The Adventure Zone - The Adventure Zone: Amnesty - Episode 22

Episode Date: February 8, 2019

The Pine Guard negotiate with their would-be monster-hunting rivals, while the true nature of their quarry continues to elude them. Duck wears a belt. Aubrey has a tough conversation. Ned reaches out beyond the grave. 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. Obviously, I guess y'all heard about it, Hornets got attacked someone, came in the barge, just made a mess of things. We got two in the morgue. It says they followed whoever did this up into your neck of the woods. One of these Hornets had a big, like, chunk missing out of his neck. It's like this blonde lady. I saw her again, but this time, like, she was way different.

Parked in formation in front of Amnesty Lodge is a fleet of 12. 20 motorbikes ridden by Hornets with Hollis at the lead. So Keith told me everything about the monsters, told me that you all work to fight them and keep it a big secret. Hmm. Um, huh. Good news. You don't need to know what I'm talking about anymore. You all are relieved of duty. We'll take it from here. I mean, should we just pick it up right where we left off?

because it was kind of a hot scene. I don't know why we always have to talk a bunch of garbage. You know what I mean? Like, it's called a podcast, Justin. No, yeah, you're right. Let's get it wet. I just like, let's get it wet. Yeah, for sure.

Thank you. Yeah, let's get wet and wild. You all are standing in front of Amnesty Lodge, where you've just sort of come up out of your secret cellar headquarters alongside Mama and Barclay and standing in front of you. well actually kind of leaning against a cool motorbike is Hollis, who is the leader of the Hornets, the local stunt crew-turned kind of bike squad, who are sort of in the process of confronting you. There's a little over a dozen of them here, parked out in front of Amnesty Lodge.

And now, like you understand their intention, you're kind of able to look them over a little bit better, and they are wielding baseball bats and like makeshift sort of rebar clubs and all sorts of blunt weaponry. Kind of kind of a mob. Yeah, a monster hunting mob. And standing in front of you is Hollis, along with Lieutenant Keith. And they have said that they are going to take over monster hunting from this point forward because you all are not getting it done.

That's where we're at. And time unfreeze. Zap Zowie. I've been thinking about this because we have the benefit of, you know, not being in real time. Oh, time freeze. Hold on. Okay, time freeze. Yeah, time freeze.

Zapp Zawai. Now time unfreeze. Okay. Unfreeze. Okay. It's on freeze. Zapsari. Aubrey just, like, kind of laughs.

Like, oh, monsters. Are you kidding me? I told Keith, yeah. Listen, he got a bunk on the head when he crashed off his bike. We found him like that. He was in a day's. I think you might have a concussion. You know how that is.

You do stunts, right? Concussions have to be a major worry for you guys. He kept going on and on about like monsters and stuff. And I don't know. Monsters. I think Hollis just kind of stares you down and doesn't really say anything. Doesn't seem to be moved by your speech. And then they turn towards Duck and they say,

I want to hear it from him. What exactly do you want to hear me say? Well, you're carrying a sword. Are you carrying a sword? I don't know if that's something that Duck just kind of rolls around with. I always assumed that it looked like a belt when he wasn't wearing it. I love that. We've never talked about that before.

Your belt is always assumed that he looked like a belt. Okay. Yeah, that works. And it's a little bit hot topic. It's a seedingly hot topic. It's a belt with the, I guess the buckle is a mouth. And that's, that's, that's, that's horny kind of. It is a little horny.

And it's metal. It was either that or like a wallet chain sword. Hollis says, well, according to what Keith told me, all of you were there when the, I guess, goat man attacked, which I'm assuming is one of the kind of monsters that seem to besiege our hometown on a daily basis. And so I was just wondering if you were going to outright lie about it, like Aubrey here. I'm not a monster hunter with any special abilities or anything. I have no physical advantage over anybody else that would be trying to hunt monsters. Look at me for a second. Honestly, if I could, you know, do that sort of thing, wouldn't I be something a little more intense than a forest ranger?

Yeah, that's actually the first believable thing that any of you have said since I showed up here. Ned, you seem to know a lot about monsters. It's kind of your business. It seems like maybe business is a lot better than anybody even expected, huh? Well, here's what I'm thinking, friend Hollis, that perhaps there's a lot of confusion out there. As you know, I have an extremely successful television show called Saturday Night Dead. And you reference it every episode. Yes.

And as you know, what we do is we, we not only show great movies. By the way, you may be especially interested this weekend. We have a double feature, Werewolves on Wheels from 1971 with Severn Darden and 1989's chopper chicks in zombie town with Billy Bob Thornton. You're not going to win me over by show. No, no, no, no, no. I'm just saying. While Al Hall is saying that, like they have their phone out and are definitely like adding this to their g-cal. I would love for you all to come and sit in the studio audience.

