The Adventure Zone - The Adventure Zone: Ethersea - Episode 27

Episode Date: February 10, 2022

Cambria's Call: Part Six Cambria makes their intentions known as Finneas Cawl's doomed voyage reaches a grisly end. Zoox does some long overdue soul searching.Additional music in this episode: “Mercy” by Kai Engel http://www.kai-engel.com/; “The Apotheosis of All Deserts” by ROZKOL https://rozkol.bandcamp.com/; and “Night I” by  Swelling https://swelling.bandcamp.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, Phineas Call and a small crew dove beneath the waves in search of the vanguard and the vehicle they had stolen. Their voyage was sabotaged. Weeks after their departure, the bathysphere returned to the shoreside, its sole inhabitants being a comatose call, a dead body, and a standing pool of water filled with oxygen-rich phytoplankton. Dad is playing Phineas Call. Justin is playing a character named Bertrand Bay. Travis is playing Ona Ward. The light shines across dozens of bodies. A few of them have scales.

A lot of them are just people. Dead, dead people, obviously. A city under the waves. We can simply move from the shore to whatever this city is. Don't you think that's a little coincidental? You all do recognize a couple of the people here as the vanguard. You do also notice a couple sets of twins here. Hello, Phineas.

We're so excited that you and your friends have come to visit. There's someone that you should meet. The others have taken to calling me Cambria. Some find my form to be alarming. And then it emerges from this mound. And you see a 40-foot-tod tall pinkish white flatworm with translucent frills that undulate in the air. And it leans down and says, welcome home children. Phineas and Bertrand, you all are standing in front of the

largest living organism. I don't want to make decisions for your characters, but I'm going to say pretty decisively, this is possibly the biggest living thing on the planet. Could you give us like in like stories, feet, like how big is this what we can, what they can see? 40 feet. 40 feet of pink undulation is what we can see. 40 feet. So roughly that's just, and that's just what's sticking out of this like this mound at the center of the room. You can't detect like eyes. there are no sort of recognizable features that one would traditionally kind of look for when speaking to a thing that is able to speak. It just seems to be craning over the two of you.

And it is, it is, it is, I was about to say after saying that it doesn't have eyes that it's looking at one of you. But it seems to be sort of pivoted slightly in your direction, Phineas, almost. like this explanation they are delivering to you. It hovers over you and it says, For an epoch, I have spread life throughout the ocean and onto the land. And everything in this world was my brood. And then the vestiges appeared in a hole in the same. sky and changed everything, poisoned everything. I refuse to allow the eradication of my mortal children

at the hands of those interloper. And so I have a humble objective, and that is to transform my children into something that can thrive in the harsh and irradiated world that the vestiges have left for them. Okay. That is very eye-opening. Very, very, um, Bertram, when you say that's eye-opening? It's eye-opening, isn't it? I'm riveted, boss. Yeah.

Um, can we, this, this thing about children, you know, when you said welcome home children, was that? Like just speaking in a broad way, you know, like when a cartoon TV host says, come on in, children, sit down on them bleachers. I mean, you're not like claiming to be like our great, great, great, great, grandparent or something, are you? We do not have time for me to enumerate the number of greats required to describe my relation to you. Not much resemblance, though, I mean... Perhaps not from your perspective. Okay.

We should probably go out into the world and be fruitful and multiply. Right? This is a new one on Mabel's. Yeah, I'm not even sure what an epoch is. It's like 30 years. I think, maybe 40. And a vestige? What's a vestige?

No, you know what that is. It's like, these are the, these are the, the literal gods of this planet. Some people who might have missed the earlier episodes might be missing a little bit of the lore.

I think what dad, who understands the lore completely, what he may be trying to do here is illustrate like, Oh, that's nice. Yeah. That's really kind of thoughtful. That's very generous.

It's about trying to give a character for an opportunity to remind people. Yeah. Yeah. The vestiges were essentially visitors from another world who came, came to this world through a hole in the sky. When they got here, they possessed powers that essentially allowed them to, like, overnight conquer the world. And civilization sprung up around their feet.

And, you know, life was like that for a very long time until the vestige benevolence, sort of. gifted the the mortals of this world, the power of the vestiges. And that is where magic came from. And of course, all of that sort of right, irradiated the land and sea and sky and led to the storm that would destroy the world and force everybody to go below the sea. Yeah, right. Well, thank you for telling the listener. I knew that. Of course. Of course. Of course. Arirate. Cambria now now sort of coils a little bit. And you see more of its body kind of, with surprising quickness kind of emerging from the hole.

And they sort of lay across this coil of themselves. And they get pretty close to you, Phineas. And they say, I have been waiting for you, Phineas, call. I follow your exploits just as I follow all of my children's, and I believe you have knowledge and skills that would be most useful for me to accomplish my objective. was hoping that you might agree to stay and work alongside me to save the rest of your mortal brethren. Oh, oh, that is, that is extremely flattering.

I don't know if I'm worthy of that, but I'll be honest with you there, Cambria up, we've kind of got a, we kind of got a plan, a strategy in place. And, you know, I know my, my good buddy outside was, owner was talking about maybe we could move down here and live in your bubble town. And, you know, if that is an option and if we end up doing that, I'd be glad to sit in on a, you know, meeting here there to kind of, you know, kick things around a little bit. The room vibrates and there is a sound that is so low that you can actually, you can barely hear it. And these flex of white light kind of come off of the frills around Cambria. And it seems like this being is excited.

by that. And they say, we would need to expand our city to make room for those in your community, but this would be most equitable, they say. You see, Cambria, that is, that, that's good. We kind of had this idea of kind of, you know, moving down under the waves, but we sort of need our, our bathysphere to to kind of get that, you know, kick that off. And that's why we're down here. You know, the whole thing about moving into Bubletown is just kind of a backup plan. With that, they retreat back down into the hole, even more than they were before. Now just a little nubbin of Cambria is sticking out.

