The Adventure Zone - The Adventure Zone: Ethersea - Episode 12

Episode Date: October 14, 2021

The Infinite Clam: Part Six Amber, Devo and Zoox face off against foes both tangible and cerebral, within and without, ancient and new. The Infinite Clam's power is harnessed at great cost.Additional music in this episode: "Phased Drops" by Michael Carrier https://freesound.org/people/hello_flowers/ 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. We're the size of a mouse. We need to use the crystal to like... You need to use the crystal to like, yeah, to give the anomaly form so that you can contain it somehow. He tickles a clam and it moves its tongue. I can go out and tickle it if you'd like. He's in its brain.

I'm sure he's fine then. You are also the brain of this clam? and you feel like you have motor control of its body in this moment. Diving into the bottom of a clam to go into a narrow crack that is wide enough for your body to get down and not much wider than that, it seems like it would trigger a certain amount of fear in the average person. Some of that white webbing from the ribbonworm is trying to, inch its way into the Coriolis. Well, shit.

You know because of who you are, what is close by to you. And the flash of your arms extending are met with the flash of a massive, injured blink shark that appears just feet in front of you and you just manage to catch its jaws with your ghostly hands as it crashes into you attempting to swallow you whole. Griff?

Yeah. Now she's scared. Zooks, you remember something, which is rare for you. You remember floating through the warm water just weeks old, just being effortlessly tossed around by the, the gentle currents near the shore. And you remember the feeling of your juvenile shell first forming around you, cradling you in its warm, shelly embrace. You remember your foot strengthening and dragging you around the silt and the sand

until you found the perfect spot for you to burrow down into. And you remember that spot with incredible fondness. as you remember the terrible wave that ripped you away from it. And you remember as you were being just tossed around by this turbulent wake, seeing a bright moat of light floating through the water between the debris of the mortal world above. And you remember consuming it and then in turn consuming everything else around it. And after that, all that you remember is, the emptiness inside you.

Make a wisdom saving throw, Zooks. I shall. Wisdom... And really... And that would be a 19... Oh, that's good. Oh. You are standing in a pitch black chamber,

so dark that you can't really tell the dimensions of it. All that is visible is the floor. at your feet, which is just made of this featureless gray stone that is glowing gently. When you look downward, actually, your body looks strange. Like it is still your sort of coral briner form, but it is like abstract in a way that you can't really parse. And floating about 20 feet in front of you off the ground, now larger than you are entirely, is the clam.

Only it's not inside of its shell. You see the thing inside the clam. And for a moment, you see it as this almost godlike being, just sort of dotted with these rows of beautiful pearls all around it. And despite the fact that it's, you know, the fleshy inside of a clam, it looks really powerful. But then your mind kind of clears and you realize that that is just what it is projecting out. And once you realize that, you see it for what it is, just this kind of weak and fleshy thing floating in the air in front of you just, you know, trying to flex on you with this front. and you don't feel any sort of like hostile intent from it, but you definitely feel like in this moment you are fighting with it for control of either or maybe both of your bodies.

What do you do? I think, uh, Zooks is going to flex a little bit too. Okay. What do you do? Use your glutes. I think Zooks is going to raise his crossbow. And what is it, what does it look like?

This is not your real, this is not your real crossbow. If you're trying to like intimidate this thing or flex on it, as you said, like, what is, what does this look like in your sort of mind or, you know, whatever Zooks, you know, has in lieu of a brain? Well, I think that he wants to. to establish, if not dominance, equality. Okay. So he can negotiate with this thing. So I think it looks like a gigantic shelling knife.

Like the knife that you cram into the lips of a shell of a clam to pry it open. Yeah. And I think he's just kind of waving it around and doing all kinds of stuff. And once he's sure that it's seen that, he stops and makes it. to go away and says, perhaps now we can talk. Make an intimidation check with advantage for me. I'll give you advantage because you have wielded maybe the scariest imaginable armament that this clam could envision.

Well, that's a seven. That's an eight minus one for a seven. Four minus one, which is a three. Yeah. You don't notice any kind of difference in the physiology of this, like, abstract clam being floating in front of you. And you hear it say, whatever that was can't harm me now.

But I believe I can still harm. And make another wisdom of saving throw for me. I luck is going to run out on me. 14. Okay, yeah. You feel this thing grow. Like you see it grow in front of it. you. And when it grows, you feel yourself become it. Like, you feel the clams feelings. And

that means that you feel this like unimaginable hollowness inside of you. And you take four points of psychic damage. Okay. And more than ever, you find yourself sort of unable to discern where Zooks stops and the clam begins. Okay. Devo, this white sentient webbing that the ribbonworm spit at the Coriolis earlier is for some reason now on your ship still and alive. you are on the bridge of the Coriolis, which is sort of in its elevated position outside of the hull.

