The Adventure Zone - The Adventure Zone: Dust - Episode 4

Episode Date: March 22, 2018

Sunlight creeps over the horizon. The Graysons are one big break away from cracking their case wide open -- but will they find their quarry before Dry River wakes up? Augustus does some spectral recon. Gandy cracks open a dangerous tome. Errol angers a friend. 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. You got groups like the church, the law, that if this town were to become incorporated, they would lose a pretty big handhold in the Crescent Territory. I loved Jeremiah Blackwell, and he loved Anne. What is the antidote to despair? Well, my friend, it is action. Nice to meet you to, uh, Banji. Yeah.

Let's get down to business. I want to help you in this. The spirit that has been occupying the body in front of you leaves it, and the Banshee is gone from the room. So you open the envelope, a key falls out, a house key. You pull out the piece of paper that's in there, and when you turn it over, it simply says, don't trust Connors. So do you guys want to know who did it? I already know.

figured it out. I just didn't want to reveal it in episode two. No, this is, this is the thing you used to do when we played Clue or you watch the movie, where you go like, oh, and we'd be like, what, in bag, you'll figure it out. And I was always, and I was always right. No, there's no way. He did solve a Clue game after two rounds of clues. It was amazing. I have to think he cheated. I still can't believe. Don't do that. Don't reopen this wound, Travis, please.

Okay. So, um, we just put out episode three. So it's fairly recent. So I don't think we have to go over all the clues again. But so can you guys give me a quick like where you're at now? What what your plan is? I will say, can I say something?

Let's go over the clues again. Yeah, I think we at least have an idea now of like what is relevant. Here's the thing I'm struggling with. Unless it is Liam, I don't have a good, I don't have any other good suspects. Well, I think if you want to look at motive, I kind of suspected the sheriff before we got the grim omen from the Banshee because if the town gets incorporated, the law, I think, loses a foothold in town, right? Like, if they bring in more proper infrastructure and, you know, sort of codify the, you know, lowercase L law in town, I think the sheriff loses something. and so that might be a reason why they would commit a murder. Now, who was the sheriff vouching for so hard last time?

Tommy Knox. Tommy Knox. So maybe there's a collaboration that was happening there. The thing that makes this case so curious is the... Is how it actually happened. Is that they... Somebody knew where Jeremiah and where Dylan was... was going to be, somebody killed Jeremiah in the street.

I'm assuming with these gloves, although that could be just a big red herring from Travis, and then somehow got them cleaned and back to the house where Liam was staying before, like, before we took notice? There's a lot, there's so many question marks still. I think we need to, I think we need to lock in some things. I think the gloves is a good example. We have had nothing else that has even come close to being a murder weapon. I think every indicator points at the gloves.

I say we lock in the glove as the murder weapon. Unless that's exactly what fucking Travis wants. Well, maybe we'll find something in Sheriff Connors' house. We're about to go get a big clue, I feel like. So instead of... Let's go kick up in Sheriff Connors' doors. Wait, was I supposed to be writing this down? Like, what...

Oh, my right. Am I supposed to know what we're doing? Oh, no. I'm making this up as we go on. long, baby. All right. Oh, yeah, baby. Oh, yeah, baby. What time is it as we make our way to the address? Let's sit on the card. I will say it's about six o'clock. I mean, you still have some time, but it's getting there, you know? Okay. I mean, the best case scenario for me is we don't solve it in time, and then we have some sort of, like, big hero moment at the sheriff's station where we, you know, fend off the whole town, gunslinger style.

Just a whole tombstone moment. Right. This is our justice, et cetera. Every town has a story. Dry River has a legend. We deal in lead, friend. Speaking as someone whose greatest combat ability is not getting hurt by things. That sounds a little bit underwhelming to me.

I'd like to crack the case if we could. All right. All right. So you're heading to the address on the card with the house key given to you by the Banshee. When you approach the home, it is, in fact, to confirm Griffin's suspicions.

It is Sheriff Connor's home. A couple doors down, about three doors down from the jailhouse. How many doors down? Three doors. You all remember that, Jam? You all remember that, Jam?

So if it's near the jail, then it's not on Carrion Street, then, right? Correct. Farts. Okay. I was just saying like if there's no bells here like I'm fucking useless. No, but the streets are clear. The windows are dark. You know that the sheriff is still, you left him at the jail. He said he would keep an eye and protect Dylan. So you're fairly confident. The house is empty. You know from your intel that Connors lives alone. So you can feel pretty confident about using the key and and what's not without having. to worry about repercussions. Well, I, still, we should be cautious, I feel like. Well, yeah, you're sneaking into somebody's house.

I'm just giving you, like, if this was, like, if this was a quest for glory game, here's what you know, this is a, this is a low stealth check. You know what I mean? So there's a thing and let it out where you extend your senses, supernatural or otherwise. Mm-hmm. So, like, just do, like, a, I'm trying to, like, figure out a way to, like, use my keen wolf senses to like see if there's anyone inside the house or any sort of dangers that we should be aware of.

