The Adventure Zone - Ep. 9. Moonlighting - Chapter Three

Episode Date: March 12, 2015

Having passed the Bureau of Balance's punishing test of initiation, our heroes stock up on supplies and learn abilities that will help them immeasurably in the future. Merle finds a new god. Taako has a difficult encounter with a coin slot. Magnus advocates for moon-dogs. 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, welcome the three of you to the Bureau of Balance. Excuse me, Adam. What is your name? The Director, it's fine. The Bureau of Balance has a singular purpose to collect and destroy powerful artifacts like the gauntlet that you have in your possession right now. We would be happy, actually, to hire the three of you on as reclaimers. I was walk 500 miles. I know they had that on cassette, homie. You hear her say, welcome to the test. of initiation. I want to disable its hands without disabling the whole automaton.

You very, very slowly tear his arms off. Something in your pack begins to rattle feverishly. What you pull out is actually the umbrella that you found in Wave Echo Cave. I'm going to use magic missile. You point the umbrella at the ogre, blast him, and he falls over backwards. Congratulations. You have passed the test. of initiation.

Yeah. Baller. What if the game is real life and everything else is just a game? Think about it. The Avengers. The three of you are back in the director's office

essentially. Everyone's high-fiving. Yeah, it's kind of like the end of Star Wars Episode 4. There's a lot of people in the blue and white uniforms that are all sort of standing around applauding as you walk into the chamber. You hear cries from the audience of like, I can't believe you ripped that robot's arms off. That was sick.

And I'm high-fiving them with the robot's arms and everyone's kind of laughing at it, but also a little horrified. Yeah, they allowed you to keep that as a little trophy for your accomplishment. If you don't think I'm writing that down and using that in a battle with a giant spider later, you are wrong. Yeah, you'll do any dumb shit. So you three approached the... Did we settle on how the word dais was pronounced? That's correct. It is dais.

Okay. The three of you approached the dais and the director is standing there also very... Doing sort of a queenly clap, very... Sort of a golf clap, if you will. And she says, we're all very, very impressed. You all... We've seen a lot of different salutes. to the test of initiation, but nothing quite so colorful as that.

So congratulations are in order. The three of you are now fully fledged members of our order. We are happy to have you on as reclaimers, and we are pleased to present you each with your tailor-made braces of balance. It's what we call them. We're really into alliteration here, she says. And she claps. Davenport. And Davenport, the gnome butler, walks out carrying another tray.

This tray has three bracers of varying sizes. And the director points out, make sure that you put on the right one, because once those go on, they never come off. So make sure that you want to make sure and put on the one that was tailor made for you or else there will be some permanent discomfort. I'm concerned about brace or stink.

What's the policy for that? Do you have a certain sort of detergent? We each initiate in the Bureau of Balance is also granted a special brush that you get and you can just sort of get it in there and do some grouting for your arm stink. There's going to be a smell. I'm not going to lie to you.

Each of our initiates does have to deal with a smell, but you get used to it. And certain people I've learned actually kind of come to like it. Does the wrist turn green ever under the bracer? If it does, you'll never know. Oh, good. So at least you have that going, I suppose. Yeah, so Davenport hands each of you,

your bespoke bracer. And she says, oh, put those on your left wrist by the. the way. Well, actually, what dominant hand are each of you? I'm Amber Dextrous. Yeah, of course you are. I'm for right. Okay. Just make sure you don't put it. It's easier, we find, to have it on your non-dominant hand, but I suppose it's up to you. I'll put it on my left. I'll put it on my left. Okay. As you clasp it on, the clasps on these, these are pure silver bracers with the Bureau of Balance Rune on it.

And as you clasp them shut, the clasps themselves disappear. Oh, no way, by right. Leaving just a continuous band of silver with the Rune on it. And she says, welcome to the club. This is very exciting. new reclaimers in the order for quite some time. Well, it's no wonder. Why is that? It's a tough process getting in.

Yeah. Yeah. It's not a very high completion rate for the test, but the three of you don't have to worry about that ever again. You've already been paid handsomely your finder's fee for finding the gauntlet, and you will be paid as such each time you can find a grand relic for one of us. There are six left. Your job duties will just include following up on any promising information that our seekers and spies find for us. We will send you out on missions and you will do what you did in Fandolin,

ideally without involving the destruction of an entire city and the house of thousands of souls. I mean, ideally, yeah, but like... It's collateral damage. Will that come out of our paycheck? What's the story there? Oh, no, no. If it did, you all would actually owe us a hefty sum of money. Well, what was our paycheck, by the way?

Just kind of curious. 600 large. She said, now, I understand we are certainly sympathetic to the fact that not everybody who joins the Bureau is interested in monetary gain. It sounds by your guffawing that you are not counted among them. A lot of people who come to join the Bureau are interested in the acquisition. of power as well. Yeah. And that is something that we are actually very well equipped to help you out with.

This is our eighth episode. I've learned that money's a suckers game. There's no way to use it ever. She says actually... I'm for real estate. We have... I just want a dog. That's what favors.

I have a dog. You don't have a dog. Stop lying. You have a dog? You have a dog? Ruby. That first episode, Ruby. You forgot to feed Ruby for the last like eight episodes.

Yeah, much like the daughter from family matters, it just kind of disappeared. No dogs are allowed on the moon, unfortunately, she says. Yeah, it says, well, here's the problem. They just run right off the goddamn thing. I'd keep him on a leash, and I'd feed him, and I'd walk him every day, and I'd make sure he didn't commit suicide off the moon. My dog's allowed on the moon is my favorite weird owl album. I love the cover when it's like that dog with bug eyes in a spacesuit.

No dogs allowed on the moon. We actually have a... This is ground control a major dog. We have actually permitted an independent retailer space on our campus. If you

want, you can actually spend some of your hard-earned money at the Fantasy Costco and purchase... It's called Fantasy Costco? That is the name of the establishment. Yes, yes, I didn't name it, of course. I named

the Bureau of Balance, which I thought was very a terrific name. Much, much better, inarguably, than fantasy Costco, but... And Davenport came up with that, right? No, he does not run the fantasy. Costco, he is my charge, my ward. Isn't that right, Davenport?

