there. I reached. It's not, you're not walking on God. We walk into a field of weed. No, it's just really good grass. And I'm going to put my word, I'm going to put my word paint brush away now that I've reached the pinnacle. I think it's starting to dry out of it.

And as you look above you, you actually see the night sky. This is not some sort of covered installation. You can see the night sky. There's only one moon above you, presumably because you are on top of the other one, which doesn't exactly make sense quite yet. It's not like a curve. question. As near as we can tell, is this moon, is the place we're in, like,

a facade, or is it where we would have thought the other moon would have been? Why don't you make a, you guys can make investigation checks if you want to try and figure it out? I got a nine. Is the investigation a skill? Yeah, I got a nine. Fourteen. Tocco.

19. 19. Yeah, just sort of judging by the area of this sort of base, which is not like huge, right? It's almost like about a football field in diameter. It's, you know, it's not the area of a moon. So yeah, you get the impression that whatever you just went through was some sort of facade,

almost like this is some sort of like, I don't know, whatever you're standing on is behind a very elaborate prop. a very elaborate sort of set piece. Okay. You don't see the second moon in the sky anywhere, though. So that's about all that you can suss out with your investigation. Killian is leading you across this quad, if you will, to a dome that is a little bit smaller, a little bit shallower

than the other ones that you're surrounded by. But it does have this sort of large, spear sticking out of the top of it. Imagine like the Washington monument coming out of the top of it. Only this spear seems to be made of a completely translucent crystal or perhaps also glass.

A lot of glass up here. You get the impression of these people are into glass and they're into... And grass. Glass, grass, and ass. Nobody rides on this thing. Everybody has a great, amazing asses. Nobody rides for free.

Everybody's ass is amazing. But you, top notch. Top notch stuff. Do I feel like my ass is better since I've been here? No, you actually feel worse about sort of your ass. Like you don't feel great about it to standard. Your standard state is your baseline is not like super proud of your own butt. Listen, if I don't tell you there's go-girt and your flask, you don't tell me how I feel about my hind end, okay?

All right. Let's just have some boundaries. That's a fine agreement. Kaelian is leading you into this dome with the spear sticking out of the top of it. she takes you inside and there's just sort of one thing in this room and it's a very large sort of column in the center of the room with doors on it

and she... Is it Zordon? It is not Zordon. No, she rolls up her sleeve and takes out that bracer with the ruin on it that I described you guys in the last installment that she used to summon the glass sphere and the door seems to react to it and opens up into what looks like an elevator car. And Killian says, I can't actually go with you guys down there. It's sort of high security.

But yeah, this is where you need to go next. We do that. Attention fan artists. Killian's Bracer might be a wonderful suggestion. There's actually been a lot of Killian fan art. She has become a beloved character, much more. So I would actually say then the three of you. And I get it.

We're going to have to do a spinoff. Yeah. The Killian mysteries. Killing it. Killing it. Killing it. Kill you. You three step onto the elevator.

And you actually hear the doors to this dome open up once more. And you hear a guy go, oh, can you hold the elevator, please? Can you hold the elevator? Your door, man. Can you hold the elevator, please? I start jamming on the button for the door close real quick. We're like, come on, go on. Okay.

The door is. We hold the door. Okay. Thanks guys. This half-elf man who is dressed in sort of silly, colorful clothing. He's wearing, he's not really wearing the standard issue uniform that you've seen from the people walking around this campus. He is wearing some, a bard's garb, if you will.

Feathered cap and everything. Pantaloons. billowing pantaloons. He has a violin sort of strapped to his back, a fiddle actually strapped to his back, and he's carrying a few rolls of parchment

onto the elevator with you. And he says, Okay, can you press the button now? Yeah. I guess we're going on the ground floor. No problem. Do you work here? Yeah, what gave it away?

Is it the fact that I'm like here? No, no, man. I'm, uh, no, I just, I got lost and I ended up on a moon base. No, I'm just kidding. No, no, it was funny. Yeah. Um, no, because we're here and we don't work here, so we just thought, I don't know. Oh, are you guys, you guys initiates or whatever?

That's cool. Sure. Yeah. I hit the button. Okay. Initiates. Ping-bang. The, uh, the elevator doors close and, uh, you start to descend.

