The Adventure Zone - The Adventure Zone: Ethersea - Episode 10

Episode Date: September 30, 2021

The Infinite Clam: Part Four A surprising revelation about their enlarged environment sends Amber on a trip down memory lane. Unstable energies further discombobulate the Coriolis crew's sense of scale.Additional music in this episode: "PULL" by Nctrnm https://soundcloud.com/nctrnm. 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, Ethersea. You're in a giant clam. Water is pouring into the ship through a leak in the hull. I'm going to grab a ration wrapper. Okay. And just tape that on with some duct tape. I think he uses all of his speed to get to the lionfish and riding it like a bucking bronco. The fish is a ship.

It is duff. Fish is a ship. What you are approaching is a bunch of ships of different. sort of makes and models that have all been sort of welded together into a large platform. Get me, Orlean. Your control over him was stacked on top of another magical persuasion. You need to talk to Super Captain Orlean? There's an anomaly inside of this clam.

So I can make these seed crystals. You get one of these to the anomaly and it takes shape you, you know, contain it and then we're all free. Do you realize where we are? A big clam. Welcome to the trash hole. Amber, let's flash back. You are... About to punch a shark, go on.

It is early days on the shore side, like the first week there. and a lot of the finners that you came here with are, you know, starting to get a little bit comfortable. The water is receding from the shore, which is making y'all's job awfully difficult, but this is a weird time for everyone. And so you are trying to be adaptable. Sorry, what time, where is this in the grand scheme of things? When is this, I guess? This is on the shore. This is during the quiet year.

Okay. And you have been called to the edge of the trash hole by a friend of yours, an Einar named Oksana. And she is panicked when you roll up. And she explained to you that she saw something in the trash hole that's this, this, like, shiny brass lantern that she wanted to grab. So she reached down with a sling blade, like a Kaiser blade, but dropped it. And, you know, resources on this beach, especially tools like that, gathering tools, brush clearing tools like that, are in short supply. And she is terrified that she will be in a lot of trouble with the council of four if she doesn't get it back. and she is begging Amber to climb down and retrieve it

because she knows that Amber is much more equipped to do something like that Oh, but I'd really rather not Please, if you don't do it, I'm gonna, they're gonna What's the first thing they tell you when you showed up here? What was the first number one thing? Most important thing above all other things that showed when you showed up here? What do they tell you first off? Don't drop their things.

down the trash hole. And if you do drop the things down the trash hole, what's the number two rule they told you, Bubba? Don't go in to fetch things. There's nothing that's worth you losing a limb or something worse. I don't know what's worse. It's just, it's just, it's just, she hangs over the side and points down. It's right there.

If my, please, I'm begging you, Amber. I know I will not ask you for nothing again. Please, it's, I'm going to, they're going to take me off gathering duty. I'm going to be in a lot of trouble. Please, please, please. I know you can do this. I've seen you climb trees and stuff. You're slick.

Get me a stick. She smiles and runs off into the brush and you hear, ow. Be quiet. Will you be quiet? If somebody busts out here, I'm not going down for it. She, like, laboriously drags back like this huge tree limb. Like this?

I mean, that's extremely big. Think about the navigability that you just had hauling that through. You want me to- You're right, you're right, you're right. Just break some of the little, fine, here I'll get it. And I want to try to, you know, find a reasonable poking stick. You know, brook, we're looking like broom handle is what we're shooting for. Oh, like a classic poker's-stead.

One of your classic pokers. Because you are explicitly in the single place, in maybe the entire universe, where a broom handle would probably just be laying around, I'm going to give you that for sure. Yeah, you are able to fashion. I meant as a reference. I didn't mean that like a broom handle would be here. Okay, sure.

Yes, you are able to fashion a good poking stick out of this huge tree limb. Like I used to spank you guys with. Exactly. No. When I used to give you your Canons. Jesus. So now you've got this cool stick. So yeah, I'm going to reach in and try to fish out the.

what was it um a like a scythe sort of a Kaiser blade it's like a like an axe handle and then at the end of the axe is like a sort of a sharp hook kind of it's used for you know cutting cutting thrashing yeah for sure oh griffin you mean a sling blade I also I did say sling blade I know okay so you were saying Kaiser in the hopes that we wouldn't talk about french fried potatoes etc Yes, and please, and please let's let that be our guiding light. Yeah, yeah, there's still, there's got to be a few 20-somethings at our audience. We have not fully, fully alienated yet. Let's try to keep it more. Yeah, and then they said French-Rite it in like a weird vote. Over and over, man. If you haven't seen it, guys, Slingblade is like Dark Forest Gump, okay?

I haven't seen it. Yeah, we don't need to. We don't need to relitigate. Okay, so I've got my, uh, my handle, and I'm going to check. try to reach, or my stick, my poking stick, and I'm going to try to reach in and poke that Kaiser blade towards me. I think this sort of, this act of sort of manual dexterity, roll a, roll a slight of hand check.

Two plus two, rough. You drop your stick down the trash hole. Well, I tried. Come on. Amber, if you climb down, I know you can climb back up. It's, it's freaking 10 feet. Please, I got a rope. I can do a rope.

All right, listen. You got Dishy for a month. Kepa? Dishy for a month. Dishy for a month. Dishy for a month. Whether I get it or not. If I go in that hole, Dishy for a month, say it.

