The Adventure Zone - The Adventure Zone: Ethersea - Episode 25

Episode Date: January 27, 2022

Content warning: this episode contains themes and depictions of substance use.Resources:Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration: https://findtreatment.gov/ Phone: (800) 662-HELP (4357)National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI): https://www.nami.org/Home Helpline: [phone]Cambria's Call: Part FourAmber, Devo and Zoox continue their wild swamp chase to track down Shret. Everyone prepares for a stroll down Memory Lane.Additional music in this episode: “Covered in Oil” by Broke for Free http://brokeforfree.com/; “Mechanics of Leaving” by Haunted Me https://hauntedmeofficial.wordpress.com/; “The Apothesosis of All Deserts” by ROZKOL https://rozkol.bandcamp.com/; “Meekness” by Kai Engel http://www.kai-engel.com/;  and “kp” by Jahzzar http://www.betterwithmusic.com/. 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. So when we last left off, if I remember correctly, Diva started a bar fight on accident. The Salo is back. Time is of the essence and without Shretz's help. People might die. The only way we can fix is this is with Shretz help. Anytime you bring up Shretz's name,

you see that it is like worsening the vibe. They're already pretty bad vibe in this. And she is boarding one of those personal hovercrafts. Shret, please, wait. Fine, I fucking jump through the window. Fuck. You are keeping chase about 10 feet behind her hovercraft. And in the doorway, you all see Amper Sand 5.

And a voice outside shouts through the window at you. Uh, it's Phineas calls voice. And he yells. Get in, loser. We're doing hero stuff. Amber, you are just hoverblasting, which is a new good verb I just came up with. It's actually very good.

You're hoverblasting down this marsh. That's what the kids call it. Grinding up the goo. Um, and these are all like ways that people refer to it. Oh, yeah. Like on a hovercraft on the swamp. And you are chasing, you're chasing your old, old friend, former friend maybe Shrette, who does not, has not recognized you because you've been going pretty incognito.

But you know that. Oh, man, I meant to say in the bar fight, Griffin was one of them named Danky? Why? Shret and Danky. Oh, Shret and Danky and Lord Barquod and, yeah, the whole crew, yeah. Feeoba. Yeah, Fipopa. You have managed to gain some ground,

but you also have heard some very foul noises coming from your speeder here, and the ground gaining has stopped. You're about maybe 10 feet behind Shredd, and in hot pursuit. What do you do? What's the volume like? If I yelled, do you think it would be heard? No way.

No, it's very, these things are, especially yours, which I just established as making some funky bad noises. There's no way I think she could hear you if you screamed. It would be way cooler if it was making funky good noises. Okay. I'm going to, I got my fishing tackle and my rope, so I'm going to try to make a makeshift grappling hook.

Your fishing tackle, are you about to do the purses, cast from the goofy movie? Okay, that's fine. I have, I have, I have history with this. Yeah, sure, of course. Oh, I'm not going to, I am not going to debate this. You are a fisher person at heart and, I guess, in body. You know how to do this. I think doing it on, well, while also sort of piloting unfamiliar vehicle like this might make it a little bit tricky. But I'm going to say you can put together this sort of makeshift grappling hook fairly easy. It's not the most, like you couldn't climb a building with this thing, but you could make something out of it that could potentially get someone's attention. Okay. And you're just chucking this at her or at her bike? I'm trying to hit her bike. No, I'm not trying to hit her.

Okay. Why don't you make a ranged attack roll? Oh, okay. And you can't, what weapons do you? Yeah, you don't really have proficiency in this, so it's just plus two. I don't have like a button Because I don't have a ranged weapon I don't have a button to like

Sure you can just click your dexterity modifier That plus two Okay And it'll uh It'll tell me yeah sure Come on baby build dance that shit Come on yeah 11 plus 2 13

Got it I'm gonna start saying got it After every roll Because I feel like maybe on some level I'll sway Griffin like I don't know He says he got it And it does It puts him in the position

where now he has to be the bad guy. Now he's the bad guy. No longer is it fate. Because I've established, I feel like I got it. Yeah, right, right, right. I'll do this for you. Make a, make a strength check. It's just the button right next to the next to that plus two for me.

Because you definitely hook it. It's a question of do you also hold on to this thing so it doesn't just go flying. Hey, 19 plus two. Okay. All right. I'll give it to you then. You are able to hold on to this road. No, Justin, go the other way.

Oh, 19 plus two. Fuck. Oh, miss it. Blue it. It hooks on to the back of sort of like the seat that she is riding on. It's made of this like foam material that the hook just like buries into. And it is just strong enough that it is holding on tight. And now you are kind of, you know, you're kind of skitching a little bit, I guess, on the back of her bike.

