The Adventure Zone - The Adventure Zone: Commitment - Episode 3

Episode Date: November 16, 2017

Our heroes face their first test of combat with their newfound superpowers, with … mixed results. Kardala tells a painful joke. Remy keeps the peace. Nadiya is good out here. Happy MaxFunDrive! Right now is the best time to start a membership to support your favorite shows. Learn more and join at https://maximumfun.org/jointaz

Let's just get into it. Let's just get... Roll your balls. Roll that fucking ball. Are we good, or should we just charge right in? Let's just do it. We're about to fight a big fucking robot, Unicornor. Yeah, if you want to know the previous, you'll go back and re-listen to the episode.

Good point. Things Remy has done since he got superpowers, jumped into a wall and then solved a riddle from a big St. Peter. Things he has not done. Jumped and fought. It's time. It is now. I would appreciate note. reminding us of what we're doing.

No, we're fighting a unicorn and a robot or whatever. Let's go. I can make it very simple. You're in a field of lilies of the valley. The golden road has kind of fallen into disrepair right ahead of you. It's this thick line of trees. A robot Salome has come in riding on a unicorn. She jumps off the unicorn.

She drops John the Baptist head. Oh, I forgot to put John the Baptist's head on the map. No, but let's just say that your map game is. improving. You're going to be... I just want to say, I love you see all the little flowers everywhere. Dad has added some more appropriate, like, fan art versions of us as the icon. There's no inanimate objects representing living human beings, which is very exciting.

Right up there in the top right-hand corner... No, no, no, don't give it away. What? What are you talking about? Don't give it away. You're showing us. It's our show. It's the stuff of nightmares.

We'll get to it. I guess it's coming to it. In matter of fact, it's coming right now. Okay. Okay, so I told you the unicorn, this giant robot unicorn has charged forward after Dido challenged me on the biblical authenticity of unicorns. That was in character. No, that was me. I didn't know.

Oh, okay. So this Salomey robot starts to dance. Salomey. It's really kind of weird. It's kind of like herky jerky like somebody doing the robot, which I guess is appropriate. it. But as she dances, as she spins, a couple of the veils that are wrapped around her start to unwind from her body. Now, these are very specific. They are called Ruhmalls. And they're a weapon. They are weighted at the end. And she spins faster and faster. So the unicorns charge it on you.

And just then you hear this high-pitched buzzing sound coming from the trees. And John the Baptist's pops, pipes up and says, Genesis 3.24. At the east of the garden of Eden, he stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword. Oh, God, they just moved. They moved.

Dirty cherubim. Sorry, Dad has chosen the scariest possible sort of iconography for the cherubim on this map. It looks like if weeping angels had babies. And he moved him and it gave me a terrible fright. three incredibly adorable baby in wrongs. Incorrect.

No. From flying out of the trees. Each with adorable little flaming swords, which I couldn't find on the icon. Are they like scale size, the size of like cocktail swords or a little bit bigger? Oh, that would be awful cute, wouldn't it? Yeah. But these are shaped in the size of real babies. And the unicorn starts making a beeline for Cardala.

The cherubim zoomed towards Nadia and Salomey launches her first Ruhmaul straight at Remy. So I would like you. Cherubims. Why did it have to be cherubims? I need you guys to roll to determine who's going to go first. So what we'll do is roll your fate die and add your athletics bonus to it so we can decide who goes first. I have plus five. I roll the two plus one.

A three. Yeah, I'll go ahead and add a one, so I got a one. Remy's going to go first. I turn to the other two and I say, I really don't want to punch a baby. I know that they're robots, but it's still a little bit upsetting. It's a robot. I can logically distance myself from the fact that that is not a real baby, Remy. Fair enough.

You get that, right? You fight robot. dance lady, I'll fight robot babies, cardala. Yes. Robot unicorn. I feel like our dance cards are fool, as they say. I do not appreciate your order, but I would like to punch the unicorn. Yeah.

I think it'd be a lot easier for you to punch this unicorn if it was lying down. And I grab the Ruhmaul as they're coming at me, and I want to try to trip the unicorn. Like, they're long strips of fabric, right? with weighted... Yeah, but they're like this really high-tech mesh. Yeah. They'll stretch, but they're not going to tear or break. I mean, if they're flying at me, I just want to grab them out of the air and then try to

like close line the unicorn as it's coming, like, get it under the legs and knock it down. Try to interrupt its charge. What would that be? Well, you tell me, what do you want to use? Tell me, if you're going to grab the room all? Yeah, I think because it's like a range attack and I'm trying to, like, interrupt it, I feel like athletics would be... Because I don't see anything else really on.

Maybe physique, but that's more like a feat of strength. This is more of a feat of like coordination. Okay. All right. So, well, that's not going to be good. That is a two. Okay. So you roll a...

Just to be clear, roll the negative two plus four. Yeah, and I don't think I'm going to add anything to it because this is not... Anything requiring leaping, balancing, or otherwise demonstrating your agility. I think because of the accuracy of her throw... I think, uh, I think the Rommel actually impacts you. Oh,

the weighted part, the weighted part of the Rumae hits you. I see him coming and I like, clap my hands together and put up like a catcher stance and they just fucking level me. Oh yeah. I like that, but you caught it. Uh,

and you went down. Okay. I take, I take a stress, I imagine. Yeah, you take one stress. Okay.

Okay, so we haven't dealt with this yet. In faith, um, when you take hits, you have, Like, say you take one point of damage, one point of stress is what it's called. Basically, you have hit points in the form of stress.

And if you take too many of those, you get a consequence. And consequences are aspects that dad can invoke. And they can be something like broken rib or bloody nose or, yeah, concussion or something like that. And, yeah. Now, I want you to tell me. I got the thing. So don't worry about that. Disarm.