And it seems like these tendrils of webbing are trying to like wriggle their way into like the crack between the bridge and the hall, where it's sort of, where the hole it kind of emerges out of to reach its elevated position. It hasn't managed to reach into the bridge yet, though. So what do you do? So it's right now on the window, right? Yes, it's on the window moving downward into sort of the crack between the bridge and the hall of the rest of the ship. Is it crack you say? Yes. I am going to lower the bridge and scrape it off.

Okay. I'm trying to decide. Like, I don't know if you would roll for that. I think the, okay, I'm going to make a roll for the webbing, like a saving throw to see if it manages to. realize what's going on and get out of the way before it is squeezed. Oh, no. Oh, no. That's a flat three.

I don't think that I would give this webbing a dexterity bonus. So that definitely does not save. You see some of it, like, definitely sneak into that crack. But then as you lower it, you just hear this sickening, gushing noise. And you watch... This looks out. I want everyone to picture it like this. Diva's just standing there, staring at it with, like, a horrified look at his face.

Without looking away, just... slowly reaches over, pushes a button, and just keeps staring at it as it like squishes. Yeah, so you just see streaks of white on the inside of the, of the hall, like, up against the glass, and you see, like, the tendrils that were above the bridge that hadn't really wormed their way out yet, like, start, like, freaking out and spasming until they are destroyed. And you lower down into the darkness. The engines are still off, right? So the ship's lights are not, I imagine you're on an emergency. see lighting now inside of the Coriolis. Make a perception check for me.

Perception check, a? Nat 20. Oh, my. It's a 20 plus three. How many 20s in a row? These are public roles, guys. These are on, we are seeing them. We're all seeing it.

This is wild. Okay. I'm really good at D&D. I guess so. Okay, with a Nat 20, here's what you get. There are, it's quiet now. You can hear a bird breathing in the sky above you. Yeah, exactly.

It's quieter now that the bridge is submerged back down into the hall of the ship. And in that quiet, like, you start to hear some noises inside of the ship. And maybe you, like, poke your head out of the bridge to get, like, a better sense of what is going on. You have incredible situational awareness right now. And you can tell that there is this similar sort of squishy noise. coming from a couple of places deeper in the ship. And in fact, so dope are your senses. You can tell that this noise is coming from, like, the hallway near the airlock chamber.

And you can also tell that there is a similar noise coming out of Amber's Place. Also... I hope I no boys are loud in there. How do I go in? Another noise that you hear coming from Amber's Place is like a very quiet and pathetic whimpering noise. What do you do? It's urchin. I'm heading towards Amber's place, but I'm going to be honest. There's a moment where Deva like reaches for the knob, but then looks at the signs that says like, no boy's allowed. And he's like, oh, man, what do I do?

She'll understand. He opens the door. Okay. As you open the door, this webbing is blanketing the ceiling. It is like a spider web. It is just everywhere. And dangling down in the center of the room is some of this webbing, like a single white tindrel that has enveloped urchin, who is upside down and as far as you can tell, just like barely conscious. No, urchin's mine to kill later when I want to.

And he's going to spray some prestige salts into his gullet. Okay. And look at this sentient shit and say, and cast dissonant whispers. Okay. Which is going to require a wisdom saving throw. I'm going to say this sentient webbing has a minus two to wisdom. So I'll make another public roll here. We'll see.

Oh, does a 15 save. A 15 does save. All right. You know what it does, Travis? Wait, on a failed save. Save a tape. On a successful save, the target takes half as much damage. Oh, okay.

Well, then give it some of that good psychic damage. So that's 3D6. I mean, it's only four, so it takes two points of damage. Jeez. All right. Yeah, that is not enough to destroy this webbing. I want you to make a dexterity saving throw. I'll put the save on you.

I'll put the save on you. I'll put the save on you. because it's going to try and do something. 12 plus 3 of 15. Oh, fuck. Yeah, all right. You can't say fuck. You're not trying to hurt me, Griffin.

Remember, I'm not trying to hurt you, but it would have been funnier if it had. What this thing does is you see this tindril holding urchin whip backwards and then swing him toward you like a wrecking ball, like spines first. But with your save here, you manage to roll out of the way. And in fact, urchin kind of like burrows into the wall. and punches a couple holes in the wall of Amber's place. Wow. She's going to hurt, yeah. Yeah.

You don't think she's going to notice that? That's what you're worried about? I didn't do it. No, I meant it's going to hurt Urchin. I mean... Yeah. She's going to be pissed. I didn't do it.

The Tendril now is trying to yank urchin out of the wall to take another swing at you. But you have time for another quick action here. Well, you know. Oh. What is in Amber's place? Anything with which one might make fire? Amber, is there anything inside of Amber's place with which one might make fire?

I don't know if I did that sentence good. No, I think it worked. It seemed good. Man, I feel like that's such a no-no. Right? Oh, on a ship, yes, that's a good point. That's such a big choice on a ship to be like, Oh, yeah, I got a bunch of flammable shit line all around.