Um, this, this bard looks very sullen. He looks very, he looks really bummed out. If his voice didn't give it away, this is not what you would typically call a happy person. I tickle him. Okay. Stop, stop, stop, stop. Can we have him sound like Michael Bolton? This is what he sounds, that's what Michael Bolton sounds like when he talks.

That's what I thought. You don't hear it because he's always singing. If Michael... I'd tickle him again. Stop it for, stop it, seriously. He pees a little bit. No, I don't. May I ask you?

your name? Garb-Bard-barred? Barded Garber. Nailed it. It's Victor Garber. My name is Johan. Okay. What's, what do you got? What's wrong, dude? What's your doing you bothering you? Everything, I guess. If you think about it, just sort of like where I ended up, like my life choices and... You're on a moon. That's pretty great.

Yeah, you're a barred. I guess that's true. I mean, I don't get a lot of customers. The problem is, fellas, if I'm going to be frank with you, um, yeah, good one, assholes. Mine wasn't a joke.

I'm an idiot. Go ahead, bud. Tell us what's on your mind. What's bothering you? What's eating you, Johan? I'm, um, I'm like the greatest violinist

basically ever. Oh, okay. I mean, I don't see any point in being, like, humble about it. I don't want to lie to you.

guys, I'm basically like the best violinist ever. But nobody's ever going to know who I am. And I don't know. It just gets to me sometimes, you know? I put my hand on his shoulder and say, we know who you are, Frank. Don't fucking tickle me again, man. I'm not, I'm like an adult man and you're an adult man. Agnes, easy.

I tickle him. Stop it. He pulls out his. violin, he's like, would you guys actually mind if I played for you? Threw it away? No, no, no. Griffin, would I have to roll to see

if I smash his violin? Oh, don't, please don't. Will you do devil went down to Georgia? No. I think he's really Charlie Daniels. I'll do as, as Modius went down to Fandolin.

No, don't do that. He starts to play a song on his violin that is in fact the most goddamn gorgeous piece of music the three of you have ever i have ever have ever heard taco even you an imbecile uh can can recognize the the beauty of the tune that this this sad sad bard is playing for you his claims are 100% accurate he is the most incredible musician any of you have ever heard what you guys are moved to tears you can make a check to see

if you're moved to tears but it's going to be a really because it's one of my personality rates. Eight. He cries eight. Yeah, you're crying. Six. Six, crying even harder than Taco. And Magnus, you're crying harder.

I got snop bubbles. You're crying harder. Travis, you're just, Magnus, you're just, ah, just wailing and gnashing. Just what you're looking for. I'm keening. You're just slamming yourself against the side of this elevator. Just, uh, and he stopped. Can I roll to see if the irony of us hearing the most beautiful, beautiful music ever in an elevator dawns on me?

No, it just, it does. Man, I didn't, I really didn't think about that when I wrote this. Is it a girl for me, Panino? He plays a song and goes like this. Bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, boom, boom, boom, boom. Um, he says, he stops, uh, he stops, uh, he stops Boeing. Uh, he puts his violin back on his back. Sorry, is it called Boeing?

Yeah, I think so. Okay, and he says, uh, see, I told you guys. Oh, God. Gosh. Magnus paced himself all over the floor. Yeah. You guys are like intimidated by this person now maybe. It's,

this is, it was amazing, you guys. I can't even try and like fake it out. Sing it, I can't even do it because it was too beautiful. It was amazing. You think to yourselves like,

I will never forget this moment when I heard this dope-ass tune. Is it better or worse than call me maybe? Uh, equal. Wow. Wow. Yeah. Wow.

All right. When you put it in those terms. Uh, suddenly you... Yohan, why, why, why aren't you using this gift out in the world? You should be like singing before, or playing before kings. It's, it's in the contract, you guys. It's, uh, you know, it's, I wish there was something I could do about it. I'm not complaining.

Like, it's hard out there to find a job as a bar. In this economy? In this economy, not a lot, you don't get a lot of tips. You get a lot of, uh, a lot of, you know, know, staying in unclean lodging, there's a lot of, there's a lot of syphilis, just like a lot of syphilis. Like a lot. In the contra? Guys, there's like a lot of syphilis.

So who, who, who, who, would you, for a, who sounds that check? This is a really slow elevator. Yeah, well, yeah, it's a fantasy elevator, so they probably have, suddenly you hear from the fantasy elevator, Bing, bong, and the, uh, the doors slide up. And he says, well, thank God. He says, first floor, men's wear, just kidding. And he walks out. I want to roll this thing if I get it.

