The Adventure Zone - The Adventure Zone: Ethersea - Episode 34

Episode Date: April 7, 2022

The Menagerie: Part FourThe crew of the Coriolis has become just as endangered as the animals they've been tasked with recovering. Amber saddles up. Devo unmasks a mastermind. Zoox causes some collateral damage.Additional music in this episode: "PULL" by Nctrnm https://soundcloud.com/nctrnm; "Blato" by Shay Brahem and Fachhochschule Dortmundand https://freemusicarchive.org/music/shay-braheem; and "Ambient V-X" by ROZKOL https://rozkol.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, not long after you leave the ghost ship behind, you see a large, it looks like a very fancy, like, taco. Identify yourself. We are looking for some, let's say, some very special vintage wink. Okay, weapons on the ship, leave them. If you want, you can go and wait in the parlor. Hey, someone please.

My friends dry it out. Come with me and you two stay put, okay? And Devo changes his glamour weave to match the red of the jumpsuits. Oh, okay. And heads out the door. You recognize the dreams of Debra. And from out of that ship walks Alawish's Supreme. There are two guards standing out in front of the door, and they are wearing, like, actual plate mail armor.

But Zooks, if you can make it up to that higher level, there is some kind of window you might be able to peek in and see if you can figure out what is going on. I think he's going to sneak on board the dreams of Deborah. But the ship's security protocol is now sort of active in the room that you are in. Hey, where are the animals?

I was going to check them out because I'm pretty good. No, no, no, no. So what are you actually doing here? Well, right now, I'm blackmailing you. Oh, you smell like a really interesting. intense chemical smell, and then you black out. You realize that you are actually in the middle of the jungle. And a polar bear rears back on his hind legs and jumps towards you, claws extended.

Amber, you got polar bear problems. They're all been there, yeah. It's one polar bear problem. It's one big polar bear that has just sort of swum up, swing. up out of a lake, swimmed in this jungle in Viron you find yourself in. You are unequipped. Whatever sort of gear that you had on you or equipment that may have proved useful in this situation, you do not have at hand.

Although, why? You have been stripped of that gear while you were unconscious. Hey, Griffin, can I just say big kudos. It's so fantastical to imagine a polar bear in like a jungle setting. Like how did it even get there? That's wild, right? Like, can you imagine? I've never seen anything like this before.

Yeah. Because a polar bear. Hey, have you ever seen my two butt cheeks? Can I tell you, Griffin? An unfortunate amount of time. Yeah. This polar bear has reared up on its hind legs and roared at you. What do you do?

All right, I'm going to try to make myself look. Okay, actually first, I want to do nature to see if I know anything about polar bears. Okay, yeah, sure. What's so bad it does seem like very? Well, that's going to require me to know if I know anything about polar bears. I know about polar bears. Okay. Ask me.

Wikipedia. Yeah, I know that they're... No worries, it's 11. I know that they're usually white. Yeah, this polar bears. Bear looks, you would say this polar bear looks kind of tired. That might just be because its fur is all kind of matted down from the water that it came out of. That being said, on its hind legs here, it is still much bigger than you. And seems pretty pissed off, exceptionally pissed off, I would

say. Did you know that a polar bear's fur is basically like clear? And its skin underneath is black. Yeah. So that it can collect the sunlight and say warm. That's just a polar bear fight. He liked a drink of a colicoloco. What do you do? So I don't have any, do you have any, like, rations? They take all my rations?

Your, like, bag, which I guess was your, I don't know if you keep your. My finny pack. Yeah, I don't know if you keep your road gear and your, your bag of holding, essentially. But, yeah, you don't, you don't have, you don't have anything. Okay, I'm going to try this. bold it's okay and like raise my hands in a comforting way that's sweet

make an animal handling check for me amazing 12 plus 315 yeah it is just enough for it to drop back down to all fours and look at you kind of quizzically and it starts to take a step forward and then you actually see its ears perk up before you hear what it is hearing

and then a moment later you hear some rustling coming from some nearby brush. Clever girl. Yeah, and the second polar bear comes out from behind you. And when it hears that, the polar bear just goes rushing off into the jungle away from you. Well played.

What do you do? I want to look around and see if I see any possible, I don't know, is there anything notable, I guess, would be. I mean, this wrestling sound is approaching you. So that is notable. So this situation is happening to me rather than something I necessarily need to deal with. Someone is approaching where you and this bear just had a standoff. I'm going to try to hide in the brush. Okay.

Make a, hmm, stealth. I would let you do stealth or nature. Right. Stealth, perfect. Would nature be... Fucking, fuck. Two plus two. Wow.

Wow. Just unbelievable. Unbelievable. Okay. You like, you lay down behind like a flower. You like get down behind. You get inside. Griffin, that's cold.

Not only are you visible. You're wicked dumb. Yeah, it's the, you get into a thorny briar. And I'm not going to make you take damage for it, but you are actively making. noise when someone enters this clearing. You get mud on your pants in a way that makes it look like you pooped yourself. Yeah.

Oh, God. No, that would, sorry, that would be a critical failure. You didn't get a one. You got a two. Yeah, so the poop isn't, it doesn't look like you pooped yourself. You know it's a stretch to say that looks like poop on that person's pants. Right, but if there was like a teenager around and they really wanted to roast you, they would do it. Yeah.

Yeah. The person that enters this clearing is a. a slender tall person wearing a just plain shining golden mask without any kind of like facial features on it. It almost looks like the front of a diving helmet that is completely opaque. You can't see through it. And they seem to have some sort of like fancy segmented armor on. And they are carrying a big like harpoon gun. Cool.