Like, I don't want to give, I feel like the answer is no. I want to be a minimal. That's fair. The horse magazine is probably flammable. Yeah, flammable, but like, am I going to rub the magazine hard enough? So, okay, I'm going to go a different way then, and I'm going to throw my boomerang at that tendril. What is holding a urchin? Okay.

Make a range attack roll here. 17 plus 3, a 20. A dirty 20. Yeah, for sure. Roll damage. Yikes. And here's the best part. That's the 3 plus 1.

That's a 4. But I'm going to use psychic blades. When you hit a creature with a weapon attack, you can expend one of your Bartic inspirations to deal an extra 2D6. 2D6 psychic damage. Yeah. Go ahead and roll that damage and then tell me what that looks like. That's 10.

Holy shit. So. What are your psychic blades? look like. So the boomerang throws and trailing behind it, there's two like spectral glowing blue blades. And so like identical to the boomerang. And when the boomerang hits, the other two hit behind it and pass through. Yeah. So where the boomerang would hit and stick, the other pass through and pull energy out with them. Yes, for sure. And on, on it's like, does the Boomerang return to you?

Yeah. Okay. I mean, you say, yeah. Have you ever thrown a boom? It's fucking hard. Yeah, it's really hard. No, I understand that, but I mean, like, it's, yeah.

It's magic. He's good at it. Yeah, he's good at him. It's magic. On their way. I mean, it's a tiny room, though, to be fair. So if we want to say no, because I'm pretty sure it takes it pretty significant art. It's actually wild.

I'm thinking about it. And like, it doesn't make anything. But it's great, and I love it. So the first boomerang, like, effortlessly severs that tindrol from the ceiling. and you see like what remains of it start to suck back up into like the mass that was covering the ceiling

but those two extra psychic blades just like do a lap around the room and then just all of the the webbing goo just falls inert to the floor as does urchin who looks up at you

and he says I did not like that I did not like that even a little bit Yes, I cannot mention... I know some people's thought like master's food, but it's not urchin's thing, man. That was horrible. Okay, urchin, there is more of this shit on the ship. We need to get rid of it.

So I need you to search, and if you find it, I don't know, spray it with something. Do you have bleach? No, I got one. I got this, though. and he holds up the, like, explosive trigger of one of the depth charges. No, well. If it's just the trigger and not. Oh, no, it's the explosive core.

Oh, yes. No, not this. No, no, no, no. Okay. We do not blow up the inside of the ship. This needs to be non-explosive, non-corrosive, but some things that will kill the webbing. Uh, so.

So, I'll be honest with you, man, if I have this thing, I'm going to use it. No, give it to me then. Then you cannot have it. Okay. You lose your privileges. He hands you the explosive core of the depth charge. And as he does so, you hear a metallic groaning noise coming from the airlock chamber and then your ears pop. Amber.

Son of a bitch. Yes. Amber, roll a strength saving throw for me. Let's start out that way. Let's figure out who's in charge here. Let's make this a contest. 10 plus four. All right.

It's a close one. You are inches away from meeting your doom as the jaws of this blink shark try to enclose around you. The only thing keeping that from happening is the, you know, armor provided to you by the vapor suit, but also your two glowing ethereal hands that are wedged into the shark's mouth, just barely able to keep it pride open. What does a blink shark look like? This is a chance. I guess you could say like a weak little baby worm that you could squish, and then you say that,

and it's like, oh, shit, okay. And then you'd win the fight pretty easy. That's just a cheat coat. what I'm giving you. Yeah, that's a good, that's a good, I like that, but it's not, it's not, it's not, uh, it's not accurate. I mean, they're, what may, they're, they're, they're big about the size of a person. That's not very big actually, I think shark, shark, shark, size.

And another person, mm-hmm, on top of each other. You didn't, wait, like, wait, hold on, a stack, not intent. It's like two, it's like two people, it's like a, it's like a female, a female great white can be 21 feet long. Yeah, you just do that off the top of your head, eh? Yeah, I definitely didn't Google it. Jeeves. I remember learning that at theater school.

12 feet. Okay. But they have a... They are dark gray and with glowing orange eyes. Like a doll's eyes? They have... You want to know it's really fucking scary about them?

Yeah. In addition to their ability to teleport, they have a natural camouflage that helps them blend in on the sea like it in the ocean. So you have very, very little idea of where they are at at any given time. Okay. Then as you're holding it open with your green glowing arms, you see that same green light kind of like reverberate around its jaws and its face. and even its eyes like turn green a little bit as it like tries to camouflage into the light that that you are emitting. And it is, you know, it caught you by surprise.

And so though you manage to pry its jaws open, it just tackles into you and sends you and it careening towards this stone pillar. But you manage to twist your body just so at the last second to avoid it. And now you feel like if you have one chance to gain control of this situation, you are currently in it right now. I didn't say about the teeth. Oh my God, the teeth. They're the worst.

They're long, longer than you would expect. Thin, like not pencil-shaped, I would say. Like Pennywise teeth? Yeah, like Pennywise teeth. And they can use them to, they can orient their teeth in such a way that where they're sort of like filtering food out of the water like some whales do. Like baline. It's like plankton.