He walks out. I do. The door has opened up into a sort of short hallway with a very large, very secure door on the other end of it. And in this hallway, standing rank and file on either side is like 14 guards. This is a very, very secure area. He, the bard, Johann walks forward and, you know, makes it pass them sort of without any issue. And he turns, he says, oh, these guys are new recruits. They're going to get inoculated.

So don't worry about them. And all the guards sort of write their spears and allow you to pass. Wait, before we take another step. I don't see any menswear. You're like really dumb, yeah? Or? Crazy like a fox. Crazy like, man we have dumb like a fox.

Okay. He puts his, he rolls up his sleeve. He also has one of these bracers and he taps it on the secure door and one of the guards walks over and does the same with his own brace. You notice all of them have this same bracer. This is definitely going to be our first toy, right? Like when Mattel comes to call it, like a weird fantasy bracer that Killian wears. You know how Mattel's always on the lookout for toys to make off a podcast. You know how Mattel's always on the lookout for podcast toys?

Toy microphone from WTF with Mark Marin. The ruin on the bracer, I'm going to try and describe it. I have the shape. It's just going to be difficult to describe with words. Imagine sort of two triangles, isosceles triangles. That's when they all have the same angle, yeah? Yeah. That's equilateral.

Is it? Yes. Okay. Well, I don't know. I just want to point out, Dad agreed with both of those sentences. It's like the evil. Like, that's Isosceles, right? Yes.

I think it's equilateral. Yes. So two, there are two triangles. sort of stacked on top of each other, point to point. Imagine like a play button, but two of those, almost forming like an angular B shape. Okay? Do you have that in mind? Can you comprehend those shapes? And then another set of those, but backwards and pointing inward to, so four triangles, all sort of pointing inward towards one another creating a diamond-esque shape. That is the, the shape of this ruin on everybody's bracer.

But as you look around, you actually notice that there are some banners hanging on the walls of this hallway. You've actually seen it out on the campus that has the same shape on it. So maybe this is some sort of company logo or insignific. Now, Griffin, just to clarify, at this point, we met a dude who wanted to lift weights with us. We walked across a quad and we've been traveling through a campus. Yeah, yeah. Are we out of college? No. Well, maybe.

Okay. The secure door opens after the second security guard walks over and taps his bracer to it. And the room that opens up is very large and very dark, save for a tank in the middle. The tank is sort of lit from underneath. showing sort of a dark, opaque liquid floating inside of it. And something is in there. You can sort of make out the shadow of something from this underlighting. But you can't really get your eyes to focus on whatever this thing is.

You hear some sort of whale sounds, if you will, which puts the three of you in the mood for reasons that you don't really understand. You can make out sort of boo. Oh, wait, hold on. God. You can do it. It's like somebody's watching Star Trek 4 in the next room. Imagine that chamber from Star Trek 4. Yeah, a whale chamber. But it's not a whale in there.

You can't, again, when you're trying to, like, focus your eyes on this thing to see it, to, like, really ascertain its silhouette or its shape. You can't, your eyes just don't seem capable of doing. it. Is the sensation similar to the audio sensation that we get when we hear, like, Killian talk about her organization, just like an inability to hear? You get that sensation a little bit, and also this dizziness and disorientation that you felt since you stepped foot onto the base is over.

overwhelming here. The three of you are almost reeling. I think we need the flask again. You don't have it. Avi kept that for himself. The Bard walks over and walks over to the base of this tank. There's a very large, heavy base to this tank, which stretches up all the way to the ceiling. And in this, and in this, the base, he opens up a flap

he opens up a panel in the base and puts his rolls of parchment inside and closes the flap and pulls a lever right next to it. And he says, there goes another great composition. And you see the parchment float up into the tank. You see some sort of tinge roll out, reach out, wrap itself around it, and pull it towards the mass. and then all of a sudden this beautiful music that the three of you just heard, you can't seem to make it out. You can't seem to, you knew that this was the most beautiful song you've ever heard. You would never forget it, but you can't seem to remember the melody.

You can't seem to remember that moment at all. You remember that this guy played music for you, but when you try to remember the music itself, that memory just isn't there anymore. which is very sad. I treasured that memory and now it's gone. And the Bart said, okay, feeding time's over.