Do it, baby. Okay. I've been listening to too much magic tavern. I can't stop. Okay, that's a six, which is not great. But plus one for spirit. So that's a seven. So it's a hit.

So I do mark corruption. Uh-huh. Wrecking that shit up. Oh, no, I'm just at two. It's fine. And yeah, I just sort of like, take a beat, stop my companions, and like take a deep sniff, a hard sniff. So I will say that you do sense some light magical wording on the door.

Just kind of think like security system, you know, like, but not since you used your super or natural. It doesn't seem to connect to anywhere. More of like this way someone would know if someone had gone in, but it would. wouldn't necessarily raise an alarm or anything like this. It's fairly common, this idea of, like, there was someone in my house, but it doesn't connect to a more intricate system. They got that on the window?

Window and door. So there's no way of going in this house without somebody knowing about it. Well. Well, hey, Gandy, there's a little bit of magic something or other on the doors and windows here into the house. I have a couple of options. I have a teleport spell. Okay.

Where I can teleport someone a short distance. It seems to me that would get you past any kind of wards to keep you out. I mean, you can bamp for one of us, right? But then other two are still going to be on the outside. Augustus floats through the wall. Oh, yeah, I forgot. Okay, so all right. And he looks at everybody.

from inside through the window. Oh. I guess that's a neat trick. I forgot that that's why you were in the big bucks. Gandy, why don't you just poured on in there and I'll keep an eye out out here. Very well. So she, oh, nice.

In channeling, she's channeling. That's a 10. Do you have to, sorry, do you have to, sorry, I don't know how the channeling works. But you did it, you did it last time and you got three whole. Do you not just continue to spend that whole? hold or is there like a certain amount of time that you have to go between channelings? I don't know, Trab?

Yeah, sure. When you channel and collect your magic's role with, I guess you, oh, you can't channel again this scene. That's what it is. So it's like scene by scene. So I guess this is a new scene and you can do it again. Okay. I rolled a 10.

So that's, uh, hold three. That's pretty much a hold three. So, uh, really cool Star Trek. kind of effect, twinkle, twinkle, twinkle, and then I'm inside the room with Augustus. Okay. I'm going to like walk down the stairs off the porch a bit so it's not to arouse suspicion and just sort of keep an eye out down the street. Okay, well, I could follow Gandy and Gus here, but I think instead they'll do whatever and I'm just going to spend the next hour with with Arrow on the street. Arrow, what are you doing? You know, just looking around, kicking some dirt, whistling.

Oh, no, don't whistle. Oh, what am I? Okay, so I go with Gus and Gandhi. So you enter the house, it's, you know, it's dark. There's no candles lit or lanterns. The only thing you get is kind of the ambient. I was going to say moonlight, but here we are. We're near six o'clock, so the moon is real low. So you're just getting a little bit of ambient light. Goss, I'm going to say that's probably not so much of a problem for you.

Gandhi, do you have anything that would help you here? I mean, it doesn't even have to be magical. you could always just like light a candle or something. Knowing, knowing, Gandy, if there is an opportunity for something, for a magical answer to a,

to a, to a, everyday dilemma, I feel like you have some sort of, you know, enchanted maglight. And so you are correct, sir.

Excellent, excellent, excellent. Excellent. She has, she has what's called the V torque. It's a gold torque. She wears around her neck. It's an artifact.

And, and, and, uh, it, uh, It has a natural ambient light that she can use. And it just kind of suffuses the general area around her and Augustus with a warm golden glow. Which goes right through Augustus.

Very nice. Excellent. So as you enter the room here in his kind of living quarters, what you see is on the wall, you know, newspaper clippings about his time and kind of more established. cities back east, the incorporated territories, where you see a much younger, but still clearly Sheriff Connors, as a young beat cop in this more established city, which I have not picked the name for, but I'm just going to call it right now, the big city, the B.C. That's big with two G's. Yeah, B-I-G-G, Big the cat.

And city with two eyes. City with two eyes. in big city. And you find newspaper clippings about this young, fresh-faced cop, who, it seems like, was very successful. And then they just kind of stop, you know, and the last you see, a young man, about 25. And then suddenly there's no more newspaper clippings. and that's about all you see here in kind of the, I don't want to say living room because it's not really that so much.

It's just like a chair, you know, a table. It doesn't look super lived in. You kind of get the impression that Sheriff Connor spends most of his time at the sheriff's office. He pretty much only comes back here to eat and sleep. Is there any more detail in the last newspaper clipping that we we found anything at all that would indicate what happened? And then he turned evil.

Yeah. Beat cop goes bad. Well, if something bad happened, he messed up or something that would kind of explain why he has been, you know, exiled to this place. The last story is about, the last story you can see is about Conner's making the arrest of a low-level enforcer for a crime family in the big. city. What's the enforcer's name? The enforcers' name is

Flint Chittles. Flint Chittles. Whoa. Okay. That's amazing. Now it all comes back. It all ties back. It ties together. Let me see. I'll give you that name in a moment.

