The Adventure Zone - The Adventure Zone: Amnesty - Episode 10

Episode Date: June 15, 2018

With Amnesty Lodge and its residents in peril, the Pine Guard sets out to plan their next hunt post-haste — but can they find the strength to do so without the guidance of their absent leader? Aubrey does some recon. Duck gets the hard questions. Ned goes for a drive. Happy MaxFunDrive! Right now is the best time to start a membership to support your favorite shows. Learn more and join at https://maximumfun.org/jointaz

Previously, on the Adventure Zone. I saw the pool that I've swum in every day. Last night, it came, it came alive. Was that real? Do monsters really exist here? It knows where you live now. I got to close down the hot springs until we slay this thing. And the folks here, they need the springs to live.

And I want you to enchant this Nerf gun that I acquired. It's a very historical piece. very, very sought after. You are full of Sylvain's power. I had a big meal when I got here. No, that's... I don't know how you were so infused if you were born on Earth, but that is what I see. I can see it as plain as the stars in the sky.

It is of the utmost importance that nobody else gets clued in, okay? My friend, discretion is my middle name. It is finally. following morning. The longest day in literary history has been concluded. We almost live that one out in fucking real time, but it's the following morning. And the three of you have regrouped at Amnesty Lodge. It is a, it's a nice day outside, but the scene in here seems kind of a little bit bleaker than you're used to seeing here at Amnesty Lodge. Usually this is a warm place of gathering and kindness. But right now, there's just a few people in the lobby. You see Jake Coolice and Danny sitting at a table in the

dining area, and they're both just kind of sitting there, head and hands looking just kind of wiped out. You hear Barclay rustling around in the kitchen, but nobody else seems to be here. It seems almost like there's a Paul cast over the lobby as you enter in. Barclay comes out and hand some tea to Danny and to Jake Coolice who kind of half-heartedly accept it and just sort of set it down on the table without drinking it. So Barclay walks over to the three of you and says, So, uh, how'd it go last night? Well, um, we went to Sylvain. Did we, did you know that? Yeah, I knew that. And all we got were these crummy t-shirts. Yeah, we did buy a lot of t-shirts. Yeah. Maybe don't let Agent Stern see you wearing t-shirts.

say, hey, I just visited, you know, another world full of monsters and magic. Maybe take those off before he wakes up. Well, it's not written in, it's not written in Arabic characters. That wouldn't make any sense. Yeah, that is totally fair. Cool. Maybe it's just a neat, you know, skateboard brand. It's just a cool design. They told me it says courage. It did nice. So I just went with it. Do we, do we see Agent. O. Downer anywhere? Is he, is, uh, no, it's fairly, it's fairly early in the morning. You do not see him and assume he is in his quarters right now asleep. Well, why is everybody so bummed out, Barclay? He sighs and he looks back at Danny and at Jake, and he turns back to you, and he says, I had to shut the pump off that feeds the hot springs

yesterday after the attack. We can't have that monster showing up here again. And so nobody's been in the hot springs for, you know, about 12 hours now. And folks are starting to get a little bit agitated, it's kind of what happens when you cut off a sylvan from a life source like that. So I don't know where you all are in your investigation, but we need to get this thing down and we need to get it down real fast because things could get very ugly around here real quick. Barkley, in your estimation, how long we got? Another day or so, and we're going to start losing the stuff that we know and love about our friends, you know, Danny and Jake and Moira and the whole team here. So as quick as possible

would be, would be better. What do you mean losing stuff? Are they going to start dying? Eventually, but before that happens, they're going to start going a little bit. Well, I guess feral is the word. And then after that, they'll go feral. And then they're going to go feral. Yeah, they're going to turn into feral and then they're going to get the big hats. No, this is not a joke. This is, this is really, really serious stuff. I just want to apologize to everybody listening because I accidentally just did Magnus character voice there. Oh yeah, I didn't even notice. That probably was very confusing for everyone. And it wasn't even, and for pedantry. You know, that's, that's, that's, that's, you know, for pedantry. He's, Barclay says,

so do you all think you have enough on, on this elemental? Well, it kind of sounds like it's, it's, it's, past the point of worrying if we have enough, right, Barclay? Like, we do or we don't, but it's time to fight. We need to get the springs run again, but I don't want you all to run into a battle unprepared. I don't want you all to, you know, get hurt or worse. You're right. No hurting. It sounds like our only option then is to not go into an unprepared, eh? What do we, uh, what do we know? He says, let's, let's take this in a mama's office. I don't want Stern walking in here. Is she not back yet? He says, there was a part of me that was hoping that She would show up at that last minute.

She'd walk through the door right when the hunt was about to begin and help save the day. I can't imagine doing this without her. I've never had to try before, but I don't think that's going to happen. So I think it's just us on this one. Have we, like, called around to, not that I think this is the case, but like local hospitals or police stations or have we checked around on Mama? He sighs again and he says, I can't bring myself to do it. Aubrey, I know that's cowardly of me, but I'd rather hold out hope than go looking for bad news. Yeah, I get that.

He says, come on, head into Mama's office. I'll bring you all some tea. And he motions towards Mama's office. Okay, in we go. In we go. And he comes in with tea. And he knows your tea preference at this point. He knows you well enough to know how you like it.

I can't, I'm not going to make pretend what that is. But just imagine. Arnold Palmer. ice tea, that's for me. Okay. He brings you a virgin Arnold? Probably. It's the only kind there is. No, wait, no. It's like fucking seven in the morning.

An Arnold Palmer is just tea and lemonade, you guys. Oh, okay, then I guess it is a virgin. There's no booze in an Arnold Palmer. I mean, sometimes there is. Arnold Palmer loves the party. That's true. Sometimes there is booze

and Arnold. He walks over to the desk, and you all are now seated at this large table in the center of the room. He rolls out a big map of Kepler, which I still need to generate. Hey, listeners, if you know of any good software to make a nice looking map of like a pad of paper, Griffin. Yeah, that's going to end up looking like real shit. But he rolls out a map of Kepler and walks over to the desk and he pops it open and he pulls out Thacker's very, very old laptop, which he sets up on the desk. And he says, okay, so what do we know?

Obviously, this thing can control water and kind of take different forms as long as it's in the water. What else? It seems aggressive, at least as far as once it tangles with somebody, it kind of continues to seek him out, right? He types all that in and kind of gets frustrated when you hear like a MacBook error noise and then clicks it away and keeps typing in. And he says, yeah, it seems aggressive. I mean, honestly, it sucks for us because we can't run the springs, but it's going to help us, you know, get into the final battle with this thing. We're not going to have to hunt it down. It's hunting us.

We can maybe use that as an advantage. So we're the bait? Seems like. Perhaps. It seems like we, it might be to our advantage at this point. I mean, we can pick a spot and at least determine where we want to fight it, which might be something. Well, and going off what we know, if we can get it there and then isolate it from any other source of water, at the very least we might be able to contain it? Yeah, you mentioned that before, and I think that's going to be our best chance.

It seems to move through connected water channels, and if we can disconnect it from that after getting it where we want it, we're going to be able to keep this thing from taken off as soon as it feels threatened. I've been working on trying to come up with some ideas for where we might be able to make our stand. But I'm not real happy with the list, so I'd rather just kind of keep it to myself if that's... Oh, there's no such thing. It's a bad idea, just bad people. I don't think that... Barclay, I don't think that's the thing. He's Sullivan.

I'm still figuring out the idioms. I haven't written on this list here, but I'd rather not read them. I'm just going to keep it to myself if that's okay. No, come on. It kind of slows down the old planning process there, buddy. I know, I know, but I've got them here on this list in my hand, and I just don't want to read. Read them. Well, I'll read them for you if you want.

Ah, crap. Let me have the paper, Doc, and I'll read them so you're not ashamed. Ah, let's see. First. Is that the first? This is the first one? Are these in priority? I don't.

A big desert. That's... Yeah, okay. Or is it... Oh, wait, wait, unless it's supposed to be dessert, is it a big dessert? Desert's super sweet, so it's got two essence.