You guys ready for stuff to get weird? Start. He walks the three of you over to a spigot on the side of this tank and takes out three files and opens up the spigot and this black inky liquid pours into each one

and he hands you these three files and says this isn't going to taste great it sort of has... I bet it tastes like gogurt. It sort of has the consistency of gogurt. So not a lot of people get down on that. But I'll warn you guys, once you drink that,

it really isn't any going back. Going back from what? Going to what? From not drinking it. Okay, so once we drink it, we can't undrink it is what you're saying Yo-Han, very helpful. It's basically Yon's very pragmatic.

Well, I don't, I don't, I just cut through the bullshit, you know. That's Yo-Han. That's Yo-Han. Straight shooter. Can I do a flavor shack? Why don't we ask him some questions? If we got to make this big decision, we don't even know what's going on. We're not going to be able to know what's going on because we can't.

I drink the vial. I mean, we could try to ask, but you know what I'm saying? It's that same. I bet if he tried it. Okay, first of all, let me say two things out of character. Okay. To you guys. First off, Johann, uh, what, was,

Johan didn't lead us here, right? We told him we were initiates, right? Yeah. Yeah. Like, are we running a scam here? Like, if we start asking a bunch of questions, is he going to think that we aren't initiates? Well, Killian brought us here.

Killian brought us here, but she didn't get us past the guards. I don't know if we're, I don't know if we're like, She did take you to the elevator, and this elevator's only got one stop. I should mention that. There was only one button. This is legit. I think this is a case of our DM has set up a situation. We're supposed to drink this thing and join this club.

You do whatever you want. I want to know more about it. Magnus drinks the vial. Okay. Of course he does. Okay. Why don't you ask him if we questions, done? Well, if Magnus just drank the vial, then we need to resolve some stuff real quick.

Oh, great. I'm all about action. Sorry for dorks. I almost feel like I should kick that and Justin off the call while I reveal this information. Yes, do that. Okay. This will be fun. Okay.

Do you guys just want to take your headphones off for a second? Yeah. Yeah, let's take your headphones off. Okay. Can you hear us, Justin? No. Okay, that was a test. Travis, your mind reels.

You immediately remember the music and you are moved and you are grateful. but with each passing second you remember more and more. You remember Killian telling you in the mind asking if you're there for the Phoenix Fire Gauntlet. You remember the Black Spider asking you if you were members of the Bureau of Balance. You remember beyond that. You remember months and months and years beyond that. You remember a war that.

destroyed in entire towns. You remember bloodshed. You remember vaguely. You remember just this carnage and conflict that seems too enormous for you to have possibly forgotten. You lost loved ones in this war. You lost a lot of people you know. It was a time of great turmoil. And you remember it. You don't remember the particulars, but you remember it. And you look up and you see in the tank clear as day. Zordon. It's almost like Zordon, but not at all. This giant almost like jellyfish with just enormous.

It is the size of a whale, but jellyfish shaped with thousands of tendrils reaching off its body. And inside of its body you can almost make out like a galaxy, like a swirling nebula of stars and constellation. Am I right to assume that this is beautiful? It is beautiful. Yeah, I mean, it's fucking super weird. You have never seen anything like this, and you get the distinct impression

that very few people in existence have ever seen anything like this. But the dizziness, the nausea, the disorientation is all gone. And your head is, your head is right. Right. Is it erotic in any way? Are you into tentacle stuff? I guess we haven't addressed that particular character.

Nah, nah, that hate Magnus is bad. Nah, nah. You into more vanilla sexual experience. So that's what you have received, and let's get the boys back on. Hey. Hey, okay, we're back. My gosh, guys. Magnus stands before you.

His file is empty. As he drank it, you saw him sort of just sort of, stand almost paralyzed for like a half minute, with his eyes wide open. But now he is standing before you and he is standing upright. He's not sort of struggling to get his footing like the two of you are. He doesn't seem to be dizzy. He seems fine. Guys, it's all clear.

I remember everything. Perception check. I want to see if he wet his pants. Okay. Listen. Maybe I did. A little. That's between me and my God.

It may or may not be flat vile related. Well, let me, I have an idea. I want to cast the spell of augury. Do you have that? You just keep saying you have spells, and I never fact-check you. Do you want me to just tell you what happens? No. No.

