The Adventure Zone - The Adventure Zone: Ethersea - Episode 14

Episode Date: October 28, 2021

The Abyssal Auction: Part One  The crew of the Coriolis take on a new mission, one that exchanges the slimy hazards of enormous mollusks for the slimy hazards of good old-fashioned capitalism. Let's have a money fight! Additional music in this episode: "Creepy Bell Music 01" by Magmi Soundtrack https://bit.ly/3aXUcSt 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. Well, hoss, good news and bad news. Your rock's gone. What? I got an infinite bag. Yeah, put it in the bag. I'll put the pride in the bag and your sadness in the bag. Give that to the hand of guidance and let her know that you found me, that I'm fine.

I'm not ready to go back yet. You all did quick and excellent work. The parish will keep you in mind. It's been decades since we've seen a blink shot. Now we know exactly how many are left. It's the crew of the glory holeless. She holds up a blue folder, and you realize it's one of the jobs that was offered to you.

And as their somewhat gaudy ship dives into the water, its stern rises up, and in that moment, you can see that this ship is named the gut punch, which rhymes with butt munch. Amber Divo Zooks, you all have scant time to flip through the many fantasy highlights magazines that are scattered hither and yawn in the Blue Spant brokerage waiting zone, also known as a foyer, to some people, or a foyer to other people, before you're called back into the office of Ravi Montreux. who is beaming ear.

Goofis is always getting into the trouble with the Mentecora. You know, Guvah, gallant knows to stay away from the Mentecour, but oh, Guvess. Oh. You can tell Ravi has just had guests. He is sort of still cleaning up some piles of papers in his office, and as he's filing them away, he hollers at you from over his shoulder and says, Oh, my goodness, if it isn't the choreolus, accomplished adventurers. mission doers i heard from the uh parish you all did a bang up job and uh i had no doubt in my mind

you all are uh you all amaze me every day thank you that's so sweet thank you yeah so who's ready for another one to take another bite of that success cookie i love cookies sure are is it the same ones or you got new uh new gigs lines And did you let them take any of the good ones? Did I let them? Those three mean people from before. The people of the, what did we say it was? The butt munch.

Butt munch? The butt munch. Still funny. It is still funny, yeah. They are the butt munch bunch. This is pretty good. So I'm just going to sort of use context clues here. So give me a moment.

The word butt munch does rhyme with gut punch, which is the name of the ship held by another one of my contractors that I've got in the old Rolodex. So did they give you a hard time or something? I can't say I like that. I don't want my kids fighting, you know? They were hassling us a little bit, but nothing we can't handle. Maybe it been a little trash talk. Yes, it could have been just a playful rivalry. They didn't, you know, threaten us or.

They wouldn't tell me where they got the sunglasses, which was a bit of a, that was a snub. They said they got them from up their butts. Or up the bunch of store. That's great. Oh, man. You like that, huh? You're a little bit of pure eye on your taste. Why would you have glasses in your butt?

That's great stuff. So, yeah, I mean, you know, it sounds like harmless ribbing. I don't mind a little competition. you know, stoke the fires. Do you like them more than us? This is a good question. A fair question. We're all wondering.

No, you all are absolutely my favorites. Insight check. Inside check. Oh, shit. I have a passive insider 16, Griffin. All right, let's see what your active insight is. I'm going to say that old, uh... Oh, my God, it's hovering in the line.

It should be... It's 10. It's a 10? No, you do not. not get past. Well, my passive is 16. You do not get past Ravi Montrell. He is telling you the absolute truth and he treasures you so much. He treasures you like a child, like a dear child. Okay. So he has no favorites like I have no favorite kids, not like I have no favorite pets, right? Because I definitely have a favorite pet. You know you are his favorite clients and that he has never said that to

anyone else. Okay. With an insight check of 10. I feel like the The giving you super bad information on a bad, like, insight or perception check, you can work out just through oppositesies. What I actually mean. Like that felt very uninsightful what I've just done? Yes, exactly. And Zooks bought it whole. He completely bought it. Sure.

He says, you know, things are a bit slow right now because of the holiday season. Oh? Yeah. It's It's, yeah, you know, octopus day. It's October's day. Now, wait. Hey, I know, but they're new here.

Yeah. Can you walk me through some of what octopus day means to you? It's fine. You do like eight of everything. So like you wear... Everything? Yeah, look, I'm wearing eight shirts. So as long as you do...

I did notice that you are sweating. Oh, hold on. Let me, I got to give... And he gives you all like a swift punch in the arm. And he's like, no eightsies. So you get a hit. Eight of everything. He should have to roll an attack, Griffin.