Okay, so your first idea is a big desert. A big desert. Do you have a backup to the big desert plan? A dehumidifier store. Okay, listen, I don't even know if that exists. It was pretty late when I was cooking these up, okay? And I honestly lost the plot pretty quickly. after that. I don't even remember what the third one I wrote was. So please don't give me any crap about it.

All right, guys. Sure. Big Lake. Okay. Listen, I was, I wasn't really thinking at that point, okay? No, no. You went to a lot of trouble. I'm very proud of you. That's the best I got. So, Desert, I could rule that one out pretty quickly. We, here, there's not one of those for, for many miles. That would be challenging, I would say, at best. Dehumidifier stores promising. Yeah, it's got something. You guys feel good about it?

Because you can kind of see how we switch those motherfuckers on. And now it's time to party. Really niche. Really niche marketing. It's so niche. In this market, especially, I feel like I don't think I've seen a dehumidifier store. Well, there's Dave's Dehumidifier Depot down on Apricot Street. Okay.

Yeah, but they don't open until 11 on 11. Oh, yeah. And Dave's prices are real jacked-up guys. If we break one of those things, we're going to be owing him out the wazoo. I don't think we want that. There is the big lake. It says big lake. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Duck, is there anywhere in your forest knowledge, I guess, anywhere where there's like a damned-off section of anything or anything where like a lock or something we could lure and then close you know out in the open away from people there's the uh morgantown lock and dam it's on the monogahela um up in morgantown obviously uh barclay says a lock might not be a bad idea but morgantown's way outside of the one mile perimeter is there anything on the greenbriar that is that's within the perimeter uh i am saying as the keeper of this game one thing that i was the keeper of this game one thing that I want to do more of is have you guys flesh out the world of Kepler. I think that that was sort of one of my original goals when we started playing this game that I have not been an especially

great steward of. If this is where y'all want this fight to take place, I think it could be fucking killer and I think is something we should do. You know, there's the Kepler Pay Lake, the Kepler Pay Lake right on the outside outskirts of town where they have a controlled water source where, you know, when they need to increase the water supply, they open it up and then they close it off and they don't need it anymore. So maybe I'm just dense, guys, but how does this help us? If we can, one, pinpoint it and two, close it off from another source. So if we have something where we can have it open to get it there and then close it off once it's in,

at the very least it won't be able to spread. We could at least open back up the spring here, even if we're not able to stop it, will at least trap it. The biggest problem we've run into is that this thing turns tail and runs every time y'all get a shot off on it. And we're not going to be able to take it down that way. And that's why we got to contain it. I think the pay lake sounds good. I think the lock and dam sounds good if there's one on the green briar close enough.

Is there a water treatment plant in Kepler? Yeah, of course. That might be good. Or very bad. That is connected to all the water in Kepler. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I would love it if we were fighting it and it was all purified. I would love that.

If it was drinkable, wait a minute, you think I could drink the whole thing? Ah, no. No. But with the water treatment and it's got like the arm sleeping through it, that might message shit up. I don't know. Barclay says, I think one of these three ideas could work. The Pay Lake, the water treatment plant. They probably have a way to shut down the city water supply in case, you know, some pizzen gets out.

Or we Pizant or it's a new sort of dialect that I've picked up while living here in Kepler or we could do the lock and dam it's just which one of them do you think is going to give us the best shot here? Well so here's my concern

I know we talked about the lake but that's so much material it's a lot of water and I feel like a water treatment if we can get it into one of the the big round reservoirs it's not large, it's not as large as a lake or a lock and a dam, you know what I mean?

It feels like the more we are in control of it, the more material there is for us versus it. So like being able to walk on, you know, walkways over the water and stuff like that is going to benefit us. Did you happen to see, Aubrey, you probably didn't because you weren't here. Duck, maybe you remember this. I live here now. The short promotional video that the Kepler Junior Chamber of Commerce, came up with on, you know, all the, all the wonderful things about Kepler trying to bring tourism in and how Kepler has the most waterslide parks per capita of any town in West Virginia.

Yeah, I remember they try to get that motto going, the slippery city. Yeah, yeah. I actually have heard that. The slippery city. I still have a magnet somewhere, I think. Yeah, it did. Slide on into Kepler, they said. Slippery City

Most of them have closed But the one And I don't remember the name Duck What was it The name of the one that's still open The shoot The shoot and scoot

Shoot and Scoot Wet Willies That's close Slurp and Squirt Wet Willies closed The Slurp and Squirt This is Griffin Yeah

The Slurp and Squirt They actually Bored that up For some health code Yeah, I think they blew it up. If I remember, they set charges around it and imploded it. And a good choice. A good choice there.

Well, but I know there's one that's still open. Slides and stuff? Slides and stuff. There was an ampersand in there somewhere. No, no, sorry. I didn't want to confuse you. Not slides and stuff. That's a different part.

Slides and stuff. It's the one on the west side. Oh, on the west side. Right. What about Kevin Costner presents Waterworld, the wet park? And that one was, is that still open? Is Kevin Koster presents Waterworld? The Wet Park still open?

There's also water that's just spelled WTR, the really like, boogie one. That was the boogie one, yeah. What are we talking about here, gang? Are we just trying to remember we had so many water parks in Kepler. Well, I'm saying if we lure one, and we don't have to do much luring because it's after our, yes. Get it there, shut off the water. It can't get away and maybe grab a corn dog while we're there. You mean H2.

Whoa. That was fun. That was it. That's the one. That's the one with the water slide, the downward spiral. Yeah. H2. H2.

Whoa, that was fun. Yeah. It's still open. And it's mainly targeted at kids, but they do have some slides and stuff there. It's not very large. I mean, it's got a couple of things, but it might be, might be. Might be manageable, might be workable. Barclay says, okay, hold on.

Let me see if I can even get Google to work on this thing. And he types into the computer and says, yeah. He has to type HTTP colon, forward slash, word slash. He says, okay, it looks like H2W closes tonight. H2W, that was fun. H2W, that was fun, the water park. Yeah, that's the full name of it. Are you all sure about this?

No, but here's what I'm thinking. lots of opportunities for quick aggress because you get on some of those slides and you're just gone the thing will never catch you so we got some opportunities there it's also isolated H2 Woe is out there

where they were trying to get that whole business park started do you remember what was it called Jesus because this whole episode is naming no it was like Hyper Ridge that's what it was shit Hyper Ridge they were trying to get going

And they were going to have like a Taco Bell and a Bob Evans and a bunch of stuff out there. Zip lines. There were zip lines. That's how a business park works. Good. Yeah. And the only thing they ever got moving there was age two. Whoa.

That was fun. So I think we're going to be isolated out there, which is great. I don't know. Here's my question. Is there maybe a way to shut off access once it's in the park itself that we could shut down the lines to the public? I mean, do you guys have any connections in public works or anything? I mean, you would be the one I would look to you. I just remembered my many connections in public works.

Yeah. I didn't know if you guys had any closer ones. Was that many connections or mini connection? No, I met several different. I had one guy down there. What was his name? I used to always help me out. Wet Willie?

Wet Willie or Mr. Slooper? Mr. Slooper. That was the one. He was my third grade teacher, Mr. Slooper, and now he works for the water department and sanitation. So I could maybe ask him if there's some way to shut down access. You know, I believe he's the super. I believe he's the super down there. Mr. Slooper, the super.

That is him. Yeah, he's the one. But don't let him ask too many questions because he's a real snooper. Yeah. Yeah. Mr. Sliper, the Snooper. This show has gone. And you know his favorite movie, Looper.

Yeah, sure. His favorite movie is without a paddle. Without a paddle is his favorite movie. Without a paddle is his favorite movie. All right. It seems like we got a plan coming together. Let me suggest this. Does it really?