No. It's really simple. If I cast augury, all you have to do is tell me you look at the next 30 minutes and you tell us whether it's going to be good results or bad results really

that's it seems like a super powerful spell okay go for it so I cast augury so you tell us if within the next you actually have four choices wheel which means good results woe which is bad results this is going to be You are in a wheel and woe situation.

It's going to get super fucking wheel up in here. In the next 30 minutes, it's going to be good and bad. Yep. Here's the thing, you guys. So basically what's going on is and in the cave when we were looking for the she was explaining that. So basically what's going on is... Well, this is just annoying now.

I drink the vial. All right. Does he stand there stupefied for a minute? Well, you should drink. All right. I look around. I don't see the lady carrying the log or Bob. I drink the damn vial.

You pound it. The two of you pound it. And then you get the same exact description that I just gave Travis, which I will... Oh, I peed my pants. Which I will explain during this commercial break, so I don't have to do it again. Hey, everybody, this is Griffin Macquarie, your dungeon master. Thank you very much for tuning into episode seven. of the Adventure Zone, which is part of an interlude chapter that we have not come up with a clever

subtitle for yet. Really, how can you hear there be Gerblins? I don't know. In retrospect, that subtitle actually ended up being a little bit inaccurate because I feel like Gerblins maybe took a back seat to flaming dwarf men monsters in the later parts of that chapter. But yeah, this is sort of an interlude chapter that is setting up the rest of the campaign that I've been writing. I apologize for it being so, I guess, exposition heavy, but it's kind of a

necessary evil. I want to thank everybody for tweeting about the show on Twitter. Tweeting on Twitter? Yeah, I guess that's where people typically do it. Using the hashtag the zonecast. You can also find us on Twitter at the zonecast or at our individual names. We really appreciate you guys getting the word out. A lot of people. have been leaving reviews on iTunes, which I can't tell you how much that helps us out getting like a foothold on the iTunes charts, which is really important for new shows like ours. If you tweet about the show using the hashtag the Zonecast, there is a chance that you could end up as a character, much like Avi Warner, who is Avi Warner on Twitter, who you may have

just heard as the guard that got our heroes drunk at the beginning. of this episode. And Johann, who is J. Forsell on Twitter, Johan, the sad, sad bard, who we just met, just before the break. So I talked about this in an earlier episode, but I'm going to start taking item submissions from you, the listener, that I will stock an in-game shop with for Merle, Taco, and Magnus to purchase items from that can help them out on the adventure. I'm kind of still figuring out how I'm going to balance this, because if anybody sends in an item that's like, it's a gun that kills dragons by pointing it at a dragon, that might sort of break the flow of the game. But if you have any, like, cool ideas for items that the heroes might buy, why don't you email those to us at

Adventurezonecast at gmail.com? Again, that is Adventurezonecast at gmail.com. Just shoot me a short, description of the item and the name of the item. And if you want, a price, I think each of them have like 600 at this point. Yeah, go ahead and shoot that to us and maybe next time we record, I will send them to Fantasy Costco to peruse your items. Again, one last time, AdventureZonecast at gmail.com. Thank you all for listening. If you haven't, give the other shows on the Maximum Fun Network a listen. There's Jordan Jesse Goh, Judge John Hodgman, rowing shade, the goose down, lady to lady, all kinds of really terrific shows. The four of us have our other shows that we do too, like My Brother and Me, which is an

advice show that Justin and Travis and I do. They're Sawbones, which Justin and his wife, Sidney, do about medical history, and bunker buddies, which Travis does with Andy Bolt about surviving various apocalypsies. That's enough for me. Let's get back to the episode. Thank you all very, very much for listening. next episode is the Thursday after next, and I will talk to you then. Okay, bye.

Note for note, that same shit. I just crushed it. Great memory grop it. Okay, I'm sorry. I'm back. What now? I'm going to lose my mind. Yeah, that had to step out to take a call.

I'm sorry. What did you say? I'm kidding. Oh, my God. I was about to cancel. Thank you all for listening. Would you put that in the show twice? I don't know.

It was literally the same thing. I think people might just get bored and turn it off. A lot of exposition in there. I don't want to make them double expose. No, that was... Sometimes we have to have something inside baseball just for us. Yeah. Okay.