And they say, oh, I understand. I know about what your community is attempting to accomplish, and I am very proud of the ingenuity and refusal to die, but you will fail. And this is the only way. So I'm afraid I must insist. And when they say that, the door opens, and you don't see Ona out there anymore. Because he's turned invisible. Little did you know this whole time. He was a vampire mummy magic, invisible man.

No, there's like a dozen. people down here. All the people down here, by the way, are wearing sort of tatters. They seem to be wearing, like, leather, although it's not really any kind of leather that you have seen before. It's like a pale greenish leather. And they got, they got some big folks standing in front of the door, sort of menacingly. And Cambria says, I would like for your community to come and join us. But I am hoping that you will volunteer to stay by my side, Phineas call. You know, I'm going to, I'm going to level with you, Cambria. I'm not too keen on that idea.

The folks, folks back, top side need me to help with this whole transition period. And Bertrand, Bertrand, too. Bertrand's a big cog in the machine as well, just like me. And so is Ona. Speaking of Ona, where is Ona? One of the folks standing by the door walks forward and says, Ona asked for a tour, and so we offered to show them around. Well, I'll be a little.

honest, I'm, like I said, I'm very flattered. Bertrand, are you, are you flattered for me? Yeah, boss, real flattered. Um, but, you know, Bertram's really, you know, a stay at home kind of guy. I mean, we're tickled. We even got him to, you know, come out here on the night crawler to do all this on this, this mission, because he really likes, you know, putting the old feet up the end of the day and having him a nice hot toddy and that, right, Bertrand. Oh, yes. I love drinking. So I tell you what, we're, we'll just head out and we're going to keep looking for our bathysphere.

And we will come back as soon as possible to, to, you know, strike up communications again with, with y'all. Maybe be, you know, like really good neighbors and friends and everything else. but no, I'm not, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna stay. I've got, I got things to do. Make a dexterity saving throw, Phineas. Oh, no. Venture's going good. Yeah, never a good sign, is it?

There's never been like a fun dexterity. Yeah, it's never like making a say, oh, you failed. You get a good hug out of nowhere. That was 17. Oh, yeah. Something hit you in the back of the head. It's a fresh-haven cheese sandwich. What?

Wow. Just what you were thinking of. You hear a whistling. Something hit you. It's inspiration. It's a great new melody. Your career is saved. You hear a whistling sound coming from behind you, and you register it just fast enough to duck out of the way, and you see what appears to be like a bolo, just kind of fly right over your head. And it actually bumps into, it wax full force into Cambria, who does not register it or flinch or anything at all.

As it sails over your head, you turn to see the guard who was just speaking to you about Ona is the one who threw it. And now, he looks, oops. I was just playing with my fidget, spinner. It's really true it at you. It is not, it's not just the dozen guards that we're standing by the door. Now that are coming in, it is, it's like Black Friday at Target in here. Like there, there is a swarm of people now starting to walk into the room. And Cambria retreats down into the ground.

Easy folks. Oh, ho. Oh, whoa. Just, excuse us. Can we just, like, scoot right through here? Just looking for our friend. We, oh, wow, look at the time. It was 2.15 earlier, and now I know it's got to be later than that.

So Bertrand, why don't you find a way through this crowd and we'll get out of here, okay? Yeah, everyone clear out or that's it for you, curtains. I'm sorry boss, I'm real bad enough pressure. I know, and it's all right, but you're big and just, I think if you just kind of push your way forward, they'll very politely part the sea and let you through. Okay. I'm going to, so I'm trying to intimidate them. Okay. That was me trying to intimidate them.

All right. Seven. Yeah, Vectrax. They're not particularly intimidated by Bertrand. In fact, Bertrand, the big guard that threw. that Bolo has now gotten to you and is trying to put you basically in a full Nelson to kind of secure you

for the rest of the people that are almost now on top of you. Let's do a strength contest. Okay. Eight. That is a 16. Yeah, they have you pretty well grappled at this point and a few other people are starting to draw. I got them right where they want Um, well, I got them right where I'm, Yep, got them right where I'm gonna get them.

Right. Oh, yeah. Well, they can't attack Phineas if they're holding you. Yeah. I've eliminated one from, one piece has been removed from the bore. There's maybe, uh, there's maybe 30 people in here right now. Well, now there's only 29 to worry about. Yeah, there's only 29 for Phineas.

That's like when Robin takes one henchman. Right. And Batman's like, I'll get the rest. Yeah, let's see what Batman does. Except if Batman was Alfred. Right. So I assume I have all of Zook's spells I can use, right? Yeah, you're thinking that Fennace is going to shoot some crayfish out of his nose?

Yeah, I don't know about spells. I would say your stats and probably your equipment could be the same. Okay. I believe he's going to scoop up the bolos and... whack the guy over the head that's holding on to Bertrand. Holding on to Bertrand. Okay.

Go ahead and make an attack roll. Why don't you just roll your hand crossbow, since it's a ranged weapon? Okay. That is a 12. Or is that, does that include the plus eight? Oh, it does, unfortunately. Yep.

Um, okay, with a 12, you bash this bolo, uh, against this, this dude's head. The, the rope on the bolo was a little bit shorter than you thought it would be. So it doesn't really connect with like, you know, the crown of his skull or anything like that. It just kind of scrapes across the side of his head. And when that happens, it dashes what appears to be like green goo down to the floor. Uh, and. And, and, And a portion of his head is just like missing where you cracked into it. And you see that same green goo there. And then it sort of reforms. Only his head is like a little weird shape now. But it is essentially sealed back up. How did this guy beat you in a strength check? Look at him.

I just barely touched him. Big chunks of him came off. Bertrand. We all have bad days. don't we boss. Hey, maybe you guys should stop real quick and have a talk about Finney's management style. Phineas?

That's not a way to talk to your employee. At this point, another guard. In fact, a twin of the one that is holding Bertrand has tried to just grab you by the neck, Phineas. So let's have ourselves a strength contest. Yeah, see how you like it.