Does it? Huh. Barkley is so forgiven. You got a real optimistic streak there. Pull it together, Barclay. Pull it together. He says, I think the park looks good. I think we could maybe find a way to shut it down.

duck, why don't you go talk to your connection down in public works, uh, like now and see what you can find out about shutting off water to the park. Maybe butter them up with a Blu-ray copy of without a paddle. Yeah, whatever it takes. Uh, we need somebody to actually go to the park, maybe scout it out, get an idea of where the best place to actually fight this thing inside the park is going to be. One problem I see us running into, though, is I don't think it's a good idea for us to go around this water park before it's time for, for the trap to be sprung. This thing's following us. It's smart. And so if we go there and it sees us getting ready to fight it, then it's not going to show up tonight.

So we need a third person to go somewhere else and distract it while we're doing the other two things. You know, we could sweeten the pot even more and see if Calvin's free. And maybe Ned and Calvin can go around town and stay on the move. And I mean, I hate to make you moving bait twice in a row here, Ned, but. You are the one with the car. Damn it. I knew buying that car was a mistake. All right.

Yeah, that sounds like a fine plan. Barclay says, do you think it's such a good idea to put that kid in danger again? He's in danger already, Barclay. Wherever he is, he's in danger. At least this way he'll be with us some battle-tested monster hunters. Sorry, I tried to say that with that last, but I couldn't quite get through it. It's better than nothing, right? Lou got magic weapons and shit.

Yeah, I guess it's better to keep him close. He might start asking questions. Ned, are you going to be able to sort of, I guess, lie when he sees this thing? I actually have an idea. Don't kill him. All right, then I have another idea. I have a different idea. Yes, I think I have an idea that will work that will convince Calvin to come along on this joyride with me.

trust me. Barclay shuts the laptop and he says, all right, Aubrey, I'll go with you to scat out the park. Ned, you're going to pick up Calvin and good luck sort of talking his parents into that one and go somewhere with, I guess, lots of water and get this thing's attention. And, Duck, you go talk to your contacts down in public works.

How does, I think we... Hey, it's a plan. We did it without Mama. We can do this. We got this. We got this. We got this. Sure.

But okay, we've got that. We know where we're going to lead it. How in the hell are we going to kill this thing? Well, Aubrey, we're going to figure that out when we get to the park and scat it out. Yeah, Aubrey, we're like, whose line is it anyway? We're the king and queen and another king of improv. I think we've definitively proven that's not true in this episode. Ned, you pull up in front of the house of Calvin U.S.

Owens. He left his contact information with you all when he came to visit Amnesty Lodge to report the attack at the pool a couple of nights ago. You arrive at his house. It is a, it's a nice looking place. It's one of the nicer looking houses down on Riverside. It's not, you know, quite as fancy as the like ostentatious ski chalets up on cliffside. But it's, it's a nice little two-story house painted blue. And you pull up in your, what's your car, I guess? It's a 1958 Lincoln Continental. Lincoln Continental, yes. The Mark 3, the ragtop.

I assume you've gotten the headlight repaired from where you smashed it into the gate in the previous adventure at this point. I don't know if it would be street legal otherwise. Ned has to take care of his baby. Yeah, sure. You arrive in front of the house, and what's your approach here? Is it near the river? It is, I don't know, it's about a couple blocks away. You got river view, but you don't.

got like an attached. There's no peer. Okay. All right. What's my approach going to be? Yeah. Dishonesty. Well, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, Ned. I'm not surprised by that at all. You did say you had a plan, right? I do have a plan. My plan is I have one phase of the plan to convince his parents and one phase of the plan to convince Calvin to participate. Okay. You then you're walking up and just knocking. That's it. Okay. You knock. and a few seconds pass, and the front door opens, and Sheriff Zeke Owens opens the door. And he says, now, what are you doing at my house, Ned? Hello, Sheriff, good to see you. Yes. Well, I have a very promising opportunity for your family and your son, Calvin, that I'd like to discuss with you.

You have an opportunity. Don't tell me it has something to do with that at Museum of Supernatural Bull Crap that you're peddling down. That's only one side of Ned Butterfly Shican, my friend. I heard you ran into some spot of financial trouble down there at that little tourist trap. I was real sorry to hear about that, Ned. Would hate for your shop to get crushed under the way to the free market. Well, Sheriff, it is the shop that has brought quite a nice population back. into town the tourism is back up a lot of the people coming to see the

kryptonomica and that's that's good for business people coming at the cryptonomica staying in the motel six eating at the Taco Bell I mean we got to take care of the Taco Bell I wouldn't exactly call the clientele you bring in the savouriest characters oh no what do you what do you want Ned may I may I come in Zeke may I call you Zeke I don't think we're there Sheriff Owens Sheriff Owens that's what I meant Sheriff Owens uh Sheriff Z. Ned, this isn't a come-inside-my-house situation. This is to tell me what you want so I can shut the door on you if I don't like it's situation. So go ahead. Let her rip. Sheriff,

I am more than just the operator of a fabulously wonderful curio shop. I don't know if you know this or not, but I am an alum of the Ohio State University. And I have a lot of connections still at the university. Perhaps you did not know this, but Ohio State is one of the top swimming programs in collegiate sports. And I have pulled a few strings, and I have a couple of friends there at the university who might be interested in offering young Calvin a scholarship to become a Buckeye. I mean, Calvin's going to be a mountaineer like his daddy and his granddaddy before. I love the blue and the gold, but in this case, we may be talking about a full ride from a

university, a swimming program that graduates over a 3.15 average. They have finished in the top 25 for the last 22 years. This episode sponsored by Ohio University. All right. So go ahead and roll, manipulate someone. Okay. So it's seven plus one for charm. That's eight.

Is it eight. They'll do it, but only if you do something for them right now to show that you mean it. If you ask too much, they'll tell you what, if anything, it would take for them to do it. Okay. Do you have any kind of documentation to back this up, Ned? Do you have some sort of proof of your excellent sort of attendance at... Well, as a matter of fact, I do have a picture on my phone of myself and Ohio State swim coach, Wadley, here you go.

And I'm a little thinner then. But here, you can see this picture of me and Bill, Big Bill. I call him Big Bill. And you can see us there standing there next to each other. That's Bill Wadley, the coach of Ohio State. Do you notice how he has a camaraderly arm around my shoulders? Yeah, that was a heck of word. Two things.

One, is this a phone that Ned just kind of keeps on him for music and picks? because there's definitely no service out here. Second question, is this just a picture of you and some random dude? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I don't know Bill Wadley. Are you out of your mind?

He says, all right. I mean. Just hear me out. Here's all I want to do. This is all I want to do. If Calvin would be interested, I would like to shoot a video of Calvin, just like a promotional video to send to Wadley and the folks at Ohio State. and I have this really amazing idea.

I just want to borrow Calvin for a short period of time, a couple of hours, to shoot a promotional video. I have this idea that I think if we can do that, like an interview, get to know Calvin. And I have really, I think a clever way to get into it of him. I happen to have in my possession an item that I think Calvin could display. and I think it would really get their attention. Are you familiar with the name Michael Phelps at all? You know Michael Phelps? Yeah, of course.

Everybody knows Michael Phelps. I have his first gold medal from Athens. Why do you have that? Ned Chican, what? It was loaned to me to put on display at the Cryptonomica. It was the one he won for the 400-meter medley in 2000. Yeah, sure. And I just thought Calvin would get a kick out of wearing that gold medal.

and doing an interview, and it would just go worlds towards getting him a scholarship to be in Ohio State. But I drive, drive on the field or pool or whatever would be. I need to, this scene is going great. I need to take a moment just to talk amongst all of ourselves and the listeners as a family. If Calvin Owen's dad agrees to send his precious. boy with this elderly man with a huge car. Not elderly. He says he's going to film a promotional swimming video of him.

Calvin Owen's dad will be taken to parent court and tried for the highest. I got a solution. I got a fix for this. Okay. You see him stand there and kind of think for a minute. Like he's actually trying to think of what the best thing for his kid would be. Uh, but he sighs and he says, no, Ned, I don't think that's, that's going to happen. He's, he's grounded anyway. He skipped out on swimming practice this morning. Ned, he, get this, he said he was scared of the water all of a sudden. He said he was afraid there was monsters in the water. Now, hmm, why would a kid living in Kepler believe such a thing existed? Ned, maybe because there's a proprietor of a certain museum going around town peddling those kinds of stories. Ah, you don't think he really believes in all that hooey, do you? Zeke.