Oh, roll an attack. I'll roll an attack specifically for Devo. Thank you. Eight of everything? Okay. I don't know. Okay, then he gets a six. Yeah.

So he misses you? Times eight is 48. He misses real bad. No, Travis, it is a 48 because it's octopus. Oh, God, I'm dead. You actually, I don't want to give you all octopus day powers. He says, yeah, so the jobs have not come. pouring in. But the stuff I've got for you still is very exciting. And now that you've

cut your teeth on a one star, I think you've got what it takes to maybe step it up a little bit. So here's what I still got. And he lays out three folders that you recognized from last time. The job's still remaining after the gut punch took the alloyed menace job. You still have acquisition, the lost laboratory. I really struggled to think how I say that word when it came time for me to say it. Is it because you have to decide if you're going to say laboratory, if you're going to say it? Or laboratory, yeah. Yeah, like you're in the monster match.

You're actually making a huge tonal distinction there of like just what kind of person you are and program you're making. I mean, laboratory is immediately kind of spooky, right? Yeah, sure, sure, sure. You could go with lab, but then somebody's going to think you're talking about a dog. Yeah, fair, fair, fair. As a reminder, that one is submitted by the Deep Thinkers, specifically Amperstam 5. It is a, the job description is a lab operated by the deep thinkers went missing.

And a single survivor returned to Founders Wake, but it's been out of commission, is quarantining at a local medical facility seeking treatment for undisclosed injuries. So they want you to find the lab and discover the fate of the ship in its group. Also, there's investigation, the biomass swarm. And that's from the chaperone, specifically Ballister Codira, who's the last. leader of the chaperones, who has discovered a huge swarm of sea life that is just growing and growing and growing a couple dozen nautical miles from the city. They want to sort of nip this problem in the bud before it becomes something super dangerous. And then finally, there is negotiation, the abyssal auction, which I have stepped up from a one star to a two star. And the client

for that one is Joshy's knuckle, Uncle Joshy, of course, who has an invitation to a an exclusive auction where he hopes to purchase an undisclosed surface relic, and he needs representatives to attend the auction. And he'll give you some money, and you've got to secure the item he wants and return with it in hand. And as a bonus for that one, you get to keep whatever money you don't end up spending there. I was wondering who the current ballisters of Founders' Wake are. Yeah, so there's definitely, this is going to take me a while. The Beaure Armeen is like, like the high baluster. Kodira is the baluster of defense, essentially.

The hand of guidance is the baluster for, you know, the church and the conservatory sort of at large. And then there's probably a couple other ones, right? Like Uncle Joshy's not a baluster, but he would really like to be. Got it. Like I don't think Joshy's knuckle necessarily has that kind of representation. And then past that, there's like, you know, functional balusters. It was like there's one of, you know, who makes sure that the city's people.

are, you know, being supplied the things that they need to live a life there. There's probably a Ballister for like eventually returning to the surface of the world. Like there's, but I would say there's probably like five to seven of them. So would you say just to clarify Ballister is less of like an elected position? Like there is a set number of the council of balusters and it's more like the person in charge of. Yeah, it's a set number. And it is sort of like if there was a movement to have Joshy's knuckle have a baluster, right, then that would get put up there. But like Codier was put as a baluster because she's in charge of this thing.

Okay. So those are the three jobs. Which one are you all interested in? I can say right off the band that I like the one with negotiations. I feel like this is a skill set that I would bring. but, you know, any of these sound interesting, and as long as they do not involve being swallowed by a giant clam,

and shrunk down, then I'm happy. You know, you kind of ate shit on the last one. It was tough on you, so I think we should sort of defer to whatever Devo wants this time. I'm fine with that. I'll meet everybody at the table. and, you know, put the tiger on the table. And listen, I didn't really did in the negotiations before,

but I feel like I'm well equipped for the job. But you know, as he has a sign of negotiations, you have charm, and then you have intimidation, yeah? And this you've got, yes? Yeah, that's true. You're good. Everybody's got thrown. I just feel, I don't have a tie or anything.

I feel like negotiators. Oh, we can get to a tie, yeah. Yeah. Maybe one of those bolo ties, like a string. Oh, yes. Those are very fancy. I do need a new jacket. When you all start talking about clothes, you can tell that Ravi Montrell kind of smirks a little bit.