All right. Boss, man. Oh, you better pass. Touch a strength contest. Shing-saving throw? No, strength contest. Just roll your strength check. You're going to have to,

you're going to have to Nat 20, I think, to succeed here. Strength check. Yeah, just click. Oh, I got it. I got it. I see it. Yeah.

Strength. And that would be an eight. Woo. You are, you are, I think with the sheer number of people in here, you are held by this huge guard just for a few moments. And that is all that you. You, that is all that is required for you to be pulled down to the ground by now this big crowd of people.

And you feel. Now that they're dead. Can we jump over to? I don't know real quick. I can see what he's out too. You feel another sort of heavy impact on, on your temple. And you are unconscious. And as you are unconscious, the memory vanishes for all of you, you know, watching it for a moment.

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Yeah. The image starts to come back on, and you, Phineas can see just green. You see shapes in green light. And I think it takes Phineas a little bit longer to realize than Zooks and the rest of the people watching this memory that he is not breathing. He's not being suffocated.

He has not seemed to be dying. But he is not breathing air. In fact, he is suspended in a cylinder of green fluid. And you have regained consciousness. You can see some shapes through this green fluid, but you are like, you are wearing just sort of your skivies. And that's it. But you are conscious now. What do you do?

I can see out of the tube. Barely, barely. Your eyes cannot see through this, like, it's fairly viscous, this fluid, so your eyes are not able to really see out of it very well. Are you saying, like, he's getting shadows or outlines, or how much is he getting? He's getting, you can see that there is room out there. You can tell sort of the dimensions of the cylinder that you are in, and you can see that there is more happening outside.

Well, I think initially he would test the walls of the cylinder, you know, to see, you know, what they're made of. Yeah. Perception check? Well, I mean, if you can't see anything. Okay, yeah, an investigation check, I would say, would be sufficient. Yeah. It's small enough this chamber that you can, like, feel around it. So I'm not going to make you roll with, like, disadvantage.

Okay, 12. Yeah, it's, there's some give to this cylinder. Like, as you press your hands against it, you feel. feel it kind of stretch. Like there is some sort of, I'm trying to find a word other than like mucusy. What's membrane? There's a membrane there that feels pretty, I don't know, pretty lightweight.

It's not like you are actually in, you know, a thick glass or something that would be, you know, you would need some sort of tool to smash out. Dad, use Phineas calls famous knife sharp penis to cut your way out. Well, that would fit in with everybody's got a knife. Yeah, that's where it came from. Everyone knows that Vinias Call had his penis shirt to a fine edge. Well, I think the obvious thing is he tries to push through the membrane.

Okay. Or eat through it, but I'm not ready to go there yet. Let that be plan B. Plan B. Okay, give me a strength check. Come on. Nat 20. Fuck yes.

With that, you just shove both your hands through it and rip it open and ride this wave of green jelly down to the floor, which you land on your feet. Just in case anyone was curious about Tally now brings us to two times. Someone has come out of a goo-filled chamber basically naked. In Adventure Zone history. Technically three. We had two in balance. Oh, I guess that's true. Yeah, so three.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, you are. Hey, Griffin, what's your thing with goo-filled chambers? Huh? It's a motifs. Let's not invent another kink for Griffin. That's a motifs. You hands carrying enough.

Boy, I sure do love that nasty stuff. You are in a... If we can find a goo-filled elevator, Griffin would be in heaven. Then you realize that this chamber has been moving up and down to various levels. You are in a room that is solely lit by faint lights inside of dozens of similar cylinders, like the one that you just broke out of, which, by the way, like, as you breach that cylinder, you realize, like, oh, shit, I haven't breathed in a while.

and some pretty gnarly stuff comes out of your throat before you are able to sort of really get your bearings again. Yeah, it sounds like that. No, I'm really gagging thinking about it. Oh, gosh. With the dim green light in this chamber, you can see that there are these cylinders all over, and in, I would say, about half of them,

you see silhouettes that are vaguely person-shaped. Are any of them really big person-shaped? Like a very big person? Like Bertrand-shaped? Like Bertrand-shaped? Or like very tall, as we said. The owner's very tall and lengthy. Sure, why don't you roll an investigation check?

Okay, I will. Ah, the magic continues. Four. I mean, there's all kinds of shapes, man. That's beautiful, Griffin. Okay. With a four, I mean, I don't even think you necessarily need to investigate to... We'll say this, the pod next to yours.

Just like the first one that you see as you investigate, you can see pretty clearly that there is a sort of humanoid shape inside of there. But as you get closer, you realize you can see through the shape. and that that shape is not, in fact, like a person body, like your body, it is a nervous system. And sort of a few beginnings of a skeleton happening in there. Microbones. Microbones, sure. This is a pre-person, essentially, that you see in the tank.

There are other folks sort of around the room. You do see, like, complete body. in the room around you. But that's what I will give you with an investigation roll of a four like that. All right. I want to look around and see if there's any kind of technology or any kind of controls or machinery or anything like that. Okay. Why don't you make another investigation check?

13. Okay. There isn't any kind of like machinery or anything. any kind of like control apparatus that you can see. What you do put together is that on the floor, there is a, like, a canal of this, like, green algae that enters the room through, like, the sole entrance into the room. And in fact, you can actually see following that algae out of the room that this connects, sort of back into the main foyer of this huge temple.

that you walked into. As it enters the room, it branches off, and then basically there's like one little tributary that goes to each of these tanks, seemingly feeding into it. And yeah, that is all you can see. Everything that is happening in here, I think Phineas is sharp enough to figure out,

is like an organic process that does not appear to need any kind of like input from, you know, some lab technician or anything along those. Okay. I've got an idea. Okay. Phineas strips off his skivis, completely, all of his skivis, and jams it into the canal at some point where it will stop filling the tributaries.