Who's going next? I'm going to let you pick who goes next. Oh, that's right. So this is the best thing. We learned about this in the demo session we did. combat order is you you pick who goes next but if you if I just pick you know Justin and Justin picks Travis then the enemy gets to go what three times in a row which could be bad yeah I feel like Salome would go next okay well I think that what she does is

she let's go of that Rumaul and spins again she's got another one unwinding Oh, man. She's sending it back towards you again. Shut. I'm already hurting. This time, the weight at the end of the room all has a small blade on it. Oh, that's mean. She throws that bladed room all at you, and she got a negative three.

Oh. So combined with that. So it accidentally gives you a really great haircut. It goes sailing right over your prone form and maybe snips off a little bit of your hair. No, no. No, no, no. But in a good way. Oh, that's cool.

That's even better than before. Okay, fantastic. After that. All right. I'm going to have Nadia go next. Great. I'm going to turn my right hand into a whip. An attempt to clip one of whichever one's closest to me's wings.

It would be this one right here. Yeah, okay. You don't have to. Please don't move it. It's very, very upsetting. Jesus, what's with the next? negative twos, the negative two squads here. Well, so the idea is like,

you know, try to clip the end of one wing, try to like shear off a few, so that it's like flying all wonky. That's a will attack. Do, do, do, do.

Now, I want everyone to know, I could make a solid case here for why aerodynamics is science-based, but we don't have time for that. Well, is there anything You can do. I mean, you got a bad role. You can use one of your aspects. Yeah, with human polymer, it's will plus two for the attack. So it's a three. I would say that smacks into the chairbum's left wing and it starts fluttering in kind of a weird way.

So the cherubim kind of, he hasn't gone down yet and it's still functioning, but he kind of flies off to the side and flies back a little bit out of the way. Okay, I'm going to put down cherubim one aspect, wonky wing. Okay, who goes next, Nadia? I'm going to let Card... No, the...

No, oh God, choices. Unicorn. Well, the unicorn is just going to charge right at Cardala. Yes, yes, excellent. Now... But it's not using its horn. It's just going to use... It's just going to use...

It's just going to use the impact of just running into Cardala. to drive Cardala back. So if you're attacking, then I get to oppose you with my fight skill. That is a one plus. First positives of the game. Four. That's a five.

The unicorn also rolled a five. So on a tie, the attack misses, but the attacker gets a boost that they can invoke next time, basically. Okay, so the unicorn goes thundering over the turf. slams into Cardala, but she had had time to brace herself and doesn't move. What is the unicorns boost? It needs like an aspect that like it can invoke next time for free if it wants to. Like either like very angry or charging or I guess I don't know. It could be anything.

I think that it would it maybe it now knows a little bit more about Cardala and knows brute force isn't going to work. How's that for a boot? Yeah, that's good. Yeah. Understanding. Okay. Informed. All right, I say Cardala goes next.

Yes, excellent. Excellent try, little horse. Very, very precious. I will have a trophy from this unicorn. And I'm gonna grab its horn and tear it off, which I guess would be fight. I think that might be physique. I think it might be mean. It's very definitely mean, but it's a feat of strength and not really an attack, right?

Yeah, we can call it physique because I guess I wouldn't necessarily be fighting technically. So you got a plus one? Yes. Okay. The unicorn has a minus two. Yay! So describe it.

So Cardala grabs the horn and sort of like just in a like spins while grabbing the horn and just like rips it off. It is it is just obvious like raw strength. and it is clear she is also enjoying herself very much. All right. And everyone kind of stops and goes, damn. Oh. What happens, R.E. the unicorn, like when the horn is removed? It weak.

It sparks shoot out of its nose. Cool. And it shakes its head violently back and forth and it kind of stumbles a couple of steps away. But it hasn't stopped. It hasn't shut down, hasn't shut down completely. Okay, so the cherubim are next. But before the cherubim move, John the Baptist head says, Why doth thou abide it?

Oh, God, forget it. That wasn't a voice. It was more like Charlton Heston. I'll screw it. Why don't you leave me alone, you assholes? Uh, hey, Mary, are you all of these robots? That's right. Yes? I do.

Yeah. Now, shut up. Okay, can you stop attacking us with all these? We're here to help, I promise. There's really reason. No, are you getting, no. Continue your assault ghost. What else would you say?

And the two cherubim that are not, uh, not messed up go flying straight at Cardala. Yes. Come to me, babies. They're going to, I'm sorry, Nadia. I apologize. Damn it. I'm sorry. Flies right at Nadia.

and wield their flaming swords. A plus three overall. Oh, Jesus. So that's a one. I'm going to invoke rapid analytical mind to give me the opportunity to jump out of the way. How about that? My reflexes are heightened because of my rapid analytical mind.

Okay. I like that. Wait, can you just invoke something to do whatever? No, no, so that would be a plus. two, right? So then that would give me three. Okay. And the cherubum, I think I said had a two. So describe it. So the cherubim start heading in and Nadia begins to form her left hand into a shield and realizes it's not going to finish in time and process the information quickly enough to instead kind of just throw herself to the right. And the flaming swords go whistling through the air and Miss Nadia completely. So spend a fate point, Traff. Yes. We're back to Remmy.

All right I feel like So the chairbum are still Flying up in the air Yep Okay I turn in on and say Hey can we trade

Because I feel like I can do Pretty good against In the ear, thanks You got it Wait that's not her voice at all Oh You got it You got it, mister

Yeah absolutely All right Yes please If you're ready to Fight the babies Now And you're not afraid Of robot babies

Anymore No By all means I'll take dance lady And you can The little babies, sure. No, the babies are terrible now. I've learned a lot about the babies in the last few minutes.

