The Adventure Zone - The Adventure Zone: Amnesty - Episode 35

Episode Date: September 12, 2019

The defenders of Kepler, West Virginia continue their desperate struggle for survival. A world away, a softly spoken truth reverberates down a subterranean chasm. The Pine Guard’s destiny waits below. The penultimate episode of the Amnesty campaign. 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. Minerva finds herself uncharacteristically unprepared for what she sees through her portal. It is not Sylvain. What Minerva sees is light. Pieces of a puzzle that she's been solving her entire life begin sliding slowly closer together. He holds out this black case, and inside you see that orange brick, the explosive simtex. One of the three of us is known to spontaneously catch fire. So I'm going to hand it to the adjudice.

Dahlt, duck. What is it that you hope to accomplish? Peace. I'm looking for peace. Everybody seems to be like re-energized. You can hear the interpreter's unspoken pleas. You have powers beyond anything I've ever seen, Aubrey. You've restored life to the dead. Aubrey, you're not from Sylvain.

You are, Sylvain. So when you say I am Sylvain, Do you mean that in the way of like if like a lieutenant said to like a loose cannon cop like I'm taking you off the street? And the loose cannon cop said you can't take me off the street. I am the street. You say this and your voice is just like echoing throughout this massive subterranean chamber as the elevator reaches the observation floor below. And like right now, Aubrey, everybody is just looking at you. And Janelle responds and she says, yes, only in this example, you would be like.

literally correct. You would be the street. Well, okay, but like, I, okay, Janelle, I don't mean to poke holes

because, listen, I love, I love fan theories, and you've got yourself a great one there, but like, I was a kid, uh, in, you know,

earth, uh, I have parents. Uh, I, you know, had, uh,

first kiss. And then the same night, a second kiss. It was a good night. And I've, you know, I grew up and I went to school. I'm not a planet. You're interrupted by a voice you hear in your mind as Alexandra is now speaking to you. And she says, Miss Sylvain, I humble myself before your blessed presence and beseech thee to intervene for the sake of your children. I offer up my spirit to receive your. Ow, quiet, quiet, quiet, too loud, too loud. I offer up my spirit to receive your voices. My forebears did before. Alexander, I hear you? Cool. I guess your spirit's mine now. I'm trying to talk to Janelle.

Janelle? Vincent grabs your hand as he's kneeling to the floor and he says, Sylvain, my protector. I would like to confess my sins and vices, my most brilliant light. Okay, I do kind of want to hear your sins and vices, but we'll do that later. Janelle, how do you mean? Am I, like, possessed by Sylvain? I'm not entirely sure of how your relationship. works, Aubrey, but when you look at what you are capable of, when you look at what you can do, there is no other answer. You do magic, too. What are you talking?

Like, I'm not the only person who does magic. I've never revived anyone as a ghost. I've never brought, I've never re-energized my, my cohorts, Aubrey. I feel it now. I feel your energy flowing through me, making me stronger. I, Aubrey, I don't know how to talk. talk to you right now. I've just discovered that you are the divine planet upon which I walk. So this is weird for all of us. Janelle, you said those words out loud. Like you know how

I'm not, I'm not, you're not walking on me. I'm, I am a person standing over here talking. And I'm, I have, you know, hair. Planets don't have hair. Uh, you hear a rumbling, uh, from, from below as you, uh, peek over the edge of this observation platform. And you see below you, you see, you know, beneath this massive crystal, this void that just stretches down as far as your eye can see. And you see faint red light sort of flashing through it. And down there, you hear the quell. And obviously, like, it is hard for you to tell by these noises what it is saying, what its

intentions are, but you can tell that it is, it's angry. And Janelle says, Aubrey, listen to me. Has my wisdom ever led you astray? No. Well, you kind of fucked up with the mountain thing. That was my part. Yes, that was my bad. Everybody gets one.

Everybody gets one. I don't want to get him. I mean, everybody gets one. We will figure out the hows and the whys and the what fours after we have saved our planets. But Aubrey, you need to trust me. You hold Sylvain within you. You hold Sylvain within you, and the quell is furious and attempting to destroy both of our worlds because the quell thinks that Sylvan is gone forever. The quell is the counterpart to the light of Sylvain.

There are two halves of one whole. They're the force that holds this world together. And right now it's raging because it thinks sylvain is gone. But you've got to show it, Aubrey, you need to show it that it's in you. The quell loves you. Quail's crazy about you. Okay. And Vincent speaks up.

He says, okay, wait, if she's supposed to show the quill that she's, Sylvain, why don't we just go back upstairs and, you know, find one of those weird bug monsters or whatever, and she can just say it like, hi, I'm Sylvain. Nice to see you again. I'm not sure it works that way. What do you think, Janelle? These monsters are just mere projections. You will need to, as corny as this sounds, speak. to the heart of the quell. It feels dangerous though, right?

Like, I, this seems... Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. On our world, you can get sick from, like, cell phones. I can't imagine it's a good idea to be close to the quell. Okay.

I just want to, listen, I'm buying with that. There's an element of danger and basically everything we've done for the last, like, forever. And so that's cool. I just want to make sure we were all on the same page about how heroic the thing I'm probably going to end up doing this. Okay, cool. It's going to be epic. It'll be an epic story. Oh, cool. Thanks, Thacker. Okay. Onward and downward, I guess. He's just picking back up on the lingo, I guess. Oh, I see. Okay. Yeah, we don't want to do an epic fail. Oh, and Kelly's flossing. Oh, no. That's flossing. Um, you all hear a gasp from, uh, behind you and you turn to see

Alexandra and she's leaning over, uh, one of the sides of the viewing platform. And, she shouts, something's coming. And from below, you hear this deep, amplified whistling, and you look over the edge and downward off this viewing platform and you just see gray.

The red light that was flashing below is just gone, and now it's just gray, dark gray at the bottom of this chasm. But the whistling, it continues and it gets louder and louder, and you realize that this gray is moving. toward you like water boiling over a pot and then it's it's right on you and it stops just at the edge of the viewing platform and there's like wisps of it just rolling over your shoes it's it's stopped right there and it's that same sort of cloud that you saw in in the archway room it's the same like smoke that you saw in the main drag outside and it's just rushed upward to meet you and stop just shy of

like consuming this entire chamber that you're standing in and it's just formed this sea of gray fog and at your feet. It's silent in the room and Vincent says, this is going to be very bad, isn't it? Yeah, I mean my guess. What the fuck is this? Something answers your question and it's not any of you all. You see a small spire form in the fog just as something shoots upwards through it. You see just a small red shape just pop right up through the smoke. And as that appears, Vincent takes like a step from the edge of the platform and he's holding his cheek with surprise. And when he pulls his hand away, he's got a little bit of blood.

He has a small cut on his face. And then you see dozens, hundreds more of these holes form in the mist as other small red bird-like creatures begin flying around the room, encircling the crystal in a flock. And as they go, you also see just like crawling up the walls. You see these red tubes. almost like veins, like branching off one another and just encircling this entire chamber. And some of them, like the tallest of them, start reaching with, like, sickly arms across the void toward the crystal. And you also notice that a few, like, stalks of these, like, red tubes have started to encircle the edges of this viewing platform that you're standing on, just wrapping around its heavy supports, just creeping in your direction.

What do you all do? Who wants to go first? So you said there's like a swarm of things, right? Yeah, it's like a one of those coordinated swarms, like a murder of crows. Like a murder of crows, you say. Or a conflagration of flamboyance of flamingos. Yes. And they are just like they are picking up around the edge of the room and starting to circle back towards the platform.

I am going to do a blast of magical flame, young wizard. This is just an attack, right? Yes. Okay, let's see it. Kick some ass. Ooh, that's a good ass kicking. Plus two, because currently, I'm still down one, right? You are still down one, yes.

So that gives me an 11. Okay, what extra effect do you want to do in addition to your damage? I'm going to move it where I want it to keep it from flying at us. Oh, interesting. Okay. So like a big enough blast that I both do damage and probably they're, heat is like going to seared some of them away, you know? Okay, I like that.

Yeah, how much damage does your, because I know you've, like, upgraded your nasty magic. It is four damage total. Holy shit. Yeah, two harm for fire and too harm for blast. Okay. I mean, with that, like, like three quarters of the birds, as they like all swoop and dive down at your party, are just incinerated instantly, and they just turn into this red mist that you see just get sucked back down into the cloud. And the rest of the birds, like,

you have your hand outstretched and a few of them like zip by it and your hand gets cut up a bit for, for too harm. But as they fly away, you notice that you have just like, you have, you have obliterated pretty much all of them at this point. And just a few, a scant few birds are now beginning their loop back around the room. Thacker, what do you do? I think Thacker jumps off the observation platform into the gray mist. Okay. Thacker's gone. Duck, what do you?

That's a chill run. Dad, you got a third character lined up there? So what's up? What's Kirby been up to? I've always had another character lined up. Do you just do it? Do you say any dope shit before you do it or do you just do it? Dad's just trying to fill out our fucking action figure.

lot. Make the show a little more toy addict. This is the one. Do you remember he did this for two episodes? Lightning Boy. Yeah. It's weird. So weird.