And this person walks into the clearing and looks at you just kind of like writhing in this bush and they say, do you need a hand there? Yeah, where? Sorry, where am I? He reaches down and holds out his hand to help you up. Yeah, I take it. Why not? Okay.

Yeah, he pulls you up out of the briar and sort of like pulls back one of the thorny vines that had gotten stuck on your kit. And he says, you're Amber, right? One of the interlopers? Yeah, that's me. An interloper. You hear him giggle.

And he says, well, you're clearly somewhere you shouldn't be. You probably don't need me to tell you that. You are on a facility of, of, I would say, eccentric oligarchs. And you have sort of caught the ire of some of them. And they are people whose ire you do not want to possess. And I do regret to inform you that you are being hunted. Not by me, but by other folks.

You got anything against me? I do not. I am not actually a murderer of people. So you have nothing to fear from me That is not how I rolled What's your fucking deal My deal? Yeah, what's your fucking deal?

The language is Oh, I'm sorry I didn't mean to offend your delicate sensibilities What's your deal? I'm just, I mean, I'm If you must know, I'm just here for the sport But not like the people sport The greatest sport

Well, the greatest sport, as we all know, is High-Lye. I thought it was golf. Oh, God. No, I'm here for the hunt, of course. I'm here for the beautiful extinction. Right, right, right, yes, all right. Have you got your eye on anything in particular? I think you just met my quarry.

Oh, shit. And I am glad to see that you are unharmed. This is a dangerous animal that you seem ill-equipped to handle. So, yeah, I wish you no harm, though. I do need to get back to my hunt. Oh, sure. Well, I don't want to distract you. Sure.

Yes. You got any weapons, I got to have? Here is my ethical dilemma. Right. I mean, you know, ill will. But at the same time, I don't want you to kill my assuble. Associates feels too familiar. Competition?

It's not a competition. I don't want to be forcibly removed from the premises because I gave someone a dagger that they then stabbed another member of the organization with. Right, right, right, right. So...

Any tolls or anything you get me? I'm kind of empty-handed here. And it's like, if you think about it, shouldn't a hunt be fair? Right? Like, you're hunting this cool-ass polar bear. It's got sick claws and everything. And I'm just asking you to help me, like, even the odds.

You know what I mean? So it's not just like a slaughter. Make a persuasion check. Never mind. It was stupid. I don't know what else. Just ignoring. That was a six minus one, a five.

He thinks for a second. And then he says, I'm sorry I genuinely would love to help I think that what has been ordered here for you and your friends is

monstrous but what they order that you won't be leaving the dead kind of like a dead thing like a dead thing I can tell you though that

the ready room for the hunt is all the way over there. And he points way off in the distance. And when you look up, you can see that the ceiling here is just this glass arch that runs the length of the ship. And this is what you saw essentially outside. This jungle that you are standing in occupies most of this facility. You are standing on one end of it. and he has pointed at another end that you would estimate is maybe like, I don't know, a half mile away.

This is an enormous facility. He points all the way. He says, and at the other end of the ship, you could find access to the ready room. And then once you're in there, I mean, the security forces of this ship probably won't let you out, but at least you won't be ill-equipped, unarmed, and going up against... professional hunters. So your odds, I would say, would improve in that regard. All right, I went ahead for the ready room.

Okay. Hey, hey, what's your name? I do, I wicked don't want you to know that. So, yeah, absolutely makes complete sense. Call me, call me Clyde. And, okay. What else you got? Jim, Jim, Jim, Jim, Bo, Jimbo.

Jimbo Clyde's a pretty cool name. Jimbo Clyde is my name. And it's, I, it, no, one big word. He says, uh, yes, uh, I, I, I would wish you luck. Uh, you are going to need it. Uh, I will tell you, the odds are pretty well against you, but what, can I ask what you're doing here even? Uh, I would prefer.

not to answer that query as well in the same fashion of your choice. Right. Okay. Which way did the bear go? What? The bear, which way did it go? You just missed him. Which way did he go, though?

You just missed him. You're not going to tell me where the bear went, are you? You're not going to give me a gun? No, I'm not going to give you a gun. All right. Well, seems we're on an impasse. he looks around and he says oh there's the trail okay bye and he walks no it's that's legit and he walks off toward

where the bear left um zooks you are standing in aloysious supreme's private chambers aboard the dreams of deborah you were trying to search a desk and not doing particularly well at said search when a very familiar looking security sprite floated into the room. You can tell it has not noticed you. I'm assuming during your breaking and entering, you were generally being kind of discreet. But it has entered the room and seems to be entering into a sort of guard perimeter route around the room. What do you do? But it has not seen zoogs. It has not seen zooks. You have seen what these things look like when

they are activated, this thing is not activated yet, yet being the operative right there. Well, if he hadn't been spotted yet, I think he continues to search the office. Okay, you're going to have to give me sort of a description of the physicality, like what is going on, because this thing is moving around the room. It will definitely clock you. Give me an Arcana check to, because I, you should probably know how much you know about these things. That would be a, oh, great, it's contagious. A one. You know just as much as you know your name. You know like an old friend that these things can only detect sound.

They can't see anything. You can move around all that you want as long as you do it quietly. These things only have. This sounds like a lie. No, this is absolutely the truth, and this is what Zooks knows in the coral that would be his bones. Then I think Zooks will stand absolutely still. Now, you're metagaming pretty hard right now. But okay.

Zook stands absolutely still, and the drone floats towards him, and then once it, gets close to him, it turns in his direction and lights up with bright red flashes, seeing him instantly and knowing. And Zook says, Zook says, oh, thank God you're here. Oh, hey, no, no, I have been, I was on this ship before earlier. I was part of the crew of this ship. You can check the logs and see. And I left a pair of tongs on this ship.