All right. If you go in that hole, Dishy for a month. Guaranteed. Fine. All right, I tie the rope and I try to repel down to get this blade. Is she holding the other? other end or? No, Griffin.

I'm a fucking idiot. I just tie a rope to myself and throw us out on a whole never die in the story. Go on. Away the other end. Here's what does happen. I had Oxana go,

like, we wrapped the rope around. So it's not like full, you know, we've created a sort of pulley system with the rope around a tree and then OXana with the loose end and me with the other end tied around me. Okay.

Then, yeah, go ahead and make an athletics check for me. All right. Five plus four and nine. It should probably be with advantage because you've got the rope tight on and someone's... No, I'm going to try and be better about retroactive advantage applications. It should have been a little bit of some kind. It should have been a bit of advantage. This is how?

Oh, well, thanks. You are, you're able to climb down, right? but when you try to pull out this sling blade, it's sort of like crunched down into the sand a little bit. It disrupts some of the sand and you lose your footing. And now you are dangling over this abyss below you. You're holding on to this Kaiser blade. It's actually a lot heavier than you anticipated.

And so you are having trouble sort of keeping your grip on this. and also sort of writing yourself. So you get the impression that it is either this Kaiser blade or you're going to have a... You drop the Kaiser blade or you're going to have a ton of trouble getting out of here now. Okay. I don't think she dropped the blade.

Okay. She came down all this way. Then you hear Oxana. Fuck. Are you okay? What happened? Yeah, here. And I chucked the blade up and over Oksana.

Oh, yeah. I think that's going to be a role for you to throw this. What I just said was a heavy blade. This is about to be a hell of a backstory. Hold on. Do a, God, almighty. I mean, probably another athletics check, I think. Bad rolls will end eventually six.

Oh, my God. Two plus four equals six. What a flashback. Yeah, no, this Kaiser blade goes about five feet up in the air, and then it, like, dinks off of a chair that's just like sticking out of the wall and you watch it just fall right down the pit.

And you hear Oxaniole, what was that? Marquise. In the distance, you hear a lot of activity. You hear voices shouting. Way, way, way off in the distance. Way off in the distance

above the hole or in the hole? Above the hole, not down in the hole. You don't hear somebody in the hole go, out, fuck. No, this is a- Ackyzer blade, also known as a sling blade? This is, this, yeah, it's back up on the beach, whatever this thing is. You are dangling precariously now, just like free, free-floating over the edge, over this abyss. Um, I guess it's up to climb out.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah, this is, this is going to be a bit of a tough athletics role if you're just sort of hanging by, by this rope, free falling. But if you want to, please make this athletics role and please do better because if you die here,

you die in real life. I don't know. Paradox. The whole thing will be, yeah. Thank God. 17 plus 4.21. Yeah, finally. When I needed it.

Yeah, what you are able to do is just sort of, like in gym class, climb up this rope, just like straight up. Pulling on strength reserves that maybe you didn't even know, you had. And you just do a straight vertical ascent. And as you are climbing up, this, this noise is getting louder and louder and more frenzied. And when you climb to the top of the pit,

Oxana's not like right there waiting for you. Her back is actually to the pit now. And she is looking toward the, toward the shore where you can see like a bunch of people sort of running into the water. and she shakes her head and says, oh my, my God, oh, sorry. And she gives you a hand and pulls you out. And she says, did you get it? Yeah, no, Bub, I'm sorry. I dropped it down the hole.

I just, I was real clumsy there for a few rolls. Sorry about that. She, almost like she didn't even hear what you said. She, like, again, kind of takes a minute to process it and shakes her head and said, Oh, yeah, it's all right. I, um... What's up with you? I think we've got bigger fish to fry.

And she gestures toward the shore. And you see people pulling a body out of the water. And beyond them, past this sandbar out in the water, you see a fleet of razor-sharp fins sticking up out of the water. In perfect formation, as if they are trying to threaten these people that are rescuing this, well, not rescuing, probably retrieving this poor person. And in a flash of green light, this fleet of shark fins disappears. And back in the present, I think, well,

While Amber was going through this flashback in her head, Benefactor Orling just continues to pull shit out of this box that looks ancient to you, Zookson, DeV. Like, he's pulling out, like, fantasy tastations and ginkgo jeans. He's like, oh, do you remember these? Yes, we get that you have an extensive lost and found collection. Look at this stuff, isn't it neat? Yes, I think that your collection is complete now.

We don't need to talk about it anymore. Oh, okay. All right, fine. You see him like take a kush ball. He was really excited to show you and stuff it back down in the drawer. Okay. So do you all have any questions for me before you go on this brave and heroic journey to the back of a clam? Yes.

Is there a place where we can have a rest first, eat some food? A long rest. A long rest. He sighs and he says, I'll probably need to reapply certain, let's call them cerebral adjustments to our hosts here. But yeah, I can make that happen for you. Yes, about this. If we do this for you, if we are able to complete this, you are going to break the spell, as it were. stop charming them.

Devo, I have no intentions of changing my career path to becoming the super captain of a bunch of ethereal pirates. So yeah, yeah, you know that's going to happen anyway. About this, one more question.