And then, like, very quickly sort of tries to correct himself. And he says, sorry, I just, I don't know. I've never been to the abyssal auction, but I know that you will be somewhat disguised. So I wouldn't worry too much about securing a bolotie. After all, we haven't seen one of those in 25 years. Whoa! I do still need a new jacket, though, because I tore up my jacket and a misguided attempt to make a rope. Actually, Ravi, you and I seem to be about the same size, if you would.

give me a jacket. Yes? Sure, that'll be 300 luck. Well, no. This is, no, this is, I meant as you said, that was your favorite. So I didn't. Oh, and I absolutely meant it. But this is the Bugatti of clothes that I got.

Of course, yes. And it's very, it's very expensive. Actually, this jacket I saved up a lot of my money for. Just kidding. It was like a few weeks paycheck. I see. Yeah. So anyway.

A lot of interest. The first two both appealed to me. I have a lot of questions about myself. And the chance to speak to ampersand 5 would be pretty cool. And then the investigation one, you know, I'm not really sure how my swarm powers work. It might be interesting to do that. But if you both, do you think that these will still be on the docket the next time we check in? Well, this one is a three-star risk.

And so, yes, the laboratory one, excuse me, laboratory. Perfect. That was it. And that was it perfectly. Got it. But if you would, if your wishes to speak to this ampersand five, we do, do. Do we need to take the job to do this? Well, no, not necessarily, I guess.

It just seemed like that would be a nice open door to step through. You know, we really are broke. I mean, we don't even have enough to go shopping at Phantom C Coast Co. Maybe we do the easy job and do the negotiation, and get the lux just to kind of build up our bank rule. I'll go along with whatever. you two friends want to do. Zooks, can you

make a, make a, yeah, make a charisma check here. I want to see if your words sway Ravi Montrell. 13. Since you have a minus one charisma modifier, I will

say this. Robbie Montrell can tell that you are having kind of a tough time. And he also can tell that there are some hurt feelings about giving a job out that he offered you first to someone else. So he says, I tell you what. Zooks sign a good faith. He reaches down to those two jobs that you mentioned, the lost lab and

the biomass swarm, and he earmarks them and sets him aside. He says, I won't let anyone touch these. Of course, if the client pulls out, the client pulls out. But these jobs, if they're still available, are yours for sure. Those butt munch, right? The stinkers, they're not going to get their hands on these. This is not very nice of you to say you are as their boss. We can say this we are as their rivals, but you as the boss, this is an HR issue? Yeah. Well, thank you. Thank you.

Ravi. Ravi. Yeah. Thank you. You are very appreciative. Now, let's go auctioning. He says, well, first, you do need to go meet with the client. Oh, it's Uncle Joshy.

I don't know if any of you have met him, but he is a real character. So be careful. Yeah, we go back. Oh, oh, great. Fantastic. It's about a half an hour ago. He's basically like my fourth dad. Yeah, he is, he is the embell's uncle, I think.

No, that's colloquial, but, you know. It's what? We're tight. It doesn't matter. It's irrelevant. I'll do some, unfortunately. Well, is it colloquial or a relevant? It's actually pronounced the cloaca is where he's located.

Ah, it's a cloaca, yes. So he hands you all the folder, and he says, Colloquial is really hard to say. Yeah, sure. And then even impossible to say with a French accent. Yeah, sure. He says, all right, good luck. If you have any trouble, call in dispatch.

But, I mean, this one seems like it'll be pretty straightforward. I should ask, how do we call into dispatch? You just ring us up on your tone wheel aboard the ship. Ah. Just give us a holler. Okay. This would have been good to know in the last mission. We did not think of this. to say like, oh, we're in a climb, you know.

Yeah, I don't know if we get reception inside a big club. No shell towers out there. Oh, my God, we're crushing it today. God, this is a good podcast. It's a good fucking episode today. Yeah. Oh, wait. Oh, a Pulitzer for podcasting just came out of my computer.

No way. Whoa. We did it. So you all head up to the cloaca in the bustling burb of Joshy's knuckle. and when you show up, it's the lunchtime crowd, which is to say like four people. Okay. And you see Uncle Joshi sitting at the bar,

and he is doing some paperwork. He's like he's cooking the books, so to say. Or balancing the books. I don't know. Yeah. There's a big difference there for sure. You know that, right? I do know that. I don't know that Uncle Joshy knows that.

But he sees you all walk in and he says, Oh, this is, what a, what a special treat this is. I didn't expect you all to come back this soon. Amber, I'm sorry, I haven't prepared another vibe check for you. I have to think about those things like, you know, a week in advance. It takes me a while to put those wheels in motion. Could we have just a second? Yeah, sure.