Once I look at Twitter. So it's not Flint Chittles. It's not Flint Chittles. That was some good storytelling on my part. Who I... Actually, I would just say amazing memory on Dad's part. I just don't recall who Flint Chittles was. He runs one of the mining companies.

I guess as the manager. Not had something to do with... I thought I had something to do with the Augustus Parsons cash. Yeah, they own the mining company and secured the land from Augustus. Right. The name is Bishop, named after listener Holly Bishop on Twitter. Thank you for tweeting about the show. Um, Bishop.

Uh, he was a low level enforcer, uh, for a crime family in the big city. Um, it doesn't mention what crime family. It's not even a big article. It seems to be kind of a, uh, two paragraph, maybe buried on like, you know, page five of the newspaper kind of deal. So a dead end. I'm going to extend my senses. I too can let it out with my ghostly powers. I keep wanting to sing let it go

And I want you all appreciate that I haven't yet Thank you, well, considering it's let it out That is admirable or straight out No, okay, well, all right, I've done it I'm gonna, you are my puppet father That's a, what is that? Eight plus spirit Which I'm a ghost, so that's two

So it's a ten So you can choose two effects or take one And no corruption and I bet I know which one you're going to do. I'm going to ignore the corruption. Whoa, never mind. I was wrong. Just kidding. I'm going to extend my senses, supernatural otherwise,

and I'm going to take one forward on my next role. Okay. You feel two powerful sources, both of them coming from the direction upstairs. One about, I would have. would say at least twice, if not more powerful than the other. But both seem to be going away from kind of his living area and kitchenette and had an upstairs. Okay. I'm going to float upstairs then. Hey, what's going on outside? What's a good question? What does Aero see? First of all, I will say that

maybe Aero can see a little bit of that golden glow, just a little bit, but enough that, you know, It ain't something you're crazy about seeing there in the window. It ain't exactly low profile. But the street is still fairly empty. You hear rustling. You can see some lights and windows further down the street, but there's no one out at this time. If I see lights and windows, am I assuming that people are starting to wake up? Oh, yeah.

Farts. I mean, far down the street, you can see the worker housing. It's starting to light up. You know, you still have a while. Um, the shift, it doesn't start at the mind for a while. Um, okay. But it's getting there. Um, what, tell me, how's Errol feeling?

I was going upstairs to look at the super magic clues and we're really getting B roll right now. Like, this is what we're doing. I'll be quick. I'm feeling nervous. Okay. Um, so as you float upstairs, you reach what is clearly, uh, Conner's bedroom and you see in a corner, something that you are not surprised to see. And that is a shrine to... One moment.

I've lost my notes. Jesus? A shrine to Jesus. Dear Jesus, give me a power I need. Do all the good crime busting today. Help me get all the good clues, Jeasy. You see a shrine to Lim DeFell, who you know is the kind of demonic presence that the law, capital T, capital L, was founded by the worshippers of Lim DeFell.

It's the order. What you know from just general intel is the followers of Lim DeFel, the law believe in power through order. Now, what you weren't expecting to see is the whole shrine seems to be covered in like a fairly fine but clear layer of dust. there is, as with most shrines you've seen, a book laid open. This is how the followers tend to communicate with the people they worship and follow, but the book is burned out through the center. And on investigation, it is clear that the fire kind of, it seems that the fire, whatever burned it out,

was from the middle of the book and not from outside in. And that is the less powerful supernatural presence or power you're feeling. There is a closet, and that's where you feel, the more powerful supernatural power. Now, Gandhi, my impulse is to see what is inside the closet. Would you like to open the door to the closet or would you like me to just sort of duck in there? I have a very strange feeling, but I'm afraid that if it has to, if it's magical in origin, it might even harm you. How about if I cast shielding to protect us to protect us both before we open the closet? Yes.

I believe a bit of press to digitation is indeed called for. Okay, so she cast shielding, which comes off another one of her artifacts. She's got this jet carved bracelet around her wrist, which would be a good place for a bracelet. Yes. Do I need to roll anything? No, so you still have your two, you still have two holds left. I still have two holds, one hold left. I used one.

Oh, no, it rolled up again. Okay. So I have two holds left, so I'm going to use this shielding. Now, if you want to shield everybody in a small area, that's your last. last two holds, just so you know. Right. That's right. I use two holds to provide plus one armor to everybody in a small area, and that includes myself, and it's me and Augustus, right? Correct. Yeah. Okay, so I cast this shielding, and then I, she reaches out and opens the closet door. It's a good thing you cast that shielding, because what is released from the closet is a blast

of wild magic. And what you see inside is a second shrine. this one very clearly actively being used um and let's uh let's do uh face to a name uh or name to a face wait did that protect us with his shielding spell yeah dad what that was effective magic dad you use magic effectively and now i have learned the true lesson whoa dad is glowing and he's floating into the sky. Goodbye, Dad. You did it. I will look down