The, um, you, a serial, as you say, the, you know, they become seethru, the light. I mean, is this because of, the water or something here in the clam specific. I'm wondering if this is something that Devo knows about. Like, I don't know what the crossover between the oratory that you,

like the oratory magic that you learned and the, just a general knowledge of ether. I think it would have to be there, right? If Benefactor Orlean is this like ether scholar, why don't you roll an Arcana check for me? Just to see, just to see, like, what you know. A natural wine, baby. Wow, okay.

Yeah, you don't, wow, God, guys, I guess it's good that these are happening and like... Well, okay, wait. Because there would be a certain... I'm trying to figure out, just logically, a certain amount that he would know about how ether works. Okay, here's what you know with a one is that you got exposed to ether water a minute ago. Yeah. And your hand got kind of see-through, right? Okay.

But this is a not, like, huge role because he, I think he feels... The one here, the critical failure, is he feels very superior to you. Oh, yeah. Just asking the question and then realizing it was dumb, probably hurts Devo pretty bad. Yeah, he says, Devo, I'm guessing your time away from the cloister has dulled some of the things that we attempted to teach you there. But exposure to ethereal water has strange effects on everyone. It just so happens that the people, who have been trapped in this clam for, I mean, who knows how long have been exposed to this particular pool of water that has made them into these entities.

I don't know what they are. If we attempted to study every weird effect that the ethercy had on the things, the living things that live within it, there's not enough time in any of our lives to make that study possible. Yes, but they seem- But nevertheless is that we try to Learn things Oh, can you imagine studying things? Oh, yeah, it seems like maybe you Had some trouble with that

Maybe you have some trouble Okay With your face With my face, fantastic Excuse me, excuse me Great Yes, my Brian R friend You are not friends

Super Captain, did I miss the part where you told me to shoot Devo? My arm is getting so tired. No, no, no, put that down. Oh, good, because I would have had some regrets about that. For future reference, Devo, is there a place where I could shoot you where it wouldn't, like, kill you? Then it would just, like, you know, upset you a little. You're saying that if we, if we find ourselves in a circumstance, where someone is controlling your mind

and tells you to shoot me, is there a loophole? You can shoot me in the toe of my shoe and I will kind of curl my toes back so it will go through the shoe but not through my foot. That's exactly what I was looking for.

Thank you. But now I've said this out loud. Fuck. Okay. Are you all, so you all are taking, you all want to take a long rest here, yes? Yes. In this settlement of flots

That suggested that name via text, and it's extremely good. I think what happens then is Benefactor Orlean arranges for some rations to be brought your way. Everything here is like, you know, been scavenged. You don't know what the diet of these ethereal beings are, but they bring you some, you know, fairly basic rations. And he suggests that you all sleep in your ship with the hatch pretty well locked down because the process of psychically manipulating every single person. in this little village is not the most safe thing. So, yeah, you all spend a night. I guess Amber spends a very comfortable night.

Oh, yeah. In Amber's place. And Zooks and Devo, like, where do you all sleep aboard the Coriolis? Devo sleeps on the bridge. Okay. Is there, like, just in the chair setting up? Maybe it reclines. You don't know.

I mean, it's got a little lever on the side of the heat camp. Either that or he sleeps like under a console on a little man. Like I, he, as I said before, he doesn't sleep very well to begin with. And so like, it's also just like he wants to see if anything's coming, especially knowing Orlean is there. He does not trust or mean at all. I bet your sleeplessness is not great right now after the kind of day you're having. Yeah. So like he kind of like zones out.

because he has like the qualities of a half elf. Right, right. So I let him do that meditation thing, but he is like not hitting rim cycle or nothing. No. And Zooks, you have a special way of sleeping also, right? I should clarify, he is not half elf. He just has the qualities.

Yeah, we've talked about this at length. Zooks, you have a special way of sleeping as well. I do. Okay. Yes. I think Zooks would sleep in a tub, a bathtub. Full of being.

full of ethersy. Oh, interesting. Okay. Because I think that would recharge him, rest him, and probably level him up, don't you think? Whoa. Whoa, okay. So just every time you fucking take a nap, you're like, guys, guys, check it out. A nap in a tub full of ethercy, gosh, yeah.

Yeah. Check out my huge muscles. No, it's, so then it wouldn't be like sleep, right? because you also have sort of the traits of a war forged. And one of their things is that you don't sleep, you just have to like spend six hours in emotionless state. And so doing that in. So I think he just floats in this big, nice tub, you know.

Is it horizontal like a bathtub or vertical like a back tank? Okay. How's that? I mean, what's that like, right? you're not you're not dreaming necessarily this is obviously something you have to do in order to keep yourself alive well i think he's cogitating i think he thinks gross yeah there's a family podcast it didn't used to be um i think he's just trying to process zook doesn't process things that quickly i think sure he's very strictly you know

top level when it comes to action and when it comes to things happening so i think this is his to reflect in kind of, you know, like dreams are supposed to be able to sort out your subconscious. I think when he's in this rest state. Yeah. He sorts through all the things that he's found out during the day. Yeah. And I think he's had a lot to find out today. Like, Zook's for all of his concern about being a failure after the first mission, I think had a pretty damn good day of, you know, solid snake in it out here.

Okay, so you all can heal all the way up to full, get your spell slots back. Also, during the night you heard some clinking and clanging and realized that the ethereal pirates here were doing some repairs to the Coriolis. So go ahead and bump that also back up to full. I think it had only taken a little bit of damage. It was down to 69, yeah. Yeah. Oh, man. I know.