And I cannot find it and find these tongs anywhere. Do you have any idea where they keep the tongs? I've been kind of wandering around and thought, I thought they were in here that Aloysius used them to serve like ice in drinks. Tongs? Any idea? Is there like a tong storage area? So dad is just for reference, dad is trying to.

outlet like basically a motion detector right like if I broke into a house and the alarm started going off I would turn to the panel and say to the panel

this is my house you don't understand I'm friends with Steve who lives here we'll play it out though because I'm pretty sure you're going to roll bat on this give me a deception roll

deception not performance no you're fucking lying deception roll Okay, wait a minute Uh-huh Great, great Two crit ones in a row

Sometimes the dice Match the narrative That's so fucking good, dad Thank you That's so good I'm glad I could contribute Yeah Give me a Constitution saving throw

You gotta be due like an 18 No yeah 19 Uh, okay A small wire launches out of this thing and embeds itself in your shoulder, and you feel your body immediately tense up as a very unpleasant amount of voltage courses through you. You take nine points of lightning damage. However, you know, because of the makeup of your body being not the true. traditional makeup of a person, you are not tased bro.

But the drone, the wire recedes back into the drone, which floats over you, and then seeing that it, you know, landed a hit and that you went down on the ground, it flies out of the room, the alarm still blaring. And you hear some movement through the viewports outside on the dock. you hear some more folks rushing into the docks

approaching the dreams of Debra what do you do? Well, let's see I'm going to try my tongs gambit again wow I'm going to rush

towards the sound of the footsteps and see if I can convince humans or humanoids that I'm sincerely searching for tongs. In the time that it takes to run to the airlock, you feel, and maybe it's the electricity coursing through your body,

you feel like you've taken the limitless pill and that you could maybe think up a better object that one could leave at a ship that would bring them to a strange facility out in the middle of the deep, dark ocean. Oh, okay. Without permission from anybody aboard after being told to stay in a place and then walking away from that place, breaching security protocols knowingly. Now, Griffin, you don't know.

Maybe one of these pursuers grew up having a set of security tongs that they loved as a child so much that to be parted from Tongy would have been like the end of the world. It would have gone to the ends of the earth to be back with their beloved Tonguey. The airlock opens and there are three guards there. Each, two of which are holding tongs. Each holding electrified tongs. We get it, man. Listen, man, we love our tongs. No, they are holding crossbows and they are in almost like a phalanx position as they, as you stand at the door as it opens the ship.

You are inside the ship still, they are outside the ship. And one of them says, freeze. Get down on the ground. You are being apprehended. Don't make any sudden movements, okay? So they're outside the airlock, and I'm inside the airlock. Yes. So I don't make any sudden moves.

Okay. Good start. Just very slowly, raise my hand like I'm going to wave, and then I hit the button to shut the airlock. Make a dexterity saving throw. That would be a 22. Fuck yeah. Yeah, you hit the button and a bolt loses from one of the crossbows. And the door like just taps it and sends it flying away from your head where it was going to hit.

And it clatters to the floor of the airlock. And the security sprite was outside. You saw through the door and you hear it start honking again and the security guards protest. And then you hear them trying to pull the airlock door open from the outside. But you are inside the ship and they are stuck out. I run for the control room. The bridge of the ship? Yep, for the bridge.

All right. You know it. Like anything that you want to do in here, like I will, you know. I want to leave. I want to leave. Makes sense. I want to drive away in the dreams of Debra. No more adventure for me today.

I'm leaving. Okay. Okay. You did not pilot the dreams of Debra the last time you were here. Oh, all contrary. I did pilot the dreams of Deborah. You did? You took a turn, didn't you?

Yes, I did take a turn. Okay. Yeah, I can't think of any. I think Aloysia Supreme, you know, you know, boarding the super fancy undersea station where he wants to probably impress all the other super fancy. I don't think he would take, you know, his keys with him necessarily. I don't think he would think that anybody would do him dirty here. So, yeah, the controls, the helm is yours. I'm going to submerge. Okay. And, and toodle on out of there.

Okay. You submerge. And you submerge. And you submerge. You hear the dudes at the airlock. One of them falls in the water. You hear through the glass viewport in the bridge. Someone go, get out of there, Jeremy! And people trying to scurry about as alarms go off all over the station. And you depart and leave this moon pool dock, leaving the crescendo headquarters. after you get about, like 10 seconds after you get free from the facility,

the tone wheel right in front of you starts to ring. And we'll jump over to Devo. Devo, you have sort of left the hot zone where people had started to sort of become suspicious of you up on that higher level, where you had kind of seen into this gallery, where folks were looking. out. You had taken the elevator back down, correct? Yes. Okay. Now, here's what I would like to pause it. And you tell me if I'm way off, but I like the image of he's like, it's like a glass though. He's looking down and he sees people like, you know, knocking Amber out and taking her away. And he looks up and he sees the security jail and like honking and going red as he's just like in the middle of the elevator going down like, well shit. So I will say this. You, the alarms are going off. Like, everywhere in this station.

So, like, you know that something, at least for the people here, bad has happened. Give me a straight D20 luck roll, and I'll tell you whether or not you actually saw Amber being taken away. I will say you tried to hail. Oh, it slid across on a 19, and then it bounced to a 1. Well, well, well. This is how the tide has turned. Dad, we're on the same team. Oh, no, it doesn't feel like it.

But it does, no, when I'm rolling, I want to do good. Okay. Okay, I'm not going to hit you for a, I mean, bad luck roll, you, I don't know, a bee stings you. That's right. Oh, bummer. And I'm definitely allergic. Was it the last bee? I'd feel terrible if that was how the last bee died.