But be that as it may. We also do a lot of crazy video features, a lot of filmed features that we insert in the show. We've been doing a lot of shooting. We have a young man looks exactly like Ryan Gosling with higher aspirations. Spitting image. Spitting image. And sometimes we make him up in goat makeup to shoot wild and crazy skits. Yeah, that was for that.

We were doing the crampus thing, right? We were doing like a crampus thing. crampus thing. We did like goat legs. And it's possible that Keith saw that. We do zany. They're right. We do zany skits.

They call us the zoo team. And we're always doing wild stuff. Yeah. What did you let me take this, duck? And so anyway. Two of my guys were torn to shreds last night. Yes. And I saw the thing that did it.

And it wasn't your handsome friend all dressed up like a goat. Hey, what did you see, Keith? This is Hollis talking. What did you see, Hollis? I think if you actually want something from Hollis, who's like... I'm sorry, it's so hard. With Hollis's deep, multi-textured character voice, it's hard to tell the tumult of heart.

Listen, I think anybody who doesn't have a rich Appalachian accent is kind of an outlier in this universe that we're crafting. I think Hollis is coming at. You all kind of like hot and bothered, and I think... Well, not hot and bothered. Sounds weird. Kind of angry. So if you want to get something from Hollis duck,

you're going to have to roll investigate a mystery. You know what? I am going to do that. Okay. I'm going to do exactly that thing that you just said. You don't have to. No, no. The Hollisket just say fuck off and then you don't.

Hey, listen, we do not have a lot in the way of leads and two of the leads that we did have got eaten. So I don't love our chances right now. So I want to take every opportunity that I can. And I'm gonna roll 2D6, Cada mighty. Hachimachi. How'd you do, Justin?

Well, I got a four on that one, Trave. Which is, we caught in the biz. We call that bad. It's less than ideal. I think this just in... Yeah. Mark experience, well done. I think this just ends...

Failing. I think this just ends the conversation. I think that... Hollis says, you think I'm going to help you? I told you. The era of you all keeping the whole town in the dark while you sneak around and fail to stop these things from killing people, that era is over. Yeah, I've got a question actually for you, and I'm only going to ask it once politely.

Where are these things coming from? And then it's right then that the front door to Amnesty Lodge sort of swings open and out walks Agent Stern, who is dressed in full sort of proper FBI agent regalia. And he's actually got his hands like on his hips pulling his jacket back so everybody can see his badge. And he says, everything going okay out here? Oh, yes. Agents are and our friends here were just leaving.

They were just setting out. They're on a mission from God. And we say to them, and I mean this most sincerely, Hollis, go for it. Knock yourselves out. go on your little mission and godspeed. With that, I think Keith is now nervous that a badged official is here and sort of tugs at Hollis's sleeve who nods and they put their helmet back on and everybody else in the Hornets sort of follows suit. Real quick, Keith, before you go, let's hang out sometime you and I. We've got some catching up to do. Keith lifts his visor up and he walks over and he says everyone saw it I know what we talked about

Aubrey everyone saw it and you can threaten to kill me all you want but apparently there's other stuff out there that's actually doing it so yeah I'm trying to kill he's kidding stern he's kidding Hollis and Keith let me let me talk to you guys real quick before you head off okay Yeah, Hollis comes over and joins. I'm like walk out with them. Yeah, yeah. They're leaving. I'll walk out.

So here's the thing. This thing is messed up. I mean, whatever it is, it's brutal. And you saw that, and we did too. And I don't know if I should be telling you this or not, but we've dealt with some stuff like this already. And I'm here to tell you that we barely made it out alive. And if you go looking for this thing, it is going to kill you. So this is a move called Trust Me.

Oh, shit! The mundane can do. And if I tell a normal person the truth, in order to protect them from danger, I roll plus charm. On a 10 plus, they'll do what I say, no questions asked. 7 and 9 they do it, but the keeper chooses one from a list, which includes they ask me a hard question. they stall and dither a while, they have a better idea.

On a miss, they're going to think I'm crazy and maybe dangerous too. Oh, this is such a fucking cool move. And it's also something I didn't know was in the game and could totally rewrite shit. All right, let's see it. Yeah, we're doing it. Classic Macaroy. Yeah, let's see what you got. Another big four.

Okay. That's a seven plus two charm. It's a nine. Okay. Which you get one of those, you can, stall and dither have a, quote, better idea, or ask me a hard question first. So I think that that's probably open to interpretation, how you want to interpret this. I definitely had some effect, I think, but I can see where...

Could Ned help out and add a point? I think a mixed success is probably more interesting for Griffin. Okay. I think it makes sense for the scenario, too. Especially after that hard, like, after I had a hard failure, it seems like a mixed success. Yeah, for sure. I like this. Okay, so I'm going to go with ask you a hard question first, and it's going to be in this form.