Davenport. I'm a Pokemon, apparently. Davenport, Davenport, Davenport. Davenport, Davenport. She says, but in a to monetary rewards, we do have a system in place for allotting each of you a certain measure of power. Now, of course, the strictures of our order prohibit us from granting each other magic items. Obviously, lesser magic items, we will permit you to keep. I notice you have

some loafers of leaping there. We will not take those from you because we find it's, It's a necessary evil for you to do your job to have... Why loavers are not evil? Certainly not. Compared to the gauntlet that you just destroyed, those lepers, those leaping loafers are not going to destroy an entire city, certainly. However, our order is not allowed to, does not permit us to give each other magic items, but we do have sort of a clever workaround for that. And Davenport will now pay you your...

final reward, your final finder's fee, he's going to murder the three of you. Thank you for your service, goodbye. Is this like a signing bonus? Yes, that is a terrific, terrific way of thinking about it. This is your signing bonus.

And Davenport presents you with another tray with three large copper, very intricately printed tokens on it and hands one to each of you. Mine says good for one. backrub.

Davenport wigs. Davenport. Davenport. Davenport. No, Davenport. Spraise him with a water bottle. If you present those to our resident artificer, he will help you out

with acquiring a few new tools that you can use on your adventure. You're going to want to leave this dome head to this third dome on your right. And then inside that dome is actually a smaller dome. God damn it, we love domes around here. And inside you will find the artificer's chambers. Do you have any questions about your new job, your duties,

anything along those lines? What happens with the brazers once we found all seven objects? Oh, shit, she says. Okay. Maybe that's our reward for finding all the objects. Yes, is that we very quickly cut your hand off and get the bracelet off there, but then we attach the hand back, and it's like not a big deal. Sounds cool to me.

I have a question. Yes, yes. Was the seventh object love the whole time? Because I'd like to know that up front. I can't run around for 40 episodes at the end and find out the seventh object was love. I cannot. So I would ask up front if the seventh object is love. We don't have enough.

It would be. irresponsible for me to confirm or deny that right now. We don't have enough intel to confirm that... Head up, guys. The seventh object is love. We can't confirm or deny if the magic was inside you all the love. Okay, just blink twice if the seventh object is love. What I'm saying is once we get six, let's head back here.

Wait, is the seventh object Harry Potter? Was he the seventh object the whole time? No, I guarantee it's love. She won't even say it's not love. It's totally love. Just as they can remember. Okay. Yeah.

Okay. We get the other ones, but it's love. Perfect. Well, we have a way to identify the objects, or do we have to just keep bringing magical shit we find and say, is this one of them? Is this one of them? Whatever magical detritus hose into our field of vision will bring to you, like, stray dogs. This is an empty wine bottle. I found a rock that's kind of warm when it should be cold.

Is that one? Yeah, you nailed it. Hand that bad boy over. Or it's charcoal. Any other non-terable questions, she said? Is there a health plan? Just don't die. I actually do you have a question.

Out in the world, are there agents that we should be on the lookout? Like, is there a way to identify one another aside from the bracer? I mean, you have a pretty big silver bracelet on. That will typically help you out. If you're ever sent on a mission where you will need to correspond with another member of the Bureau, we will certainly let you know ahead of time to keep an eye out. We value teamwork here. And does the bracer do anything other than summon the glass ball balloon thing?

Oh, it does allow us to know exactly where you are at all times. How do we get around? What kind of transportation do you provide? We, we... Do you pay for gas? Yeah, is there mileage reimbursement? Mostly we just, again, this is going to sound much more unpleasant than it actually is. We fired you out of a cannon.

Cool. Great. You're going to love it. It's a very efficient form of travel that skips over a lot of boring narrative of, you know, walking through a goddamn forest for two days or something. As far as you know, is there a... Get closer to the mic, sweetheart. No, there's...

Oh, God. Okay. Yeah, my question... What the fuck happened to your voice? Sorry. I was telling you guys. My question is coming now. So my question is...

this. As far as you know, is there another, like, are there, is there a bad Bureau of Balance? Like a Bad Guy? A Bureau of Inbalance? A Barre of Inbalance? As far as we know, the, the, the rogue wizards who called themselves red robes, as far as we know, the, the, the rogue wizards who created all of these weapons of mass destruction, these red robes, are all gone. They have all, um, most of them were killed in the mad hunt for these objects. But as far as we know, we have not seen any red robes. If you notice any on your journey, if you encounter any. If we see someone in a red robe, kill them. Got it. No, don't. It's imperative that you bring them to us, that you allow us to detain them because the information that they hold may be invaluable. What if it's just a regular person wearing a red robe? Well, I guess just be careful and use your best judge. I guess.

Got it. Like Hugh Hefner? Or like Little Red Riding Robe? Yep. All right, I'm walking away. Okay. Okay. Did we level up, by the way?

You're going to in the next, in 15 minutes. 15 minutes to level up town. All right. 15 minutes to level up. I don't know what the hell we're going to do in the Artifister's office. It's going to make us level up, but fine. He says, you're leveled up now. You enter into the Artifers' chambers, and it is,

is a, it's a pretty strange looking room. There's, um, uh, there is a gnome with a long, long, long, long white beard, uh, sitting behind a desk. Uh, and the desk, uh, has on it a book that is bigger than the gnome is. It's, it's a very, very, it's an enormous tome. Um, and behind him is a large machine, what looks like, uh, with a, uh, a, uh, a, a, a, a, a, a, a huge glass tank on the top of it, containing a lot of smaller spherical capsules inside. And on the front of, there's a metallic base for this tank with a small slot in it and a large round handle.

And underneath the handle is a small door. Okay, Gervin. Griffin make the thing from Shimmy. Griffin made the thing from Shinnu. You know, Shinnu didn't invent. Griffin put the capsule game from Shimu into our game. And also the capsule game from Kroger and any number of grocery establishments. And the artificer says, oh, he needs a voice.