No, weirdly, there's lots of bees. They all came back? They all came back. It turns out what they needed was to go underwater. They're seabies. They're seabies. Yeah, no, you don't see, you definitely did not see Amber being taken away. I will say, like, you tried to hail Amber on your personal tone wheel, your shell phone,

and it did not, she did not pick up. But you don't know what happened to her. Okay. The elevator exits out into the lobby. You see the woman who was working at the front desk sort of come walking back and busts. out a magazine and start reading it while like the rest of the station starts to freak out around her. Otherwise, you have not been clocked.

So whatever you want to do here, you are allowed to do. As people are like freaking out and running around and stuff, do they seem to be going to a certain location? Is there something they see? I'll tell you, actually, a lot of them are rushing for the elevator that you are on. So when the doors open up, there's actually a lot of people who are like waiting for you to get off so that they're. they can get on.

I see. Uh-huh. Well, so I'm going to go back up with them. Okay. I'm going to hold the door and be like, yeah, come on. We have to go. Some guy says, yeah, but didn't, don't you want to get off?

Isn't this the floor you wanted to get off on? Why would you take the elevator of the first floor if you didn't want to get off at the first floor? I hit down when I meant to hit up. Oh, that's so embarrassing. Yes. Okay. Because one of the reasons he left. the upstairs it was basically empty.

He stood out too much. But if that's where those people are and Amber's not answering, yeah. Then, okay, I'm not going to make you roll for that because you have like a plus 19 to persuasion and I know you would succeed. So you board the elevator going back up and everybody gets off and runs to the

upper harbor where you see a group of people gathered around a very soggy security guard. At that point, you see Aloysius Supreme sort of standing at the dock chewing out the other two security guards and the drone, the Sprite, which is just kind of like floating kind of sadly now that it's being told off in this manner. You also see the auctioneer.

Rather, you see sort of the hard light avatar that you saw at the abyssal auction. You don't know like what, whether or not there's, you know, it's a suit that someone's inside. If it's another one of those projectors, you're not sure. But you see the form of the auctioneer who is just kind of standing idly by watching Aloysia Supreme have a freak out. So everyone's pretty distracted this point, right? Oh, yeah, for sure. I want to look over at the door where I saw Aloysius go into earlier. Have the guards, like, moved away from there, I assume, to like come to this thing, whatever's happening over here?

There's still one. There's still one guard posted up by the door. It is the one that kind of gave you some side eye earlier. The other guard that was posted up here has peeled off to come look at this commotion. Okay, great. But yeah, it is much emptier up in that hallway where you saw that door first. Okay, I'm going to make my way around there with everyone distracting. Okay.

And I'm going to cast Charmed Person on that one guard. Oh, interesting. Break me off a piece of that spell description. You're going to need to make a wisdom saving throw. Okay. That is a 14 versus your spell save? My spell save is 15. It was raised by one, right?

Yes, that's right. With the gills that you have, not the gills, the frills. The frills, not the gills. Well, then it succeeds. Okay. So with Charm Person Does you as a friendly acquaintance So this big armored guard

Holding a Halbert Immediately stands at ease It's like, what's up? Holy shit, dude Yes, it's me. It's Devo. Devo, I almost forgot your name there for a second Despite the fact that you are a friendly acquaintance of mine.

Of course, yes, we've known each other forever. Let me ask you a question. Oh, hey, hold on. Yes. You remember high school? Of course. You remember when Stinky Jeff and me and you, we went to that grocery store? Yes.

And we unpeeled all the nanners. Yes. I remember this was good. Yeah. They had to glues them back together. We glued them back together, and we called them sticky nanners. And then we called the grocery store later that night, and we were like, Hey, why your nanners so sticky?

I remember this, yes. This was very, man. I got grounded for like a year for that. Oh, no, really? Yeah. I didn't know this. I'm so sorry. Hey, who's there?

What are you doing here, man? This is crazy. Yeah, just like front to friend. I'm looking for another friend. Who's in that office right now? Hey, do you like boba tea? I do, and we can talk about that in just a minute, but first. I know this great boba tea plays.

Okay, now come on. It's weird. They have these weird little bubbles in that. Why is it in the world of tennis? Uh-huh, when someone's charmed? Charm, charm turns people into sycophantic, like, needy, emotional vampires. Also, tea, tea, lovers. Right.

With a penchant for beverages. Yeah. You love tea. Yeah, I mean, who... Like, you can't just be a normal person that likes somebody. You know what I mean? It's like. I mean, there's a bunch of, you know, super rich, just bonkers, like, wild, like super rich dudes in there.

Is the guard wearing a helmet? Yes. Do I have, like, a face covering? It's like a armor helmet. Like, they are wearing, this is, they are, they look so out of place. This is, they look like full-blown medieval night level, like, royal guards. He said, yeah, I mean, do you know anyone in there? Like, who are you looking for?

Tell me, and I can tell you if they're in there. You know, the thing is, I don't know. I was sent with a message, and I was told to deliver it to, let me look here, the richest-looking asshole in the room. So I think it's like a prank. Maybe it's one friend. You love pranks, right? Oh, dude.

Like the sticky bananas we did. Yeah, I do love pranks, I guess. Yes, right? Okay, so can you... Now, listen, I don't know if you still like to be part of the prank. I mean, oh, I don't want to get in trouble. Hey, you're not going to get in trouble. I'm your friend.

I would not let you get in trouble. It's just the employment contract for this place is kind of weird because it said that they could legally kill me. No. That is weird. I'm your friend. I'm not going to let... We've known each other forever.

Okay. Yeah, no. They said they could legally kill me if I do a bad job. But yeah, absolutely. I'm sure this doesn't happen. Can I, I just need to borrow your halberd? My halberd? Dude.