I'm not a big fan anymore. I start running towards the babies, and we haven't established what my hands can do yet, right? That's right. I think I just want to grab things. They can wave. No, I watch Sesame Street. I know what's up. I want to jump up and just try to just like, I guess, punch one of the robot babies in mid-air and just kind of.

see what happens. They have flaming swords. I don't know. Is there something else I could do? No. No, punch the baby. By all means. Punch a baby.

Let's see it. All right. Yeah, I'm just going to do it. And then I imagine there's some sort of energy around my hand when I go in for this attack, right? Okay. Yeah. Like iron fist. I don't know that I need to roll for the jump because my basic super agility lets me jump like two stories high.

Okay. And so let's just roll. for fight. Let's hear it for a positive number. Hey, a zero. That ain't nothing. But I have a three in fight and a power called Basic Natural Weapon. You have some sort of built-in weaponry that gives you plus two to fight when brawling unarmed in close quarters. So that's a five. And you want to be punching the one that was already kind of beat up? No, I think I'd punch a fresh one, right? Okay. Punch a fresh one. Where do you punch you? In the baby. It's not a lot. And it's I'm really uncomfortable with how much we're talking about punching a robot baby.

It's got to be what, head, body? What are you doing? I mean body, I guess. Okay, right in the gut. And when you do, there's this gigantic explosion of sparks. Can I establish something else? Because we've kind of talked about what this power is. I feel like my fists just have like the same sort of kinetic power that powers my jumps.

And so I feel like the baby would just go blasting off into the sun almost. It's like I made it jump very, very far away when I punched it. All right. Bash it then. Yeah, I don't think it's fun to make things explode, but I think it's very fun to make things go, like, flying away. Yeah, okay. Goes flying away into the woods. All right.

Into the woods. Okay. All right. So Salomey takes advantage of this situation. She has that other Ruhmael that's been spinning. She has another one that's spinning. and when Remy goes sailing past she throws the Ruhamol in his direction.

Stop hitting me! Salome's not trying to hit you with the Ruhamol this time. She throws it to make it wrap around your arms and legs. All right, I get to evade this, though, right? Right. I'm really good at this, so... Jesus pleases. All right, that's a minus two, but I have plus...

four and an additional plus two to avoid dodging, to avoid range attacks. So I guess that's a four total. Well, she has a six total. Beans. The Ramal wraps around Remy, pinning his arms to his sides and pinning his legs, so they can't move.

As soon as he comes to the ground, ground, he hits the ground really hard, which kind of stuns him. Salome jumps on the unicorn and dragging Remy behind her goes plowing back up into the trees. Bye! And almost as soon as she's out of sight, the two remaining cherubim collapsed to the ground, Nottia's powers fade. Oh, shit. And Cardala turns back into Irene. What is happening?

Oh, where to start. Start where to start. You know what? Actually, no. Just let's follow him. I don't feel like explaining it. Okay, can you give me just like a summation? Like a quick overview of where we...

I'll explain why we... While we walk. How much do you remember? Okay, yada, yada, yada. We don't actually need to recap the events. And then the propeller spins. Yeah, right? The red line crosses the Atlantic and they arrive.

It sounds like we got to go. after him. Yes. You can probably follow the sound of my yelling, because I'm definitely, definitely yelling. I'm going to do Investigate role to, like, follow the path and the yelling and stuff. All right. Nope.

That's a negative 3. Oh, my God. My investigation is plus 3, so I'm like, who's Remy? It's good that this is going to be such a short arc, because we're all going to die. So what happens is Remy's shouts

fade in the denseness of the trees, but you kind of already know the direction to go in. Oh, wait, I have an idea. I shall use science and reprogram one of the cherubim to lead us there. Okay. Okay, well, that's a negative too, but my science is four, so I get it two. To cherubem reprogramming. The little cherubim's eyes open up, and he says,

I love Woo. All right. And then he stops. All right. Change the scene real quick before you guys move. Hey, can I ask? How's Remy doing? That's where we're going right now.

All right, good. We now go to... Oh, goodness, gracious. The next scene. Basically, it's a giant recreation of an ancient tabernacle. It's overgrown with weeds. There's whole chunks of plaster that have fallen away, you know, to kind of reveal the infrastructure.

There's this, like, big arena in the middle of it with four entryways from the four points of the compass. And standing up on a raised area at the very northern part of this stands Mary. She's got a head full of curly red hair. It's tangled and matted, just not very much hair maintenance there going at all. She's still wearing her fellowship vest, but the rest of her clothes are torn and dirty. Oh, man, that's right. Our vests were supposed to give us plus to defense. Oh, beans.

I think they're bulletproof, but anyway. And Salome and the unicorn once they got here, Remy lays in the middle of that, on the ground in that arena thing, still bound by the Ruhamal. But once they got to a certain point, the, the unicorn and Salome. I guess it's just a horse now. It's not a unicorn anymore. The horse and Salome... Well, I mean, it's still genetically a... You know what I mean? Like... Yeah, sure.

The horn does not make the unicorn down. Right. That's a good point. Mary looks down at you and says, well, what are you looking at? You try living on Proto, Pups, and Mountain Dew for six weeks. See how you look. I would be the happiest boy in the world. Are you kidding me? I love those little corny dogs and a do for dipping. Don't mind if I do. Come on.

It's like a 24-7 land party up in here. I'm into it. Yeah, it is pretty sweet. See, that's why you're so bummed out. I promise we're not here to hurt you. We came here to try to get some help for you. Listen, I appreciate it, but horseshit. I know why you're here.

You and your buddies are here from the do-good fellow. to kill me, and that's not going to happen. Listen, I've been a superhero for like 20 minutes, but I'm pretty sure there's like an unspoken sort of Batman, no lethal situation. I don't want to kill anybody, Jesus. No, listen, everybody's out to get me. I know they are. Everybody wants to hurt space cadet.