He believes in enough to skip out of practice something he's never done before. I'll tell you what, Ned, it's going to be a pass for me, so why don't you leave now and stay away from my son? How's that sound? And he slams the door in your face. And as you sort of take a step back from the force of the door slamming, there is a tree to the side. of the yard and you hear some rustling in that tree and you see Calvin Owens to scurry off the roof of the house out of his bedroom window and down the tree and he kind of like crouch runs over to your car where he kind of hides behind it. Okay, Ned walks over to him. You both get into the

car. He's kind of trying to duck down and he's like, all right, man, go, go, go, go. So we go, We pull out, and I turn to him and I say, Calvin, I only have so much bullshit that I can fling in a certain time period. Would you like to help my friends and I get rid of that thing that scared the living crap out of you? Yeah, man, that would be great. I don't know if you can smell it on me. I haven't had a shower in a couple days and ain't had no water to drink. I've been living on milk and Coke, so I guess my bones are getting something. out of this situation. I'm happy to help out, but technically you're kidnapping right now,

so let's be quick. Gotcha. Do you have your driver's license? No. Permit? You're a high school student. Every kid wants to drive. I'm working on it. The test is hard. Get off my case. All right. Look, we're about three blocks away from your house. I hope you did the old pillows under the sheets routine. Yeah, I billered it up in there. Listen, the Mark III practically drives itself. You know how easy to drive those 1950s cars made out of steel are. Practically, it's like the Jetson's car. It'll drive itself. It's so intuitive this eight-ton vehicle.

You get behind the wheel. I'll pop the top and we'll get a distracting. How do you feel about that plan? I feel kind of just okay about it. I will take that. Aubrey, you are driving in Mama's old pickup truck with Barclay. at the wheel as you head out to H2W. You all have left town.

I'm sorry, H2WO, that was fun. H2O, that was fun. You're on this pine tree-lined road out of the east side of town, winding around Mount Kepler, heading towards the park. You've been living at Amnesty Lodge for a couple months now. What's your, like, relationship like with Barclay, would you say? I would say we get along very well. Um, I, not quite to like BFS or anything, but, you know, like a co-worker that you have a lot of fun with and often would like grab a drink after work.

That's it. So if I'm going to define it, after work, grab a drink friends, not necessarily call up on your free day to see what they're doing. Sure. Got it. That makes a lot of sense. Then I think you're fairly comfortable in this ride with him. He, you're getting close and he kind of breaks the silence of the car. And he says, so, Agent Stern, have you had much of a chance to talk with our new federal friend? No, honestly, I've been a little bit distracted, Barclay. A lot going on, not just the monster thing, but I'm. trying to figure a lot of shit out.

And if I'm being honest, and I think maybe you'll agree with this, I was kind of hoping Mama would just come back and take care of it. Yeah, I think that we can't count on that anymore. Just listen, if he comes around asking you questions about Bigfoot, you know, not to say anything, right? Yeah. Maybe come to me and let me know what he asks you about. Obviously, this is going to complicate my life.

little bit. Barclay, if he comes talk to me, I'll play up the like, I'm a kid. I don't know, blah, blah, blah, blah, I think. I've done that act a thousand times. Don't worry about it. He says, I appreciate that. It may not surprise you learn. I've left a little bit of a, no pun intended, a footprint during my travels before I met up with Mama. So he probably has a decent amount to go on, unfortunately. Hey, Barclay, can I change the subject a little bit? By which I mean a whole lot. What do you... And it's fine if the answer is nothing. What do you know about like Sylvan Magic? Uh, Aubrey, I'm real sorry, but I know next to nothing. That's really not my area of expertise. Like, where does it come from? How about can we start? Is it from

the big old crystal thing or is it like something people are born with? Like, where does it come? Just that. Because you talk about everybody, you have the... spring and you talk about like everybody needing magic right like sylvan energy where does that come from well from what i understand obri the sylvain is not just a place it's a it's a being it's not just the crystal coming out of the ground out there it's it's the planet itself it's the the life force of the planet i guess you could call it and so i guess the springs you know the water comes up deep from the earth it's got a little bit of that Earth force in it too. There's the Silvans, they need to be sustained by the planet itself.

And so whether that's their planet or ours, it seems like it gets the job done. So you want to know where that magic comes from. It's from, you know, the planet, which I don't even know if you realize that. Every time you go over there, you're not heading to some, you know, through a magical portal into another dimension and another time. That's another place somewhere out in the sky somewhere. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You're actually, I guess y'all are astronauts, so congratulations.

Okay, I'll process that later. Barkley, if this is weird, is the magic alive? I mean, you're alive and you're using the magic, so I get, Aubrey, you got to understand. I don't know the first thing about magic. My whole thing is, you know, big, big and strong, big foot monster. When you were in Sylvain, could you hear the magic, Crystal, talk?

He doesn't really say anything when you ask him that. He kind of like is just kind of staring straight ahead. He doesn't even seem to acknowledge you. And he says, oh, look, looks like we're here. And you pull up in front of H2. Whoa. That was fun. This park is actually a lot nicer than I think you may have assumed it was.

A lot of the other water parks fell prey to, you know, the natural, forces of decay a lot worse than H2WO does. It's actually a fairly nice looking place. The entrance into the park leads through what looks like a big beached pirate ship, which stands in front of a six-foot-tall blue chain-link fence that surrounds the perimeter of the park, keeping the surrounding pines at bay. Through that fence, you can tell that the park is mostly deserted, as you would expect from a water park on a weekday in October, hanging in front of the ship at the entrance is a large red sign announcing that their last weekend in operation is coming up before the park closes down for the winter. It's been an unseasonably

warm fall and the park's been open much later than normal, but it seems like they're done pushing their luck. You can see a man in a ticket taking booth just inside the ship, reading a magazine, and you also, through that chain-link fence, you notice a handful of other employees wearing blue shirts walking around the park, just kind of half-heartedly cleaning up, getting the park ready for its final weekend. And Barclay, still sitting in the truck with you, says, Okay, so what's our approach here? Why don't we just go in?

Right through the front door, straight forward. Oh, shit, I've got it, Barclay. Here's what we do. Federal pool inspectors. No. Oh, sorry. It was stupid. No, hey, hey.

No, I don't. idea is bad. It just wasn't good. So we'll pay our way in. Then once we're in, find, see if we can find like a supply thing, get some of them shirts, and then lay low until after they close and just stay, just stay. So park like, you know, not in the parking lot, so it's not obvious that someone's still here. And then we'll just like hide in a closet, do some like Basley-Frankewiler stuff or whatever it was and just stay in there. He says, all right, hold on. And he pulls the truck back out onto the access road leading up to the park and just kind of

parks it in the grass off the road. And he gets out and the two of you walk up to the entrance to the park and up to the ticket taking booth inside that ship at the entrance. And from here you can get a much better look at the park. You also hear this really tinny sounding pilot. music playing over the loudspeakers positioned throughout the area. And inside that booth there is a man you'd estimate about 25, a bit older than the rest of basically the teens who are working in the park that you can see through the fence,

just sort of cleaning up. He's got sort of a ratty mustache going, and he seems to take just a lot of pride in his water park work here. And he says, he's wearing a name tag also that says Todd. on it. And Todd says, hey, we're closed. What do you all want? We ain't going to open up until our final weekend here coming up. Well, shit. Um, hello, Todd, was it? Uh, yeah, it's Todd Hinderflins. No, it's not. It's Todd Flanderhands. What do you, uh, yeah, what can I do you for? We are federal pool inspectors.