And by which I mean personal hovercraft. Hoverblaster. You are now tethered, I guess, to her hoverblaster. Oh, can we call it the bullfrog? No. Because then it's kind of like the hoverboard bulldog from back to the future too, but it's a bullfrog. All right. All right.

Yes, fine. These are now called bullfrogs. Thank you, yeah. Hell yeah. Okay. So that's my action, right? Yeah, we're not technically in initiative right now. I will say, but she is going to respond to that.

because it definitely, like, you know, yanks the back of her bullfrog down a little bit. She is going to whip one hand behind her, and you see she has a hand crossbow. And she is going to fire off a shot in your direction. Okay. That's going to... Oh, wait, yeah, is Amber still in disguise? Yes. Yes.

Yeah, Shrette doesn't know who is attacking her. She just knows that someone attacked her, and so she is going to shoot at you, and she's going to roll a god. The names of the encounters I've made so far are pretty terrible. She shoots at you, and that is a 14 plus 4, 18. Yes, that hits. She hits you with this crossbow bolt, and you feel like 18. where it hits you, and you realize that it was poisoned. It was an envenomed crossbow bolt.

You are hit for 15 points of damage. Well, hold on now one second, my friend, because I have deflect misses attack. Oh, tell me what that does. I can use my reaction to deflect or catch the missile when you're hit by ranged weapon attack. When you do so, the damage you take from the attack is reduced by 1D10 plus your dexterity modifier plus your monk level. Okay. And if you reduce it to zero. You catch it and can do an attack with it if you want to spend the keypoint.

Sure. This is going to be a... To get it to zero would be a feat. So my dex modifier is... You don't have to worry about that. It does the math for you right here. So roll a 1D10 and add 7 to it. Oh, that was so close.

It was an 8. It was a 2. Anyway, 9. 9. I already did the damage by 9. Okay. Yeah, you managed to duck out of the way and it just kind of grazes your shoulder.

So, like, most of this damage is coming from the venom and not so much the bolt itself. Venom. Your turn again? I want to try to pull myself closer, I guess. Okay. I'm talking about the physics of this. Nah, don't think too hard about it.

Okay. Done. Oh. Let's see. You could, let's see. I think this would just be another sort of strength role. Yeah 17 plus 2

Okay Yeah you have managed to get I would say you've pulled yourself halfway You're about You know Four or five feet away right now So much that like The scum that she is kicking up

From her bullfrog Is like Hitting you In the face and body And it's pretty gross I'll count that as a move Action technically Because you did move

If you want to take another action. What's my distance now? You are within five feet. You are definitely within, especially with your big arms, you are definitely within like, you know, melee range.

No, I'm just going to shout. Okay. Camel, stop! Okay. She looks back at you and in her sort of shock, she slams on the brakes of her bullfrog

and your reaction time is not necessarily fast enough and it hits your bullfrog and you go flying. I just fight there should be a way of randomly generating the whether or not my reaction time was fast.

Yeah, you're right. If one might be dexterous or... I would say, yeah, make a deck saving throw. There. Now I've come by it honest with a roll of... Now you're not. narrative has real weight because it's reinforced by a four plus five. All right.

Yeah, you do not stop in time. You sort of ram into the back of her bike. In fairness, she is also going down. She also is going to get flipped off the front of her bike when yours smashes into hers. And by bike, I mean bullfrog. And you both sort of soar through the air and land down in the water. You don't take any damage or anything. and the swamp is only like a couple feet deep.

So you land sort of on your butt and your, you know, head is still above water. And she stands up and turns around and walks up to you and like yanks off the hood that you've had sort of disguising your appearance. And she says, What the fuck, Amber? Yeah. The rose has been completed. It was me. She scoops up some, like, scum from the top of the water and just throws it at your face.

In an attack way or like a... I mean, roll the deck save. 8 plus 5. It hits you in the face in a big, slimy, sloppy way. It's not an attack. It's just like a, you know, what-the-fuck Amber kind of way. She says, I haven't seen your ass or any part of you in 10 years. And this is how you've decided to reacquaint yourself by busting up my humble bar and grill and also my bike and also my ass.

I don't want to be here anymore than you probably want to see me. but I need something you're the only person that you're the only person I know they can get it. Oh, that's funny. It's just a funny little turn of Vince, wouldn't you say?

Oh, I'm busting up over here. I'm busting up too. It's like ironic, isn't it? A little bit. Oh, yeah, it's real. It's just, it's great. It's great. It's really, really funny.

She climbs up on her, like, sort of her smoking bullfrog. Your bullfrog exploded because it was an old sort of chill-a-be. Yeah, not my bullfrog. Dengis, bullfrog. Hers is busted up, but it is still functional. And so she hops out of the water, and now she's just kind of looming over you and says, all right, what do you need? You need my shrimp scampi recipe?