Classic Phineas. Okay. He uses his underpants for everything. Skivis could be an undershirt, too. Just wads them all up. Hey, dad. Hey, dad. you know you weren't thinking of an undershirt.

You know you were thinking of underpants. You know you were. Underpants and an undershirt. As a matter of fact, I envisioned kind of a onesie kind of thing. Okay. Yeah, still. And he's jammed it into that canal before it splits in the tributaries to keep the flow from those tubes in the hopes that they'll drain out

and reveal which one of these people is. Bertrand, maybe Ona, and Jimmy Hoffa. Who knows? Amelia Earhart. Okay, yeah, that's a fun idea. You, you, I'm not going to make you roll for this, mostly because you've just debased yourself so thoroughly.

Yeah. You wad up all your clothes and jam it into a bottleneck in the algae stream that is going into this room. And it doesn't like stop it because that's not how like fluid physics works, but it like, instead of it following these pathways cleanly, it starts to like pool around the the floor. Like it overflows the canal coming into here. It doesn't necessarily like immediately drain out all the tanks in this room.

But you do start to, you get the sense that like things are happening because the pods are starting to swell and compress like very gently but rapidly. and as you are looking at that, you hear a voice behind you say, Oh, what are you doing there? And you turn to see a person wearing the same sort of pale green leather garb looking at you. And they say, did you just pop out? We weren't scheduled for any arrivals today.

And Phineas, just looks at him and kind of winks at him. What is that supposed to mean? Hey there. Huh. Thanks again. Huh. This is interesting.

Well, hey, hey there. Listen, you, which part did you just, did you just come out of that part there? What did, what? I didn't think that people were supposed to be able to be able to do that. Maybe wink harder? I'm blinking with both eyes. Oh, nice. Okay.

Really nice. Do it in like a confusing pattern. As you are trying to, I don't know what the fuck Finnis is trying to do right now. He's looking confused. He's like, he can't answer. He doesn't, oh, what happened? How do I get out of here? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I like this. And he's naked. He's naked, right? That's not threatening. As he starts to walk towards you, you can see this dude is... And he says, put that knife away. Oh, wait! Oh, God!

That's your dick! He looks just as confused. And he kind of gets close to you and looks down at you. As you are looking at him, you see behind him sort of standing with his back flat to the door, the door that this guy just came into. you now can see ONA, who appears harried, uninjured, I would say, but clearly not the chillest you have ever seen Ona, who is sort of behind this dude who has not noticed that Ona is there. And just like that, like, our vision of Ona is like exists again. Now Ona is sort of back on the board as we are viewing him through the memories of Ona.

of Finneas call. So, Ona, this might not surprise anybody. He got bullied a lot as a kid for being a bit of a nerd. And he is going to, in classic fashion, he's going to get on his hands and knees right behind this guy and, like, kind of nod at Phineas as he, like, quietly gets in place. Like, right, you know what I mean? Perfect.

Perfect position. Okay. And Phineas is going to go running at this guard, guy saying, you saved me. Thank you. And runs full at him. Okay.

Make a, make a performance check. I want to know how off guard you're going to catch this guy. Ten? Ten. You know what? That's fine.

Given that this is a teamwork attack. I am naked. Yeah. It is surprising what you are doing. You run towards this guy. And he kind of like puts his hands up like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. But as you sort of bump into him, he falls backwards over Ona. And, oh, no, I bet you've had this done to you more than once.

But the result is different. As this guy falls to the hard stone floor, his head smashes into that same green goo. And scatters like 10 feet out in every direction. Now, as Diva does not know, because Phineas does not know, so I will have to ask you, is this the first time in this experience that Ona has seen? You know, Ona definitely knows some shit is up. Right. Definitely knows some shit is up.

They won't let Ona go back to the ship. That's for fucking sure. They are very forceful about that. Phineas. Oh, Phineas. here and he hands finis his cloak his coat what have you thank you okay and he wraps it around him backwards you know so it covers his you know knife area yes yes we get that um are you and i know that is gonna um are you and i know that this is going to seem relative at this point but are you okay uh yeah yeah

I mean, I just coughed out a, you know, lime jello shot out of my lungs, or five or six or seven, but somewhere in one of these tubes, I think, is Bertrand. And since he hasn't pushed out, I got to figure there's something wrong. We got to figure out which one of these he's in. Huh. As you say that, you hear the sound of one of those membranes rupturing and the liquid inside come pouring out. and you see a small man, definitely not Birchon. Like you can tell in an instant that that is not what Birchon looks like.

But he is sort of on his hands and knees in this slime that poured out. And he is gasping. And he looks up at the two of you and you see a face unlike any you've ever seen before. he has these huge like gaping gills on his neck and his lower jaw seems to be much, much, much too big, covered in scales and his eyes are pitch black. And these features that he has kind of look like the ones on the corpses that you saw down in the trench, back, back out in the ocean. but like way more sort of advanced in terms of like fishiness. And he stands up and tries to just breathe and he can't. And he falls over dead.

ONA wants to do is going to study that person in the tubes real quick. Okay. Based on a theory, yes. Okay. So 15 total. Sure. What is your theory? What are you investigating for? So I think the thing that these tubes remind him of are test tubes. Seeing this thing, right, is going to immediately connect to the bodies that they saw.

So what he wants to see is, is it in the same state as those dead bodies that we found in the night crawler? Or is this different, more advanced? What are we looking at? Hmm. So it's, it is, I mean, you didn't really get a chance to inspect the bodies that you saw down in the trench, right? Only, yeah. Only visually, yeah. Visually, like, it's, it is very, very similar. The body itself seems to have sort of the same kind of, like, non-solid makeup as the dude that you just dashed to the ground who just seemed to turn back into the algae that is on the floor. This body, though, is a bit more solid than that. And you are like, you are like. a physician, like a biologist, you know shit about bodies. Yeah.