upon you from the heavens. Goodbye, our dad. Goodbye. This is, we love that is waiting for. Goodbye, Dorothy. I'm missing. Thank you for the last

episode of the Adventures, though. Did I hear that from the street? I will say maybe like the second floor windows kind of rattled a little bit. Definitely not like but like you look up and you see like a little kind of maybe swell in the glow you could have already seen up there and the windows

rattle a bit. Yeah. So Gandy and Gust maybe give me a name to a face kind of roll here. I think that that will, I'm trying to think of a way that you would identify the shrine. I think that that's what would make sense. Is that one of Gandy's moves? I don't see it on this. It's a faction move. So you just roll 2D6. Okay. Five and three, do I add anything to it? That's an eight. You roll with faction right now. I don't think we know it. If it's a God, it may power. Okay.

Oh, no, sorry. It is wild. You know what? I got a plus one to wild and I rolled a nine. So I got a 10. Eight and then my power faction is two. It's wild. That's okay.

Because Gus knows this through all of your ghostly learnings. You recognize this as a shrine to Amdefel, who is Lim DeFel's brother. Um, DeFel, you know, is the demonic presence whose worshippers believe in power through chaos. Omdefell is the far wilder, less predictable, far more dark sibling of Limdafell. And sitting on that shrine is a similar book to the one that you saw on Limdafell shrine, but this one is not burned out. It's just sitting there waiting for you to open it.

No thank you. I've got to read it. Gandy has to look at it. That's her whole driving thing. Out of the corner of her eye, Gandy notices that Gus is like floating down through the floor. Oh, no. It's happening again.

I'm, oh, this is embarrassing. I'm, oh, Oh, no. And then he's gone. So, Gandy, you're going to open the book? Yes. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

So when you touch the cover of the book, it swings open. But that's, here's the thing, normal for this kind of shrine communication. And what you see is the last communication that happened between Connors and Omdafel. And on the left-hand page, is written in fairly normal handwriting what are your orders and on the right hand page in a far more scrawly, jerky

handwriting is stop the deal no matter what I think it might be a clue guys It does feel that way to me My gut is telling me we're in clue town All right Gus floats back up Well what did you find?

I think it's a clue Very good I think the note about the sheriff Not trusting the sheriff was really on the nosy All right Well it seems that The sheriff is attempting to sow unrest By killing young Blackwell

Then I think you better go bust his ass Augustus Well we could all do it yeah Yes you're a wizard with apparently infinity You're just like a It does seem that way, doesn't it? A dollar store of, like, magical trinkets just jingling off of you. Here's a list of my superpowers.

Am a ghost, have ghost cashews. Those are my two big things. We need to go tell Errol and we need to go finish this. Yes, let's report back to Errol. Gandy, are you going to take the book with you? Oh, absolutely. You have any idea what it would be like to be able to communicate with this entity on a regular basis? answer the questions of life and death and and maybe even get some penmanship tips because this is really bad cursive here.

Being able to communicate with a demonic presence every moment of every day. Yes, Gandy, I too have Twitter. Topical. Topical humor. To cut back. And what is Twitter you might be asking? Well, in this world, just pretend. Just pretend that he had a good answer there.

Fantasy Twitter. Fantasy Twitter. It's a big bag of 140 birds that everybody carries with... Two and 80 birds now. That's too many birds. They've doubled the amount of birds. It's a great weight. Jell each bird of character.

So, back out on the streets. Errol, you hear the shuffling of footsteps behind you. Behind me towards the house or behind me down the street? Down the streets. You turn, and there's Sheriff Connors. And Sheriff Conner sees Gus and Gandhi, I assume, coming out of the house. We got your book! And he sees the book and says, well, shit.

So it looks like maybe an explanation's in order. Why don't you come back to the jail with me? I can explain everything. We could also just sort of do this right here. I would also be curious to hear what's in that there book. Well, if y'all will just trust me for a second, I'd rather not draw attention to us here on the street. If you know people are starting to wake up.

And if you want to keep Dylan safe, I think we need to head back to the jailhouse. I mean, thinking about it, us killing the sheriff of this town in the middle of the street, even if he's a bad guy, is probably optics-wise not great. maybe we should maybe we should try to do this in private.

No matter what this confrontation looks like, it would probably be better to do it without onlookers. And if we get the grace and internal affairs people involved, that's going to be forever. Oh, there's so much paperwork. All the reports. Jeez. So you follow him back to the jailhouse.

He walks in, and the first thing he does is he takes out his gun and lays it on his desk. And he takes from his, from his calf, strapped to his calf, a long dagger. It looks to be kind of a repurposed

re-purposed bayonet. Very long, very thin. He lays that on his desk as well. Kind of a like no threat going on here kind of deal. You know what I mean? I'm taking my weapons out. And let's say Gandy,

with your experience, with magical artifacts, So with both gun and dagger, the gun is very polished silver with a black onyx handle. And the, it's not actually silver. You will make a gun out of silver, but it's a polished, you know what I mean, highly polished metal. Sure. The dagger, on the other hand, does have running through the center of it from the crossguard to almost the point, a thin line of silver. Both of them share similar sigils that Gandhi, you know,

are magically imbue these weapons so that they are effective against all manner of beings, be they corporeal or incorporeal, Faye, or power, or human, or knight, or whatever. And these are very common artifacts used by the law that allows them to effectively enforce the law without having to worry about facing creatures more powerful than themselves. Dagger O.P. Dagger O.P. Please Nerf.