It's weird for you to walk into a room and then immediately have a sidebar. Amber, saying that he did not have time to prepare a vibe check is exactly what he would say? I try not to think that far ahead of anybody. What if he just wants you to think that he did not have time to prepare the vibe check? If he wants me to sink that you sing. But if I think he thought that I would think that. You know what I'm saying?

He's, oh. Yeah, he's always a few steps ahead except what he's in. And what is a vibe check? Okay. Well, it's when he tries to get the best, He tries to get the upper hand. The chart. Keeps me on my toes.

Yeah. Well, if he does, I'll shoot him. And break. Okay, Uncle Joshi, you were saying, he walks back from the bathroom, washing his hands, like, sorry, you guys did the whole thing for so long. Oh, yes, I have not used the bathroom in several episodes. Remind me to you.

One of the hallmarks of the adventures out is that the characters use the bathroom in real time. So, he says, so what do you do? What can I do you for? You already got some free littles out of me, from what I understand. So, what, you need some cruiser beves to go? Or what's up? Oh, this does sound good, yes. But we, it seems, will be your emissaries at the abyssal auction.

No shit. You're kidding me. Yes, shit. You know how I've always been real good at fancy stuff and talking and stuff. Yeah. Well, I'm your new negotiator. Oh, that's excellent. That's great.

That's real great news. Because sometimes negotiation, they go belly up, and then you will be there, I assume, to punch that belly up a bunch of times, which is great. I'm going to try to keep this one a little more restrained, like really show a different side of myself, where I was like more sort of kind of family. kind of fancy you know what I mean Yeah sure sure But I would be happy with shooting them If everybody's

You know Would like that done Yeah I'm gonna be more of the brains on this one Yes, Zuchs I actually think I would rather you shoot somebody this time Than psychically connect with them I actually think that you shooting someone Might be a little safer for you

Making note It's a bit of a moot point Because you are not going to be bringing your weapons into this particular auction. Yeah. That's all right. I got all the weapons I need. Yeah. In your tummy.

Your tummy hands. My tummy hands, yeah. Sure. All right. Y'all know how an auction works, right? Like, you say you'll pay a certain amount for something and then some jag will say, like, I'll do one more than that. And then you come in and you're like, well, I'll do one more than that. Wait, why is it like this?

This is, that seems a wild way to do. Why not just say it costs this much? Okay, yes, I will pay this. Okay, done. And then you exchange, you know, goods and services for some sort of money or credit. Right. Yeah, no, that's the ideal, right? Yeah, everybody likes to think they're getting a deal.

But this just seems like it is just raising the price artificially. Well, no, it's not raising the price artificially. Normally the auction is reserved when the fixed price for an item can't be easily determined because of the extremely fluid market. Yeah. So if you don't have a set price. Right. It's not like you're auctioning off a gallon of milk. Ah, I see.

Plus, most of the people that come to this thing are profoundly wealthy. And they get, you know, they're so bored that they want to have what is essentially a money fight, which is what an auction is. Yeah. So you all are going to go in my stead. I'll bankroll you. You get what I ask for, and then you come on home. Is there a reason you're not going yourself, Uncle Joshy? Yes, good question.

I am, I am, I had a prior commitment that I have to attend to my. Is it IBS? It sounds like you might have my cousin. Is sick? So yeah, I'm the cousin. His name is named Ian Beauregard Schmidt maybe, IBS, yes? I don't know why you're pushing so hot. No, no, no, no, no, I don't know why he's pushing so hot on the IBS thing.

It's not a joke. I'm not funny, gentlemen. Thank you. No, I'm not saying this is a joke. I understand. This is a very serious thing. And you are afraid to be too far away from your home toilet. And we understand this.

You do not want to be somewhere. You do not know where the toilet is? Sure, sure. So, yeah, my cousin's like, wicked sick. Wow. So I cannot make it to this one. Maybe the next one, though. But hey, you know, when, you know, one of our many guards closes a window and the door to,

then you all get a job out of it. That's true. Circle of wealth. What are we bidding on? It's going to be. the fourth lot up for the auction. You can't even give us any more than that, really. This assumes that nothing changes either.

What if there's substitution maintenance and we come home with like an old bubble gum machine and you're like, oh no. He says, no, they don't do substitutions or changes. I apologize if I'm being even cagier than I usually am. but I think you'll understand what I'm talking about once you show up in that big, beautiful palace of money and goods. Yes, but we are, you, okay, you have hired us to do a job for you.

This is not us asking you for some. Why are you being vague? Do you not, oh, Joshy, do you not want us to succeed? Is this what this is, where this is a trick on us, where you want to? us to get down there and look foolish and maybe learn something about failure, improving the quality of a spirit. Oh, yeah, there is like an extended vibe check. Ah, good question.