And my partner and I, Agent Barclay, have heard some rumblings that this whole pool might just be rife with staff infection. There are any staff infection here? We wouldn't let this place get filled up with... Excuse me, Todd. Am I supposed to just take your word for it? Do you think that that's what they taught me at federal pool inspector school? I mean, we don't want to get on the wrong side of the FBI, but do you have like a badge or? something you can show me? Todd, there's no time for that. Do you want to open up for your last weekend and have people with their skin falling off and getting eaten through Todd? Listen, you seem

like a smart guy, a guy who's in charge, someone who answers to no one but himself. Todd, you seem like the person I should be talking to about this. Am I right? Uh, yeah, I mean, this is, this here's my kingdom and, uh, we don't normally let's, strangers into the kingdom during off hours. So, let me tell you seem busy, Todd, so I'll make you a deal. Ten minutes, you let me in. We're in, we're out. And I'm sure that this is all just a misunderstanding.

But if I could report to my higher-ups that I came in, I don't want to get in trouble, Todd, you know what I mean? And you don't want to get in trouble. So I'll come in, I'll check real quick, and then we're out. Why don't you roll manipulate someone? That's a seven, six plus one. You have one charm? Yes.

Okay, so that is a barely a mixed success. The, as was the case last time, they will do it, but only if you do something for them right now to show that you mean it. If you ask too much, they'll tell you what, if anything it would take for them to do it. And I think that's going to be the case here. He says, um, all right. I can make that work 10 minutes. I think like, uh, 20 bucks ought to do it. As long as nobody needs to hear about this, Todd.

that sounds like a deal to me. Bartclay, Agent Barclay, pay the man. He takes you to sign and he says, I don't know if I have $20. I got, hold on, and he pulls out his wallet. It's like a Velcro old,

beaten up Velcro wallet. And he's like, I got 11. Do you have any cash on you? Let me see. Yeah, I happen to have nine bucks right here. Griffin can't prove otherwise. You hand Todd to $20 and he says, all right,

I expect y'all will be back out here in 10 minutes. Don't make me come looking for you. You got it. We just need to go to your pump room. I mean, y'all are federal pool inspectors. I assume you can find the pump room. Yeah. Thank you.

Todd. We'll be in and out. You're, uh, listen, citizen, I'm going to put in a good word for you at the FBI. If you're ever looking for a job, you know where to find us. Or maybe you don't. We're a very secretive organization. Don't worry about it. We'll find you.

Uh, let's jump to duck. Duck. You arrive at the Kepler. public works, a municipal building just adjacent to City Hall. Kepler is a fairly small town, so a lot of the departments that you would expect to see at sort of a bigger city's public works are handled remotely by sort of like different contractors and local engineers around here. There's really three main offices inside the public works of Kepler as you enter. There's transportation, sanitation, and water. And you make your way into the last.

And there, in the center of the room, you see a reception desk, sort of cutting off the public side of the room from the offices and stuff behind, and slumped over that desk. You see Gary Slooper, your old third grade teacher, now the, I don't know, employee of the Kepler Public Works Water Department. He is slumped down over the reception desk. He appears to be unconscious. Mr. Slooper. He kind of looks like he's like talking to you in his sleep. Mr. Slooper. He rouses and has a significant sort of drooled tether connecting him to the desk,

which he kind of swats away at with his hand, and he looks up at you with bleary eyes, and he says, Well, that's, that's Duck Newton. Am I dead? No, sir. You're just at work. That's worse in some ways. I love that kind of humor, that office humor. I love that.

You don't have to be crazy to work here, you know what I mean? But it helps. Same, same, same, same shit, different day. I love it. Same circus, different clowns. He, uh, he wipes his mouth and he says, you, so you've been working on your multiplication tables there, duck? It's, it's important stuff, you know, I tried to warn you.

Quiz me, man. 100 times six. 600 right there. Yeah, I wasn't hard. So. And check this out. Watch this. Four scored seven years ago,

our father was brought forth on this continent and a new nation conceiving liberty and dedicated to the proposition. All men are created equal. You got it. Now we're engaged in it. Oh, Jesus. Okay.

Yeah, that was real good, Duck. Very proud. Got a bit of a headache here, but what can I do you for? Right. So, yes. I need a little favor from you. I need you to,

at a certain point tonight, Not right this second, but at a certain point tonight, I'm going to need you to shut off the water supply to H2O. That was fun. The water park? Yeah, that's the one. Now, it's going to be after operating hours, so we're not going to have any issues there. But we have got, we're running some of the firefighting drills. And you remember last time, we just couldn't get the pressure that we needed to really simulate the, uh, the environment.

of fighting a real fire. The hoses didn't feel real. None of it felt real. And I want to give the folks a real sense of what it's like to battle a fire with full pressure. So I'm hoping if we could shut down that. I can't think of anything that's more of a drain on the system than H2O. That was fun. And maybe if we can shut that down that we can get like that real, you know, like you are there kind of sense.

He says, that's a dozy there, Duck. I'm guessing you got all the permits you need duck. Duck, why I call you Duck anyhow? It's my nickname. So do you think you'll be able to help or know or what? I'll tell you what, Duck, here's what I'm going to do for you. Yeah. I'm going to go my office over there and I'm going to go to sleep.

But before I do that, I'm going to get my best mind on this whatever it was you just said, all right? and he pushes back from the reception desk and walks over to a door to his office, which he opens up. And right before he closes the door behind him, he yells, hey, Pidge, get on out here, got an old student of mine needs assistance. And he shuts the door to his office. And you can see through the frosted glasses, he finds a new desk to take a nap on. And from a hallway that turns off behind the reception counter, you see Pidge and Wilson. She's wearing an orange vest and her face lights up with delight as she sees you and she yells, Ranger Duck! Ranger Duck! It's me, Pigeon! From a couple months back with the Big Bear?

Pigeon, how the heck are you? I'm doing great, man. Just, you know, same circus, different clowns here down at the public work. Keeping your nose clean. Oh, man, Ranger Duck, it's real good to see you. I ain't never got a chance to thank you for saving my buddy Pete's bacon. Sure, yeah. You do have a chance to thank me, though. I need a little bit of help with something. I'd love to catch up, but I'm in a little bit of a rush.

You got a nasty, nasty pothole you need filled or something? No, I need you to shut off the water supply to H2O. That was fun. She looks kind of surprised when you say that. She says, why do you need to take down a water park there, Ranger Duck? Why did you need to hide out in the forest and start a bunch of fires there, Pidge? She smiles kind of devilishly as you say that, and she walks to the reception desk and opens up a book that's there. And then she thinks for a second and then closes that book.

And she says, you like coffee, Ranger Duck? Yeah, I do. I take it black, I bet. Why don't we head over the break room? I got something important I need to talk to you about. Hey, everybody. This is Griffin McElroy, your best friend, your dungeon master, and your 100% real number 1E3 gamer boy. Thank you so much for listening to The Adventure Zone.

It's our 10th episode of Amnesty and the penultimate episode of our current hunt. I hope that you are enjoying it. This episode was really fun to record because I had no idea what it was going to turn into. And it ended in a neat spot, I thought. And you're going to hear the rest of that after we talk about some of our advertisers this week. Hey, speaking of this week, we are sponsored in part by Blue Apron. Blue Apron's wonderful. They send you a box, and the box is going to have some ingredients in it.

and it's going to have some recipes in it. And those are basically blueprints for food that you follow as you touch the ingredients with special sharp tools called knives and hot heat on ovens and stoves. They're really, really tasty. And I don't know why I talk about them as if I'm an alien who just discovered what food is every time I talk about them. But here we are. It's really good stuff.