It's going to be, Hollis lifts up their visor. And they stare you down, Duck, and they say, I don't think you're lying about that either, Duck. But if you really want us to not help protect the town like you've been doing for God knows how long, then we need to know the truth and we need to know all of it. When you're ready to do that. just flag down a hornet. We're going to be all over town on patrol. So we'll, I'll see you, hopefully when I see you.

And they lower their visor down and the hornets depart. Basically saying, like, if you tell them literally everything that you know about the, the pine guard and know like clever ruse is like actually what is going on here, everything you know, then they will, they will not, they will disband their, monster hunting force as it is now. That's the trade-off. Okay, so I go back inside and I flagged down Aubrey and Ned, and I sort of update them on the scenario. So that's basically it. They'll keep their heads out of it if we tell them everything. Well, I have to say, I mean, there's a part of me that doesn't mind the idea of this, like,

neighborhood watch beefing up our numbers kind of deal like eyes on the street but at the same time I don't know their methods and they seem pretty hell bent for leather as far as violence goes and we got a lot of not bad monster types you know what I mean I have an idea that might lend itself to that situation Kirby Kirby come here a moment why is Kirby I guess he's I guess you did take a move where he is your constant companion. He, a fucking closet in the, the cellar of the,

of the, uh, there's a poop of slope and Kirby appears. A closet door in the cellar under Amnesty Lodge swings open. I feel like it works out. All right. I won't do it that way.

Back up. Let me try a different way. I have an idea. Why don't I send Kirby out in the kryptonomica van with the camera drones from episode, Hmm, six. To keep an eye, to keep an eye on our friends, the bumblebees.

And he can report back to us and see what they do. There's so much wrong stuff in that scene. There's a few wrong things. Let me see. Let me try to go in order. First one is, your man Kirby might just have to watch gang member get eaten alive. Because I don't think this thing is like, like, luring friends back to its place and stealing their identity.

and then over several months, it's just eating people. Well, can we agree that identity thieves are the real monsters? Yeah, I mean, like, I'm no great fan of identity thieves, but like, I don't... You said you wanted to know about their methods. You said you wanted to know. I didn't say anything of the sort. What I said was, we need to decide if we want to tell them everything, or if we want to let them take their chances. I'm already in enough deep shit with Mama and Squatchboy.

about running my mouth. So I vote we don't tell them shit. We keep an eye on them. And if they get in trouble, we go help them. Yeah, there's a part of me that feels like if we, we can tell them now about, you know, tell them everything. We can keep them out of this specific thing. But it's like the genies out of the proverbial bottle.

Fuck, there might be genies. What do I know? They're probably our genies. Probably are genies. Probably are genies. But here's my thing is I also know that, man. how many times do you watch a movie or TV show or something and just scream like, just tell them. Like, listen, here in Kepler, people are in danger all the time.

And I'm starting to wonder if maybe we're doing a disservice by not telling them what's out there. If you start telling them stuff, then you have to, where do you stop? Do you tell them about Sylvain? Yeah, I know, Ned. I agree. Is Berkeley and Mama down in the cellar with you all? They were definitely at this. They popped down now and we catch them all up.

I mean, they were definitely at the scene while you guys were sort of having this confrontation with them. Yeah, I think it would be easier because I would like to ask Mama how she has. Yeah, how have you dealt with stuff like this in the past, Mama? I think Mama has been pretty just like shocked into silence since hearing that this large squadron of armed bikers knows that there's monsters in, Kepler and seeks to do something about it. And she says, y'all, there ain't never been, there ain't never been a situation like this before. And for once, Ned, it seems like I can't blame this one on you.

It's got to be some way to blame it on Ned. Don't give up, Mama. She says, I, she says, we've been trying to keep the peace discreetly for decades now. And it's been working. And listen, I'm about to get forced into retirement. And I'm, I've made peace with that. But I can't feel comfortable about the idea of Lovin just like a handful of y'all to, you know, fight against deadly supernatural threats every two months or so. And if they have the opportunity to add some more, you know, muscle behind your efforts, I don't see why not.

And while she's saying that, I think this is when Barclay just like reached. up and takes off his bracelet and sets it down on the table, 12 Angry Men's style. And Barclay says, in case you all forgot, I'm Bigfoot. So if these things, if these guys go- Oh, way to name drop. I'm friends with Dracula. So he says, I'm kind of a big deal. I'm in Hotel Transylvania.

It's not a, yeah, don't worry about it. He says, this is an armed. gang of passionate monster slayers. What do you think happens if they come into Amnesty Lodge and figures out sort of our whole situation here? Do you think that they're going to be as patient as you guys are? But that's my point, is if we can edge it, if we have a chance to say this is what's up before that happens,

I mean, what do you think is the better option? We don't tell them. And one of them, like, accidentally catches sight of somebody changing their watch and turns into another goat man or whatever and they get attacked while they're just getting ready for a swim is that really better than us telling them ahead of time like some people are good and some people are bad just like in

on earth with humans I feel like I know some of these rowdy boys their entire lives and I we can tell them it's too dangerous but if we let them know that there are literally monsters in the town. There's nothing that's going to dissuade them from, you know, continuing to search them out and probably getting themselves killed. Honestly, I mean, they say that they'll, I think what we're really talking about here, guys, y'all is do we, do we save them from this one or do we, you know,

save them from all the future ones? Because I feel like if we can save them off of this one, but they're going to be back in full force next time. I don't see why we need to keep debating. if they find out about the gate to Sylvain, that's it. That's, that's, that's war. That's the war. We have a resource here that we're not using.