Listening audience, they literally just received the exact same shit. I just told Travis. They didn't say anything funny. So before you email, asking for the stuff on the... on your room floor. There is a pretty good lost bit where dad pretended he hadn't been here for the whole thing and then Griffin got angry at him. So if Griffin left that out, it's

because he's embarrassed of losing his composure. But that'll be on the Blu-ray. We'll put that on the Blu-ray. No, I'll leave that in it. That was pretty good. Okay. So, back, back, we were all on equal knowledge footing. Guys, I don't think that was Gokert.

It was a new, it was a new Relevation flavor, revelation flavored, revelation flavored Go-Ger. Relevation is good. Every time I eat, oh, go-good, it's a relevation. That's not a word. I said your dumb word.

With all those memories that came back. Yes. Is there any chance that the memory of shredded lettuce came back? Did I remember shredded lettuce or top tomatoes? Come on, give us a little something. Pico. A little we remember shredded lettuce.

Let me think. Taco, you heart back to a time where you were working on your grandpa's farm and you were, you're an elf, right? Mm-hmm. You, okay, you were the tender age of 65 years old, and... And I was on Tinder. You were on Tinder, and you weren't paying attention to your farmly chores, and you were, you were beating some milk that you got out of a fantasy cow. You were whipping it, trying to form some sort of cream.

And your grandpa, Tostata, walks out and says, Taco, what are you doing? You've been whipping that cream so long, and the hot sun had done turned sour. So that is, that memory sticks out in your mind. It's very poignant. And you feel like perhaps, The Grand Eldritch mystery has revealed a bit of itself to you once, once again.

Cream that is sour. What shall we call it? I just, I just say out loud after I drink the, the first words out of mouth after I drink the fire are, Sour cream. Do you remember a war, a great and terrible, great and terrible war where all of your friends, A lot of your friends died And the furze words out of your mouth And everyone in the room goes silent

For like a solid five minutes Just kind of shuffling their feet And think, but I rush I rush to grab my book Which as you'll all remember Is a copy of Uncle John's Elven Bathroom Reader That I've been writing the margins of

And I scribble down sour cream That's your spell book Is an Uncle John's bathroom reader Uncle John's Elven bathroom reader Uncle John's Elven bathroom reader How is it different from the human variation? There's pictures of leaves around the edges Okay, it smells of sandalwood

Thank you Mighty DM for sharing that information So ditto, Griffin In any of that, did we Like learn anything about the umbrella That we picked up in the dungeon or anything like that? Nope Huh Okay

You remember that the they referred to the gauntlet that caused all that bad, bad shit that happened. That was what they were referring to as the Phoenix Fire gauntlet. The umbrella? No. And you don't like, I might have you guys do like an investigation check if you want to like try and deduce what the hell just happened to you. Okay. Actually, could I do an arcana check?

Yeah, sure, if you want. Assuming that was magical? Yeah. I mean, actually, it would be more of a, is there like a bad? Well, I wouldn't know. A nature check to trying to discern what kind of animal is? I wouldn't know whether or not I should use Arcana

or not. I do have a nature check, but... I rolled 17, so just decide what it needs to be, and that's what I rolled. No, sir. That's not how we play Dungeons and Drive. That's not how we played Dungeons. Okay, so I have an 18 in Arcana, which is like magical type things. I would know, like, sort of how much I know about magical crap.

Whatever this effect was, Alchemy is a school of magic, right? That involves sort of potions and Unions and formulas and stuff like that. So in that, and it wasn't, whatever this was, you get the impression that it wasn't magical. No magic here. Okay, well, I got a 17 investigation check

is what I was rolling. Okay. With that investigation check, you sort of discern that everything that has sort of come to your guys' minds are memories. and not new information, if that makes sense. You didn't, if you will, you didn't learn anything.

You just sort of remembered. So we, so the world that we live in lived through a terrible war in which many people died, and then it was just erased from the consciousness of the people. Well, from us. Well, from us, at least certainly. Griffin, I got 21 in nature. Okay. Yeah, I mean, this thing.

Looks like a jellyfish, but I mean, jellyfish... But it kisses like a man. I mean, it's the size of a whale, and it's got like stars and shit floating inside of it. So that's not typical for jellyfish behavior. Okay. You heard when I said 21, right? Yeah. Okay.

Johan sort of looks... Eyes the three of you sees that you finish sort of digesting this icker. And it says, you guys, you guys good? Yeah. Yeah. Super great. Bureau of Balance. Did you guys hear that?