I think that Gandy also flicks her wrists and the two matching derringers of hers come out of her sleeves. Whoa. Whoa. That she's had, that she established in the first episode, takes them and puts them on the table right next to the sheriff's weapons. I'm going to keep my revolver. I'm great with that. Augustus reaches into his pocket. and takes out his spectral cashews and puts them on the table.

All right. And they go right through it. Yeah. Prop comedy, I told him. And he says, ah, nuts. Aw, nuts. Cushes just go right through me. Getting nuts.

So it seems like maybe we need to have a conversation, huh? Don't worry about the boy, and he's asleep. No reason to wake him for this. so this looks bad, huh? It doesn't look good. Let me tell you all a story. Story about a young man who believed in right and wrong,

who believed in justice, thought he could make a difference. That young man... Was it you? I mean, yes, but that's a part of this. It's a less interesting way, but all right, it was me. I thought it might have been you.

When I started as a cop, I thought I could change. But there's so much, not just red tape, but corruption. People for whom money was more important than right and wrong and justice. And I was just beginning to make a different shutting down families that were hurting people, that were doing wrong. And then my commanding officer told me to drop it, to let it go, to be satisfied with what I had done and move on to other things. And I did a little digging, and it turned out that my CEO was getting paid off by the family.

And when I tried to confront it, they tried to transfer me, and I walked away. And I came out here. came out here to where I can make a difference without having to answer to anybody but myself. And I've worked, I've worked hard for the last 30 years to try to change things here. And I've, you can't imagine what this town was like when I got here. It was constant bloodshed. And over the last couple of years, I've seen this town heading that way again. And I'm not going to let bureaucracy come in here.

I'm not going to let red tape come in here. I'm not going to let corruption come in here and stop me from making this place better. And so, yes, I realized that order wasn't what wasn't what the Cress of Territory needed anymore. And things had to be done. And listen, I... I'm not proud of the decisions I've made. But it's what had to be done to keep people safe. Do you understand that?

Sheriff, did you kill Jeremiah Blackwell? Yes. Well, we can sit here and swap sentences and pontificate on the relative morality of that decision. But I do need to know, are you going to be? going to let this boy go. Absolutely. Listen, I can't. This wasn't supposed to go down like this. And he reaches into his desk and he pulls out another set of diggers.

Another set of gloves. These, I took these off Liam a while back. And they're coated in blood. This is what I used. My plan was to track all this back to Liam. I didn't. Dylan wasn't. supposed to be there. And so, listen, you have to believe me, no matter what, even if y'all

hadn't shown up tonight, this was never going to track back to Dylan. Here's, Liam's the head of the workers. I pin this on him. Now the fangs and the furs don't trust the workers. A fur killed a fang. Now the fangs don't trust the furs. The furs don't trust the fangs. We create chaos, law steps in. I calm everything down. right we work again to rebuild we make this this town strong we don't need listen there's money here in this town from the copper and from the silver and mr parsons you should know better than anybody when the government steps in and you have to pay taxes and you have to pay you have to pay politicians and suddenly your money isn't your own

anymore that's not what this town needs i uh i got a question for you sheriff. Why did you bring us on? You had to know if we investigated this case, we could have figured out what you did. Well, I could tell you that I was hoping you'd pinned it on Liam. And I could tell you that I was hoping you would side with me at the end, but from being honest,

when I planned this, I thought you were coming to tomorrow. Then that would have caused two innocent people their lives, correct? Jeremiah and Liam. Better than a whole town. Don't you understand this town is dying and incorporating is it to death now? If you want to save a body, sometimes you have to amputate. You can't save everyone.

I know all about death. I'm learned so much about death. And I know that you placing. such lack of emphasis on the deaths of two young men, that's not your decision to make. So who is it? Who's in charge here? Because from my standpoint, it's me. I've been saving this town for 30 years.

Are you really going to step in here and tell me you would know better or that anyone would know better? You aren't here. You don't know. You're... You are entitled to whatever feelings that you wish to have. My feeling currently is this. I do not wish Mr. Mathis to spend any more time in his cell, and I hope before we continue our conversation, you can release him.