You need a, I got an old quilt that my grandma makes. You need an old quilt? No. Okay. No. I don't need any of that trash. And I don't need any... I don't need any of the rest of your garbage.

No laser train. Nothing like that. I don't mess with that stuff anymore. I need grotto. What could you possibly need grotto for, Amber? I could try to explain it to you, but honestly, it's a long story. and I'm not going to do it myself.

I think you know where I stand on that stuff. No, remind me. No, I'm just kidding. Well, I mean, it's going to cost you. How much you hold on to? I think you're going to give it to me. Oh, yeah? Yeah, out of the goodness of your heart,

you're going to just pass a little over my way. You know what you used to tell me all the time, right the first one's free. I don't know so much about that. I mean, my heart's chockblock full of goodness, but very little of it have I sort of apportioned to the Amber Grie Fund. All right, I'm curious now,

because I know your stance. What, uh, give me a hint. Um, all right, short version. The sallows. back. Yeah, no shit. And she pulls back her helmet and you can see that she's got like

silver scales like everywhere. Like she got hit pretty hard by the sallow. She says, you know, we get air circulation up here too in the marsh. So yeah. Your eyes look awesome by the way. And that's not sarcastic. I genuinely, I do think they look pretty righteous. Yep. The one person that maybe knows how to do something about this, I think if we had some grotto, we might be able to get in their heads a little bit better. Just give it to me, Kibble. All right.

Why don't we find a less sort of waist-high, slimy, place where we can talk. And just then, Devo and Zooks, you all see Amber and Shrette just in front of you as the, as

Amperstand 5 pilots, the sort of large hovercraft towards them. I cannot stress enough how like hang dog Devo looks. Just like he's had

since everything went about as far south as one can say out of the bar he's done he's been doing some thinking some real soul searching in the six minutes that have passed and so like shit's the bar sure uh okay amber you see them all pull up uh and shrette whips out her crossbow uh just sort of reflexively and says uh and sukes immediately raises his in reaction okay she says these friends are Honestly, after the JV shit, they've both pulled a day, I can't answer that honestly. What? Wait. What did I do?

Zooks, if she wanted us dead, we'd be dead. Look around. Okay. Okay. Right. Lowering crossbow. You're just saying the words lowering crossbow without actually lowering it. Oh, I thought...

I really thought that would fool everybody. Try again. Okay. Please. All right. I lower the crossbow. She lowers her crossbow and says, So which one of these guys needs the help?

Did we actually discuss who would actually do the Grotto? I guess it would be... I mean, was our plan to get Zook's high on Grotto? Why Zooks? That's what I thought. Well, because Zooks was the one who was, oh, no, no, no, no. It was, it was Devo that was connecting to his mind. Is that right?

I mean, when both Devo and Zooks, like, tried to get in there, they hit a point where just, like, his memories were so repressed that they were completely inaccessible. Oh, see, I was thinking we were going to do like a peyotey sweat lodge. That's what I was thinking. Nothing like, well, I guess maybe something like that. Devo says, is it dangerous? Is it dangerous? I guess it depends on who you are.

If you're the type of person that just walks into a place of business and starts exploding stuff, apropos of nothing, maybe you might have a higher tolerance for danger. But for a normal person who doesn't go into places of business and blows them up with no reason. Yeah, it might be a little bit dangerous. I will do it. Hey, hey,

listen, Shred, I can level this place. Everything in your life, burn it down, and you and I still wouldn't even be close to even. So let's not dwell in the recent or distant past, and let's keep moving

forward, okay, because the sooner I can get the fuck out of here, the better. She says, wow, it seems like a lot of people here need a refresher on the events of the past, huh? All right. She scoots her bullfrog over behind the big hovercraft and ties it up to a hook, like a towing hook on the back of the hovercraft. And she hops on board and walks up to Amperstand 5, who's at the wheel. and is like, hey, let me, let me drive. And

Finneus Call actually answers from his lantern and says, Oh, of course. And she looks surprised, like, are you, are you Phineas fucking call? Y'all are rolling deep with Finney's fucking call?

To be fair, we didn't know that was his middle name. All right. She looks down at you, Amber, and reaches down a hand to pull you up into the hypercraft. I get myself up, thank you. I was going to do the thing where I pull my hand back and swiped it across my hair, like too cool.

Can you do, can you get back in the water? The slur, get back in the slur, let me do my, where I swipe my hand back, I'm like too cool. I'm not fucking, I'm not, I, my attitude towards Shrette is making it abundantly clear that like, I am not, this is not a joke. thing. I'm not having fun. All right.