Hello, come on in. No, not that one. My voice is quite deep for my small stature, but welcome. Welcome to my chambers. My name is Leon. Welcome, welcome to my, my little slice of, of the moon, as I call it. I assume the three of you have been paid some tokens. Yes.

Is that this Jim Crackery we were given earlier? Yeah, I take out my token and tacos because he couldn't be trusted to keep track of his, and I hand it back to him. He says, as I'm sure you've been informed, Man, this voice sucks. You're right, Travis. I need something else. Just lean into the George DeKness of that voice. Yeah, I think if you just kind of felt it.

As I'm sure the three of you have been informed, we are not allowed to give one another magical items. However, if we allow Lady Luck or divine intervention or whatever you'd like to call it, however you like to think of chance or fate, we can allow those forces to grant you magic items using this special machine. Here, any magic items that are picked up in the field and not used by one of our agents, go into the machine and then are given out to agents carrying that special commendation that you have in a random manner.

Am I going to end up with like magic socks? God knows you could end up with magic socks. you could end up with a spear made out of dragon boners or something. I don't know. The dragon bono spear. That actually sounds pretty good. It does sound pretty rad, doesn't it? I think that was supposed to be the awesome option.

I don't know what you're going to end up with. You don't know what you're going to end up with. It's actually very exciting if you ask me. But if you have any questions about the items that you have or items that you found any items that you get out of the machine, you can let me know. And I have a big book here that will help me diagnose it. Do you, can I ask you about this umbrella I have? Do you recognize this one?

That, let me see that, he says, and takes it off your hands and looks it over and says, oh my goodness, where did you find this? Doesn't matter. Up your mom's butt. What is it? Well, that's... It doesn't... I found it in a cave or something.

Okay. It was like six episodes ago. I think a dead guy had it? This is... There are very few of these, Taco. You should count yourself very lucky to have something like this. It seemed good. This is called an Umbra staff,

which were created by an order of wizards called the... Well, the Umbra Wizards. And they were a clever source. Did you say the Umbra? Umbra with an A. Known for their baggy shorts. And their love of soccer. They love of soccer.

The umbra was. They created magical items that looked like normal everyday items that would allow them to conceal, uh, conceal those staves and wands. Uh, and allow them to bring it into battle, uh, unseen. This is before they invented baggie. shorts and that they use those to conceal all their magical items.

The cargo pockets. Again, like I said, a very clever order of wizards and very fashionable. What makes these, what makes these staves interesting is that they are able to consume the power of any magical item used by a wizard that you have bested in combat and absorb their powers and become stronger. So you will want to hang on to this because it is this is quite a rare find.

Excellent. Thanks so much. I had him the warm rock I found and say, what is this? This is a cold rock. A hot rock that you could use to maybe sear a thinly cut slice of Kobe beef.

Excellent. Excellent. Excellent. Beef. Beef! No. Shut up, Davenport. We have beef. You already had meat, so you need to calm down. We didn't have it ground, did we? No. Yeah, the grinder ground it.

He says, is anybody feeling lucky? Anybody want to take a spin? Let me ask you something first. Oh, boy, I can't wait to see what you get. And Merle hands him a tiny, pitiful, armless robot. Okay. No, he wasn't tiny. What the fuck did you guys do to this thing?

Well It's not we We didn't Fate did this to the robot This thing looks like it had its arms ripped off Very slowly And cruelly That would be awful

Robits are not my area of expertise Okay, I'll just hang on to it I'll go first I'll spin the big machine first Okay There's no spinning, mostly cranking But yeah Insert your coin

into the slot and let's see where we go. I'm so excited. Put it in the slot and I start a cranking. All right, you start cranking. I want you to roll a D20. Okay. Now, Griffin, is there a shitty? Is there like what's behind door number three?

Oh, it's nothing. There's all kinds of items in the fantasy gash upon. I want you to know. 19. Okay. Nineteen. Okay. A very small capsule, very, very small.

Capsle pops out of the door at the bottom of the machine, the Fantasy Gashapon. And as you pick it up and pop it open, you find a very small clasp, like an earring, but like a clip-on type thing that sort of goes over the outside of your ear. Can we look this up in the old book? Let's see. Let's see. We'll open up to index. Oh, you lose D&D. For clasps, oh, this is actually a very interesting item. This is called the true heart clasp. You wear it on your ear, and it aids you in knowing a person's true intentions, which in game terms means that on insight checks, which are what you do to tell if somebody's telling you the truth or if they have an alternative. your motive, sort of knowing the intention behind a person's words and actions.

Whenever you make one of those checks, you'll get plus two to it and advantage on every insight check. Excellent. Nice. I put on the earring. Okay. It looks very dashing. It is.

It looks really good. Thanks. Pulling it off. Anybody else? Anybody want to go next? I'll go. Okay. Pop that bad boy in there.

I have a coin. Yes. Just go ahead and put it right. Put it right in the machine and let's see. I can't wait. I hand him my coin. Okay, but you have to put it in the machine because there's like a whole like fate and chance and like divine invention thing that I set up for you. Where does the coin go?

Into the coin shaped hole. Excellent. On the front of the machine. Good news. I've solved your puzzle. Well, well. I take the coin back. Okay.

I put it in the slot. You take it and you put it right in the slot. Good. You're halfway there now. Just crank that handle. To the right. To the right. To the right.

To the left. No. To the right? Yes. To the right. Yes. Now we're doing the goddamn Cupid shuffle now. So go ahead.

I do an insight check. Okay. On what? On the guy to see if he's telling the truth about turning right. Okay. Go ahead and roll it. 15. Yeah.

Yeah. He's telling the absolute truth. You can try and turn it in the left. I crank to the left. It doesn't. It just doesn't go. There's some sort of mechanism in there that is preventing it from turning left. I crank right.

Okay. You crank it to the right. Roll a D20 for me. 16. 16. Okay. Another very small capsule pops out of the door at the bottom of the chamber. And you pop it open and find a blue steel ring.