Yeah. Yeah, Baylene, there we go. And they, when they're swimming through the water, they can just sort of like peel back their shark lips and just like chum through the water. I don't like that. Oh, fuck, man. These are bad sharks.

So if you see them, people know that they're hungry because it looks like they're smiling because they've got their house to pull back so they can filter food out of the water. All right. Well, you've made them as scary as possible. So, uh, what do you? Well, I figure if it's going to scare Amber, that it should be something that's like, uh, sure. Uh, okay.

You, you are, uh, you know, as in control of this situation as you can be, which is to say like, your glowing arms have kept you from dying immediately. Uh, what is, what is the rest of you doing? Well, let's see. I have them. Yeah, I'm, there's only actually one thing that a blank shark responds to. And even though there's fucking very little that I would like to do less than this. I am going to need to punch the blink shark in its mouth.

In its mouth, where? Direct, like, you have to go dead center. Anywhere else it's not going to work. If you go dead center, you might be able to shock them long enough to get away. You're not going to fucking kill one of these things. Absolutely. So you're holding its mouth open with the glowing hands and punching it. I got away.

No, he tossed me. Gryfin? No, no, you are still like, you are still prying its mouth open. And it is still like, you are still swimming with it, essentially. It is pushing you. I'm going to let it go. Okay, I'll let it to, in one movement, I'll let its mouth go and give it the double blast right to the mouth. Okay, cool.

Make an attack roll on this blank shirt. I guess I don't need to let go, do I? No, you have four hands. I have four hands. I like the image of that, but I realize that I really can only attack with two hands at a given time. It's like a different role. Except you should be. Okay.

11 plus 4.15. Yeah. I mean, you're punching the inside of this thing. So it's not the most heavily armored part of it. So that, that hits for sure. Five damage. Okay. And then I'm going to make a bonus, bonus attack, right?

That's something you warriors and monks do. You melee people do this all the time, right? You haven't unlocked that yet, but you can use your vibe to use flurry of blows. That's what I kind of. I kind of meant, I'll just use my vibe to use flyerive blows. So make two more unarmed strikes as a bonus action. I'm picturing Amber boxing the sharks' tonsils like a speed bag. 18.

Yep. Total of damage for that now, and then that's four. Okay. And then 17 plus 421. Nice. With a 4 plus 2, 6. 15 damage total. 15 damage.

Yeah, because of where you are attacking this thing, what does your flurry of blows look like? I think, like, in one sort of motion, I can, like, multiple arms pop out at once, but just long enough to, like, whack something in the face and then they all disappear. Okay. Go ahead and mark off two key points, actually,

because when you summoned your arms, that uses key as well. And then the flurry of blows use another. So you have one more. One more key point. Yeah, it's a good opportunity to use key points, though, if you're getting attacked by. Yeah, for sure. If not now, then when?

For sure. Yeah. When you do that. I was saving those for Dave's party later. Right. You see the blink shark spasm and like cough up like a trail of, like, dark green bubbles. And it kind of twists in the water to throw you off of it, which is. It's kind of satisfying, I bet.

And then it does a lap close to the wall of this ravine that you were diving into. And then it turns the same color as the ravine. And then you can't see it anymore. You can't tell if it has, this is probably the scariest part. You don't know if it blinked away or if it's just hiding. And that's something we're going to have to figure out in a bit. Now it's just you alone in this giant crevass. a couple hundred feet down below you,

you see the floor of this ravine. You can see it because it is illuminated by the anomaly, which is this sort of vaguely spherical white light that is giving off these like ripples of motion on the sand immediately beneath it. That is a couple hundred feet below you. And that's the only thing you can see

right now. What do you do? Is it... I don't know where it is. Yeah. I guess I'll keep swimming towards the anomaly. Okay.

Yeah. I guess I have to. Yeah. It's only making sense. Make an athletics check for me just to see how fast you can do it. Obviously, you are aided by the sort of jets in the thing.

Fucking too, Griffin. That's not very fast. Plus four? Six. Yeah. I mean, plus four, but like... Okay. Not Michael Phelpsian.

Then you know, the, you don't know if it's just sort of exhaustion from what just happened, but, or if it's the compression magic that this anomaly is giving off. But it kind of, let's go with that. But probably that. It feels like, kind of like that staircase in Super Mario 64, the further you swim down into it. Yeah. I use that excuse in the locker room all the time. It's compression magic. It's a compression magic, guys.

It's just a compression magic. It seems like the closer you. You swim to it the further away it is actually getting. I'm Lisa Hannawalt. And I'm Emily Heller. Nine years ago, we started a podcast to try and learn something new every episode. Things have gone a little off the rail since then. Tune in to hear about.