She shrugs and then revs the engine and pulls away from the shattered remains of your bullfrog. And lose the deposits. Of the bullfrog you stole. She

pilots this big hovercraft across the marsh for about 10 minutes until you all see in the distance a cluster of mangrove. trees that she very carefully navigates this hovercraft inside. And when you get there, you see that in the middle of all these mangrove trees, there's a very sort of small, grassy island is a generous way of referring to this landmass.

It is, you know, it's like 20 feet wide. And sitting right in the middle of it is a wooden shack that looks really run down. One of the walls has like caved in. There's a part of the roof is just like a big hole now. But there's also a storm cellar just outside. And as she pulls this hovercraft up to the island and hops off, she looks at all of you and says, any y'all do magic. I do magic.

I do, I dabble. Okay. Y'all do Zone of Truth? Y'all know that one? I am aware of it, but I do not do it. It's one of my favorites, but I don't know it. Okay. Well, then we'll just do everybody, Pinky's in.

Do a quick pinky promise. If any of you'll tell people where this is and what you're going to see in there, don't do that. Chills just ran through Zook's body. All right. It extends a pinky. Thank you. God.

Made of coral. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It'll be wild if this is the moment we found out that Zooks had one human pinky. One flesh pinky. And she opens up the storm cellar and like already you can tell this is not your, this is not your dad's storm cellar. I don't know.

My dad's pretty cool. the stairs go so far down that you cannot see the end of them and as you walk down them they kind of spiral around leading you deep below the surface of the swamp and finally you see light in this big chamber at the bottom of the stairs and as you enter it you are in this this huge room that is illuminated by dim lamps almost like a spa-like you know, atmosphere. The room is constructed from strips of lumber held together with clay and moss, kind of like a hobbiton aesthetic,

but there's things in here that definitely don't match that. There's these modern, comfy-looking chairs with devices that are unfamiliar to any of you hanging over them. They're like small spherical vials attached to lamps

with clusters of wires hanging off of them. They almost look like sort of an IV bag situation. And seated in these chairs all around the room are 20 or so people. Most of them are elderly. They're older than you and Shret, Amber, and all of them are fast asleep being monitored by technicians

who seem like awfully surprised to see all of you strangers in here. And Adora opens in the back of the room and you all see Benefactor or Lean and he is exiting what appears to be a restroom and he's wiping his eyes I had a one second

when you started that with wiping I was like what what is he about to say? Yeah some people you know how some people are so busy that they open up the bathroom door and they're still kind of wiping the butt He's a real tech savory, huh?

He hates bathroom breaks. No, it looks Looks like he's been crying, but he quickly kind of pulls it together as he sees all of you, and he approaches and looks at you, Devo, and says... The switch of Devo's body language could not be sharper. Right. Like from that hang dog, oh, I really fucked up to I'm about to kill somebody. Yeah, he looks at you and says, I know you said you'd kill me.

the next time you saw me, but I was wondering if maybe you'd let me pass. I've got a lot to do today. That's no problem. Go ahead. Ambien. I've heard, I've heard just about all out of you that I need tonight. Thank you. Benefactor, Arlene gives kind of all of you a little. On that line from Amber, he crumbles.

Just, yeah. Yep. Yep, yep, yep. Shred actually looks at you, Devo, and says, well, you got a temper on you, don't you? Yes, I'm beginning to understand that. And Benefactor Orlean walks up the stairs and is gone. And Shrette leads you all into an office.

And she sits down, not behind like a desk, but it's like just sort of a, you know, small, like almost four-top dining table. And she drums her fingers on it and says, All right. The fact that I brought all you in here should tell you that I'll take whatever you got to say serious. So who wants to start? I can explain it.

Many, many decades ago, Ambersent 5, Phineas, went somewhere where he got the original phytoplanktons that operates as our air filter. Right. No, I was on the shore. He came back dead and then kind of dead, and then they brought him back. Somehow, when we were out in the water on the mission,

some sort of particle or something caught on our ship, and we ended up bringing the sallow back with us. We were unaware of this, but this is what happened. It infected our... air filtration system and killed the phytoplankton. Now our only hope is to reach the source of the original phytoplankton, but those memories that are in Phineas' head are unreachable for some reason, and the only way we will be able to get to them is to somehow enter his mind and push through.

And we have been told that with concentrated grotto, this is possible. Yeah. Let me see him. Amperstan, please. Amperstan puts the lamp on the desk and she starts looking at it. And she says, I'm not sure this will work. I mean, it's going to work, but I'm not sure that he is going to, survive the process to come out and tell everyone what it was that he saw.