Are you? I'll give it right back. The prank is going to be so epic. Even Stinky Jeff will be impressed that we pull this prank off. Does he still go by Stinky Jeff? Yeah, I mean, he still stinks like shit, doesn't he? Hell yeah, dude. He definitely didn't change his name Jeff.

So, you know, if the shoe fits. Make a persuasion check with advantage. Okay. That's a 13 and a 23. Yeah, that 23 will cut it. Thank you. Okay. If anyone asks you where you got that halberd, though, say you got it from the other dude that has a halberd here,

and I'll say he took my halberd. Yes. What is his name? His name? Franch. Franch. Franched. Sorry, Frank.

Can you guys not make a big deal out of it every time? I'm trying to, I don't have a billion names written down this season where I'm like, and this guy's got a big back story that I'm going to spend a whole episode talking. I'm fucking shooting from the hip and sometimes I shoot a French. But you know lots of names. Okay, fine. Let me try again. No, no, no. No, let me try again.

For all we know, there's someone listening at home right now named French. who heard that name and they were like, Oh, Griffin's due and listener names again. I didn't know. Okay. He named going after me. French. French.

French German. French gerbill. French gerbillment. I'm the only pizza blasted person in this place. French berberman. Anyway, what are you going to do with the halberd though? Oh, you'll see. You'll see.

Okay. And a diva takes the halber and slips through the door. goes through the door. Wait, you didn't say anything about going through here. Oh, I have to for the prank. I told you, I have a message for... Is the prank that you're going to stab and kill me?

No, I'm not going to... I'm not going to stab and kill anybody. The prank is I have a message to deliver and I need the habit so that I look like I belong here. A stabbing-based message? No, I told you this. I'm not going to stab anyone. Okay, man, whatever you say.

And he steps aside and lets you walk through the door. Hey, were you a reader as a kid? Like maybe you read a lot of fantasy novels. Or horse girl books, we know how it is. But now you're an adult and you miss reading. You're so busy that you can't figure out how to get back into books. We're reading glasses and we're here to help.

Yeah, we'll give you advice to figure out what books you love or learn to stop reading books you don't even like. We're really big proponents of dumping that book. Dump that book. But most importantly, we'll help you fall back in love with reading. Reading Glasses every Thursday on Maximum Fun. Congratulations. You've won a ticket to attend an exclusive opportunity in a relaxing environment with two lovers.

Wow. Well, this sounds like a sort of proposition of sorts, but really it's an ad for our podcast. Wonderful. It's a show we do here on Maximum Fun where we talk about things that we like and things that we're into. I'm Rachel McElroy and you just heard Griffin McElroy and we are excited for you to join us as we talk about movies and music and books. Things like sneezing or the idea of rain. Can you get news or information you can use? I don't think so. You cannot because we're here to talk to you about pumper nickel bread.

You can find new episodes on Wednesdays. So catch the wave. Amber, you have been navigating this jungle for, I don't know, we'll say about 20 minutes or so. And it is, I mean, it's very clearly like a simulacrum of a jungle. I don't know. Is it man?

Is it synthetic or organic? That's the thing. Like it's organic, right? But it's very, very like there's a lot of trees, but it's like palm trees, which is not exactly what's going on in a jungle. Like Disney World. Yes, it's like a jungle that was made by somebody who had a jungle described to them one. It's very muddy. It's very humid and wet in here.

There's a lot of like streams that you are going through. But again, it's very clearly like someone dug this out. And there's, you know, some sort of plastic at the bottom of the stream, keeping things kind of together. It's like a, it is a hunting grounds more than it is a attempt to recreate or preserve the ecology of somewhere. About 20 minutes into your walk, you still have not cited any other animals or hunters, but you do start to hear a noise as you get, you know, maybe just looking up at the ceiling above you, you're close to the halfway point to the other end of the ship.

You hear these deep, pained grunts, and you hear what sounds like splashing. and it is through some thick brush so thick that you can't see what's on the other side of it and whatever's on the other side of it cannot see you. That is the first thing that kind of like breaks up your journey. What do you do? Can I roll perception? Yeah, absolutely. Just to see split second if I get anything more.

I mean, it's a one. I mean, it's a one. Griffin? Two, yeah, three, three, four. That's for this episode. Stop the podcast and talk about this. This has gone too far. We can't get a story going.

You need to give us some do-over tokens or something. No. Where's our do-over tokens? Okay, Griffin, what do I say? Then just tell me what I see. What do it was Elfai seeing? What do I perceive? Here's what you perceive.

You got too close in your perception. And so I'll tell you what you see, but it's also going to, the abyss will all look back. Oh, no. You, I don't know, trip on a route and fall through this brush, and now you can see very clearly what was making this noise. There's a muddy pit that is in a small clearing right next to sort of a waterfall basin, a very small one.

And this pit, you can look into it and see it's about five feet deep. with pretty steep kind of edges. It's a pretty sheer drop-off. So much so that this was probably a trap at some point, maybe in a previous hunt. You can see some trampled stakes in the ground that aren't necessarily the business ends are not poking up so much anymore.

But you also see inside of this pit is, it's an o'rock, as it was described to you. You probably saw it, right? You were on the surface. You lived on the surface. You've seen these things before. Just a big, kind of muscle-bound furry bovine with these long, long horns that are sticking out straight out from it. This one is...

How big is it? It is... I mean, you can't quite tell the height. But, I mean, in terms of musculature, it's like bison size. It's a big, it's a big fucking cow. And does it seem, so it appears to be trapped? It is trapped. You can see, just looking at the sides of this pit, there's, there's, you know, signs of where it has tried to run up.