If you wish to place yourself in the cell, that is your decision, of course. But otherwise, I trust that you will stay here. Well, as I see it, we got two options. well let's hear them but do make it quick i've made my preferences known option one dillon goes free of course we pin this on liam we both you know step forward you present your evidence against liam i present the gloves and everything moves forward as plans the town survives option two dylan goes free you take me into custody and this town

falls into the hands of corruption and bureaucracy and they don't trust law anymore they don't know right from wrong anymore and there's no one left to guide them I was hoping one of the options would be like a cool gunfight with the sheriff yes knife fight even even a knife fight

That would have been even cool too, I think. You have to understand something, Sheriff. Our primary goal is to accomplish this job. We were hired to come in here and prove Dylan Mathis's innocence and to free him from the cell. I can't speak for the other two, but I personally don't care about all the rest. And if Dylan is not out of that cell, then we haven't accomplished. Our mission. Either way, boy goes free.

You don't have to worry about Dylan. Sheriff, you may find this hard to believe, but we're speaking the same language here. Last thing I want is for outside interests to come in and force themselves on Carrion Street, change their way of life. We like the way we live on Carrying Street. But if that means living with your justice,

if that means locking up innocent folks, if that means killing boys in the street. Why are we having this fucking conversation? You killed a boy in the street. And I draw on him and say, Sheriff Conners, you're under arrest for the murder of Jeremiah Blackwell. Can we do this?

I turn to the... Can we do this? Are we allowed to, like, arrest folks? Hell yeah! There's no... I mean, there's no sheriff anymore, so I guess. Well, I sure was hoping

this would go different. And smoke starts curling from his nostrils, and his eyes start to go yellow, his skin goes purple and kiteness, and he grows about eight inches, and he reaches around and grabs his gun and knife. Hey, everybody, this is Griffin McRoy, your best bud, your best friend, and your best pal.

Thanks for listen to the fourth and final episode of the Adventure Zone Dust. We hope you have enjoyed it. We hope you enjoy the conclusion. It's going to come up here after this break. I want to tell you all about the shades of magic. There's like purple and brown and there's some blue. No, this is a book series actually.

And this series is available now wherever books are sold. Visit darker hyphen shade.com to read excerpts. For more books, you can follow the publisher at Tor Books. That's T-O-R-B-O-O-K-S. This book recommendation is brought to you by Tour Books. If you're a fan of adventures traversing parallel worlds, don't miss a darker shade of magic by best-selling author V.E. Schwab. Kelle is one of the last Antari, magicians with a rare ability to travel between parallel London's red, gray, white, and once upon a time, black. Perilous magic is afoot and treachery lurks at every turn.

Meanwhile, Lila Bard, a thief with grander ambitions, is about to find out magic is very, very, very. very real. That sounds like a pretty rad idea for a book. It sounds like a rad book in general. And you can find it at darker hyphen shade.com. Or maybe it's a dash. Which one's the short one? I think hyphen, darker hyphenshade.com to read some excerpts. I also want to tell you about a podcast called Six Feets Under, and that's F-E-A-T-S, and that's a very, very good name for a podcast. Check out Six Feets Under an LGBT-friendly actual play podcast focused on games that aren't that big one. We've got two campaigns going on right now, Mouse Guard, a story of seven brave mice among two patrols who are making the territories a better place, and fellowship to winter's end, a story of four unusual outcasts finding out what it means to be a hero. You can find us on Twitter at six feats under on our website at www.6feet's under.com or on Patreon at patreon.com.

slash feats. And again, that's F-E-A-T-S. Don't look for Feet's F-E-E-T-S. That, I mean, unless you want to, but that's not going to be this really cool-sounding thing. So, again, six-feats under.com. I want to thank everybody who's been tweeting about the show using the Zonecast hashtag. If you do that, you might end up as a character on the show in future stuff. Again, this is the last episode of Dust. So whatever comes next, that's something that we're going to keep trying to do. So please spread the word.

We really appreciate it. don't pay to advertise at all. So you telling your friends and anyone who falls under the thrall of your voice is the only way that we get new listeners and we appreciate you so much. I think that's it. Sorry, that took so long. We're going to get back to the climax of the Adventure Zone Dust. And once again, no full episode next week, but we'll be back with a special announcement next Thursday. So we will talk to you then. Bye. Hold up a minute there, Sparky. He cocks his gun. He points the gun at Gandy.

I'm going to roll to mislead, distract, or trick. Mainly I'm going to try to distract. Sorry, Connors. So he'll look behind himself. And that's, oh, shit, nice. I rolled a nine. So I have a zero in mine. So nine.

And I could pick two, create an opportunity and confuse them for some time. So describe to me what you are doing to do this. How are you distracting him? I turn invisible and I chuck something behind his head so he looks behind himself just for a moment. Okay. Okay. And when he turned, I throw something, maybe I throw something off the desk, like the spectral cash shoes or something because they were material for a moment because I became invisible. So they became physical and invisible.

Ramifications of that are wild. That you get, you, energy cannot be created or destroyed. And yet somehow Augustus Parsons can generate cashews from the ether. Right. Like, we could use this to solve like, world hunger. The energy crisis, global hunger. I don't, yeah. It's amazing.