Oh, well. every little bit helps how do we how do we restore that i take care about the ship page oh you just did okay all right and i i assume that uh urchin is helping them maybe urchin is no i mean urchin's never where you need him to be urchin's like the wins you know that's that's that's rule number three of the ether c urchin is not where you need them to be guaranteed uh okay and the next the next morning uh you all have gathered in the bridge you have this seed crystal and this map, which is essentially like an anatomical diagram of a clam. And so you keep saying that, and I'm really wondering, how complicated is that?

Is it more complicated than I think? No. I mean, it's a, I mean, maybe. I don't know, I don't know what you assume a clam sort of. I think it's like a compact, you know? And like the idea of somebody being like, well, let me draw you a detailed version of how a compact mirror works. It's like, well, it has this top part that opens up and this bottom part that opens up.

And in the middle, there's something. Okay, yeah, I'm looking at a diagram of a clam now. This is pretty complex. This is pretty complex. Really? Yeah, it looks like some shoots in ladder shit. All right, whatever. You all know that you all have a heading.

You all have a heading that you are supposed to go toward. That's basically the takeaway from this map. And you have this seed crystal that you're hoping to sort of contain this anomaly with. So let's just say you guys have been, you guys have been. Did you have anything else that you wanted to take care of here in Flotsam? Or are you done to take off? Do they have any kind of shopping area or trading post or anything like that? Not one that I think Benefactor Orlean is very nervous about you guys interacting with these folks too much since they are under a kind of hypnosis.

He is very worried about what would happen if that would break. Can I just say to Zooks and N. I don't know if this is like a common thing to say to oneself, but like I told myself so, right? Like this feeling of it's like I told you so, but to myself about working with the parish. Have you ever felt this? This like, oh, I told me so, you know?

No? Am I alone in this? I'll have to wait. till my next bath to be able to think deep thoughts like that. So, yeah, I try to keep it pretty surface level. Okay. I see this. You're the deep one.

You are the deep one. It's possible. I'm sleeping too deeply to have such thoughts. Yeah, how was your rest and reaching? Oh. Best bearer, probably. Wow. I also just wanted to apologize.

Yesterday, twice, I got frustrated and I got angry first with the person on the dock and then again with Orlean and I let them get to me, especially Orlin. And I do not like being this person that I was. and I am sorry. Yeah, I like that person just fine. Yeah, I appreciate it. I see a little bit of zip from you. Sometimes you keep a little button down. It's nice to know you got a little fire in there

and she tickles his belly. Okay. I too appreciated it because I'm, you know, I'm learning, you know, what different kind of personality types there are. like being a jackass. And that really, that helps me. I appreciate you so much more.

You know, it's just. Don't apologize for feeling, I guess is what I'm saying. It's the best thing we got going. Yes, but I do not like when I act like one of them, you know, this control. I tried to control him and it was what they would do. And I want to not resort to this as much. All right. If I can make a suggestion.

And I don't know you that well. We're not like a bass of buds or anything. We are not. But, I mean, we're okay, buds. We're like a five-on buds, my buds scale. But I got a lot of buds, Kappa. The thing I want to say is, if you don't like being controlling, maybe the number one person you shouldn't try to control is yourself.

Oh. Shit, this is very good. Damn, it's good shit, right? Did you just come up with this? Just now. This is very good. Anybody else, do Zooks or about you? Yes, let Ambera have a chance at you.

I'm on fire. Yes, this is good. I'm on fire. The Brynar have a saying, the row never falls far. No, you ask Amvir for help. No, I'm helping you. Don't try to, no, don't step in the house to know with me, bud. Right, got you.

Yeah, you got any things you're processing? Um, yeah, I don't know how I eat. I haven't established that yet. And every time we approach the subject, I get confused because I have yet to eat a single ration and yet I'm not hungry. Wow, that's actually a thinker kind of, do you not? Oh, right. We're not doing the deep stuff. Do you not?

No, it's not that deep. Do you not eat? I thought you, like, filter. All organisms have to consume something, right? I know. I know. You may be, hey, listen, I'm going to, okay, listen, hey, huddle in. Do you guys think there's stuff so small we can't see it?

Yes, of course this is, yes. Oh, yeah. Like germs and atoms? Wait, do they got germs and atoms here? That's a great question. Plankton. Yes, yeah? No, I know they got germs and atoms, but do they have, like, is there an analogous Robert Cork figure that could?

created the ability to see microscopic, like... Yeah, let's say that Brother Seldom is a leader in the field of... Subatomic particle physics? Not subatomic. They're not at that level, I can't imagine. But he calls them, like, little guys. Yes, we have solid... We have soliditigized that make us sick.

Right, but maybe your food is in the water. Right, like, maybe there's, like, tiny micro things that you're, like, eating, which is why you, like, I've... I've seen you pick up rations and you stare at them and I've even seen you, and I didn't want to get all weird about it, but I've seen you mush them. Yes. I would say on yourself. I've seen Zissu. In different places where we mush our food.

I didn't know that you were watching that. It is hard not to watch. It's hard to watch. It's hard to watch. I have noticed that you also Zensei like, mm, yummy. Well, those are, that's, I'm okay. I'm just trying to be one of them. No, I understand this.