He's watching all this going on. He sees Aubrey, you know, fighting off the, the birds. He sees duck, you know, planning whatever he's going to do. And I think he just stares down into this pit, that giant gray mass remembers that that's where he had the big confrontation with the heart. and says, you ask me if I was coming. Here I come. It just leaps off the observation platform heading for the mist.

Okay. As Thacker fooons off the edge of the viewing platform, he sends just a cloud of this mist just like shooting upwards as he leaves like almost a cartoonish Thacker-shaped hole in the cloud. and you you see him fall. Thacker, why don't you act under pressure for me? There's an eights plus minus one because you wouldn't let me do the other things.

Right. Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, just another day. When you have to act under pressure due to a monster phenomenon or mystical effect, you may roll plus weird instead of plus cool. Okay. Plus weird to eight is a ten. Facker, you feel like, you've felt this before. You feel this cool mist, like blowing across your face as you dive into the platform.

And you feel it trying to take you over. You feel it trying to take you over. And as you are like resisting it, you feel dismissed. Get angry. And you suspect that like you are the only one in the room who could pick up on that. And you also see like, red streaks soar by you as

more entities like climb up the walls of this room to attack the people coming in from the top and you manage to for whatever reason not just get completely you know demolished by one of these things and

let's just leave Thacker following for a little bit. Duck what do you do? I'm going to start hacking at the things that are trying to ensnare the platform. Okay. There's basically, like, there's some on the left side of the platform where Vincent is standing, and then there's some on the other side of the platform where Janelle and Alexandra are standing. Janelle, like, ran over there to pull Alexandra

away from the edge. I'm going to head on over to Vincent's side, because I think that those other two have a handled. Okay. You're just got, you're going to do, you're going to kick some ass? Yeah, kick some ass. Whatever the ass of weird pipe vines are. Listen, we learned this from the expansion children's book for this game. Everything's got an ass. That's 20 D6. That's 2026. Whoa.

Wow. We really got it. No asses are left. You roll a 66. Wow, cool. That's pretty close. 11 plus 2. It's a 13.

Jesus Christ. And I. have an advance move. Ooh. I'll kick some ass when I level up. It took advanced. What does it do now? I can pick an enhanced effect on a 12 plus, which is what I have.

Oh, my God. I'm going to, my attack drives the enemy away in a route. God. So that is what I'm going to do. Okay. Because that's all I need it to do. What's this look like? I kind of feel like he's frantically sort of like watching someone chop

at vines that, you know, growing on the side of their house in a rage, I think that Beacon is so excited to have something to hit repeatedly that it's almost kind of a blur, just him swinging beacon over and over again, just hacking them with what appears to be from the numbers, a real intense brutality. Yeah, sure. Okay, you, I think with that extra effect, like the harm is no longer important. Like this thing, you just sever it and it like sprays this, this red mist up and into the air as it unspools from where it was holding onto the platform and it falls down into the mist. And you see like the other arm that was holding this like spasm in a panic and also fall back down. And some of these veins that were like all around the walls also kind of

start to slink. The ones that were reaching out towards the crystal like these long sinewy red arms, they just now they droop down and like splash down into the mist. And then Duck says, looks like that time, Swordman had the edge. Guys, I'm thinking about Swordman. Is that, is that anything? If you go with Swordman. You're in the pit. Oh.

You're in the pit. You see Janelle and Alexandra take a step back from where that other tentacle just kind of got destroyed. And you see them like, as they take a step back, the edge of the viewing platform that they were standing on, like completely collapses from where this, this tindral, uh, started to smash against it. Uh, and you can tell that Janelle's like, mind is reeling about what to do. And she turned to the two of you and she says, I know you haven't known Thacker all that long. I haven't either, but, um, should we trust him? Oh, with the jumping? Um, you know, it's pretty

shitty up here and it's probably a little shittier down there but it's just going to get shittier up here so yeah and Aubrey jumps okay duck you are now standing on the platform with Vincent who looks like shit his pants terrified that everybody's jumping off the platform uh and Janelle shrugs her shoulders and uh Alexandra looks kind of nervous but like grips her hand tight and the two of them jump off the platform and now it's just you and Vincent and Vincent says, um, someone should stay up here and defend the elevator,

I think. Are you volunteering or were you hoping I would? I'm just saying they could get up the elevator and hurt all the people up in the castle. And so I'm going to, I'm going to protect these survivors. And he goes and he stands on the, uh,

on the elevator and, uh, you know, strikes a, strikes a combat pose holding his spear. And he says, um, and,

uh, you've got, an appointment, I think, up the center of the world. So, um, good luck, duck. Yeah, you kind of volunteered me to jump off the elevator, huh? I wish you the luck of the ancient duck. That's, that's nothing. I wish you all the luck of the stars and the birds like swooped down and he like eviscerates a couple of them and like kind of weaves around him. He says, okay, this is fun, but it's pretty bad up here, so... You don't have to goate me into it.

I fall off the edge. That's a sore man original. Duck, you are falling. You know what? Aubrey wouldn't need to. Duck, why don't you roll to act under pressure? God, in heaven. That's another 11.

Roll 20 knows. When we're in a finale territory, it knows. Yeah. Duck, you felt this way, like, slightly when you were in the room in the FBI headquarters where the archway was, but now you, like, now that you're closer to the, to the core, like, you feel like this thing is trying to take a hold of you. And it's like nothing. It is like nothing.

You shrug off the quell's influence just effortlessly. Plus my two, I rolled a 13. Okay. So my other advanced one that I got was act under pressure. So I'm going to add you may either do what you wanted and something extra or do it what you wanted to absolute perfection. I want my something extra to be, I want them to be afraid. You want the monsters to be afraid? Of me.

Okay. He is dodging so good. I want them to wonder what I am. I want them afraid. You step off the viewing platform and the world just disappears and you feel. feel this quiet, cold mist just whipping past your face, and you're falling through this dense, opaque cloud for what feels like ages, and you don't see anybody else who leapt off until, as quickly as this cloud enveloped your senses, you pass through the bottom of this strata of fog,

and now you're falling down through just this gargantuan cavern, bigger even than the one you were just in. and you're going downward, closer to the core, and you see things in this room on the walls climbing up through the passage you just fell through, and you see it by this pulsating red light. And the pulses are like slow, and you see these things, like just nightmarish, enormous insects,

and these huge, like, snakes, and these fast kind of, like, creepy, twitchy apes and all of these different like beasts made out of this red material, all just like clambering up towards the surface. As you fall and you get closer to the core, that pulsing duck, it starts to pick up. It starts to get a little bit faster. Almost like there is something happening to the quell where it is,

you are doing something that it did not anticipate. And you see all of these different beasts start to react. You see these like apes that were like clambering all over. other to get upward. Now they're like fighting each other to jump back down. And you see one of the snakes, like this huge bullet train-sized snake, just like fucking nope, right back down the hole from whence it came. And then right below you, you see the rest of your party also falling, you know, several dozen feet in front of you. Aubrey waves. Aubrey waves at you. Thacker is at the bottom and you see Janelle and Alexandra all just like falling.

And while like a lot of these, you've turned away a lot of these beings, you see some of them begin to strike. You see some like, you see a mass of these insects sprout wings and start fluttering toward you and you see a few of these apes like howl and point at you and coil their legs and spring towards you like a bullet. And then the wall that they leapt from explodes and they disintegrate. And the insects disappear in this cloud of debris, sending this red mist spraying in all directions. And as the chaos settles, you see two enormous eyes appear as all of you land gently and neatly in a 10-foot-wide paw. Aw. And you see Heathcliff effortlessly swatting away these beasts and he's smiling. Who's a good boy?

You know I don't like that, but right now, Aubrey, it's me. Yes, you are. A world away, the town of Kepler, West Virginia, continues its unlikely battle against a would-be cosmic conqueror. Ranger Juno Devine races through the cramped hallways of City Hall, a crashing wave of quell terrors close behind. She slides beneath a makeshift barricade into the City Council Chambers, leaping over rows of folding chairs with track star grace and ease.

The horde, several dozen strong, barges in behind her, annihilating the defenses hastily built by the combined strength of the West Virginia Forestry Service. Juno vaults a wooden railing, leaps off of a counselor's desk and onto the stage at the far side of the room. She takes a beat and surveys the size and ferocity of the coming storm. Then she looks to her side and nods. A thick fire curtain drops inches in front of her. She dives backwards as the quell terrors collide with the thick, reinforced fabric. She smiles.

Little secret about the Forestry Service, gang. We confiscate all manner of stuff trying to prevent forest fires. The beasts scratch at the curtain, their fury mounting. And unfortunately for y'all, I'm a pack rat. The doors into the chamber slam shut. Juno shouts a command from behind the curtain. Objects rain down from the gallery above.