So that's that's roadblock number one. Roadblock number two is I don't think Amber is gonna be cool with anybody here doing grotto. So that's roadblock number two. That's it. You know I started numbering them thinking that there would be more roadblocks but those are mostly the two big ones. Listen, I'm not happy about it, obviously,

but this is what we're here for. We wouldn't have come all this way if I didn't think it was necessary. Yeah. Yeah. And Amperstam was in on this plan. Amperstead nods and says, yeah, I'll, I can,

I'll do what it takes. And she, size and says there may be an option but it's going to involve all y'all that includes you amber we can link all y'all together and sort of feed a bit of extra grotto to phineas and all y'all would sort of take a walk down memory lane but once you reach the end end of it, you would get sort of absorbed up in whatever he's seeing. Why do we all need to do it? She says, this process is, we've done it a couple times.

And the more people you can do sort of all at once, the easier it is for everyone to kind of meld up. It is dangerous to spectate someone's, you know, dreams like that. It requires you to sort of suppress the part of your mind that tells you that you're you. Like a, it's like a temporary ego death. And if you can't hang, it can become permanent. But I'm very familiar with that process. Are you?

Yeah, yeah. I had this big clam that kind of overrode my... It's not important. Okay, so you're down, though, is what you're saying. Been there, done, yeah, I'm down. I think that Zook and I should go, and Amber should stay out here to keep us safe. Safe from what?

It's fine. You know, it's... Fuck. It's fine. Let's just get it over with, all right? I am worried. When you talk about the suppressing of oneself, I don't know that I can do this.

He's got to be him, is what he's saying. He's got to be me. No, I am. I do not know that I can control myself. Well, well, I think if we do it all together, we can help each other. Yeah, we gotta try something, mate. Before we go in, then, I want to say something.

Yeah. I am sorry. Zeus, Amber, and Finner. This is not the time, seriously. Let's do it so we can fucking go. She stands up and looks at you, Amber, and says, this might be a bad idea, Amber. This might be a bad idea.

You got to buy into this. process a little bit to make it work. And I don't think that you are capable of doing that because you think everyone down here is some waste of space. That's just, you know. What are the, what are the, what is it, what are the people doing down there?

They're laying down in these, in these chairs. So they're like doing, doing, doing drugs. Everyone in here is. So this is like an underground opium den. Do you say that out loud? Oh, God, no. Okay. She says, let me tell you something.

Because I get the impression that y'all don't understand what's going on down here. A few days ago, everyone in Founders' Wake grew fish parts, and their bodies changed permanently from what we can tell. And folks don't recognize themselves in the mirror. And a bunch of folks died. But y'all are out there. Everyone's out there working because this city's got this ethos of keep on moving. because if you slow down for a second, you're dead. And a lot of folks can't handle that.

And a lot of folks can't handle that 25 years ago, the world they grew up and got destroyed. And a lot of other folks tell them to get over it and not even realize when an outrageous ass that is because not everyone here can adjust. And that's not a weakness because adaptability is a skill and not everyone's got it. So they come here to have a break,

to remember, and spend as much time in the world. that they lost as they need. This isn't this isn't some place where people go to get totally zuted out of their minds. It's it's, it's, a grotto isn't some drug. It's a reagent for a spell and it, no, let me finish. This is therapy for some folks. It's palliative care for some folks. So if y'all are going to do this, I can't have you all thinking that you're doing something bad or doing something wrong.

I don't think the people that used are the ones who are bad or wrong shred. Maybe it's an escape, but tell that to Kimber because she's not coming back. All right. She walks to a door and whispers something to her assistance, and they nod and start pulling in chairs and those IV lamps into the room. And she says, you all get comfortable. I'll be back once they're done setting up. And she walks out of the room. Hey there, I'm Ellen Weatherford.

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So if you or your kids have ever wondered if a pigeon can count, why sloths move so slow or how a spider sees the world, find out with us every Wednesday on just the zoo of us in its natural habitat on maximum fun.org. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Somewhere between science and superstition, there is a podcast. Look, your daughter doesn't say she's a demon. She says she's the devil himself. That thing is not my daughter.

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You all are now seated in a circle facing each other. I guess it's more of a triangle with ampersand 5 sitting in the center, and he's holding on to Phineas's lantern on his lap. And you all are wired up to these IV lamps. above you and in each one there's like a small red flame coming from like an oil lamp wick and Shrette walks back into the room and looks at all of you and says um all right we're gonna we're gonna get started soon we're gonna be given Phineas I guess via ampersand five a extra strong dose a smaller one for y'all which is going to send y'all into some deep recesses of your mind um

but eventually that's going to pass and you're going to be you're going to be inside of phineas's mind you need to sort of go with the flow as much as you can if you start thinking like yourself when you are in the phineas zone things are going to turn out real bad okay Do y'all understand? I need to know y'all understand because I'm not just going to put y'all in here to die. I understand. Ready.