You say it very loudly. Hey, can I tell you something, honestly? Certainly. With these rations, you're not missing much. Yes. I think they're adequate. I think I might have been. Quick check DM.

Are they adequate? You actually hear a voice. That's the president of losses. God. Hey, we need to get back to work. This has been fun. I'm glad I could help everybody so much. Y'all.

Give me a lot to think of that. Agreed. Oh, me one. Yes. Zooks. Yes. You're nodding, I bet. All right.

Also, when we have some downtime, we should kill urchin. Yeah, that seems like a weird thing for you to say, but I'm into it, I think. Okay. As you all leave the room and the door shuts and we stay in this empty room for a while and then you hear our voice say,

Urchin has a capitalitated relationship with his father. There's a lot of depth there. We're missing out on, huh? Oh, man, we got to get to know Urchin. Okay, but none of us heard that. We don't know. Oh, we're not doing that. than more?

They killed me would upset the D'd D'daleam prophecy. Wait, hold on hold on what. What?

Urgent's a chosen one. Take me back to the Dedalium prophecy. Yeah, no, run it back. Run it back.

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Every Saturday, Saturday, Saturday on maximum fun. All right, let's jump forward. You all have been cruising through this clam now for a couple hours, trying to navigate your way using this map. But basically, like, you have found some ridges on the ceiling that you can see, Devo, that have been sort of your guiding light here. there is a very soft illumination against this ceiling. And when I say ceiling, I mean, you know, the top of a cavern essentially, you know, several hundred feet overhead. And so I think you are a bit sort of dismayed when you realize that this light is fading a little bit. And it's becoming a little bit harder to see this ridge on the ceiling that you were following. and then it gets like completely pitch black in here.

And through the like viewport of the bridge of the Coriolis, you see a like white point of light in the distance that very quickly blossoms and grows into this like wall of transparent white light that just shoots, through your ship and past your ship enveloping like everything behind you and around you. But this effect only lasts for like a few seconds. And then it is back to normal. You can see this ridge in the ceiling again above you. Everyone make a perception check.

That is a 15 total for me. Yeah. This is 6 plus 3 for me and 9. 12 plus 3. It's just keep coming. It's a dirty 20 for Zooks. 20 for Zooks. Okay.

Thank God. So, Amber, I don't, you know, that was weird. Devo, you know for a fact that that was a, it was a spell essentially. Like it was, and you assume it was, you know, coming from the direction. You got no impression from Benefactor Orlean that there was. anyone else sort of where you are going. And so you intuit that that was the anomaly, giving off some sort of like compression field.

Zook's with a 20, what I will give you, the engine is making a strange noise. I, um, listen, can you, can you hear that it's kind of a, Yeah. It's kind of a clackety, clackety, clackety, clackety, clackety, clackety, clackety, can you guys hear that in the engine area of the ship? I mean, now that you mentioned it, yes. Should, go. Check it out.

Do you know shit about the engines? No. That's why I use the clickety-clik-a-cun- Ah, yes. Click-lick-cich. Fair. We could cause the Tappet brothers. I'll go poke around Okay

Amber you head down to the engine room What do you know I mean you are I think you are de facto The ship's engineer at this point Because you taped like a bubble gum wrapper Over a hole on the inside of the ship And that seemed to fix that

So just just right I think she's got a wrench And she's like kind of just clanking around on things Like seeing what looks loose It's like that moment when you're like, I'll take a look, and then instantly like you just lift the hood of the car. Never open your fuse box and you're like, what the fuck goes on in here? Well, nothing's on fire and nothing's labeled this part's broken. So I'm at a loss.

I don't know, man. What I will give you for free is that you have at least seen the engine before. And while it seems like all of the mechanical components of it are functioning, like they are still moving in the way that they are supposed to, the engine is pulsing with this light, and that's not normal. But it will take either an Arcana or an investigation check, I think, to get anything more than that. I'll do an investigation check. Plus zero. One of these rolls.

A nine. I just can't catch a break today, guys. Okay. Okay. With a nine, the best, you are able to get is, I think you work it out in your head a little bit, that this engine, like all engines of ships in the, in the ether sea are powered by the ether see, right? Like they absorb the, you know, similar to the prestige salt stuff that's just naturally in the water

and then uses that to power the ships. This thing got hit with a, some sort of effect, some sort of magic spell that it is, you know, absorbed, trying to power the ship, that it was a little bit too juicy for it. And so it is, whatever this magic was, which, you know, you know to be compression magic that is making things smaller, is just banging around inside of the engine of your ship right now. With that nine, I will also give you that pulsing. It's getting a little bit faster. There is no damage to the engine.

There's nothing to repair, but that is what you have discovered. Well, I'll go back and report back. The magic in here is fucking shit up. Okay. We probably shouldn't stick ground too long because I wouldn't have the first idea how to fix it. I mean, I can take a look at the magic. Yeah, I mean, what the hell, right? Okay, I would look at the magic.