But you can also tell, like, it is covered in wet mud, just head to toe. And it looks pretty exhausted. You can also tell from, like, one of its rear legs, it is bleeding from a wound. a slash, it appears. And it is making a lot of noise. When it sees you, it, like, freaks out and tries to run away from you and climb up the side of pit, the side of the pit away from you. But it is just not making it. It is making it harder for itself the more it tries to clamber out of this pit.

Right. I want to look around for, like, vines or sticks or anything useful like that. I won't make you roll for that. There are vines and sticks fucking everywhere. Yeah, that's what I thought. I want to find a strong-looking piece of vine that seems to be securely attached to a tree or one that will come loose easily

and that I can tie onto something. Okay, why don't you make a nature check for me? Okay. It was almost a one, and then it was a seven. Okay. I'm just going to say it takes a... a while, right? You find, you find what you are looking for, but it takes some time. The whole time this, this O-Roc is making a horrible racket that is just getting louder and louder.

Okay, I'll go over and try to, okay, this didn't work before, but shh, it's okay. Make an animal handling rule. I mean, it's a nine plus three. Okay, no, it responds. You see it. Good. It stops trying to run for a while. It is not making an escape attempt when it sees you approaching it sort of gently. You get the impression that it has not had a person approach it gently, maybe ever. And so it stops. It's breathing very, very fast still and is sort of standing in the middle of the pit.

All right. Listen, you're going to be okay. We're going to get you out. And then I kind of like throw the vine to it and then realize that that that's a I'm actually going to do anything. Yeah, it looks down at the vine, and then it leans down to try and eat it. And it looks up at you, like, eat it? It likes that.

It's eating it happily. Like a big of spaghetti. Okay. No, no, no, don't eat it. Ah, fuck. All right, so I'm going to try to tie it around the rocks. You're going to have to get down there. It's only five feet.

It's not the worst. Man. Yeah. I'll tell you, I will give you this. You're a monk. Like, you would be able to hop your way out of this, you assume. Okay, all right, let's go with that. It would not take me long to look at your features and traits to find some bullshit

excuse for why you can jump five feet vertically straight up in the air. You could put your hands on the side of it and let yourself up. You got four of them. All right, I'm going to clamber down there. Okay. It is actually so distracted by this delicious plant spaghetti that you threw down. down here that it is not freaked out when you approach it. Okay.

I'll start to wrap the, try to tie the cord around the thing. Okay. With advantage, I think, use sleight of hand. You are a Fisher person sort of by trade originally. So I would say you know your way around a knot or two. I can't believe I just use two. Fuck. Two eight, two eighteens plus two to tie a knot.

Okay. Dudes, please recognize there's a difference between tying a knot and creating a fucking buffalo harness that you can use to drag. Fair enough. Yeah, with an 18 plus dude, like you get this thing well, well sort of suited up in several knots at key load-bearing bovine parts of this creature. and there's still plenty of slack on the vine that you can use to try and free it. All right, I'm going to hop out of the pit and start pulling on the thing. Now, I know I'm not going to be able to deadlift this thing out, but I'm hoping that I can give it a little bit of traction.

Just a little bit of extra traction, a little bit extra juice. Yeah, this thing picks up what you're putting down. And as it feels this tug, it looks up annoyed at you first, that it can't eat this anymore. But then you see him take a run at the side of the pit as you pull. Make a strength check for me. Can I use one of those 18s that I used? Sadly, no. 19. Oh, God. It was almost to 1.

19 plus 2. Yeah. It takes a minute. And there's a moment where you feel like it's just not going to happen. And then it leaps upward and you just managed to tug it clear of the pit. And both of you go sliding in the mud. And it lands next to you for a moment. And then it hops up to its feet and immediately tries to run away.

Just like immediately you see it hop on all fours and try to run away. I still got the cable. Yeah, you definitely still have the. this vine wrapped around. I'm not letting it go. I'm trying to calm me down. Shh. It's okay.

You're all right. Calm down. It comes back at you and looks at you in the eyes. And it looks like it is scared, but not necessarily of you. Like it has gotten so close to you now. And it presses its forehead up against you as if it's trying to push you in the direction that it was attempting to run off just moments ago.

I'm going to ride you now and I need a win, all right? So just, we're going to make this happen together and I try to get on its back. Yeah, make an animal handling role. A plus 311. Nailed it. That's more than 10. I got it.

It's a 50-50 shot. Anytime you try to jump on a random animal's back, it's a 50-50 shot. Well, it's binary. You either did. You didn't. So below 10, you didn't. Above 10 you did.

There you go, Griffin. It's a coin flip, basically. It is a wild, muddy fucking bronco ride as you attempt to get on this thing's back. But it isn't like it's trying to buck you off. It just is kind of running around frantically. And it takes you a while to get this thing to chill. And it's making a lot of noise and throwing up a lot of mud as it does. And when you finally manage to get it to slow down,

and you finally manage to sort of get yourself comfortable astride it, you look up from this animal that you have now mounted, and you see directly in front of you a seven-foot-tall, muscle-bound shirtless man wearing a bull man. mask and he is holding the biggest battle axe you've ever seen. And he is breathing deeply and looking at the two of you and the Oroch starts to very slowly trot backwards. What do you do?

Jump on his back. Dibs. Okay. Zooks. the tone wheel for the dreams of Deborah upon the bridge rings as you pilot the ship away from the crescendo headquarters. Zeus picks it up and says, hello! Nice. You hear a guard say, please identify yourself, you are invited.

And then someone grabs the tone wheel away from whoever was speaking and you hear Aloysius's voice say. Yeah. Who is this? Is this, I'm going to guess, is this Devo? Or is it Am. Try again. Is this Amber? The other one.

No. The other other one. You're kidding. Zooks? Yes. Wow. Really? Wow.