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But, yeah, I've made some really good meals with Blue Apron, and I've learned a lot of cooking skills that have proven invaluable in my life. And you can pick up those skills too if you check out this week's menu and get your first three meals for free at blue apron.com slash adventure. That's blue apron.com slash adventure to get your first three meals for free, Blue Apron, a better way to cook. Also, we are sponsored in part this week by Bowl and Branch. Bowling Branch has that soft stuff. I'm talking about, I mean, whatever, betting, blankets, all of them are made from that pure 100% organic cotton. We got some Bowling Branch sheets.

and it's like sleeping on the sweetest dream of the most precious child every single night. So comfortable, so soft, so, so, so luxurious. They start out soft and they get even softer over time because of witchcraft. They have thousands of five-star reviews from Forbes, the Wall Street Journal, and Fast Company are all places talking about Bowling Branch. Shipping is free, and you can try them for 30 nights. If you don't love them, you just send them right back for a refund. So to get you started right now, our listeners can get $50.

off your first set of sheets at bolandbranch.com using the promo code adventure. Go to bolandbranch.com today for $50 off your first set of sheets. That's B-O-L-L-L-andbranch.com promo code adventure. Bullenbranch.com promo code adventure. Got some other jumbotrons to read for you right now. First one is for a podcast called One Shot Onslot, which you can find. Wherever podcasts are sold, you can find it at YouTube.com slash one shot onslaught. at Twitter at number one, the number, like the number one shot onslaught, or at Instagram,

O&E one shot onslaught. Make sure you get those URLs right, people. You don't want to land in, you know, some sort of trap. This is a podcast hosted by three different brothers, not the McElroy's. What? TM, TMTM, and they're friends, and they play fifth edition Dungeons and Dragons. They play popular one-shot modules, so you can drop. in any video or podcast. They dress up as their characters and all play around the same table.

They post the full session as well as highlights. They got beefy barbarians, bitter wizards, pistol slinging druids, fire flinging fighters, whoof, backstabbing rogues, and more butthole-seeking magic missiles than you can cast. You don't know what I'm capable of. Anyway, that's a one-shot onslaught and you can find it at all the places that I said like 38 seconds ago. Hey, do you need some good dice, and by good dice, I mean dice that feel good and are, I'm sorry, scientifically able to roll better numbers. And you didn't hear that from them. You heard it from me, so don't sue them if it doesn't end up being true. Well, I want to tell you about dice of rolling. Are you shopping for that special party member? Nothing says you complete me like a set, a complete set of dice. Check out

dice of rolling, a set of 31 polyhedrons that are color-coded by type and streamline to match the quantities that you actually need for fifth edition. Unfortunately, they are. are super sold out after you're shipping over $40,000 of Kickstarter pledges. But this is a quote, Our Divination Wizard says we'll have more in stock about a month after Griffin reads you this message. You can find out more and pre-order at diceofrolling.com or just grab some fun digital freebies like their printable action cards and a silly RPG drink mixing guide.

Woof, having some trouble with that one. That said, diceofrolling.com and you can go get some pre-orders going and it seems like they'll be ready in a month or so. So watch this space. I want to thank everybody who's been tweeting about the show using the Zonecast hashtag. If you do that, you might end up as a character in the show, like more or less everybody from the second half of last week's episode, named a lot of Silvans after a lot of real listeners. So I sure do appreciate you spreading the word. It is the main way that we found our audience over the years, and it's grown into a really cool thing, and that's pretty much all because you all. So thank you all so much for your evangelism is a gross word

for me to use, but I don't know, I guess it is what it is. We're making a graphic novel of the first arc of the Adventure Zone balance. Here there'd be Gerblins, and it's going to be out real, real soon in, I guess, a little over a month or so. You can pre-order it right now at theadventurezonecom. And go check it out. We recently did an interview with Wizard Plus, which is the official Wizards of the Coast D&D magazine.

That includes a sampler of the comic as well as. for the first time ever, an adventure set in the world of the Adventure Zone Balance that I wrote. It was really fun. It's based sort of on the test of initiation from the moonlighting arc. It's got a whole adventure you can play with your buds. It's got some pre-made character sheets based on characters from the show. And it's got, I think, 20 new gotchapon items that you can actually roll for while you're playing the adventure, complete with some illustrations from Carrie Peach. It's really fucking rad. I'm really happy with how it turned out. And you can check that out at Wizard Plus. you can pre-order the book at the Adventure Zonecomcom.

And also we're doing the co-lab with the Mysterious Package Company for Taco's Correspondent School of Wizardry Cantrips and other magics. Pre-orders for that are still going on, I believe. Yes, they are still going on. You can get yourself or a friend one of those and receive in the mail a sort of interactive adventure with puzzles and there's an audio component and there's tangible sort of things that you get for doing well. It's a, it's a neat challenge to design that. And we're really happy with how it's looking. So you can find out more about that at mysterious package.com. I think that's it. San Francisco,

we're going to see you later this week for the live show that we're doing there. Very excited for that. And we'll be back in two weeks for the final episode of this hunt and the 11th episode of the Adventure Zone Amnesty is going to go up on June 28th. So we'll talk to you then. Bye. Let's jump back to Ned. Ned, what's your plan here so we can set up the scene? Well, we're to kind of find the water monster and kind of run it ragged, just kind of drive along, using ourselves as bait. And I was thinking Route 16155. Alongside the river? Yeah, it has all those scenic overlooks.

You know, when people stop and take pictures, so I figure we drive to one, get its attention. and try to give everybody else all the time they need. All right, I like that a lot. So you are on this county road that runs alongside the Greenbrier River. There's nobody out right now. The road seems clear as you reach a certain mile marker. No, it wouldn't be a mile marker because you wouldn't be too far from town. It's got to be within the perimeter.

But you find a nice stretch of road here in that circle that runs along. alongside the river. Uh-huh. And what do you do to summon the thing? You got, you got a Calvin driving the car? Yeah, well, we're going to, uh, we're going to pull over at the first scenic overlook and, uh, Calvin, come up, come up here. If you, no, put it in park. God, you really don't know how to drive. Yeah, which one's the stopping one? That's the, yeah, where it's the P, put it in P. Good. No, I mean, I meant the pedal, which one makes the car not go. That's the one that's across, I think. So you are parked on this scenic overlook. It's not, I don't think, like, up on a cliff.

It's just sort of like a little, kind of like a picnic area at a rest stop overlooking the river. And Calvin is in the car back on the road, and he has the engine running as you sort of approach this overlook. What do you do? Ned stands right there at the edge overlooking. There's kind of like a railing. And you can look down at the river. And Ned in his most, you know, projecting voice, you know, You got to bring it from the diaphragm.

You've got to project so the back of the house can hear you. Oh, yes, look at it, Calvin Owens, swim team captain. Look at this view. This is the land that born you, lad. No matter where you go, no matter what you do, you, Calvin Owens, the swimming guy. You will look back on these fertile hills, these lush green valleys, and think this is my home. This is the place that made me, Calvin Owens, the swimmer from the pool a couple of days ago. Yeah, the water monster gets it.

Yeah, I love that in Ned's mind, the water monster knows Calvin's name. No, I think the water monster at the very least, here is Ned's voice. what you see is there is some movement sort of naturally on the river just some ripples as it follows its usual course, some ripples that have been left reverberating for a long time as some barges passed some time ago. But as you start shouting, the water for a moment just stands completely still, completely placid. It is a strange sight to behold. You have never seen the Green Breyer stand at sort of silent attention like this. And then from down the river back upstream a bit, you see a small wave move in almost a straight line that spans the entire river down towards you and past you. And then another wave larger. And it keeps going like that larger and larger and larger until there are... Does it look like horses? Does it look like horses made out of water? No, we're not doing a Lord of the Rings. It looks like, it looks like waves on the ocean, large waves on the

ocean that are now starting to reach up above ground level as the water starts to move in waves. And as the larger waves start forming, they start crashing up kind of at your feet where you are standing at this overlook. What do you do? Mission accomplished. And he jumps back in the car and says, get the hell out of here. Go, go, go. Which one? The right one?

The right one that makes it go. Take it out of P. Take it out of it. See, look. C, D. Put it down it. Yeah, good, indeed. And push the one that goes up and down. Step on the one that goes up and down.

He slams on it. As you're sort of teaching him how to drive a car, you notice the waves stop moving sort of directly downstream and start almost turning as if their angle of approach is moving now diagonally, crashing onto the ground, still out on that scenic overlook, but onto the ground where you were just standing. and the car rears into drive, and you are now peeling down this road as the waves continue turning until now it seems like they're almost coming from the opposite bank and coming in your direction, getting larger and larger as they go. Okay, Calvin, I'm going to need you to drive and stay away from the water so that I don't get killed by this monster. and here's the last thing we want to happen. The last thing we want to happen is for anything to happen to me, okay?