Which is? Jake Kulice. He knows them. He was with them. He can give us insight. I think we need to bring him into this discussion. Because, you know, for all we know, forgiven that scene, which we have to remember,

it wasn't too long ago that two of their friends got mangled by a monster, while they all watched, I think it's understandable that they're a little on edge. We might be able to get some insight from Jake about this whole scenario. All right, listen, listen, listen. We've burned plenty of daylight debating this.

I'll talk to Jake and see, you know, if I can get him to try and make peace, I guess, with the Hornets, try and impress upon them the reality of our situation without sort of cluing them into everything, Barclay. but we need to get out there because this whatever's out there killing folks right now ain't going to wait for us to you know have a have a summit with the you know the local biker tufts so uh i think let's let's get out there right now before night time rolls up and

see what we can find out i think at this point if i may duck and ned it kind of feels like we have let me check my notes and she mimes opening a notebook uh yeah we don't know anything. So maybe we should split up and just kind of see what we can find out by asking around. Well, let's not split up, but let's do ask around. I like the part where we ask around for sure. Yeah, and I miss you guys. Yeah, I miss you all when we're not together. And honestly, can I be straight with you guys? Um, I'm just a dude. Oh, so. That's right. Okay. Well, I would rather stay with with the people with superpowers if it's like all okay by y'all. Well, that's just, you guys. You're just talking about Aubrey. She's the only one. I guess Barclays...

Okay, you know, I didn't want to be shitty about it, but yeah. Ned has a gun. That's got a cool good and a lot of lying power. Yeah, and a car. He used to have a car. He did get another car. He got a crape wagon. He did get a crape wagon. Crap wagon.

Crap wagon. Crap wagon. Crap wagon. I'm not doing it again. Krapwagon. Okay, well, before we go out and look, I need to go use the restroom because I haven't in like 45 episodes.

And all their kids just realized they haven't shit in a year. They all go to shit. I want to thank everybody who's been tweeting about the show using the Zonecast hashtag. We really appreciate you spreading the word. If you do it, you might end up as a character in the show. I know we've been kind of slow to roll those out,

but you could end up like Keith, who's named for Keith Wellman on Twitter or like Agent Stern named for Joseph Stern on Twitter and a few others. So yeah, I know it says Slim Pickens, but I really appreciate it spreading the word about the show. It's how we've gotten to have the cool audience and community that we have now. And yeah, I just appreciate you. And hey, I appreciate you if you'd listen to Maximum Fun and the other shows that we

have on the network here. Got a bunch of new ones like the Jackie and Laurie show. and like Amy Mann and Ted Leo's new show, The Art of Process, and a bunch more, all at maximum fun.org. We have a website that's Macquarie. Family, if you want to check out the other stuff we do. I think that's going to do it. So, hey, we'll be back in two weeks, and the day that that is going to be, is going to be today's date, the number of it plus 14, which is February 21st. I definitely didn't have to look at a calendar to figure that out. So we'll talk to you then.

Bye. We hear a flush and a hand wash. Like footsteps coming back down the stairs. Sure. Okay, I'm ready to go. Fantastic. I don't really, so like, it's kind of up to y'all how you want to do this in investigation. I think that this is more sort of how Monster of the Week is designed to be played,

which is maybe not the most sort of show, sort of, friendly process, but I think it would be interesting to just like let y'all loose in Kepler, which is a lot of easier now because we have this map in Roll 20, and we have sort of, you know, an ongoing list of, you know, leads and stuff like that. So it's up to y'all. We can just, you know, do scenes as you want to do them and you tell me what you want to look into. Because as you have said, you don't know Jack about this thing. Well, it seems to me, like, even though you don't know anything, over the last couple episodes, that we have made some contacts.

Yes. I mean, like, there's Indrid. I mean, it's gone. I will say from Aubrey's point of view, the things that she learned from, like, investigating the scene makes her want to talk to Danny, but I don't know that that's something she'd want to do in front of everyone.

We can do that you just go talk to Danny alone. I know we wanted to do scenes together, but like, if that's how you want to talk to Danny, that's how you want to talk to Danny. On the subject of Indrid, we might want to clear this up. The last time you guys saw Indrid, Duck punched Indrid in the face, and I knocked his glasses off, and then Indrid flew away as the Mothman. And you actually haven't seen Indrid since. That was a couple months ago during the last hunt.