These amazing ghostly cashews. Uh, so while he's distracted, and I've, I'm now invisible, um, what you all see is, uh, uh, Gandy's glasses, uh, float off of her face and out the door. Okay. And,

uh, Connors turns back, points his knife at you, arrow, the gun at, uh, Gandy. And I'm gonna say he fires a Gandy.

Okay. Can I take a bullet? Is that too? Is that too much? You can do it over the phone. fuck you want son uh yeah i i definitely jump in the way of the bullet should i roll to like actually attempt this feat or yeah so give me a roll what would it be how would you define it i mean i think probably uh so there's like an assistance move a linda hand uh but that's like that's like to give

them a bonus on their on a roll there's one called keep your cool which is just like doing something in a tense situation yeah i think it's probably yeah roll for that one uh uh That is another six plus one, seven. So on a seven to nine, on a ten plus, all's well. On a seven to nine, the MC will tell you what it's going to cost you. Okay, cool. So we're going to say that your move was trying to knock Gandy out of the way. And what you end up doing is taking the bullet.

So the gun is naturally two harm and in demon form, Connors inflicts plus one harm. So it would be three harm. Oh, Jesus. Okay. I have two natural arms. because I'm a cool wolf, half wolf man. So, uh, so would that just be faint harm then?

I mark that. Uh, yeah, you're gonna have one harm, so, uh, okay. Yes, light, light harm. But a hole in my cool jacket. Hole in your cool jacket. And I will say you also, because you did like that sweet diving move, you were also like on the ground, you know? Sure, yeah.

Okay, Gandy, she, uh, grabs up the derringers from the table almost instinct instinctually and fires. Now, the derringers do one harm each, so two harm. Eight. Okay. And also in demon mode, Connors gets a plus one armor, so it's going to be one harm for that. And because you had to get to the desk to grab the derringers, I'm going to say that you are in range.

so he takes a swipe at you with that, with that dagger. And that would be too harm. Do you have any armor? Well, would the shield still be in effect? No, this is a different scene. No, no armor. Okay, then I'm going to say you take a healthy cut across your bicep. it begins bleeding and you kind of feel your arm getting cold and you find it kind of hard to

to work your right hand. So how do these boxes harm bar? This is the first, like, fight we've had in this arc. So if she takes two harm, that's the faint box marked and then one of the grievous, which is like the next level of harm up or two of the grievous. So, yeah, I believe it's. one faint and then one grievous. So I'm halfway through grievous.

You're halfway through general grievous, yes. Can I do something real quick? Yes. I roll onto my back from the, because I'm sort of laying on the floor after taking that bullet. And I lean upwards and I shoot the lock off of Dillon's cage. Okay. So here's the thing about werewolves. The closer you get to the full moon, the more powerful they are.

And the higher the moon is in the sky, the more powerful they are. And the easier it is for them to transform and to harness that power. So on the days before and after the full moon, it's harder for them to channel it. And it's especially closer to sunset or sunrise. the harder it is for them to channel it. The amount of energy, the amount of emotion that it takes to harness that full power at those times,

it's almost unheard of. So when the now-hulking figure of Dylan Mathis cannonballs through his cell door, you get the impression he's pretty goddamn pissed. He charges at... He charges at Connors. Conner's goes to turn the gun on him, but before he can, Dylan grabs his hand and you hear a crunch, and you're not sure if that's Conner's bones or the gun or what, but the two of them are kind of locked together there, and Dylan drives him up against the wall with his hand on Conner's throat.

Connors buries that dagger into Dylan's ribs, but whether through adrenaline or just sheer force of will doesn't seem to have much effect on Dylan's throat. and there's a slight grimace, but he doesn't let go of Conner's throat. And he just stares Conner in his yellow eyes and says, You hurt Jeremiah! And Connors is gasping, You took Jeremiah from me. You took Jeremiah from Anne. And Conner's gasping says,

Mercy, please. And Dylan looks him square in the eye and says, No. And with that, Dylan reaches down and pulls that dagger from his own ribs and buries it in the heart of Sheriff Connors. So deep, in fact, that it digs into the wall behind him, pinning his lifeless body there. How does Dylan look right now? So as, you know, now that his task is completely, the adrenaline is wearing off, he begins. to revert back to human form.

And as though it is just now hitting him, his hand goes to his ribs and comes away coated in blood. He stumbles back and falls to his knees. He's in a bad way, but it's not an immediate killing blow. Okay. As he's transforming, I think like wolf to wolf, I'd say, nope, Dylan, stay angry. You're a lot.

you're going to be able to survive that thing if you stay in your wolf form if you transform back to human Dylan I I kind of like slap him and my claws kind of scratch him across the face a little bit I'm trying to keep Dylan like fucking pissed off until we can like get him to a surgeon whatever yep yep that's good think about think about what you lost yep you got your vengeance but there's still lots of reason to be pissed off in this world yep yep and I say Gandy I'm going to get him to a surgeon, I guess keep watch here and not clean up because the sheriff is pinned to the wall and that's a mess that's probably more than one person's capable of handling, but I got to save this boy. And when you open the door, Errol, the, let's say the noise has drawn attention.