That's the way it is. And look, I appreciate you giving me my powers back, But I'm not going to let you and your two monster girlfriends kill me. And let me guess. Those two backstabbers, Addison and Flanagan, are with you too, aren't they? No, just three of us. They are complete dipshits, though. I'm so glad we're on the same page there.

It's tough when they give you shitty partners, isn't it? I know. And I know exactly what you're taught. Can I roll empathy to try to literally empathize with her right now? Okay. Yeah. Yes! We're old a two, and I have a plus two in empathy, and I'm like, yeah, you know, it seems like there should be a better process, you know, it's not like we're really, uh, simpatico, like, fully locked into the drift, uh, Pacific Rim. You like that one? That was a good flick.

That was good. Oh, I love that movie. Love it. Love it. Love it. No, I know. It's out of your control, but I, I, listen, I know things are rough, but I really don't mean you any harm. I'm just trying to like use empathy to like, get her to stop attacking us with robots all the time. God, I don't know. You know, it's just the whole joke, the Do Good Fellowship with their 24 dumbass questions and all the screening. Did they do all 24 when you were there for the initiation? Because I thought it went a little bit long. Oh, God. It was a pain in the ass.

Whoever came up, I guess Ben Franklin, I guess. We could thank Ben Franklin. Old Pervert. Yeah, oh, absolutely. See, you don't believe in what they're doing either, do you? Absolutely not. But I do, I'm worried about you is my main thing right now. Oh, no, don't worry about me. I'm getting what I wanted. See, here's the thing. I had no interest in being a do-gooder. All their little tests and all their little screening. I fooled them all. I want powers because I'm going to get back at the government for what they did. My mom and dad, my mom and dad were true believers. You want to talk about doing good? They were doing good. And then the government hounded them with a bunch of trumped-up charges and destroyed their ministry and sent them to prison. Took all this away from them?

When I went there to get my powers, it was just to get revenge on the government. I'm going to show them a thing or two. All right. Well, yeah. Yeah, I mean, they make bad choices sometimes. I'm sorry about your folks. That's a real shame to hear about it. But you understand?

I didn't do that to you, but you've been attacking with robots since we got here. So can we call a truce on that and figure out, you know, a way forward here? Just then, Mary and Remy both feel that surge of warmth going through them. And Mary says, oh, there's that old sweet feeling. and your super significant others must be getting closer. And we cut back to Nadia and Cardala. Did Irene, hold on, did Irene just turn back into Cardala as soon as that warmth? Well, not yet.

We're cutting to that moment where the power starts surging to him, so she's still Irene for right now. Nadia, listen. Yes. You need to stay outside. I think I could talk to her. Uh-huh. Listen, if you hear me yelling, rush in, and I don't know, turn your hand. What were you doing?

Like, Like, putty? Yeah, don't worry about that. Rushing in isn't really my thing? Mm-hmm. Um, yeah, you know what? Nadi is good out here. Yeah.

Great. Okay. Um, okay. In fact, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to kind of walk around the building. Yeah. See if maybe I can find, yeah, see if I can find. Science out here.

No, see if I can find another entrance, you dingus. Yeah, that's good, too. Yeah. Try to find another entrance. Irene walks. in to the arena. Irene comes in, makes an entrance into the arena. I see Irene.

Hey, Irene, you're back. And Irene, that warm glow of energy starts kicking in. And Irene can feel herself starting to change as she sees Remy. Well, shit, this isn't what I have come to return your horn. Oh, no. I'm going to put it in your chest. Cardala, wait, we're good here. Like, we're really making some headway.

I was already storming towards Mary with the horn in hand, brandished like a dagger. And the unicorn charges in between and intercepts. Okay, good. Then Cardala buries the horn in the unicorn's head. Now, this is a fight. I'm putting it down. Point down. I'm putting it in backwards.

It's a joke. All right. That's four. Oh, yeah. That's a zero. That puppy, describe it. Cardala flips it up in the air, grabs it point down, jams it in the part where the sparks go. And the head just absolutely goes cabloy and down goes the unicorn. Does Nadia hear this happening from outside? I don't want Travis to be left out.

Does Nadia hear this from outside? Yeah. Nadia, what do you do? I'm investigating for another entrance. Can we roll for that now then? for looking for another entrance. All right, do it. Damn it! Just another minus two. She can't even find the first entrance.

It's a one total. Okay, so how about if you hear noise, you're approaching the eastern entrance, and you can hear the sounds coming from there. How's that? Mary's powers are kicking in to the nth degree. That red hair of hers just shoots out. It's like a halo of fire around her head. And she says,

Romans 1219, vengeance is mine. I will repay, say it the Lord. I told you you had monsters with you. And then all of a sudden, the ground starts to shake. Loud, tremendous impact. Footsteps coming. And from behind Mary in, the northern arch steps a giant Goliath, 15 feet high, carrying a spear and a giant shield.

The Goliath opens up in the back, just kind of panels open up, and she climbs inside. Let's roll for initiative. Hey, everybody, this is Griffin McElroy. You're done? Nope. Your best friend. Just your best friend. Thank you so much for listening to the Adventure Zone.

It's the third episode of our commitment arc that we've been doing with Dad at the lead telling a cool superhero story. And I think we got one more episode left coming out in two weeks. And then we will probably be putting up a live show, probably the one that we're going to be doing in Tacoma here in just a little bit. And we hope you enjoy that. And then we're going to move on to the next thing. And we're still figuring out what that's going to be. But I hope you enjoy that also. So our first Jumbotron here is for a podcast called Brute Force.