All right. Hey, Griffin, quick question. Well, we waited for them to set up. Would that count as a short rest? That count as a long rest? Yeah, she was out of the room for eight fucking hours. Okay. I would say what you're about to do will be considered a short rest.

I'm not going to, like, you aren't necessarily. going to have hit points where you're where we're going you don't need hit points that fuck it yeah go ahead and take a short rest i said that but you know there's always a chance of something going terribly wrong in there and psychic damage is a thing so uh heal heal up as you all will she looks around the room nods at some of her associates who dimmed the lights in here even more and slowly uh first she walks up to Amperstan 5 and Phineas in the middle of the room. And Phineas says, I'm not sure what you all are going to see in there, but I hope you don't judge me too harshly. Finneas, I want to say I was very harsh to you earlier. And in case this goes very poorly, I am sorry.

and I appreciate you coming back to help us. That's very nice of you. I accept your apology. Now, let's get weird. And Shrette turns this knob on the vial, which is filled with this dark, dark blue liquid, and a drop falls into the lantern, and suddenly that flame,

turns a bright blue and you see ampersand 5 just lean back in the chair and you see Phineas Calls Lantern go dark. And then she walks up to, she walks up to you, Devo. And she says, sweet dreams. And turns the same knob for you and you go out also. What are you rolling dice for? Are you healing up? Yeah, if anybody else took any heels in there, I have faunt of healing, so if you're near me,

when you use short rest, you get an extra D6. Okay, cool. Amber, she walks up to you next and says, I just hope whatever you remember is a good one. All right. She turns the dial,

and you go out too. And then Zooks, finally she walks up to you and says, Only a few Brian Arr pulled this off before. Wait, that might have been information I could have used earlier. Right. Well, I mean, only a few Brianar have come in here. But if you say you got experience in this, I don't think you got nothing to worry about.

Yeah, well, you know, I might have just been running my mouth hole. But, okay, yeah, let's do it. And she turns your knob to and you go out. We'll start with you, Devo. You are having a very unique experience of remembering your own memories, but it's like a TV is on in the background playing Phineas Call's memories, of him just arriving to the shoreside and starting to acclimate himself to this new society and, you know, meeting the people who would be important to him in his life.

But it's so faint. You can't really make it out because right now you are having the most vivid dream of your entire life. And the basis for your dream is a really powerful, formative memory from your past. What is it that Devo is remembering? It is the hand of guidance teaching him to create light within an object using his voice. So you would be young, right? Yeah, this is a beginning spell. Yeah, it's about six or seven years old.

Okay. Then you are seated in what appears to be a kindergarten classroom. And there's, you know, there's maps of the, of the ethersea. And there's some photographs from the shoreside and from, you know, the time before the storm all over. And it's very bright and colorful in here. But you are the only student seated in a, you know what? It's not like classroom desks, like, because there's no real other classmates. It's just like a big pop-a-son chair.

And I would say it might be. bright and colorful in the room, but there are several lights out. Okay. Because my thinking is every time he fails to do it, she turns off another light. Oh, okay, cool. Yeah. Is Devo afraid of the dark as a six or seven-year-old? Not yet. Okay, cool.

And she is seated just like crisscross applesauce on the ground next to you. And she has pulled down a lantern from the wall and has it seated in front of you. I think, like, reflecting what Shret just did, she turns a dial on the lantern and it shuts off. And she says, what did I just do? You made it darker? Yeah, I made it darker by turning off the flow from the oil below and shutting off the fuel source for the wick, right? In order for a lantern to light, it needs all those things. It needs the wick.

It needs the fuel source and it needs an ignition. And that's the only way to light a lantern, right? Well, I've told you about your voice, right? And you've seen that you can make things happen with your voice in a way that other people here can't. What if I told you that it's not just people who can hear things? What if I told you that everything can hear your voice and respond to it, whether it's, living or not. Would you believe that?

She smiles and sort of tassels your hair. And she says, what I want you to do is I want you to ask very politely, that doesn't matter. You can ask however you want to ask it. To ignite. Lantern? Yeah. Ask the lantern to turn on,

to be flaming again. She looks kind of disobeyed. pointed suddenly because nothing absolutely nothing happens and she says now divo we've talked about this it is important that you are confident whenever you speak in in your special way because you are not asking something to happen you are telling something that it is already happening. So a little bit less obsequious, please. Oh, I'm sorry. A little bit less timid and a little more, a little more firm. Like you're, like you're acknowledging something that's happening in the room. This lantern's already lit. Okay? Please light. She stands up and she picks up this unlit lantern and puts it on her desk. And then she walks up to another lantern and pulls it off the wall. And then she walks up to another lantern and pulls it off the wall. and it's getting darker in here. And she sets it down in front of her and says,

how powerful do you think you are? What? How powerful do you think you are? What do you think is the limit of what you can make true in this world with your voice? I don't know. She stands up and she says, Devotion, when you leave this school, when you graduate, you're going to be able to do things that know,

one, not even other people in this hermitage have ever been able to do. I am your teacher. I am your headmistress. And you will even put my powers to Shane. And she says, go dark. And every lantern in this room shuts off simultaneously. And then she looks down at the floor. and whispers, not you.