A gas canister. A propane tank. Crackling projectiles from a Roman candle. The West Virginia Forestry Service cheers in unison as the otherworldly horde burns in a deluge of flaming contraband. East and down the river, Keith leads a squadron of Lord. Hoyle Hornets against the nightmares pouring from a nearby rift. The stunt crew has been routed, driven to the flimsy roof above the skeletal remains of their

former headquarters. As his companions throw bricks, boards, and buckets at their emboldened attackers, Keith's mind races with fear. He looks for a way out. He looks for hope on the horizon. He finds hope flying down the side of Mount Kepler. Hollis leads the remaining Hornets, biking in formation, down the drag from cliffside, breaks sliding into the dirt lot surrounding the Hornet's nest.

The beasts turn to face them, but Hollis pays them no mind. Through the visor of their helmet, Hollis grins and nods at Keith. Keith smiles with relief on the verge of tears. Hollis holds up a hand and their squadron revs their engines in unison. The terrors charge and... the bikes peel off. They snake in a perfect line, a furious circle around the battlefield.

Dust whips up, mixing and overtaking the quell's supernatural storm. The beasts wail in protest. On the roof, Keith dons his helmet. The others do the same. One by one, they leap down, back into the storm, back into the fray.

And atop Mount Kepler, Minerva and Leo Tchaesian stand back to back, their blades cleaving air and quell flesh in a synchronized psychic dance. Leo growls, ramming his broadsword through the gut of an enormous vulture, grimacing with effort as he slams it to the ground in a shower of red mist. He kicks the terror off his blade and gasps with exhaustion as he turns to check on his fellow warrior. Minerva stands in a readied crouch. Her blade held above her head and outward, her other hand outstretched in a fencer's pose. A knee-high pile of quickly decomposing quell invaders lie at her feet. She is completely motionless, even her breathing indiscernible.

Leo catches a glimpse of her expressionless face in the moonlight. Minerva, not to, uh, not to, you know, quibble when we're fighting for our lives. and all, but you are, you are all there now, right? Her apprentice's words do not register at all. Minerva battles on pure reflex and instinct. Her mind is sunken into a contemplative trance. She ponders the world of light seen just beyond the archway. She ponders her own fallen homeworld and the world she destroyed.

Outside of her mind, she strikes down another foe, within, she knows it to be a hollow victory. Minerva pays little heat to the battle at hand. She is, as always, thinking of the battle to come. We see a tranquil scene deep below the surface of Sylvain. An enormous open temple with pillars of white stone sits in the middle of a shallow pond, small streams of water fall from cracks in the ceiling above, raining down into this pond framing the building where small green beds of flowers have sprouted up

through ancient tiles and the scene is peaceful and still until Heathcliff Kool-Aid mans it from a wall behind this temple sending boulders crashing down into this pond and he wriggles through this makeshift tunnel that collapses behind him and deposits you all at the entrance to this temple. And it looks a lot more like verdant and lively than anything else you've seen on the surface. And Heathcliff says like he's preening now. He's like trying to get all the dust and debris out of his fur. And he says, boy, you all just, you all have to come up with better plans than that. You just, you just jumped into a jagged, craggy cavern.

Were you at least thinking happy thoughts? Well, my mom always said, if your friend jumped into a smoky cavern, would you? And it turns out, yes. So it all comes down to peer pressure. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, but you didn't even... You're blaming peer pressure. You didn't even put the peer pressure on it.

You just went. You didn't say shit. I did. I said, yes, when I was coming, blah, blah, blah, blah. You didn't say to us. You weren't like, hey, here's why I'm going to jump. I know something you don't. I just assumed you knew something we didn't.

Yeah, but that's the whole cool line thing. You don't want to have to explain them. I think next time you jump into a bit, you should give us like a one sentence synopsis of why. Well put. I accept your criticism. Yeah, so anyways, we didn't really have a plan, but it all seemed to work out. You know, I'm going to make you pay for this, right? Not in like an intimidating way, but in monetarily speaking.

You mean like literally? I guess I do mean it literally, yes. Like literally we're going to pay for it. Janelle and Alexandra are looking around this big stone temple, and you see Janelle like spark this green small like duber in the middle. of it and she smokes out and it's fucking funny. It's like family guy. No, she sparks this green flame and like makes a small campfire in the middle of this

chamber, which is actually like kind of cold. And Alexandra's like looking around with wonder in her eyes. And you all see like this is, this is obviously some sort of like ancient, you know, holy place. And there are also like dirty big Heathcliff paw prints all over it. so you can tell that like Heathcliff chills in here for whatever reason. And he says, yeah, I'm sorry. It was the only place I could think to take you where I knew it was safe.

So I got some dead fish. Ooh. I love that. Where are we right now in relation to the quill? Alexandra is like looking around and as she is looking, you see Janelle like kind of smiling at her. and Janelle says, tell them, Alexandra. And she turns and she says, I think we're right above it.

And she walks towards the rest of you all around this green fire. And she says, so if I'm right about this, when an interpreter comes of age, they make their pilgrimage to this place. It's called the source. And it's the nearest that a sylvan is allowed to approach the core where. You know, Sylvain dwells, or I guess where the, um, where the quell dwells as well. That was unintentional. That was nice, though. Yeah.

Very nice. And Janelle says, and I'm, I'm guessing from the paw prints that mar every inch of this sacred place that Heathcliff has been helping himself to this temple's font of arcane energies. Is, is that right, Heathcliff? And he makes like an a nice stinker face. And that would explain all the big cat duties around. Hey, Heathcliff, did you used to be a normal cat? and then you got hit by these gamma rays or whatever,

and now you're like a wild giant smart cat. He puts his pinky claw like up to his mouth, and he's like, I'll never tell. Okay. Yeah, well, something happened. Yeah, that's what I did. Aubrey steps up into the green light, so it's really dramatic looking, you know?

Yeah. Really cool. Everybody, we have a second here. I need to like take a moment of, Aubrey time and like breathe and think for a second, I'm going to go like step over there and she just kind of generally points somewhere else. So just give me a minute and Alexandra, please don't like think any thoughts at me, please. Um, okay, uh, okay, I'll go over there and like sing a little song or something to distract myself. Okay. Does anybody have any puzzles or some small

puzzles or games? Probably not. That was stupid. Duck, you always have puzzles. All right, so if the man had seen the sawdust, he wouldn't have died. It's a lateral thinking puzzle. You can now ask me yes or no questions. But that was like a, now that's a thinking puzzle, duck, just like a what is invisible? Okay. It's an animal, vegetable or mineral? Now listen, it's invisible and it doesn't, You can't see it. You can't smell it. You can't taste it. But if you put it in a barrel, it'll make the barrel lighter.

Aubrey walks away. Helium. Helium. It's helium. It's incorrect. Aubrey, you walk away leaving them entertaining Alexandra in the distance. What are you doing? So Aubrey's going to kind of do a little meditation thing to try to talk to the magic like she has before.

Okay. Um, okay, so magic. It's me, Aubrey. Um, any guidance at all, anything, um, any explanation, um, over and out. I think it takes a while. And as you are, as you are meditating in this otherwise serene place, uh, except for all of the riddles happening nearby, and even the sound of that is drowned out

by the water falling eventually. It takes a while for you to get in a place where you are able to have this conversation. And it's not really like before. It's you can't see her. You've seen her before, but like right now, you cannot. But you can, you can sense her in a way. then you can sense like her experiences.

You can sense her memories. And you did this once before with Alexandra, but this time it is obviously more powerful because you are remembering something from a deity's perspective. You are in the center of the planet. And just like looking all around at creation as you are just sort of constantly in a state of just always doing and the quell is there too.

And the two of you have these, like, shifting forms. You don't necessarily have just this one actual tangible form. And you're just sort of like marveling at the world. And then something happens that's actually happened a few times as of late. You sense the fear and the anger and the aggression of your people. And you leave the quell behind. And you go upwards. You just go up and into the crystal where, you know, you usually interface with your people.

And now you see them like in their battle attire, standing in defense around the castle, some of them charging down the main drag at this platform at the edge of town where the archway appeared. And through that archway, you see humans coming in and you see them pushing a, a small like metal, it looks like a tube from a distance, and it wheels on wheels towards you, and you see somebody light a fuse at the back of it, and it explodes, and then you are shattered. It glances the side of this crystal that you are in, and now, like, for the very first time ever, you are disconnected from it. You are contained within a shard of it. And you see others. You catch your reflection in other shards as you fall to the ground. And with that explosion,

you hear more and your people retreat. And you're just lying on the ground, looking upward, until a hand picks you up and whisks you away back through the archway. And when you like finish that memory, you like, you get the sense that it's not complete. It's like a friend telling you a story, but you can tell that, like, they are not telling you the whole version of it. You get the sense that, like, there are some walls up between the two of you. That's, that's, that is what happens during your meditation. I mean, is she still, can I still feel her, like, presence? You still feel her presence in the same way that you always have. But now you realize that, like, Like, the reason that you don't think you are, Sylvain, the reason that, you know,

the reason that you don't feel like you have the powers of a goddess necessarily are because you have, like, you have this separation between the two of you, even though she's, like, still within you. So you want to go back, right? I don't want to make you do anything you don't want to do. You feel so badly like you want to go back, back to the center of this planet and be restored. Okay, I will do this, but I have one question. What will happen to me?