Deva, make a persuasion check. Okay. That would be a 13 plus 7, 820. Yeah, fuck. He says, all right, listen. I'll tell you what it is, but I need you to know. make me a promise and a real honest to gosh promise, okay? Okay.

I tell you what this thing is. Y'all don't get any designs on making out with it yourself and say like, oh, no, we got, we dropped it into the ocean, lost it. And I'll be like, how did you do it? And you'll be like, toilet. And I'll be like, that makes sense. So I am basically telling you how to get one over on me on this one if you want. But you got to promise you won't do that.

But now if we did this, if we said, oh, no, toilet. You'd be like, no. Right. Okay. It's a book. It's a book. A journal. And I will be honest with you, I have zero need for it at all. But I know plenty of folks who would. And not everybody's clued into the abyssal auction. So I would rather they not find out. I would rather you all not take it and find some other buyer for it. You understand? This is why I'm not so forward with this information. But I trust. a third of you. So... We are legally bonded

representatives of Ravi Montrosso. Show him the papers, Amber. Show him the papers. Oh, yeah. We're legally, you know... Bonded. It's all legit. You know, we... Our word is our bonded.

All right. It's a journal. It's a, a journal from an old Delmer architect. Ah. I genuinely do. not know much about it past that.

It sounds very boring. Yeah, right? Like, it's a glowing ruby. When you kiss it, a dinosaur comes out. Like, it's nothing. Wait, do they have this too? Yes. They may, they probably won't have, I'm not saying, I've seen one of these before.

That's all I'm going to say. I've seen this glowing ruby that when you kiss it, a dinosaur comes out. But I doubt they have one of those, would you rather we get that? I'll be honest with you. Yes. Absolutely. Excellent. Yes.

Any other questions? How much do we have to work with? How much money are you giving us? He says, well, I boosted it up a little bit from my original sort of plea because I didn't get much traction on that job listing. So it is 20 luck. I'm going to give you for the bankroll. And then you buy my thing, whatever else you have left, you can keep. on top of nine additional luxes

as a like good job pat on the back not a pat on the back that's compensation for work but you could come away from this one fairly fairly rich I will say this that journal ain't going to be cheap and if there is someone else

who knows about it and the value it actually possesses it might go up a little bit more than you might expect so yeah if it goes above 20 will you give us extra money I can't

I have given as much as I possibly can. Please believe that. So, just so I understand it, at best, we buy this for very cheap, and we get a lot of extra money. At worst, it hits like 21 lux, and we do not get it,

and we still get nine luck. He looks around the room and starts speaking in more hushed tones, and he says, this auction nobody there can see anybody else's faces nobody there can see each other's ships

if you don't succeed in buying it the fairway during the auction you could try and come about it another way but I will say this if you come back home and you don't have it you are certainly not getting paid for the job

because you didn't do the job so yeah not to be not to encourage you No naughty boy behavior. But that's the truth of the matter. And I won't say it. And that's that. I'll leave it at that.

Okay. This is fine with me. This is fine with you? Yes. Cool. Any other questions? Zook, you seem awfully sad about you not being able to take your shooter there. Well, I'm much like Amber.

I have other resources for slaughter and destruction. So it's okay. That doesn't bother me so much. What bothers me is that I'm pretty sure that once they see my different coral faceholes, they're going to, how are they not going to see us? It changes, honestly, from auction to auction. But every auction, they got disguises. They got ways to hide you.

hide your body. These rituals... Like costumes? It's one of these I went to. Yes, there were big, big fuzzy costumes. I have read about a masquerade. Ah, with a masquerade? Uh, no.

But one time they did do like wrestling masks. All, yeah, everybody had to wear, like, wrestling masks and big, like, big, puffy clothes. You got, they cover up everything because they don't want to give nothing away. Do they provide those? Yeah, they'll provide those. Do you have a jacket that I could have? It will cover your whole body. No, it's unrelated.

I just need a new jacket. No. What are you talking about? I just thought that I would ask. Have I ever come to your domicile and said like, hey, selling any pants today? That's a wild thing to do. Oh, I did not say selling. I was hoping you would just give it to me?

Have I ever showed up at your domicile and said, give me pants? It's weird. You've got Uncle Josh, you give me pants today. We haven't none each other's this long. No, we haven't. That's exactly right. We wicked have not. Do you have a lost and found that he could go through? The kid just needs some pants. No, I have pants. I need a jacket. I'm sorry. No, I don't have a jacket for you.