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There's something for everyone on our podcast, Baby Geniuses. Hosted by us, two horny adult idiots. Hang out with us as we try and fail to retain any knowledge at all. Every other week on Maximum Fun. Zooks, this clam, you feel it invading your mind now, just as you're sort of just inside of its mind. but it in the same way that you have trouble sort of remembering things about your past

like there's not much there for it to grip onto and so this assault that it is attempting to sort of wage on your on your on your memories on your being feels like it's not really going anywhere and then you are back inside of that dark room and you see the clam again and it is still this sort of weak,

fleshy bag that is floating in the air. But now you can tell that, like, it's been sort of ambivalently trying to take over your body. But now it feels like angry. Like you sense, it has chosen violence, but it is not moving or anything like that. What do you do?

I think instead of resisting, I think Zooks is going to lean, into the feelings he's getting from the clam. I think he is just kind of opening his mind and just taking in all of these messages from the clam. You're not meld. You're going to mind meld. I'm doing a mind meld with the clam.

And the one thing that just keeps reverberating and resonating with him is how alone it feels. Alone, alone. It keeps going back to alone, alone, alone. And so Zooks reacts in almost an instinctual way and releases everything he's got from his swarm. Releases all of the... And he's releasing him in the form of blue tang,

the little blue fish like Dory is. And just fill in the space. He's just filling as much space. I mean, he's given it every last. thing he's got with releasing the swarm and not having it attack, not having it do anything, but just kind of surround the clam, just kind of go all around the, we're still talking about the ganglia, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's, well, no, no, right now it's like almost the, the fleshy body inside of the clam, floating the air in front of you. It's just the mental representation. Right, exactly. Right. And so is this. Right. Just so it doesn't feel alone.

Damn, Dad, that's beautiful. So you're trying to embrace this thing with like saying, yeah, man, come on in. Well, what I'm trying to do is provide it with the feeling that it's not alone. Yeah. Whether the millions or however many blue tank there are, because they're little tiny things. Yeah. So it feels, so it kind of dampens down the anxiety and the anger and as a representation that Zook's really is its friend. He's just letting the whole swarm go.

That's just his way. I'm going to make a wisdom safe for the clam with disadvantage. Okay. It's a six and a nine, dude. I get it. Dad, there's a sex number. I guess. Sorry, it's got kind of a young thing for us young bucks.

I think it was invented in like 2005. Yeah, it's very recent. We just came up with it. Hey, dad, if you try to follow up on this gag at all, I will hang up. I don't. I didn't want to also say. No, no, no, no. It's not a yes. It's not a yes ad.

It's a no thanks. I just opened another window. Let me see. I'm about to close all the windows on my computer. Oh, my God. So, all right. Because this is taking place in this sort of like abstract clam mind palace, this swarm of blue tanks is way bigger than any sort of swarm you've been able to conjure before.

It is a school of them. And they are glowing blue and they are of different sizes in a way that doesn't seem to make much sense. And you are you are surrounding it with this feeling of warmth and acceptance. Community. And community. And for a moment, the clam is viving with this. But this urge that it has to take you. you over or trade, you know, places with you or whatever it is it's been trying to do,

it now sees you as vulnerable. And you feel it fully, like, penetrate into your mind and your memories. And then, like, you are both just kind of in darkness entirely and all the blue tangs disappear. And then you feel the clam getting panicked. and more panicked, and then you feel it separate from you entirely. And when it does that, now you are not in this dark room anymore. You're not in this abstract space.

You are back inside of this sort of fleshy cage that you swam into to interface with this thing in the first place. And you're in your own body. You are in control. You are Zooks once again. You feel, you obviously can. remember it, but like you don't, you are not confusing yourself in the clam anymore. It's memories where it's and now you are you again. Um, and it's quivering. Like the whole clam. In fact,

Devo, we're not with you right now necessarily, but like you feel the ship vibrate as the entire clam is now kind of trembling and fear. Amber, you feel it too. You see some rocks sort of fall loose off the walls of the crevasse around you. And it is, it is very afraid of. of you right now, Zooks. Devo. You're back on the ship. You heard this groaning noise coming from the airlock chamber and your ears popped. What do you do?

Listen, Devo hasn't spent in much time as a nautical man. Yeah. But he's also not an idiot. But I think he knows what that means. So he is going to attempt to seal a door or two but twixt. There and here. Okay. So you're closing up the, closing up the bulkheads.

Yes. Okay. Which, if you remember, I established when we bought the ship. Yeah. That it was very, the reason I had all those chambers was because it was a deep sea pressurized vehicle. Okay. You have sold me.

I think this is a fantastic move. I'm not going to make you roll for it. As you run to like the nearest bulkhead between the sort of communal space, attached to Amber's place and this hallway leading to the airlock, you seal the door shut. And right as you do that, you see the airlock door burst open. And you see that patch job that Amber did on the crack in the hole earlier split apart. And then water just starts shooting out of it into that chamber. And I think your ears pop again, but you, because of how you have kind of sealed this little part of the ship off, you are not taking any damage.

and you have more or less controlled the flooding. But you do see some more of these white tendrils come shooting in through the airlock, but they are more or less trapped where they are now. You've done that. What do you do now? So, if I'm being honest, Devo is mad and getting very frustrated.