You hear a voice and it is so muffled that you cannot make out what it is saying, but it is saying something in this divine tone, this warm and loving tone. You can't quite make out what it says, but it says something. that is reassuring. Okay. I trust you. I'll get you back. But I need your help.

I need you to fix whatever happened last time I touched the crystal. Help me. I'm... I need to be back at full strength. Hmm. I think if you were trying to like forge this connection again, if you are trying to like make this thing, make this connection as strong as it once was,

I think roll to use magic. Oh, yes. A 10 plus 2. 12. I think communicate with something that you do not share language with. Absolutely applies here. Yes. You see her a little bit clearer now, and still not all the way there. You still know that there is something separating the two of you,

but she is showing you more of her grace, and it feels unbelievable. And you can faintly see, like, a smile form. on her face. And as, as you do, you see another memory of hers. You see yourself in this crystal and you're being passed around sold from like curiosity shop to curiosity shop or held as treasures throughout these different families. And you see other wars on this planet. You see all of these events happening. And you are just powerless to do anything. You are completely dormant but aware of your surroundings inside of this crystal and, you know, horrified at what must be happening back home. And it's a terrible place to be until you end up in the possession of a family. And this family

seems like really genuinely like good-hearted, unlike a lot of the people who have tried to possess you in the past. And you start to feel yourself like becoming closer with this family. And you are handed down through generations and generations and generations. And then, Aubrey, like, you are now aware that you are being shown this memory for a reason. You see your mom in the delivery room, and she is wearing this crystal as a pendant. And she is pushing, right? She is trying to deliver you, Aubrey, and you see one of the nurses reach down to try and take the pendant off, and your mom just like leans over and bites her hand to keep her from from doing that and then abri you are born and sylvain is with you it's a hole a fucking hole if you put a hole in the barrel

somebody give me a fucking stick so i could draw on the fucking dart if you put a hole in the barrel the barrel gets light you can't put gas in the barrel that make you fucking sense Put a hole in the goddamn barrel, Thacker. Oh, a hole. Yeah. Okay. A hole. Jesus Christ.

No, no. Yeah. Well, when you say you like, yeah, it makes perfect sense, I understand. Put a hole in the barrel. Does it matter how big the hole is? Could it be a little hole? Fucking goat. Seriously, don't.

Beacon, get him. All right. Aubrey, you are awakened from your trance by this interaction and you feel powerful again. You feel you feel like you did before you touched the crystal. You catch a glimpse of yourself

in the water. Your eyes are still orange. But you don't feel, you don't feel drained. Yeah. In a way you feel whole again. Yeah. Both of our hands, igniting flame.

Yeah. Woo. All right. Now, duck steps over the same place that Aubrey just works. Oh, your turn? Okay. And he stands in silence and then you guys hear distantly,

dear, sword, Jesus. It's been so long since I, all fucking, you promised me you had something real. Never mind. Sorry, guys. He said he had a real thing he had to do. I didn't realize he just being a dips shit. This whole time, Janelle has been, like, walking around the temple and just, like, poking at things and trying to just, like, get the lay to land. and eventually you see her walk over to the edge of this temple and she walks over to the edge and he's like suh

yeah what's up you think i've been waiting why are you should wait where's bono you promised bono is here he's coming he's coming i promise he just stopped up a gas he'll be here my dad knows bono i'm telling you my dad edge my dad edge c your notes. She takes a step off the edge of the temple into this pond

and this land like beneath the water rises up to meet her foot. And she just walks like that with this land rising up,

keeping her out of the water until this stone platform rises up. And you all can see it. She illuminates it

with the same sort of green torches. and it is just this large stone, like, diamond-shaped plate in the ground, and it's surrounded on all sides by this, like, barricade of white rope that is tethered to these poles in the ground surrounding it. And Heathcliff walks over curiously to it, and he says, oh, you've found it.

Okay, well, I'm sorry. I should have told you about that. Part of me hoped that I could still, like, continue wheezing the juice, as it were, but yes, that is where it is, and Janelle looks annoyed. Janelle says, this is a door, or it's a well, to be precise, that goes straight to the core, a straight shot, no, no resistance. This will get you there if, and she looks at you, Aubrey, and she says, if you are ready to face what you will meet.

Sure. I know that didn't sound very definite, but like, yeah, okay. If you had asked me yesterday, probably no. But here we are. And so, yeah, sure. Were you asking all of us or just? Yeah, she looks at the two of you, too. She says, Doc Thacker, are you ready?

I mean, I'm damn near impervious, so I feel like in for penny in for a pound, right? And I'm real old and I really have been counting on, you know, not surviving this anyway, so yeah, what to hell? Character three. Move on to a young, young, sexy ingenue with a talent for daggers and a love for trouble. Well, now I can't use it, Jews, thanks.

Spoiled it. That's mine now. Heathcliff says, just a heads up, gravity starts to fail. The closer you get down there, it's going to feel super weird, actually, but it should keep you from just splattering against whatever's down there. Yeah, I was going to say, we're going to need gravity to fall. Yeah. We're going to fail. You all step up under the plate and Janelle says, I will shut the door behind you to ensure that the quell does not invade this sacred place. I, Aubrey, I don't, I've loved Sylvain as, as all of us do. All of us on this planet. All of us are born doing. But I, uh, I, I care for you, Aubrey. Not just the goddess that shares your form, but for, but for, but for, but for, but for,

you, child, so please come home safe. Oh, okay, now that you've said something, I was just going to die, but now, no, of course I will, Janelle, of course, come on. I know I shouldn't be saying this to the divine heart of my planet, but you can be a real butt sometimes. I know, buddy, I know. She raises her hand, and as she does so, you start to see these lines form in the plate below you, and the three of you are like lifting up slowly from this platform. And this diamond platform, it like splits into quarters, which start to rotate away. And as they do, they split further and further. And they just fracture into these perfectly symmetrical polygons that form a ring around you. And they're just crackling with energy as they rotate faster and faster. And then that energy dispels.

And you are shot downwards, like from a cannon, surging. through laylines and through the mantle of the planet. Hey everybody, this is Griffin McRoy. I'm your dungeon master, your best friend, and the starting quarterback for the 1997 Miami Dolphins. Thanks for listen to the Adventure Zone Amnesty, Episode 35. So the next one, episode 36, is going to be the finale of the Adventure Zone Amnesty. We're wrapping it up in the next episode.

And that's a wild thing to say. It's a wild thing to be true in my life right now. And it means that we're going to be moving on to the next story very soon. And we're going to be telling you about it very, very soon. Going to take a little break where we're going to put up some of our wild live shows that we've done recently, which have been other games, other worlds, other short stories. They've all been so fantastic. And I'm really excited that you all are going to finally hear them.

And then excited that we're going to be able to tell you about what we're doing next. But yeah, the next episode is episode 36 is going to be the final episode of Amnesty. And I cannot tell you how much your support has meant to all of us and to me this season as we tried out this new thing. It's been great. And I hope that you have enjoyed this story, enjoyed your time in Kepler and Sylvain and everywhere else this season. We had to push this episode back a week. So the goal is to have the finale, Episode 36, up next Thursday, September 19th. If you remember from Balance, the finale for that one was quite late because we wanted it to be,

you know, good. We wanted to be, to be, you know, special and deserving of, you know, the conclusion of the story we were telling. That will probably happen again here. But we will keep you in the loop as to when the finale is going up. And, yeah, I am excited to get there. But first, let me tell you about some of our sponsors. for this episode. Thank you to everybody who's been tweeting about the show using the Zonecast hashtag and you know, you're not going to end up as a character in amnesty. I'm afraid the doors are

closed on that, but who knows who knows what comes next. Regardless, we really appreciate your support and you all have been coming out in a big, big way for us as we move into the final episodes here. And yeah, I mean, we're going to gush and gush and gush all over the place. That sounds gross. but we are as we finish up Amnesty. And yeah, anything you can do to help, you know, get your maybe geeky, adjacent friends interested in the show. It means a lot. We've got a bunch of stuff at mackroyd.family, including, you know,

live show announcements and a bunch of merch. We've got a whole bunch of stuff, like fanny packs and pins and shirts and whatever the hell, man. I don't know what's on there. I don't have access to the internet. but you do, all at Macroyd. Family, we have other shows also that we are aligned with, spiritually and emotionally, at Maximum Fun. That is the network that we are a member of. Go to Maximum Fun.org. Check out all the great shows there, shows like Story Break,

beef and dairy network, and a whole lot more. That is going to do it for the ads. I'm going to let you get back to the rest of the episode here, the penultimate episode of the Adventure Zone Amnesty. Like I said earlier, episode 36, the next one is going to be the finale. Right now, the current plan is to have it up Thursday, September 19th. But we haven't recorded it yet, so God only knows if that is actually a realistic delivery date. We will keep you in the loop, though, as to when the finale is going to go up. And yeah, next time I talk to you, we'll be on the final episode. So see you then.