It causes you to pose for modeling constantly. No, it's like a cobalt ring. That is actually very cool to the touch. And you hand it towards Leon, who says, let's see, rings. We have quite a few rings in there, so this may take a while. That earring, by the way, Merle, just looks very good, very dashing. I wish that we're lucky enough to get something like that out of the machine.

ring rings rings Sell it to you? Oh no really? No I think that's against the rules right? Oh yeah Oh yes absolutely Wink he winks

Definitely definitely don't sell those to anybody Wink wink wink wink He says As soon as I put this earring on He says that is a ring of frost Taco and what this ring does is When the wearer

Is holding any beverage It makes that beverage very frosty and refreshing. It's a coozy ring. And it also defends you against any frost-based damage. So that should help also. But its main purpose is frosty beverages. That's too bad, but we've got the frosty beverages thing. You've got frosty beverages.

Yeah, so any beverage you hold while holding it in your ring of frost hand will be chilly and refreshing. And you also have resistance to frost damage, which means you will take half damage. from frost damage from now on. Don't drink coffee with it. Unless you like it. Unless you're jam. Right. Yeah.

That might be his jam. Yeah, true. Okay, my turn. Okay, Magnus, spin it. Let's see if we can't get something a little bigger out of there. Yeah. I pop my coin in. I turn the knob.

I got a six. I mean, this isn't necessarily a higher numbers, better thing. It's just I have different items set to different. numbers. Six, a very large, a more ovular shaped capsule pops out. It's like a very, magic dog, magic dog, magic dog. You pop open that capsule. And inside is an axe. Yay! A very plain looking axe with a long wooden handle and a red wedge head on the end of it. just sort of a basic, like, lumberjacks axe, essentially, which you hand to Leon, and he says, let's see, axe. Is that A-X or A-X-E?

I always, I can never seem to remember how we spray. A-X, A-X-E is the body spray. Okay, I'm not 100% sure you're right on that one, but let's see. Oh, who knows? This is a very powerful axe called Rail Splitter. And rail splitter is more powerful than your standard axe despite its humble trappings. And it is said that the rail splitter can, in a single swipe, chop down any tree. Sweet.

With one swipe of the axe. That's good for him because he hates trees. I do. I detest them. So this is a plus one battle axe, which means you get plus one to your attack and damage rolls with it. And like he said, once per day, you can use the rail splitter to fell any tree with one go. And you grow a beard like Abe Lincoln. Now, I want to clear some things up.

Magnus has a beard. He's just got bushy or siburns than the rest of his beard. Nope, that's not canonical. That is canonical. No, you can't just make shit up. That is from day one I said that shit In all the art though It's just the burns

I know that's why I'm clearing it up right now No artists are legion of wonderful Incredible artists don't you listen to him If you go back and and listen to the first episode He specifically says He has beards and a sideburn But his beard his beard is you can establish that But in the next chapter I'm going to make a dragon burn your goddamn beard off

Mayor of the dragon Burns your beard away Leon says that was a pretty good I'm not going to lie to you guys There's a lot of stinkers in there There's a lot of stinkers and a lot of clunkers The three of you fared very well But you will

You'll receive more tokens For laudable efforts in the field So I guess anytime you have a question About anything you find out there Or have some tokens To throw to the whims of fate You let me know And so this isn't retroactive

To all the wizards we've already killed? What are you talking about? Oh, no, you're talking about the umbrella. Oh, no, you don't get one token per wizard, you murder. Or else you could go on some sort of horrible spree down on a surface level, and we don't encourage that type of behavior. All right.

Well, that's fun. Why don't we go to Fantasy Costco and you can level up while you're walking around? Because, you know, like, you can't go to Costco and just, like, knock out a Costco run in, like, 10 minutes. You're going to eat some snacks. Yeah, you're going to eat some. We have a new kashi. It's kashi too. You're going to love it. Even koshier than before. You're looking around your price, you're doing some comparison shopping on some fruit leather. Hey everybody, this is Griffin McElroy, your dungeon master and your best friend. Yeah, sure. Fuck it. I'm your best friend now. That is happening. Thank you all so much for listening to the Adventure Zone episode 9, the third part of

our interlude chapter, which we have titled Moonlighting. Thank you all for listening to and sharing and reviewing the show. We have one new character named after a person. For someone who shared the show using the Zonecast hashtag, this one is for Leon Roslar, whose name you might recognize from all the fucking fantastic episode recap art that they have done for all of our episodes. You can find all of it on our Tumblr page, which is The Adventure. Dot Zone. You can get a look at all of the episode recap art and all of the art that people have sent in. That website is also a good way to keep track of new episodes as they come up and things like character sheets. I'm going to post all three Justin Travis and Dad's character sheets after they have updated them because I'm bumping them up a couple levels.

So you can find all that on theadventure.com. This is very exciting. We have a Jumbotron message. For this episode of the Adventure Zone, a very first Jumbotron. If you've listened to My Brother and My Brother and Me or any of the other shows on the Maximum Fun Network, you already know about Jumbotrons. They are personal or business messages that you can purchase that will go in the middle of the show. You can find them at Maximumfund.org slash Jumbotron, where you can send out a message to a buddy

or a loved one or you can promote your thing. Here's an example of what one of those sound like, because this is one of those. This Jumbotron was sent to us by Illustration. I hope I'm pronouncing that right. It's like the word illustration, but instead of an O at the end, there's an A at the end. I-L-L-U-S-T-R-A-T-I-A-N, Illustratian. I kind of like how that is pronounced better than the standard version of the word. I want you to visit www.

www.com slash commish, that's C-O-M-M-I-S-H, and subscribe to Illustration on Instagram. for a chance to win a monthly full-body portrait giveaway. Now, Illustration is an artist who has done some terrific work. If you follow me on Twitter, you will recognize their handywork as my Twitter avatar, which I adore and am never going to change, probably. If you like the look of that, you can get a portrait from this link, Illustration.com slash commish. They're doing portrait commissions, which make great gifts.