Okay. And that is not, perhaps. let's say not a good place for Devo to be. So I've been thinking about this and he's going to attempt something a little irrational. But the thing is, he is right now feeling very trapped. Yeah. And very closed off. And that is not a great, not a good vibe for him.

Yeah, he can't stand that. And I think that claustrophobia is maybe manifesting in a very like mental, psychic way for him. And so I've been thinking about a wild thing that I want to try to do. Sure. I can justify it. I can't wait to hear this. He is going to attempt to transfer the magic that is trapped in the engine out of it. Oh.

By using his body as a conduit. Hmm. So in the same way that he, that. Well, it's a level 17 sorcerer. Yes. Well, this is the thing. A little dice late, as long as you're not a literal fucking, like, indie musician. Right.

A level, level three indie musician. A level three acoustic guitarist. Says here, says they're on the shit, you're a level three Bonavir. Yep. Is that accurate? You crack open the engine and you whisper, check out my band camp. And then you die instantly. Okay.

Tell, you head to the engine room. Yeah. Urchin is there eating a ration And he's like I forgot what we were doing Didn't it's hot Just Stand back

And if this goes very Poorly for me Then please I don't know Tell Amber and Zooks that I said Goodbye And he Takes the atomizer

That he sprays the prestige salt with And I'm going to burn two spell slots for this So that just shows you how committed I am to making this action work. This is starting to feel like Shark Tank, but go ahead. And he sprays his hands with it, one hand on one, one hand on the other. And he is just going to lay one hand on the engine. Okay. And in the other, he holds that bomb that urchin gave him.

Okay. And he's trying to draw the magic from the engine through his body into the bomb. All right. I think the question here is not can you do this? I think the question, because like, should you? That's definitely a question. I think the question is like, how bad is this going to fuck you up?

Yeah. Because I think we, you know, magic is so undefined mostly in this world that like, we can say that this could work. We can say that like ether salt is like conductive in a way that, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. the question is like if you use your body as a conduit do you then die from that so yeah the are you turning the engine on then to sort of accomplish this this this transfer okay then all the lights click on all at once and give me a oh god what saving throw would this even be I think constitution honestly like more than more than anything.

I think it's your body, your body's natural resilience. Go ahead and make that roll. 16 plus one, 17. Okay. Don't get me wrong. Choose DM, choose.

Yeah. It makes it feels like it will work, but it won't go great. This is my gut. It'll work, but it won't go great. All right. You know what it is?

in like transferring this get little magic out of the engine that had been sort of compressing the ship down and shrinking it down and shrinking it down and moving it through your body into this like arcane explosive. What happens weirdly is it happens like a bolt of lightning. It happens really, really fast. But just as sort of the engine had this magic trapped inside of it, you now have this compression magic trapped inside of you. And you look down and see urchin eating this ration like popcorn, like watching you intently. But you also realize that urchin now reaches up to your knees, which he didn't before. Your body is shrinking slowly, but it is shrinking. And it's not like it happens in the movies with Rick Moranus.

It is incredibly painful. So I want you to take I'll use falling damage as a sort of guiding light here. Yeah, I think that's fair. In this initial surge of it, you take 11 points of crushing damage. And it's definitely, it's not a thing where it's like, well, I shrunk a little bit and now it's better.

It's, oh my God, I'm shrinking. This really hurts, but I can kind of like, I can kind of get used to it a little bit. But you also can tell now, because this magic is inside of you, that it is also inside of this bomb, which is now a very, very, very nasty thing. Yeah. What do you do with it? And yourself and everything. I fire the bomb at the clam.

Just the... The tongue. The foot. Okay. Hmm. I feel trapped. It's... This is panic mode.

Sure. Fight or flight, perhaps. Paint me a picture what that looks like. You can't just say you fired the bomb at the clam. You, you, what are you? So at this point, like, his eyes are glowing blue. He's in extreme pain. And he's just kind of chanting over and over to himself, like,

it's okay to be angry. It's okay to feel things. It's okay. Let yourself feel. It's okay to be angry. Okay. The thing that Amber said to him. And he is acting.

on impulse, and he is angry at the clam. He is angry at the worm. He is angry at Orlean. He is angry at feeling trapped. He is angry at being left alone. Yeah. And he takes it out on the clam, and he slams the bomb into the chamber and slaps that button. Okay.

A clam slam, a clam slam, if you will. Then you load this charge up into one of the cannons and fire it at. the foot, which is above you, and you just watch through a porthole on the gunnery deck here as this very slowly blinking red light fires toward the fleshy pink ceiling above. Amber, you've been pushing it. You have been firing off those jets on the vapor suit as much as you can, but it feels like you should be getting closer to the anomaly than you actually are. And then you see a flash of green light above you.