Bye. The momentum catches you off guard as all of your senses return. You're standing on a small grassy island. And it's about 20 feet in diameter. And there's a warm wind blowing. all around you, disturbing the grass on this small, lush plane, and then an object shoots by overhead, spun about by the breeze. It's another island, similar in size to your own, moving in a slightly faster orbit nearby. You stand in the core, and your body is light. You feel

like you could drift away from this island at any second, but for whatever reason, your feet remain planted to the ground, and all around you, chunks of land from seemingly different biomes are all circling the center of this just, like, mile-wide chamber. As you survey all of these islands around you, you realize where they come from. Every surface, every wall of this chamber is just full of life. It's full of, like, trees and grass and rivers and lakes and sand dunes and canyons, just all these reminders of the land that used to exist up on the surface, all just stored here around the perimeter of the core of the planet. And then your island that you're standing on, it begins to rotate.

And as it does, the heart of the quell dawns over its horizon. It is a perfect sphere, the most perfect sphere to ever exist, just flawless and reflective and deep red, and it's casting this warm light off of itself in flashes, in pulses. It is completely motionless, and yet it is seething, and you can't figure out how you know that. It just is, and all of you feel your teeth grit reflexively as it comes into view. There's no smoke, there's no cloud, there's nothing to obscure your vision. You stand in the core of the planet with the heart of the quell in the distance. What do you do?

I'm Sylvain. Hi. The sphere rolls. And it's like, it's far away enough that you can't really figure out just how big it is. But when you like look at all of these islands in its orbit, you discern that it is like cosmic horror big. As it rolls just faster than your eyes can decipher, there is a new light that comes into view. At the center of the sphere's surface now, facing. you, peering at you, is a hole in this flawless sphere. You see one of these huge islands like

lose its orbit as the heart shifts and crashes into this enormous eye and is consumed and destroyed by it. And just instantly, a red tindril shoots out of this eye and crashes into the side of your island, just instantly branching to form a loop around it, just lassoing it and beginning to retract it towards the center of the room, and it's howling as it does, and it's letting out this deep reverberant wail that rattles the walls of this chamber, forming cracks across the biomes. You see it drain a lake and just topple a forest, and you feel these reverberations in your bones, and in your inner ear, and you're able to make out a voice that says, So you've returned. Yes? I think she's talking to me, Sparky.

Uh, the quell says, Indeed, I was not addressing you, Aubrey Little. You refused to free me in the basement. You will be punished for that. How did you elude me, Arlo Thacker? Well, the last time I kind of just give in to you, I just kind of let you do that magic that you do, and I didn't fight you,

and kind of roll with the punches. Kind of open myself up to you. You remember, Before, I told you, if there's any way to avoid us having to slug it out, I think we ought to try to do that. It is nice to have you back even now at the end. And the eye turns back towards you now, Aubrey. I'm sorry, you probably didn't hear me before because I was a little far away, but I'm still vain. So there's no need for the end.

Act under pressure. an eight plus zero so an eight small wiry tindrills whip out of the side of the larger tindrel that is wrapped around your island

and they all whip at you, Aubrey, and you reflexively, you are able to dodge out of the way of them but two of them whip across your stomach and as you dodge away and you take two

harm. And you hear the quell say, This is heresy. And the eye shifts at you, Duck. And you hear the quill say, I do not know this one. Oh, yeah. I'm the only one you don't have a history with, huh? You know, you're probably wondering why I'm here. And, uh, yeah, I mean, I could wonder the same thing, honestly. Uh, But I guess we're just trying to get things a little calm.

Seems like both our worlds are getting torn apart, and we're just hoping that you'll kind of pump the brakes a little bit. The eye, like, now unfocuses from all of you and opens wider, and it starts to retract this island deeper towards it even faster now. And you hear the quell say, it is centuries too late for us to find peace I tried to warn you

you should have stayed where you were to perish with the rest of them I'm going to do some big magic Jesus, okay so Aubrey is going to close her eyes and say okay Sylvain I need

this it's time this is uh it's time to do our stuff. This is big magic, right? You are trying to conjure up Sylvain. Correct. I am going to say, I get to decide what the requirements are for this big magic. Correct.

I am going to say, you need two people to help, clearly. Yeah. And in the context of this, I think that just means keeping you alive as you are attempting to do this, because the other thing that I'm going to say that this requires is the spell will take a long time to cast. Okay. Duck and Thacker, you see Aubrey close her eyes in the same sort of meditative state that you saw her upstairs. And the eye like whips towards her as she does this and does not slow it's its retraction.

You are now like, you are now getting close enough to this thing that like the heat from it is getting a little bit, a little bit unbearable. and Aubrey does not seem to respond to it. All right, then I think that this is where Thacker would use psychic event and maybe do that to try to calm it down. Okay. Roll, I guess, plus weird. 10 plus two for weird. That's a 12. Very weird.

Really weird. Extremely weird. Yeah. Not the weirdest it could be, but definitely weird. Extremely weird. You gain a definite impression about something important. here, here's what I'm going to give you. As it is right now, the quell is furious beyond reason. The quell is as single-minded as anything could possibly be. And right now, you are standing in, in the way of its, like, unimaginable violence.

That is, that is what the quell is operating on right now. All of your, please for for peace or whatever are are just not being heard whatsoever but the thing i will also give you is that deep deep deep inside there you sense a a small bit of sadness at just the mention of sylvain's name it's not enough to like make make the quell you know change its mind right now it's not enough to like derail its mission it's it's crusade but it is it is it is there, but it is behind this wall of just raw, violent

power. Duck, what do you do? I'm just going to try to talk to it. Okay. Hey, I know you don't know me from Adam up there ego, but can you just like calm down? What is

the rush right now? I'll be honest with you, man. I'm barely hanging in there in terms of comprehension. All right? I'm a Forest Ranger by trade. I'm extremely out of my depth. Can you just like walk me through what you are pissed off about right now? Maybe you're right.

That's something we learned in that we had to take a conflict mediation class last year. And it used up half my damn day. And I was pretty pissed at the time. But I did learn like sometimes it's just about like fucking listening. You know what I mean? Like where are you at right now? Maybe you're right. I have no clue.

Have you told it your name? Have you said it out loud? My name's duck. It's a nickname. You hear it say, Duck. I do not need a reason to destroy. Duck.

I am destruction, duck. And you see tendrils start to whip out of the larger tendril that is holding onto your island, the same kind that struck, that struck Aubrey. Now, wait a minute. Hold on. If you kill me, I can't tell you my real name. I know you're curious. You're curious, aren't you big crazy planet?

Act under pressure, duck. Oh, it is a six. Plus what? Cool. Eight. Okay. Can I help out? Well, you would only bring him up to a nine.

Yeah, I don't think there's any way to do that, unless Aubrey could help too. I'm busy. I'm going to, I don't usually deal with this one, but hell, it's finale. season. I'm going to give you a worse outcome. These tendrils are like raising up in the air like Cobra's about to strike. And then you all hear the wind next to you just, just whistling, and you look over just in time to see another island collide with your own. And both of them shatter and the three of you go flying. And now you are just caught in the orbit of this thing. Aubrey, you are still in this meditative state. You are just limp flying in the air.

and Thacker and Duck, you are no longer standing on anything. You are just sort of floating around the orbit of this planet, of the quell with these islands all around. You are meditating. What does this look like? What does this big magic look like? So I think it kind of looks like a conversation a little bit. I think she's trying to communicate with Sylvain.

And I think it's mostly right now going, like, listen, I know like that. that you were hurt, you showed me, you were hurt, and that that is scary, and it took you a long time to even trust us enough, to even connect with me like this, but this, it's time, let's, let's fix it, right? You are talking to this, this silhouette of Sylvain, and you, you feel it trying to open up to you. You feel it trying to, like, give you the power that you need right now, to give you, to give you what you need to stop the quell, but it is, she's just incapable of doing so. As you are in this

meditative state, you feel yourself become somewhat vulnerable, psychically. And as you're having this conversation and just this void, you see flex of red start to float upwards from the floor. I need you to act under pressure. A nine? Plus cool. Plus cool is zero, so a nine. Make success. What if, okay. I mean, she's in a psychic vision, like, I don't know how. And I have psychic powers.

That's a good point. Could I help out? Yes, absolutely. Why don't you roll to help out plus cool? Damn. Wow, that's double sixes, folks. 12 minus one. Is the minus one cool.

So that's 11. All right. That's generous. That bumps Aubrey up to a complete success. Uh, complete success. Here is what happens. All right. Guys, we're in the finale.