They specialize in D&D character portraits, which is appropriate. They actually won our art contest and one assigned Players Handbook, which we actually delivered during our candle nights show, which was really fun. And yeah, they made my Twitter avatar, so check that out. And if you like the look of it, you can get some portrait commissions done. They also do freelance illustration work. So if you want it drawed, they will draw it. Again, that is illustration.com slash commish. One more super exciting thing.

next week we are kicking off Max Fun Drive, which is the Pledge Drive that the Maximum Fun Network, which we are a very proud member of, as is my brother, my brother, me, Sawbones and Bunker Buddies, all members of the McRoy family of products on Maximum Fun. We love it. We've been a member of it for a long time. We adore their mission statement and all of the other shows on the network, which you can find at Maximum Fun.org. If you haven't listened to them, go listen to them. They're all terrific. Maximum Fun is a donor-supported network. Once a year, we have a Pledge Drive, where we ask listeners of the show to consider donating once a month. And in doing so, you will get some awesome pledge gifts,

which we will announce next week. And you will also get bonus content for every single show on the network. So if you like The Adventure Zone, you're tired of wait in two weeks between episodes. We feel you. You can get a bonus episode, which is actually a 45-minute-long prequel to the Adventure Zone saga. As we know it, it is a meeting of the month. between Taco Merle and Magnus, their origin story and how they met. It was super, super fun.

It was a really, really fun thing to record, and I think it turned out really well. So yeah, you can get that and bonus episodes of My Brother and My Brother and Me and every other show on the network like Jordan Jesse Go, stop podcasting yourself, throwing shade, hours and hours and hours of content for being a monthly donor. But not only that, you help support us and you help support the shows that we do. Max Fun Drive kicks off next Monday. So we will see you there and let you know all of the stuff that we get up to during the two weeks that the Max Fun Drive runs. That's it. Let's get back to the episode again.

Time to go shopping at the Fantasy Costco. Going to do some leveling up. And then our next episode will be the start of a new campaign chapter starring Taco Merlin Magnus that I'm really, really excited about to get to. So thank you all so much for listening. Thank you all so much for your support and for sharing the show and just for everything. I can't tell you how much we appreciate the support that we've gotten since we went live with this thing just a few short months ago. Enjoy the rest of the episode and we will see you next time. Fantasy Costco, where all your dreams come true.

We got it all. I love fantasy Costco. This place is great. Yeah, but it was terrific. I'm so glad I became a member. Do you need 36 pairs of Puma socks? Do you need a box with 144 strips of fruit leather in it? What do you need?

because we got it. We also have adventuring items. The four of you walk to the massive, massive fantasy Costco building. It's the biggest building and only non-dome-shaped structure on the campus, which you're certain that the organizers of the Bureau of balance are not so psyched about. But this is an independent retailer, which means that they are allowed to sell you magic items without any interference by the Bureau. So all of that gold that you've been fucking nonstop complaining about, Justin, you now can spend on things. A lot of the inventory of the fantasy Costco was stopped by listeners of the show.

So thank you everybody. I think we got like 150 different item submissions in for people. I will say that many of those items were Tex-Mex in nature. Thank you for those submissions. But I think I might handle the storytelling like at my own pace, which is to say accidentally saying taco-related keywords and having that be canonical. But yeah, have you guys thought about each of you has 600 gold pieces?

Have you thought about how you might like to spend it? How much is a dog? Non-existent. Remember, no dogs on the moon. Even Fantasy Costco could not sneak one of the... those pups past uh also travis i don't like believe in puppy mills so that's like sort of my thing sort of like one of those things puppies that they sell yeah at fancy Costco as long as it's a fantasy why can't it be my fantasy i'd like to observe that i think we have more than 600 gold each

i mean we got 30 gold from the sack of golden teeth are you got are you about to math if you want to math this out. If you have been actually calculating and tabulating all of the fake currency I've been throwing in your direction, then that's fine. I was just sort of rounding it for brevity. I think we need to go up to 750 just from what I'm looking at my... I have been writing it all down. Um, no. Are you sure? Are you 100% sure? No. Okay. Yeah, you just made a bluff roll against your own son. Um, and failed. Uh, no, 600 gold each. We got a lot of a lot of great items in here. A few highlights.

We have the stones of Farse Beach from Greg Glass. Those are 100 gold pieces each. Those basically function as little stone walkie-talkies. That's neat. Our very own Drew Davenport sent in an item called the Phantom Fist, which allows you to knock enemies back with unarmed blows. Those could be nice. That's a nice option.

You got the Extreme Teen Bible, which I added there, which is a plus one holy symbol, which would make Merle's spells a little bit more potent. I like the ring of pointing from Daniel Kiefer, a copper ring with an inlaid ruby that can be used as a... and it shoots a laser out, and it can be used as a distraction or to highlight salient information during business presentations.

Yeah, some of these items I had to tweak a little bit for simplification's sake because I want to keep the game running fairly smoothly. By the way, the rest of this episode is probably going to be a little bit of table talk, which may not be everybody's cup of tea, but we've got to do a little bit of management because things are getting a little bit hairy in the rules department. We need to level you guys up, for instance, which we haven't done in like six years. Yeah, anybody want to do some shopping real quick?

I was interested in that phantom fist. Okay. Is that anything you guys were eyeballing? I was when I thought I was going to get $750. Oh, I say, okay. So Travis, you want to pick up the Phantom Fist? I would like to purchase the Phantom Fist. Which was sent in by Drew Davenport.

It makes your unarmed attacks a little bit stronger and allows you to knock back enemies when you hit them with unarmed attacks. Yes. Okay. That's 400 gold pieces, please, is the cashier. So I've done that now. Sorry, actually, you're probably not going to, like, buy each item individual.

You're going to throw it into, like, a huge oversized cart and probably purchase it all at once. Yes. Is there no samples? I mean, these places usually have a first sample. Yeah, here have a sample of Phantom Fist, and then somebody punches you in the sternum. Somebody punches you in the sternum a little bit, and you go flying back like six inches. Ah. That's good.