I don't know about the engines, but I know a little bit of the magic. about magic. I have studied it all my life. So let's try it. Okay. You want to make an Arcana check? It's a Nat 20. Oh shit. It's a 24 plus four, 24. That's real good. There's that good role. Okay, good. With the 24, I'll give you a lot with the 24. With a 24, you realize that by absorbing this compression magic, it's very subtle because it's happening to you too. But you, but you But the Coriolis is getting smaller. And it's tough to get a sense of scale for that. But maybe you notice it by looking up at that ridge and, like,

it feels like the ceiling's getting maybe just a little bit further away. And as the pilot of this ship, I think, sitting in front of the console, you realize the only way to kind of, like, stop this right now would be to kick off the engines to, to dispel this, which your ship would still be able to run. It's just you wouldn't be able to use anything that requires engine power, which I think for the Coriolis is just the

Bathosphere Bay at this point. So if we turn off the engines, we'll stop shrinking. Yes, that is what you have, yes. Okay. So what is happening is it has, it is, the engine being on is shrinking us and the ship because it has the, the spell inside of it.

So I'm just going to turn this off and let it have a little rest, a little cool down, and we'll turn it back on later. Okay, and then he clicks it off. Okay. Are we shrinking as well? Yes.

Yes, we are shrinking, but we are shrinking in comparison to the ship, so it is hard to see. Oh, okay. I thought you said the things were closing in on us, so I got you.

Okay. Okay, as you do that, I think the ship switches over to this like, you know, emergency track lighting. But the ship is still running. The engines are sort of powered by their own sort of self-purpulsion. You know, you've got the battery and you got your engine, right? Yes, exactly, right? This is a hybrid. So the ship is still running.

And maybe it's when it switches over to that emergency lighting that you do see a light in the distance underwater. you see just these faint faint pulses of like greenish-white light. And they are in weird shapes, these flashes, like squares and rectangles. But after a while of going through this water, which is different now that the Coriolis is smaller, you realize that what you are approaching is a, well, it's either an enormous building or a normal size building. And you have shrunk much more than you assumed. It's not like a, it's not enormous and like, it's not a skyscraper, right? It's just, its scale is huge as you all sort of are coming toward it.

It is a wooden sort of, honestly, kind of ramshackle, a little, little long house. here. And Amber, you know this building very well because you used to sleep in it. Because a couple dozen yards ahead of the Coriolis, these green pulses of light are flashing through the doors and windows of the shit house. What do I know? Okay, I know the shit house. What do I now know about the scale of us versus the shit house? You are. By looking at it. The choreo. Yeah, I mean, you, you, quick, back the napkin math like you guys are a mouse compared to

like a mouse in a normal size shit house. It is it is enormous. Well, the good news is I left some jerky under my bunk. But the bad news is I don't think

we're any position to eat it. Or we can eat take tiny bites you know and then over time there's a lot more jerky. when you are little. Yeah, but back then, the kind of jerky we were dealing with, like it's probably aged to perfection, but there was some, let's call them impurities.

Those are our scale, oh, wufo dofa, it's a bad afternoon, man. This might be a little bit of a tangent, but could Zooks make a perception check to see if the engines on the bathosphere are also affected by this spell? So, I mean, you don't have to make a check for that by shutting down the engines. The bathosphere bay is not functioning anymore. So it is, it is, yeah.

I mean, you can tell the bathyspheres is the same size as the ship. It's scaled down with it. But with the engine being off, you lose access to all engine powered tools, which is just the bathysphere bay. You're on the Coriolis. Okay.

Um, Devo, did you have something? Uh, so how, you said that there's like the pulses, so it's like a pulse of light, right? Yeah, uh, they, and it's not in any kind of like set rhythm. It's almost like fireflies. Well, then let's, you know what? Uh, let's get the fuck in that building. Okay. Just right through the front door. I mean, we're pretty tiny now, so we're probably pretty sneaky. Sure. And we're doing like silent running, you know? know the engine's off.

We're on our emergency power and track lighting and stuff. We're going to sneak in there. Okay. I mean, as you poke your head in through the door, I'll tell you what it looks like, and then you can tell me sort of what your approach is. I like the image, by the way, of like a tiny mouse-sized ship, just like peeking around. Yeah, sure. Yeah, it is a super, super long room that you are entering in on like one of the far sides of.

And Amber, it is, it is, it's weird. because it's like you know this room, but also it is submerged in water, right? So there are rows of bunk beds that are fastened to the ground for some reason. I don't know why they, maybe it was an earthquake. Maybe when the trash hole became a trash geyser,

they were like, okay, we need to secure all of these bunk beds to the ground. Yeah, some of the rowdy residents kept rearranging them into forts. Yes. And everyone was like, guys, we're trying to save, like, society. We can't stop, keep building these bunkmen forts. But there are like a couple of obviously extremely waterlogged mattresses just sort of like floating almost in stasis in these waters.

And like a couple of bed sheets or whatever just kind of like slowly, slowly drifting around the room. And all of you can see. Yeah, I don't think you would need to check anything for this. You can see one thing that is weird. It's all around the room. The source of this green light is coming from these round, sort of black, thick, screw-shaped objects that are... They're about the size of your ship, actually, in this miniature form that are burrowed into the wood of the walls and the ceilings. and floor and some of the like support beams of this enormous cavernous room.

And nearly all of these these black, you know, screw-like football things are broken with with these jagged holes interrupting their otherwise smooth black spirals. But maybe like a half dozen of them are intact. And every few seconds they flash a green light from from within like lightning bugs. Um, that is, that is what you see as you, as you come into, uh, the, the, you know, the, the, the, the, the near side of, of the shit house. Can zooks make a nature check to see if they're organic, if they're animal or? Absolutely. Zooks can do that.