It's going to be dramatic. Please, no more borat. Okay, that's your opening offer is no more borat. I'm going to come in at three borat. And we'll see where we're going to. Now I'm willing to do two borat and a Napoleon dynamite. Aubrey, you feel this space where you are trying to talk to Sylvain. You see it drift away.

and then you hear the quell's voice. Interesting. Aubrey Little, I did not know. The guilt that you have carried with you since that night must be unbearable. You harbor such hatred and such shame. I can take that away. And then, Aubrey, you are standing in the living room of, your old house. And it's nighttime and there's soft moonlight spilling in through the windows

that are, it's illuminating the familiar trappings of your youth and whatever like brief moment of warmth or whatever you may feel is interrupted when you notice your father's unconscious body laying at your feet with a trickle of blood coming from his head. And at the top of the stairs, you catch a glimpse of a strange man up in the collections room with a flashlight in hand. And in front of you, you see yourself and you're on the ground with your eyes closed. And there's a burly silhouette kneeling over you, checking your vitals before nervously returning to the foyer. You see Ned. And he's panicked and he's angry.

and he runs up the stairs and he's shouting for his partner's attention, just begging him to leave. And you see yourself lift up off the floor. And you float behind Ned and you point at the man upstairs who looks at you just agog. As Ned does, as you see your hair begin to float up and your eyes turn bright orange. And you hold the fist up in the air and a ball of flame erupts at the top of the stairs. And then it freezes. In this moment where you are trying to forge this connection with Sylvain,

you left yourself vulnerable and you start to see this scene like crackle and turn red. And you feel just rage, external rage coursing through you. And then you hear Thacker shouting at you as if like from down like a long, a long, corridor. What does he say? Are you in my house? No, no. I'm in my, yeah, I'm in my, this is my house when I was a kid. No, come back. Hey, wait a minute. It didn't work. It didn't work. As you are, like, distracted by Thacker's tomfoolery, you, you see, like, this, this red crackling

start to drift away, and you feel this rage start to subside. I think she walks over to herself. Okay. I think she gently lays a hand on her own cheek and says, it's not your fault. The scene starts to move now very slowly. You see this ball of fire detonate in just this bright flash of light. And as it fades, you turn and you see Sylvain with Alexandra standing at her side. Duck, you are floating in orbit around the quell and its eye is following you.

You are surrounded by these shards of earth and stone. And you see some of them like get caught in the orbit and slam into other islands and just get destroyed. You are floating through space. What do you do? Am I able to control my, my, Trajectory? Thank you. That is exactly the word.

Um, at all? What do you try to do to control your trajectory? Is there stuff floating by, flying by? There's like, there's like shards and like planks of stone and stuff. All right, here's what I do. Are there someone in reach? Yeah, sure. All right.

Uh, while I'm floating in space, I see a big, sharp-looking log fly above me. And I pull out beacon and I whip, you know, make it go cord, corded. I go whip shaped and whip around it and spin around in the air as much as possible and try to chuck it at the quill. Okay. Why don't you? I don't even know if the physics of that fucking makes sense, but that's the only thing I can do. We're in a magical land, Justin. Yeah, I mean, the physics can be whatever you want them to be.

Are you trying to hurt the quell? What are you trying to do? Distract it. Okay. I hope that the quill cannot be damaged by some hastily flung logs. Turns out Driftwood was his one weakness. His one weakness. He's like a space trecola.

Then I think this has kicks him ass. Okay. Right. Or if you're trying to distract it, I guess it could be act under pressure. Yeah, I feel like probably act under pressure makes more sense, even though that's a... Okay. They're the same staff. Sure.

Go ahead and act under pressure, duck. That 10 plus... guys two that's a 12 right there when I need it you can take the advanced move you may do either what you wanted to do and something extra or you can do what you wanted with absolute perfection I want to do what I wanted with absolute perfection what is that I want to chuck that piece of wood and it's spinning end over in and it just like jabs in at the wildest most improbable angle. I want this thing to be afraid

of me. I want it to wonder what the fuck I am because it doesn't have any relationship to me and I just want its attention. That is all I'm trying to get to is I just want it to focus on me so Aubrey can finish her business. Okay. You

chuck this huge log into its side and it just spears into the quail and the room like vibrates. You said like the the flawless surface of this sphere, you send like a ripple through it. And that ripple like turns sharp as it goes. Like you see little cubes appear in the ripple as it is injured in this way. And it roars. And you see it.

It, it, as you like sort of come around the circle, you see that it was reaching towards Aubrey, uh, with just this like, like a splash of red fluid that is just sort of like emitting from its side, trying to just envelop her. and as you stab into it, you see that splash like spasm and fall limp and get sucked back up into the surface. Now, see, now, this is why it's so important in a conflict to keep focused on everybody else's needs. Because if you had been focused on my need right then, you would have totally seen that big stupid log coming at your dumb ass. It's eye turns towards you and it was just, it was kind of a bright yellow light before. Now it is furious red like the rest of it. And parts of parts of its body just like splashes of red fluid begin to whip out of it towards you, Duck, trying to envelop you. Thacker, it's your turn.

How close is Thacker to Duck? You were standing on this. They don't know each other that well. It's only been a few weeks. but they're sparks. You are in the same orbit. So I would say like you are fairly close to duck. You could get to him.

Okay. I tell you what, I think Thacker's going to continue the same strategy. He wants to distract the, distract the quail too. So he throws his spiked walking stick at it. It's act under pressure. It's the same thing he did, isn't it?

I mean, I will give that to you. You are not going to hurt it at all. I know. Just distract them. Oh my God, guys. That's a 10. Holy shit. What the fuck's going on?

Okay. It's the power of love, Griffin. Oh, but wait. It's a nine because you acted under pressure and you have minus one cool. Except. There he goes. Here he goes. When you have to act under pressure due to a monster phenomenon or mystical effect,

you may roll plus weird instead of plus cool. This is about a monster if you think about it. Um, okay, yeah. You set out to do... So it's a 12. It's a 12. You set out to do what you want to do. Uh, what happens, Thacker?

Um, I, hopefully it'll distract it enough that the tendrils will move towards me instead of duck. Uh, okay. Yeah, you throw your walking stick at it. Uh, and you throw it like near where this huge log has pierced into its side. Uh, and you're... It's just like Jason Statham and Meg. Hey, over here, over here. And smack on the wall.

I can't believe you just referenced fucking Meg on our podcast. If only there was a more well-known shark movie, you could have referenced. You throw your spear near where the log jabbed into its side, and because it is so, so much smaller, I think it's just kind of like, it gets in there a little bit and sort of dink, and you watch it fly off back into the orbit. But it does enough to make the quell turn back towards you, Thacker. And there's something about you that is just, like, inherently distracting to the quell.

You are, you are, and everybody else, really. You are a mystery to this thing. Like, you, you've figured that out when you just got inside its head. You are the only thing to ever be under its influence and then not be. So it turns towards you, Thacker, and sure enough, like, its tindrals just kind of curve in the air, and they start to wrap around you. Aubrey. Aubrey, this scene of the night of the robbery is moving in slow motion. The fire has just started to spread upstairs.

You see both of the men in this room react to it in slow motion. And there is Sylvain. She takes a step towards you, and Alexandra does too. And then Alexandra kind of like shakes out of it a little bit and then looks up at Sylvain and then looks at you. And she says, she dwelt within you your entire life, Aubrey, up to this moment. And she watched you grow up and she loved you and loved who you became. And then in this moment, Aubrey, when you were in danger,

she finally managed to rest control of the wheel. And in an effort to protect you, Aubrey, she destroyed your life. This is why she went into hiding, Aubrey, from the world, from the quell from you. She couldn't bear what she did to you and your family. You know, for an all-powerful god of creation and love, you're pretty dense.

Both of them look horrified. Well, no. Alexandra looks horrified. Sylvain looks kind of in shock. Listen, hear me out, okay? You've been with me, right? So for the last, however long it's been, year? I don't know, it all blends together, right? Me and Duck and Ned and Nowfecker and Mama and Barclay, we've all been trying to help people, right? And sometimes you fuck up. Sometimes people get hurt. Sometimes you can. can't. Sometimes you act and you do things and you're wrong. And if you let the fact that you've fucked up stop you from trying to help again, that's, that's the real mistake. I've fucked up so many times. You can't be afraid to help because yeah, you might hurt. But you also might

help. You just have to keep helping. Don't be afraid. I'm I'm not. I trusted you. You said, I don't know what you said, but it made me feel like it would be okay. And I believe you. And now you have to believe me. It's going to be okay. We can do this. Don't be afraid. As you are talking to her, as you are saying these things, the scene continues. And you see the two men run down the stairs by you as you're speaking. and you see Sylvain truly take her form. She looks like you, Aubrey, and that may just be an effect of how she came back into the world, but she looks like you, her hair is like this radiant shifting color.

She has these bright orange eyes that are starting to well with tears, and she walks up to you and she clasps her hands around one of your hands, and she smiles, and she gives you a kiss on the forehead. And, I mean, it blows your mind. She's a deity, and it's a wild thing that nobody has ever experienced before. and she takes a step back. And then she kind of cocks her head and grins and she points behind you. You see the house beginning to give way to the flames.