I was the last choice. I just, I would not expect this kind of behavior from you of all people, Zooks. Yeah, I'm a work in progress. Okay. Well, whatever reason you had for the second time stealing my. my vehicle, I need you to please return it now. I have other stuff I need to do today and I will need to be able to, you know,

transport myself around. Also, it's a terrible crime. Yeah, see, now we're in this, this kind of situation where if I come back, I'm in trouble. But, you know, if I stay out here and just, you know, nothing bad's going to happen to me. Um, so, um, I think I'm going to, you know, it's, I, I, I miss this ship. I miss kind of, you know, having fun in it, cruising around in it. Um, you don't need it immediately, do you? I mean, aren't you doing a bunch of business in there? Hmm.

Make a, uh, a 20 roll plus speed, uh, which is going to be, uh, a plus four. Okay. Hang on just one second. All right, so D20 plus four. Here we go. Roll it. 17 plus four is 21. Okay.

You see a flashing red light suddenly appear in front of you and you instinctively like spin the control mechanism out of the way and an enormous explosion takes place just outside the starboard side of the dreams of Debra. And you hear Aloysius Supreme say, I've got lots of ships. So please understand that I will be, it will cost me quite a bit to destroy the dreams of Debra with you inside of it,

but I assume that the cost will be far greater to you because you will be dead. So I'm going to have to insist now that you bring this ship back to me now. Okay. Zooks is going to play a pretty typical Captain Kirk kind of gambit. Cool. Oh, boy. Yes.

He's going to bluff. Okay. Oh, bold. He's going to say, a classic. He says, I'm sorry, Mr. Supreme. I don't believe. you are willing to blow up this ship because you and I both know

there's something on this ship that is much more precious than the ship itself. And I don't believe you're going to blow it up for that very reason. Now we can talk terms and I can bring the ship back to you

and everything will be okay. But I sincerely doubt you're going to blow it to smithereen. make a hmm I don't even know what kind of check this would be guys there's not a

perception role performance yeah performance I like how like if I'm understanding this correctly dad's bluff is that aloysius

his bluffing and the bluff is that dad is calling his bluff exactly it's the corbamite maneuver it's the corbamite maneuver all over the corbibite Yes, for sure.

Yeah, it's the same modifier, I guess, for both things. So make a performance deception check. Yeah, perceptions. No, what? Straight D20. Straight D20. And it begins. What to?

And it is a two. Well, at least it's not a one. I mean, yeah, it's, you know. You see, uh, some apertures open on the side of this installation. And a trio of pretty big cannons appear and train themselves right on the dreams of Debra. And you hear Aloysius Supreme say, I swear to you, Zooks, there is nothing aboard that ship that cannot be replaced.

So my attachment to it is purely sentimental. I don't want to blow it up, but I will if it means that you are stopped in your tracks. So return my ship to me. We can talk terms. You will be in some trouble, but you'll live to see tomorrow and do whatever you do. I don't know. Just sort of soak in a brine. It's not a bad deal.

I mean, think about it. It's not a bad deal. And O'Brien is nice. Just because it doesn't sound like the most compelling. And because I think he's a bad guy. Doesn't mean you shouldn't trust him. Well, okay. I mean, I wouldn't do it because I'm a cool badass.

He challenges authority, but. Yeah, but like, I know you're a real pushover. Well, I'm rolling ones and twos here, guys. So, I mean, listen, yeah, you're running on fumes. Okay. So is there like an, is there an autopilot, auto dock sequence? I can punch you in. Yeah, sure.

Yeah, you can get this. thing back back to back to the dock that you're just at. Gonna roll over and show me your rock hard underbelly. So I'm rolling over. Okay, so I hit the auto docking and it starts to move back towards the dock. How long will that take? A couple minutes. The cannons recede and Aloysia says,

I am so glad that you have listened to reason. just sort of make yourself ready to be apprehended, whatever that looks like for you. And yep, see you soon. Okay. And just before it gets to the dock, he activates the self-destruct and dives out of the moon pool. Hell, yes, he does.

To what end? It's blowing up in. Chaos. Yeah. Just chaos. I love this. All right. Yeah.

Cool. Devo. No reason. Devo. Hollow. Hollow. Just true of my hatred. Hey, Daddy, I fully support it for the first time in Kaz.

He's done something I would dare. Devo. Uh-huh. You walk into a large semicircular room, and the far wall of it, the curved wall of it, is just one huge pane of glass overlooking a jungle. And this room actually sort of descends a little bit, almost like an amphitheater, as there's rows of like red velvet theater seating.

And seated in these chairs are maybe nine or ten people who are all wearing these, these golden masks covering their faces. You can't make out the identity of anybody here. There are also a couple of custodians or servers walking around with, you know, flutes of champagne or, you know, whatever kind of fancy looking amber fluid walking around and serving people. And you hear them laughing and make a perception check.

Okay, that is a nine total. Pretty good. With the nine, I will tell you what they are laughing at, because you look through the glass, and it seems to be like, in parts of it, like, magnifying down into this jungle into different places, almost like where people are looking through the glass, it sort of senses that.

and can magnify these different places. You see Amber, and she is trying to haul the Orock out of a muddy pit, and she is having a fucking hard time of it. And she is filthy, just covered in mud. And with each sort of attempt, the people in this room just, like, bust up laughing. And one of them says, um, so, uh, what are the, odds you think that a bull gets to her before she can get that stupid beast free.