And the lantern between the two of you lights up. And she sits down. When it lights up, Devo is crying. She sits down and she says, okay. That's normal. But if you want it to be brighter in here, devotion, you just need to tell the room to be brighter. On the lights, guidance?

You turn on the lights, devotion. I don't know what to do. I am scared. Please turn on the lights. Louder. Please turn on the lights. And even in your, you know, emotional state, even with the sort of lack of focus that comes along with that, every light in this room simultaneously ignites.

And the darkness is gone now. It is almost too bright in here. It is warm because these fires inside of these lanterns are bigger than they're supposed. supposed to be. And that last right. Oh, they keep going.

And this room is getting like hot now. There's smoke coming out of one of the lanterns, but the hand of guidance is just smiling, grinning ear to ear. I don't like the dark.

She smiles and says, you don't ever have to let anything be dark ever again. And she stands up and walks to the door and opens it.

And she says, that's all for today. Good work. That sound of that, that TV in the background is getting louder and louder. And all of a sudden, you are really confused about this memory of the kid and the lanterns. Because it's no longer your memory. It's, it's somebody else's. you are on a ship a very long time ago. Amber, you are also having a very vivid dream about a formative memory from your past.

What is it? I'm 17 and I hear glass shatter downstairs. I'm woken up by it. and I go downstairs. I hear a scuffle. And I see my little brother, Gil. He was 12 at the time. And I see him knocked out on the floor,

a little bit of blood pulling around his head. And I look up to the shattered window, and I see well, I don't recognize her at first. But then a cloud shifts and a moonbeam comes through. And I see Kimbra, who's been my friend and Shrette's friend, the three of us, were basically raised together on the same street. And I see Kimbra.

Her eyes are wild, and she's looking for anything that she can find a value. Okay. She's looking inside your house? Yeah. She broke in. Oh, she's inside your house? Correct.

Yeah. Okay. She starts sort of pawing around the room. She leaves the kitchen and walks into the living room. But she is just feeling her way around with her hands. Like her sense of sight is no longer her most sort of prominent, her most prominent way of sort of navigating the world. And she sees a trophy, a silver trophy that is seated on a windowsill in the living room.

And the trophy just shows this huge fish leaping out. out of the water, and she walks over to it and grabs it. And then she starts just sort of pawing around the room again, only this time she's holding onto this trophy and just kind of like smashing it into everything absent-mindedly. What are you doing? I've scooped up Gil, and I've pulled him aside. And he's knocked out, but it's not. I can tell, you know, it's not fatal or anything.

Right, sure. But we're just being really quiet because we know what somebody in this state is capable of. We've seen it so many fucking times. And we're just hiding in a corner. Roll a stealth check. 13 plus 2, 15. Okay. She doesn't notice you all sort of curled up in a corner.

the cabinets in the kitchen. And she is still in this state of just like looking around. Now she has found this big bookshelf. And she is just like throwing books down off of it. And, you know, piling them up all over the floor. She looks in a cabinet and finds these like dishes that she looks at trying to tell if they have any value. And she decides that they don't.

And she just starts smashing. them behind her. And you get the impression that this is not, you know, you have seen people in this state before, but this is, this is something else. This is almost a, this is almost a type of possession. And then you hear the floorboards creak above you and you start to hear somebody begin to come down the stairs into the living room. And you hear your dad. say, Amber? Amber, is that you? What are you doing down there? It's okay, Dad. Go back to bed. When you say that, Kimbra, yep, looks away from the cabinet she was just going through and looks over at you.

And now she genuinely does look under the third. of something. Not in like a intoxicated way, but in a, like her eyes are pitch black and she is like she is not there. Like that is not Kimbra. But when she

hears you speak, she starts clambering in your direction. I just stand up and shove her towards the door. Okay. Roll a roll just an unarmed attack roll.

13 plus 5. Although technically, if I want to get persnickety about it, I probably would not at this point in my life have a plus 5 to my unarmed strike. That's fair. This is not my moment where I'm like, amazing. Evil waken. Incredible punch power. Right. Well, even just a 13 is enough to push her away towards the door. and she trips over some of the shards of, you know, ceramic dishes that she smashed up earlier and falls down and howls. And when she stands up, she has a shard of this ceramic sticking out of her forearm. And she pulls it out without like grimacing or responding to it at all. and she runs and jumps out the same window that she came in through,

and she smashes up even more glass along the way, and she takes off into the night. And that was the last time I ever saw her. Your dad comes downstairs and finds you cradling Gill, whose eyes are kind of fluttering as he comes to, and there's a trail of blood. from the dishes leading to the window that she smashed out and he takes a look around and then just at like sprinting speed throws on a coat and opens the door and runs up.