There's, you know, some of the infrastructure has started to collapse in the flames and framed in the doorway cast in this wild orange light. You see Ned dragging you and your father to safety as the embryo. The numbers drift past him and up into the quiet night air. Aubrey, you are awake. You see Thacker enveloped in the quell's form starting to pull him in. You see Duck furiously trying to free him. What do you do?

I don't think you heard me. I said, I am Sylvain. instantly the quail retracts its tendrils and duck and thacker go flying and the eye whips towards you Aubrey and you can tell it is terrified and overjoyed all at the same time and those three words boom through the chamber and Duck and Thacker, as you're flying around, you're catching glimpses of Aubrey, and she is just this bright orange flame. And you see this flame as she yells this phrase, just radiate through the chamber. And now, like, the gentle earthquakes that were sort of tearing apart the biomes around this room, they go ballistic.

And everything is shaking violently. and you see just like parts of the chamber just like ripping off the walls and like you see trees and rocks and rivers just slowly migrating toward the quell in the center of this chamber. And there is a large fissure in the ceiling that is spreading further and further apart. And slabs of rock are just falling through it into this like increasing cascade of things that are now caught in the orbit around the quail. And its, its tindral is close to you.

Aubrey reaches out her hand. And as they touch, light spreads from your finger. It spreads from the tindril, and everything goes silent. From the fissure above, all of you see the crystalline heart of Sylvain, now filled with searing, brilliant orange light as it falls into the chamber like a heavenly spear and the quell's eye gently closes. When your senses return, the chamber that you were just in has changed dramatically. The three of you are still just kind of floating, but you're no longer swirling around in this violent orbit.

In front of you, instead of seeing this perfect red sphere, now all you see is Sylvain. She's floating in front of you with Alexandra. at her side. And you also notice that, like, the chaos that had overtaken this room, all of these pieces of earth and all of these chunks of those biomes all around the walls have slowly started to move back into place, like pieces of a puzzle. And Sylvain takes a step towards you, and she is just surrounded by these, like, orange sparks, almost like fireflies, with Alexandra at her side. And she just looks at the three of you,

and she flashes this big, toothy grin. Hello, your planet ship? I think Duck takes a knee. I kind of puts a beacon in front of him and sort of in a sort of nightly pose. Thacker, what do you do? Well, this is basically somebody he's devoted his whole life to. I mean, well, studying. Yeah, yeah, sure. Sylvain and archiving all the things.

And I think he's just kind of stunned. I think he just, like a single tear runs down his cheek and he's just overcome. He's just stunned. I don't think he says a damn thing. Sylvain kind of like grimaces a little bit and Alexandra says oh gosh, none of that's necessary

oh gosh I mean thank you and it's really good to see the three of you alive and well I don't know what thank you obviously you're welcome how about that yeah

huh I think for Aubrey this is probably like at least the way that it probably feels like suddenly talking to an older sibling. Right. Yeah. Like you've both always had and never known and like feel connected to but also like don't really know all that well. And like it's got to be both like bizarre and comforting at the same time.

Yeah. She actually like flies very quickly towards you, Aubrey. and kind of like pushes you back in the air with like just a big hug. She is she has watched you grow up your entire life and now like she can touch you. And it's it is like it's all she wants to do is is give you a big hug. Does Aubrey feel any better? Not better, but does Aubrey feel any different? I'm curious as a as a listener and outside observer, this is not necessarily duck asking because this is all way fucking out of his pay grade.

I'm curious if, like, Aubrey's been kind of a vessel, I guess, for so long. Like, do you feel different with her not being inside of you? That's a good question, Griffin. Does they still feel connected? Does Aubrey still feel magical? I'm not going to answer that. I think that she pulls away from you and she, like, cups your face in her hands and looks at you and kind of pulls away a little bit. and she says, and Alexandra says,

So, uh, Aubrey, what is this? What does this mean for us? Are you breaking up with me? No, you, Aubrey, you've never known a life without my presence dwelling within you, but you've, you've finally brought me home, so what's, what's next?

I, I mean, I've enjoyed, wow, I was going to say working with you, but that doesn't even begin. And to scratch the service, I like being connected to you. We have done a lot of cool things and a lot of good for people. And, I mean, listen, I'm open to staying in touch, as it were, staying connected. But I don't want to take you away from your home. Are we...

Aubrey. When was the last time someone asked you what you wanted? And as she says that, you realize that that was. is the thing that she said to you that you couldn't quite understand when you were in the temple above? What do you want, Aubrey? Wow. I'll be honest with you, Sylvain, that is a big old question, right? Because right now, on, like, kind of the low end, he's like a sandwich.

Like, I'm really hungry. We've been doing a lot of shit today. and I haven't eaten, I had like a breakfast bar. Other than that, since basic. I offered you Gorp. I'm not eating that disgusting shit, Thacker. She says, No, Aubrey, I can be with you and be with my world and my people.

I can keep you with me and work with you from within. Tell me what you want, Aubrey. your destiny is no longer bigger than you, Aubrey. What do you want? I'd like to be able... I want to be able to explore and to experience and to make my own decisions. But I don't want to do that without you.

Listen, can I be honest with you? I like having power. I like being able to help people and protect myself and protect my friends. And I like that. I don't want to lose that. But I also want to be able to live a life where I make decisions and sometimes take a day off when I need to. And sometimes just stay in bed and watch cartoons if I need to.

So like... She kind of like rolls her eyes back like, oh, yeah. Right? And just like eat pizza without having to worry if me taking a day off is like the is going to destroy the world. Alexander says, I think we're both at that. And she nods at you and kind of hovers away. And then she looks over at you, Thacker, and sees you with this tear in your eye. She floats over to you and Alexandra says,

The three of you saved this world and saved me. But Thacker, it's because of you that the quell was spared also. I thank you, Thacker, thank you. It was my honor to do this, and I thank you for giving me a purpose in my life. She grins and Alexandra says, you've got more going on than just that, Thacker. Know this, though. The path that the quell walked is not so easily. traveled in reverse.

The threat is, is ended, yes, but I pray that one day the quell will return to me. And she bows. And then she floats over to you, Duck, where you are kneeling on the ground and just kind of looks down on you gracefully. We don't really need a thing. I know you and I don't really know each other, but we don't need to do a, uh, Don't feel like, I don't feel like short changed if we don't do a thing. Hey, this is all cool.

This is all great though. It's the, I'm all, I mean, I'm very pleased. Don't think that I'm like not. I'm thrilled. I just don't feel like we have to do a, you know, and I'm missing the most of all, Duck, because we're not. It's fine. It really is fine.

She smiles and just kind of shrugs. And she just put. a hand on your shoulder for a second, and it is the wildest feeling you've ever felt in your entire life. And then she walks backward towards Alexandra, and she nods at Alexandra, who walks towards the three of you and stands near you, and light starts to fill this chamber. Wait, wait, hold on. Um, okay, lights, light goes away from the chamber. Listen, Sylvain,

I don't know how many opportunities the three of us are going to get to speak face to face to, you know, a god. There's been so much destruction and anger and we've lost friends and is, what happens now?

What happens? She smiles. and floats over to you and just points at you. And she places a hand on your heart, and she just grins. And Alexandra at your side says, we'll figure it out together. And then the chamber's filled with light, and your vision fades. Aubrey and Facker,

the two of you awaken in a bed of flowers. And the sky above is a pale blue. There's a flock of birds, actual birds, not monster birds, that fly overhead, and you track them. While laying on the ground, you track them until your vision is obscured

by a towering orange crystal that is symmetrical and sprawling outward like the crown of a tree. And as the two of you sit up, you see the city of Sylvain as you never have before. You see it in daylight. And you see the survivors that were inside the castle that they've moved outside. They're moving the barricades away into the courtyard here. and they are seeing to the sylvan's that are beginning to awaken on the street. Aubrey, you see one of them like nursing a bruised, very badly kicked hand. And all of these people waking up on the street are just like shaking their heads.

They're bleary-eyed as if they're awakening from a long slumber. And near you, you see Vincent, who is tending to Alexandra and Duck, both of whom have yet to awaken. And Janelle is sitting with her back against the crystal, just so, so weary. She looks at you as you sit up, Aubrey, and Janelle says, Aubrey, I have great news. You can touch the crystal whenever your heart so desires. You know, I'm cool for right now. She smiles and she says,

I know it's time for celebration, but do you think they'd let us take a nap first? Oh my God, you read my mind. Oh, you know, I'm going to say as saviors of an entire planet, maybe even dimension, not sure how it works. I think we can probably take a nap whenever the fuck we want.

Uh, she laughs, and she says... Also a sandwich, if I could get a sandwich, I'm so hungry. I'm not your... You're made. I'm not asking you to know. You can have a sandwich, too. If someone could bring us just a big party platter.

As you're looking for a party platter, you hear a voice booming from the entrance to the courtyard that says, Hear me voices of evil. You're... Oh. And you look over and see Agent Stern with just like a big baseball bat that he's holding. And he says, oh, is it done? Yeah. Oh, y'all were gone for a while.