And the hairs on your neck stand up again, and you can tell that you are about to get tackled once more by the blink shark. What do you do? I shut off my vapor suit. Whoa. Okay. Are you sure? Yeah, I'm pretty sure, yeah.

Pretty sure. Okay, give me a second. Hey, welcome. It's wild o'clock here on Adventure Zone. Okay. I got one idea. I don't want to see if it's going to fucking work. Yeah, man, listen, I'm not here to judge you.

You heard what I just did. And I turn towards as near as I can tell where the thing's coming. Okay. Before, while you are turning your body to face the blink shark, you are going to take some crushing damage. as like the pressure that the suit was regulating is immediately snapped off. I'll be very kind in here and say because like things are weird and compressed and strange. Like it's not like you are a mile beneath the ocean surface because that would destroy your body completely.

But you do take. And we've got all these t-shirts. We have all these great amber-gris t-shirts. But you take 10 points of crushing damage. as you feel an incredibly bad thing. You feel the ethercy on you and around you. The pressure is so sudden and so intense. That like etherealizing that I described happening to Devo is already kind of happening to you.

Like you already see your, your flesh hands becoming a little translucent. But you have turned and now you can see the blink shark. And I will also give you this. It seems a bit surprised at what just happened. I swim at it. Oh, shit. Okay. You've...

With my forearm extended in front of me. Your forearm. You're pouring it right at it. I'm swimming right at it with my forearm sort of in like a blocking pose, like dangling it right in front of it. Which forearm? My left forearm. I'm swimming with my left forearm in front of me, just pointed right towards his mouth. Okay.

I'm still swimming at you Yeah, for sure I think there's going to be another Strength check or a strength contest I will give him disadvantage because you are What you are doing here is preposterous Okay What's he doing?

What's his reaction? What happens to him is he smiles And Oh cool It's ready I'm still swimming at him Okay He is smiling wide

And he is just going to Open his jaws and try and kill kill you and eat you. Okay, I'm still swimming at him. Okay. It wraps its jaws around you and it's about... I slapped the button to activate my vapor suit. Okay.

Fuck you, bud. Man, okay. You're going sheer Brody on him. No, I'm gonna slice his fucking head in. Yeah. All right. Fuck, man. It had its jaw.

around you when you slapped the button. And when you hit the button, like, it dispels all of the ether water in an instant. Like, it shoots it all out in, like, a jet of bubbles. And so I think that there's, like, a bit of decompression that happens outside of the suit that blows this thing's mouth open a little bit, and you can see, like, it's jaws tearing, and it is, like, kind of grotesque. But you also feel some wetness because you have, like, destroyed the bottom of this thing's mouth. Because you have sheared it off, essentially, and it is inside of the vapor suit with you.

You feel, actually, you feel pieces of teeth now, just kind of, like, clattering around inside of your suit, like, a grotesque, like, holographic morocca. and when that happens, the blink shark, it screams in a way that is almost fairly audible underwater. However, it is still going to slam into you with its, like, wrecked mouth. It's not going to damage you necessarily, but it is going to try and, like, tackle you and crush you into, like, the nearest thing that I can't. And what that means is the floor below you, because with this thing's like additional speed, it is pushing you downward fast enough that you can see the anomaly getting closer to. Ha ha, idiot. And the shark is now like weaving around, trying to hold you, and it's like destroyed jaws.

And just as it's about to slam you into a wall, there is a flash overhead, way overhead, like above the reveal. and then this ravine that you're in, it's almost like the walls close in in an instant. And just as you think you're about to be crushed, they stop. But the ravine has shrunk. And you're not sure what else has shrunk. You're not entirely sure because you're a bit isolated down here. But the blinkshark releases you because it has been trapped now.

It is pinned in. It is crushed between two of these walls. And it almost looks helpless now. It is still wide enough for you to be able to maneuver around. You have not been crushed. But whatever has happened here, when the ravine shrunk, it has pinned this blink shark in. And it looks almost helpless.

It's at your mercy. What do you do? I Punch it as hard as I can In the roof of its mouth Hoping that there's I'm just aiming for the brain We're gonna try to kill it

A clean kill The problem with like being a monk Because you really You do have to beat things to death Yeah sure Wait you know what I What is the deal with like

Can I use a knife? Sure You got it You got one I always have a knife Yeah You know what I'm gonna try a knife through the eye

Maybe that'll be quicker You don't have to roll for it This is a, this is a, this is a, yeah, yeah, yeah. It is up to you, it is. You know, normally I might, I might, like, there's enough sort of, like, Ahab in there where it's like, oh, fucking, but like, this guy lost the bottom half of his mouth. He, he both fucked around and found out. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So now, I don't think it's going to be, like, a good, a good few days for my day here. Yeah, it would be, um, it would be wildly out of character for Amber to say, now go, friend. Yeah. No, with your humility. Yeah, we don't have to get, you know, gross about this. Is it a quick and, like, decisive? It's quick. There's no, those are no malice, but there is a bit of satisfaction.