That is a 12 plus two, 14. Um, they are organic. Yes. They are, um, they are. Hmm, I'm trying to think of what... What's a 14th worth? Yeah, exactly. It's just shy.

I think you know that... It's an awkward number. That they are organic and also that you have never seen anything like them before. And I realize that's something that I have told Zooks about a lot of the failed nature checks that he has made in the past. But there is something otherworldly about these, right? Like, this is a... This black screw-shaped things, Burrower. it into the wall. Like, that's, that's weird

shit. It's not like coral growing or barnacles growing on the side of a ship or whatever. How big are they compared to us? They are about the size of your, a little bit bigger than your ship actually in how it is now in its miniature form. You would think, like, to scale with the room, like they are...

Like a light bulb? Maybe light bulb sized or like two fists sort of stack. I'm looking around the room for things that, What are things? What are some things? What are some things? A little bit bigger than your ship, which is the mouse size.

We'll say they are the size of big rats. Okay. I would like to kind of study them a little bit and just make sure that this is definitely where this, like, compression magic is coming from. Like, what do I feel when they pulse, you know? Yeah, make an Arcana check. Another Nat 20, baby. Oh, my God. Smote.

Back to back. Jesus, back to back. Here's what I'll give you, man. Completely unrelated to the compression magic. That is not what these are. This is something else. These things are not giving off any kind of, they're giving off light, obviously,

but they are not like projecting magic power out into the waters around them. But the compression magic is coming from the shithouse? No, no. It's just, this is in the way to where you were going, and you just happened to investigate it to see, if this is what that was. But it is not.

Like, these are something else that is just giving off light. What I will also give you with a Nat 20 is... Excuse me, what? I mean, I don't see how that helps us, but... Thank you. Way, way, way deeper down in this room,

like on the other far side of it with a Nat 20, you detect a thing, a living organic thing that the compression magic maybe has not shrunken down to scale at the size of your ship. And has, in fact, maybe even gotten a little bit bigger. But it is, you know, the other side of this room is very far away. So this is just sort of the magical inclination that you get

is that the compression magic has affected something, some other living entity, different from these screws on the far side of this room. Now, listen, we are very small, but over there, there is something. And we could go investigate it to see what it is, but it might be big and angry. Yeah, how does that serve our goal? Yes, this is a good question. I do not know. I mean, my curiosity is overwhelming, but I also know that we are currently very small,

and I believe our guns would be about as effective as like a spitball. So I am torn. And we would like to be big again, correct? Yes, we need to find some kind of wish fulfillment machine that will make us big. So what are y'all doing? We got to investigate. Yeah, I guess it, yeah. Yes, if it has made this thing big, maybe we can figure out how to make us big.

So I assume we can swim faster than the ship can move, right? No, my friend. What? You got a little, too. All right, Griffin, here's what I need you to do. Okay. Take 10 seconds to just compression-wise, lay it all out for us, give us big, small ratings on everything. Okay.

This room is big compared to you. You are the size of a mouse in this room. Your ship is the size of a mouse in this room, which means I guess you guys are like ants. Like ants living inside of a mouse suit. That classic heinous imagery. Yeah. Okay, I got that.

But the thing is we shut off our engines. Griffin is continuing through this list. What other things are big and small? I mean, everything else in the room is sort of at the same. opposites to like what's new and what's old. What's clean? Sure. Okay.

So the, the, the shit house is big. Yeah. Compare. Shithouse is regular. Yeah. We're small. And then there's something at the far side of this room that is bigger than it's supposed to be.

And there's green glowing screws? Yeah. There's, there's, I mean, there's a bunch of these screws. Most of them are broken and there's like a half dozen of them that are still flashing green light. And they are what size? They are the size of your, of your ship. They seem to be at room scale.

Okay. Got it. And we are able to move. We're just not generating the power needed to, like, power up other things. Okay. We're going to let's sail over there. See what's in the room. So now that you are, like, in the room and you know what it looks like, what is your, what's your, like, approach Devo as the pilot?

I'm coming in, like, as close to the bunk beds as possible. I want some cover. Yeah. I mean, you could probably sort of weave a path, like, under them and around them. Like a mouse would scurry. Right, exactly. Yeah, I'm following the mouse trajectory. Make a, just make a speed roll with the Coriolis.

D20 plus 5. 11 plus 5, 16. Okay. With a 16, you are able to ratatoo your way around these bunks. Oh, you know what it is? You are able to time it out so that you are able to push the ship under a bunk bed and then when the flashes, the green flashes of light coming from these screws like fade in the darkness you like kick the kick the gas on and like shoot underneath

another bed and then like pull the brakes and wait for the next flash. And in doing that, you reach a point in the room where you can see what's on the far side of the room. And it has not noticed you yet, but you see this huge pink, fleshy object. Gross. That is, it's a worm. It's a, it's a, it's a kind of looks almost like, uh, an earthworm, but it is to use, to use room scale, like it is coiled all around the far wall of this room. I mean, it's the size of, it's, it's, it's probably 30 feet long, like, in,

in regular scale. It is, this thing has gotten much, much bigger than any worm has any right to be. Um, and also sort of surrounding it and stretching all across the backside of this room and covering up some of the windows and doors are, is this white, sticky, almost webbing like stuff that it is slowly expelling with one end of its worm body. Uh, and, with another end of its worm body, this thing is actively eating one of these screw-shaped objects. Zook's quick, quick nature check.