It's another actual play podcast. Do you like adventures with a Western flair, monsters, inappropriately named sailing vessels? You know there's some good semen jokes happening in here. Very excited to delve in. Then you need to listen to Brute Force, a real play podcast about a team of monsters trying their best to be good, who accidentally are entrusted with saving the world. Each episode is narrated by Jasper Spitwistle, a barred at the Gilded Ram, Groghouse, and Tea Room, who spins the tales of Brute Force's past deeds,

which are acted out by our four weird and wacky players. You can look for them on iTunes at Brute Force. Go check out this podcast if you need more actual play adventure happening in your lives. Also have a message here for Bob, Bobby, the Bobster, Babaruni, Babalicious, Opel, My Sweet, my favorite Bob in the whole world. One of those things that's not like the other. And it's from Beth. That's me.

That's what it says. I'm not Beth. I'm Griffin still. Hey, this is Beth. No. Hey, you asked me how my Thanksgiving was a few days ago and I still haven't texted back. Sorry, I'm a shitty friend. But to my credit, you signed the friend contract without looking, but so did I. Here's your chance to out-shit me. Here's your chance to out-sit me. Good luck because you're the sweetest friend I've ever known. P.S. I owe you $99 and Thanksgiving was great. And this was, I don't know when this was sent in. I don't know if this was for Thanksgiving last year or if they have future site and are predicting they're going to have a great Thanksgiving this year. But either way, send me the lottery numbers. I would love to, you know, buy a big water park or, I think if I won the lottery, it would be a lot

of water park. So thank you, Beth, hit me up with those lot of numbers. Very important. Thank you to everybody who's been tweeting about the show using the Zonecast hashtag. It means a lot that you all have been so supportive of the show and hear when we're sort of into the second season and trying out a bunch of new mini arcs. It really means a lot for you to sort of keep the show afloat and keep new listeners coming in because we don't pay to advertise the show at all. We rely only on your word of mouth and we are so, so, so grateful for you telling a friend that you think might be interested in it. If you could also leave an iTunes review, I think that still helps, although that whole process is still very confusing to me, fucking eight years after we've started doing podcasts.

I don't know that there's a whole lot else. Thank you to Maximum Fun for having us on the network. You can go to Maximumfund.org and check out all the great podcasts there. Shows like One Bad Mother and Stop Podcasting Yourself and Minority Corner and Judge John Hodgman and so many great shows all at Maximum Fun.org. And if you want to hear other stuff that we do or watch the videos that we do, you can go to mackerelshows.com and you can find a list of everything we do right there in one very convenient place. Okay, that's it. I'm going to let you get back to the rest of the episode. Once again,

the next episode is going to be, I believe, the finale of commitment, and it is going to come out on November 30th. So we will talk to you then. Bye, everybody. All right, Remy, you go first again. I say to Cardala, you got this right? You can handle this one? Yes. Yeah, this seems up here, like, hey, Batman rules, don't kill, okay? The robot is fine, but Mary, don't, don't, don't, mortally. Just remember your mission. Yeah, don't mortally injure her, okay? Can you, can you restrain yourself that much? Yes, I feel that my thirst for battle will be slaked by this giant person. Fantastic. I just need you to buy me some time. I have a cunning plan, and I, I, somewhere, Nottia shivers. I bend my knees, and are there, like, rafters or someplace up high

that I can jump up to. I would say that the entranceways are pretty high. Yeah, I just want to jump up on top of one of the entranceways and sort of get free from battle to do something on my next turn. Just sort of get out of the way. Okay. Do it. All right. Which one do you want to north south? Well, you don't want to go north.

No, God, no. I'll go, I'll just jump up to the west one, I guess. All right. I'm just trying to get out of the battle so that I can, because what I need to do next is going to take some time, and I won't be able to do it if I have a big giant. attacking me. Okay. All right, I'm done. I think next. What goes next? How about, it's just the Goliath, right? There's no other enemies in here. Right. Let's just get that turn out of the way. The Goliath only sees one target, and that would be Cardala. So the Goliath charges forward and tries to spear Cardala with, well, the spear. And kind of gives this inarticulate growl when he does it.

great the giant has four in fight and so we got a negative one so that's three uh cardala ties with a three okay the spear glances off of cardala carola kind of turned sideways is that right sure and the spear tip kind of bounces off of cardala's vest and so it also apparently is spear point proof and the giant needs an aspect the energy that the robot Goliath had been planning on using to skewer Cardala is saved up since they didn't really make impact. Okay. It's like charged.

So that's your boost. So who's next? I think Cardala. Yes. Excellent. This is more like it. Ra! Yes.

Raw. Yes. Cardala smacks her hands together. Like that. and creates a sheet of ice underneath the Goliath. Okay. That's the weather. She is freezing the ground beneath the Goliath.

All right. Now, the way that works for this particular power is I have to roll. I'm creating advantage using will. So I need to roll. And the opposition is generally plus two. That's two plus my will is. three, so that's five. So I do create the sheet of ice beneath the Goliath. Okay. So the advantage is an aspect.

It's an aspect of the environment that I can invoke. Anybody can invoke. Anybody can invoke. Correct. Yes. Thank you. So any of us can use that next time we do something, which maybe Nadia can do now. And I guess Nadia goes next. Yeah, Nadia. Cool. So I have come in from the east. You know, I'm just gonna both hands together and like sledgehammer the back of the Goliaths legs. Okay. So I end up with four plus the slippery grounds. So plus two, it's a six.

Nice. Well, the giant in defending, I guess defends. Yeah, probably a fight, right? Yeah. Well, no, he did to act with Will. Well, Will is not his fight skill. Okay. All right.

It slams into the back of the Goliath's legs, which knocks him forward on the ice, and the Goliath goes down to one knee and kind of slides right up against Cardala. You take some stress for that, I imagine? Yeah, takes two. As a matter of fact. How do you do, okay, there's a question. How do you know how much stress something? It's how much Travis beat Dad's roll by.