I am a key cog in this monster hunting team, and if they don't have me for inspiration and leadership and guidance, they will fall apart. So don't get me killed, okay? As you're giving him this monologue, the waves now moving directly in your direction from the opposite bank, they are splashing, further and further up the sort of side of the road that you are driving on and starting to almost reach the road itself.

And Calvin says, I just still don't understand why you're not the one drive. And a wave comes up, threatening to splash down on the car, and he veers into the opposite lane before correcting himself and getting back into the right lane of traffic. What do you do? I've got the, I'm going to use the Nerf blaster. I'm going to shoot, I'm going to take the Nerf blaster and fire. It's Narf. It's Narf.

There are lawyers that are listening to every episode we put out. I have a Connecticut accent. I'm going to shoot a dart into the water monster. I realize it's not going to do any harm, but I just want to get its attention and maybe slow it down a little bit. Maybe that'll give it something to think about while we get the hell out of here. Let's roll to kick some ass. I think this thing is definitely now in creating large and enough waves that it could reach you to also threaten you. So this would be a kick some ass roll.

That is a seven plus zero. Okay. On a seven plus, you and whatever you're fighting inflict harm on each other. So describe what you do with your narf blaster. Well, the tops down on the Lincoln. And so I throw my coat back and I've got the narf blaster on a thong. No. Yes. Yeah, no, that's right. It's strapped on. Yeah, I'm strapped. I'm fully narf strapped. I want to stick with thong. Thong, okay.

It's on a thong. I mean, that kind of follows the whole swimming thing, right? There you go. Just like Michael Phelps always wears the thong. Michael Phelps, where's that? Yeah. With a Nerf gun in it. For aerodynamic's sakes.

So, just, I mean, is the water in front of us, beside us, behind us? It's rolling off the river to your right, and it's splashing down towards you. It's to your right. Okay, I'm just going to, from the hip, shoot from the hip, because it's going to be kind of hard to miss a giant wave. Just fire off a dart right into the water to see what happens. Just a side note for everyone out there, don't Google thong weapon. You won't be happy with it.

Okay, you've never fired this thing before, so you whip it around this strap and hipfire it up into the air, into the pipeline of this wave as it threatens to crash down on you. And you describe what comes out of this weapon. Well, it kind of has this chorus skating blue light that kind of surrounds it. It vaguely Nerf dart shaped, and it leaves a little contrail of after image, like a, you know, it burns in your eyes when you look at something bright. It just fires straight off that way and shoots straight ahead. Coruscating, by the way, means flashing or sparkling. So that's for our friends at home and for me because I just had to Google it. I think it's like a fan increase your word power kind of thing.

Sure. I think it's like a phantom nerf dart. Like a, it's in the shape of one with this sparkling trail that follows behind it. And I think it's considerably sized. I think it's a little bit larger than the average narf dart that you would expect. It shoots up into the side of the pipeline and splits the wave as it hits it, really hitting it with a lot of power. You do too harm to the wave. to the wave as it splashes down on you.

That was fun. It splits. I think the way it deals damage to you is as it splits, it doesn't crash down immediately in front of your car, but an enormous amount of water. A deluge splashes down right in front of the car. And as it does, it kind of floods the road right in front of you, and you start to fish tail. And Calvin, not really knowing what to do, kind of jerks the wheel back and forth. and you, because you were kind of in this position to blast this wave, you were not exactly

strapped in very, very safely, and you bash your head into the top of the windshield as the top was down and take one harm. Yikes! The next wave that comes up, it kind of splashes down a little bit further away from the road, and then another further even still, and these waves start to recede, as you can tell that the water monster has since some sort of threat from you and decided to make its escape, as is its custom. Calvin pulls over to the side of the road and is kind of panting is clearly kind of freaked out because of what just happened. And he turns the car off and gets out and is kind of just like pacing at the side of the car.

I hit my head. Ow! I really thought the thong would protect me more than that. Yeah. Ned, I'm sorry you had. hit your head, but we also almost just died in a car accident because I don't know what the fuck it is I'm doing. Ned, I need you to, I need you to get me home, Ned. I, I got to get back. I can't do this anymore. It's just, it's just me and my brother and my dad at home. Anything

happens to me, like, what just almost happened. I can't. I just got to wait this thing out and hope that y'all can stop it before the meet. Ray Hall-Haw-Hise team's been talking a bunch of trash on my Facebook and I got to put them in their place. I got to focus on that kid stuff, you know? So you're okay now with getting back on the water? I mean, look, kid, you faced this. You faced a giant crashing wave of doom, and you're alive, right? And you saw, I pretty much kicked the shit out of it. You saw that, right?

So you know, we can handle this. So you get back on that water, young man, and you swim! He says, I can't, Ned. I just can't. And he throws you the keys and he starts walking down the road back into town. Jump back to Aubrey. Aubrey, you are now inside H2 Woe. That was fun. And you are, you have 10 minutes to scout the area out. There are, the way I kind of have this envisioned, there are a few points of interest that I can tell you about and you tell me what you want to sort of check out with your limited time here. There are a few main water slides towards the back of the park. There's like a long drop one, a twisting tubes one.

There's one of those funnel ones that kind of drops you out into a funnel that you spin around and drop out the bottom. There is a wave pool towards the center of the park, a fairly large wave pool. There is a splash pad towards the front of the park where kids can come and play around in this water that shoots up from the ground. There is a small pool with a swim-up bar. There is towards the back corner of the park a gated off reservoir that you can see with some sort of machinery back there with it. There is a lazy river that surrounds the perimeter of most of the attractions. There is a gift shop and cafeteria. There is a shallow kitty pool with some mushroom fountains in it.

And there is a main office off to the side of the park near the center. So it seems to me, Parkley, like we want to keep it away from. kind of the splash pad, right? Because there's too many, if we can't see the water and if it can come from any different location, we're kind of putting ourselves at a bit of a disadvantage. He says, yeah, that's a good call. I think you might want to figure out which spot in this park is going to be the most advantageous for us to take it on. And then it might be a good idea for us to figure out some other way to control it, some way that we can ensure that we're going to be here in private, some way to access everything we need to access in the park whenever we want to do this thing. Oh, shit. I have an idea, Barclay. Okay, let's hear it. At first, I was going to say the kitty pool, right? Because it's nice and shallow. But if we can get it in the wave pool and turn it on, that's probably going to like fuck with it, right?

Might throw it off balance. That's not a bad idea. It's going to be all slippery and hard for it to control. Yeah, you want to check it out? You go check it out. I'm going to see if I can get into the main office. Because checking it out doesn't do us any good if we can. can't, like, turn everything on, you know? Yeah, okay, I'll go check out that. You, uh, you head to the main office. We'll meet up in 10 minutes back at the entrance. Yeah, and keep an eye open for any, like, back gates or something we can leave unlocked to get in later. Okay, I'll do just that. Uh,

so you head over to the main office. You walk by a few confused-looking teens working here as you go. Todd said it was okay. Oh, they nod. And then, uh, one of them says, he's kind of a dick, kidney. How dare you? A young guy yells, uh, we hate Todd. Whoa. Wow. A lot of deep-seater resentment with Todd here. We're going to have to unpack this later, but, uh, I'm on, yeah, okay. I like Todd. And the other one goes, shut the fuck up. Nobody likes Todd. How many of them are there? There's the, the only the three that you just heard. Uh, got it. And, uh,

you approach the main office and find it unlocked and inter. The main office is, the main office is really just one large empty room. There is a time clock and a desk with a bunch of paperwork on it to the side of the room as you enter. There is, in the corner, there's a first aid station set up with various supplies to treat, you know, burns and bee stings and other water park injuries. And there are, on the back wall of the room, there is a row of lockers, a dozen or so, including the locker of Todd, which you recognize kind of in the center. The locker of Todd. The Todd, the Todd locker. The fabled locker of Todd.