This thing's physiology is like not the physiology of something that can survive. It because of the fish-like features that were just heaped on top of these, these person features. Right, right, right. So we got like gills connecting to lungs and it's just. Right. It's like it does not, it does not make sense. Got it, got it. So you know that like this is, these are test tubes and that they are experiments.

but that this being that just came out of this tank and died was like alive for a little bit. I would also say that you also know that this goo that was in there with them was sustaining their life. Like it is a fluid that they were breathing. And assumedly, like Phineas was breathing even though it is like a liquid. And you have never seen. Well, I'm taking a sample of that. That's fascinating. Okay.

Finney, is I, okay, I am forming a hypothesis, but I believe the bodies that we found out there on our way here. Those are failed experiments. They're working towards something. This may not be the underwater utopia that I at first took it to be. We should go. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think so. Oh, this explains all the twins.

They're making people. Okay, yes, yes, yes, yes. Yeah, Ona, good, good, good. And way to go. Way to figure it out. Now, help me find Bertrand, damn it. And you were in the tubes? I was in the tube.

Ona, maybe he's feeling a little paranoid right now, but like the time. Understandably so. Understandably so. So Ona is going to try to as surreptitiously as possible. He wants to kind of like scratch kind of goutish. Fennius's arm with like his fingernails? What? Well, it's a normal thing.

You, you dad hear this, but Phineas doesn't know yet. Why don't you make a slide of hand check to see if you could, I don't know how one surreptitiously gouges somebody's for it. Well, he'll see when I do it. He'll know when it happens. It's, it's easier to ask for forgiveness situation. That is a 14 plus two is 16. Should you better not mess up Phineas's extensive tattoo sleeves.

I'm just saying. Yeah. Let's contest this. Phineas make a perception check. Reception check. It's the one with a P. He. There's actually a few skills.

Yeah, there's three. It's very confusing. I got news for you. This is a 16. I don't know why I said it like that. A 16? Okay, with that, you put your hand on Phineas' forearm. You, like, get your nails on him, but he pulls away before you have a chance to

execute this. And now, Phineas, you have realized that, oh, no, it's just doing something weird. Whoa. Hey. What's, what's the deal there, bud? Doesn't it all seem a bit strange to you? I, I, sorry. You were just trying to,

you know, give me a little arm scratch? Yeah, that was kind of strange, yeah. Oh, you know, it's like when you, you know, you're, oh, am I dreaming pinching? Oh, okay. Oh, okay. I'm not familiar with that. also not comfortable with it.

So, sorry, I'm just being weird. Yes, I, this place has got me all turned around. Yeah,

okay. You all hear racing footsteps coming in, in your direction through the foyer, and moments later, you both see

Bertrand sprint into the room. He, he, probably not sprint. Probably not sprinting. Like a quicksidal. Oh, okay. Like a crab. He,

Crab walks into the room. Bertrand, you, you suddenly appear and now you are back in the memory. Hey, Bertie. Hey, this is weird, right? Yeah, um, there is nothing about this situation that is not weird. Are you- Fennie, so why don't you scout ahead real quick? Well, I fill Bertrand in on everything that's happened, uh, since he's been gone.

Yeah, all right. Um, which is just, direction did you come from left or the right down the hallway there bertie left okay so i should go right okay i'm heading out don't go too far we'll be right behind you oh don't don't worry i ain't going too far oh you're giving you orders all of a sudden i'm i'm i'm just concerned i he came out of one of the pods and the pods are they're using them to clone people that's why there's all the twins and triplets and everything and i'm starting to worry that perhaps phineas isn't phineas it would it be then

it would be a copy of phineas but not the original phineas it would be a copy he would be part of whatever this thing is here oh right

that'll happen so if you if if he starts to act strangely we need some some sort of code word something that lets it know like hey it's time for us to like grab him

and hold him and you know whatever so he can't betray us. Corsoin. Secret. Secret code phrase. Yes.

I'm thinking maybe, what do you have? Clone. Well, that might be on the nose. What about amoeba? Amoeba. What's the amoeba then? Well, it's a really tiny thing. That's not the important thing.

The thing is that we use the word. Burger. Okay. You would rather have it be burger. That's fine. We can use burger. Perfect. So if you say burger or I say,

What if I see a burger? Then don't say it out loud, I guess. Impossible. Oh, boy. What about, um... I'll float on the lines of the smell like wimpy for Bupai, right? I don't get their references that. Why wouldn't I say a burger?

If I see a burger ride, I'm going to say burger. Then why did you suggest it as a word? Hungry. Uh-huh. How about, um, um, we, we just say, uh, get him. How do I know? Hey, wait.

I don't know. You're not a clone, right? Well, I didn't come out of a tube. Says you. I mean, sure, do you want to scratch me? If I'm a clone, then I would turn into a bit of goo. Why don't you scratch Phineas? Well, I tried to.

But he caught me. Caught you scratching. Yeah. Oh, that's rough. All right. Code word is saber tooth. Perfect. It's cool, right?

Yes, it's very cool. It's kind of tighter. We need to go now, though? we should go. All right. I just thought of something and it's got it, it is something that has to be true

for the, uh, for the entire sort of conceit of these episodes to make sense. Phineas, you heard all of that. Oh, I know. I just right outside in the hallway.

Yeah, you had to have heard all of that or else we would not be hearing that right now. Yep. Okay, fantastic. Fun. Cool. Uh, you all start to. Are y'all done?

Oh, yes. Okay. Oh, you lead the way, Finney. Well, Bertrand, you know where the... Sorry, I had to tell him an embarrassing story. Oh, yeah. Well, he told me that he got so scared when they all jumped you that he... Did the bathroom.

He did a bathroom. Oh, that's terrible. Shameful, really? All right. Well, it happens. I scout it out. You want me to lead the way down the hallway? Well, Bertrand knows where the bath is.