Light is breaking over the tops of the buildings and you've garnered a bit of a crowd. Coming down the street is Deputy Rosa, who you see with a couple who you assume from the way that they're dressed in the fact that they are with her are the Blackwells. And Deputy Rosa, when she sees Dylan covered in blood, Aero, who has been shot and hearing the noise and not seeing Connors, her pace quickens, and she runs into the sheriff's office. And you, you know, you hear a scream from inside and she comes back out gun drawn what happened what is going on what the fuck uh i believe i might be able to shed some light she turns pointing her gun at you augustus this new sound and appearance that will do you no good uh i am first allow me to reintroduce myself

just so you know i am the spectral former he is bleeding out augustus if you could skip the intro this time. Fair enough. This is my associate's associate, friend of a friend, associate of associate, Uncle Oney. And I believe Uncle Ony, I gave you the spectacles. Could you inform Deputy Rosa of the situation we find ourselves in? I certainly can.

Gandhi, would you like me to? Please do so, Uncle Ony. Love it when you get a chance to show. Oh, I'm so glad I could help. Just the agreement from you. It's the second, yes. It's the second one, yes. No, this goes beyond question.

It seems you very much need this. Are we in agreement? Yes, Uncle Onee, especially since I have something that you're absolutely going to love. Okay, but you are going to take a corruption point there. the gandy Okay

And with that Uncle Onee places the The spectacles on his nose And closes these eyes And projected We'll say is a sheen A circle of magic Whereon projects

The whole scene On to like onto the side of the Sheriff Station This is sorry The symbolism of that is fucking tasty as hell And you hear Joseph Blackwell say God bless it

this is as you might imagine a lot to process Oh The boy Tommy And a man wearing Similar Pinsnez Or however we agreed to pronounce it

But Ponsnais Ponsnais tainted black with He looks far too young to have hair as gray as he does But he steps up Yes A seat to the boy Get him to the dock

And I assume Errol you go with Or let's say Abigail steps up And kind of ducks under The arm you're kind of holding up Yeah I think I just I just give her a nod And And hand her her son

And Abigail and Tommy take him to the doctor, and Michael seemingly out of nowhere steps up to you, Errol, looks you in the eye and says, the boy will live. Yes, you've done a good job, Mr. Reihouse. I think that there's a scene inside the office I should see to. to be honest I don't care if his spirit goes into a fucking toilet

bud but you do your job yes probably best if this one ends in cremation don't you think yeah burn it uh and Blackwell steps up

what you have to forgive me it's quite a bit of information to process all at once um

what the fuck is going on And Anne steps up. I think I can clear a lot of this up, Mr. Blackwell. Jeremiah was killed tonight. And you see Mrs. Blackwell just put a hand to her mouth, and suddenly Joseph can look nowhere other than the face of Anne Mathis. Ah, and what happened?

Well, as I think you saw Mr. Blackwell, he was the victim of a much larger conspiracy. You should also know Jeremiah and I were married a few days ago. Joseph looks her in the eye and asks one question. when when my son died was he happy and anne smiles and says i i think so and they hug um gandy walks over and sidles up next to uncle ony and leans down and looks him in the eyes she has this a grin on her face and she holds out the book of omdefell and says as Uncle Oney, look, a book that lets us directly talk to chaos demons. We are going to get into some ship.

Oh, yes. I go inside and as Michael is preparing the body and preparing to take it away, I take the badge off his corpse. and walk back outside and say, this is something that folks in this world rarely get a chance to actually say, but, and I flick it to Deputy Rosa, and I say, there actually is a new sheriff in town. And she just stares on it.

It's not a happy moment, and she seems in shock, but she doesn't put it down. and let's fast forward just a few moments. Things have calmed down. Abigail has come back. Dylan's on the men. This isn't the first time. The doc has seen silver poisoning.

And because of your quick thinking, Errol and keeping that adrenaline flowing, it's going to be all right. And Abigail has told you that, you know, she's wired the Grayson Agency, let him know, well done. Payment has been issued to the agency as well, plus a hefty bonus. And Joseph Blackwell approaches you. Um, I can't, I can't begin to thank you for a job well done. Um, but I, I must commission

a new job from you. I mean, I'll talk to my associates. Are you all free? What's the timetable looking like? Y'all got any big plans coming up? Are you sure he's talking to all three of us? I think it will take all three of you. With my son and heir

gone, I must ask you to journey to Crescent City. and convince my daughter to come home. So far away but not nearly as far as you might think, in the underbelly of Crescent City, we see a dark doorway. We see a figure shrouded, step through that doorway,

and walk down a dark hallway. They enter a room, and that room appears to be empty. A table, a chair, a lantern. lit but revealing nothing. The figure draws back its shroud and we recognize Isabella Slate. Isabella Slate says,

You wanted to see me? And a voice seemingly from nowhere, familiar but not coming from a body we've heard, says, Yes, tell me what you were able to pull from the female wizard. And unseen by human eyes, the banshee smiles.

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