Yeah, we got that one. Bureau of balance. Sweet, sweet, sweet. Cool. Do we remember him? Do we remember you, Johan? No, you don't. I mean, you didn't forget him.

I mean, from 30 seconds ago, but other than that. We've not met him before. You never forgot him. Yeah, you just met him today. He says, Cool, well, uh, welcome to the, welcome to the club, I guess. Thanks for taking the red pill, right? What?

Oh, never mind. So, yeah. And we instantly remember the major. Yeah. You remember the first one. You don't want to remember the second and third. Griffin, does the jellyfish creature seem to be like responsive or acknowledging us in any way or is it just there living its own life like separate from the world

yeah it's it's floating it's moving it's not like stationary you're dead but it's not like it doesn't have eyeballs to look at you it's it's not holding up a sign saying like ha ha you guys just drink my shit like i wouldn't trap i wouldn't grill griffin too much on it because i got a 21 in nature and what i learned from that is that it's a giant jellyfish and jellyfish aren't usually giant and don't normally have stars in them that's what my so i'm what i'm thinking that This is more of a rough sketch right now. Okay, well, I clearly recognize this is a special thing. Magnus bows before it, just out of deference and respect.

Okay. And ask you a scene. And, uh, uh, Johan says, what are you doing? Bowing to your weird jellyfish god. Are you bowing? It's not a god. At least I don't think so. None of us really know.

You don't know shit, Johan. We don't. That's, I mean, you're not 100% wrong. Um, so this thing is the, uh, we call it the void fish. That's not, I mean, it's probably not its real name. Did you guys like take a long time to come up with that one? I actually spun that one just sort of straight off the dome. And it just kind of stuck.

Is it because it's been, it's been voiding into that water we just drank? No, I mean, yeah, but that's not why it's called that. Yeah, I mean, it's the only one like ever. So those kinds of things typically don't get named. So we just sort of stuck with void face. It's pretty cool if you like if you feed it it feeds on on information and then whatever information you give it, it just sort of removes from, well, from existence. It just sort of stops, stops existing unless you've, you know, been been inoculated and drank

drank from the tank is what we say down here in the gamekeeping department so so that's why Johan's so bummed out because he has to write these songs and then let the void fish consume them yeah my job sort of my job here is to keep this thing

you know fat fat and happy because man if it dies we're all fucked so yeah I write these compositions why why yes What service, aside from letting people drink its poop, what service is it providing? What does it do?

Hold on. It might be its pee. Aside from letting people drink its waste. It's not all pee. There's like water and stuff in there, too. It's not just floating around in its own way. Look at this beautiful goddamn jellyfish. You think this thing is just like some sort of poop weirdo?

So, but what does it do? It makes, it takes, it destroys information. It, yeah, it just sort of oblivious. But what happened if it died? What would happen if it died? Everyone would remember. And that would be, you're going to learn a lot of stuff here in the next like, 20 minutes or so.

And if all of that, if everyone down there knew that, well, I mean, they used to. And that's what caused. Okay, super cool, Johan. Who's in charge here? That's the director. Now that you guys have been inoculated. She'll probably want to see you. Could you take us to her?

I'm not, I mean, I'm not like the valet here. I'm the gamekeeper. I sleep in five bucks. Oh, thank you, sir. Oh, wow, five whole dollars. And there's more with that game, bro. Can I just double check on Travis inventing paper currency? Hey, put that in the little shoot there.

They're actually, they're actually Magnus Bucks. at any Magnus location Not to be used in association with any other Magnus coupons He points you back towards the elevator and said Ask one of the guards And they'll get you there Okay thanks

Can I just say though it was like nice to meet you guys It's super great meeting you too Yo-Han And let me tell you Johann I think that of all the people we've met here you are the one of all that's not how it works I'm just messing with you

roll to see if the O'Hon finds that funny but it wasn't like a good joke because like those type of things I said roll Give me a break I still got fish poop taste in my mouth He rolled it

Oh my God that's D20 landed on an edge We'll never know Yeah He points you towards the door and says That way there you go I tickle him oh god

he doesn't let you he actually slaps your hand out of the way with a very deft strike but we both like have kind of a winking like uh that's good remember that when we did that before because we remember now

it wasn't nice to meet you I take that one back you two are cool though I sleep with another fiber thank you what can I spend these on though um Magnus merchandise

the Magnus experience what's that Was the Magnet's experience? Yeah, walk me through it step by step. Well, basically, you go through this animatronic house that's set up and you get to feel what it's like to have a day in the life of Magnus. Like Dalai Parton's in Dollywood. Exactly.