Okay, how do we get into the auction, uncle? He hands you a little, he doesn't mind that. He hands you a little... He hands you the invitation. And the invitation just has a map on it. And there's, it points to like a very sort of, it leads to a valley that is overlooking the titular abyss. Just a huge drop off off of the, you know, sort of plate that the, that Founders Wake is built upon. you go there in your ship

don't try swimming it that would be buck wild and they'll come to you they'll find you this sounds good to me I'm ready to go Amber what do you think

yeah let's head out unless you need a shirt you good oh for me no I have I have this shirt that I like very much it's a good

yeah it's a good cut I think that's a nice shirt thank you it fits me very well Now I feel like I'm dragging everybody down. Oh, do you need Uncle Joshy, do you have any clothes for Amber, a vest, perhaps? I actually do have a vest. Hold on.

I figured he was good for at least one vest. He stands up and walks into the back room, and he's back there for a long time. Amber, make a dexterity saving throw. Oh, my gosh, this is embarrassing. I'll give you advantage on it. What? I'll give you advantage on it. Seems fair.

12 plus 4, 16, or 16 plus 4, 20. Yeah. You hear from outside, like, back out on the street, outside of the cloaca, you hear, like, as his footsteps get louder. And then you hear him wheezing as he comes in through the front door of the cloaca. And you hear him, like, fire check, five check. And he, like, barely, like, karate chops you in the, in the shoulder. but he completely whiffs it and sort of slumps over at bar stool

he says, I ran I ran all the way around the block so I could come in the front the front door and do it. All right, nice. It's not my best word. No, it's all right.

Hey, not every, not every vibe check can be perfect. I appreciate the thought, though, for serious. Yeah, it's like, I gotta keep you on your toes. Yeah. Hey, get out of you, you crazy guys. Also, no vest? There is no vests.

Oh, no, there wasn't a vest. I'm sorry. The vest was a ruse. When you said the thing about the vest, I saw an opportunity to do one of my famous jobs. Well, hello, I'm Renee Colvert. Hi, I'm Alexis Preston, and we're the host of Can I Put Your Dog? And we got breaking news. We got an expozee.

All the beans have been spilled via an Apple podcast review that said this show isn't well researched. Oh, yeah, no, duh. Of course, it's not. Not since the day. we started as it been well researched. Guessing and anthropomorphizing dogs is what we do. The Can I Pet Your Dog promise is that we

will never do more than 10 seconds of research before telling you excitedly about any dog we see. I'm going to come at you with top 10 enthusiasm, minimal facts. We're here for a good time, not an educated time. So if you love dogs and you don't love research, well, you know what, come on in to Can I Pet Your Dog podcast every Tuesday

on Maximum Fun Network. All right. Are you all heading out? You do have some luck in pocket. If you want to make a stop at the, at the Phantom C Coast Co. You do have some rations from your last visit to this bar and grill.

But yeah, what are you, what are you all thinking? Well, I was wondering, Griffin, if you and I could real quick brainstorm away without having to, like, play out a whole scene that we could establish that, like, Devo has a quick, like, swimming lesson? Yeah, with back. We can say that it.

went pretty well. Well, why don't you tell me how it went? I think his only focus coming out of like the fall into the clam is like he was focusing on treading water. He's just, he's like, I'm not going to be doing laps anytime soon. I'm not trying to race. I just want to know if I get, if I get, if a ship explodes or I fall out of something, I can, you know, keep from sinking right down to the bottom of wherever I'm in. Yeah. I think, I think that's easy enough to say you, you have a accomplished that. I think Henry's taking swim lessons right now, and so I imagine you

your character in him are about on the same page. Oh, yeah, that. I think that should cost him looks, though. He's going to get rid of something like that. He did pay, you know, he did help Beck get set up. I paid two lux for swimming lots. Which was an

investment in, yeah. Fair enough. Okay. I knew you had all terrier motives. Oh, yeah. So, what's the verdict? You're going to Phantom C or you're just going to get out there? Hey, what would a window shop if nothing else? What would be, you know, let's Yeah, let's see what kind of deals

I got going on. And I want to see that catfish again. Yeah, and I probably need to give him my looks. You see... Some to wet his whistle. Sure. You all make your way into the Phantom C Coastco. That shutter just opens for you now as you get close

and you hear humming coming from one of the many holes all around the walls ceiling of this this grotto. And from one of them, Felix the catfish emerges. And he says, oh, look. Look who it is.

Look who's returned. I thought maybe you were going to dip out on old Felix, huh? Take the money and run. So I'm excited to finally have a return on my investment.

Uh, Okay. That will be six lux, please. I can... For what? Well, he loaned me. He owes him. Not for you.