Why don't you two go together and all? He has not volunteered that. Oh, okay, right. Yes. You lead the way? and we will follow closely behind. All right, I will be stealthy. Like the great saber tooth,

I'll just go crawling down the hallway. Did you go left? No, you told me you went left, so I went right. No, I said you should go. Also, just to be clear, okay, so are we making our way out? Yeah, let's get out. Come on. As they go, Ona is just like,

whatever he can grab, be it the dirt, be it like a chunk of whatever the clay is from the buildings. He's grabbing samples left and right. And you're putting that inside of Bertrands? All the samples are going right in there with everything. Okay, cool. As he's running. As you all step back out into the foyer,

you start to hear a lot of activity coming from Cambria's chamber. And moments later, the doors fling open and out. step a dozen guards, all wearing that pale green leather gear. And they all start shouting and racing down the stairway toward the three of you. Yeah, let's go. Lead the way, Bertie. This is me running. Yeah. This is owner running. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I want to keep an eye peeled as we're running, though, for the bathysphere because like I feel like that's our egress.

We can find it. Okay. Are you running, are you leaving this like temple building? Yes. I doubt we'll be able to escape in the bathysphere from inside a building. Just I'm no, I'm no mariner. Sure. But I think the bathysphere would need to be in water.

Right. In order to operate. Okay. I played Bioshock quite a few times. Right. Of course. You all. crash out of the doors out of this this main temple building and out into this sort of like center

square of of this settlement. And from this position, you can see down all the way down all of these radials sort of where all of these makeshift houses are built. And you also see, you know, dozens upon dozens of people who all sort of look up from the work that they were doing and then look over at the three of you and all in sort of eerie synchronization all rise to their feet. All right. I checked all these except for that one right there. It's got to be there.

It's the only place left. I got a little Australian. Yeah. It's the only place left. That's not a bathysphere. That's a bathosphere. Right. It's got to be this one then.

It's the one I didn't check before I came to get you all. Let's check right down here Wait Okay, first Give me a boost Up to one of the street lamp things, right? Yeah, sure Right

Yeah, okay I'm grabbing samples Oh nice Okay, you lift him up to One of the globes That is up there Once you are that close Make an investigation check for me

I will That is a six plus three Gryven a nine You get up there and you realize that the globe is not fastened, right? So you are able to sort of like pick it up off of its, off of the pole that is holding it. As you do, a considerable amount of water just seems to fall down from the, you know, whatever barrier is holding the ocean at bay. As you move it, it seems like the bubble that this thing is seemingly creating is sort of moving or around with it.

And a bunch of water splashes down onto the top of the temple and, you know, crashes down around you. Some of it just like falls straight on just a pile of people and, you know, crashes down on them knocking them down to the floor. Well, that's lucky. Anyway, and I slipped the globe into the bag. Okay. And I fish out of the bag, that laser that Bertrand told me about hand that over to him.

Okay. Right, thanks. Let's, we should go now. Anything else, anything else we should collect? Well, I mean, yeah, I mean, that's kind of your gig, right? You're the one collecting all these things and making us stop. So if you're done, maybe we could go. Is there anything else of interest that ONA hasn't scraped?

No, I would say Ona has scraped a fair deal of things. Okay. I mean, one thing of interest is y'all's ship, which is down like, which is down a different sort of avenue than the bathosphere is. We should get to the bathysphere and loop around and, you know, signal the night crawler. Good idea. They're probably on orange alert ready for us.

Let's go. Come on. Come on, fellas. Either way. All right. Beat feet. Do, do, do. All right, we run down that corridor to the bathsphere,

assumingly. Okay. Okay, you all take off in a sprint down the avenue that Bertrand sort of, have pointed towards. And at this point, the guards that sort of popped out of Cambria's chamber have made their way out of the temple and alerted basically everybody else. You are now in a full sprint away from everybody, essentially, in this city who is chasing after you. But sure enough, at the end of this avenue, there is a shallow pit that is filled with a few inches of murky water.

and sitting in that pit is the bathosphere. It looks like it is in fine condition. There is some slime sort of growing across it just from, you know, being down in this, this dirty water for however long it's been down here. But maybe 20 feet away from the edge of this aquatic barrier, away from essentially the ocean. water that these these globes are keeping at bay. Right. Finis, get on, start booting up. We'll hold them off just long enough for you to get started.

Then yell when you're ready. All right, fellas. Well, are you sure? Yeah, hurry, hurry. Yeah, yeah, right, right. So he goes splashing up through the murky water. Okay. To the bathsphere and pause it just for a second going,

Oh, I've missed you so much. Oh, look at you. Weird. Once Phineas is out of sight, I cut off Ona's head with the mining laser. What? What? Uh, okay. Uh, okay.

Well, now, hold on. You gotta give me some kind of check. You can't just, I'm pretty sure that in Dungeons the Dragons, you can't just say that. You literally handed me the mining laser and you were like, I just want to get, you brought it up again. I just want to narratively confirm that. that you were in, this is in your hand and you're ready to go. All right, make, all right, here's what we'll do.

ONA, make a dexterity saving throw. 16 plus four, a 20. Dirty 20! Yeah, no, he, he, he, you sweep this mining laser toward ONA, but he ducks down and, and dodges through it and lands down on, on the dirty floor, basically right next to one of these streets.

lights. And at this point, there's the people who are chasing after you all are maybe 20 feet away. Phineas, you, you see this happen from inside the bathosphere, but you can't, you cannot hear anything inside of here as you're going through the startup sequence. You just see Bertrand sort of swipe the mining laser toward ONA who ducks out of the way and is now laying on the ground as a, a wave of these people are about to overwhelm them. What happens next? I mean, it's probably pretty shocked and upset and speaking in an upset manner. I'm going to grab the bag and run and shout loud enough so that Phineas can hear.

I tried to make this quick, whatever you are. Now you're theirs. and then I run towards the bathysphere and hop in. Okay. Onus gonna get up and try to follow? Okay. Then the door to the bathysphere opens. Phineas, Bertrand climbs in.

What the hell? What in the holy hell? It was, no time to explain. He was a clone. Owner was? Yeah, he admitted to me. He thought we were both clones. So he was trying to lay out his secret plants, right?