So Indrid is not super available as a resource right now. I think we need to investigate why this happened. I think we need to investigate, I mean, we're not getting anywhere necessarily with. with the creature. But I think we need to figure out why. Why that particular place? Why the Hornets Nest? What led to that?

I think that's the angle we need to pursue. Because there's obviously, we said it ourselves, this was a targeted attack that happened at the Hornets Nest. I assume there's still some injured Hornets in like the hospital and stuff. I don't know about that. There's definitely some in the morgue still. Like, let's get clarified. Are there, were there survivors?

There were. I think that they have mostly been discharged at this point. To be nice and creepy. We have a bit to a morgue. Yeah. We have been to a morgue since two arcs ago. Let's go to the morgue. I love to see how we're going to get into the morgue.

Let's go to the morgue zone. So wait, do we want to do, uh, Aubrey, you go talk to Danny and Ned and Duck to the morgue? I, I, if I may have a vote, I say, let him go talk. to Danny. We'll take care of something else. And then I think we all ought to go to the morgue. Is that all right with you, choose? Yep. Okay, let's do this conversation with Danny. When you're trying to find like a time to talk to her where she is not sort of around anybody else. And you get a great opportunity to do so because I think just like later that day that the Hornets showed up, you find Danny. And she is just kind of walking around in the clearing in the woods where the archway is. And she's just, she's actually like got a hand up on it.

And she is just kind of like standing there with her eyes closed. And in fact, I don't think she notices when you sort of walk up. And of course, Aubrey's out taking Dr. Bonkers out for a walk. Okay. It's the first time I've ever heard you leave off one of his names. Oh, sorry, Dr. Harris Bonkers. Thank you, Griffin. PhD?

It's been so long. Yeah, Dr. Harris-Bonger's PhD. Okay. You know how you take rabbits for walks? Yeah, sure, sure, sure. Or for hops? And she, oh, hey, Danny. Ahem.

Aham. Danny is not startled, I think, by your approach. And she turns around and, looks at you. And she looks, she does not look sort of the usual sort of chill. You're not getting those usual chill vibes that you get from Danny. When she's just kind of kicking it around Amnesty Lodge,

she is definitely upset about something. And she says, hey, Aubrey, sorry. I, sorry, what's up? Well, I need to talk to you. But first, is everything okay? Not really. I mean, the, the, I was, I'm, I guess I'm homesick a little bit. I, uh, I've still got, I've still got family over in Sylvain that, you know, I'm not allowed to go over and see and it's, you know, I'm grateful for mama putting us up and giving us a safe place to, to stay, but it's, it's, you know, it's hard. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, we can talk, we can talk, let's make plans to hang out later. And I'm, and I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd pack that and I want to be here for you, but I need to talk to you, and it's incredibly urgent. She's actually distracted as you're saying this.

Like, she actually kind of turns away from you and is looking back at the gate. And I don't even think she responds to what you're saying. She's very, very sort of engrossed. Danny, you might be in some serious shit very shortly. There was an attack at the Hornets Nest where that Baker gang hangs out. And the attacker, the description is very much like you. And I know it's not you because you wouldn't do it. And I'm not saying it was you.

I'm saying, I need you to tell me where you were. And are there any other, you know, Sylvainians around like you, blonde women? I guess this is definitely investigate. Okay. All right. Let's keep the streak alive. Those big boy rolls. What's your sharp, though?

Travis has rolled a six. What's the sharp? Plus one. That does make it a mixed success. All right. On a mixed success for investigate, you hold one. So you get to ask one question. You're asking where she, you're trying to get an alibi, right?

So it's not. I guess this could be investigative mystery if you are trying to weed out that she is not the monster, right? So I guess we, I guess the rule still apply here. I'm willing to let just, you know, where were you last night be the question here. Okay, that makes sense. Cool. Then let's go with that. She says, I don't remember, Aubrey. I cannot remember where I was last night because I wasn't sort of aware of it.

And now her breath is like quickening. You can tell she's getting kind of scared. She says, I was taking a walk down toward Mount Kepler. Next thing I know, it's morning. And I wake up here in front of the arch. And I was holding this. And she's got this little satchel with her. And she opens it up and reaches inside.

And she pulls out this sort of dark blue book that is, the cover of which is sort of heavily damaged. and it's this hard leatherbound cover that is etched with these arcane symbols that like I think you know enough about magic and stuff from your lessons to know that they are magic symbols but you definitely you can't really tell what it says she says so um that was my morning how was yours well we got threatened by a biker gang um and i got outed as using magic and fighting monsters, so also not great. Now that you mention it. Cool.

So I, on my end, am going to figure out what happened and make sure you don't get in trouble and do everything in my power, which is a lot because I can do magic and throw fire and stuff. to make everything okay. Um, I need you to just kind of lay low. And, uh, for fuck's sake, if you see a biker, run. Danny, uh, smiles when you say that. I think she appreciates the concern.