Oh, okay. How much? What did you, so what did you roll down with your fight defense? Four. Yeah, total it was six. Yeah. So I took, so the Goliath took two physical stress. I'm also going to, I'm going to say, I'm going to self-compel my drawback, which is use of power is physically exhausting, used too much.

It will cause her physical damage because I think that was a pretty big hit to do like a two-handed swing. a 15-foot opponent. So I'm going to say that that also causes me one physical stress. All right, and you take a fate point for that. Well, if that, if that approves it. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I do approve it. Okay, I like that.

All right. All right, we're back up to Remy. All right. Here's my idea. I want to spend a fate point to establish a thing that is true about the world. That is the other thing you can do with fate points. And I just want to establish that I have, I put my thumb in. the bag, open up the thumbprint, open up my bag, and I reach in, and I get out my laptop.

Okay. And I open it up, and I try to find Mary's signal. I assume even if it's not a Wi-Fi signal, it's something that reaches out to electronics, and so this is one of those things, and so I try to find Mary's signal. Okay, I say you can find the signal. Okay, I find her signal, and then I'm going to try to dedos her. Yeah. Which means the denial of service attack.

It means I'm just going to kind of flood the signal to a point where it will stop working. Okay. Go for it. Okay. I'm assuming this is Kraft, because that's like what I established as my IT skill. Well, in this case, you're rolling against Mary then. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Okay.

It was not negative. It was not negative. So I have a plus two in craft. but I have the IT specialist aspect that I can invoke. So I can spend another fate point here. Can I also, hmm, you can invoke as many things as you want, right? Yeah, find out what Mary, wait, can we find out what Mary rolled before invoking things? Yeah, you can keep adding on to it.

So that's a four total. All right, Mary has rolled a one, but has. has four in crafts, so she has five. I mean, I think I can also just invoke, spend my last fave point and invoke the ground, the ice on the ground, and then say like she was too busy sort of keeping her, keeping, staying upright to like really fend off this attack.

Would you give me that? Like she was spending so much bait with, like, just trying to stay upright. I'll give you, no, no, no. All right, I'm burning all of my shit on this one because I really want it to work. So that brings me up to a six, which beats her five. So the net outcome is one, correct? In your favor?

Yeah, but this isn't really an attack as much as it is like I'm just trying to keep her from being able to control things with her signal. I'll go along with that. Okay. And but you've also connected to her, correct? Yeah, I guess so. I guess my computer is connected to Mary. And since her power is like communicating with these chips and with technology, she is now linked. to your laptop. Do I get an I.M. from her? Like a AOL instant messenger message?

You get a message where she says, are you out of your mind? Do you know what's going to happen if I'm in here and I don't have control of this thing? I just message back, loll. Okay. At this point, the Goliath rares back. It's right on top of Cardala. I mean, right next to Cardala, rares back with that shield, and hits Cardala with everything it's got. Yeah, can I give it the aspect out of control? Just like as, I think that was technically creating an advantage. I think the advantage is that I removed control from Mary. And so this thing is now out of control.

Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah. And the roll is two. So that's seven. Hits Cardala for seven. Okay.

So Cardala has four against that seven. I'm going to invoke the ice and spend a fate point to invoke the ice to add to my role, which would get me to six. And I'm using the ice to kind of slide away so it doesn't clobber me directly. So Cardala just kind of flings herself away from the impact. Not enough to miss it, but... She turns into the skid. Yeah, exactly, exactly.

All right, so Goliath rares back with that shield, slams it into Cardala. That knocks Cardala back of the ice and away from Goliath and does one physical stress to Cardala. And it's Cardala's turn. Excellent. Excellent. I haven't been hurt in so long. Well, I have super toughness, which gives me two arms. armor. So it didn't really hurt that bad, but...

An armor value reduces the shifts of a successful hit. So armor two makes any hit worth two less than usual. If you hit, but the target's armor reduces the shift value to zero below, you get a boost to use on your target, but you don't do any harm. So when you hit... So the armor negates however much of the shift that the armor is. So if you have armor two, then you took that shift down to zero. And when that happens because of armor, then the Goliath gets another boost, but doesn't do any harm. So that makes sense? So the Goliath So dad needs to give the Goliath another aspect, but you did not actually take any damage. I think it's just going into full, uh, full berserker mode now.

I mean, systems are disrupting. So it's out of control and berserk. So we have a lot of stuff we can use on this Goliath now. Okay. I like how he keeps saying like this Goliath to you. I think his name is Goliath. You know, like David and. Oh, yeah.

He did it in the fucking, somebody here in the fucking head with a rock, right? Like, I feel like this is, we're, we're miss. a particular... Well, I believe it's Cardala's turn. Hit him in the head of the rock. That's the Bible thing. The terrible Bible. That's what it says. That's just for... In case you missed last episode,

Cardala kept calling it terrible, like, oh, strong, not Griffin. Griffin's not saying the Bible is terrible. I just want to make that clear here. A little editorial note. I should throw a rock. Right at the dome. I suppose, um... Okay, I just grab a chunk of the frozen ground. snap off a piece of ice snap off a piece of ice

and I chuck it at the Goliath's head which I guess would be a physique or shoot shoot okay I am going to chuck the ice chunk and him and I have a a one

I'm going to invoke out of control so that at an inopportune moment because it's It's not in control. At an inopportune moment, it turns its head to look at my attack. And I add two to my one to make it a three.

The Goliath has three. Perfect. Yeah, I'll go ahead and just leave it as a boost. Cardala is now furious that that dumb idea didn't work. And she's remorseful that she didn't just punch it in its face. Yeah. So that's my boost. Okay.