One less, you know? One less. As you finish it off, it becomes lifeless, and then it does what all Blank Sharks do when they perish, which is they almost sort of implode kind of, like they teleport, they blink inward in a way until they just sort of vanish into nothingness. And that is what happens. And you know, you were so focused on this blink shark

that maybe you didn't realize it, but now you are very close to the anomaly. It is almost like it came up to meet you when everything sort of shrunk down a little bit. And now you're, you're floating in front of it. Yeah, I'll use the crystal on the thing. Okay. You, I mean, I don't know, I don't know what she,

she probably doesn't have a very clear idea of what that means exactly. Like I could picture her sort of like holding up and like rubbing it, rubbing it around. Right. Activate. Go. It's like a chemical reaction. It is like a, uh, yeah, have you ever seen like a, uh, uh, uh, have you ever seen like a, uh, uh, like crystals forming, like salt, salt crystals, it's almost like that happens to the light.

So it like absorbs this seed crystal and then the light grows dim for like a moment. And then it almost seems like two of those seed crystals emerge from the light and then four and then eight and then 16. And it continues like multiplying like this with just these like translucent cube shaped salt formations. just swirling around and into one another until in one final flash they compressed down into a single salt crystal about the size of your fist. And it's lit from inside by that same soft light

just diffused through this geometric shape. I'll put it in my, well, how do we put things? I feel like if you, maybe if you like touch something to the vapor suit, it will like form a little airlock around something. There has to be some way to break the barrier. Yeah, sure. Why you're,

yeah, I think that's how you got your knife out of your fanny pack earlier. So we can say that that, that is, your finny pack, sure. Okay, so what are you doing with it? I'm just storing it basically in my, in my, in my, okay.

As you put it in the fanny pack and I, in slow motion, we watch Amber's fingers on the zipper, zipping it shut. and as the last of the teeth of the zipper closes, what happens next is not gradual, like the crystallization you just saw. It is instantaneous and incredibly violent. You are launched upward like you're being shot out of a geyser

up through the crevasse with just debris firing up and outward all around you. Devo, you feel something, indescribably strange, and I would say maybe a little bit painful, but I'm not going to hit you again. As... It's okay. I have like 11 points, 10 points of damage left. You feel from below you, this pulse of compression magic passed through you and the ship. And in a flash, you are back to your standard Devo height. Six foot 10.

Seven foot 100. and the lights of the ship flash and whatever like magic was left sort of in the in the you know circuitry here is dispelled and then it feels like the coriolis is caught in a riptide being fired away from the back wall of the clam and out toward the front where you entered it zooks for a moment here you you feel the clam and it is on its last legs, like you can tell whenever you swam into this like flesh cage to commune with it in the first place, like it was, it was lit up and you could see like the neurons firing. It is, it is dying. And you, it is still also trembling a bit. It seems like afraid. You hear its voice say, I in Zeus and I spent my life in a hole. I believed your mind. could show me the world above that I'd always envisioned

but your empty too in within you at a hold as you are processing that you feel a tug at your back and then you are ripped away by the cord. Oh no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no go ahead that's in character.

Oh okay you are pulled away from the mind of the clam which goes dark No, what do you mean? What do you mean? What do you mean about that? And you are... Well, Daddy means that you're pulled away. And you are caught in a fountain of debris that goes firing away from the back of the clam. And then we see this empty plane in the middle of the vital flats that are silent. There's a large clam hunkered down in the middle of this wide clearing. And its mouth cracks open,

just a fraction of an inch and just a large single bubble floats out of it and drifts lazily upward. And then the hinge of the clam is split wide open and just a screaming column of detritus comes firing out of it. There's creatures of all shapes and sizes. There's wreckage of countless ships. There's buildings from the shore side. There are rocks and trees, just everything, come flying out of its mouth like shot from a cannon. Devo and Zooks trailing behind, the Coriolis comes flying outward and lands softly at the edge of the clearing. And both of you, Zooks, you have like this incredible view of it.

You see the clam ejecting its contents. You see the floating patchwork city of Flotsam pop out. out. And it's just being knocked about by the surrounding debris that is also firing out. But you see it's many, many turbines illuminate and just kind of write the city structure and also brings itself down for a soft landing near your parking spot. Amber, as you're being launched from the clam, you see relics of the shoreside community that maybe you didn't notice on the Coriolis's first approach. you see some pieces of the cradle that didn't get salvaged and brought down, get fired out. You also see the shithouse. And it's surrounded by other debris and just kind of like twisting around like it's caught in a tornado, careening through the water on this outbound trajectory. And through a window, you see some pulses of green light. And in those pulses, you see those four remaining black spirals that were embedded in the wood of the shithouse.

And in a very familiar fashion, you see these four black spiraling eggs blink and teleport out of sight. and then you're thrown from the clam as well. Maximumfunn.org. Comedy and culture. Artist-owned, audience-supported. A man goes to the doctor and says that he's depressed and that life seems cruel. The doctor says,

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