We found it. Now, you can also tell just being in here, there is no, what appears to be, like, security camera set up, so you glean that there are no cameras for you to worry about whenever you do your hunt here tonight. Excellent. Now, is this a control room as well, or is this just, like, for them to come in and drop off their stuff and then get to work? Yeah, this seems to just kind of be a drop stuff off and change into your,

your outfits before you start working. That's not to say there isn't stuff to investigate in here, though. I want to look in Todd's locker. It's locked. Todd's locker is locked. It's a locker. It's locked. Like lockers do.

You approach it, you try to open it, but the thing doesn't work because of the lock. It's defined by its ability to lock. No, listen, I'm getting it. I'm all over that. Let me see. Is the lock, like, in the locker, or is it like a pad lock that is? Yeah, it's in the lock. It's like one of the little plastic tiles like you would have at a locker at school.

You know what? Oh, I'm so sorry, Todd. I'm going to melt the lock. Okay. There we go. Roll to, I think this would just be a use magic. Yeah, so that's 9.11, 9 plus 2. Okay, no glitches.

What does this look like? I assume you're using some sort of heat. I'm gonna say like, yeah, as like finesse as possible, just like one finger to the lock. And maybe like if I can help it, just be pulling up. on it, like, and heat it just enough to, like, pull it open. You know what I mean? Like, sure. Yeah, no, you stick your finger into the lock beneath the dial, and as you do so,

your finger heats up, and slowly but surely, your finger starts to pierce through the lock until you have poked clean through the locker, and you hear a click, and the locker door starts to swing open. Inside, you find some... Gold! B, b'b, b'b, bum. 250 gold pieces in the magic sword. You find, no, probably some, you know, raunchy mags.

You find... Todd. You find a... A Pokemon card collection. You find a ring of keys. I take that ring of keys, Griffin. Each key seems to be labeled for each of the different attractions around the park.

And then you also find, towards the back, a notepad. And on that notepad is scribbled out the schedule for each of the employees here. You find the current day, and on it you find the four employees who are currently at the park. And you find out that the last two punch out is Todd, who leaves at six, at which point the park will be vacated. Okay. I am going to... Is this where I could investigate? a mystery to ask you

the DM something? Sure, yeah. Okay. Yeah, that's not good. Whenever you fail a roll, I get to take a hard move. Oh, no. Yeah, so go ahead and mark experience. Yes, but Griffin, don't you see? I don't want to have failed. Interesting. Interesting.

Didn't you think about it that way? You mark XP, you also hear the door to the main office here open up and you see Todd with one of his sort of nudie magazine scenes rolled up and he's got it kind of in his armpit as he walks in trying to hide it. And he walks into the room and sees you.

And the raunchy mag falls to the ground dramatically in slow motion. And he says, what the fuck are you doing? What happened in my locker? What are you doing in my locker? Well, Todd, I have to be honest with you. I'm not really from the FBI. I'm working for Hieronymus, Horatio, Aurelius, the owner of H2 Woe, that was fun.

And he is suspected. Because this is a hard move, I get to go kind of hard. I think he shakes his head and he says, no, you get the fuck out of my park right now. And he walks over to the desk at the corner of the room and picks up a phone and dials 911. Okay. Is his back to me? It is, I say, terrified. I'm going to...

Kill Todd? No. No. Just send a little fireball to melt the cord on the phone. Okay. I'm just trying to sever the... I just don't want the cops showing up. That'll be bad.

All right. Cool. So I rolled an 8 plus 2, so that's a 10. Are you doing this discreetly, I'm assuming? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, I will say... And I'm trying to aim, like, for, like, the actual, you know, panel in the wall, right? So it's like...

Okay. Melt, yeah. then you just see the cable, like, I think just like a small, very narrow red beam comes out and severs very quickly the cable in the blink of an eye, and it falls to the ground. And Todd looks kind of confused and walks over to the phone. You're right, you're right. I'm going to go. Yep, I'm on my way right out the door, and she leaves still carrying the keys. Okay.

you meet up with Barclay back outside of the park and he says I got a look at the wave pool there's a booth back behind it above sort of the little alcove where they actually make the waves it seems like there's some sort of control mechanism in there I couldn't get inside but the door was up good news what's that I have the keys and it went super smoothly no problems at all he says All right. Well, I guess we'll come back here tonight at some point. I wish I knew what time they were leaving. After six. Well, damn, this is one of the smoother plans we've ever come up with, it seems like. Yeah, everything went great. And Duck, let's jump back to you. You are in the break room of the Public Works Building with Pigeon. And she's produced a nice, well, you know, as nice as a local government building cup of coffee is going to be for you.

And makes one for herself and sits you down at a table with her. There's nobody else in the room. You have some privacy to talk in here. She says, so why is it you want to shut down the water down that H2O? That was fun. I love that park, so I'm not eager to, you know, do anything. It's just temporary pigeon.

It's not going to be a whole thing. Yeah, I... It's while the park's closed, so it's not going to impact you or anything. Well, I know how to do it. I just want to know why. Perfect. Why? It's for firefighter training? Yeah, it's for firefighter training.

That's, uh, it's been a little while since I last told someone that, so I had some time to forget it. But it's for firefighter training, because it can't get enough water pressure to, uh, fight the fires, forest fires. Out in, out in Monongahela? Yep. Duck, that's on the opposite side of town. I can find other places that I can get you some more water pressure instead of pumping it out of the water park almost a mile away. Yeah, but the water park is definitely going to be closed.

And if you can tell me somewhere where you can guarantee that they're not going to need that amount of water that's using that amount, I would love to hear about it because off the top of my head, I can't improvise anything. There's a reservoir right next to Menongahela. The reservoir is a source of water, but it's not going to give other fuck. Listen, Pigeon, here's the thing.

I love to practice fishing. But the running water frightens me. It's called hydrophobia. And I would love to practice my cast in a real water environment where I can get in a large body of water, where I can guarantee that running water won't be a factor. And I would just love to practice my cast in a case. guaranteed still body. But here's the other thing.

Sometimes if you do it in a lake, that's what you're thinking. A fish will bite it. And normally that's ideal, but I'm just trying to practice casting. It's like when you don't want to catch them, that's when they're biting. You know what I mean? So I need a still body of water that I can guarantee won't move to practice my fishing casting. I want you to roll manipulate someone. With what, Griffin, with like hot butter dice?

Like, what would be a dumb enough dice to roll? Well, there is a mechanic. I'm going to make you take minus one forward on this one, because me as the keeper have decided this is the, in the almost four years we've been doing the Adventure Zone, the worst lie I've ever heard. But not only worst, but worst, most elaborate lie. I used to do a character who was very good at lying. I want to do one and it's very bad.

Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Ah, damn it. I rolled a five. Maybe my worst roll. Plus charm. Plus charm.

Plus charm. Minus one. So that's a five. All right. Full stop. Mark experience. It's an experience. I'm learning something.

I get to take a hard move to complicate your life. And I have just the thing in mind. Pigeon says, You know, Duck, I've been thinking a lot about what happened that night. What I saw chasing me through the woods. Pete told me he got a real close look at it. He swears up and down that it weren't no bear, and I am inclined to agree.

Now, Pete says he also seen you fight that thing off, gave me a chance to scurry away. Now, I'm also an avid reader, the local paper, and I ain't seen nothing in there about a big beast terrorizing campers out in the woods. That's enough to make me assume that maybe it's not out there anymore. Maybe somebody took it down. So I'll make you a deal there, Ranger Duck. I'll shut down the supply to the water park duck.

I got to be on site for it to happen, but I can do it. But you've got to satisfy my curiosity a bit. Because I think you've got more going on than just protecting some trees out in the woods. Not that that's not noble work or anything, but I think you got something on the side. I think you are doing a bit of monster hunting. And if that's the case, I got a follow-up question for you, I guess. Y'all hiring? Maximumfund.org.

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