Travel to the Appalachian Home, which she learned her craft. It's narrated by Hal Holbrook. Is there a room? When Magnus started out, he was just a young warrior. Is there a, are you going to have to now build a room onto the Magnus experience? that involves customers who paid to go through the Magnus Experience drinking a vial of shit. Correct. The Magnus Experience is ever evolving.

Every time you go back, you're never going to have the same trip twice. You know, that's true. Debra and the kids wanted to go back. I said we just went there in June, and we went back. It was almost completely the same. But the gift shop was different. There were new items. And coming this winter, we have a Harry Potter experience.

Oh, yeah, him. Anyway, get lost, all right. I've got stuff to do. I get lost. Okay. He points you towards, he points you back towards the elevator. And as you make your way through, the doors open, and a very old man, human man, walks out. And he's wearing very, just sort of a plain brown robe.

He's got sort of a tonsure haircut. And he is also carrying a role of parchment. And you hear Johann yell out, come on in. Let's get this over with. I hate this is my least favorite part. And the sort of monk, old monk-looking man walks by you with the parchment. If you guys want to try and make a perception check to see what's going on on this parchment. I already know who he is.

I know who he is. You do. He walks by and he says, the force will be with you. No, that wasn't. Always. Oh, okay. I got an 18. No, sorry, a 17.

I have minus one. 17. I got an 18. Okay. 22. 22. You can actually see this, this parchment. You see a familiar name on it.

You see the name Magic Brian. And you see age 121. uh, drow, male, uh, six foot one. You see basically a, uh, stat sheet, uh, with, uh, information on Magic Brian. Uh, those basic stats are basically- His likes, his dislikes. Well, well, the, the munk sort brushes past you a little bit too big for you to, uh, get into what really turned him on when he was among the live. Magic Brian likes long walks on the beach, but this monk, uh, walks, walks by with this, uh, this rap sheet on Magic Brian, uh, and walks through the, have a lot of guarded door, which swings shut, leaving the three of you in the hallway to the elevator.

Are we the only ones in the hallway? Are there the guards? The guards. The 14 guards are still there. I'd say, hello, would any of you fancy gentlemen care to help us find the director? I will. Oh, no. No, there isn't anybody who sounds like that. One of the guards walks out and beckons towards you onto the elevator, puts his

bracer to the door and it opens up. Sweet bracer, dude. He says, thanks. You're going to get your own here in a bit. You guys inoculated? Yeah, yeah, we've been inoculated. Well, can I ask you a question? We believe in vaccinations.

What did you guys think it tastes like? I think it tastes kind of like crab rangoon a little bit. Yeah, I see that. We were there. You sort of a creamy consistency, but it definitely had that sort of like fresh seafood. taste. Yeah, I would say it was more of like a salmon row kind of thing, you know. Oh, yeah. I can

get that too. With a soup sawn of poop. Oh, yeah. You know, we discussed it was a poop and peathing. Maybe it's the jellyfish sperm. There's any kind of, there's any, any number of fluids that you could have just imbibed. Anyway, see ya. And he puts his bracelet through the panel on the elevator closes, sending you upward back onto the campus. And I think it's a relevator. Oh, you're the worst. You fuck up once. I talk for four hours when we do these things, and you fuck up one word,

and all of a sudden, Griffin's the asshole. Okay. Thanks for the support, Dad, in front of our millions of fans, my dad. I'll be here all week. Maximumfund.org. Comedy and culture. Artist-owned. Listener supported.

We're Dave and Graham, and we host Stop Podcasting yourself. We started this podcast back in 2008, before podcasts had to have any kind of concept, so we don't really know how to describe it. It's kind of like going to the barber shop. If your barber knew all about the first season of the show, Elf. It's like a 90-minute massage where the masseuse is two people talking to each other with a third person. It's like the Monsters of Metal Tour, only quieter, no music, and just talking. It's like a make-out session, but without the lips touching, they just talk a lot. Download stop podcasting yourself from iTunes or MaximumFun.org.