And another person says, oh, I'll take that wage. MAMNAM! MAM! MAM! MAH! MAH! MAH! MAH! And they are just having themselves a grand old time. You also notice, as you sort of, like, get closer to the glass, that the wall that you sort of passed through the door from is lined with the stuffed heads of a lot. of animals. Most of them two by two. You see some sort of, I mean, Devo didn't live on land, right? So like,

there's a big cat and there's a weird horse. That's about as good as you can guess. You see two rhinos that appear to have these like almost feathered collars around their necks, which you assume to be the tufted rhinos that have gone missing from the menagerie. With that low perception role, you did not perceive that you got a little too close to the glass to look down. And a couple of the wealthy folks here have caught notice of you. And they say, one of them says, oh, God, why have you doffed your armor? I quite liked the look of it.

I felt like a fancy sort of emperor with his own armor. Coterie. Listen, I understand, but you have to get out of here. I just heard word that the curator has gotten word of our location, and he is sending the chaperones here

as we speak to arrest all of us. The guards, every hunter, everyone. We have to get out of here. Aloysius has sold us out. Oh, baby. Make Make a deception check.

Well, it's not a deception because I'm going to use suggestion to contact the curator and send a message back that says, found animals, they are in danger, Alloicious Supreme involved, send back up to these coordinates, and then the coordinates where we are. Okay. Is it suggestion or sending? It is, sorry, sending, yes, I'm going to send. Do you have the spell slots for that?

Yes, I do. Yes, you do. Okay. So you, last you're sending in the last arc. So this was, you've had a rest. Okay. And they can respond. Correct.

And can answer in a like manner immediately. Okay. You hear a voice say, I'll alert balister, Godira. We're on our way. This is no longer a deception. So we'll roll a intimidation check. It sure is not persuasion.

Okay. I mean, you're trying to fucking scare these dudes. There's no way you're not. Is it 19 plus four, a 23? Yes, this was a good role to get good. I would say all but a few of them immediately bolt for the door. And seconds later, you hear like this exponentially increasing commotion coming from the upper harbor. As you also hear a ship coming into dock.

and the one that like sort of like addressed you first stands up and then you realize like this dude is a little bit tipsy and he says, I think that you might be telling me a fibrooney. And he gets like way too close to you. Are you telling me a fibrooney? Is everyone else out of the room? How many people are left? There's like one more sort of wealthy person that hasn't moved from their seat.

And then there are a couple of very nervous looking servers. Okay, when they're out of the door, I close the door and I put the halberd through the handles. Okay. Okay. There is immediate pressure on the other side of the door trying to reopen it. So is this the ready room that was mentioned? No. This is, well, you would have no way of knowing that.

But I will say that this room is, I mean, you also did not get that briefing. That's fair. But I will say that this room is on a upper level, right? Like overlooking the jungle. This is not someplace that somebody could just traips into. There's no access from the jungle into here. Got it. Are there any weapons in here?

There's a halberd that has been shoved through the hands. Right, right, right. But I mean like any decorative crossed axes or something on the wall or, you know, guns. No, that would probably be down in the ready room. Okay. And I go back to the tipsy one. Yeah. So it seems like right now in the second,

You are in a great amount of danger And Deva pulls out his knife And puts the point to the chest of the man or the person Excuse me Did you smuggle this knife in? Everybody has a knife, Griffin. I think we addressed that in this instance. Okay, fine, whatever. It's just a knife.

No. You know what? Here's what it is, Griffin. Yeah. Devo's got a necklace with a sharp point of steel on it. How about that? Does that work for you? A brooch. No, Devo is going, oh, there it is.

Devo gives himself a sprit and his eyes start glowing blue. Okay. And he says, you are in a great amount of danger right now. And so I am going to need you to tell me how to get to where my friend is. where is how do I get down there to Amber? You hear a chuckle coming from this this dude's helmet from behind his mask and he says, have you considered checking

between your butt cheeks and then way up in it and then he just collapses to the ground fully fully blotto. The other masked individual sitting at the end of the gallery speaks up and says, If you'd like, I could show you in there. And he stands up. If what is the rest of this sentence? I mean, you would have to participate in.

in the game. I'm not wild about having uninvited guests. And so as childish as it might seem, this is the most sort of theatrical way to deal with things. And my patrons enjoy theatrics, he says. Ah, so I would be entering there to become part of what's happening. Is this it?

But you have magic powers, don't you, Diva? That's not a particularly level playing field, is it? You're aware of my name, eh? I'm aware of your name and what you can do and how very good you are at destroying undersea facilities. Ah, auctioneer! That's, I suppose, one name you could call me, sure. asshole, perhaps it would be another or fuckhead or poacher, piece of shit, monster,

let's see, soulless bastard. What's like, is there a shorter version of like somebody who takes innocent animals who aren't hurting anybody and makes them like a toy to be hunted for sport to have fun and they weren't doing anything and this is because humans are the real monster. Is there like a shorter version of this that you can think of? Because right now it's escaping me.

He lifts up his mask and you see you see a young man. Not much older than you probably. Early 30s, you would guess. And he has

scars running down the length of of his face, three long sort of scars, not like claw marks but just these three long scratches, one of which has gone over one of his eyes, which

is missing. And he says, you could call me Tolliver, if you want to be on a first name basis. I reject a lot of the labels you just threw down at my feet. Good gracious. But

for the sake of expediency, Tolliver will do. Tolliver, I have one question for you. Yes. Have you ever shouted Normals Pyle? It is the hottest boutique in all the founders' rig is where I found this fine suit of closing here.

You need to check it out. Now, if you would be so kind as to show me to where my friend is kept and then let her out and then let us go and then I won't kill you. Well, before all that happens, I have one question for you, if you don't mind. Is it about Nermal's Pyle? I'll admit I am curious, but no.

Gotta check it down. Have you spoken to... And then the site of the ship explodes. Maximumfund.org. Comedy and culture. Artist owned. Audience, audience supported.