This is my problem. Oh, dang. Yes, I can pay the interest. I'll give you one lux for this. So I still only owe you five. Make a persuasion check. Persuasion check. That is a 14 plus 7.

He says, um, hmm, traditionally I sort of go by O-Town rules in that I want it all or nothing at all. But I suppose. I mean, if this is the case, then I can give you nothing right now and then pay you back the rest, you know, keep the juice flowing. I'll take the one interest. the one looks interest just to keep it you know as a sign of good faith this is fine so zooks and ambia

that leaves us with four and i will take the one as my cut and you two can decide if we want to do anything with uh the other four do you have like a clearance aisle do we have a clearance aisle good question

no my that's aisle i o i s L-E Oh, fucking good. On fire! No, we carry pretty good shit here, and people buy it a lot and fast,

so, no clearance, we do, I apologize, I should have mentioned, we received a few licenses from the parish for some other new

pieces of gear that you may or may not want to check out It is up to you. Yeah, let's take a big of Rewski. So if you look through the different sort of shops here, I've highlighted in light green, a beautiful, key lime pie colored green.

Is that under, it's one of the tabs on here, right? There's two for weapons, and then they have, you've also received a license for vapor suits, which is like the parish's big thing, but you guys, you know, you have two of those already. So, you may not be useful. A sunburst weapon, you say. Yes, so the, you've gotten basically access

to a couple of arcane class weapons, because of who you did the work for. So you've unlocked sort of the purchasing rights for a force barrage or a sunburst cannon, which can damage sensors, but also it has to charge. It's the first charge weapon, I think, that has become available to you. Now, we know the kind of mission we're going on, right? Are there any specific, like, tools or parts or facilities or anything that we see that we're like, oh, we'll use that. You know what I mean?

The first thing I see is a medical bay, which I don't know if we have. No. You do not. No. Provides three points of healing per mission. No, provides three potions of healing. Yes. I'm sorry.

Just because we don't need personal weapons. and that won't be allowed into the auction. That doesn't mean we won't need weapons to get there, right? Mm-hmm. We'll get back. You know, what am I just saying? That tracer spank could be useful if we're going to be able. Can you explain what you are talking about?

So a tracer spike says as an action, a crewmate can fire the spike of a ship or creature. And for the next week, the exact location of the target will be revealed. Well, Zooks already has something like that, doesn't he? I mean, just in his spells. Yes, but if we're like in ship to ship, right? Right. Then like that seems to be like if the whatever the auction is on is like running away from us. I don't know.

Right. That could be useful. And where is this under tools? Under tools. There's part of me that feels like we'd be better off just keeping the money and getting like and using it to upgrade before the next like combat heavy thing. But we have no real insight into this. who the fuck knows what we're running to getting in. Right?

I mean. And we only have three lux left, right? Four luck's left. Four luck. I think we should sit on it. All right, let's save it. And who knows? Maybe we'll need some to grease a few palm or two.

It's not a bad point. The only thing you do know about this mission is that the more money you have, the more likely it is going to be that you will achieve your dreams. I would also like to point out that we have 20 extra luxe in our pocket. given to us by a man who encouraged us to steal. You know what? You're right. I'm going to change the ship inventory to 24 luck and then you guys can deal with your own sort of demons. No, I don't think that's a good idea.

Listen, we can just plan on stealing right out the gate, bypass the whole auction. You roll up to the auction in like a gold-plated stuff. Well, we'll buy 24 lugs worth of guns. And then just blow it to hell and take the, take the, take the, the general from the records. But you know, if we go there and decide to steal it, we get to keep all 20 luck. That's true. All right.

I think we sit on it for now. Okay. And if we see that Ruby that summons a dinosaur when you kiss it, we buy that shit for ourselves. The action we choose is inaction. Yes. Yeah. We walked to the store and went, okay, thanks.

Have a great day. All right. Thank you. You paid your installment. Yeah. As you turned to leave, he goes, wait, are you, what did? Why did you come here? Just to see you.

It's something to do. Calm down. Okay. We had a big lunch and we needed to walk around a bit so that we didn't fall asleep in Zheap. And I'm a bit of an admirer. And I'm learning to observe things and take it all in without mind melding with them. And so this was good for me. This was a good day for Zooks.

I'm glad I could have. But make sure the next time you come around, you'll be ready to help me. And then a shipworm pops out from like the water right in front of you all wearing a green visor. And another one pops up right next to him. And I guess maybe several pop-up and pantomime cracking knuckles. And the one on the green visor just looks down at you, Devo. Okay. Yeah, I understand.