I thought maybe we could come, we should come help. Do you have a kind bar? And in walks with him, Mama and Minerva and Danny. And Mama's like, yeah, thank you. You missed your hero window there, bud. And Danny is just beaming. Just like, from being back home and seeing that you survived, Aubrey, she's like looking all around.

And when she sees you, she runs and just like tackles you to the ground. and she picks you up and looks at you and she says, so I have a super weird story to tell you that you are not going to believe. Oh, me too. Oh, man. No, trust me. Mine's going to blow your mind. Oh, really?

Because like, mine too. Like. No, like, seriously. Okay. You want to say it on three? We'll say it on three. Okay. One, two, three.

I had Sylvan living inside of me And then she Wait, what did you say? What did you say? I had Sylvain living inside me. What about Dr. Harris-Bongers? He like walks on two legs and stuff now. Huh.

You had Sylvain inside of you? Yeah, apparently this whole fucking time. Like since I was born, Sylvain, the goddess of, you know, your planet was like inside this one and she does like the two thumbs. And then we went downstairs and jumped down a pit. And then I talked to Sylvain.

She popped out, stopped the quell. And then, like, we hugged. What's up? I hugged your God. And then she, like, was like, we totally chilled for a bit. And then we're back here. And I saved your planet. But I'm not going to, like, play down your thing.

Because I would like to hear about my bunny that apparently. is now like the white rabbit from Alice in Wonderland. So can I like, can I still like hang out with you? Oh, absolutely. But do you know? Hey, I want you to know. Because she's not like, now we've got kind of a timeshare thing going on. But I want you to know when we kissed, you were kissing a god.

What's up? She like falls backward and like. I know. It's like about to faint. She's like, all right, can we slow it down? Yeah, I know. Hey, what's that like, huh? You are kissing a god.

And every time I ate burritos, a god was eating burritos. Mama walks over to you Thackeran and helps you up to your feet. And she says, so, uh, just like old times, huh? Kind of? I don't know there, Maddie. I don't know if I'd ever had any old times. quite like that. I tell you, though, it was really cool.

And I got so much to write down. I got so... We got a lot of work to do. We got a lot of work to do. Easy there, partner. How about... Are you feeling all right? Are you doing all right?

Oh, yeah. I feel top-notch, bud. But I think maybe let's put a brief hiatus on the work we have to do. I think it's probably time we sell it. maybe our retirement from Monster Hunting? Oh, screw retirement. It ain't... Retirement's not for me.

No, no, I got a lot of stuff to do. Maybe a little break. How about a hi-aids? What do you say we go celebrate the old way down at Brewster's Pub, huh? Assuming it's, you know, assuming it's still standing. Shuffleboard and wings? Yeah. Duck, finally, you, you wake up.

Next time I'm going to be unconscious, let me know, man. I'll go hit the head or get a power bar or something. You glimpse around to see what your cohorts saw a minute ago. You see the planet beginning to revive. And you also see Minerva and her battle robe is slightly torn and she is towering above you blocking out the sun. And she says, welcome back, Doc Newton. Oh, man, thank you. How did you hold up?

How was the fight and everything? She nods and she says, we did very well. It seems you did also. Yeah, I didn't actually end up beating a lot of ass. I mean, I'm glad I got to see it and everything, but I don't know. I hope I played my part. She kind of grins and looks to the side and bends over and a few feet away. way, she picks up beacon out of the grass and hands it to you. And she says, you've done the

impossible, Duck Newton. You did what I could not. You saved two worlds, remarkable. I don't know much. I don't know about that. That seems very generous. But if I'm anything at all, a little part of this, I owe it all to you. Thanks for, I never said this, but thanks for picking me. I know it's kind of random and stuff, but thanks. Hey, what's going on? You seem kind of preoccupied. She sits down now, and she looks over at you and she says, you know what's wrong, Duck Newton.

The quell, it wasn't the one who orchestrated the attacks on your world. We missed something, Duck Newton. I mean, it's, I'm not going to say it's not in the back of my head, but I don't know, Nerva, what do you want me to do about it? I mean, I, I'm in there fighting with gods, and I'm a strong guy with a sword and, you know, pretty good constitution. I mean, can't we just leave well enough alone? She says, I don't know if we're going to have the option.

and you hear a faint whining noise in the distance, just miles away. You start to see like a line forming in the sky in the distance. And she says, Duck Newton, that archway, it's not a rift, Duck. It is a tunnel. I believe it's a tunnel through. And then she looks around in a panic and she says,

Duck Newton, you've been conscious for 134 seconds. And she leans in close and she grabs your shoulders. And she says, you have 134 seconds to stop them. And then the sky is torn into. Roll plus weird. Six. Five.

Shit. You know what? I'm going to use a luck point. I don't even know what the fuck this is. But, you know, we ain't going that much longer. I'm going to use a luck point. Jack that up to 12. The sky is torn into.

A rift miles long appears in the distance. And through it, duck, you see stars more vividly than you've ever seen them before. And there is a bright light through the rift, too, and a heat, an unbearable heat. And then it comes into focus. This rift empties into outer space into an unsurvivable orbit with a nearby bright white star.

And the heat hits first, miles away. The land beneath this scar in the sky is just evaporated. and then ripped from the ground, and you see just the surface of this world in the distance peeled upward, just shattering and flying upward into the scar. And then Minerva looks at you, and Minerva says, it's time to confront, and then she's gone,

as is everyone around you. They are just ripped from Sylvain's gravitational pull in an instant, And the castle nearby breaks apart into the vacuum, just burning as it flies into space. The whole of the city flies into this scar. It devours everything in sight, leaving only you, Duck. You are weightless and floating as you survey the destruction. You survey this beam of white-hot light that is pouring through the rift, just emulating everything in its path. And that's when you remember, you've seen this vision before.

This is what you saw, the night of your first vision, of your first encounter with Minerva. This was the first revelation you were ever granted about your destiny. It's a dream no longer. It is here. And then that scene is gone. Now you are standing by the archway in Sylvain. the opaque white light inside of the archway begins to fracture. And then you open your eyes and you see Minerva standing above you blocking out the sun.

And she says, welcome back, Doc Newton. We're out of time. She opens her eyes with shock and then lowers a hand to pick you up from the ground. We've got 128 seconds. She nods. And she says, what do we do? We got to close the gate. She looks over down the main drag at the hill with the archway standing on it.

And she says, I'll clear the way. And she begins just charging, charging down the main drag, just knocking everybody out of the way in almost a football play. just barreling through making the line for you. What do you do? I'm just charging after her, just following in her wake as we run to the gate. I'm screaming, anybody, please for the love of God, come on, anybody, we've got to close the gate now.

We have 108 seconds. Tune is duck and Minerva starts running. I'm going to say that Aubrey just goes. Okay. And Thacker follows. Mama does too, for sure. Mama follows, and Agent Stern follows after. Vincent also stands up from where he was standing over Alexandra and begins, like, charging after, yelling like, clear the way.

Move, move. 98 seconds. You charge down the main drag and hearing Vincent's voice and seeing this enormous woman charging towards them, people start to, like, jump out of the way as your group charges upwards, up the stairs, up to the plaza with the archway. Minerva says, What did you see, Doc? What did you see? They're opening a fissure, and it's going to suck everybody

the hell out into space. It's bad. It's real bad. What do we do, Doc? We got to close this fucking gate. Vincent, is there like a spell? Is there a way to close the gate? If there was a way to close the gate,

Aubrey, we would have done it long ago. You guys ever tried C4? C-4? Come on, C-4. Bomb, explode. Boom, boom, boom. It just sure speaks up and he's like, Uh, duck, that's a, that's, that, that is pretty dangerous stuff.

I, uh... You want to see dangerous stuff. Chill out another 78 seconds. Okay, listen. Pro, we can't, real quick. Con, uh, we'll close the door. We'll probably be stuck over here. Uh, pro, I trust Doug.

So, plant that shit. I'm already planning it. I'm like, I'm getting the bomb, planning it on the game. Everybody... How are we going to detonate it? We'll figure out so. Everybody, scoot back, scoop back, scoop back. Yeah, take cover.

That stuff's great. going to be potent. Yeah, everybody starts lining up behind the columns, just stacking up to find shelter from the blast. Aubrey, you already been a god today? You think you can handle being a fuse? Sure. Lizzie? Yeah. Why not? And Aubrey closes her eyes and starts like, you know, magicing. Duck, you're right next to Minerva, who is grinning. She is surprisingly excited for what's about to happen, and she puts a hand on your shoulder and looks down at you, and she says, I'm with you to the end, Duck Newton. and Duck leans in real close.

And Aubrey opens her eyes and says, abracadabra and shoots the blast of fire. Maximumfund.org. Comedy and culture. Artist-owned. Listener supported. Hello there, ghouls and gals. It is I, April Wolf. I'm here to take you through the twisty, scary,

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