And she says, um, I'm not scared of them, Aubrey. I'm not, I'm not afraid of what they'll do to me. I'm scared of what they might find out. I'm scared of war between our worlds. And frankly, I'm scared of this, and she points at the book. She says,

I'm going to hide out, of course. I'm going to lay low, but I need you to get out there and find out what this is. Griffin, real quick, I would like to read a bad situation. Oh, okay. In regards to the book. All right.

Let me. Okay, cool, a 10. All right. So one, I want to ask, are there any dangers we haven't noticed? And I want to couple that with my third eye. I have the third eye that lets me, you know, kind of examine magical shit. Yeah. Or look for magic.

Okay. So I want to kind of do those simultaneously with the book. Okay. Yeah, I mean, it pops off. As you sort of... Because I'm expecting some like Tom Riddle shit. Oh, no. Nothing quite that sort of inherently, obviously evil.

You open up the book and just kind of like thumb through it quickly and, you know, clap on your third eye, which also reads. And it makes like a gross noise as it moves back and forth to read. Is it a physical eye? Have we? No. No. It's not a physical eye. Anything's possible.

I mean, that's true. Duck is wearing a sword belt. Yeah. It is, I think the, in terms of it being a danger, I think the thing that you, I think the thing that you pick up on is there are incredible, incredibly powerful magic spells in this book. It is a guidebook for how to cast extremely advanced, extremely potent magic. And I think that that's how you could interpret it as a danger. I think with your third eye, like you're able to tell that there's like one passage here that is sort of the most complicated and most powerful spell of them all.

And again, like you can't make out what the symbols say just because like you're not that advanced in it yet. But there is sort of an image. And the image you can clearly tell is sort of a crude drawing of a mountain. and there appears to be, there's something coming out of the mountain. There's like a smoke or fog or something coming out of the mountain. Not necessarily like a volcano, but just like it's emitting this smoke in all directions. That is what you pick up on. And I want to use one more of the whole three, and that's just, wow, I still have that old third eye open.

What's the best way to protect the victims? I want to just kind of like look over Danny and see if there's any like, weird aura or weird energy or any kind of thing like that. Am I seeing around her, I'm worried that she was like possessed or something? Oh, I see, I see, I see. There is, you can, you're picking up on traces of some sort of energy thing. Like, that's about as like specific as you can, you can pick up on. So there definitely was something there, but it doesn't appear to still be present?

I don't know if you can tell the latter thing, but there definitely was something. there. Okay. And let's call the scene there and get to the morgue. Okay. And just real quick, I did tell Duck and Ned about the book, but I said I found it by the gate while taking Dr. Harris-Bonger's Ph.D. on a walk. Love it, love it, loving it. Okay, so the morgue, huh?

The morgue is sort of in a building adjacent to the sheriff's department. not so close to the front door that like you're going to walk in front of sheriff Owens directly as you try to get into the morgue which I think you are right in your assumption that it may be kind of tricky to get in there this is obviously not a super big town so the morgue is a fairly small and humble building there is a sort of entry chamber as you as you walk inside with a big heavy door towards the back that is where sort of the morgue business is taking care of. And then there's a small, just like IKEA desk in front of it with some notes and stuff on it. And as you walk in,

there is a man sitting at that desk. And he is wearing a white lab coat and he is just sort of reading some stuff on his desk. He actually has a bro- out for the Green Bank telescope and he is reading it sort of with, I mean, he just doesn't even notice that you guys come in as he is reading this brochure and

you all are in the morgue. We walk past him? That's what I thought you're in. You're in? No, the door is big and the door into the morgue is big and it has actually, you see a key card lock next to it. I got us this far.

What did you do? Well, I had the idea. I did drive us. I said, go to, I did drive us. By the way, we stopped the Cryptonomica so I could get the Cryptonovica van. There you go. And pick up something else. Well, okay, that's ominous.

I'm very scared of what that could be. At this point, now that you all have walked into the morgue and remained silent for eight straight minutes, the morgue technician looks up at you and he says, can I help you all with something? Well, we would like to see the bodies of... My brother. My dad. My son. His brother, her... his son, her brother, my dad. Not related. There's two of them.

But you had to figure out which two. We need to see a body for a dare. I'm sorry about all the lives from before, but we need to see a body for a dare. I was there to look at the body of my brother. And my son. I was there to look at the body of his son, who was also my brother. Everybody can't be... Everybody's bit can't be that they're bad at lying.

I put my, like, I stake my claiming that, you fucking stooches. I thought mine was a good lie of like, I'm here to identify my brother. I'm here with an officer of some kind. And this is my elderly caretaker who watches over me because our parents are deceased. It was going to be a good lie. And then Ned had to throw out, and you... My father, my son, or whatever. Griffin, what is, I assume he has a name tag on, right, an official name tag?