The ice chunk kind of bounced off the side of Goliath's head. Okay, never mind. It wasn't a riddle. My bad. Nadia, what do you do? So now that since the Goliath is still down on one knee, right. I'm going to attempt to turn one hand into a crowbar and pop open the door that Mary is in,

the compartment that Mary is in. Okay? From the back. Yes. It's a zero. Super great. All right. We'll put this. Five. Five. All right. The door pops open. Mary is faced away from you because she's facing forward, but she kind of yells back over her shoulder. And she's, you got to understand something. They are linked. So all this craziness, all this berserkness is kind of feeding back on her, too. And she just turns at you. That hair is still going all over the place. And as a matter of fact, it's kind of weird because the hair has kind of entangled inside the Goliath working around all the mechanics

of it and all the technology and she just turns and looks at you and just give this horrible screeching scream right in your face. Okay. Remy. I want to do another dumb thing. Do it. Since this, since Goliath was able to be connected to by Mary, I assume I can also try to use my computer to hack the Goliath and take it over. You can certainly try. Well, I've disconnected

him from Mary, right? That was the thing I did with the DDoS attack. And so I don't think I'd be contesting her. I'd be contesting the Goliath. So basically, you'd be duplicating her superpower with your hacking skills. I don't know about that, but I just want to take control of the Goliath with my hacking skills. I don't know about that, but yes. Go for it. Please, God, please. Yes! That is a three with the roll, plus two for my hacking skill. Yeah. Okay. That's a three. All right. Holy shit. I got a five. All right. Here's what I'm going to do. Here's what I will say.

Your attempt to take control partially works. And basically what happens is there's even more systems fail. and the Goliath goes down on the other knee, still waving his shield and spear. But I don't have control over it? It took control of his legs. I'm not going to grant you her superpower. Oh, okay, but I have control of his legs.

Yes. Okay, fantastic. And now it's Goliath. And just completely enraged, thrashing around with its arms, takes its spear, and jams it back over its shoulder. Like a backscratcher.

Yeah, except. He's trying to get to your back through your front, jabs the spear at Nadia. And with the, if I invoke the aspects and with the roll, that is a six. Cool. I have five minus one, so four. And yeah, you know, I'm going to take that hit. I'm going to take that hit. So it would ordinarily, probably with a flesh and blood.

Blood person would have killed them, but with your pliable, flexible skin, where do you want it? Where do you want the spear to pierce you? I'm just going to go ahead and take the mild consequence and maybe get it like a graze on the ribs. Okay. You know? It's like bleeding or cut? Well, I think with a two, I think you get pierced. I think you get pierced.

So stabbed, stabbed, stabbed, or pierced? Stabbed in the ribs. A two consequence is mild. I don't want any, like, internal organs pierced or anything. Well, yeah, but you've got this amazing wonder skin. That is mild. Thank you. I'm moisturized.

Okay, yeah, I'll take a piercing without any internal organ damage. A mild piercing. A mild piercing. It's not quite a gauge. So to explain what just happened, Travis did not take physical stress, but instead elected to take a consequence, which is an aspect that dad can use against him in the future. Yeah, so my kind of ribs are pierced in a very biblical reference. Yeah, how about that?

Okay. Cardala. Actually, the Goliath stands up. I got its legs. Okay. And just runs as fast as fucking possible into a wall. I'll allow it. The Goliath jumps up, is very confused, goes running smack dab into a wall,

and and careens back almost to the exact same point. It takes some stress for that. Oh, yeah, it takes too stress. All right. And now it's Cardala. You're very silly, giant. I don't understand your strategy. Indeed, indeed.

Goliath-Kutah. I mean, okay, it's fine, it's funny. Like, I can move in an action, right? Like, I can move one zone and it not counts my action. I think in this case, I think any movement you make is justifiable. Yeah, and you can move as part of an action one zone. Okay, so describe the scene for me as Cardal is seeing it right now because we've been doing a lot.

Okay. So you've got Nadia hanging off the back trying to get at Mary inside. You've got Remy up on the east arch trying to, oh, the West Arch trying to hack. The CSI cybering the hell out of this. The whole situation. The Goliath ran into a wall and came bouncing back. and is basically standing right in front of you. Okay, perfect.

I attempted your Bible story, and it was ineffective. But let it be known that I'm a team player. Now I will read to you from Cardala 1-1. And I punch it in the stomach. It's a very active kinetic Bible. In the beginning, Cardala punched in the stomach. It's more like a workout reason. It's a Bible you more experience than read, really.

Yeah. Uh, that is a four. That is a minus three. Holy shit. That's a shift of seven. Well, no. Wouldn't you add your fight skill to that? Uh, that would be four, so it's only one.

One. Okay, perfect. You have a boost, too, don't you? Uh, yeah, that's free. That's free, dog. That's a free, too. Oh, that's true. I am also still very angry that your stone throwing didn't work, so I'm adding two to that.

It's probably because you used ice. You got to use a rock, like the Bible said. Thank you, little man. Six. That's a six. Oh, wow. Shift of five. Shift of five.

Shift of five. That's up into that severe consequence range if you want to take that. I think that's about all the Goliath can take. And not only does it hit in the stomach, it goes right into one of those open gaps where because of age and because of deterioration of the machine, it goes right into the machine. it goes right into the machinery. Almost gets to Mary, almost physically gets to Mary, but the force pushes her back even more and shatters what I guess would be

the Goliath's mechanical spine and those precious legs that Remy wanted so bad. My beautiful legs! Completely fold up. The Goliath sinks down and starts to fall forward. Nadia? Do I want to knock Mary out or get her out of the Goliath? I think that this, what just happened to the Goliath, with the feedback loop and everything else, she's pretty well knocked out.