Phantom Fished. What did you think? You can find that on Isle 416. Daddy like. Anybody else buying stuff? I would like to ask about the unlimited pasta pass for a hundred gold from Dianas 23rd. It says, can be used any participating in Olive Garden for free unlimited pasta for the owner of the pass and free soft drinks for their guests. Yeah.

That doesn't seem to have huge implications for our game. And what's great is I actually edited it because the original description said it only lasted six weeks. So if you didn't find a fantasy olive garden in the first season. six weeks of the game, then your pasta pass is going to be for now. Well, I'm clearly buying that. Okay. And then never using it. And I'm buying the ring of pointing.

Okay. Oh, were we supposed to just pick up everything we wanted? Yeah, just tell me what you want. Let's move through this thing. And I'm thick, because that gives me a 300. And I think I'd also like the wand of switcheroo from Evan Abrams. I want to, I want to knock that, and I can change the wand of switcheroo. Before you decide to buy it, it has three charges.

that seems like way crazy, powerful. And I didn't think about that. I think just one per day is probably enough. So you go ahead and say it, but just keep in mind. When pointed at another creature of similar size than 100 feet and activated the holder will switch places with the target if it is willing. If the target's unwilling, it must succeed

a DC-17 constitution savings here to remain in place. Holds three charges, but apparently one now, and it regains one charge after a long rest. Yeah. Three charges, you could just be fucking switching switch of ruin all day, every day. Just night carolering all over the place. Yeah, yeah.

So that brings you to 600. If nobody else wants any of those other items, then... Well, I... Wait a minute. I want the Scuttle Buddy. Okay. Scuddle Buddy. Who sent in the Scuttle Buddy?

Jason Hagell sent in the Scuttle Buddy. It's a mechanical beetle that you can use as a spy. It will talk to you, but it won't have anything interesting to say, beyond its primary functions. And you can only wind it up four times before it breaks. And I'm going to name him Ted. Ted, the Scuttle Buddy. So you can use it to bug a room to scout out an area.

It's very fragile so it can be destroyed if anybody notices it while you're spying on them. You can only use it four times. It can't fly, but it can crawl around and stick to walls and stuff like that. It also can't collect items or interact with the environment for you. And I want a slim gym. Well, we don't have those here, sir. Well, you got everything at Fianzikosco. Now, we can sell you 1,200 slim jims.

We can sell you essentially a hay bale of slim gems, and that's going to cost you 15,000 gold pieces. I'll hold off. I'm also going to pick up the stones of Farspeach. How many? Oh, I thought it was a set. Are you Okay, you can have three for 100 gold

Thank you. No, no, I'll tell you what, I'll give you a three for 200 gold. I'll meet you in the middle. Okay, I'll accept that deal. You're getting haggled. They do a lot of haggling at Costco. A lot of people don't know that. It's a little real-life Costco hack.

Just like start arguing with them about the prices of things, and they'll bow. It's really a suggestion. Uh-huh. Really, any restaurant, Chipotle, we'll do that too. Foot locker, houses, cars. Is there a fantasy Chipotle? No, nice try. No, way to set that trap up and I just jumped right over it.

What is it, Travis? Now that I've got the rail splitter, is there a system put in place to, like, sell my old axe, or is it just gone? No, nobody's going to want to buy that shit. Oh. It's garbage. I didn't want to tell you because I didn't want to hurt your feelings,

but you've been using a garbage axe this whole time. Okay. Well, how much we got left? Dido. I was hoping that you would keep track of your own finance I spent all my money tacos out Well I should have at least

You got 250 left Yeah almost enough for that extreme teen Bible I know not quite Do they have any left? No they're both out When you say almost a month You mean like half the amount you need Yeah

That's not almost Will you read the description of the Extreme Team Bible Yeah I know Will you read just read it out loud A plus one holy symbol. He thought you wanted to read it to himself. Yeah, I was reading it to myself. A plus one holy symbol the cover features a rad skateboarder

allows the user to more easily spread the good word of Morthammer Dwin to teens. Now, before we check out at the checkout line, if I may, I think you'll get way more use out of that than this guttle buddy. The Scuddle Buddy seems cool. Let that spend his money. how he wants to spend it. Who's fucking this dog? What? There are no dogs on the moon.

No dogs on the moon. All right, I'll tell you what. I'll tell you what. I'll tell you what. I'll offer you $600. Okay. For the Scuttle Buddy. You're yelling. You got a microphone.

I'll offer you $600. Hey, you calm the fuck down, sir. There's no yelling in fantasy Costco. I'll offer you $600 for the Scuttle Buddy and the extreme teen Bible and I will throw in, give to you, this armless robot. And my old axe. What am I going to do with an armless robot and an old garbage axe?

You'll find some fool to buy him just like we're buying this stuff. I don't appreciate the implication that I'm going to want to do sex stuff with this armless robot that you're obviously trying to make this implication, I mean. That's my deal. Take it to leave it. Um... Can you sweeten the pot? Can you sweeten the pot at all? I have this deck of cheating playing cards.

Ooh, interesting. Let me see those. Yeah, these are, uh, this is just a, it looks like a deck of playing cards, but it looks like there's like 12 aces up in here. Hey, I got a, I got a jade frog. Interesting. I can throw the jade frog in there. I wrote down the word goo on my sheet. At some point, did I get some goo? No, you had goo on your sheets.

I'll tell you what. Give me your gooey sheets. Give me your sex roll. Give me your gooey sheets. Give me your sex robot. Give me your garbage acts. This is exactly what the Statue of Liberty says at the bottom, right? Give me. Give me your gooey sheets.

Your armbless robot. Your armbaless, robot. Earning to be free. You throw all that in. You give me 600 gold. And the holy symbol you're using right now, this nameless cashier says. And I'll make that trade with you. All right, but I want to hang on to the armless robot.

Oh, God. I'll throw in the Jade Frog. I'll give you the Jade Frog. I had big, big plans for that Armuswara. Oh, all right. All right. Deal. You trade in all of that junk and $600, $600.