He does. It says, careful, don't force Griffin to create a character. If he's not ready to do it, he'll get very snippy. Just a name, just a name. Gregor. Gregor. Gregor. Gregor. Very distinctive name. No, Gregor, Gregor, Gregor. Okay, I remember on the internet, there's a, there is a, one of the handles is Gregor. Gregor. Morgan Mortis, you, aren't you a fan of Saturday Night Dead? God damn,

that. Gregor Mortis is a great user handling. It's such a, yeah, it's good, pull that. What is the move, Griffin,

where you, not just try to investigate someone or manipulate them, but try to impose a reality. That's just, what's great. Let's do it. Shape this shit,

man. I love it. You're on some, it's some Infinity War shit. just snapped and Gregor existed. So this is net, Net Friends is your role here. Oh, wow. That's an 11 plus charm. Plus charm, which is plus one. So that's a 12.

Okay. Gregor Mortis looks up at you and I think it actually takes them a second to actually kind of figure out what you're talking about. And then Gregor says, oh, oh, my God, I'm sorry. I didn't realize that it was. was that it was you, Ned. So wait, you need to get in there and see bodies. Well, we're doing a little research for an upcoming episode, the Night of the Living Dead, and we wanted to look at a not living dead person. So if you could spare us just a few moments in there while we do a little research for Saturday Night Dead. I'm supposed to build some like, you know, mannequin, you bodies for the set.

And so I just need reference just to see, I've never seen a dead body before, you know? And none of us have the internet. Well, I don't want that on my search history. Are you kidding me? Oh, what if my parents saw? Yeah, I can, I can let you in. I really don't want Sheriff Owens to find out about this.

Oh, no, no, no, no. We don't either. He's not a friend of the show. No, I listen. and there's not a backdoor out of there for y'all to sneak through. It's really just this one. So be quick, I guess.

And yeah, this is a weird request, Ned, but anything for the webmaster. In here, wait, wait. I have one of these enameled pins. Where are you pulling it from? My face. No, no, it's of your face. You weren't pulling it.

You're with a pin out. True, yes. An enamel pin of my face. I misunderstood. But, and this, this my friend, Gregor, is for you. Now, who would be so vain as to make an enamel pin of their own face? Yeah, unbelievable. Gregor lights up and pushes it, pushes it through his badge, which takes some effort.

But with his super strength, he does it. And then he walks over and swipes over. his badge across the, uh, across the keypad. And he says, seriously like, um, like maybe five minutes. And, and then let's let's get you out of here. You got it. Okay. You all walk into the more groom and, uh, in an effort to kind of keep you concealed, uh, he shuts the door behind you. Uh, so there are, uh, two bodies covered in sheets on, uh, sort of two metal racks. Uh, One of which has been clearly sort of worked on recently. There are a few, what are those things that you can slide bodies in and out of in morgues, in TV shows and movies?

Slabs. The Slabs. Yeah, that's probably the best name for it. There's definitely a few of those in the room also. Just like Gregor explained this, there's no other sort of entry or exit from the room. And that's where you are. Aubrey Spooks Duck. Buh.

Did it work? Did I get him? This is all profoundly disturbing. Let's just try to keep some sense of decorum in here, eh? Okay. I'm going to pull back one of the sheets. Okay. At random.

You pull back one of the sheets and underneath it is a dead guy. And I think just like you were told by Detective Megan back at the, back at the hornets nest. It's a sort of, it's a grisly thing that's happened to them. There are bite marks, not really bite marks, right? Like it doesn't appear to be like in, you know, a vampire movie where there's two sort of cute little discreet fang marks. Like, it's a bite mark like a more akin to like a small shark got, got in there.

And yeah, I think that's all. That's what is obviously apparent about this thing. this thing, this former, this former human Keplerian without rolling. So should we say a few words? I mean, I don't think people who sneak into morgues have been called on to, I don't think. I don't know. I feel like, I don't want to just start. Here are a few words.

Gross. Yeah. Ngarly. Yeah, but it's still a person. Look at, look at that stitch work on the. Oh, God, why did they open them up like that? Look at this. This poor bastard's been taken back to Chicago.

Yeah. Oh, no, he's bought an apartment there. Like, long least. Hey, Ned, are you grossed out by, like, the wounds or by the shoddy work of the undertaker or whatever the fuck? Whatever you're trying to establish? Well, no, but look how, no, I'm sorry. As an artist, I find this very disturbing. Okay, you sound like a serial killer.

Griffin, I would like to look at the wounds, I guess. Okay, I mean, just investigate a mystery, I think, if you're wanting to... Is that plus sharp? Yes. So that's a seven. It was a six plus one. Okay. So you get to ask one question from the list. What happened here? I'm trying to think of how to give you sort of more details than what you got just from eyewitnesses.