Yes, absolutely. Nature check. Coming up on the nature check. And that is a 14. Yeah, with a 14. No, no, no. I'm sorry, it's a 12. A 12?

Okay, it's way bigger than it has any right to be. With a 12, I'll give this to you because, like, this is a, a, you. an actual sea creature. This is a ribbon worm. Which, not a joke. Content warning, if you Google ribbonworm, these motherfuckers are nasty. They shoot out this sort of like white, weird, almost ghostly tree-like substance. God, I wish I could do that. Yeah, I know. So. Try hard enough. That is what you all see. You see this thing? It has not seen you. And it's eating one of those screws, right?

It is eating one of those screws, yeah. Okay. I'm going to ask you a question and remind you that I have passive insight of 16. Oh. Okay. Can I make, is there a connection then, to be assumed, between its size and the green pulsing light screw things? No, no, no, no. Because you put together earlier that the green pulsing light has nothing to do with the compression, right?

It's just this thing is, I think, enjoying its new large size. by devouring these things that it otherwise would not be able to as a normal ribbon. So why is it larger when everything else gets smaller?

Yeah, I will let that earlier Nat 20 ride and say that just it is affecting different things in different ways, right? Like it got caught in your engine

and kind of bounced around for a while and so it kept hitting you and hitting you and hitting you. Maybe just by its biology, this thing was affected differently. Maybe the shithouse got small.

smaller too. And the ribbonworm did not get smaller. And you guys are microscopic, right? Like, that is, that is how chaotic this magic is. You have no fucking idea how big anything actually is. It's just, this is the scale that you are working with right now. Okay. But long story short, there's no information that's going to help us get to big size again. No. Okay. I say we get, uh, while the getting is good. Um, I, I think I want to try to talk to. No, you always want to try to talk to the thing. No, no, we're not going to... It's not going to...

This is a 30-foot-long worm, and we are a mouse. Oh, I know, but look at it. It's absolutely gorgeous. But to what end? It's viral marketing for the Dune movie. I bet. I bet they did it viral marketing here. Our one weakness.

Um, I, I know, but it's... Don't you think it's... probably the reason we're so tiny? God. No. God, that's so irritating. No, he's probably right. No, I, no magic.

This has nothing to do with us. Okay, tell me why. Then you explain it. Okay, so the magic is coming from the singularities, the things that we are going to collect with this crystal, yes? This worm is not, by its nature, the singular. Yes? Right, but it's probably got magic all over it.

No, so water, these waters that we are in, right? It is, it is, okay, think of it like this, right? Right. Imagine a glass of water. Mm-hmm. And you drop some coloring in it, some dye in it, yes? Right, right. So then you are going to put objects into this water, yes?

they will become covered in the dye because it is in the water, yes? Now, if they are things that absorb things, if they are different colors when they go in, the differences between the objects will make the dye in the water affects them differently, yes? This is how the ether in the ether sea works.

Right. So he should just try talking to it once. No, the worm is just soaked in the magic. And so... Why is the warm hair then? Why are we here? Whoa. Whoa.

Whoa. That may even be beyond my... No, it's because we fell into the clam. That was not a metaphysical question. We are here because we fell into the clam. Listen, listen. I know. This is weird, right?

Giant worm. and we're very small and we are looking for the giant things that make things small and giant, right? But this is not it. This building is not it. Those screws things are not it.

The worm is not it. They have all just been affected by the same magic we are trying to find. But that magic is not here. I have studied magic literally all my life. And this is not it. You know, this is like,

MBR, I would not tell you how to punt a shark with your cereal fists, zooks. I would not tell you how to swim with the farts that come out of your feet. So I need you to trust me that I know that this is the only thing that can happen here is that this worm sees us as food like it sees these things in the wall and eat something. us and poops us out as this white tree gross stuff that comes out of its butt. Right? So, right. Yeah, that's fair. I love it when he's compelling, aren't you? You're very compelling. Thank you. I am good at this. And we are on a mission and I would like to get big again and I would like to get

money and I would like to leave this place and get people out of it. All right. All right. Let's do it. Let's do it. Thank you. All right. So y'all are bugging out? Yes. Get me away from this big worm. So I think to continue your heading toward, you know, where you're going in this anatomical map, it's going to be one more speed check to see if you can, you know,

time these pulses and shoot the ship out of window or something like that to get out of here. So that's a D20 plus five. Oh, an 11? total six plus five you wait and uh maybe it's that when this thing ate one of these screw-shaped objects it like messed with the timing of the remaining ones in the room but you wait for a darkness between the pulses and then you know set set bladder to max and shoot toward this window and to marks. As you shoot toward this window,

like several of these screws flash, and the ribbon worm convulses. And the window that you were sailing toward in an instant gets covered with this thick white webbing that is now creeping all along the wall that this window was on and the worm uncoils from the back wall

and in a serpentine pattern starts to dash in the direction of the choreolas. Maximumfund.org. Comedy and culture. Artist-owned, audience-supported.