Dad, da, da, da, stop. Stop. He stops and looks at you. He was Kimbrough. I'll get the broom. He nods and says, I know who it was. I can't just leave her out there. And he opens the door and steps outside. And then you start to hear something like it's also coming from upstairs, but it's voices you don't recognize and you try to focus in on them. And the more you focus in on them, you realize, oh, you do recognize those voices. Because you've known those voices for a while now. And right now, they're the only voices that matter because they are your friends and you all are aboard a ship that is diving down deep into the heart of the ocean. Zooks, what's going on with you?

You know what is your whole town, ma'am. You know now what's happening to your friends. They are going on these, you know, going into their memories in ways that are just like they are happening right now. but what's happening to Zooks? I think the same thing is happening to him. I think he's having one of these memory flashes too. Now, of course, he doesn't have as far to go back.

Right. But he goes back to a time early on when they were having like an orientation. for new brine art to learn how to, you know, swim and use their, you know, feet bubbles and and all that kind of stuff. And he remembers one really large brinear named Brutus. and and Brutus is just really making fun of him

really giving him down the business giving him down the business that's not a say you know I just made it up he's really that's how all sayings are created Justin yeah that's a good point he's really giving him heck

no no no stick to your guns dad giving him down the business yeah given down the business yeah given down the business so and and keeps calling him names. It calls him Hollow.

Yeah. Hey Hollow. And Zook Suit Riot. So he keeps calling him Hollow and by this time the other Ryan Rav kind of gathered around and, you know, hey, Hollow. Yeah, what's wrong with you, Hollow? So being Zooks, he decides to fight, puts his fists up. But there's Brutus is so much.

bigger than him. Yeah. He just faceplants him. He face plants, uh, Zooks and, you know, does the,

the typical bully thing, a whole new length while, you know, Zuchs is flailing his arms, trying to reach him and can't reach him because he's so much smaller than Brutus. And Brutus says something along the lines of, um,

oh, poor little hollow. Poor, poor little hollow. And Zooks extends one. of the fists in one of those punches and releases a swarm and it's the seahorses.

It's a swarm of seahorses and it just smacks Brutus in the face and sends him flying and everybody else stops dead because instructors and students like nobody's ever manifested this before. Nobody's ever done swarm.

before and they're all just staring at him. You feel, what do you feel? How does that make you feel? Really alone and confused because he'd never done it before. He'd never used the swarm before and he didn't know, you know, he, he's just now realizing that nobody else can do that. And that combined with being called hollow, hollow, hollow. He just really feels like an outsider. He is completely alone.

Your seahorses come back to you and reenter your body. And when you do that, the memory starts to shift. And you go back just a little bit before you were pulled into the the shepherding pools and, you know, animated by tessellation, you are still on the coral spire. Your body is on the outskirts of it, just looking. And from your perspective, you can see Founders Wake and you can see those weird glowing starfish in the distance that appear to have faces. and you see ships coming and going. And you realize that you are conscious in a way. And you're not sure when that happened. But you are sad, even if you can't realize like what it is.

And you are, you know, self-aware enough to, like, know, know what you are. You can see your own body. And it is, you know, colorful and incredible. But you feel just like a, you feel like a stained glass window on a church that sees all this activity happening outside. And you're just completely unable to interact with it. And then a seahorse. swims up right in front of you and starts looking at you very curiously and then there's a second one that swims up and is almost trying to like push away the other one uh to like get them away from you

but they keep poking forward and then they're just like right in front of your face and they swim very slowly for just a moment and then they swim through the core of your body and they don't come out. And that was the first time that members of your swarm first were absorbed into you. All of a sudden, the city is gone. And you can see the storm overhead. The layer of debris is not present above you. and you see a ship start to submerge from the beach just above you.

And you watch it as it dives down. It is an older-looking sort of vessel, not like the Coriolis, not like the ships that you see every day in Founders' Wake. And then you see inside of that ship. And you're in the bridge and you are standing with your hand on the shore. shoulder of the ship's pilot who you know, you recognize that person. And there's someone else in the bridge with you, too, seated at a big table with a map on it. And you know them too. These are your two most trusted compatriots who have departed on a mission with you to

find the vanguard and the bathysphere that they stole. And, you, you know, and, you know, Most other people would be scared embarking on a mission like this, but not Leo, not Phineas Call. Maximumfund.org. Comedy and culture. Artist-owned. Audience-supported.