$600. And you get the Extreme Teen Bible and the Scuttle, buddy. And I want a warranty. There's got to be a warranty. The Bible doesn't need a warranty, sir. It's the good book. It'll never stop being good. And to be fair, the scuttle buddy is designed to break.

Yeah, the scuttle buddy is going to break in. It says it right there on the tag. I will insure the scuttle buddy for another 350 gold pieces. Which is the purchase price of the scuttle buddy. Okay. Yeah. So you all check out with your new items. Please, please, please, sweet Jesus write those down.

Because I'm not going to. And each of you now has one of the stones of far speech. Like, I'm just going to go ahead and hand them out. So you guys can be in like your different. tree forts, your different tree houses in different parts of town. Just like, hey, you up? We'll come up with a special language that only we can understand later. Hey, ASL.

No, not that. All right, let's level you guys up. Yeah. Because we need to level you up desperately. Don't I need to grab my player's handbook or do you guys have yours? I'm already leveled up. You might as well have it, Griffin. Yeah, let me get mine real quick.

So, yeah, we need to level you guys up. I also want to let you guys pick your character specializations. So in Dungeons and Dragons, each class has basically different paths that they can go down. And the problem is that, Travis, you made your own character because you had a little bit more experience. But Taco and Merle were both these like pre-rolled characters. And I want you guys to be able to come up with your own sort of paths for them. Because I mean, a lot of people think the rules are boring or whatever, but I think it's kind of an important part of character development too.

So I wanted to give you guys the opportunity to pick your specializations, and I'm going to level you up to level four. You're level two right now, so I'm going to jump you up a couple. I mean, you've done a lot of stuff. I've just sort of been slacking on the character management side of it. So let's move through this like relatively quickly. Yeah, because we're known for that. Why don't you choose one at a time, Griffin, and just like go through with that person's

Well, let's start with Travis because I know that Magnus, you've already picked sort of the path for Magnus. And I can explain the basic choices. Yeah, explain what it is. And then you can, so because you level up, every time you level up, you get additional hit points. So you'll roll your hit dice and add your constitution modifier to that. And that gets added to your total hit points. And then you'll do that again because you get two levels worth. And go ahead and pick your specializations.

Great. And tell us where it is. nine, four, 13, and then constitution modifier. Okay, great.

So then that's 41. Okay. Jesus. What a tank. What a tank, folks. Built like a brick shit house. So basically,

at least as far as fighter goes, with the specializations, you have three choices. Champion battlements. Just tell us, just explain the one that you're actually picking.

Because there is a neat one where you can do magic and shit, but something tells me I chose against that one because we already have two casters in the party. So I chose,

battlemaster, which has a lot of cool stuff that goes along with it, but the main things are combat superiority, which at level three, you learn maneuvers, which are basically taking the place of like the special skills that you got in like previous editions. And then you learn addition. So you get three of those to start out with, and then you learn additional ones as you level up. And you use something called superiority dice to do that. You start with four of those, and then you gain more at higher levels. And you also get an ability called student of war. At third level, you gain proficiency

with one type of artisan tools of your choice. The idea being with Battlemaster that you're an expert at all different forms of battle and combat. So like you've studied outside of just fighting. So with these superiority dice, you can spin those in battle to do these special maneuvers that will allow to do things like

disarm an enemy or Perry or repost, or something like that. Yeah, those are the three maneuvers I've chosen. You've nailed. Oh, shit. Cool. Disarming means I, like, roll. Yeah, I think we can figure.

Yeah. What special artisan? I'm curious to hear what trade craft you picked up. It's a great question, because I had said cook, but now, now I'm feeling like maybe glass blower, maybe calligrapher. So you can make your own paraphernalia. Yeah, you know, wink, wink. For that good, good middle earth grass.

That hobbit kush. That kind hobbit kush. So come back to me on that. But yeah, so I went with Battlemaster, repost, Perry, and disarming attack, and I start with four dice. It also, at level four, you get to add two ability points. To either six main stats or one in one. Yeah. And so I went with, uh, conventyce.

Constitution to bump it up to 16 and wisdom to bump it up to nine so I no longer have a negative wisdom modifier. Eight and nine is still negative one. Oh. I see. Does that change your decision at all? It does. You can put them both into wisdom and that'll be zero.

Yeah, but then fuck wisdom. Like, I'm not going to use it. Well, you know what? I'm going to put them both into strength then and bump me up to 18. Like if I'm going for a tank, I'm going to stick with tank. Okay. So that brings you up to. 18, which I think gives you a plus four modifier.

So now you get one additional on any strength-based attack or roll or whatever. Okay, cool. So Travis is good to go. Dad, do you want to go next? Sure. Okay, so clerics have what are called domains, and that basically informs, like, special powers

that you get as you level up. And it also gives you certain spells that you don't have to prepare. You just have them on hand at any given time. Merle started out as a life domain one which is just life domain is all about healing and stuff like that and that may be what you want to go with

but there's other cool ones like Tempest which gives you like storm-based powers or light which lets you blind and burn enemies I was kind of thinking of maybe nature interesting I never pictured you as the Captain Planet type but I really wanted something that worked with me

machines, but I don't see anything there. Okay. So what is the nature thing do? Well, gods of nature are as varied as the natural world itself. Are you just reading from the book? Because that'll take six years. Okay. Actually, this, they use this to help interact with nature, with plants, and with animals. And, yeah, it's more. So you're going in more of like a druidic direction. A little bit, a little bit. Okay. Yep. I expect you to roleplay a little bit earthier then. Maybe a little bit crunchier with your vibe. I will be a little crunchier. I'll add some granola. We'll do a little, we'll do a crunchy retcon on Merle Highchurch. There we go. I mean it's got to change gods. Oh shit. Yeah. Oh, Morthammer Dwin is going to be so hurt when he finds out.