Okay, cool. I'm going to try something that I want to see if it works on high. I'm going to, like, throw a grappling hook to the one of the intro, like, one of the, is there any overhanging bars or anything? Yeah, there's like a great big stone archway over each one of them. Yeah, I'm going to hook down and, like, pull us out, you know, pull us out of there. Give myself some leverage. Do it. You're trying to pull her out with... Yeah, I've got, like, the back of her collar. You know, I've got a good grip on her. And I'm, like, pulling us out, you know?

I'm getting us out of there as it falls. As the Goliath goes down, you know. Very dramatic. Yeah, very dramatic. It's a plus, too. Yay, Travis's first positive role of the day. Yay, for me. And so...

Describe it. Describe it. So as the Glytheve is going down, throw the grappling hook, grab the back of her collar, and, like, more than, like, kind of, pulling us out, the Goliath just kind of continues to topple, and we, you know, we swing out of it and lower down to kind of lay her out on the ground as the Goliath continues to fall around us. And when the Goliath hits the ground, man, I mean, it just practically explodes.

Parts go flying everywhere. Sparks go flying everywhere. And everything is still. You have defeated my Goliath puzzle. Yay! Yay! Can I, can I, I think I still have my laptop open and I still have the chat window with Mary, and I think I just chat, like, type in. You still there?

Nothing. Okay. I think I type in like, you're going to be okay. I promise we'll keep you safe. We're going to get you some help. I just trust us. You take Mary, pick her up, and you all trudge back through poor hallelujah. land, which is a little looking worse for where.

You pass by John the Baptist head. There's nothing. I pick up the head and just, I'm carrying the head also. I'm also interested in the head. It's a cool robot head. I'm into that. All right. And you make it back to the skimmer.

You punch in the return coordinates. The skimmer. In the skimmer, I take the head and I'm puppeteering with it. Like, I thought that first mission went pretty good. What do you guys think? I like you guys. So you take a few minutes. Enjoy a couple of the leftover strombolies. The skimmer goes zooming over the Gulf of Mexico and finally arrives back at the Berg.

Following the programming, it lands on the landing pad in the security branch. It's where it comes down. And Martine and Sylvain are there waiting for you. As you touch down on the pad, you see the first manifestation of Sylvain's power. He is like super fast and is just all of a sudden almost like appears right there as you guys come out of the skimmer. And you notice he's loaded down with these big bodacious knives and bladed weapons. And as he takes Mary off your hands, Martines says, nice work. I approve of the extreme violence.

Your debriefing is going to be in the security conference room. Just take that elevator right there down to the fifth floor. Just go right down the elevator and you can have your debriefing. What are you going to do with her? Because I did promise that nothing bad was going to happen that we were going to get her some help and she would be safe. Is that you're not going to hurt her in any way? You're just going to try to help. She's one of ours.

I'm going to roll empathy against that just to make sure that they're not lying. Yeah, do it. That's a four. You roll the two plus two. I rolled the two plus two, that's four. One, two. Buckle my shoe.

So that's a five. All right, so you'll never know. Okay. No, I'm telling you, no harm will come to Mary. So you guys grumble about a little bit because you would probably like to have a little break. You go down the elevator, the fifth floor. and you walk into a large dark room

and there's like one light in this room and it's shining down on a man sitting in a large stone chair in the back of the room. Well, I say sitting. He's kind of lounging on it. He's very nonchalant. He's got one leg draped over one of the arms and he's lean a back on the other arm

and he's kind of in silhouette. You can't really make him out. But he starts to slow clap. And he says, uh, amazing. You clowns actually pulled it off. Color me impressed, man. Color me impressed. It's probably Benjamin Franklin.

Is it Benny Franks? How you guys do? I'm very proud of you. You did a good job for me. Uh, okay. Because you did say clowns. Yeah, clowns is a little. Oh, I'm dead.

That's just me. That's just me. me, just fooling around with you. No, you're not clowns at all. You did a spectacular job. Really, I am so proud of you. Um, uh, you really, you really pulled it off. Uh, I, you did better than I expected. How's that? I mean, it's still kind of, low underhanded, yeah, cool. Who are you? I'm an age Richard. No, well, that's my name. Who am I? I. I'm the fucking king of the USA. Maximumfund.org. Comedy and culture.

Artist owned. Listener supported. What's up? I'm James, the co-host of Minority Corner. And look at that. I'm a Nakey, the other co-host of Minority Corner. Girl, guess what? What?

We just hit our 100th episode. What? And what do you think is going to be in store for the next 100? Probably some more effuge with Jennifer Hudson. And I'm telling you. We'll probably do more investigative reporting, too, like we did with the Kodak and the racist film. Not to mention exposing the truth. like how we did with the ugly history of the Texas Rangers.

But we always lighten the mood with the splash of pop coach. Olivia Pope's new wig. Have you seen that? It's popping. Just like your lip gloss. And Janet Jackson. And you know we like to put our nerd glasses on and talk about things like Marvel. It's true. That's it.

I don't speak about T.C. But you just did. What? All from a perspective that's black, queer. And ladylike. So come on over and learn, laugh, and play, and join the corner. It's a lot of fun. I'm having fun right now.

Minority Corner. Oh, sorry about that. Just had to dispatch some goons real quick. Hi, I'm April Wolf, lead film critic at LA Weekly. And when I'm not kicking butt, I'm hosting the new Maximum Fun podcast, Switchblade Sisters. Do you love genre films? Do you love female filmmakers? Do you love discussions on craft?

If your answer is yes, you'll love Switchblade Sisters. Every episode I invite one female filmmaker on, and we talk in-depth about their fave genre film and how it influenced their own work. So we're talking horror, action, sci-fi, fantasy, bizarro, and exploitation cinema. Mothers, lock up your sons because the Switchblade sisters are coming for you. Available at maximum fun.org or wherever you find your podcasts.