But I told him on the genuine article. I tried to off him real quick, but no dice. And now, Ona, you are at the door as a huge crowd of people are about to overtake you. Okay, I write on my hand, not Penny's boat. Yeah, right? I put it right in the glass. Oh, okay, I think with the door closed, you can't hear. Right, of course.

But I think ONA is just screaming Sabretooth over and over again. Oh, brutal. Oh, that's brilliant. And that is the last that you all see of Ona as the crowd finally catches up.

And the crowd is moving in like, again, like perfect unison, like one organism. And as they crash into the bathroom, like you all see some like green algae sort of appear on the glass like viewing pain of of the hatch into the bathosphere and then ona is is pulled into the crowd and you don't see him anymore and now the crowd is just sort of like pushing against the bathosphere trying to open it up and they're just furious and and wild and then you're just furious and wild and then you you all see the lamp post that is closest to you, the one that you knocked Oana down in front of, start to teeter, and then the globe topples off the top of it and crashes to the ground, and the ocean just swallows up everything in a 20-foot radius,

all of the people who were outside and the bathysphere, which kind of bounces, and you all are now floating. You are off the ground in control of the bathysphere as all the controls light up. Is Ona okay? I think it's actually kind of cool to leave Ona on the board. Who knows, right?

Yeah, we don't know. I don't think we see, you don't see Ona. I am Ona. Finiis, why don't you make an investigation check just to see what you see, like in this all right that would be

a nine um okay with a nine you do not see ona uh anywhere in in the

you know the chaos of what just happened um but as you start to pilot the bathosphere sort of circling back around toward the ship, you do see a body float right in front of you. And it's one of the people in the sort of pale green leather.

And it's only there for a second. But you could swear that it looked a lot like Bertrand. Huh. Uh, when he'd hurry up. Yeah. Yeah, tell me exactly why you thought he was a clone, why owner was a clone. You can tell, right? You look in someone's eyes, somebody you know him for a while.

You can just tell the difference. Huh. Like, look at me. Yeah. Right? Yeah. You can tell, can't you? Um, he reaches out and tries to scratch Bertrand's on.

Bertrand, are you going to... I punch him in the nose. Let's make a dexterity just contest to see who moves faster here. Yeah, both of you just make a dexterity check. 13. 15. Ooh.

You, I think both things happen then. You go first and you scratch your hand against his forearm, Phineas. And as you do, you see just a flash of green and then a big meaty fist collides with your face and you are staggered backwards, you feel the warmth of blood sort of starting to stream down your nose and your chin. I say that he reaches out in desperation to the control panel and hits an automatic pilot setting and then

turns back around and raises his fists in a very non-convincing way. All right, I take the laser out while he's doing this if we're both just talking here. Sure, sure. I need you to stay alive just a little bit longer. Yeah. You're

not my Bertrand, are you? Oh, congratulations. That's wonderful. you've pieced it together you want to them clone things right and that and that was you're on fire that was the real owner back there

wasn't it another beautiful deduction yeah yeah I've kind of fucked this up a little bit haven't I just attached but to be fair to you

I'm very good at my job I'd like you to take a seat now I need you to stay alive just a little bit longer. Um, and why, why is that?

Why are you doing this anyway? What, what's the big deal? I'm just taking back what belongs to me. I am not a position to answer your questions. Rather,

I'm not in a position to have to answer your questions. I, as you'll notice, in this impressively meaty hand, you're the one holding the laser. Please, have a seat.

As you are being ordered around by this non-Bertrand. The autopilot sort of function takes you past the ship that you brought down here. And the night crawler. The night crawler. And the the lights on the bathysphere shine down and through a few of the sort of large viewports on the side of the ship, the light flashes in through it and you see a couple of bodies of your fellow crewmates that you came down here with just laying on the ground. Okay, so he's sitting down at the control board, right? That's where he told him to sit down, right? Yes. I think he turns off all the lights inside the bathsphere. Okay. Why don't you make a... It's not

something you're just trying to do like super fast before Bertrand notices. Yeah. Why don't you make a slight a hand check? Oh yeah. 21. Damn. Contest that with your,

with your perception, please. Bertram. No. 13. 13. Okay. You, Phineas just is very familiar with this piece of technology

and just swats at a switch and all of the lights inside of the bathosphere instantly go dark. I'll reach to where I most recently saw his head and try to slam it into the control board. Making an unarmed attack roll with disadvantage. 14 or 11. And this really has consequences.

That misses, yeah. You reach for where he was, but he is not there. anymore. Phineas, you have ducked out of the way of non-Bertrand's blow. And now what do you do? Oh, I think he's going to attack him. Okay. I mean, how much, I mean, he's like a cellophane bag full of green jello. How tough could he be? I think he lunges for him in the dark. He knows this bathysphere inside and out. and I think he leaps at him and tries to throttle him,

tries to grab him around the neck. Uh, making an armed attack roll. With disadvantage. Uh, yeah, with... It's dark for him too. Right, with disadvantage. All right.

Mr. fucking, let's fight in the dark. All right, let's fight in the dark. Here we go. On arm strike. But now you're equally disadvantaged. That would be a 14 and a 22. Fuck me.

14 does hit. You, you, you, let's not. On whose armor class? Amber's? 15. Oh. Well, no, it doesn't hit. It's, I think that we, this all happens in the dark, right?