Looking at this thing, how about this, there's definitely like on this rack. There is a clipboard hanging from it. with a with a coroner's report. And I think between just sort of looking at the victim and looking at the coroner's report, you can tell that they did die from blood loss. But there's nothing mentioned in the report about like there's no blood. There's nothing in the report about it. They weren't like drained one might be afraid of with a vampire.

They weren't made into a Capri Sun. They were just kind of, they were just kind of, they were just kind of, they were just maimed in sort of the gnarliest way possible, it seems like. Doesn't it, let me ask you fellows a question. Doesn't this seem almost calculated to be scary? Like, you think if it was a monster trying to feed, right, that they had time to attack multiple, like more than just two and then walk away? Like, this is a lot of attack, like one of these wounds would probably have killed.

this guy. Yeah. It seems like overkill. It doesn't just seem like a rampage because they stopped and left. There's got to be a reason why this attack happened. You know, in the past when we've seen like these attacks, it seemed almost like, you know, if you let a bear loose somewhere, you know what I mean? But this was the, this isn't like the kind of attacks we saw with like the water thing or the like abomination thing. All right. Hear me out. I, I, I, I, have a wild and crazy idea. You know the item I stopped a Cryptonomica and picked up. Yeah.

This is going to be so good. Okay. You, Duck, are basically wearing a magic belt, a magic weapon belt. Yeah. Yeah. Aubrey is seething with magic. Correct? Aubrey, seething?

And in, under my jacket, I've got a gun with a fucking magic crystal in it. Sure. Right? Okay, with magic artifacts. Magic is real. So we got magic all. over the place. Oh, magic for days. I picked up an item at the Cryptonomicum that I stole from Teresa Caputo's house. That I think, Teresa Caputo, she's the Long Island medium. Okay.

With all of this magic and all of this power, and I pull out an Ouija board. Okay. Why don't we ask the dead guys? Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. I just... I'll tell you what would be fun. I'll tell you what would be fun. If I make Ned do a used magic roll, if I make Ned do a used magic roll to do this thing that he has suggested.

And that's not to say that if you roll a fucking 14, like you do sometimes Clint McElroy, that I will then make one of the bodies sit up and then start tap dancing. But if you want anything to come out of this, I feel like you're going to have to roll to use magic.

Okay. I'm willing to try it. I'm willing to try it too. Because we're having fun here. I'm definitely willing to watch him try it. Yeah, I'm willing to stand 10 feet away. Now remember how Ouija board works. No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Everybody has to put their fingers on the plinth. And it spells stuff out. Nobody's going to sit up. Nobody's going to. And there's not a table to, there's not like a service. We just set it on top of the guy. You just put it on the other guy who's still covered up. Yeah.

Okay. So wait, I just want to clarify the sequence of events. We came to the morgue to look for clues. On a field trip. On a dare. To look for clues. We pulled back the sheet of one person, looked at it, and it was like, well, confirm folks, the facts are here.

This body's done been fucked up. And then my dad pretends, my pretend dad in the game pulls out a Ouija board and is like, I'll contact him. And I'm like, but there's a hole in the body you don't want to look real quick. Hey, I said I brought a Ouija board. What part of I brought a Ouija board? But it doesn't, do we have to be in close proximity to, I've got a magic gun.

I know. I've got a magnifying glass and I've got a vicaroscope and I've got a Ouija board. All right. Let's get this. I think we should put this to a vote for all the listeners. It's our first ever calling Paul. It should be one of those like two different eight hundred. hundred numbers, except make them nine hundred numbers, so we profit something.

All right, so dad roll a six. Now, what's it? Now, dad rolled a six, plus weird. Plus weird, which is a zero. So that's a failure on use magic, uh, which means like six. Six is a failure? Yeah. We've been playing this game for a long time.

Yeah. Um, here is what happens. You all are doing this, this, uh, uh, soon. de seance on top of this, the other body. That is, as, as, Oh, spirits and attendance, those of you who have crossed over to the other side, speak, speak to your humble servants. Please, I beg of thee.

As you are doing that, I think you are sort of getting a little bit too into it. And you push down too hard on the, on the board, trying to get some sort of of response and it just sort of falls and clatters to the ground. And as it does so, you now can see under where the board was, there is some blood sort of soaking into the sheet. Pull the sheet back? As you pull the sheet back, you can now see the individual underneath it. It is a man who is sort of similarly torn up in the way that the other body was. However, this is a fresh one. And you can tell just by visually comparing the two.

And I think you're like so sort of struck by the, again, like grievousness of these wounds that it actually takes you a little bit longer. to look at the face of this person. And when you do, you see the face of Gregor, the technician you were talking to outside. And as you notice that, the door into the morgue starts to swing open. Maximumfund.org.

Comedy and culture. Artist owned. Listener supported. Hi, I'm Biz. And I'm Teresa. And we host One Bad Mother, a comedy podcast about parenting. Whether you are a parent or just no kids exists in the world, join us each week as we honestly share what it's like to be a parent.

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