Especially since he does about that Bible. Can I, can that transfer over? Yeah, yeah. It's, it is agnostic. It can preach the good word of any God, but it's just really good of getting that word out to the teen population. Well, I still want to stick with reaching out and evangelizing the teen. Yeah. But I want to do it for Pan. Pan. You know, a great way to reach teens

is you go to teen google.com. You can really get in touch with teens. I'll check that out. Teengoogle.com. That's a URL. Dad, you don't know this yet. That's the URL we bought. We own teen google.com. Oh. Yeah. So whatever you, if you got good idea for that good money making idea. We bought team google.com.

Cool. Okay. So we can figure out your, because you have the nature domain, you are now proficient with heavy armor, which means you can wear heavy armor and cast spells still. In order to cast spells wearing armor, you have to be proficient in that type of armor.

So now you can put on bulky stuff. But I think the life domain also had that. So you should be good there. And you will get proficiency in either animal handling, nature, or survival. I think animal handling. Okay. Just to piss Travis off for... Son of a bitch.

Because Travis doesn't get everything. Okay. But I do have animal handling. So you can channel divinity, which is something you can do, I think, twice per day. And you can use that to either turn undead, which is something every cleric can do, which is kind of self-explanatory. If undead or near, you cast that, and they have to move away from you. But the nature domain lets you also charm animals.

and plants using channel divinity. Yeah, you can make any animal or plant, which is interesting, friendly to you for like 30 minutes or something like that. Or one minute, sorry, one minute. So yeah, that's your new stuff. Yeah, I think the only thing you need to do now is get some extra health. So roll a D8. Five.

A five. And what's your constitution modifier? Plus two. So seven, and then do it again. Four and two. That's six. So 13, you get 13 extra hit points. Cool.

You can assign two stat points. Basically, every even number, you move up to another modifier. So if you have something that's an odd number, you may want to think about throwing a point into that. Say constitution is 15. Yeah, so if you added one to that, it would move up to plus three. Okay, I tell you, I don't like having a negative in anything. So I'm going to throw both of them into dexterity. Okay.

Yeah, so you're going to, okay, that's a good idea because you use dexterity for a lot of stuff. And having a negative one there is going to be really bad. So you have bumped that score up to 10, which changes the modifier to zero. So now you no longer have basically a dexterity penalty. Okay. And I think that's it for you. All right. And Taco.

Yes. So I think Taco, the like build that came with the game that we were using for a while was just an evocation school. So Wizards choose different schools in magic. And that does sort of the same thing as cleric domains. And the one that was the pre-rolled version was the school of evocation. which is basically damaging magic. But that may not be what you want to go into. There's other stuff like necromancy or alteration or all kinds of different stuff.

Have you thought about what school you wanted to go with? Yeah, I'm going to be joining the school of transmutation. Okay. It's not, I don't think it's an actual school. I don't think there's like a hoggworth. Some, well, some are, you know. Some of the schools do have actual physical schools connected to. them. Okay. So there. A wizard might study the school of illusion in some towns and another wizard

studies across town at the school of Enchantments. There's sometimes physical school. And there's, they have, uh, they have a very, uh, contentious football rivalry between them. Right. Their, uh, last year in the final championship game was, it was two to zero. It was the highest scoring game they've ever had. Yeah, there was one. Physically, just, yeah, very feeble, very feeble, super feeble people. Uh, so, yeah. So, yeah, it was two to zero. Uh, it was the highest scoring game they've ever had. Uh, it. Uh, So, yeah, transmutation is sort of the changing energy and matter from one thing to another thing, basically. Not, you know, sort of the magical version of alchemy, I guess. Not to say alchemy isn't magical, but you know what I mean.

Not a chemical thing, but literally changing something to something else. Okay. So what does that allow you to do? Well, at my second level, I get copying transmutation spells. We really haven't been doing that. We're not really doing that though, so that ain't that great. And I also Contemporary, I get minor alchemy.

So I can temporarily alter the physical properties of one non-magical object, changing it from one substance to another. You perform a special alchamel procedure on one object composed entirely of wood, stone, iron, copper, silver, transforming it into a different one of those materials. For each 10 minutes you spend performing the procedure, you can transform up to one cubic feet of material. So, um, not super fast acting.

Okay. So you can change wood stone. That lasts for an hour. Iron, copper, or silver into any one of those other things. Okay. Yeah, that could be fun. You do some fun stuff with that. And you get some dope shit later on in this tree.

Yeah, later it gets, it gets live. And then I got some new spells and stuff that I'll, I can either tell you now, I can just, I mean, I've ever added them to the thing. What are the, uh, you get four new spells? Two for each level, right? And I think your spell slots, you should be able to start learning second level spells. Yeah, I actually picked up second level spells at level three. So in layman's terms, that just means you and Merle also have moved on to like another echelon of magic.

Second level spells are more powerful than first level spells. In fact, I accidentally let Merle use a second level spell when he shouldn't have been able to. in the last episode. Yeah, goofed on that. But you know what? Accidents are going to happen. I'm also going to put two points into my charisma. Oh, interesting.

Okay. To get it from 8 to 10. Because it was zero. It was negative 1 before. Now it's zero. Yes, right. Okay. Yeah, so you're, I see what you're saying.

You're doing the same thing kind of that Merle did with his text here. Yeah. Okay. And you also need to roll a D6 and add your constitution modifier and then do that again. I already did that. that, I'm up to, I'm up to 26 overall. Beefy. Beefy boy.

Fairly beefy boy, I guess. I guess you can say you're a beefy boy. Okay. Cool. So that's where you guys are at. Now you're ready for the next stage of the adventure. Join us next time on the Adventure Zone when we don't do precise stat calculations for a half hour, I promise. But feel free to tell us if we did something wrong, because I feel like I'm so wrong.

Don't, like, stuff it. I don't care. Yeah. I don't want to know when we did something. It's just jokes and jokes and jokes, folks. But it's also storytelling, excitement, adventure, romance. Keep your fucking food back to yourself. Well, no, don't, because we'd love it.

Stuff it in your magical ass. Okay. Yes. You guys actually... You didn't buy the magic ass at Fantasy Costco. It's like a bag of holding, but for ass. Maximumfund.org. Comedy and culture.

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