The lights do not come back on inside the bathysphere. And so Amber and Devo and Zook sort of viewing these, these memories, this is where things start to get. abstract and confusing, because this fight, it just doesn't stop. Phineas and Bertrand just continue to take swings at each other and try to throw each other around. And there is, there are, you know, heavy blows against Bertrand and, you know, the feeling of, of a fist, being smashed into, you know, your face. And then there's the feeling of Phineas swinging his fist at Bertrand and just catching a,

you know, a fistful of slime, essentially. And at a certain point, Phineas picks up Bertrand and manages to shove him around and his bag just smashes against a wall and the contents come spilling out to the floor. and then at a certain point, after a few minutes of fighting like this, still in pitch black, Phineas loses his footing and he falls backwards, and then there's a sharp blow at the back of his neck as he falls and hits himself on something that we never get to see. and then he lands in the water and the memory stops. And there's one last thing that we don't see as much as we hear as the bathosphere surfaces

and eventually arrives on shore. and Phineas hears the hatch open up and smells, you know, the warm, salty air as it pours into the atmosphere of the bathysphere. And then he hears the sound of screaming coming from someone outside. and then you all see the ocean past this scene and it is it changes the storm disappears and you're on a boat a long a schooner a small sailboat a small sailboat bobbing up and And now the sky is pretty beautiful. You're sailing toward the sunset. The land is well behind you at this point.

You're just going towards open ocean. That's a new thing, too, land. You have never seen a world above the water before. And you've never seen the sky before. It's just this orange pink gradient. And that is when you realize that you are not Phineas call anymore. And you know this because he is in front of you at the wheel of the ship. You are Zooks again. And he looks over his shoulder at you, Zooks, and he says, welcome aboard.

I didn't know I'd have company for all this. I guess I'm kind of a party crasher because I didn't know I was going to be company for this. I had kind of hoped I'd get a chance. Wait a minute. You can hear me. You can see me? Yes. Why wouldn't I be able to hear or see you?

It's really complicated. But I mean, we've been I've been having flashbacks and memories and I wasn't really me. I was you, but this isn't you talking to you, right? No, I think we can simplify this a bit. This is another memory of mine, a much better one than the one that you just witnessed. I would hope so. But, no, I'm me and you're you and right now. We are all together.

That's beautiful. Did you just come up with that? Go go-go-g-choo-g-chube, baby. I don't speak whatever fantastic language that was. Fair enough. Fair enough. He looks out over the waters and gives his ship a good once over, and he says, If my memory is accurate, and I suppose it is since we're inside it right now,

it's about 30 years ago, and we are sailing for... the night markets in Estival and this this is going to be a fun night and he reaches down next to him and there's a bucket full of ice and some bottles and he pops one out and he says you want a beer? Yes. Oh God, yes that would

be wonderful. He cracks it open and hands it to you and he says so while you were plumbing my depths I just happened to be relegated to your memories. Zooks. And let me tell you, I know you probably saw some stuff back in my old memory banks, but yours was a wild ride start to finish. Really? A pretty short ride, all things considered, but a wild one nonetheless. That's kind of what I want to talk to you about. because you're the you're the closest thing to

you know a relative that I have I guess why would you whoa well I think that all the all the things that you did all the things that you accomplished all the good that you did

and the things that you did to help our our community our civilization you know I feel I feel very close to you because I have always had trouble accessing whatever it was that went into me to make me alive. Whenever I tried to do what other Brynard have been able to do,

which is look at past lives and the things, the spirits inside of them had done or accomplished or knew or had experience with, I could never find anything. Nothing. There was nothing I could access. All my, you know, Brynard brothers and sisters and others would just be able to, boom, there they are. And they would say, yes, I remember when I did this. And I've never been able to access that. And I, I have a theory. And I thought if I ran it by you, you could confirm it or help me with it. Sure. I, what is it that you think you are, Zooks? I think, I mean, ironically, to quote

Popeye the sailor, I am what I am. I am. the reason that I don't have one or two or three or four or five specific memories is because I have millions of memories. I've been looking for a voice here and there and it's countless voices. I think something brought the very coral that I made of to life and created a whole new kind of consciousness, a whole new unique being. Is it that unique though, Zooks?

If you think about it, he outstretches his hand and holds it in front of him and he says, I am a body. Well, I used to be, I suppose. Right, yeah.

Made up. of microscopic motes, of cells forming tissue and bone forming, respiratory systems, circulatory systems, all sorts of systems, all working in tandem to form a higher purpose. And he looks at you, and he says, is that so different from what you just described, Zooks? No, I guess it really isn't. We, since the dawn of magic,

mortal kind has been so preoccupied with questions of the soul. Even now, I ponder it, even in my intangible form that I have taken after the memories that you just witnessed. But why does it matter if we know we're alive in the first place? You said you're hearing billions of voices, Zooks, all speaking in tandem to form you. What if that's what a soul is? Our bodies, choirs.

We are the song they are singing. And he looks down at his beer, he says, I have had a few too many of these, I think. No, no, no, no, no. Although I do like this. Is it an IPA? Anyway, listen, I... Thank you.

Thank you. Phineas. whether you really are a relative or not, I appreciate you. You have shown me maybe it's time for me to stop worrying about the song and just start singing it. He smiles and tips his beer sort of at you. And actually he cheers his year.

And he sets his, his half-drunken bottle back down into the bucket and stands up. And he raises a sail. And you see now the sun has nearly set in the distance. There is an island. And there are, you know, soft street lights and houselights that you can see from your position. And you can hear the sound of music. and revelry as you approach it.

And he looks at you and he says, do me a favor. I want you to thank Amper Sand for me. And Hermine, while you're at it. And thank them for what? He smiles and he says, my debt to them is so enormous I expect them. And then he goes quiet and he says,

He goes quiet and you see him one last time standing in front of this city with a gentle breeze blowing through his hair and against the sails. And then as the sun sets, he vanishes and this whole scene vanishes. And then you wake up, Zooks, and you are reclined in a chair. And the first thing you see is the land. lantern above your bed, the sort of IV bag that was up there. The blue flame inside of it is extinguished. And you look around the room and everybody else is already up and about. You see Amber and Devo and Shret, and all of them are congregated around where ampersand 5 is seated.

and they are all looking in Amber San Fives' lap where the lantern that once held the spirit of Phineas Call has gone dark. Maximumfund.org Comedy and Culture. Artist-owned, audience-supported.