I would pay you back. No need to have your worm squad threaten me. I understand the deal. Oh, I can't control them. Oh, well, you need to work on this. You need to show that you are the alpha. I'm a big fish, man. We don't really roll like that.

Ah, good for you. This was a test. Cool. Hey, check out this cool sign. And one of the shipworms points to the sign that says no loitering. Okay, let's go. Time for adventure. You're taking off then?

You're departing? Yeah. All right, you all hop into. Do you ask things in such a fucking loaded way? It's like you're always acting like the golden sword of Galfadar is like on the floor. You're like, really? You don't want to look around for any golden swords? Oh, you didn't open the chest that I didn't mention.

Let me phrase it another way then. What are you guys doing now? We're getting the fuck on the road. Are you sure? You don't want to do anything else around Founders' way? Ah, man. See, there it is, Griffin. You're doing it.

Yeah, I want your acknowledgement to be one of, like, finally. Except, yeah, like, oh, good. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. That's about what I would hope you would do right now. Divo stops by brother Seldub's and gets the god killer gun. Yeah, sure.

All right. You all get on the courier. No, he just gets his second jacket. Sure. Okay. You're in the water now. It's not as nice as the one he tore up. up, but it's fine.

So for getting the map and also sort of squeezing out of Joshy the identity of the lot that you are attempting to buy, I'm going to grant you one point of Intel each for both of those, you know, pieces of Intel. So with the Zook's expertise, the generous rations that you secured at the end of the last episode, and the intel you acquired, minus the urchin penalty. which is what it is called. You all have ended up with a total readiness of six. So, who wants to roll the D-100 this time? Ooh, fun. I haven't yet. Yeah, it's downstone.

Roll that beautiful D-100 footage. Okay, and how do I do that? How do I roll the D-10s? Yes. Or you could just... Yeah, there's a button there that says D-100. Yeah. Yeah, it's the one with two dice on.

Oh, okay. All right. Here we go. I think a high number is good. I can never remember. Yeah. Oh, my God. Oh, fuck.

No, you didn't. Are you kidding me? Are you fucking kidding me? Out of a hundred, Dad. Out of a hundred, you got a... Are you got a one percent chance. Look at your screen. Look at your screen.

No, no. Hey, Dan, I understand the reality of it. That's not what's in question. Is it really... Wait, is it really one? I know what percent chance this is. It's a one percent chance. So that'll be a good thing.

No. No, dad, it'll be the worst possible thing. Really? On the thing. I can't lie about my art. You also can't lie about your dice because we're looking at it. We're looking at it. You could try to buy it.

I can't lie about my art is because you can see the proof. The ship explodes and we all die. No, I know what I. I feel like we've got to go D20 rules on this where you can't fix a one necessarily. Because I have a one, like, I have a one event on the chart. And I suppose, I suppose it's time to deploy it. Oh, shit. There's no way it's good.

Okay. Go ahead. You know what, Griffin, go ahead. We'll fucking deal with it. We're grownups. You all are close. You're navigating this valley leading up to. to drop off.

And it is getting kind of a tighter squeeze. And Devo, you feel, I mean, you all feel it, but Devo, your hand is on the, you know, the rudder. So you feel it most of all. The bottom of the ship scrapes against something. Everybody roll a perception check. 22. 6 plus 3 and 9. 18.

Um, thereby completely redeeming myself. No. You all hear this, you know, pretty bad scraping noise. Zooks and Amber, you know, I don't know where you were at on the ship when this happened, but with that perception check, I will say you all, you know, look around the base of the ship. What is that? That's like the cargo, the cargo bay and the, um, bathosphere sort of like deployment bay. You run down there and you see that the hall has not been breached and that everything appears to be in working order.

That's it. But no, this is not it. And then you all arrive at the end of this trench and you are peering over the edge when all of a sudden an enormous figure pops up into your sight line. It's a squid that is about the size of your ship, a giant squid you might call it.

And it is, it seems to be armored in some way. And it floats up and Devo, you see, you see its eyes sort of pop into the viewport and looks in, like it is staring at you, Devo. What do you do? I'm going to say Devo holds very still and stares back. One of these like plates of armor near its eyes

flashes like a red beam that sort of swipes across the cockpit and then a green light turns on and then it nods at you and it attaches one of its tentacles to the front of the ship and then blasts out an enormous, all-encompassing black cloud of ink. And then you feel the choreolas move. What the fuck? A one?

So what happens on a one? I'm sorry, would be a good start. Maximum fun.org. Comedy and culture. Artist-owned, audience-supported. Thank you.